Patricia Wrede - Dealing with Dragons

Cimorene stood looking after Kazul, her forehead wrinkling in worry.

After a moment she shook herself and went inside. She had work to do.

Washing the dishes did not take long, and as soon as she was done, Cimorene set off to visit Alianora. The runnels and passageways were silent and empty, and Cimorene's footsteps echoed eerily through the darkness.

She began to wish she had taken the longer route along the outside of the mountain. She had not realized that the dragon city would seem so strange and lifeless with all the dragons gone.

"Psst! Cimorene!"

Cimorene jumped. She whirled in the direction of the voice, raising her lamp like a club, and Alianora stepped out of the adjoining tunnel and into the circle of light. In one hand she clutched a large bucket, three-quarters full of soapy water, and she looked rather pale.

"Alianora!" Cimorene said, lowering her arm. "What are you doing out here?"

"Shhh!" Alianora said. She looked nervously over her shoulder.

"Woraug told me to scrub off the table in the banquet room while everyone was away. And-and I heard someone moving around in there.

Even though everyone but us is gone. And I dropped my lamp, and-" "Oh, my goodness," Cimorene said. "The stone prince! I'd forgotten all about him."

"Who?"

"The stone prince." Quickly, Cimorene explained how she had found and hidden him the day before. "And I hadn't thought about it until now, but this is the perfect time to get him out of the mountains," she finished.

"All the dragons are gone and no one will see him. Come on, before I forget again."

Alianora nodded dubiously, and the two girls headed for the banquet room. When they arrived, Cimorene went in first, holding her lamp high.

"Prince?" she called. "Are you there? It's me, Cimorene."

"Yes, I'm here," said the stone prince, unfolding stiffly from a gray lump in the corner. "I'm glad you're back. Who's this you've brought with you?"

"Princess Alianora of the Duchy of Toure-on-Marsh," Cimorene said.

"She's the princess of the dragon Woraug just now."

"Does her father need a great service done for him?" the prince asked hopefully.

"Not that I know of," Cimorene replied. "Unless you're good at getting rid of aunts, but that would be more of a service to Alianora than to her father."

"I can think of nothing that would make me happier," the prince said with evident admiration as he bowed stiffly to Alianora. "Good afternoon, Princess. Or should it be 'good evening'? It's hard to tell without windows."

Alianora blushed and looked down at her bucket without answering.

"Actually, it's good morning," Cimorene told the prince. "I'm sorry it took me so long to come back for you, but… well, a lot has been going on."

Alianora looked up sharply. "You've been sitting here in the dark all night?" She shuddered. "You could at least have left him a candle, Cimorene."

"Thank you for the thought, Princess Alianora, but it's just as well she didn't," the stone prince said. "If I'd been sitting here with a lit candle, they'd have noticed me right away. And an unlit candle isn't much use in the dark, is it?"

"What do you mean?" Cimorene said. "Who would have noticed you?"

"The dragon and the two men he was talking to," replied the prince. "I think they were wizards."

"What?" said Cimorene and Alianora together.

"Well, they talked as if they were wizards," the prince said. "They weren't carrying staffs, though."

"What did they look like?" Cimorene said.

"They were both tall, and they both had beards. The older one's was gray and the younger one's was brown."

"Antorell and Zemenar!" Cimorene said. "And they were talking to a dragon?"

The stone prince nodded.

"Then they wouldn't have been carrying staffs. Dragons are allergic to them. Did you hear what they said?"

"Something about a contest," the stone prince said. "The wizards were going to fix it so this dragon would win. It sounded like a kind of cross-country race, and the wizards were going to hide along the path and-and help the dragon out somehow. I'm afraid I'm not very clear about that part.

Spells aren't my specialty. I'm much better at hopeless causes."

Alianora and Cimorene exchanged appalled glances.

"The trials with Colin's Stone to pick the new King!" Alianora said.

"Which dragon?" Cimorene asked urgently. "Do you know which dragon they were talking to?"

"I only heard the name once," the prince said. He sounded apologetic and a little embarrassed. "And I don't think I got it right. It's too silly."

"Tell us!" Cimorene commanded.

"Well, it sounded like 'wart hog,' "the prince said in an even more apologetic tone than before.

"Could it have been Woraug?" Cimorene asked.

"That's it!" the prince said. "I knew it couldn't really have been wart-hog."

"What a pity you remembered," said a voice from the entrance into the banquet hall.

Cimorene whirled. Antorell stood in the doorway, staff in hand, watching them with an intolerably smug expression.

Antorell looked past Cimorene and Alianora as if they were not there and spoke directly to the stone prince. "I told Father someone was listening. He won't be happy when he finds out I was right, but he'll feel better when I tell him I've taken care of things. He might even let me have the first look in the King's Crystal, once Woraug gives it to us."

"So that's what you're after!" Cimorene said.

Antorell favored her with a superior smile. "Quite right, Princess Cimorene. The King's Crystal will show us the whereabouts of every piece of useful and interesting magic in the world. All we'll have to do is go out and pick them up."

"Somehow I don't think it will be that easy," Cimorene murmured.

"We knew Tokoz would never give it to us, but Woraug will, as soon as he's King of the Dragons. He'll have to, or we'll tell everyone how we were the ones who made sure he was the new king. Of course, we can't afford to have anybody around who might make… awkward revelations. I doubt that dragons will listen to a couple of hysterical princesses, but he"-Antorell pointed at the stone prince-"will have to go."

"What are you going to do?" Alianora demanded. She was plainly frightened, and Cimorene could see that her knuckles were white with the force of her grip on the handle of the scrub bucket.

"Oh, gravel seems appropriate, don't you think?" Antorell said. "No one will notice a few more rocks around here."

"Ought I to be taking this person seriously?" the stone prince said in a rather doubtful tone.

"You'd better if you don't want to end up as a lot of little pebbles," Alianora answered. She still sounded frightened, but she seemed to be getting a grip on herself. "He's a wizard."

"You wouldn't be talking about gravel if you were the one who had to sweep the floor," Cimorene said to Antorell. She stepped forward as she spoke, hoping to get between Antorell and the stone prince before Antorell noticed what she was doing. She didn't think Antorell was a good enough wizard to do any real harm, but there was no point in taking chances.

"Stay where you are, Princess Cimorene," Antorell commanded. "I'll deal with you in a moment."

"Must you be so theatrical?" Cimorene said.

"Theatrical? You think I'm being theatrical?"Antorell said furiously.

"I am simply showing a proper respect for the importance of this moment?"

"You're showing off," Cimorene said flatly. "And you're not doing it very well."

"He doesn't sound much like a wizard to me," the stone prince said.

"Is he always like this?"

"Enough!" Antorell cried, and raised his staff. Light shimmered along its length and began to gather at the lower end. Grinning wolfishly, the wizard tilted the staff, aiming it toward the stone prince.