“It’s stopped working!” cried Sorrel. Desperately she reached behind her. “Quick, quick! The flask of moon-dew!”
Ben plunged his hand into his backpack and put the flask into her paw. Undoing her strap, Sorrel inched her way forward. “I’m coming!” she cried, wriggling down the dragon’s long neck. “Turn your head to me, Firedrake!”
Ben heard the giant roc chick in the distance, its screeches sounding increasingly desperate. Once more its mother tried to dive into the ravine, but in vain. Cawing hoarsely, she turned.
“She’s flying back!” cried Ben. “She’s going back to her chick, Sorrel!”
“Huh!” Sorrel shouted back. “She might have thought of that before!” Arms trembling, she hung from the spiraling dragon’s neck and let a drop of moon-dew fall on his tongue.
Firedrake felt his strength return at once. “Can you hold on, Sorrel?” he gasped, slowly descending.
“Yes, yes!” the brownie girl called back. “Just get us away from that horrible bird!”
The ravine narrowed yet further until it was a mere cleft between the walls of rock. Firedrake shot along it like a thread passing through the eye of a needle. At the far end it opened out into a wide, desolate valley lying among the mountains like a shallow bowl filled with stones. No foot seemed ever to have trodden here. Only the wind blew through the scant grass.
Firedrake landed at the foot of a mountain as round as a cat’s arched back. Other mountains rose behind it. Snow-covered peaks shone glittering white in the sun.
With a sigh of relief, Sorrel dropped from Firedrake’s neck and fell into the grass.
“I wouldn’t want to do that again in a hurry!” she groaned. “Not on your life! Puffballs and penny buns, do I feel sick!” She sat on the ground, picked some grass from between the stones, and stuffed it rapidly into her mouth.
Ben slipped off Firedrake’s back, carrying Twigleg. He could still hear the screeching of the young roc in his ears. His pants were torn, his hands were scratched, and he had lost his Arab head-cloth in the tangled branches of the giant roc’s nest.
“My word!” said Sorrel, giggling at the sight of him. “You look as if you’ve been trying to steal blackberries from the fairies.”
Ben plucked a few dead leaves out of his hair and grinned. “Wow, was I glad to see you three!”
“It’s Twigleg you have to thank,” said Sorrel, putting away the little flask of moon-dew among Ben’s things. “Twigleg and the dracologist. Without her moon-dew, Firedrake would have had to go in search of you on foot.”
Ben put Twigleg on his arm and tapped his nose. “Thank you very much indeed!” he said. Then he patted Firedrake’s long neck and nudged Sorrel in the ribs. “Thank you all,” he repeated. “I really did think I was going to end up as bird food.”
“We’d never have let that happen!” said Sorrel, swallowing noisily and wiping her mouth. “Now, take a look at that clever map of yours and tell us where we are.” She pointed to the mountains around them. “Do you think you’ve been here before, too?”
Ben looked around and, smiling, shook his head. “Can you still hear the river?” he asked anxiously.
Sorrel pricked up her ears. “No, I haven’t heard it for quite some time. But, unless I’m much mistaken,” she said, pointing to the snow-covered peaks, “those are quite a bit closer.”
“You’re right,” murmured Ben.
Beside him, Firedrake stretched and yawned.
“Oh, dear!” said Ben. “Now you’ve missed your sleep again.”
“Never mind,” said Firedrake, yawning once more.
“What do you mean, never mind?” Sorrel shook her head. “You have to sleep. Who knows how many more mountains we’ll have to cross? We’ve probably got the worst of the journey still to come. How are you going to manage if you’re yawning all the time?”
Sorrel clambered a little way up the slope to look around. “Hey!” she suddenly called down to the others. “I’ve found a cave. Come on up.”
Wearily Firedrake and Ben climbed up to join her.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t have another of those horrible basilisks living in it,” murmured the dragon as Sorrel disappeared into the dark mouth of the cave. “Or do any of you happen to have a mirror with you?”
36. Losing the Trail
“Where is he?” growled Nettlebrand, raising his head from the turbulent waters. Dark gray mountains rose into the sky, and the river foamed against their rocky slopes as if trying to wash them away. Its dark waters lapped over Nettlebrand’s scales and almost swept Gravelbeard off his master’s armored brow.
