"Oh, I don't doubt that at all," Telemain said. "But the hypersensitive reaction results from the indiscriminate absorption of magical energy through the enchantments fixed in their staffs."
"What?" said the dragon.
Telemain sighed. "It's not wizards you're allergic to, it's their staffs. You stopped sneezing as soon as I got rid of mine, didn't you?"
The dragon looked startled. "I did, didn't I?" it said after a minute.
"If you aren't a wizard, what are you doing with a wizard's staff?"
Shiara asked.
Telemain raised his eyebrows. "Why do you ask?"
"We've been having some trouble with wizards," I said before Shiara could answer. I didn't want her to make him angry. We had enough people mad at us already.
"Really." Telemain looked as if he were going to laugh again. "All of you?"
"Well, mainly just Shiara and me," I said. "We've been sort of worried about them. Most of them are after Shiara," I added.
"What would the Society of Wizards want with a fire-witch?" Telemain said. "I can see that I shall have to invite you in, if only to hear your tale."
"How do you know about the Society?" Shiara said angrily. "And why should we trust a wizard, anyway?"
"Anyone who knows much about magic can tell you're a fire-witch, and the only reason I can think of for a fire-witch to have several wizards after her is if she has done something to offend the Society of Wizards," Telemain said. He still sounded amused. "And for the third time, at least, I am a magician, not a wizard."
"What's the difference?" Shiara demanded.
"Magicians deal with many ways of magic," Telemain said. "Wizards with only one. Now, will you come in and sit down?"
Shiara was still looking at him doubtfully. Telemain smiled. "Will an oath content you? If you mean no harm, I am not your enemy, and I will o you no harm while you are my guests, save in self-defense. I swear by the sword," I felt a kind of popping at my side, even though I wasn't touching the sword, and a tipple ran through the clearing, like a shimmer of light in the air. I thought it kept on going out into the forest, but I couldn't be certain.
Shiara started and dropped Nightwitch, who landed on her feet with a yowl.
The dragon stretched its neck, looking almost as if it were trying to purr.
Telemain suddenly looked very intense.
"That is the way of it, then?" he said when the tipple passed. "I don't think I blame you for your caution." He looked pointedly at my sword.
Shiara scowled again, but I thought she looked a little more doubtful than the last time. "If you're so smart…" she began, and stopped.
Nightwitch was rubbing against Telemain's leg and purring.
"Nightwitch?" said Shiara.
"An intriguing name for a cat," Telemain said, bending over to pick up Nightwitch. "Even more interesting for a kitten. Where did you come by her?"
"She was a present," Shiara said grudgingly. "From a witch named-" "Morwen?" said Telemain. Nightwitch purred louder. "I suspected as much. Now, will you come in? Or do you wish to continue this discussion where anyone may hear?"
We went in. The door of Telemain's home looked like an ordinary, normal-sized door, but it couldn't have been, because the dragon fit through it without any trouble. The room inside was made of stone and very bare.
In the center of the floor, two iron staircases twisted around each other in a spiral and disappeared into the ceiling. The whole place seemed much taller from the inside. If i hadn't seen it before we came in, I would have been sure we were in a tower.
As the door closed behind the dragon, Telemain waved his hand. A table and three chairs materialized beside the stairs. "Sit down and tell me more about yourselves."
We sat down, except for the dragon, who sort of curled itself around the edges of the room. I started explaining about Mother and Antorell and everything that had happened in the Enchanted Forest. I even told him about the Sword of the Sleeping King, because I was pretty sure from the way he looked at it that he already knew something about it.
The questions he asked made it pretty clear that I was right, although sometimes he got so technical that I had to ask him to repeat something. He sounded as if he knew exactly what answers he expected, too. When I told him about the voice that had said, "All hail the Bearer of the Sword," he nodded in satisfaction.
Then I explained how Shiara and I had met, and why the wizards were after her, and about the one who'd tried to get us at the stream.
Shiara frowned at me, but she didn't interrupt. When I told him about meeting Morwen, Telemain seemed very interested.
"I haven't seen Morwen in a long time," he said. "How is she?"
"You know Morwen?" Shiara said.
"We grew up together," Telemain said. "Now, exactly what did she have you do to repair the damage to your hand?"
Telemain asked a lot of questions about the things the Sword of the Sleeping King had done, but he didn't seem particularly interested in the wizards. He wasn't interested in the Princess at all. Then I told him about the invisible castle and the fire-witch.
"So that's how you knew about it," Telemain said. "I wondered."
"That's how we knew," Shiara said. "How did you know?"
"The castle landed in my clearing sometime around noon," Telemain said dryly. "I was understandably curious as to why someone would go to all the trouble of making a castle invisible and then drop it on top of a magician who can't help noticing it."
"It's not there now," Shiara said.
"Of course not! What would I want with an invisible castle? When I found no one home, I cleaned the place up a bit and got rid of it."
"Cleaned it up?" I said, puzzled.
"The most recent owner had a number of unattractive habits," Telemain said even more dryly than before. "In addition to casual petrification of passersby, she indulged in seven varieties of involuntary metamorphosis, as well as necromancy and demonology. I don't believe you would be at all interested in the technical details."
