4 In Which Kazul Has A Dinner Party, And Cimorene Makes Dessert

Cimorene watched Therandil go with feelings of great relief. Now she had at least a month to find a

permanent way of discouraging the knights, for she was quite certain that Therandil would spread the

news of her "injury." She decided to put up her sign anyway, just in case, and after a little looking she

found a scrubby tree beside the path and hung the sign on it.

On her way back to Kazul's cave, she noticed that the two pieces of the ledge were still invisible, and

she was very careful about crossing them. She looked down once, out of curiosity, and was immediately

sorry. She was not comfortable with the sight of her own feet firmly planted on nothing at all, with the

sharp, spiky tops of spruce trees in full view some fifty feet below.

Kazul arrived only a few minutes after Cimorene herself. Cimorene was looking for some thread to

mend her skirts (which had gotten torn and stained while she was climbing along the ledge) when she

heard the unmistakable sounds of a dragon sliding into the main cave.

"Cimorene?" Kazul's voice called.

"Coming," Cimorene called back, abandoning her search. She picked up her lamp and hurried out to

greet Kazul.

"I'm glad to see you're still here," Kazul said mildly as Cimorene came into the large cave. "Moranz

was quite sure you'd run off with a knight or a wizard. I couldn't make out for certain which."

"Is Moranz the yellow-green dragon who wanted to eat me?" Cimorene asked. "Because if he is, he's

just trying to make trouble."

"I'm well aware of that," Kazul said with a sigh that sent a burnt-bread smell halfway across the cave.

"But things would be easier for me if you didn't provide him with any material to make trouble with.

Exactly what happened?"

"Well, Morwen came to visit this afternoon," Cimorene began. "We were talking about all the…

interruptions I've been having, and she suggested putting up a sign .... "She explained why she had gone

to put up the sign herself and told Kazul in detail about her meetings with the wizard, the dragon, and

the prince.

"So Morwen was here," Kazul said. She sat back, and the scales on her tail rattled comfortably against

the floor. "That simplifies matters.

Did you bring the sign back with you?"

"No, I found a tree and hung it by the path," Cimorene said, wondering what this was all about. "In

case Therandil doesn't tell everyone about my ankle after all."

"Better still," Kazul said, and smiled fiercely, showing all her teeth.

"Moranz is going to regret meddling."

"Meddling in what?"

"My business."

"I'd like a little more of an explanation than that, if you don't mind giving one," Cimorene said with a

touch of exasperation.

Kazul looked startled, then thoughtful. Then she nodded. "I keep forgetting that you're not as emptyheaded

as most princesses," she said. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable. This may take a while."

Cimorene found a rock and sat on it. Kazul settled into a more restful position, folded her wings neatly

along her back, and began. "It has to do with status. Dragons aren't required to have princesses, you see.

Most of us don't. There are never enough to go around, and some of us prefer not to have to deal with

the annoyances that come with them."

"Knights," Cimorene guessed.

"Among other things," Kazul said, nodding. "So having a princess in residence has become a minor

mark of high status among dragons."

"A minor mark?"

Kazul smiled. "I'm afraid so. It's the equivalent of, oh, serving expensive imported fruit at dinner. It's a

nice way of showing everyone how rich you are, but you could make just as big an impression by

having some of those fancy pastries with the smooth glazed icing and spun-sugar roses."

"I see." Cimorene did see, though she found herself wishing that Kazul had found something else to

compare it to. The talk of dinner reminded her too much of Moranz's repeated desire to eat her.

"Moranz is young and not very bright, I'm afraid," Kazul said, almost as if she had read Cimorene's

mind. "He seems to have the mistaken impression that if a princess behaves badly, it reflects on the

dragon who captured her. Possibly it comes from his inability to keep any of his own princesses for

more than a week. Some of the lesser dragons were very snide about it when he lost his third one in a

row. I believe she sneaked out while he was napping."

"I don't see how he can blame his princesses," Cimorene objected. "I mean, if most princesses are

unwilling, it must be fairly usual for them to try to get away."

"Of course, but Moranz doesn't see it that way. He's been trying to catch someone else's princess in a

similar foolishness for years, and he's quite sure he's finally done so. He's undoubtedly spreading the

story of your escape far and wide at this very minute."

"Oh, dear," said Cimorene.

