Wrede, Patricia C - Enchanted Forest 01

by Dealing

  They reached the edge of the cheering crowd of dragons. “Who did it?” the escort dragon asked. “Who’s the new King?”

  “How should I know?” the other responded. “I can’t see a thing from way out here.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,”.the escort dragon said. Then he raised his voice and shouted, “Make way! Coming through! Prisoners for the King! Make way!”

  The crowd of dragons parted reluctantly, and the escort dragon herded the group forward, still shouting. They made their way through the cheering dragons until they reached the edge of the river. “Stand away!” shouted someone in the crowd. “Stand away for the King!”

  The nearby dragons drew back, leaving Woraug, the escort dragon, and Cimorene and her friends standing by themselves on the trampled moss. As the dragons moved away, Cimorene caught sight of Kazul, lying comfortably beside the river. “Kazul!” Cimorene cried, and ran forward. “Are you all right?”

  A mottled dragon standing beside Kazul shifted and flicked his tail angrily at Cimorene. “You should say ‘Your Majesty,’ “ he said with a warning scowl.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Frax. She’s my princess,” Kazul said. “I’m quite all right, Cimorene. What are you doing here?”

  “You’re the new King of the Dragons?” Cimorene said in astonishment. “But—but when you left this morning, you could barely fly! How did you get Colin’s Stone all the way from here to the Vanishing Mountain?”

  “Colin’s Stone apparently does more than merely pick out the right King,” Kazul said. “The minute I picked it up, I felt fine.”

  “This is impossible!” Woraug said.

  “Are you accusing me of fraud?” Kazul asked mildly.

  “He’d better not,” Cimorene said. “He’s the one who was cheating, with the help of Zemenar and the rest of the wizards.”

  “Really,” Kazul said in tones of great interest.

  “It’s all nonsense,” Woraug declared. “The girl’s just trying to attract attention.”

  “Really,” Kazul said again, and smiled, displaying all her silver teeth.

  “Oh, come now, Kazul. Surely you won’t take a mere princess’s word over mine,” Woraug said.

  “That depends entirely on what she says. Tell us about it. Princess,” Kazul commanded.

  So Cimorene told them. She brought the stone prince forward to explain what he had overheard the wizards and Woraug discussing in the banquet hall, and she made Alianora tell everyone about melting wizards with wash water and lemon juice. She told about getting to the Ford of Whispering Snakes on the first feather and being unable to convince any of the dragons to listen to her. She told about going to Morwen’s house to find out where the wizards were, and about using the last feather to get to the wizards and melt them. She described Zemenar’s unexpected appearance and subsequent melting, and the way Morwen had broken the wizards’ spell, and she finished with an account of Woraug’s futile attack.

  “And then he landed”—Cimorene waved in the direction of the escort dragon—”and decided to bring us all back here. And I think somebody ought to go back to that clearing where the blackberries are before the next batch of wizards arrives. I don’t know what they’ll do when they find out what’s happened, but ...”

  “Yes, I see,” said Kazul. She turned to a pale green dragon beside her. “Take five or six of the younger dragons—the ones who’ve been talking about starting a wizard-hunt—and go have a look at this blackberry clearing.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said the pale dragon with a fierce grin.

  “Surely you don’t believe this!” Woraug said.

  Kazul stared at Woraug without saying anything, and the dragons around the edge of the circle rattled their scales.

  “Ah—Your Majesty,” Woraug added hastily.

  “Why should I disbelieve it?” Kazul said, still watching Woraug.

  “The whole thing is preposterous!” Woraug said. “How could wizards do anything to affect Colin’s Stone? Your Majesty.”

  Kazul looked at Cimorene.

  “I’m sorry, Kazul,” Cimorene said, shaking her head. “I know what the wizards were trying to do, but I don’t have the slightest idea how they were doing it.”

