Talking to Dragons (12 page)

“You know Morwen?” said the dragon. “I like her. She gives me apples out of her garden.”

I tried to imagine a dragon eating apples and failed. I could imagine Morwen giving them to a dragon, though.

“Who is this Morwen?” asked the Princess, clasping her hands in front of her. “Think you that she could help my love, indeed?”

“Morwen's sort of a friend of ours,” I explained. “She lives back that way, with a lot of cats, and her house has kind of a strange door.”

“I didn't have any trouble with it,” Shiara said. “And she has nine cats. She told me while you were asleep.”

“Nine cats?” said the Princess, looking puzzled. “But what has that to do with my love, who is so grievously hurt?”

“I said it wasn't that bad, Isabelle,” said the knight uncomfortably. “Really, I wish you wouldn't make such a fuss. I shall be quite all right in a little, I'm sure.”

“If this woman with the many cats can help you, then we shall go to her,” the Princess declared with more spirit than she had shown about anything else. “For you are my love, and I will have you whole and well.”

“Oh, but really, Isabelle—”

“I'm sure Morwen won't mind,” Shiara put in. “She fixed Daystar up just fine. She's even good with wet swords.”

The Princess looked thoroughly confused, but the knight brightened a little. “Are you quite sure? Because I'm frightfully wet, sword and armor and everything, and it would be very nice if I could keep it all from rusting. It's rather expensive, you see.”

“I'm sure she could manage that,” Shiara said. “Of course, you don't have to go. You could stay here and wait for the wizard to come back.”

The knight didn't argue. I don't think he liked the idea of staying around the dragon, especially if a lot of wizards were going to show up any minute. As soon as he agreed, the Princess started telling him how wise and brave and wonderful he was. Shiara looked disgusted, but the knight seemed to like it. He sat up and even managed not to cough very much.

Shiara and I gave the knight directions back up the stream and through the woods to Morwen's house. He and the Princess said goodbye and started off.

“That's a relief!” Shiara said when they were out of earshot. “For a while I thought you were going to make us go with that stupid princess. It was bad enough having to listen to her here without following her around.”

I blinked at her. “But I thought you changed your mind about her! You were being a lot nicer to her after the knight got hurt.”

Shiara snorted. “So I feel sorry for her. She really cares about that klutz in the tin can. I could tell. That doesn't mean I like her! I still think she's dumber than you are, but I'm glad they're going to see Morwen.”

I wasn't sure whether Morwen would object or not, but I didn't say anything else about it. By then, the knight and the Princess were completely out of sight anyway. I turned around to see where I'd put the bundle of food and things Morwen had given me. The dragon was staring at me.

“Why,” it said, “do you have wizards chasing you?”

“It's long story,” I said. “I'll be glad to explain, but you might want to make yourself comfortable first.”

The dragon sighed. “Have you ever tried to be comfortable with a sprained tail?”

Shiara giggled. I ignored her. We waited while the dragon tried curling into a couple of different positions. One of them looked sort of like Suz when he was halfway through getting up on his tail. Finally, the dragon curled itself around the little tree that had sprouted up in the middle of the tourney. “That's better,” it said. “Enchanted trees are always more comfortable than regular ones.”

“Enchanted trees?” Shiara said.

“Of course,” the dragon said. “What else do you expect to find in an enchanted forest? I'm going to have to remember to tell someone about this, though. There haven't been any new ones in a long time.”

I looked at the tree a little more closely. It was nearly six feet tall now, and it seemed to have stopped growing. It didn't look very different from the other trees in the Enchanted Forest, except that it was a lot smaller than most of them. And, of course, none of the other trees had dragons wrapped around them.

“You were going to tell me about the wizards,” said the dragon.

So I explained about Mother and Antorell, and the Sword of the Sleeping King, and everything. It took a long time. The dragon didn't say anything at all while I talked, but its tail twitched a couple of times. Whenever that happened, the dragon winced.

