Chapter 2. Draco, eater of the lands

Ëàðñ Ãåðò
However, there was someone who did not see the great plan in the affairs of the Essence, and began to grumble, exuding disagreement and rejection; from the very beginning he watched all the ideas of the elder above him.
And he was a gray angel, neither white nor black, but so; tool in the right hands. But almost immediately misunderstanding and denial woke up in him, and he rejected all the good that the Essence breathed into it once.
There were those who supported the decision of the Defector and joined him. The Essence did not see and did not notice all of this, because it continued to create something good for Fantasia.
Both the Defector and the faithful to him almost immediately began to do their dirty work — when the Essence sent its assistants to breed all the animals on earth, very different and wonderful, the enemies did not sit for a long time, wanting to spoil and distort everything.
And they struck at the most valuable, enveloping some pure elvans with their spells. And those elvans became eldras, dark elves, and evil was magnified in them. And they multiplied in quantity and pushed their light fellows away. The dark elves created their own state, and called it the Elderland. The eldras invented black magic and alchem. Also, the eldras with the help of their spells awakened ice golems and sandy  golems. — this is a phenomenon in which ice or sand is transformed into a large column, similar to a giant, and which is controlled by a mad wind. Golems are lifeless, but they do disaster and destruction wherever they are. The golems did not have their own will, but the «wise» eldras guided them, and there was no beginning or end to their dark undertakings and experiments, until the appearance of certain machines or mechanisms that were too early to know.
But still no one really fought with anyone, only small skirmishes and misunderstandings, for all created beings only began to recognize and look closely at each other. Even some enemies were driven by curiosity rather than their bloodthirstiness. And there was not much bloodshed, but studied the peoples of each other with great interest.
As for the evil spirit, the ruthless and wasteful spirit, this traitor stubbornly conjured in his invisible stronghold, and soon gathered around him whole hordes of ugly creatures. Soon the goblins spawned by the Defector came out of the dungeons, it was impossible to count them. And they devoured everything that so beautifully walked or grew under the day or night luminary.
Evil spirits have shamelessly perverted many elvan women, and they became witches and beasts, furies and megaers, creating a country called Bestiana.
The Defector took some of the harmless birds of wasp-eaters and turned them into moon-eaters. Since then, they eat the moon every night, like a pie, nibbling piece by piece, but the grace of the Essence is strong, and the moon comes again, and the moon-eaters fly away in an unknown direction, frightened by a phenomenon alien to their understanding. But soon, no longer driven by fear, but driven by black thoughts, moon-eaters return and are taken for the old, and so every month, and later people will call it New Moons and Full Moons.
Then the Defector took other good birds, and put an imprint of evil in their faces — from that time to this day these nasty birds, called the dark owls, frighten until death the travelers lost in the forest.
Then the perverter seized one big and mighty bird Samruk, and whispered his speech to her, but she did not give in for a long time. Then the villain shook the bird against the ground with all his might, and in the face stood the vile Griffon, and all the griffons are his descendants. And they flew far to the south, and formed the Kingdom of Griffonis.
After that, the crows also decided to spread their wings — they are the darkest of birds; big, black offspring of his master.
"Fly, and sow death", said the Defector darkly, but he faltered and said otherwise:
"All living things belong to me, all the dead belong to you. Finish the weak and torture as if you were confessors on their deathbed. And everyone who climbs into your kingdom, may he be doomed to torment and suffering. Because you are scavengers, harbingers of perdition. And where you fly, and where you sit down, let any living creature die in that place. You have to peck their bodies ominously and without mercy. And I will take their souls to my abode. You should have no regrets.  Be deaf and mute to the groans of your victims".
And the molester went up to the high mountains, and barked with all his might to the whole district. The mountains shook, loudly echoing the villain. And rocks crumbled, and landslides appeared. Cliffs cracked from the roar of the Defector, and rumbled. And the giants came out from there, one higher than the other, because the Apostate had put all his malice, all his dark will into them.
"You must beware of light and water, because you are made of stones", has uttered an evil spirit and retired to the citadel.
But from the scream of his first, the mountains were still shaking, giving rise to all the new giants. And the giants bred, and were not similar in appearance, because the mountains were not only granite.
Some were called devas, or divas, and went to places now known as the Middle Lands. And the divas were the most sane among the giants, because the stupidity in them was more than anger.
Others had one eye in the middle of the forehead and were very bloodthirsty. And they called themselves cyclops, and settled almost all over the north, forming the kingdom of Cycloptera.
