Chapters (22)
“Actually, it’s good morning,” Cimorene told the prince. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come back for you, but . . . well, a lot has been going on.”
Alianora looked up sharply. “You’ve been sitting here in the dark all night?” She shuddered. “You could at least have left him a candle, Cimorene.”
“Thank you for the thought, Princess Alianora, but it’s just as well she didn’t,” the stone prince said. “If I’d been sitting here with a lit candle, they’d have noticed me right away. And an unlit candle isn’t much use in the dark, is it?”
“What do you mean?” Cimorene said. “Who would have noticed you?”
“The dragon and the two men he was talking to,” replied the prince. “I think they were wizards.”
“What?” said Cimorene and Alianora together.
“Well, they talked as if they were wizards,” the prince said. “They weren’t carrying staffs, though.”
“What did they look like?” Cimorene said.
“They were both tall, and they both had beards. The older one’s was gray and the younger one’s was brown.”
“Antorell and Zemenar!” Cimorene said. “And they were talking to a dragon?”
The stone prince nodded.
“Then they wouldn’t have been carrying staffs. Dragons are allergic to them. Did you hear what they said?”
“Something about a contest,” the stone prince said. “The wizards were going to fix it so this dragon would win. It sounded like a kind of cross-country race, and the wizards were going to hide along the path and—and help the dragon out somehow. I’m afraid I’m not very clear about that part. Spells aren’t my specialty. I’m much better at hopeless causes.”
Alianora and Cimorene exchanged appalled glances.
“The trials with Colin’s Stone to pick the new King!” Alianora said.
“Which dragon?” Cimorene asked urgently. “Do you know which dragon they were talking to?”
“I only heard the name once,” the prince said. He sounded apologetic and a little embarrassed. “And I don’t think I got it right. It’s too silly.”
“Tell us!” Cimorene commanded.
“Well, it sounded like ‘warthog,’” the prince said in an even more apologetic tone than before.
“Could it have been Woraug?” Cimorene asked.
“That’s it!” the prince said. “I knew it couldn’t really have been warthog.”
“What a pity you remembered,” said a voice from the entrance into the banquet hall.
Cimorene whirled. Antorell stood in the doorway, staff in hand, watching them with an intolerably smug expression.