The Runaway Dragon (12 page)

The carpet abruptly lifted higher to sail across another, smaller forest and a series of hills. Then it swooped over the top of the tallest hill and down the other side, and Meg was astonished by her first sight of the ocean, a vast expanse of shimmering blue-gray water. She was still staring at the amazing shine of it when Lex leaned forward, pointing. “Down there!”

Ahead of them, a village perched on the shore in a place where the land curved in as if the ocean had pushed harder there than anywhere else along the coast. Fishing boats lined the sand, with small houses jumbling up the hill above the dunes.

The carpet didn’t show signs of slowing. Maybe it had its own destination and was just letting them tag along. “Carpet,” Meg said, “wouldn’t you like to rest in that lovely seaside village?”

Lex pointed to one side. “Or in that evil fortress?”

“How do you know it’s evil?” Meg asked, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she saw what Lex was
talking about. The fortress on the mountainside loomed darkly over the small village, all shadow-colored stones and harsh bulwarks and closed iron gates. “Oh.” It did look sort of evil.

Lex checked Laddy’s scale. “This is where Laddy landed next,” Lex said.

Meg reminded herself that her dragon might not be in this place anymore. But they had found the next step in Laddy’s journey.

The scarf drifted downward, the magic carpet tilting to follow it. They landed in the village, not at the fortress, but Meg and Lex weren’t about to argue with that. Though neither of them said so, they weren’t in a hurry to meet whoever lived in the stone monstrosity on the hill. “Maybe Laddy’s here in the village,” Meg said too brightly as she and Lex walked along the village’s only street.

“Maybe,” Lex said. “I’m hungry.”

“We’ll have to find someone to sell us food.” They’d left their packs and food at the lost campsite, but Meg had a few coins in her pocket. Cam had given them to her. “Just in case,” he’d said, and now “in case” had happened.

It seemed they might have trouble finding anyone to ask about food, however. The village was far too quiet. The only sound Meg could hear was the distant mumble of the surf. All of the windows were shuttered and all of the doors were closed. Lex tried knocking on a few, and
Meg called out, but there was no answer. “Where is everybody?” The village didn’t seem old enough to be abandoned. The houses were made of plaster painted in yellows and blues and oranges and greens, and the paint hadn’t faded or peeled. The flowers in the window boxes were dead, though. Cam would have known how long it had been since they’d been watered just by looking. “I don’t think Laddy’s in the village,” Meg added disconsolately.

Lex gazed at the scale as if he could read it, then turned to face the fortress. “No. He went up there.”

“Of course.” Where else would Laddy have gone? Meg started trying door handles.

“What are you doing?” Lex asked her. “Aren’t we going to the fortress?”

“First we’re finding some food. Since nobody’s using it, anyway.”

“Right.” Lex checked the other side of the street. A few doors later, they found one that wasn’t locked and went inside. Meg remembered the witch’s house and hoped there wouldn’t be any more bodies. Lex must have been thinking the same thing because he said, “Maybe they’re all dead of a mysterious plague and we’ll—”

Meg elbowed him. “Don’t say that.”

The room they stepped into was a kitchen with a table and four chairs. Cooking pots hung from hooks on the wall above a tidy metal stove. A green vase holding the remains of a bouquet of daisies decorated the center
of the table forlornly. To Meg’s relief, the only thing lying on the bed in the back room was a faded green-and-yellow striped quilt.

Lex poked around in the little kitchen. He discovered some biscuits in a wooden box, which was probably why they hadn’t been eaten by mice. Meg scrounged up a bucket, which led to a hunt for the village well. The water was cool and clear. “Not enchanted,” Lex said with satisfaction.

EG AND LEX TOOK THEIR BISCUITS AND WELL
water down to the shore to eat so that Meg could see the ocean up close. As they walked across the sand, Meg marveled at the way it gave beneath her feet.

“Take your boots off,” Lex told her, and Meg did. She loved that the long-legged birds ran nimbly along next to the water, where the sand was damp and gave beneath her feet in a different way. She managed to touch the ocean itself without getting entirely wet, though it was a near thing and made Lex laugh. Meg licked her finger, pleased to find the water was salty, a thing she had privately doubted when she’d heard it from her tutors. She and Lex sat down on the dry sand just out of reach of the waves to eat their biscuits.

