Hand over hand, Annie climbed up the rope using the wall of the pit for toeholds when she could. She looked up now and then to see how much farther she had left to go, and was nearing the top when she saw Liam silhouetted in the bright daylight behind him. Annie was only feet from the edge when he reached down and pulled her up the rest of the way.
She blinked and her eyes adjusted as she looked around. Liam was beside her and Audun was there as a human again, standing next to Ting-Tang. Annie was about to ask why they were just standing there when she realized that they weren’t alone. At least twenty spear-carrying men surrounded them.
The fiercest-looking man pointed at Annie and said, “What fools would bring a girl on a raiding party?”
Annie wasn’t sure, but it looked to her as if the movements of the man’s mouth didn’t match up with the words coming out of it.
“They aren’t here to steal from you,” said Ting-Tang. “They came to rescue me.”
“They came to steal you, you mean,” said the man. “You’re our witch doctor now.”
Annie decided that he must be the headman if he was doing all the talking.
Ting-Tang shook his head. “I’ve told you before, I’m not staying here forever. I’m happy I was able to help your tribe, but I need to get back to my hut. I have other patients coming to see me. These people came looking for me because they need medical assistance.”
“They look fine to me,” said the headman, although his mouth looked as if it was saying something much longer and more involved.
“We came to get help for my father and my uncle,” Annie told the man. “They are both very sick and will die without Ting-Tang’s help.”
“Why should that matter to us?” said the man. “We do not know these people. If it is your father, he is already old. He has probably lived longer than most of our people do.”
“My wife needs help as well,” Audun told them. “She is expecting our first child and is very ill.”
“A baby!” said the man. “That is different!”
“The people of the tribe treasure children because they have so few,” Ting-Tang whispered to Annie while the tribesmen talked among themselves.
“What’s with their mouths?” Annie whispered back. “Why don’t they match up with their words?”
“I cast a spell so I could understand them and they could understand me,” said Ting-Tang. “I think it works rather well, don’t you?”
“We have decided that you may leave on one condition,” said the headman. “After the baby is born, you must give it to us.”
“I’m not giving my baby to anyone!” Audun declared.
“Then you may never leave,” the headman told him.
“This is ridiculous,” said Audun. “I felt bad about scaring your women and children back at your village. I hoped you might be reasonable about letting us go now, but apparently I was wrong. We’re taking Ting-Tang back with us and you can’t stop us or keep us here.”
The headman opened his mouth to say something, but the air around Audun was already shimmering. When he turned into a full-size dragon, some of the men shouted and ran away, but the rest raised their spears, ready to fight.
“Hold your breath!” he shouted to his friends.
Ting-Tang looked confused and didn’t respond right away, but Annie and Liam took deep breaths and held them as Audun puffed poison gas at the tribesmen. A moment later, the tribesmen were all gagging. Ting-Tang was, too, and his little monkey had collapsed on the ground.
Audun thought for a second and said, “Light breeze, please!”
A breeze strong enough to ruffle the leaves sprang up, carrying away the remnants of the gas. When it was gone, Annie and Liam started breathing again, but the others were suffering from the effects of the poison. It hadn’t been enough to kill them, but it had made them all very nauseous.
“Climb on my back,” Audun told Annie and Liam.
“What about him?” Annie asked, gesturing to Ting-Tang, who was still vomiting.
“I don’t want him on my back if he’s doing that,” said Audun, “so I guess I’ll carry him with my talons.”
“As sick as he is, I don’t think he’ll care either way,” Liam declared.
“Don’t forget his monkey!” called Annie.
As soon as Annie and Liam were settled on Audun’s back, he picked up Chee Chee with the talons on his left front foot and Ting-Tang with the talons on his right. The drums still hung from the witch doctor’s waist, and they banged together as the dragon took off. None of the tribesmen looked up as Audun rose above the trees and turned toward the coast.
“I followed the rivers here before, but this time I’m going straight back,” Audun said over his shoulder.
“You can do that?” Liam shouted.
“Once a dragon has gone somewhere, he can find the location again,” said Audun. “The more a dragon visits it, the stronger the connection. I should find Ting-Tang’s huts pretty easily this time.”
They were flying over the jungle with the ocean in the distance when Ting-Tang started thrashing around. “Stop that,” Audun shouted, giving him a shake. “I’m taking you home. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“You mean you aren’t taking me back to your cave to eat me?” Ting-Tang shouted back.
