fallen through was a long, long, long way up above us.
“And so are our packs and the rope and the food,” said
Owen, staring up at the hole we’d made and frowning.
“But we don’t need to worry,” I said cheerfully.
“Fizban’s a very great and powerful wizard and he’ll just
fly us all back up there in a jiffy. Won’t you, Fizban?”
“Not without my hat,” he said stiffly. “I can’t work
magic without my hat.”
Owen muttered something that I won’t repeat here as it
isn’t very complimentary to Fizban and I’m sure Owen is
ashamed now he said something like that. And he frowned
and glowered, but it soon became obvious that we couldn’t
get out of that hole without magic of some sort.
I tried climbing up the sides of the cave walls, but I
kept sliding back down and was having a lot of fun,
though not getting much accomplished, when Owen made
me stop after a whole great load of snow broke loose and
fell on top of us. He said the whole mountain might
collapse.
There was nothing left to do but look for Fizban’s hat.
Owen had dug the dragonlances out of the snow and
he said the hat might be near where they were. We looked,
but it wasn’t. And we dug all around where Fizban had
fallen and the hat wasn’t there either.
Fizban was getting very unhappy and starting to
blubber.
“I’ve had that hat since it was a pup,” he whimpered,
sniffing and wiping his eyes on the end of his beard. “Best
hat in the whole world. Prefer a fedora, but they’re not in
for wizards. Still – ”
I was about to ask who was Fedora and what did she
have to do with his hat when Owen said “Shush!” in the
kind of voice that makes your blood go all tingly and your
stomach do funny things.
We shushed and stared at him.
“I heard something!” he said, only he said it without
any voice, just his mouth moved.
I listened and then I heard something, too.
“Did you hear something?” asked a voice, only it
wasn’t any of our voices doing the asking. It came from
behind a wall of snow that made up one end of the cave.
I’d heard that kind of voice before – slithery and
hissing and ugly. I knew right off what it was, and I could
tell from the expression on Owen’s face – angry and
loathing – that he knew too.
“Draconian!” Owen whispered.
“It was only a snowfall,” answered another voice, and
it boomed, deep and cold, so cold that it sent tiny bits of
ice prickling through my skin and into my blood and I
shivered from toe to topknot. “Avalanches are common in
these mountains.”
“I thought I heard voices,” insisted the draconian. “On
the other side of that wall. Maybe it’s the rest of my
outfit.”
“Nonsense. I commanded them to wait up in the
mountains until I come. They don’t dare disobey. They
better not disobey, or I’ll freeze them where they stand.
You’re nervous, that’s all. And I don’t like dracos who are
nervous. You make me nervous. And when I get nervous I
kill things.”
There came a great slithering and scraping sound and
the whole mountain shook. Snow came down on top of us
again, but none of us moved or spoke. We just stared at
each other. Each of us could match up that sound with a
picture in our minds and while my picture was certainly
very interesting, it wasn’t conducive to long life. (Tanis
told me once I should try to look at things from the
perspective of whether they were or were not conducive
to long life. If they weren’t, I shouldn’t hang around, no
matter how interesting I thought it might be. And this
wasn’t.)
“A dragon 1” whispered Owen Glendower, and he
looked kind of awed.
“Not conducive to long life,” I advised him, in case he
didn’t know.
I guess he did, because he glared at me like he would
like to put his hand over my mouth but couldn’t get close