Dealing With Dragons / Book One of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Patricia C. Wrede

Copyright 1990 by Patricia C. Wrede

 

1

 

In Which Cimorene Refuses to Be Proper

and Has a Conversation with a Frog

 

Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the

Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were

highly respected and the number five was fashionable.

The climate was unremarkable. The knights kept their

armor brightly polished mainly for show—it had been

centuries since a dragon had come east. There were the

usual periodic problems with royal children and un-

invited fairy godmothers, but they were always the sort

of thing that could be cleared up by finding the proper

prince or princess to marry the unfortunate child a few

years later. All in all, Linderwall was a very prosperous

and pleasant place.

Cimorene hated it.

 

Cimorene was the youngest daughter of the King

of Linderwall, and her parents found her rather trying.

Their first six daughters were perfectly normal prin-

cesses, with long, golden hair and sweet dispositions,

each more beautiful than the last. Cimorene was lovely

enough, but her hair was jet black, and she wore it in

braids instead of curled and pinned like her sisters.

 

And she wouldn't stop growing. Her parents were

quite sure that no prince would want to marry a girl

who could look him in the eye instead of gazing up at

him becomingly through her lashes. As for the girl's

disposition—well, when people were being polite, they

said she was strong-minded. When they were angry or

annoyed with her, they said she was as stubborn as a

 

Pig-

 

The King and Queen did the best they could. They

 

hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach

Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know—

dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There

was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to

curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was

permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant.

(Linderwall still had an occasional problem with giants.)

 

Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed

her lips together and learned it anyway. When she

couldn't stand it any longer, sh^ would go down to the

castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her

a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her reg-

ular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the

fencing lessons became more and more frequent.

 

When she was twelve, her father found out.

 

"Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess," he

told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by

the court philosopher.

 

Cimorene tilted her head to one side. "Why not?"

 

"It's . . . well, it's simply not done."

 

Cimorene considered. "Aren't I a princess?"

 

"Yes, of course you are, my dear," said her father

with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of

tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted

to reprimands.

 

"Well, I fence," Cimorene said with the air of one

delivering an unshakable argument. "So it is too done

by a princess."

 

"That doesn't make it proper, dear," put in her

mother gently.

 

"Why not?"

 

"It simply doesn't," the Queen said firmly, and

that was the end of Cimorene's fencing lessons.

 

When she was fourteen, her father discovered that

she was making the court magician teach her magic.

 

"How long has this been going on?" he asked

wearily when she arrived in response to his summons.

 

"Since you stopped my fencing lessons," Cimorene

said. "I suppose you're going to tell me it isn't proper

behavior for a princess."

 

"Well, yes. I mean, it isn't proper."

 

"Nothing interesting seems to be proper," Cim-

orene said.

 

"You might find things more interesting if you

applied yourself a little more, dear," Cimorene's

mother said.

 

"I doubt it," Cimorene muttered, but she knew

better than to argue when her mother used that tone

of voice. And that was the end of the magic lessons.

 

The same thing happened over the Latin lessons

from the court philosopher, the cooking lessons from

the castle chef, the economics lessons from the court

treasurer, and the juggling lessons from the court min-

strel. Cimorene began to grow rather tired of the whole

business.

 

When she was sixteen, Cimorene summoned her

fairy godmother.

 

"Cimorene, my dear, this sort of thing really isn't

done," the fairy said, fanning away the scented blue

smoke that had accompanied her appearance.

 

"People keep telling me that," Cimorene said.

 

"You should pay attention to them, then," her

godmother said irritably. "I'm not used to being hauled

away from my tea without warning. And you aren't

supposed to call me unless it is a matter of utmost

importance to your life and future happiness."

 

"It is of utmost importance to my life and future

happiness," Cimorene said.

 

"Oh, very well. You're a bit young to have fallen

in love already; still, you always have been a precocious

child. Tell me about him."

 

Cimorene sighed. "It isn't a him."

 

"Enchanted, is he?" the fairy said with a spark of

interest. "A frog, perhaps? That used to be quite pop-

ular, but it seems to have gone out of fashion lately.

Nowadays, all the princes are talking birds, or dogs,

or hedgehogs."

 

"No, no, I'm not in love with anyone!"

 

"Then what, exactly, is your problem?" the fairy

said in exasperation.

 

"This!" Cimorene gestured at the castle around

her. "Embroidery lessons, and dancing, and—and

being a princess!"

 

"My dear Cimorene!" the fairy said, shocked. "It's

your heritage!"

 

"Ifs boring."

 

"Boring?" The fairy did not appear to believe what

she was hearing.

 

"Boring. I want to do things, not sit around all day

and listen to the court minstrel make up songs about

how brave Daddy is and how lovely his wife and

daughters are."

 

"Nonsense, my dear. This is just a stage you're

going through. You'll outgrow it soon, and you'll be

very glad you didn't do anything rash."

 

Cimorene looked at her godmother suspiciously.

"You've been talking to my parents, haven't you?"

 

"Well, they do try to keep me up to date on what

my godchildren are doing."

 

"I thought so," said Cimorene, and bade her fairy

godmother a polite good-bye.

 

A few weeks later, Cimorene's parents took her to a

tourney in Sathem-by-the-Mountains, the next king-

dom over. Cimorene was quite sure that they were only

taking her because her fairy godmother had told them

that something had better be done about her, and soon.

She kept this opinion to herself. Anything was better

than the endless rounds of dancing and embroidery

lessons at home.

 

Cimorene realized her mistake almost as soon as

they reached their destination, for the King of Sathem-

by-the-Mountains had a son. He was a golden-haired,

blue-eyed, and exceedingly handsome prince, whose

duties appeared to consist entirely of dancing atten-

dance on Cimorene.

 

"Isn't he handsome!" Cimorene's lady-in-waiting

sighed.

 

"Yes," Cimorene said without enthusiasm. "Un-

fortunately, he isn't anything else."

 

"Whatever do you mean?" the lady-in-waiting said

in astonishment.

 

"He has no sense of humor, he isn't intelligent, he

can't talk about anything except tourneys, and half of

what he does say he gets wrong. I'm glad we're only

staying three weeks. I don't think I could stand to be

polite to him for much longer than that."

 

"But what about your engagement?" the lady-in-

waiting cried, horrified.

 

"What engagement?" Cimorene said sharply.

 

The lady-in-waiting tried to mutter something

about a mistake, but Cimorene put up her chin in her

best princess fashion and insisted on an explanation.

Finally, the lady-in-waiting broke down.

 

"I ... I overheard Their Majesties discussing it

yesterday." She sniffled into her handkerchief. "The

stipulations and covenants and contracts and settle-

ments have all been drawn up, and they're going to

sign them the day after tomorrow and announce it on

Th-Thursday."

 

"I see," said Cimorene. "Thank you for telling me.

You may go."

 

The lady-in-waiting left, and Cimorene went to see

her- parents. They were annoyed and a little embar-

rassed to find that Cimorene had discovered their

plans, but they were still very firm about it. "We were

going to tell you tomorrow, when we signed the pa-

pers," her father said.

 

"We knew you'd be pleased, dear," her mother

said, nodding. "He's such a good-looking boy."

 

"But I don't want to marry Prince Therandil," Cim-

orene said.

 

"Well, it's not exactly a brilliant match," Cim-

orene's father said, frowning. "But I didn't think you'd

care how^big his kingdom is."

 

"It's the prince I don't care for," Cimorene said.

 

"That's a great pity, dear, but it can't be helped,"

Cimorene's mother said placidly. "I'm afraid it isn't

likely that you'll get another offer."

 

"Then I won't get married at all."

 

Both her parents looked slightly shocked. "My dear

Cimorene!" said her father. "That's out of the question.

You're a princess; it simply isn't done."

 

"I'm too young to get married!"

 

"Your Great-Aunt Rose was married at sixteen,"

her mother pointed out. "One really can't count all

those years she spent asleep under that dreadful fairy's

curse."

 

"I won't marry the prince of Sathem-by-the-Moun-

tains!" Cimorene said desperately. "It isn't proper!"

 

"What?" said both her parents together.

 

"He hasn't rescued me from a giant or an ogre or

freed me from a magic spell," Cimorene said.

 

Both her parents looked uncomfortable. "Well,

 

no," said Cimorene's father. "It's a bit late to start

arranging it, but we might be able to manage some-

thing."

 

"I don't think it's necessary," Cimorene's mother

said. She looked reprovingly at Cimorene. "You've

never paid attention to what was or wasn't suitable

before, dear; you can't start now. Proper or not, you

will marry Prince Therandil three weeks from Thurs-

day."

 

"But, Mother—"

 

"I'll send the wardrobe mistress to your room to

start fitting your bride clothes," Cimorene's mother said

firmly, and that was the end of the conversation.

 

Cimorene decided to try a more direct approach. She

went to see Prince Therandil. He was in the castle

armory, looking at swords. "Good morning. Princess,"

he said when he finally noticed Cimorene. "Don't you

think this is a lovely sword?"

 

Cimorene picked it up. "The balance is off."

"I believe you're right," said Therandil after a mo-

ment's study. "Pity; now I'll have to find another. Is

there something I can do for you?"

 

"Yes," said Cimorene. "You can not marry me."

"What?" Therandil looked confused.

"You don't really want to marry me, do you?"

Cimorene said coaxingly.

 

"Well, not exactly," Therandil replied. "I mean, in

a way. That is—"

 

"Oh, good," Cimorene said, correctly interpreting

this muddled reply as No, not at all. "Then you'll tell

your father you don't want to marry me?"

 

"I couldn't do that!" Therandil said, shocked. "It

wouldn't be right."

 

"Why not?" Cimorene demanded crossly.

 

"Because—because—well, because princes just

don't do that!"

 

"Then how are you going to keep from marrying

me?"

 

"I guess I won't be able to," Therandil said after

thinking hard for a moment. "How do you like that

sword over there? The one with the silver hilt?"

 

Cimorene left in disgust and went out to the castle

garden. She was very discouraged. It looked as if she

were going to marry the prince of Sathem-by-the-

Mountains whether she wanted to or not.

 

"I'd rather be eaten by a dragon," she muttered.

 

"That can be arranged," said a voice from beside

her left slipper.

 

Qmorene looked down and saw a small green frog

looking up at her. "I beg your pardon. Did you speak?"

she asked.

 

"You don't see anyone else around, do you?" said

the frog.

 

"Oh!" said Cimorene. She had never met a talking

frog before. "Are you an enchanted prince?" she asked

a little doubtfully.

 

"No, but I've met a couple of them, and after a

while you pick up a few things," said the frog. "Now,

why is it that you want to be eaten by a dragon?"

 

"My parents want me to marry Prince Therandil,"

Cimorene explained.

 

"And you don't want to? Sensible of you," said

the frog. "I don't like Therandil. He used to skip rocks

 

across the top of my pond. They always sank into my

living room."

 

"I'm sorry," Cimorene said politely.

 

"Well," said the frog, "what are you going to do

 

about it?"

 

"Marrying Therandil? I don't know. I've tried talk-

ing to my parents, but they won't'listen, and neither

 

will Therandil."

 

"I didn't ask what you'd said about it," the frog

snapped. "I asked what you're going to do. Nine times

out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things."

 

"What kinds of things would you suggest?" Cim-

orene said, stung.

 

"You could challenge the prince to a duel," the

frog suggested.

 

"He'd win," Cimorene said. "It's been four years

since I've been allowed to do any fencing."

 

"You could turn him into a toad."

 

"I never got past invisibility in my magic les-

sons," Cimorene said. "Transformations are advanced

 

study."

 

The frog looked at her disapprovingly. "Can't you

 

do anything?"

 

"I can curtsy," Cimorene said disgustedly. "I know

seventeen different country dances, nine ways to agree

with an ambassador from Cathay without actually

promising him anything, and one hundred and forty-

three embroidery stitches. And I can make cherries

 

jubilee."

 

"Cherries jubilee?" asked the frog, and snapped at

 

a passing fly.

 

10

 

"The castle chef taught me, before Father made

him stop," Cimorene explained.

 

The frog munched briefly, then swallowed and

said, "I suppose there's no help for it. You'll have to

run away."

 

"Run away?" Cimorene said. "I don't like that

idea. Too many things could go wrong."

 

"You don't like the idea of marrying Prince The-

randil, either," the frog pointed out.

 

"Maybe I can think of some other way out of get-

ting married."

 

The frog snorted. "Such as?" Cimorene didn't an-

swer, and after a moment the frog said, "I thought so.

Do you want my advice or not?"

 

"Yes, please," said Cimorene. After all, she didn't

have to follow it.

 

"Go to the main road outside the city and follow

it away from the mountains," said the frog. "After a

while, you will come to a small pavilion made of gold,

surrounded by trees made of silver with emerald leaves.

Go straight past it without stopping, and don't answer

if anyone calls out to you from the pavilion. Keep on

until you reach a hovel. Walk straight up to the door

and knock three times, then snap your fingers and go

inside. You'll find some people there who can help you

out of your difficulties if you're polite about asking and

they're in the right mood. And that's all."

 

The frog turned abruptly and dove into the pool.

"Thank you very much," Cimorene called after it,

thinking "that the frog's advice sounded very odd in-

deed. She rose and went back into the castle.

 

11

 

She spent the rest of the day being fitted and fussed

over by her ladies-in-waiting until she was ready to

scream. By the end of the formal banquet, at which she

had to sit next to Prince Therandil and listen to endless

stories of his prowess in battle, Cimorene was more

than ready to take the frog's advice.

 

Late that night, when most of the castle was asleep,

Cimorene bundled up five clean handkerchiefs and her

best crown. Then she dug out the notes she had taken

during her magic lessons and carefully cast a spell of

invisibility. It seemed to work, but she was still very

watchful as she sneaked out of the castle. After all, it

had been a long time since she had practiced.

 

By morning, Cimorene was well outside the city

and visible again, walking down the main road that led

away from the mountains. It was hot and dusty, and

she began to wish she had brought a bottle of water

instead of the handkerchiefs.

 

Just before noon, she spied a small grove of trees

next to the road ahead of her. It looked like a cool,

pleasant place to rest for a few minutes, and she hurried

forward. When she reached the grove, however, she

saw that the trees were made of the finest silver, and

their shining green leaves were huge emeralds. In the

center of the grove stood a charming pavilion made of

gold and hung with gold curtains.

 

Cimorene slowed down and looked longingly at

the cool green shade beneath the trees. Just then a

woman's voice called out from the pavilion, "My dear,

you look so tired and thirsty! Come and sit with me

and share my luncheon."

 

12

 

The voice was so kind and coaxing that Cimorene

took two steps toward the edge of the road before she

remembered the frog's advice. Oh, no, she thought to

herself, I'm not going to be caught this easily! She turned

without saying anything and hurried on down the road.

 

A little farther on she came to a tiny, wretched-

looking hovel made of cracked and weathered gray

boards. The door hung slantwise on a broken hinge,

and the whole building looked as though it were going

to topple over at any moment. Cimorene stopped and

stared doubtfully at it, but she had followed the frog's

advice this far, and she thought it would be silly to

stop now. So she shook the dust from her skirts and

put on her crown (so as to make a good impression).

She marched up to the door, knocked three times, and

snapped her fingers just as the frog had told her. Then

she pushed the door open and went in.

 

2

 

In Which Cimorene Discovers the Value

of a Classical Education and Has Some

Unwelcome Visitors

 

J,

 

nside, the hovel was dark and cool and damp. Cim-

orene found it a pleasant relief after the hot, dusty road,

but she wondered why no sunlight seemed to be com-

ing through the cracks in the boards. She was still

standing just inside the door, waiting for her eyes to

adjust to the dark, when someone said crossly, "Is this

that princess we've been waiting for?"

 

"Why don't you ask her?" said a deep, rumbly

voice.

 

"I'm Princess Cimorene of Linderwall," Cimorene

answered politely. "I was told you could help me."

 

"Help her?" said the first voice, and Cimorene

 

heard a snort. "I think we should just eat her and be

done with it."

 

Cimorene began to feel frightened. She wondered

whether the voices belonged to ogres or trolls and

whether she could slip out of the hovel before they

made up their minds about eating her. She felt behind

her for the door and started in surprise when her fin-

gers touched damp stone instead of dry wood. Then a

third voice said, "Not so fast, Woraug. Let's hear her

story first."

 

So Cimorene took a deep breath and began to ex-

plain about the fencing lessons and the magic lessons,

and the Latin and the juggling, and all the other things

that weren't considered proper behavior for a princess,

and she told the voices that she had run away from

Sathem-by-the-Mountains to keep from having to

marry Prince Therandil.

 

"And what do you expect us to do about it?" one

of the voices asked curiously.

 

"I don't know," Cimorene said. "Except, of course,

that I would rather not be eaten. I can't see who you

are in this dark, you know."

 

"That can be fixed," said the voice. A moment

later, a small ball of light appeared in the air above

Cimorene's head. Cimorene stepped backward very

quickly and ran into the wall.

 

The voices belonged to dragons.

 

Five of them lay on or sprawled over or curled

around the various rocks and columns that filled the

huge cave where Cimorene stood. Each of the males

(there were three) had two short, stubby, sharp-looking

 

horns on either side of their heads; the female dragon

had three, one on each side and one in the center of

her forehead. The last dragon was apparently still too

young to have made up its mind which sex it wanted

to be; it didn't have any horns at all.

 

Cimorene felt very frightened. The smallest of the

dragons was easily three times as tall as she was, and

they gave an overwhelming impression of shining

green scales and sharp silver teeth. They were much

scarier in person than in the pictures she remembered

from her natural history books. She swallowed very

hard, wondering whether she really would rather be

eaten by a dragon than marry Therandil.

 

"Well?" said the three-homed dragon just in front

of her. "Just what are you asking us to do for you?"

 

"I—" Cimorene stopped short as an idea occurred

to her. Cautiously, she asked, "Dragons are . . . are

fond of princesses, aren't they?"

 

"Very," said the dragon, and smiled. The smile

showed all her teeth, which Cimorene did not find

reassuring.

 

"That is, I've heard of dragons who have captive

princesses to cook for them and—and so on," said Cim-

orene, who had very little idea what captive princesses

did all day.

 

The dragon in front of Cimorene nodded. One of

the others, a yellowish green in color, shifted restlessly

and said, "Oh, let's just go ahead and eat her. It will

save trouble."

 

Before any of the other dragons could answer,

there was a loud, booming noise, and a sixth dragon

 

16

 

slithered into the cave. His scales were more gray than

green, and the dragons by the door made way for him

respectfully.

 

"Kazul!" said the newcomer in a loud voice.

"Achoo! Sorry I'm late, but a terrible thing happened

on the way here, achoo!"

 

"What was it?" said the dragon to whom Cimorene

had been talking.

 

"Ran into a wizard. Achoo! Had to eat him; no help

for it. Achoo, achoo. And now look at me!" Every time

the gray-green dragon sneezed, he emitted a small ball

of fire that scorched the wall of the cave.

 

"Calm down, Roxim," said Kazul. "You're only

making it worse."

 

"Achoo! Calm down? When I'm having an allergy

attack? Achoo, oh, bother, achoo!" said the gray-green

dragon. "Somebody give me a handkerchief. Achoo!"

 

"Here," said Cimorene, holding out one of the

ones she had brought with her. "Use this." She was

beginning to feel much less frightened, for the gray-

green dragon reminded her of her great-uncle, who was

old and rather hard of hearing and of whom she was

rather fond.

 

"What's that?" said Roxim. "Achoo! Oh, hurry up

and give it here."

 

Kazul took the handkerchief from Cimorene, using

two claws very delicately, and passed it to Roxim. The

gray-green dragon mopped his streaming eyes and

blew his nose. "That's better, I think. Achoo! Oh, drat!"

 

The ball of fire that accompanied the dragon's

sneeze had reduced the handkerchief to a charred

 

17

 

scrap. Cimorene hastily dug out another one and

handed it to Kazul, feeling very glad that she had

brought several spares.

 

Roxim went through two more handkerchiefs be-

fore his sneezing spasms finally stopped. "Much bet-

ter," he said. "Now then, who's this that lent me the

handkerchiefs? Somebody's new princess, eh?"

 

"We were just discussing that when you came in,"

Kazul said, and turned back to Cimorene. "You were

saying? About cooking and so on."

 

"Couldn't I do that for one of you for a while?"

Cimorene said.

 

The dragon smiled again; and Cimorene swallowed

hard. "Possibly. Why would you want to do that?"

 

"Because then I wouldn't have to go home and

marry Therandil," Cimorene said. "Being a dragon's

princess is a perfectly respectable thing to do, so my

parents couldn't complain. And it would be much more

interesting than embroidery and dancing lessons."

 

Several of the dragons made snorting or choking

noises. Cimorene jumped, then decided that they were

laughing.

 

"This is ridiculous," said a large, bright green

dragon on Cimorene's left.

 

"Why?" asked Kazul.

 

"A princess volunteering? Out of the question!"

 

"Thafs easy for you to say," one of the other drag-

ons grumbled. "You already have a princess. What

about the rest of us?"

 

"Yes, don't be stuffy, Woraug," said another. "Be-

sides, what else can we do with her?"

 

18

 

"Eat her," suggested the yellowish green dragon

in a bored tone.

 

"No proper princess would come out looking for

dragons," Woraug objected.

 

"Well, I'm not a proper princess, then," Cimorene

snapped. "I make cherries jubilee, and I volunteer for

dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs—or at least I

would if anyone would let me. So there!"

 

"Hear, hear," said the gray-green dragon.

 

"You see?" Woraug said. "Who would want an

improper princess?"

 

"I would," said Kazul.

 

"You can't be serious, Kazul," Woraug said irri-

tably. "Why?"

 

"I like cherries jubilee," Kazul replied, still watch-

ing Cimorene. "And I like the look of her. Besides, the

Latin scrolls in my library need cataloguing, and if I

can't find someone who knows a little of the language,

I'll have to do it myself."

 

"Give her a trial run first," a purplish green dragon

advised.

 

Woraug snorted. "Latin and cherries jubilee! And

for that you'd take on a black-haired, snippy little—"

 

"I'll thank you to be polite when you're discussing

my princess," Kazul said, and smiled fiercely.

 

"Nice little gal," Roxim said, nodding approvingly

and waving Cimorene's next-to-last handkerchief. "Got

sense. Be good for you, Kazul."

 

"If that's settled, I'm going to go find a snack,"

said the yellowish green dragon.

 

Woraug looked around, but the other dragons

 

seemed to agree with Roxim. "Oh, very well," Woraug

said grumpily. "It's your choice, after all, Kazul."

 

"It certainly is. Now, Princess, if you'll come this

way, I'll get you settled in."

 

Cimorene followed Kazul across the cave and

down a tunnel. To her relief, the ball of light came with

her. She had the uncomfortable feeling'that if she had

tried to walk behind Kazul in the dark, she would have

stepped on her tail, which would not have been a good

beginning.

 

Kazul led Cimorene through a long maze of tunnels

and finally stopped in another cave. "Here we are,"

the dragon said. "You can use the small room over on

the right. I believe my last princess left most of the

furnishings behind when she ran off with the knight."

 

"Thank you," Cimorene said. "When do I start my

duties? And what are they, please?"

 

"You start right away," said Kazul. "I'll want din-

ner at seven. In the meantime, you can begin sorting

the treasure." The dragon nodded toward a dark open-

ing on the left. "I'm sure some of it needs repairing.

There's at least one suit of armor with the leg off, and

some of the cheaper magic swords are probably getting

rusty. The rest of it really ought to be rearranged sen-

sibly. I can never find anything when I want it."

 

"What about the library you mentioned?" Cim-

orene asked.

 

"We'll see how well you do on the treasure room

first," Kazul said. "The rest of your job I'll explain as

we go along. You don't object to learning a little magic,

do you?"

 

20

 

"Not at all," said Cimorene.

 

"Good. It'll make things much easier. Go and wash

up, and I'll let you into the treasure room so you can

get started."

 

Cimorene nodded and went to the room Kazul had

told her to use. As she washed her face and hands,

she felt happier than she had in a long time. She was

not going to have to marry Therandil, and sorting a

dragon's treasure sounded far more interesting than

dandng or embroidery. She was even going to learn

some magic! And her parents wouldn't worry about

her, once they found out where she was. For the first

time in her life, Cimorene was glad she was a princess.

She dried her hands and turned to go back into the

main cave, wondering how best to persuade Kazul to

help her brush up on her Latin. She didn't want the

dragon to be disappointed in her skill.

 

"Draco, draconem, dracone," she muttered, and her

lips curved into a smile. She had always been rather

good at declining nouns. Still smiling, she started for-

ward to begin her new duties.

 

Cimorene settled in very quickly. She got along well

with Kazul and learned her way around the caves with

a minimum of mishaps. Actually, the caves were more

like an intricate web of tunnels, connecting caverns of

various shapes and sizes that belonged to individual

dragons. It reminded Cimorene of an underground city

with tunnels instead of streets. She had no idea how

far the tunnels extended, though she rather suspected

that some of them had been magicked, so that when

 

21

 

you walked down them you went a lot farther than

you thought you were going.

 

Kazul's section of the caves was fairly large. IP

addition to the kitchen—which was in a large cave near

the exit, so that there wouldn't be a problem with the

smoke from the fire—she had a sleeping cavern, three

enormous treasure rooms at the far end of an intricate

maze of twisty little passages, two even more enormous

storage rooms for less valuable items, a library, a large,

bare cave for eating and visiting with other dragons,

and the set of rooms assigned to Cimorene. All the

caves smelled of dragon, a somewhat musty, smoky

dnnamony smell. Cimorene's first job was to air them

out.

 

Cimorene's rooms consisted of three small con-

necting caves, just off Kazul's living cavern. They were

furnished very comfortably in a mixture of styles and

periods, and looked just like the guest rooms in most

of the castles Cimorene had visited, only without win-

dows. They were much too small for a dragon to get

inside. When asked, Kazul said that the dwarves had

made them in return for a favor, and the dragon's tone

prevented Cimorene from inquiring too closely into just

what sort of favor it had been.

 

By the end of the first week, Cimorene was sure

enough of her position to give Kazul a list of things

that she needed in the kitchen. The previous princess—

of whom Cimorene was beginning to have a very poor

opinion—had apparently made do with a large skillet

with three dents and a wobbly handle, a wooden mix-

ing bowl with a crack in it, a badly tarnished copper

teakettle, and an assortment of mismatched plates,

 

22

 

cups, and silverware, most of them chipped or bent.

 

Kazul seemed pleased by the request, and the fol-

lowing day Cimorene had everything she had asked

for, except for a few of the more exotic pans and dishes.

This made the cooking considerably easier and gave

Cimorene more time to spend studying Latin and sort-

ing treasure. The treasure was just as disorganized as

Kazul had told her, and putting it in order was a major

task. It was sometimes hard to tell whether a ring was

enchanted, and Cimorene knew better than to put it

on and see. It might be the sort of useful magic ring

that turned you invisible, but it might also be the sort

of ring that turned you into a frog. Cimorene did the

best she could and kept a pile in the corner for things

she was not sure about.

 

There was a great deal of treasure to be sorted.

Most of it was stacked in one of the innermost caves

in a large, untidy heap of crowns, rings, jewels, swords,

and coins, but Cimorene kept finding things in other

places as well, some of them quite unlikely. There was

a small helmet under her bed (along with a great deal

of dust), a silver bracelet set with opals on the reading

table in the library, and two daggers and a jeweled ink

pot behind the kitchen stove. Cimorene collected them

all, along with the other things that were simply lying

around in the halls, and put them back in the store-

rooms where they belonged, thinking to herself that

dragons were clearly not very tidy creatures.

 

The first of the Knights arrived at the end of the second

week.

 

Cimorene was busy cleaning swords. Kazul had

 

-23

 

been right about their condition; not only were some

of them rusty, but nearly all of them needed sharp-

ening. She was polishing the last flakes of rust from an

enormous broadsword when she heard someone calling

from the mouth of the cave. Feeling somewhat irritated

by the interruption, she rose and, carrying the sword,

went to see who it was.

 

As she came nearer to the entrance, she was able

to make out the words that whoever-it-was was shout-

ing: "Dragon! Come out and fight! Fight for the Princess

Cimorene of Linderwall!"

 

"Oh, honestly," Cimorene muttered, and quick-

ened her step. "Here, you," she said as she came out

into the sunlight. Then she had to duck as a spear

flashed through the air over her head. "Stop that!" she

cried. "I'm Princess Cimorene."

 

"You are?" said a doubtful voice. "Are you sure?

I mean—"

 

Cimorene raised her head cautiously and squinted.

It was still fairly early in the morning, and the sun was

in back of the person standing outside the cave, so that

it was difficult to see anything but the outline of his

figure against the brightness. "Of course I'm sure,"

Cimorene said. "What did you expect, letters of ref-

erence? Come around here where I can see who you

are, please."

 

The figure moved sideways, and Cimorene saw

that it was a knight in shiny new armor, except for the

legs, where the armor was dusty from walking. Cim-

orene wondered briefly why he hadn't ridden, but de-

dded not to ask. The knight's visor was raised, and a

 

24

 

few wisps of sandy hair showed above his handsome

face. He was studying her with an expression of wor-

ried puzzlement.

 

"What can I do for you?" Cimorene said after sev-

eral moments had gone by and the knight still hadn't

said anything.

 

"Well, um> if you are the Princess Cimorene, I've

come to rescue you from the dragon," the knight said.

 

Cimorene set the point of the broadsword on the

ground and leaned on it as if it were a walking cane.

"I thought that might be it," she said. "But I'd rather

not be rescued, thank you just the same."

 

"Not be rescued?" The knighfs puzzled look deep-

ened. "But princesses always—"

 

"No, they don't," Cimorene said firmly, recogniz-

ing the beginning of a familiar argument. "And even

if I wanted to be rescued, you're going at it all wrong."

 

"What?" said the knight, thoroughly taken aback.

 

"Shouting, 'Come out and fight,' the way you did.

No self-respecting dragon is going to answer to a chal-

lenge like that. It sounds like a child's dare. Dragons

are very consdous of their dignity, at least all the ones

I've met so far are."

 

"Oh," said the knight, sounding very crestfallen.

"What should I have said?"

 

" 'Stand forth and do battle' is the usual chal-

lenge," Cimorene said with authority, remembering her

princess lessons. She had always been more interested

in what the knights and dragons were supposed to say

than in memorizing the places where she was supposed

to scream. "But the wording doesn't have to be exact

 

as long as it's suitably formal. You're new at this, aren't

you?"

 

"Rescuing you was going to be my first big quest,"

the knight said gloomily. "You're sure you don't want

to be rescued?"

 

"Quite sure," Cimorene said. "I like living with

Kazul."

 

"You like—" The knight stared at her for a moment.

Then his expression cleared and he said, "Of course!

The dragon's enchanted you. I should have thought of

that before."

 

"Kazul has not enchanted me, and I do not want

to be rescued by anybody," Cimorene said, alarmed by

the knight's sudden enthusiasm. "This place suits me

very well. I like polishing swords and cooking cher-

ries jubilee and reading Latin scrolls. If you don't

believe me, ask anyone in Linderwall. They've been

complaining about my un-princesslike behavior for

years."

 

"I did hear something about fencing lessons," the

knight said doubtfully, "but knights aren't supposed

to pay attention to that kind of thing. We're supposed

to be above rumors and gossip."

 

'The fencing lessons were just the beginning,"

Cimorene assured him. "So you see why I'm perfectly

happy being a dragon's princess."

 

"Um, yes," said the knight, but he did not look

convinced. "Speaking of dragons, where's yours?"

 

"Kazul's not my dragon," Cimorene said sharply.

"I'm her princess. You'll never have any luck dealing

with dragons if you don't get these things straight.

 

26

 

She's gone to the Enchanted Forest on the other side

of the mountains to borrow a crepe pan from a witch

she knows."

 

"She's what?" said the knight.

 

"She's gone to borrow a crepe pan," Cimorene

repeated in a louder voice. "Perhaps you'd better have

your helmet checked when you get back. They're not

supposed to interfere with your hearing, but some-

times—"

 

"Oh, I heard you," the knight said. "But what does

a dragon want with a crepe pan?"

 

"She doesn't want it; I do. I found a recipe in the

library that I want to try, and the kitchen just isn't

equipped to handle anything but the most ordinary

cooking. Kazul will fix that eventually, but for the time

being we have to borrow things like crepe pans and

souffle dishes."

 

"You really do like it here," the knight said won-

deringly.

 

Cimorene refrained from replying that this was

what she had been trying to tell him all along and

instead said, "How did you know where I was?"

 

"Things get around." The knight waved a hand in

a vague manner. "In fact, I had to hurry to make sure

I was the first. Half of the Kingdom of Linderwall and

a princess's hand in marriage is a reward rich enough

to tempt a lot of people who wouldn't normally bother

with this sort of thing."

 

"Father's offered half the kingdom to whoever res-

cues me?" Cimorene said incredulously. "That's more

than all my sisters' dowries put together!"