Kazul smiled again, and her teeth glittered silver in the lamplight.

"He'll look extremely foolish when it becomes obvious that you're still here.

Which is one reason I've asked a few of my friends to dinner tonight."

"You've what?" Cimorene said. All her worries about Moranz were instantly replaced by worries about

fixing dinner on short notice for an unknown number of dragons. "How many? What time will they be

here? Where are we going to put them all?"

"Six. Around eight-thirty. In the banquet cave. And you won't be doing anything but dessert. I've

already arranged for the rest of the meal."

"Arranged? With whom?"

"Ballimore the giantess. She's loaned me the Cauldron of Plenty that she uses when her twelve-headed

son-in-law drops in for dinner unannounced.

It'll handle most things, but all it can produce in the way of dessert is burned mint custard and sourcream-

and-onion ice cream."

"Ugh!" said Cimorene. "I see your problem."

"Exactly. Can you manage?"

"Not if you want cherries jubilee," Cimorene said, frowning. "I haven't got a pot large enough to make

seven dragons' worth of cherries jubilee.

Would chocolate mousse do? I can make two or three batches, and there should be time for all of them

to chill if you're not starting until eight "Chocolate mousse will be fine," Kazul assured her. "Come

along and I'll show you where to bring it."

Cimorene picked up a lamp and followed Kazul into the public tunnels that surrounded Kazul's private

caves. She was a little surprised, but when she saw the size of the banquet cave, she understood. It was

enormous. Fifty or sixty dragons, perhaps even a hundred of them, would fit into it quite comfortably.

Obviously it had to be a public room; there simply wasn't enough space under the Mountains of Morning

for every dragon to have a cave this size.

Kazul made sure Cimorene could find her way to the banquet cave without help and then left her in the

kitchen to melt slabs of chocolate and whip gallons of cream for the mousse. By the time she finished,

she was hot and tired, and all she really wanted to do was to take a nap.

But Kazul was expecting her to serve the mousse, and Cimorene wasn't about to appear before all

those dragons in her old clothes with sweaty straggles of hair sticking to her neck and a smear of

chocolate across her nose, so instead of napping, she pumped a cauldron of water, heated it on the

kitchen fire, and took a bath.

Once she was clean she felt much better. She checked to make sure the mousse was setting properly,

then went into her own rooms to decide what she should wear. Unfortunately, she was afraid she didn't

have much choice. The wardrobe in her bedroom was full of neat, serviceable dresses suitable for

cooking in or rummaging through treasure, but the only dressy clothes she had were the ones she had

arrived in. She got them out of the back of the wardrobe and found to her dismay that the hem of the

gown was badly stained with mud from her long walk. There was no time to clean it; she would have to

wear one of the everyday dresses.

With a sigh Cimorene turned back to the wardrobe and opened it once more to look for the nicest of

the ordinary clothes. She gasped in surprise.

The hangers were now full of the most beautiful gowns she had ever seen.

Some were silk, and some were velvet; some were heavy brocade, and some were layers of featherlight

gauze; some were embroidered with gold or silver, and some were sewn with jewels.

"Well, of course," Cimorene said aloud after a stunned moment.

"Why would a dragon have an ordinary wardrobe? Of course it's magic.

What's in it depends on what I'm looking for."

One of the wardrobe doors waggled slightly, and its hinges creaked in smug agreement. Cimorene

blinked at it, then shook herself and began looking through the gowns.

She chose one of red velvet, heavily embroidered with gold, and found matching slippers in the

bottom of the obliging wardrobe. She let her black hair hang in loose waves nearly to her feet and even

dug her crown out of the back of the drawer where she'd stuffed it on her first night. She finished getting

ready a few minutes early. Feeling very cheerful, she went to the kitchen to fetch the mousse.

It took Cimorene four trips to get the mousse down to the serving area just off the banquet cave. A

dragon-sized serving was a little over a bucketful, and she could barely manage to carry two at a time.

When everything was ready, she stood in the serving area and waited nervously for Kazul to ring for

dessert. She could hear the muffled booming of the dragons' voices through the heavy oak door, but she

could not make out what any of them were saying.