Still others called themselves trolls, seemingly quite friendly bristly giants. The trolls loved to have a long and pleasant conversation with the prey before they ate it. The victim didn't know that she would be eaten, for deceit was born before a smile. If a smile is visible to the naked eye, then deceit could not be recognized, because the creatures in Fantasia were not tempted by the evil, they didn't feel the spirit of his whole nature. Among all the giants, the most numerous were trolls, and the descendants of the first trolls were mountain trolls, stone trolls, forest trolls, snow trolls, and also trolls of darkness. And the kingdom of Trolland rebelled in Fantasia.
Far to the north-west, giant snowdrifts rose, and they came to life. And they became snow giants ynigg, and ate their kinsmen. And they called their kingdom Ynigg. And the one who tried to penetrate their patrimony was stupid.
Another one looked like tall towers, and their name was colosses. And wandered, and demolished everything around. For fun, they broke the tops of the mountains with their hands.
Everything — trolls, divas, ynigg, colosses, cyclops — formed the black circle. They built a huge sacrificial altar from a single piece of black rock, pre-polishing it with super-heavy diamond cudgels. Since then, they have come twice a week to a great gathering, and have made bloody sacrifices to the Defector. And he watched them, and rejoiced in the great joy in his black rotten soul.
Later, having rested a little from the affairs already completed, the Defector rose again and hurried to look around his possessions, for the Essence was far away, building up other worlds. As for the gray angels, they hid themselves for a long time, because they were afraid.

"Green grasses rooting for a long time
 Deep caves are gaping for a long time
 I’m not dead & not alive for a long time
 I’m defector & the hermit for a long time

 The Essence said: "a recreant"
 But I'm just a free merchant!
 Who is the Creator?
 I will not be a mediator"

And wonderful creatures flew here, and sat down on his head. And they chirped something so unpleasant to his mind that a renegade was embarrassed and wilted. And the fairies continued to sing about beauty, about love, about good. Some of them wove a wreath of beautiful flowers to the enemy on their heads, for they did not know who he was — outwardly the Defector was almost no different from all other gray angels.
Soon, the evil enemy wanted to see fairies among his servants, because his heart was not completely black. He sent a dark mist on the fairies, in which he expressed his final will. But they did not heed the molester, having flown away from him forever.
After that, the Defector hated the fairies for their beauty and devotion to the Essence, and some of them were found and turned into peri, having lost their wings. Peri became noticeably higher than all his fellows and dressed in blue tunics. The perverter made it so that all the beauty of peri ruined everyone who obeyed any advice, because peri is now destined to give out false advice to everyone. No one could resist the peri, because the beauty of these creatures incredibly attracted to themselves, besides the good beings really wanted to get wise advice in the absence of the assistants of the Essence.
The great envious descended into the caves, and began to cough, after which the most disgusting creatures and reptiles, spiders, slugs and centipedes, crawled out of the mouth of the Defector.
They wove sticky threads in deep caves, and these threads caught everyone. The web was solid, and the victim that fell into it was glued forever. And the piedmont voids were filled with water skippers, daddy longlegs, tarantella, tegenaries and ;renaries. The main weapon of spiders was their poison.
The centipedes began to penetrate the flesh of good creatures, eating them alive. Because of this, the centipedes have increased in size. And the caves were flooded with hordes of dauriluses — underground ant-lions, as well as heel-itchers, scorpions, scolopendras and their larger counterparts — drazdrapendras. All of them soon spread out to all the underground caves, turned to the very south of Fantasia, came to the surface and founded the ominous kingdom of Drazdrapendra.
Slugs were one of the most disgusting in their appearance, and their peculiarity was blinding the enemy with magic, which was given to them by the one who above all wanted power; he who cannot be called by name, and who is known only by his second name.
The great renegade brought close to him a part of the mice of one of his worst enemies, Xander, and abused them cruelly, distorting their spirit and appearance. He created from them new breeds of rodents — brown mice, wingers and flying rats.
To help goblins and giants do evil, the magician-wizard invented very aggressive four-legged animals, whose tools of vengeance were ugly barking, strong fangs and powerful claws. So tetralaks were produced — four-headed dogs, vargs — large cannibal wolves and foxes — cunning animals with rusty wool. And they united in the kingdom of Cerberus, in the south-west.
The Defector brutally tortured unhappy cats; martial lions, battle cats and big-toothed tigers now walked before him. For the compact residence of these creatures, the villain gave them an earthly space called Tigrana, in the south-east.
And so, the monster got to the bananeaters, producing evil maraoo monkeys from them, and their land is called the same, Maraoo.