 

"It's the usual thing in cases like this," the knight

said mildly.

 

"It would be," Cimorene said in tones of deep

disgust. "Well, at least you can go back and tell them

I don't want to be rescued. Maybe that will keep anyone

else from coming up here."

 

"I can't do that!" the knight said. "Ifs—"

 

"—just not done," Cimorene finished. "I under-

stand perfectly." She gave him a polite farewell, more

because she had been well brought up than because

she felt like being polite, and sent him on his way.

Then she went back into the cave and polished the

broadsword until it was mirror-bright, which relieved

her feelings a little.

 

There were two knights the following day, and four

more the day after that. On the fourth day there was

only one, but he was exceptionally stubborn, and it

took Cimorene nearly two hours to get rid of him. By

then she was thoroughly disgusted and even consid-

ered letting Kazul handle the knights from then on.

She could not quite bring herself to do it. The knights

would certainly attack Kazul as soon as they saw her,

since that was what they were coming for, and sooner

or later someone would get hurt. Cimorene did not like

to think that someone might be hurt trying to rescue

her, particularly since she did not want to be rescued,

so with a sigh she decided that she would continue to

handle the knights as long as Kazul would let her.

 

Prince Therandil showed up at the end of the third

week. He was limping a little, as if his metal boots

pinched his toes, and the feathers attached to the top

 

28

 

of his helmet sagged badly. He stopped and carefully

struck an impressive pose before issuing the usual

challenge.

 

Cimorene was not in a mood to be impressed.

Besides, she could see that his helmet was a different

style from his gold armor and that the armor had gaps

at the knees and elbows where it didn't fit together

quite right.

 

"Aren't you a little slow?" she asked irritably.

"There've been eight knights here before you."

 

"Eight?" the prince said, frowning. "I thought by

now there'd have been at least twelve. Perhaps I'd

better come back later."

 

Cimorene stared at him in surprise. "Why?"

 

"Well, it would look better," Therandil explained

seriously. "There's not much glory in defeating a

dragon that hasn't already beaten ten or fifteen people

at least. Sir Gorolax of Mirstwold won't even consider

going after a dragon whose score is less than forty-five.

I don't think I want to risk waiting that long, but eight

just doesn't seem like enough."

 

"You're going to go away and wait until Kazul has

defeated fifteen knights before you come back to rescue

me?" Cimorene said. She found Therandil's smug con-

fidence very annoying, but she didn't like to say so

straight out.

 

"Not if you'd rather be rescued now, of course,"

Therandil said hastily. "Though you ought to consid-

er the advantages, and I expect it won't be so very

long . . ." His voice trailed off, and he looked at her

hopefully.

 

'Tm afraid it will be a very long time," Cimorene

 

29

 

said with satisfaction. "You see, Kazul hasn't defeated

any knights at all yet."

 

"B-b-but I thought you said there'd been eight,"

Therandil spluttered.

 

"I said eight of them had come by; I didn't say

they'd fought anybody. I sent them away."

 

"You sent them away?" Therandil repeated, plainly

horrified. "But that's—that's—"

 

"—not done, I know." Cimorene smiled sweetly.

"But I've done it. And I intend to go on doing it, so

you might as well go home and warn your friends.

They'd feel so foolish, you know, if they came all this

way into the mountains to rescue me and then had to

turn around and go back home without doing any-

thing."

 

"They certainly would!" Therandil said indig-

nantly. "What do you mean by playing these kinds of

tricks? Don't you want to be rescued?"

 

"No," said Cimorene, losing her patience at last,

"I don't. And I'm tired of having my work constantly

interrupted. So please go away, and don't come back."

 

"You can't possibly mean that," Therandil said.

"Besides, everyone expects me to rescue you."

 

"That's your problem," Cimorene told him. "I'm

going to go fix dinner. Good-bye." Before he could say

anything else, she turned and ducked back into the

cave, hoping the prince wouldn't follow.

 

30

 

3

 

In Which Cimorene Meets a Witch

and Has Doubts about a Wizard

 

Iherandil left, but he came back again the next day,

and the day after that. It got so that Cimorene could

not even step outside the cave without running into

him. She might have been flattered if it hadn't been so

obvious that Therandil was only worried about how

foolish he'd look if he went home without fighting the

dragon. On his fifth visit Cimorene was very sharp with

him, and when he had not returned by midaftemoon

of the next day, she began to hope that he had finally

left for good.

 

Cimorene was in the kitchen taking the pits out of

cherries when she heard someone knocking at the

mouth of the cave.

 

"Go away," she shouted in complete exasperation.

"I've told you and told you, I don't want to be rescued,

and I'm not going to argue with you any more!"

 

"I didn't come here to argue," said a no-nonsense

female voice from outside. "I came to meet the person

who keeps borrowing my crepe pan. It's not something

there's normally much call for."

 

"Oh, dear," said Cimorene. She wiped her hands

hastily on a comer of her apron and hurried out to

greet her visitor. "I'm sorry," she said, coming around

the gray rock at the cave mouth. "But I've been having

a problem with knights lately, and I thought—" She

stopped short as she got a good look at her caller for

me first time.

 

The woman standing outside the cave was consid-

erably shorter than Cimorene. Her ginger hair was piled

in waves on top of her head. She had on a loose black

robe with long sleeves, which she wore unbelted. A

small pair of glasses with rectangular lenses sat firmly

on her nose, and she carried an extremely twiggy

broom in her left hand. Despite her unusual appear-

ance, she projected an air of great self-assurance.

 

"I quite understand," she said, studying Cimorene

shrewdly. "You must be Kazul's new princess."

 

"Yes, I'm Cimorene. And you are . . . ?"

 

"Morwen," said the black-robed woman, leaning

the broom against the rock. "Kazul and I have been

friends for a long time, ever since I moved to the En-

chanted Forest, so I thought I'd come have a look at

her new princess."

 

"You're the person Kazul's been borrowing dishes

 

32

 

from, aren't you?" Cimorene said, and blinked. "But

then you must be—"

 

"A witch," Morwen finished. "I don't see why you

find it surprising. It's not exactly an unusual profession

in these parts."

 

"It's just that I haven't met one before," Cimorene

said, not mentioning the fact that in Linderwall witches

were considered dangerous and probably evil and were

therefore avoided if at all possible. But then, people in

Linderwall didn't like dragons much, either. "Won't

you come in and have some tea?"

 

"I certainly will," said the witch, and she did. She

prowled around like a nervous cat while Cimorene put

the kettle on the stove and got out the tea things.

 

"Well," Morwen said approvingly as Cimorene

filled the teapot, "you're the first princess I've ever met

who has the sense to keep up with the kitchen."

 

Cimorene decided that she liked Morwen's down-

to-earth manner. She soon found herself telling Mor-

wen everything, from the fencing and philosophy and

Latin lessons to the seemingly endless stream of

knights. The story lasted through two cups of tea and

finished with Therandil's stubborn insistence on res-

cuing her.

 

"That is absurd," Morwen said decidedly when

Cimorene finished. "If this continues, you'll never get

anything done."

 

"I know," Cimorene said. "I keep telling them I

don't want to be rescued, but they're all so honorable

that none of them will tell anyone when they go back

because they think it would be gossiping."

 

33

 

"More likely they don't want to look foolish."

 

"Maybe, but even if they did tell people, I'm no;

 

sure anyone would believe it. I have a hard enougl.

time convincing the knights when they show up ir

person."

 

"Ifs just as well that your visitors have been hon-

orable," Morwen said, looking thoughtful. "Under-

wall's a prosperous kingdom. Sooner or later the chance

of getting hold of half of it is going to tempt someone

to try rescuing you whether you want to be rescued or

not."

 

"That hadn't occurred to me," Cimorene said witi'

a worried frown. "What can I do about it?"

 

"I'm not sure," Morwen replied. "The situation's

not at all usual, you know. I've never heard of a prin-

cess volunteering for a dragon before. Which rather sur-

prises me, now that I think of it. A dragon's princess

is practically guaranteed a good marriage, so you'd

think princesses from the smaller kingdoms would be

clamoring for the job."

 

"They're probably worried about being eaten,"

Cimorene said. "Do you think it would help if I sent

my parents a letter?"

 

"Probably not," Morwen said after a moment's

consideration. "But it can't hurt to try. I'll check my

spell books when I get home. It may give me an idea.

I suggest that you hunt through Kazul's library. She's

been collecting scrolls for centuries; you ought to be

able to find something useful. Meanwhile, we'll put up

a sign."

 

"A sign?" Cimorene stared at Morwen for a mo-

 

 

34

 

ment, then began to smile. " 'Road washed out,' " she

said. " 'Use alternate route.' Is that the kind of sign

you were thinking of?"

 

"Exactly," Morwen said with approval. "It won't

stop anyone who's really determined, but it will cer-

tainly slow them down. That should give us time to

come up with something better."

 

The two women set to work at once and in a short

time produced a large, official-looking sign. Morwen

offered to set it up on her way back to the Enchanted

Forest, but Cimorene thought it would be too awkward

for her to carry while riding the broom. So, once Mor-

wen had gone, Cimorene tucked the sign under her

arm and started down the path.

 

Cimorene had not had a chance to do any real exploring

before, though she had looked out at the mountains

every day and wondered. She was happy to have an

excuse to see more of the outside of her new home.

 

It was a lovely day, warm and sunny, and at first

the path was level and easy. Cimorene was just begin-

ning to wonder whether anyone would believe her

sign, once she got it put up, when the path swung left

around a boulder and narrowed to a tiny ledge that

sloped steeply upward.

 

Cimorene stopped. Now she knew why none of

the knights had ridden up to the cave. The ledge was

barely wide enough for a person on foot to edge along

sideways; the best rider in the world couldn't have

gotten a horse down it. Cimorene rolled her sign up

into a firm, tight cylinder and stuck it through her belt,

 

35

 

so she would have her hands free while she climbed.

Then she stepped out onto the ledge.

 

Sidling up the slope took a long time, for Cimorene

was careful to make sure that each part of the ledge

would hold before she trusted her weight to it. She

was also careful not to look down. Heights had never

bothered her before, but there was a big difference

between standing solidly on top of a tower in Under-

wall Castle behind a four-foot parapet and inching

along a ledge barely six inches wide with nothing be-

tween her and a long fall.

 

She had almost reached the top of the slope, where

the path widened again, when a portion of the ledge

disappeared just ahead of her. Cimorene pulled her

foot back and tried to figure out what had happened.

She hadn't seen or heard the rock crumble and fall

away; there was simply a two-foot gap in the ledge that

hadn't been there before. She studied it for a moment,

trying to think of a way of getting past. Nothing oc-

curred to her. She felt a twinge of annoyance at the

thought of all her wasted efforts, but cheered up at

once when she realized that this would solve the prob-

lem of the visiting knights. If she couldn't get around

or over the gap, an armored knight wouldn't be able

to get by, either. Cimorene smiled and turned her head

to creep back to safety.

 

There was another two-foot gap in the ledge on

her other side. Cimorene frowned. Something very odd

was going on, and she didn't like it.

 

"You look as if you are in need of assistance," said

a deep voice from above her. "May I be of help?"

 

Cimorene turned her head and saw a man standing

 

36

 

four feet away, oh the path at the top of the ledge. He

was tall and sharp-featured, and his eyes were a hard,

bright black. Though he had a gray beard that reached

nearly to his waist, his face did not look old. He wore

loose robes made of blue and gray silk, and in one

hand he held a staff as tall as himself made of dark,

polished wood.

 

"Possibly," Cimorene answered. She was certain

that the man was a wizard, though she had never met

one before, and she did not want to agree to anything

until she was sure of what she was agreeing to. The

court philosopher had always claimed that wizards

were very tricky. "May I know to whom I am

speaking?"

 

"I am the wizard Zemenar," the man said. "And

you must be Kazul's new princess. I hope you're not

trying to run away. It's—"

 

"Not done," Cimorene said, feeling particularly an-

noyed because for once she was not doing anything

improper. "Yes, I'm Cimorene."

 

"I was going to say that it isn't wise to run away

from your dragon," the wizard corrected mildly. "I

believe ifs done all the time."

 

"I'm sorry," Cimorene said, but she didn't try to

explain. "And I'm not running away. How did you

know who I was?"

 

"It seemed unlikely that I would find any other

charming young lady walking so casually through the

Pass of Silver Ice," Zemenar answered. He smiled. "As

you see, it is easy to find oneself in difficulties if one

is not properly . . . prepared."

 

Cimorene decided that she didn't like him. He re-

 

37

 

minded her of one of her father's courtiers, a humor-

less, sneaky little man who had paid her compliments

only when he was after something and who couldn't

resist giving advice even when nobody wanted it. "The

ledge was all here when I started," she said. An idea

crossed her mind, and she looked hard at Zemenar. "I

don't suppose you know what happened to the two

missing bits?"

 

A flash of startled annoyance crossed the wizard's

face; then his expression smoothed back into pleasant

politeness. He shrugged. "The Pass of Silver Ice is a

strange place. Odd things frequently occur."

 

"Not like this," Cimorene muttered. She was sure,

now, that the wizard had made the ledge vanish so

that he could pretend to rescue her, but she had no

idea why he would want her to think she owed him a

favor. Actually, it surprised her that he had destroyed

the ledge. She didn't think the dragons would be too

happy when they found out. Unless he hadn't really

destroyed it.

 

"What did you say?" Zemenar said, frowning

uncertainly.

 

Cimorene ignored him. Without looking down, she

slid her right foot along the ledge. The rock felt firm

and solid. Slowly she transferred her weight and

brought her left foot up beside her right. She shifted

again, still careful not to look down, and slid her right

foot forward once again.

 

"What are you doing?" Zemenar demanded.

 

"Getting off this ledge," Cimorene replied. "I

should think that was obvious." One more step would

 

38

 

bring her to the path, but Zemenar was squarely in her

way. "Would you mind moving back a little so I'll have

somewhere to stand?"

 

Zemenar's eyes narrowed, but he backed up sev-

eral paces, and Cimorene stepped onto the path. She

wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but she did not. She

wasn't going to let Zemenar have the satisfaction of

knowing she had been worried. Instead, she gave him

her best royal smile and said with polite insincerity,

"Thank you for offering to help, but as you see, it

wasn't needed. Do stop by and visit some time."

 

"I will," Zemenar said as if he meant it. "And a

very good day to you. Princess Cimorene."

 

With that he vanished. There was no smoke or fire

or whirlwind. There wasn't even a shimmer in the air

as he disappeared. He was simply and suddenly gone.

 

Cimorene stared at the place where the wizard had

been and felt a shiver run down her spine. It took a

very powerful wizard indeed to vanish so quietly. And

she still didn't know what he wanted.

 

She shook herself and started down the path. She

would worry about the wizard later; right now she had

to find a place to put up her sign so she could get back

to the cave. She didn't feel much like exploring any

more.

 

She hadn't taken more than two or three steps

when a dark shadow passed over her. Looking up,

startled, she saw a flash of yellow-green scales. An

instant later a dragon landed on the path in front of

her, blocking the way completely. His tail hung over

the edge, and he had to keep his wings partly unfurled

 

39

 

in order to stay in balance. Cimorene recognized him

at once. It was the yellow-green dragon who had

wanted to eat her the day she arrived so unexpectedly

in the dragons' cave.

 

"I saw the whole thing," the dragon said with

nasty, triumphant glee. "Running away—and talking

to a wizard! Just wait until Kazul hears. She'll be sorry

she didn't just let us eat you and be done with it."

 

"I offer you greetings and good fortune on your

travels," Cimorene said, figuring that it was best to be

polite to anyone as large and toothy as a dragon, even

if he wasn't being at all polite to her. "I'm not running

away."

 

'Then what are you doing? Kazul doesn't have any

business that would bring you down this side of the

pass."

 

"I came out to put up a sign to keep the knights

away," Cimorene said.

 

"That's ridiculous." The dragon sniffed. "I've been

on patrol in this part of the mountains for the past

week, and I haven't seen or smelted even a hint of a

knight."

 

"You haven't been by Kazul's cave, then," Cimo-

rene said. "At least nine of them have shown up there

in the past week. Though for the past couple of days

it's been mostly a prince."

 

"Princes don't smell any different from knights,

and I'd have noticed if any of them were hanging

around," the dragon said flatly. "And what about that

wizard you were talking to?"

 

"Chaaarrge!" shouted a familiar voice from the

other side of the dragon.

 

40

 

"Therandil!" Cimorene shouted. "I told you to go

 

away!"

 

The yellow-green dragon twisted his long neck and

glanced back over his shoulder. He seemed to bunch

together like a cat crouching. Then he sprang straight

up into the air, and Cimorene was blinded by the cloud

of dust raised by the flapping of his enormous wings.

She had the presence of mind to flatten herself back

against the rocks by the side of the path, and a moment

later she heard someone blundering by. She stuck out

a foot.

 

"Ow!" she said as Therandil fell over with a clatter.

She'd forgotten that he'd be wearing iron boots along

with the rest of his armor.

 

"Cimorene? Is that you?" Therandil said.

 

"Of course it's me," Cimorene replied, rubbing her

ankle. "Open your eyes; the dust's settled." She looked

up as she spoke and saw the dragon soar out of sight

behind a cliff.

 

"I'm sorry," Therandil said, and then in an anxious

tone he added, "I hope I didn't hurt you, stumbling

into you like that."

 

Cimorene started to say that it was nothing and

that it had been her fault anyway, when she suddenly

got a much better idea. "I think you've sprained my

ankle," she declared.

 

"Oh, no," Therandil said. He sounded truly dis-

mayed, though Cimorene couldn't see his face because

he was wearing his helmet with the visor down.

 

"I probably won't be able to walk for at least a

month," she declared. "And there's certainly no way

I can climb down this mountain."

 

41

 

"But if you can't walk—" Therandil said, and

paused. Then he squared his shoulders and went on,

"—then I suppose I'll have to carry you." He didn't

sound as if he liked the idea.

 

"I don't think that would work very well," Cim-

orene said quickly. "How will you fight when all the

dragons come back if you're carrying me? No, you'll

have to leave me here and go back alone."

 

"You can't stay here!" Therandil protested, though

Cimorene's talk of when all the dragons come back had

plainly made him nervous.

 

"I have to," Cimorene said, trying to sound noble

and long-suffering. 'The dragons will make sure I get

safely back to Kazul's cave, and a month isn't too long

a wait, after all."

 

"I don't understand," Therandil said, and he did

look thoroughly puzzled.

 

"There's no point in you or anyone else coming

up here to rescue me for at least a month, not till my

ankle's better," Cimorene explained patiently.

 

"Oh, I see," Therandil said. He tilted his head back

and scanned the empty sky. "You're quite sure you'll

be all right? Then I'll just be going before those dragons

return." He turned and started down the path as quick-

ly as he could manage in full armor.

 

42

 

4

 

In Which Kazul Has a Dinner Party,

and Cimorene Makes Dessert

 

G

 

..imorene watched Therandil go with feelings of great

relief. Now she had at least a month to find a perma-

nent way of discouraging the knights, for she was quite

certain that Therandil would spread the news of her

"injury." She decided to put up her sign anyway, just

in case, and after a little looking she found a scrubby

tree beside the path and hung the sign on it.

 

On her way back to Kazul's cave, she noticed that

the two pieces of the ledge were still invisible, and she

was very careful about crossing them. She looked down

once, out of curiosity, and was immediately sorry. She

was not comfortable with the sight of her own feet

firmly planted on nothing at all, with the sharp, spiky

 

43

 

tops of spruce trees in full view some fifty feet below

 

Kazul arrived only a few minutes after Cimorene

herself. Cimorene was looking for some thread to mend

her skirts (which had gotten torn and stained while she

was climbing along the ledge) when she heard the ur.

mistakable sounds of a dragon sliding into the main

cave.

 

"Cimorene?" Kazul's voice called.

 

"Coming," Cimorene called back, abandoning her

search. She picked up her lamp and hurried out to greet

Kazul.

 

"I'm glad to see you're still here," Kazul said mildly

as Cimorene came into the large cave. "Moranz was

quite sure you'd run off with a knight or a wizard. I

couldn't make out for certain which."

 

"Is Moranz the yellow-green dragon who wanted

to eat me?" Cimorene asked. "Because if he is, he's

just trying to make trouble."

 

"I'm well aware of that," Kazul said with a sigh

that sent a-burnt-bread smell halfway across the cave.

"But things would be easier for me if you didn't provide

him with any material to make trouble with. Exactly

what happened?"

 

"Well, Morwen came to visit this afternoon," Cim-

orene began. "We were talking about all the ... in-

terruptions I've been having, and she suggested putting

up a sign. ..." She explained why she had gone to

put up the sign herself and told Kazul in detail about

her meetings with the wizard, the dragon, and the

prince.

 

"So Morwen was here," Kazul said. She sat back,

 

44

 

and the scales on her tail rattled comfortably against

the floor. "That simplifies matters. Did you bring the

sign back with you?"

 

"No, I found a tree and hung it by the path,"

Cunorene said, wondering what this was all about, "hi

case Therandil doesn't tell everyone about my ankle

 

after all."

 

"Better still," Kazul said, and smiled fiercely, show-

ing all her teeth. "Moranz is going to regret meddling."

 

"Meddling in what?"

 

"My business."

 

'Td like a little more of an explanation than that,

if you don't mind giving one," Cimorene said with a

touch of exasperation.

 

Kazul looked startled, then thoughtful. Then she

nodded. "I keep forgetting that you're not as empty-

headed as most princesses," she said. "Sit down and

make yourself comfortable. This may take a while."

 

Cimorene found a rock and sat on it. Kazul settled

into a more restful position, folded her wings neatly

along her back, and began. "It has to do with status.

Dragons aren't required to have princesses, you see.

Most of us don't. There are never enough to go around,

and some of us prefer not to have to deal with the

annoyances that come with them."

 

"Knights," Cimorene guessed.

 

"Among other things," Kazul said, nodding. "So

having a princess in residence has become a minor mark

of high status among dragons."

 

"A minor mark?"

 

Kazul smiled. "I'm afraid so. It's the equivalent of,

 

45

 

oh, serving expensive imported fruit at dinner. It's a

nice way of showing everyone how rich you are, but

you could make just as big an impression by having

some of those fancy pastries with the smooth glazed

icing and spun-sugar roses."

 

"I see." Cimorene did see, though she found her-

self wishing that Kazul had found something else to

compare it to. The talk of dinner reminded her too

much of Moranz's repeated desire to eat her.

 

"Moranz is young and not very bright, I'm afraid,"

Kazul said, almost as if she had read Cimorene's mind.

"He seems to have the mistaken impression that if a

princess behaves badly, it reflects on the dragon who

captured her. Possibly it comes from his inability to

keep any of his own princesses for more than a week.

Some of the lesser dragons were very snide about it

when he lost his third one in a row. I believe she

sneaked out while he was napping."

 

"I don't see how he can blame his princesses,"

Cimorene objected. "I mean, if most princesses are un-

willing, it must be fairly usual for them to try to get

away."

 

"Of course, but Moranz doesn't see it that way.

He's been trying to catch someone else's princess in a

similar foolishness for years, and he's quite sure he's

finally done so. He's undoubtedly spreading the story

of your escape far and wide at this very minute."

 

"Oh, dear," said Cimorene.

 

Kazul smiled again, and her teeth glittered silver

in the lamplight. "He'll look extremely foolish when it

becomes obvious that you're still here. Which is one

 

46

 

reason I've asked a few of my friends to dinner to-

night."

 

"You've what?" Cimorene said. All her worries

 

about Moranz were instantly replaced by worries about

fixing dinner on short notice for an unknown number

of dragons. "How many? What time will they be here?

Where are we going to put them all?"

 

"Six. Around eight-thirty. In the banquet cave.

And you won't be doing anything but dessert. I've

already arranged for the rest of the meal."

 

"Arranged? With whom?"

 

"Ballimore the giantess. She's loaned me the

Cauldron of Plenty that she uses when her twelve-

headed son-in-law drops in for dinner unannounced.

It'll handle most things, but all it can produce in the

way of dessert is burned mint custard and sour-cream-

and-onion ice cream."

 

"Ugh!" said Cimorene. "I see your problem."

 

"Exactly. Can you manage?"

 

"Not if you want cherries jubilee," Cimorene said,

frowning. "I haven't got a pot large enough to make

seven dragons' worth of cherries jubilee. Would choc-

olate mousse do? I can make two or three batches, and

there should be time for all of them to chill if you're

not starting until eight-thirty."

 

"Chocolate mousse will be fine," Kazul assured

her. "Come along and I'll show you where to bring it."

 

Cimorene picked up a lamp and followed Kazul

into the public tunnels that surrounded Kazul's private

caves. She was a little surprised, but when she saw the

size of the banquet cave, she understood. It was enor-

 

47

 

 

 

 

mous. Fifty or sixty dragons, perhaps even a hundred

of them, would fit into it quite comfortably. Obviously

it had to be a public room; there simply wasn't enough

space under the Mountains of Morning for every drag-

on to have a cave this size.

 

Kazul made sure Cimorene could find her way to

the banquet cave without help and then left her in the

kitchen to melt slabs of chocolate and whip gallons of

cream for the mousse. By the time she finished, she

was hot and tired, and all she really wanted to do was

to take a nap. But Kazul was expecting her to serve the

mousse, and Cimorene wasn't about to appear before

all those dragons in her old clothes with sweaty strag-

gles of hair sticking to her neck and a smear of chocolate

across her nose, so instead of napping, she pumped a

cauldron of water, heated it on the kitchen fire, and

took a bath.

 

Once she was clean she felt much better. She

checked to make sure the mousse was setting properly,

then went into her own rooms to decide what she

should wear. Unfortunately, she was afraid she didn't

have much choice. The wardrobe in her bedroom was

full of neat, serviceable dresses suitable for cooking in

or rummaging through treasure, but the only dressy

clothes she had were the ones she had arrived in. She

got them out of the back of the wardrobe and found

to her dismay that the hem of the gown was badly

stained with mud from her long walk. There was no

time to dean it; she would have to wear one of the

everyday dresses.

 

With a sigh Cimorene turned back to the wardrobe

 

48

 

and opened it once more to look for the nicest of the

ordinary clothes. She gasped in surprise. The hangers

were now full of the most beautiful gowns she had ever

seen. Some were silk, and some were velvet; some were

heavy brocade, and some were layers of feather-light

eauze; some were embroidered with gold or silver, and

some were sewn with jewels.

 

"Well, of course," Cimorene said aloud after a

stunned moment. "Why would a dragon have an or-

dinary wardrobe? Of course it's magic. What's in it de-

pends on what I'm looking for."

 

One of the wardrobe doors waggled slightly, and

its hinges creaked in smug agreement. Cimorene

blinked at it, then shook herself and began looking

through the gowns.

 

She chose one of red velvet, heavily embroidered

with gold, and found matching slippers in the bottom

of the obliging wardrobe. She let her black hair hang

in loose waves nearly to her feet and even dug her

crown out of the back of the drawer where she'd stuffed

it on her first night. She finished getting ready a few

minutes early. Feeling very cheerful, she went to the

kitchen to fetch the mousse.

 

It took Cimorene four trips to get the mousse down to

the serving area just off the banquet cave. A dragon-

sized serving was a little over a bucketful, and she could

barely manage to carry two at a time. When everything

was ready, she stood in the serving area and waited

nervously for Kazul to ring for dessert. She could hear

the muffled booming of the dragons' voices through the

 

49

 

heavy oak door, but she could not make out what any

of them were saying.

 

The bell rang at last, summoning Cimorene to serve

dessert. She carried the mousse into the banquet cav-

ern, two servings at a time, and set it in front of Kazul

and her guests. The dragons were crouched around a

shoulder-high slab of white stone. Ciniorene had to be

very careful about lifting the mousse up onto it. For-

tunately, she didn't have to wonder which dragon to

serve first. She could tell which dragons were most

important from their places at the table, and she made

a silent apology to her protocol teacher, who had in-

sisted that she leam about seating arrangements. (Pro-

tocol had been one of the princess lessons Cimorene

had hated most.)

 

As she set the last serving in front of Kazul, one

of the other dragons said in a disgruntled and vaguely

familiar voice, "I see the rumors are wrong again, Ka-

zul. Or did you have to go after her and haul her back

the way the rest of us do?"

 

Cimorene turned angrily, but before she could say

anything, a large gray-green dragon on the other side

of the stone slab said, "Nonsense, Woraug! Girl's got

more sense than that. You shouldn't listen to gossip.

Next thing you know, you'll be chasing after that imag-

inary wizard Gaurim's been on about." Cimorene rec-

ognized the speaker at once. He was Roxim, the

elderly dragon she had given four of her handkerchiefs

to.

 

"I suppose it was that idiot Moranz again, trying

to cause trouble," a purple-green dragon said with

 

bored distaste. "Someone should do something about

 

him."

 

"Kazul still hasn't answered my question," Wor-

aug said, and his tail lashed once like the tail of an

angry cat. "And I'd like her to do so if the rest of you

will stop sidetracking the conversation."

 

"Here, now!" Roxim said indignantly. "Thafs a bit

strong, Woraug! Too strong, if you ask me."

 

"I didn't," Woraug said. "I asked Kazul. And I'm

still waiting."

 

"I'm very pleased with my princess," Kazul said

mildly. "And no, I didn't have to haul her back, as you

would realize if you'd given the matter a little thought.

Or does your princess normally leave seven servings

of chocolate mousse in the kitchen when she runs

away?"

 

"Hear, hear!" Roxim said.

 

Cimorene noted with interest that Woraug's scales

had turned an even brighter shade of green than normal

and that he was starting to smell faintly of brimstone.

 

"One of these days you'll go too far, Kazul," he

said.

 

"You started it," Kazul pointed out. She turned to

the gray dragon. "Whafs this about Gaurim and a wiz-

ard, Roxim?"

 

"You haven't heard?" Roxim said, sounding sur-

prised. "Gaurim's been raving about it for weeks.

Somebody snuck into her cave and stole a book from

her library. No traces, but for some reason she's pos-

itive it was a wizard. Achoo!" Roxim sneezed, emitting

a ball of flame that just missed hitting his bowl of

 

mousse. "Gives me an allergy attack just thinking about

it."

 

"If it wasn't a wizard, who was it?" the dragon at

the far end of the table asked.

 

"Could have been anybody—an elf, a dwarf, even

a human," Roxim responded. "No reason to think it

was a wizard just because Gaurim didn't catch him in

the act. Not with the amount of time she spends away

from home."

 

"Which book did she lose?" said the thin, brown-

ish-green dragon next to Kazul.

 

"What does it matter?" the purple-green dragon

muttered.

 

"Some history or other. And that's another thing—

what would a wizard want with a history book? No,

no, Gaurim's making a lot of fuss over a common thief.

That's what I say."

 

"It could have been a wizard," said the dragon at

the far end. "Who knows why they want the things

they want?"

 

"Ridiculous!" Roxim replied with vigor. "A wizard

wouldn't dare come through this part of the mountains.

They know what we'd do to 'em, by George! Beg par-

don," he added to the silver-green dragon next to him,

who appeared to have been rather shocked by his

language.

 

"I'm afraid you're wrong there," Kazul said. "Cim-

orene met one today, less than a two-minute flight from

my cave."

 

"What? What?" Roxim said. "You're sure?"

 

"Thafs done it." The purple-green dragon rolled

 

his head in an irritated gesture, so that his scales made

a scratching noise as they rubbed together. "You'll

never get him to quit talking about it now."

 

"Quite sure," Cimorene assured Roxim, after

glancing at Kazul to make sure she was expected to

answer Roxim's question for herself. "He made two

bits of the ledge I was standing on rum invisible so I

would think it wasn't safe to keep going."

 

"Certainly sounds like a wizard to me," the dragon

at the far end commented.

 

"What did he look like?" asked the silver-green

dragon.

 

Cimorene described the wizard as well as she

could, then added, "He said his name was Zemenar."

 

"Zemenar? That's ridiculous!" Woraug snorted.

"Zemenar was elected head of the Society of Wizards

last year. He wouldn't waste his time playing games

with somebody's princess."

 

"Not unless he had a great deal to gain by it," the

thin dragon said in a thoughtful tone. She turned her

head and looked speculatively at Cimorene.

 

"Such as?" Woraug said. He waited a moment, but

no one answered. "No, I can't believe it was Zemenar.

The girl's made a mistake; that's all."

 

"Perhaps it wasn't him," Cimorene said, holding

on to her temper as hard as she could. "I've never met

Zemenar, so I wouldn't know. But that's who he said

he was."

 

"And wouldn't it be amusing if she were right?"

the purple-green dragon said, showing some interest

in the proceedings for the first time.

 

53

 

"I don't see that it matters," the silver-green

dragon said. "The important thing is that he was a

wizard, poking around smack in the middle of our

mountains. What are we going to do about it?"

 

"Tell King Tokoz," Roxim said. "His job to handle

this sort of thing, isn't it?"

 

"What can Tokoz do about it?" Woraug said, and

there was a faint undercurrent of contempt in his tone.

