Dealing With Dragons

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Ugh!” said Cimorene. “I see your problem.”

  “Exactly. Can you manage?”

  “Not if you want cherries jubilee,” Cimorene said, frowning. “I haven’t got a pot large enough to make seven dragons’ worth of cherries jubilee. Would chocolate mousse do? I can make two or three batches, and there should be time for all of them to chill if you’re not starting until eight-thirty.”

  “Chocolate mousse will be fine,” Kazul assured her. “Come along and I’ll show you where to bring it.”

  Cimorene picked up a lamp and followed Kazul into the public tunnels that surrounded Kazul’s private caves. She was a little surprised, but when she saw the size of the banquet cave, she understood. It was enormous. Fifty or sixty dragons, perhaps even a hundred of them, would fit into it quite comfortably. Obviously it had to be a public room; there simply wasn’t enough space under the Mountains of Morning for every dragon to have a cave this size.

  Kazul made sure Cimorene could find her way to the banquet cave without help and then left her in the kitchen to melt slabs of chocolate and whip gallons of cream for the mousse. By the time she finished, she was hot and tired, and all she really wanted to do was to take a nap. But Kazul was expecting her to serve the mousse, and Cimorene wasn’t about to appear before all those dragons in her old clothes with sweaty straggles of hair sticking to her neck and a smear of chocolate across her nose, so instead of napping, she pumped a cauldron of water, heated it on the kitchen fire, and took a bath.

  Once she was clean she felt much better. She checked to make sure the mousse was setting properly, then went into her own rooms to decide what she should wear. Unfortunately, she was afraid she didn’t have much choice. The wardrobe in her bedroom was full of neat, serviceable dresses suitable for cooking in or rummaging through treasure, but the only dressy clothes she had were the ones she had arrived in. She got them out of the back of the wardrobe and found to her dismay that the hem of the gown was badly stained with mud from her long walk. There was no time to clean it; she would have to wear one of the everyday dresses.

  With a sigh Cimorene turned back to the wardrobe and opened it once more to look for the nicest of the ordinary clothes. She gasped in surprise. The hangers were now full of the most beautiful gowns she had ever seen. Some were silk, and some were velvet; some were heavy brocade, and some were layers of feather-light gauze; some were embroidered with gold or silver, and some were sewn with jewels.

  “Well, of course,” Cimorene said aloud after a stunned moment. “Why would a dragon have an ordinary wardrobe? Of course it’s magic. What’s in it depends on what I’m looking for.”

  One of the wardrobe doors waggled slightly, and its hinges creaked in smug agreement. Cimorene blinked at it, then shook herself and began looking through the gowns.

  She chose one of red velvet, heavily embroidered with gold, and found matching slippers in the bottom of the obliging wardrobe. She let her black hair hang in loose waves nearly to her feet and even dug her crown out of the back of the drawer where she’d stuffed it on her first night. She finished getting ready a few minutes early. Feeling very cheerful, she went to the kitchen to fetch the mousse.

  It took Cimorene four trips to get the mousse down to the serving area just off the banquet cave. A dragon-sized serving was a little over a bucketful, and she could barely manage to carry two at a time. When everything was ready, she stood in the serving area and waited nervously for Kazul to ring for dessert. She could hear the muffled booming of the dragons’ voices through the heavy oak door, but she could not make out what any of them were saying.

  The bell rang at last, summoning Cimorene to serve dessert. She carried the mousse into the banquet cavern, two servings at a time, and set it in front of Kazul and her guests. The dragons were crouched around a shoulder-high slab of white stone. Cimorene had to be very careful about lifting the mousse up onto it. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wonder which dragon to serve first. She could tell which dragons were most important from their places at the table, and she made a silent apology to her protocol teacher, who had insisted that she learn about seating arrangements. (Protocol had been one of the princess lessons Cimorene had hated most.)

  As she set the last serving in front of Kazul, one of the other dragons said in a disgruntled and vaguely familiar voice, “I see the rumors are wrong again, Kazul. Or did you have to go after her and haul her back the way the rest of us do?”

