Talking to Dragons (16 page)

“Just a minute, there!” a voice said behind me.

I turned around. A medium-sized man was standing about ten feet away, leaning on a staff that was about three feet taller than he was. He had black hair and three rings on each hand, and he was frowning irritably at Shiara and me.

“Oh, rats,” said Shiara disgustedly. “Another wizard!”

“You,” said the man, ignoring her statement completely, “are trespassing. I don't know how you got in here, but it was a great mistake for you to do so.”

“We didn't exactly do it on purpose,” I said. “We were just trying to get across the clearing.”

“Young man, I surround my home with a wall of fire for a reason,” the wizard said. “And the reason is that I do not like to be disturbed. I wish to know how you penetrated it, or I would not be wasting my time talking with you.”

“I'm a fire-witch, that's how!” Shiara said. “And if you don't want to be disturbed, you ought to be more careful with your stupid wall. We would have gone right by if it hadn't jumped up all over Daystar when he tried to cross the clearing!”

“A fire-witch?” the man said. He gave Shiara an extremely odd look. “You haven't mislaid an invisible castle recently, have you?”

“No!” said Shiara. “It isn't mine!”

The wizard looked even angrier. “You know of it!”

“Well, sort of,” I said. “It isn't ours, but we ran into it this morning.”

“Did you,” said the wizard. He sounded skeptical and very dangerous. I decided I didn't want to talk about the castle anymore.

“I think we ought to be going now,” I said. “We're really very sorry to have bothered you.”

“I'm not!” Shiara said.

“Shiara!”

“Well, I'm not,” Shiara said. “He ought to apologize to us, not the other way around. And anyway, I'm not apologizing to any wizard, especially not one that messes around with invisible castles!”

The man with the staff frowned, but this time he looked more thoughtful than angry. “What is your complaint against wizards?”

“Ha!” said Shiara. “You should know.”

“No,” said the man, “I should not. I am not a wizard.”

“ACHOO!”
came the dragon's voice, and the wall of fire bulged inward on that side.

“Excuse me, but if you're not a wizard, why are you carrying a staff?” I asked. “And why is the dragon sneezing?”

The man looked startled. “Dragon? You travel with a dragon?”

“No, it travels with us,” I said. “Does it make a difference?”

“Perhaps,” the man said. He looked at the wall of fire and made a pass with his staff. The flames began to die, and a moment later we could see the clearing again.

T
HE DRAGON WAS STILL SNEEZING
in medium-sized puffs of flame. The man with the staff examined it and shook his head. “That certainly is a dragon.” He made another pass with his staff.

The staff vanished, and the dragon stopped sneezing abruptly. It sniffed a couple of times in an experimental way, looking surprised, as if it expected to start sneezing again any minute. I was surprised, too. I mean, wizards
never
let go of their staffs—not willingly, anyway.

The man bowed politely to the dragon. “I apologize for inconveniencing you,” he said. “I offer you greetings and welcome to my home, and I wish you good fortune when you leave.”

“What?” said the dragon.

The man looked a little startled and peered at the dragon more closely. “Oh, I see,” he said after a moment. “Well, you're welcome. Come and make yourself comfortable.”

Shiara scowled at him and bent to pick up Night­witch, who had come running toward her as soon as the flames had died. The dragon looked suspiciously at the man.

“I don't like wizards,” it said. “And I don't like people who put invisible things in the middle of my shortcut.”

“I am not a wizard,” the man said with a sigh. “And my tower has been here for years, and it isn't invisible. Now, come in and talk. There hasn't been a dragon by for a long time, and I'm a bit behind on the news.”

“If you're not a wizard, what
are
you?” Shiara said, petting Nightwitch and glaring at the man.

“I'm a magician,” the man said. “And my name is Telemain.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said.

“Mrrow,” said Nightwitch, and started purring loudly.

