Wrede, Patricia C - Enchanted Forest 01

by Dealing

  Alianora nodded. “I really do need it.”

  “I wonder if it would work without being dried?” Cimorene said. She pulled a leaf from one of the hanging plants and shredded it carefully between her fingers, then tossed it up in the air and recited the rhyme. “There! Now, light a candle or another lamp or something.”

  Alianora had already lit a candle and set it on the table. Cimorene moved over and stuck her finger in the flame.

  “I think it’s working,” she said, and moved the rest of her hand closer.

  The sleeve of her dress caught fire. Cimorene hastily pulled her hand away from the candle and slapped at the flames, while Alianora snatched up a bucket of water from beside the sink and poured it over Cimorene’s arm. The fire went out and so did the candle, and both Cimorene and Alianora got thoroughly soaked.

  “Oh, dear!” Alianora said, ignoring her soggy skirts. “Cimorene, did you burn yourself?”

  “No,” Cimorene said, looking at her arm with a puzzled expression. “I didn’t feel a thing. I thought the spell worked, but nothing caught fire when we tested it before.”

  “It must be because the feverfew is fresh instead of dried. And I had hoped that I’d be able to use it right away!”

  “If you’re that low on dried feverfew, take some of mine,” Cimorene offered. “Kazul’s not particularly irritable. I only need to keep a pinch or two in case of emergencies.”

  “Thank you!” Alianora said fervently, and Cimorene turned her soggy cuffs back and went to get the bottled spices.

  11

  In Which Kazul Is Unwell, and

  Cimorene Makes a New Acquaintance

  Alianora decided to return home by way of the path outside instead of through the tunnels because it was such a nice day and she hoped the sun would dry her skirt. Cimorene watched her go, swinging her basket happily and humming a little, her confidence and good humor completely restored by the possession of the fat little packet of dried feverfew in her pocket.

  “I wish I had as little to worry about,” Cimorene muttered, thinking of Woraug and the wizards. She held the burned patch at the end of her sleeve up to get a better look at it in the sunlight and shook her head. Even the magic wardrobe would have a hard time fixing that. A puff of wind made her shiver in her wet clothes, and she turned to go back into the cave to change.

  A dark shadow fell over Cimorene, and she stopped and looked up. “Kazul!” she said as the dragon landed on the open path beside her. “Am I glad to see you. Wait until you hear what’s been happening!”

  “You do appear to have had a rather strenuous day,” Kazul said, eyeing Cimorene’s wet, stained skirt and the blackened end of her right sleeve. “Nothing serious, I trust?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cimorene said. “Alianora and I went out to pick some feverfew, and we ran into that wizard Antorell.”

  “Where was this?”

  Cimorene pointed. “Up that way. There’s a little round valley off to one side that looks as if dragons never go there, and—”

  “You found a wizard there?” Kazul sounded deeply disturbed. “How did he get in? How did you get in?”

  “We climbed through a crack in a boulder,” Cimorene said. “I don’t know how Antorell did it. When he left, he was heading for the far side of the valley.”

  “This is serious,” Kazul said, getting to her feet “I’d better warn the King. He’ll have to use the crystal now.”

  “You’d better hear the rest of it first,” Cimorene said. “Antorell wasn’t too happy to see us, but when he found out that Alianora was Woraug’s princess, he relaxed. He seemed to think that Woraug had sent us.”

  “What?”

  Cimorene involuntarily stepped back a pace at the anger in Kazul’s voice. “He thought Woraug had sent us,” she repeated, and gave a quick summary of her conversation with Antorell.

  “Woraug!” Kazul’s tail lashed, sweeping a small boulder from one side of the path to the other. “But Woraug’s not a fool, and only a fool would let a wizard into that valley. Unless he was sure that they didn’t know ... What was Antorell doing?”

  “Cutting plants,” Cimorene said. “Or rather, cutting a plant. It didn’t look as if he took more than one.”

  “He wouldn’t need more than one, if it was the right one,” Kazul said tensely. “What did he pick?”