The bell rang at last, summoning Cimorene to serve dessert. She carried the mousse into the banquet cavern, two servings at a time, and set it in front of Kazul and her guests. The dragons were crouched

around a shoulder-high slab of white stone. Cimorene had to be very careful about lifting the mousse up

onto it. Fortunately, she didn't have to wonder which dragon to serve first. She could tell which dragons

were most important from their places at the table, and she made a silent apology to her protocol teacher,

who had insisted that she learn about seating arrangements. (Protocol had been one of the princess

lessons Cimorene had hated most.) As she set the last serving in front of Kazul, one of the other dragons

said in a disgruntled and vaguely familiar voice, "I see the rumors are wrong again, Kazul. Or did you

have to go after her and haul her back the way the rest of us do?"

Cimorene turned angrily, but before she could say anything, a large gray-green dragon on the other

side of the stone slab said, "Nonsense, Woraug! Girl's got more sense than that. You shouldn't listen to

gossip.

Next thing you know, you'll be chasing after that imaginary wizard Gaurim's been on about."

Cimorene recognized the speaker at once. He was Roxim, the elderly dragon she had given four of her

handkerchiefs to.

"I suppose it was that idiot Moranz again, trying to cause trouble," a purple-green dragon said with

bored distaste. "Someone should do something about him."

"Kazul still hasn't answered my question," Woraug said, and his tail lashed once like the tail of an

angry cat. "And I'd like her to do so if the rest of you will stop sidetracking the conversation."

"Here, now!" Roxim said indignantly. "That's a bit strong, Woraug! Too strong, if you ask me."

"I didn't," Woraug said. "I asked Kazul. And I'm still waiting."

"I'm very pleased with my princess," Kazul said mildly. "And no, I didn't have to haul her back, as you

would realize if you'd given the matter a little thought. Or does your princess normally leave seven

servings of chocolate mousse in the kitchen when she runs away?"

"Hear, hear!" Roxim said.

Cimorene noted with interest that Woraug's scales had turned an even brighter shade of green than

normal and that he was starting to smell faintly of brimstone.

"One of these days you'll go too far, Kazul," he said.

"You started it," Kazul pointed out. She turned to the gray dragon.

"What's this about Gaurim and a wizard, Roxim?"

"You haven't heard?" Roxim said, sounding surprised. "Gaurim's been raving about it for weeks.

Somebody snuck into her cave and stole a book from her library. No traces, but for some reason she's

positive it was a wizard. Achoo!" Roxim sneezed, emitting a ball of flame that just missed hitting his

bowl of mousse. "Gives me an allergy attack just thinking about it."

"If it wasn't a wizard, who was it?" the dragon at the far end of the table asked.

"Could have been anybody-an elf, a dwarf, even a human," Roxim responded. "No reason to think it

was a wizard just because Gaurim didn't catch him in the act. Not with the amount of time she spends

away from home."

"Which book did she lose?" said the thin, brownish-green dragon next to Kazul.

"What does it matter?" the purple-green dragon muttered.

"Some history or other. And that's another thing-what would a wizard want with a history book? No,

no, Gaurim's making a lot of fuss over a common thief. That's what I say."

"It could have been a wizard," said the dragon at the far end. "Who knows why they want the things

they want?"

"Ridiculous!" Roxim replied with vigor. "A wizard wouldn't dare come through this part of the

mountains. They know what we'd do to them, by George! Beg pardon," he added to the silver-green

dragon next to him, who appeared to have been rather shocked by his language.

"I'm afraid you're wrong there," Kazul said. "Cimorene met one today, less than a two-minute flight

from my cave."

"What? What?" Roxim said. "You're sure?"

"That's done it." The purple-green dragon rolled his head in an irritated gesture, so that his scales made

a scratching noise as they rubbed together. "You'll never get him to quit talking about it now."

"Quite sure," Cimorene assured Roxim: after glancing at Kazul to make sure she was expected to

answer Roxim's question for herself. "He made two bits of the ledge I was standing on turn invisible so I

would think it wasn't safe to keep going."

"Certainly sounds like a wizard to me," the dragon at the far end commented.

"What did he look like?" asked the silver-green dragon.

Cimorene described the wizard as well as she could, then added, "He said his name was Zemenar."

"Zemenar? That's ridiculous!" Woraug snorted. "Zemenar was elected head of the Society of Wizards

last year. He wouldn't waste his time playing games with somebody's princess."

