Talking to Dragons (19 page)

Actually, it was more like a tunnel. Where I was standing, the walls were a smooth, speckled stone, but as soon as the tunnel got out from under the hole the walls looked rough. It was cool and dry and dusty, as if no one had been there in a long, long time.

“That's not so bad,” said a voice above me. I looked up. The dragon was peering over the edge of the hole. “I can jump that far.”

“I think you should wait until Shiara climbs down,” I said. “Then you can untie the rope and bring it with you.”

Shiara's head appeared beside the dragon's. “You're right; it's not nearly so bad when you can see the bottom.”

“If you drop the bundles Morwen gave us, I can catch them,” I said. “Then you can climb down and we can get started.”

“All right.” Shiara's head vanished for a few seconds, then reappeared, along with a pair of hands and a bundle. “Ready? Catch.”

Nightwitch was more of a problem than the bundles. I got a few scratches catching her. As soon as I had everything, Shiara climbed down. We picked up our things and moved into the tunnel while the dragon took care of the rope, and then the dragon jumped down.

“That was easy!” it said.

I thought about sliding down the rope in the dark and didn't say anything.

Shiara looked from me to the dragon and back. “Well? Are you going to stand there until the wizards show up again?”

“We have to decide what we're going to hold on to first,” I said.

“Daystar, we have to carry everything ourselves anyway,” Shiara said. “What difference does it make?”

“I don't think that's what Telemain meant,” I said. “There are all sorts of ways to lose things in the Caves of Chance if you aren't paying attention, but if you have something in your hand all the time and never set it down, it's less likely to disappear.”

“If you really believe that, you'd better carry the sword,” Shiara said. “The only thing
I
don't want to lose is Nightwitch, and she can take care of herself.”

“You're right,” I said doubtfully. I didn't really want to march through the Caves of Chance with the Sword of the Sleeping King in my hand, but I certainly didn't want to lose it. Finally I decided to take the sheath off my belt and carry the sword and sheath together. I had some trouble doing it, though, and Shiara had to help.

“Are you sure this is necessary?” she asked. “Why can't you just wear it?”

“Magic things are particularly easy to lose here,” I said. “And Mother told me to take care of this sword.” I tucked the sheathed sword under my arm and picked up the silver lamp and the bundle Morwen had given me. “Let's go.”

The tunnel slanted down for a long way, then leveled. Every now and then we came to a dark opening in the wall that led to a side passage, but we ignored all of them. Telemain had been very specific about that. Not that they were particularly tempting. The silver lamp had no difficulty lighting up our part of the tunnel, but it didn't penetrate into the side passages at all.

After a while, the tunnel we were following jogged sharply left, then right again, and suddenly it opened out into an enormous cave. The walls were crystal, and they seemed to have hundreds of different-colored lights shifting behind them. I stopped abruptly, staring, and the dragon bumped into me from behind.

“Excuse me,” I said automatically.

“You shouldn't stop so fast,” the dragon complained. It craned its neck to see around me. “Hey! This is nice!” It stretched upward, and a minute later it was clinging to the crystal wall several feet above us.

I backed away hastily. I didn't want to be underneath if the dragon slipped.

“Where are we supposed to go from here?” asked Shiara, ignoring the dragon.

“This must be the Cave of Crystal Lights,” I said. “Telemain said to walk straight across. There ought to be three passageways on the other side, and we want to take the left one.”

“I see them,” the dragon said. It squinted across the cave, then climbed down and sat beside us. “They aren't straight across. They're over that way a little.” It waved toward the right.

I looked at the dragon. “I think we should follow Telemain's directions. The Caves of Chance are even trickier than the Enchanted Forest. I don't want to risk getting in trouble if we don't have to.” I didn't mention that the last time we had taken the dragon's advice we'd run into the fire-witch and Shiara had gotten turned into a statue, but I was thinking it. Shiara nodded in agreement.

“All right,” the dragon said sullenly. “But I think you're being silly.”

