Patricia Wrede - Dealing with Dragons

"Take that, you cheats? said Alianora, dumping the first of her buckets over another.

"What-this is impossible!" said one of the wizards indignantly as he began to melt.

"Too bad," Cimorene said, throwing her second load of water at the next-to-last wizard.

"Watch where you're throwing that!" Morwen said to the stone prince, who had sloshed his second bucket over the fifth wizard with such enthusiasm that water sprayed in all directions.

"Sorry," the prince apologized. "Is that all of them?"

"It's all five of the ones we saw," Cimorene said cautiously.

"Then we did it!" Alianora said.

"Not quite," said Zemenar, stepping out of the bushes behind Morwen.

"You interrupted the spell, of course, but we were nearly finished anyway.

And as long as the stone remains enchanted, Woraug won't have any trouble getting it all the way to the Vanishing Mountain. Look." He pointed with his staff, and Cimorene saw three dragons, high in the air, flying steadily toward the mountains. One of them had a long black stone clutched in his claws, and the other two appeared to be escorting him at a careful distance.

"Woraug and the two judges," Cimorene murmured.

Zemenar nodded. "You might as well put that bucket down," he went on, turning to Alianora. "You can't throw it at me without melting your witch friend here. What's in it, by the way?"

"I don't see why we should tell you," Cimorene said as Alianora set the last of the six buckets down.

"Because I'm interested, Princess," Zemenar said with an oily smile.

"And it will pass the time until the next shift gets here, and I can decide what to do with you."

"If you're that interested, why don't you take a closer look?" said the stone prince, picking up Alianora's bucket.

"Stay where you are!" Zemenar commanded. As he spoke, he raised his staff and sidestepped so that Morwen was between him and the stone prince.

"If you insist," said the prince. He shrugged, lifted the bucket, and flung the water over Morwen and Zemenar at the same time.

"What-no!" Zemenar cried in horror as he began to melt. "Not soapsuds! It's demeaning."

"There's a little lemon juice in it, too," Alianora offered.

Zemenar glared at her. He was less than half his normal height and shrinking as they watched, while a dark puddle spread out beneath him.

"Lemon juice! Bah! How dare you do such a thing? I'm the Head Wizard of the Society of Wizards!" His voice grew fainter and higher as he shrank.

"Interfering busybodies! Soapsuds! Of all the undignified tricks.

You'll be sorry for this! You can't melt a wizard forever, you know! You'll be sor…"

The wizard's voice ceased. All that remained of him was a pile of silk robes and a long wooden staff lying on some damp moss. Alianora and Cimorene stared for a moment, then Alianora turned to the stone prince.

"I'm glad he's gone," she said, "but how could you melt Morwen just to get at that wizard?"

"But I didn't," the stone prince said. "Look."

Cimorene and Alianora turned. Morwen seemed no shorter than usual, though she certainly looked very damp. She had taken off her glasses and was shaking water off them. "Don't just stand there," she said crossly to Cimorene. "Hand me a dry handkerchief."

"Just a minute," Cimorene said, checking her pockets. She found the handkerchief that had been wrapped around the magic feathers and handed it to Morwen. "Um, why didn't you melt?"

"Clean living," Morwen said as she began to dry her glasses on Cimorene's handkerchief.

"I thought as much," the stone prince said in a satisfied tone.

"Nobody who lives in a house as clean as yours could possibly melt in a bucket of soapsuds."

"Quite right," Morwen said approvingly. "You have a good head on your shoulders, young man. What's this?" She held up a sharp-edged black pebble.

"It's a piece of stone I found in the Caves of Fire and Night," Cimorene said.

"Where, exactly?"

"In the King's Cave," Cimorene said. "Morwen, shouldn't we do something about that spell Zemenar mentioned?"

Alianora was watching the sky, shading her eyes with her hand.

"Woraug's nearly halfway to the mountain," she said anxiously.

"Good," said Morwen, though neither Cimorene nor Alianora could tell which of them she was talking to. The witch shook her wet robes and walked over to the patch of dead moss where the wizards had been working, picking her way carefully past little piles of robes and staffs. Cimorene followed. In the center of the brown area was a black stone the size of Cimorene's fist. A web of yellow-green light flickered across its smooth surface.

"Sloppy," Morwen said. "Very sloppy. Though I'm not surprised.

Wizards always seem to depend on brute force when a little subtlety would be far more effective." She fingered Cimorene's pebble for a moment, then reached out and dropped it on top of the wizards' stone.

There was a noise like a great deal of popcorn all popping at once, and the light that flickered over the black stone spat yellow-green sparks in all directions. Alianora jumped and backed away. Cimorene would have liked to do the same, but she did not want to give Morwen a bad impression of her courage, so she stayed where she was.

The sparks died, and the flickering light went out. From the sky high above came a faint shriek of surprise and rage. Cimorene looked up and saw three black specks in the sky. No, not three: four, and the two escort dragons were swooping to catch the speck that was Colin's Stone, which Woraug had just dropped.

Cimorene gave a sigh of relief and looked at Morwen. "So much for Woraug and the wizards," she said. "We didn't even need the fireproofing spell. What did you do?"

"And what happens now?" Alianora added.

"Duck," said Morwen, and threw herself sideways into the bushes.

"Wha-" said the stone prince, and then he and Cimorene and Alianora were engulfed by a blast of dragon fire.

The stone prince leaped in front of the two princesses, but he was much too late to protect them. Fortunately the fireproofing spell was still in effect, and neither of them even felt warm, though Alianora lost the ends of her sleeves and Cimorene's hemline rose six scorched inches.

"I knew I shouldn't have said that about the fireproofing spell," Cimorene muttered.

With a wordless snarl and a thunder of wings, Woraug landed just in front of the little group.

"You!" he shouted when he saw Cimorene. "I might have known it would be you!" Flame shot from his mouth once more, but it was just as useless as it had been the first time.

Cimorene glanced up and saw one of the escort dragons spiraling down to see what was going on. "You might as well give up, Woraug," she said, hoping to distract the angry dragon long enough for help to arrive.

"You can't be King of the Dragons now."

"I'll tear you limb from limb!" Woraug raged. "Every last one of you!"

One arm shot out as he spoke, and shining silver claws snapped around the stone prince's waist.

Alianora screamed.

"Hurry up!" Cimorene shouted at the dragon in the sky.

The dragon heard and dove toward them, but he was not fast enough.

Woraug shoved the stone prince into his mouth and bit down hard. An instant later he howled in pain and spat out the prince and four teeth.

"What is all this?" said the escort dragon, landing carefully beside Woraug. The clearing was getting rather crowded.

"A plot to cheat on the test to see who the next King of the Dragons will be," Cimorene said. "Woraug was in it, and a lot of wizards."

"Are you all right?" Alianora asked the stone prince, who was just picking himself up. His stone was black in places from the dragon fire, but otherwise he seemed unhurt.

"More or less," the stone prince said. "But just look what that fire did to my clothes! And that dragon's put a chip in my sleeve. What am I supposed to do about that? It's not as if I can just change clothes when I get home, you know."