"Now what?" Alianora said when all the buckets were full of cleaning mixture.
Cimorene reached into her pocket and dug out the package. Gently, she unfolded the handkerchief and removed one of the feathers, noticing as she did that the package also contained the pebble she had picked up in the Caves of Fire and Night. "If we each take two buckets, can we still link elbows without spilling too much?" she asked.
Alianora and the stone prince looked at each other, shrugged, and picked up two buckets each. Cimorene took the last bucket and the iron pot, holding the handle of the pot with only three fingers so that she could keep a grip on the feather with her thumb and forefinger. A series of awkward maneuvers followed as Alianora and the stone prince tried to link elbows with Cimorene without losing their balance or dropping one of their buckets.
In the process, Cimorene's skirt got soaked.
"It's a good thing I'm not a wizard," Cimorene said. "Ready? Here we go." She twisted her hand toward the edge of the iron pot and let go of the black feather. "I wish we were at the Ford of Whispering Snakes," she said as the feather fell, and the room dissolved around them.
They materialized at the very edge of a river, on a flat, narrow rock that jutted out over the water, and Alianora immediately slipped on the wet stone. If the stone prince had not been so solid and heavy, all three of them would have fallen into the river. As it was, it took Cimorene and Alianora several seconds to regain their balance. When she was finally sure of her footing, Cimorene breathed a sigh of relief and quickly looked about her.
The Ford of Whispering Snakes was crowded. Dragons of all sizes and shades of green lined the banks of the river and filled the spaces beneath the towering trees of the Enchanted Forest. On the far bank, a pale dragon was poring over a parchment list that Cimorene thought she remembered seeing during one of the many errands she had run the previous night. All the dragons seemed to be talking at once, and none of them noticed Cimorene and her friends.
"Hello, dragons? Cimorene shouted, trying to make herself heard above the noise.
"Here, now! What's all this?" an olive-green dragon on the bank demanded, turning. "Someone's trying to sneak a look at the trials."
"S-s-s-sneakssss," hissed a soft but nonetheless clearly audible voice from somewhere near Cimorene's feet. Cimorene jumped and looked down, but though she craned her neck to see all around her, she could not find the second speaker.
"Get rid of them before Troum comes back with Colin's Stone," another dragon advised.
"We aren't trying to sneak in, and we don't care about watching the trials," Cimorene said, wishing she dared to look around for Kazul.
"We came to warn you about the wizards."
"Wiz-z-zardssss," the soft voice echoed.
"Wizards?" the olive-green dragon said skeptically. "There aren't any wizards here."
"No, but they've figured out some way of interfering with your choice of the next king," Cimorene said. "They're hiding somewhere. You have to put off the trials with Colin's Stone until we can find them and stop them. If you'll just tell Kazul we're here-" "Put off the trials?" the olive-green dragon interrupted. "Impossible! They've been under way for half an hour. We can't just stop in the middle.
Who are all you people, anyway?"
A flicker of motion caught Cimorene's eye, and she looked down just in time to see a thin red snake dart from one clump of weeds to the next.
"S-s-s-sneaksss," whispered the soft voice an instant later.
"S-s-sneaksss and wiz-z-zardsss."
"I wasn't asking you," the dragon said severely in the general direction of the snake. "And whatever they are, they certainly aren't wizards."
"They look like somebody's princesses to me," a blue-green dragon said.
"Pity, that. It would be so much simpler to eat them and get them out of the way."
"Are you sure?" said a third dragon. "The one on the end doesn't look like a princess."
"I'm beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea," the stone prince said.
"He may not be a princess, but he doesn't look edible, either," the blue-green dragon pointed out. "And these other two are definitely princesses.
You can't go eating them out of hand."
"Princesssessss," hissed the voice from under the rock.
"Oh, princesses," the olive-green dragon said. "No wonder they're so full of wild tales."
"It's me!" Cimorene said desperately. "If you don't believe us, take us to Kazul; she will."
"I can't do that!" the olive-green dragon said, shocked. "Kazul's third in line now, after Mazarin and Woraug. You can't talk to people who are that close to making their attempt with the stone. It would distract them."
"Woraug!" Alianora said. "Woraug's next in line?"
"Yes, he should be starting off any minute now," said the olive-green dragon. "Then comes Mazarin, and then Kazul. I don't expect it will take long, though. Nobody's carried the stone for more than a mile or two yet."
"But I'm Kazul's princess!" Cimorene said.
"I don't care who you are," the dragon replied crossly. "You can't talk to Kazul until she's done with her turn."
"That will be too late!" Cimorene cried. "You don't understand.
Woraug and the wizards-" "I've had enough of your wizards," the olive-green dragon said.
"You're a confounded nuisance, and you ought not to be pushing your way in here where you're not wanted. Go away!"
"Cimorene, what are we going to do?" Alianora said as the olive-green dragon turned and stalked determinedly away.
"At hero's school we were always taught that if you couldn't persuade anyone to help you with something, it meant that you were supposed to do it by yourself," the stone prince said diffidently. "And we are prepared." He lifted one of his buckets slightly.
"But we don't know where the wizards are." Alianora said. "We have to find them before we can stop them, and there isn't time."
"S-s-stop the wiz-z-zardsss," whispered the soft voice.
"That's the first sensible thing you've said since we got here," Cimorene said to the hissing whisper.
"Can't you just wish to be where the wizards are?" the stone prince asked Cimorene.
"No, you have to know where you're going, or the spell doesn't work," Cimorene said.
For a moment all three were glumly silent. Cimorene stared at the water, remembering how and where she had gotten the feathers. Suddenly she raised her head.
"We may not know where the wizards are, but I'll bet I know someone who can find out. Hold this for a minute."
Cimorene handed one of her buckets to Alianora, then dug out the packet of feathers. She pulled the second feather from the packet and grabbed Alianora's elbow. "Hold tight, everybody. I wish we were at Morwen's house," Cimorene said, and dropped the feather.
The scenery shifted abruptly, and they were standing on Morwen's porch.
The house was just as tidy-looking as Cimorene remembered, and the porch floor gleamed as if it had just been washed. A black and white cat, startled by their sudden appearance, fell off the porch railing.
Four others left off washing themselves to stare at Cimorene with unwinking green and yellow eyes.
"I need to talk to Morwen," Cimorene said to the cats. "It's an emergency."
A lean tiger-stripped cat rose and oozed through a crack in the door.
Cimorene unwound herself from Alianora and the stone prince and set her bucket on the porch floor. "I hope this works," she muttered to herself as Alianora and the prince placed their buckets beside hers.