“Well done,” he said. “You two are quick on your feet. I could never have kept up. But I have a quick brain. A person can’t have everything.”
Sorrel sat up, breathing heavily, and looked down at the little man. “And you’re not the faintest bit conceited, either, are you?” she said.
Twigleg just shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“Take no notice of her,” said Ben, peering through the branches. “She means no harm.” There was no one in sight. Ben could scarcely believe they had managed to shake off their pursuers. For the time being, anyway. Relieved, he let himself drop back onto the sand.
“We’ll take a breather here for a little while,” he said. “Then we must get back to Firedrake. If he wakes up and finds we’re not there he might go looking for us.”
“Firedrake?” Twigleg brushed the sand off his jacket. “Who’s that? A friend of yours?”
“None of your business, midget,” spat Sorrel, and she stood up. “Thanks for the help, one good deed is worth another and all that, but our ways part here. Come on,” she said, pulling Ben to his feet. “We’ve had enough of a rest.”
Twigleg bowed his head and sighed deeply. “Right, you two go your own way!” he whispered. “I understand entirely. I expect the vultures will eat me now. Yes, I expect that’s what they’ll do.”
Ben looked at him in consternation. “But where do you come from?” he asked. “Don’t you have a home? I mean, you must have lived somewhere before they caught you.”
Twigleg nodded sadly. “Oh, yes, but I don’t want to go back there ever again. I had a master who made me work day in, day out, polishing his gold, doing handstands, telling stories till my head was in a whirl. That’s why I ran away. But I have such terrible luck. No sooner had I escaped my master than a raven picked me up and carried me away. It dropped me from its claws last night in the storm — and where did it let me fall? Right above the camp we’ve just escaped from. Such terrible, awful luck. I always have rotten luck.”
“A very nice story, too,” said Sorrel. “Come on, it’s time we were off.” She tugged at Ben’s arm, but he stayed put.
“We can’t just leave him here,” he said, “all alone like this.”
“Oh, yes, we can,” Sorrel whispered, “because I don’t believe a word of his touching tale. There’s something wrong about this little titch. I mean, it’s rather odd the way he turns up here at the same time as us. What’s more, he’s too friendly with ravens for my liking.”
“You were the one who said ravens were only suspect on their own,” Ben whispered back.
Twigleg pretended to take no notice of their whispering but inched slowly closer to them.
“Oh, forget that!” whispered Sorrel. “Okay, I often do talk dreadful nonsense.”
“Like now, for instance,” said Ben. “You’re forgetting how he helped us. We owe him.” Ben held his hand out to the homunculus. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll take you part of the way with us. We’re sure to find somewhere you’d like to stay, okay?”
Twigleg jumped up and made a deep bow. “You have a kind heart, Your Honor!” he said. “It is with the greatest gratitude that I accept your offer.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” groaned Sorrel. She turned angrily and said not a word on the way back to the cavern.
As for Twigleg, he sat on Ben’s shoulder, dangling his legs.
13. The Basilisk
Firedrake wasn’t bothered about anything. He was fast asleep. Outside the sun burned down, making the land hotter and hotter, but it was cool in the cavern, and the dragon was dreaming of mountains, of dwarves climbing up his tail, and of the dirty canal flowing through the great human city.
Suddenly he raised his head. Something had roused him from sleep. A horrible stink rose to his nostrils, washing over him like the dirty water in his dream just now. Outside the mouth of the cave, the leaves of the thornbush went limp and drooped.
The dragon sat up, uneasily. He listened.
A hiss came from a crevice in the darkest corner of the cavern. Feathers rustled, claws scraped over the stony ground. And suddenly the most monstrous creature Firedrake had ever seen emerged from the darkness.
It looked like a gigantic cockerel with yellow feathers and broad, spiky wings. The monster’s staring eyes were bloodred, and it wore a circlet of pale spines like a crown on its horrible head. Its tail coiled like the scaly body of a snake and ended in a claw, which was snatching at invisible prey.
The monster stalked slowly toward Firedrake.
