Dealing With Dragons Read online

  Cimorene watched the festivities with mixed feelings. She was very glad that Kazul was the new King of the Dragons, but she couldn’t help wondering what effect Kazul’s coronation would have on her own position. The King of the Dragons certainly wouldn’t need a princess as a mark of status, and there would be plenty of younger dragons eager to cook and clean for their King, if only as a way of getting a start at the court.

  Her preoccupation stayed with her for the rest of the day, through the entire coronation picnic and the flight back to the Mountains of Morning. Cimorene and Alianora rode on the back of a very large dragon whose scales were such a dark green that they looked almost black. Alianora would have preferred to ride with the stone prince, but none of the dragons were willing to take on a second passenger if the stone prince was the first. All of the dragons had paid their respects to Kazul at the coronation, so the cave was empty when the dragon dropped Cimorene off. When Cimorene said good-bye to Alianora, she promised to come over and help her pack the following morning. Then she went in and waited for Kazul to come home.

  Kazul did not arrive until very late. She was still wearing the iron crown, and she looked very tired.

  “Thank goodness that’s over,” she said, taking the crown off and throwing it across the cave. It hit the wall and bounced off with a harsh clang.

  “You shouldn’t treat your crown like that, Your Majesty,” Cimorene said, retrieving the iron circlet.

  “Of course I should,” Kazul said. “It’s expected. That’s why we made it out of iron instead of something soft and bendable. And don’t start calling me ‘Your Majesty.’ I’ve had enough of that for one day.”

  Cimorene began to feel a little better. “What happens next?”

  “Tomorrow we start moving,” Kazul said and sighed. “It will probably take weeks. It’s too bad there’s no way of warning a new king in time to pack everything up before the work starts.”

  “Everything?” Cimorene said in tones of dismay. “Even the library and the treasure vaults? But I’ve only just got them organized!”

  “Everything,” Kazul said. “And if you think straightening out things here was difficult, wait until you see the mess the official vaults are in.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Cimorene. “Is it very bad?”

  Kazul nodded. “I’ve just come from looking at it. You’ll see for yourself tomorrow. There’s a smallish cave next to the library that I think will do nicely for you, but I’d like you to look at it before we start hauling things around.”

  “You mean you want me to stay?” Cimorene blurted. “But I thought the King of the Dragons didn’t need a princess!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kazul said. “How am I going to get my cherries jubilee if you don’t stay? And you haven’t even started cataloguing the library, and how else am I going to get the King’s treasure vaults arranged so I can find things? I’m not going to have time to do it.”

  “Won’t the rest of the dragons object?”

  Kazul snorted. “I’m the King. One of the advantages of being King is that nobody objects to whims like keeping a princess when you’re not supposed to need one. If it bothers you, we’ll give you a different title: King’s Cook and Librarian, maybe. Stop worrying and go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day for both of us.”

  Cimorene smiled and went off to her rooms with a light heart. She slept soundly and was up early next morning. Kazul was already awake and supervising three of the younger dragons, who were packing up the treasure and the library. Since Cimorene was pressed into service at once, it was several hours before she could get away to keep her promise to Alianora.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Cimorene apologized when she arrived at Woraug’s cave at last. “But it didn’t occur to me that Kazul would be moving, too, and she wanted me to help.”

  “It’s all right,” Alianora assured her. “It wasn’t as big a job as I’d expected, and the prince helped. I’m almost finished.” She gestured at an almost-full suitcase lying open on the floor. On the other side of the room, the stone prince was stacking the empty drawers from Alianora’s bureau.

  “Well, at least I got here in time to say goodbye,” Cimorene said.

  “You’re staying with the dragons, then?” the stone prince asked, straightening with a frown. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Of course she’s sure,” Alianora said. “Kazul’s going to need her even more than she did before, and Cim­orene wouldn’t be happy in a normal kingdom.”

  “How did you know that?” Cimorene said, staring at Alianora.

