Talking to Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins - Страница 29

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"Daystar? Shiara shouted. "Over here!"

I ran around behind the dragon, who was now sneezing almost continuously.

I pulled out my sword as I went. When my hand touched the hilt, I felt the same jangling that I'd gotten from Antorell earlier. Then I came around the tree, and even before Shiara pointed, I saw the wizards.

There were two of them right in front of Shiara, leaning on their staffs and looking from Shiara to the dragon and back.

"Hurry up," one of them said nervously. "We don't want this to get out of hand."

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait," another voice said from behind him.

The first wizard jumped, and Antorell stepped out of the bushes. His beard and hair were several inches shorter than they had been, and his staff had a scorched streak near the top, but getting caught in the little dragon's fireball didn't seem to have done much to him otherwise. He smiled and went on, "You see, I want him, too."

"Um, can't we discuss this somewhere else?" said the nervous wizard, eyeing the dragon.

"Oh, you needn't worry about that," Antorell said, following his gaze.

He smiled nastily. "I came prepared." He held up his free hand so that all of us could see the spray of spiky, saw-edged purple leaves he was holding.

"Dragonsbane," he said unnecessarily.

The other wizards relaxed a little. "Such forethought," murmured the tall one. He exchanged glances with his companion, then bowed to Antorell.

"Under the circumstances, we will be happy to split the reward with you."

"I am afraid that is out of the question," Antorell said over the dragon's sneezes. "The boy and his sword are mine."

"The boy!" said the nervous wizard. "But-" The tall one frowned at him, and he stopped.

The tall wizard turned back to Antorell. "As you say, the boy is yours.

I trust you have no objection if we take the girl?"

Antorell frowned. He turned toward Shiara and stared at her for a minute, then shrugged. "She's no use to me. Of course I have no objection."

I started moving very, very slowly toward Shiara, so that when the wizards started throwing spells at us I could try to stop them with the sword.

The wizards didn't notice, and neither did Shiara. By the time the wizards finished deciding what to do with us, I was almost over to her.

"It's settled, then," Antorell said. "We help each other. The girl first?"

"Ah, why not start with the dragon?" the nervous wizard asked.

Antorell smiled condescendingly. "Very well." He stepped forward and started muttering over the dragonsbane. Right away the dragon started yelling.

"Yow!" it said. "Achoo! I hate wizards. Ouch! Achoo! Help!"

"You stop that!" Shiara said to Antorell. The wizards ignored her, and Antorell kept mumbling.

I started forward. If I could knock the dragonsbane out of Antorell's hand, the spell would stop. I wasn't sure whether it would be completely broken, but at least he wouldn't be able to hurt the dragon anymore. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten about the other wizards. I didn't even realize one of them had done something until my feet stuck to the ground and suddenly I couldn't walk forward anymore. If I hadn't been stuck, I'd have lost my balance. It was very disconcerting. Antorell was still out of reach.

I took a quick glance back over my shoulder. The dragon was sneezing much too hard now to say anything at all. I could see its coils going slack, and it was losing its hold on the tree. Here and there, its scales were turning pink around the edges. Even the tree looked wilted.

"Shiara!" I yelled. "Get the dragonsbane!" I didn't think I could get loose in time, but the wizards wouldn't be able to stop a fire-witch.

I didn't wait to see what she did. I leaned forward a little and tried to lay part of the Sword of the Sleeping King across my feet. It hadn't helped Shiara when she was a statue, but this was a wizard's spell, not a fire-witch's spell, and Telemain had said the sword was meant to be used on wizards.

Besides, I couldn't think of anything else.

It worked. I straightened up just in time to see a little tongue of flame shoot up from Antorell's hand. Antorell yelled and dropped the dragons bane, which was burning brightly. Before it even hit the ground, there was nothing left of the plant except ashes.

I looked behind me. Shiara was standing with a surprised look on her face and one finger pointing at Antorell. The dragon was still sneezing, but the green was already starting to come back to its scales. I sighed in relief.

"This is the assistance you give us?" the tall wizard said to Antorell, who was brushing ashes off the front of his robe. "The dragon still lives!"

"Did I say anything about killing it?" Antorell said. I got the feeling he was trying to sound haughty, but he only managed to sound annoyed. "You need have no more fear of it. It will take some time to regain its strength, and by then we shall be finished. What next?"

"The girl, I think," said the tall wizard. "That is, if you're sure you can handle her?"

Antorell glared. "That is the least of my problems," he said grandly.

"Ha!" said Shiara loudly. I moved back over to her, holding the sword in front of me. The three wizards looked at us, then at each other.

"Let us begin," said the tall one.

All three of them raised their staffs, but instead of pointing them directly at us, they brought them together, so that they made a kind of star about a foot from their ends. There was a bright flash as the three staffs touched, and I felt a shock from my sword. I jumped, and suddenly I realized that I could feel the forest. The magic of the forest, I mean; it was all around me, waiting. I felt almost as if the whole Enchanted Forest were watching me.

Right in front of me, I could feel the wizards' power growing and building. There was a kind of pattern in it that kept getting clearer and more complicated, and I knew I had to do something about it before the wizards finished. I stepped forward and swung the sword right through the middle of the pattern.

I felt a huge jolt of power from the sword, but it didn't hurt the way the fire-witch's spell had. In fact, it didn't hurt at all. The pattern collapsed in an invisible tangle. Antorell's eyes started to narrow; the other two wizards just looked stunned. And then something exploded.

I couldn't see anything. It wasn't that things had gone dark, and it wasn't that the light had blinded me. It was more as if the whole world had suddenly become invisible, so there was nothing left to see.

There was a rushing noise all around me, and I felt as if I were floating. I heard a chorus of voices cry, "All hail the Wielder of the Sword!" and then the noise and the voices vanished, and I was standing in the clearing with the Sword of the Sleeping King shining in my hand and three very surprised wizards in front of me.

I stared at the wizards. The wizards stared at me. Antorell recovered first.

"Enough of this!" he cried, and raised his staff. As he did, the ground in front of him humped up a little bit. A second later, a tree shot up about twelve feet into the air. It reminded me of someone opening an umbrella very quickly. The branches shivered once as the leaves unrolled, and then it burst into bloom with a sound like a hundred little bells tinkling.

Antorell looked even more surprised than before, then he scowled angrily and pointed his staff at me again. The tall wizard next to him grabbed his arm. "Wait, fool! Don't you know what that sword is?"

"Of course I know, oaf." Antorell's eyes sparked. "It is mine! I will have it!"

"You will be dead, you mean," the tall wizard said, but he let go of Antorell's arm. "This is a matter for the whole Society of Wizards.

There may still be time to stop him if we can bring them quickly enough."

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