“Your Goldness!” spluttered the dwarf, spitting out icy water. “When can we get out on the riverbank? Dwarves aren’t fish, you know.” He was wet through to his woolen shirt, his teeth were chattering, and he’d already had to pull his hat out of the river seven times.
“The riverbank?” snorted Nettlebrand. “This is no time for me to mix with human beings.”
Shivering, Gravelbeard looked ahead of them. A suspension bridge spanned the foaming torrent. Houses clustered at the foot of the mountain slopes, and a road led along the bank between huge boulders, almost buried under the mud and stones of a landslide that had fallen during the last rainy season. There was no one on the bridge, but two birds were perched on its fragile cables. A solitary bus was driving along the road, and people were bustling about among the houses.
“Where is he?” growled Nettlebrand again. “He can’t have gone on — that’s impossible!” He sniffed the cool evening air. Days here on the roof of the world were boiling hot, but as soon as the sun set an icy chill, like the snowy breath of the mountains, descended on the valleys.
“It’s been quite some time since you last scented him, Your Goldness,” said Gravelbeard, tipping water out of the brim of his hat. “In fact, it’s been a very long time.”
“I know, I know,” snarled Nettlebrand, swimming on until he was in the shadow of the bridge. “Everything was fine until we reached these mountains, then the trail suddenly vanished. Aaaargh!” Furious, he spat into the turbulent water.
“He’s probably not following the river anymore.” Gravelbeard sneezed and rubbed his cold hands. “You were wrong, Your Goldness, and he’s flying over the mountains. How are you going to follow him there?”
“Oh, shut up!” Nettlebrand dipped his head in the water, snuffling, and turned to let the current carry him downstream and back south. The place where he had lost Firedrake’s scent was not too far behind him.
“Your Goldness!” the dwarf suddenly cried. “Watch out! There’s a boat coming upstream straight toward us.”
Nettlebrand jerked his muzzle up. “Ah! Just what I fancy!” he growled. “I’ll push it around a bit. Batter it, bash it, capsize it! Hold tight, armor-cleaner. This is going to be fun. I do like to hear those two-legs squeal.” Bracing himself in the current, he plunged his head deep into the water. “One little shove should do it!” he whispered. “Humans are such helpless little things on the water.”
The narrow boat was making its way upstream with difficulty. When it was quite close, Nettlebrand raised his head and gazed up at the humans. Most of them were looking at the houses on the bank, but a tall thin man and the girl with him had raised their eyes to the mountains, indistinct outlines in the evening twilight.
“Well, look at that, dwarf!” Nettlebrand submerged his head and laughed until he shook all over. “What have we here? That’s the professor who stole my scale. Oh, what a surprise!” Flipping his tail a couple of times, he drifted sideways until his armor clunked against the stony bank.
The boat glided past him, and the people on board had no idea of the danger they had barely escaped. Only the girl glanced at the place where Nettlebrand was lurking in the water. She tugged at her father’s sleeve and said something, but the roaring of the river drowned out her words. Barnabas Greenbloom just stroked his daughter’s hair absentmindedly as he continued looking up at the mountains.
“Not going to capsize it after all?” sighed Gravelbeard, who had been clinging as tightly as he could to one of the dragon’s horns. “Very wise. Very wise, Your Goldness! It would only have made trouble.” Then he realized that his master was changing direction yet again. “Hey, where are we going this time?” he called, crossly wringing the water out of his beard. “I thought we were going back, Your Goldness! Back to where you lost the scent!”
“Not now,” replied Nettlebrand, swimming upstream against the current as if he felt none of its force. “A good hunter follows his nose, and my nose tells me I shall find the silver dragon again if I follow that thin human. Get it?”
“No,” grumbled Gravelbeard, sneezing three times in rapid succession.
“Well, never mind,” growled Nettlebrand. “You dwarves are burrowers, not hunters. I doubt if you can even catch woodlice. Keep quiet and make sure the river doesn’t wash you off my head. I may still need you.”
And, as night fell, he set off to follow the boat carrying the humans.
