Talking to Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins - Страница 22

11

In Which a Lizard Suggests a Solution

I sat there for a minute, staring at the statue and wondering what to do.

Finally I looked at the dragon. "Do you know anything about magic?"

"Of course I do!" the dragon said. "Everyone who lives near the Enchanted Forest knows something about magic."

I sighed. "I mean, do you know anything about turning statues that used to be people back into people again? Because I don't, and we have to figure out some way to fix Shiara."

"Oh." The dragon looked doubtfully at the statue of Shiara. "We could take her to the Living Spring and drop her in," it suggested. "That would bring her back to life."

"You know where the Living Spring is?" I said in surprise.

"No," said the dragon. "But I bet if we found it, it would work."

I shook my head. "I don't think we have time. There are wizards looking for us, remember?"

"Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting. I don't like to think about wizards."

The dragon blinked. "What about your sword? You could say that spell again."

I nodded. I walked over to Shiara and pulled the Sword of the Sleeping King out of its sheath. I felt a little uncomfortable, partly because I hadn't thought of using the sword and partly because the dragon spell was still just one of Mother's nursery rhymes to me. The idea of standing in the middle of the Enchanted Forest holding a magic sword and reciting a nursery rhyme made me feel very silly. I looked at the statue of Shiara again and decided I'd try it anyway. Slowly, I lowered the point so that it touched the statue's shoulder, and I said, "Power of water, wind, and earth, Turn the spell back to its birth.

Raise the fire to free the lord By the power of wood and sword."

For a minute I thought nothing had happened, but then three or four little tingles ran up my arm from the sword. I hadn't even realized they were missing until they started again. When I finally did notice, I was relieved.

Mother wouldn't have been at all happy with me if I'd ruined the Sword of the Sleeping King.

Unfortunately, Shiara was still a statue. "I suppose we're going to have to look for the Living Spring," I said. "Unless you have some other ideas."

"No," the dragon said. "I've never been on an adventure before. How are we going to find the Spring?"

"I don't know," I said. Half of the heroes who stopped at our cottage had been looking for the Living Spring, but I'd never heard of anyone finding it. I tried to think of someone who might know where the spring was. "Suz!" I said suddenly.

"What?" the dragon said.

"Suz is sort of a friend of mine," I explained. "He says he knows everything that goes on in the Enchanted Forest, so he ought to know where the Living Spring is. I wish he were here."

"You do?" said a squeaky voice by my right foot. "Yes, you really do! How intriguing. Why do you?"

"Suz!" I said. I looked around until I saw him, then carefully sat down on the ground. "I'm awfully glad to see you. Do you know where the Living Spring is?"

"The Living Spring?" Suz said. "Dear me! Why do you want to know?"

"What's that?" asked the dragon, who had finally managed to find the source of the squeaky voice. "It looks like a little dragon."

"Oh, I'm sorry. This is Suz. I was just telling you about him. He's not a dragon, he's a lizard."

"A lizard of extremely good family." Suz frowned at the dragon, but the dragon didn't seem to notice. Suz gave up and looked back at me.

"Now, why do you want to know about the Living Spring?"

"Because Shiara got turned into a statue by the fire-witch who lived in the invisible castle," I said.

"She did?" The lizard peered around until he saw the statue, then scurried over. He cocked his head briefly and stared upward, then ran up the gray stone in a spiral until he was sitting on one of the statue's shoulders.

"She really did! How exceedingly distressing. What are you going to do about it?"

"We thought if we dropped the statue in the Living Spring, it would, well, fix Shiara," I said. "But we don't know where the spring is."

"You don't? No, of course you don't. It's a secret." Suz peered at me from Shiara's shoulder. "I suppose you want me to tell you where it is." He considered for a moment. "I couldn't possibly do that, so you needn't bother asking."

"But, Suz!" I said. "How else can we fix Shiara? I've tried the only other thing we could think of, and it didn't work."

"That is extremely obvious," the lizard said severely. He ran down the side of the statue and stopped right in front of me. "If it had worked, she wouldn't be a statue anymore, and you wouldn't be asking me silly questions."

Suz did whatever the thing was that he did to balance on his tail.

"People who are looking for things in the Enchanted Forest have to find them for themselves. You really ought to know that, you really ought."

"Well, what are we going to do about Shiara if you won't tell us where the spring is?"

"My goodness gracious, you certainly are persistent," Suz said. "Have you tried kissing her?"

"Kissing her?" I said incredulously.

"Kissing the statue," Suz explained condescendingly. "It's one of the standard cures for being made to sleep for years, or being turned into a frog or a statue or such. Have you tried it?"

I felt my face getting hot. "Um, well, no."

"Well, then," Suz said pointedly.

I thought about it for a minute or two. Shiara might not think much of my kissing her, but I didn't really object, especially if it would break the spell. In fact, I sort of liked the idea. At that point, I stood up very quickly because my face was getting even hotter and I could feel Suz staring at me.

I was right next to the statue, and as soon as I was all the way standing I leaned forward and kissed it. I didn't want to take time to look before I did it, because I didn't really want to think about it.

First I felt cold stone, but it warmed up right away. A second later Shiara jerked away and said, "Hey! Daystar, what on earth do you think you're doing?"

"It worked!" I said. I was awfully relieved. If we hadn't been able to break the fire-witch's spell, we'd have had to bring the statue with us, and carrying a statue around would have been a lot of work.

Besides, having Shiara back felt good, even if she was glaring at me.

"What worked?" Shiara demanded suspiciously. "And where did that witch go? She was here a minute ago."

"You were a statue," the dragon informed her. "The fire-witch did it, but Daystar got rid of her. I'm glad he did," it added thoughtfully.

"I didn't like her. She wasn't polite at all, and she… and she . . ." The dragon leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, "And she grew dragonsbane!" Shiara stared at the dragon, but before she could say anything there was a loud squeak from behind me, and Suz's voice started shouting. "Help! Murder! Wild beasts and dangerous lunatics! Oh dear oh my help help goodness gracious help oh!"

I turned around. Nightwitch had come out from wherever she'd been hiding and sneaked up on Suz while I was, well, kissing Shiara. Suz was rolled into a tight golden ball, and Nightwitch was batting him back and forth between her paws in wide-eyed fascination. I didn't think she'd ever played with a ball that yelled at her before.

I bent over to pick up Nightwitch, but before I actually got hold of her the lizard uncurled very quickly, slapped his tail sharply against the kitten's nose, and curled up tight again. He didn't stop yelling the whole time. The kitten jerked her head back so fast that she sat down hard on her tail, and I grabbed her.

"It's all right now, Suz," I said.

The lizard poked his nose out of the ball. "You're quite certain?" he said.

"Yes, of course," I said.