“What serpent?” he asked, peering out of the backpack — and then, with a shriek of terror, he dived back into Ben’s clothes.
“Here, Twigleg!” Ben pulled him out by his collar. “There’s nothing to be frightened of. She’s rather large but perfectly friendly. Honest!”
“Friendly?” muttered Twigleg, digging himself in again as far as he could go. “Anything that size is dangerous, however friendly it may be.”
The sea serpent brought her head closer, looking curious. “What do you want to show me, little human?” she asked. “And what’s that whispering in your bag?”
“Only Twigleg,” replied Ben. He carefully stood up on Firedrake’s back and held the scale out to the serpent on the palm of his hand. “Look, could this be one of the giant dragon’s scales?”
The serpent bent so close to Ben’s hand that the tip of her tongue brushed his arm. “Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, it could be. Put it against my neck.”
Ben looked at the serpent in surprise, but he did as she asked. When the golden scale touched the serpent’s iridescent neck, her whole body shuddered so violently that Firedrake almost fell off her back.
“Yes,” she hissed. “That is one of the monster’s scales. It looks like warm gold, but it burns like ice.”
“It’s always icy cold,” said Ben. “Even if you leave it out in the sun. I’ve experimented.” Carefully he put the scale back in his little bag. Twigleg had disappeared from view entirely.
“Fair cousin,” said the sea serpent, addressing the dragon politely, “you must take good care of your little human. Possessing something that belongs to so wild and rapacious a creature is not without its dangers. Perhaps the monster will want its property back one day, even if that property is only a single scale.”
“You’re right.” Firedrake turned to Ben, concern in his eyes. “Maybe you ought to throw that scale into the sea.”
But Ben shook his head. “No, please!” he said. “I really want to look after it for you, Firedrake. It was a present, don’t you see? Anyway, how would the monster know I have it?”
Firedrake nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, how would he know?” He looked up at the place of the moon in the sky. A faint rusty-red glow was beginning to return.
“Yes, the moon will soon be back,” said the serpent, following the direction of Firedrake’s gaze. “Do you wish to take to the air again, fiery cousin, or shall I carry you over the sea on my back? You’d have to tell me where you’re going, though.”
Surprised, Firedrake looked at the serpent. His wings were still heavy, and his limbs felt as weary as if he hadn’t slept for years.
“Go on, say yes!” said Ben, patting the dragon’s scales. “Let the serpent carry us. She won’t get lost, and you could have a good rest, couldn’t you?”
Firedrake turned his head to look at Sorrel.
“I expect I’ll be seasick,” she muttered. “All the same — yes, you really could do with a rest.”
Firedrake agreed and turned back to the serpent. “We are bound for the village on the coast where the dragons were attacked. Someone we want to visit lives there.”
The sea serpent nodded. “Then I will take you to the place,” she said.
23. The Stone
The great sea serpent carried the dragon and his friends over the Arabian Sea for two days and two nights. She did not fear daylight because she was not afraid of human beings, but at Firedrake’s request she steered a course through the sea where no ship ever sailed. Her scaly back was so broad that Firedrake could sleep on it, while Sorrel tucked into her provisions and Ben stretched his legs. When the sea was calm, the serpent glided over the water as if it were a green glass mirror. But if the waves surged rough and high, she raised the coils of her body so far into the air that not a drop of spray splashed into the faces of her four passengers.
Sorrel overcame her seasickness by eating the delicious leaves she had picked in the valley where the djinn lived. Firedrake slept almost all through their sea voyage. But Ben spent most of his time sitting behind the high crest on the sea serpent’s head, listening to her singsong voice as she told him about all the creatures hidden from him by the waters of the sea. He was spellbound by her tales of mermaids, ship-haunting sprites, eight-armed krakens, royal mermen and singing giant rays, luminous fish and coral gnomes, shark-faced demons and the children of the sea who ride on whales. Ben was so captivated by the sea serpent’s stories that he forgot about Twigleg in his backpack.
The homunculus crouched among Ben’s things with his heart thudding, listening to the sound of Sorrel smacking her lips and the soft hiss of the great serpent’s voice, and wondering with every breath he drew where his master might be.
