For a moment, Cimorene and Telemain stared at Morwen, and then they began to smile, too. "It will be my pleasure," Cimorene said, and called Willin over. A short time later, Vamist appeared, flanked by Brandel and Amory.

"What do you want now?" Vamist asked. "I demand that you send me home at once."

"In a minute," Morwen said. "Stand over here by Killer. Trouble, Scorn-" "Right here," Scorn purred. "Go ahead whenever you're ready."

"Good." Morwen raised her left hand, palm up, then flipped it over.

"Front to back, White to black, Young to old, Silver to gold."

As she finished speaking, Killer began to glow green. The glow pulsed once, brightly, far enough for the edge to touch Vamist. "Whoops!" said Vamist, and "Eek!" said Killer, and then an ordinary brown rabbit with a few faded patches of white-dyed fur dropped to the ground next to an oversized blue floating donkey with wings.

"Look," said Scorn. "He's got a little bald patch between his ears."

"What-eee-augh!" said Vamist. "No! You can't do this to me!"

"Want to bet?" said Trouble.

"Goodness, he looks silly," said Killer, twitching his nose. "Is that really what I was like?"

"Except for the bald patch," said Scorn.

"You can't mean to leave me like this? Vamist cried. "You wouldn't make me stay a donkey?"

"You're not just a donkey," Morwen said, letting her smile grow.

"You're a seven-foot bright blue floating donkey with oversized wings.

And as far as I'm concerned you can stay that way for the rest of your life.

Telemain, have you got enough energy left to send him to the main square in his hometown?"

"I believe I can manage that," Telemain said.

"No! I'll be the laughingstock of the whole countryside! And how will I get people to pay attention to what I say?"

"You won't," Brandel said with considerable relish. "No one will listen to someone who looks that silly. Morwen, it's perfect."

"It certainly is," Cimorene said. "How on earth did you think of it?"

"It came to me a while back, when Scorn said he was 'as dumb as that rabbit." Now all that's left is the problem of what to do about the castle."

But though they discussed it over lunch, after lunch, and through the afternoon until dinner, no one could think of anything that might work.

Telemain spent an hour studying the shield spell, but he could not find any way to get rid of it. The dragons could not get close to it because the spell was too similar to the one on the wizards' staffs and made them sneeze. The fire-witches' magic just bounced off. In desperation, Cimorene even tried to stick Mendanbar's sword into the spell, but it stopped at the edge of the glow and refused to penetrate it.

"I think we're going to have to wait for the baby," Telemain said finally.

"I'm not giving up yet," Cimorene said. "There's got to be some way to get in, or to get Mendanbar out."

"Don't be so sure," Morwen said. "Barrier spells frequently come with a time delay, rather than any specific sort of key. I believe a hundred years is the usual period, though that normally applies to hedges of briars, not glowing magic shields. Still…"

"I'm not giving up," Cimorene repeated. "And I'm certainly not waiting a hundred years!"

And she didn't. For the next two months, while Telemain and Morwen disposed of Vamist the donkey and sent Killer the rabbit back to his clover patch, while the dragons combed the Enchanted Forest for stray wizards, while the fire-witches finished helping out and went home (or, in some cases, built new homes in the Enchanted Forest), Cimorene tried everything anyone could think of to get herself through the wizards' shield. She had dwarves dig runnels and birds dive at the top of the shield; she sprayed it with soapy lemon water and sprinkled it with powdered dragon scales (donated for the purpose by Kazul); she cast spells alone at midnight and at noon in combination with Morwen, Telemain, all of the fire-witches, and several dragons.

Nothing made any difference.

Kazul left a squad of dragons to keep watch for wizards near the castle, and she herself visited frequently. Eventually, she persuaded Cimorene to slow down, at least until the baby was born. Since none of the other attempts had shown any sign of success, Cimorene's child seemed more and more to be their best hope of getting into the castle, rescuing Mendanbar, and defeating the wizards once and for all. Rumors began circulating, each purporting to give the real truth about the battle and the whereabouts of King Mendanbar.

The Society of Wizards was too busy with its own affairs-choosing a new Head Wizard and recovering from the unexpected onslaught of dragons and fire-witches-to make new trouble for the time being. So the pause in the fighting stretched out longer and longer until it became a sort of uneasy, unofficial peace.

And everyone waited.

EPILOGUE

Which Hints at Things to Come

Motherhood suits Cimorene, Morwen thought as she watched the Queen of the Enchanted Forest and the King of the Dragons making peculiar noises over the infant Prince Daystar, aged two months, six days, and some-odd hours. On the moss beside them, at the foot of an ancient and enormous willow, lay Mendanbar's unsheathed sword.

"Telemain says he melted another wizard in the eastern part of the forest yesterday," Morwen said aloud. "They're getting bolder."

Cimorene looked up, her face clouded. "I know. Antorell found me this morning. It's all right. I melted him," she added quickly. "But he was very angry. I think he blames me because Kazul ate his father."

"Antorell never was very strong on logic," Kazul said. "Ooochy-ooo.

What a fine big boy you are?"

Since this last was directed at the baby Prince, Morwen only smiled.

"It's a good thing none of my cats are here, or you'd have to make an equal fuss the next time one of them has kittens."

"As long as I don't have to be their godmother, I'll be happy to fuss," Kazul said.

"I didn't know your cats were expecting kittens," Cimorene said.

"None of them is, yet." Morwen smiled again. "Though the way Scorn and Horatio are behaving, it's only a matter of time. You should hear some of the things Trouble says about them-'mushy' is probably the kindest."

"It's a good thing you like cats," Cimorene said.

"Yes, it is." Morwen looked at Cimorene, and her smile faded.

"You're avoiding the real subject, which is, What are you going to do now? It will be a long time before Daystar is old enough to use Mendanbar's sword, and if the Society of Wizards is looking for him-" "I don't think they are," Cimorene said. "I don't think they even know Daystar exists. Mendanbar and I hadn't officially announced it before they attacked, and afterward it seemed like a good idea to keep quiet about it. So they haven't heard, and they're not looking for Daystar.

They're looking for the sword, and they're looking for me."

"It amounts to the same thing," Morwen said. "And doesn't Antorell know about Daystar, if he found you this morning?"

Cimorene snorted. "Antorell was so mad at me that he didn't notice anything else. He walked right by the sword and tripped over Kazul's tail before I melted him."

"Still, if he found you, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the Society does, too. Isn't it?"

"Not quite." Cimorene glanced sideways at Kazul and took a deep breath. "I've thought about this a lot, and I have an idea how to outsmart them. I want to know what you think of it."

"You know what I think of it," Kazul rumbled. "I don't like it one bit.

The idea of-" "Hush, Kazul, you'll upset Daystar. It's like this, Morwen: The Society of Wizards knows I've brought Mendanbar's sword back to the Enchanted Forest, because they can't swallow big chunks of the forest's magic anymore and they know that the sword is what keeps them from doing that. So they're poking around here, looking for me and the sword. If I leave the forest-" "But you can't take the sword out of the Enchanted Forest or the Society of Wizards will start destroying it again," Morwen said. "Or else the sword will leak all the magic out of the forest, which amounts to the same thing."