Dealing with Dragons ef-1

by Patricia Collins Wrede

  "Kazul is so particular about where things are kept…"

  "Of course not," Zemenar said, smiling insincerely.

  Cimorene smiled back and led the way out into the hall. She watched the wizards carefully as she took them through the large main cave, the general storage caverns, and the big cavern where Kazul visited with other dragons. Zemenar made polite noises about the size and comfort of everything, but neither he nor Antorell seemed very interested.

  "And this is the library," Cimorene said, throwing the door open.

  "I am impressed," Zemenar said, and Cimorene could tell that this time he meant it. She stepped sideways, so that she could keep an eye on both of the wizards at the same time.

  "A remarkable collection," Antorell commented. He began walking around the room, admiring the bookshelves and scanning the titles of the books.

  "What's this?" Zemenar said, bending over the table. "The Historia Dracorum? A surprising choice for light reading, Princess." His eyes met Cimorene's, and they were hard and bright and suspicious.

  "Oh, I'm not reading it," Cimorene said hastily, opening her eyes very wide. "I just thought it would make the library look nicer to have a book or two sitting out on the table. More-more lived-in."

  Zemenar nodded, looking relieved and faintly contemptuous. "I think it works very well, Princess," he said. "Very well indeed." Then he looked over at the other side of the room and said sharply, "Antorell! What are you doing?"

  Cimorene turned her head in time to see Antorell put out a hand and deliberately tip several books off one of the shelves. "Stop that!" she said, forgetting to sound silly.

  "I'm very sorry, Princess," Antorell said. "Will you help me put them back where they belong?"

  Cimorene had no choice but to go over and help him. It took several minutes to get everything back in place because Antorell kept dropping things. Cimorene got quite annoyed with him and finally did it all herself.

  As she started to turn back to the center of the room, she caught a glimpse of Zemenar hastily closing the Historia Dracorum. Cimorene pretended not to notice, but she made a mental note that he had been looking at something near the middle of the book.

  "That was dreadfully careless of you," Cimorene said, frowning at Antorell.

  "Very clumsy," Zemenar agreed.

  "I don't know what Kazul will say when she finds out about it," Cimorene went on. "Really, it is too bad of you. I did ask you not to touch anything, you know."

  "Yes, you did," Zemenar said. "And I wouldn't like to think that we had gotten you in trouble. Perhaps it would be best if you didn't mention to Kazul that we were here at all."

  "I suppose I could do that," Cimorene said in a doubtful tone.

  "Of course you can," Antorell said encouragingly. "And I'll come back in a few days, to make sure everything's all right."

  "I think it's time we were on our way," Zemenar said, giving his son a dark look. "Thank you for showing us around, Princess."

  Cimorene escorted them out of the cave and made sure they had left, then hurried back to the library. She spent the next several hours poring over the middle parts of the Historia Dracorum, trying to figure out what Zemenar had been looking at. She was still there when Kazul arrived home and called for her.

  "That wizard Zemenar finally came, and he brought his son along with him," Cimorene said as she came out of the library.

  "I know," said Kazul. Her voice sounded a little thick, as if she had a cold. "I could smell them the minute I came in."

  "Is that why you sound so odd?" Cimorene asked. "You're not going to sneeze, are you?"

  "I don't think so," Kazul replied. "Don't worry about it. I'll have plenty of time to turn my head away."

  "I wish I could get hold of some hens' teeth," Cimorene said, frowning.

  "That fireproofing spell-" "Have you looked in the treasure rooms?"

  Kazul asked.

  "No," Cimorene replied, startled. She remembered seeing a number of jars and bottles of various shapes and sizes when she had been organizing the treasure, and none of them had been labeled. "I didn't think of it, and besides, it's your treasure."

  "You're my princess, at least until someone rescues you or I decide otherwise," Kazul pointed out. "Go ahead and look, and if you find any hens' teeth, use them. Be careful when you're checking the jars, though.

  There are one or two with lead stoppers that shouldn't be opened."

  "Lead stoppers," Cimorene said. "I'll remember."

