Talking To Dragons

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “What was that about?” Shiara demanded.

  “I don’t know about that elf,” I said slowly. “I think something funny is going on; he was trying too hard to get us to take that staff.”

  “Well, we have to do something with it,” Shiara said.

  “Why?” I said. “We didn’t break it. And I don’t want to mess with a wizard’s staff, even a broken one.”

  Shiara frowned. I made a gesture toward the pieces and realized that I was still holding the sword in my hand. I started to put it back in its sheath, then stopped. The sheath was as wet as everything else I was wearing; I couldn’t put the sword in that. I mean, not all magic swords are rustproof, and even if you have one that is, putting your sword away without cleaning it is a bad habit to get into. I checked my pockets, just in case, but even my handkerchief was wet.

  “Shiara, do you have anything I could borrow to dry my sword?” I asked finally. “Everything I have is soaked.”

  “What does that have to do with the wizard’s staff? Oh, give it here; I’ll fix it.” She held out her hand, a little reluctantly. I could see she didn’t really want to take the sword. After what had happened the last time she’d touched it, I really couldn’t blame her.

  “That’s all right, I’ll do it,” I said. “It’s my job. All I need is something dry to wipe it with.”

  Shiara glared at me. “All I have is my tunic, and I am not going to take it off just so you can dry your stupid sword! If you won’t give it to me, it can rust.”

  My face got very hot. “I, um, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... I mean, I didn’t think...”

  “Oh, shut up and give me the sword.”

  I held it out. Shiara took it, a little gingerly, but neither of us felt anything unusual. While she wiped it dry on the front of her tunic, I walked over to the stream. I was pretty sure, now, that it was safe to drink from this stream. I’d swallowed some of it when the wizard’s wave had hit me, and nothing had happened to me yet. I bent over and took a drink.

  The water was clean and cold, with just a hint of lime. It tasted awfully good, though I prefer the lemon-flavored streams myself. However, I wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky. I think I like lemon because Mother and I got most of our drinking water from a lemon-flavored stream just inside the forest. It was much nicer than the well water we used for washing, even if it was more work to haul the buckets that far.

  Shiara came over just as I finished. She looked at me for a minute, then handed me the sword. “Here.” I took it, and she sat down and started trying to drink out of her cupped hands. Most of the water ran out, but she kept trying.

  I stood holding the sword and wondering what I was going to do with it. I mean, walking through the Enchanted Forest with a sword in your hand is just asking for trouble. On the other hand, I couldn’t put it away until the sheath dried out, and that would probably take hours. I was still trying to figure out what to do when Shiara finished drinking and sat up.

  “Now, what are we going to do about that wizard’s staff?” she said.

  Neither one of us wanted to take it. Shiara wanted to hide the pieces before we left, and finally I agreed. We walked back over to the tree. I started to put my sword down; then I changed my mind. One of the easiest ways of losing important things in the Enchanted Forest is to put them down while you do something else; when you get back, they’re gone. Then you have to go to all the bother of finding whoever took your things before you can get on with whatever you really want to do. I shifted the sword into my left hand and looked around for the nearest piece of staff.

  “Daystar! Come see!” Shiara was waving a piece of the staff to attract my attention.

  “You really shouldn’t do that,” I said as I walked over. “You might set off a spell or something. This used to be a wizard’s staff, remember? We ought to at least try to be careful.”

  “Yes, but look what it did,” Shiara said, pointing. I looked down. There was a brown patch in the moss, just the size and shape of the stick Shiara was holding. I bent over and looked more closely. The moss was dry and brittle; the stems broke as soon as I touched them.

  “But this is the Enchanted Forest,” I said to no one in particular. “You aren’t supposed to be able to do things like this.”

  “Well, this wizard’s staff did,” Shiara said. “I bet it’ll do it again, too.” Before I could stop her, she laid the stick down on the moss. She picked it up almost immediately. The moss underneath it was brown and dead. I stared.