“I really did see him!” Guinevere told her father, who was still standing by the rail and looking at the mountains.
“It’s easy to imagine you see things in rough water, my dear,” replied Barnabas Greenbloom, glancing at her with a smile. “Especially on a sacred river like this.”
“But he looked exactly as you described him!” cried Guinevere. “With golden scales and horrible red eyes!”
Barnabas Greenbloom sighed. “Which just proves that your mother’s right and I’ve told you too many tales about that dreadful monster.”
“Nonsense!” snapped Guinevere, bringing her hand angrily down on the rail. “You’ve always told me stories about all sorts of things. Does that mean I imagine fairies or giants or basilisks all over the place?”
Barnabas looked at her thoughtfully. “No, that’s true, you don’t,” he admitted.
The stars were shining above the snow-covered mountains, and it was growing bitterly cold. The professor wrapped his daughter’s scarf more snugly around her neck and looked into her eyes gravely.
“Right, tell me again, what exactly did you see?”
“He was peering out of the water,” said Guinevere, “very close to the riverbank. His eyes glowed like fiery globes,” she continued, raising her hands, “and he had two horrible horns with a dwarf clutching one of them! The dwarf was sopping wet!”
Her father took a deep breath. “You’re sure you saw all that?”
Guinevere nodded proudly. “You always taught me to observe things in detail.”
Barnabas Greenbloom nodded. “Yes, and you were a good pupil. Always the first to spot the fairies in our garden.” He looked thoughtfully down at the river. “If you’re right, it means that Nettlebrand wasn’t buried in the sand after all,” he murmured. “Which, goodness only knows, is not good news. We’ll have to warn Firedrake the moment we meet him at the monastery.”
“Do you think he’s following us?” asked Guinevere.
“Who?”
“Nettlebrand.”
“Following us?” Her father looked at her in alarm. “I sincerely hope not.”
They spent all night on watch, looking over the rail and down at the river, but the darkness hid Nettlebrand from their sight.
37. An Old Campfire
“Sorry,” said Ben, poring over the rat’s map with a sigh, “but I have no idea where we are. As long as we were flying upstream along the river it was clear enough, but now” — he shrugged his shoulders — “we could be anywhere.”
He pointed to the many white patches on the map east of the river Indus. They were like gaping holes in the landscape.
“This is a nice prospect!” groaned Sorrel. “What will the professor think when we don’t show up at the monastery on time?”
“It’s all my fault,” murmured Ben, folding up the map. “If you hadn’t gone looking for me, you might have reached it by now.”
“Yes, and you’d be bird food, remember,” Sorrel pointed out.
“Lie down and get some sleep,” said Firedrake from the darkest corner of the cave. He had curled up in a ball, muzzle on the tip of his tail, eyes tightly closed. Flying in the sunlight was more exhausting than three nights of flight in a row. Even his anxiety about their route couldn’t keep his eyelids open.
“Yes, good idea,” murmured Ben, stretching out on the cool floor of the cave with his head on his backpack. Twigleg lay down beside him, using the boy’s hand as a pillow.
Only Sorrel remained on her paws, undecided and snuffling. “Can’t you smell that?” she asked.
“Smell what?” muttered Firedrake drowsily. “Mushrooms?”
“No, I smell fire.”
“So what?” Ben opened one eye. “There are sites of old campfires all over this cave, you can see there are. It seems to be a popular place for people to take shelter.”
Sorrel shook her head. “And some of them aren’t all that old,” she said. “This one, for instance.” She pushed the charred branches apart with her paw. “It’s from two days ago at the most, and that one over there is still quite fresh. Only a few hours old.”
“All right, you’d better keep watch, then,” sighed Firedrake sleepily. “And wake me up if anyone comes.” Then he was asleep.
“A few hours old. Are you sure?” Ben rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes and sat up.
Twigleg leaned against his arm, yawning. “Which fire do you mean, fur-face?” he asked.
“This one, of course!” Sorrel pointed to a tiny heap of ashes.
“Good heavens,” groaned Ben, lying down once more. “That could only have been a campfire for a worm, Sorrel.” He rolled over on his side, and the next moment he was as fast asleep as Firedrake.