 

"He could use the King's Crystal to find out what

the wizards are really doing," the thin dragon said in

a prim tone.

 

"He won't use the crystal for anything less than a

full-fledged war," Woraug said. "And why should he?

What could Tokoz do even if he did find out some

wizard was preying on poor defenseless dragons like

Gaurim?"

 

"Lodge a formal protest with the Society of Wiz-

ards," Roxim answered promptly, ignoring Woraug's

sarcasm. "Proper thing to do, no question. Then the

next time anyone sees a wizard ..." His voice trailed

off, and he snapped his teeth together suggestively.

 

"He'd probably just set up a committee," the

purple-green dragon said. "Can't anyone think of

something else?"

 

"I don't think we should do anything until we have

some idea what Zemenar was after," said the thin

dragon. "It could be important."

 

"We have to do something!" the silver-green drag-

on said. Her claws clashed against the stone table. "We

can't have wizards wandering in and out whenever

they please! Why, we'd lose half our magic in no time."

 

54

 

"Not to mention everyone sneezing themselves

silly every time one of those dratted staffs gets too

close," added the dragon at the far end.

 

The dragons began arguing among themselves

about what to do and how best to do it. It reminded

Cimorene of the way her father's ministers argued.

Everyone seemed to agree that something ought to be

done about the wizards, but they each had a different

idea about what was appropriate. Roxim insisted huffily

that the only thing to do was to inform the King, who

would then make a formal protest. The thin dragon

wanted to find out what the wizards were up to (she

didn't say how this was to be done) before anyone tried

to chase them off. The silver-green dragon wanted pa-

trols sent out immediately to eat any wizard who ven-

tured into the Mountains of Morning. The dragon at

the far end of the table wanted to attack the head-

quarters of the Society of Wizards the following morn-

ing, and the purple-green dragon thought it would be

most entertaining to wait and see what the wizards did

next. Woraug was the only one of the guests who did

not have a proposal, though he made occasional com-

ments, usually sarcastic ones, about everyone else's

 

suggestions.

 

Kazul did not say anything at all. Cimorene was

at first surprised and then puzzled by her silence, since

Kazul was the one who had set the whole discussion

going to begin with. As the argument grew more

heated, however, Cimorene began to be glad that there

was at least one dragon present who was not involved

in it. The dragon at the far end of the table was starting

 

55

 

to breathe little tongues of fire at the purple-green

dragon, and Roxim was threatening loudly to have an-

other allergy attack, but Cimorene was fairly sure that

Kazul would stop the discussion before things got com-

pletely out of hand.

 

She was right. A moment later, while the dragon

at the far end was taking a deep breath to continue

arguing and the thin dragon was winding up a long,

involved train of logical reasons why her proposal was

the best, Kazul said, "Thank you all for your advice.

I'll certainly think about it before I decide what to do."

 

"What do you mean by that?" the thin dragon

asked suspidously.

 

"It was my princess who met the wizard," Kazul

pointed out. "Therefore, it is my decision whether to

report the matter to the King, or to take some action

on my own, or to ask for cooperation from some of

you."

 

None of the other dragons appeared to like hearing

this, but to Cimorene's surprise none of them gave

Kazul any argument about it. The dragon at the far end

of the table made a few half-hearted grumbles, but that

was all, and the conversation turned to the intricacies

of several draconian romances that were currently in

progress. As soon as her guests appeared to have

calmed down, Kazul gave the signal for the empty

mousse dishes to be taken away, so Cimorene only

heard a few incomprehensible snatches of the new con-

versation. She did not really mind. She had plenty to

think about already.

 

56

 

5

 

In Which Cimorene Receives a Formal Call

from Her Companions in Dire Captivity

 

JXazul slept late the following morning, and Cimorene

was afraid that she would leave before Cimorene had

a chance to ask about the dragons' after-dinner con-

versation. To her relief, Kazul called her in as soon as

she was thoroughly awake and asked Cimorene to

bring in the brushes for cleaning her scales.

 

"What was that crystal your friend mentioned last

night?" Cimorene asked as she laid out the brushes,

"The one she thought King Tokoz could use somehow

to find out what the wizards are doing?"

 

"The King's Crystal?" Kazul said. "It's one of the

magical objects that belongs to the King of the

Dragons."

 

57

 

"But what does it do? And why did Woraug think

that King Tokoz wouldn't want to use it?"

 

"Using the crystal is difficult and tiring, and Tokoz

is getting old," Kazul replied. "Zareth was right to say

that the crystal ought to be used, but it will take more

evidence than we have right now to persuade the King

of that. As to what it does, the crystal shows things

that are happening in other times and places. It's use

ful, but it can be very difficult to interpret correctly."

 

"Oh, a crystal ball," Cimorene said, nodding. She

tapped Kazul's side, and the dragon bent her elbow so

that the scales were easier to reach. "The court wizard

at Linderwall had one, but I had to stop my magic

lessons before he got a chance to show me how to work

it."

 

"The King's Crystal is more like a plate, but the

principle is the same," Kazul said.

 

"A crystal plate?" Cimorene blinked. "No wonder

nobody talks about it much. It just doesn't sound

right."

 

Kazul shrugged. "The King's Crystal is much more

accurate than an ordinary crystal ball, and if 'crystal

plate' sounds odd to most people, it means that fewer

of them will try to steal it."

 

"Was that what the silver-green dragon meant

when he said that if the wizards started wandering

through the mountains you'd lose half your magic in

no time? I never heard that wizards stole magic rings

and swords and things."

 

"Not magic things," Kazul said. "Magic. Wizards

steal magic. That's where their power comes from."

 

"How can a wizard steal magic?" Cimorene said

 

58

 

skeptically. She climbed on a stool and began working

 

at the ribs of Kazul's wings.

 

"Wizards' staffs absorb magic from whatever hap-

pens to be nearby," Kazul said, stretching out her left

wing so Cimorene could get at the base. "Thafs why

they're always hanging around places like the Moun-

tains of Morning and the Enchanted Forest. The more

magic there is in the area, the more their staffs can soak

 

up."

 

"What would happen if someone stole a wizard's

 

staff? Would the wizard still be able to use it?"

 

"The wizard wouldn't be able to work any magic

until he got it back," Kazul said. "Most of them have

a great many anti-theft spells on their staffs for exactly

that reason. Of course, it happens anyway, now and

then. And as long as the wizard and the staff are sep-

arated, the staff doesn't absorb magic."

 

"It doesn't sound like a very good arrangement to

me," Cimorene said. "I can think of half a dozen ways

a staff could be lost or forgotten or stolen or something.

It doesn't seem sensible for a wizard to depend so much

on anything that's so easy to mislay."

 

Kazul shrugged. "They seem to like it."

 

"I can see why you don't want them in your part

 

of the mountains."

 

"Can you? Do you have any idea how unpleasant

it is to have part of your essence sucked out of you

without so much as a by-your-leave? Not to mention

 

the side effects."

 

"Side effects?" Cimorene said, puzzled. "There!

Turn around, and I'll do your other side."

 

"Roxim isn't the only dragon who's allergic to wiz-

 

59

 

ards," Kazul said dryly as she shifted her position. "Or

rather, to their staffs. We all are. Roxim's just a little

more sensitive than most. That's why we made the

agreement with them in the first place."

 

"The dragons have an agreement with the wiz-

ards?"

 

Kazul nodded. "To be precise, the King of the

Dragons has an agreement with the head of the Society

of Wizards: the wizards stay out of our portions of the

Mountains of Morning, and we allow them partial ac-

cess to the Caves of Fire and Night. At least, that's the

way it's supposed to work. King Tokoz is getting old

and forgetful, and lately wizards have been turning up

in all sorts of places they aren't supposed to be."

 

"Like that wizard Zemenar I met on the path,"

Cimorene said. "Do you think he really was the same

Zemenar that's the head of the Society of Wizards?"

 

"I doubt that anyone, even another wizard, would

dare impersonate him," Kazul said. "He has a nasty

reputation."

 

Cimorene remembered the hard black eyes and

sharp features of the wizard she had met. He had cer-

tainly looked nasty enough, even when he was pre-

tending to be nice. He was sneaky, too, or he wouldn't

have tried to trick her. And he had been very annoyed

when Cimorene got off the ledge without his help.

Cimorene frowned.

 

"I wonder what he wanted, really," she mused.

"Do you suppose he'll stop by the way he said he

would?"

 

"I almost wish he would try," Kazul said. There

 

60

 

was an angry glint in her eye, and her claws made a

scratching sound against the stone floor of the cave as

 

she flexed them.

 

"Don't wiggle," Cimorene said. "If Zemenar is as

tricky as everyone says, he won't come while you're

here. He'll wait until you've gone somewhere and I'm

 

alone."

 

"True." Kazul frowned. Then she looked at Cim-

orene, and her eyes took on a speculative gleam. "He

probably thinks you're as silly as most princesses, so

he'll be hoping to trick you into giving him whatever

it is he's after. And if he does—"

 

"Then maybe I can fool him instead," Cimorene

finished. "And once we know what he's after, we can

decide what to do about it."

 

Kazul and Cimorene discussed this idea while Cim-

orene finished brushing the dragon's scales. There was

very little they could do to prepare since they did not

know when Zemenar might show up at the cave or

what he might do when he arrived. Then Kazul went

off to inspect the ledge where Cimorene had met the

wizard, to see whether bits of it were still invisible.

 

When Kazul had gone, Cimorene went into the

library to hunt through all the books and scrolls of

spells. The behavior of the dragons at dinner the pre-

vious evening had made a considerable impression on

her, and she wanted to see whether she could find a

spell to fireproof herself. Until then she hadn't realized

that when a dragon lost his temper, he started breath-

ing fire. Not that she was planning to do anything to

irritate Kazul—or any other dragon, for that matter—

 

6i

 

but the dragons at dinner had been too annoyed to be

careful, and she didn't want to get burned by accident,

no matter how sorry the dragon might be afterward.

 

At first Cimorene didn't have much luck. She hadn't

had time to do much organizing in the library, and

most of the books and scrolls were lying in haphazard,

dust-covered piles. Some had even fallen onto the floor,

and there were spiders everywhere. Cimorene realized

that if she wanted to find anything, she was going to

have to do some more cleaning first. With a sigh she

went to get a bucket of water, some cloths for washing

and dusting, and a handkerchief to tie over her hair.

 

She worked for several hours, dusting books and

manuscripts, wiping off the dirty bookshelves, and put-

ting the books back in neat rows when the shelves were

dry. She found two books and five old scrolls that

looked as if they might be interesting. These she set

on one of the tables to look at later. She had just pulled

a stained and yellowed stack of papers out of the back

of the second-to-last bookshelf when she heard some-

one hallooing outside.

 

"Now what?" she muttered crossly. She set the

papers on the table with the rest of the books she was

planning to look at later and went out to see who was

there.

 

To her surprise, the noise was coming from the

back entrance, not from the mouth of the cave. She

hurried into the passage, rounded the corner, and

found herself facing three beautiful, elegantly dressed

princesses. They were all blonde and blue-eyed and

 

62

 

slender, and several inches shorter than Cimorene. The

first one wore a gold crown set with diamonds, and

her hair was the color of sun-ripened wheat. The sec-

ond wore a silver crown set with sapphires, and her

hair was the color of crystallized honey. The last wore

a pearl-covered circlet, and her hair was the color of

ripe apricots. They looked rather taken aback by the

sight of Cimorene in her dust-covered dress and

kerchief.

 

"Oh, bother," Cimorene said under her breath.

Then she smiled her best smile and said, "Welcome to

the caves of the dragon Kazul. May I help you with

anything?"

 

"We have made the perilous journey through the

tunnels to see the Princess Cimorene, newly come to

these caverns, to comfort her and together bemoan our

sad and sorry fates," the first princess said haughtily.

'Tell her we are here."

 

"I'm Cimorene," Cimorene said. "I don't need

comforting, and I'm not particularly sad or sorry to be

here, but if you'd like to come in and have some tea,

you're welcome to."

 

The first two princesses looked as if they would

have liked to be startled and appalled by this an-

nouncement but were much too well bred to show what

they were feeling. The princess with the pearl circlet

looked surprised and rather intrigued, and she glanced

hopefully at her companions. They ignored her, but

after a moment the first princess said grandly, "Very

well, we will join you, then," and swept past Cimorene

into the cave.

 

63

 

The other princesses followed, the one with the

pearl circlet giving Cimorene a shy smile as she passed

Cimorene, wondering what she had gotten herself into

brought up the rear. The princesses stopped when they

reached the main cave, and the ones in the gold and

silver crowns looked a bit disgruntled. The one in the

pearl circlet stared in unabashed amazement. "My

goodness," she said, "you certainly do have a lot ot

space."

 

"Alianora!" the gold-crowned princess said sharp-

ly, and the princess with the pearl circlet flushed and

subsided, looking unhappy.

 

"This way," Cimorene said hastily, and led the

three princesses into the kitchen. "Do sit down," she

said, waving at the bench beside the kitchen table.

 

The gold-crowned princess looked at the bench

with distaste, but after a moment she sat down. The

other two followed her example. There was a brief si-

lence while Cimorene filled the copper teakettle and

hung it over the fire, and then the gold-crowned prin-

cess said, "I am remiss in my duties, for I have not yet

told you who we are. I am the Princess Keredwel of

the Kingdom of Raxwel, now captive of the dread

dragon Gomul. This"—she nodded toward the princess

in the silver crown—"is the Princess Hallanna of the

Kingdom of Poranbuth, now captive of the dread

dragon Zareth. And this"—she waved at the girl in the

pearl circlet—"is the Princess Alianora of the Duchy of

Toure-on-Marsh, now prisoner of the dread dragon

Woraug."

 

"Pleased to meet you," Cimorene said. "I am Prin-

 

 

64

 

cess Cimorene of the Kingdom of Lmderwall, now prin-

cess of the dragon Kazul. What sort of tea would you

like? I have blackberry, ginger, chamomile, and gun-

powder green. I'm afraid I used the last of the lapsang

souchong this morning."

 

"Blackberry, please," Keredwel said. She gave

Cimorene a considering look. "You seem to be most

philosophic about your fate."

 

"Would that I had so valiant a spirit," Hallanna

said in failing accents. "But my sensibility is too great,

I fear, for me to follow your example."

 

"If you don't like being a dragon's princess, why

don't you escape?" Cimorene asked, remembering that

Kazul had said that three princesses in a row had run

away from the yellow-green dragon, Moranz.

 

Keredwel and Hallanna looked shocked. "Without

being rescued?" Hallanna faltered. "Walk all that way,

with dragons and trolls and goodness knows what else

hiding in the rocks, ready to eat me? Oh, I couldn't!"

 

"It isn't done," Keredwel said coldly. "And I notice

that you haven't tried it."

 

"But I'm enjoying being Kazul's princess," Cim-

orene said cheerfully. "I suppose I might have been

upset if I'd been carried off the way you were, but I

can hardly complain as it is, can I?"

 

Alianora leaned forward. "Then you really did vol-

unteer to be Kazul's princess?"

 

Keredwel and Hallanna turned and stared at then-

companion. "Where did you get that ridiculous idea,

Alianora?" Hallanna said.

 

"W-Woraug said—" Alianora faltered.

 

65

 

 

 

 

"You must have misunderstood," Keredwel said

severely. "No one volunteers to be a dragon's princess.

It isn't done."

 

"Actually, Alianora's quite right," Cimorene said

as she set the teacups in front of her visitors. "I did

volunteer." She smiled sweetly at the thunderstruck

expressions on the faces of the first two princesses. "I

got tired of embroidery and etiquette."

 

Keredwel and Hallanna seemed unsure of how to

take this announcement, so they made polite conver-

sation about the tea and asked Cimorene questions

about the current fashions. Alianora didn't say very

much, and the few times she tried either Keredwel or

Hallanna jumped on her. Cimorene felt rather sorry for

Alianora.

 

The princesses swept off at last, still somewhat

puzzled by Cimorene's attitude. Cimorene gave a sigh

of relief and set about cleaning up the kitchen. She was

just rinsing the last of the cups when she heard some-

one hesitantly clearing her throat behind her. Cimorene

turned and saw Alianora standing timidly in the

doorway.

 

"Hello again," Cimorene said. "Did you forget

something?"

 

"Not exactly," Alianora said. "I mean, I told Ker-

edwel I did, but actually I just wanted to get away from

them for a while. I hope you don't mind."

 

"I don't mind at all as long as you don't expect

more hospitality," Cimorene assured her. "I have to

get back to work on the library."

 

"What are you doing?" Alianora asked. She

 

66

 

seemed really interested, so Cimorene explained about

the fireproofing spell.

 

"It sounds like,a wonderful idea," Alianora said

when Cimorene finished. "The dragons are careful

around us, but it would be nice not to have to depend

on them not to lose their tempers." She hesitated. "May

 

I help?"

 

"I don't think Kazul would mind," Cimorene said.

"But you'd better change clothes first. The library isn't

very clean, I'm afraid."

 

Alianora looked down at her silk gown, which was

embroidered heavily with silver and pearls, and gig-

gled. Cimorene took her into the bedroom and found

a plain, serviceable cleaning dress in the magic ward-

robe. It took two tries before the wardrobe figured out

that she wanted a dress for someone else, but once it

caught on, it provided a splendid selection in Alianora's

size. Then they went to the library and got to work.

 

Cleaning was much more enjoyable with Alianora for

company. By the time they finished dusting and

straightening the last bookcases, the two girls were fast

friends, and Alianora was comfortable enough to ask

Cimorene straight out how it was that she had come

to volunteer for a dragon.

 

"It's a long story," Cimorene said, but Alianora in-

sisted on hearing it. So Cimorene told her and then asked

how Alianora had happened to be carried off by Woraug.

 

To her surprise, Alianora flushed. "I think it was

the only thing left that they could think of," she said,

not very clearly. "My family, I mean."

 

6?

 

"I don't understand/' Cimorene said.

 

"It's because I'm not a very satisfactory princess,"

Alianora said. "I tried, I really did, but. ... It started

when the wicked fairy came to my christening."

 

"She put a curse on you?"

 

"No. She ate cake and ice cream until she nearly

burst and danced with my Uncle Arthur until two in

the morning and had a wonderful time. So she went

home without cursing me, and Aunt Ermintrude says

that that's where the whole problem started."

 

"Lots of princesses don't have christening curses,"

said Cimorene.

 

"Not if a wicked fairy comes to the christening,"

Alianora said positively. "And that was only the be-

ginning. When I turned sixteen. Aunt Ermintrude sent

me a gold spinning wheel for my birthday, and I sat

down and spun. I didn't prick my finger or anything."

 

Cimorene was beginning to see what Alianora was

getting at. "Well, if you didn't have a christening

curse ..."

 

"So Aunt Ermintrude told Mama to put me and a

spinning wheel in a room full of straw and have me

spin it into gold," Alianora went on. "And I tried! But

all I could manage was linen thread, and whoever heard

of a princess who can spin straw into linen thread?"

 

"It's a little unusual, certainly."

 

"Then they gave me a loaf of bread and told me

to walk through the forest and give some to anyone

who asked. I did exactly what they told me, and the

second beggar-woman was a fairy in disguise, but in-

stead of saying that whenever I spoke, diamonds and

 

68

 

loses would drop from my mouth, she said that since

I was so kind, I would never have any problems with

 

my teeth."

 

"Really? Did it work?"

 

"Well, I haven't had a toothache since I met her."

"I'd much rather have good teeth than have dia-

monds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I

said something/' Cimorene said. "Think how uncom-

fortable it would be if you accidentally talked in your

sleep! You'd wake up rolling around on thorns and

 

rocks."

 

"That never occurred to me," Alianora said, much

 

struck.

 

"Was that everything?" Cimorene asked.

 

"No," Alianora said. "Aunt Ermintrude persuaded

one of her fairy friends to give me a gown and a pair

of glass slippers to go to a ball in the next kingdom

over. And I broke one before I even got out of the castle!"

 

"Thafs not so surprising," Cimorene said. "Glass

slippers are for deserving merchants' daughters, not

for princesses."

 

"Try telling Aunt Ermintrude that," Alianora said.

"I think she was the one who found out that Woraug

was going to ravage a village just Over the border and

arranged for me to go and visit on the right day so I

could be carried off. She didn't even warn me. I sup-

pose she thought that if I knew, I'd mess it up some-

how."

 

"I don't think I would get along very well with

your Aunt Ermintrude," Cimorene commented thought-

fully.

 

69

 

"Oh, it wasn't so bad, at least at first," Alianora

said. "Woraug ignored me most of the time, especially

after he found out I can't cook, and it was a real relief

not to have Aunt Ermintrude around any more. Only

then Gornul brought Keredwel and Zareth brought Hal-

lanna, and ..."

 

"And they've been making life miserable for you

ever since," Cimorene finished. "Why don't you stand

up to them?"

 

"I tried, but you don't know what they're like,"

Alianora said, sighing. "Keredwel goes on and on about

correct behavior, and Hallanna dissolves in tears as

soon as it looks like she's losing an argument. And

they've both had dozens of knights and princes try to

rescue them. I've only had two."

 

"How do you do it?" Cimorene asked. "I've had

nine already, and they're a dreadful nuisance." Al-

ianora stared at Cimorene, then began to giggle.

"What's so funny?" Cimorene demanded.

 

"Keredwel bragged for a week because two knights

and a prince tried to rescue her the first month she was

here," Alianora explained between giggles. "She said

it was some kind of record. You've barely been with

Kazul for four weeks, and you've had nine, and you

didn't even mention it when Keredwel was here. She's

going to be furious when she finds out."

 

"If she wants them, she can have them," Cimorene

said. Her expression grew thoughtful. "Maybe they'd

be easier to get rid of if I sent them along to another

princess, instead of just trying to get them to go home."

 

"Oh!" said Alianora, and went off into gales of

 

70

 

laughter again. Cimorene gave her a questioning look.

"It's the idea of Keredwel being—oh, my—being res-

cued by a secondhand knight," Alianora gasped. "Oh,

 

dear!"

 

Cimorene's eyes began to dance. "I could take a

 

good look at them first, to make sure they're worthy

of her before I sent them on," she suggested.

 

This was too much for either of them, and they

both collapsed in laughter. "You wouldn't, really,

would you?" Alianora said when she began to recover.

 

"Send the knights to rescue someone else? I cer-

tainly would," Cimorene said emphatically. "I meant

it when I said they were a nuisance. I wouldn't want

to upset Keredwel, though. I'll have to think about the

best way of handling it. Ifs a good thing there probably

won't be any more of them for a few weeks. I should

have plenty of time to figure something out."

 

"How do you know that?" Alianora asked. Cim-

orene explained about the sign and Therandil and her

"sprained ankle." Alianora was impressed and prom-

ised to help if she could. "I'll tell Hallanna that you've

twisted your ankle. I know she'll tell the next knight

who comes to rescue her, and then it won't matter if

your Prince Therandil doesn't tell anybody."

 

This settled, the two girls sat down and began

looking through the books and scrolls Cimorene had

piled on the table. Alianora, having been brought up

as a proper princess despite the tiny size of her country,

did not read Latin, so Cimorene had to examine those

scrolls herself. There was a sizable stack of books left,

however, and Alianora waded into them with a will.

 

It was Cimorene, however, who finally found the spell

they were searching for.

 

"I think this is it!" she said, looking up from an

ancient, crumpled scroll. " 'Being a Spell for the Re-

sisting of Heat and Flames of All Kinds, in Particular

Those Which Are the Product of MagicaLBeasts,' " she

read. "Yes, there's a list and it includes dragons."

 

"I would think dragons would be at the top," Al-

ianora said. "Is it difficult?"

 

"It doesn't look hard," Cimorene said, studying

the page. "Some of the ingredients are pretty rare, but

it says you only need them for the initial casting. After

that, you can reactivate the spell just by throwing a

pinch of dried feverfew in the air and reciting a

couplet."

 

"That's not bad," Alianora said. She came around

the table and peered over Cimorene's shoulder at the

faded ink. "Is it Latin?"

 

"No, it's just an ornate style of writing," Cimorene

assured her. "It's not hard to read, once you get the

hang of it. See, there's the couplet.

 

"Power of water, wind and earth,

Turn the fire back to its birth."

 

"It's a variation on a dragon spell," Cimorene added

 

thoughtfully.

 

"How do you know that?" Alianora asked.

"The court wizard at home mentioned it when he

 

was teaching me magic," Cimorene replied, studying

 

the directions.

 

"Then maybe it really will work on dragon fire.

 

72

 

Can we get all the ingredients for the initial casting?"

 

"I think so, but it'll take a while," Cimorene said.

"I don't have any wolfsbane, and I'm not at all sure

about unicorn water. Come on, let's check and see what

we need to get."

 

They took the scroll into the kitchen and began

hunting through the shelves and supplies. They found

more of the ingredients than Cimorene had expected,

and she began to wonder whether one of Kazul's pre-

vious princesses might have studied magic. They did

not, however, find any wolfsbane or unicorn water,

nor were they able to locate any white eagle feathers.

Alianora discovered a very cobwebby jar labeled

"POWDERED HENS' TEETH," but it was quite empty.

 

Cimorene made a list of the ingredients they still

needed, while Alianora changed back into her pearl-

embroidered dress. Alianora took a copy of the list and

went back to her quarters, much excited, to see whether

she happened to have anything useful in the dusty,

disused comers of her dragon's kitchen. Cimorene

doubted that she would find anything, but there was

no harm in letting her look.

 

As soon as Alianora left, Cimorene tidied up the

kitchen and put all but two of the books back on the

shelves in the library. One was the scroll of spells in

which she had found the fireproofing spell, because

she wanted to take a more careful look at some of the

other charms and enchantments it described. The other

book was a fat volume bound in worn leather, with the

words Historia Dracorum in cracked and flaking gold leaf

on the cover. Cimorene had decided it was time she

really got to work on her Latin.

 

73

 

6

 

In Which the Wizards Do Some Snooping,

and Cimorene Snoops Back

 

LOT the next three weeks, Cimorene spent most of her

free time studying the fireproofing spell and collecting

the ingredients she would need to cast it. A few, like

the wolfsbane and feverfew, she could gather herself

from the herbs that grew on the slopes of the moun-

tains. Alianora found a little jar of hippopotamus oil

among the cosmetics left by her predecessor. The uni-

corn water Cimorene got from Morwen, after promising

her a copy of the spell if it worked. She went to Kazul

about the white eagle feathers, though she was a little

afraid to explain what she wanted them for. She didn't

want Kazul to think that she was worried about Kazul

losing her temper and accidentally roasting her. For-

 

74

 

tunatety, the dragon found the whole idea very

interesting.

 

"It could be very useful," Kazul said reflectively.

"There are enough hot-tempered youngsters around

that it would be well worth fireproofing the princesses

who have to deal with them."

 

"I'm not sure I'll be able to fireproof anyone at all,"

Cimorene said. "I still need the white eagle feathers

and the powdered hens' teeth, and nobody seems to

have any."

 

"I'll see what I can do," Kazul said, and a few days

later she dropped a bundle of white feathers at the door

of the kitchen. Half a feather was stuck to one of her

right daws, and another was caught between two of

her teeth, and she looked very pleased with herself.

Cimorene decided not to ask any awkward questions.

Even Kazul, however, could not find any hens' teeth,

so Cimorene had to keep putting off trying out the spell.

 

When she wasn't working on collecting the ingre-

dients for the fireproofing spell, Cimorene read the

Historia Dracorum. It was very difficult at first. After all,

it had been a long time since her last Latin lesson. She

kept working at it until she started to remember the

right endings for the declensions and conjugations and

cases. Shortly after that she realized that she was not

having to look up quite as many words as she had at

the beginning.

 

From then on, her progress was rapid. It helped

that she found the book fascinating. Dragon history

was not a subject commonly taught to princesses in

Linderwall. But as she was now a dragon's princess,

 

75

 

she had personal reasons to be interested. Besides, the

history of the dragons was very exciting. Every page

was full of descriptions of dragons ravaging villages,

carrying off princesses, defeating knights and princes

(and occasionally being defeated by them), and fighting

with wizards, giants, and each other. When the book

wasn't describing battles, it was describing famous

dragons' hoards and peculiar draconian customs.

 

Cimorene was in the library with the Historic Dra-

corum in front of her and her Latin dictionary on the

table beside her left hand when she heard someone

calling from the front of the cave. She had hoped it

would be at least a little longer before the knights

started coming back, so she couldn't help sighing as

she stuck a leather bookmark in the book and closed

it. Then she went out to argue with whoever it was

until they went away.

 

Two wizards were standing just outside the mouth

of the cave. Cimorene saw their wooden staffs first,

before she was close enough to see their faces. As she

came nearer, she recognized the one on the left as

Zemenar. The one on the right was taller and younger;

 

his brown hair and beard showed no trace of gray. His

blue and brown robes were identical to the older wiz-

ard's, except for the colors. His eyes were the same

bright black as his companion's, and he looked at Cim-

orene in a way that made her feel uneasy.

 

"Good morning to you. Princess Cimorene," Zem-

enar said. "I thought I would take you up on your kind

invitation to visit. I hope we haven't come at an incon-

venient time?"

 

76

 

"Not at all," Cimorene said, thinking hard. She

had promised Kazul that she would try to find out what

Zemenar was after if he showed up, and here he was.

Maybe if she convinced him that she was as silly as her

sisters, he would be careless enough to let something

slip.

 

"I thought perhaps we might have since it took

you so long to come out," Zemenar said mildly, but

Cimorene thought there was a hint of suspicion in his

eyes.

 

"I must not have heard you right away," Cimorene

said, batting her eyes innocently, the way her next

youngest sister did whenever she had done something

particularly foolish. "Kazul has quite a large set of

caves, and I was in one of the ones at the back. I'm so

sorry."

 

"Ah." Zemenar stroked his beard with his left

hand. "That would make it difficult for you. Perhaps

we could set up a spell for you, one that would let you

know whenever anyone comes to visit. It would be

more pleasant for visitors, too, if they didn't have to

shout. What do you think, Antorell?"

 

"Like the one at the headquarters of the society,"

the second wizard said, nodding. "We could do it in

two or three minutes, right from here. It'd be easy."

 

Zemenar shot a dark look at his companion. Cim-

orene was sure that he'd wanted to pretend he was

inventing a difficult new spell, so that he would have

an excuse to wander around Kazul's caves. "Quite so,"

said Zemenar. "Well, Princess?"

 

"Oh, dear, I don't know," Cimorene said, doing

 

77

 

her best to imitate the way her eldest sister behaved

whenever anyone wanted her to decide anything. "It

sounds very nice, but Kazul is so picky about where

things go and how things are done. . . . No, I couldn't,

I simply couldn't let you do anything like that without

asking Kazul first."

 

"What a pity," Zemenar said. His companion

coughed and shuffled his feet. "Ah, yes. Allow me to

present my son, Antorell. I hope you don't mind my

bringing him along?"

 

"Of course not," Cimorene said politely.

 

"I am pleased to make the acquaintance of such a

lovely princess," Antorell said, bowing.

 

Cimorene blinked. This wasn't getting anywhere.

Maybe if she brought them inside they'd relax a little.

"Thank you," she said to Antorell. "Won't you come

in and have some tea?"

 

"We would be delighted," Zemenar said quickly.

"If you'll lead the way. Princess?"

 

"This way," Cimorene said. She stopped just in-

side the mouth of the cave and gave the wizards her

sweetest and most innocent smile. "You can leave your

staffs right here. Just lean them up against the wall."

 

Antorell looked considerably startled, and Zem-

enar frowned. "Is this, too, something your dragon

requires?" he said.

 

"I don't know," Cimorene said, wrinkling up her

forehead the way her third-from-eldest sister did when-

ever she was puzzled (which was often). "But they'll

be so awkward in the kitchen. Don't you think so?

There's not very much room."

 

78

 

"We'll manage," Zemenar said.

 

Cimorene hadn't really expected to get the wizards

to let go of their staffs, but it had been worth a try.

She shrugged and smiled and led them on into the

kitchen, where she made a point of bumping into the

staffs or tripping over them every time she went by.

Finally Antorell turned his sideways and stuck it under

the table. Zemenar hung onto his with a kind of grim,

suspidous stubbornness that made Cimorene wonder

whether she was fooling him at all with her pretended

silliness.

 

The wizards made uncomfortable conversation

about the weather and the size of the kitchen for several

minutes while Cimorene fixed the tea and poured it.

"Are the rest of Kazul's caves this large?" Zemenar

asked as Cimorene handed him his teacup. She had

given him the one with the broken handle, even though

he was a guest, because she didn't trust him.

 

"Oh, yes," Cimorene said. She was beginning to

think she was never going to find out anything. The

two wizards seemed perfectly happy to sit at the

kitchen table and talk about nothing whatever for

hours.

 

"Remarkable," said Antorell in an admiring tone.

"You know, we wizards don't often get to see the inside

of a dragon's cave."

