The Dragon's Palace

"You think so?" asked Lord Fred.

"Can we start moving toward the river? I would like to get away from here." Maggie replied.

"Those leg irons and those chains are not going to make it easy for you to walk."

Maggie still had the cuffs around her wrists. She shuffled toward one of the torches. Her face glowed orange in the light. "Sir, would you be able to hold these chains that are bound to these cuffs around my wrists steady?" Fred obliged. She raised her hand to her collar. Fred then saw a needle gleam in Maggie's right hand. She fiddled with the left cuff for a half minute, and then it slid off her hand and fell to the floor. She removed the right cuff within a few seconds, and the leg cuffs shortly thereafter. Maggie stood up and brushed her collar and the needle disappeared.

"Now are you ready, sir?"

"Yes, Maggie. So can you tell me where the dragon's lair is?"

They continued the conversation as they moved back toward the underground river. Maggie had been in these caves before. She had painstakingly scouted the caverns, and had hidden in various ways so that she could overhear snatches of conversations. Her knowledge was still incomplete, but better than Fred's. The left passage was new. That was the reason that it was not on Fred's original map. The dragon desired to transform the original cavern into a palace worthy of the greatest of sovereigns. Maggie's first exploration was through the left passage. She had actually been in the the dragon's massage room, and witnessed the ritual of the dragon's bath. The dragon would choose the spices and perfumes for its bath. Servants would then mix the spices and draw the bath and wash the dragon. The dragon would then lay on a special table. Servants would pour oil on its scales, and then massage the oil underneath that scales.

Beyond the massage room was the "treasury complex." The hoard had been originally a disorganized mass of coin, bullion, gems, and precious artifacts. The dragon had since built special rooms in a honeycomb around the original hoard, and organized the hoard so that he could better display and enjoy it. It was here that the alabaster jar might be. However, it was also possible that it was in storage elsewhere, or even in use. It would have been a natural object to store spices in the massage room, for example, although Maggie did not find it there.

"That is fascinating," Fred said. "But how do we get there from here?"

"There is a sluice gate on the left bank of the river. It is used to divert water into the dragon's private rooms as needed. I saw the water pouring into the bath from a hole in the wall. I think that they are connected."

Fred listened with interest. Some things that Maggie said answered some of his questions and raised more. The mystery of the two passages was now explained. There were a couple of things that Maggie had left out. How had she gotten into the dragon's massage room, and not gotten caught? And was the sluice a practical way in? Why not just go through the left passage as she had done earlier?

1. Fred asked her how she had managed to see the dragon's massage without getting caught.
2. Fred asked her whether it would be better to go through the left passage.

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