"You mean that blackness is likely to come back?"
Kazul nodded.
"Then let's get as far as we can before it does," Cimorene said, and started across the cave.
There were four tunnels leading out of the opposite side of the glittering cavern. Kazul took the second from the left without hesitating an instant.
"Where do all these tunnels go?" Cimorene asked, glancing at the other three openings as she followed Kazul.
"The one on the right end leads to a chain of caverns," Kazul said over her shoulder. "The first few are quite ordinary, but then you come to one full of hot sulfur pools. Some of the older dragons bathe there.
They claim the water is good for rheumatism. Beyond that is a cave with molten silver dripping down the walls, and the chain ends at a deep chasm with a river of red-hot melted rock at the bottom."
"Doesn't sound very attractive," Cimorene commented.
"The dwarfsmiths find it very useful for forging magic swords," Kazul assured her. "The second tunnel on the right takes you into a maze.
The tunnels and caverns constantly shift around, so that no matter how carefully you mark your way, you always get lost."
"Even dragons?"
Kazul nodded. "Though I believe there was one prince who managed to find his way out with a magic ball of string."
"Oh, bother!" said Cimorene. The lights had gone out again, just as they emerged into a small cave.
"It's quite all right. This part's easy," Kazul said.
"Next time I'm going to bring a cane," Cimorene muttered. "Where do the other tunnels lead?"
"The one on the far left goes through a couple of caverns that are pretty, but not very interesting. We're always chasing knights and princes out of it, though. They come for flasks of water from the bottomless pool at the far end."
"What does it do?" Cimorene asked. "Ow!" She had just banged her right elbow against the wall of the cave in the dark.
"It casts a cloud of darkness for twenty miles around when it's poured on the ground," Kazul replied.
"How useful," Cimorene muttered balefully, rubbing her elbow.
"And this tunnel leads to the Enchanted Forest, by way of the King's Cave," Kazul finished.
"Oh, good. I was hoping to see that," Cimorene said. The King's Cave was the chamber where the first King of the Dragons had found Colin's Stone, and the Historia Dracorum had not described it anywhere near well enough to suit Cimorene. "And here's the light coming back, thank goodness.
Let's hurry before it goes again."
They went through three small caves and two more periods of blackness before they reached the King's Cave. Kazul pointed out various locations of interest, such as the wall of crystal with a chip in one corner where the Prince of the Ruby Throne had stolen a piece to make a magic ring and the jewel-studded cavern where the King of the Dragons met with people who needed impressing. There was one very eerie cave full of slabs of black rock. Most were standing on end, though a few had fallen over. Kazul said they were all enchanted princes.
"All of them?" Cimorene asked, appalled. There were at least forty of the stone slabs, and the cave was quite crowded.
Kazul shook her head. "No, the one on the end there is just an ordinary boulder."
"How did it happen?"
"The princes came to steal some of the Water of Healing from the well at the end of the cave," Kazul said. "There are two dippers by the welclass="underline" one is tin, the other is solid gold and covered with jewels. The princes all tried to use the gold one, even though they'd been told that only the tin dipper would work. It's no more than they deserve."
Cimorene frowned, thinking of some of the princes she had known.
"Well, I won't deny that they probably behaved foolishly, but-" "Foolishly!" Kazul snorted. "Any reasonably well-educated prince ought to have sense enough to follow directions when he's on a quest, but all of these fellows were sure they knew better. If they'd simply done what they were told, they wouldn't be here."
"Still, turning them into slabs of stone forever seems a little extreme."
"Oh, they won't be stone forever," Kazul said. "Sooner or later someone will come along who has the sense not to improvise, and he'll succeed in getting the water. Then he'll use some of it to disenchant this lot, and the cave will be empty for a while until the next batch of young idiots starts arriving."
Cimorene felt better knowing that the princes would someday be freed, though she had sense enough not to try doing it herself. Since she had not been sent on a quest for the Water of Healing, it was highly unlikely that she would be able to disenchant the princes even if she succeeded in taking the water. And she knew enough about quests and enchantments and the obtaining of things with magical properties to know that she would probably get into a lot of trouble if she tried.
So she tucked the matter into the back of her mind and followed Kazul through the stone-filled cavern. She was careful not to step on any of the fallen slabs.
Just outside the entrance to the next cave, Kazul stopped. "This," she said, "is the King's Cave. We have to cross it as quickly as we can.
Don't stop in the middle, and don't say anything while we're inside.
Understand?
Good. Come on, then."
As soon as she stepped inside the cave, Cimorene understood the reason for Kazul's request for silence. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were made of dark, shiny stone that multiplied and threw back echoes of even the smallest sound. The soft scraping of Kazul's scales against the floor sounded like thirty men sawing wood, and the tiny gasp Cimorene gave at the sight and sound of the cave was as loud as if she had shouted. Cimorene went on as quietly and carefully as she could.
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."