"Oh." He was right; I didn't really want to know about it.
Telemain looked at Shiara again. "I owe you an apology," he said.
"I knew that the castle was the property of a fire-witch, and I'm afraid that when you showed up, I thought you had some connection with it."
"Well, I don't, but I suppose I can see why you might have gotten mad."
Shiara sounded a lot friendlier than she had before. I think she would have been friendly to anyone who didn't like that other fire-witch.
Then she frowned. "How did the castle get into your clearing, anyway?"
Telemain shrugged. "As far as I can tell, the unit transportation spell operated on a set of totally random parameters, both in terms of time and location."
"What does that mean?" said the dragon.
"The castle was designed to move around the Enchanted Forest more or less randomly. It's a rather unusual spell to put on a building, particularly an invisible one, because if you happen to be outside when it moves, you get left behind."
"Then why on earth would anyone put a stupid spell like that on a castle?"
"Presumably this fire-witch didn't expect to have any problems finding the castle again. I don't believe it occurred to her that someone else might find it first." He smiled. "I left a few surprises for her. I doubt that she'll be pleased."
"Oh, that's all right," the dragon said. "Daystar got rid of her."
Telemain looked at me. "Really. How did you manage that?"
"She threw some sort of spell at me, but Nightwitch scratched her, so she missed," I said. "And after that, I had the sword out."
"You used the Sword of the Sleeping King on a fire-witch?"Telemain said. He sounded somewhere between shocked and horrified.
"I couldn't think of anything else that might work," I said apologetically.
"And it did work, sort of. I mean, it got rid of the fire-witch."
"She went up in smoke," the dragon said with considerable sat
isfaction.
"I watched."
"She went up in smoke," Telemain repeated in tones of fascination.
"And what were you doing while this was going on?"
"I was trying to hang on to the sword," I said. "It was glowing red, and my hands felt like they were burning or something, so it was sort of hard to do. But as soon as the fire-witch was gone, it stopped."
"You are extremely fortunate," Telemain said. "You might have gotten yourself killed and ruined everything. I don't recommend that you try that again. Stick to wizards. That's what the sword was meant for."
"It was?" said Shiara. "How do you know? What else does it do?"
Telemain looked at her. "Magicians know many kinds of magic." He turned back to me. "Please, continue."
I was curious about what the sword did, too, but Telemain obviously didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't ask. Instead, I explained about fixing Shiara and not finding the castle and meeting the second elf. Telemain listened carefully, then shook his head.
"So the war is beginning again," he said, half to himself. "I had best make my own preparations. I wonder why no one let me know?"
"War?" Shiara and I said together.
Telemain looked up, almost as if he had forgotten we were there. "The war between the dragons and the wizards," he said in the tones of someone trying to be patient.
The dragon, who had been falling asleep, suddenly came awake. "War with the wizards?"
"It is obvious," Telemain said a trifle crossly. "The elves are choosing sides, the dragons are restless, the wizards are coming into the Enchanted Forest in large numbers, and the Sword of the Sleeping King has returned.
What more do you need to know?"
"What does the Sword of the Sleeping King have to do with a war between the dragons and the wizards?" I asked before the dragon could take offense.
"The sword is what started the war in the first place," Telemain said, and then he refused to say any more. "If Cimorene didn't see fit to explain, I certainly won't," he said. "When you meet Kazul, I am sure she will tell you whatever you need to know. I'm afraid I don't have time at the moment. I must see to things at once, if we are to win this war at last."
"Who do you mean, 'we'?" Shiara asked suspiciously.
"The dragons," Telemain said, "and the rest of us who follow the sword.
Now, if you will excuse me?" He rose and started for the stairs.
"Wait a minute!" Shiara said. "What about us?"
"What? Oh, of course," Telemain said. He waved his hand again and muttered something, and suddenly the table was full of plates and bowls of food. I jumped. Telemain didn't seem to notice. "Help yourselves while I am gone," he said. "I don't expect to be long." He turned away and went up one of the iron staircases.
Shiara and I looked at each other. "Now what do we do?" Shiara said.
"I'm going to eat," I said. "Would you like something?"
Shiara snorted, but she reached for one of the bowls. There was plenty for all of us, including Nightwitch and the dragon. About the time we finished, Telemain came back.
"I was right," he said to no one in particular. Then he looked at me.
"You'd better stay here for the night. It will be much safer for everyone, and it will give me time to look into things a little more.
You've been extremely lucky so far, but there's no reason to take any more chances until you must."
I started to nod, then looked at Shiara. Shiara looked at me, then at Nightwitch, who was curled into a small ball on Telemain's chair. She shrugged. "Let's stay."
"You will find rooms upstairs, on the second floor," Telemain said.
'Just pick one and go in." He turned to the dragon. "I think you'll be more comfortable down here."
"I think you're right," said the dragon, eyeing the iron staircases a little dubiously.
"And thank you very much for your hospitality," I said.
Telemain nodded. Shiara and I started for the stairs. Shiara got there ahead of me and started climbing, but she didn't get anywhere.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"There's something wrong with this stupid staircase!" Shiara said. "I keep trying to climb up, but I don't go anywhere?"