“Campfire for a worm — huh!” Crossly Sorrel picked up her backpack and went to sit at the mouth of the cave.
Twigleg followed her. “I can’t sleep, either,” he said. “I’ve slept enough recently to last me the next hundred years.” He sat down beside Sorrel. “Are you seriously worried about that campfire?”
“I’m keeping my eyes and ears open, anyway,” growled Sorrel, taking the professor’s bag of dried mushrooms out of her backpack.
Cautiously Twigleg stepped out of the cave. The wide valley was bright in the midday sun, and there was not a sound to be heard.
“It must look like this on the moon,” said the homunculus.
“The moon?” Sorrel nibbled a puffball. “I imagine the moon quite differently. Damp and misty. All cold.”
“Ahh.” Twigleg looked around thoughtfully.
“I just hope the fire has nothing to do with sand-elves,” muttered Sorrel. “But no, that’s out of the question — sand-elves never light fires. How about trolls, though? Are there any mountain trolls about your size?”
“Not that I know of.” Twigleg caught a passing fly and popped it into his mouth behind a politely raised hand.
Then, suddenly, Sorrel put a warning finger to her lips. She threw her backpack into the cave behind her, grabbed Twigleg, and hid behind the rocks with him.
Twigleg heard a quiet humming sound, then a loud rattle, and a small, dusty airplane taxied to a halt at the mouth of the cave. It was bright green and covered from nose to tail with black paw prints. Each wing bore a sign that seemed curiously familiar to Sorrel.
The cockpit opened with a jerk, and out climbed a gray rat. She was so fat that in her flying suit she looked like a sausage bursting out of its skin.
“Nice landing!” Sorrel and Twigleg heard her comment. “Flawless! You’re an ace airwoman, Lola Graytail, that’s what you are.”
The rat turned her back to the cave and took several rolls of paper, some poles, and a telescope out of the plane. “Where did I put that book?” she muttered. “Oh, thunder and lightning, where is the dratted thing?”
Sorrel picked up Twigleg, put a finger to his lips, and made her way out of hiding.
“Did you say your name was Graytail?” she asked.
br /> The rat swung around, dropping all her things in her fright. “What? Who? How?” she stammered. Then she jumped back into her plane and tried to start it.
“Wait!” cried Sorrel, standing in front of the small aircraft and holding on to the propeller. “Not so fast! Where are you going? Are you by any chance related to a rat named Gilbert who’s as white as a cultivated mushroom?”
Taken aback, the rat stared at the brownie girl. Then she switched off the engine of her plane and stuck her whiskered nose out of the cockpit. “You know Gilbert?” she asked.
“We bought a map from him,” replied Sorrel. “His rubber stamp looks just like the sign on your wings. Not that the map’s prevented us from getting lost in these parts.”
“A map?” The rat climbed out of her aircraft again and jumped down to the ground. “A map of the countryside around here?” She glanced at the cave, and then at Sorrel. “You don’t by any chance have a dragon in there?”
Sorrel grinned. “Yes, I do.”
Lola Graytail rolled her eyes and said, through gritted teeth, “Then it’s all your fault I’m surveying these godforsaken parts!” she snapped. “Oh, thanks! Thank you very, very much, indeed!”
“Our fault?” said Sorrel. “Why?”
“Ever since you visited Gilbert,” said the rat, picking up the things she had dropped when Sorrel suddenly appeared, “he’s been obsessed with the blank patches on his map! So he calls me up just as I’m having a nice little vacation visiting my brother in India and goes on and on to me. ‘Lola, you must fly to the Himalayas! Lola, do your old uncle a little favor! Lola, I simply must find out about the blank patches on my map. Please, Lola!’ So here I am.”
The rat groaned under the weight of the equipment she was hauling into the shelter of the cave. “Can’t you make yourself useful instead of just gawking at me?” she snapped at Sorrel. “Push the plane into the cave, or it’ll soon be hot enough to fry ostrich eggs on it.”
“Just like her uncle!” growled Sorrel, putting Twigleg down and fetching the plane. It weighed so little that she could tuck it under her arm. When she brought it into the cave, she found Lola Graytail standing transfixed in front of the sleeping Firedrake.