Talking to Dragons (18 page)

I started moving very, very slowly toward Shiara, so that when the wizards started throwing spells at us I could try to stop them with the sword. The wizards didn't notice, and neither did Shiara. By the time the wizards finished deciding what to do with us, I was almost over to her.

“It's settled, then,” Antorell said. “We help each other. The girl first?”

“Ah, why not start with the dragon?” the nervous wizard asked.

Antorell smiled condescendingly. “Very well.” He stepped forward and started muttering over the dragonsbane. Right away the dragon started yelling.

“Yow!” it said. “
Achoo!
I hate wizards. Ouch!
Achoo!
Help!”

“You stop that!” Shiara said to Antorell. The wizards ignored her, and Antorell kept mumbling.

I started forward. If I could knock the dragonsbane out of Antorell's hand, the spell would stop. I wasn't sure whether it would be completely broken, but at least he wouldn't be able to hurt the dragon anymore. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten about the other wizards. I didn't even realize one of them had done something until my feet stuck to the ground and suddenly I couldn't walk forward anymore. If I hadn't been stuck, I'd have lost my balance. It was very disconcerting. Antorell was still out of reach.

I took a quick glance back over my shoulder. The dragon was sneezing much too hard now to say anything at all. I could see its coils going slack, and it was losing its hold on the tree. Here and there, its scales were turning pink around the edges. Even the tree looked wilted.

“Shiara!” I yelled. “Get the dragonsbane!” I didn't think I could get loose in time, but the wizards wouldn't be able to stop a fire-witch.

I didn't wait to see what she did. I leaned forward a little and tried to lay part of the Sword of the Sleeping King across my feet. It hadn't helped Shiara when she was a statue, but this was a wizard's spell, not a fire-witch's spell, and Telemain had said the sword was meant to be used on wizards. Besides, I couldn't think of anything else.

It worked. I straightened up just in time to see a little tongue of flame shoot up from Antorell's hand. Antorell yelled and dropped the dragonsbane, which was burning brightly. Before it even hit the ground, there was nothing left of the plant except ashes.

I looked behind me. Shiara was standing with a surprised look on her face and one finger pointing at Antorell. The dragon was still sneezing, but the green was already starting to come back to its scales. I sighed in relief.

“This is the assistance you give us?” the tall wizard said to Antorell, who was brushing ashes off the front of his robe. “The dragon still lives!”

“Did I say anything about killing it?” Antorell said. I got the feeling he was trying to sound haughty, but he only managed to sound annoyed. “You need have no more fear of it. It will take some time to regain its strength, and by then we shall be finished. What next?”

“The girl, I think,” said the tall wizard. “That is, if you're sure you can handle her?”

Antorell glared. “That is the least of my problems,” he said grandly.

“Ha!” said Shiara loudly. I moved back over to her, holding the sword in front of me. The three wizards looked at us, then at each other. “Let us begin,” said the tall one.

All three of them raised their staffs, but instead of pointing them directly at us, they brought them together, so that they made a kind of star about a foot from their ends. There was a bright flash as the three staffs touched, and I felt a shock from my sword. I jumped, and suddenly I realized that I could feel the forest. The magic of the forest, I mean; it was all around me, waiting. I felt almost as if the whole Enchanted Forest were watching me.

Right in front of me, I could feel the wizards' power growing and building. There was a kind of pattern in it that kept getting clearer and more complicated, and I knew I had to do something about it before the wizards finished. I stepped forward and swung the sword right through the middle of the pattern.

I felt a huge jolt of power from the sword, but it didn't hurt the way the fire-witch's spell had. In fact, it didn't hurt at all. The pattern collapsed in an invisible tangle. Antorell's eyes started to narrow; the other two wizards just looked stunned. And then something exploded.

