To say that Felix was surprised to see us back was an understatement. He was a bit annoyed at first too, because he thought we hadn’t even made it to the door since we came back with the camouflage spell on us. It didn’t take us long to tell him the story, however, and when I pulled out the scrying mirror, he was delighted. Immediately he did something to it, and it just unfolded. The mirror that had fit into my pocket on the way back was now about three feet across. Felix hummed happily under his breath and carried the now huge mirror over to one of the walls and pressed it up against the surface. The mirror stuck and hung there.
“These portable scrying mirrors are so convenient,” he said to me, as I ogled at him. “I really should invest in one in just in case of emergencies, like this one. Not that I expect to be rescuing kidnap victims everyday, mind you…” he was flustered now.
I giggled at him, and Cosmo hissed a laugh.
“Yes, well, how about some lunch, hmm?” Felix busied himself in his gear. I grabbed Cosmo and hauled him over to the little heating tube in the bathing pool. He understood what I wanted right away and seemed very happy to heat up the water for me.
After a bath (for me) and lunch (for all of us), Felix decided to try out his new toy, the scrying mirror.
I was fascinated as he managed to produce a picture of another dragon almost immediately, and although I couldn’t understand the conversation, I watched just so I could see what was going on in the background. I could see all sorts of dragons scurrying about and gear being collected. I was disappointed when the connection ended and Felix turned back to Cosmo and me.
“Well, they say it should be about a week before they are ready. They have the dragons, and the equipment, but they need to gather some magic together. I think they are planning on shrinking the dragons who have been magically enlarged back down to a more normal size. That would make sense at least. In the meantime, we need to amuse ourselves. I have no trouble with this. My research isn’t nearly done.” He snorted, turned and bustled away to the other room.
I looked at Cosmo. He gave a flip of his wings and landed in the opening to the tunnels.
“Be careful out there! Whatever you do, don’t get caught!” I told him. He nodded and ducked into the tunnel. Left to my own devices, I poked around in the edges of Felix’s gear, found something soft to lie down on, and curled up for a nap.
I was awakened some time later by Cosmo’s return. He was squeaking and hissing and growling at the top of his lungs from the time he popped through the opening into the room. Felix bustled back in and said something that calmed him down some. They proceeded to have a lengthy conversation. Finally, Felix turned to me and said, “They have discovered your absence. Cosmo says that they found the tunnel entrance in the room you were in, and are mounting an extensive search everywhere they think the tunnels might lead. Right now they have no one who will fit through the tunnels, but that may change. All it takes is the right spell to shrink the younger dragons back down to their normal size, and then they will have all the searchers they need.”
I gulped. “What can we do?”
“We will have to block the tunnels. I will prepare some spells that you can trigger at strategic points in the tunnels to cause small cave ins. We need to do this right away, though.”
I understood this. “Yeah, the sooner we do it, the longer the blockages will have been in place. They’ll look old enough to have blocked me, too.” I thought for a moment. “What about finding a place for us to have escaped to, someplace way away from here? Maybe even someplace outside?” I turned to Cosmo. “Do you know of any exits like that? If we lay some false trails that way, they’ll be looking in the wrong places for sure.”
Felix and Cosmo talked for a minute and then Felix said to me, “You go with Cosmo while I work on these spells. Make sure that you make really clear trials to lure them the wrong way, and by the time you get back, I’ll have the spells ready for you.”
Cosmo and I set off into the dark, winding tunnels once more. He led me back near the room I had been a captive in and we started to make the false trails leading away from our hidey-hole. An old torch, some of the junk from my pockets, the bones of an eaten cave lizard – we left all of these things here and there along the way, and down several dead ends too as we left our path of deception.
Cosmo made a point of scratching at the walls in several places, and I piled up little signs made of rocks to help it look like we were marking a path. Finally, we came to an opening to the outside world. I poked my head out and found myself wishing I could stay. The air was fresh and sweet. It was cool, but not cold, and I loved the feeling of the clean breeze with its hint of salt on my face. Cosmo goosed me, and I crawled out of the hole so he could come out too. Moments later, we were standing on the side of a huge mountain. I wandered over to a nearby ledge and looked out. I could see green stretching away below me and in the distance there was what appeared to be a sea. The trees weren’t familiar looking, but they weren’t so strange that I couldn’t tell they were trees. Something flew overhead and I looked up. It was a bird of sorts, but more reptilian looking. I definitely wasn’t home anymore!
Cosmo and I left evidence around the area, and even took a few minutes to start a small fire. After it had burned for a while, I kicked it out with sand and made a clear path into the trees. The searching dragons would think I was a clumsy human sure enough with the obvious trails I was leaving.
Finally, we popped back into the hole and hurried back to Felix.
Felix was in a sweat when we arrived. “Dragons, outside the doors!” he said in a hushed tone. “I heard them coming and put up an illusion of a rock slide over the door. It fooled them for the time being, but I need to make a real one. These were just the young dragons and they are easy to fool. If one of the big ones comes this way, they will see through it in an instant!” He was running around trying to get his things ready for the spell.
