Calling on Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins (книги онлайн читать бесплатно TXT) 📗

"What's that?" said the man. "What sort of trouble? And why do you want a hand with it?"

"Cats," said Morwen. "And I don't want a hand with them. It's Telemain who-" as if the sound of his name had partially awakened him, Telemain grunted and stirred. The laundry basket swung sideways, throwing Trouble off his feet. This made the basket swing even more wildly.

Morwen bent forward and grabbed the window ledge, which helped stabilize things a little. Then Telemain moaned and tried to sit up.

The laundry basket wobbled violently, nearly spilling everyone out.

The cats wailed, and Morwen was only just able to keep hold of the window ledge.

"Blast the maul" Morwen said. "Why does he have to pick just this instant to start recovering? Telemain, hold still."

The red-haired man leaned out of the window and grabbed the rim of the laundry basket. "Stop that immediately," he said sternly. "Stay put."

The laundry basket froze. Trouble yowled and leapt from the bottom of the laundry basket to the young man's bent-over back, and from there into the room. "Good idea," said Scorn, and followed.

"Oof! Oof?" said the man. "What was that?"

"Cats," Morwen said again. "Help me get Telemain out of here before he dumps us over."

Between the two of them, they wrestled Telemain out of the laundry basket and through the window. To Morwen's mild surprise, the basket remained perfectly stable throughout the entire operation, but as soon as the red-haired man turned away the basket began to wobble once more.

"There's another person and an oversized donkey at the foot of your tower as well," Morwen said when Telemain was safely inside, lying comfortably on the floor in front of the fireplace. They'd have to wait to do anything about the mud that covered him from head to foot, but fortunately the red-haired man did not have much in the way of carpeting. The stone floor would sweep up easily enough. "I'd like to bring the others up as soon as possible. The donkey will be a bit tricky."

"I'll be glad to-" The young man broke off, and his expression darkened, as if he were remembering something that annoyed him. "No.

I shouldn't have let you in. You had your chance."

Morwen looked at him sternly over the tops of her glasses. "If you are sulky because we didn't allow you to haul us up immediately, you are being unreasonable, unmannerly, and overly bad tempered, even for a fire-witch.

Enchanting that basket of yours has saved you a good deal of effort, now and in the future, and you ought to thank us for it."

"How do you know I'm a fire-witch?" the man demanded angrily.

"You have red hair, a touchy disposition, and an instinctive control over magic, even other people's spells," Morwen said. "And from the way you burned that rope, you've some affinity for fire as well. It's obvious.

Now, are you going to let me bring up those people or not?"

"I don't-"

"Morwen, company," said Scorn.

Morwen turned. Outside the open window, enormous wings flapping furiously, Killer was coming in for a landing. Cimorene lay low along his back to avoid the wings, her arms wrapped around his neck.

"Have you found something we can have for dinner?" Killer asked.

14

In Which They Trade Stories

The red-haired man stared at the apparition in disbelief. Morwen didn't blame him. Killer looked nearly as unsteady as the laundry basket, which was still hovering just outside the window.

"What on earth is that?" the man demanded.

"My friends," Morwen said. "You'd better back up. There's not much room to spare, coming through that window, and Killer's never done this before."

"Killer?" The man backed up hastily. "Good grief, it's blue."

"Oh, really?" said Scorn, her voice dripping sarcasm. "We hadn't noticed."

"You know, I don't think his wings will fit through the opening unless he folds them," Trouble said. "I wonder how he'll manage?"

Killer flapped higher, then dove for the window, folding his wings at the last minute. His momentum wasn't quite enough to carry him through, and for an instant his front hooves flailed uselessly against air inside the tower while his back legs hung outside. Then he kicked, wiggled, and tumbled into the room, where he sprawled six inches above the floor, panting loudly. The sudden jerk tore Cimorene loose, and she landed next to Killer with a thud.

"Ow!" said Cimorene. "Morwen, are you all right? When the basket didn't come down again, I got worried."

"Everything is fine," Morwen said. "Telemain is even beginning to come out of the initial stages of backshock."

"Then what took you so long?" Cimorene demanded.

"I was chatting with our host…" Morwen turned expectantly to the red-haired man.

"Brandel," the red-haired man supplied. He still sounded sullen, but there was an undercurrent of interest, too. "I suppose that, since you're in, you can stay." He looked from Morwen to Killer to the cats to Cimorene.

"But you're going to have to explain yourselves."

"In a minute," Morwen said. "First, we have to tell Kazul what's been going on. Unless you want a worried dragon tearing your tower apart."

Without waiting for Brandel to answer, she leaned out the window and began shouting reassurances.

Explaining to Kazul took some time, and after that they had to haul the laundry basket back inside. Once it was in, they discovered that Killer had kicked a hole in the side in his last desperate lunge through the window.

This put Brandel out of sorts again.

"I should throw you all back out the window immediately," he grumbled.

"You're nothing but a lot of vagabonds."

"That doesn't sound right," Killer said, climbing to his feet. "Unless vagabonds is a word for a witch and a magician and the Queen of the Enchanted Forest and the King of the Dragons and some cats. And me.

Is that what it means, Morwen?"

"Not exactly. Brandel is just grouchy."

"Oh." Killer shook himself, which made his wings flop open. He had to flap them once to keep his balance and then again to get them back in position. "I thought having wings would be interesting, but they're just a big trouble."

"What was that about queens and kings and magicians?" Brandel asked Morwen.

So Morwen made a round of formal introductions, which soothed everyone's feelings. Then, just when they were getting ready to sit down and talk, Telemain stirred again and Morwen had to quiet him.

"I thought you wanted him to wake up," Killer said.

"I do, but thrashing around won't help him recover," Morwen said.

"He needs to keep quiet."

"No problem," said Trouble. He stood up, stretched, strolled over to Telemain, and draped himself down the center of the magician's chest.

"How long do you want him like this?"

"Thank you, Trouble," Morwen said, feeling relieved. Not only would Trouble's efforts hasten Telemain's recovery, but keeping Telemain quiet would also keep Trouble from getting into trouble. Given a specific job, the cat was quite reliable. "Two or three more hours should do it, now that he's warm. Then we can wake him, feed him some broth, and put him to bed."

"I bet he won't want to go," said Scorn.

"Three hours. Right." Trouble yawned and put his head down on his paws.

"I thought regular witches were supposed to have black cats," said Brandel, looking from Trouble to Scorn. "Unless-are you a fire-witch, too?"

"No," said Morwen. "But I don't see why that should limit me to black cats."

Brandel started to ask something else, then stopped, frowning. "No.

I'll ask you about that later. Right now, you're here and you're all settled, and I want my explanation. Before something else happens."

"First, I'd like to know how you feel about wizards," Morwen said.