shouted. 'Try the other lance!'
I don't know whether he heard me or not. The dragon was making a lot of noise and snow was falling and swirling around us. Either Owen did hear me and took my advice (and Flint's) or else he could see as plain as the hat on Fizban's face that the lance was our last and only hope. He picked it up and this time he didn't throw it. This time he ran with it, straight at the dragon, and with all his strength and might and muscle he drove the lance right into the dragon's throat.
Blood spurted out, staining the white snow red. The dragon gave a horrible yell and flung its head from side to side, screaming in pain and fury. Owen hung onto the lance, stabbing it deeper and deeper into the dragon. The lance didn't break, but held straight and true.
Blood was all over the place and all over Owen and the dragon's shrieks were deafening. Then it made a terrible kind of gurgling sound. The head sank down onto the bloody snow, shuddered, and lay still.
None of us moved — Fizban because he was unconscious and Owen because he'd been battered about quite a bit by the dragon's thrashing, and me because I just didn't feel quite like moving at the time. The dragon didn't move, either, and it was then I realized it was dead.
Owen crouched on his hands and knees, breathing heavily and wiping blood out of his face and eyes. Fizban was stirring and groaning and mumbling something about 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 the dragon's lair, you'll find that the cave extends all the way through to the other side of the mountain. Cut your distance in half and it will be safe traveling, now that the dragon's dead.
'No, no, we'll be fine on our own. I know where Lord Gunthar's house is. Known all along. We make a left at the pass instead of a right,' he said.
I was about to say that's what I'd said all along, only Owen was obviously real anxious to get on his way.
He said good-bye and shook hands with me very formally and politely. And I gave him back the painting and told him — rather sternly — that if he thought so much of it he should take better care of it. And he smiled and promised he would. And then he shook hands with Fizban, all the time looking at him in that odd way.
'May your moustaches grow long,' said Fizban, clapping Owen on both shoulders. 'And don't worry about my hat. Though, of course, it will never be the same.' He heaved a sad sigh.
Owen stood back and gave us both the knight's salute. I would have given it back, only a snuffle took hold of me right then, and I was looking for a handkerchief. When I found it (in Fizban's pouch) Owen was gone. The snuffle got bigger and it probably would have turned into a sob if Fizban hadn't taken hold of me and given me a restorative shake. Then he raised a finger in the air.
'Tasslehoff Burrfoot,' he said, and he looked very solemn and wizardly and so I paid strict attention, which I must admit sometimes I don't when he's talking, 'you must promise me that you will never, ever, ever, tell anyone else about the dragonlances.'
'What about them?' I asked, interested.
His eyebrows nearly flew up off his head and into the sky, which is probably where my eyebrows were at the moment.
'You mean… um… about them not working?' I suggested.
'They work!' he roared.
'Yes, of course,' I said hurriedly. I knew why he was yelling. He was upset about his hat. 'What about Theros? What if he says something? He's a very honest person.'
'That is Theros's decision,' said Fizban. 'He'll take the lances to the Council of Whitestone and we'll see what he does when he gets there.'
Well, of course, when Theros got to the Council of Whitestone, which — in case you've forgotten — was a big meeting of the Knights of Solamnia and the elves and some other people that I can't remember. And they were all ready to kill each other, when they should have been ready to kill the evil dragons, and I was only trying to prove a point when I broke the dragon orb (That's ORB not HERB!) and I guess they would have all been ready to kill me, except Theros came with the dragonlances and he threw a lance at the Whitestone and shattered it — the stone, not the lance — so I guess he had decided the lances worked, after all.
Fizban took his slobbered-on hat out of his pocket and perched it gingerly on his head. He began to hum and wave his hands in the air so I knew a spell was coming on. I covered my face and took hold of his sleeve.
'And what about Owen?' I asked. 'What if he tells the other knights about the lances?'
'Don't interrupt me. Very difficult, this spell,' he muttered.
I kept quiet or at least I meant to keep quiet, but the words came out before I could stop them, in the same sort of way a hiccup comes out, whether you want it to or not.