He couldn’t personally subjugate the sea creatures himself, because he was afraid of water, but he endowed with the magic of his griffons who could penetrate the ocean for a while. And there they touched some creatures with their beak, and now poisonous jellyfish, octopus and cuttlefish swim in the seas.
After the tyrant touched the fauna with staff of perversion, he began to flora, also perverting her. Through the efforts of the pest and his followers, the Mushroom Kingdom was founded, led by Pale Toadstool. All scared and wary her wedding outfit, because she was a widow. The inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom are neither animals nor plants, because they externally resembled the second, and internally they were the first. And the kingdom was inhabited by gingers — predatory lower fungi, as well as omophagus, toadstools, xerocomus, predatory pearlworts, giant nepentesses, sargassum, super-raincoats, molymodies, gray root and other fungoids.
Due to the semi-magical activities of the higher and lower mushrooms, the order in Fantasia was disturbed, and all ceased to feed on divine dew. Some began to eat plants, others began to eat smaller animals; that's why they are called beasts, not animals. But it also happened that not animals had already eaten plants, but vice versa! And here the nepentesses succeeded, their cups two-thirds filled with delicious juice. Being fed up, the victim could not get out, sinking in flower juice forever, because the edges of the walls of the cup are very sticky. And where the gray root grew, in no time he ate all the other herbs around him, because he was a weed.
By all efforts of the highest reptiles, poisonous mistletoe, mandrakes, tweakers, nettles, giant cacti and other predatory plants have grown on the earth. Many mighty trees were destroyed by lianas and orchids, which strangled them with their stems.
And the time came, and the Defector reincarnated into a huge dragon, because he could no longer take on the appearance of a gray angel from his malice, and called himself Draco — which means, «the first among dragons»; under this name he remained both in the legends of the elvans and in all subsequent annals. Now it was not a demon, but a fire-breathing feathered serpent with a long tail, dangerous jaws and tenacious claws, and the size of the dragon was very large. And where he flew, there was a roar and smelled of stench, as from the most foul swamp. And where he exhaled his flame, nothing had ever grown there.
Draco became a notable disaster, but some of his fellows, previously equal to him, also wanted to be dragons. Now they flew over the earth in a single flock, destroying and enslaving.
Some particles of fire, exhaled by dragons, have gained independent development, being embodied in hot rays — gigantic pillars of flame, fire elementals. They burned all life around them wherever they appeared, and all other creatures were powerless before this new evil.
Draco married one giantess, and was with her until morning. And after some time, Wyvern was born, from which the wyverns originate — elegant dragons with scales of crimson hue.
And Draco came in to another giantess, the middle sister of the previous giantess, and Gargoyle awakened from them, the progenitor of all the gargoyles — humpback hymenoptera with blue-gray scales. And the gargoyles gave darkness.
Defector married the third giantess, the youngest of the sisters, and behold Basilisk, the third son of the great dragon, hovers somewhere over the mountains, and his descendants are all the other tribasilisks — ugly, badly flying marsupial dragons; their gaze caused fear in other creatures.
From the dragons went and other, but not flying, creatures: the gatteries — nasty three-eyed lizards, the saurs — cryptosaurs and oinosaurs, zergs — large predatory snakes, lamias are ugly lizards with a massive body on thin weak limbs, lizardfolks are small nimble lizards; raptors, tritons, salamanders, as well as all other beasts.
After kingdoms such as Draconia and Gorguliana were founded far to the east, Draco's offspring caught large and small birds in the air, but Samruk, fairies, bluebirds, and firebirds decided to stand up for the weak, calling for help from all the other large birds. And at that time the dragons were left without anything, completely hungry, because the syriches and moriches who had flown in from far away drove away the evil flyers from their prey.
Draco, embittered by failure, soared over all Fantasia, and dived onto hers surface like an arrow. Being hungry, he began to gnaw the earth's crust. The earth groaned, shrieked from unbearable pain, for it also had the spirit of the Essence. But Draco shredded not everything that came to his teeth. The more Draco ate the land, the bigger he became. But hunger did not leave him, because an evil and merciless spirit cannot eat all the land and will always be hungry.
And he came in from the north-west, and ate the Fantasia in that part through and through. And henceforth there stood the island of Marean, and the Evil Sea was now splashing there, for Draco was very evil.
Then he flew further south, and there, too, he ate the Fantasia around the edges, as if it were a tasty cake, and the North-West Sea and the Crimson Sea are now raging in that place.
And he turned east, and gnawed the Fantasia to the Inland Sea, and now the island of Mirukh stands there apart from the rest of the mainland.