“Oh, gross!” said Audun. “I’ve never eaten a human in my life. I don’t know anyone who has, either. Humans smell funny and I’m sure they taste worse. Ice dragons eat fish and some meat, not people! Stop wiggling or I might drop you!”
Ting-Tang stopped moving, although he did turn his head to look at Audun. “You’ve really never eaten anyone?”
“Never!” said Audun. “My wife would never forgive me if I did.”
Millie was standing outside the huts, waiting for them when they landed. She looked relieved to see them, and went running up to Audun before he’d even closed his wings. “I was so worried,” she cried. “You left without telling me you were going!”
“You were asleep and I thought you needed your rest. I scratched a note for you in the dirt. See—right there! Oh, I guess you walked all over it. You can’t read it now. I’m sorry you were worried, but we were gone only a few hours.”
“You were gone half a day! I was here all by myself and I didn’t know what was going on.”
“You weren’t by yourself,” said Audun. “Clarence was here. He was tied up in a hut.”
“There’s no one here but me,” Millie told him.
“Didn’t you look in the other huts?” asked Liam. “Clarence was right here.” Liam went into the hut where he’d left Clarence tied up. He came back out a few seconds later. “He’s gone. I found the rope, but Clarence and that wooden mask are missing.”
“He can’t have gone far,” said Audun. “I’ll see if I can find him.”
“Don’t go yet,” Millie told him. “Let’s hear what the doctor has to say first.”
Ting-Tang had already taken Chee Chee into the bigger hut. When Annie peeked inside, the witch doctor was cradling the little monkey in his arms. Chee Chee was clinging to him, whimpering and shivering. Looking up, Ting-Tang saw Annie. “Your dragon friend really frightened him.”
“I’m sorry,” said Annie, “but we had to leave in a hurry. I’m sure Audun wouldn’t have used his poison gas if he could have thought of any other way. Would you be able to talk to us now? We have to leave for home as soon as we can.”
The witch doctor nodded as he set the monkey in a basket made up as a little bed. “I’m grateful that you helped me return home. I would have gotten away from the tribe eventually, but they weren’t going to let me go without a fight, and that’s something I try to avoid. If an upset stomach is the worst thing that happened, I think we all got off lightly.”
“What will you do if the tribe comes back for you?” Annie asked as he started for the door.
“Don’t worry about me. Now that I know it’s a possibility, there are precautions that I can take.”
Millie and Audun were standing together, talking in soft voices, when he walked out. They turned to look at him, and reached for each other’s hands. “Let’s start with you, young lady,” he told Millie. “I assume you’re married to our dragon-man. Do you turn into a dragon as well?”
“I do,” she said, nodding.
“Congratulations on your impending motherhood,” said Ting-Tang. “Your husband told me that you’ve been getting ill. Is it usually after you’ve changed from one form to another?”
“It is. It lasts a few days, then I’m fine again,” Millie told him.
“Then it’s very simple,” said Ting-Tang. “Don’t change. Choose one form and keep it until the baby is born. It will be better for you and your baby. Get plenty of rest and don’t exert yourself. I have a potion I can give you in case you get queasy now and then.”
“That sounds easy,” said Audun, putting his arms around Millie.
“I’m going to stay human,” Millie told him. “I’ve been around enough pregnant women to know what to expect. I have no idea what dragons go through.”
“And now for you,” Ting-Tang said as he turned to Annie. “Curing the Blue Death is easy, too. All you need is very pure water and a giant pearl. You must steep the pearl in the water as it boils for one hour, then the patients must drink the liquid. You’re very lucky. There’s a giant pearl close by. A powerful witch stole it from a sea monster years ago. A sea witch brought it here. Years later, her mother followed her and they fought. Their magic got all jumbled up, and they’ve made the same ten minutes repeat over and over again. Unfortunately, now anyone who goes too close is trapped in those ten minutes as well.”
“I’ve heard the story about the theft of the pearl many times,” said Millie. “If it’s the same pearl, my mother was the witch who took it. Do you know if the two sea witches were named Pearl and Nastia Nautica?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Ting-Tang.
“If the sea witches are trapped in a magic spell, I’ll be the one to go fetch the pearl,” said Annie. “Anyone else would get caught in the time loop with them.”
“You’re not going alone,” Liam told her. “I won’t let you.”
“We’ll see,” Annie replied. “But before we decide who else is going, we have to find out exactly what we’re getting into.”