Meg’s capricious scarf and Lex’s cantankerous rug showed up again during the impromptu picnic. The
cloth creatures flew low over the waves, trying to shove each other into the water. Lex frowned. “If my carpet gets waterlogged, it won’t be able to stay up.” The carpet must have figured this out on its own because, not long after Lex had spoken, it went up the beach and lay there, apparently sunbathing. The scarf, which hadn’t gotten as wet, settled for scaring stray seagulls, sneaking up behind them and pulling their tail feathers.

Meg wanted to stay here forever, watching the slide and spill of waves striking the shore. Instead she finished off her last biscuit and gave Lex a dark look.

“The fortress?” he asked.

“The fortress,” Meg said. Lex began brushing the sand off his feet to put his boots back on, and Meg did the same. Reluctantly, she turned her back on the ocean, following Lex up the incline to the village. They put the bucket where it belonged in the house where they’d found the biscuits, and left one of Meg’s coins on the table. Then Meg and Lex walked up the hill toward the fortress.

Riding in a giant’s hat wasn’t something Dilly ever cared to do again. She had come awake only to find that her head hurt and she was being bounced along inside a great rough bowl. Or that’s what it felt like. Nort soon explained where she really was.
“What?”
Dilly said.

“A giant. See?”

Dilly looked up. Something red and bushy tilted and waved high above her.

“That’s his beard,” Nort explained.

Dilly braced herself on the floor of the upturned hat. “We’re up in the sky?” she said, hoping he would tell her something different this time.

“Oh,” Nort said, remembering, “you’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”

Dilly closed her eyes. “A little, maybe.” She made herself open her eyes and look around. Cam sat patiently untangling Spinach’s braid, no easy task when every few seconds they were jolted and thumped from side to side. Crobbs was holding his pack tightly, careful to keep the two enchanted squirrels from escaping. And then there was Nort. “When you didn’t come back from chasing the stag, we figured you were dead in a demon pit,” she told him between jounces.

He eyed her. “Would you have minded?”

Dilly mulled this over. “Some.”

Her answer seemed to satisfy Nort, though an instant later they forgot all about it when the hat lurched mightily. Dilly tried very hard not to think about how high up they must be. Being in the bottom of a hat didn’t feel high; it felt low. Or so she told herself, and kept telling herself.

After a long while and many more scrapes and bruises, the hat came to a stop. If any of them had been
able to see out instead of up, they would have known that it was sitting on Lorgley Comprost’s kitchen table. A fact that did not please Lorgley’s wife in the least.

“HANG YOUR HAT UP,” she told him. “DON’T GO PUTTING IT ON MY CLEAN TABLE!”

“THERE’S SOMETHING IN IT,” he explained. “LITTLE CREATURES LIKE THE THIEF.”

“YOU BROUGHT HOME
MORE?”
she said, outraged.

“NOW, KITTY. I WENT TO THE BELOWLANDS LOOKING FOR THE THIEF AND CAPTURED THESE HUMANS. THEIR FRIENDS, WHO ARE WIZARDS, HAVE PROMISED TO FIND THE THIEF FOR ME.”

“HMPH.” Kitty Comprost peered into the hat, offering its denizens a view up her giant nostrils.

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THEM IN THE MEANTIME? BESIDES GETTING THEM OFF MY TABLE?” She swept up the hat and stood before her husband, waiting for the right answer.

“I THOUGHT LORIS COULD PLAY WITH THEM.”

“OH.” The giant’s wife smiled at last. “THAT’S SO THOUGHTFUL!” She bellowed for her daughter, and everyone in the hat covered their ears. “LORIS! COME HERE!”

Loris thundered into the kitchen. “WHAT, MOMMY?” Loris was five years old and very fond of dollies.
Her hair was yellow, like her mother’s, and stuck out in pigtails on either side of her head.

“DADDY BROUGHT YOU SOME LITTLE PEOPLE TO PLAY WITH.”

Loris’s father cleared his throat. “BUT BE CAREFUL WITH THEM. I HAVE TO GIVE THEM BACK IN FIVE DAYS.”

Kitty raised her brows.

“IF THE WIZARDS BRING ME MY THIEF,” he said.

She nodded and spoke to Loris. “YOU HEARD YOUR FATHER. PLAY NICELY WITH THE HUMANS. DADDY’S TAKING THEM BACK SOON.”