  Cimorene turned angrily, but before she could say anything, a large gray-green dragon on the other side of the stone slab said, “Nonsense, Woraug! Girl’s got more sense than that. You shouldn’t listen to gossip. Next thing you know, you’ll be chasing after that imaginary wizard Gaurim’s been on about.” Cimorene recognized the speaker at once. He was Roxim, the elderly dragon she had given four of her handkerchiefs to.

  “I suppose it was that idiot Moranz again, trying to cause trouble,” a purple-green dragon said with bored distaste. “Someone should do something about him.”

  “Kazul still hasn’t answered my question,” Woraug said, and his tail lashed once like the tail of an angry cat. “And I’d like her to do so if the rest of you will stop sidetracking the conversation.”

  “Here, now!” Roxim said indignantly. “That’s a bit strong, Woraug! Too strong, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t,” Woraug said. “I asked Kazul. And I’m still waiting.”

  “I’m very pleased with my princess,” Kazul said mildly. “And no, I didn’t have to haul her back, as you would realize if you’d given the matter a little thought. Or does your princess normally leave seven servings of chocolate mousse in the kitchen when she runs away?”

  “Hear, hear!” Roxim said.

  Cimorene noted with interest that Woraug’s scales had turned an even brighter shade of green than normal and that he was starting to smell faintly of brimstone.

  “One of these days you’ll go too far, Kazul,” he said.

  “You started it,” Kazul pointed out. She turned to the gray dragon. “What’s this about Gaurim and a wizard, Roxim?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Roxim said, sounding surprised. “Gaurim’s been raving about it for weeks. Somebody snuck into her cave and stole a book from her library. No traces, but for some reason she’s positive it was a wizard. Achoo!” Roxim sneezed, emitting a ball of flame that just missed hitting his bowl of mousse. “Gives me an allergy attack just thinking about it.”

  “If it wasn’t a wizard, who was it?” the dragon at the far end of the table asked.

  “Could have been anybody—an elf, a dwarf, even a human,” Roxim responded. “No reason to think it was a wizard just because Gaurim didn’t catch him in the act. Not with the amount of time she spends away from home.”

  “Which book did she lose?” said the thin, brownish-green dragon next to Kazul.

  “What does it matter?” the purple-green dragon muttered.

  “Some history or other. And that’s another thing—what would a wizard want with a history book? No, no, Gaurim’s making a lot of fuss over a common thief. That’s what I say.”

  “It could have been a wizard,” said the dragon at the far end. “Who knows why they want the things they want?”

  “Ridiculous!” Roxim replied with vigor. “A wizard wouldn’t dare come through this part of the mountains. They know what we’d do to ’em, by George! Beg pardon,” he added to the silver-green dragon next to him, who appeared to have been rather shocked by his language.

  “I’m afraid you’re wrong there,” Kazul said. “Cim­orene met one today, less than a two-minute flight from my cave.”

  “What? What?” Roxim said. “You’re sure?”

  “That’s done it.” The purple-green dragon rolled his head in an irritated gesture, so that his scales made a scratching noise as they rubbed together. “You’ll never get him to quit talking about it now.”

  “Quite sure,” Cimorene assured Roxim, after glancing at Kazul to make sure she was expected to
answer Roxim’s question for herself. “He made two bits of the ledge I was standing on turn invisible so I would think it wasn’t safe to keep going.”

  “Certainly sounds like a wizard to me,” the dragon at the far end commented.

  “What did he look like?” asked the silver-green dragon.

  Cimorene described the wizard as well as she could, then added, “He said his name was Zemenar.”

  “Zemenar? That’s ridiculous!” Woraug snorted. “Zemenar was elected head of the Society of Wizards last year. He wouldn’t waste his time playing games with somebody’s princess.”

  “Not unless he had a great deal to gain by it,” the thin dragon said in a thoughtful tone. She turned her head and looked speculatively at Cimorene.