 

I'll bet you don't, thought Cimorene as she gave him

a puzzled smile. "That's too bad," she said aloud.

 

"Yes, it is," Zemenar said. "Perhaps you'd be will-

ing to show us around?"

 

Cimorene thought very rapidly. It was obvious that

 

79

 

she wasn't going to learn anything if the wizards j» ••<

sat at the kitchen table and drank tea, so she decic. >',

to take a chance. "Well," she said in a doubtful to, i ,

"I suppose it would be all right as long as I don't take

you into the treasure rooms."

 

"That's fine," Antorell said, a little too quickly.

 

"You won't touch anything, will you?" Cimorene

said as they stood up. "Kazul is so particular about

where things are kept . . ."

 

"Of course not," Zemenar said, smiling insin-

cerely.

 

Cimorene smiled back and led the way out into

the hall. She watched the wizards carefully as she took

them through the large main cave, the general storage

caverns, and the big cavern where Kazul visited with

other dragons. Zemenar made polite noises about the

size and comfort of everything, but neither he nor An-

torell seemed very interested. "And this is the library,"

Cimorene said, throwing the door open.

 

"I am impressed," Zemenar said, and Cimorene

could tell that this time he meant it. She stepped side-

ways, so that she could keep an eye on both of the

wizards at the same time.

 

"A remarkable collection," Antorell commented.

He began walking around the room, admiring the book-

shelves and scanning the titles of the books.

 

"What's this?" Zemenar said, bending over the

table. "The Historia Dracorum? A surprising choice for

light reading. Princess." His eyes met Cimorene's, and

they were hard and bright and suspicious.

 

"Oh, I'm not reading it," Cimorene said hastily,

 

So

 

opening her eyes very wide. "I just thought it would

make the library look nicer to have a book or two sitting

out on the table. More—more lived-in."

 

Zemenar nodded, looking relieved and faintly con-

temptuous. "I think it works very well. Princess," he

said. "Very well indeed." Then he looked over at the

other side of the room and said sharply, "Antorell!

What are you doing?"

 

Cimorene turned her head in time to see Antorell

put out a hand and deliberately tip several books off

one of the shelves. "Stop that!" she said, forgetting to

sound silly.

 

"I'm very sorry. Princess," Antorell said. "Will you

help me put them back where they belong?"

 

Cimorene had no choice but to go over and help

him. It took several minutes to get everything back in

place because Antorell kept dropping things. Cimorene

got quite annoyed with him and finally did it all herself.

As she started to turn back to the center of the room,

she caught a glimpse of Zemenar hastily dosing the

Historia Dracorum. Cimorene pretended not to notice,

but she made a mental note that he had been looking

at something near the middle of the book.

 

"That was dreadfully careless of you," Cimorene

said, frowning at Antorell.

 

"Very clumsy," Zemenar agreed.

 

"I don't know what Kazul will say when she finds

out about it," Cimorene went on. "Really, it is too bad

of you. I did ask you not to touch anything, you know."

 

"Yes, you did," Zemenar said. "And I wouldn't

like to think that we had gotten you in trouble. Perhaps

 

81

 

it would be best if you didn't mention to Kazul that

we were here at all."

 

"I suppose I could do that," Cimorene said in a

doubtful tone.

 

"Of course you can," Antorell said encouragingly.

"And I'll come back in a few days, to make sure every-

thing's all right."

 

"I think ifs time we were on our way," Zemenar

said, giving his son a dark look. "Thank you for show-

ing us around. Princess."

 

Cimorene escorted them out of the cave and made sure

they had left, then hurried back to the library. She spent

the next several hours poring over the middle parts of

the Historia Dracorum, trying to figure out what Zem-

enar had been looking at. She was still there when

Kazul arrived home and called for her.

 

"That wizard Zemenar finally came, and h-'

brought his son along with him," Cimorene said as sho-

came out of the library.

 

"I know," said Kazul. Her voice sounded a littt>-

thick, as if she had a cold. "I could smell them th°

minute I came in."

 

"Is that why you sound so odd?" Cimorene askec

"You're not going to sneeze, are you?"

 

"I don't think so," Kazul replied. "Don't worn

about it. I'll have plenty of time to turn my head away.

 

"I wish I could get hold of some hens' teeth," Cim-

orene said, frowning. "That fireproofing spell—"

 

"Have you looked in the treasure rooms?" Kazul

asked.

 

82

 

"No," Cimorene replied, startled. She remembered

seeing a number of jars and bottles of various shapes

and sizes when she had been organizing the treasure,

and none of them had been labeled. "I didn't think of

it and besides, ifs your treasure."

 

"You're my princess, at least until someone rescues

you or I decide otherwise," Kazul pointed out. "Go

ahead and look, and if you find any hens' teeth, use

them. Be careful when you're checking the jars, though.

There are one or two with lead stoppers that shouldn't

be opened."

 

"Lead stoppers," Cimorene said. "I'll remember."

 

"Good. Now, what did those wizards want?"

 

"I'm not sure." Cimorene explained everything

that had happened, including how she had seen Zem-

enar closing the history book as she turned and how

the two wizards had been perfectly willing to leave right

after that. "But just before they disappeared, Antorell

said he might come back another time," Cimorene con-

cluded. "So I don't know whether they found what

they were looking for or not."

 

"Do you know which part of the Historia Dracorum

Zemenar was reading?" Kazul asked.

 

"Somewhere in the middle, a little past my book-

mark," Cimorene replied. "I was just looking at it when

you came in. Ifs the part about how the dragons came

to the Mountains of Morning and settled into the caves

and chose a king."

 

'That's the section where the Historia describes the

Caves of Fire and Night, isn't it?" Kazul said.

 

Cimorene nodded. "There was a whole page about

 

83

 

somebody finding a stone in the caves so that the drag-

ons could pick a king. It didn't make much sense to me."

 

"Colin's Stone," Kazul said, nodding. "We've used

it to choose our king ever since the first time. When a

king dies, all the dragons go to the Ford of Whispering

Snakes in the Enchanted Forest and take turns trying

to move Colin's Stone from there to the Vanishing

Mountain. The one that succeeds is the next king."

 

"What if there are two dragons strong enough to

move it?" Cimorene asked curiously.

 

"It's not a matter of strength," Kazul said. "Colin's

Stone isn't much larger than you are. Even a small

dragon could carry that much weight twice around the

Enchanted Forest without any trouble at all. But Colin's

Stone has an aura, a kind of vibration. When you carry

it, you can feel it humming through your claws, and

the humming gets stronger the farther you go until

your bones are shaking. Most dragons have to drop it

or be shaken to pieces, but there's always one who

is ... suited to the stone. For that dragon, the stone's

humming is just a pleasant buzz, so of course it's easy

to get it to the Vanishing Mountain."

 

"You sound as if you've had experience," Cim-

orene said.

 

"Of course," Kazul responded matter-of-factly. "I

was old enough to participate in the tests when the last

king died." She smiled reminiscently. "I got farther

than anyone expected me to, though I wasn't one of

the top ten by any means."

 

Cimorene tilted her head to one side, considering.

"I think I'm glad you didn't win."

 

84

 

"Oh? Why is that?" Kazul sounded amused.

 

"Because you wouldn't have had any use for a

princess if you were the Queen of the Dragons, and if

you hadn't decided to take me on, that yellow-green

dragon Moranz would probably have eaten me," Cim-

orene explained.

 

"You mean, if I were the King of the Dragons,"

Kazul corrected her. "Queen of the Dragons is a dull

job."

 

"But you're a female!" Cimorene said. "If you'd

carried Colin's Stone from the Ford of Whispering

Snakes to the Vanishing Mountain, you'd have had to

be a queen, wouldn't you?"

 

"No, of course not," Kazul said. "Queen of the

Dragons is a totally different job from King, and ifs

not one I'm particularly interested in. Most people

aren't. I think the position's been vacant since Oraun

tore his wing and had to retire."

 

"But King Tokoz is a male dragon!" Cimorene said,

then frowned. "Isn't he?"

 

"Yes, yes, but that has nothing to do with it,"

Kazul said a little testily. " 'King' is the name of the

job. It doesn't matter who holds it."

 

Cimorene stopped and thought for a moment.

"You mean that dragons don't care whether their king

is male or female; the title is the same no matter who

the ruler is."

 

"That's right. We like to keep things simple."

 

"Oh." Cimorene decided to return to the original

topic of conversation before the dragon's "simple"

ideas confused her any further. "Why would the wiz-

 

85

 

ards be interested in Colin's Stone if it's only used for

picking out the kings of the dragons?"

 

"I doubt that they are," Kazul replied. "However,

Colin's Stone was found in the Caves of Fire and Night,

and wizards have always been interested in the caves.

But the dragons control most of them, .and all the easy

entrances are ours, so the wizards have never been able

to find out as much as they would like. The Historia

Dracorum is one of the few books that talks about the

caves at all, and there aren't many copies. I'll wager

Zemenar would have stolen it outright if he'd thought

he could get away with it."

 

"I thought the dragons let wizards into the Caves

of Fire and Night/' Cimorene objected. "Why would

Zemenar be poking through history books looking for

information if he can just go and look at them whenever

he wants to?"

 

"We don't let wizards visit the caves whenever

they want," Kazul said. "If we did, they'd be running

in and out all the time, and nobody would be able to

breathe without sneezing. No, they're limited to certain

days and times, and if they want to visit the Caves of

Fire and Night otherwise, they have to use one of the

entrances we don't control. Few of them try. The other

ways of getting into the caves are very dangerous, even

for wizards."

 

"Maybe they're looking for an easier way in."

 

"Mmm." Kazul did not seem to be paying much

attention. She thought for a moment, then turned to-

ward the cave mouth. "I'm going to go see Gaurim.

Roxim said a book had been stolen from her library,

 

86

 

and I want to know which one. I'll be back in a few

 

hours."

 

"I think I'll go look at the Historia Dracorum again

while you're gone," Cimorene said thoughtfully. "If

there is something useful in it about the Caves of Fire

and Night, maybe I can find it, now that I know what

I'm looking for."

 

Cimorene spent the rest of the afternoon carefully trans-

lating the chapter that talked about the caves. She was

disappointed to find that there was very little about the

caves themselves, though what was there was inter-

esting. The book told how the dragons had discovered

the back way into the caves and described some of the

things they had found in them—caverns full of blue

and green fire, pools of black liquid that would cast a

cloud of darkness for twenty miles around if you

poured three drops on the ground, walls made of crys-

tal that multiplied every sound a thousandfold, rocks

that spurted fire when they were broken. Most of the

rest of the chapter was about Colin's Stone, and how

it was taken out of the caves by the first King of the

Dragons.

 

Kazul returned just before dinner, and she and

Cimorene compared notes. Cimorene told Kazul what

she had learned from the chapter on the Caves of Fire

and Night, and then Kazul explained what she had

learned from Gaurim.

 

"The stolen book was The Kings of the Dragons, and

the entire first section was about Colin's Stone and the

Caves of Fire and Night," Kazul said. "And only a

 

8?

 

wizard could have gotten past the spells and safeguards

Gaurim puts on her library. I think that settles it. The

wizards are definitely collecting information about the

Caves of Fire and Night."

 

"Then why do they keep looking at books of

dragon history?" Cimorene asked. "It seems like a

roundabout way of finding out whatever it is that they

want to know."

 

"There isn't any other way to do it," Kazul said.

"Nobody but dragons has ever had much to do with

the caves, and no one has written much about them

except in dragon histories. Even the wizards weren't

particularly interested in them until a few years ago,

except as a reliable route into the Enchanted Forest."

 

"But from what I've been reading in the Historia

Dracorum, the caves sound fascinating," Cimorene said.

"You mean to say that no one has ever written anything

about the Caves of Fire and Night except dragons?"

 

"That's—" Kazul stopped suddenly, and her eyes

narrowed. "No, that's not right. There was a rather

rumpled scholar who talked his way into the caves a

century or so back, and after he left he wrote an ex-

tremely dry book about what he found there. I'd for-

gotten about him."

 

"Do you have a copy?" Cimorene asked hopefully.

 

"No," Kazul said. "But I don't think the Society

of Wizards does, either. There weren't very many of

them printed, and a lot of those were lost in a flood a

few years later. Some hero or other shoved a giant into

a lake to drown him. The silly clunch didn't realize that

if he put something that big into a lake, the water would

have to go somewhere."

 

88

 

"Well, that doesn't do us much good," Cimorene

said. "It's nice that the Society of Wizards doesn't have

a copy of that book, but if we can't get hold of one

either—"

 

"I didn't say that," Kazul said. "I don't have a

copy myself, but I know who does."

 

"Who?" Cimorene said impatiently.

 

"Morwen. I'm afraid you're not going to be able

to work on that fireproofing spell of yours tomorrow.

We're going to take a trip to the Enchanted Forest

instead."

 

89

 

7

 

In Vfhich Cimorene and Kazul

Make a Journey Underground

 

v»»imorene was surprised to hear that Kazul intended

to take her along on the visit to Morwen, and she was

not entirely sure she liked the idea. She had heard a

great deal about the Enchanted Forest, and none of it

was reassuring. People who traveled there were always

getting changed into flowers or trees or animals or

rocks, or doing something careless and having their

heads turned backward, or being carried off by ogres

or giants or trolls, or enchanted by witches or wicked

fairies. It did not sound like a good place for a casual,

pleasant visit.

 

On the other hand, it seemed unlikely that any-

thing dreadful would happen to Cimorene if she were

 

90

 

traveling with a dragon, and she was looking forward

to seeing Morwen again. Besides, Cimorene was

curious.

 

"And anyway," she said to herself, "Kazul says

I'm going, and there's no point in worrying about it if

I don't have any choice." Nevertheless, she dedded to

take one of the smaller magic swords along with her,

if Kazul said it was all right. Cimorene saw no point

in taking unnecessary chances.

 

Kazul had no objection, so Cimorene picked out a

small, plain-looking sword in a worn leather scabbard

that made the wearer invincible, and they started off.

Cimorene had assumed that Kazul would fly through

the pass, but Kazul said no.

 

"Ifs not that easy to get into the Enchanted For-

est," she explained. "At least, not if you're trying to

get in. Princes and youngest sons and particularly

clever tailors stumble into it by accident all the time,

but if one wants to go there on purpose, one has to

follow the proper route."

 

"I didn't think dragons had that kind of problem,"

Cimorene said.

 

"Dragons don't," Kazul replied. "But you're not a

dragon."

 

So instead of flying through the Pass of Silver Ice,

Kazul led Cimorene through the tunnels. Cimorene had

to walk very quickly to keep up, even though Kazul

was moving slowly. It was not long before she was

wishing that the tunnels were high enough for her to

ride on Kazul's back. The route twisted around and up

and back and forth and down and around again until

 

Cimorene was thoroughly lost. Finally they came to a

gate made of iron bars that completely blocked the

passage. Cimorene studied it carefully, but she could

see no sign of a handle or a lock.

 

"This is the entrance to the Caves of Fire a" ^

Night," Kazul said. "Be careful from here on,,and dor ,

wander away or you'll get lost."

 

Cimorene refrained from saying that as far as s'r -

was concerned, they were lost already. "How are y*

going to open it?" she asked instead.

 

"Like this," said Kazul.

 

"By night and flame and shining rock

Open thou thy hidden lock.

Alberolingam!"

 

As the sound of Kazul's voice died away, the iron

gate swung silently open. "That's a very unusual open-

ing spell," Cimorene commented, impressed.

 

"It wasn't always that complicated," Kazul said.

She sounded almost apologetic. "I believe the first ver-

sion was very simple, just 'Open sesame,' but word

got around and we had to change it."

 

Cimorene nodded and followed Kazul through the

gate and into the Caves of Fire and Night. For the first

hundred yards or so, the only difference Cimorene

could see between these caves and the ordinary tunnels

on the other side of the gate was that the Caves of Fire

and Night were warmer. Then, very suddenly, her

lamp went out, plunging everything into complete and

utter blackness.

 

Cimorene stopped walking immediately. "Kazul?"

"It's quite all right. Princess," Kazul's disembodied

voice said from out of the darkness. "This happens all

the time here. Don't bother trying to relight the lamp.

Just put your hand on my elbow and follow along that

 

way."

 

"AU right," Cimorene said doubtfully. She groped

with her free hand in the direction of Kazul's voice and

scraped her knuckles on the dragon's scales. "Ow!"

 

"Take your time," Kazul advised.

 

"I'm ready," Cimorene said. Her right hand was

pressed flat against the cool, rough-edged scales at

the back of Kazul's left forearm. "Just don't move

too fast, or I'll lose you or get stepped on or some-

thing."

 

Kazul did her best to oblige, but Cimorene still had

difficulty in keeping up. She had to take at least three

steps for every one of Kazul's, and it seemed that every

time she moved her foot, she hit a rock or an uneven

place in the tunnel floor. Then she would stumble, and

her hand would scrape and slide against Kazul's scales,

so that she was afraid she would lose contact with the

dragon.

 

"Are you sure I shouldn't try and relight the

lamp?" Cimorene asked after her fifth painful stumble-

and-shde.

 

"Quite sure," Kazul said. "You see, it isn't—ah,

there it goes." While Kazul was speaking, there was a

flicker of light, and then the darkness rolled aside like

a curtain being pulled. Cimorene found herself stand-

ing in a large cave whose walls glittered as if they were

 

93

 

studded with thousands of tiny mirrors. The lamp ir

her left hand was burning cheerfully once more.

 

"Was it the lamp?" Cimorene asked after studying

it for a moment. "Or was it me?"

 

"It was the caves," Kazul said. "That was one of

the reasons they're 'of night' as well as 'of fire.' "

 

"Only one of the reasons?" Cimorene said thought-

fully. "I don't like the sound of that."

 

"You'll be quite all right as long as you're with

me," Kazul assured her. "Very few things are willing

to mess with a dragon, even in the dark. And the

periods of darkness don't last long. Ifs because the

magic of these caves doesn't affect us as much as other

people, or so I'm told."

 

"You mean that blackness is likely to come back?"

 

Kazul nodded.

 

"Then let's get as far as we can before it does,"

Cimorene said, and started across the cave.

 

There were four tunnels leading out of the opposite

side of the glittering cavern. Kazul took the second from

the left without hesitating an instant.

 

"Where do all these tunnels go?" Cimorene asked,

glancing at the other three openings as she followed

Kazul.

 

"The one on the right end leads to a chain of cav-

erns," Kazul said over her shoulder. "The first few are

quite ordinary, but then you come to one full of hot

sulfur pools. Some of the older dragons bathe there.

They claim the water is good for rheumatism. Beyond

that is a cave with molten silver dripping down the

walls, and the chain ends at a deep chasm with a river

of red-hot melted rock at the bottom."

 

94

 

"Doesn't sound very attractive," Cimorene com-

mented.

 

"The dwarfsmiths find it very useful for forging

magic swords," Kazul assured her. "The second tunnel

on the right takes you into a maze. The tunnels and

caverns constantly shift around, so that no matter how

carefully you mark your way, you always get lost."

 

"Even dragons?"

 

Kazul nodded. "Though I believe there was one

prince who managed to find his way out with a magic

ball of string."

 

"Oh, bother!" said Cimorene. The lights had gone

out again, just as they emerged into a small cave.

 

"Ifs quite all right. This part's easy," Kazul said.

 

"Next time I'm going to bring a cane," Cimorene

muttered. "Where do the other tunnels lead?"

 

"The one on the far left goes through a couple of

caverns that are pretty, but not very interesting. We're

always chasing knights and princes out of it, though.

They come for flasks of water from the bottomless pool

at the far end."

 

"What does it do?" Cimorene asked. "Ow!" She

had just banged her right elbow against the wall of the

cave in the dark.

 

"It casts a cloud of darkness for twenty miles

around when ifs poured on the ground," Kazul re-

plied.

 

"How useful," Cimorene muttered balefully, rub-

bing her elbow.

 

"And this tunnel leads to the Enchanted Forest,

by way of the King's Cave," Kazul finished.

 

"Oh, good. I was hoping to see that," Cimorene

 

95

 

said. The King's Cave was the chamber where the first

King of the Dragons had found Colin's Stone, and the

Historia Dracorum had not described it anywhere near

well enough to suit Cimorene. "And here's the light

coming back, thank goodness. Lefs hurry before it goes

again."

 

They went through three small caves and two more

periods of blackness before they reached the King's

Cave. Kazul pointed out various locations of interest,

such as the wall of crystal with a chip in one comer

where the Prince of the Ruby Throne had stolen a piece

to make a magic ring and the jewel-studded cavern

where the King of the Dragons met with people who

needed impressing. There was one very eerie cave full

of slabs of black rock. Most were standing on end,

though a few had fallen over. Kazul said they were all

enchanted princes.

 

"All of them?" Cimorene asked, appalled. There

were at least forty of the stone slabs, and the cave was

quite crowded.

 

Kazul shook her head. "No, the one on the end

there is just an ordinary boulder."

 

"How did it happen?"

 

"The princes came to steal some of the Water of

Healing from the well at the end of the cave," Kazul

said. "There are two dippers by the well: one is tin,

the other is solid gold and covered with jewels. The

princes all tried to use the gold one, even though they'd

been told that only the tin dipper would work. It's no

more than they deserve."

 

Cimorene frowned, thinking of some of the princes

 

96

 

she had known. "Well, I won't deny that they probably

behaved foolishly, but—"

 

"Foolishly!" Kazul snorted. "Any reasonably well-

educated prince ought to have sense enough to follow

directions when he's on a quest, but all of these fellows

were sure they knew better. If they'd simply done what

they were told, they wouldn't be here."

 

"Still, turning them into slabs of stone forever

seems a little extreme."

 

"Oh, they won't be stone forever," Kazul said.

"Sooner or later someone will come along who has the

sense not to improvise, and he'll succeed in getting the

water. Then he'll use some of it to disenchant this lot,

and the cave will be empty for a while until the next

batch of young idiots starts arriving."

 

Cimorene felt better knowing that the princes

would someday be freed, though she had sense enough

not to try doing it herself. Since she had not been sent

on a quest for the Water of Healing, it was highly

unlikely that she would be able to disenchant the

princes even if she succeeded in taking the water. And

she knew enough about quests and enchantments and

the obtaining of things with magical properties to know

that she would probably get into a lot of trouble if she

tried. So she tucked the matter into the back of her

mind and followed Kazul through the stone-filled cav-

ern. She was careful not to step on any of the fallen

slabs.

 

Just outside the entrance to the next cave, Kazul

stopped. "This," she said, "is the King's Cave. We have

to cross it as quickly as we can. Don't stop in the

 

97

 

middle, and don't say anything while we're inside.

Understand? Good. Come on, then."

 

As soon as she stepped inside the cave, Cimorene

understood the reason for Kazul's request for silence.

The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were made of dark,

shiny stone that multiplied and threw back echoes of

even the smallest sound. The soft scraping of Kazul's

scales against the floor sounded like thirty men sawing

wood, and the tiny gasp Cimorene gave at the sight

and sound of the cave was as loud as if she had

shouted. Cimorene went on as quietly and carefully as

she could.

 

Halfway across, she noticed the vibration. It began

as a gentle and not unpleasant buzzing in her bones,

unrelated to the loud and continually multiplying

echoes of her passage, though it, too, grew stronger

the farther into the cave she went. Kazul was in front

of her now, and she saw the dragon's tail lash once,

as if in pain or anger. Suddenly she remembered Ka-

zul's description of the aura that made it impossible for

most dragons to carry Colin's Stone, and that this was

the place where Colin's Stone had been found. No

wonder Kazul was uncomfortable.

 

Cimorene found herself wishing she could stop

and pay attention to the humming in her bones, but

she remembered Kazul's directions and continued

walking. She had nearly reached the exit when she saw

a pebble about the size of her thumbnail, made of the

same dark, shiny stone as the cavern walls. Kazul had

said nothing about picking things up, so Cimorene

veered a little to the right and scooped the pebble up

 

98

 

 

 

 

as she passed. A moment later she was out of the cave.

 

"Phew!" said Kazul. "I'm glad thafs over. From

here on, it should be easy."

 

"Good," said Cimorene. She dropped the pebble

into her pocket to look at more closely later and fo'

lowed Kazul down the narrow, winding tunnel.

 

99

 

8

 

In Which Cimorene and Kazul Pay a Call,

and Cimorene Gets into a Fight

 

£\. few minutes later they came out of the Caves of

Fire and Night into bright sunMght. Cimorene had to

shade her eyes against the sudden glare. As her eyes

adjusted, she saw a large clearing around the mouth

of the cave. The ground was covered with short grass,

so lush and dense that it made Cimorene think of green

fur. Here and there a tiny flower twinkled among the

blades of grass. At the edge of the clearing the forest

began, but Cimorene could only make out the first row

of trees. They were enormous, so large that they

dwarfed even Kazul.

 

"Leave the lamp here," Kazul said. "There's no

 

100

 

sense in carting it around the forest when we won't

need it until we come back."

 

Cimorene set the lamp on the ground just inside

the mouth of the cave. "Now what?" she said.

 

"Now we go to Morwen's," Kazul said. "And we'll

get there more quickly if you ride. If you climb up on

that rock over there, you ought to be able to get on my

back without too much trouble."

 

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Cimorene said,

scrambling up onto the rock Kazul had indicated.

 

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I minded," Kazul

said. "Right there will be fine. You can hang onto the

spike in front of you and you won't foul my wings if

I have to take off suddenly."

 

Cimorene did not like the implication that there

were things in the Enchanted Forest that were nasty

enough to make a dragon want to take off suddenly,

but she did not say so. It was too late to back out, and

she certainly wasn't going to wait at the mouth of the

cave all alone while Kazul went off to visit Morwen.

There was no reason to think that waiting would be

any safer than going along.

 

As soon as Cimorene was settled, Kazul set off into

the forest at a rapid pace. At first Cimorene had to

concentrate on holding on, but after a while she began

to get the hang of it. Soon she was able to look at some

of the things they were passing. The trees were huge;

 

Cimorene guessed that even if there were four of her^^-

holding hands, she would not be able to reach all the

way around one of the trunks. The ground was car-

peted with bright green moss that looked even thicker

 

101

 

than the grass in the clearing. Cimorene saw no flowers

in it, but she spotted several bushes and a vine with

three different colors of fruit.

 

Kazul changed course several times for no reason

that Cimorene could see, but she did not like to distract

the dragon by asking questions. They passed a mansion

guarded by a fence made of gold and a short tower

without any windows or doors. Then Kazul splashed

through a shallow stream and made a sharp turn. The

trees thinned a little, and Kazul stopped in front of a

neat gray house with a wide porch and a red roof. Over

the door was a black-and-gold sign in large block letters

reading, "NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE "

 

There were several cats of various sizes and colors

perched on the porch railing or lying in the sun. As

Cimorene dismounted, Kazul said to one of them,

"Would you be good enough to tell Morwen that I'm

here and would like to talk to her?"

 

The cat, a large gray torn, blinked its yellow eyes

at Kazul. Then he jumped down from the porch rail

and sauntered into the house, his tail held high as if

to say, "I'm doing this as a particular favor, mind, and

don't you forget it."

 

"He doesn't seem very impressed," Cimorene

commented in some amusement.

 

"Why should he be?" Kazul said.

 

"Well, you're a dragon," Cimorene answered, a

little taken aback.

 

"What difference does that make to a cat?"

 

Fortunately, Cimorene did not have to find an an-

swer, for at that moment Morwen appeared in the door-

 

 

102

 

way. She was wearing the same black robe she had

worn when she visited Cimorene, or another one ex-

actly like it, and she peered through her glasses with

the air of someone studying an unexpected and rather

peculiar puzzle.

 

"Good morning, Kazul," she said after a moment.

"This is a surprise."

 

"Good," said Kazul. "If you aren't expecting us to

be here, no one else is, either."

 

"Thafs the way of things, is it?" Morwen com-

mented thoughtfully. "How much of a hurry are you

 

in?"

 

"Not much of one, as long as no one knows we're

here," Kazul replied.

 

"Then Cimorene had better get down and have

something to drink," Morwen said in a tone that for-

bade contradiction. "There's cider, or goat's milk,

though if you want that, you'll have the cats after you,

or I can put a kettle on for tea. Good gradous, what

have you done to your hand?"

 

While Morwen had been talking, Cimorene had

t   turned and slid carefully down Kazul's side. It was a

I   long slide, and when her feet hit the ground, she had

f   to put out a hand to keep from falling. Morwen's ex-

clamation made her blink in surprise, and she looked

i   down. The palm of her right hand was covered with

j   blood from half a dozen deep slashes and as many

scrapes.

 

"Oh, dear," Cimorene said. "It must have hap-

pened in the caves, when it was so dark. I didn't realize.

It doesn't hurt at all."

 

103

 

"Hurting or not, it needs attention," Morwen said

firmly. "Come inside, and I'll see to it while Kazul tells

me why you're here. You'll have to go around back

this time," she added, turning to Kazul. "The front

steps won't take the weight. A gnome stole one of the

supports, and I haven't had time to get it fixed yet.

Pesky creatures—they're worse than mice."

 

"Don't the cats keep the mice away?" Cimorene

asked, mildly puzzled.

 

"Yes, but they don't do a thing about gnomes,

which is why gnomes are worse. Mind the step."

 

Kazul started walking while Morwen shooed Cim-

orene up the wooden steps and into the house. Several

of the cats eyed Cimorene curiously as she passed, and

a tortoiseshell kitten got up and followed her in.

 

The front door led into a large, airy room with an

iron stove in one comer. There was a good deal of

furniture, but everything except the table and the stove

had at least one cat on top of it. Morwen frowned at a

fat and fluffy Persian that was sitting on one of the

chairs. The cat stood up, yawned, gave its front paws

a cursory lick or two just to show that this was all his

own idea, and jumped down onto the floor. As Cim-

orene sat down in the vacated chair, there was a knock

at the wooden door on the opposite side of the room.

 

"That'll be Kazul," Morwen said. She crossed to

tile door and opened it. "Come in. I'll get you some

dder as soon as I've seen to Cimorene's hand."

 

Morwen's back door did not seem to get any larger,

and Kazul certainly did not get any smaller, but when

she put her head through the doorway, her scales did

 

104

 

not even scrape the sides. The rest of her followed with

no apparent difficulty, and somehow there was plenty

of room in the kitchen even after she got inside.

 

Kazul settled down along the far wall, where she

would be out of the way, and as soon as she stopped

moving, six cats jumped onto various portions of her

tail, back, and shoulders. Neither Kazul nor Morwen

seemed to notice. Morwen took a small tin box from a

shelf beside the stove and sat down at the table beside

Cimorene. "Now, tell me what you're here for," she

said, taking a roll of linen and two jars of ointment out

of the box. "Apart from my dder, I mean."

 

"Cimorene had some interesting visitors yester-

day," Kazul said.

 

"If they were interesting, they can't have been

knights," Morwen commented.

 

"They weren't," Kazul said. "They were wizards,

and they went to a lot of trouble to get a look at my

copy of the Historia Dracorum. The part that describes

the Caves of Fire and Night."

 

"And you think thafs why they've been sniffing

around the Mountains of Morning for the past six

months," Morwen said. "How did you find out what

they were looking at? Or did they ask permission?"

 

"I don't think Zemenar would ask permission for

anything even if he was sure he'd get it," Cimorene

said. "He'd consider it beneath him. No, I saw him

shut the book, and he was only a little further along

from where I'd left my bookmark. Ow! That stings."

 

"Good," Morwen said. "It's supposed to." She

closed the jar of salve she had been smearing on Cim-

 

105

 

orene's palm and began wrapping the injured hand in

the linen bandage. "Did Zemenar get what he was

after?"

 

"I don't think so," Cimorene said. "He said he

wanted to come back for another visit, and I don't think

he'd have done that if he'd found whatever he was

looking for."

 

"That seems like a reasonable assumption," Mor-

wen said. "Though wizards aren't always reasonable.

There, that should take care of things. Don't take the

bandage off for at least four days, and if you're going

to cook anything that has fennel in it, stir it left-

handed."

 

"Zemenar's interest in the Historia Dracorum isn't

the only thing that points to his curiosity about the

Caves of Fire and Night," Kazul said, and explained

about the book that had been stolen. "There have been

other incidents as well, and nearly all the wizards we've

caught poking around have been somewhere in or near

the caves. Thafs why no one thought much about it

at first. Ever since King Tokoz made that agreement

with the Society of Wizards, they've been claiming

they're supposed to have more time in the caves than

we're willing to give them. Everyone thought this was

more of the same."

 

"Not everyone," Morwen said, giving Kazul a

sharp look.

 

"I am widely considered to be unduly suspicious

of everyone and everything," Kazul said in a dry tone.

"Particularly wizards."

 

"And what do your suspicions make of this busi-

ness?"

 

106

 

"I think Zemenar is trying to find out something

about the Caves of Fire and Night," Kazul said. "Some-

thing he hasn't been able to leam from visiting the caves

in person, hence his recent interest in histories that

describe the caves, however briefly."

