The Dwarf opened the hatch in the front wall of the stern height, they went downstairs to the lower deck illuminated with Elvish lanterns, passed a hall with a broad lunch counter and entered a corridor, neat yellow-brown wooden panelling all around. Jim pointed at two doors in a suite of several cabins.

"Wake me up when my turn comes, I'll be on watch too," Andreas asked the captain.

Her face and her gestures looking very tired, Lynette indifferently chose the nearest apartment. A green woollen blanket and a white pillow on a berth, a bedside-table and a compact built-in wardrobe, a round porthole. She took her caftan off and put it over the chair-back apathetically, her russet silk shirt twinkled softly when she bent down to unbuckle her high-boots, then she curled herself on the bed and closed her eyes.

Chapter Two

Wreathing like a white cloud, a dense mist covered the river valley in the early twilight before the dawn. Weak wafts of an unsteady wind, periodically tearing the pale shroud, could not be of much avail, and the yacht was mostly drifting with the current. The mainsail fluttered again, and Andreas slowly rotated the steering-wheel, peering into the distance ahead, keeping to the midstream.

"Would you like some tea?" Lynette went out of the lower deck door, two big wooden tankards with carved floral ornamentation in her hands, and came up to him. She looked rested and fresh, no more sorrows of yesterday.

"Yes, thanks!" he took a tankard gratefully.

"Tell me about Grey Knights," mere curiosity sounded in her words.

"We are just a group of dreamers who rejected vanity life to become noble and fair. Not only Elves can keep spiritual values of goodness," no pathos in his level tones, as if just musing aloud on ordinary things, he tried the steaming tea.

"An exact contrary to other knights," she was thoughtfully holding her tankard in the both hands, "due to my long friendship with Elves, I have always wanted anything more than the prevailing petty mode of living."

"We dream that somewhere, maybe in El Dorado, we shall find a blissful splendid land," his stare became a little detached from reality. "Rainbows above majestic waterfalls, rainbows at fountains near sunlit palaces where good-natured people dwell…"

The river made a bend and began to carry the yacht by a massive rocky island separated from the bank with a narrow channel. On the high sheer cliffs an immense dark-grey castle silhouetted vaguely through the mist veil, yellowish flickering of torches on watchtowers, many yachts and big boats at the stony embankment.

"The town inhabitants are surely taking refuge over there," she murmured, "this unassailable fortress can stand any siege."

"Shall we make a stop to see your parents?" Andreas looked at her sympathetically.

"No, we shall not! They can do without me perfectly well," no definite emotions in her quiet but resolute reply, she dispassionately turned away from the castle and gulped the tea.

The rising sun dispelled the mist and shone a great city situated at the estuary where the river was inflowing into a sea. Granite and marble edifices, magnificent palaces and imposing mansions occupied the horizon.

"Ariadna, the main city of this continent," Jim went out onto the deck together with Iven, "the trade centre with many portals."

"We have to visit the human world," Lynette made a decision, "to find any hint about the El Dorado location."

"Really, their computers are not bad, as well as television," Iven agreed, "though, they use those excellent things mainly for filth."

"Last year I bought a laptop to watch only good films," Lynette remarked.

The city was approaching. Ships of different sizes standing along wharfs, two or three frigates under full sail far away at sea, ferry boats plying between the banks.

After the mooring at a fixed gangboard, a sturdy construction of dark wood at one of the piers, Lynette and Andreas left the yacht. Green and lilac suits of Elves, florid attires of men, hauberks of Dwarfs, multifarious crowds in the cobbled streets and squares paved with granite slabs. Green standards with stylized golden trefoils at flag-posts, steel-clad guardians on patrol.

"Dryads!" Lynette exclaimed seeing three pretty young women resembling one another like sisters. Pallid skin but merry eyes, curly hair. White summer frocks were adorned with blue and violet wild flowers.

"Oh! Hello, Lynette!" one Dryad chattered joyfully, "why didn't you come yesterday? We had weaved a new dress for you!"

"Hello, Martina! Certainly I will buy it, but later," Lynette assured calmly, "trolls appeared in this world."

"Ah!" the girls gaped in frightened astonishment, "we have to warn other Dryads and Elves, our relative folk!"

"Elves already know! Go home, but avoid the eastern castle way!" Lynette recommended.

"Don't worry, here we have our own portal. See you!" the Dryads flitted away in hurry, nearly running, and disappeared among the multicoloured crowds.