  “It was a prickly looking purple thing, with sawedged leaves,” Cimorene said, reaching into her pocket. “I didn’t recognize it, but I thought you might, so I brought a piece back for you to look—”

  “What?” Kazul roared.

  Flame spurted from the dragon’s mouth, enveloping Cimorene. Steam hissed from her wet skirt, and the thinner material of her sleeves vanished in a crackle of sparks. The handkerchief-wrapped spray of purple leaves, which she had just taken out of her pocket to show Kazul, disintegrated into a dark, greasy-looking cloud of smoke.

  Cimorene stared at the ashes in her palm, feeling very, very glad that she had decided to test the way fresh feverfew would work in the fireproofing spell. She felt a little warm, and her clothes had been reduced to a few charred rags, but that was nothing compared to what might have happened.

  “Now I understand why Alianora ran out of feverfew,” she muttered.

  A puff of wind brushed Cimorene’s arms, and she heard a choking sound from Kazul. She looked up, expecting to find the dragon laughing at her remark, and her eyes widened. Kazul’s head was thrown back, and her mouth was wide open, giving Cimorene an excellent view of the dragon’s sharp silver teeth and long red tongue. Cimorene skipped backward out of reach; then she realized that the dragon was gasping for air.

  “Kazul! What’s the matter?”

  “The smoke!” Kazul coughed. Her voice was so hoarse that it was hard for Cimorene to understand what she was saving.

  “What can I do?” Cimorene said, trying not to feel frightened.

  “Green jar—shelf in last treasure room,” Kazul managed between coughs. “Hurry.”

  Cimorene was already running through the mouth of the cave as fast as her feet could carry her. She did not even pause as she snatched up her lamp from the floor just inside the door. It seemed to take forever to get through the twisty passages and the first two caves full of treasure. She skidded to a halt in the doorway of the third room and stood panting, scanning the walls for the shelf and the right jar. She found it quickly and ran back at once, the jar clutched tightly in her right hand.

  The sound of Kazul’s coughing grew louder as Cimorene sped back the way she had come. At the mouth of the cave, Cimorene paused and set down the lamp, then unscrewed the top of the green jar. Inside was a thick, emerald-colored liquid about the consistency of honey. She looked out at Kazul. The dragon’s head jerked with each cough, and the scales on her neck were beginning to turn pink around the edges. For a long, careful moment Cimorene studied Kazul’s movements. Then she leaned back and threw the emerald liquid, jar and all, into the dragon’s open mouth just as Kazul took another gasping breath.

  The jar landed on Kazul’s tongue. The dragon’s mouth dosed, and she swallowed convulsively. Sudden silence descended.

  “Are you all right now?” Cimorene asked after Kazul had taken several deep breaths without a renewed bout of coughing.

  “I will be,” Kazul said. She sounded exhausted, and her movements as she slid into the cave were slow and uncertain.

  “What happened?” Cimorene said, backing out of the way so that Kazul would not have to exert herself to go around.

  “I got a breath of the smoke when the plant in your hand burned,” Kazul said as she settled to the floor just inside the entrance. “Lucky it was only a breath. I’ll need a few days of rest, but that’s better than being dead.”

  Cimorene stared at her, appalled. “What was that plant?”

  “Dragonsbane,” said Kazul. Her eyes closed and she slept.

  * * *

  Kazul continued to sleep for most of the next three days. She woke only long enough
for Cimorene to pour a couple of gallons of warm milk mixed with honey down her throat from time to time before she lapsed back into unconsciousness. Cimorene was very worried, but there wasn’t much that she could do. Sick dragons are too large and heavy for normal nursing to be of much use.

  On the afternoon of the third day, Kazul woke up completely for the first time since her collapse.

  “Thank goodness!” said Cimorene as Kazul shook her head experimentally and sat up. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep for a month.”

  “I might have if I’d gotten more than a whiff of that smoke.” Kazul stretched her neck in one direction and her tail in the other, trying to work out some of the kinks.

  “If I’d known it was so dangerous, I’d never have brought any of that purple plant back with me,” Cimorene apologized. “You might have done worse than sleep for a month. You might have—” She stopped, unwilling to complete the thought.

