Larry, seeing what looked like two Julians—one of whom was flinging sharp, pointed objects at me—picked up on the fact that something was wrong. Larry did what Larry did best: He shot out of that cave faster than a carnival's human cannonball.
Berrech was striding across the cave to come get me, but—much as I
didn't
want him to get me—I couldn't bring myself to tell the dragon,
Yeah, all right, barbecue him.
"Try not to," I told the dragon.
The dragon, looking deeply disappointed in my decision, blasted flame not at Berrech, but at the worktable which stood between him and us.
Berrech took a hasty step back. Actually, many hasty steps back, until one more step would have taken him out of the cave altogether. "Father!" he yelled. "Merrindin! It's a trick! Get back in here!"
I popped up just long enough to grab the keys off the shelf suspended between the two crates. In the interest of time, since the flames that were keeping Berrech at bay were already subsiding, I called, "Julian, catch!" and flung the keys with such precision he would have needed an arm about six feet long to catch them.
The dragon, never taking its gaze off Berrech, said in its deep, grumbly voice, "Remember this," and swung its tail across the floor, sweeping the keys to within Julian's reach.
Julian got the cage door open just as the two other elves—Berrech's father, Vediss, and the elf whose name, apparently, was Merrindin—came back
into the cave. Merrindin dragged Eleni with him, forcing her ahead of him as a shield, the blade of his knife under her chin.
Oh no,
I thought.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
And that was without even making it as far as thinking that if she died, I would cease to exist.
"Drop the keys," Berrech ordered Julian, "or the girl's death is on your hands."
Eleni still wore Tiffanie's elf shepherdess glamour, and obviously nobody knew who she was, but it had to be pretty clear to everyone that the pretty elf shepherdess and the shadow were working together to rescue Julian. I saw her eyes scan the room. Saw the hopelessness in her expression when she found me in plain sight and realized I would not be jumping out of any corners to be of help.
Eleni pointed out what I was too afraid to admit to myself: "He'll kill me in any case."
"No," Vediss said, and I took it as a bad sign that it was Vediss, and not Berrech, who offered that assurance.
The dragon apparently decided I had no more to offer at this point and shifted its attention to Julian. "Unchain me and I can make them pay for her death and get you out of here before the others return." When Julian didn't respond, the dragon said, "We
can bring the human girl disguised as a shadow, too"—then, hedging its bets, added, "if you want."
"No," Julian said, soft as a sigh.
But before I could think,
It's been fun knowing you, too,
he said to the elves, "Let the girls go, and I'll surrender without a fight," and I realized he was refusing the dragon's offer in its entirety.
"You'll surrender in any case," Berrech said.
Julian had to know that Eleni and I were less than useless to Berrech and that we were already as good as dead, and that he probably was, too, and that his best chance was the dragon. But he let the keys drop to the floor.
Now it was the dragon's turn to sigh, a smoky, bubbling-lava sound.
I could knock over one of these crates of sand,
I thought,
and have the dragon ignite it, sending molten glass oozing across the floor....
On the other hand,
oozing
is not a real dynamic split-second-timing, escape-type word. And oozing where? Toward Eleni?
Then, apparently, the dragon decided:
(a) There was no reason it should be bound by elven scruples; or
(b) It had nothing to lose; or maybe
(c) Both.
It opened its jaws wide and directed a blast of furnace flames at the elves.
"No!" I screamed, for one of those elves still held my grandmother.
Even if the dragon would have heeded me—and there was no reason why it should—my voice was lost in the sound of the rush of fire.
It wasn't my love for my grandmother or second thoughts by the dragon that spared her—it was a matter of the mathematics of force, velocity, and distance: The elves were beyond the dragon's range. Just barely.
Of course, they didn't immediately know that.
Startled, they flinched. They recoiled.
They stopped paying close attention to Eleni.
Eleni jabbed her elbow into Merrindin's side and at the same time twisted away from the knife he'd let dip away from her throat. He staggered, off balance, and she got her leg behind his and swept it out from under him so that he fell, flat on his back, pulling her down, with her landing on top of him, the knife clattering harmlessly to the floor.