  "Good. Now, what did those wizards want?"

  "I'm not sure." Cimorene explained everything that had happened, including how she had seen Zemenar closing the history book as she turned and how the two wizards had been perfectly willing to leave right after that.

  "But just before they disappeared, Antorell said he might come back another time," Cimorene concluded. "So I don't know whether they found what they were looking for or not."

  "Do you know which part of the Historia Dracorum Zemenar was reading?"

  Kazul asked.

  "Somewhere in the middle, a little past my bookmark," Cimorene replied.

  "I was just looking at it when you came in. It's the part about how the dragons came to the Mountains of Morning and settled into the caves and chose a king."

  "That's the section where the History describes the Caves of Fire and Night, isn't it?" Kazul said.

  Cimorene nodded. "There was a whole page about somebody finding a stone in the caves so that the dragons could pick a king. It didn't make much sense to me."

  "Colin's Stone," Kazul said, nodding. "We've used it to choose our king ever since the first time. When a king dies, all the dragons go to the Ford of Whispering Snakes in the Enchanted Forest and take turns trying to move Colin's Stone from there to the Vanishing Mountain. The one that succeeds is the next king."

  "What if there are two dragons strong enough to move it?" Cimorene asked curiously.

  "It's not a matter of strength," Kazul said. "Colin's Stone isn't much larger than you are. Even a small dragon could carry that much weight twice around the Enchanted Forest without any trouble at all. But Colin's Stone has an aura, a kind of vibration. When you carry it, you can feel it humming through your claws, and the humming gets stronger the farther you go until your bones are shaking. Most dragons have to drop it or be shaken to pieces, but there's always one who is… suited to the stone. For that dragon, the stone's humming is just a pleasant buzz, so of course it's easy to get it to the Vanishing Mountain."

  "You sound as if you've had experience," Cimorene said.

  "Of course," Kazul responded matter-of-factly. "I was old enough to participate in the tests when the last king died." She smiled reminiscently. "I got farther than anyone expected me to, though I wasn't one of the top ten by any means."

  Cimorene tilted her head to one side, considering. "I think I'm glad you didn't win."

  "Oh? Why is that?" Kazul sounded amused.

  "Because you wouldn't have had any use for a princess if you were the Queen of the Dragons, and if you hadn't decided to take me on, that yellow-green dragon Moranz would probably have eaten me," Cimorene explained.

  "You mean, if I were the King of the Dragons," Kazul corrected her.

  "Queen of the Dragons is a dull job."

  "But you're a female!" Cimorene said. "If you'd carried Colin's Stone from the Ford of Whispering Snakes to the Vanishing Mountain, you'd have had to be a queen, wouldn't you?"

  "No, of course not," Kazul said. "Queen of the Dragons is a totally different job from King, and it's not one I'm particularly interested in. Most people aren't. I think the position's been vacant since Oraun tore his wing and had to retire."

  "But King Tokoz is a male dragon!" Cimorene said, then frowned.

  "Isn't he?"

  "Yes, yes, but that has nothing to do with it," Kazul said a little testily.

  "'King' is the name of the job. It doesn't matter who holds it."

  Cimorene stopped and thought for a moment. "You
mean that dragons don't care whether their king is male or female; the title is the same no matter who the ruler is."

  "That's right. We like to keep things simple."

  "Oh." Cimorene decided to return to the original topic of conversation before the dragon's "simple" ideas confused her any further. "Why would the wizards be interested in Colin's Stone if it's only used for picking out the kings of the dragons?"

  "I doubt that they are," Kazul replied. "However, Colin's Stone was found in the Caves of Fire and Night, and wizards have always been interested in the caves. But the dragons control most of them, and all the easy entrances are ours, so the wizards have never been able to find out as much as they would like. The Historia Dracorum is one of the few books that talks about the caves at all, and there aren't many copies. I'll wager Zemenar would have stolen it outright if he'd thought he could get away with it."

  "I thought the dragons let wizards into the Caves of Fire and Night," Cimorene objected. "Why would Zemenar be poking through history books looking for information if he can just go and look at them whenever he wants to?"

