Searching for Dragons

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Try and stop me,” snarled the gargoyle. “My opinion is as good as anyone else’s.”

  “Or as bad,” the King muttered.

  “I heard that!” The gargoyle squinted downward. “No thanks to you, I might add. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone cleaned this corner? I’ve got dust in my ears, and I expect something slimy to start growing on my claws any minute now.”

  “Complain to one of the maids,” Mendanbar said, irritated. “We weren’t talking about hiring a housekeeper.”

  “Why not? What are you, cheap or something?”

  “No, and I wouldn’t discuss it with you even if I were.”

  “King Mendanbar the Cheapskate, that’s what they’ll call you,” the gargoyle said with relish. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think I won’t talk to you at all,” said Mendanbar, who knew from experience that the gargoyle only got more unpleasant the longer it talked. “I’m leaving.”

  “Wait a minute! I haven’t even gotten started yet.”

  “If Willin asks, tell him I’ve gone for a walk,” Mendanbar said. As he left the room, he waved, twitching two of the invisible threads of power that crisscrossed the Enchanted Forest. The gargoyle’s angry screeching changed abruptly to surprise as a stream of soapy water squirted out of the empty air in front of it and hit it squarely in its carved mouth.

  Mendanbar smiled as the door closed behind him, shutting out the gargoyle’s splutters. “He won’t complain about dust again for a while, anyway,” Mendanbar said aloud. As he walked down the hall, his smile grew. It had been a long time since he had taken a day off. If Willin wanted to grumble about it, he could go ahead and grumble. The King had earned a holiday, and he was going to have one.

  Getting outside without being caught was easy, even without using any invisibility spells (which Mendanbar considered cheating). Willin was the only one who might have objected, and he was at the other end of the castle somewhere. Mendanbar sneaked past two maids and the footman at the front door anyway, just for practice. He had a feeling he might want to do a lot of sneaking in the near future, especially if Willin was going to start fussing about Queen Alexandra’s daughters again.

  Once he had crossed the main bridge over the moat and reached the giant trees of the Enchanted Forest, he let himself relax a little, but not too much. The Enchanted Forest had its own peculiar rules, and even the King was not exempt from them. If he drank from the wrong stream and got turned into a rabbit, or accidentally stepped on a slowstone, he would have just as much trouble getting back to normal as anyone else. He still remembered how much bother it had been to get rid of the donkey’s ears he’d gotten by eating the wrong salad when he was eight.

  Of course, now that he was King of the Enchanted Forest he had certain privileges. Most of the creatures that lived in the forest would obey him, however reluctantly, and he could find his way in and out and around without even thinking about it. He could use the magic of the forest directly, too, which made him as powerful as any three wizards and a match for all but the very best enchanters.

  “Magic makes things much simpler,” Mendanbar said aloud. He looked around at the bright green moss that covered the ground, thick and springy as the finest carpet, and the huge trees that rose above it, and he smiled. Pleasant as it looked, without magic he wouldn’t have wanted to wander around it alone.

  Magic came naturally to the Kings of the Enchanted Forest. It had to; you couldn’t begin to do a good job of ruling such a magical kingdom unless you had a lot of magic of your own. The forest chose its own kings, and once it had chosen them, it gave them the ability to sense the magic permeating the forest and an instinct for using it. The kings all came from Mendanbar’s family, for no one else could safely use the sword that did the choosing, but sometimes the crown went to a second son or a cousin instead of to the eldest son of the king. Mendanbar considered himself lucky to have followed his father onto the throne.

  Uneasily, he glanced back toward the castle, then shook his head. “Even a king needs a day off once in a while,” he told himself. “And it’s not as if they need me for anything urgent.” He turned his back and marched into the trees, determined to enjoy his holiday.

  For a few minutes, he strolled aimlessly, enjoying the cool, dense shadows. Then he decided to visit the Green Glass Pool. He hadn’t been there for a while, and it was one of his favorite places. He thought about using magic to move himself there in the blink of an eye, but decided against it.

