Wrede, Patricia C - Enchanted Forest 01

by Dealing

“You started it,” Kazul pointed out. She turned to the gray dragon. “What's this about Gaurim and a wizard, Roxim?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Roxim said, sounding surprised. “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 positive 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, brownish-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 pardon,” 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. “Cimorene met one today, less than a two-minute flight from my cave.”

  “What? What?” Roxim said. “You’re sure?”

  “That's 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 turn 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.

  “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 Wizards,” 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 dragon 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.”

  “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 patrols sent out immediately to eat any wizard who ventured into the Mountains of Morning. The dragon at the far end of the table wanted to attack the headquarters of the Society of Wizards the following morning, 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 comments, 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 to breathe little tongues of fire at the purple-green dragon, and Roxim was threatening loudly to have another allergy attack, but Cimorene was fairly sure that Kazul would stop the discussion before things got completely 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 suspiciously.

  “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 conversation. She did not really mind. She had plenty to think about already.

  5

  In Which Cimorene Receives a Formal Call

  from Her Companions in Dire Captivity

  Kazul 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 conversation. 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.”

  “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 useful, 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 skeptically. She climbed on a stool and began working at the ribs of Kazul’s wings.

  “Wizards’ staffs absorb magic from whatever happens to be nearby,” Kazul said, stretching out her left wing so Cimorene could get at the base. “That's why they’re always hanging around places like the Mountains 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 separated, 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 wizards,” 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 wizards?”

  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 access 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 certainly looked nasty enough, even when he was pretending 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 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 Cimorene, 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 Cimorene 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 previous 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 breathing fire. Not that she was planning to do anything to irritate Kazul—or any other dragon, for that matter—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 putting 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 someone 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 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 second 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 sigh
t 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 announcement 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.

  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 of space.”

  “Alianora!” the gold-crowned princess said sharply, 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 silence while Cimorene filled the copper teakettle and hung it over the fire, and then the gold-crowned princess 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.”