The dragon could scarcely breathe. The dreadful stench made his head swim. He retreated until his tail became entangled in the thorny tendrils outside the cave.
“Aaargh, you woke me!” croaked this ghastly creature. “A dragon! A fire-worm! Your sickly sweet smell made its way into my darkest dreams and disturbed them. What are you doing here in my cavern?”
Firedrake wrenched his tail free of the thorns and took a step toward the monster. The stink surrounding it still made breathing difficult, but he was no longer frightened of the strange creature’s horrible appearance.
“I didn’t know this cavern was yours,” he replied. “Forgive me, but if you don’t mind I’d like to stay here until nightfall. I don’t know where else to hide from human beings.”
“Human beings?” hissed the monster. It opened its curved beak and laughed. “You took refuge from human beings in my cave? That’s a good one! That’s a really good one!”
Firedrake looked curiously at the ugly cockerel-headed creature. “What are you?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of anything like you before.”
With a shrill cackle, the monster spread its spiny wings. Dead beetles and spiders dropped out of its plumage. “Don’t you know my name?” it screeched. “Don’t you know my name, fire-worm? I am the worst nightmare in the world, and you have woken me from my sleep. You are the light, but I am the deepest darkness, and I shall swallow you up. The two of us cannot be in the same place, any more than night and day can ever exist together.”
Firedrake stood there as if rooted to the ground. He tried to move. He wanted to breathe dragon-fire and drive the horrible cockerel-headed creature back into the crevice in the rock from which it had crawled, but he simply could not move at all. The monster’s eyes began to flash. The spines on its head quivered.
“Look at me, fire-worm!” whispered the yellow monster. “Look — deep — into — my eyes.”
Firedrake wanted to turn away, but those red eyes held him spellbound. They were filling his head with a black fog that was smothering everything he knew.
Suddenly a sharp pain roused him from his daze. Someone had stepped on his tail — hard. Firedrake whipped around and saw a man standing in the cave entrance, a man as thin as a rake and wearing shorts. He was holding a large round mirror high above his head.
Firedrake heard the monster behind him beat its wings.
“Move aside, dragon!” the man called. “Quick! Move aside, and don’t look at it if you value your life!”
“No, look at me, fire-worm!” screeched the cockerel-headed monster, lashing the rocks with its snaky tail. “Look at me!”
But Firedrake looked at the man instead, stepped aside — and the monster saw its own reflection.
It uttered a shriek so terrible that the sound echoed in Firedrake’s ears for days to come. Then it flapped its wings until the entire floor of the cavern was covered with poison-yellow feathers, puffed itself up so that the spines on its head touched the roof of the cavern … and burst into a thousand pieces.
Incredulous, Firedrake looked at the place where the monster had just been standing.
The man beside him, exhausted, lowered the mirror.
“My word, that was a close shave!” he sighed, propping the mirror against the cave wall.
Firedrake, still dazed, stood staring at the remains of the monster. Nothing was left of it but feathers and stinking dust.
The man cleared his throat and cautiously approach
ed the dragon.
“May I introduce myself?” He bowed slightly. “Barnabas Greenbloom, Professor of Archaeology, special subject fantastic phenomena of every kind. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”
Firedrake nodded. He still felt numb.
“May I ask you,” Barnabas Greenbloom continued, “to breathe a little dragon-fire over the remains of that terrible creature? It’s the only way we can prevent the cave from being contaminated for hundreds of years. What’s more,” he added, holding his large nose, “it would get rid of this disgusting smell.”
Firedrake was still staring at the man in some amazement, but he did as he was asked. When he breathed blue fire on the monster’s remains they crumbled into a fine silver dust that filled the whole cavern with glittering light.
“Ah!” cried the professor. “Doesn’t that look wonderful? Yet again we see that beauty can arise from the worst of horrors, wouldn’t you agree?”
Firedrake nodded. “What sort of creature was it?” he asked.
“That,” said Barnabas Greenbloom, sitting down on a rock and mopping his brow, “that, my friend, was a basilisk. A fabulous creature like yourself, but one of the more sinister kind.”