 

"And you're hoping I have something in my library

that will help you figure out what it is," Morwen

concluded.

 

"I don't hope," Kazul said. "I know. Unless some-

one has run off with your copy of DeMontmorency's

A Journey Through the Caves of Fire and Night."       /

 

"If someone has, he'll regret it," Morwen said.

"Wait here, and I'll check." She rose and went out.

Through the doorway Cimorene could see a room full

of tall, dark-stained shelves.

 

Cimorene blinked. "Isn't that the door you came

in through?" she asked Kazul.

 

Kazul nodded. "Of course."

 

"I thought it led out into Morwen's yard."

 

"It leads wherever Morwen wants it to lead," Kazul

said.

 

"1 see," said Cimorene, wishing her father's court

philosopher were there. He was very pompous and

stuffy, particularly about magic, which he claimed was

90 percent trickery and the rest illusion. Cimorene had

found him very trying. Dealing with Morwen's door

would probably have given him a headache.

 

Morwen came back into the kitchen holding a thin

red book. "Here it is. I'm sorry it took me so long to

find it, but the nonfiction isn't organized as well as it

should be yet."

 

Kazul surged to her feet, shedding cats in all di-

 

107

 

rections. The cats gave her reproachful looks and then

stalked out the front door with affronted dignity. Kazul

paid no attention. She curled her head around to peer

at the book over Morwen's shoulder.

 

"I suppose you'll want to borrow it?" Morwen said.

"I certainly do," Kazul said. "Is there a problem?'

"Only if it gets stolen," Morwen said. "There are

very few of these around, and I'm not sure I could

replace it."

 

"I'll keep it in the vault with the treasure," Kazui

promised. "Zemenar won't think to look for it there,

and even if he does, he won't get in. I've got enough

anti-wizard spells on the door to stop the whole Society.

They can't get in unless someone invites them."

 

"All right," Morwen said, handing the book to

Kazul. "Is that everything you came for?"

 

"No," said Kazul. She looked at Morwen with lim-

pid eyes and went on in a plaintive tone, "I still haven't

had any dder."

 

Morwen laughed and went to one of the cup-

boards. She pulled out two mugs and a large mixing

bowl and filled them with an amber-colored liquid she

poured from a heavy-looking pottery jug. She set the

mixing bowl in front of Kazul and gave one of the mugs

to Cimorene, then sat down with the second mug

herself.

 

They were in Morwen's kitchen for over an hour,

drinking dder and speculating about what the wizards

were up to. After a while several of the cats came back,

apd Morwen gave them a dish of goafs milk, which

soothed their ruffled feelings somewhat.

 

io8

 

"How is that fireproofing spell of yours coming?"

Morwen asked as she returned to the table.

 

"I have everything I need except the powdered

hens' teeth, and I'm beginning to think I'm never going

to find any," Cimorene said. "Kazul has offered to let

me look through the jars in the treasury, but if there

isn't any there, I don't know where I'll look next."

 

"Really," Morwen said, giving Kazul a sharp look.

"Well, if you can't find any hens' teeth, you could try

substituting snake fingernails or the hair from a turtle's

egg. I wouldn't try it except as a last resort, though.

Altering spells is a very tricky business."

 

At last they had to leave. Kazul went out the same

way she had come in while Cimorene watched in fas-

cination. Then Cimorene and Morwen went onto the

front porch. Kazul sidled up to the house, and Cimo-

rene stood on the porch railing to climb onto her back.

The cats were seriously affronted by this maneuver and

expressed their displeasure in reproachful glances and

low yowls.

 

"Don't take any notice," Morwen said. "It only

encourages them."

 

Qmorene nodded. "Thank you for everything."

 

"You're quite welcome," Morwen answered.

"Don't wait too long to come again."

 

"You'd better take this. Princess," Kazul said,

reaching back over her shoulder to hand Morwen's

book to Qmorene. "I can't carry it and run at the same

time."

 

Qmorene took the book and tucked it into her

pocket. "I'm all set," she said, and they started off.

 

109

 

Cimorene enjoyed the ride back to the Mountains of

Morning. She was now sufficiently accustomed to rid-

ing on a dragon to be able to concentrate on looking

at the forest as it flashed past. The trees seemed almost

identical to one another, but Cimorene spotted quite s

few odd-looking bushes and vines, and twice she

thought she saw small faces staring out at her frorr.

among leafy branches.

 

They reached the threshold of the caves much

sooner than Cimorene expected. Kazul waited while

she slid to the ground, then said, "The entrance is a

little narrow. I'll go first and make sure there's nothing

unpleasant waiting for us."

 

Cimorene nodded, and Kazul vanished into the

cave. Before Cimorene could follow, she heard a shrill

cry above her. She looked up and saw an enormous

white bird plummeting toward her, its clawed feet ex-

tended to attack. For an instant, Cimorene was frozen

by surprise and fear. Then she ducked and reached for

her sword.

 

She was almost too slow. The bird was on top of

her, shrieking and slashing, before she had done more

than grasp the hilt of her weapon. But the sword

seemed to leap out of the scabbard as soon as she

touched it, and she swung clumsily as she rolled aside.

She did not expect to do any damage, just to force the

bird to back away a little, but she felt the sword connect

and heard a wail of pain from the bird. Thanking all

her lucky stars individually and by name, Cimorene

twisted and scrambled to her feet, sword ready.

 

no

 

There was nothing for her to guard against. The

sword stroke had been more effective than she realized.

The bird was dying. As she stared at it, it raised its

 

head.

 

"You killed me?" the bird said incredulously. "But

 

you're a maiden."

 

"Actually, she's a princess," Kazul's voice said

from behind Cimorene. "My princess, so you'd have

been in even bigger trouble if you'd succeeded in car-

rying her off."

 

"I don't think I could have done it if I hadn't had

a magic sword," said Cimorene, who was beginning to

wish she hadn't. She had never hurt anyone before,

and she didn't like it.

 

"Just my luck," the bird said disgustedly. "Oh,

well, fair's fair. You killed me, so you get my forfeit."

 

"You're not dead yet," Cimorene said. "If you'll

let me near, I can try to stop the bleeding—"

 

"Not a chance," the bird said. It was beginning to

sound rather faint. "Do you want the forfeit or don't

you?"

 

"Take it," Kazul advised.

 

Cimorene said nothing, and after a moment the

bird said, "All right, then. Under my left wing, you'll

find three black feathers. If you drop one and wish to

be somewhere else, you'll find yourself there in the

twinkling of an eye. Any questions?"

 

"Can I take anyone else with me?" Cimorene

asked, thinking that if the bird was so determined to

give her the feathers, she might as well cooperate with

it.

 

in

 

The bird looked at her with respect. "Will wonders

never cease. For once a human with sense is getting

the forfeit. Yes, you can take someone with you, as

long as you're touching him. Same for objects; if you

can carry it, you can take it with you. You get one trip

per feather. Thafs all."

 

"But—" said Cimorene, and stopped. The bird's

head had fallen back, and it was dearly quite dead.

 

"Don't feel too bad," Kazul said perceptively. "If

it had succeeded in carrying you off, it would have fed

you to its nestlings."

 

"Fed me to its nestlings?" Cimorene discovered

that she had lost her sympathy for the dead bird. "What

a horrid thing to do!" She hesitated. "Won't the nest-

lings starve, now that the bird is dead?"

 

"No, one of the other birds will take over the chore

of feeding them for a few weeks until they're big

enough to catch their own food," Kazul said. "Now,

clean that sword and take your feathers, and lefs get

going. I want to have a look at that book of Morwen's."

 

Cimorene nodded and did as she was told. The

three black feathers were right where the bird had said

they would be, and she put them in her pocket with

Morwen's book and the black pebble from the Caves

of Fire and Night. She wiped the sword on the grass

several times, then finished cleaning it with her hand-

kerchief. When she finished, she left the handkerchief

beside the dead bird and followed Kazul into the Caves

of Fire and Night.

 

112

 

 

 

 

9

 

In Which Themndil Is a Dreadful Nuisance,

and Cimorene Casts a Spell

 

he rest of the trip home was uneventful. Passing

through the King's Cave seemed easier going in the

opposite direction, and the impenetrable darkness only

descended once. As soon as they arrived, Kazul took

the book Morwen had lent them and curled herself

around a rock just outside the mouth of the cave to

study it while Cimorene made dinner. She pored over

the book all evening, and Cimorene found it fascinating

to watch the dragon delicately turning pages with her

daws. Early the next day Kazul went off to consult with

Roxim.

 

Cimorene was rather stiff from all the dragon-

 

"3

 

riding she had done the previous day, so she decided

not to do any more cleaning. Instead, she spent the

morning in Kazul's treasure room, sorting through

likely looking bottles and jars for those that might pos-

sibly contain powdered hens' teeth. Remembering Ka-

zul's advice, she started by setting aside all the bottles

she could find that had lead stoppers. Since the light

was not very good, she took the jars and bottles that

looked as if they might be worth investigating and piled

them in her apron, so as to carry them outside more

easily.

 

She had nearly finished sorting when she heard a

voice calling faintly in the distance.

 

"Bother!" she said. "I did hope they'd leave me

alone a little longer."

 

She bundled the last five bottles into her apron

without looking at them and, not forgetting to lock the

door behind her, hurried out through the maze to see

who was shouting for her this time.

 

It was Therandil.

 

"What are you doing here?" Cimorene said crossly.

"I told you I wasn't going to be ready to be rescued

for at least a month!"

 

"I was worried," Therandil said. "I heard that

you'd broken a leg, but you look fine to me."

 

"Of course I haven't broken a leg," Cimorene said.

"Where did you get that idea?"

 

"Some knight at the inn at the foot of the moun-

tain," Therandil replied. "He was up yesterday, talking

to the princess he's trying to rescue, and he came back

and warned everybody not to bother with the princess

 

"4

 

that was captured by the dragon Kazul. Well, I knew

that was you, so I asked why, and he said his princess

told him you'd broken your leg and wouldn't be able

to walk for months."

 

Cimorene smiled slightly. Alianora had apparently

gone through with her plan to tell Hallanna about Cim-

orene's "twisted ankle," and Hallanna had decided to

improve the story a little in hopes of reducing the com-

petition. "Somebody must have gotten mixed up,"

Cimorene said gently. "You can stop worrying. I'm

fine. Is that all you came for? These jars are getting

heavy, and I've got work to do."

 

"Cimorene, we have to talk," Therandil said in a

heavy, deep voice.

 

"Then we'll have to do it while I work," Cimorene

declared. She turned on her heel and marched into the

kitchen, full of annoyance. She had been feeling almost

friendly toward Therandil—he had been worried about

her, after all—until he said he wanted to talk. Cimorene

was quite sure that what he wanted to talk about was

rescuing her, and she was annoyed with him for being

so stupidly stubborn and annoyed with herself for

being annoyed when he was only trying to do the best

he could.

 

Therandil followed her into the kitchen. "What is

all that?" he asked as Cimorene put the apron full of

jars on the kitchen table and began lining them up.

 

"Some things I'm checking for Kazul," Cimorene

said. She picked up a small jar made of carved jade

and pried the lid off. It was half full of green salve.

Cimorene put the lid back on and set the jar aside.

 

"5

 

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" she asked,

reaching for another jar.

 

"You. Dragons. Us. That looks interesting. Can I

help?"

 

"As long as you don't break anything," Cimorene

said. "Some of these are very fragile." Maybe opening

jars would make him forget about You. Dragons. Us, for

a while.

 

"I'll be very careful," Therandil assured her. "This

one looks like metal. I'll start with that, shall I?" He

picked up one of the larger jars, made of beaten copper

with two handles. He frowned at the top, then reached

for his dagger, and as he tilted the jar, Cimorene saw

that the neck was stopped up with lead.

 

"Not that one!" she said quickly. She didn't re-

member picking out that particular jar. It must have

been one of the last four or five that she'd scooped up

when she heard Therandil calling.

 

"Why not?" Therandil said, sounding rather hurt.

"I said I'd be careful." The tip of his dagger was already

embedded in the lead.

 

"Kazul said to leave the ones with lead stoppers

alone," Cimorene said. "So put it back."

 

"If you insist," Therandil said, shrugging. He

pulled on his dagger, but it was stuck fast in the lead.

"Drat!" he said, and twisted the handle. The dagger

came free, and the lead stopper came along with it.

 

"I should have known," Cimorene said in a re-

signed tone.

 

A black cloud of smoke poured out of the jar. As

Cimorene and Therandil watched, it condensed into a

 

116

 

dark-skinned giant wearing only a turban and a loin-

cloth. He was more than twice as tall as Therandil, and

the comers of his mouth were turned down in a stem

frown.

 

"What is it?" whispered Therandil.

 

"Trouble," said Cimorene.

 

"Thou speakest truly, 0 Daughter of Wisdom,"

said the giant in a booming voice that filled the cave.

"For I am a jinn, who was imprisoned in that jar, and

I am the instrument of thy death and that of thy

paramour."

 

"My what?" Cimorene said, outraged.

 

"Thy lover," the jinn said uncomfortably. "The

man who stands beside thee."

 

"I know what you meant," Cimorene said. "But he

isn't my lover, or my fiance, or my boyfriend or any-

thing, and I refuse to be killed with him."

 

"But Cimorene, you know perfectly well—" The-

randil started.

 

"You hush," Cimorene said. "You've made

enough of a mess already."

 

"If he is not thy paramour, nor any of those other

things, then what is he?" the jinn asked suspiciously.

 

"A nuisance," Cimorene said succinctly.

 

"Cimorene, you're not being very kind," Therandil

said.

 

"What he is matters not," the jinn said grandly

after a moment's heavy thought. "It is enough that thou

and he shall die."

 

"Enough for whom?" Cimorene said.

 

The jinn blinked at her. "For me. 'Tis my will that

 

117

 

thou and he shall die by my hand. Thou hast but to

choose the manner of thy death."

 

"Old age," Cimorene said promptly.

 

"Mock me not! Thou and he shall die, and by my

hand, ere this day draws to its close!" the jinn cried.

 

"Do you suppose he means it?" Therandil said

nervously.

 

"Why would he keep bellowing it at us if he didn't

mean it?" Cimorene said. "Do be quiet, Therandil."

 

Therandil lowered his voice. "Should I offer to fight

him, do you think?"

 

"Don't be silly," Cimorene said. She saw that The-

randil was distressed, so she added, "You came up here

to fight a dragon. You aren't prepared for a jinn, and

nobody could reasonably expect you to challenge him."

 

"If you say so," Therandil said, looking relieved.

 

Cimorene turned back to the jinn and saw that he,

too, was looking perturbed. "What's the matter with

you?" she said crossly.

 

"Dost thou not wish to know why I will kill thee?"

the jinn asked plaintively.

 

"What difference does it make?" Cimorene said.

 

"Yes, actually," Therandil said at the same time.

 

"Therandil!" Cimorene said in exasperation. "Shut

up!"

 

"Hear my story, 0 luckless pair!" the jinn said with

evident relief. "I am one of those jinn who did rebel

against the law of our kind, and for my crimes I was

sentenced to imprisonment in this bottle until the day

should come when human hands would loose me. As

is the custom of my people, I swore that whoso should

 

118

 

release me during the first hundred years of my im-

prisonment I would make ruler of the earth; whoso

should release me during the second hundred years I

should make rich beyond all dreams of men; whoso

shall release me during the third hundred I should

grant three wishes; and whoso should release me after

any longer span of time I should grant only the choice

of what death he would die."

 

"You're going to kill us because ifs traditional?"

Cimorene asked.

 

"Yes," the jinn said. His eyes slid away from Cim-

orene's, and she frowned suddenly.

 

"Just how long were you in that jar?" she de-

manded.

 

"Uh, well, actually .. ." The jinn's voice trailed off.

 

"How long?" Cimorene insisted.

 

"Two hundred and seventeen years," the jinn ad-

mitted. "But nobody ever releases a jinn before the three

hundred years are over."

 

"You're trying to get around your oath!" Therandil

said, plainly shocked by the very thought. "You pre-

tended you had to kill us so you wouldn't have to give

us the wishes!"

 

"No!" the jinn said. "Thinkest thou that the grant-

ing of wishes alone would so trouble me? Needs must

I kill thee and thy fair companion, for I cannot return

home and say that thou didst release me and I left thee

living! I would be a laughingstock. Never in three thou-

sand years has such a thing occurred!"

 

"Then you shouldn't have sworn an oath," The-

randil said sternly.

 

"9

 

"I had to!" the jinn said miserably. "It is the custom

of our kind. Twould be ... 'twould be ..."

 

"Improper?" Cimorene murmured.

 

" Twould be improper to do otherwise," the jinn

said, nodding. "But now thou hast found me out, and

what am I to do? If I kill thee, it will violate my oath;

 

if I kill thee not, the remainder of my life will be a

torment."

 

"You could go back in the jar for another eighty-

three years," Cimorene suggested delicately.

 

"I could ... go back?" The jinn blinked at her for

a moment. "\ could go back. I could go back!"

 

"And in eighty-three years we'll both be dead of

old age," Cimorene said. "Since that was my choice of

death, your oath will be fulfilled and you can go straight

home without killing anyone else or giving mem any

riches or power or anything."

 

'Truly, thou art a jewel among women and the

very Queen of Wisdom's daughters!" the jinn said hap-

pily. "Thou hast found the perfect solution to my

difficulties!"

 

"Wait a minute!" Therandil said. "What about

those wishes?"

 

"Therandil!" Cimorene said in a shocked tone.

"I'm surprised at you! How can he give us wishes if

he's going back in the jar for eighty-three years? It

wouldn't be right at all."

 

Therandil frowned. "Are you sure? After all, we

did let him out during his third hundred years."

 

"I suppose I could let thee have one wish at least,

in token of my thanks for thy help," the jinn said. "As

long as thou dost not tell anyone."

 

120

 

"I wouldn't dream of tt," Therandil assured him.

"And my wish is to defeat a dragon and win his prin-

cess's hand in marriage!"

 

The jinn waved a dark hand over Therandil's head.

"There! When next thou dost fight a dragon, thou shalt

surely defeat him. And thou?" he said, turning to

Cimorene.

 

"I could use some powdered hens' teeth," Cimo-

rene said.

 

The jinn blinked in surprise, but he waved his hand

again, his face a mask of concentration. Then he bowed

and handed Cimorene a fat brown jar. "There's thy

desire. Farewell!" With an elaborate salaam, the jinn

dissolved back into a cloud of smoke that poured back

into the copper jar from which it had come. Cimorene

leaned over and plucked the lead stopper from the end

of Therandil's knife. She jammed it back into place and

heaved a sigh of relief.

 

Therandil was not paying attention. "What did you

want something like that for?" he asked, looking at the

jar of hens' teeth and wrinkling his nose in distaste.

 

"I don't believe I shall tell you," Cimorene said,

putting the jar carefully into one of her apron pockets.

"It has nothing to do with you."

 

"Nothing to do with me? I like that!" Therandil

said indignantly. "I'm going to marry you, just as soon

as I beat that dragon of yours."

 

"I don't think you're going to beat Kazul," Cim-

orene said in a considering tone.

 

"But that jinn just said—"

 

"He said that if you fight a dragon, you'll defeat

him. But Kazul is a her, not a him," Cimorene pointed

 

121

 

out. "And you ought not to be trying to rescue me

anyway."

 

"Why not?" Therandil asked truculently.

 

"Because there are other princesses who've been

captives of dragons for much longer than I have, and

they have seniority/' Cimorene explained.

 

"Oh," said Therandil, looking considerably taken

aback. "How do you know?"

 

"They came to visit and told me all about it," Cim-

orene said. "I think you should try for Keredwel. She's

from the Kingdom of Raxwel, and her hair is the color

of sun-ripened wheat, and she wears a gold crown set

with diamonds. You ought to get along with her very

well."

 

Therandil brightened perceptibly at this description

but said, "But everyone expects me to rescue you."

 

"As long as you defeat a dragon and rescue a prin-

cess, no one will care," Cimorene said firmly. "And

Keredwel will suit you much better than I would."

 

"Are you sure her dragon isn't female, too?"

 

"Positive," Cimorene said. "Gomul's cave is two

down and three over. If you follow the path outside,

you can't miss it. He ought to be there now, and if you

leave right away, you'll be able to get everything settled

before dinner."

 

"All right, then," Therandil said. "As long as

you're sure you don't mind."

 

"Not at all," Cimorene assured him fervently. She

saw him to the mouth of the cave and pointed him

toward Gomul's cave, then returned to the kitchen.

She gathered up the jars and bottles she had been

 

222

 

planning to check, except for the copper jar with the

 

*       -    .1           1.     1   >1        1     tt^i!__«-_     _        1i

 

inside, and took them back to the treasure vault.

 

jinn

 

Then she fetched an ink pot, a quill pen, and a sheet

of paper from the library and began writing out a warn-

ing to attach to the copper jar. She didn't want anyone

else to open it until the eighty-three years were over

and the jinn could go home without killing anyone.

 

She was just finishing when she heard Alianora's

voice calling from the rear of the cave. "I'm in the

kitchen!" she shouted. "Come on back!"

 

"You're always in the kitchen," Ahanora said when

she poked her head through the door a moment later.

"Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook

and read?"

 

"Look at this, Alianora," Cimorene said, handing

her the warning she had been writing. "Do you think

it's dear enough?"

 

" 'WARNING: This jar contains a jinn who will kill

you if you let him out too soon. Do not open until at

least one hundred and five years after the date when

the Citadel of the Yellow Giant was destroyed,' " Al-

ianora read aloud. "That's, lefs see, eighty-four years

from now. It seems clear to me. You'd have to be pretty

stupid to ignore a warning like that."

 

"Maybe I ought to show it to Hallanna and see

what she says," Cimorene said, frowning. "I wouldn't

want anyone getting into trouble by accident, just be-

cause I didn't make it plain."

 

"It's plain, ifs plain," Alianora said. "Cimorene,

what on earth have you been doing? How do you know

there's a jinn in this bottle?"

 

"Therandil," Cimorene said, waving a hand ex-

pressively. "I was looking through some of the bottles

from Kazul's treasure room, to see if any of them hap-

pened to have hens' teeth in them, and Therandil came

in and wanted to help."

 

"And he opened it?" Alianora said. "Oh, dear."

 

"Exactly," said Cimorene. "But it came out well in

the end. I think I've gotten rid of him for good. I sent

him off to rescue Keredwel."

 

"You did? What if he doesn't beat Gomul?"

 

"Oh, he'll win. The jinn gave him a wish, and he

wished to defeat a dragon." Cimorene looked apolo-

getically at Alianora. "I suppose I ought to have sent

him to rescue you, but ..."

 

"That's quite all right," Alianora said hastily. "Get-

ting rid of Keredwel will help a lot. And after every-

thing you've told me about Therandil, I don't think I'd

want to have him rescue me."

 

"Thafs what I thought," Cimorene said. "Oh, and

I got the jinn to give me some powdered hens' teeth,

so we can finally try that fireproofing spell."

 

"Good," Alianora said. "Let's do it right now!"

 

So Cimorene got out the spell and the ingredients

she had collected, and she and Alianora spent the next

hour on various necessary preparations. First they had

to boil some unicorn water and steep the dried wolfs-

bane in it. Then the mixture had to be strained and

mixed with the hippopotamus oil and the powdered

hens' teeth. Cimorene did most of that, while Alianora

ground up the blue rose leaves and the piece of ebony.

 

Grinding the ebony took a long time, but fortu-

nately they didn't need much. When Alianora finally

 

124

 

had enough, Cimorene mixed it with the blue rose

leaves and more of the unicorn water in one of Kazul's

iccently shed scales. Each mixture had to be stirred

three times counterclockwise with a white eagle feather.

Then Alianora dipped the point of her feather in her

mixture and began drawing a star on the floor of the

 

cave.

 

"Is this going to be big enough for both of us?"

she asked, scratching busily at the stone with the tip

of the feather.

 

"I think so," Cimorene answered. "Don't try to

make it too big, or you'll run out of liquid and we'll

have to start over."

 

Alianora did not run out, though she had used

nearly all her mixture by the time she finished. "There!"

she said. She sat back on her heels and studied her

diagram to make sure there were no gaps, then set her

dragon scale and feather aside and stood up. "Your

 

turn."

 

"First we have to get into the center of the star,"

Cimorene reminded her. "Be careful not to smudge the

lines!"

 

"Smudge them, after all that work?" Alianora said

in tones of mock horror. She lifted her skirts and

stepped carefully into the middle of the diagram. Cim-

orene followed, carrying a small mixing bowl half full

of something that looked like brown sludge with a

white eagle feather sticking out of one side. "It smells

awful," Alianora said, grimacing.

 

"It doesn't matter what it smells like, as long as

me spell works," Cimorene said. "Ready?"

 

"As ready as I'm ever going to be," Alianora re-

 

125

 

plied, shutting her eyes and screwing up her face as if

she expected to have a glass of cold water poured over

her head.

 

Cimorene plucked the eagle feather out of the bowl

and raised it quickly over Alianora's head before it

could drip on the floor. She let four large drops of the

brown gunk fall onto Alianora's hair, then brushed the

end of the feather across her forehead twice. She fin-

ished by drawing a circle with the feather on the palm

of Alianora's left hand.

 

"That tickles!" Alianora complained.

"Well, you can do it to me now," Cimorene said.

Alianora took the bowl and feather from Cimorene.

"You're right," Cimorene said a moment later. "It

does tickle."

 

"Now what?" Alianora said.

"Set the bowl down and shut your eyes," Cim-

orene instructed. When Alianora had done so, Cimorene

closed her own eyes and said:

 

"Power of water, wind and earth,

Turn the fire back to its birth.

Raise the spell to shield the flame

By the power that we have tamed."

 

"Oh!" said Alianora. "That feels peculiar. Can I

open my eyes now?"

 

"Yes," said Cimorene, opening her own. "We're

finished."

 

"Did it work?" Alianora asked, cautiously opening

one eye and squinting at Cimorene.

 

126

 

"Well, something happened. We both felt it," Cim-

orene said. "And your hair and forehead don't have

brown gunk on them any more."

 

Alianora promptly opened both eyes and studied

Cimorene. "Neither do yours. What does that mean?"

 

"It means we go back to the kitchen and test it,"

Cimorene said. She bent over and picked up the mixing

bowl. "We'll clean up later. Come on."

 

127

 

10

 

In Which Cimorene and Alianora Conduct

Some Tests and Disturb a Wizard

 

B,

 

^ack in the kitchen, Cimorene and Alianora quickly

determined that the fireproofing spell had indeed

worked. First Cimorene, then Alianora tossed a pinch

of feverfew into the air and recited the spell-verse, then

put a hand into a candle flame and held it there. Neither

was burned at all, though Alianora claimed that the

candle tickled almost as much as the eagle feather had

done.

 

"How long does the spell last?" Alianora asked.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Cimorene said. "At least

an hour, but I'll have to do some tests to pin it down

beyond that. I hope Kazul gets back soon. I want to

see if it works with dragon fire."

 

128

 

"You're going to have Kazul breathe fire at you,

just to see if the spell works?" Alianora said, horrified.

"What if it doesn't?"

 

"Then I'll talk to Kazul, and we'll go see Morwen,

and the three of us will try to figure out what to change

to make the spell work for dragon fire, too. Don't look

at me like that. I'm not going to stand in front of Kazul

and have her breathe fire at me. I'll just stick out a

finger, the way we did with the candle."

 

This was not enough to convince Alianora, but

Cimorene was determined. "The whole point of trying

this spell was to make ourselves immune to dragon

fire," she said. "If it doesn't work, I don't want to find

out for the first time when one of Kazul's guests gets

mad and breathes fire at me because he doesn't like

the way I cooked his cherries jubilee."

 

Alianora had to admit that this was a good point,

but she was still disposed to argue. The discussion was

cut short by Kazul's return. At first the dragon was

more inclined to agree with Alianora than with Cim-

orene, but after Cimorene proved her invulnerability to

candle flames, lighted torches, and the fire she had

built in the kitchen stove, Kazul agreed to the trial. She

insisted, however, on working up to full firepower in

gradual stages, and Cimorene was forced to agree.

 

Before they began, Cimorene threw another pinch

of feverfew into the air and recited the couplet again,

just to be sure the spell wouldn't wear off in the middle

of the test. Then Kazul lowered her head nearly to the

ground, and Alianora watched nervously as Cimorene

lowered her hand slowly into various intensities of

 

129

 

dragon flame. Finally, Cimorene stood right in front of

Kazul while the dragon breathed her hottest. The spell

worked perfectly every time.

 

"There!" Cimorene said when Kazul stopped at

last. "Now we know it works. Aren't you glad?"

 

"I'm glad," Alianora said fervently. "And I hope

I never have to watch anything like that again as long

as I live. I didn't dare blink for fear you'd go up in

smoke while my eyes were closed."

 

"Why don't you try it yourself?" Cimorene said

mischievously.

 

"No!" said Alianora and Kazul together.

 

"Watching you was bad enough," Alianora went

on with a shudder. "I believe it works. I don't see any

reason for me to test it."

 

"Besides, I've done more than enough fire-breath-

ing for one day," Kazul added. "I'm starting to get

overheated."

 

"All right, if you don't want to, you don't have

to," Cimorene said. "If we're all done, I'd better go

tidy up."

 

Alianora stayed to help Cimorene finish cleaning

up the traces of the spell, by which time she had calmed

down considerably and was very nearly her usual self

again. Cimorene gave her a pouchful of dried feverfew

before she left and made her recite the words that ac-

tivated the spell several times, to make sure she had

memorized them correctly.

 

"Remember, you only have to repeat the first half

of the verse to get the spell going, now that it's been

set up," Cimorene said. "Can you do it?"

 

130

 

"It's only two lines, and they rhyme!" Alianora

said, laughing. "How could I forget that? My memory

isn't that bad!"

 

"Maybe not, but say it anyway," Cimorene said.

Alianora laughed again and did so. At last she set off

into the tunnels/ and Cimorene went back to the main

cave to see what Kazul and Roxim had found out about

the Caves of Fire and Night.

 

Kazul was somewhat out of temper, and Cimorene

thought privately that she had been telling the truth

about getting overheated. Rather than annoy the

dragon further, Cimorene asked if she could read the

book Kazul had borrowed from Morwen.

 

"It's in the treasure room," Kazul said. "Read it

there. And I hope you see something in it that we

didn't."

 

Cimorene nodded, picked up her lamp, and hur-

ried off before Kazul could change her mind. The book

was lying near a pile of sapphires, next to an ornate

gold crown. She picked it up, went over to the table,

which was large and very sturdy because it was in-

tended for counting piles of gold and silver coins, and

sat down to read.

 

It was even dryer and duller than Kazul had said.

There were a great many "mayhaps" and "perchances"

and "wherefores," strung together in long, involved

sentences that compared the strange and wonderful

things in the caves to obscure philosophical ideas and

odd customs from places Cimorene had never heard

of. After a few pages, Cimorene put the book down

and went and got a quill pen, an ink pot, and some

 

131

 

paper, so that she could write down the things she

thought were important. She didn't want to have to

read A Journey Through the Caves of Fire and Night more

than once.

 

For the next three days, Cimorene spent bits of her

spare time in the treasure room, taking notes on the

DeMontmorency. It took her that long because she

could never manage to read for more than a little while

without getting so bored that she nearly fell asleep. Her

persistence gained her several pages of notes about the

caves, but nothing that seemed as if it might be of

particular interest to wizards.

 

Alianora came to see her a few days later, looking

very cheerful.

 

"It worked!" she announced as she came into the

library where Cimorene was going over her notes.

"Keredwel's gone. Therandil rescued her, just the way

you said he would."

 

"Good," Cimorene said. "I'm glad something is

going right."

 

"What's the problem?" Alianora asked, seating

herself on the other side of the table from Cimorene.

 

"This," Cimorene said, waving at the paper-

covered table. "Kazul is sure that the key to what the

wizards are after is somewhere in that dratted book she

borrowed from Morwen. I copied out everything that

looked interesting, but none of it seems like anything

a wizard would care about."

 

"How do you know that?" Alianora asked curi-

ously.

 

132

 

"I don't," Cimorene said. "I'm just guessing.

Thafs the problem."

 

"Oh." Alianora picked up the sheet of paper near-

est her and frowned at it. "What on earth does this

mean?"

 

Cimorene looked at the page Alianora was holding.

" Thus these Caves of Fire and Night are, in some

sense, indivisible, whereas the Caves of Chance are,

by contrast, individual, though it is preposterous to

claim that these descriptions are true of either group

of caves in their entirety . . .' That's one of the bits I

copied word for word; the whole book is like that. I

think it means that if you have a piece of something

magical from the Caves of Fire and Night, you can use

it in a spell as if it were the whole thing."

 

"I can see why you wouldn't be sure," Alianora

said. "Do you think it would help you figure things

out if you stopped for a while?"

 

"I have stopped," Cimorene pointed out. "Or did

you have something more specific in mind?"

 

"I'm almost out of feverfew," Alianora said, look-

ing down at the table. "I was hoping you'd come with

me to pick some more."

