residential apartments. Quite often, Latserts approached them with greetings and children, like fierce meerkats, suddenly protruded from the soil, creating an embankment of earth and a burrow where this was a flat surface. Rising, they looked at the girls, and dived back into the ground. Occasionally, some of them gained courage and accompanied the traveler until they got bored asking about all the important things in their opinion.

To the girls' surprise, the land not far in front of them was distended, forming an embankment and a huge hole, in a few fractions a figure jumped out of it, which was quite difficult to see in the bright sun. Lizard in indecision froze considering girls. He was tall — about a meter ninety in height, a thin, slim lacer in dark shorts and a light shirt bent his head with a uniquely intelligent expression on his face. Emerald, with brown tint scales glistening in the sun, and a thin, long, truly cat's tail, nervously swaying from side to side.

- Flight Sefril! - Sangia herself rushed to Lazert, hugging him tightly. - The first sincere hugs in the last few hours! - she laughed. - I am so glad to see you!

- Well, this is our people, I'm also terribly happy! - the beautiful face of the LACERT was glowing with happiness.

“And this is a girl, Olivia Collins, my friend,” the girl introduced her companion.

Politely waving his hand, Lazert began to study Rowell thoroughly:

- And you practically have not changed.

- Where am I, but how have you matured.

“And you can’t even imagine how much and how I became ...” Flyte began with a seriously-proud expression.

“I can imagine,” Sangia poked the lizard sideways in a friendly way.

“Listen, and you will stay with Olivia,” Sefril gave a brief glance at Rowell's companion. - I have enough space, and you're going to Snumstang, right, right? - the voice of the lizard excitedly trembled, the tail squirmed in the air like a water snake.

- True true! Laughed Sangia.

“Iii, fine, it means I’ll run to the house, I’ll prepare everything, you don’t have much time left for the city, much has changed here since your visit, as you get closer, I will meet you,” the young Latsert said. “Well, in general, do it,” he jumped his head into the ground and in spite of Olivia’s frightened gasping, entered there like a confident swimmer into the lake surface.

- dig a hole! - Rowell laughed, the forgetful lizard never bothered to clean up after himself.

The girls went further, they were already approaching the big city of Latzert called Snoumstang. Although Andarrustant, the capital of the lizards, was the largest settlement, but Snuma, as the locals liked to call it, was beautiful in its own way and now differed with a number of beautiful sand towers, a very unusual object for the underground architecture of Lacerts. These newly built above-ground structures were the top of the lower tier, which went deep into the earth with a network of luxurious halls and rooms. Therefore, it could seem to an unwitting traveler that the terrain is almost uninhabited, but in fact tens of thousands of lazerts could be under the ground.

“So that's where you became friends with him so much,” while the girls approached the city, Rowell had time to tell stories of days gone by.

Sanghi tried briefly to tell how many years ago, they helped the lizards from the invasion of barbarians - cruel inhabitants from the deserts who desired fertile lands lying to the west of their native lands. Then Rowell and her friends had a lot of adventures, so she met Flyte Cefril, then a very young lizard.

- Well, how do you like it? - the warrior asked.

- So funny and energetic!

- Oooh, he is still matured, you should have seen him before.- By the way, look at the sky, we are greeted! - Rowell turned her friend's attention upstairs.

In the air above the city there were flashes of sand, they sparkled under the sun with various colors of the rainbow, constantly changing their shades. Spun in hundreds of small tornadoes, in huge masses converged in a motley dance, showing three-dimensional scenes of the battle with the barbarians or the beauty of the cities of the Lazert. Then the sand at once soared high, high up, you had to look at it with your head up, but due to the bright light it was hardly possible. Everything began to fall down like lumps and form shapes, gradually they took on the appearance of six lazerts looking directly at them. It is noteworthy that not only the shape, but also the color changed, recreating the exact color of real lazert. Huge soaring sand statues of dinosaurs gazed at them from their height. At once the figures disintegrated into tiny particles and formed into huge yellow letters: "'WELCOME'." The grains of sand once again rebuilt, forming a new phrase: “'OLIVIA'” and the inscription lasted for some time and began to flow down. In a bloody red stream, it flowed downward, forming the letters: “And SANGIIA”, which hung for a long time in the air, until they slowly disintegrated into the smallest components and sank to the ground.

- This, this, this was amazing! - How is it at all ... did you see !? - was surprised the greeting Olivia.

“Yeah, well enough,” said Rowell.

- And how they turned, and then these figures and inscriptions! - enthusiastically roared the girl. - Well, what are you doing, you are not at all impressed? - She was surprised to notice a very melancholic reaction of Sanghia.

- No, well enough, just what I just did not see, and that was with you if you were a hangover {the annual festival of gnomes, people and elves, who haven’t gathered for several years now because of the "vague" situation. .. approx. author's} hit? - There was such a sensation. “It’s a pity, it’s a pity if this tradition will ever be reborn,” exclaimed Rovel, sadly.

- Yeah, I heard so much, but I never managed to go there, as far as me! - Olivia responded sadly. “And what were these six lazerts, who are they?”

“The Council of the Six Matrum of Terra, they manage the affairs of the city and are directly subordinate to the clergy of the capital,” answered Rovel.

Carelessly chatting, they did not notice how they approached Snumstang. It was hard to imagine that there was a large city. Many years ago, when being among the lizards, Sangia came to mind the lines of a famous historian: “You can walk kilometers of green meadows and fields, stop for a night near a sandy dune, without realizing that you just missed several cities, and a moment of sitting over the capital of the lazertov. ” The slightly exaggerated phrase, in fact, was a good joke describing the town-planning of the lizards. Sangia was suffocated by nostalgia, she carefully looked around, remembering every little thing, every bush, paying attention to the little that has changed here. The most important innovation was the network of winding towers. Several dozen thick grounds on a large square rose from the ground, going up into the sky and intertwining among themselves, forming a bizarre architectural structure from wide galleries, halls, and rooms. The engineering marvel ended with numerous sandy towers with spiers. The building itself was about six hundred meters in height and impressed with its chaotic grandeur. The bottom of Astananariva (as the lazers themselves called it) covered the grass, so the impression was created that the numerous towers smoothly grow straight from the ground.

- Wow, what is it !? - admired Olivia.

- I wish I knew myself! When I was last in Snumbang, this was not there.

At this time, Flyte was already in a hurry, the young lazert calmed down a bit, at least he didn’t look so nervously enthusiastic:

“It seems to me that you are tired after a long journey and are not averse to soak in the hot waters of Corrukawa, the underground river of our city, and in the evening there will be a dinner in your honor,” the lizard wrote.

- Do you always have such complicated names that you break a language? - Collins asked.

Lizard did not answer, just looked surprised at Olivia.

“You guess my thoughts,” Sangia laughed, she had long dreamed of water, ... Read more →