Telemain, who had been talking quietly to the dragon, turned. "I'm sorry; I should have warned you. You'll have to take the other staircase.
That one incorporates a unidirectional matrix focused groundward."
"Say that again, in English," Shiara said.
"That stairway just works going down."
"That's ridiculous?" said Shiara. "How can a staircase only work going in one direction?"
"He's a magician," I said.
We didn't have any trouble getting up the other stairway. Telemain's tower really was a lot taller than it looked from the outside; the stairs kept going after they got to the second floor. Shiara and I didn't climb any farther, though. We got off on the landing at the second floor and looked around.
We were standing on a narrow circle of wooden floor around the hole where the two staircases came through. Around the edge were six identical wooden doors.
"Well, he said to just go in," Shiara said.
Each of us picked a door and opened it. The rooms were all the same and very comfortable looking. They each had a bed, a table, a lighted lamp in a bracket on the wall, a padded chair, and a small set of drawers with a mirror above it. Shiara looked thoughtful. "I wonder if he keeps lights going in all these rooms?"
"He might," I said. "I mean, he is a magician. Does it matter?"
Shiara glared at me and went into the room she'd picked, slamming the door behind her. I stood there for a moment, wondering whether to knock on the door and apologize. In the end I decided to wait until morning to talk to her, since by then she probably wouldn't be mad anymore, and anyway I wasn't sure what I should apologize for.
I kept the Sword of the Sleeping King with me all night. It was a little uncomfortable sleeping that way, but I felt better knowing where it was. It wasn't that I didn't trust Telemain. I was just getting more and more worried about the sword. Everyone I met seemed to know about it, or want to know about it, or just want to get hold of it. I spent a lot of time thinking instead of sleeping.
Telemain served breakfast the next morning on his magic table. He was very quiet while we were eating, but as soon as we finished he looked at me and said, "I have watched the Enchanted Forest all night, and there are some things you should know, but I do not wish to detain you against your "What things?" Shiara demanded.
Telemain smiled slightly. "I fear you will have some difficulty in reaching the castle," he said. "I found no less than twelve wizards searching the area between it and you."
"Oh, great," Shiara said disgustedly. 'Just what we need-more wizards!"
"I don't think it's very good," the dragon said. "Why do you?"
"I don't," Shiara said.
"Then why did you say so?"
"What can we do about them?" I asked Telemain.
"I think you can avoid them if you go through the Caves of Chance," Telemain replied.
14
In Which the Dragon Has an Allergy Attack
We all stared. "Ha!" Shiara said finally. "The Caves of Chance are even more dangerous than the wizards!"
"I don't think so," Telemain said. "I have been through them, and they're not as bad as most people think. Furthermore, there is an entrance to the caves within half a day's travel, and an exit that is very close to the castle. And once you are inside the caves, the wizards will not be able to find "Why not?" Shiara asked.
"The Caves of Chance do not welcome wizards' magic."
"Can you give us directions?" I asked.
Telemain nodded and pulled a large map out of his sleeve. Most people don't even try making maps of the Enchanted Forest because things change so fast that an ordinary map is only good for a few days, so I'd never seen one before. This map must have been magical, because it seemed fairly accurate. At least, all t
he things Shiara and I had seen were in the right places.
Telemain showed us where his tower was and where the castle was, and he pointed out several places he'd found wizards. Then he showed us the entrance to the caves. It really did look a lot closer and safer than trying to get by all those wizards. Even Shiara looked less doubtful.
Then Telemain turned the map over, and on the back was a map of the Caves of Chance. He went over the routes from the entrance to the exit we wanted and what to do about some of the things we might run into inside. It was very interesting. I knew that trolls are allergic to milk. but I hadn't known that rock snakes like mirrors enough that they'll stop squeezing someone in order to look at their reflections.
He also told us to hold anything we really didn't want to lose in one hand until we were out of the Caves.
When Telemain was satisfied that we knew our way, he rolled the map up and put it back in his sleeve. We went outside to say good-bye.
"When you meet Kazul, tell her I will be coming for the battle."
Telemain said. "I called her last night on the magic mirror to let her know that you're on your way, so she's expecting you."
"I'll remember," I said. "And thank you again for your help."
"Yes," said Shiara. I looked at her, a little surprised, but she was watching Telemain with an odd look on her face. "I think I ought to apologize to you," she said finally. "I wasn't very nice last night."
This time I really did stare, but she didn't seem to notice. Telemain bowed. "Neither of us was blameless," he said. "I shall forget it, if you will."
Shiara nodded and turned to me. "Let's go, then."
I shut my mouth and picked up the bundle Morwen had given me.
Shiara already had hers. We waved good-bye to Telemain and started off into the forest again.
Nothing much happened all morning. Shiara and I were both nervous anyway, thinking of all those wizards ahead of us. The dragon didn't seem bothered, though, and Nightwitch certainly wasn't. We found the first few landmarks Telemain had told us about, and we were fairly close to the entrance to the caves of chance when the dragon stopped and demanded lunch.
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