The Royal Tract was crowded as usual. Everyone was moving in small groups heading towards exclusive shops or the Central Bank. Some were just strolling along heading for the wealthy villas in the heart of the city or the vast parks scattered around it. Bleist also took a stroll to see the city. He had come here the day before to visit an old friend who had just taken up his post as Ambassador to Dagos. At first he had been fascinated by the centre of the capital, but now it seemed to him somehow artificial, lacking that unique originality he remembered from years ago. I might have expected this, he thought bitterly. Dragons love everything new and adapt another European fashion without the slightest thought. He shook his head as he passed a group of men in black justacorps and the same hats. Suddenly the Tract began to repulse him. It didn't enthrall him the way it used to because it reminded him too much of the main arteries of Paris, London or Berlin. It ceased to appeal to him. Somewhere inside, he felt an overwhelming desire to see that Dagos he remembered again. The streets where dragons strolled freely, shimmering in an unimaginably huge array of colours, where every now and then someone took off and landed on the pavements. Crowds of visitors mingling with the citizens. Clusters of shrieking dwarves betting with dragons on who has the stronger head. Clusters of elves, roaming here and there in search of various goods available only here. Mages hurrying in their bulky robes with scrolls and books to libraries and countless laboratories scattered all over Dagos. Outbursts of thunderous laughter supported occasionally by plumes of fire shooting into the sky. The smells of local cuisine wafting from the wide-open doors of restaurants and beckoning you to enter. Groups of small children running through the streets or playing aerial tag. It had all disappeared somewhere, replaced by elegant men and women roaming the Royal Tract without much purpose. He missed that city.
Bleist snorted disapprovingly and turned into one of the
