Dragon's Breath

by E. D. Baker

  Millie stopped and looked for the dragon, but he had already moved out of sight. When she turned back to Francis, he had reached the door and she had to run to catch up.

  The door was only about five feet high, but from the depression around the frame it was obvious that there had once been a much bigger opening that had been filled in with more ice. With his friends huddled around him, Francis placed his hands on the door and muttered,

  Door of ice so white and clean,

  Open up for me.

  Let us pass within your halls.

  Listen to my plea.

  The door shivered and opened, letting a cool draft wash over them.

  “That was it?” asked Simon. “That was the spell? I always thought spells were supposed to be long and complicated with all sorts of mumbo jumbo tossed in to make them sound important.”

  “I could do that,” Francis said, “but that kind of spell takes a whole lot longer to make up. It’s easier to make a mistake when you say them, too. I’ve found that if I keep my spells short and to the point, I get better, faster results. Did you see how fast that door opened?”

  “If you don’t mind, could you talk about this later?” said Millie. “The door is open and we can go in. That’s all we need to know.”

  “Some people can be so grumpy,” Francis said as he waited for his friends to go past. When they were all inside, he pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Don’t lock it,” Millie whispered. “We might have to leave in a hurry.”

  The walls of the corridor were blue, as were the ceiling and the floor. Candles burned in sconces with a flame as cold as the walls. The corridor was bright from the light reflecting off the ice, but the walls were oddly shaped, with bumps here, dips there, deeper patches of blue in some places, and fanciful swirls in others.

  At first Simon-Leo took the lead simply because he blocked the hallway with his broad shoulders and big stomach and wouldn’t let anyone get past him. With his ax in his hand, he opened every door and peered inside, then shut it before anyone else could look. Francis was getting increasingly frustrated with this and kept trying to get past the troll, but he wasn’t able to until they turned a corner and entered a wider corridor with even more misshapen walls. With so many bumps and bulges, it was nearly impossible to see more than a dozen feet in front of them.

  Millie was beginning to wonder if they’d ever see a living creature, when something stepped out from behind a bulge in the wall and almost ran into Francis. Millie gasped and Francis pulled his sword from its scabbard. It was one of the furry white monsters that had tried to kill them.

  “Get back,” Francis said, shoving Millie and Zoë behind him. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “You and me both,” said Leo, while Simon squeezed his eyes shut.

  The beast opened its mouth as if to roar, then seemed to think better of it and closed its jaws with a snap. It watched warily as Francis and Leo approached it from opposite sides. After eyeing them both, it turned to Francis and knocked his sword away with one swift blow. The creature looked like he was about to tackle Francis when a cheery voice said, “Why, hello there!” Jerking its head as if it had been punched, the beast disappeared back around the bulge in the wall.

  While Francis made as if to follow the beast, Millie turned in the direction of the voice. A little old woman dressed in a blue gown and a darker blue over-tunic was framed in an open doorway. She was smaller than Zoë and could easily have been mistaken for someone much younger if it hadn’t been for the wrinkles etching the skin around her eyes. Her white hair had been done up in bows and curls that wobbled and bounced against her cheeks every time she spoke. Her clothes were clean and looked new, her shoes old and battered.

  “I have guests!” she said, clapping her hands. “I haven’t had guests in … Let me see now … five, no, seven … nineteen … No, no, that wasn’t it. I know!” Her face lit up as she looked at each one in turn. “I’ve never had guests before. You four are the very first ones! Isn’t this delightful?”

  “Delightful,” Zoë echoed as the old woman took her hand and started pulling her into the room behind her. It was a Great Hall, far bigger and more elegant than the bright and open Hall in Greater Greensward or the dark and dreary one in Upper Montevista. Zoë cast a pleading look at Millie and Simon-Leo, who were already following her to the door. They were about to enter the room when Francis returned, looking cross.

  “What are you doing?” he asked from the doorway.

