"Maybe not by dragon standards," Cimorene said. "But fifteen or sixteen years is a long time for people. I don't want to wait. And what if he's a she?"
"That shouldn't make any difference," Telemain said. "What's important to the sword is the bloodline and the-the personality. Or perhaps it's attitude that counts. I've never actually seen the linkage process that enables someone to use the sword, so I can't say for sure."
"No," said Cimorene. "Absolutely not. It would take too long, and it's too iffy. And what if one of the wizards decides to come back and sneak into the castle to finish Mendanbar off?"
"Have you got any better ideas?" Kazul asked.
"How about lunch?" Killer said pointedly. "Aren't people supposed to think better when they've eaten? I do."
"It wouldn't take much," Scorn said. "You're a rabbit."
"Not anymore." Killer's ears went limp and his wings drooped at the thought. "Now I'm a-a something else."
"Lunch sounds like a very good idea to me," Kazul said. "Especially since we needn't rush right in to rescue Mendanbar."
Looking suddenly uneasy, Killer backed away from the dragon. All at once, he stopped and his eyes got very big. "You can't eat me! I'm insubstantial."
His muzzle twitched. "I never thought there'd be anything good about that."
"I'm not interested in eating you," Kazul said. "What I want is six gallons of Morwen's cider and a big helping of cherries jubilee."
Morwen frowned. "I thought you were full."
"I'm never too full for dessert," said the dragon. "And chasing wizards is thirsty work."
"I suppose we might as well," Cimorene said. "It doesn't look as if any of you will make much sense otherwise."
"Does that mean someone is going to fix me?" said Killer.
"I thought you wanted to stay insubstantial," Trouble said with a sly glance in Kazul's direction.
"Not if it means I can't eat."
Since this was an eminently reasonable attitude, and since Killer had been very patient, all things considered, Telemain agreed to take a look at the spells afflicting Killer. While Kazul called in various dragons and fire-witches to set up lunch, Telemain unloaded a large number of peculiar-looking implements from his pockets and began stalking around the donkey, muttering under his breath. Morwen, after a moment's consideration, chose to help Telemain rather than assist with lunch. It gave her a fighting chance of keeping the magician from getting so absorbed in studying the interconnecting layers of enchantment that he forgot about removing them.
They were, it turned out, just in time. The various enchantments seemed almost to have taken on a life of their own, linking and intertwining with each other until there was no separating them.
Fortunately, Killer's insubstantiality had only just begun to be incorporated into the main mass, but even so it took the combined efforts of Morwen and Telemain to nullify it. The process was slow, and by the time they finished they stood in the center of a circle of interested observers attracted by the spectacle of a six-foot-something blue donkey with wings blinking on and off as bits of the spell came loose.
"Whew!" said Telemain when the last of the insubstantiality had been removed and canceled out. "That was more of a job than I expected."
"Can you stop now?" Cimorene asked. "Lunch is ready. If you could leave the rest of the spells for afterward-" "I think we're going to have to leave the rest of the spells for good," Telemain said, stowing his implements back in their appropriate pockets.
"What?"
"Killer has so much magic stuck to him that the bottom layers have melted together," Morwen said. "It's practically impossible to undo the spells he's under. We were lucky to get the top layer off."
"You mean I'm going to be a seven-foot, eleven-inch–counting the ears-bright blue floating donkey with oversized wings for the rest of my life?" Killer wailed.
"Count your blessings," said Scorn. "At least you're not insubstantial "And you're not a rabbit," Trouble pointed out. "That's a plus."
"But I'm supposed to be a rabbit!"
"Quiet," Morwen told them sternly. "As I was saying, undoing the spells is next to impossible. But moving them…"
"... is elementary magic," Telemain said, nodding. "We won't even need any special equipment. But who were you thinking of moving them to?"
Morwen smiled. "Cimorene, would you ask Willin to bring Arona Michaelear Grinogion Vamist over here for a moment, please? This won't take long, and then we can relax and have lunch."
