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Astra was about to suggest that Fred must have lost all track of time
whilst chained up, and had greatly overestimated how long he had been
there. But then her torch mysteriously went out, though she had felt no
breath of wind, leaving them in absolute darkness.
"Damnation!" Astra said. She had a tinderbox in her pack, containing a flint, a small sheet of steel, and some straw, with which she could in theory produce a flame and relight her torch. But that was quite a fiddly procedure even in daylight, and would be extremely difficult if done using only the sense of touch. Still, she would have to try. She currently had the torch in one hand and her sword in the other, so she sheathed the sword so that she would have a free hand. "Are you there, Princess?" Fred asked. As he spoke, his searching hands made contact with her. "Of course I'm here. And I'll thank you not to grope my breast." "Oh, sorry." Just then Astra's torch relit itself as mysteriously as it had gone out. In the brief time that they had been in darkness the pup had vanished. And that wasn't all that had changed. "I've heard rumours that the dragon is a shapechanger and a powerful magic user, and also that he has a keen but malicious sense of humour," Astra remarked. "You think that the dog was really the dragon?" "How else to explain what has happened? Unless the dog was Belboz, I suppose, about whom similar stories are told. Anyway...
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9/15/2007 11:46:57 AM
Extending Enabled
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