“I’m not a visitor, exactly. Kazul sent me with a message for you.”

“Oh, well, that’s different. Just hand me that shield there, would you?”

Cimorene picked up the shield from the floor of the tunnel. There was a large dent in one side where it had hit the tunnel wall, and several smaller ones over the rest of it from banging against things on its way to the tunnel floor.

“You ought to be more careful,” she said severely. “Just look at this!”

“Ha!” Roxim snorted, examining the dents. “Shoddy work, shoddy work, that’s the problem. In my day, you could roll a knight in full armor down the far side of the Vanishing Mountain and bounce him off two or three cliffs without so much as scratching his surface, much less denting it. This cheap modern stuff just doesn’t hold up.”

“If you know it doesn’t hold up, you shouldn’t throw it around like that,” Cimorene said. “You almost hit me.”

Roxim shifted uncomfortably. “Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

“All right, but next time look before you throw things,” Cimorene said, handing him the shield.

“I always have this problem when I try to find something,” Roxim confided. “Never know where to look. Gets frustrating, and next thing you know I’m pitching armor at the walls. Bad habit, but hard to break.”

“Maybe I could help,” Cimorene suggested. “After I give you Kazul’s message, that is.”

“Don’t need help to put dents in things,” Roxim said. “Comes to that, I don’t really want it.”

“I didn’t mean help throw things,” Cimorene said patiently. “I meant help find whatever you’re looking for.”

“Oh, that. Well, come in then.”

Cimorene followed the dragon into a moderately large cave, similar to the one Kazul used as a living area. Roxim’s cave, however, was full of clutter. Cimorene had to pick her way past bits of armor, one half of a pair of bookends, a box of tea, a pink scroll, three mismatched kitchen pots, a small wooden statue, a broken flute, and four partially burned candles. Roxim walked straight over the mess as if it weren’t there, squashing a mangy-looking stuffed pigeon and flattening a tin cup in passing. He dropped the shield on a pile of silk flowers and waved Cimorene to a seat on a large wooden chest near one wall. “Now, what’s this message of Kazul’s?”

“It’s about the wizards,” Cimorene said, settling gingerly onto the dusty surface of the chest. She made a mental note to find Roxim a nice princess as soon as she possibly could. “Alianora and I found one of them picking dragonsbane a few days ago, and Kazul thinks King Tokoz will listen to you if you tell him about it.”

“So that’s where they got it,” Roxim said in tones of disgust. “Pity you didn’t mention it sooner.”