Dealing With Dragons

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Like that wizard Zemenar I met on the path,” Cim­orene said. “Do you think he really was the same Zemenar that’s the head of the Society of Wizards?”

  “I doubt that anyone, even another wizard, would dare impersonate him,” Kazul said. “He has a nasty reputation.”

  Cimorene remembered the hard black eyes and sharp features of the wizard she had met. He had certainly looked nasty enough, even when he was pretending to be nice. He was sneaky, too, or he wouldn’t have tried to trick her. And he had been very annoyed when Cimorene got off the ledge without his help. Cimorene frowned.

  “I wonder what he wanted, really,” she mused. “Do you suppose he’ll stop by the way he said he would?”

  “I almost wish he would try,” Kazul said. There was an angry glint in her eye, and her claws made a scratching sound against the stone floor of the cave as she flexed them.

  “Don’t wiggle,” Cimorene said. “If Zemenar is as tricky as everyone says, he won’t come while you’re here. He’ll wait until you’ve gone somewhere and I’m alone.”

  “True.” Kazul frowned. Then she looked at Cimorene, and her eyes took on a speculative gleam. “He probably thinks you’re as silly as most princesses, so he’ll be hoping to trick you into giving him whatever it is he’s after. And if he does—”

  “Then maybe I can fool him instead,” Cimorene finished. “And once we know what he’s after, we can decide what to do about it.”

  Kazul and Cimorene discussed this idea while Cim­orene finished brushing the dragon’s scales. There was very little they could do to prepare since they did not know when Zemenar might show up at the cave or what he might do when he arrived. Then Kazul went off to inspect the ledge where Cimorene had met the wizard, to see whether bits of it were still invisible.

  When Kazul had gone, Cimorene went into the library to hunt through all the books and scrolls of spells. The behavior of the dragons at dinner the previous evening had made a considerable impression on her, and she wanted to see whether she could find a spell to fireproof herself. Until then she hadn’t realized that when a dragon lost his temper, he started breathing fire. Not that she was planning to do anything to irritate Kazul—or any other dragon, for that matter—but the dragons at dinner had been too annoyed to be careful, and she didn’t want to get burned by accident, no matter how sorry the dragon might be afterward.

  At first Cimorene didn’t have much luck. She hadn’t had time to do much organizing in the library, and most of the books and scrolls were lying in haphazard, dust-covered piles. Some had even fallen onto the floor, and there were spiders everywhere. Cimorene realized that if she wanted to find anything, she was going to have to do some more cleaning first. With a sigh she went to get a bucket of water, some cloths for washing and dusting, and a handkerchief to tie over her hair.

  She worked for several hours, dusting books and manuscripts, wiping off the dirty bookshelves, and putting the books back in neat rows when the shelves were dry. She found two books and five old scrolls that looked as if they might be interesting. These she set on one of the tables to look at later. She had just pulled a stained and yellowed stack of papers out of the back of the second-to-last bookshelf when she heard someone hallooing outside.

  “Now what?” she muttered crossly. She set the papers on the table with the rest of the books she was planning to look at later and went out to see who was there.

  To her surprise, the noise was coming from the back entrance, not from the mouth of the cave. She hurried into the passage, rounded the corner, and found herself facing three beautiful, elegantly dressed princesses. They were all blond and blue-eyed and slender, and several inches shorter than Cimorene. The first one wore a gold crown set with diamonds, and her hair was the color of sun-ripened wheat. The second wore a silver crown set with sapphires, and her hair was the color of crystallized honey. The last wore a pearl-covered circlet, and her hair was the color of ripe apricots. They looked rather taken aback by the sight of Cimorene in her dust-covered dress and kerchief.

  “Oh, bother,” Cimorene said under her breath. Then she smiled her best smile and said, “Welcome to the caves of the dragon Kazul. May I help you with anything?”

  “We have made the perilous journey through the tunnels to see the Princess Cimorene, newly come to these caverns, to comfort her and together bemoan our sad and sorry fates,” the first princess said haughtily. “Tell her we are here.”