  “Such as?” Woraug said. He waited a moment, but no one answered. “No, I can’t believe it was Zemenar. The girl’s made a mistake; that’s all.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t him,” Cimorene said, holding on to her temper as hard as she could. “I’ve never met Zemenar, so I wouldn’t know. But that’s who he said he was.”

  “And wouldn’t it be amusing if she were right?” the purple-green dragon said, showing some interest in the proceedings for the first time.

  “I don’t see that it matters,” the silver-green dragon said. “The important thing is that he was a wizard, poking around smack in the middle of our mountains. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Tell King Tokoz,” Roxim said. “His job to handle this sort of thing, isn’t it?”

  “What can Tokoz do about it?” Woraug said, and there was a faint undercurrent of contempt in his tone.

  “He could use the King’s Crystal to find out what the wizards are really doing,” the thin dragon said in a prim tone.

  “He won’t use the crystal for anything less than a full-fledged war,” Woraug said. “And why should he? What could Tokoz do even if he did find out some wizard was preying on poor defenseless dragons like Gaurim?”

  “Lodge a formal protest with the Society of Wizards,” Roxim answered promptly, ignoring Woraug’s sarcasm. “Proper thing to do, no question. Then the next time anyone sees a wizard . . .” His voice trailed off, and he snapped his teeth together suggestively.

  “He’d probably just set up a committee,” the purple-green dragon said. “Can’t anyone think of something else?”

  “I don’t think we should do anything until we have some idea what Zemenar was after,” said the thin dragon. “It could be important.”

  “We have to do something!” the silver-green dragon said. Her claws clashed against the stone table. “We can’t have wizards wandering in and out whenever they please! Why, we’d lose half our magic in no time.”

  “Not to mention everyone sneezing themselves silly every time one of those dratted staffs gets too close,” added the dragon at the far end.

  The dragons began arguing among themselves about what to do and how best to do it. It reminded Cim­orene of the way her father’s ministers argued. Everyone seemed to agree that something ought to be done about the wizards, but they each had a different idea about what was appropriate. Roxim insisted huffily that the only thing to do was to inform the King, who would then make a formal protest. The thin dragon wanted to find out what the wizards were up to (she didn’t say how this was to be done) before anyone tried to chase them off. The silver-green dragon wanted patrols sent out immediately to eat any wizard who ventured into the Mountains of Morning. The dragon at the far end of the table wanted to attack the headquarters of the Society of Wizards the following morning, and the purple-green dragon thought it would be most entertaining to wait and see what the wizards did next. Woraug was the only one of the guests who did not have a proposal, though he made occasional comments, usually sarcastic ones, about everyone else’s suggestions.

  Kazul did not say anything at all. Cimorene was at first surprised and then puzzled by her silence, since Kazul was the one who had set the whole discussion going to begin with. As the argument grew more heated, however, Cimorene began to be glad that there was at least one dragon present who was not involved in it. The dragon at the far end of the table was starting to breathe little tongues of fire at the purple-green dragon, and Roxim was threatening loudly to have another allergy attack, but Cimorene was fairly sure that Kazul would stop the discussion before things got completely out of hand.

  She was right. A moment later, while the dragon at the far end was taking a deep breath to continue arguing and the thin dragon was winding up a long, involved train of logical reasons why her proposal was the best, Kazul said, “Thank you all for your advice. I’ll certainly think about it before I decide what to do.”

  “What do you mean by that?” the thin dragon asked suspiciously.

  “It was my princess who met the wizard,” Kazul pointed out. “Therefore, it is my decision whether to report the matter to the King, or to take some action on my own, or to ask for cooperation from some of you.”

  None of the other dragons appeared to like hearing this, but to Cimorene’s surprise none of them gave Kazul any argument about it. The dragon at the far end of the table made a few half-hearted grumbles, but that was all, and the conversation turned to the intricacies of several draconian romances that were currently in progress. As soon as her guests appeared to have calmed down, Kazul gave the signal for the empty mousse dishes to be taken away, so Cimorene only heard a few incomprehensible snatches of the new conversation. She did not really mind. She had plenty to think about already.

