Dealing with Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins (бесплатные версии книг .TXT) 📗

Halfway across, she noticed the vibration. It began as a gentle and not unpleasant buzzing in her bones, unrelated to the loud and continually multiplying echoes of her passage, though it, too, grew stronger the farther into the cave she went. Kazul was in front of her now, and she saw the dragon's tail lash once, as if in pain or anger.

Suddenly she remembered Kazul's description of the aura that made it impossible for most dragons to carry Colin's Stone, and that this was the place where Colin's Stone had been found. No wonder Kazul was uncomfortable.

Cimorene found herself wishing she could stop and pay attention to the humming in her bones, but she remembered Kazul's directions and continued walking. She had nearly reached the exit when she saw a pebble about the size of her thumbnail, made of the same dark, shiny stone as the cavern walls. Kazul had said nothing about picking things up, so Cimorene veered a little to the right and scooped the pebble up as she passed. A moment later she was out of the cave.

"Phew!" said Kazul. "I'm glad that's over. From here on, it should be easy."

"Good," said Cimorene. She dropped the pebble into her pocket to look at it more closely later and followed Kazul down the narrow, winding tunnel.

8

In Which Cimorene and Kazul Pay a Call, and Cimorene Gets into a Fight

A few minutes later they came out of the Caves of Fire and Night into bright sunlight. Cimorene had to shade her eyes against the sudden glare.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw a large clearing around the mouth of the cave.

The ground was covered with short grass, so lush and dense that it made Cimorene think of green fur. Here and there a tiny flower twinkled among the blades of grass. At the edge of the clearing the forest began, but Cimorene could only make out the first row of trees. They were enormous, so large that they dwarfed even Kazul.

"Leave the lamp here," Kazul said. "There's no sense in carting it around the forest when we won't need it until we come back."

Cimorene set the lamp on the ground just inside the mouth of the cave.

"Now what?" she said.

"Now we go to Morwen's," Kazul said. "And we'll get there more quickly if you ride. If you climb up on that rock over there, you ought to be able to get on my back without too much trouble."

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Cimorene said, scrambling up onto the rock Kazul had indicated.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I minded," Kazul said. "Right there will be fine. You can hang onto the spike in front of you and you won't foul my wings if I have to take off suddenly."

Cimorene did not like the implication that there were things in the Enchanted Forest that were nasty enough to make a dragon want to take off suddenly, but she did not say so. It was too late to back out, and she certainly wasn't going to wait at the mouth of the cave all alone while Kazul went off to visit Morwen. There was no reason to think that waiting would be any safer than going along.

As soon as Cimorene was settled, Kazul set off into the forest at a rapid pace. At first Cimorene had to concentrate on holding on, but after a while she began to get the hang of it. Soon she was able to look at some of the things they were passing. The trees were huge; Cimorene guessed that even if there were four of her, holding hands, she would not be able to reach all the way around one of the trunks.

The ground was carpeted with bright green moss that looked even thicker than the grass in the clearing.

Cimorene saw no flowers in it, but she spotted several bushes and a vine with three different colors of fruit.

Kazul changed course several times for no reason that Cimorene could see, but she did not like to distract the dragon by asking questions.

They passed a mansion guarded by a fence made of gold and a short tower without any windows or doors. Then Kazul splashed through a shallow stream and made a sharp turn. The trees thinned a little, and Kazul stopped in front of a neat gray house with a wide porch and a red roof.

Over the door was a black-and-gold sign in large block letters reading, "NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE."

There were several cats of various sizes and colors perched on the porch railing or lying in the sun. As Cimorene dismounted, Kazul said to one of them, "Would you be good enough to tell Morwen that I'm here and would like to talk to her?"

The cat, a large gray torn, blinked its yellow eyes at Kazul. Then he jumped down from the porch rail and sauntered into the house, his tail held high as if to say, "I'm doing this as a particular favor, mind, and don't you forget it."

"He doesn't seem very impressed," Cimorene commented in some amusement.

"Why should he be?" Kazul said.

"Well, you're a dragon," Cimorene answered, a little taken aback.

"What difference does that make to a cat?"

Fortunately, Cimorene did not have to find an answer, for at that moment Morwen appeared in the doorway. She was wearing the same black robe she had worn when she visited Cimorene, or another one exactly like it, and she peered through her glasses with the air of someone studying an unexpected and rather peculiar puzzle.

"Good morning, Kazul," she said after a moment. "This is a surprise."

"Good," said Kazul. "If you aren't expecting us to be here, no one else is, either."

"That's the way of things, is it?" Morwen commented thoughtfully.

"How much of a hurry are you in?"

"Not much of one, as long as no one knows we're here," Kazul replied.

"Then Cimorene had better get down and have something to drink," Morwen said in a tone that forbade contradiction. "There's cider, or goat's milk, though if you want that, you'll have the cats after you, or I can put a kettle on for tea. Good gracious, what have you done to your hand?"

While Morwen had been talking, Cimorene had turned and slid carefully down Kazul's side. It was a long slide, and when her feet hit the ground, she had to put out a hand to keep from falling. Morwen's exclamation made her blink in surprise, and she looked down. The palm of her right hand was covered with blood from half a dozen deep slashes and as many scrapes.

"Oh, dear," Cimorene said. "It must have happened in the caves, when it was so dark. I didn't realize. It doesn't hurt at all."

"Hurting or not, it needs attention," Morwen said firmly. "Come inside, and I'll see to it while Kazul tells me why you're here.

You'll have to go around back this time," she added, turning to Kazul.

"The front steps won't take the weight. A gnome stole one of the supports, and I haven't had time to get it fixed yet. Pesky creatures-they're worse than mice."

"Don't the cats keep the mice away?" Cimorene asked, mildly puzzled.

"Yes, but they don't do a thing about gnomes, which is why gnomes are worse. Mind the step."

Kazul started walking while Morwen shooed Cimorene up the wooden steps and into the house. Several of the cats eyed Cimorene curiously as she passed, and a tortoiseshell kitten got up and followed her in.

The front door led into a large, airy room with an iron stove in one corner. There was a good deal of furniture, but everything except the table and the stove had at least one cat on top of it. Morwen frowned at a fat and fluffy Persian that was sitting on one of the chairs. The cat stood up, yawned, gave its front paws a cursory lick or two just to show that this was all his own idea, and jumped down onto the floor.

As Cimorene sat down in the vacated chair, there was a knock at the wooden door on the opposite side of the room.

"That'll be Kazul," Morwen said. She crossed to the door and opened it. "Come in. I'll get you some cider as soon as I've seen to Cimorene's hand."

Morwen's back door did not seem to get any larger, and Kazul certainly did not get any smaller, but when she put her head through the doorway, her scales did not even scrape the sides. The rest of her followed with no apparent difficulty, and somehow there was plenty of room in the kitchen even after she got inside.