  “After all,” he said, “I wanted a walk. And the pool isn’t that far away.” He set off briskly in the direction of the pool.

  An hour later, he still hadn’t reached it, and he was beginning to feel a little cross. The forest had shifted twice on him, each time moving the pool sideways or backward, so that not only was it farther away than it had been, it was in a different direction as well. It was almost as if the forest didn’t want him to find the place. If he hadn’t been the King of the Enchanted Forest, Mendanbar would never have known he was going the wrong way.

  “This is very odd,” Mendanbar said, frowning. “I’d better find out what’s going on.” Normally, the Enchanted Forest didn’t play this sort of game with him. He checked to make sure his sword was loose in its sheath and easy to draw if he needed it. Then he lifted his hand and touched a strand of magic floating invisibly beside his shoulder.

  All around him, the huge tree trunks blurred and faded into gray mist. The mist thickened into a woolly fog, then vanished with a suddenness that always surprised him no matter how many times he did the spell. Blinking, he shook his head and looked around.

  He was standing right where he had wanted to be, on the rocky lip of the Green Glass Pool. The pool looked as it always did: flat and still as a mirror, and the same shade of green as the new leaves on a poplar.

  “Oh!” said a soft, frightened voice from behind him. “Oh, who are you?”

  Mendanbar jumped and almost fell into the pool. He recovered his balance quickly and turned, and his heart sank. Sitting on the ground at the foot of an enormous oak was a girl. She wore a thin silver circlet on her head, and the face below it was heart-shaped and very lovely. Her long, golden hair and sky blue dress stood out clearly against the oak’s brown bark, like a picture made of jewels set in a dark-colored frame. That was probably exactly the effect she had intended, Mendanbar thought with a resigned sigh. Somehow princesses, even the ones with less wit than a turtle, always knew just how to appear to their best advantage.

  “Who are you?” the princess asked again. She was examining Mendanbar with an expression of great interest, and she did not look frightened anymore. “And how did you come here, to this most solitary and forsaken place?”

  “My name is Mendanbar, and I was out for a walk,” Mendanbar replied. He sighed again and added, “Is there something I might do for you?”

  The princess hesitated. “Prince Mendanbar?” she asked delicately.

  “No,” Mendanbar answered, puzzled.

  “Lord Mendanbar, then? Or, belike, Sir Mendanbar?”

  “I’m afraid not.” He was beginning to catch on, and he hoped fervently that she wouldn’t think of asking whether he was a king. It was a good thing he wasn’t wearing his crown. Ambitious princesses were even worse than the usual variety, and he didn’t want to deal with either one right now.

  The princess’s dainty eyebrows drew together for a moment while she considered his answer. Finally, her expression cleared. “Then you must be a virtuous woodcutter’s son, whose deeds of valor and goodwill shall earn you lands and title in some glorious future,” she said positively.

  “A woodcutter? In the Enchanted Forest?” Mendanbar said, appalled. Didn’t the girl have any sense? “No, thank you!”

  “But how came you here to find me, if you are neither prince nor knight nor deserving youth?” the princess asked in wide-eyed confusion.

  “Oh . . . sometimes these things happen,” Mendanbar said vaguely. “Were you e
xpecting someone in particular?”

  “Not exactly,” said the princess. She studied him, frowning, as if she were trying to decide whether it would be all right to ask him for help even if he wasn’t a prince or a lord or a virtuous woodcutter.

  “How did you get here, by the way?” Mendanbar asked quickly. He hated to refuse princesses point-blank, because they cried and pouted and carried on, but they always asked him to do such silly things. Bring them a white rose from the Garden of the Moon, for instance, or kill a giant or a dragon in single combat. It would be better for both of them if he could distract this princess so that she never asked.

  “Alas! It is a tale of great woe,” the princess said. “Out of jealousy, my stepmother cast me from my father’s castle while he was away at war. Since then I have wandered many days, lost and alone and friendless, until I knew not where I was.”

