Dragon Rider

“Really?” Pleased, the professor smiled. “Well, if a brownie girl says so it must be true. Wait a moment, you need some of these fresh mint leaves to sprinkle on it. Here you are.”

“Mint! Mmm!” Sorrel rolled her eyes. “We ought to take you along to cook for us, Professor!”

“Oh, I’d love to come!” sighed the professor. “But unfortunately I get vertigo even at moderate heights, let alone when I fly. And I’m meeting my family soon. We’re traveling by ship in search of the winged horse, Pegasus. Nonetheless, I feel deeply honored by your offer.” He made a small bow and then helped himself to a bowl of his delicious soup.

“Firedrake told us you think it was his presence that attracted the basilisk,” said Ben. “Is that right?”

“I’m afraid so, yes.” Professor Greenbloom gave Ben a second helping of soup and a piece of pita bread. “I am firmly convinced that one fabulous being attracts another. In my view, the reason Firedrake hasn’t noticed the usual signs before is that he always is in the company of a fabulous creature — meaning you, my dear Sorrel. But most fabulous creatures start to itch as soon as they come near one another, and curiosity would attract many of them your way.”

“A nice prospect, I must say!” muttered Sorrel. She gave the steaming pan a dark glance. “Those mountain dwarves weren’t so bad, but judging by all I’ve heard about that baseltwist …” She shook her head gloomily. “Dear me, what next, I wonder?”

Barnabas Greenbloom’s glasses had misted up with the steam from his soup. He took them off his big nose and cleaned them. “The fact is, there aren’t so many fabulous creatures left on this planet. Most of them became extinct centuries ago. Unfortunately the less friendly specimens have proved best at surviving. So you’d better be ready for anything if you have a journey of any length ahead of you.”

“Professor?” Ben swallowed the last of his soup and put the bowl down in the silver basilisk dust that still covered the cave floor. “Have you ever heard of the Rim of Heaven?”

Sorrel nudged Ben sharply in the ribs. Firedrake raised his head. Twigleg pricked up his ears.

“Oh, yes,” said the professor, wiping out his soup bowl with a piece of pita bread. “The Rim of Heaven is a legendary mountain range, said to contain the valley from which dragons first came. But I don’t know much more about it.”

“What else do you know?” asked Firedrake.

“Well,” said Barnabas Greenbloom, frowning, “the Rim of Heaven is thought to be in the Himalayas. A defensive ring of nine white peaks, almost all the same height, surround a fabulous valley. My wife, Vita, and I were going to look for it a few years ago, but then we found unicorn tracks. Well.” He shook his head. “Around the same time, a colleague of mine, the famous Zubeida Ghalib, did go looking for the Rim, but unfortunately she didn’t find it. However, she knows more about dragons than anyone else in the world.” The professor looked at Firedrake. “Perhaps you ought to visit her. She’s in Pakistan at the moment, and if you’re going to the Himalayas that’s on your way.”

“Hm.” Sorrel looked hopefully at the steaming pan, and Barnabas Greenbloom made haste to fill her bowl again. “Firedrake knows all about dragons, anyway. I mean, he’s a dragon himself.”

The professor smiled. “Undoubtedly. But Firedrake can’t fly unless the moon is shining, am I right?”

Sorrel wrinkled her nose. “No dragon can.”

“Yes, but was that always the case?” the professor asked. “Zubeida wrote to me recently to say she’d found something that she thought could replace the power of the moon, at least for a limited period. As for exactly what it is, she was very cagey about that. And of course she can’t prove it will work because she doesn’t know any dragons to try it out for her.”

Firedrake, who had been staring thoughtfully at the silver dust left by the basilisk, raised his head.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “Ever since we set off I’ve been wondering what will happen if we reach the high mountains at the dark time of the moon, before the new moon rises.”

“Well, as I was saying,” repeated the professor, shrugging his shoulders, “Zubeida is on the track of something, but she didn’t want to tell me the details yet. At the moment she’s living in a village on the coast of the Arabian Sea, near the estuary of the river Indus. Besides researching moonlight, she’s studying the strange story of an incident said to have taken place near this village more than a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Is the story about dragons?” asked Ben.

“Yes, indeed.” The professor smiled. “What else? Zubeida is a dracologist — that’s a dragon specialist. I believe the story concerns whole flocks of dragons.”

“Flocks of dragons?” repeated Firedrake, hardly able to believe his ears.

“That’s right.” Barnabas Greenbloom nodded. “Several of the villagers claim that their grandparents used to see flocks of dragons appearing off the coast every night when the moon was full, flying down from the mountains to swim in the sea. Then something strange happened.” The professor frowned. “One night, about a century and a half ago, a monster emerged from the sea and attacked the dragons while they were swimming. The creature can only have been a sea serpent. The odd thing is that sea serpents and dragons are distantly related, and I’ve never heard of a single other case of their fighting one another. However, this sea monster did attack the dragons, and after that they disappeared. Zubeida suspects they went back to the Rim of Heaven and never left their hiding place again.”

Firedrake raised his head. “Taking flight, hiding, being hunted— that’s what all dragon stories seem to be about,” he said. “Aren’t there any other stories? Happier ones?”

“Yes, indeed there are!” cried the professor. “In fact, where you’re going, the dragon is regarded as a sacred creature, a bringer of good fortune. But I’m not sure what people would say if a real dragon turned up,” he added, shaking his head. “You’d better be careful.”

The dragon nodded.

“And we’d better beware of sea serpents, too,” said Sorrel gloomily.

“Oh, that was all long ago,” the professor assured her. “And there’s only the one story about it.”

“It wasn’t a sea serpent, anyway,” muttered Twigleg, and immediately clapped his hand to his mouth in alarm.

Ben turned to him in surprise. “What was that you just said?”

“Oh … er … nothing!” stammered Twigleg. “I only said … er … there can’t be any such things as sea serpents these days. Yes, that’s what I said.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Barnabas Greenbloom thoughtfully. “But if the story interests you, then you really ought to stop off in Pakistan and visit Zubeida. She might even help you to fly without the power of moonlight, who knows?”

“That’s not a bad idea!” Ben put Twigleg down on the ground, jumped up, and went over to the rock where he had spread out Gilbert Graytail’s map. It was perfectly dry now and rustled as Ben unfolded it in front of the professor.