The Lazy Dragon and Bumblespells Wizard (15 page)

Cl'rnce looked at the knight who had been trying to kill him for two days. “Why would I believe you? I'm going in after her.”

“Hold it! Before you do something stupid!”

Cl'rnce raised a scaly eye ridge and snapped his claws to hurry Nasty Sir George on.

The knight quickly spit out, “There's no reason you should believe me, except I did warn you. I could have let you jump in to your death, but I didn't.”

“You just want to get free and kill me yourself,”
Cl'rnce said, watching a trail of bubbles heading for the waterfall. He thought he could make out legs kicking beneath the water. He hoped he was watching Great and Mighty swim. Or it could be a kelpie headed to an underwater cavern. It might be too late to save the little want-to-be wizard. Which would leave him on his own with a killer knight and a journey to make without a Wizard Partner. Alone was how he liked it. Or used to. Now, he wanted … Great and Mighty.

Nasty Sir George sighed. “I admit it. I was paid to kill you, and I will. But no one paid me to kill the girl. She saved me. I am not a murderer, just a dr'gon slaying knight for hire. I have principles, you know.”

“How do I know?” Cl'rnce thought he saw a second, wider and denser set of bubbles following the first. “That has to be her in front, on her way to the waterfall.” He pointed to the first set of bubbles.

Nasty Sir George said, “Two bubble trails, huh? My attacker is following her. We're running out of time. Do you want my help?”

The second set of bubbles was closing in on the first. Cl'rnce was ready to jump in and rescue Great and Mighty, but he really wanted to know what was in the pond. “It's a kelpie, right? Is that what's following her?”

“No. The kelpie I was riding only lives in the moat. That's something else.” Cl'rnce heard a rattling of armor that might have been Nasty Sir George shivering.

Now mad and concerned for how long the little want-to-be wizard had been underwater and for what was following her, Cl'rnce stared into the water. “You claim you don't know what it is. Before, you were screaming for help. You're lying. You can't help. You don't know how to kill it. I should kill you before I save her.”

“Okay! It's a giant frog. I ignored it when I got here, but then I fell into the pond. It jumped after me and started trying to eat me.”

Cl'rnce stared harder. The kick of both watery blobs swimming below the surface did resemble a frog stroke. But the knight was a killer, a villain; Cl'rnce couldn't believe him. “I never heard anything so stupid. A giant frog? There's no such thing. You're lying again. And besides, why didn't you fight it? You have a sword.”

“Fine. I'm lying, and meanwhile it's almost on top of your friend.”

The bubble trails were only a few feet apart. It seemed like the smaller one in front had slowed. Maybe Great and Mighty was tiring, or drowning.

“What can you do?” Cl'rnce asked. His flames wouldn't work underwater. If it really was a frog, it would be too slippery to catch. Cl'rnce was an excellent swimmer, but not a fast one. Wing drag slowed him down.

Nasty Sir George sighed. “Drop me in the water. It will come after me. My sword fell out over by those bushes when I slid in. You'll have to grab it and kill the
frog before it eats me.”

The bubbles were almost on top of Great and Mighty. Cl'rnce didn't have time to worry over why the knight would suddenly help instead of attack.

“Done. You're lucky I know a little magick. The one for dropping things, like water balloons, will work.” Cl'rnce had dropped five water balloons over a line of professors while he watched from behind a bush. But he couldn't picture that now. The bubble trails had almost merged. “Gravity take over,” he repeated three times as fast as he could, envisioning the balloons and Nasty Sir George dropping.

The knight dropped into the water. The bubble trails parted, and the smaller one headed for the knight.

“How long can she hold her breath? And why is she swimming back to the knight?” Cl'rnce muttered as he searched for the sword in the bush nearest the edge of the rock. “Got it.” He stood up, holding the sword, and scanned the pond. Nothing, not a ripple, on the water. Not a wizard, not a knight, not a frog.

His heart felt like a boulder had been tied to it and dropped into the deepest, coldest sea. Great and Mighty and Nasty Sir George had drowned. And worse, there was no sign of the monster frog to wreak any revenge on. A single tear slid out of Cl'rnce's eye. He batted it away, but the drop plopped on the pond's surface. Where the tear hit, the water began to churn and whirl. A second
later, Nasty Sir George and Great and Mighty bobbed up, coughing and spitting water.