Had Nettlebrand really gone off to the desert? Was he still stuck among the dunes? Had he realized yet that Twigleg had fooled him, or was he still searching for Firedrake’s tracks in the hot sand? Twigleg’s head was aching, ready to burst with all these questions, but worse, much worse, he was tormented by a sound that came to his keen ears on the second day of their voyage with the sea serpent. It was the hoarse croaking of a raven.
Strange and menacing, that sound rang through the roaring of the waves, drowned out the hissing of the serpent, and made Twigleg’s heart thump frantically. Cautiously he crawled a little way out of the backpack, which was still hanging from one of Firedrake’s spines. The dragon was breathing peacefully, fast asleep. High above them in the blue sky where the sun blazed, a black bird was circling among white seagulls.
Twigleg withdrew his head until only his nose emerged from the coarse fabric of the backpack. Much as Twigleg wanted to think so, that wasn’t just any old raven who had lost its way and had been carried by the wind to this part of the world. No, it certainly wasn’t. If only the gigantic serpent would simply rear up and lick it out of the sky with her tongue, like a frog catching a fly!
But the serpent didn’t so much as glance at the sky.
I must think of a good story for Nettlebrand, thought Twigleg. A very good story. Think of something, he told himself, think of something, why can’t you?
The manikin was not the only one to notice the raven. Darkness had hidden the black bird during the night, but Sorrel couldn’t miss him against the blue sky, and soon she was sure that he was following them. Carefully keeping her balance, she made her way along the serpent’s body to Ben, who was sitting in the shade of the creature’s shimmering crest and listening to a tale of two warring mermaid queens.
“Have you seen it?” Sorrel asked him, in some agitation.
The sea serpent turned her head in surprise, and Ben reluctantly made himself emerge from the underwater realm into which her stories carried him.
“Seen what?” he asked, watching a shoal of dolphins cross the serpent’s path.
“The raven, of course,” hissed Sorrel. “Look up there. Don’t you see it?”
“You’re right,” he said in surprise. “It really is a raven.”
“It’s following us,” growled Sorrel. “It’s been following us for quite some time, I’m sure it has. All through this voyage, I’ve had a feeling that one of those beaky creatures was after us. I’m beginning to think there was something in what that white rat said about someone sending out those ravens as scouts. Suppose the golden monster’s behind it? Suppose the ravens are his spies?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Ben narrowed his eyes. “Sounds a bit far-fetched.”
“And what about the birds that covered the moon?” asked Sorrel. “In the old days, when the dragons were trying to escape the monster? Those were ravens, weren’t they, serpent?”
The sea serpent nodded and swam more slowly.
“Black birds with red eyes,” she hissed. “They’re still sometimes seen on the coast to this day.”
“Hear that?” Sorrel bit her lip angrily. “Oh, moldy morels! If only I had a stone to throw. I’d soon send that black feathery thing packing.”
“I have a stone,” said Ben.
“In my backpack, in the bag with the scale. The mountain dwarves gave it to me. But it’s only a little one.”
“Never mind.” Sorrel jumped up and made her way along the serpent’s back to Firedrake.
“But how are you going to throw a stone so high?” asked Ben when she returned with his backpack.
Sorrel only chuckled. She rummaged around in Ben’s backpack until she found the bag. It really was a small stone, not much bigger than a bird’s egg.
“Here!” Alarmed, Twigleg put his sharp nose over the top of the backpack. “What are you going to do with that stone, fur-face?”
“Get rid of a raven.” Sorrel spat on it a couple of times, rubbed her saliva off it, and then spat again. Ben looked at her, baffled.
“Better not,” whispered Twigleg from the backpack. “Ravens don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.”
“Don’t they indeed?” Sorrel shrugged her shoulders and tossed the stone playfully from paw to paw.
“No, honestly they don’t!” Twigleg’s voice was so shrill that Firedrake raised his head and Ben looked at the homunculus in surprise. Even the sea serpent turned her head to them.
“Ravens,” faltered Twigleg, “ravens bear a grudge. They’re vengeful birds — the ones I know, anyway.”