  “I might have died?” Kazul said. “Unlikely. If a dragon isn’t killed outright by something in the first five minutes, recovery is only a matter of time. That applies as much to dragonsbane as to a knight’s magic sword.”

  “Then why did you want that goo in the green jar?” Cimorene asked.

  “The antidote? I wanted it because I didn’t like the idea of spending a month recuperating when I didn’t have to. And since—” A fit of coughing interrupted Kazul in mid-sentence.

  Cimorene skipped backward out of the way. Frowning worriedly, she tossed a pinch of feverfew into the air and recited the verse from the fireproofing spell in case Kazul should lose control of her flame again. “Maybe you won’t need a month to recover, but three days obviously isn’t enough,” she said to the dragon. “You’d better lie back down before you choke.”

  “I can’t,” Kazul said. “I have to warn the King. If the wizards have had dragonsbane for three days already—” She started coughing again and had to stop talking.

  “You stay here,” Cimorene said in a firm tone. “I’ll warn the King.”

  “Tokoz won’t listen to you,” Kazul said, but she settled back to the ground. “Roxim will, though. Start with him.”

  “Roxim?” Cimorene said doubtfully. She was afraid the gray-green dragon would want to go charging out after the wizards as soon as he heard they were up to something.

  “He’ll listen to you, and the King will listen to him,” Kazul said. “It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we can do.”

  “All right, I’ll go see Roxim. You stay here and sleep.”

  “When you get back—”

  “I’ll wake you and tell you what he said,” Cimorene promised. “Now, go to sleep.”

  Kazul smiled slightly and closed her eyes. Cimorene caught up a lamp and almost ran to the exit at the back of the cave. She was afraid that Kazul would think of something else and start talking again, and she didn’t think talking would be good for her.

  In the tunnel outside, Cimorene paused, trying to remember the directions to Roxim’s cave. She had memorized a map in the library that showed most of the twists and turns of the dragons’ tunnels, but she knew from experience that in the miles of gray store corridors it was difficult to keep track of where she was.

  “Left, left, fifth right, past the little chamber, right again, on past the iron gate, two lefts to the third cave down,” she muttered to herself. “I wish Roxim’s cave were closer.” Still muttering, she started off.

  Though she was being very careful, Cimorene had to backtrack twice during the first part of her trip when a mistake in counting corridors led her to a dead end. When she finally saw the iron gate that led into the Caves of Fire and Night, she sighed in relief. The tricky part was over, and the rest of the trip would be easy. She held her lamp up and quickened her step, hoping to make up some of the time she had lost on her detours. Then, as she reached the bars that blocked the entrance to the Caves of Fire and Night, she stopped short. There was someone sitting on the ground on the other side of the gate.

  Cimorene had almost missed seeing him, and no wonder. His clothes, though well cut, were the same dark gray as the stone of the tunnel walls, and he was curled into a lumpy, dejected ball. He looked like a large rock. If he hadn’t moved his hand as she passed, Cimorene would never have realized he was alive.

  The man on the other side of the bars raised his head, and Cimorene saw with shock that his hair and skin were the same dark, even gray as his clothes. His eves, too, were gray, and their expression was apologetic.

  “Forgive me for startling you,” the man said, climbing ponderously to his feet. “I didn’t see you coming.” He made a stiff, formal bow.

  “Who are you?” Cimorene demanded. “And what are you doing in there?”

  “I’m a prince,” the man said in a gloomy tone, “and I’m reaping the rewards of my folly.”

  “What folly?”

  The prince sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “Somehow they always seem to be long,” Cimorene said. “You haven’t come to rescue me from the dragons, have you? Because if you have, I’m not going to let you out of there. I haven’t got time to spend an hour arguing today.”

  “I have no interest whatever in dragons, I assure you,” the prince said earnestly. “And if you would let me out, I’d be extremely grateful. Um, who are you, by the way?”

  “Cimorene, princess of the dragon Kazul,” Cimorene said. She studied the prince for a moment and decided that he looked trustworthy. “All right, I’ll let you out. Turn around and put your fingers in your ears.”

