Searching for Dragons Read online

  “I don’t like the idea myself,” Mendanbar said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

  “You’d better be.”

  Mendanbar smiled, raised the sword, and walked back into the tiny forest. He paced around the edge, getting the feel of the magic that was spread spider-web thin across the circle. Then he stopped. With his left hand, he lowered his sword so that the tip rested on the green fuzz that might one day have grown into moss. With his right, he reached out and touched the web, gathering in the threads. When his hand was full, he began to feed the threads into the sword.

  It was touchy work, for the invisible strands were thin and fragile, and he knew that if he missed even one he would have to begin all over again. The task took a lot of concentration, for the sword accepted the threads with great reluctance. He was not at all sure he would have the strength to do it twice, so he worked with painstaking slowness.

  When he was halfway through, the saplings began to shrink. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the little trees grew shorter and more slender, until they disappeared into the green fuzz. For a moment, nothing more seemed to happen. Then the circle of green began to shrink. Like a drop of water being sucked up by a napkin, the green edge drew back toward the sword, leaving bare rock behind. In a moment, the retreating border was out of sight beneath the carpet.

  Mendanbar continued feeding magic into the sword. There were only a few threads left, and he slowed down even more. A puddle the size of a wagon wheel was all that was left of the original circle. It shrank to the size of a dinner plate, then a pancake, then a penny. Then it was gone.

  For a heartbeat longer, Mendanbar held his position, checking to be certain he had not missed anything. Finally he let go of the end of the spell and lifted the point of the sword from the ground. He felt much better than he had when he began. He looked up and smiled at Cim­orene.

  “That was extremely interesting,” Cimorene said. She eyed the bare ground around the carpet. “Is that all of it?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “Because if we don’t want to spend the night here, we’re going to have to leave quickly. It’ll be getting dark soon.” Cimorene paused, then added, “You’d better put that sword away. It’s dripping magic again.”

  “Sorry,” Mendanbar said. “Why don’t we—”

  With a rattle of small stones and a vicious hiss, a long, gray-black snake shot out of a crevice at the top of the nearest cliff and dropped toward Cimorene. Mendanbar jerked his sword up and sent a crackling bolt of power to meet the serpent. The hiss became a choking gurgle as the snake flared into a bright line of fire and disintegrated. Flakes of ash drifted the last few feet to fall around Mendanbar and Cimorene.

  Three more snakes launched themselves from parts of the cliff, and another slithered from behind a boulder. From the corner of his eye, Mendanbar saw Cimorene yank her sword out of its sheath. He hoped briefly and intensely that she was good at fighting, and then he had no time or attention for anything except the snakes.

  A second blast of magic disposed of two of the three in the air, and a single sword-stroke chopped the third in half. By then four new snakes were in the air, and Mendanbar could hear more hissing on all sides. He sent another spell skyward, and another, then swung at two snakes that had leaped from a crack barely shoulder-high above the ground. After that he lost track of how many snakes he struck or stabbed or chopped and how many he burned or blasted. He had no time for anything but fighting. He swung his sword until his arms were tired and his head hurt from concentration and spell-casting. And then, suddenly, there were no more snakes.

  The ground was dusted with ashes and littered with pieces of snakes, and the air smelled of charred meat. Slowly, Mendanbar lowered his sword. A few paces away, Cimorene was straightening up from a fighter’s crouch with the same wary hesitation. Her sword was covered with dark blood, and there were quite a lot of dead snakes around her.

  “Oh, wonderful,” Mendanbar said with heartfelt sincerity. “I was hoping you were good with a sword.”

  “You aren’t bad with one yourself,” Cimorene replied a little breathlessly.

  “It’s a magic sword,” Mendanbar reminded her, but he felt absurdly pleased nonetheless.

  Cimorene grinned. “So is mine. I know a little about fencing, but not enough to do me any good against most of the things in the Mountains of Morning. That’s why Kazul lets me carry this.” She lifted her sword, and a drop of snake blood fell from the tip. She frowned and began fishing in her pockets with her free hand. “It’s supposed to make the bearer impossible to defeat.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Mendanbar said, looking at the bits of snake near Cimorene’s feet. “What’s the catch?”