Sorrel looked at him suspiciously. “You know a lot of ravens, do you?”
Twigleg jumped nervously.
“N-n-not really,” he stammered. “But … I’ve heard people say that.”
Sorrel just shook her head scornfully and glanced up at the sky. The raven had come closer and was circling lower and lower. Ben could see its small eyes quite clearly.
“Look, Sorrel!” he said in surprise. “That raven has red eyes.”
“Red eyes? Well, well.” Sorrel weighed up the little stone in her paw one last time. “I really don’t like this at all. No. That bird must go.”
Like lightning, she took aim and hurled the stone into the sky.
It flew straight as an arrow to the raven, struck his right wing, and remained stuck to his feathers like a burr. Cawing angrily, the black bird fluttered about, beating his wings violently and lurching around in the sky as if he had lost all sense of direction.
“There!” said Sorrel, pleased. “That’ll keep him occupied for a while.”
Ben watched incredulously as the raven pecked more and more frantically at his wing and finally flew unsteadily away. Before long, he was a mere speck in the distance.
Sorrel chuckled.
“Brownie spit — nothing like it,” she said, going back to have a nap in the shade of the dragon.
The sea serpent lowered her neck into the cool water again, and Ben settled down close to her crest to listen to more of her stories. But Twigleg crouched low in Ben’s backpack, his face as white as chalk as he thought despairingly that the raven, too, knew exactly how to summon their master.
24. The Anger of Nettlebrand
Nettlebrand was furious. His spiny tail lashed the desert sand until he was shrouded in clouds of yellow dust, and Gravelbeard, kneeling between the dragon’s horns, had a coughing fit.
“Aaargh!” bellowed Nettlebrand as his huge claws stamped over the dunes of the Great Desert. “What did that stupid spider-legged creature tell me? Said they were hiding a day’s journey away from the oasis, did he? Oh, yes? Then how come I’ve been searching for more than two days, running my claws off in this hot sand?”
Snorting, he stopped on the crest of a dune and scrutinized the desert. His red eyes were streaming in the heat, but even as the sun blazed down pitilessly from the sky his armor remained as cold as ice.
“Perhaps the djinn was lying,” suggested Gravelbeard. He kept brushing the sand off Nettlebrand’s golden scales, but he couldn’t keep up with the work of the desert wind. Nettlebrand’s joints were creaking and groaning as if they hadn’t been oiled for weeks.
“Perhaps, perhaps!” growled Nettlebrand. “Or perhaps that fool of a homunculus got the wrong end of the stick.”
He stared up at the burning sun. Vultures wheeled in the sky above them. Nettlebrand opened his jaws and belched his stinking breath up at the great birds. They fell as if struck by lightning and landed in his open mouth. “Nothing but camels and vultures!” he said, munching noisily. “When am I going to find something tasty to eat around here?”
“Your Goldness?” Gravelbeard picked a couple of vulture feathers out of Nettlebrand’s teeth. “I know you trust the spider-legged creature,” he added, wiping the sweat off his nose, “but just suppose …”
“Just suppose what?” asked Nettlebrand.
The dwarf straightened his hat. “I think that whey-faced creature’s been lying to you,” he announced solemnly. “Yes, that’s what I think.”
Nettlebrand stopped as if thunderstruck. “What?”
“I bet you anything he’s been lying.” Gravelbeard spat on his cloth. “He sounded peculiar last time he reported back.”
“Nonsense!” Nettlebrand shook the sand off his scales and marched on. “Old spider-legs wouldn’t dare. He’s a coward. He’s been doing as I tell him ever since he came into the world. No, his fly-sized brain misunderstood something, that’s what it is.”
“Just as you say, Your Goldness!” muttered the dwarf into his beard. Grimly he began polishing again. “You’re always right, Your Goldness. If you say he wouldn’t dare, right, then he wouldn’t dare. And we’ll go on sweating it out in this desert.”
“Shut up.” Nettlebrand ground his teeth and looked around. “He was a better armor-cleaner than you, anyway. You keep forgetting to cut my claws. And you don’t get the stories of my heroic deeds right, either.”