I couldn't see anything. It wasn't that things had gone dark, and it wasn't that the light had blinded me. It was more as if the whole world had suddenly become invisible, so there was nothing left to see. There was a rushing noise all around me, and I felt as if I were floating. I heard a chorus of voices cry, “All hail the Wielder of the Sword!” and then the noise and the voices vanished, and I was standing in the clearing with the Sword of the Sleeping King shining in my hand and three very surprised wizards in front of me.

I stared at the wizards. The wizards stared at me. Antorell recovered first.

“Enough of this!” he cried, and raised his staff. As he did, the ground in front of him humped up a little bit. A second later, a tree shot up about twelve feet into the air. It reminded me of someone opening an umbrella very quickly. The branches shivered once as the leaves unrolled, and then it burst into bloom with a sound like a hundred little bells tinkling.

Antorell looked even more surprised than before, then he scowled angrily and pointed his staff at me again. The tall wizard next to him grabbed his arm. “Wait, fool! Don't you know what that sword
is?
”

“Of course I know, oaf.” Antorell's eyes sparked. “It is mine! I will have it!”

“You will be dead, you mean,” the tall wizard said, but he let go of Antorell's arm. “This is a matter for the whole Society of Wizards. There may still be time to stop him if we can bring them quickly enough.”

“More wizards?
Achoo!
Oh, no you don't!
Achoo!
Oh, drat,
achoo!
” said the dragon. It dove out of its tree, unwinding itself like a spool of string, very quickly. Its head shot past me, and I got a fleeting glimpse of green scales and golden eyes and a very, very red tongue. One of the wizards yelled, and the dragon sneezed again. I jumped forward just in time to see all three of the wizards vanish hastily. Antorell looked a little white and he had one hand clutched around a dark, wet-looking spot on his other arm as he disappeared.

I looked at the dragon. It snapped its teeth together twice, swallowed something, and sat back, looking very pleased with itself. “Wizards,” it announced, “taste
much
better than elves.”

I swallowed hard and decided I didn't really want to finish my lunch. The dragon looked at Shiara. Shiara scowled.

“Don't you look at me like that!” she said. “I'm not a wizard, I'm a fire-witch.”

The dragon looked thoroughly shocked. “But I wouldn't eat you! You're my friend. It wouldn't be polite at all!”

Shiara looked suspiciously at the dragon, then nodded. “I just wanted to make sure you remembered.”

“I think we'd better get going,” I said. “Those wizards sounded like they were going to come back with reinforcements.”

“Oh, terrific,” said Shiara. “Let's go, then. Where's Nightwitch?”

“Mrow,” said a kitten voice from somewhere above me.

I looked up. Nightwitch was perched on a branch of the tree that had sprouted up in the middle of the fight. She was washing her paws. She stopped and looked down at me for a second, then went back to washing.

“Nightwitch, come down!” Shiara said. “Those wizards might come back any minute!”

Nightwitch ignored her. The dragon came over and peered curiously at the tree. “Where did this come from?” it asked.

“It grew,” I said. “I think you were sneezing when it happened.”

“Kazul is going to be surprised about this!” the dragon said happily. “Two new trees in a couple of days!”

“What are you talking about?” Shiara said. “It's just a tree.”

“No, it isn't,” the dragon said. “It's a
new
tree. And it's the
second
new tree I've seen in two days, so it's important. The other one hit me on the nose,” it added in an aggrieved tone.

“You mean it's been a long time since there were any new trees?” I asked.

The dragon nodded. “Kazul mentioned it once. She sounded worried.
I
think they're a nuisance, popping up like that.”

“But where do they come from?” Shiara asked. “And why do they show up when we—” She stopped short, and we looked at each other.

“Daystar,” said Shiara finally. “It's the wizards.”

“It can't be,” I said. “What about the first one?”

The dragon tilted its head to one side and looked at us. “What are you talking about?”

“The trees,” Shiara said. “Both of them grew in places where a wizard threw a spell at us . . . But there wasn't any tree when the first wizard tried to drown us, so it can't be wizards.”

