Wrede, Patricia C - Enchanted Forest 02

by Searching for Dragons

Another explosion rocked the house. “Never mind that now.,” Cimorene said. “Come on!” She pushed the door open and darted out.

  With a muttered curse, Mendanbar followed. He remembered the steps just in time to jump over them instead of tripping. As he landed, he dodged to one side and pulled his sword out. Only then did he stop to look around.

  Cimorene stood with her back against the house, watching the wizard warily. The wizard was very easy to see, even though it was by now quite dark, because he was glowing as brightly as a bonfire. He was taller than the wizard who had invaded Cimorene’s cave, and he wore red robes instead of blue and brown, but his staff was of the same dark, polished wood and his sandy beard was just as long and scraggly. Mendanbar wondered irrelevantly whether the Society of Wizards had a rule against its members trimming their beards.

  “Cimorene!” the wizard said. “I might have guessed. What have you—no, you haven’t got it. Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” Mendanbar demanded. “And what do you mean by causing all this commotion? Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock on doors and ask for things politely?”

  “So you’ve picked up a hero,” the wizard said to Cimorene with a sneer. “He won’t do you any good. Where is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cimorene said.

  “Neither does he,” Telemain commented from the doorway. “Unless he’s even more fuzzy-headed than he seems. From the way he’s been leaping to conclusions without any evidence at all, that’s entirely possible.”

  The wizard’s eyes narrowed and he pointed his staff at Telemain. “Who are you?”

  “That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you arrived,” Telemain said. “My name is Telemain. I’m a magician.”

  “A magician!” The wizard sucked in his breath. “I suppose we are after the same thing. I warn you, you had better not cross me. I represent the Society of Wizards in this matter.”

  “What matter?” Cimorene asked crossly.

  “Yes, you have displayed a lamentable lack of precision in your account of your purposes,” Telemain said. “Just what—”

  Mendanbar felt the harsh swell of the wizard’s magic an instant before the spell left the man’s staff. Without thought, he swung his sword to parry it. As it touched the bolt of magic, the sword hummed hungrily. A shiver ran up Mendanbar’s arm from the hilt of the sword to his shoulder, and the spell was gone.

  “I wouldn’t do that again, if I were you,” Mendanbar told the wizard.

  Everyone stared at Mendanbar. The wizard was the first to recover. “The sword!” he cried. “I should have seen it at once. Excellent! This makes everything easy.”

  He moved the end of his staff a few inches to point at Mendanbar and muttered something under his breath. Mendanbar sensed magic building up in the staff again. This time he didn’t wait for the wizard to release the spell. He pushed a tendril of his own magic out through the sword and touched the wizard’s staff gently with it.

  Power flowed into the sword like water being soaked up by a sponge. The feeling of magic that surrounded the wizard vanished, and so did his glow. The wizard gave a squawk of surprise. He lowered his staff, staring at Mendanbar.

  “How did you do that?” he demanded. “You’re just a hero. How could you possibly reverse my spell?”

  “I didn’t reverse your spell,” Mendanbar said. “I stopped it, that’s all. And I’m not a hero. I’m the King of the Enchanted Forest.”

  The wizard’s eyes widened. Certain that the man was going to try another spell, Mendanbar reached out with the sword’s magic, hoping to stop him before he could properly begin. He wasn’t quite fast enough. As the threads of the sword’s magic wrapped themselves around the wizard’s staff, the wizard disappeared.

  There was a moment of silence. “Mendanbar, what did you do?” Cimorene said at last.

  “Nothing,” Mendanbar said. “I wasn’t quick enough. I’m sorry. I should have expected him to try to get away.”

  Telemain walked over to the spot where the wizard had been standing. “Interesting,” he muttered. “Very interesting—ah!” He bent over, and when he straightened up he was holding the wizard’s staff in one hand.

  “Here’s your bucket,” Jack said from the door of the house. “What’s all this about wizards?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Cimorene said. “He’s gone.”

  “Then you won’t be needing this?” jack said, lifting the bucket.