“Huh?” Cl'rnce said, forgetting his usual smarter-than-anybody elegant speech. He had no idea why his tear had made the pond spit back the little wizard and the rusty knight, but it had.

Nasty Sir George and Great and Mighty swirled in the water as if caught in a whirlpool that was sucking up the top of the pond, and then Great and Mighty spun off, landing in the bush next to Cl'rnce. Right behind her, the knight jetted past Cl'rnce, crashing into a tree at the edge of the rocky ledge.

Great and Mighty picked her way out of the brush. “You should see what's down there!”

“Killer frogs?” Cl'rnce asked.

“No. A mermaid! Can you believe it? A real, honest-to-goodness mermaid. And they're a lot smaller than you think.” She held her hands close together.

Cl'rnce grunted and turned on Nasty Sir George. Holding the knight's sword in one paw, he said, “You want to tell me again about that killer frog?”

“No!” Sir George said, kicking his legs in the air to try to right himself. He had landed on his head, both feet in the air, one leg stuck in a branch that seemed to be gripping him with its twigs.

“You're a liar. You knew she was never in danger. You tricked me!” Cl'rnce looked down at the sword he
held. It would be so easy to lop this knight's head right off. No more problems from him. Cl'rnce and Great and Mighty could get going to Ghost Mountain and not worry about this jerk.

“Maybe I'm a liar, but it bit me,” Nasty Sir George grunted. He almost had one leg free.

“Allow me.” With the knight's sword, Cl'rnce took a long, hard swing at the knight, the broad side of the sword definitely not aimed at the branch, definitely aimed at the knight's head. He deserved a good headache.

“Arrestama!” a high-pitched voice screamed.

Cl'rnce's swing missed the knight, the branch, and the tree. The force of his powerful move pulled the sword out of his paws. It landed point down in the rock right behind where Nasty Sir George was still entangled in the limbs.

Cl'rnce turned to yell at Great and Mighty for stopping him from eliminating a dangerous evil knight. “What?”

Right behind the little wizard, floating on a funnel of water atop the pond, was a tiny woman with a fish tail and large purple eyes. The tiny woman said, “You, River Dr'gon, I am ashamed of you. On behalf of all the river folk, I grieve that you are such a cruel dr'gon.” She dove off the fountain into the pond.

“Oh, boy,” Great and Mighty said. “That was a mistake. I think from now on you're going to have a hard time swimming without being pinched and nipped.”

“I was only defending myself and you. That cranky mermaid must know my sister, Hazel.” Cl'rnce wasn't sure if he was ashamed of wanting to kill the helpless knight, but he sure hated being yelled at.

“She said her name is Sweetgrass, and I think you made a big mistake, Cl'rnce. The mermaid has a lot of relatives and water folk friends.” Great and Mighty shook her head. “She's right. You shouldn't go around killing people, you know.”

But it wasn't the little wizard or the mermaid's criticism that caught Cl'rnce's attention. It was what Nasty Sir George asked next.

“Hazel is your sister?” the knight asked. “Your sister?” He pointed at Cl'rnce.

Great and Mighty untangled the knight from the small branches and long vines and helped him get on his feet. “You know Cl'rnce's sister?” she asked.

“She hired me.” His eyes shifted away from Great and Mighty's, and then quickly back.

Moire Ain dropped the corner of Sir George's rusty shoulder armor she'd been pulling on. The knight rocked back onto his rear, but for once he didn't say a thing. She watched the knight's eyes flash from her to Cl'rnce.

Behind her, she heard a rumble and a click. She smelled something that had just caught fire. Moire Ain whirled around. A lick of flame slid out of Cl'rnce's nose. His eyes were angry slits, and he was definitely growling.

He held up a paw when she started to talk and shook his head at her. “You, knight. You liar! You insult my family thinking you can make me so angry I'll do something foolish that might turn me into a Killer Dr'gon. Not going to happen, liar. I don't know who hired you to slay me, if anyone did, but I know it wasn't my sister.” Cl'rnce took a step closer to the knight, a longer slick of flame darting out of the corner of his mouth and slapping at the top of Sir George's helmet.

“I'm not—” Sir George started to say.

