"Are you saying I just picked up the key to the castle by accident?"
"Accidents like that happen all the time in the Caves of Chance," Kazul said dryly. "Where do you think they got their name?"
"How do you know it's the right key?" Shiara demanded. "The quozzel said some wizard put it there."
Kazul shrugged. "That's what makes it likely that it's the Key to the Castle. We caught one of the wizards coming out of the caves near the end of the battle, and he'd been inside the castle more than long enough to take the key. But if it will make you more comfortable, I can look at it."
I dug the key out of my pocket and held it out to Kazul. Kazul glanced at it and started to nod, then stopped suddenly and stared at the key very intently .
"It's the Key to the Castle, all right, but that wizard's done something to it." She sounded outraged.
"Wonderful," said Shiara disgustedly. "All we need is another wizard to get mixed up in this."
"He isn't another wizard," Kazul said. "He's the same one who stole the sword in the first place. And he's dead."
"You're sure he's not one of the wizards who didn't come out of the castle?" Shiara asked.
"I ate him myself."
"Oh." Shiara frowned. "Can you tell what he did?"
Kazul didn't answer. She stared at the key instead, and her eyes started glowing. The key began getting warmer and warmer in my hands.
Just before it got too hot for me to hold, the key jerked in the direction of the castle outside. A second later, I dropped it. I stood shaking my fingers, while Kazul and Shiara stared down at the key, and Nightwitch walked over and sniffed at it.
"Nightwitch!" said Shiara. "Stop that. You'll get enchanted or something."
She bent over and grabbed awkwardly for Nightwitch with her left hand.
The kitten jumped away, and Shiara's fingers brushed the key. A look of surprise came over her face, and she picked the key up. "It feels like fire," she said.
"I know," I said. "It burned my fingers."
"No, I don't mean it's hot," Shiara said. "It just feels like fire."
"It shouldn't," Kazul said, sounding interested. "Bring it over here."
Shiara took the key to Kazul, who looked at it for a few minutes and handed it back. "I thought so. It's part of what that wizard did."
"But what's it for?" Shiara said.
"I don't know," Kazul admitted. "The fire spell is connected to something inside the castle, but I can't tell what with the barriers around the outside. He may have set a trap with it."
"May I have my key back, please?" I said. Kazul and Shiara both looked at me, and Shiara handed me the key. "Thank you," I said, and put it in my pocket. I wasn't quite sure why I wanted it; I only knew that keeping it felt right, somehow.
"Is there anything else we need to know?" I asked. "I mean, we've walked a long way today and we've been in a cave-in, and Shiara has a broken arm, and if we're going to do all these things tomorrow, I would sort of like to get some rest."
"Mrrrroww!" said Nightwitch emphatically.
Kazul chuckled. "It seems you aren't the only one who would like rest.
Very well. Marchak!"
The middle-sized dragon who had brought us dinner appeared, and Kazul had him show us to our rooms. They turned out to be normal, human-sized rooms and quite comfortable. I was surprised until it occurred to me that the King of the Dragons would probably have occasional human visitors who would need a place to stay. Then I wondered how many human magicians kept special places for visiting dragons in their castles and towers and things, and right in the middle of wondering, I fell asleep.
A loud pounding noise woke me. Someone, probably a dragon, was knocking on the door of my room. "Just a minute, please," I called, and the pounding stopped.
I got out of the bed, which I couldn't remember having gotten into, and picked up my sword belt. I checked my pockets to make sure I had the key, started for the door, and stopped suddenly in the middle of the room. If the dragons expected me to do things with the Sword of the Sleeping King, I wasn't going to carry it under my arm like a bag of laundry. I put the sword belt on and opened the door.
"It's about time," said the little dragon in the hall. Shiara and Nightwitch were already there.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know you were in a hurry."
The dragon snorted and started off down the hall. We went after it.
