“It is simply that I fail to see why the bridle is of such interest to you,” Strabo was saying, neck curving upward into the dark so that he loomed over the witch.
“And I fail to see what difference it makes!” Nightshade snapped, straightening up a bit further herself. Fire-light danced across her marble face. “I fail to see why you make such an issue of returning what is mine to begin with!”
Strabo sniffed. “I need explain nothing to you!”
“Indeed, you need not! Just give me the bridle!”
“I think not. You wish it too badly.”
“And you wish Holiday not enough!”
“Oh, but I do! Why not accept a chest of gold or a fairy scepter that changes moonbeams into silver coins? Why not take a gemstone marked with runes that belonged to the Trolls when the power of magic was theirs as well — a gemstone that can give truth to the holder?”
“I don’t want truth! I don’t want gold or scepters or anything else you hold, you fat lizard!” Nightshade was genuinely mad now, her voice rising to a near scream. “I want the bridle! Give it to me or Holiday will never be yours!”
She edged forward threateningly, leaving Holiday and the G’home Gnomes half-a-dozen paces behind her. It was the closest to freedom that Ben had been since his capture at the Deep Fell. As the voices of the witch and dragon grew more strident, he began to think that maybe — just maybe — there might be a way out of this yet.
He pried Fillip forcibly from his right leg, held him dangling from the crook of his arm, and began to work Sot free from his left.
“One last time, dragon,” Nightshade was saying. “Will you trade me the bridle for Holiday or not?”
Strabo gave a long sigh of disappointment. “I am afraid, dear witch, that I cannot.”
Nightshade stared at him wordlessly for a moment, then her lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. “You don’t have the bridle anymore, do you? That is why you won’t trade it to me! You don’t have it!”
Strabo sniffed. “Alas, quite true.”
“You bloated mass of scales!” The witch was shaking with fury. “What have you done with it?”
“What I have done with it is my concern!” Strabo snapped in reply, looking more than a bit put upon. He sighed again. “Well, if you must know, I gave it away.”
“You gave it away?” The witch was aghast.
Strabo breathed a long, delicate stream of fire into the night air and followed it with a trail of ashy vapor. The lidded eyes blinked and seemed momentarily distant. “I gave it to a fairy girl who sang to me of beauty and light and things a dragon longs to hear. No maiden has sung to me in many centuries, you know, and I would have given much more than the bridle for a chance to become lost again in such sweet music.”
“You gave the bridle away for a song?” Nightshade spoke the words as if trying to convince herself that they had meaning.
“A memory means more than any tangible treasure.” The dragon sighed once more. “Dragons have always had a weakness for beautiful women, maidens of certain virtue, girls of grace and sweet smiles. There is a bond that joins us. A bond stronger than that of dragons and wizards, I might add,” he addressed Questor Thews in a quick aside. “She sang to me, this girl, and asked me in return for the bridle of spun gold. I gave it to her gladly.” He actually seemed to smile. “She was quite beautiful, this sylph.”
Ben started. A sylph? Willow!
The dragon’s head dipped solemnly toward Ben. “I helped give her back her life once,” he intoned. “Remember? You commanded it, Holiday. I flew her out of Abaddon to her home in the lake country where she could be healed. I didn’t mind that so much — the saving of her life. I hated you, of course — you forced me to submit to you. But I rather enjoyed saving the sylph. It reminded me of the old days when saving maidens was routine work for a dragon.”