  “I believe I can explain that. Your Majesty,” Morwen said. She stepped forward, tossing and catching the wizards’ black rock casually in her right hand. “They were using this. I believe you’ll find that it comes from the Caves of Fire and Night. From the King’s Cave, in fact, where Colin’s Stone was found. And one of the properties of the Caves of Fire and Night is that you can use one piece to cast spells which affect similar pieces.”

  “Just the way that impossible book says!” Cimorene exclaimed.

  “DeMontmorency? Yes, I suppose he is fairly impossible,” Morwen said.

  “Is this sufficiently similar to Colin’s Stone that the wizards could have affected the stone through it?” Kazul asked.

  “Certainly, Your Majesty,” Morwen said.

  “This is—” Woraug began.

  “—ridiculous, impossible, and unbelievable,” Kazul said. “You’ve said that already. But I haven’t heard you say anything particularly convincing in support of that attitude.”

  “Oh, really. Your Majesty!” Woraug said. “Next you’ll be saying I poisoned King Tokoz!”

  “It doesn’t seem likely,” Kazul admitted, “since Tokoz was poisoned with dragonsbane, and dragons can’t get anywhere near the stuff without feeling the effects.”

  “What if Zemenar made a ... a dragonsbane-proof packet for him to carry it in?” Cimorene said, thinking of the bag Antorell had been carrying when she and Alianora met him in the valley. “Something that would melt when he dropped it in the King’s coffee.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Kazul said. “But there’s no evidence at all that Zemenar did any such thing.”

  “What would it have looked like?” Alianora asked suddenly. “Would it have been something like a very large tea bag?”

  Everyone turned to look at Alianora. “I think that would have worked quite well. Princess,” Kazul said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Woraug had something like that with him when he went to see King Tokoz the night before the King was killed,” Alianora said. “I saw it.”

  An angry muttering ran through the crowd of dragons.

  “Lies!” Woraug snarled. “They’re all lies!”

  “Are they?” Kazul said coldly. “I don’t think so. You must have wanted to be King very badly indeed.”

  “I—” Woraug darted a glance around the circle of dragons. What he saw did not appear to reassure him. “No!”

  “Consorting with wizards, killing the King, and plotting to cheat in the trials with Colin’s Stone,” Kazul said as if Woraug had not spoken. “Hardly proper behavior for a dragon.”

  The crowd muttered agreement. Cimorene looked from Woraug to Kazul and back. Woraug appeared to be terrified of something, but Cimorene could not tell what it was. He crouched and seemed to shrink away from Kazul, drawing his wings in close and making himself as small as possible. Cimorene blinked. It was remarkable how much smaller Woraug could make himself look. In fact ...

  “He’s shrinking!” Cimorene exclaimed.

  “No!” Woraug cried again, but it was much too late. He shrank faster and faster, his wings melting into ridges along his back and his claws retracting. He was barely as tall as Cimorene’s shoulder. Then, with a sudden shiver, he collapsed in on himself. A small rain of scales pattered to the ground. A moment later, an extremely warty toad with angry red eyes crawled clumsily out of the center of the pile.

  “Is that—is that Woraug?” Alianora asked in a hushed tone.

  The toad turned and glared at her, and she stepped back a pace. The stone prince put a protective arm around Alianora’s shoulders and glared back at the toad.

  “Behave, or I’ll step on you,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s Woraug,” Kazul said. She sounded almost sad. “Tha
t’s what happens when a dragon stops acting like a dragon.”

  The toad turned his glare in Kazul’s direction, then hopped off and disappeared among the stones along the riverbank.

  Alianora shuddered. Kazul studied her for a moment. “You were Woraug’s princess, weren’t you? I’m sorry about all this, but it couldn’t be helped. It won’t take long to find you another dragon.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about finding her another dragon,” Cimorene said. She had been watching Alianora and the stone prince, and an idea had occurred to her.

  “What? Why not?” said Kazul.

  “Because the stone prince fought with Woraug, and Woraug certainly didn’t win. Doesn’t that mean that he gets to rescue Woraug’s princess?”