It didn't seem to be in a particularly good mood. Shiara explained that it wanted to come into the castle with us, but Kazul wouldn't let it. I couldn't see why it wanted to come. There weren't supposed to be any wizards inside the castle, and I thought the little dragon wanted to fight wizards. I didn't say anything, though. Arguing with a grouchy dragon isn't safe, even if it's only a small dragon.
The dragon brought us back to the cave where we'd talked to Kazul the previous night. Kazul wasn't there, but breakfast was, and we sat down right away. We were just finishing when Kazul arrived to take us out to the castle.
Kazul led us out of the caves and across the hard brown ground. All around us, dragons were polishing their teeth and sharpening their claws, and some of them were muttering spells under their breath. A couple of times, I saw elves hurrying through the crowd, and once I saw a group of intense-looking, red-haired people who had to be fire-witches.
Everyone was very serious and grim.
None of us said anything until we got to the castle. Kazul led us around the outside of the shimmerings until we were at the front of the castle. If I concentrated on looking through the barriers, I could see a flat wooden bridge across the moat and a large door with steps leading up to it.
Kazul stopped and turned to the little dragon. "You'd better go find your place now," she said.
"But I want to-" The little dragon went. Shiara and I looked at each other, and then at Kazul. Kazul smiled. "Are you ready?"
I nodded jerkily. Shiara bent and picked up Nightwitch. Kazul's smile widened. "When I say 'Now,' draw your sword and run for the castle.
Don't look back, and don't stop for anything."
I nodded again because I didn't trust my voice just then. Kazul turned to the crowd of dragons, and suddenly everything was completely silent.
A shiver ran down my back, and I put my hand on the hilt of the Sword of the Sleeping King.
I felt the bee-in-the-jar buzz that was Shiara's magic, and a strong humming from all the dragons, but the strongest feeling of all was the purring I'd felt from the first time the sword made my arm tingle. It came from the castle. Not from the shimmerings around the castle; they just got in the way.
What I was feeling was the magic of the castle itself.
I took a tighter grip on the hilt of the sword. The tingling from the dragons got stronger and more positive, and abruptly Kazul turned and shouted, "Now!" As she spoke, the silver-and-green shimmering around the castle vanished.
I yanked the Sword of the Sleeping King out of its sheath and swung it at the golden glow that was still left between me and the castle. I felt an enormous shock as the sword hit, and then the shimmering vanished in an explosion of golden light.
I shook my head and heard Kazul shout, "Run!"
I took two steps and almost lost my balance. The ground wasn't hard and bare anymore; it was covered with slippery green fuzz. Shiara grabbed my arm just as I heard a series of explosions from behind us.
We ran. I could feel the jangling from the sword that meant there were wizards around somewhere, but I didn't stop to look for them. I was too busy trying to keep up with Shiara, hang on to the sword, and dig the key out of my pocket, all at the same time.
Shiara was standing in front of the door, panting, when I got up to it with the key. I didn't see a keyhole, but as soon as my foot touched the top step of the stairs, the door swung open.
"Daystar," Shiara said, "are you sure-" Something hit the stone of the castle next to the door and exploded, showering us with little chips of rock. Shiara and I dove through the door
and landed on the floor inside with Nightwitch on top of us. I sat up just as the door closed silently behind us.
"Hey!" Shiara said. "Watch what you're doing with that sword!"
"I'm sorry." I stood up, stuck the key in my pocket again, and held out a hand to help Shiara up. "Is your arm all right?"
"I think so," she said absently. "At least, it doesn't hurt any more than it did already. Now, which way do we go?"
"I don't know." The door shook as something hit it, and a moment later there was a muffled explosion. "I think we should get out of here, though."
"Aren't you going to put that stupid sword away first?"
"No," I said. "I'd rather have it in my hand, in case some of the wizards do get into the castle."
Shiara scowled, but she didn't object again, and we started hunting.