  “I’m Cimorene,” Cimorene said. “I don’t need comforting, and I’m not particularly sad or sorry to be here, but if you’d like to come in and have some tea, you’re welcome to.”

  The first two princesses looked as if they would have liked to be startled and appalled by this announcement but were much too well bred to show what they were feeling. The princess with the pearl circlet looked surprised and rather intrigued, and she glanced hopefully at her companions. They ignored her, but after a moment the first princess said grandly, “Very well, we will join you, then,” and swept past Cimorene into the cave.

  The other princesses followed, the one with the pearl circlet giving Cimorene a shy smile as she passed. Cimorene, wondering what she had gotten herself into, brought up the rear. The princesses stopped when they reached the main cave, and the ones in the gold and silver crowns looked a bit disgruntled. The one in the pearl circlet stared in unabashed amazement. “My goodness,” she said, “you certainly do have a lot of space.”

  “Alianora!” the gold-crowned princess said sharply, and the princess with the pearl circlet flushed and subsided, looking unhappy.

  “This way,” Cimorene said hastily, and led the three princesses into the kitchen. “Do sit down,” she said, waving at the bench beside the kitchen table.

  The gold-crowned princess looked at the bench with distaste, but after a moment she sat down. The other two followed her example. There was a brief silence while Cimorene filled the copper teakettle and hung it over the fire, and then the gold-crowned princess said, “I am remiss in my duties, for I have not yet told you who we are. I am the Princess Keredwel of the Kingdom of Raxwel, now captive of the dread dragon Gornul. This”—she nodded toward the princess in the silver crown—“is the Princess Hallanna of the Kingdom of Poranbuth, now captive of the dread dragon Zareth. And this”—she waved at the girl in the pearl circlet—“is the Princess Alianora of the Duchy of Toure-on-Marsh, now prisoner of the dread dragon Woraug.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Cimorene said. “I am Princess Cimorene of the Kingdom of Linderwall, now princess of the dragon Kazul. What sort of tea would you like? I have blackberry, ginger, chamomile, and gunpowder green. I’m afraid I used the last of the lapsang souchong this morning.”

  “Blackberry, please,” Keredwel said. She gave Cim­orene a considering look. “You seem to be most philosophic about your fate.”

  “Would that I had so valiant a spirit,” Hallanna said in failing accents. “But my sensibility is too great, I fear, for me to follow your example.”

  “If you don’t like being a dragon’s princess, why don’t you escape?” Cimorene asked, remembering that Kazul had said that three princesses in a row had run away from the yellow-green dragon, Moranz.

  Keredwel and Hallanna looked shocked. “Without being rescued?” Hallanna faltered. “Walk all that way, with dragons and trolls and goodness knows what else hiding in the rocks, ready to eat me? Oh, I couldn’t!”

  “It isn’t done,” Keredwel said coldly. “And I notice that you haven’t tried it.”

  “But I’m enjoying being Kazul’s princess,” Cimorene said cheerfully. “I suppose I might have been upset if I’d been carried off the way you were, but I can hardly complain as it is, can I?”

  Alianora leaned forward. “Then you really did volunteer to be Kazul’s princess?”

  Keredwel and Hallanna turned and stared at their companion. “Where did you get that ridiculous idea, Alianora?” Hallanna said.

  “W-Woraug said—” Alianora faltered.

 
“You must have misunderstood,” Keredwel said severely. “No one volunteers to be a dragon’s princess. It isn’t done.”

  “Actually, Alianora’s quite right,” Cimorene said as she set the teacups in front of her visitors. “I did volunteer.” She smiled sweetly at the thunderstruck expressions on the faces of the first two princesses. “I got tired of embroidery and etiquette.”

  Keredwel and Hallanna seemed unsure of how to take this announcement, so they made polite conversation about the tea and asked Cimorene questions about the current fashions. Alianora didn’t say very much, and the few times she tried either Keredwel or Hallanna jumped on her. Cimorene felt rather sorry for Alianora.

