Elementals: Ice Wolves

Anders heard the gasps from the audience below when red dragon puppets suddenly appeared, swooping low over the little people puppets, who scattered and ran about the stage, bobbing up and down on their sticks. One swooped to pick up the smallest puppet, kidnapping a child. “How are they going to show—” Rayna began, but she got no further. Somehow a dragon puppet breathed fire —not a cascade of white-and-gold fabric, or some silly trick, but real fire. The f lames raced along the fabric of the people puppets’ clothes, curling around each seam and enveloping the tiny f igures until there was nothing left. “How do they make it white?” Rayna whispered. “And with those gold sparks? It looks like real dragonsfire.” “It’s a kind of salt, I think,” he whispered back. “And iron f ilings for the gold sparks. This is the best battle show we’ve seen.” The puppets who hadn’t been reduced to ashes ran around the stage even more frantically. Anders and Rayna leaned over the edge of the

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