  She sounded as if she had rehearsed her entire speech, and what little sympathy Mendanbar had had for her vanished. She and her stepmother had probably talked the whole thing out, he decided, and come to the conclusion that the quickest and surest way for her to make a suitable marriage was to go adventuring. He was amazed that she’d actually gotten into the Enchanted Forest. Usually, the woods kept out the obviously selfish.

  “At last I found myself in a great waste,” the princess continued complacently. “Then I came near giving myself up for lost, for it was dry and terrible. But I saw this wood upon the farther side, and so I gathered my last strength to cross. Fortune was with me, and I achieved my goal. Fatigued with my efforts, I sat down beneath this tree to rest, and—”

  “Wait a minute,” Mendanbar said, frowning. “You crossed some sort of wasteland and arrived here? That can’t be right. There aren’t any wastelands bordering the Enchanted Forest.”

  “You insult me,” the princess said with dignity. “How should I lie to such a one as you? But go and see for yourself, if you yet doubt my words.” She waved one hand gracefully at the woods behind her.

  “Thank you, I will,” said Mendanbar. Still frowning, he walked rapidly past the princess in the direction she had indicated.

  The princess’s mouth fell open in surprise as he went by. Before she could collect herself to demand that he return and explain, Mendanbar was out of sight behind a tree.

  2

  In Which Mendanbar Discovers a Problem

  MENDANBAR WAS STILL CONGRATULATING HIMSELF on his escape when the trees ended abruptly. He stopped, staring, and quit worrying about the princess entirely.

  A piece of the Enchanted Forest as large as the castle lawn was missing. No, not missing; here and there, a few dead stumps poked up out of the dry, bare ground. Something had destroyed a circular swath of trees and moss, destroyed it so completely that only stumps and a few flakes of ash remained.

  The taste of dust on the wind brought Mendanbar out of his daze. He hesitated, then took a step forward into the area of devastation. As he passed from woods to waste, he felt a sudden absence and stumbled in shock. Where the unseen lines of power should have been, humming with the magical energy that was the life of the Enchanted Forest, he sensed nothing. The magic was gone.

  “No wonder that princess didn’t have any trouble getting into the forest,” Mendanbar said numbly. Without magic, this section of forest couldn’t dodge away from her; all the princess had to do to get into the woods was cross it.

  Seriously annoyed, Mendanbar kicked at the ground, dislodging more ashes. He bent to touch one of the stumps. The wood crumbled to dust where his hand met it. Coughing, he sat back and saw something glittering on the ground beside the next stump. He went over and picked it up. It was a thin, hard disk a little larger than his hand, and it was a bright, iridescent green.

  “A dragon’s scale? What is a dragon’s scale doing here?”

  There was no one near to answer his question. He inspected the scale with care, but it told him nothing more. Scowling at it, he shrugged and put it in his pocket. Then he began a methodical search of the dead area, hoping to find something that would reveal a little more.

  Half an hour later, he had collected four more dragon scales in various shades of green and was feeling decidedly grim. He had thought he was on good terms with the dragons who lived to the east in the Mountains of Morning: he left them alone and they left him alone. Glancing around the burned space, he grimaced.

  “This doesn’t look much like ‘leaving me alone,’” he muttered angrily. “What do those dragons think they are doing?” He began to wish he had not left them quite so much alone for the past three years. Right now it would be useful to know something more about dragons than that they were all large and breathed fire.

  Absently, Mendanbar pocketed the dragon scales and walked back to the edge of the burned-out circle. It was a relief to be under the trees where he could feel the magic of the forest again. Frowning, he paused to look back at the ashy clearing.

  “I can’t just leave it like this,” he said to himself. “If that princess came this way, anyone might get into the Enchanted Forest just by walking across the barren space. But how do I put magic back into an area that’s been sucked dry?”

  Still frowning, he circled the edge of the clearing, nudging at the threads of magic that wound through the air. None of them would move any closer to the burned section, but on the far side he found the place where the normal country outside the forest touched the clearing. He paused. It wasn’t a very wide gap.