  “It’s obvious. Linderwall is about as normal a kingdom as you can get. If you ran away from there, you certainly wouldn’t be happy anywhere like it.”

  “I didn’t mean that part,” Cimorene said, reddening slightly. “I meant about Kazul wanting me to stay.”

  “That was obvious, too,” Alianora said. “You’re the only one who was worried about it.” She studied Cimorene for a minute and shook her head. “I wouldn’t like being princess for the King of the Dragons, but it will suit you down to the ground.”

  “I think it will,” Cimorene said, smiling.

  “Then maybe you can tell me something,” the stone prince said. “What’s being done about the wizards?”

  “They’ve been banned from the Mountains of Morning, and there are a hundred or so dragons out checking to make sure they’ve gone,” Cimorene replied. “They haven’t had much luck, I’m afraid. Most of the wizards left after the first few got eaten.”

  “That’s all?” asked the prince.

  “What else can the dragons do? The wizards didn’t actually poison King Tokoz; Woraug did that. So there’s no justification for an all-out attack on the headquarters of the Society of Wizards, even if all the dragons agreed that they wanted to do it. Which they don’t.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” the prince said. “But you’d better tell Kazul to keep a close eye on them. Those wizards will make more trouble just as soon as they figure out a way to do it.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Cimorene said. “I think Zemenar was behind most of it, and you melted him.”

  “That’s it!” Alianora said, and snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot to tell you. Morwen and I talked for a long time yesterday, and she says that melting a wizard isn’t permanent.”

  “You mean they’ll all come back?” Cimorene asked.

  Alianora nodded. “It will take them a while, though. And Morwen said for you to come and visit soon. She thinks that in a few days she’ll have figured out a way of melting wizards without dumping soapy water over them. ‘A method that’s a little less sloppy’ was the way she put it.”

  “That will be useful if the wizards start making trouble again,” Cimorene said thoughtfully.

  “Is this everything, Alianora?” the stone prince asked, gesturing at the suitcase.

  “Yes, I think so.” Alianora pulled the top of the suitcase over, and the stone prince set one foot very gently in the middle of it and pushed until the latch clicked.

  “Where are you going first?” Cimorene asked. “His kingdom or yours?”

  “Neither,” Alianora said, smiling. “We’re going to Morwen’s. She said she could change him back from stone to normal. We asked Kazul last night if we could go out through the Caves of Fire and Night, and she said yes, so . . .”

  “I don’t know, Alianora,” the stone prince said. “I’m beginning to get used to myself this way. And there are certain advantages.”

  “There are disadvantages, too,” Alianora said, blushing slightly.

  Cimorene began to giggle.

  Alianora’s blush deepened. “I mean—uh—how are you going to get rid of that chip in your sleeve if you can’t change clothes?”

  “I think I see what you’re getting at,” the stone prince replied, eyeing Alianora meditatively. “And you’re quite right. There’s no comparison. We had better see Morwen as quickly as possible.”

 
; Alianora and Cimorene looked at each other and burst into unstoppable giggles.

  The stone prince blinked at them. “It’s not funny!” he said indignantly, which only made them giggle harder. Shaking his head, he waited for them to stop, then picked up Alianora’s suitcase. “Shall we go?”

  Cimorene walked with them to the iron gate that led into the Caves of Fire and Night. A purplish dragon was waiting to guide them through the caves. Kazul was taking no chances on Alianora and the stone prince getting lost. Cimorene hugged them both and wished them a safe journey.

  “And I hope you both live happily ever after!”

  “I hope you do, too!” Alianora called back as she and the stone prince followed the dragon through the gate.

  Cimorene watched until they were out of sight, then started back toward Kazul’s cave. She thought about Morwen, and the wizard-melting spell, and about Zemenar and Antorell and the other wizards who would somehow be back soon. She thought about Kazul, and about straightening out the treasure vaults that belonged to the King of the Dragons, and about all the hundreds of books in the King’s library, and of all the problems that the King of the Dragons would have to deal with. She thought about Alianora’s last words and smiled.