  “You don’t know how nice it is to hear another voice! My invisible servants are wonderful, but they never speak and I have been pining for someone to talk to. I talk to them, of course, but it’s difficult to hold a conversation when you never know if the other party is in the room or not. Come in, come in! Supper should be ready soon.”

  The old woman pulled Zoë out of the way, then stepped back and waited for the others to enter. A creature much like the first snowman was about to follow them into the Great Hall when the old woman grabbed the door and slammed it in his face.

  While the old woman chattered about how good it was to see them, Millie looked around the Hall. There was one long table in the center of the room with dozens of chairs on either side. Nine of the creatures, or snowmen, as she was beginning to think of them, stood with their backs to the wall, watching the woman. One of them curled its lip in a silent snarl when it caught Millie looking at it, but it neither moved nor acknowledged her presence in any other way.

  “I’m sure my servants will have plenty of food,” said the old woman. “They always anticipate my needs and just now I need to take care of my guests.”

  Millie almost giggled when one of the creatures scowled and plodded from the room, taking great care to open and close the door silently.

  A bell chimed softly somewhere in the castle and the little woman clapped her hands. “Dinner is ready!” she said, smiling brightly. “Now, my sweetlings, take your seats at the table. You can tell me all about yourselves while we eat. My name is Azuria. I’m the Blue Witch, of course. Oh, my, I have so many things to tell you. I’ve told my servants all my stories and I’m sure they’re sick of hearing them, but now you’re here and you haven’t heard any of them. We could stay up all night talking and it would all be new to you! This is so exciting. Come along now! There we go. You take that seat, young man, and you sit there, sweetling. You’ll sit beside me, young lady. And you, you’re a troll, aren’t you? You’ll sit across from me so I can talk to both of your heads at once. Isn’t this fun?”

  At first Millie found the woman’s ceaseless chatter annoying, but she soon realized that as long as the woman was talking she didn’t need to say anything, which gave her plenty of time to look around. The chairs were wooden, as was the chest at the side of the room. There was a fireplace at the far end, but no logs inside or charring on the walls that would have shown that it had been used. The walls were blue and weren’t completely straight, bulging in some places and bowing at others. A heavy wooden chandelier hung from an oddly shaped hook in the center of the room and the ceiling above it was blue in irregular splotches. The only source of light in the room was the candles in the chandelier and those set on the chest, but the light of the flames reflected off the walls of ice so many times that the room was as bright as daylight.

  As Azuria rang a little bell the snowmen came and went, bringing in platters and refilling mugs. Their big, fur-covered hands were awkward, but they tried hard to do whatever the old woman seemed to want. Whenever the witch was talking to someone else or occupied with her food, Francis made faces at the snowmen, who made the most gruesome faces back. The game ended, however, when Azuria noticed a particularly awful face that Francis was making and asked him if he had a twitching disorder.

  The food was wonderful, the flavors delicate or robust depending on the dish. It was so good, in fact, that Millie decided it must have been prepared with magic. Her mother had served food made with magic when they were on family trips. It wa
s always delicious and served at exactly the right temperature, just like the Blue Witch’s food. There wasn’t anything wrong with a magical meal, in fact, Millie often preferred it, but it was interesting that the witch’s food wasn’t cooked in the normal way.

  Millie looked up when Francis kicked her under the table. “Well, my dear,” the old woman said, “is it a secret?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Millie. “Did you ask me something?”

  “Your name,” said the Blue Witch. “I’ve already told you mine, and your friends have told me theirs.”

  “I’m Millie,” she replied.

  The old woman smiled. “What a nice name! And what brings you here, Millie?”

  “Actually, a friend of yours recommended that I come to see you. I don’t know if you’d remember her, but her name is Mudine and she—”

  “Mudine! Why, of course I remember her! She and I were best friends when we were children. We lived in town just blocks from the Magic Marketplace. My mother sold sweetmeats that enabled a person to speak any language she chose. Mudine’s parents had a stand right across the way. They sold poultry. You know—geese that lay golden eggs, chickens that lay copper … When we were small, Mudine and I spent our days playing beneath the stalls, watching for dropped coins and listening to the older witches talk about their magic. We learned a lot that way. Why, I remember, there was an old wizard who sold shoes … Here, would you like more soup?”

