Dealing with Dragons ef-1

by Patricia Collins Wrede

  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 "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, Turn the fire back to its birth."

  "It's a variation on a dragon spell," Cimorene added thoughtfully.

  "How do you know that?" Alianora asked.

  "The court wizard at home mentioned it when he was teaching me magic," Cimorene replied, studying the directions.

  "Then maybe it really will work on dragon fire. Can we get all the ingredients for the initial casting?"

  "I think so, but it'll take a while," Cimorene said. "I don't have any wolfsbane, and I'm not at all sure about unicorn water. Come on, let's check and see what we need to get."

  They took the scroll into the kitchen and began hunting through t
he shelves and supplies. They found more of the ingredients than Cimorene had expected, and she began to wonder whether one of Kazul's previous princesses might have studied magic. They did not, however, find any wolfsbane or unicorn water, nor were they able to locate any white eagle feathers. Alianora discovered a very cobwebby jar labeled "POWDERED HEN'S TEETH," but it was quite empty.

  Cimorene made a list of the ingredients they still needed, while Alianora changed back into her pearl-embroidered dress. Alianora took a copy of the list and went back to her quarters, much excited, to see whether she happened to have anything useful in the dusty, disused corners of her dragon's kitchen. Cimorene doubted that she would find anything, but there was no harm in letting her look.

  As soon as Alianora left, Cimorene tidied up the kitchen and put all but two of the books back on the shelves in the library. One was the scroll of spells in which she had found the fireproofing spell, because she wanted to take a more careful look at some of the other charms and enchantments it described. The other book was a fat volume bound in worn leather, with the words Historia Dracorum in cracked and flaking gold leaf on the cover.

  Cimorene had decided it was time she really got to work on her Latin.

  6

  In Which the Wizards Do Some Snooping, and Cimorene Snoops Back

  For the next three weeks, Cimorene spent most of her free time studying the fireproofing spell and collecting the ingredients she would need to cast it.

  A few, like the wolfsbane and feverfew, she could gather herself from the herbs that grew on the slopes of the mountains. Alianora found a little jar of hippopotamus oil among the cosmetics left by her predecessor. The unicorn water Cimorene got from Morwen, after promising her a copy of the spell if it worked. She went to Kazul about the white eagle feathers, though she was a little afraid to explain what she wanted them for. She didn't want Kazul to think that she was worried about Kazul losing her temper and accidentally roasting her. Fortunately, the dragon found the whole idea very interesting.

  "It could be very useful," Kazul said reflectively. "There are enough hot-tempered youngsters around that it would be well worth fireproofing the princesses who have to deal with them."

  "I'm not sure I'll be able to fireproof anyone at all," Cimorene said.

  "I still need the white eagle feathers and the powdered hens' teeth, and nobody seems to have any."

  "I'll see what I can do," Kazul said, and a few days later she dropped a bundle of white feathers at the door of the kitchen. Half a feather was stuck to one of her right claws, and another was caught between two of her teeth, and she looked very pleased with herself. Cimorene decided not to ask any awkward questions. Even Kazul, however, could not find any hens' teeth, so Cimorene had to keep putting off trying out the spell.

  When she wasn't working on collecting the ingredients for the fire-proofing spell, Cimorene read the Historia Dracorum. It was very difficult at first. After all, it had been a long time since her last Latin lesson. She kept working at it until she started to remember the right endings for the declensions and conjugations and cases. Shortly after that she realized that she was not having to look up quite as many words as she had at the beginning.

  From then on, her progress was rapid. It helped that she found the book fascinating. Dragon history was not a subject commonly taught to princesses in Linderwall. But as she was now a dragon's princess, she had personal reasons to be interested. Besides, the history of the dragons was very exciting. Every page was full of descriptions of dragons ravaging villages, carrying off princesses, defeating knights and princes (and occasionally being defeated by them), and fighting with wizards, giants, and each other. When the book wasn't describing battles, it was describing famous dragons' hoards and peculiar draconian customs.

  Cimorene was in the library with the Historia Dracorum in front of her and her Latin dictionary on the table beside her left hand when she heard someone calling from the front of the cave. She had hoped it would be at least a little longer before the knights started coming back, so she couldn't help sighing as she stuck a leather bookmark in the book and closed it.

  Then she went out to argue with whoever it was until they went away.

  Two wizards were standing just outside the mouth of the cave.

  Cimorene saw their wooden staffs first, before she was close enough to see their faces. As she came nearer, she recognized the one on the left as Zemenar. The one on the right was taller and younger; his brown hair and beard showed no trace of gray. His blue and brown robes were identical to the older wizard's, except for the colors. His eyes were the same bright black as his companion's, and he looked at Cimorene in a way that made her feel uneasy.