I looked down, trying to think, and saw the Sword of the Sleeping King in my hand. “It's the sword!” I said. “It stopped Antorell's spell the first time, and a little while later a tree sprouted. This time it stopped a bigger spell, and we got a bigger tree. It didn't stop any spells when the first wizard made that water monster, so no new trees grew. It
has
to be the sword.”

“You didn't get a tree when you fought the fire-witch,” Shiara objected, but she sounded half-convinced.

“Well, Telemain told us the sword was meant for wizards. It probably only does that for wizards' spells.”

“Your sword grows trees?” the dragon said skeptically.

“It does sound a little silly,” I said.

“Mmmrrrow!”

We all looked up. Nightwitch launched herself at Shiara, who just barely managed to catch her.

“Good,” said Shiara. “Now, if you're all done fussing about trees and swords, how about leaving? Before the wizards come back.”

The dragon and I looked at each other and nodded. We picked up our things and started off.

T
HE ENTRANCE TO THE CAVES OF CHANCE
wasn't very difficult to find. That worried me a little, partly because Antorell and the other wizards would probably figure out where we had gone, and partly because it isn't usually that easy to find something in the Enchanted Forest. Especially if you're looking for it.

Not that the way into the Caves of Chance looked as if it would move around easily. It was a large, smooth, circular hole in the ground with moss growing right up to the edge of it, and it was very dark. The dragon and Shiara and I stood around the edge, staring down into it.

“How are we going to get down there?” Shiara asked finally. “I can't even tell how deep it is.”

“We'll have to use the blankets Morwen gave us,” I said. “We can tie them together.”

“What about me?” said the dragon. “
I
can't climb down blankets.”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe we'll think of something once we know how far it is.”

“What if you can't think of anything?”

“Hey!” Shiara had opened her bundle to get the blankets out, and now she was staring at it as if she'd never seen it before. “Daystar, look at this!”

The dragon looked a little put out. It usually isn't a good idea to interrupt someone's conversation with a dragon, but for once I decided not to say anything, because I was glad Shiara had yelled. I didn't
know
what was going to happen if I couldn't think of a way to get the dragon into the Caves of Chance, and I didn't really want to say so.

I said, “Excuse me,” to the dragon and went over to Shiara. “What is it?”

“This,” said Shiara. She pulled a coil of rope out of the top of the bundle. “It wasn't here before.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Of course I'm sure!” Shiara said. “Look in your pack. Maybe you have one, too.”

Shiara was right: There was another coil of rope in my bundle, along with a little silver lamp and a set of flints, and I didn't remember seeing any of them before. We tied the ropes together, then looped one end around the tree closest to the hole. The dragon watched, grumbling the whole time.

When we finished, Shiara and I argued about who was going to get to climb down first. We wound up tossing a coin, and I won.

I stuck the flints and the lamp into my belt, right next to the Sword of the Sleeping King, where I could find them easily. Then I lowered myself over the edge of the hole and started to climb down the rope. It wasn't easy. The rope kept twisting around, which made me dizzy, and I kept bumping into the side of the hole. I'd gotten about three feet from the top of the hole when the lights went out.

I stopped climbing for a minute and just hung there. I couldn't see anything except a circle of sky right above me, and that looked much farther away than it should have. Then I realized that I had to start climbing one way or another because my arms were going to get tired very quickly if I didn't move. I looked up at the sky. I knew I'd only come down a couple of feet, and it shouldn't have been difficult to climb back up. On the other hand, I knew it could be extremely dangerous to start things and not finish them in the Enchanted Forest. I started down again.

Climbing in the dark is not pleasant. I couldn't see where I was going; I couldn't even see the rope. It seemed like years before my feet finally touched something flat below me. I felt around to make sure what I'd found wasn't just a narrow ledge, then I let go of the rope and called to Shiara that I was at the bottom.

The next thing I did was to get out the lamp and light it. I had a little trouble, since I was doing everything by feel, but I finally got it going. At first all I could see was the tiny yellow flame. Then the lamp made a popping noise and suddenly I could see the cave.