  “I wonder,” he said softly. “If I could move it a little, just around the edge . . .”

  Carefully, he reached out and gathered a handful of magic. It felt a lot like taking hold of a handful of thin cords, except that the cords were invisible, floating in the air, and made his palms tingle when he touched them. And, of course, each cord was actually a piece of solid magic that he could use to cast a spell if he wanted. In fact, he had to concentrate hard to keep from casting a spell or two with all that magic crammed together in his hands.

  Pulling gently on the invisible threads, Mendanbar stepped slowly backward out of the Enchanted Forest. The brilliant green moss followed him, rippling under his feet. The trees of the forest wavered as if he were looking at them through a shimmer of hot air rising off sunbaked stone. He took another step, and another. The threads of magic felt warm and thin and slippery. He tightened his grip and took another step. The trees flickered madly, as if he were blinking very rapidly, and the moss swelled and twitched like the back of a horse trying to get rid of an unwanted rider. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead and hung on the tip of his nose. The magic in his hands felt hot and tightly stretched. He stepped back again.

  With a sudden wrench, everything snapped into place. The trees stopped flickering and the moss smoothed and lay still. The forest closed up around the burned-out clearing, circling it completely and cutting it off from the outside world. Mendanbar gave a sigh of relief.

  “It worked!” he cried triumphantly. A breeze brushed past him, carrying the sharp smell of ashes, and he sobered. He hadn’t repaired the damage; he had only isolated it. “Well, at least it should keep people from wandering into the Enchanted Forest by accident,” he reminded himself. “That’s something.”

  One by one, Mendanbar let go of the threads of magic he had pulled across the gap. He felt them join the other unseen strands, merging back into the normal network of magic that crisscrossed the forest. When he had released the last thread, he wiped his hands on his shirt, then wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve.

  “Are you quite finished?” said a voice from a tree above his head.

  Mendanbar looked up and saw a fat gray squirrel sitting on a branch, staring down at him with disapproval.

  “I think so,” Mendanbar said. “For the time being, anyway.”

  “For the time being?” the squirrel said indignantly. “What kind of an answer is that? Not useful, that’s what I call it, not useful at all. Finding my way across this forest is hard enough when people don’t make bits of
it jump around, not to mention burning pieces of it and I don’t know what else. I don’t know what this place is coming to, really I don’t.”

  “Were you here when the trees were burned?” Mendanbar asked. “Did you see what happened? Or who did it?”

  “Well, of course not,” said the squirrel. “If I had, I’d have given him, her, or it a piece of my mind, I can tell you. Really, it’s too bad. I’m going to have to work out a whole new route to get home. And as for giving directions to lost princes, well, it’s hopeless, that’s what it is, just hopeless. I’ll get blamed for it when they come out wrong, too, see if I don’t. Word always gets around. ‘Don’t trust the squirrel,’ they’ll say, ‘you always go wrong if you follow the squirrel’s directions.’ They never stop to think of the difficulties involved in a job like mine, oh, no. They don’t stop to say thank-you, either, not them. Ask the squirrel and go running off, that’s what they do, and never so much as look back. No consideration, no gratitude. You’d think they’d been raised in a palace for all the manners they have.”

  “If they’re princes, they probably have been raised in palaces,” Mendanbar said. “Princes usually are.”

  “Well, no wonder none of them have any manners, then.” The squirrel sniffed. “They ought to be sent to school in a forest, where people are polite. You don’t see any of my children behaving like that, no, sir. Please and thank you and yes, sir and no, ma’am—that’s how I brought them up, all twenty-three of them, and what’s good enough for squirrels is good enough for princes, I say.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Mendanbar said. “Now, about the burned spot—”

  “Wicked, that’s what I call it,” the squirrel interrupted. “But hooligans like that don’t stop to think, do they? Well, if they did, they wouldn’t go around setting things on fire and making a lot of trouble and inconvenience for people. Inconsiderate, every last one of them, and they’ll be sorry for it one day, you just wait and see if they aren’t.”