The silence that followed this question from Buceros was so complete that Ben exchanged a glance of surprise with Twigleg. He saw not only disapproval on the faces looking out of the screens, but also a touch of fear. The only face that had brightened was Barnabas’s.
‘No, Sutan, no one has made that suggestion so far,’ he said. ‘Very interesting. And I feel very embarrassed for not thinking of it myself! That could indeed be the solution!’
‘But Barnabas!’ cried Jane Gridall. ‘Griffins are hardly famous for their helpfulness – quite the opposite! They despise every other living thing! A griffin regards all life forms simply as prey. They came to terms with us humans once, just because we think in the same way, but that’s more than a thousand years ago. Didn’t they declare war on the entire human race after some battle or other, and hasn’t all trace of them been lost since then?’
‘Which, as we all know, is a very well-founded reaction to the two great obsessions of the human species,’ commented Sutan Buceros.
Ben looked enquiringly at Barnabas.
‘Greed and megalomania,’ he whispered in reply. ‘Yes, Sutan, all of us here are painfully aware of those two obsessions,’ he said for all to hear. ‘I think I can say that we all have evidence of them too. But we’re not concerned with human beings here, we want to ensure the survival of the last winged horses!’
‘I’m afraid that’s the very thing that makes the problem worse, Barnabas.’ Inua Ellams always sounded as if he was singing what he said in a deep, velvety voice. ‘So far as I know, griffins consider horses even more despicable and superfluous than all other life forms! Wings or no wings, it makes no difference.’
The heads on the screens nodded in agreement, visibly relieved. Ben didn’t know much about griffins, but a few years ago a gigantic bird, the roc, had almost fed him to its chicks. If Ben remembered what he’d heard correctly, a griffin not only had a beak as terrifying as the roc’s, but also the claws of a lion and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a venomous snake for a tail.
‘I’ve spent more than twenty years looking for a Pegasus,’ said Barnabas, ‘fearing all the time that they were extinct, like so many other wonderful creatures. And am I to give up now, when there’s some hope of new foals after all these centuries? Impossible! I won’t stand by and watch those bringers of good luck disappear from my world and the world of my children, like so many other wonderful animals! Even if it means that I have to go to a fabulous creature that’s proud of its cruelty and its skill in killing, and even ask it to help us.’
In Ben’s experience, the discussion that began now could go on for hours. But a moment came when Barnabas took him aside, and asked him to let Firedrake know about the imminent arrival of the Pegasus stallion. ‘But don’t say a word about Sutan’s idea!’ he whispered, while behind him the argument went on: would the offer of gold induce a griffin to give them a sun-feather? ‘Firedrake mustn’t know that we may be setting off in search of a griffin! Inua is right: griffins certainly despise horses and all members of the equine family. But the only living creatures on this planet that they regard as their rivals and archenemies are…’
‘Dragons,’ said Ben, finishing Barnabas’s sentence for him.
‘Exactly! You know as well as I do that Firedrake will offer us his help if he hears of the plan, and it would put him in great danger!’
Ben nodded, although he knew how hard he would find it to lie to Firedrake. ‘But what am I to tell him?’ he whispered. ‘If we set off before him, he’ll ask where we are going!’
Barnabas frowned. ‘Why don’t you just say we’re looking for a phoenix feather? That’s not dangerous, and he’ll believe we don’t need his help!’
Would he? Firedrake knew Ben so well.
Twigleg would certainly have found convincing ways to tell the lie about the phoenix feather. (‘Of course!’ Sorrel would have remarked sharply. ‘After all, he was once a traitor and a spy!’) But the homunculus stayed with Barnabas, to record the discussion, as usual, in one of his notebooks. Ben missed him very much as he rehearsed his story a dozen times on the way to Slatebeard’s cave. He knew, however, that Barnabas was right. Firedrake would never let them persuade him to leave them alone in their search. Griffins really did sound terrifying – and Ben had to admit that by this time he felt very curious about them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Not The Whole Truth
I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even
if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and
nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?