  “I’m not sure the rules cover this situation at all,” Kazul said. “But it sounds reasonable enough, and under the circumstances I doubt that anyone will object. Unless of course she does.”

  “Oh!” said Alianora, and blushed a rosy red. “No, I don’t object at all!”

  “Are you sure?” the stone prince said anxiously. “You won’t mind waiting a while to marry me? I mean, if you’re willing to marry me? You needn’t, you know, if the idea doesn’t appeal to you.”

  “It appeals to me very much,” Alianora said, blushing redder than ever. “But why do you say that we have to wait?”

  The stone prince sighed. “I still have to find a king and do him a great service, and that’s bound to take a while.”

  “For a young man as intelligent as you seem to be, you’re remarkably foolish,” Morwen commented. “What on earth do you think you’ve just done?”

  An expression of astonishment spread across the prince’s face. “You mean the king I was supposed to serve is the King of the Dragons?”

  “Exactly,” Morwen said. “And I doubt that you could do her a greater service than saving the throne from Woraug’s plotting.”

  “That’s settled, then,” Kazul said. “Let’s get the rest of the ceremonies finished and get back to the mountains. There’s a great deal of work to be done.”

  The dragons all bowed, and eddies of movement began in various sections of the crowd. Shortly, two dragons came forward carrying Colin’s Stone. It looked like a long black log about three times as thick as Cimorene’s waist and twice as tall as she was. The dragons laid it in front of Kazul and backed away. Another dragon appeared, holding a large circlet made of iron, with six spikes poking upward at intervals around the rim. Kazul set her front feet on the black stone, and the dragon set the circlet on her head. The crowd of dragons began cheering again, and after a few minutes they began forming a line to congratulate their new King and present their coronation gifts. Other dragons set up large tubs of wine and platters of meat and cheese, which were quickly surrounded.

  In the middle of the presentations, the dragons Kazul had sent off to the blackberry clearing returned, and Kazul took a short break from accepting congratulations to hear what they had to say.

  “The wizards showed up before we’d been there more than ten minutes. Your Majesty,” said the pale green dragon who was the leader of the group. “Six of them, just like your princess said.”

  “They weren’t happy to see us,” the youngest dragon said smugly.

  “I would think not.” Kazul smiled. “What did you do with them?”

  “We chased five of them away,” the pale dragon reported. “I don’t think they’ll be back, either.”

  “Five?”

  The pale dragon shot a glance at the youngest of the group, who licked his lips and looked even more smug than before and said nothing. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “I see. Well, that’s more than enough evidence to confirm what Cimorene’s told us,” Kazul commented. She raised her voice. “The arrangement between the dragons and the Society of Wizards is hereby canceled. From now on, wizards will not be allowed anywhere near the Caves of Fire and Night, no matter what they say.” Then she went back to accepting presents and congratulations from her new subjects.

  * * *

  Cimorene watched the festivities with mixed feelings. She was very glad that Kazul was the new King of the Dragons, but she couldn’t help wondering what effect Kazul’s coronation would have on her own position. The King of the Dragons certainly wouldn’t need a princess as a mark of status, and there would be plenty of younger dragons eager to cook and clean for their King, if only as a way of getting a start at the court.

  Her preoccupation stayed with her for the rest of the day, through the entire coronation picnic and the flight back to the Mountains of Morning. Cimorene and Alianora rode on the back of a very large dragon whose scales were such a dark green that they looked almost black. Alianora would have preferred to ride with the stone prince, but none of the dragons were willing to take on a second passenger if the stone prince was the first. All of the dragons had paid their respects to Kazul at the coronation, so the cave was empty when the dragon dropped Cimorene off. When Cimorene said good-bye to Alianora, she promised to come over and help her pack the following morning. Then she went in and waited for Kazul to come home.

  Kazul did not arrive until very late. She was still wearing the iron crown, and she looked very tired.

  “Thank goodness that’s over,” she said, taking the crown off and throwing it across the cave. It hit the wall and bounced off with a harsh clang.