  The princesses swept off at last, still somewhat puzzled by Cimorene’s attitude. Cimorene gave a sigh of relief and set about cleaning up the kitchen. She was just rinsing the last of the cups when she heard someone hesitantly clearing her throat behind her. Cimorene turned and saw Alianora standing timidly in the doorway.

  “Hello again,” Cimorene said. “Did you forget something?”

  “Not exactly,” Alianora said. “I mean, I told Keredwel I did, but actually I just wanted to get away from them for a while. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all as long as you don’t expect more hospitality,” Cimorene assured her. “I have to get back to work on the library.”

  “What are you doing?” Alianora asked. She seemed really interested, so Cimorene explained about the fireproofing spell.

  “It sounds like a wonderful idea,” Alianora said when Cimorene finished. “The dragons are careful around us, but it would be nice not to have to depend on them not to lose their tempers.” She hesitated. “May I help?”

  “I don’t think Kazul would mind,” Cimorene said. “But you’d better change clothes first. The library isn’t very clean, I’m afraid.”

  Alianora looked down at her silk gown, which was embroidered heavily with silver and pearls, and giggled. Cimorene took her into the bedroom and found a plain, serviceable cleaning dress in the magic wardrobe. It took two tries before the wardrobe figured out that she wanted a dress for someone else, but once it caught on, it provided a splendid selection in Alianora’s size. Then they went to the library and got to work.

  Cleaning was much more enjoyable with Alianora for company. By the time they finished dusting and straightening the last bookcases, the two girls were fast friends, and Alianora was comfortable enough to ask Cimorene straight out how it was that she had come to volunteer for a dragon.

  “It’s a long story,” Cimorene said, but Alianora insisted on hearing it. So Cimorene told her and then asked how Alianora had happened to be carried off by Woraug.

  To her surprise, Alianora flushed. “I think it was the only thing left that they could think of,” she said, not very clearly. “My family, I mean.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cimorene said.

  “It’s because I’m not a very satisfactory princess,” Alianora said. “I tried, I really did, but . . . It started when the wicked fairy came to my christening.”

  “She put a curse on you?”

  “No. She ate cake and ice cream until she nearly burst and danced with my Uncle Arthur until two in the morning and had a wonderful time. So she went home without cursing me, and Aunt Ermintrude says that that’s where the whole problem started.”

  “Lots of princesses don’t have christening curses,” said Cimorene.

  “Not if a wicked fairy comes to the christening,” Alianora said positively. “And that was only the beginning. When I turned sixteen, Aunt Ermintrude sent me a gold spinning wheel for my birthday, and I sat down and spun. I didn’t prick my finger or anything.”

  Cimorene was beginning to see what Alianora was getting at. “Well, if you didn’t have a christening curse . . .”

  “So Aunt Ermintrude told Mama to put me and a spinning wheel in a room full of straw and have me spin it into gold,” Alianora went on. “And I tried! But all I could manage was linen thread, and whoever heard of a princess who can spin straw into linen thread?”

  “It’s a little unusual, certainly.”

  “Then they gave me a loaf of bread and told me to walk through the forest and give some to anyone who asked. I did exactly what they told me, and the second beggar-woman was a fairy in disguise, but instead of saying that whenever I spoke, diamonds and roses would drop from my mouth, she said that since I was so kind, I would never have any problems with my teeth.”

  “Really? Did it work?”

  “Well, I haven’t had a toothache since I met her.”

  “I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something,” Cimorene said. “Think how uncomfortable it would be if you accidentally talked in your sleep! You’d wake up rolling around on thorns and rocks.”

  “That never occurred to me,” Alianora said, much struck.

  “Was that everything?” Cimorene asked.

  “No,” Alianora said. “Aunt Ermintrude persuaded one of her fairy friends to give me a gown and a pair of glass slippers to go to a ball in the next kingdom over. And I broke one before I even got out of the castle!”

  “That’s not so surprising,” Cimorene said. “Glass slippers are for deserving merchants’ daughters, not for princesses.”