 

"You're almost out?" Cimorene said in surprise.

"How did that happen?"

 

Alianora shifted uncomfortably. "I've been work-

ing that fireproofing spell every hour or so for the past

two days," she admitted. "Woraug has been getting

more and more unpredictable, and I don't feel com-

fortable otherwise. Hallanna was visiting yesterday

when he came in—in the middle of the afternoon!—

 

133

 

and he was roaring and dripping little bits of flame

when he breathed. She was terrified, and I don't blame

her. If it weren't for the spell, I'd be scared to death."

 

"What's the matter with him?"

 

"I don't know. He doesn't tell me anything about

dragon politics or wizards or what he's been getting so

worked up about. He's not like Kazul."

 

Cimorene frowned, considering. "Maybe Kazul

will have some idea what's bothering him. I'll ask her

this evening. In the meantime, let's go get that fever-

few. You're right to say that I could use a break."

 

"Oh, good," said Alianora in tones of considerable

relief. "I've never picked herbs before, and I'm not sure

what feverfew looks like. I don't know what I'd have

done if you'd said you wouldn't come."

 

Cimorene put her notes away and got two wicker

baskets and a small knife from one of the storage rooms

"Up or down?" Alianora asked as they left the cave.

 

"Up," Cimorene said. "The other way is the ledgp

I told you about, and I wouldn't be surprised if bits of

it are still invisible."

 

The path through the Pass of Silver Ice twisted and

turned past the openings of other dragons' caves. Mosi

of the rocks around the caves had scorch marks, and

Cimorene and Alianora didn't see much growinp

among them.

 

"At this rate, we'll have to go nearly all the way

to the Enchanted Forest to find any grass, much less

herbs!" Alianora complained.

 

"Wait a minute!" Cimorene said. "Look over there,

 

134

 

through that crack in the rocks. Doesn't that look like

something green?"

 

Alianora's eyes followed Cimorene's pointing fin-

ger. "Yes," she said without enthusiasm. "It looks

green."

 

The rock Cimorene had indicated was a large boul-

der at the bottom of a steep slope. The slope was cov-

ered with gravel and looked as if it would be impossible

to climb down without skinning a knee or an elbow at

the very least. The boulder itself was in two pieces,

with just enough space between them for someone to

squeeze through, provided the someone was not very

large.

 

"Come on, let's get a better look," said Cimorene.

She walked to the edge of the slope and wrapped her

skirts tightly around her legs. Then she sat down with

her basket in her lap and slid down the slope, raising

an enormous cloud of dust and sounding like an ava-

lanche in process. She reached the bottom in safety and

stood up, brushing at her skirt. The dust was so thick

that she could hardly see, and when she tried to call

to Alianora, she coughed so hard that she could barely

speak.

 

"Cimorene! Are you all right?"

 

"It's just the dust," Cimorene said in a muffled

voice. She had taken out her handkerchief and put it

over her mouth and nose to keep the dust out. It wasn't

perfect, but it helped a great deal. "Come on, ifs your

turn."

 

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go around?"

 

"Stop stalling. It's not that bad."

 

i35

 

 

 

 

.£•

 

"That's what you say," Alianora muttered, but she

wrapped her skirts around her, clutched her basket,

and slid down the slope. She made even more noise

than Cimorene had. When she got to the bottom, she

was coughing and choking. Cimorene handed her the

handkerchief, and they waited for a moment while the

dust settled.

 

Crawling through the split boulder was easier than

they expected. The crevice was wider than it had looked

from the path, and the bottom of the crack was so full of

dust and gravel and dead leaves that it was almost flat.

Cimorene and Alianora had to walk single file, and there

were one or two spots where they had to turn sideways

in order to get through, but it was not really difficult.

 

On the other side of the boulder, the two girls

found a lush, green valley. It was bowl-shaped and not

very large, but flowers and grasses stood waist-high

between the random clumps of bushes that dotted the

valley floor. A squirrel, which had been sunning itself

on a ledge near the entrance, leaped for a small tree as

Cimorene and Alianora appeared.

 

"My goodness!" Alianora said, looking around

with wide eyes. "This place looks as if no one but us

has ever been here before. There aren't even any scorch

marks on the rocks."

 

Cimorene blinked. Alianora was right. Lichens cov-

ered the weathered gray rocks that rose above the val

ley, and small plants grew in cracks and crevices thel

showed no sign of the touch of dragon fire.

 

"That's odd," Cimorene commented.

 

"Why?" Alianora asked.

 

136

 

"Those mountains aren't tall enough to keep drag-

ons from flying over, and they're right in the middle

of the dragons' territory. So why haven't the dragons

been here? They usually keep a dose eye on everything

that belongs to them."

 

"Maybe they have been here, but they never found

anything to breathe fire at," Alianora said.

 

"Well, I'm going to ask Kazul about it when I get

back," Cimorene said as she waded into the grass.

"Why don't you take that side, and I'll look over here?

We'll cover more ground that way."

 

"First you'd better show me what I'm looking for,"

Alianora said apologetically. "I'm afraid I couldn't tell

feverfew from carrots if there was a dragon chasing me

and my life depended on it."

 

Cimorene nodded, and they started off. They had

not gone far when she saw a patch of the white button-

shaped flowers she was looking for. "Here," she said,

showing them to Alianora. "This is feverfew. The

younger plants are the best, the ones that haven't blos-

somed yet."

 

Alianora studied the leaves and flowers with care.

"I think I'll recognize it now."

 

They cut some of the plants, leaving those that

were blooming.

 

"You find the next patch," Cimorene said as they

started off again.

 

"Lefs try over there," Alianora said, pointing.

 

They found several more patches of feverfew, and

gradually their baskets began to fill. "I think this should

be enough," Cimorene said at last. "Unless you think—"

 

"Cimorene!" Alianora hissed, clutching at Cim-

orene's arm. "There's someone behind that bush!"         f

 

Cimorene turned. A dark line snaked through the    'X;

 

grass where something large had bent and broken the   ' %

plants in passing. "You're right," she said, and started   ' *.

forward,                                             i ^

 

»                                         . ^P

 

Alianora hung back, still holding Cimorene's arm.     3|

"You're not going to go look, are you?"                 ' ^

 

"How else are we going to find out who it is?"   i

Cimorene asked reasonably. She shook off Alianora's     ?

hand. Quietly, she walked over to the clump of bushes   | ^

 

and peered around it. Alianora followed with evident    •"

,                                                   ^

reluctance.                                             *

 

A man in blue and brown silk robes was crouched   j /

on the other side of the bush with his back toward   j §

Cimorene. He was stuffing saw-edged purple leaves    »,

into a small linen bag the size of Cimorene's hand. His

hair was brown, and on the ground beside him lay a

long, polished staff.

 

"Antorell?" Cimorene said in surprise.

 

The man snatched up his staff and straightened as

if a bee had just stung him. It was indeed Antorell,

and he did not look at all pleased to see her. He stuffed

the linen bag quickly into his sleeve and said, "P-prin-

cess Cimorene! What brings you here?"

 

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Cimorene

said.

 

"Wizards go where they wish, answering to no

one," Antorell said, waving his free hand in a lofty

manner.

 

"Maybe outside the Mountains of Morning they

 

138

 

do, but around here they have to check with the drag-

ons first," Cimorene said.

 

"You know nothing of the matter," Antorell said,

looking very put out.

 

"Cimorene . . ." Alianora's tone was doubtful.

"You know this person?

 

"I'm sorry; I should have introduced you. This is

Antorell, one of the wizards I told you about. Antorell,

this is Princess Alianora of the Duchy of Toure-on-

Marsh. At the moment, she's the princess of the dragon

Woraug."

 

Alianora curtsied, murmuring something polite

and inaudible. Antorell, who had stiffened in surprise

when he realized that Cimorene was not alone, relaxed

visibly. "Woraug's princess? That's all right, then.

Though he really shouldn't have sent you."

 

"But Woraug didn't—ow!" said Alianora. The

"ow" was because Cimorene had hastily kicked her

ankle to keep her from telling Antorell too much.

 

"Didn't what?" Antorell asked, frowning suspi-

ciously.

 

"Didn't know you were going to be here," Cim-

orene said.

 

"Well, of course he didn't know!" Antorell said,

looking annoyed. "That's the whole point, after all."

 

Cimorene would have very much liked to ask him

what the point was, but she was afraid it would make

him suspidous again. "I don't understand," she said

instead, batting her eyes at him.

 

"Of course not," Antorell replied in a condescend-

 

139

 

ing tone that made Cimorene's teeth hurt. "But it

doesn't matter. I'm not annoyed with you."

 

"I'm so glad/' Cimorene murmured.

 

Antorell gave her an oily smile. "In fact, there's no

need for you to tell Woraug that you met me here."

 

"I wouldn't dream of it," Cimorene said with per-

fect truth.

 

"Excellent," Antorell said. "Then may I escort the

two of you back to the path?"

 

Alianora looked hopefully in Cimorene's direction.

 

"But we can't leave yet," Cimorene said, opening

her eyes very wide. "We haven't picked any cornflow-

ers or daisies." Behind her, she heard Alianora making

a smothered, choking noise, as if she were trying very

hard not to laugh.

 

"Daisies," Antorell said in a flat, incredulous tone

"You want to stay and pick daisies?"

 

Cimorene nodded vigorously. "And cornflowers,

and flax, and all sorts of things," she said, waving her

hand at the flowers blooming all around. "They'll look

so pretty in a bowl of water in the kitchen."

 

"I'm sure you're right," Antorell said. He looked

as if he would have liked to object, but couldn't think

of anything to object to. "Perhaps I could help you?"

he said reluctantly.

 

"Oh, we wouldn't dream of keeping you," Cim-

orene said.

 

Antorell was clearly reluctant to leave the two girls

in the valley, but Cimorene did not give him much

choice. After another minute or so of conversation, the

wizard was forced to go. He did not use a vanishing

spell but trudged away on foot. Cimorene watched him

 

140

 

until he was out of sight among the bushes, wondering

whether he had some spedal reason not to use spells

in the valley or whether he simply didn't know the

right spells to make himself vanish.

 

"Thafs a relief!" Alianora said. "Why did you in-

sist on staying when it was so obvious that he wanted

us to leave? I was afraid he was going to turn us into

toads or something."

 

"I wanted to see what he was up to/' Cimorene

said. "And I don't think Antorell is a very good wizard.

He probably couldn't manage anything worse than a

 

squirrel."

 

Alianora did not appear to find this very reassur-

ing. Cimorene checked to make sure Antorell was out

of sight, then went over to the place where he had been

standing when she peered around the bush. At first

she did not notice anything unusual. Then she saw a

purplish plant oozing sap from the places where several

of its spiky, saw-toothed leaves had been broken off.

 

"Look at this."

 

"What is it?" Alianora asked.

 

"I don't know," Cimorene said absently. "I saw a

couple of other plants like this while we were picking

feverfew, but I thought they were just weeds."

 

"Maybe it is a weed."

 

"A wizard wouldn't sneak into the dragons' section

of the Mountains of Morning just to pick weeds. They

don't even use herbs to cast spells, so what does An-

torell want with this prickly looking thing?"

 

Alianora shrugged. "Maybe he needs it for some-

thing he can't do with magic."

 

"I wonder what that would be?" Cimorene reached

 

141

 

out and carefully broke off a spray of leaves. She

wrapped them in her handkerchief and put the packet

in her pocket. "Let's see if we can find out whether he

picked anything else."

 

Antorell had left a dark trail of bent and broken

plants to mark the way he had come, so his path was

easy to follow. Cimorene and Alianora searched care-

fully along it for some way, looking for signs that the

wizard had picked other herbs, but neither of them saw

any.

 

"I don't think there's anything to find," Alianora

said, pushing her apricot-colored hair out of her face.

"And it's getting awfully warm."

 

"Have you noticed that there aren't any of those

purple plants along here?" Cimorene said. "I'll bet that

was all he wanted."

 

"Then let's leave before that wizard thinks to circle

around to check on what we're doing," Alianora urged.

 

Cimorene doubted that Antorell would think of

doing such a thing, but she nodded agreement, and

the two girls left the valley. Alianora was quiet and

thoughtful for most of the walk back to Kazul's cave.

Cimorene was grateful for her silence. She had a lot to

think about herself. From what Antorell had said, it

seemed likely that Woraug was helping the wizards

somehow, or at least that he had known what Antorell

was looking for in the little valley. Cimorene found it

difficult to imagine a dragon helping a wizard, but she

couldn't say with certainty that it was impossible. And

if Woraug was involved with Antorell and Zemenar, it

might explain why he had been so touchy lately.

 

142

 

When they arrived back at the cave, Cimorene shook

herself free of her preoccupation. She and Alianora

unloaded their baskets and tied the herbs in bunches

to hang in a dark comer of the kitchen to dry.

 

"How long will it be before I can use the feverfew?"

Alianora asked worriedly.

 

"I'm not sure," Cimorene said in a considering

tone. "It will take at least a week to dry thoroughly,

but you might be able to use it in the spell before then.

The directions don't say how dry the feverfew has to

be. We could try it every day with a pinch of leaves

from one of these bunches if you like."

 

Alianora nodded. "I really do need it."

 

"I wonder if it would work without being dried?"

Cimorene said. She pulled a leaf from one of the hang-

ing plants and shredded it carefully between her fin-

gers, then tossed it up in the air and recited the rhyme.

"There! Now, light a candle or another lamp or

something."

 

Alianora had already lit a candle and set it on the

table. Cimorene moved over and stuck her finger in

the flame.

 

"I think ifs working," she said, and moved the

rest of her hand closer.

 

The sleeve of her dress caught fire. Cimorene has-

tily pulled her hand away from the candle and slapped at

the flames, while Alianora snatched up a bucket of water

from beside the sink and poured it over Cimorene's arm.

The fire went out and so did the candle, and both Cim-

orene and Alianora got thoroughly soaked.

 

 

 

 

"Oh, dear!" Alianora said, ignoring her soggy

skirts. "Cimorene, did you burn yourself?"

 

"No," Cimorene said, looking at her arm with a

puzzled expression. "I didn't feel a thing. I thought the

spell worked, but nothing caught fire when we tested

it before."

 

"It must be because the fevenew is fresh instead

of dried. And I had hoped that I'd be able to use it right

away!"

 

"If you're that low on dried feverfew, take some

of mine," Cimorene offered. "Kazul's not particularly

irritable. I only need to keep a pinch or two in case of

emergencies."

 

"Thank you!" Alianora said fervently, and Cim-

orene turned her soggy cuffs back and went to get the

bottled spices.

 

144

 

11

 

In Which Kazul Is Unwell, and Cimorene

Makes a New Acquaintance

 

Zllianora decided to return home by way of the path

outside instead of through the tunnels because it was

such a nice day and she hoped the sun would dry her

skirt. Cimorene watched her go, swinging her basket

happily and humming a little, her confidence and good

humor completely restored by the possession of the fat

little packet of dried feverfew in her pocket.

 

"I wish I had as little to worry about," Cimorene

muttered, thinking of Woraug and the wizards. She

held the burned patch at the end of her sleeve up to

get a better look at it in the sunlight and shook her

head. Even the magic wardrobe would have a hard

time fixing that. A puff of wind made her shiver in her

 

145

 

wet clothes, and she turned to go back into the cav-

to change.

 

A dark shadow fell over Cimorene, and shr

stopped and looked up. "Kazul!" she said as the dragon

landed on the open path beside her. "Am I glad to se<i

you. Wait until you hear what's been happening!"

 

"You do appear to have had a rather strenuous

day," Kazul said, eyeing Cimorene's wet, stained skirt

and the blackened end of her right sleeve. "Nothing

serious, I trust?"

 

"I'm not sure," Cimorene said. "Alianora and I

went out to pick some feverfew, and we ran into that

wizard Antorell."

 

"Where was this?"

 

Cimorene pointed. "Up that way. There's a little

round valley off to one side that looks as if dragons

never go there, and—"

 

"You found a wizard there?" Kazul sounded deeply

disturbed. "How did he get in? How did you get in?"

 

"We climbed through a crack in a boulder," Cim-

orene said. "I don't know how Antorell did it. Whe'^

he left, he was heading for the far side of the valley "

 

"This is serious," Kazul said, getting to her feet

'Td better warn the King. He'll have to use the crystal

now."

 

"You'd better hear the rest of it first," Cimorene

said. "Antorell wasn't too happy to see us, but when

he found out that Alianora was Woraug's princess, I-'?

relaxed. He seemed to think that Woraug had sent us "

 

"What?"

 

Cimorene involuntarily stepped back a pace at the

anger in Kazul's voice. "He thought Woraug had sent

 

146

 

us," she repeated, and gave a quick summary of her

conversation with Antorell.

 

"Woraug!" Kazul's tail lashed, sweeping a small

boulder from one side of the path to the other. "But

Woraug's not a fool, and only a fool would let a wizard

into that valley. Unless he was sure that they didn't

know . . . What was Antorell doing?"

 

"Cutting plants," Cimorene said. "Or rather, cut-

ting a plant. It didn't look as if he took more than one."

 

"He wouldn't need more than one, if it was the

right one," Kazul said tensely. "What did he pick?"

 

"It was a prickly looking purple thing, with saw-

edged leaves," Cimorene said, reaching into her

pocket. "I didn't recognize it, but I thought you might,

so I brought a piece back for you to look—"

 

"What?" Kazul roared.

 

Flame spurted from the dragon's mouth, envel-

oping Cimorene. Steam hissed from her wet skirt, and

the thinner material of her sleeves vanished in a crackle

of sparks. The handkerchief-wrapped spray of purple

leaves, which she had just taken out of her pocket to

show Kazul, disintegrated into a dark, greasy-looking

cloud of smoke.

 

Cimorene stared at the ashes in her palm, feeling

very, very glad that she had decided to test the way

fresh feverfew would work in the fireproofing spell.

She felt a little warm, and her clothes had been reduced

to a few charred rags, but that was nothing compared

to what might have happened.

 

"Now I understand why Alianora ran out of fe-

verfew," she muttered.

 

A puff of wind brushed Cimorene's arms, and she

 

i47

 

heard a choking sound from Kazul. She looked up,

expecting to find the dragon laughing at her remark,

and her eyes widened. Kazul's head was thrown back,

and her mouth was wide open, giving Cimorene an

excellent view of the dragon's sharp silver teeth and

long red tongue. Cimorene skipped backward out of

reach; then she realized that the dragon was gasping

for air.

 

"Kazul! What's the matter?"

 

"The smoke!" Kazul coughed. Her voice was so

hoarse that it was hard for Cimorene to understand

what she was saving.

 

"What can I do?" Cimorene said, trying not to feel

frightened.

 

"Green jar—shelf in last treasure room," Kazul

managed between coughs. "Hurry."

 

Cimorene was already running through the mouth

of the cave as fast as her feet could carry her. She did

not even pause as she snatched up her lamp from the

floor just inside the door. It seemed to take forever to

get through the twisty passages and the first two caves

full of treasure. She skidded to a halt in the doorway

of the third room and stood panting, scanning the walls

for the shelf and the right jar. She found it quickly and

ran back at once, the jar clutched tightly in her right

hand.

 

The sound of Kazul's coughing grew louder as

Cimorene sped back the way she had come. At the

mouth of the cave, Cimorene paused and set down the

lamp, then unscrewed the top of the green jar. Inside

was a thick, emerald-colored liquid about the consi&-

 

148

 

tency of honey. She looked out at Kazul. The dragon's

head jerked with each cough, and the scales on her

neck were beginning to turn pink around the edges.

For a long, careful moment Cimorene studied Kazul's

movements. Then she leaned back and threw the em-

erald liquid, jar and all, into the dragon's open mouth

just as Kazul took another gasping breath.

 

The jar landed on Kazul's tongue. The dragon's

mouth dosed, and she swallowed convulsively. Sud-

den silence descended.

 

"Are you all right now?" Cimorene asked after

Kazul had taken several deep breaths without a re-

newed bout of coughing.

 

"I will be," Kazul said. She sounded exhausted,

and her movements as she slid into the cave were slow

and uncertain.

 

"What happened?" Cimorene said, backing out of

the way so that Kazul would not have to exert herself

to go around.

 

"I got a breath of the smoke when the plant in

your hand burned," Kazul said as she settled to the

floor just inside the entrance. "Lucky it was only a

breath. I'll need a few days of rest, but that's better

than being dead."

 

Cimorene stared at her, appalled. "What was that

plant?"

 

"Dragonsbane," said Kazul. Her eyes closed and

she slept.

 

Kazul continued to sleep for most of the next three

days. She woke only long enough for Cimorene to pour

 

149

 

a couple of gallons of warm milk mixed with honey

down her throat from time to time before she lapsed

back into unconsciousness. Cimorene was very wor-

ried, but there wasn't much that she could do. Sick

dragons are too large and heavy for normal nursing to

be of much use.

 

On the afternoon of the third day, Kazul woke up

completely for the first time since her collapse.

 

"Thank goodness!" said Cimorene as Kazul shook

her head experimentally and sat up. "I was beginning

to think you were going to sleep for a month."

 

"I might have if I'd gotten more than a whiff of

that smoke." Kazul stretched her neck in one direction

and her tail in the other, trying to work out some of

the kinks.

 

"If I'd known it was so dangerous, I'd never have

brought any of that purple plant back with me," Cim-

orene apologized. "You might have done worse than

sleep for a month. You might have—" She stopped,

unwilling to complete the thought.

 

"I might have died?" Kazul said. "Unlikely. If a

dragon isn't killed outright by something in the first

five minutes, recovery is only a matter of time. That

applies as much to dragonsbane as to a knight's magic

sword."

 

"Then why did you want that goo in the green

jar?" Cimorene asked.

 

"The antidote? I wanted it because I didn't like the

idea of spending a month recuperating when I didn't

have to. And since—" A fit of coughing interrupted

Kazul in mid-sentence.

 

150

 

Cimorene skipped backward out of the way.

Frowning worriedly, she tossed a pinch of feverfew into

the air and recited the verse from the fireproofing spell

in case Kazul should lose control of her flame again.

"Maybe you won't need a month to recover, but three

days obviously isn't enough," she said to the dragon.

"You'd better lie back down before you choke."

 

"I can't," Kazul said. "I have to warn the King. If

the wizards have had dragonsbane for three days al-

ready—" She started coughing again and had to stop

talking.

 

"You stay here," Cimorene said in a firm tone. "I'll

warn the King."

 

"Tokoz won't listen to you," Kazul said, but she

settled back to the ground. "Roxim will, though. Start

with him."

 

"Roxim?" Cimorene said doubtfully. She was

afraid the gray-green dragon would want to go charging

out after the wizards as soon as he heard they were up

to something.

 

"He'll listen to you, and the King will listen to

him," Kazul said. "Ifs not ideal, but it's the best we

can do."

 

"All right, I'll go see Roxim. You stay here and

sleep."

 

"When you get back—"

 

"I'll wake you and tell you what he said," Cim-

orene promised. "Now, go to sleep."

 

Kazul smiled slightly and closed her eyes. Cim-

orene caught up a lamp and almost ran to the exit at the

back of the cave. She was afraid that Kazul would think

 

of something else and start talking again, and she didn't

think talking would be good for her.

 

In the tunnel outside, Cimorene paused, trying to

remember the directions to Roxim's cave. She had

memorized a map in the library that showed most 01

the twists and turns of the dragons' tunnels, but she

knew from experience that in the miles of gray store

corridors it was difficult to keep track of where she wa=

 

"Left, left, fifth right, past the little chamber, rigl,?

again, on past the iron gate, two lefts to the third cave

down," she muttered to herself. "I wish Roxim's cave

were closer." Still muttering, she started off.

 

Though she was being very careful, Cimorene had

to backtrack twice during the first part of her trip when

a mistake in counting corridors led her to a dead end.

When she finally saw the iron gate that led into the

Caves of Fire and Night, she sighed in relief. The tricky

part was over, and the rest of the trip would be easy.

She held her lamp up and quickened her step, hoping

to make up some of the time she had lost on her de-

tours. Then, as she reached the bars that blocked the

entrance to the Caves of Fire and Night, she stopped

short. There was someone sitting on the ground on the

other side of the gate.

 

Cimorene had almost missed seeing him, and no

wonder. His clothes, though well cut, were the same

dark gray as the stone of the tunnel walls, and he was

curled into a lumpy, dejected ball. He looked like a

large rock. If he hadn't moved his hand as she passed,

Cimorene would never have realized he was alive.

 

The man on the other side of the bars raised his

 

152

 

 

 

 

head, and Cimorene saw with shock that his hair and

skin were the same dark, even gray as his clothes. His

eves, too, were gray, and their expression was apolo-

getic.

 

"Forgive me for startling you," the man said,

 

climbing ponderously to his feet. "I didn't see you com-

ine." He made a stiff, formal bow.

 

"Who are you?" Cimorene demanded. "And what

are you doing in there?"

 

"I'm a prince," the man said in a gloomy tone,

"and I'm reaping the rewards of my folly."

 

"What folly?"

 

The prince sighed. "Ifs a long story."

 

"Somehow they always seem to be long," Cim-

orene said. "You haven't come to rescue me from the

dragons, have you? Because if you have, I'm not going

to let you out of there. I haven't got time to spend an

hour arguing today."

 

"I have no interest whatever in dragons, I assure

you," the prince said earnestly. "And if you would let

me out, I'd be extremely grateful. Um, who are you,

by the way?"

 

"Cimorene, princess of the dragon Kazul," Cim-

orene said. She studied the prince for a moment and

decided that he looked trustworthy. "All right, I'll let

you out. Turn around and put your fingers in your

ears."

 

"What?" the prince said, looking considerably

startled.

 

"Ifs part of the spell to open the gate," Cimorene

said. She wasn't about to let him overhear the words

 

Kazul had used to unlock the door, even if he did look

trustworthy.

 

The prince shrugged and did as she directed.

Quickly, Cimorene recited:

 

"By night and flame and shining rock

Open thou thy hidden lock.

Alberolingam!"

 

For an instant nothing happened, and Cimorene

was afraid she had not remembered the charm cor-

rectly. Then the iron gate swung silently open. The

prince, whose back was to the gate, did not notice.

Cimorene touched his shoulder to get his attention, and

her eyes widened.

 

"Oh!" she said as he turned. "You're—you're

stone."

 

"I know," the prince said. "Ifs part of that long

story I mentioned earlier. I haven't gotten used to it

yet." He stepped through the gate, and it closed noise-

lessly behind him.

 

"I'm afraid I don't have time to listen to stories

just now," Cimorene said politely. "I have a rather

urgent errand to run, so if you'll excuse me—"

 

"Can't I come with you?"

 

Cimorene stared at him. "Why do you want to do

that?"

 

The stone prince looked down at his feet with an

embarrassed expression. "Um, well, actually, I'm lost.

And you seem to know your way around down here."

He glanced hopefully at Cimorene's face, then sighed.

 

i54

 

"I suppose I can just wander around some more. I'll

have to find a way out eventually."

 

"You'll run into a dragon and get eaten."

 

"I don't think it will hurt stone," the prince said.

He sounded almost cheerful, as if he had only just

realized that being made of stone might have some

advantages.

 

"Maybe not, but you're sure to give the dragon

indigestion," Cimorene said. "Bother! I don't have time

for this!"

 

"I could wait here if you're coming back this way,"

the stone prince suggested.

 

Cimorene brightened, then frowned and shook her

head. "No, one of the dragons might need to get into

the Caves of Fire and Night, or it might be the turn of

those dratted wizards. You can't stay here."

 

"Then—"

 

"I know! You can wait in the serving room, just

off the banquet hall," Cimorene said. "It's close, there's

plenty of room, and I know no one's using it today

because I checked the schedule for Alianora yesterday.

I can take a shortcut out the back to get to Roxim's

without losing any more time. Come on."

 

"1 really appreciate this," the stone prince said as

they started off. "You don't know what ifs like, being

lost in the dark in these caves."

 

"How did it happen?" Cimorene asked.

 

The stone prince's expression became gloomy once

more. "Ifs all that soothsayer's fault," he said.

 

"Soothsayer?"

 

"My father didn't think it was appropriate to invite

 

i55

 

fairies to a prince's christening, so he invited a sooth-

sayer instead," the prince replied. "The soothsayer took

one look at me and said that I would grow up to do a

great service for a king. I've been stuck with his blasted

prophecy ever since."

 

"It doesn't sound so terrible to me," Cimorene

said.

 

"It wasn't, at first," the stone prince admitted. "I

had special tutors in all sorts of interesting things to

prepare me for being of great service to a king. My

father even sent me to a spedal school for people

who're supposed to do spedal things."

 

"Did you do well?"

 

"I was the top of my class," the stone prince said

with a flash of pride. His face fell again. "That's part

of the problem."

 

"I don't understand," Cimorene said. "This way.

And can you walk a little faster, please? I'm in a hurry."

 

"It's been three years since I graduated, and every-

one's still waiting for me to do something spectacular,"

the stone prince said, lengthening his stride. "The rest

of my dassmates are already making names for them-

selves. George started killing dragons right away, and

Art went straight home and pulled some sort of magic

sword out of a rock. Even the ones nobody expected

to amount to much have done something. All Jack

wanted to do was go back to his mother's farm and

raise beans, and he ended up stealing a magic harp

and killing a giant and all sorts of things. I'm the only

one who hasn't succeeded."

 

"Why not?"

 

The stone prince sighed again. "I don't know. At

 

156

 

first it seemed as if I wouldn't have any trouble finding

a king to serve. Every time there was a war, both kings

asked me to lead their armies, and every king for miles

around who'd lost his throne to a usurper sent a mes-

senger to my father's court. It should have been simple.

Only they were always so worried about whether I was

going to side with their enemies that it was easier not

to pick anyone."

 

"I see," said Cimorene. Privately she thought that

the stone prince had been rather wishy-washy.

 

Some of her opinion must have crept into her tone

because the stone prince nodded glumly. "You're right.

It was a mistake. As long as I didn't pick a king to

serve, all the messengers and ambassadors and envoys

stayed, hoping to persuade me. The inns around (he

castle were stuffed with them. It got to the point where

I couldn't show my face without at least three of them

pouncing on me.

 

"Finally I couldn't stand it any more, and I ran

away. It was a relief at first, not having everyone hov-

ering over me waiting for me to do something great.

But after a while I started feeling uncomfortable. Then

I realized that even if nobody around me expected me

to do anything spedal in the service of a king, I ex-

pected me to do something.

 

"I was so flustered that I ran up to the next palace

I saw and asked whether the king needed any services

done. It turned out that he was ill, and his doctors had

told him that the only thing that would cure him was

a drink of the Water of Healing from the Caves of Fire

and Night. So I left to get it at once."

 

"So thafs what you were doing!" Cimorene said.

 

i57

 

 

 

 

The stone prince gave her another gloomy nod. "I

should have known better. That king had three sons,

and the first two had already gone off to get the water

and failed. Anyone with sense would have seen that

the youngest son was the one who would succeed; it

sticks out all over. But I was too eager to do my great

service and get it over with, and I didn't stop and

think."

 

"What happened?"

 

"It took me a long time to find the Caves of Fire

and Night, but once I did, it wasn't hard to find the

Water of Healing. The chamber's getting crowded. All

the princes who've tried to get the water and failed

have been turned into slabs of rock."

 

"I know. I've seen them," Cimorene said. "Watch

out for your head; the ceiling is low along here."

 

"Then you know what it's like, and you've seen

the two dippers on the wall by the spring." The stone

prince's shoulder's sagged. "I knew I should use the tin

one. It was one of the first things we learned at school.

But I thought it wouldn't do any harm if I just looked

at the gold one, so I took it off the wall. And as soon

as I touched it, I started to stiffen up."

 

"Urn," said Cimorene. The stone prince was ob-

viously well aware of how foolishly he had behaved.

She saw no reason to make him feel worse by pointing

it out to him again.

 

"So I stuck my arm in the spring," the prince said.

 

"You stuck your arm—oh, I see! That was clever,"

Cimorene said.

 

"Do you really think so?" the stone prince asked

 

158

 

nxiously. "I thought that since the water from the

nring is going to turn all the slabs of stone back into

orinces when someone finally succeeds in the quest,

then the water ought to keep me from turning into a

slab of stone in the first place. Only it didn't work the

way I expected," he finished disconsolately.

 

"I can see that," Cimorene said. "But at least you

can still do things. It would be much worse to have to

lie there waiting for the right prince to come along and

break the spell."

 

"I wouldn't have had to lie there very long," the

stone prince said. "That king's youngest son is going

to arrive any day now, I just know it. Anyway, if I

were a slab of stone, I wouldn't know about it until it

was all over and I'd been turned back into a prince

 

again."

 

"How do you know?" Cimorene demanded.

"Have you ever been a stone slab?"

 

The stone prince looked startled. "No, I haven't. I

never thought of that."

 

"Well, start thinking now," Cimorene said tartly.