  “You shouldn’t treat your crown like that. Your Majesty,” Cimorene said, retrieving the iron circlet.

  “Of course I should,” Kazul said. “It’s expected. That’s why we made it out of iron instead of something soft and bendable. And don’t start calling me ‘Your Majesty.’ I’ve had enough of that for one day.”

  Cimorene began to feel a little better. “What happens next?”

  “Tomorrow we start moving,” Kazul said and sighed. “It will probably take weeks. It’s too bad there’s no way of warning a new king in time to pack everything up before the work starts.”

  “Everything?” Cimorene said in tones of dismay. “Even the library and the treasure vaults? But I’ve only just got them organized!”

  “Everything,” Kazul said. “And if you think straightening out things here was difficult, wait until you see the mess the official vaults are in.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Cimorene. “Is it very bad?”

  Kazul nodded. “I’ve just come from looking at it. You’ll see for yourself tomorrow. There’s a smallish cave next to the library that I think will do nicely for you, but I’d like you to look at it before we start hauling things around.”

  “You mean you want me to stay?” Cimorene blurted. “But I thought the King of the Dragons didn’t need a princess!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kazul said. “How am I going to get my cherries jubilee if you don’t stay? And you haven’t even started cataloguing the library, and how else am I going to get the King’s treasure vaults arranged so I can find things? I’m not going to have time to do it.”

  “Won’t the rest of the dragons object?”

  Kazul snorted. “I’m the King. One of the advantages of being King is that nobody objects to whims like keeping a princess when you’re not supposed to need one. If it bothers you, we’ll give you a different title: King’s Cook and Librarian, maybe. Stop worrying and go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day for both of us.”

  Cimorene smiled and went off to her rooms with a light heart. She slept soundly and was up early next morning. Kazul was already awake and supervising three of the younger dragons, who were packing up the treasure and the library. Since Cimorene was pressed into service at once, it was several hours before she could get away to keep her promise to Alianora.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Cimorene apologized when she arrived at Woraug’s cave at last. “But it didn’t occur to me that Kazul would be moving, too, and she wanted me to help.”

  “It’s all right,” Alianora assured her. “It wasn’t as big a job as I’d expected, and th
e prince helped. I’m almost finished.” She gestured at an almost-full suitcase lying open on the floor. On the other side of the room, the stone prince was stacking the empty drawers from Alianora’s bureau.

  “Well, at least I got here in time to say good-bye,” Cimorene said.

  “You’re staying with the dragons, then?” the stone prince asked, straightening with a frown. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Of course she’s sure,” Alianora said. “Kazul’s going to need her even more than she did before, and Cimorene wouldn’t be happy in a normal kingdom.”

  “How did you know that?” Cimorene said, staring at Alianora.

  “It’s obvious. Linderwall is about as normal a kingdom as you can get. If you ran away from there, you certainly wouldn’t be happy anywhere like it.”

  “I didn’t mean that part,” Cimorene said, reddening slightly. “I meant about Kazul wanting me to stay.”

  “That was obvious, too,” Alianora said. “You’re the only one who was worried about it.” She studied Cimorene for a minute and shook her head. “I wouldn’t like being princess for the King of the Dragons, but it will suit you down to the ground.”

  “I think it will,” Cimorene said, smiling.

  “Then maybe you can tell me something,” the stone prince said. “What’s being done about the wizards?”

  “They’ve been banned from the Mountains of Morning, and there are a hundred or so dragons out checking to make sure they’ve gone,” Cimorene replied. “They haven’t had much luck, I’m afraid. Most of the wizards left after the first few got eaten.”

  “That’s all?” asked the prince.

  “What else can the dragons do? The wizards didn’t actually poison King Tokoz; Woraug did that. So there’s no justification for an all-out attack on the headquarters of the Society of Wizards, even if all the dragons agreed that they wanted to do it. Which they don’t.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” the prince said. “But you’d better tell Kazul to keep a close eye on them. Those wizards will make more trouble just as soon as they figure out a way to do it.”