John Lennon
When Ben reached Slatebeard’s cave, he found only a couple of Odin-dwarves there. They had made friends with Slatebeard because they were almost as old as he was. They told Ben that Firedrake had gone down to the fjord.
Even the largest fabulous creatures have an impressive talent for making themselves invisible to human eyes. Maybe that is what distinguishes them most clearly from ordinary animals. But Ben’s eyes were used to spotting them even in the densest forests and darkest caves, and the shape that he was looking for was more familiar to him than any other. He found Firedrake on the bank of the fjord, at a place where it fell so steeply that the coniferous trees lining it reached far out over the water. Even now, Ben was amazed to see how the dragon could keep so still lying there – so much at one with the natural world surrounding him that most people wouldn’t even guess at his existence.
The presence of Firedrake brought even more fabulous creatures to MÍMAMEIĐR than usual. He and Slatebeard attracted even those who didn’t need the Greenblooms’ protection. The fjord was teeming with sjöras and water-sprites, and when Ben knelt down in the grass beside Firedrake, the fiddle music of three fossegrims at once carried up to them.
‘What’s happened?’ The dragon bent his neck until his head was level with Ben’s eyes. ‘You look very anxious.’
Oh yes, Firedrake knew him so well. The many months they had now spent at different ends of the earth hadn’t changed that. How could he pretend to him? Well, he’d have to. Because it was to protect him. The dragon and his rider… There were nights when Ben’s longing to be with Firedrake would hardly let him sleep. Even on those precious days that they did spend together, he could never entirely forget that the next parting was near. ‘It’s the price you pay for friendship with a creature so different from yourself,’ Barnabas had told Ben one evening, when he found him outside the house, staring eastwards longingly. ‘You will always need human beings, and Firedrake will always have to hide from them. But that makes your friendship all the more valuable.’ Barnabas was right, of course, but all the same it was hard for Ben to reconcile himself to not seeing Firedrake more often – even though he had never told the dragon so. The flight from Nepal to Norway was too dangerous for him to risk it without a good reason.
‘Barnabas asked me to tell you that we’re soon going to have a very special visitor.’
Ben leaned against Firedrake’s silvery chest. It was wonderful to feel the dragon’s warmth and strength behind him.
The dragon said nothing as Ben told him the bad news from Greece.
‘I’m sure Barnabas will find a solution,’ he said, when Ben had finished.
‘Oh yes. We’re probably going to look for a phoenix feather.’ Ben was glad he didn’t have to look Firedrake in the eye.
‘A phoenix feather? I thought they set fire to everything they touched.’
‘No, not this sort. Twigleg read somewhere that they are… are very good for Pegasus eggs.’
Heavens above. Ben wished the earth would swallow him up. He was such a bad liar.
But fortunately Firedrake’s mind was on Slatebeard slowly dissolving into stardust, and he didn’t sense his dragon rider’s uneasiness.
‘Good,’ was all he said. ‘Phoenixes are helpful creatures. I’m sure they will be useful to you. And I look forward to meeting a Pegasus.’
When something rustled b
ehind them, Firedrake put his paw protectively out to Ben, but it was only Sorrel coming through the trees.
‘What’s a Pegasus? Does it eat brownies?’
If it had been up to Sorrel, there would have been no one in the world but dragons and brownies. She shook her head, unable to understand why the Greenblooms were trying to save all the beings whose right to exist was disputed by the human race. But as Firedrake helped them, so did she.
She’d been mushroom-gathering again, of course. Ben was sorry to see that she had three bags full of them slung over her furry shoulders. Sorrel was stocking up with provisions for the journey.
Firedrake gently laid his muzzle on Ben’s shoulder. ‘We’re setting off in three days’ time. Slatebeard says he wants to say goodbye before he gets even weaker. Dragons like to be alone when they look death in the face. Unlike brownies,’ he added quietly. ‘They can never get enough company when they’re leaving this world.’
Three days. It would be full moon in three days’ time. The best time for silver dragons to fly.
‘It’s strange to think that Slatebeard won’t be here when I next come to see you,’ said Firedrake. ‘He’s always been around, ever since I can remember. He was already a young adult dragon when my grandmother was a child. Such a long life. A time probably comes when it’s been long enough. I think he can’t wait to turn his back on the world.’