"Here's the service room. Wait here for me, and don't

go wandering off if I'm late getting back. I don't know

how long this errand is going to take, and it would be

very awkward for me if the dragons found you roaming

through their tunnels."

 

"I'll remember," the stone prince promised. "But

what do I do if someone comes in?"

 

"Duck into the banquet area," Cimorene said,

showing him. "And if someone comes in there, too,

curl up in the corner and pretend you're a rock."

 

"All right," the prince said doubtfully.

Cimorene did not like leaving him, but she was

even less enthusiastic about taking him to see Roxim.

Roxim probably wouldn't object to the prince himself,

though Cimorene suspected that there might have been

some difficulty over his proposed theft of the Water of

Healing. But explaining everything to the gray-green

dragon would take hours. Roxim was nice, but he

tended to take a simple view of things, and the prince's

situation was anything but simple. So Cimorene gave

the prince one more warning, just to make sure he

understood, and started off toward Roxim's cave to

finish her errand.

 

160

 

<T •

f"

 

12

 

In Which Cimorene Calls on a Dragon,

and the Stone Prince Discovers a Plot

 

he shortcut to Roxim's worked just as well as Cim-

orene had hoped, and she even made up some of the

time she had lost earlier. Roxim was in, too. She could

hear the scraping of his scales as he moved around

inside. She stepped up to the entrance of the cave and

called, "Dragon Roxim!"

 

Something round and shiny flew through the air,

missing Cimorene by inches. It hit the wall of the tunnel

with a loud clang and slid rattling to the floor. Cimorene

jumped.

 

"Roxim!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Whafs this?" the dragon said, poking his nose

out of the cave entrance.

 

i6i

 

"I am Cimorene, princess to the dragon Kazul, and

I offer you greetings and good fortune in all your en-

deavors." Cimorene thought it best to be particularly

polite, in case Roxim were in a bad mood. She sus-

pected he might be. In her experience, someone in a

good mood did not throw things at visitors.

 

"Very good," Roxim said. "Nice to see you again

and all that, but I haven't got time for visitors at the

moment. Sorry."

 

"I'm not a visitor, exactly. Kazul sent me with a

message for you."

 

"Oh, well, thafs different. Just hand me that shield

there, would you?"

 

Cimorene picked up the shield from the floor of

the tunnel. There was a large dent in one side where

it had hit the tunnel wall, and several smaller ones over

the rest of it from banging against things on its way to

the tunnel floor.

 

"You ought to be more careful," she said severely.

"Just look at this!"

 

"Ha!" Roxim snorted, examining the dents.

"Shoddy work, shoddy work, that's the problem. In

my day, you could roll a knight in full armor down the

far side of the Vanishing Mountain and bounce him off

two or three cliffs without so much as scratching his

surface, much less denting it. This cheap modern stuff

just doesn't hold up."

 

"If you know it doesn't hold up, you shouldn't

throw it around like that," Cimorene said. "You almost

hit me."

 

Roxim shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry. Didn't mean

anything by it."

 

162

 

"All right, but next time look before you throw

things," Cimorene said, handing him the shield.

 

"I always have this problem when I try to find

something," Roxim confided. "Never know where to

look. Gets frustrating, and next thing you know I'm

pitching armor at the walls. Bad habit, but hard to

 

break."

 

"Maybe I could help," Cimorene suggested. "After

I give you Kazul's message, that is."

 

"Don't need help to put dents in things," Roxim

said. "Comes to that, I don't really want it."

 

"I didn't mean help throw things," Cimorene said

patiently. "I meant help find whatever you're looking

 

for."

 

"Oh, that. Well, come in then."

 

Cimorene followed the dragon into a moderately

large cave, similar to the one Kazul used as a living

area. Roxim's cave, however, was full of clutter. Cim-

orene had to pick her way past bits of armor, one half

of a pair of bookends, a box of tea, a pink scroll, three

mismatched kitchen pots, a small wooden statue, a

broken flute, and four partially burned candles. Roxim

walked straight over the mess as if it weren't there,

squashing a mangy-looking stuffed pigeon and flatten-

ing a tin cup in passing. He dropped the shield on a

pile of silk flowers and waved Cimorene to a seat on

a large wooden chest near one wall. "Now, what's this

message of Kazul's?"

 

"Ifs about the wizards," Cimorene said, settling

gingerly onto the dusty surface of the chest. She made

a mental note to find Roxim a nice princess as soon as

she possibly could. "Alianora and I found one of them

 

163

 

picking dragonsbane a few days ago, and Kazul thiiiKs

King Tokoz will listen to you if you tell him about -c "

 

"So that's where they got it," Roxim said in tones

of disgust. "Pity you didn't mention it sooner."

 

Cimorene got a sinking feeling. "What do v^u

mean?"

 

"Somebody poisoned King Tokoz this morning,"

Roxim explained. "Slipped some dragonsbane in his

coffee. Fast-acting; nothing to be done. Now we ne-d

a new king."

 

"Thafs awful!" Cimorene said. "Do you know who

did it?"

 

"Those dratted wizards, that's who," Roxim said

angrily. "It's obvious. Stupid thing to do; has to be

wizards, by George! But Woraug won't listen to me "

 

"Woraug? Whafs Woraug got to do with it?"

 

"He's in charge of the investigation," Roxim re-

plied. "Taking his time about it, too, if you ask me."

 

"But if the King was only poisoned this morn-

ing . . ."

 

"What does that have to do with it?" Roxim said

unreasonably. "Besides, if Woraug doesn't hurry, he

won't have the culprit in hand by the time the trials

start tomorrow."

 

"Trials? You mean with Colin's Stone, to choose

the new king?" Cimorene said with some hesitation.

She did not see how it could be a trial for the person

who had killed the King if they hadn't caught him yet,

but she was not completely certain that the dragons

didn't have some way of getting around the problem

and trying him anyway.

 

"That's it," Roxim said, pleased. "And before I

 

164

 

leave I have to find that emerald I picked up fifty years

ago. Coronation present for the new King."

 

"But you haven't got a new King yet," Cimorene

said feeling somewhat bewildered. "And what if you're

 

the King?"

 

Roxim smiled broadly. "Knew you were a nice gal.

 

Me the King! I rather like the idea. I still have to find

the emerald, though. Wouldn't do to show up at the

trials without a coronation present. Rum thing to do.

Overconfident."

 

Though she was upset and more than a little wor-

ried, Qmorene helped Roxim as best she could. After

about an hour of poking through the clutter, Cimorene

found the emerald, wrapped in a gold-embroidered

handkerchief and stuffed into the mouth of a large brass

hom. Roxim thanked her and invited her to stay to tea,

but Cimorene politely declined. She was eager to get

back to Kazul, to tell her what had happened and de-

dde what to do next.

 

Cimorene hurried back to Kazul's cave by the shortest

route, thinking so hard about Tokoz's death that she

forgot everything else. She found Kazul sleeping and

was forced to wake her, despite her worries about the

dragon's health. She knew Kazul would want to hear

about the King of the Dragons as soon as possible, and

she wanted to hear what Kazul made of Woraug's in-

volvement in the investigation.

 

"Back already?" Kazul said, opening her eyes.

"Didn't Roxim get you in to see King Tokoz?"

 

"No," Cimorene said. She hesitated, uncertain of

the best way to break the news. "It was too late."

 

165

 

"Too late?" Kazul raised her head, startled. She

eyed Cimorene briefly, then said, "All right, lefs have

it. What's happened?"

 

"King Tokoz was poisoned this morning. Roxim

said someone put dragonsbane in his coffee."

 

Kazul snorted. "Somebody knew Tokoz pretty

well." Seeing Cimorene's surprised expression, she ex-

plained, "Tokoz drank Turkish coffee every morning.

The stuff is strong enough to take the roof off your

mouth. It's why no one ever went to talk to him over

breakfast. You could boil a whole field's worth of drag-

onsbane in Turkish coffee without changing the taste

enough to notice. Or the texture."

 

Cimorene tried to imagine coffee, even Turkish cof-

fee, strong enough to take the roof off a dragon's mouth

and failed. "I told Roxim about the wizard Alianora

and I met, and Roxim said I ought to tell Woraug be-

cause Woraug is in charge of finding the poisoner,"

she said. "But—"

 

"But when you caught Antorell picking dragons-

bane, he thought Woraug had sent you," Kazul said.

"If Woraug's mixed up with wizards—" She broke off,

coughing. Cimorene watched her anxiously, but the

coughing spasm did not last long. "I don't like this,"

Kazul finished when she got her breath back.

 

"I don't, either," Cimorene agreed. "But what can

we do about it?"

 

Kazul frowned and said nothing. For several min-

utes, the two sat and thought in silence. Then Kazul

said, "We can't do anything until the new King has

been chosen. Did Roxim say when the testing will be?"

 

"Tomorrow," Cimorene said.

 

166

 

"Tomorrow!" Kazul surged to her feet. "Why

didn't you say so at once? If I'm to be at the Ford of

Whispering Snakes tomorrow, I have to—"

 

"Lie down!" Cimorene commanded. Kazul looked

at her in surprise and collapsed in another fit of cough-

ing. Cimorene waited until the dragon's coughing had

subsided, then said sternly, "You're in no condition to

go hauling rocks all over the countryside. I'd be sur-

prised if you can even fly as far as the end of the pass.

I think you're going to have to give up on the trials

this time around."

 

Kazul made a choking noise. Cimorene looked at

her in alarm, then realized that the dragon was

laughing.

 

"It's not optional. Princess," Kazul said. "All the

adult dragons in the Mountains of Morning are required

to show up, no matter what condition they're in."

 

"But—"

 

"There is no acceptable excuse for missing the test-

ing of a new King," Kazul repeated. "None. And I have

a great deal to do before I leave, so if you'll—"

 

"If anything needs to be done around here, I'll do

it," Cimorene said firmly. "If you don't rest, you won't

be able to fly at all, and then how will you get to the

ford?"

 

"A reasonable point," Kazul said, settling reluc-

tantly back into place. "Very well. The first thing I need

is a coronation present for the new King. There's a

jeweled helmet on a shelf in the second storeroom that

might do. Bring it out so I can take a look at it."

 

Cimorene spent the rest of the evening running

errands for Kazul. Besides choosing a coronation gift

 

167

 

(Kazul rejected the helmet and two crowns before d(

dding on a scepter made of gold and crystal), innu-

merable messages had to be delivered to various

dragons who were in charge of arranging the trials.

This one had to be informed of Kazul's ill health, so

that it could be taken into account when the order of

the testing was established; that one had to be told that

Kazul would not be able to join the coronation proces-

sion. Substitutes had to be found to perform Kazul's

various ceremonial duties, then their names had to be

approved by a surly dragon in charge of protocol, and

finally the substitutions had to be recorded on all the

lists of all the dragons who were managing each of the

events. It reminded Cimorene strongly of Linderwall

and her parents' court.

 

By the time the last arrangement had been made

and the last message delivered, it was very late ana

Cimorene was exhausted. She was also very glad she

had not let Kazul do all the running around. The

dragon, who had slept most of the time Cimorene was

out, was looking much better, even in the dim light c*

Cimorene's lamp. Tired but satisfied, Cimorene wen-

to her room and dropped into bed.

 

Cimorene was up early the next morning, stirring a

dozen ostrich eggs in a large iron kettle for Kazul's

breakfast. Kazul ate all of them, then slid out of the

cave and prepared to leave for the Ford of Whispering

Snakes.

 

"Don't fret. Princess," Kazul said. "The testing

doesn't start until ten. I have plenty of time to get there,

 

168

 

pven if I stop to rest now and then." Her voice sounded

much better than it had the day before, and it no longer

seemed to rasp her throat. "While I'm gone, why don't

you visit Woraug's princess? See if she's noticed any-

thing odd these past few days. We need to know as

much as we can before we talk to the new King about

Woraug and the wizards."

 

"All right," Cimorene said. "As soon as I'm done

with the dishes."

 

Kazul turned and leaped into the air, her wings

churning clouds of dust from the dry surface of the

ground. Cimorene squinted after her and shouted,

"Good luck!" Kazul's wings dipped in answer before

the dragon soared out of sight behind the shoulder of

the next mountain. Cimorene stood looking after Kazul,

her forehead wrinkling in worry. After a moment she

shook herself and went inside. She had work to do.

 

Washing the dishes did not take long, and as soon

as she was done, Cimorene set off to visit Alianora.

The tunnels and passageways were silent and empty,

and Cimorene's footsteps echoed eerily through the

darkness. She began to wish she had taken the longer

route along the outside of the mountain. She had not

realized that the dragon city would seem so strange

and lifeless with all the dragons gone.

 

"Psst! Cimorene!"

 

Cimorene jumped. She whirled in the direction of

the voice, raising her lamp like a club, and Alianora

stepped out of the adjoining tunnel and into the circle

of light. In one hand she clutched a large bucket, three-

quarters full of soapy water, and she looked rather pale.

 

169

 

"Alianora!" Cimorene said, lowering her arm,

"What are you doing out here?"

 

"Shhh!" Alianora said. She looked nervously ov»-r

her shoulder. "Woraug told me to scrub off the tab'e

in the banquet room while everyone was away. And--

and I heard someone moving around in there. Evrn

though everyone but us is gone. And I dropped cy

lamp, and—"

 

"Oh, my goodness," Cimorene said. "The stogie

prince! I'd forgotten all about him."

 

"Who?"

 

"The stone prince." Quickly, Cimorene explained

how she had found and hidden him the day before.

"And I hadn't thought about it until now, but this is

the perfect time to get him out of the mountains," she

finished. "All the dragons are gone and no one will

see him. Come on, before I forget again."

 

Alianora nodded dubiously, and the two girls

headed for the banquet room. When they arrived, Cim-

orene went in first, holding her lamp high. "Prince?"

she called. "Are you there? It's me, Cimorene."

 

"Yes, I'm here," said the stone prince, unfolding

stiffly from a gray lump in the comer. "I'm glad you're

back. Who's this you've brought with you?"

 

"Princess Alianora of the Duchy of Toure-on-

Marsh," Cimorene said. "She's the princess of the

dragon Woraug just now."

 

"Does her father need a great service done for

him?" the prince asked hopefully.

 

"Not that I know of," Cimorene replied. "Unless

you're good at getting rid of aunts, but that would be

more of a service to Alianora than to her father."

 

170

 

"\ can think of nothing that would make me hap-

pier," the prince said with evident admiration as he

bowed stiffly to Alianora. "Good afternoon. Princess.

Or should it be 'good evening'? It's hard to tell without

windows."

 

Alianora blushed and looked down at her bucket

without answering.

 

"Actually, it's good morning," Cimorene told the

prince. "I'm sorry it took me so long to come back for

you, but . . . well, a lot has been going on."

 

Alianora looked up sharply. "You've been sitting

here in the dark all night?" She shuddered. "You could

at least have left him a candle, Cimorene."

 

"Thank you for the thought. Princess Alianora, but

ifs just as well she didn't," the stone prince said. "If

I'd been sitting here with a lit candle, they'd have no-

ticed me right away. And an unlit candle isn't much

use in the dark, is it?"

 

"What do you mean?" Cimorene said. "Who

would have noticed you?"

 

'The dragon and the two men he was talking to,"

replied the prince. "I think they were wizards."

 

"What?" said Cimorene and Alianora together.

 

"Well, they talked as if they were wizards," the

prince said. "They weren't carrying staffs, though."

 

"What did they look like?" Cimorene said.

 

"They were both tall, and they both had beards.

The older one's was gray and the younger one's was

brown."

 

"Antorell and Zemenar!" Cimorene said. "And

they were talking to a dragon?"

 

The stone prince nodded.

 

171

 

 

 

 

"Then they wouldn't have been carrying staffs.

Dragons are allergic to them. Did you hear what they

said?"

 

"Something about a contest," the stone prince said.

"The wizards were going to fix it so this dragon would

win. It sounded like a kird of cross-country race, and

the wizards were going to hide along the path and—

and help the dragon out somehow. I'm afraid I'm not

very clear about that part. Spells aren't my specialty.

I'm much better at hopeless causes."

 

Alianora and Cimorene exchanged appalled

glances.

 

"The trials with Colin's Stone to pick the new

King!" Alianora said.

 

"Which dragon?" Cimorene asked urgently. "Do

you know which dragon they were talking to?"

 

"I only heard the name once," the prince said. He

sounded apologetic and a little embarrassed. "And I

don't think I got it right. Ifs too silly."

 

"Tell us!" Cimorene commanded.

 

"Well, it sounded like 'warthog/ " the prince said

in an even more apologetic tone than before.

 

"Could it have been Woraug?" Cimorene asked

 

"That's it!" the prince said. "I knew it couldn't

really have been warthog."

 

"What a pity you remembered," said a voice from

the entrance into the banquet hall.

 

Cimorene whirled. Antorell stood in the doorway,

staff in hand, watching them with an intolerably smug

expression.

 

172

 

13

 

 

 

 

In Which Alianora Discovers

an Unexpected Use for Soap and Water,

and Cimorene Has Difficulty

with a Dragon

 

 

 

 

./Intorell looked past Cimorene and Alianora as if they

were not there and spoke directly to the stone prince.

"I told Father someone was listening. He won't be

happy when he finds out I was right, but he'U feel

better when I tell him I've taken care of things. He

might even let me have the first look in the King's

Crystal, once Woraug gives it to us."

 

"So thafs what you're after!" Cimorene said.

Antorell favored her with a superior smile. "Quite

right. Princess Cimorene. The King's Crystal will show

us the whereabouts of every piece of useful and inter-

esting magic in the world. All we'll have to do is go

out and pick them up."

 

"Somehow I don't think it will be that easy," Cim-

orene murmured.

 

"We knew Tokoz would never give it to us, but

Woraug will, as soon as he's King of the Dragons. He'll

have to, or we'll tell everyone how we were the ones

who made sure he was the new king. Of course, we

can't afford to have anybody around who might make

. . . awkward revelations. I doubt that dragons will

listen to a couple of hysterical princesses, but he"—

Antorell pointed at the stone prince—"will have to go."

 

"What are you going to do?" Alianora demanded.

She was plainly frightened, and Cimorene could see

that her knuckles were white with the force of her grip

on the handle of the scrub bucket.

 

"Oh, gravel seems appropriate, don't you think?"

Antorell said. "No one will notice a few more rocks

around here."

 

"Ought I to be taking this person seriously?" the

stone prince said in a rather doubtful tone.

 

"You'd better if you don't want to end up as a lot

of little pebbles," Alianora answered. She still sounded

frightened, but she seemed to be getting a grip on

herself. "He's a wizard."

 

"You wouldn't be talking about gravel if you were

the one who had to sweep the floor," Cimorene said

to Antorell. She stepped forward as she spoke, hoping

to get between Antorell and the stone prince before

Antorell noticed what she was doing. She didn't think

Antorell was a good enough wizard to do any real

harm, but there was no point in taking chances.

 

"Stay where you are. Princess Cimorene," Antorell

commanded. "I'll deal with you in a moment."

 

174

 

"Must you be so theatrical?" Cimorene said.

 

"Theatrical? You think I'm being theatrical?" An-

torell said furiously. "I am simply showing a proper

respect for the importance of this moment!"

 

"You're showing off," Cimorene said flatly. "And

you're not doing it very well."

 

"He doesn't sound much like a wizard to me," the

stone prince said. "Is he always like this?"

 

"Enough!" Antorell cried, and raised his staff.

Light shimmered along its length and began to gather

at the lower end. Grinning wolfishly, the wizard tilted

the staff, aiming it toward the stone prince.

 

"Stop that!" Alianora said. Antorell ignored her.

"I said, stop it!" Alianora shouted, and threw her bucket

at Antorell's head.

 

Alianora's aim was off. The bucket hit Antorell's

shoulder. A bolt of fire shot from the end of his staff

and whizzed between Cimorene and the stone prince

to strike the far wall with a whumping noise and a

shower of sparks. Antorell staggered, slipped in the

cascade of soapy water, and fell over the bucket, drop-

ping his staff in the process.

 

Cimorene darted in and kicked Antorell's staff out

of his reach. He stared up at her from a mound of

soggy silk and soapsuds. "You can't do this to me!" he

shrieked.

 

Something in his voice made Cimorene and her

friends look at him more closely. Alianora's eyes went

wide, and Cimorene blinked in surprise. "He's—he's

collapsing," Alianora said in a stunned voice.

"He's melting," Cimorene corrected her.

"I can't be melting!" Antorell cried. "I'm a wizard!

 

i75

 

Ifs not fa—" His head disappeared into a small brown

puddle, and his cries stopped.

 

There was a moment of astonished silence. "I

thought it was witches who melt when you dump water

over them," the stone prince said at last.

 

"It is, usually," Cimorene said. "What on earth did

you put in that bucket, Alianora?"

 

"Just water and soap, and a little lemon juice to

make it smell nicer," Alianora said.

 

"Um," said Cimorene, thinking hard. "I'll bet

there's a simpler way of melting wizards, but we don't

have time right now to figure out what it is. How many

buckets can you get hold of in a hurry?"

 

"Buckets?" Alianora said. "Two, counting this one.

And I suppose I could borrow one from Hallanna; that's

 

three."

 

"And I've got two in the kitchen, and I expect the

iron kettle is big enough. That's six altogether; two for

each of us. You will help, won't you?" Cimorene

added, turning to the stone prince.

 

"Of course," the prince assured her. "Help with

 

what?"

 

"Stopping those wizards," Cimorene said. "We

can't let them make Woraug the next King of the Drag-

ons by trickery."

 

"I don't see how we can stop them," Alianora said.

"We can't possibly get to the Ford of Whispering

Snakes before the trials start, and even if we could, we

don't know where the wizards will be hiding."

 

"If we tell the dragons that Woraug's trying to

cheat, they'll stop the trials," Cimorene said with more

 

176

 

confidence than she felt. "That will give us time to find

the wizards. And I've got a way to get us to the ford.

You go start collecting buckets. I'll meet you at your

place after I get the things I'll need from Kazul's."

 

"What about..." Alianora gestured with distaste

at the wet, messy lump of robes in the center of the

puddle that was all that remained of Antorell.

 

"We'll clean it up when we get back," Cimorene

said. "This is more important."

 

Alianora nodded, and the three left the banquet

room. The stone prince decided to accompany Alianora

since he was not a fast walker and Cimorene had farther

to go. Cimorene left them when they reached the main

tunnel and ran back to Kazul's cave. There she went

straight to her room and opened the drawer where she

kept odds and ends. In the back left-hand comer, care-

fully wrapped in a handkerchief, were the three black

feathers she had taken from beneath the left wing of

the bird she had killed in the Enchanted Forest. She

shoved the whole packet into her pocket without both-

ering to unwrap it and went on to the kitchen to collect

her buckets. Then she hurried through the tunnels to

Woraug's cave, where Alianora and the stone prince

were waiting.

 

When Cimorene arrived, she found the stone

prince pumping water to fill Alianora's third bucket

while Alianora mixed soap and lemon juice into the

second. Cimorene set her pots and pails next to the

pump and went to help Alianora.

 

"Now what?" Alianora said when all the buckets

were full of cleaning mixture.

 

177

 

Cimorene reached into her pocket and dug out the

package. Gently, she unfolded the handkerchief and

removed one of the feathers, noticing as she did that

the package also contained the pebble she had picked

up in the Caves of Fire and Night. "If we each take

two buckets, can we still link elbows without spilling

 

too much?" she asked.

 

Alianora and the stone prince looked at each other,

shrugged, and picked up two buckets each. Cimorene

took the last bucket and the iron pot, holding the handle

of the pot with only three fingers so that she could keep a

grip on the feather with her thumb and forefinger. A se-

ries of awkward maneuvers followed as Alianora and

the stone prince tried to link elbows with Cimorene

without losing their balance or dropping one of their

buckets. In the process, Cimorene's skirt got soaked.

 

"It's a good thing I'm not a wizard," Cimorene

said. "Ready? Here we go." She twisted her hand to-

ward the edge of the iron pot and let go of the black

feather. "I wish we were at the Ford of Whispering

Snakes," she said as the feather fell, and the room

 

dissolved around them.

 

They materialized at the very edge of a river, on a

flat, narrow rock that jutted out over the water, and

Alianora immediately slipped on the wet stone. If the

stone prince had not been so solid and heavy, all three

of them would have fallen into the river. As it was, it

took Cimorene and Alianora several seconds to regain

their balance. When she was finally sure of her footing,

Cimorene breathed a sigh of relief and quickly looked

about her.

 

178

 

The Ford of Whispering Snakes was crowded.

Dragons of all sizes and shades of green lined the banks

of the river and filled the spaces beneath the towering

trees of the Enchanted Forest. On the far bank, a pale

dragon was poring over a parchment list that Cimorene

thought she remembered seeing during one of the

many errands she had run the previous night. All the

dragons seemed to be talking at once, and none of them

noticed Cimorene and her friends.

 

"Hello, dragons!" Cimorene shouted, trying to

make herself heard above the noise.

 

"Here, now! What's all this?" an olive-green

dragon on the bank demanded, turning. "Someone's

trying to sneak a look at the trials."

 

"S-s-s-sneakssss," hissed a soft but nonetheless

dearly audible voice from somewhere near Cimorene's

feet. Cimorene jumped and looked down, but though

she craned her neck to see all around her, she could

not find the second speaker.

 

"Get rid of them before Troum comes back with

Colin's Stone," another dragon advised.

 

"We aren't trying to sneak in, and we don't care

about watching the trials," Cimorene said, wishing she

dared to look around for Kazul. "We came to warn you

about the wizards."

 

"Wiz-z-zardssss," the soft voice echoed.

 

"Wizards?" the olive-green dragon said skeptically.

"There aren't any wizards here."

 

"No, but they've figured out some way of inter-

fering with your choice of the next king," Cimorene

said. "They're hiding somewhere. You have to put off

 

i79

 

the trials with Colin's Stone until we can find them and

stop them. If you'll just tell Kazul we're here—"

 

"Put off the trials?" the olive-green dragon inter-

rupted. "Impossible! They've been under way for half

an hour. We can't just stop in the middle. Who are all

you people, anyway?"

 

A flicker of motion caught Cimorene's eye, and she

looked down just in time to see a thin red snake dart

from one dump of weeds to the next. "S-s-s-sneaksss,"

whispered the soft voice an instant later. "S-s-sneaksss

 

and wiz-z-zardsss."

 

"I wasn't asking you," the dragon said severely in

the general direction of the snake. "And whatever they

are, they certainly aren't wizards."

 

"They look like somebody's princesses to me," a

blue-green dragon said. "Pity, that. It would be so

much simpler to eat them and get them out of the way."

 

"Are you sure?" said a third dragon. "The one on

the end doesn't look like a princess."

 

"I'm beginning to think this wasn't such a good

idea," the stone prince said.

 

"He may not be a princess, but he doesn't look

edible, either," the blue-green dragon pointed out.

"And these other two are definitely princesses. You

can't go eating them out of hand."

 

"Princesssessss," hissed the voice from under the

 

rock.

 

"Oh, princesses," the olive-green dragon said. "No

 

wonder they're so full of wild tales."

 

"It's true!" Cimorene said desperately. "If you

don't believe us, take us to Kazul; she will."

 

180

 

"I can't do that!" the olive-green dragon said,

shocked. "Kazul's third in line now, after Mazarin and

Woraug. You can't talk to people who are that close to

making their attempt with the stone. It would distract

them."

 

"Woraug!" Alianora said. "Woraug's next in line?"

 

"Yes, he should be starting off any minute now,"

said the olive-green dragon. "Then comes Mazarin, and

then Kazul. I don't expect it will take long, though. No-

body's carried the stone for more than a mile or two yet."

 

"But I'm Kazul's princess!" Cimorene said.

 

"I don't care who you are," the dragon replied

crossly. "You can't talk to Kazul until she's done with

her turn."

 

"That will be too late!" Cimorene cried. "You don't

understand. Woraug and the wizards—"

 

"I've had enough of your wizards," the olive-green

dragon said. "You're a confounded nuisance, and you

ought not to be pushing your way in here where you're

not wanted. Go away!"

 

"Cimorene, what are we going to do?" Alianora

said as the olive-green dragon turned and stalked de-

tenninedly away.

 

"At hero's school we were always taught that if

you couldn't persuade anyone to help you with some-

thing, it meant that you were supposed to do it by

yourself," the stone prince said diffidently. "And we

are prepared." He lifted one of his buckets slightly.

 

"But we don't know where the wizards are." Al-

ianora said. "We have to find them before we can stop

them, and there isn't time."

 

i8i

 

"S-s-stop the wiz-z-zardsss," whispered the soft

voice.

 

"That's the first sensible thing you've said since

we got here," Cimorene said to the hissing whisper.

 

"Can't you just wish to be where the wizards are?"

the stone prince asked Cimorene.

 

"No, you have to know where you're going, or the

spell doesn't work," Cimorene said.

 

For a moment all three were glumly silent. Cim-

orene stared at the water, remembering how and where

she had gotten the feathers. Suddenly she raised her

head.

 

"We may not know where the wizards are, but I'll

bet I know someone who can find out. Hold this for a

minute."

 

Cimorene handed one of her buckets to Alianora,

then dug out the packet of feathers. She pulled the

second feather from the packet and grabbed Alianora's

elbow. "Hold tight, everybody. I wish we were at Mor-

wen's house," Cimorene said, and dropped the feather.

 

The scenery shifted abruptly, and they were stand-

ing on Morwen's porch. The house was just as tidy-

looking as Cimorene remembered, and the porch floor

gleamed as if it had just been washed. A black and

white cat, startled by their sudden appearance, fell off

the porch railing. Four others left off washing them-

selves to stare at Cimorene with unwinking green and

yellow eyes.

 

"I need to talk to Morwen," Cimorene said to the

cats. "It's an emergency."

 

A lean tiger-stripped cat rose and oozed through

 

182

 

a crack in the door. Cimorene unwound herself from

Alianora and the stone prince and set her bucket on

the porch floor. "I hope this works," she muttered to

herself as Alianora and the prince placed their buckets

beside hers.

 

183

 

14

 

In Which the Wizards Try to Make Trouble,

and Cimorene Does Something about It

 

the door of the cottage opened and Morwen stepped

out. "What sort of emergency?" she asked. She studied

Alianora and the stone prince for a moment, then

peered at Cimorene over the tops of her glasses and

added with some severity, "I hope you weren't refer-

ring to his predicament. He may well find it an incon-

venience, but it certainly isn't an emergency. Not by

my standards, anyway."

 

"No," said Cimorene, "I was talking about the

wizards. They've poisoned the King of the Dragons,

and now they're trying to interfere with Colin's Stone

so that Woraug will be the new king. We have to stop

them, but we don't know where they are, and Woraug's

 

184

 

going to try to carry the stone any minute. Can you

find them for us?"

 

Morwen blinked twice and shoved her glasses back

into place with her forefinger. "I see," she said. "You're

right. It's an emergency. I'll do what I can. But if you

don't tell me the whole story later, when there's a bit

more time, I shall—I shall turn you all into mice and

give you to the cats. Wait here."

 

As she spoke, Morwen disappeared into the house.

She reappeared a moment later, holding a small mirror

and muttering over it. "Colin's Stone," she said, and

breathed on the glass. She looked up. "Any wizard in

particular?"

 

"Zemenar, the Head Wizard of the Society of Wiz-

ards/' Cimorene said, wishing Morwen would go faster

and knowing she couldn't.

 

"I should have guessed," Morwen said. She turned

back to the mirror. "Zemenar," she said, and breathed

on the glass once more. Then she motioned to Cim-

orene to come and look.

 

Cimorene obeyed, and Alianora and the stone

prince crowded closely behind her. The mirror showed

a blurry, wavering picture of the Ford of Whispering

Snakes. As Cimorene watched, the picture moved

slowly along one bank of the river, past the waiting

dragons and the immense trees of the Enchanted Forest

and on down the river.

 

"Can't it go any faster?" Alianora whispered.

 

"There's no need to whisper, and no, it can't,"

Morwen said. "Not if you want to be sure of finding

these wizards of yours on the first try, and it doesn't

sound as if you have time to waste on mistakes."

 

185

 

The picture in the mirror continued to creep along

the bank. Cimorene pulled the third and last feather

out of her pocket and brushed it nervously across her

fingers while she waited.

 

"What's that?" the stone prince said suddenly.

 

The mirror-picture stopped, then moved up the

bank, away from the river toward a thicket of blackberry

brambles. Cimorene saw the tip of a wooden staff pok-

ing up above the thicket. Tensely, she waited for the

mirror to show the far side of the brambles.

 

"It's them!" Alianora said. She sounded frightened

and excited at the same time. "Oh, dear!"

 

Cimorene took a good look at the picture in the

mirror. Five wizards were standing in an opening be-

hind the blackberry thicket, leaning on their staffs and

looking at the sky. Suddenly, one of the wizards

pointed. The others peered upward, nodded, and

raised their staffs.