“A basilisk?” The dragon shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Fortunately such monsters are very, very rare,” explained the professor. “The mere sound of their voices or one glance from their terrible eyes is usually enough to kill. In your place any mortal would be dead now, but even a basilisk can’t destroy a dragon so easily.”
“You destroyed it, though,” said Firedrake. “With nothing more than a mirror.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Barnabas Greenbloom with an embarrassed smile and ran a hand through his untidy gray hair. “There was no great skill in that, you know. A basilisk can’t survive the sight of its own reflection. As a matter of fact, I’ve never had a chance to try the theory out in real life until today, but that’s what all the books say, and books do sometimes get it right.”
The dragon looked at him thoughtfully. “I think you saved my life,” he said. “How can I thank you?”
“Don’t mention it!” The professor smiled at Firedrake. “It was an honor. Indeed, an extraordinary honor, I do assure you!” He was looking at the dragon with awe and admiration. “I could never even have dared to dream of meeting a dragon in my short human life span, you know. This is a very, very happy day for me.” Much moved, the professor rubbed his nose.
“You know a lot about what human beings call fabulous creatures, don’t you?” said Firedrake curiously, bending his neck down to Barnabas Greenbloom. “Most people don’t even know that we exist.”
“I’ve been doing research into the subject for more than thirty years,” replied the professor. “At the age of ten I was fortunate enough to find a woodland fairy caught up in the netting over a fruit tree in our garden. Since then, of course, no one has been able to convince me that fairies exist only in fairy tales. So why, I thought at the time, why shouldn’t all the other fabulous creatures exist, too? In the end I made it part of my professional career to seek them out — all the creatures described in the old tales, the most ancient stories of all. I’ve discussed rare minerals with dwarves, the flavor of tree bark with trolls, immortality with fairies, and enchantment with a fiery salamander. You, however, are the first dragon I’ve ever met. I was almost sure your species had died out.”
“And what brought you here?” asked Firedrake.
“My search for the winged horse, Pegasus,” replied the professor. “But instead I found this cavern. The hieroglyphs carved in the rock around its entrance give clear warning of a basilisk. The ancient Egyptians knew about those monsters, you see. They thought the basilisk hatched from a poisoned ibis egg. However, another theory claims that a basilisk is born when a five-year-old cockerel lays an egg, which fortunately doesn’t happen very often. Anyway, that’s why I’d hidden the mirror outside, but to be honest with you, I’d never ventured inside the cave before today.”
Thinking of the basilisk’s red eyes, Firedrake could understand the professor’s caution only too well.
“You woke it,” said Barnabas Greenbloom. “Did you realize that?”
“I did?” Firedrake shook his head skeptically. “That’s what the monster said, too, but I was only sleeping here. How could I have woken it?”
“Simply by being in the cave,” replied the professor. “In the course of my research I’ve discovered a very interesting fact: One fabulous creature attracts another. They sense each other’s presence. Sometimes their scalps prickle, sometimes their scales itch. Haven’t you ever felt anything like that?”
Firedrake shook his head. “My scales often itch,” he replied, “but I never thought anything of it.”
The professor nodded thoughtfully. “I assume that the basilisk picked up your scent.”
“It did say I had disturbed its dark dreams,” murmured Firedrake. He shuddered, still feeling sick from the smell given off by the monster.
Professor Greenbloom cleared his throat. “I do have another request,” he said. “You see, we humans don’t seem able to believe that something is real until we’ve touched it. So may I stroke your scales?”
Firedrake stretched out his long neck toward the professor. Barnabas Greenbloom reverently passed his hand over the dragon’s scales.
“Wonderful!” he whispered. “Absolutely wonderful! Er … by the way, about your tail. I’m really sorry I stepped on it. I just didn’t know how else to get you to look away from the basilisk.”
Firedrake smiled and waved his spiny tail back and forth. “Don’t mention it. All it needs is a little of Sorrel’s brownie spit—”The dragon stopped short and looked around him. “But they’re not here yet.” Anxiously he went to the mouth of the cave. “Where can they be?”
Behind him, the professor cleared his throat again. “Has your brownie gone missing?”