Loris had grabbed the edge of the hat her mother was holding and was looking into it. She didn’t seem to be listening.

“DO YOU HEAR ME, LORIS?” her mother asked.

Still looking into the hat, Loris recited, “YES-I-HAVE-TO-BE-CAREFUL-WITH-THEM-BECAUSE-DADDY-HAS-TO-TAKE-THEM-BACK.”

“GOOD GIRL,” Lorgley said.

“OH,” Loris cried, enchanted. “ONE OF THEM HAS LONG, LONG HAIR!”

“Are we just going to knock on the door?” Lex asked.

“Yes.” They were almost to the fortress.

“Don’t you think the owners are evil?”

“Yes. But they have Laddy.”

Lex stopped. “Meg, we should have a rescue plan.”

Meg stopped, too. “I have a rescue plan. The first part of the plan is to find out what’s going on.”

“By just asking? Shouldn’t we sneak in and spy around?”

“How? Do you have a spell?”

“I have a lot of spells,” Lex said.

“Then we’ll be fine,” Meg told him, hoping she was right.

Five minutes later, Meg and Lex were being surrounded by the fortress’s evil guards, who were dressed in black armor, naturally. Meg didn’t think there was really a metal like that. Maybe they had painted it? Or maybe it was magic. The guards had long legs. Meg had to trot a little to keep up. “Could you please slow down?” she asked breathlessly. But the guard holding her arm didn’t speak. He merely rushed her across the bridge and shoved her through the great iron gates of the fortress.

Meg glanced over at her fellow prisoner. Lex shrugged, which Meg took to mean he was saving his magic till they were inside and found out what was going on. It didn’t seem very useful to argue with twenty evil guards in black armor. As soon as Meg and Lex learned if Laddy was there, they could make a clever new plan. Or so Meg told herself, although being in this place made her uneasy, just as it was intended to do.

Loris Comprost had a simply beautiful dollhouse. It was half as tall as she was and sat on its very own table in her bedroom. It was painted pink with white shutters. For the insides, her father had carved little chairs and tables and cupboards, while her mother had made miniature curtains for the windows, upholstery for the sofas, and rugs for the floors. Loris pulled her old doll family out of the dollhouse, her love for them dying abruptly in the excitement of the new arrivals.

Loris was an expert on dollies, but she’d never had dolls that walked and talked before, let alone ones that got hungry. The new dollies discovered that Loris was quite reasonable when it came to certain things, like getting bread crumbs from the kitchen for her dollies’ tea parties. She was less understanding about bathroom needs, and she was toweringly unreasonable about grooming and other matters. She insisted on putting Crobbs to bed in an upstairs room filled with oversized furniture which probably appeared perfectly refined to giant eyes, but which was full of splinters and knots from a human perspective. The blanket alone was heavy enough to smother a person. It was more like a coarsely woven tent.

Crobbs was thinking about getting out of bed, but then Loris threatened in motherly tones to squash him if he didn’t stay there. He stayed—even when she managed to pry open the pack with a pin and let the squirrels out.

The squirrels were on the floor in a flash, moving so
fast that Loris hardly noticed them. Nort saw them racing down the stairs and ran to catch them, but they hurtled between his legs and along the front hall before disappearing out the dollhouse door.

“Goodbye, Lieutenant Staunton,” Nort said softly.

Loris had already lost interest in the pack. She made Cam sit in a flowered armchair in the parlor. He stood up and she pushed him back down with one giant finger, nearly breaking his ribs. Cam sat there miserably while Loris retrieved Nort, snatching him up from the sadly squirrel-free stairway and dropping him onto a sofa-like object beside Cam’s chair. Next Loris got down to the serious business of Dilly’s and Spinach’s hair.

Dilly’s hair didn’t get very much attention, though. Loris plied a huge-toothed comb on Dilly’s dark locks, but not for long. Loris soon turned to her favorite new dolly, Spinach. “MOMMY’S GOING TO CO-O-O-MB YOUR HAIR, AND MOMMY’S GOING TO WA-A-A-SH YOUR HAIR.” Loris laid Spinach’s hair out in a long, long line. “AND MOMMY’S GOING TO CU-U-U-T YOUR HAIR, TOO.” Loris twirled Spinach’s hair around her fingers as Spinach turned a stricken look on Dilly.