The castle was even more confusing on the inside than it was on the outside. Rooms opened into more rooms and then suddenly into a hallway or a flight of stairs. All of them were full of chairs and tables and books and suits of armor, and everything was dusty. The wizards' spell had kept spiderwebs and cobwebs out of the castle, but it hadn't done anything at all about the dust. Nightwitch didn't like it at all. She kept sneezing, until finally Shiara picked her up and carried her.
It took a lot longer to figure out where we were going than I'd expected.
I could feel the sword pulling me toward the center of the castle, but it was very hard to just go in that direction. In spite of Kazul's instructions, Shiara and I kept getting into hallways that curved the wrong way and chains of rooms that ended with nowhere else to go. It was very discouraging.
Finally, we came to a pleasant room with a big window and a desk in one corner. "This doesn't look right, either," Shiara said. "Do you think-" "Doesn't look right?" growled a voice up near the ceiling.
"Of course it doesn't look right! It's been seventeen years since anybody has dusted in here. And I haven't had any visitors except the mice."
I looked up and saw a wooden gargoyle in one corner. It made a face at me and went on, "Who are you, and what are you doing in here?"
"I'm Daystar, and I'm looking for the King of the Enchanted Forest," I said.
"Oh yeah? What for?" the gargoyle demanded suspiciously.
"I think I'm supposed to return his sword."
"His-Oh, I see. Well, he isn't here. Hasn't been for seventeen years, and boy, am I going to give him an earful when he gets back."
"Come on, Daystar, we're wasting time," said Shiara.
"Try the great hall, down the corridor to your left," the gargoyle yelled after us as we left the room. "And send somebody to wipe the dust out of my ears! The things I put up with-" Since nothing else had worked, we followed the gargoyle's directions and found ourselves in front of a large door at the end of a long hall. It was three times as wide as a normal door, and much taller, and it was made of gold with designs in relief. There was a staff lying on the floor in front of it, and I could tell from the jangling of the sword that it was a wizard's staff.
When I stopped to look at it, the sword jerked impatiently toward the door.
"I think this is the place we've been looking for," I said.
Shiara tried the door. "It's locked. Where's the key?"
'Just a minute." I dug for it. As soon as I touched it, I felt the key pulling at me, the same way the sword was. "Hey!"
"What is it?" Shiara said. "Come on, hurry up!"
"It's this key," I said as I unlocked the door. "It feels almost like the sword, except-" I stopped as the door swung open. The room inside was very large and very high, full of light and not dusty at all. In the center of the floor stood something like a shallow iron brazier, about three feet tall and nearly five feet across, full of glowing coals. On the other side of the brazier was a couch, and lying on the couch was a man.
He was dressed in expensive-looking clothes, but there were mars in them, as if he had been in a fight. He didn't look old, even though his beard was long and gray. His head was bare, and at his side was a jeweled scabbard, empty. He was asleep.
Shiara took a deep breath. "That must be him. Come on, Daystar, let's get this over with."
I stepped into the room and walked slowly toward the couch. This is too easy, I thought. As I came around the brazier, I saw that there was another wizard's staff lying beside the couch. Something felt wrong, and I slowed down even more. I stopped, standing next to the couch with the key in one hand and the sword in the other.
"Well, now that we're here, how do we break the spell?" Shiara asked, coming up on one side of me.
"Something's wrong," I said, and as I spoke I realized what it was.
The key was still pulling at me, but as soon as I had stepped into the room, the pulling from the sword had stopped. All I could feel from the sword was the jangling of the magic in the wizards' staffs.
"Maybe if you lay the sword on him it'll work," Shiara said, ignoring me. "You have to try something or we'll be here all day."
"I wouldn't try anything at all, if I were you," said a voice behind us.
Shiara and I spun around. The doorway was full of wizards.
20
In Which Daystar Uses His Sword
I stared at the wizards for an instant, then turned and jumped for the couch, hoping I could break the spell before the wizards did anything.