He slid down the dune, raising a huge cloud of dust. Tiny will-o’-the-wisps swirled around him like midges, chirping in their little voices, telling Nettlebrand a thousand ways to get out of the desert. Gravelbeard had his work cut out for him, shooing them away from his master’s golden head.
“Don’t keep brushing stuff in my eyes, armor-cleaner,” growled Nettlebrand, swallowing a dozen will-o’-the-wisps who had foolishly flown into his jaws. “How am I supposed to look for water in this pesky desert with you flapping about all the time?”
He stopped again, blinking, and stared across the sand that extended like a yellow sea to the horizon. “Grrr, I’m so angry I could shed my armored skin! Not a drop of water for kilometers around. I’ll never get away from here! I never saw such a hopelessly drought-ridden place in my life.”
In his rage Nettlebrand stamped his foot, but the sound it made in the sand wasn’t particularly impressive. “I must devour something this minute!” he bellowed. “I must devour, destroy, dismantle, and despoil something!”
Gravelbeard scanned the desert in alarm. There was nothing to eat for kilometers around — except Gravelbeard himself. But Nettlebrand seemed to want something larger than him. Eyes streaming, the dragon glared all around him until his gaze fell on a cactus growing out of the desert sand like a column. Growling furiously, he marched toward it.
“No, Your Goldness, don’t!” cried Gravelbeard, but too late.
Nettlebrand sank his teeth into the cactus with relish, only to flinch back, howling. A thousand tiny thorns were piercing his gums — the only unprotected part of his body.
“Pull them out, armor-cleaner!” he bellowed. “Pull these sharp, burning things out!”
Hastily Gravelbeard slid down the huge muzzle, perched on the terrible front teeth, and set to work.
“He’ll pay for this!” bellowed Nettlebrand. “He’ll pay for every thorn, that stupid homunculus. Thick as two short planks, he is! I must find water. Water! I must get out of this desert!”
Then a fine film of sand suddenly rose in the hot air around the bitten cactus, forming into a creature that seemed to change shape with every breath of the desert wind. Its sandy limbs stretched and grew, until a veiled rider was sitting on a spindly-legged camel in front of Nettlebrand. The rider’s billowing cloak, like the rest of him, consisted
of a myriad grains of sand.
“You want water?” whispered the rider. Even his voice sounded like sand crunching underfoot.
Gravelbeard shrieked and fell headfirst off his master’s muzzle. Nettlebrand was so surprised, he closed his sore mouth.
“What are you?” he growled at the sandy rider.
The translucent camel pranced up and down in front of the giant dragon, obviously not in the least afraid of him.
“I am a sandman,” whispered the strange being. “I ask again: Do you want water?”
“Yes!” grunted Nettlebrand. “What a stupid question! Of course I do!”
The sandman blew himself out like a tattered sail in the wind.
“I can give you water,” he breathed, “but what will you give me in return?”
Nettlebrand was so angry that he spat cactus thorns. “What will I give you in return? I’ll refrain from eating you, that’s what.”
The sandman laughed. His mouth was only a hole in his sandy face.
“What will you give me?” he asked again. “Tell me, you great tinny monster.”
“Promise him something!” Gravelbeard whispered into Nettlebrand’s ear. “Anything!”
But Nettlebrand lowered his horns, snorting furiously. Armor clinking, he leaped forward and snapped. His teeth crunched, and the sandman collapsed. Nettlebrand coughed as grains of sand went down his throat. Then he bared his fangs in a satisfied grin.
“So much for you!” he grunted, and he was turning away when Gravelbeard suddenly drummed frantically on his armored brow.
“Your Goldness!” he croaked. “Look! Look at that!”
Two more sandmen were rising from the place where the first had just fallen. Bright sunlight shone through the arms they were raising in the air, and a wind suddenly rose over the desert.
“Get away from here, Your Goldness!” cried Gravelbeard, but it was already too late.
The wind howled over the dunes, and wherever it whipped up the sand more and more sandmen rose up. They galloped toward Nettlebrand on their camels and surrounded him. Soon he was enveloped in a vast, impenetrable cloud of sand.