“I have five of these little spells ready for you – take them and use them while I make a large spell for the door. Go! Go! Go! And when you get back, check in here carefully before you enter. I don’t want you falling into a trap!” He shoved some packets at me, told me the trigger word, advised me to be at least ten feet away before I said it, and practically threw us through the tunnel entrance. Cosmo and I crawled away to do our jobs and left Felix dithering behind us in the old nurseries.
It didn’t take long to set off the magical devices that Felix had created. They were really very nifty – place the packet where you wanted to blockage, move away, say the word and watch the tunnel fill up with debris. The debris seemed to come mostly from the roof, but it didn’t look like it affected the stability of the tunnels at all. I tried to place them in logical places so they wouldn’t look contrived, and then we were done. We crept back slowly, my hands and knees aching with all the crawling I had done today. At the opening, we stopped, but all we could hear was Felix humming to himself. Cosmo darted out and landed in a high spot and when Felix looked up and acknowledged him, I climbed out, too.
“Well, they’re set. I think we did a good enough job placing them.” I said.
Felix bobbed his head. “Yes, and I have placed a real rock slide over the door to the nurseries. I think it should look enough like the illusory one to fool everyone into thinking it is the same one. We are set. Now all we need to do is wait.”
Waiting was long. Over the next few days, Cosmo explored the rooms of the old nurseries and found some antique dragon toys to amuse himself with. Felix objected to these “artifacts and relics” being used until I pointed out that if he wasn’t busy, Cosmo might decide to play with Felix’s equipment. Grumbling, Felix agreed that Cosmo was better off playing with these items meant to take the abuse of a small dragon than his delicate gear. So I set up flight courses for Cosmo with large rings to dart through, and he stacked big blocks, and generally kept busy.
When Felix wasn’t working, he tried to teach me some dragon, and while I learned to say a few things, my vocal chords really weren’t cut out for it. Finally, he decided to try and teach me to read dragon.
To the surprise of both of us, I took right to it. Written dragon was made up of ideograms, or picture words, like Chinese. They had originally been made by dragons pressing their claws into soft clay or making score-marks with their claws on wood or bone so I could even write them easily. I caught on quickly, and by the end of the third day, I could read and write simple sentences. Felix was delighted with me.
Cosmo finally became bored, and was annoyed when Felix and I told him to keep out of the tunnels. He finally got into enough trouble in our rooms that Felix told Cosmo that if he didn’t behave, Felix would stop making ice for him to slide on. Cosmo growled something in reply and Felix ended up laughing. He turned to me and said, “The little one says that if I don’t make him ice to slide on, he won’t light our cooking fires and we can eat cold food.” He snorted a laugh.
I laughed too. “It sounds like a stalemate!” I said.
Felix looked at me. “What is a stalemate?” he asked. “I have heard this term before, but cannot figure it out.” So I spent the next few hours explaining the game of chess to him. Then nothing would do but that he construct some chess pieces out of bone. He used a sharp edge on one of his claws to scrape some bits of cave lizard bone into the rough shapes and then had Cosmo darken half of them with his fire. A board was constructed in a similar way, and we were off. He took to it like a duck to water, and was quickly challenging me. I decided to mix things up by teaching him mancala and gomoku which could be played with pebbles, and he enjoyed those too. He in turn taught me several dragon strategy games and after that we passed the time quite happily. Even Cosmo would stop playing with other things and play simpler versions of the games Felix was teaching me, much to our mutual delight.
About once a day, Felix would check in on the scrying mirror to see how the plan was progressing. Every time he connected, I could see more dragons and equipment in the background. The dragons were taking this threat very, very seriously.
We hadn’t heard any dragons out in the corridor since Felix had created the rock fall outside the door, but one afternoon that changed. I heard the noise first, a scraping sound.
I nudged Felix who was making dinner rather loudly, and shushed Cosmo who was sliding on the ice and squealing.
We all stopped and listened. The sound occurred again. It sounded like someone or something digging at the rock fall. I turned to Felix, white as a sheet. Felix whispered to me, “Get the little one and climb into the tunnel. If you need to run, do.” He fished in a bag and handed me a packet. I was getting familiar with his little packets. He told me the trigger word and said, “This will unblock the rock falls if you need it to. Get somewhere safe if they break in here.”
Cosmo and I climbed into the tunnel to wait. The scraping sound continued, getting louder. It sounded like whoever it was, was about to break through. Suddenly we heard dragons shouting and a lot of bumping and scraping and what sounded like a tussle. Then there was silence.
Felix waited a little longer before he motioned up down. Cautiously we crept out of the tunnel and over to him.
Felix was chuckling. “What was all of that?” I asked.
“The scraping sound was apparently a rather large adult cave lizard digging in the rock fall. The dragons we heard were stalking it, because, like Cosmo, they find cave lizard to be a delicacy. They immediately attacked it and carried it away for dinner. This wasn’t about us at all! Never the less, we must be vigilant, for they clearly come down that corridor from time to time.”
I heartily concurred, and we were more silent than ever before. Even Cosmo had been frightened out of his sense of security.
Felix continued to check the mirror daily. However, it wasn’t a week; it was more like ten days before the day Felix turned from the mirror and said to us, “This is it. The attack begins tomorrow.” And then he proceeded to tell us what we needed to do.
-She Wolf © 2007