Berrech and Vediss were so busy dodging the flames that hadn't reached them, they didn't notice what had happened until Eleni was scrambling to her feet, supporting her weight with her hand shoved deep into Merrindin's stomach. Fortunately, he was
too dazed from cracking his head on the ground to put up a fight.
"Can't catch me!" Eleni taunted, just to make sure they were aware of her escaping, then she dashed out of the cave to draw them—I knew her well enough to guess her reasoning—away from me.
"Stop her!" Berrech ordered—maybe Merrindin or maybe his father. But since Merrindin wasn't moving, just rolling around a bit moaning, it was Vediss who took off after her.
Julian, meanwhile, had covered the distance from the back of the cave to the cave entrance in what had to be a world record, and launched himself onto Berrech, even as Berrech picked up Merrindin's fallen knife.
Scooping the keys off the floor, I told the dragon, "
You
remember
this.
"
And all the while I was thinking
I'm standing next to a dragon. I'm letting a dragon loose.
I wondered if it would feel indebted to us and stick around to help more, or if it would figure it had already helped enough and just light out of there, or if it would be ticked off at all the inept dithering that had gone on and take out its frustrations on all of us.
I got the collar loose, and the dragon surged forward.
Julian rolled out of the way—hard to tell if he saw or heard the dragon coming, or if that was just a natural move in his struggle with the knife-wielding Berrech. Whichever, it left a momentary opening for the dragon, who seized hold of Berrech, its huge claw covering his entire back, its talons spread from the elf's shoulders to his waist but not—at least for the moment—puncturing him. The dragon shook Berrech with obvious glee, sending the glasses flying.
Berrech—once again looking like himself—screamed, but I figured that had to be in terror, not pain, for the dragon obviously could have squeezed the life out of him in a heartbeat.
We all came stumbling out of the cave: the dragon holding on to Berrech, with Julian and I directly behind, tripping over Merrindin, who—despite the knock on the head—retained enough sense to know when it was time to just stay put. That time was when the dragon leaned its face close and hissed in a whisper of volcanic steam, "Don't even think about standing up."
On the beach outside, we saw that Vediss had caught up to Eleni but was having trouble holding on to her. Part of the problem was that she was flailing and kicking. But another distraction Vediss faced was that there was a brave little wren
who—woodpecker-like—kept attacking the back of his head.
Just then Brave Heart the wolf came tearing over the crest of one of the sand dunes. Fur bristling, fangs gleaming, he obviously was intent on hurling himself at Vediss.
The dragon beat him to it, and grabbed Vediss in a similar hold to the one he had on Berrech.
Brave Heart spun around, sending sand flying, but he didn't have to go back for Tiffanie: She was just straggling into view. She slowed down when she saw everything was under control—more or less—and the measure of her exhaustion was that she let all our glamours fall away—including her own, so that she was back to looking like a hundred-year-old witch who had just spent the last fifteen minutes running up and down the hilly beach.
Over the dunes, the two elves who had been hunting Brave Heart came into sight. They took one look at us—or rather, they took one look at the dragon, and tore back over those dunes even faster than they had come.
Julian had his left hand tight on his right forearm, and the stupid thought crossed my mind that he was taking his pulse, which I thought was pretty superfluous, but then I saw the blood running down his
arm and I realized maybe he hadn't been winning that scuffle with Berrech over the knife.
I still had Eleni's handkerchief, which she had given me for my knee, and I took it out of my pocket. "Very unsanitary, I know," I pointed out to him, as it had my blood on it, but I figured a risk of germs was better than his bleeding to death in front of me.
"Thank you," he said, still breathing hard as I tightened the makeshift bandage around his arm.
I hadn't realized until then that I apparently have a weakness for sweaty, bleeding elves who have just recently saved me from never being born.
Sweaty, bleeding
gracious
elves, I realized as soon as Tiffanie finally reached us.
She put her hand on his arm, and the flow of blood, which my pathetic attempt at helping had only slowed down, now stopped. Beneath the bandage, his wound had no doubt disappeared as entirely as the one on my knee that Tiffanie had healed. Much more useful than my silly already-used handkerchief.