Ben just nodded. He felt ashamed that the tears rising to his eyes had nothing to do with Slatebeard, but with having to say goodbye to Firedrake yet again. Would he ever do it without such a heavy heart? Without this terrible feeling that he was losing a part of himself ?
Of course Sorrel didn’t notice any of that. Forest brownies aren’t exactly sympathetic by nature. She was fully occupied spreading out her finds on the forest floor in front of them.
‘Take a look at that!’ she said. ‘Not bad for one afternoon, is it? Three chanterelles, two hedgehog mushrooms, four forest lamb mushrooms, two saffron milk caps, a porcino and an orange birch boletus!’
‘She likes MÍMAMEIĐR much better than the Rim of Heaven!’ Firedrake whispered to Ben. ‘She’s far from impressed by the fungi of the Himalayas.’
Sorrel cast the dragon an irritated glance. ‘So are you grateful for the sacrifice I’m making? No! Sorrel, why don’t you stay in MÍMAMEIĐR? Sorrel, I could manage just fine without you. Huh!’ She packed the mushrooms away in their bag as carefully as if they were fragile glass. ‘Dragons need brownies. That’s how it’s always been, that’s how it always will be, spiss giftslørsopp!’ Sorrel had added the names of some poisonous Norwegian fungi to her rich stock of curses. ‘Even if that’s why I have to live on guchhi morels. I really can’t think why you humans consider them such a delicacy,’ she added, glancing at Ben.
Dragons need brownies… and dragon riders need dragons, Ben felt like saying.
He hated it when he felt so sad. But he consoled himself by thinking that at least it was much better than back in the days when there was no one he could long for.
‘What do you think?’ Firedrake whispered to him as Sorrel, with a cry of delight, picked a slimy yellow fungus off the bark of a pine tree. ‘Why don’t we see whether the Draugen are going to have one of their water-horse races?’
Ben was sitting on Firedrake’s back before Sorrel had put her new treasure away. ‘If Barnabas or Twigleg ask where I am,’ he called to her, ‘tell them we’ll be back in a couple of hours’ time!’
‘Twigleg?’ Sorrel looked up at him, frowning. ‘Oh, lopsided liberty caps!’ She spat, and picked a spider out of her brown fur. ‘He ought to be glad I haven’t wrung his scrawny neck yet. Do you know he’s been showing the nisses my best mushroom-hunting spots, just because they like to feed chanterelles to their children? Nisses! Why can’t they be satisfied with fly and midge grubs?’
‘Sorrel,’ said Firedrake sternly, ‘have you forgotten that Twigleg risked his life for us?’
‘After betraying us first, you mean?’
Brownies can bear a grudge for a long time. Sorrel would never forget that the homunculus had once served her dragon’s worst enemy, even if Twigleg had helped them to defeat him in the end. Nettlebrand… anything made of gold always reminded Ben of him. The man-made monster who had killed thousands of dragons and swallowed Twigleg’s eleven brothers. Griffins couldn’t be half as bad… could they?
Firedrake made his way out of the trees and spread his wings. Ben clung to the spines on his back as the dragon rose into the air. Yes, he would even miss Sorrel. In fact he would miss her very much. The heart was a strange thing. As the dragon climbed higher, Ben felt sure, for a moment, that his own heart would break with joy. But he knew from experience that hearts are remarkably resilient in sorrow and joy alike.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Only One of his Kind
You are who you choose to be.
Ted Hughes, The Iron Man
When Ben returned from his flight on Firedrake’s back, the others were already eating supper. As usual, Twigleg sat at a little table beside Ben’s plate. Hothbrodd had made it specially for the homunculus, like the tiny chair he was sitting on (and the little house on Ben’s bedside table). Barnabas was talking to Tallemaja, their Swedish cook, whose reed-green hair showed that her mother was a huldra. Ben couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he felt sure it was provisions for a journey. He knew the determined expression on Barnabas’s face. They would be going in search of griffins.