  One of the servants hovering beside the table reached for Millie’s bowl just as the old woman held up the ladle. Reaching across the table, she poured the hot, beet-red soup on the creature’s hand so that it trickled off into Millie’s bowl. The snowman didn’t make a sound, but its mouth opened wide and Millie could have sworn she saw tears well up in its eyes.

  “Everything is delicious,” Zoë said from the other side of the table. She winked as Millie fished long white hairs out of her soup with her spoon and dropped them on the floor.

  “If you grew up in the city, how did you end up here?” Millie asked Azuria.

  “Oh, that’s a long, sad story, but I’d be delighted to tell it to you,” said the old witch. “I was madly in love, you see, but my beau was an unfaithful brute. When I learned what he had done, I packed my things and headed north, proclaiming that I was going as far from him as I could get. I ended up here in the midst of the most dreadful blizzard. I wandered for days and would have perished if my invisible servants hadn’t found me and nursed me back to health. While I was regaining my strength, I told them about this marvelous castle I had visited when I was a girl. And wouldn’t you know—they built this castle for me, which is just like the one I described. They’ve been adding onto it ever since. In fact, they built a whole new addition just a few weeks ago.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Millie. “When Mudine said that you lived in the Icy North, I never imagined that your home would be as lovely as this. She said that you would be able to help me with a problem that’s been troubling me my whole life. Every time I get angry I—”

  “That sounds fascinating, my dear, and I’d love to hear all about it tomorrow. I know I mentioned staying up all night and talking,” she said, stifling a yawn, “but I’m just too tired to do it tonight. It’s time we all got some rest. But I must tell you that once I go to bed my servants blow out all the candles and the castle gets dismally dark. I wouldn’t go anywhere after that if I were you. An ice castle can be very dangerous at night.”

  “But we weren’t planning to stay long and—”

  “Of course you’re staying! As my very first guests, you can’t just leave! You’ll spend the night and tomorrow we’ll have another opportunity to get to know each other. Now, if you’ll excuse me …” Pushing back her chair abruptly, the old woman didn’t seem to notice that she had shoved it into the stomach of one of her servants, who had been standing behind her. She tried to shove the chair back again and again, but the servant was doubled over in pain and the chair kept battering him, smashing his toes and pounding his shins. “Something’s wrong with this chair,” the old woman muttered. It wasn’t until another servant helped the first one stagger out of the way that Azuria was able to put her chair where she wanted it to go.

  The Blue Witch was already headed for the door when Millie and her friends realized that she was leaving. They stood, pushing back their chairs as the servants jumped out of the way. Millie was wondering what she should do, when Azuria turned back and said in a loud voice, “My guests need beds for the night. The girls should sleep in one room, the boys in another.”

  Her invisible servants stood poised to run as soon as she left, but Azuria no longer seemed to be in a hurry. “Sleep well, sweetlings,” she told the four friends. “And remember what I said about staying in your rooms.”

  Millie nodded and said, “We will.” She had no intention of wandering the halls in the dark with those abominable snowmen everywhere.

  “Then good night,” said the Blue Witch, blowing them each a kiss. “Sleep tight and don’t let the ice bugs bite.”

  “Are there really such things as ice bugs?” Simon asked as Azuria left the room.

  “I don’t think so,” said Francis. “But even if there were, they’d be the least of our worries.”

  Leo nodded. “Especially with those monsters lurking everywhere.”

  “I was thinking of the fact that I have to share a room with you,” said Francis.

