Patricia Wrede - Talking to Dragons

"But I want to-" The little dragon went. Shiara and I looked at each other, and then at Kazul. Kazul smiled. "Are you ready?"

I nodded jerkily. Shiara bent and picked up Nightwitch. Kazul's smile widened. "When I say 'Now,' draw your sword and run for the castle.

Don't look back, and don't stop for anything."

I nodded again because I didn't trust my voice just then. Kazul turned to the crowd of dragons, and suddenly everything was completely silent.

A shiver ran down my back, and I put my hand on the hilt of the Sword of the Sleeping King.

I felt the bee-in-the-jar buzz that was Shiara's magic, and a strong humming from all the dragons, but the strongest feeling of all was the purring I'd felt from the first time the sword made my arm tingle. It came from the castle. Not from the shimmerings around the castle; they just got in the way.

What I was feeling was the magic of the castle itself.

I took a tighter grip on the hilt of the sword. The tingling from the dragons got stronger and more positive, and abruptly Kazul turned and shouted, "Now!" As she spoke, the silver-and-green shimmering around the castle vanished.

I yanked the Sword of the Sleeping King out of its sheath and swung it at the golden glow that was still left between me and the castle. I felt an enormous shock as the sword hit, and then the shimmering vanished in an explosion of golden light.

I shook my head and heard Kazul shout, "Run!"

I took two steps and almost lost my balance. The ground wasn't hard and bare anymore; it was covered with slippery green fuzz. Shiara grabbed my arm just as I heard a series of explosions from behind us.

We ran. I could feel the jangling from the sword that meant there were wizards around somewhere, but I didn't stop to look for them. I was too busy trying to keep up with Shiara, hang on to the sword, and dig the key out of my pocket, all at the same time.

Shiara was standing in front of the door, panting, when I got up to it with the key. I didn't see a keyhole, but as soon as my foot touched the top step of the stairs, the door swung open.

"Daystar," Shiara said, "are you sure-" Something hit the stone of the castle next to the door and exploded, showering us with little chips of rock. Shiara and I dove through the door and landed on the floor inside with Nightwitch on top of us. I sat up just as the door closed silently behind us.

"Hey!" Shiara said. "Watch what you're doing with that sword!"

"I'm sorry." I stood up, stuck the key in my pocket again, and held out a hand to help Shiara up. "Is your arm all right?"

"I think so," she said absently. "At least, it doesn't hurt any more than it did already. Now, which way do we go?"

"I don't know." The door shook as something hit it, and a moment later there was a muffled explosion. "I think we should get out of here, though."

"Aren't you going to put that stupid sword away first?"

"No," I said. "I'd rather have it in my hand, in case some of the wizards do get into the castle."

Shiara scowled, but she didn't object again, and we started hunting.

The castle was even more confusing on the inside than it was on the outside. Rooms opened into more rooms and then suddenly into a hallway or a flight of stairs. All of them were full of chairs and tables and books and suits of armor, and everything was dusty. The wizards' spell had kept spiderwebs and cobwebs out of the castle, but it hadn't done anything at all about the dust. Nightwitch didn't like it at all. She kept sneezing, until finally Shiara picked her up and carried her.

It took a lot longer to figure out where we were going than I'd expected.

I could feel the sword pulling me toward the center of the castle, but it was very hard to just go in that direction. In spite of Kazul's instructions, Shiara and I kept getting into hallways that curved the wrong way and chains of rooms that ended with nowhere else to go. It was very discouraging.

Finally, we came to a pleasant room with a big window and a desk in one corner. "This doesn't look right, either," Shiara said. "Do you think-" "Doesn't look right?" growled a voice up near the ceiling.

"Of course it doesn't look right! It's been seventeen years since anybody has dusted in here. And I haven't had any visitors except the mice."

I looked up and saw a wooden gargoyle in one corner. It made a face at me and went on, "Who are you, and what are you doing in here?"

"I'm Daystar, and I'm looking for the King of the Enchanted Forest," I said.

"Oh yeah? What for?" the gargoyle demanded suspiciously.

"I think I'm supposed to return his sword."

"His-Oh, I see. Well, he isn't here. Hasn't been for seventeen years, and boy, am I going to give him an earful when he gets back."

"Come on, Daystar, we're wasting time," said Shiara.

"Try the great hall, down the corridor to your left," the gargoyle yelled after us as we left the room. "And send somebody to wipe the dust out of my ears! The things I put up with-" Since nothing else had worked, we followed the gargoyle's directions and found ourselves in front of a large door at the end of a long hall. It was three times as wide as a normal door, and much taller, and it was made of gold with designs in relief. There was a staff lying on the floor in front of it, and I could tell from the jangling of the sword that it was a wizard's staff.

When I stopped to look at it, the sword jerked impatiently toward the door.

"I think this is the place we've been looking for," I said.

Shiara tried the door. "It's locked. Where's the key?"

'Just a minute." I dug for it. As soon as I touched it, I felt the key pulling at me, the same way the sword was. "Hey!"

"What is it?" Shiara said. "Come on, hurry up!"

"It's this key," I said as I unlocked the door. "It feels almost like the sword, except-" I stopped as the door swung open. The room inside was very large and very high, full of light and not dusty at all. In the center of the floor stood something like a shallow iron brazier, about three feet tall and nearly five feet across, full of glowing coals. On the other side of the brazier was a couch, and lying on the couch was a man.

He was dressed in expensive-looking clothes, but there were mars in them, as if he had been in a fight. He didn't look old, even though his beard was long and gray. His head was bare, and at his side was a jeweled scabbard, empty. He was asleep.

Shiara took a deep breath. "That must be him. Come on, Daystar, let's get this over with."

I stepped into the room and walked slowly toward the couch. This is too easy, I thought. As I came around the brazier, I saw that there was another wizard's staff lying beside the couch. Something felt wrong, and I slowed down even more. I stopped, standing next to the couch with the key in one hand and the sword in the other.

"Well, now that we're here, how do we break the spell?" Shiara asked, coming up on one side of me.

"Something's wrong," I said, and as I spoke I realized what it was.

The key was still pulling at me, but as soon as I had stepped into the room, the pulling from the sword had stopped. All I could feel from the sword was the jangling of the magic in the wizards' staffs.

"Maybe if you lay the sword on him it'll work," Shiara said, ignoring me. "You have to try something or we'll be here all day."

"I wouldn't try anything at all, if I were you," said a voice behind us.

Shiara and I spun around. The doorway was full of wizards.

I stared at the wizards for an instant, then turned and jumped for the couch, hoping I could break the spell before the wizards did anything.

I didn't make it. As I brought the flat of the sword down, the sleeping man vanished. The sword clanged softly against the couch, and I spun back to face the wizards.