Telemain looked at the kitten, and suddenly he began to laugh. He had a nice laugh, sort of deep and friendly. I started thinking that I might be able to like him after all, even if his fire wall had nearly burned me to a cinder.

“I don't believe I have ever seen a group quite like this one,” Telemain said when he finished laughing. “Please, tell me who you all are.”

I introduced everyone, and Telemain nodded courteously to each of us. He gave me a sharp look when I told him my name. “I thought that was what your friend called you,” he said. “Welcome to my home.”

“Some welcome!” Shiara said. “You nearly got Daystar killed, and you started the dragon sneezing again. And how come the dragon was allergic to you if you aren't a wizard?”

“Dragons aren't allergic to wizards,” Telemain said, sounding surprised. “What gave you that idea?”

“I did!” the dragon said. It came forward and sat down emphatically, right next to me. “All dragons are allergic to wizards. I should know: I sneeze every time I get near one.” It eyed Telemain belligerently.

“Oh, I don't doubt that at all,” Telemain said. “But the hypersensitive reaction results from the indiscriminate absorption of magical energy through the enchantments fixed in their staffs.”

“What?” said the dragon.

Telemain sighed. “It's not wizards you're allergic to, it's their staffs. You stopped sneezing as soon as I got rid of mine, didn't you?”

The dragon looked startled. “I did, didn't I?” it said after a minute.

“If you aren't a wizard, what are you doing with a wizard's staff?” Shiara asked.

Telemain raised his eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”

“We've been having some trouble with wizards,” I said before Shiara could answer. I didn't want her to make him angry. We had enough people mad at us already.

“Really.” Telemain looked as if he were going to laugh again. “All of you?”

“Well, mainly just Shiara and me,” I said. “We've been sort of worried about them. Most of them are after Shiara,” I added.

“What would the Society of Wizards want with a fire-witch?” Telemain said. “I can see that I shall have to invite you in, if only to hear your tale.”

“How do you know about the Society?” Shiara said angrily. “And why should we trust a wizard, anyway?”

“Anyone who knows much about magic can tell you're a fire-witch, and the only reason I can think of for a fire-witch to have several wizards after her is if she has done something to offend the Society of Wizards,” Telemain said. He still sounded amused. “And for the third time, at least, I am a magician, not a wizard.”

“What's the difference?” Shiara demanded.

“Magicians deal with many ways of magic,” Telemain said. “Wizards with only one. Now, will you come in and sit down?”

Shiara was still looking at him doubtfully. Telemain smiled. “Will an oath content you? If you mean no harm, I am not your enemy, and I will do you no harm while you are my guests, save in self-defense. I swear by the sword.”

I felt a kind of popping at my side, even though I wasn't touching the sword, and a ripple ran through the clearing, like a shimmer of light in the air. I thought it kept on going out into the forest, but I couldn't be certain. Shiara started and dropped Nightwitch, who landed on her feet with a yowl. The dragon stretched its neck, looking almost as if it were trying to purr.

Telemain suddenly looked very intense.

“That is the way of it, then?” he said when the ripple passed. “I don't think I blame you for your caution.” He looked pointedly at my sword.

Shiara scowled again, but I thought she looked a little more doubtful than the last time. “If you're so smart . . .” she began, and stopped. Nightwitch was rubbing against Telemain's leg and purring.
“Nightwitch?”
said Shiara.

“An intriguing name for a cat,” Telemain said, bending over to pick up Nightwitch. “Even more interesting for a kitten. Where did you come by her?”

“She was a present,” Shiara said grudgingly. “From a witch named—”

“Morwen?” said Telemain. Nightwitch purred louder. “I suspected as much. Now, will you come in? Or do you wish to continue this discussion where anyone may hear?”

We went in. The door of Telemain's home looked like an ordinary, normal-sized door, but it couldn't have been, because the dragon fit through it without any trouble. The room inside was made of stone and very bare. In the center of the floor, two iron staircases twisted around each other in a spiral and disappeared into the ceiling. The whole place seemed much taller from the inside. If I hadn't seen it before we came in, I would have been sure we were in a tower.