  "Good morning to you, Princess Cimorene," Zemenar said. "I thought I would take you up on your kind invitation to visit. I hope we haven't come at an inconvenient time?"

  "Not at all," Cimorene said, thinking hard. She had promised Kazul that she would try to find out what Zemenar was after if he showed up, and here he was. Maybe if she convinced him that she was as silly as her sisters, he would be careless enough to let something slip.

  "I thought perhaps we might have since it took you so long to come out," Zemenar said mildly, but Cimorene thought there was a hint of suspicion in his eyes.

  "I must not have heard you right away," Cimorene said, batting her eyes innocently, the way her next youngest sister did whenever she had done something particularly foolish. "Kazul has quite a large set of caves, and I was in one of the ones at the back. I'm so sorry."

  "Ah." Zemenar stroked his beard with his left hand. "That would make it difficult for you. Perhaps we could set up a spell for you, one that would let you know whenever anyone comes to visit. It would be more pleasant for visitors, too, if they didn't have to shout. What do you think, Antorell?"

  "Like the one at the headquarters of the society," the second wizard said, nodding. "We could do it in two or three minutes, right from here. It'd be easy."

  Zemenar shot a dark look at his companion. Cimorene was sure that he'd wanted to pretend he was inventing a difficult new spell, so that he would have an excuse to wander around Kazul's caves. "Quite so," said Zemenar. "Well, Princess?"

  "Oh, dear, I don't know," Cimorene said, doing her best to imitate the way her eldest sister behaved whenever anyone wanted her to decide anything.

  "It sounds very nice, but Kazul is so picky about where things go and how things are done .... No, I couldn't, I simply couldn't let you do anything like that without asking Kazul first."

  "What a pity," Zemenar said. His companion coughed and shuffled his feet. "Ah, yes. Allow me to present my son, Antorell. I hope you don't mind my bringing him along?"

  "Of course not," Cimorene said politely.

  "I am pleased to make the acquaintance of such a lovely princess," Antorell said, bowing.

  Cimorene blinked. This wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe if she brought them inside they'd relax a Little. "Thank you," she said to Antorell.

  "Won't you come in and have some tea?"

  "We would be delighted," Zemenar said quickly. "If you'll lead the way, Princess?"

  "This way," Cimorene said. She stopped just inside the mouth of the cave and gave the wizards her sweetest and most innocent smile. "You can leave your staffs right here. Just lean them up against the wall."

  Antorell looked considerably startled, and Zemenar frowned. "Is this, too, something your dragon requires?" he said.

  "I don't know," Cimorene said, wrinkling up her forehead the way her third-from-eldest sister did whenever she was puzzled (which was often).

  "But they'll be so awkward in the kitchen. Don't you think so? There's not very much room."

  "We'll manage," Zemenar said.

  Cimorene hadn't really expected to get the wizards to let go of their staffs, but it had been worth a try. She shrugged and smiled and led them on into the kitchen, where she made a point of bumping into the staffs or tripping over them every time she went by. Finally Antorell turne
d his sideways and stuck it under the table. Zemenar hung onto his with a kind of grim, suspicious stubbornness that made Cimorene wonder whether she was fooling him at all with her pretended silliness.

  The wizards made uncomfortable conversation about the weather and the size of the kitchen for several minutes while Cimorene fixed the tea and poured it. "Are the rest of Kazul's caves this large?" Zemenar asked as Cimorene handed him his teacup. She had given him the one with the broken handle, even though he was a guest, because she didn't trust him.

  "Oh, yes," Cimorene said. She was beginning to think she was never going to find out anything. The two wizards seemed perfectly happy to sit at the kitchen table and talk about nothing whatever for hours.

  "Remarkable," said Antorell in an admiring tone. "You know, we wizards don't often get to see the inside of a dragon's cave."

  I'll bet you don't, thought Cimorene as she gave him a puzzled smile.

  "That's too bad," she said aloud.

  "Yes, it is," Zemenar said. "Perhaps you'd be willing to show us around?"

  Cimorene thought very rapidly. It was obvious that she wasn't going to learn anything if the wizards just sat at the kitchen table and drank tea, so she decided to take a chance. "Well," she said in a doubtful tone, "I suppose it would be all right as long as I don't take you into the treasure rooms."

  "That's fine," Antorell said, a little too quickly.

  "You won't touch anything, will you?" Cimorene said as they stood up.