A Prince among Frogs (19 page)

The king scratched his head and looked doubtful. “I hadn’t thought of that. To tell the truth, my head is getting a bit muzzy. Lack of sleep, I suppose.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Emma. “We should— Oh no, don’t tell me they’ve started already!”

Everyone watched as a boulder hurtled from the cup of the catapult and flew over the wall. There was a smack like a paddle hitting a leather-covered ball and the boulder flew back over the wall, heading for the catapult.

“Run!” Emma shrieked and began a hurried spell to get the men operating the catapult out of the way.

“I did tell them to begin as soon as they were ready,” the king said.

The men scattered, moving twice as fast as was normally possible for an ordinary human, and were well away from the catapult when the boulder hit, smashing it to bits. Emma lowered her arms and sighed. “Is there anything else I don’t know about?” she asked her father.

“No, just that—”

“What on earth are they doing?” asked Azuria, pointing at the wall.

Oculura, Dyspepsia, and Mudine had flown their brooms across the moat and landed on the thin strip of ground circling the castle. Millie watched openmouthed as Mudine finished whatever spell she was saying and all three witches flopped down on their backs. Raising their feet, they pressed them against the vertical castle wall and began to walk up as easily as if on level ground, although their bodies were sticking straight out to the side like quills on a porcupine.

“They’re crazy!” said Eadric, and everyone else nodded.

Even though they took slow, methodical steps, it wasn’t long before the witches reached the top. They were raising their feet to step between the parapets when a strong wind sprang up, hitting them full force in the face and blowing them over backward. With only one leg firmly attached to the castle wall, the witches flapped like flags in a storm and couldn’t move until the wind died down. A moment later they were running backward down the wall, flailing their arms and shrieking.

“I told them to wait,” muttered Millie. “Some people just won’t listen.”

Fourteen

E
mma glanced down into the glass bowl and frowned. “I’m worried about Felix,” she said, holding up the bowl. “He’s no longer swimming the way he should. Look.”

Millie peered into the bowl and her breath caught in her throat. Although the little tadpole had been darting from one side of the bowl to the other the last time she’d seen him, he was now moving lethargically through the water as if it had turned into thick syrup.

“This can’t be good,” she said, feeling the first flutter of panic. Her baby brother
couldn’t
die, but he would if they didn’t do something soon. “We have to think of a way to get to Olebald!”

“Excuse me, but I think they’re having a problem undoing the spell,” Azuria said, pointing at the castle wall. “Perhaps I should go help them.”

The witches were lying on their backs at the base of the wall, struggling to remove the bottoms of their feet from the stone surface. “Let them work it out,” Emma said to Azuria. “It will keep them out of trouble.” She peered down into the bowl again and shook it just a little. “Maybe it will help if I change his water.”

Emma was hurrying to the side of the moat when Millie turned to Audun. “I have an idea. Remember how the door in the secret passage shook when you hit it with your tail? What if I hit it harder—I mean really, really hard?”

“We might be able to get through then, but there isn’t room in the tunnel for you to swing your tail any better than I did before.”

“I don’t plan to use my tail. What if I dive from high up and hit the air above the castle full force? I’ve found that when I fly high and let myself drop from the sky, I end up moving at tremendous speed, like a hawk. With tremendous speed comes tremendous force. If I were to hit whatever is keeping everyone from flying over the wall, I might actually be able to make it through. I bet it’s the same magic surrounding the entire castle.”

Audun shook his head. “That’s too dangerous. It’s practically suicidal.”

“But it could work?”

“I guess so,” he said, sounding reluctant.

“Then it’s worth a try,” Millie said and took to the air.

“Millie, you can’t do this!” said Audun, following her with a mighty sweep of his wings. “I can’t let you risk your life this way!”

“Aren’t you the one who’s been telling me that I can do anything?” Millie asked him. “I thought you wanted me to believe in myself. Well, I believe in myself now and I wish that you would, too. You have to give me the chance to prove what I can do, and I know that I can do this. Look, it’s not like I’d be hitting a really hard surface. We sort of bounced when we tried to land in the courtyard.”

“Even so, I don’t think—”

“Audun, we have to do something, and no one has come up with anything better!”

The ice dragon sighed and glanced down at the castle, then up at the sky above. “My father’s special talent is that he can fly very high. I’m nearly as good as he is, if I do say so myself.”

Millie reached out and touched Audun’s cheek with her talons. “You’d risk your life for my family?”

“I’d do anything for you, Millie,” he told her.

“And I for you,” Millie said. “But you don’t have to do this. It was my idea and I’ll take the risk.”

Audun shook his head. “We’re doing it together. Two dragons are better than one, after all. If you can damage Olebald’s magic, imagine what we can do together.”

“In that case, the last one there is a rotten roc egg!” Millie shouted and turned her face toward the clouds high above. She began to spiral upward with Audun at her side. Flying wingtip to wingtip, they rose high into the sky, until the castle was no more than the tiniest speck when they looked down.