As the door closed behind the dragon, Telemain waved his hand. A table and three chairs materialized beside the stairs. “Sit down and tell me more about yourselves.”

We sat down, except for the dragon, who sort of curled itself around the edges of the room. I started explaining about Mother and Antorell and everything that had happened in the Enchanted Forest. I even told him about the Sword of the Sleeping King, because I was pretty sure from the way he looked at it that he already knew something about it. The questions he asked made it pretty clear that I was right, although sometimes he got so technical that I had to ask him to repeat something. He sounded as if he knew exactly what answers he expected, too. When I told him about the voice that had said, “All hail the Bearer of the Sword,” he nodded in satisfaction.

Then I explained how Shiara and I had met, and why the wizards were after her, and about the one who'd tried to get us at the stream. Shiara frowned at me, but she didn't interrupt. When I told him about meeting Morwen, Telemain seemed very interested.

“I haven't seen Morwen in a long time,” he said. “How is she?”

“You know Morwen?” Shiara said.

“We grew up together,” Telemain said. “Now, exactly what did she have you do to repair the damage to your hand?”

Telemain asked a lot of questions about the things the Sword of the Sleeping King had done, but he didn't seem particularly interested in the wizards. He wasn't interested in the Princess at all. Then I told him about the invisible castle and the fire-witch.

“So that's how you knew about it,” Telemain said. “I wondered.”

“That's how
we
knew,” Shiara said. “How did
you
know?”

“The castle landed in my clearing sometime around noon,” Telemain said dryly. “I was understandably curious as to why someone would go to all the trouble of making a castle invisible and then drop it on top of a magician who can't help noticing it.”

“It's not there now,” Shiara said.

“Of course not! What would I want with an invisible castle? When I found no one home, I cleaned the place up a bit and got rid of it.”

“Cleaned it up?” I said, puzzled.

“The most recent owner had a number of unattractive habits,” Telemain said even more dryly than before. “In addition to casual petrification of passersby, she indulged in seven varieties of involuntary metamorphosis, as well as necromancy and demonology. I don't believe you would be at all interested in the technical details.”

“Oh.” He was right; I didn't really want to know about it.

Telemain looked at Shiara again. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I knew that the castle was the property of a fire-witch, and I'm afraid that when you showed up, I thought you had some connection with it.”

“Well, I don't, but I suppose I can see why you might have gotten mad.” Shiara sounded a lot friendlier than she had before. I think she would have been friendly to anyone who didn't like that other fire-witch. Then she frowned. “How did the castle get into your clearing, anyway?”

Telemain shrugged. “As far as I can tell, the unit transportation spell operated on a set of totally random parameters, both in terms of time and location.”

“What does
that
mean?” said the dragon.

“The castle was designed to move around the Enchanted Forest more or less randomly. It's a rather unusual spell to put on a building, particularly an invisible one, because if you happen to be outside when it moves, you get left behind.”

“Then why on earth would anyone put a stupid spell like that on a castle?”

“Presumably this fire-witch didn't expect to have any problems finding the castle again. I don't believe it occurred to her that someone else might find it first.” He smiled. “I left a few surprises for her. I doubt that she'll be pleased.”

“Oh, that's all right,” the dragon said. “Daystar got rid of her.”

Telemain looked at me. “Really. How did you manage that?”

“She threw some sort of spell at me, but Nightwitch scratched her, so she missed,” I said. “And after that, I had the sword out.”

“You used the Sword of the Sleeping King on a fire-witch?”
Telemain said. He sounded somewhere between shocked and horrified.

“I couldn't think of anything else that might work,” I said apologetically. “And it did work, sort of. I mean, it got rid of the fire-witch.”

“She went up in smoke,” the dragon said with considerable satisfaction. “I watched.”

“She went up in smoke,” Telemain repeated in tones of fascination. “And what were you doing while this was going on?”