Sharna awoke to see the human girl sitting impatiently in the moonlight. The girl must have been watching her, for the moment she stirred the girl was at her side.

"Are you all right?" she asked, not in the coquettish way of a princess, but matter-of-factly.

"As well as someone lying cramped and starving in a cave for weeks could be," Sharna murmured, trying to seem as menacing as possible, Maybe the girl would decide she didn't need a favor.

"My name is Karla," she said. Sharna's trick was not going to work.

"All right," Sharna surrendered. "What do you want?"

"I need your help."

"What else is new? Everyone needs something from me, and if I refuse, they decide a square yard of my hide is a reasonable substitute."

Karla blinked, but did not loose her composure. "I need you to help me open a door."

"Can't a common picklock do that?"

"It's magically guarded," Karla was losing her patience. Let her, Sharna thought.

"Ah, I see. Why me?"

"Dragons are known for their skill with locks, and you are the only one I could talk to without being mistaken for a princess and burned to a crisp," she said, glancing at the now-empty cave.

"I understand," said Sharna, This human did not have her head stuck in the dirt. She knew enough about draconic culture to understand life debts. "So what do you intend to do with your advantage?"

"My story is a long one," she said. "Mind if I start a wizard-light?"

"Can I stop you?"

Karla decided to ignore that statement and muttered the old-speech word for light. A glowing globe, like a small, intensified ball of moonlight, hovered between them.

"Where to start?" Karla thought aloud.

"The beginning is usually best," Sharna quipped.

"Yes, I suppose it is." Karla once again ignored the jest. "Well, I suppose the beginning would be when I was mage-searched," she began making herself comfortable on a protruding stone. "I was a normal teenage girl, as normal as one can be at fifteen, when I became an apprentice mage. Then my life became more interesting, because I was the best student at the royal wizardry school. I had just earned my mastery, when the king decided he wanted me wrapped around his finger. I was the best, after all." There was a humble grin at this statement. "When I refused his 'services,' he accused me of being a witch. He said I could either be burned at the stake, or find a way to open a well-locked door in his treasury as 'penance.' It has baffled all his mages; no one even knows what the room holds. I'm smart enough to know when I need help, so when I heard of your plight, I came."

"Not an easy situation. I assume there is a time limit?" Sharna prompted.

"Ah, that is the worst part. Two weeks are left for me to open it.

"Two weeks? Asking a bit much, isn't he?"

"I seriously doubt he cares," Karla said bitterly.

"Well, the sooner this is started," began Sharna.

"The sooner we can get my head off the block," Karla interrupted. "Shall we start in your libraries?"

Sharna could not help but curse her impulsive hoarding of any book, useless or outdated as it may be. It was well past dawn when they found a cryptic reference in a past castle steward's diary referring to "the key to the scepter door" being taken to Belle Atlantica for safekeeping. The text was so old that even if it was the right key, it could be anywhere now; but it was a place to start.

"So how do we get there?" asked Karla.

"Well, the only way to get there in time is to ride me." Sharna grinned inwardly as Karla paled. "Unless you're afraid?"

That set things straight. "I'm never afraid!" Karla exclaimed, gathering up to her full (if meager) height. "When can we leave?"