Julian pulled her in closer to him and rested his chin on her head while she burrowed her face into his chest. "The spreenie said you were in trouble," she managed to gasp between gulps for air.
"The spreenie," corrected the spreenie-in-question, "said
Eleni
was in trouble."
I felt bad that I'd assumed the worst of Larry—that he had abandoned us, when in reality he'd gone to fetch help—but I didn't feel bad enough to apologize.
Larry fluttered his little blue eyelashes at my grandmother, and she took a second to say, "Thank you, Larry," on her way to come give me a hug.
I found myself clinging to her. "I thought...," I started.
"I know," she murmured. "But we're all fine."
With my eyes closed and my face buried in her hair, her voice was the same as it had always been, the comforting and gentle tone my grandmother used when I'd fallen off my tricycle, or when I was upset with my mother, or when Gia had had some success that made me feel insignificant.
Another voice, one like the shifting of tectonic plates, grumbled and grated, "If I may intrude..."
The dragon was still holding on to Vediss and Berrech.
I glanced at Julian and saw the easy, familiar way he and Tiffanie stood side by side with their arms around each other, despite the fact that he was looking his most attractive and she was sporting her
Wicked Witch of the West look. Just when I'd found myself getting interested. It served me right. Those troublesome assumptions about the way people look. It explained, if I had stopped to think about it, her frantic single-mindedness to rescue him. And if she loved him that much, that had to count for a lot and of course would be more meaningful than a few warts and wrinkles.
The dragon said to me, "I am indebted to you." It may have been holding Julian's uncle and cousin, but it was waiting for me. I'd been the one to actually undo those locks. In its mind, that made me the only significant one there. "I realize these are somehow related to your friend and that you are hesitant to see their blood shed, but they have held me prisoner for many weeks now."
Either the direction this was heading made Berrech and Vediss nervous, or the dragon in its agitation tightened its grip a bit, for they began to squirm, though it was obvious they were going nowhere.
"I could," the dragon offered, having to raise its voice to be heard over their pleas, "take them away so you wouldn't actually have to watch..."
"No," Julian said. "Please spare them." That plea seemed directed at both of us.
Now there was a wild thought: me and a dragon comprising an "us."
To Berrech and Vediss, Julian said, "I am tempted." That admission seemed to uncover the feelings he must have buried during his capture and kept under control until now. He spat out the words, "I am
so
tempted."
Sounding worried, Tiffanie started, "But you—"
Julian spoke over her. "But I cannot begin my public career with the death of my kinsmen." He stood there looking so furious I wondered if he was hoping one of us would find a flaw in his reasoning and point out how he
could
let the dragon eat them. But then he took a steadying breath and spoke to the dragon. "I realize you have suffered at their hands, that you have been held against your wishes and been in fear for your life."
We could all tell by the grumbling going on in the dragon's chest and throat that this was going nowhere toward making it feel inclined toward leniency. "Yes...?" the dragon prompted, a bit of steam escaping its jaws.
Julian hesitated.
I could see Tiffanie's gnarled fingers dig into his arm, but she didn't say anything.
Finally Julian said, "But in the end, they did not
harm you. I will bring this up before the High Council, and they will not take any of this lightly. These two, as the leaders, will be imprisoned, and to an elf that is great punishment."
The captive elves nodded vigorously, obviously much favoring elf justice over dragon justice.
The dragon's internal grumbling continued, and it narrowed its eyes at Julian.
Eleni, holding my hand, gripped it tighter.
Brave Heart barked. And barked and barked.
Tiffanie listened. And after a while, she smiled. "You are truly wise," she told the dog. For the rest of us, she interpreted. "Brave Heart points out that at his home there is a saying: 'Who is the pet, and who is the master, and who has trained whom?'"
Larry, once again sitting on Eleni's shoulder, clapped his little blue hands over his chest and declared, "Oooo, that's deep," which was kind of along the lines of what I'd been thinking—which was,
Huh?
—but at least I'd had the sense not to say it.