Hothbrodd had given MÍMAMEIĐR’s dining table the claws of a lion, but this evening Ben saw them as a griffin’s hind legs. The table, like everything that Hothbrodd made, could grow or shrink to whatever size was wanted – a very important ability in MÍMAMEIĐR. At breakfast it was usually just right for the Greenblooms and Twigleg’s table (which reacted indignantly if any nisse or impet ventured to sit at it). But this evening there were several guests eating at it too: twelve of the Spanish goblins known as duendes, three woodland spirits of the Green Man type from Holstein, two trolls who were Hothbrodd’s cousins, and an albatross who had brought Gilbert Greytail some information he needed for a map. More curses than usual were uttered in the kitchen, because naturally these visitors all needed very different kinds of food. It wasn’t easy to put the right meals on the table in MÍMAMEIĐR, but Tallemaja had eleven nisses to help her, as well as two firemanders and a six-armed Nepalese mountain brownie.
The atmosphere, as always, was relaxed. None of the guests seemed to notice how anxious the master of the house was looking, and Ben was too deep in his own thoughts to realise that Twigleg was very quiet. This evening was the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the fateful day when Nettlebrand had eaten his eleven brothers, and on that anniversary Twigleg’s longing for the company of someone like himself was always particularly strong.
Three hundred and fifty years, yet he couldn’t stop hoping that there was still another homunculus somewhere in the world. After all, in the Middle Ages many alchemists had tried to create artificial life. But with every lonely century that passed, Twigleg’s hope burned lower, like the flame of a candle.
It wasn’t easy for anyone to be the only one of his kind, and it was particularly hard on a homunculus because he was an artificial being. Of course, now he had Ben and the Greenblooms, but there were some things he couldn’t explain even to them. And often he didn’t even try, for fear that what he thought and felt was as strange as the way in which he had come into this world! Ben and Barnabas, to be sure, knew how he longed for another homunculus, and kept sending FREEFAB scouts in search of one, but with no luck so far.
Twigleg himself spent many nights on the Internet, looking for news of tiny men and women, but he never found anything but badly faked pictures of sprites and elves. Maybe it would be better to reconcile himself once and for all to being the only surviving homunculus.
Ben put some of his scrambled egg on the tiny plate, and Twigleg’s heart melted with love. Who needed people of his own kind if
he had friends like this? Think of the Pegasus eggs, Twigleg, he told himself sternly. Find out more about griffins, in case your master really does set off in search of them with Barnabas. But when one of the woodland spirits drinking forest soup told him about a video on the Internet showing a little man as small as a grasshopper, he forgot all his good resolutions. When Ben asked if he’d like to go and inspect the stable with him and Barnabas, Twigleg murmured an excuse and hurried off to his computer.
But the video didn’t show a homunculus, only a human being very amateurishly reduced in size.
CHAPTER SIX
Father and Son
The heart of a father is Nature’s masterpiece.
Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut
Hothbrodd had prepared a stable for the Pegasus and his unborn foals right behind the house. When Ben and Barnabas came in, several woolspinner oaklings were just pulling the last threads through the padding they had made to line the inside walls. Ben thought the oaklings were rather weird. They looked like big-bellied spiders with human heads, but Hothbrodd talked to them as happily as he did to the oak trees where they lived. The silvery down mixed with the straw on the floor had been donated by an Arctic chattergoose whom Barnabas had saved from being stuffed, and a dozen Finnish firemanders added to the comfortable warmth. Hanging over the stable door were two of the camouflage lamps developed by Ben’s teacher James Spotiswode to make fabulous creatures look like domestic animals. In their light, the Pegasi would look like ordinary horses to any unexpected visitors.
‘Well done, Hothbrodd!’ said Barnabas as the troll picked woolspinner oaklings off the walls as carefully as if he were collecting butterflies. Hothbrodd looked around and nodded, as if he could only agree with Barnabas.
‘I’ll go and feed the oaklings,’ he said. ‘Spinning makes them very hungry. Keep an eye on those firemanders so that they don’t set the straw alight. And chase them out before the eggs arrive.’ Then he strode away.