“Is this high enough?” Millie asked.

“Not yet,” said Audun.

They flew higher until they were above the clouds, and when they looked down all they could see was a vast sea of puffy white. It occurred to Millie that they were higher than they’d been when trying to escape the thunderstorm on the way back from the island; going even that high had made her uneasy.

“Is this high enough?” Millie asked.

“Not yet,” said Audun.

They flew until the clouds lay so far below them that they were white shapes over a background where the largest rivers were thin blue ribbons and forests were masses of green. And still they climbed until they could see the ocean sparkling far in the distance and Millie finally said, “One way or another, this is it for me. You may take after your father and be able to go to great heights, but I take after my mother and prefer seeing nice solid ground close enough to land on in less than a minute. So, if you don’t mind, I’m heading back down now.” Even as she talked, she was leveling out so that she could rest in a lazy glide.

“I was just about to say that we were high enough,” Audun said, joining her. “We’re directly above the castle now. If we tuck our wings to our sides and dive, we should be fine if we go straight. We’re trying to smash this thing, not kill ourselves, so tuck your head in at the last moment. I don’t want you to end up a smear on a tower roof.”

“I know.” Millie nodded. “And since I don’t want you to be a smear anywhere, I want you to be careful, too.”

Even from such a great height, Millie could sense exactly where the castle lay, so she knew that Audun was right; the castle did lie directly below them, but then so did her family, and if she missed the castle she could flatten them as well as herself, or at least leave them with a very bad memory.

“Are you ready? We won’t be able to talk once we start.”

“Ready,” said Millie.

“Go!” shouted Audun, and they were off, their wings pressed against their sides and their legs to their bellies so they looked like arrowheads piercing the sky. They plummeted with their noses pointed directly at the castle while the wind whistled past them. And then the air grew thicker and the wind roared like a wild beast chasing them through a sky that was getting darker as the sun moved toward the horizon. A moment later they were passing through the layer of clouds and they could see the castle. It grew bigger and bigger until suddenly it was there in front of them and Audun was screaming, “Tuck your head in, Millie!”

Millie tucked her head close to her body just before she hit something that felt slightly squishy and made a loud booming sound in her ears as her momentum forced her ever lower. The next instant she was bouncing back into the sky, but when she looked down she could see a small fracture in the apparent nothingness that seemed to envelop the castle.

“Wow!” Audun shouted as he wrapped his front legs around her and they spun in circles in the air. “That was incredible! I half expected to die back there, but I never expected
that
! And did you see the rift we made in that thing?”

“But is a little crack enough?” asked Millie as they broke apart and spread their wings. “We’re going to have to do it again, aren’t we?”

“And I’m going with you,” said a green dragon only a few shades darker than Millie.

“Mother!” said Millie. “Are you sure?”

“What you two just did is the only thing that’s had any effect on Olebald’s ‘invisible nothing’ that’s keeping us out. I was appalled when I saw you diving, but I’m so proud of you for trying. If this is what it takes to get into our castle and make Olebald turn Felix back, there is nothing that could keep me from joining you. How high do we have to climb, anyway?”

“Higher than I’d ever gone before,” said Millie.

Emma peered up at the darkening sky. “Then we’d best get started. The sooner I get my baby back, the happier I’ll be.”

This time there were three dragons climbing into the sky. Although they didn’t go as high as before, it was higher than Emma liked, and she was gasping for air long before Millie. They turned back when she could go no higher and together the dragons plummeted back to the castle. This time when they hit, the boom was louder and the crack wider, but it still was far from big enough to let them in.

“We need a lot more dragons,” Audun said as they surveyed the crack that seemed to float in empty air.

“Remember how I said that I wanted a small wedding?” said Millie. “Well, I’ve changed my mind. I want an enormous wedding. I want you to invite all your dragon friends, and I want the wedding to be held tomorrow.”

“Really?” said Audun. “If you’re serious, we can send out word right away. The ice dragons would fly all night to make our wedding, but they’d fly even faster if we tell them that Olebald Wizard is here.”

“Then by all means, tell them,” said Emma. “I was going to ask if you were ready to make another run, but I must say that I like your idea better. I’ll send word to the ice dragons and take care of the invitations to the others. I know a few fairies who love weddings, and we can round up enough bird messengers to carry the rest. Your grandmother Frazzela won’t be happy to receive such short notice, and she’ll be even more upset when she hears that dragons have been invited, but she loves Felix and will understand why we need to rush this. You really don’t mind hurrying your wedding this way, Millie?”

“I don’t mind at all,” Millie said as she gazed into Audun’s eyes.

“Then I have a lot to do,” said Emma. “I’m glad Grassina is here. She’s so good at this kind of thing. Thank you, my dears, for all your help. And congratulations! My daughter is getting married and we’re going to teach Olebald Wizard a lesson all in one day. This is so exciting!”