  5

  In Which Cimorene Receives a Formal Call from Her Companions in Dire Captivity

  KAZUL SLEPT LATE THE FOLLOWING MORNING, and Cimorene was afraid that she would leave before Cimorene had a chance to ask about the dragons’ after-dinner conversation. To her relief, Kazul called her in as soon as she was thoroughly awake and asked Cimorene to bring in the brushes for cleaning her scales.

  “What was that crystal your friend mentioned last night?” Cimorene asked as she laid out the brushes. “The one she thought King Tokoz could use somehow to find out what the wizards are doing?”

  “The King’s Crystal?” Kazul said. “It’s one of the magical objects that belongs to the King of the Dragons.”

  “But what does it do? And why did Woraug think that King Tokoz wouldn’t want to use it?”

  “Using the crystal is difficult and tiring, and Tokoz is getting old,” Kazul replied. “Zareth was right to say that the crystal ought to be used, but it will take more evidence than we have right now to persuade the King of that. As to what it does, the crystal shows things that are happening in other times and places. It’s useful, but it can be very difficult to interpret correctly.”

  “Oh, a crystal ball,” Cimorene said, nodding. She tapped Kazul’s side, and the dragon bent her elbow so that the scales were easier to reach. “The court wizard at Linderwall had one, but I had to stop my magic lessons before he got a chance to show me how to work it.”

  “The King’s Crystal is more like a plate, but the principle is the same,” Kazul said.

  “A crystal plate?” Cimorene blinked. “No wonder nobody talks about it much. It just doesn’t sound right.”

  Kazul shrugged. “The King’s Crystal is much more accurate than an ordinary crystal ball, and if ‘crystal plate’ sounds odd to most people, it means that fewer of them will try to steal it.”

  “Was that what the silver-green dragon meant when he said that if the wizards started wandering through the mountains you’d lose half your magic in no time? I never heard that wizards stole magic rings and swords and things.”

  “Not magic things,” Kazul said. “Magic. Wizards steal magic. That’s where their power comes from.”

  “How can a wizard steal magic?” Cimorene said skeptically. She climbed on a stool and began working at the ribs of Kazul’s wings.

  “Wizards’ staffs absorb magic from whatever happens to be nearby,” Kazul said, stretching out her left wing so Cimorene could get at the
base. “That’s why they’re always hanging around places like the Mountains of Morning and the Enchanted Forest. The more magic there is in the area, the more their staffs can soak up.”

  “What would happen if someone stole a wizard’s staff? Would the wizard still be able to use it?”

  “The wizard wouldn’t be able to work any magic until he got it back,” Kazul said. “Most of them have a great many anti-theft spells on their staffs for exactly that reason. Of course, it happens anyway, now and then. And as long as the wizard and the staff are separated, the staff doesn’t absorb magic.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a very good arrangement to me,” Cimorene said. “I can think of half a dozen ways a staff could be lost or forgotten or stolen or something. It doesn’t seem sensible for a wizard to depend so much on anything that’s so easy to mislay.”

  Kazul shrugged. “They seem to like it.”

  “I can see why you don’t want them in your part of the mountains.”

  “Can you? Do you have any idea how unpleasant it is to have part of your essence sucked out of you without so much as a by-your-leave? Not to mention the side effects.”

  “Side effects?” Cimorene said, puzzled. “There! Turn around, and I’ll do your other side.”

  “Roxim isn’t the only dragon who’s allergic to wizards,” Kazul said dryly as she shifted her position. “Or rather, to their staffs. We all are. Roxim’s just a little more sensitive than most. That’s why we made the agreement with them in the first place.”

  “The dragons have an agreement with the wizards?”

  Kazul nodded. “To be precise, the King of the Dragons has an agreement with the head of the Society of Wizards: the wizards stay out of our portions of the Mountains of Morning, and we allow them partial access to the Caves of Fire and Night. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. King Tokoz is getting old and forgetful, and lately wizards have been turning up in all sorts of places they aren’t supposed to be.”