“That's very interesting,” the dragon said when I stopped. “Where are you going now?”

“Morwen told us to follow the stream,” Shiara said. “And Suz said we should go talk to someone named Kazul.”

“It's the same thing,” the dragon said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The stream goes to the castle, and Kazul lives right outside it. I wonder why she wants to see you?”

“What castle?” Shiara said in an exasperated voice. “And who is this Kazul person, anyway?”

“It must have something to do with that sword,” the dragon said, ignoring her questions completely. “Especially if it really does belong to the Sleeping King.”

“You mean you know something about it?” Shiara said. “Well, then, tell us what the stupid thing does!”

The dragon looked sheepish. Dragons just weren't meant to look sheepish. “I don't know. I'm not old enough yet,” it said.

“Not old enough?”

“That's why I wanted a princess,” the dragon said. “Otherwise, Kazul won't tell me anything important until I'm two hundred. She says that before then dragons are irresponsible, unwise, and talk too much.” It looked faintly indignant. “I don't talk too much.”

“Who is Kazul?” I said. I was getting a little nervous about meeting her. I hadn't ever known anyone who could tell a dragon what to do, even a young one. Well, Mother might have been able to get away with it.

“Oh, I thought you knew,” the dragon said. “Kazul is the King of the Dragons.”

S
HIARA AND I LOOKED AT EACH OTHER
. “Terrific,” Shiara said. “And I thought wizards were bad.”

“Did I say something wrong?” the dragon asked.

“No, not at all,” I said hastily. “We were just a little surprised, that's all.”

“Hey!” Shiara said. “How can Kazul be King of the Dragons if she's a she? That doesn't make sense.”

“It does too!” the dragon said. “What else would you call her?”

“How about Queen?” Shiara said sarcastically.

“Queen?” The little dragon wrinkled its nose. “Why would you want to call her Queen? That's not the same thing at all! You're the one who doesn't make sense.”

“I do too make sense!” Shiara said. “Queens do the same things Kings do.”

“Not for dragons,” I said hastily. I didn't want the dragon to get offended again. “Dragons have a king, period. The King of the Dragons is whichever dragon can move Colin's Stone from the Vanishing Mountain to the Ford of the Whispering Snakes. It doesn't matter whether the dragon is male or female.”

“It's silly to have two names for the same job,” the dragon said complacently. “People get confused.”

“Oh.” Shiara looked skeptical, but at least she didn't object any more. I decided I was going to have to explain a few things to her soon, before she got us both in real trouble. For about a minute, no one said anything. Then Shiara looked over at me.

“Daystar,” she said, “
why
are we looking for the King of the Dragons?”

I started to say something, then stopped because I wasn't really sure what to say. I mean, it would sound a little odd to say that I was looking for a dragon because a lizard told me to. Especially since the dragon was apparently King of the Dragons. I thought some more.

“I don't know,” I said finally. “But I think we have to. At least,
I
have to.”

Shiara sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”

The dragon looked puzzled. “What's the matter? It doesn't sound particularly unusual to me, but I suppose it'll be at least as interesting as running away to find a princess.”

Shiara and I looked at the dragon, then at each other, then back at the dragon again. “You ran away?” Shiara said finally.

“It was the only way I could think of to get a princess.” The dragon sighed. “It didn't work out the way I thought it would, though.”

Shiara and I exchanged glances again. “You're sure you really want to come?” I said to the dragon. “I mean, there are wizards after us, and it might be a little inconvenient if they showed up again. And I doubt that we'll run into any more princesses.”

The dragon looked thoughtful for a moment, then it shook its head. “I'm coming with you, wizards or no wizards,” it said stubbornly. “Sneezing isn't so bad.”

It was my turn to sigh. Dragons are awfully hard to talk out of things. “We'd better go, then,” I said. “I'm sure Antorell will be back as soon as he thinks it's safe, and I'd sort of like to be gone by then.”