  “Getting killed isn’t the same as being defeated,” Cimorene said. She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket, smiled, and began cleaning the sword with it. “Not always, anyway. And it doesn’t keep you from getting hurt, either. So I still have to be careful. Do you want to use this?” She held out the stained handkerchief.

  “Thank you,” Mendanbar said, taking the square of cloth. He wiped his sword carefully, resheathed it, and hesitated. “Do you want it back? I’m afraid it’s ruined.”

  “That’s all right,” Cimorene said. “I always carry one or two extras.” She retrieved the handkerchief, grim­aced, and tied it into a tight bundle, which she stowed in her belt pouch. “There. Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “Why such a hurry?”

  “We still have to rescue Kazul. And besides—do you want to fight more rock snakes?” Cimorene asked. “That’s what we’ll be doing if we stay. We’ve cleaned out this part pretty well, but there’s sure to be several other colonies around.” She pointed at a dark ridge a couple of hundred feet farther on. “There, for instance. Or there.” She gestured in the opposite direction, at a wrinkled cliff.

  “I don’t see how we can get past them on foot,” Mendanbar said, frowning.

  “Well, we can’t stay here. They’ll slither over as soon as the last of the light goes. We’ll have to take the carpet.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said a new voice.

  Together, Mendanbar and Cimorene turned. The voice belonged to a dark-haired man who stood calmly next to the magic carpet, watching them with interest. He was several inches shorter than Mendanbar, with bright blue eyes and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He wore tall black boots, dark gray leggings, a loose-sleeved, high-necked shirt in pale gray, and an open knee-length black vest covered with pockets of all shapes and sizes. Under the vest, his wide black belt was hung with strangely shaped pouches and sheaths. The air around him crackled with magic.

  “Who are you?” Cimorene asked. “And why don’t you want us to use the carpet?”

  “My name is Telemain,” said the man, bowing, “and I have a considerable familiarity with the basic mechanics of carpets. Magic ones, that is. And this carpet”—he gestured left-handed, and three silver rings glinted in the fading light—“is plainly defective.”

  “Defective?” Mendanbar said suspiciously. Telemain didn’t look like a wizard, but that didn’t necessarily mean much. Wizards could wear disguises as well as anyone else.

  “Oh, it will probably operate, after a fashion,” Telemain said. “But not well, and not for long. I’m surprised you got this far on it.”

  “We didn’t, exactly,” Mendanbar said. “And we have had some trouble with it. What do you suggest?”

  The sound of a pebble bouncing down a series of rocks echoed along the narrow canyon. “I suggest we talk somewhere else,” Telemain said, glancing toward the sound. “This isn’t a safe place, even with my defensive enchantments fully erected.”

  “And how do you suggest we get there?” Cimorene asked.

  “Like this.” Telemain raised a hand and made a circle in the air with his forefinger. As he did, he muttered something, then clapped both hands together.

  The canyon flowed and melted into a sloping meadow halfway up a mou
ntainside. “Much better,” Telemain said. “No rock snakes, trolls, ogres, or other dangerous wildlife. I guarantee it.”

  Mendanbar was inclined to believe him. Trolls and ogres liked places where they could jump out from behind things or pop out from under rocks. An open meadow didn’t have enough cover. Besides, Telemain was no longer surrounded by the hum of magic, which meant he had dropped his guarding spell.

  “Now,” Telemain went on, “how did the two of you get into a ravine full of rock snakes with a defective magic carpet? Having rescued you, I think I am entitled to some explanation.”

  “We were on our way to the Enchanted Forest,” Cim­orene said carefully, pushing wisps of loose hair out of her face. Mendanbar noticed with approval that she said nothing about their reasons for wanting to go there. “How did you happen to come by at such a convenient moment?”

  “I was—looking for some people I thought might be in this area,” Telemain said. “By the way, what are your names?”