  Happily ever after? Cimorene wasn’t sure about that, though she was certainly hoping to enjoy herself. She was positive, however, that life with the dragons would be interesting and busy, and in Cimorene’s opinion that would go a long way toward making her happy.

  “Happily ever after? I don’t think it’s quite what you meant, Alianora,” Cimorene murmured to the empty tunnel, “but one way or another, I rather think I will.”

  1

  In Which the King of the Enchanted Forest Takes a Day Off

  THE KING OF THE ENCHANTED FOREST was twenty years old and lived in a rambling, scrambling, mixed-up castle somewhere near the center of his domain. He sometimes wished he could say that it was exactly at the center, but this was impossible because the edges and borders and even the geography of the Enchanted Forest tended to change frequently and without warning. When you are the ruler of a magical kingdom, however, you must expect some small inconveniences, and the King tried not to worry too much about the location of his castle.

  The castle itself was an enormous building with a wide, square moat, six mismatched towers, four balconies, and far too many staircases. One of the previous Kings of the Enchanted Forest had been very fond of sweeping up and down staircases in a long velvet robe and his best crown, so he had added stairs wherever he thought there was room. Some of the steps wound up one side of a tower and down the other without actually going anywhere, which caused no end of confusion among visitors.

  The inside of the castle was worse than the outside. There were corridors that looped and curled and twisted, rooms that led into other rooms, and even rooms that had been built inside of other rooms. There were secret passageways and sliding panels and trapdoors. There were several cellars, a basement, and two dungeons, one of which could only be reached from the sixth floor of the North-Northwest Tower.

  “There is something backwards about climbing up six flights of stairs in order to get to a dungeon,” the King of the Enchanted Forest said, not for the first time, to his steward.

  The steward, a small, elderly elf named Willin, looked up from a handwritten list nearly as long as he was tall and scowled. “That is not the point, Your Majesty.”

  The two were in the castle study, going over the day’s tasks. Willin stood in the center of the room, ignoring several chairs of assorted sizes, while the King sat behind a huge, much-battered oak desk, his long legs stretched out comfortably beneath it. He was not wearing a crown or even a circlet, his clothes were as plain as a gardener’s, and his black hair was rumpled and needed trimming, but somehow he still managed to look like a king. Perhaps it was the thoughtful expression in his gray eyes.

  Willin cleared his throat and went on, “As the center of Your Majesty’s kingdom, this castle—”

  “It’s not at the center of the kingdom,” the King said, irritated. “It’s only close. And please just call me Mendanbar and save all that ‘Your Majesty’ nonsense for a formal occasion.”

  “We don’t have formal occasions anymore,” Willin complained. “Your Majesty has canceled all of them—the Annual Arboreal Party, the Banquet for Lost Princes, the Birthday Ball, the Celebration of Colors, the Christening Commemoration, the—”

  “I know,” Mendanbar interrupted. “And I’m sure you have them all written down neatly somewhere, so you don’t have to recite them all. But we really didn’t need so many dinners and audiences and things.”

  “And now we don’t have any,” Willin said, unmollified. “And all because you said formal occasions were stuffy.”

  “They are stuffy,” King Mendanbar replied. “Stuffy and boring. And so is being ‘Your Majestied’ every third word, especially when there’s only the two of us here. It sounds silly.”

  “In your father’s day, everyone was required to show proper respect.”

  “Father was a stuffed shirt and you know it,” Mendanbar said without bitterness. “If he hadn’t drowned in the Lake of Weeping Dreamers three years ago, you’d be grumbling as much about him as you do about me.”

  Willin scowled reprovingly at the King. “Your father was an excellent King of the Enchanted Forest.”

  “I never said he wasn’t. But no matter how good a king he was, you can’t deny that he was a stuffed shirt, too.”

  “If I may return to the topic of discussion, Your Majesty?” the elf said stiffly.

  The King rolled his eyes. “Can I stop you?”

  “Your Majesty has only to dismiss me.”