  "We don't let wizards visit the caves whenever they want," Kazul said.

  "If we did, they'd be running in and out all the time, and nobody would be able to breathe without sneezing. No, they're limited to certain days and times, and if they want to visit the Caves of Fire and Night otherwise, they have to use one of the entrances we don't control. Few of them try. The other ways of getting into the caves are very dangerous, even for wizards."

  "Maybe they're looking for an easier way in."

  "Mmm." Kazul did not seem to be paying much attention. She thought for a moment, then turned toward the cave mouth. "I'm going to go see Gaurim. Roxim said a book had been stolen from her library, and I want to know which one. I'll be back in a few hours."

  "I think I'll go look at the Historia Dracorum again while you're gone," Cimorene said thoughtfully. "If there is something useful in it about the Caves of Fire and Night, maybe I can find it, now that I know what I'm looking for."

  Cimorene spent the rest of the afternoon carefully translating the chapter that talked about the caves. She was disappointed to find that there was very little about the caves themselves, though what was there was interesting.

  The book told how the dragons had discovered the back way into the caves and described some of the things they had found in them-caverns full of blue and green fire, pools of black liquid that would cast a cloud of darkness for twenty miles around if you poured three drops on the ground, walls made of crystal that multiplied every sound a thousandfold, rocks that spurted fire when they were broken. Most of the rest of the chapter was about Colin's Stone, and how it was taken out of the caves by the first King of the Dragons.

  Kazul returned just before dinner, and she and Cimorene compared notes. Cimorene told Kazul what she had learned from the chapter on the Caves of Fire and Night, and then Kazul explained what she had learned from Gaurim.

  "The stolen book was The Kings of the Dragons, and the entire first section was about Colin's Stone and the Caves of Fire and Night," Kazul said. "And only a wizard could have gotten past the spells and safeguards Gaurim puts on her library. I think that settles it. The wizards are definitely collecting information about the Caves of Fire and Night."

  "Then why do they keep looking at books of dragon history?"

  Cimorene asked. "It seems like a roundabout way of finding out whatever it is that they want to know."

  "There isn't any other way to do it," Kazul said. "Nobody but dragons has ever had much to do with the caves, and no one has written much about them except in dragon histories. Even the wizards weren't particularly interested in them until a few years ago, except as a reliable route into the Enchanted Forest."

  "But from what I've been reading in the Historia Dracorum, the caves sound fascinating," Cimorene said. "You mean to say that no one has ever written anything about the Caves of Fire and Night except dragons?"

  "That's-" Kazul stopped suddenly, and her eyes narrowed. "No, that's not right. There was a rather rumpled scholar who talked his way into the caves a century or so back, and after he left he wrote an extremely dry book about what he found there. I'd forgotten about him."

  "Do you have a copy?" Cimorene asked hopefully.

  "No," Kazul said. "But I don't think the Society of Wizards does, either. There weren't very many of them printed, and a lot of those were lost in a flood a few years later. Some hero or other shoved a giant into a lake to drown him. The silly clunch didn't realize that if he put something that big into a lake, the water would have to go somewhere."

  "Well, that doesn't do us much good," Cimorene said. "It's nice that the Society of Wizards doesn't have a copy of that book, but if we can't get hold of one either-" "I didn't say that," Kazul said. "I don't have a copy myself, but I know who does."

  "Who?" Cimorene said impatiently.

  "Morwen. I'm afraid you're not going to be able to work on that fireproofing spell of yours tomorrow. We're going to take a trip to the Enchanted Forest instead."

  7

  In Which Cimorene and Kazul Make a Journey Underground

  Cimorene was surprised to hear that Kazul intended to take her along on the visit to Morwen, and she was not entirely sure she liked the idea.

  She had heard a great deal about the Enchanted Forest, and none of it was reassuring. People who traveled there were always getting changed into flowers or trees or animals or rocks, or doing something careless and having their heads turned backward, or being carried off by ogres or giants or trolls, or enchanted by witches or wicked fairies. It did not sound like a good place for a casual, pleasant visit.