Shiara grabbed Morwen's bundles and shoved one at me. “You're absolutely right. Here. Let's go.”

I nodded and started toward the stream. “Not that way!” said the dragon. “It takes too long.”

“How else are we going to find the stupid castle?” Shiara demanded. “We don't even know what it looks like!”

The dragon looked smug. “I do. And I'm very good at shortcuts.”

“Morwen told us to follow the stream,” I said doubtfully.

“Morwen didn't know you were going to meet me.” The dragon looked at us for a minute. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

“Come on, Daystar,” Shiara said. “I don't care which way we go, but let's go!”

I decided not to argue. I still didn't like the idea of leaving the stream, but it didn't seem worth fighting over. Not with a dragon, anyway. Besides, if we didn't leave soon, the wizards would catch us. We started off, following the dragon.

Traveling with a dragon was rather nice, in a way. Nothing bothered us at all. When it started to get dark, we stopped and opened Morwen's bundles again. There was obviously something magic about them, because the leftovers from lunch had turned into a fresh packet of food, and there was plenty for everyone, even the dragon.

Nothing dangerous came near us all night, either. I stayed awake for a while, just to make sure, but evidently nightshades and wolves and things don't want to annoy a dragon any more than people do. Finally, I went to sleep, too.

We started off again as soon as we woke up next morning. The dragon went first because it knew the way, and we followed. After about an hour, I noticed that I didn't feel quite comfortable for some reason. I touched the hilt of the Sword of the Sleeping King a couple of times, but I didn't feel any new magic tingles, just the same familiar ones. I started watching the trees as we walked. Finally, Shiara noticed.

“What's the matter, Daystar?” she said.

“I don't know,” I said. “But I feel as if I'm being watched.”

“Watched?” Shiara looked at the trees quickly. “Who's watching us?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm not even sure someone is. I just feel uncomfortable.”

“You're being a little slow,” the dragon called back over its shoulder, and Shiara and I stopped talking and ran to catch up. We didn't have a chance to discuss it again, but I noticed Shiara looking uneasily at the forest from time to time. Even Nightwitch seemed to notice something wrong; she stopped jumping at leaves and stayed close to Shiara. In fact, Shiara almost stepped on her once. After that, Shiara carried her.

In spite of all the worrying, nothing happened until late that morning. The dragon was moving on through the forest, ignoring all the little branches and things that happened to be in its way. Suddenly it gave a smothered yelp and stopped. Shiara and Nightwitch and I ran forward to see what was the matter.

The dragon was sitting back, rubbing its nose and glaring at a large open space in front of it. I looked around, but I didn't see anything else. “What happened?” I asked.

“I ran into something,” the dragon said, glaring at me for a minute instead of the open space.

“But there isn't anything—Ow!” Shiara had started to wave toward the clearing, but her hand stopped about halfway through the wave, as if it had hit something. She rubbed her fingers, then put out her hand more cautiously. It stopped in midair, right where it had before. Nightwitch hissed and backed away.

I reached out, very carefully. It was a little strange to feel something where I couldn't see anything. It was cool and smooth, like stone, and it went up as far as I could reach. “It's an invisible wall,” I said.

“No, it's an invisible castle,” Shiara said. Then she jerked her hand away and stared at the air in front of her as if she could make herself see something by trying hard. “Hey! How do I know that?”

“I don't know,” I said. “When did you figure it out?”

“I didn't! I was just standing here, wanting to know what it was, and all of a sudden I did.”

“That sounds like fire magic!” I said.

“I don't care what it is,” the dragon said crossly. “I want to know where it came from. It wasn't here last time I came this way.”

“No, I mean what Shiara did sounds like fire magic.”

“Really?” The dragon looked at Shiara. “Then use your fire magic to find out what this invisible thing is doing in the middle of my shortcut.”

Shiara looked doubtful, but she put her hand back on the castle. “It's an invisible castle, all right. Hey, I even know how to do it!”