  “Yes, and if I do you’ll sulk for days. Oh, go on. What about the North-Northwest dungeon?”

  “It has come to my attention that it is not properly equipped. When it was first built, by Your Majesty’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, it was naturally stocked with appropriate equipment.” Willin set his list of things to do on Mendanbar’s desk. He drew a second scroll from inside his vest and began to read. “Two leather whips, one Iron Maiden, four sets of thumb-screws—”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Willin,” the King said hastily. When Willin got going, he could read lists for hours on end. “What’s the point?”

  “Most of these items are still in the dungeon,” Willin said, rerolling the scroll and stowing it inside his vest once more, “but the rack was removed in your great-great-grandfather’s time and has never been replaced.”

  “Really?” King Mendanbar said, interested in spite of himself. “Why did he take it out?”

  The little steward coughed. “I believe your great-great-grandmother wanted it to dry tablecloths on.”

  “Tablecloths?” Mendanbar looked out the window at the North-Northwest Tower and shook his head. “She made someone haul a rack up eight flights of stairs and down six more, just to dry tablecloths?”

  “A very determined woman, your great-great-grandmother,” Willin said. “In any case, the dungeon is in need of a new rack.”

  “And it can stay that way,” said Mendanbar. “Why should we get another rack? We’ve never used the one we have.” He hesitated, frowning. “At least, I don’t think we’ve ever used it. Have we?”

  “That is not the point, Your Majesty,” Willin answered in a huffy tone, from which the King concluded that they hadn’t. “It is my duty to see that the castle is suitably furnished, from the topmost tower to the deepest dungeon. And the dungeon—”

  “—needs a new rack,” the King finished. “I’ll think about it. What else?”

  The elf consulted his list. “The nightshades are becoming a problem in the northeast.”

  “Nightshades are always a problem. Is that all?”

  “Ah . . .” Willin cleared his throat, then cleared it again. “There is the matter of Your Majesty’s marriage.”

  “What marriage?” Mendanbar asked, alarmed.

  “Your
Majesty’s marriage to a lady of suitable parentage,” Willin said firmly. He pulled another scroll from inside his vest. “I have here a list of possible choices, which I have compiled after a thorough survey of the lands surrounding the Enchanted Forest.”

  “You made a survey? Willin, you haven’t been talking to that dreadful woman with all the daughters, have you? Because if you have I’ll . . . I’ll use you to test out that new rack you want so badly.”

  “Queen Alexandra is an estimable lady,” Willin said severely. “And her daughters are among the loveliest and most accomplished princesses in the world. I have not, of course, talked to the Queen about the possibility, but any one of her daughters would make a suitable bride for Your Majesty.” He tapped the scroll meaningfully.

  “Suitable? Willin, all twelve of them put together don’t have enough common sense to fill a teaspoon! And neither have you, if you think I’m going to marry one of them.”

  Willin sighed. “I did hope Your Majesty would at least consider the idea.”

  “Then you weren’t thinking straight,” the King said firmly. “After all the trouble I’ve had . . .”

  “Perhaps Your Majesty’s experiences have given you a biased view of the matter.”

  “Biased or not, I’m not going to marry anyone any time soon. Particularly not an empty-headed princess, and especially not one of Queen Alexandra’s daughters. So you can stop bringing it up every day. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. But—”

  “But nothing. If that’s everything, you may go. And take that list of princesses with you!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” With a final, fierce scowl, Willin bowed and left the room, every inch of his two-foot height reeking of disapproval.

  Mendanbar sighed and dropped his head into his hands, digging his fingers into his thick, dark hair. Willin meant well, but why did he have to bring the subject up now, just when it looked as if things were going to calm down for a little while? The feud between the elf clans had finally been settled (more or less to everyone’s satisfaction), the most recent batch of enchanted princes had been sent packing with a variety of improbable remedies, and the giants to the north weren’t due to raid anyone for another couple of months at least. Mendanbar had been looking forward to a quiet week or two, but if Willin was going to start nagging him about marriage, there was little chance of that.