 

"Get the buckets!" Cimorene said. Cats scattered

in all directions as the stone prince pounded across the

porch behind Cimorene and Alianora. "Hang on; here

we go. I wish—"

 

"Not without me you—" Morwen said, grabbing

Cimorene's shoulder.

 

"—we were at the blackberry thicket where the

wizards are," Cimorene said, and dropped the feather.

 

"—don't," Morwen finished as the porch winked

out and was replaced by blackberries.

 

The five wizards were standing in an arc just in

front of the bramble. Each of them held his staff so that

the lower end was about a foot above the ground,

 

186

 

pointing at something hidden in the moss at their feet.

An unpleasant yellow-green light dripped from the

ends of the staffs, and the moss where the wizards

were standing was brown and dead. The wizards' backs

were toward Cimorene and her friends.

 

"Now!" Cimorene cried. As the wizards began to

turn, she set one of her buckets on the ground and

lifted the other in both hands. Taking careful aim, she

flung the soapy water over a black-haired wizard in the

center of the arc.

 

"Charge!" yelled the stone prince, and threw one

of his buckets at the nearest wizard.

 

"Take that, you cheats!" said Alianora, dumping

the first of her buckets over another.

 

"What—this is impossible!" said one of the wizards

indignantly as he began to melt.

 

"Too bad," Cimorene said, throwing her second

load of water at the next-to-last wizard.

 

"Watch where you're throwing that!" Morwen said

to the stone prince, who had sloshed his second bucket

over the fifth wizard with such enthusiasm that water

sprayed in all directions.

 

"Sorry," the prince apologized. "Is that all of

them?"

 

"It's all five of the ones we saw," Cimorene said

cautiously.

 

"Then we did it!" Alianora said.

 

"Not quite," said Zemenar, stepping out of the

bushes behind Morwen. "You interrupted the spell, of

course, but we were nearly finished anyway. And as

long as the stone remains enchanted, Woraug won't

 

187

 

have any trouble getting it all the way to the Vanishing

Mountain. Look." He pointed with his staff, and Cim-

orene saw three dragons, high in the air, flying steadily

toward the mountains. One of them had a long black

stone clutched in his claws, and the other two appeared

to be escorting him at a careful distance.

 

"Woraug and the two judges," Cimorene mur-

mured.

 

Zemenar nodded. "You might as well put that

bucket down," he went on, turning to Alianora. "You

can't throw it at me without melting your witch friend

here. What's in it, by the way?"

 

"I don't see why we should tell you," Cimorene

said as Alianora set the last of the six buckets down.

 

"Because I'm interested. Princess," Zemenar said

with an oily smile. "And it will pass the time until the

next shift gets here, and I can decide what to do with

you."

 

"If you're that interested, why don't you take a

closer look?" said the stone prince, picking up Al-

ianora's bucket.

 

"Stay where you are!" Zemenar commanded. As

he spoke, he raised his staff and sidestepped so that

Morwen was between him and the stone prince.

 

"If you insist," said the prince. He shrugged, lifted

the bucket, and flung the water over Morwen and Zem-

enar at the same time.

 

"What—no!" Zemenar cried in horror as he began

to melt. "Not soapsuds! It's demeaning."

 

"There's a little lemon juice in it, too," Alianora

offered.

 

188

 

Zemenar glared at her. He was less than half his

normal height and shrinking as they watched, while a

dark puddle spread out beneath him. "Lemon juice! Bah!

How dare you do such a thing? I'm the Head Wizard of the

Society of Wizards!" His voice grew fainter and higher

as he shrank. "Interfering busybodies! Soapsuds! Of all the

undignified tricks. You'll be sony for this! You can't melt a wizaid

forever, you know! You'll be sor . . ."

 

The wizard's voice ceased. All that remained of

him was a pile of silk robes and a long wooden staff

lying on some damp moss. Alianora and Cimorene

stared for a moment, then Alianora turned to the stone

prince.

 

"I'm glad he's gone," she said, "but how could

you melt Morwen just to get at that wizard?"

 

"But I didn't," the stone prince said. "Look."

 

Cimorene and Alianora turned. Morwen seemed

no shorter than usual, though she certainly looked very

damp. She had taken off her glasses and was shaking

water off them. "Don't just stand there," she said

crossly to Cimorene. "Hand me a dry handkerchief."

 

"Just a minute," Cimorene said, checking her pock-

ets. She found the handkerchief that had been wrapped

around the magic feathers and handed it to Morwen.

"Um, why didn't you melt?"

 

"Clean living," Morwen said as she began to dry

her glasses on Cimorene's handkerchief.

 

"I thought as much," the stone prince said in

a satisfied tone. "Nobody who lives in a house as

dean as yours could possibly melt in a bucket of soap-

suds."

 

189

 

"Quite right," Morwen said approvingly. "You

have a good head on your shoulders, young man.

What's this?" She held up a sharp-edged black pebble.

 

"It's a piece of stone I found in the Caves of Fire

and Night," Cimorene said.

 

"Where, exactly?"

 

"In the King's Cave," Cimorene said. "Morwen,

shouldn't we do something about that spell Zemenar

 

mentioned?"

 

Alianora was watching the sky, shading her eyes

with her hand. "Woraug's nearly halfway to the moun-

tain," she said .anxiously.

 

"Good," said Morwen, though neither Cimorene

nor Alianora could tell which of them she was talking

to. The witch shook her wet robes and walked over to

the patch of dead moss where the wizards had been

working, picking her way carefully past little piles of

robes and staffs. Cimorene followed. In the center of

the brown area was a black stone the size of Cimorene's

fist. A web of yellow-green light flickered across its

smooth surface.

 

"Sloppy," Morwen said. "Very sloppy. Though

I'm not surprised. Wizards always seem to depend on

brute force when a little subtlety would be far more

effective." She fingered Cimorene's pebble for a mo-

ment, then reached out and dropped it on top of the

wizards' stone.

 

There was a noise like a great deal of popcorn all

popping at once, and the light that flickered over the

black stone spat yellow-green sparks in all directions.

Alianora jumped and backed away. Cimorene would

 

190

 

have liked to do the same, but she did not want to give

Morwen a bad impression of her courage, so she stayed

where she was.

 

The sparks died, and the flickering light went out.

From the sky high above came a faint shriek of surprise

and rage. Cimorene looked up and saw three black

specks in the sky. No, not three: four, and the two

escort dragons were swooping to catch the speck that

was Colin's Stone, which Woraug had just dropped.

 

Cimorene gave a sigh of relief and looked at Mor-

wen. "So much for Woraug and the wizards," she said.

"We didn't even need the fireproofing spell. What did

you do?"

 

"And what happens now?" Alianora added.

 

"Duck," said Morwen, and threw herself sideways

into the bushes.

 

"Wha—" said the stone prince, and then he and

Cimorene and Alianora were engulfed by a blast of

dragon fire.

 

The stone prince leaped in front of the two prin-

cesses, but he was much too late to protect them. For-

tunately the fireproofing spell was still in effect, and

neither of them even felt warm, though Alianora lost

the ends of her sleeves and Cimorene's hemline rose

six scorched inches.

 

"I knew I shouldn't have said that about the fire-

proofing spell," Cimorene muttered,

 

With a wordless snarl and a thunder of wings,

Woraug landed just in front of the little group.

 

"You!" he shouted when he saw Cimorene. "I

might have known it would be you!" Flame shot from

 

191

 

his mouth once more, but it was just as useless as it

had been the first time.

 

Cimorene glanced up and saw one of the escort

dragons spiraling down to see what was going on. "You

might as well give up, Woraug," she said, hoping to

distract the angry dragon long enough for help to ar-

rive. "You can't be King of the Dragons now."

 

"I'll tear you limb from limb!" Woraug raged.

"Every last one of you!" One arm shot out as he spoke,

and shining silver claws snapped around the stone

prince's waist.

 

Alianora screamed.

 

"Hurry up!" Cimorene shouted at the dragon in

 

the sky.

 

The dragon heard and dove toward them, but he

was not fast enough. Woraug shoved the stone prince

into his mouth and bit down hard. An instant later he

howled in pain and spat out the prince and four teeth.

 

"What i5 all this?" said the escort dragon, landing

carefully beside ^^oraug. The clearing was getting

 

rather crowded.

 

"A plot to cheat on the test to see who the next

King of the Dragons will be," Cimorene said. "Woraug

was in it, and a lot of wizards."

 

"Are you all right?" Alianora asked the stone

prince, who was just picking himself up. His stone was

black in places from the dragon fire, but otherwise he

 

seemed unhurt.

 

"More or less," the stone prince said. "But just

look what that fire did to my clothes! And that dragon's

put a chip in my sleeve. What am I supposed to do

 

192

 

about that? It's not as if I can just change clothes when

I get home, you know."

 

"That's ridiculous!" the escort dragon told Cimo-

rene. "No dragon would cooperate with wizards. I

don't see any wizards, either. I think you're making it

up."

 

"Of course you don't see any wizards," Cimorene

said, feeling very cross. "We melted them."

 

"Melted them?"

 

"Where do you think those staffs came from?"

Cimorene pointed at the wizards' staffs lying across the

scattered brown puddles.

 

The dragon backed up a pace and sniffed experi-

mentally.

 

"It's all quite true," Morwen said, poking her head

out of the bushes. "And we'll be more than happy to

explain the whole thing to your new King as soon as

you have one. Provided, of course, that you take that

maniac away before he burns the whole Enchanted

Forest to the ground." She gestured at Woraug. "Cim-

orene, I really must insist on getting a copy of that

fireproofing spell. It will clearly be worth every minute

of the months of hunting it will take me to find some

hens' teeth, and I may as well get started as soon as I

can."

 

"Who's that?" said the escort dragon. "Morwen?

That does it! This is too much for me. I'm taking you

all into custody until the trials are over and the King

can sort it out. Come along."

 

"I assume that doesn't apply to me," Woraug rum-

bled. He winced as he spoke.

 

193

 

 

 

 

"It certainly does," the escort dragon said. "I said

all, and I meant all. If I'd meant 'all the humans/ I'd

have said 'all the humans/ or maybe 'some of you' or

'you over there' or 'all you non-dragons' or—"

 

"Nonsense!" Woraug interrupted. "Don't you

know who I am?"

 

"You're the dragon who caused a ruckus just now

for no reason I can see," the escort dragon replied.

"And it's my duty and my job to take you into custody.

When the trials are over, you can explain it to the King,

and if I've done something wrong, well, I'll take what

I have coming. And if I haven't, you'll take yours.

 

And—"

 

"All right, all right," Woraug said. "But I warn

 

you, you'll regret this."

 

"That's as may be," the escort dragon said with

dignity. "Right now, though, you're in custody along

with the rest of these people, and you'd better not go

snacking on any of them until things are sorted out. I

saw what you did to the gray one."

 

"Did you?" said the stone prince. "Then what are

you going to do about this chip in my sleeve?"

 

"Tell it to the King," the escort dragon advised.

"Now, off we go, the lot of you."

 

Morwen came cautiously out of the bushes, brush-

ing leaves from her already wet black robes. She

stopped and peered at the escort dragon over the tops

of her glasses. "This has not been a good day for any-

one's clothes," she said severely. "I shall send the

cleaning bill to your king."

 

"Whatever you want," the escort dragon said im-

patiently. "Come on."

 

194

 

Scowling furiously, Woraug marched off into the

forest. The stone prince and Alianora followed, talking

in low voices. Morwen paused to pick up the wizards'

black rock and Cimorene's pebble, then went on after

them. Cimorene hesitated.

 

"Go on," said the escort dragon.

 

"I will, but I think you ought to know that another

batch of wizards is supposed to show up soon," Cim-

orene said. "Zemenar said something about a second

shift. I don't know what they can do without the stone

they were using, but I'm sure they'll try something."

 

"Wizards always do," the escort dragon said with

a sigh. He studied the wizards' staffs that were lying

around the clearing with a melancholy air. "All right,

I'll send someone back to keep an eye on things as soon

as we get to the ford. Whatever was going on here,

there certainly were wizards in it, and that's enough

for me."

 

"Good," said Cimorene. "And thank you." She

smiled at the startled expression on the dragon's face

and started after the others.

 

15

 

In Which the Dragons Crown a .New King,

and Cimorene Gets a New Job

 

the walk to the Ford of Whispering Snakes took longer

than Cimorene expected. The trees of the Enchanted

Forest grew dose together in many places, fordng the

dragons to take a zigzag path instead of heading

straight up the bank of the river. Woraug, who was in

the lead, seemed to be deliberately setting a slow pace.

Cimorene was sure he was hoping that the second shift

of wizards would arrive at the blackberry clearing be-

fore the dragons at the ford had been warned. She had

no idea what would happen then, but she doubted that

it would be good. The escort dragon was not interested

in Cimorene's worries, however, and he refused to

speed things up, so the group ambled on.

 

196

 

As they approached the ford at last, they heard

cheering ahead of them. Woraug flinched visibly, and

Alianora and the stone prince were startled out of their

quiet conversation.

 

"Whafs that?" Alianora said.

 

"Sounds to me as if we have a new King," their

escort said with great satisfaction. "That means I can

get you lot off my hands right away. What a relief! I

thought I was going to be stuck with you for hours."

 

Alianora looked faintly indignant at this unflatter-

ing opinion. Morwen was merely amused. Woraug's

wings sagged momentarily, but then he -seemed to pull

himself back together, and he continued on as confi-

dently as ever. Cimorene's concern deepened. What if

Woraug managed to convince the new King that they

were all lying?

 

They reached the edge of the cheering crowd of

dragons. "Who did it?" the escort dragon asked.

"Who's the new King?"

 

"How should I know?" the other responded. "I

can't see a thing from way out here."

 

"You'll find out soon enough, ".the escort dragon

said. Then he raised his voice and shouted, "Make way!

Coming through! Prisoners for the King! Make way!"

 

The crowd of dragons parted reluctantly, and the

escort dragon herded the group forward, still shouting.

They made their way through the cheering dragons

until they reached the edge of the river. "Stand away!"

shouted someone in the crowd. "Stand away for the

King!"

 

The nearby dragons drew back, leaving Woraug,

 

ip7

 

the escort dragon, and Cimorene and her friends stand-

ing by themselves on the trampled moss. As the drag-

ons moved away, Cimorene caught sight of Kazul, lying

comfortably beside the river. "Kazul!" Cimorene cried,

and ran forward. "Are you all right?"

 

A mottled dragon standing beside Kazul shifted

and flicked his tail angrily at Cimorene. "You should

say 'Your Majesty,' " he said with a warning scowl.

 

"Don't be ridiculous, Frax. She's my princess," Ka-

zul said. "I'm quite all right, Cimorene. What are you

doing here?"

 

"You're the new King of the Dragons?" Cimorene

said in astonishment. "But—but when you left this

morning, you could barely fly! How did you get Colin's

Stone all the way from here to the Vanishing

 

Mountain?"

 

"Colin's Stone apparently does more than merely

pick out the right King," Kazul said. "The minute I

picked it up, I felt fine."

 

"This is impossible!" Woraug said.

 

"Are you accusing me of fraud?" Kazul asked

 

mildly.

 

"He'd better not," Cimorene said. "He's the one

who was cheating, with the help of Zemenar and the

rest of the wizards."

 

"Really," Kazul said in tones of great interest.

 

"It's all nonsense," Woraug declared. "The girl's

just trying to attract attention."

 

"Really," Kazul said again, and smiled, displaying

all her silver teeth.

 

"Oh, come now, Kazul. Surely you won't take a

mere princess's word over mine," Woraug said.

 

198

 

"That depends entirely on what she says. Tell us

about it. Princess," Kazul commanded.

 

So Cimorene told them. She brought the stone

prince forward to explain what he had overheard the

wizards and Woraug discussing in the banquet hall,

and she made Alianora tell everyone about melting

wizards with wash water and lemon juice. She told

about getting to the Ford of Whispering Snakes on the

first feather and being unable to convince any of the

dragons to listen to her. She told about going to Mor-

wen's house to find out where the wizards were, and

about,using the last feather to get to the wizards and

melt them. She described Zemenar's unexpected ap-

pearance and subsequent melting, and the way Mor-

wen had broken the wizards' spell, and she finished

with an account of Woraug's futile attack.

 

"And then he landed"—Cimorene waved in the

direction of the escort dragon—"and decided to bring

us all back here. And I think somebody ought to go

back to that clearing where the blackberries are be-

fore the next batch of wizards arrives. I don't know

what they'll do when they find out what's happened,

but ..."

 

"Yes, I see," said Kazul. She turned to a pale green

dragon beside her. "Take five or six of the younger

dragons—the ones who've been talking about starting

a wizard-hunt—and go have a look at this blackberry

clearing."

 

"Yes, Your Majesty," said the pale dragon with a

fierce grin.

 

"Surely you don't believe this!" Woraug said.

 

Kazul stared at Woraug without saying anything,

 

199

 

m^.                                "

 

and the dragons around the edge of the circle rattled

their scales.

 

"Ah—Your Majesty," Woraug added hastily.

 

"Why should I disbelieve it?" Kazul said, still

watching Woraug.

 

"The whole thing is preposterous!" Woraug said.

"How could wizards do anything to affect Colin's

Stone? Your Majesty."

 

Kazul looked at Cimorene.

 

"I'm sorry, Kazul," Cimorene said, shaking her

head. "I know what the wizards were trying to do, but

I don't have the slightest idea how they were doing it."

 

"I believe I can explain that. Your Majesty," Mor-

wen said. She stepped forward, tossing and catching

the wizards' black rock casually in her right hand.

"They were using this. I believe you'll find that it comes

from the Caves of Fire and Night. From the King's

Cave, in fact, where Colin's Stone was found. And one

of the properties of the Caves of Fire and Night is that

you can use one piece to cast spells which affect similar

pieces."

 

"Just the way that impossible book says!" Cim-

orene exclaimed.

 

"DeMontmorency? Yes, I suppose he is fairly im-

possible," Morwen said.

 

"Is this sufficiently similar to Colin's Stone that the

wizards could have affected the stone through it?" Ka-

zul asked.

 

"Certainly, Your Majesty," Morwen said.

 

"This is—" Woraug began.

 

"—ridiculous, impossible, and unbelievable," Ka-

 

 

200

 

zul said. "You've said that already. But I haven't heard

you say anything particularly convincing in support of

that attitude."

 

"Oh, really. Your Majesty!" Woraug said. "Next

you'll be saying I poisoned King Tokoz!"

 

"It doesn't seem likely," Kazul admitted, "since

Tokoz was poisoned with dragonsbane, and dragons

can't get anywhere near the stuff without feeling the

effects."

 

"What if Zemenar made a ... a dragonsbane-proof

packet for him to cany it in?" Cimorene said, thinking

of the bag Antorell had been carrying when she and

Alianora met him in the valley. "Something that would

melt when he dropped it in the King's coffee."

 

"I suppose it's possible," Kazul said. "But there's

no evidence at all that Zemenar did any such thing."

 

"What would it have looked like?" Alianora asked

suddenly. "Would it have been something like a very

large tea bag?"

 

Everyone turned to look at Alianora. "I think that

would have worked quite well. Princess," Kazul said.

"Why do you ask?"

 

"Because Woraug had something like that with him

when he went to see King Tokoz the night before the

King was killed," Alianora said. "I saw it."

 

An angry muttering ran through the crowd of

dragons.

 

"Lies!" Woraug snarled. "They're all lies!"

 

"Are they?" Kazul said coldly. "I don't think so.

You must have wanted to be King very badly indeed."

 

"I—" Woraug darted a glance around the circle of

 

201

 

dragons. What he saw did not appear to reassure him.

"No!"

 

"Consorting with wizards, killing the King, and

plotting to cheat in the trials with Colin's Stone," Kazul

said as if Woraug had not spoken. "Hardly proper be-

havior for a dragon."

 

The crowd muttered agreement. Cimorene looked

from Woraug to Kazul and back. Woraug appeared to

be terrified of something, but Cimorene could not tell

what it was. He crouched and seemed to shrink away

from Kazul, drawing his wings in close and making

himself as small as possible. Cimorene blinked. It was

remarkable how much smaller Woraug could make

himself look. In fact . . .

 

"He's shrinking!" Cimorene exclaimed.

 

"No!" Woraug cried again, but it was much too

late. He shrank faster and faster, his wings melting into

ridges along his back and his claws retracting. He was

barely as tall as Cimorene's shoulder. Then, with a

sudden shiver, he collapsed in on himself. A small rain

of scales pattered to the ground. A moment later, an

extremely warty toad with angry red eyes crawled

clumsily out of the center of the pile.

 

"Is that—is that Woraug?" Alianora asked in a

hushed tone.

 

The toad turned and glared at her, and she stepped

back a pace. The stone prince put a protective arm

around Alianora's shoulders and glared back at the

toad.

 

"Behave, or I'll step on you," he said.

 

"Yes, it's Woraug," Kazul said. She sounded al-

 

 

202

 

most sad. "That's what happens when a dragon stops

acting like a dragon."

 

The toad turned his glare in Kazul's direction, then

hopped off and disappeared among the stones along

the riverbank.

 

Alianora shuddered. Kazul studied her for a mo-

ment. "You were Woraug's princess, weren't you? I'm

sorry about all this, but it couldn't be helped. It won't

take long to find you another dragon."

 

"I don't think you have to worry about finding her

another dragon," Cimorene said. She had been watch-

ing Alianora and the stone prince, and an idea had

occurred to her.

 

"What? Why not?" said Kazul.

 

"Because the stone prince fought with Woraug,

and Woraug certainly didn't win. Doesn't that mean

that he gets to rescue Woraug's princess?"

 

"I'm not sure the rules cover this situation at all,"

Kazul said. "But it sounds reasonable enough, and un-

der the circumstances I doubt that anyone will object.

Unless of course she does."

 

"Oh!" said Alianora, and blushed a rosy red. "No,

I don't object at all!"

 

"Are you sure?" the stone prince said anxiously.

"You won't mind waiting a while to marry me? I mean,

if you're willing to marry me? You needn't, you know,

if the idea doesn't appeal to you."

 

"It appeals to me very much," Alianora said, blush-

ing redder than ever. "But why do you say that we

have to wait?"

 

The stone prince sighed. "I still have to find a king

 

203

 

and do him a great service, and that's bound to take a

while."

 

"For a young man as intelligent as you seem to

be, you're remarkably foolish," Morwen commented.

"What on earth do you think you've just done?"

 

An expression of astonishment spread across the

prince's face. "You mean the king I was supposed to

serve is the King of the Dragons?"

 

"Exactly," Morwen said. "And I doubt that you

could do her a greater service than saving the throne

from Woraug's plotting."

 

"That's settled, then," Kazul said. "Let's get the

rest of the ceremonies finished and get back to the

mountains. There's a great deal of work to be done."

 

The dragons all bowed, and eddies of movement

began in various sections of the crowd. Shortly, two

dragons came forward carrying Colin's Stone. It looked

like a long black log about three times as thick as Cim-

orene's waist and twice as tall as she was. The dragons

laid it in front of Kazul and backed away. Another

dragon appeared, holding a large circlet made of iron,

'with six spikes poking upward at intervals around the

rim. Kazul set her front feet on the black stone, and

the dragon set the circlet on her head. The crowd of

dragons began cheering again, and after a few minutes

they began forming a line to congratulate their new

King and present their coronation gifts. Other dragons

set up large tubs of wine and platters of meat and

cheese, which were quickly surrounded.

 

In the middle of the presentations, the dragons

Kazul had sent off to the blackberry clearing returned,

 

204

 

and Kazul took a short break from accepting congrat-

ulations to hear what they had to say.

 

"The wizards showed up before we'd been there

more than ten minutes. Your Majesty," said the pale

green dragon who was the leader of the group. "Six of

them, just like your princess said."

 

"They weren't happy to see us," the youngest

dragon said smugly.

 

"I would think not." Kazul smiled. "What did you

do with them?"

 

"We chased five of them away," the pale dragon

reported. "I don't think they'll be back, either."

 

"Five?"

 

The pale dragon shot a glance at the youngest of

the group, who licked his lips and looked even more

smug than before and said nothing. "Yes, Your

Majesty."

 

"I see. Well, thafs more than enough evidence to

confirm what Cimorene's told us," Kazul commented.

She raised her voice. "The arrangement between the

dragons and the Society of Wizards is hereby canceled.

From now on, wizards will not be allowed anywhere

near the Caves of Fire and Night, no matter what they

say." Then she went back to accepting presents and

congratulations from her new subjects.

 

Cimorene watched the festivities with mixed feelings.

She was very glad that Kazul was the new King of the

Dragons, but she couldn't help wondering what effect

Kazul's coronation would have on her own position.

The King of the Dragons certainly wouldn't need a

 

princess as a mark of status, and there would be plenty

of younger dragons eager to cook and clean for their

King, if only as a way of getting a start at the court.

 

Her preoccupation stayed with her for the rest of

the day, through the entire coronation picnic and the

flight back to the Mountains of Morning. Cimorene and

Alianora rode on the back of a very large dragon whose

scales were such a dark green that they looked almost

black. Alianora would have preferred to ride with the

stone prince, but none of the dragons were willing to

take on a second passenger if the stone prince was the

first. All of the dragons had paid their respects to Kazul

at the coronation, so the cave was empty when the

dragon dropped Cimorene off. When Cimorene said

good-bye to Alianora, she promised to come over and

help her pack the following morning. Then she went

in and waited for Kazul to come home.

 

Kazul did not arrive until very late. She was stiil

wearing the iron crown, and she looked very tired.

 

"Thank goodness that's over," she said, taking the

crown off and throwing it across the cave. It hit the

wall and bounced off with a harsh clang.

 

"You shouldn't treat your crown like that. Your

Majesty," Cimorene said, retrieving the iron circlet.

 

"Of course I should," Kazul said. "It's expected.

That's why we made it out of iron instead of something

soft and bendable. And don't start calling me 'Your

Majesty.' I've had enough of that for one day."

 

Cimorene began to feel a little better. "What hap-

pens next?"

 

"Tomorrow we start moving," Kazul said and

sighed. "It will probably take weeks. It's too bad there's

 

206

 

no way of warning a new king in time to pack every-

thing up before the work starts."

 

"Everything?" Cimorene said in tones of dismay.

"Even the library and the treasure vaults? But I've only

just got them organized!"

 

"Everything," Kazul said. "And if you think

straightening out things here was difficult, wait until

you see the mess the official vaults are in."

 

"Oh, dear," said Cimorene. "Is it very bad?"

 

Kazul nodded. "I've just come from looking at it.

You'll see for yourself tomorrow. There's a smallish

cave next to the library that I think will do nicely for

you, but I'd like you to look at it before we start hauling

things around."

 

"You mean you want me to stay?" Cimorene

blurted. "But I thought the King of the Dragons didn't

need a princess!"

 

"Don't be ridiculous," Kazul said. "How am I

going to get my cherries jubilee if you don't stay? And

you haven't even started cataloguing the library, and

how else am I going to get the King's treasure vaults

arranged so I can find things? I'm not going to have

time to do it."

 

"Won't the rest of the dragons object?"

 

Kazul snorted. "I'm the King. One of the advan-

tages of being King is that nobody objects to whims like

keeping a princess when you're not supposed to need

one. If it bothers you, we'll give you a different title:

 

King's Cook and Librarian, maybe. Stop worrying and

go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day

for both of us."

 

Cimorene smiled and went off to her rooms with

 

K '•                         307

 

a light heart. She slept soundly and was up early next

morning. Kazul was already awake and supervising

three of the younger dragons, who were packing up

the treasure and the library. Since Cimorene was

pressed into service at once, it was several hours before

she could get away to keep her promise to Alianora.

 

"I'm sorry I'm late," Cimorene apologized when

she arrived at Woraug's cave at last. "But it didn't occur

to me that Kazul would be moving, too, and she wanted

 

me to help."

 

"Ifs all right," Alianora assured her. "It wasn't as

big a job as I'd expected, and the prince helped. I'm

almost finished." She gestured at an almost-full suitcase

lying open on the floor. On the other side of the room,

the stone prince was stacking the empty drawers from

 

Alianora's bureau.

 

"Well, at least I got here in time to say good-bye,"

 

Cimorene said.

 

"You're staying with the dragons, then?" the stone

 

prince asked, straightening with a frown. "Are you sure

 

you want to do that?"

 

"Of course she's sure," Alianora said. "Kazul's

 

going to need her even more than she did before, and

Cimorene wouldn't be happy in a normal kingdom."

"How did you know that?" Cimorene said, staring

 

at Alianora.

 

"It's obvious. Linderwall is about as normal a king-

_ dom as you can get. If you ran away from there, you

certainly wouldn't be happy anywhere like it."

 

"I didn't mean that part," Cimorene said, redden-

ing slightly. "I meant about Kazul wanting me to stay."

 

"That was obvious, too," Alianora said. "You're

 

208

 

the only one who was worried about it." She studied

Cimorene for a minute and shook her head. "I wouldn't

like being princess for the King of the Dragons, but it

will suit you down to the ground."

 

"\ think it will," Cimorene said, smiling.

 

"Then maybe you can tell me something," the

stone prince said. "What's being done about the wiz-

ards?"

 

"They've been banned from the Mountains of

Morning, and there are a hundred or so dragons out

checking to make sure they've gone," Cimorene re-

plied. "They haven't had much luck, I'm afraid. Most

of the wizards left after the first few got eaten."

 

"That's all?" asked the prince.

 

"What else can the dragons do? The wizards didn't

actually poison King Tokoz; Woraug did that. So there's

no justification for an all-out attack on the headquarters

of the Society of Wizards, even if all the dragons agreed

that they wanted to do it. Which they don't."

 

"I suppose you're right," the prince said. "But

you'd better tell Kazul to keep a close eye on them.

Those wizards will make more trouble just as soon as

they figure out a way to do it."

 

"I don't know about that," Cimorene said. "I think

Zemenar was behind most of it, and you melted him."

 

"That's it!" Alianora said, and snapped her fingers.

"I almost forgot to tell you. Morwen and I talked for a

long time yesterday, and she says that melting a wizard

isn't permanent."

 

"You mean they'll all come back?" Cimorene

asked.

 

Alianora nodded. "It will take them a while,

 

209

 

though. And Morwen said for you to come and visit

soon. She thinks that in a few days she'll have figured

out a way of melting wizards without dumping soapy

water over them. 'A method thafs a little less slopp/

was the way she put it."

 

"That will be useful if the wizards start making

trouble again," Cimorene said thoughtfully.

 

"Is this everything, Alianora?" the stone prince

asked, gesturing at the suitcase.

 

"Yes, I think so." Alianora pulled the top of the

suitcase over, and the stone prince set one foot very

gently in the middle of it and pushed until the latch

 

clicked.

 

"Where are you going first?" Cimorene asked. "His

 

kingdom or yours?"

 

"Neither," Alianora said, smiling. "We're going to

Morwen's. She said she could change him back from

stone to normal. We asked Kazul last night if we could

go out through the Caves of Fire and Night, and she

said yes, so . . ."

 

"I don't know, Alianora," the stone prince said.

"I'm beginning to get used to myself this way. And

there are certain advantages."

 

"There are disadvantages, too," Alianora said,

blushing slightly.

 

Cimorene began to giggle.

 

Alianora's blush deepened. "I mean—uh—how are

you going to get rid of that chip in your sleeve if you

can't change clothes?"

 

"I think I see what you're getting at," the stone

prince replied, eyeing Alianora meditatively. "And

 

210

 

you're quite right. There's no comparison. We had bet-

ter see Morwen as quickly as possible."

 

Alianora and Cimorene looked at each other and

burst into unstoppable giggles.

 

The stone prince blinked at them. "It's not funny!"

he said indignantly, which only made them giggle

harder. Shaking his head, he waited for them to stop,

then picked up Alianora's suitcase. "Shall we go?"

 

Cimorene walked with them to the iron gate that

led into the Caves of Fire and Night. A purplish dragon

was waiting to guide them through the caves. Kazul

was taking no chances on Alianora and the stone prince

getting lost. Cimorene hugged them both and wished

them a safe journey.

 

"And I hope you both live happily ever after!"

 

"I hope you do, too!" Alianora called back as she

and the stone prince followed the dragon through the

gate.

 

Cimorene watched until they were out of sight,

then started back toward Kazul's cave. She thought

about Morwen, and the wizard-melting spell, and about

Zemenar and Antorell and the other wizards who

would somehow be back soon. She thought about Ka-

zul, and about straightening out the treasure vaults that

belonged to the King of the Dragons, and about all the

hundreds of books in the King's library, and of all the

problems that the King of the Dragons would have to

deal with. She thought about Alianora's last words and

smiled.

 

Happily ever after? Cimorene wasn't sure about that,

though she was certainly hoping to enjoy herself. She

 

211

 

 

 

 

was positive, however, that life with the dragons woud

be interesting and busy, and in Cimorene's opinion that

would go a long way toward making her happy.

 

"Happily ever after? I don't think it's quite what

you meant, Alianora," Cimorene murmured to the

empty tunnel, "but one way or another, I rather think

I will."

 

212