  “What?” the prince said, looking considerably startled.

  “It’s part of the spell to open the gate,” Cimorene said. She wasn’t about to let him overhear the words Kazul had used to unlock the door, even if he did look trustworthy.

  The prince shrugged and did as she directed. Quickly, Cimorene recited:

  “By night and flame and shining rock

  Open thou thy hidden lock.

  Alberolingam!”

  For an instant nothing happened, and Cimorene was afraid she had not remembered the charm correctly. Then the iron gate swung silently open. The prince, whose back was to the gate, did not notice. Cimorene touched his shoulder to get his attention, and her eyes widened.

  “Oh!” she said as he turned. “You’re—you’re stone.”

  “I know,” the prince said. “Ifs part of that long story I mentioned earlier. I haven’t gotten used to it yet.” He stepped through the gate, and it closed noiselessly behind him.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time to listen to stories just now,” Cimorene said politely. “I have a rather urgent errand to run, so if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Can’t I come with you?”

  Cimorene stared at him. “Why do you want to do that?”

  The stone prince looked down at his feet with an embarrassed expression. “Um, well, actually, I’m lost. And you seem to know your way around down here.” He glanced hopefully at Cimorene’s face, then sighed.

  “I suppose I can just wander around some more. I’ll have to find a way out eventually.”

  “You’ll run into a dragon and get eaten.”

  “I don’t think it will hurt stone,” the prince said. He sounded almost cheerful, as if he had only just realized that being made of stone might have some advantages.

  “Maybe not, but you’re sure to give the dragon indigestion,” Cimorene said. “Bother! I don’t have time for this!”

  “I could wait here if you’re coming back this way,” the stone prince suggested.

  Cimorene brightened, then frowned and shook her head. “No, one of the dragons might need to get into the Caves of Fire and Night, or it might be the turn of those dratted wizards. You can’t stay here.”

  “Then—”

  “I know! You can wait in the serving room, just off the banquet hall,” Cimorene said. “It’s close, there’s plenty of room, and I know no one’s using it today because I checked the schedule for Alianora yes
terday. I can take a shortcut out the back to get to Roxim’s without losing any more time. Come on.”

  “I really appreciate this,” the stone prince said as they started off. “You don’t know what it’s like, being lost in the dark in these caves.”

  “How did it happen?” Cimorene asked.

  The stone prince’s expression became gloomy once more. “It’s all that soothsayer’s fault,” he said.

  “Soothsayer?”

  “My father didn’t think it was appropriate to invite fairies to a prince’s christening, so he invited a soothsayer instead,” the prince replied. “The soothsayer took one look at me and said that I would grow up to do a great service for a king. I’ve been stuck with his blasted prophecy ever since.”

  “It doesn’t sound so terrible to me,” Cimorene said.

  “It wasn’t, at first,” the stone prince admitted. “I had special tutors in all sorts of interesting things to prepare me for being of great service to a king. My father even sent me to a special school for people who’re supposed to do special things.”

  “Did you do well?”

  “I was the top of my class,” the stone prince said with a flash of pride. His face fell again. “That’s part of the problem.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cimorene said. “This way. And can you walk a little faster, please? I’m in a hurry.”

  “It’s been three years since I graduated, and everyone’s still waiting for me to do something spectacular,” the stone prince said, lengthening his stride. “The rest of my classmates are already making names for themselves. George started killing dragons right away, and Art went straight home and pulled some sort of magic sword out of a rock. Even the ones nobody expected to amount to much have done something. All Jack wanted to do was go back to his mother’s farm and raise beans, and he ended up stealing a magic harp and killing a giant and all sorts of things. I’m the only one who hasn’t succeeded.”

  “Why not?”

  The stone prince sighed again. “I don’t know. At first it seemed as if I wouldn’t have any trouble finding a king to serve. Every time there was a war, both kings asked me to lead their armies, and every king for miles around who’d lost his throne to a usurper sent a messenger to my father’s court. It should have been simple. Only they were always so worried about whether I was going to side with their enemies that it was easier not to pick anyone.”