We started walking again, trying to go straight across the cave. The walls curved in and out, and the floor humped up in low mounds and ridges. Between that and the shifting colored lights, it was hard to be sure we were going straight. Shiara and I backtracked a couple of times, just to check, and every time we did the dragon grumbled.

Finally we got to the other side and saw the three openings. The dragon stared at them, then looked around suspiciously. “Where did these come from? These aren't the ones I saw!”

“Well, then, it's a good thing we followed Telemain's directions,” Shiara said. “Otherwise, we'd be lost. Come on, let's go.” She scowled and headed for the left-hand passageway.

I started after her, and right away I tripped and fell.

“Ow!” I said. Shiara looked around, then came back to help me up.

“What happened now?” she asked.

“I tripped,” I said. “I've still got the sword, but I dropped the lamp. Where is it?”

“I don't see it.” Shiara sounded a little worried. She had reason to be. Without the lamp, we wouldn't be able to see anything once we got out of the Cave of Crystal Lights.

“It can't be very far away,” I said, and we started hunting. Shiara went one way and I went the other. About half a minute later, I saw something glittering. “There it is!”

“No, it's over here,” said Shiara. She bent over and picked something up from behind a rock. “It's still burning,” she said, sounding surprised.

“It lights up more space than it ought to, too,” I said over my shoulder. “Morwen probably put a spell on it.”

“Where are you going?” Shiara said.

“I saw something over here, and I want to know what it is,” I said. “Especially since it obviously isn't the lamp.”

Shiara started to object, but right then I saw the glittering thing again and I bent to pick it up. “Here it is,” I said. “See?” My fingers touched metal, and a fountain of sparks shot up from the floor of the cave where my fingers were.

I yelled and fell backward. The fountain hissed and sizzled angrily, getting bigger and brighter and hotter every minute. I scrambled back toward the others. Blue and white and purple sparks started falling around us, and all of us ran for the left-hand tunnel. Nightwitch yowled as one of the sparks hit her, and Shiara scooped her up and kept on running.

We made it to the tunnel, but no one stopped until we were well inside, not even the dragon. When we finally got out of reach of the falling sparks, we stopped and panted for a while. Fortunately, Shiara had hung on to the lamp as well as to Nightwitch. When she set Nightwitch down, the kitten glared back toward the mouth of the tunnel, then began determinedly washing a spot on her back where the fur was a little singed.

“What was that?” Shiara asked as soon as she had her breath back.

“I don't know,” I said. “I was just trying to—” I stopped. I was holding something in my right hand. I didn't even remember grabbing it. “It went off when I picked this up,” I said, and I opened my fingers.

I had three pebbles of various sizes, a little sandy dirt, and a small gold key. A tingle ran down my back as I looked at the key, and I jumped. “Now what?” said Shiara.

“I felt something,” I said. “Sort of like the sword when it's finding magic, but not the same.”

“Is it magic?” the dragon asked.

“I don't know.”

“Well, find out!” Shiara said impatiently. “I thought that was what the stupid sword was for.”

I sighed a little and shifted all the things I was carrying until I could put my left hand on the hilt of the Sword of the Sleeping King. I didn't feel any tingles, but the key started to glow.

We all stared at the key for a minute.

“I knew it was magic!” the dragon said happily.

“I don't feel anything from the sword, though,” I said. I took my hand off the hilt, and the key stopped glowing.

“So? The sword makes it glow, doesn't it?” Shiara said. “It
has
to be magic. What are you going to do with it?”

“I'm going to keep it, at least until we talk to Kazul,” I said. “She may know what it's for, or who it belongs to.”

“It b-b-belongs in the c-c-cave,” something said in a bubbly voice behind us.

I jumped and turned around. There wasn't anyone there. Shiara and the dragon and I all peered into the darkness. Nightwitch looked up from washing her back long enough to hiss, then continued washing.

“Who said that?” Shiara demanded.

“M-m-me. You b-better put that k-k-key back right away,” said the same voice.

I still didn't see anyone.

“Why?” I asked.

“B-because it b-belongs there!” the voice said. It sounded like water hitting a hot frying pan. “Gug-give it to me, and I'll put it back.”