  “This is Cimorene and I’m Mendanbar,” Mendanbar said. “Who were you looking for?”

  “You, I think,” Telemain said, smiling. “That is, if you’re the same Cimorene and Mendanbar who visited Herman the dwarf earlier today.”

  “That was us,” Cimorene said cautiously.

  “Good! Then I can settle this quickly and get back to my work. How did you—”

  “Excuse me,” Mendanbar interrupted. “But how do you know Herman? And how did you find us?”

  “I know Herman because he bought his house from me,” Telemain said. He was beginning to sound irritated. “I also maintain certain defensive enchantments, which are especially designed to prevent incursions by noxious creatures, around the house and neighboring areas for him. When someone demolished the scrying spell I had established on the attic window, I felt obliged to investigate. Herman was in the middle of an explanation about visitors and dragons when I sensed an extremely interesting sorcerous flare to the northwest.”

  “I knew that dratted sword was going to get us in trouble,” Cimorene muttered.

  “Before I had time to locate it precisely, there was another burst of magic, which I recognized as a transportation spell,” Telemain continued. He frowned disapprovingly. “A rather confused one. It has taken me all afternoon to disentangle the traces and discover your whereabouts. Does that satisfy you?”

  “I think so,” Mendanbar said. “I’m sorry if we seem overly mistrustful, but we’ve already had some trouble with one wizard and we’ve reason to expect more. So you see . . .”

  “I am not a wizard,” Telemain said emphatically. “I’m a magician. Can’t you tell?”

  “No,” Cimorene said. “What’s the difference?”

  “A magician knows many types of magic,” Telemain said. “Wizards only know one, and they’re very secretive about it. I’ve been researching them for years, trying to duplicate their methodology, but I still haven’t managed a workable simulation.”

  “What?” said Cimorene, looking puzzled.

  “He’s been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells,” Mendanbar explained, “but he hasn’t done it yet.”

  “Why do you want to know that?” Cimorene asked Telemain with renewed suspicion.

  “Because that’s what I do!” Telemain said. “I just told you that. And if you’ll answer a few questions for me, I can go back to doing it. How did you shatter that window?”

  “We asked it to show us something,” Mendanbar said. “It couldn’t, so it broke.”

  Telemain shook his head. “Impossible! That particular glass was enchanted to reveal anything, anywhere, even in the Enchanted Forest. If it couldn’t discover the object of your inquiry, the viewing plane would display an empty information buffer.”

  “What does he mean?” Cimorene asked, frowning.

  “He means that if the window couldn’t find what we were asking about, it should have just stayed blank,” Mendanbar explained.

  “That’s what I said.” Telemain nodded emphatically. “It should not have broken.”

  “Well, it did,” Cimorene told him. “And we don’t have time to stand around arguing. We have to get to the Enchanted Forest and rescue a friend of mine. So could you just tell us what’s wrong with our carpet?”

  “Nonsense,” Telemain muttered. “You must have done more than frame a question.” He intercepted a look from Cimorene and sighed. “Oh, very well, I’ll examine the carpet. Spread it out so I can see all of it at once.”

  They unrolled the carpet the rest of the way. Telemain’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of the teddy bears, but he did not comment, for which Mendanbar was grateful. When the carpet was stretched full-length on the meadow, Telemain paced twice around it, frowning and gesturing occasionally. Then he turned to Mendanbar and Cimorene and shook his head.

  “The landing compensator has a gap in it, and the flight regulator has completely deteriorated,” he said. “It needs more than I can do without special tools and yarn for reweaving. You’ll have to take it to a repair shop.”

  “Wonderful,” Cimorene said sarcastically. “This would happen with a borrowed carpet.”

  “Can you recommend a good place?” Mendanbar asked Telemain. “Preferably somewhere close,” he added, noting the pink tint of the sky to the west. The sun would be completely down in another hour, and he didn’t want to wander around the Mountains of Morning in the dark.

  “Or can you send us straight to the Enchanted Forest?” Cimorene asked. “We’re in kind of a hurry.”