Surprised, Firedrake turned around. “Yes, it looks like it.”
Barnabas Greenbloom sighed. “Just as I feared,” he said. “They’re holding a forest brownie prisoner over in the camp.”
Firedrake lashed his tail so violently that he almost knocked over the professor. “Sorrel?” he cried. “They’ve caught her?” Feeling quite dizzy with rage, he bared his teeth. “Where is she? I must help her.”
“No, not you,” said Barnabas Greenbloom quickly. “You’d be in too much danger yourself. I’ll get her out. I’ve been planning to open those cages for some time, anyway.” With a determined expression, he tucked the mirror under his arm and strode toward the mouth of the cave. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, “with your friend Sorrel.”
“Don’t bother, she’s already here,” a voice grunted from the thornbushes outside the cave, and Sorrel pushed her way through the dry branches. Ben followed, with Twigleg on his shoulder. They all looked rather the worse for wear, scratched by the thorns, dusty, and sweaty. Firedrake went over to them, gave Twigleg a brief and puzzled glance, and then anxiously sniffed Ben and Sorrel all over.
“They caught you?” he asked the brownie.
“Yes, but Ben got me out. Along with that manikin there.” Sorrel looked the professor up and down suspiciously, from his head to his dusty boots. “And what, in the name of all ferocious fungi, is this human doing here?”
“Your young companion is a human being, too, as far as I can see!” Barnabas Greenbloom pointed out with the hint of a smile.
“He doesn’t count,” spat Sorrel, crossly putting her paws on her hips. “He’s a friend. But what about you? Think carefully before you answer, because I’m not feeling too well disposed toward humans just now. In fact I’m feeling very ill disposed toward them — sickeningly, toothachingly, green-around-the-gills ill disposed, if you take my meaning.”
Barnabas Greenbloom smiled. “I do take your meaning,” he replied. “The fact is, I —”
“Just a moment,” said Sorrel, taking a wary step towa
rd the professor. “Didn’t I see you back there by the cages?”
“Stop it, Sorrel!” Firedrake interrupted her. “He saved my life.”
That stopped Sorrel short. Incredulous, she looked first at Firedrake, then at Barnabas Greenbloom. “Him?” she asked. “How could he have done that?”
At this moment Twigleg bent down from Ben’s shoulder, his pointy nose twitching, and then suddenly raised his head in alarm.
“There’s been a basilisk in here!” he whispered, looking horrified. “Oh, merciful heavens!”
They all turned to look at the little man in surprise.
“Who’s that?” asked Firedrake.
“Oh, him!” Sorrel made a dismissive gesture. “He’s a himincolossus or something. We picked him up in the human camp and now he’s sticking to Ben like a burr.”
Seated on Ben’s shoulder, Twigleg stuck his tongue out at her.
“A homunculus, my dear brownie, he’s a homunculus,” said Barnabas Greenbloom. He went over to Ben and carefully shook Twigleg’s tiny hand. “Delighted to meet you. This really is a day full of the most extraordinary encounters.”
The manikin smiled, flattered.
“My name is Twigleg,” he said, bowing to the professor. But when Firedrake stretched his neck to look over Barnabas Greenbloom’s shoulder, Twigleg lowered his head in embarrassment.
“What was here?” asked Sorrel impatiently. “What did the little titch say? A basiltwist?”
“Sssh!” Twigleg put a finger to his lips. “A ba-si-lisk!” he breathed. “You don’t want to speak its name too loud, furry-face.”
Sorrel wrinkled her nose. “Why not?”
“A basilisk,” whispered Twigleg, “is the darkest nightmare on earth, a black terror that lurks in wells and crevices until someone wakes it. It kills brownies like you with a single peck from its hooked beak.”
Ben looked around uneasily. “You mean one of those things was here?” he asked.
“Yes, one of those things was here,” sighed Professor Greenbloom. “Fortunately I was here to help your friend the dragon. But now it’s time I showed my face back in the camp, before they decide to send out a search party for me. Oh, and when are you planning to leave again?” he asked when he had reached the entrance of the cave. “Or are you going to stay here?”