  “I don’t like this,” I said. There aren’t very many things you can be sure of in the Enchanted Forest, but I’d never seen a dead plant there, not even in the Outer Forest. The whole place felt too alive to put up with that sort of thing. “I wonder if all wizard’s staffs do that.”

  “I don’t know about other staffs, but we can check the other pieces of this one,” Shiara said. She walked toward one of the other two sticks. I sighed and started for the last one.

  “This one’s the same,” Shiara reported after a minute. “What about yours?”

  “Just a minute,” I said. I bent over and picked it up in my right hand.

  When I woke up, Shiara was dripping water on my face. “You can stop now,” I said. “I’m wet enough already.”

  Shiara shook her head. “Are you all right? I mean, you’re not enchanted or anything, are you?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so, but if I am, we’ll find out pretty soon.” I sat up and realized I’d been lying on the moss at the foot of the tree. “What happened?”

  “How should I know? One minute you were standing there with that sword, and then there was some kind of explosion and when I turned around you were lying on the ground and that piece of the wizard’s staff was over there, burning. I don’t think anyone’s going to put that staff back together again; it was the middle piece.” Shiara scowled. “But I think you were right about that elf.”

  “Where’s my sword?” I said. All of a sudden I was sure someone had taken it while Shiara and I weren’t paying attention.

  “In your hand,” Shiara said. She sounded a little exasperated. “You wouldn’t let go of it.”

  I looked down. She was right; my left hand was still clenched around the hilt. When I relaxed my hand a little, the fingers started to tingle. I’d been holding the hilt so tightly that my hand had fallen asleep.

  Well, at least I hadn’t lost it. I started to shift the sword back to my right hand, then stopped and swallowed hard. The hand was burned black; I couldn’t even feel it. I looked away, feeling sick. Shiara was staring, too.

  “Daystar, I didn’t notice, I was so worried about waking you up I didn’t even see—” She stopped. She tilted her head back until she was looking up the tree trunk, and her eyes flashed. “I’m going to find you somebody who can fix this,” she said grimly. “And then I’m going to find that stupid elf and make him sorry he ever mentioned that wizard’s staff.” The way she said it made me very, very glad I wasn’t an elf, particularly the elf she’d be looking for.

  “It doesn’t really hurt or anything,” I offered. As soon as I said it, my arm started to throb. Not the hand; it was my wrist and arm that hurt. As far as I was concerned, that was more than enough.

  “That’s bad,” Shiara said. She looked worried. “I know a little about burns, from the times when I... Are you sure you can’t feel anything?”

  “Not in my hand,” I said. “And I’d really rather not talk about it. It might help me not notice the way my arm feels.”

  “Well, let me look at it, then, and I won’t have to ask questions,” Shiara said.

  I stuck my right hand out in her direction and stared at my sword for a couple of minutes. I didn’t succeed in ignoring the sensations that were coming from my arm, but I tried awfully hard. Finally Shiara said, “You can put it down now.” I looked back in her direction.

  “It’s bad,” she said. “I don’t know what to do for it, either. We have to find help, and pre
tty soon, too. There has to be someone in this forest who knows something about healing! Can you walk?”

  “My legs are all right,” I said. I started to stand up and discovered I was very dizzy. I made it on the second try, but only by using the sword as a prop.

  Shiara picked a direction and we started walking. After about twenty steps I stopped worrying about which way we were going and concentrated on walking and hanging on to the sword. It was hard; I was still dizzy, and I was beginning to feel cold, too. I had to work at it. My arm felt as if it were on fire, and I started wondering whether the wizard’s staff had done something else nasty in addition to burning my hand.

  I don’t know how far we went before we stopped. By that time, Shiara was holding my good arm, trying to help me walk. She wasn’t as much help as she could have been, because she had to keep out of the way of the sword I was holding. As soon as we quit walking, I sat down.