  The room that Millie and Zoë shared was an odd shape, with a big bulge on one wall and a dip in the ceiling that brought the ice low enough to graze Millie’s hair. It made Millie uncomfortable, although Zoë didn’t seem to mind it. “My family spends a lot of time in caves, and they’re usually pretty uneven,” she said as she plumped up the heavy blanket she’d found folded on one of the two beds. “I’ve been meaning to ask, why do you suppose Azuria stopped you when you were trying to tell her why we came to see her?”

  “I don’t know, unless she really was tired. Maybe it’s better this way. Audun thought she was evil and we don’t know her well enough yet to say if she is or not. Are you sure you checked the room?”

  “Yes, and so did you, at least a dozen times,” said Zoë. “There’s nothing here. Do you think I’d go to sleep in a room with those monsters in it?”

  “I know. You’re right. I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched.”

  “That’s not surprising, considering we have been ever since we met Azuria. I think it’s a good thing she can’t see them. Can you imagine what it would feel like to know they were watching every move you made all day, every day?”

  “I’d hate it,” said Millie. “And you’re probably right. Having them watching us for just a few hours has already gotten to me.”

  “I know we don’t really know Azuria,” said Zoë, “but she seems pretty nice if you ignore her craziness. Do you think she really can’t see those monsters, or is that all pretense?”

  Millie shrugged. “I guess she could have a form of snow blindness and can’t see anything that’s white. Otherwise the I-can’t-see-them thing would be too hard to make believable.”

  Zoë stuck her head under the blanket and poked around inside it. “I suppose. And what about the evil part? I know the Green Witch is supposed to be the nicest, most powerful witch in Greater Greensward, but are all witches with color names supposed to be like that?”

  “I think they’re powerful, but I don’t know about nice,” said Millie.

  Zoë’s hair was a tangled mess when she came out from under the blanket. “Do you think she did something to Audun’s family?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen her do any magic yet, so I don’t know what she’s capable of doing. However, we’ll find a way to explore the castle tomorrow. If there are dragons hidden here, we’re going to find them. What are you doing? Are you going to sleep under that blanket or what?”

  “I have to,” said Zoë. “Just not like this.”

  Millie watched as Zoë climbed onto th
e bed and stood on the pillow. The air shimmered around her as she turned into a bat. The cool, dank puff almost made Millie sneeze.

  “It’s too cold in here to hang on to that ceiling,” Zoë said as she shuffled off the pillow. “There are no bugs here, so I’m famished as a bat, but I can’t stay a vampire with you sleeping this close to me. The temptation to bite you would keep me awake all night. It’s bad enough that I can’t sleep during the day without worrying that I might sleepwalk and bite you at night. Well, good night. To sort of quote Azuria, ‘sleep tight and don’t let the vampires bite.’”

  “Very funny,” said Millie, pulling her blanket up around her neck. While Zoë burrowed under the covers, Millie glanced around the room one last time. Although they’d both checked the room repeatedly, she wanted to make absolutely certain that there were no snowmen hiding anywhere, waiting for her to fall asleep. She hadn’t seen any, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling she’d had since the moment they entered the room that someone was watching her.

  Sixteen

  Millie woke the next morning to Zoë shaking her arm and saying, “Get up, sleepyhead. We have a lot to do today.”

  “You’re up awfully early,” Millie said, yawning. She glanced at her friend, then sat up to get a better look. “What’s that on your cloak? It looks like white fur. That wasn’t there yesterday.”

  Zoë looked down and began picking off the fur. “Let’s just say I’m no longer hungry.”

  “You didn’t!” said Millie. “And after we promised we wouldn’t leave the room.”

  “I never promised any such thing. I woke up in the middle of the night because the castle shook and I heard this awful rumbling sound. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it, too. By the time the noise stopped I was wide awake and starving. And since there aren’t any bugs here … I’d never bite a friend or someone I really care about, but I don’t like those fuzzy, white monsters. They aren’t so bad, though, once you get to taste … I mean, know them.” Zoë tilted her head and gave Millie an irritated look. “You should be grateful I did go out. Now there are fewer monsters to follow us around today.”