As Draco continued to nibble everything around him, the seas formed here, now known as the Sea of ;;Roses and the Sea of ;;Tears. These seas washed away with their waters the bites left by the terrible monster on the continent. Monsoon Sea, Green Sea, Purple Sea, Orange Sea, Gray Bay now went into the gnawed areas of the continent; meanwhile, the dragon had already turned to the north to visit its giants, but it became heavy in weight, and it became difficult for it to move, because now it was the size of 1/3 of the Fantasia.
Due to the climate in the far north, the weather was very inhospitable and the weather was cold, and the cold waters of the Frost Sea and the Runic Sea a little cooled dragon's heat. The dragon cooled down and was silent, and could not move any more, for it was squeezed by its air ices — frozen water vapor in the atmosphere. In their rage and wrath, Draco penetrated the thoughts of his cubs, and they immediately rushed to help him.
The dragon experienced an irreconcilable hatred of the ices for their audacity, and decided to finish eating the miraculous Fantasia. Later, from the north, an entire wedge-shaped flock entered the land, slowly moving to the center of the earth's surface. After that, a new sea appeared, infested with cephalogiants and submonsters. And in its narrowest part, this sea is called since then only the Gates of Death, because at that moment a catastrophic threat hung over the magic Fantasia.
At last, Essence saw what had happened to his Fantasia, and his heart ached. He learned that this was done by one of his best assistants, not being afraid of his punishment, and he cursed him three times. At that very moment, three combs appeared on Draco’s back, and the monster’s torso sank under their weight. All the other dragons flew back to Draconia and Gorguliana, hiding in their holes. Draco instantly developed shortness of breath, so he could not soar right away. Having collected the remnants of his forces, the dragon flew to the ends of the world — to another part of the Fantasia, unknown until now, but there was no land there. But Draco was afraid of the waters, for evil begets fire, and fire is only capable of destruction, whereas water existed initially and continued to give life. The dragon flopped its entire mass into the ocean, and scattered into pieces that formed a large archipelago. The dragon itself has become the largest of those islands, and due to the curse of the Essence, the villain was so distorted that the island looked like a big fish. The smaller islands are the remains of the dragon flame, which quickly extinguished in the Great Ocean. Draco's heart, falling into the water, also turned into an island, the Island of the Great Dragon. But even earlier royal cobras crept out of the dragon's mouth and created their own Cobralitet on one of the islands. And the dragon, almost turned into an island, uttered a mournful cry, filled with great despair, and exhaled, pulling the last flame out of himself. Finally, Draco tore off part of his evil spirit from himself, and scattered him everywhere. Once, the Essence created ethereals in exactly the same way, for it was a good idea driven by. But in the evil spirit there is no grace, and evil could only produce evil. This is how a lot of shadows, skeletons, ghosts, phantoms, zombies, cadavers, vampires, dead souls (creatures once eaten by a dragon) appeared, which with extremely nasty squeals swept through all Fantasia and settled in the kingdom of Vampyria, which is located on the far west of the mainland. Some of these creatures will start sucking the soul, others will suck the blood; their time will come. And as long as everything was quiet, completely reassured.
The Essence almost overtook his foe and traitor, to lower the punishing palm over the recalcitrant, sinister, but was late when he saw Draco’s terrible end. In that part of the ocean, where the Essence itself (which had never descended to the Fantasia before) set foot with its foot, another island rose, and that corner was paradise. And it was called the Land of the Holy Spirit, because above it hung the great grace of its Creator.
After all this, the master of the universe looked at his Fantasia, and grieved, because the fairies no longer sang as joyfully as before, and the goblins filled the area, and the selfish elvans didn’t want to change anything and went to inaccessible places. And now, 500 years have passed in vain: once Fantasia was a paradise, and now it was hell. Hell on earth.
The Essence tried to correct at least something, but he didn’t have much strength as before.
"Well, this rascal has done problems! Where are all my good spirits, where are gray angels?", the Essence lamented. "I can't do it alone even for a 100 years. Fantasia is significant, but not unique".
Then the Essence awakened small stones, of which the nastiest giants would never appear; these pebbles are future helpers. And the gnomes woke up and began to serve the Essence, settling in the Gnomia somewhere in the west.
Being skilled blacksmiths and jewelry makers, the gnomes patched up Fantasia as they could with their hammers and sledgehammers. But the gnom forces didn't last long, for they themselves came out of the stones. The gnomes were material, and all their thoughts turned inwards, not upwards. With their own will, the gnomes went to the caves, to stalactites and stalagmites. And they succeeded greatly in what they were striving for initially, making beautiful jewelery and gems they found deep in the dark. and forging weapons and armor. As for the crows and various giants, they were far from the gnomes' places of residence. The gnomes didn't know what was really going on in the north and south.
