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 enough, so I put my own hand over my own mouth to save him the trouble.
'Probably a white dragon,' murmured Fizban, whose eyes were about ready to roll out of his head. 'Oh, my hat! My hat!' He wrung his hands.
Perhaps I should stop here and explain where we were in relation to the dragon. I'm not certain, but I think we were probably in a small cave that was right next to an extremely large cave where the dragon lived. A wall of snow separated us and I began to think that it wasn't a very thick wall of snow. I mean, when one is trapped in a cave with a white dragon, one would like a wall of snow to be about a zillion miles thick, and I had the unfortunate feeling that this one wasn't.
So there we were, in a snow cave, slowly freezing to death (did I mention that?) and we couldn't move, not a muscle, for fear the dragon would hear us. Fizban couldn't work his magic because he didn't have his hat. Owen didn't look like he knew what to do, and I guess I couldn't blame him because he'd probably never come across a dragon before now. So we didn't do anything except stand there and breathe and we didn't even do much of that. Just what we had to.
'Go on with your report,' said the dragon.
'Yes, o Master.' The draconian sounded a lot more respectful, probably not wanting to make the dragon nervous. 'I scouted the village, like you said. It's fat — lots of food laid in for the winter. One of those (the draconian said a bad word here) Solamnic Knights has a manor near it, but he's off on some sort of errand.'
'Has he left behind men-at-arms to guard his manor?'
The draconian made a rude noise. 'This knight's poor as dirt, Master. He can't afford to keep men-at-arms. The manor's empty, except for his wife and kid.'
Owen's face lost some of its color at this. I felt sorry for him because I knew he must be thinking of his own wife and child.
'The villagers?'
'Peasants!' The draconian spit. 'They'll fall down and wet themselves when our raiding parties attack. It'll be easy pickings.'
'Excellent. We will store the food here, to be used when the main force arrives to take the High Clerist's Tower. Are there more villages beyond this?'
'Yes, O Master. I will show you on the map. Glendower is here. And then beyond that there are — '
But I didn't hear anymore because I was afraid suddenly that Owen Glendower was going to fall over. His face had gone whiter than the snow and he shook so that his armor rattled.
'My family!' he groaned, and I saw his knees start to buckle.
I can move awfully quietly when I have to and I figured that this was one time I had to. I crept over to him, put my arm around him, and propped him up until he quit shaking.
He was grateful, I think, because he held onto me very tightly, uncomfortably tightly (did I mention he was really strong) and my breath almost left me again before he relaxed and let loose.
By now some blood had come back into his cheeks and he didn't look sick anymore. He looked grim and determined and resolved, and I knew then and there what he was planning to do. It was not conducive to a long life.
The dragon and draconian had gone into a rather heated discussion over which village they should burn and pillage and loot next after Glendower.
I took advantage of the noise they were making to whisper to Owen, 'Have you ever seen a dragon?'
He shook his head. He was tightening buckles on his armor and pulling at straps and things and, having seen Sturm do this before a battle, I knew what it meant.
'They're huge,' I said, feeling a snuffle coming on, 'and extremely big. And enormous. And they have terrible sharp teeth and they're magical. More magical than Fizban. More magical than Raistlin, even, only you don't know him, so I guess that doesn't mean much. And the white dragons can kill you by just breathing on you. I know because I met one in Ice Wall. They can turn you into ice harder than this mountain and kill you dead.'
I said all this, but it didn't seem to make any impression on Owen Glendower. He just kept buckling and tightening and his face got more and more cold and determined until I begin to think that it might not make much difference if the white dragon breathed a cone of frost on the knight because he looked already frozen to me.
'Oh, Fizban 1' I'm afraid I may have whimpered a bit here, but I truly didn't want to see Owen turned into part of this mountain. 'Make him stop!'
But Fizban was no help. The wizard got that crafty, cunning look on his face that makes me feel squirmy, and he said, real soft, 'He can do it. He has the dragonlances!'
Owen lit up. He stood tall and straight and his eyes shone bright green, fueled from inside by a beautiful, awful, radiant light.
'Yes,' he said in a reverent voice, like he was praying. 'Paladine sent the lances to my hand and then sent me here, to save my family. This is Paladine's work.'
Well, I felt like telling him, No, it wasn't Paladine. It was just an old, skinny, and occasionally fuddled wizard who got us into this by falling into a hole. But I didn't. I had more important things on my mind.
Like the dragonlances.
I looked at them lying in the snow, and I could hear Theros's voice in my head. And I looked at Owen, standing so tall and handsome, and I thought about the painting of his wife and child and how sad they'd be if he was dead. Then I thought that if he was dead they'd be dead, too. And I heard Theros's voice again in my head.
Owen reached down and picked up one of the dragonlances and before I could stop it, a yell burst out of me.
'No! Owen! You can't use the dragonlances I' I cried, grabbing hold of his arm and hanging on. 'They don't work!'