For a moment, Cimorene and Telemain stared at Morwen, and then they began to smile, too. "It will be my pleasure," Cimorene said, and called Willin over. A short time later, Vamist appeared, flanked by Brandel and Amory.
"What do you want now?" Vamist asked. "I demand that you send me home at once."
"In a minute," Morwen said. "Stand over here by Killer. Trouble, Scorn-" "Right here," Scorn purred. "Go ahead whenever you're ready."
"Good." Morwen raised her left hand, palm up, then flipped it over.
"Front to back, White to black, Young to old, Silver to gold."
As she finished speaking, Killer began to glow green. The glow pulsed once, brightly, far enough for the edge to touch Vamist. "Whoops!" said Vamist, and "Eek!" said Killer, and then an ordinary brown rabbit with a few faded patches of white-dyed fur dropped to the ground next to an oversized blue floating donkey with wings.
"Look," said Scorn. "He's got a little bald patch between his ears."
"What-eee-augh!" said Vamist. "No! You can't do this to me!"
"Want to bet?" said Trouble.
"Goodness, he looks silly," said Killer, twitching his nose. "Is that really what I was like?"
"Except for the bald patch," said Scorn.
"You can't mean to leave me like this? Vamist cried. "You wouldn't make me stay a donkey?"
"You're not just a donkey," Morwen said, letting her smile grow.
"You're a seven-foot bright blue floating donkey with oversized wings.
And as far as I'm concerned you can stay that way for the rest of your life.
Telemain, have you got enough energy left to send him to the main square in his hometown?"
"I believe I can manage that," Telemain said.
"No! I'll be the laughingstock of the whole countryside! And how will I get people to pay attention to what I say?"
"You won't," Brandel said with considerable relish. "No one will listen to someone who looks that silly. Morwen, it's perfect."
"It certainly is," Cimorene said. "How on earth did you think of it?"
"It came to me a while back, when Scorn said he was 'as dumb as that rabbit." Now all that's left is the problem of what to do about the castle."
But though they discussed it over lunch, after lunch, and through the afternoon until dinner, no one could think of anything that might work.
Telemain spent an hour studying the shield spell, but he could not find any way to get rid of it. The dragons could not get close to it because the spell was too similar to the one on the wizards' staffs and made them sneeze. The fire-witches' magic just bounced off. In desperation, Cimorene even tried to stick Mendanbar's sword into the spell, but it stopped at the edge of the glow and refused to penetrate it.
"I think we're going to have to wait for the baby," Telemain said finally.
"I'm not giving up yet," Cimorene said. "There's got to be some way to get in, or to get Mendanbar out."
"Don't be so sure," Morwen said. "Barrier spells frequently come with a time delay, rather than any specific sort of key. I believe a hundred years is the usual period, though that normally applies to hedges of briars, not glowing magic shields. Still…"
"I'm not giving up," Cimorene repeated. "And I'm certainly not waiting a hundred years!"
And she didn't. For the next two months, while Telemain and Morwen disposed of Vamist the donkey and sent Killer the rabbit back to his clover patch, while the dragons combed the Enchanted Forest for stray wizards, while the fire-witches fin
ished helping out and went home (or, in some cases, built new homes in the Enchanted Forest), Cimorene tried everything anyone could think of to get herself through the wizards' shield. She had dwarves dig runnels and birds dive at the top of the shield; she sprayed it with soapy lemon water and sprinkled it with powdered dragon scales (donated for the purpose by Kazul); she cast spells alone at midnight and at noon in combination with Morwen, Telemain, all of the fire-witches, and several dragons.
Nothing made any difference.
Kazul left a squad of dragons to keep watch for wizards near the castle, and she herself visited frequently. Eventually, she persuaded Cimorene to slow down, at least until the baby was born. Since none of the other attempts had shown any sign of success, Cimorene's child seemed more and more to be their best hope of getting into the castle, rescuing Mendanbar, and defeating the wizards once and for all. Rumors began circulating, each purporting to give the real truth about the battle and the whereabouts of King Mendanbar.