  “Don’t throw it out,” Mendanbar said hastily. “We might want it later. In case he comes back.”

  “I seriously doubt that it is necessary to worry about his return,” Telemain said as he rejoined them. “Wizards depend a good deal upon their staffs. Without his, our recent visitor is unlikely to be much of a problem.” He sounded very satisfied with himself, and his fingers stroked the staff lightly as he spoke.

  “Then he’s sure to come back for it,” Cimorene pointed out.

  “Yes, but how long will it take him to get here?” Telemain responded. “I assure you, he didn’t transport himself anywhere close by. We’ll be long gone by the time he makes his way back.”

  “We?” said Mendanbar.

  “Of course.” Telemain smiled. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on one of these”—he lifted the wizard’s staff—”for years. You’ve managed to get hold of one in a few seconds. You don’t think I’m going to miss an opportunity like this, do you?”

  “If that’s all you want, keep it,” Mendanbar said. “I haven’t any use for a wizard’s staff.”

  “Neither have I,” Cimorene agreed.

  Telemain bowed. “Thank you both.” He paused. “I would still like to join you, if you are willing. There are other matters I find intriguing about you.”

  Completely at sea, Mendanbar stared at the magician.

  Cimorene sighed. “Mendanbar, your sword is at it again, worse than ever. I’ll bet that’s what he means.”

  “Oh.” Mendanbar put his sword back in its sheath and inspected Telemain for a moment. The magician was still something of a puzzle, but he had been very helpful so far. And it was clear from the wizard’s behavior that magicians and wizards did not get along, which was another point in Telemain’s favor. “I can’t promise I’ll let you study my sword, but it’s all right with me if you come along.” He glanced at Cimorene.

  “It’s fine with me, too,” Cimorene said. “But you’d better hear the whole story before you make up your mind. You might not want to come with us after all.”

  “If you’re all done out here, come in and eat,” Jack said. “Supper’s ready, and if you’re sure there won’t be any more wizards, I’ll just use this water for the dishes afterward.”

  13

  In Which They Return to

  the Enchanted Forest at Last

  They told Telemain and Jack the whole story over dinner and discussed it late into the night. Telemain was intrigued by their description of Kazul’s imprisonment.

  “You say these wizards have an enchantment capable of confining a dragon?” he said eagerly. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s certainly what it looked like,” Cimorene said, pouring herself a cup of hot chocolate. The stew and the dinner dishes had long since been cleared away and were piled in the bucket of soapy water waiting for someone to have the time or the inclination to wash them.

  Mendanbar wondered idly whether a bucket of soapy water plus lemon juice plus dishes would be as good for melting a wizard as one without dishes, and what effect the dishes would have on the process. Being melted was probably not very comfortable, but being melted while cups and plates and forks were falling on your head was likely to be even less so.

  “I knew I was right to join you,” Telemain said, smiling. “I might not have heard about this enchantment at all, if I hadn’t. It sounds like a simple modulation of the upper frequencies of a standard reptilian restraint spell, but on an enormously increased scale. I wonder where they’re gettin
g the power.”

  “I don’t care how they did it,” Cimorene snapped. “I care about getting Kazul out of it as soon as possible.”

  “A trivial detail, once the construction of the spell is properly understood,” Telemain said confidently.

  “Trivial?” Mendanbar said. “Aren’t you forgetting about the wizards? I don’t think they’ll just let us walk in and take their spell apart.”

  “And goodness knows what they’ll do to Kazul in the meantime,” Cimorene muttered.

  “Nonsense,” Telemain said. “I comprehend your concern, but it is highly unlikely that this episode will prove more than a minor inconvenience so far as your dragon friend is concerned.”

  Cimorene did not look convinced, so Telemain launched into a lecture on the political implications of the situation, the main point of which was that it would be stupid for the Society of Wizards to hurt Kazul and that wizards were not stupid. Privately, Mendanbar thought that it had been stupid of the wizards to kidnap Kazul in the first place, but saying so would not reassure Cimorene, so he kept quiet.