I didn't make it. As I brought the flat of the sword down, the sleeping man vanished. The sword clanged softly against the couch, and I spun back to face the wizards.
Something hit me as I turned, and suddenly I couldn't move my body at all. I could turn my head far enough to see Shiara, but that was all.
Shiara looked as if she were concentrating on something, so I turned my head back to the wizards. They were standing around the sleeping man, who was now lying on the floor in front of the doorway.
"Well done," said one of the wizards to another.
"Thank you," the second wizard said. "It was a mere trifle."
There was a stir at the back of the group of wizards, and a moment later Antorell pushed forward to the front. He had a bandage around one arm, probably where the dragon had bitten him. "I want the boy!" he said.
"Now!"
The wizard in front, who seemed to be the leader of the group, looked at Antorell coldly. "We permitted you to join us in order to give you an opportunity to repair some of the damage you did seventeen years ago. Not to further your private ambitions."
"But you said I could have the boy!"
"Antorell, you're a fool," the leader said. "You may have the boy, but after we have possession of the sword, not before."
"I'll give you the sword, then!" Antorell said angrily. He strode around the edge of the brazier and reached for the hilt of the sword, just above my hand. I wanted to jerk away, but I still couldn't move.
As Antorell touched the sword, there was a flash of blue-and-gold light that flung him backward onto the floor. If he'd fallen a few inches to the other side, he'd have gone into the brazier. I found myself wishing he had, then found myself staring at the brazier. Something about it nibbled at my mind, but I couldn't make it come clear. I didn't have time to think about it, because the wizards started talking again.
Antorell was picking himself up off the floor, and the leader of the wizards smiled at him nastily. "You see?"
"You knew this would happen!" Antorell said furiously.
"Of course I knew," the leader said. "Had you spent your time hunting that sword instead of trying to get some sort of ridiculous revenge on Cimorene, you, too, would know."
"Then demonstrate the proper method for me," Antorell said sarcastically.
"If you know so much, you take the sword."
"I am not so foolish," the other wizard replied. "No one save the King of the Enchanted Forest can take that sword from a bearer who is not willing to give it up, especially not inside this castle."
"Then how do you expect to get it?" Antorell said even more sarcastically than befor
e.
"We kill the King," the wizard said, gesturing at the sleeping figure on the floor in front of him. "When the line of the Kings of the Enchanted Forest is ended, one of us can take up the rule of the castle."
"What good will that do?" Antorell said. "The boy will still have the sword. And, as you have reminded me so many times in the past two days, he seems to be able to use it."
The leader shrugged. "If your tale is true, I shall admit to some surprise.
I thought no one but the King could use the sword. Which is why one of us must become King."
"You accuse me of lying?"
"Why should I bother?"
Antorell scowled and started to raise his staff, then seemed to change his mind. "When the boy blows your own spells back at you, perhaps you will see what I mean."
"Nonsense!" the leader of the wizards replied. "You obviously know little of what you speak."
"No, of course not. I have only seen the boy in action," Antorell said with awful sarcasm.
The leader shrugged again. "What the boy has learned matters little.
The power of the sword passes to the ruler of the castle, and there is nothing he can do about it. He will be easy enough to take care of then."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of movement. Shiara was edging toward me. I had to force myself not to turn my head. The wizards seemed to have forgotten both of us, and I didn't want to remind them. I hoped they wouldn't remember until after Shiara had done whatever she was planning to do. I also hoped Shiara was planning to do something. I certainly couldn't, and I didn't think Nightwitch would be much help against all those wizards.
"Stop talking and let's get on with it," one of the wizards in the back said.
"An excellent suggestion. That is, if you are quite satisfied, Antorell?" said the leader.
Antorell glared and stalked over to the rest of the wizards. The leader looked around and nodded. "Begin."
Under other circumstances, the spell casting would have been very interesting to watch. The wizards spent quite a bit of time arguing about where each of them should stand, and exactly what the correct angle was for each staff, and in what order the spells should be said.
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