  “Daystar, are you sure you can’t put that sword away yet?” Shiara asked. “It gets in the way a lot.”

  “The sheath is still wet,” I said hazily.

  “Well, can we at least put the sheath in the sun so it’ll dry faster?” Shiara said.

  I looked around. I was starting to feel sort of light-headed as well as dizzy, and on top of everything I was getting thirsty. “We can’t do that,” I said. “The cat has the only patch of sun around here.”

  “What cat?”

  “That one.” I pointed at the large, dignified, black-and-white cat that was cleaning its face in the middle of a puddle of sunlight. It didn’t even strike me as odd that I hadn’t noticed it until I started talking about it.

  Shiara turned her head. As soon as she looked at it, the cat stopped washing itself. It stared at her for a minute, then stood up. The tip of its tail twitched three times, and it turned around and started walking away. After a minute, it stopped and looked back over its shoulder. It was obviously waiting.

  Shiara jumped up. “Come on, Daystar. We’re going to follow the cat. I think somebody sent it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said, but I wasn’t in very good shape to argue. Eventually, Shiara got me back on my feet. The cat was still waiting for us, but as soon as we moved in its direction it started walking again. I decided Shiara was right and concentrated on walking.

  I don’t know how far we followed the cat. It seemed like a long way, but anything would have seemed like a long way at that point. My arm hurt, and every muscle in my body felt shaky. I never quite dropped the sword, but a couple of times I came close. After a while I stopped thinking about it.

  Finally Shiara stopped moving. “I was about ready for another rest,” I said fuzzily. “Is the cat still around?”

  “This isn’t a rest,” Shiara said. “We’re here.”

  I looked up. We were standing in front of a neat grey house with a wide porch and a red roof. A wisp of smoke was coming out of the chimney; whatever was cooking smelled delicious. Over the door was a black-and-gold sign in block letters, which read:

  NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE.

  I’m going to like whoever lives here, I thought.

  The door of the house was closed, but the black-and-white cat jumped up on the porch and scratched at it. A moment later, the door swung partway open and the cat disappeared inside.

  5

  WE STAYED WHERE we were for a minute, waiting. I don’t think either one of us really knew what to do next. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do anything; a few minutes after the cat vanished, the door opened the rest of the way and the owner of the house appeared.

  She was dressed in a very loose black robe with long sleeves, and she was wearing a small pair of glasses with rectangular lenses. She was considerably shorter than I was, though she obviously wasn’t a dwarf. She managed to look down her nose at both of us anyway. Standing on the porch helped, I think. “It’s about time you got here,” she said.

  “Do you know anything about healing?” Shiara demanded.

  “Of course I do, or I wouldn’t have sent Quiz out to get you,” said the woman.

  “Quiz?”

  “The cat. Do you plan to stand there all day? I certainly can’t do anything for you while you’re outside.”

  So we went inside. The porch steps didn’t creak. Neither did the porch, and the hinges of the door didn’t squeak at all, either. I didn’t think they would dare.

  The inside of the house seemed to consist of a single large, airy room, full of cats. Practically every flat surface had a cat lying on it, except the top of the stove in the corner. I counted five cats before I stopped. Several of the cats had furniture under them, and there was a table in the middle of the room and another door next to the stove.

  The woman in the black robe shooed two of the cats off of chairs, and Shiara and I sat down at the table. Shiara looked at me. “You can put that stupid sword down now. No one’s going to take it.”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t know why I wanted to hold on to the sword, and I didn’t have enough energy to explain it if I had known. I just knew I wanted it in my hand.

  “Sword?” said the woman in black. “Oh, that sword. It’s quite proper of you to keep it for now. Now, if I may see your hand?” She came over next to me and examined my right arm, while I carefully didn’t watch. Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt when she touched it. After a minute or so, she nodded.