  “Try telling Aunt Ermintrude that,” Alianora said. “I think she was the one who found out that Woraug was going to ravage a village just over the border and arranged for me to go and visit on the right day so I could be carried off. She didn’t even warn me. I suppose she thought that if I knew, I’d mess it up somehow.”

  “I don’t think I would get along very well with your Aunt Ermintrude,” Cimorene commented thoughtfully.

  “Oh, it wasn’t so bad, at least at first,” Alianora said. “Woraug ignored me most of the time, especially after he found out I can’t cook, and it was a real relief not to have Aunt Ermintrude around any more. Only then Gornul brought Keredwel and Zareth brought Hallanna, and . . .”

  “And they’ve been making life miserable for you ever since,” Cimorene finished. “Why don’t you stand up to them?”

  “I tried, but you don’t know what they’re like,” Alianora said, sighing. “Keredwel goes on and on about correct behavior, and Hallanna dissolves in tears as soon as it looks like she’s losing an argument. And they’ve both had dozens of knights and princes try to rescue them. I’ve only had two.”

  “How do you do it?” Cimorene asked. “I’ve had nine already, and they’re a dreadful nuisance.” Alianora stared at Cimorene, then began to giggle. “What’s so funny?” Cimorene demanded.

  “Keredwel bragged for a week because two knights and a prince tried to rescue her the first month she was here,” Alianora explained between giggles. “She said it was some kind of record. You’ve barely been with Kazul for four weeks, and you’ve had nine, and you didn’t even mention it when Keredwel was here. She’s going to be furious when she finds out.”

  “If she wants them, she can have them,” Cimorene said. Her expression grew thoughtful. “Maybe they’d be easier to get rid of if I sent them along to another princess, instead of just trying to get them to go home.”

  “Oh!” said Alianora, and went off into gales of laughter again. Cimorene gave her a questioning look. “It’s the idea of Keredwel being—oh, my—being rescued by a secondhand knight,” Alianora gasped. “Oh, dear!”

  Cimorene’s eyes began to dance. “I could take a good look at them first, to make sure they’re worthy of her before I sent them on,” she suggested.

  This was too much for either of them, and they both collapsed in laughter. “You wouldn’t, really, would you?” Alianora said when she began to recover.

  “Send the knights to rescue someone else? I certainly would,” Cimorene said emphatically. “I meant it when I said they were a nuisance. I wouldn’t want to upset Keredwel, though. I’ll have to think about the best way of handling it. It’s a good thing there probably
won’t be any more of them for a few weeks. I should have plenty of time to figure something out.”

  “How do you know that?” Alianora asked. Cim­orene explained about the sign and Therandil and her “sprained ankle.” Alianora was impressed and promised to help if she could. “I’ll tell Hallanna that you’ve twisted your ankle. I know she’ll tell the next knight who comes to rescue her, and then it won’t matter if your Prince Therandil doesn’t tell anybody.”

  This settled, the two girls sat down and began looking through the books and scrolls Cimorene had piled on the table. Alianora, having been brought up as a proper princess despite the tiny size of her country, did not read Latin, so Cimorene had to examine those scrolls herself. There was a sizable stack of books left, however, and Alianora waded into them with a will. It was Cim­orene, however, who finally found the spell they were searching for.

  “I think this is it!” she said, looking up from an ancient, crumpled scroll. “‘Being a Spell for the Resisting of Heat and Flames of All Kinds, in Particular Those Which Are the Product of Magical Beasts,’” she read. “Yes, there’s a list and it includes dragons.”

  “I would think dragons would be at the top,” Alianora said. “Is it difficult?”

  “It doesn’t look hard,” Cimorene said, studying the page. “Some of the ingredients are pretty rare, but it says you only need them for the initial casting. After that, you can reactivate the spell just by throwing a pinch of dried feverfew in the air and reciting a couplet.”

  “That’s not bad,” Alianora said. She came around the table and peered over Cimorene’s shoulder at the faded ink. “Is it Latin?”

  “No, it’s just an ornate style of writing,” Cimorene assured her. “It’s not hard to read, once you get the hang of it. See, there’s the couplet.

  “Power of water, wind and earth,