"Not unless he had a great deal to gain by it," the thin dragon said in a thoughtful tone. She turned her

head and looked speculatively at Cimorene.

"Such as?" Woraug said. He waited a moment, but no one answered.

"No, I can't believe it was Zemenar. The girl's made a mistake; that's all."

"Perhaps it wasn't him," Cimorene said, holding on to her temper as hard as she could. "I've never met

Zemenar, so I wouldn't know. But that's who he said he was."

"And wouldn't it be amusing if she were right?" the purple-green dragon said, showing some interest

in the proceedings for the first time.

"I don't see that it matters," the silver-green dragon said. "The important thing is that he was a wizard,

poking around smack in the middle of our mountains. What are we going to do about it?"

"Tell King Tokoz," Roxim said. "His job to handle this sort of thing, isn't it?"

"What can Tokoz do about it?" Woraug said, and there was a faint undercurrent of contempt in his

tone.

"He could use the King's Crystal to find out what the wizards are really doing," the thin dragon said in

a prim tone.

"He won't use the crystal for anything less than a full-fledged war," Woraug said. "And why should

he? What could Tokoz do even if he did find out some wizard was preying on poor defenseless dragons

like Gaurim?"

"Lodge a formal protest with the Society of wizards," Roxim answered promptly, ignoring Woraug's

sarcasm. "Proper thing to do, no question.

Then the next time anyone sees a wizard…" His voice trailed off, and he snapped his teeth together

suggestively.

"He'd probably just set up a committee," the purple-green dragon said.

"Can't anyone think of something else?"

"I don't think we should do anything until we have some idea what Zemenar was after," said the thin

dragon. "It could be important."

"We have to do something? the silver-green dragon said. Her claws clashed against the stone table.

"We can't have wizards wandering in and out whenever they please! Why, we'd lose half our magic in

no time."

"Not to mention everyone sneezing themselves silly every time one of those dratted staffs gets too

close," added the dragon at the far end.

The dragons began arguing among themselves about what to do and how best to do it. It reminded

Cimorene of the way her father's ministers argued. Everyone seemed to agree that something ought to be

done about the wizards, but they each had a different idea about what was appropriate.

Roxim insisted huffily that the only thing to do was to inform the King, who would then make a

formal protest. The thin dragon wanted to find out what the wizards were up to (she didn't say how this

was to be done) before anyone tried to chase them off. The silver-green dragon wanted patrols sent out

immediately to eat any wizard who ventured into the Mountains of Morning. The dragon at the far end

of the table wanted to attack the headquarters of the Society of Wizards the following morning, and the

purple-green dragon thought it would be most entertaining to wait and see what the wizards did next.

Woraug was the only one of the guests who did not have a proposal, though he made occasional

comments, usually sarcastic ones, about everyone else's suggestions.

Kazul did not say anything at all. Cimorene was at first surprised and then puzzled by her silence, since Kazul was the one who had set the whole discussion going to begin with. As the argument grew

more heated, however, Cimorene began to be glad that there was at least one dragon present who was

not involved in it. The dragon at the far end of the table was starting to breathe little tongues of fire at

the purple-green dragon, and Roxim was threatening loudly to have another allergy attack, but Cimorene

was fairly sure that Kazul would stop the discussion before things got completely out of hand.

She was right. A moment later, while the dragon at the far end was taking a deep breath to continue

arguing and the thin dragon was winding up a long, involved train of logical reasons why her proposal

was the best, Kazul said, "Thank you all for your advice. I'll certainly think about it before I decide what

to do."

"What do you mean by that?" the thin dragon asked suspiciously.

"It was my princess who met the wizard," Kazul pointed out.

"Therefore, it is my decision whether to report the matter to the King, or to take some action on my

own, or to ask for cooperation from some of you."

None of the other dragons appeared to like hearing this, but to Cimorene's surprise none of them gave

Kazul any argument about it. The dragon at the far end of the table made a few half-hearted grumbles,

but that was all, and the conversation turned to the intricacies of several draconian romances that were

currently in progress. As soon as her guests appeared to have calmed down, Kazul gave the signal for

the empty mousse dishes to be taken away, so Cimorene only heard a few incomprehensible snatches of

the new conversation. She did not really mind. She had plenty to think about already.