  “The Enchanted Forest requires a complex and destination-specific enhancement to the basic transportation spell module,” Telemain explained. “But the repair shop is simple.”

  He raised his left hand and made the same circular gesture he had before. “Gypsy Jack’s,” he said, and clapped, and the meadow and the mountain melted and flowed. The mountain bulged higher, and the meadow flattened and grew rockier. A long, rectangular section of ground squeezed upward and settled into the shape of a narrow house on wheels.

  “There,” Telemain said with great satisfaction. “We’ve arrived.”

  12

  In Which Yet Another Wizard Tries to Cause Trouble

  THEY WERE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE WHEELED HOUSE. At least, Mendanbar assumed it was the front because there was a door at the end of the long side facing them. Two iron steps, black and worn with age, led up to the door. The house itself was painted a cheerful blue with yellow shutters and a yellow trim around the door. There were four windows on the side facing Mendanbar, lined up in a neat row next to the door like chicks following a hen. The roof above the windows was low but not quite flat, and covered with wooden shingles that looked brand-new. There were four pairs of wheels, too, the rims painted blue to match the house and the spokes painted yellow to match the shutters. A beautifully lettered sign on a stick had been pounded into the ground next to the door: “Ask About Our Low Prices!”

  Mendanbar looked at Cimorene. Cimorene looked from Mendanbar to the wheeled house to Telemain.

  “Don’t do that again without asking first,” she said to the magician.

  “I thought you’d be pleased,” Telemain said. “Look at all the time you’ve saved.”

  “Asking doesn’t take much time.”

  “Where are we, exactly?” Mendanbar put in before they could start arguing. “And what is that?” He pointed at the house on wheels.

  “That is Gypsy Jack’s home,” Telemain answered. “If anyone can mend that carpet of yours, he can. As to where we are, all I can tell you is that we are still somewhere in the Mountains of Morning. If you want a more precise location, you will have to ask Jack. Assuming he remembers; he moves around a lot.”

  “How did you find him, then?” Cimorene asked.

  “Oh, Jack supplies me with unusual things now and then, when I need them for a spell or an experiment,” Telemain said. “I pay him by enchanting his house for him. Any good magician can find his own spells.”

&n
bsp; “Enchanting his house?” Mendanbar said. “You mean, to keep ogres and things from bothering it, the way you did Herman’s?”

  Telemain shook his head. “I offered, but Jack wasn’t interested. He has his own way of discouraging unpleasant company. No, what he wanted was a spell to keep the paint from fading.”

  “Why does he need you to put spells on his house?” Cimorene asked.

  “Jack isn’t a magician,” Telemain said. “He does a little bit of everything—smithing, gardening, music, tailoring, pretty much any trade you can think of. For example, he designed and built his house. He has a rare knack for patching up a spell that’s wearing thin, but he can’t set up a complex enchantment on his own. That’s why he deals with me.”

  One of the windows scraped open and a head poked out. “Yo! You going to stand there all night and maybe get eaten by a dragon? Not that I would dream of interfering with your plans, but if a quick exit is what you want, I got a dozen faster ways, all very cheap.”

  “Hello, Jack,” Telemain called. “I’ve brought you some customers.”

  “Customers! Why didn’t you say so? I’ll be right out.” The head vanished and the window screeched closed.

  “Customers?” Cimorene said, looking at Telemain.

  “You want that carpet fixed, don’t you? Jack can—”

  The door of the house flew open with a bang, and a large man leaped over the steps and landed in front of them. He had a thick black mustache, long black hair, bright black eyes, and a wide white grin. Pushing a soft, baggy cap back from his forehead, he bowed deeply.

  “Welcome to my home, friends of Telemain!” he boomed. “And very welcome you are. What’s the problem?”

  “A little difficulty about transportation, Jack,” Telemain said before Mendanbar or Cimorene had quite recovered from the man’s abrupt appearance. “We were hoping you could help.”

  “No trouble! What do you need? Shoes? I got a barrel full—sandals, clogs, dancing shoes, walking shoes, horse shoes . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked hopefully at Telemain.