“If you want it, you'll have to come out here where we can see you,” Shiara said firmly.

There was an unhappy bubbling noise from the dark part of the tunnel, then a series of unpleasant squishing sounds. A moment later something wobbled into the light from the silver lamp. It was about four feet tall, and it looked like a slightly sloppy pillar of very dark blackberry jelly.

“There!” it said. “Now, gug-give me that key!”

I was so busy trying to figure out how it could talk when it didn't have a mouth that I didn't answer. I was still trying when Shiara asked, “How do we know it's your key?”

“It isn't my key. I just take care of it. Gug-give it to me!” The jelly was shaking angrily and bobbing up and down like the lid on a teakettle. Every time it bobbed up, the pillar of jelly stretched thin; and when it bobbed down, the jelly made a sort of flattened lump; and every time it moved at all, it wobbled.

The dragon, who had been standing behind Shiara, poked its head over her shoulder to see better. “That stuff reminds me of something,” the dragon said. “I can't think what, though. What is it?”

“
I,
” huffed the jelly, “am a quozzel.” It leaned forward as if it were trying to peer at us and asked haughtily, “What are
you?
”

“It's a dragon,” Shiara said, a little nastily. “Can't you tell?”

The pillar froze in midwobble. “There are n-n-no dragons under-gug-ground,” it said. “None!” It leaned cautiously in Shiara's direction for a minute, then started bobbing again. “You aren't a dragon. I want that k-k-key! It belongs in the cave, and it's g-going to stay there!”

“Of course she's not a dragon!” the dragon said. “
I'm
a dragon. And I've never heard of a quozzel before.”

The quozzel bent a little, then froze again. “Glurb,” it said.

The dragon tilted its head to one side. “I don't think you're very polite,” it said.

The jelly burbled unhappily to itself. It looked as if it were boiling. The little dragon kept staring at it, and suddenly the dragon's eyes started to glow. “I know what this reminds me of!” it said triumphantly. “Dessert!”

The quozzel shrieked and collapsed backward into the darkness just as the dragon's head shot toward it. The dragon kept going, knocking Shiara and me out of the way as it went past. We heard several squishing noises, then an angry snort from the dragon, followed closely by a small puff of flame that lit up the dark end of the tunnel. I got a brief glimpse of the dragon before the light died, but I didn't see the quozzel anywhere. There was a disgusted-sounding growl, and a moment later the dragon stalked back into the light from the silver lamp. “It got away.”

“Well, I'm glad it's gone,” Shiara said. She frowned. “You shouldn't go around trying to eat things all the time, especially if you don't know what they are. I wouldn't be surprised if quozzels were poisonous or something.”

“Dragonsbane is the only thing that poisons dragons, and that quozzel wasn't polite, and I'm
hungry,
” the dragon said. It shook its head sadly. “Wizards taste good, but they aren't very filling.”

I put the key in my pocket and rummaged in Morwen's bundle. I was sure I still had some meat pies, and I didn't like the idea of traveling with a hungry dragon. I found the food and offered it to the dragon, who brightened up a little and accepted.

“We ought to keep going,” Shiara said as the dragon sat back against the wall of the tunnel and started eating. “Suppose that quozzel thing comes back?”

“I don't think it could really do much to us,” I said. “It didn't look very dangerous.”

“You can't always tell by looking,” Shiara said darkly. “And if that marmalade mess wants the stupid key badly enough, it'll think of something.”

“Marmalade is orange,” I said. “The quozzel looked more like blackberry jelly to me. And I still don't think it's going to come back. Not while the dragon is around.”

“Well, you'd better carry that key in your hand,” Shiara said. “I think it's important, and it might fall out of your pocket or something.”

“All right, but you'll have to keep the lamp. I don't think I can manage the sword
and
the things Morwen gave us
and
the lamp,
and
still hold the key.” I dug the key out of my pocket again. Maybe it did belong to the quozzel, but the more I thought about it, the less likely that seemed. And if the key had something to do with the sword, I wanted to hang on to it.