his hat, so I knew he was all right. I hurried over to help
Owen.
“Are you hurt?” I cried anxiously.
“No,” he managed and, leaning on me, he staggered to
his feet. He took a stumbling step backward, like he didn’t
mean to, and then caught himself, and stood gasping and
staring at the dragon.
Fizban woke up and peered around dazedly. When he
saw the dragon’s nose lying about a foot from him, he let
out a cry, jumped to his feet in a panic, and tried to climb
backward through a solid wall.
“Fizban,” I told him. “The dragon’s dead.”
Fizban stared at it hard, eyes narrowed. Then, when it
didn’t move and its eyes didn’t blink, he walked over and
kicked it on the snout.
“So there!” he said.
Owen could walk some better now, without using me
for a crutch. Going over to the dragon, he took hold of the
dragonlance and jerked it out of the dragon’s hide. That
took some doing. The lance had bit deep and he’d buried it
almost to the hilt. He wiped the lance in the snow, and we
could all see that the tip was sharp and finely honed as
ever, not a notch or crack anywhere. Owen looked from
the good dragonlance to the broken dragonlance, lying in
pieces underneath the dragon’s chin.
“One broke and one did what no ordinary lance could
do. What is the truth?” Owen looked all puzzled and
confused.
“That you killed the dragon,” said Fizban.
Owen looked back at the lances and shook his head.
“But I don’t understand . . .”
“And whoever said you would. Or were entitled to!”
Fizban snorted. He picked up his hat and sighed. The hat
didn’t even look like a hat anymore. It was all scrunched
and mushed and slimy.
“Dragon slobber,” he said sadly. “And who’ll pay for
the dry cleaning?” He glared round at us.
I would have offered to pay for it, whatever it was,
except I never seem to have much money. Besides neither
Owen nor I were paying attention to Fizban right then.
Owen was polishing up the good dragonlance and when he
was done with that, he gathered up the pieces of the
flawed dragonlance and studied them real carefully. Then
he shook his head again and did something that didn’t
make much sense to me. He very reverently and gently put
the pieces of the broken dragonlance all in a heap together,
and then wrapped them up in a bundle and tied it with a bit
of leather that I found for him in one of my pouches.
I gathered together all my stuff, that had gotten sort of
spread out during the running and jumping and hat-waving
and dragon-fighting. By that time Owen was ready to go
and I was ready to go and Fizban was ready to go and it
was then I realized we were all still stuck down in the
cave.
“Oh, bother,” muttered Fizban, and walking over to
the back part of the cave, he kicked at it a couple times
with his foot, and the wall tumbled right down.
We were staring out into bright sunshine and blue sky
and when we quit blinking we saw that what we’d thought
was a wall wasn’t. It had only been a snow bank, and I
guess we could have walked out anytime at all if only we’d
known it was there.
Well, Owen gave Fizban a really odd look.
Fizban didn’t see it. He stuck his maltreated hat in a
pocket of his robes, picked up his staff, which had been
lying in the snow waiting for him, I guess, and walked out
into the sun. Owen and I followed; Owen carrying the
dragonlances and me carrying my most precious
possessions.
“Now,” said Fizban, “the kender and I have to travel to
Lord Gunthar’s, and you, Owen Glendower, have to return
to your village and prepare to face the draconian raiding
party. No, no, don’t mind us. I’m a great and powerful
wizard, you know. I’ll just magic us to Lord Gunthar’s.
You haven’t got much time. The draconian ran off to alert
its troops. They’ll move swiftly now. If you go back into