The Society of Wizards was too busy with its own affairs-choosing a new Head Wizard and recovering from the unexpected onslaught of dragons and fire-witches-to make new trouble for the time being. So the pause in the fighting stretched out longer and longer until it became a sort of uneasy, unofficial peace.
And everyone waited.
EPILOGUE
Which Hints at Things to Come
Motherhood suits Cimorene, Morwen thought as she watched the Queen of the Enchanted Forest and the King of the Dragons making peculiar noises over the infant Prince Daystar, aged two months, six days, and some-odd hours. On the moss beside them, at the foot of an ancient and enormous willow, lay Mendanbar's unsheathed sword.
"Telemain says he melted another wizard in the eastern part of the forest yesterday," Morwen said aloud. "They're getting bolder."
Cimorene looked up, her face clouded. "I know. Antorell found me this morning. It's all right. I melted him," she added quickly. "But he was very angry. I think he blames me because Kazul ate his father."
"Antorell never was very strong on logic," Kazul said. "Ooochy-ooo.
What a fine big boy you are?"
Since this last was directed at the baby Prince, Morwen only smiled.
"It's a good thing none of my cats are here, or you'd have to make an equal fuss the next time one of them has kittens."
"As long as I don't have to be their godmother, I'll be happy to fuss," Kazul said.
"I didn't know your cats were expecting kittens," Cimorene said.
"None of them is, yet." Morwen smiled again. "Though the way Scorn and Horatio are behaving, it's only a matter of time. You should hear some of the things Trouble says about them-'mushy' is probably the kindest."
"It's a good thing you like cats," Cimorene said.
"Yes, it is." Morwen looked at Cimorene, and her smile faded.
"You're avoiding the real subject, which is, What are you going to do now? It will be a long time before Daystar is old enough to use Mendanbar's sword, and if the Society of Wizards is looking for him-" "I don't think they are," Cimorene said. "I don't think they even know Daystar exists. Mendanbar and I hadn't officially announced it before they attacked, and afterward it seemed like a good idea to keep quiet about it. So they haven't heard, and they're not looking for Daystar.
They're looking for the sword, and they're looking for me."
"It amounts to the same thing," Morwen said. "And doesn't Antorell know about Daystar, if he found you this morning?"
Cimorene snorted. "Antorell was so mad at me that he didn't notice anything else. He walked right by the sword and tripped over Kazul's tail before I melted him."
"Still, if he found you, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the Society does, too. Isn't it?"
"Not quite." Cimorene glanced sideways at Kazul and took a deep breath. "I've thought about this a lot, and I have an idea how to outsmart them. I want to know what you think of it."
"You know what I think of it," Kazul rumbled. "I don't like it one bit.
The idea of-" "Hush, Kazul, you'll upset Daystar. It's like this, Morwen: The Society of Wizards knows I've brought Mendanbar's sword back to the Enchanted Forest, because they can't swallow big chunks of the forest's magic anymore and they know that the sword is what keeps them from doing that. So they're poking around here, looking for me and the sword. If I leave the forest-" "But you can't take the sword out of the Enchanted Forest or the Society of Wizards will start destroying it again," Morwen said. "Or else the sword will leak all the magic out of the forest, which amounts to the same thing."
"I'm not going to take the sword out of the Enchanted Forest," Cimorene said. "I'm going to hide it in here, and then I'm going to take Daystar and settle down outside the forest somewhere. Not with the dragons; the wizards will expect that."
Morwen frowned, forcing herself to consider the proposal carefully.
"So the Society of Wizards will look for you inside the Enchanted Forest, because they'll expect you to be with the sword and they'll know that the sword is still inside the forest. And since you'll be outs' the forest, you and Daystar will be relatively safe. And things won't get any worse inside the forest, because the sword will keep the wizards from destroying new bits.
Very neat. But what if they find the sword?"
