Talking to Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins - Страница 23

Suz uncurled a little more. "This sort of thing is quite unsettling," he said. "I do not approve at all. Dear me, no, not at all."

"I'm very sorry," I said. "I'm afraid I didn't know she was there."

"People who keep wild animals ought to know where they are so they don't go around eating other people," the lizard said. He uncurled the rest of the way and lay on the moss, peering reproachfully up at me.

I bent down, and Suz scooted back a couple of feet. "You keep that-that beast away from me!"

"Nightwitch isn't a wild animal, she's a kitten," Shiara said indignantly.

"And I don't believe she meant to eat you. She just wanted to play."

"She's too young to know better," I said. Shiara glared at me, and I added hastily, "Nightwitch, I mean."

"She is?" The lizard squinted at Nightwitch from a safe distance.

"Yes, I suppose she is," he said reluctantly. "How unfortunate. I really do think I had better leave. Dear me, yes, I really must."

Suz nodded and headed off into the woods.

"Suz, wait!" Shiara called.

The lizard stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry Nightwitch scared you," Shiara said.

"You are?" Suz turned around and ran back to where Shiara was standing.

He cocked his head at her, then did his tangled tail-balancing trick and stared up at her. "Why, you really are! How astonishing! How extraordinary! How extremely unexpected!"

I was a little surprised myself, but I decided I'd better change the subject before Shiara got offended. "Suz?"

The lizard turned his head and looked at me.

"What's the best way to get to the castle where Kazul lives?" I asked.

"Why, it's-" Suz paused. "Dear me, there seems to be an invisible castle in the way. How ridiculous. I'm afraid you'll just have to go around."

"That's what I thought," I said. "But thank you anyway."

"It's quite all right. And I really must be going now, I really must.

Good-bye." Suz bowed politely, then did a quick back flip and scurried off into the woods.

"And thank you for telling me how to change Shiara back!" I called.

Suz didn't answer. I turned back to find Shiara glaring at me again.

"All right, Daystar, explain. What's all this about statues and getting rid of witches?"

"I already told you all that," the dragon said in an injured tone.

"Why do you want him to tell you again?"

"Because I didn't understand it when you told it," Shiara said. She sounded a lot like Mother. "And I want to know what's been going on."

She sat down on the ground and looked at me. "So explain."

I explained. Shiara let me talk until I started to explain how we'd finally turned her from a statue back into Shiara, but then she interrupted. "You don't have to keep going," she said. She gave me an odd look. "I remember that part."

"Oh. I'm sorry," I offered. My face was getting hot again. "But no one could think of anything else, and it did work."

Shiara wasn't paying much attention. "Daystar, did your sword burn your hands when Antorell tried to throw that spell at you?" she asked suddenly.

"No," I said, relieved by the change of subject. "It didn't do anything at all."

"It did, too!" Shiara said. "It ate Antorell's spell. And it didn't do anything to you. Why didn't it work like that on the fire-witch's spell?"

"Who's Antorell?" asked the dragon.

"The wizard you were sneezing at when we met," I said. "He's not very pleasant."

"Wizards aren't," the dragon said.

"Daystar, this is important!" Shiara said. "Why didn't your sword work the same way on the fire-witch as it did on Antorell?"

"Fire-witches and wizards are different," I said. "It makes sense that the sword does different things to them. I wish it would get rid of Antorell, though. Then I could stop worrying about him."

Shiara said something else, but I missed it. All of a sudden I had the same itchy feeling I'd had earlier, as if someone were watching me. I looked over my shoulder, but there wasn't anyone there. Just trees.

"Daystar?" Shiara almost sounded worried.

"I'm all right," I said. "But can we get started and talk about this somewhere else? We still have to get to see Kazul, and there's an invisible castle in the way."

"Shouldn't we do something about the people she turned into statues for her garden?" Shiara said, looking nervously at the clearing where the castle ought to be.

"Why?" said the dragon in a puzzled tone.

"Because it wouldn't be right to just leave them there," I said.

No one seemed to like the idea of going into the castle. No one wanted to leave the fire-witch's statue people there, either. We spent a little while trying to figure out how to get into the castle. Shiara wanted to climb over the wall, but I didn't think that was a very good idea if we couldn't see the wall or what was on the other side.

Finally, she agreed to help me look for a door or a gate or something.

We stretched our hands out in front of us and walked carefully toward the castle. It wasn't there. We went a little farther. It still wasn't there. We walked around the clearing for a few minutes while the dragon watched with interest. Eventually, we gave up.

"I don't understand," Shiara said as we came back to pick up Nightwitch and Morwen's bundles. "Where did it go?"

"Maybe the fire-witch moved it while she was talking to me," I said.

"A whole castle? That fast? Besides, didn't Suz say it was still in the way? It must have moved since he left." Shiara stopped, and her eyes widened.

"Daystar, you don't think she could still be around, do you?"

"She isn't around anywhere," the dragon said positively. "She went up in smoke. I saw her."

"Good," Shiara said savagely. I must have looked awfully surprised, because Shiara glared at me and added, "She deserved it. You don't know what she had to do to make that castle invisible."

"What was it?" the dragon asked curiously.

Shiara glared at it, too. "I don't want to talk about it."

"why not?" said the dragon.

"Because she tortured people to death!" Shiara shouted. "It was part of the spell, and I know how to do it, and I don't want to think about it!"

"I told you she wasn't a nice person," the dragon said.

Shiara snorted. She picked up Nightwitch and her bundle and walked straight across the clearing. After a couple of seconds, the dragon and I followed.

Once we got across the clearing, the dragon took the lead again.

Nobody said much for the rest of the morning, which was fine with me; I still felt as if someone was watching me, and I didn't like it.

Finally even the dragon noticed.

"You look a little strange," it said. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't think so," I said. "I just feel like someone's watching me."

"You're imagining things," Shiara said. "I've been looking since you told me about it this morning, and I haven't seen anyone."

"Someone's following us?" the dragon said. It blinked at me, then turned in a slow circle, eyeing the trees. "You're right," it said finally.

"Someone is following us. That's not polite."

Before Shiara or I could say anything, the dragon's head shot out toward one of the trees. I'd never seen anything move so fast. There was a loud yell from someone who wasn't the dragon. Then the dragon yelped and a bunch of leaves came drifting down to the ground. I heard a couple of crashing noises and another, louder yell, and then the dragon reappeared.

Dangling by the seat of his pants from the dragon's mouth was an elf.

I stared for a minute, trying to decide whether this was the same elf we'd met before. He looked the same, but all elves look alike.

Besides, he was yelling and kicking, and every now and then the dragon would shake its head, which made it hard to see the elf clearly.