  “Just as I thought. This could have been very bad, but you got here in plenty of time.” She went over to a cupboard by the stove and took out a piece of something that looked like dried vine. She brought it back to me and tied it around my arm, muttering something as she did. Suddenly my head wasn’t fuzzy anymore.

  “That should take care of things for the time being,” she said, “and in a little while I can take care of the magic. Then we can pack the burns with salve. Would you like some cider while you wait?”

  I nodded; I was still thirsty. Shiara frowned. “Can’t you do anything right away?”

  “I have done something,” the woman said. She set three mugs on the table, all different. “Several things, in fact. I sent Quiz out to bring you here, and I have stopped the damage from spreading. I have also made gingerbread, which should finish baking any minute now. When it’s done, we can get on with things.”

  “Why did you send a cat out for us?” Shiara demanded. “How did you know? Who are you, anyway?”

  The woman looked through her glasses. “I didn’t have a dog to send. I’m a witch. My name is Morwen. And you?” She stopped. The cats looked at us.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “This is Shiara, and I’m Daystar.”

  “Why do we have to wait?” Shiara asked again.

  “It is an extremely bad idea to mix magic and cooking,” Morwen said. “Don’t worry, the gingerbread won’t take very much longer.” She got out a large jug and began pouring the contents into the mugs. “There!” she said as she set the jug down. “Help yourselves; I will be back in a minute.”

  Morwen went over to the second door and opened it. I got a glimpse of a small yard with a square garden, a well, and two more cats. Then the door closed with a swish of black robe. I stared at my mug, wondering how I was going to pick it up without putting my sword down. Then I heard a sniffle. I turned my head. Shiara was not crying. Much.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “It’s all my f-fault!” Shiara said miserably. “If you hadn’t been with me, you wouldn’t have run into that wizard at all, and if I hadn’t insisted on hiding that stupid staff, you wouldn’t have gotten your hand...” Her voice sort of trailed off into snuffles. I sighed.

  “If you want my handkerchief, you’ll have to get it out yourself,” I said. “And it’s probably still pretty wet. But you can have it if you want it.”

  That made Shiara look like she was really going to burst into tears. Fortunately, the witch came back before she could. Morwen was carrying an armload of plants; when she saw Shiara, she put them down on the table and produced a large
black handkerchief from somewhere inside her sleeve.

  “That is quite enough of that,” she said, handing the handkerchief to Shiara. “It does nothing constructive, it makes everyone else feel bad, and it is extremely self-indulgent. Drink your cider; you’ll feel much better.”

  Just then one of the cats made a loud noise, sort of a cross between a purr and a meow. “Good; the gingerbread is done,” Morwen said. She got it out of the oven and gave us each a piece. Shiara looked much better by that time, even if she still didn’t seem really happy. Morwen put a large pot of water on the stove and then started sorting through the plants she had brought in. After a minute, she frowned.

  “Two sprays or three?” she muttered. “I suppose I’d better look it up.” She put the plants down and went out again. A few seconds later, she came back holding a book; I saw a roomful of shelves behind her before the door closed.

  I blinked. My head didn’t feel fuzzy; but I was sure that door had led out to the yard a minute ago. I looked around the room, but there weren’t any other doors except the one we’d come in through. Finally I decided to ask. It took me another minute to figure out how to phrase the question.

  “Excuse me, Morwen? Would you mind telling me where that door leads?”

  Morwen stuck a finger in the book and looked up. “Wherever I want to get to. What good is a door if you can’t get somewhere useful by walking through it? Within reason, of course.” She went back to the book. I thought about it for a minute. Then I decided not to think about it; I was afraid it was going to make sense.

  Instead, I looked at my cider and gingerbread. I was just about ready to put the sword on the floor so I could eat, when Morwen set the book down next to the plants and looked over at me.

  “Daystar, you aren’t— Oh, of course, you’re still holding the sword. No, don’t put it down yet; this will only take a few more minutes.” She picked up a handful of plants. “Come here, please, both of you.”