Experiment with a wizard's staff, and he says that as long as the sword is inside the Enchanted Forest, it's invisible to wizards' magic. If I hide it well, they'll have to search the whole forest, inch by inch, on foot, in order to find it."
"And I doubt any of them have the patience for that. But are you sure that the wizards won't think up a way to get around it?"
"Telemain says that the only way a wizard could use magic to find the sword would be to use a spell that finds the person who's carrying it.
And for that to work, the person carrying it has to know that what he's got is Mendanbar's sword. That's why I can't give it to you or Telemain."
"I see. So by the time the wizards think of casting that type of spell, if they ever do, the sword will be hidden and you'll be outside the forest."
Cimorene nodded. "I'd like to have you or Telemain check on the sword once in a while to make sure it's all right, but if the wizards start looking for someone who knows what it is-" "That shouldn't be a problem as long as we don't try to carry it."
Morwen's right hand tingled, remembering the way it had burned when she held it. "And I certainly don't intend to try!"
"Oh, that only happens outside the Enchanted Forest," Cimorene said, then frowned. "At least, I'm fairly sure that's what Telemain meant when he explained. Inside the Enchanted Forest, the sword does different things."
"Well, I'm not giving it the chance to do them to me," Morwen said.
"If you want to be certain the wizards won't catch us checking, I'll send one of the cats."
"That should work. Not too often."
"No, we wouldn't want to lead the Society of Wizards right to it."
Morwen shook her head. "I don't like it any more than Kazul does, but it sounds as if it will work. As far as it goes."
"As far as it goes? What do you think I've forgotten?"
"The Society of Wizards put up that shield spell. What if they decide to pull it down in a year or two and take over the castle? We can't keep a guard on it for the next sixteen or twenty years. Not an effective one, anyway."
"Speak for yourself," Kazul said. "Sixteen or twenty years of guarding a castle is nothing to a dragon."
"And Kazul and Telemain have already solved that problem anyway," Cimorene said. "You must not have come by the castle, or you'd have seen it."
"Seen what?" said Morwen.
"The second shield spell, the one the dragons put up." Cimorene's eyes sparked. "Telemain analyzed the wizards' shield spell, and then Kazul got all the dragons to duplicate it. It works the same way the Society's spell does: only the people who put it up can take it down."
Morwen pursed her lips. "So we can't get at the castle be
cause of the wizards' spell, and the wizards can't get at their spell because of the dragons' spell. You do seem to have thought of everything."
"'Thank you," said Kazul. "Now convince Cimorene that she'll be safe in the Mountains of Morning with the rest of us, and we'll be all set."
"I don't think I can do that," Morwen said. "In the first place, Cimorene is stubborn as a pig when she wants to be, and in the second place, she's right. As soon as the Society of Wizards figures out she's not in the Enchanted Forest, they'll look for her with dragons.
And they're sneaky enough to find her, and that would ruin everything."
She sighed. "When do you intend to leave, Cimorene?"
"This afternoon, as soon as I hide this." Cimorene picked up the sword. "It's a pity I can't put it in a sheath, but Telemain says that with Mendanbar… unavailable, a sheath would obstruct some of the sword's spells that interfere with wizards."
"Would you like some help?" Morwen said.
"It can't hurt. Kazul, will you watch Daystar for an hour or two?"
"I suppose so. Since you seem determined."
"Good." Cimorene patted the dragon's shoulder. "And thank you.
Bye, Daystar."
As she bent forward to kiss him, the flash of light on the blade of the sword caught the child's attention, and he reached for it with both hands.
"Ah-ah-ah!" he demanded.
"No, Daystar," Cimorene replied gently. "Not now. This is for later, when you're older."
"Ah-ah-ah?" said Daystar emphatically.
"When you're older," Cimorene said again. "Come on, Morwen, let's get started." Together they walked through the trees to find a place to hide the sword against the time when Daystar would be old enough to use it.
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Calling on Dragons ef-3 Page 18