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Firedrake returned Twigleg’s gaze in silence. Then he said, “I set out on this long journey to find a new home for me and the other dragons who flew north long, long ago to escape Nettlebrand and the human race. We had a place in the north, a remote valley — it was damp and cold, but we could live there in peace. Now that human beings want that valley, the Rim of Heaven is our only hope. Where else shall we find a refuge that doesn’t belong to humankind?”
“So that’s why you’re here,” said Zubeida quietly. “That, as Barnabas has told me, is why you’re looking for the Rim of Heaven.” She nodded. “It’s true that the Himalayas, where that mysterious place is believed to lie hidden, are no place for human beings. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never discovered the Rim of Heaven myself—because I’m human. I think you might well find it, Firedrake. But how can we keep Nettlebrand from following you?”
Barnabas Greenbloom shook his head, at a loss. “Firedrake can’t go back home, either,” he murmured, “or he’ll lead Nettlebrand straight to the dragons in the north. We’re in a real fix, my friend.”
“Yes, no doubt about it!” Zubeida sighed. “But I think some such thing was bound to happen. You haven’t yet heard the end of the old story of the dragon rider. Follow me, all of you. I want to show you something — particularly you, dragon rider.”
So saying, she took Ben’s hand and led him into the ruins of the tomb.
30. All Is Revealed to Nettlebrand
“Spit!” snapped Nettlebrand. “Go on, spit, you useless dwarf.” Tail twitching, he was sitting among the dunes, surrounded by the mountains of sand from which Gravelbeard had finally freed him. It was lucky for Nettlebrand that mountain dwarves are good at digging.
With difficulty, Gravelbeard collected a little saliva in his dry mouth, pursed his lips, and spat into the bowl he had carved from the cactus that Nettlebrand had incautiously tried to eat.
“It’s not going to work, Your Goldness!” he said fretfully. “Look, the sun’s going to roast us alive before we have enough liquid in this.”
“Spit!” Nettlebrand growled and contributed a pool of bright green saliva himself.
“Wow!” Gravelbeard leaned over the bowl with such enthusiasm that his hat almost fell in. “That was amazing, Your Goldness! A whole pondful, no, a lakeful of spit! It works! Amazing! Look, the sun’s reflected in it. Let’s hope it doesn’t all evaporate.”
“Then stand where your shadow falls on it, fool!” snapped Nettlebrand. He spat again. Splish! A puddle of green hit the hollowed-out cactus flesh. Splat, splosh! Gravelbeard added his bit. They kept spitting until even Nettlebrand’s mouth was dry.
“Stand aside!” he hissed, pushing the dwarf down in the hot sand and peering with one red eye into the little pool they had made. For a moment, the green goo remained clouded, but then it suddenly shone like a mirror, and the dark figure of a raven appeared in the cactus-flesh bowl.
“At last!” cawed the raven, dropping the stone he had been holding in his beak. “Where were you, master? I’ve thrown more stones into this sea than there are stars in the sky. You’ve got to get that brownie and eat her. At once! Look at this!” Indignantly he raised his left wing, where the stone Sorrel had thrown at him still clung. Brownie saliva lasts a long time.
“Don’t make such a fuss!” growled Nettlebrand. “And forget the brownie. Where’s Twigleg? What was he doing when he eavesdropped on the djinn? Had his ears plugged with raisins, did he? I haven’t seen so much as the tip of a dragon’s tail in this ghastly desert where he sent me.”
The raven opened his beak, shut it, and then opened it again.
“Desert? What desert?” he cawed in surprise. “What are you talking about, master? The silver dragon flew over the sea ages ago, taking Twigleg with him. I last saw them riding a sea serpent. Didn’t he tell you about that?” The raven shook his wing again accusingly. “And then the brownie cast her magic spell with the stone. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Twigleg didn’t lift a finger to stop that little fur-faced brute.”
Nettlebrand frowned. “Flew over the sea?” he grunted.
The raven leaned forward a little way. “Master?” he said. “Master, I don’t have a very clear view of you.”
Nettlebrand spat impatiently into the cactus bowl.
“Yes!” cried the raven. “I can see you better now.”
“Over what sea?” Nettlebrand shouted at him.
“You know the sea, master!” cried the raven. “You know the serpent, too. Remember the night of the full moon when you hunted the dragons as they swam? I’m sure it was one of the same serpents that thwarted you then.”
“Shut up!” bellowed Nettlebrand. He was so angry, he could have smashed the cactus bowl with one blow of his paw. Snorting, he dug his claws into the sand. “No, I don’t remember, and you’d better not, either. Go away now. I have to think.”
The startled raven retreated. “Yes, but that brownie,” he squawked in a small voice. “What about that brownie?”
“Get out, I said!” Nettlebrand roared.
Straightening up and growling, he lashed the sand with his tail. “That stinking flea! That spidery monstrosity! That sharp-nosed birdbrain! He actually dared to lie to me! Me!” Nettlebrand’s eyes were blazing. “I’ll trample him to death!” he snarled at the desert sands. “I’ll crack him like a nut. I’ll eat him alive the way I ate his brothers! Aaaargh!” Opening his jaws, he roared so loud that Gravelbeard threw himself onto the sand, trembling, and pulled his hat down over his ears.
“Up on my back, armor-cleaner!” snapped Nettlebrand.
“Yes, Your Goldness!” stammered the dwarf. Weak at the knees, he ran to his master’s tail and ran up it so fast that he almost lost his hat. “Are we going home at last, Your Goldness?” he asked.
“Going home?” Nettlebrand gave a hoarse laugh. “We’re going hunting. But first you’ll tell that treacherous spindly homunculus how I perished miserably in the desert.”
