“You’ll find out soon enough,” the escort dragon said. Then he raised his voice and shouted, “Make way! Coming through! Prisoners for the King! Make way!”

The crowd of dragons parted reluctantly, and the escort dragon herded the group forward, still shouting. They made their way through the cheering dragons until they reached the edge of the river. “Stand away!” shouted someone in the crowd. “Stand away for the King!”

The nearby dragons drew back, leaving Woraug, the escort dragon, and Cimorene and her friends standing by themselves on the trampled moss. As the dragons moved away, Cimorene caught sight of Kazul, lying comfortably beside the river. “Kazul!” Cimorene cried, and ran forward. “Are you all right?”

A mottled dragon standing beside Kazul shifted and flicked his tail angrily at Cimorene. “You should say ‘Your Majesty,’” he said with a warning scowl.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Frax. She’s my princess,” Kazul said. “I’m quite all right, Cimorene. What are you doing here?”

“You’re the new King of the Dragons?” Cimorene said in astonishment. “But—but when you left this morning, you could barely fly! How did you get Colin’s Stone all the way from here to the Vanishing Mountain?”

“Colin’s Stone apparently does more than merely pick out the right King,” Kazul said. “The minute I picked it up, I felt fine.”

“This is impossible!” Woraug said.

“Are you accusing me of fraud?” Kazul asked mildly.

“He’d better not,” Cimorene said. “He’s the one who was cheating, with the help of Zemenar and the rest of the wizards.”

“Really,” Kazul said in tones of great interest.

“It’s all nonsense,” Woraug declared. “The girl’s just trying to attract attention.”

“Really,” Kazul said again, and smiled, displaying all her silver teeth.

“Oh, come now, Kazul. Surely you won’t take a mere princess’s word over mine,” Woraug said.

“That depends entirely on what she says. Tell us about it, Princess,” Kazul commanded.

So Cimorene told them. She brought the stone prince forward to explain what he had overheard the wizards and Woraug discussing in the banquet hall, and she made Alianora tell everyone about melting wizards with wash water and lemon juice. She told about getting to the Ford of Whispering Snakes on the first feather and being unable to convince any of the dragons to listen to her. She told about going to Morwen’s house to find out where the wizards were, and about using the last feather to get to the wizards and melt them. She described Zemenar’s unexpected appearance and subsequent melting, and the way Morwen had broken the wizards’ spell, and she finished with an account of Woraug’s futile attack.