  After a while, Telemain finished his lecture. He did not wait for Cimorene to respond, but turned at once to Mendanbar and asked about his sword. Like Cimorene, the magician could feel the sword spilling magic “like a beacon on a mountaintop,” and he was amazed—and completely fascinated—to learn that Mendanbar noticed nothing unusual.

  “I don’t understand why I didn’t spot it at once,” Telemain said, shaking his head over his cup of chocolate (which looked to Mendanbar as if it had gone cold during his long speech about the relative intelligence of wizards).

  “You mean when you met us?” Cimorene said. “Mendanbar’s sword wasn’t spraying magic all over right then. He’d just used up most of it on the rock snakes.”

  “It seems to recover very quickly,” Telemain said with a sidelong look at the sword. “Is it always like this?”

  “How should I know?” Mendanbar said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “I can’t tell when it’s doing it, much less when it isn’t.”

  “Yes, you said that before.” Telemain sipped at his chocolate, staring absently into space. “I shall have to think about this for a while,” he said at last, as though making a profound announcement. “It’s a pity you haven’t time to visit my tower for a few tests—”

  “Absolutely not!” Mendanbar interrupted.

  “We have to rescue Kazul from the wizards,” Cimorene put in quickly. “Before this business turns into more than a minor inconvenience. Before those wizards decide she’s too much trouble to keep around and feed her some dragonsbane.”

  Telemain considered this for a moment. “An excellent idea,” he said at last with evident sincerity. Mendanbar and Cimorene stared at him.

  “If the Society of Wizards poisons the King of the Dragons, there is certain to be a war,” Telemain explained. “Wars are very distracting. I don’t like being distracted; it interferes with my work. So it would be a very good thing if we made sure there was no war.”

  “I’m so glad you think so,” Cimorene said. Her voice sounded a little strange.

  The discussion continued for a little longer, but it was getting late and everyone was tired. Finally, Jack suggested that they go to bed.

  “It’s all very well for you adventurous types to sit around jawing until past midnight, but some people have work to do in the morning,” he said pointedly.

  “I am not an ‘adventurous type,’ “ Telemain said with dignity. “I am in research.”

  “Fine, fine,” Jack said. “So go research my secondbest bed. You and the King, here, take the room on the right, Princess Cimorene gets the one on the left, and I get to bunk under the kitchen. Good night, everybody.”

  * * *

  That settled things for the evening, but the conference continued the next morning over a breakfast of flapjacks and honey.

  “It seems very likely to me that you are correct about Kazul’s location,” Telemain said. “She is probably being held somewhere in the Enchanted Forest. Our first task, therefore, must be to find her.”

  “Our first task is to get back into the Enchanted Forest,” Mendanbar corrected. “I don’t even know which direction it’s in anymore.”

  “It’s over that way,” Jack said, waving at the large mountain in back of the house. “Not far if you’re flying, but a long way to walk. You have to go around, you see. Now, I’ve got a nice broomstick that’ll get you there in a jiffy. It’s extra long, so it’ll seat all three of you very comfortably, and it’s hardly been used at all.”

  “No, thank you, Jack,” Telemain said firmly. “Broomsticks are only reliable transportation for witches. We will manage this ourselves. Pass the flapjacks, please.”

  “Here,” said Cimorene, handing him the plate. “Do you mean that you’re going to take us to the Enchanted Forest the same way you brought us here? I thought it would be harder than that.”

  “Actually, it is,” Telemain said. “The Enchanted Forest is unique, magically speaking, and therefore the interface between the forest and the rest of the world is equally unique. Penetrating that interface requires a specific application.”

  “What’s that mean, when it’s at home?” said Jack.

  “You need a special spell to get into the Enchanted Forest, because it’s different from everywhere else,” Mendanbar translated.

  Telemain looked irritated. “That’s what I just said.”

  “Is that why Mendanbar’s spell dropped us into the ravine with the rock snakes instead of in the forest?” Cimorene asked.