But Moire Ain stepped between Cl'rnce and the
knight and snapped at Sir George. “Shut up!” She didn't know where the axe-hard edges in her voice came from. In all her life, she'd tried never to be mean to anyone. For fear of her life, she hadn't dared to be cross with Hedge-Witch, and Moire Ain had tried to treat everyone else in the village as nicely as possible to make up for Hedge-Witch's cruelty. But right now, in this moment, she didn't care if anything bad happened to Sir George. She cared about protecting Cl'rnce. She couldn't let him do anything bad that would make him sorry or get him in trouble. She wouldn't let Sir George goad Cl'rnce into being a killer.

“Listen, Cl'rnce.” She stared into the dr'gon's eyes, stepping side to side as he tried to avoid her gaze. She made him keep his focus on her instead of Sir George. “I think we need to get out of here. The knight is not a good guy. You were right. Don't listen to his drivel. Let's get back to the important stuff. We have an errand to run. Let's get going.”

“He said—he said—” Cl'rnce couldn't seem to catch his breath with fire sliding out the sides of his mouth. He looked down at the rusty sword in his paw. He looked back up at Sir George.

A shrill, piercing whistle came from the river. Joined by another and another. So many that finally Cl'rnce clapped his paws over his ears, dropping the sword. Moire Ain, one arm cradled over her head and ears,
started to lean down to take the sword, but Sir George had already crawled far enough to wrap his fingers around the hilt.

She lunged, dropping her arm from around her head, but the piercing whistles made her head swim, and she fell face first onto the rock. Moire Ain watched Sir George, apparently unfazed by the noise, grab the sword and get to his feet. For a moment, she thought he was going to swing at her, but he turned on Cl'rnce.

Moire Ain couldn't move her arms from her head; she couldn't get to her feet. All she could do was think. All she could think was that if Cl'rnce was in the pond, Sir George would not get near the dr'gon or the pond he feared. She managed to turn her head to Cl'rnce. His eyes were huge with pain. Moire Ain whispered, “Into the pond, Cl'rnce.” It wasn't a spell, she was pretty sure. But she said it three times, just in case wanting something this badly could make a difference.

Cl'rnce stumbled backward two steps and fell off the rock into the water.

As soon as he hit the surface, the whistling ceased. Moire Ain's head stopped feeling like the knight was running it through with a red-hot sword. She turned to Sir George, afraid that he'd be so mad at losing Cl'rnce that he'd take it out on her. But the knight stood with the sword dangling from his fingers and his helmeted head bowed down to his chest. He said not a word but
turned and marched off into the woods, loud clanking marking his passage. He looked ashamed.

Moire Ain got to her feet and ran to the border of the woods. She couldn't believe the knight would just give up, especially if he worked for Hedge-Witch. She expected to see him setting up an ambush in the trees. But he made it to the road, and kicking up dust, Sir George rattled away at a semi-run.

“I don't get it,” she said.

“I feel great!” Cl'rnce called from the pond. “Come on in, Great and Mighty!”

“Huh?” she trudged over to the edge of the rock. She had hoped just to protect Cl'rnce. It never occurred to her he'd be happy about it.

“Water's fine.” Cl'rnce shoved both forepaws forward, creating a big wave that broke over the ledge the little wizard stood on, soaking her all over again.

Moire Ain pushed her waterlogged hair out of her face. “Don't you want to know where Sir George is?”

“Who?” Cl'rnce splashed her again.

“What's the matter with you?” She sat on the rock, hanging her feet over the water and wringing out her robe's hem. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Cl'rnce smiled. “What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.” He splashed her again. “And you did some pretty neat magick for someone who can't read Old Dr'gon and hasn't finished her
Magicks Mysteries
book.”

“But you were so mad.” She stared at him, open mouthed. “You had fire coming out of your—” She pointed to her nose and mouth.

“And somewhere else,” He raised his eyebrow ridge and pointed to his tail. “So it's a good thing you shoved me in the pond. Apparently, when I get really angry, I spout fire out of everywhere.” He rolled his eyes and grinned like he'd just made a big joke.

“But you're not mad anymore?” Moire Ain couldn't get over this. All her life, Moire Ain could not remember Hedge-Witch not being angry. And certainly the old crone had never been really angry and then become happy in a matter of seconds. Something was wrong with this dr'gon.