Gnomes were not scary creatures — on the contrary, they were strong and courageous creatures; stocky, squat. At a time when the elvans invented the harp, lyre, flute and the first runes, the gnomes invented a wheel, glasses, and other objects. The wheel and after it the carts were forcedly developed by the gnome minds, because it is difficult even for the strongest of the gnomes to drag various heavy objects constantly from place to place. Glasses appeared by chance, when in total pitch darkness any light dried up and the torches faded out of dampness. And the gnomes' eyes were tired, for they was useless to look out through the darkness. Then one of the jewelers took two diamonds, and polished them to a state of transparency. And they planted their on a bronze frame, for even then all the gnomes were among the first to conquer heavy metals. And the third was put in eye glasses, above two on the bridge of the nose. And the unknown crystal became the third eye, and they was bright in the darkness and gloom. And they shone so that their didn't interfere with theirs eyes with his bright light.
And the gnomes collected whole carts of diamonds, adamants, mithril, tantril, nephrites, meteorites, orichalcs, malachites, rubies and sapphires, but most of all they liked amber, and the dwarfs were crazy about it. For amber and meteorites, the gnomes had to climb to the surface, but the eyes of these creatures were not used to the bright sun and were temporarily blinded. Gnomes were collected meteorites as follows: when one of Creator's helpers settled the world on a new planet, it happened that the dust from it fell onto the ground. And it reached the surface in the form of large boulders, because during its path the dust particles layered over each other. And the amber was given to the gnomes by the elvans for gems from gnome mines, caves and quarries. After all, amber, like pine resin, hardened to the state of stone very slowly, and there was no time for the gnomes to wait so much time, for so long, because all other things stood still, and the goblins born of Draco could sneak into the gnome caves.
The gnomes were not bad creatures, but culturally they were still behind the elvans. So, they were lazy and greedy, they could not clean up after themselves, leaving to wallow their things wherever they fall. What to expect from the descendants of stones? Although the gnomes were much smarter than stupid giants, it is true that they were inferior to those in power. Another chronic sin was gluttony — unlike the sophisticated elvans, the gnomes loved to eat a lot and did not control this process at all. They didn't shave and grew long beards, because of which they fell to the floor, terribly scolding. And they will surely say later that it was someone who purposely pulled a web, for no gnome in his life admits that he stumbled.
Gnomes invented wearing caps, and they wore them almost always, without taking off even for the night, although even here they were the direct opposite of the elvans, preferring nightlife. It so happened that the gnomes didn't even bathe, and when exchanging amber for the gems, the elvans imperceptibly clamped their noses of the inside of the palms.
The Essence, which is above all, watched all the actions of the gnomes and sighed:
"You are powerful in body, but in spirit you are weak; you don't have what the elvans have. You will not be my last thought".
The Essence didn't reject the gnomes, but didn't put all of its spiritual fullness into them. And their lifespan was less than that of elvans. How many exactly, none of the gnomes knows, because they are too lazy to count, but the elvans say they have met 300 year old gnomes and older.
The Essence picked up some sinister canids, and caressed, singing something very unusual. And the evil spirit was cut off from the loins of those dogs, and their appearance changed. Some have become big and clumsy, and they have been called since then only as vedmeds; others, on the contrary, have become smaller, and are now known as dogs.
"Be assistants and defenders of the elvans and gnomes, my two most beloved people. Serve them faithfully and forever, and you will be rewarded for it", said the Essence to the dogs.
And the vedmeds went to the Middle Lands and founded Vedmedistan there, in which they divided into ordinary vedmeds, white vedmeds, and hoodie vedmeds. There they ate the rootberry (which is the queen of the berries), and tasted delicious honey. And they closely watched the forest, and the villains were driven out, because the goblins became more and more.
Some of the slugs were turned into magic slugs, and now they were able to fulfill desires. The ruler of the worlds punished the traitor angels, and turned them into silvans; henceforth they guard forests as carefully as vedmeds.
However, the Essence was not satisfied with its work to the end, because the spirit of Draco, scattered throughout Fantasia, survived and in every way prevented the new challenges.
"You can only crush. If I send people to this world — maybe, then everything will go according to My great intention?", tiredly uttered the Essence to nowhere, feeling that it is losing its strength.
The Essence created beings in its own image and likeness; in spirit, a cross between gnomes and elvans. When this happened, the Creator stopped doing something. The master of the universe decided to leave forever, dissolving in its Fantasia to the end, for the ethereals were only a part of it. And it became so. Both the evil spirit and the good spirit flew in the air.