Free The Wizard's Map by Jane Yolen Page A

though she wasn’t sure from what.
    The passageway was unlit, and it wound down and down and down into the bowels of the earth. Walking behind the dragon’s swinging tail, Jennifer could feel the pressure of all that stone and dirt upon her; she felt buried alive. Reaching out a hand to the wall, she recoiled at the damp and slimy feel. She began to sniffle, and she would have begun screaming as well, had the dog not come up by her side and leaned against her.
    She put her right hand on his head, and as if he were a guide dog, he led her through the black tunnel of stone.
    They seemed to walk forever in the dark. They’d left summer outside, with its flowers and soft breezes, and now were going where it was forever damp and cold,
Into a kind of winter,
Jennifer thought,
with this passage between being the autumn of their trip. In some ways the unicorn had been right after all. Poetic license, indeed.
    ***
    After a few more turns, Jennifer guessed that there had to be some sort of light source ahead, because now she could see a thin grey outline around the dragon’s bulk, like the corona of an eclipse.
    Light,
she thought, breathing shallowly.
Light will help.
    The dragon moved forward several steps more, hesitated a moment, then walked through an enormous archway.
    Suddenly they were in a large cavern of light, where torches—the real kind, with flames—illuminated hundreds of hanging stalactites and uprising stalagmites. In the torch glow, it looked as if the cavern had a wall of ice glittering cruelly on one side, and a wall of flickering green flame on the other. Only the far end of the cavern was still an inky black, as if a backdrop to the rest.
    In the very middle of the cavern rose a stone platform as high and as wide as a bed. On it lay Molly, Gran, and Mom, with the rosy-haired doll beside them. They were all on their backs, eyes closed, looking as if they were asleep.
    Or dead.
    Jennifer drew in a gasping breath and then felt again the steadying pressure of the dog by her side. Slowly she walked up to the platform and saw the gentle rise and fall of breath in each body, and was comforted by that. A little.
    So she left the bedside and walked around the rest of the cave, looking for some sign of Peter and Pop and Da. There—beneath great columns of the ice, she thought she could distinguish the shadows of what might have been bodies, but in the wavering light she could not be sure.
    â€œThird time welcome,” came the hateful drawling voice of Michael Scot from the dark end of the cave. “In the attic, in the hoose, and now here, in my cave. Where I have been bound up too long waiting a hand on the map.”
    â€œI do not feel very welcome,” Jennifer replied, trying to spot the wizard in that vast blackness, and failing.
    Under her hand the dog began to tremble, and this time it was Jennifer who did the steadying, her fingers tangled in his long black hair.
    â€œOh, ye are welcome, indeed, if ye ha’e brought me my map,” said Michael Scot. “For it protected ye in the summer hoose but brought ye surefooted to me in my cave.”
    Suddenly a shadow amid the shadows moved out into the light. Michael Scot stood next to the raised platform. Black hair, dark cape, high cheekbones, hawk nose. He was still incredibly handsome, and he smiled that snake smile, which—in the tremulous light of the cave—was even more frightening than before.
    â€œI brought the map,” said Jennifer, taking several steps backward, and stopping only because she had bumped up against the bulk of the dragon. “Or maybe it brought me. But you shall not have it.”
    â€œOh, I shall ha’e it, lassie, I shall ha’e it very soon. And there is naught ye can do to stop me.”
    â€œMy three friends shall stop you,” she said, but her own voice betrayed her doubt.
    Michael Scot put his head back and laughed. “These three treacherous, cowerin’