  “Possibly.” Telemain frowned. “It seems unlikely, however. Mendanbar’s magic is of the same variety as that of the forest. It should have worked perfectly well, assuming it worked at all.”

  “Well, why didn’t it?” Mendanbar asked crossly. He was getting tired of puzzles, especially puzzles connected with his sword, his magic, and his forest.

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that from your description,” Telemain replied, his frown deepening. “I can think of half a dozen things that might have gone wrong, but without seeing it myself I don’t know which of them it was.”

  “So do it again, and watch it this time,” Jack said. “Hand me the honey, would you, Your Majesty?”

  Mendanbar picked up the honey pot, which was shaped like a fat purple bear. Resisting the urge to throw it at Jack’s head, he handed it over and said mildly, “I don’t think I like the idea of repeating the spell. Last time it knocked me out for four hours, and I’m not willing to do that again just so Telemain can find out why.”

  “Oh, that’s easy enough to fix,” Telemain said. “A few wards, properly set, and there won’t be any backlash worth worrying about.”

  “How much backlash does it take before you worry about it?” Cimorene asked, sounding dubious about the whole idea.

  “A three-day headache,” Jack put in before Telemain could answer. “And that’s only because if his head hurts he has trouble thinking about the wherefore of the whatsit.”

  “That is a serious exaggeration,” Telemain said stiffly. “And I don’t anticipate that this experiment would result in any kind of prolonged effect, particularly if I set wards first. I have some idea of what to expect, you see, so I can customize the shielding spells to correspond to the specific variety of backlash.”

  “It sounds good,” Cimorene said. “I think. But what happens if it doesn’t work?”

  Telemain began a long, involved, and somewhat indignant explanation of why his shielding spells could not fail to work. Mendanbar listened with only part of his mind; the rest was busy thinking about Telemain’s suggestion. It looked to him as if the only way they were likely to get back into the Enchanted Forest was by means of his own magic. Telemain hadn’t actually said he couldn’t do it himself, but Mendanbar was fairly sure that was what he had meant. And from the way Jack talked, walking would take more time than they had to spare.

  Even if it took Telemain two tries, or
three, to figure out what had gone wrong with Mendanbar’s transportation spell, it would still be much faster than walking. Of course, they could always rent some of Jack’s wares, but after their experiences with the magic carpet, Mendanbar was not at all happy with that idea.

  Repeating the spell would be a chance to find out more about the sword, too. His adventures since leaving the Enchanted Forest had made Mendanbar see just how little he really knew about his magic, and the sword seemed like a good place to start finding things out. The only question was, could the wards actually keep the transportation spell from knocking him head over heels again?

  “Telemain, how sure of these shielding spells are you?” Mendanbar asked as soon as there was a lull in the conversation.

  Telemain looked at him. “Very sure indeed. I have just spent no little time and breath telling Princess Cimorene, here, exactly how sure that is, why I am sure, and how unlikely it is that I am wrong. Obviously, you have not been attending. Do you wish me to repeat the entire explanation?”

  “No, of course not,” Mendanbar said hastily. “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening, but I had to think for a minute.”

  “And?” said Cimorene.

  “And I think we should do it. As long as Telemain is sure he can keep me from being knocked out again, that is.”

  “I am,” Telemain said, sounding faintly put out. “I have been telling you that all morning.”

  “Good,” said Jack. “I like to have things settled. You sure you don’t want a pair of seven-league boots for backup?”

  “There are three of us and you only have one pair of boots,” Cimorene pointed out.

  They finished breakfast quickly and helped Jack clear up. Telemain had some things to discuss with Jack, so Mendanbar and Cimorene went outside to give them a chance to talk alone. Mendanbar noticed that the worry line between Cimorene’s eyebrows was back.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Are you sure about this?” Cimorene said. “Doing the transportation spell, I mean. After what happened before . . .”

  “I’ll be more careful this time,” Mendanbar said. “And Telemain’s wards should help. Between the two of us, it ought to be all right.”