  On the other hand, it seemed unlikely that anything dreadful would happen to Cimorene if she were traveling with a dragon, and she was looking forward to seeing Morwen again. Besides, Cimorene was curious.

  "And anyway," she said to herself, "Kazul says I'm going, and there's no point in worrying about it if I don't have any choice."

  Nevertheless, she decided to take one of the smaller magic swords along with her, if Kazul said it was all right. Cimorene saw no point in taking unnecessary chances.

  Kazul had no objection, so Cimorene picked out a small, plain-looking sword in a worn leather scabbard that made the wearer invincible, and they started off. Cimorene had assumed that Kazul would fly through the pass, but Kazul said no.

  "It's not that easy to get into the Enchanted Forest," she explained.

  "At least, not if you're trying to get in. Princes and youngest sons and particularly clever tailors stumble into it by accident all the time, but if one wants to go there on purpose, one has to follow the proper route."

  "I didn't think dragons had that kind of problem," Cimorene said.

  "Dragons don't," Kazul replied. "But you're not a dragon."

  So instead of flying through the Pass of Silver Ice, Kazul led Cimorene through the runnels. Cimorene had to walk very quickly to keep up, even though Kazul was moving slowly. It was not long before she was wishing that the runnels were high enough for her to ride on Kazul's back. The route twisted around and up and back and forth and down and around again until Cimorene was thoroughly lost. Finally they came to a gate made of iron bars that completely blocked the passage. Cimorene studied it carefully, but she could see no sign of a handle or a lock.

  "This is the entrance to the Caves of Fire and Night," Kazul said. "Be careful from here on, and don't wander away or you'll get lost."

  Cimorene refrained from saying that as far as she was concerned, they were lost already. "How are you going to open it?" she asked instead.

  "Like this," said Kazul.

  'By night and flame and shining rock Open thou they hidden lock.

  Alberolingarn!"

  As the sound of Kazul's voice died away, the iron gate swung silently open. "That's a very unusual opening spell," Cimorene commented, impressed.

  "It wasn't always that complicated," Kazul said. She sounded almo
st apologetic. "I believe the first version was very simple, just 'Open sesame,' but word got around and we had to change it."

  Cimorene nodded and followed Kazul through the gate and into the Caves of Fire and Night. For the first hundred yards or so, the only difference Cimorene could see between these caves and the ordinary runnels on the other side of the gate was that the Caves of Fire and Night were warmer.

  Then, very suddenly, her lamp went out, plunging everything into complete and utter blackness.

  Cimorene stopped walking immediately. "Kazul?"

  "It's quite all right, Princess," Kazul's disembodied voice said from out of the darkness. "This happens all the time here. Don't bother trying to relight the lamp. Just put your hand on my elbow and follow along that way."

  "All right," Cimorene said doubtfully. She groped with her free hand in the direction of Kazul's voice and scraped her knuckles on the dragon's scales. "Ow!"

  "Take your time," Kazul advised.

  "I'm ready," Cimorene said. Her right hand was pressed flat against the cool, rough-edged scales at the back of Kazul's left forearm.

  'Just don't move too fast, or I'll lose you or get stepped on or something."

  Kazul did her best to oblige, but Cimorene still had difficulty in keeping up. She had to take at least three steps for every one of Kazul's, and it seemed that every time she moved her foot, she hit a rock or an uneven place in the runnel floor. Then she would stumble, and her hand would scrape and slide against Kazul's scales, so that she was afraid she would lose contact with the dragon.

  "Are you sure I shouldn't try and relight the lamp?" Cimorene asked after her fifth painful stumble-and-slide.

  "Quite sure," Kazul said. "You see, it isn't-ah, there it goes."

  While Kazul was speaking, there was a flicker of light, and then the darkness rolled aside like a curtain being pulled. Cimorene found herself standing in a large cave whose walls glittered as if they were studded with thousands of tiny mirrors. The lamp in her left hand was burning cheerfully once more.

  "Was it the lamp?" Cimorene asked after studying it for a moment. "Or was it me?"