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“What happens if you take away their hats?” asked Ben, curious.
“They get all dizzy,” replied Twigleg, climbing back onto Ben’s arm.
“This is what comes of not believing one’s children!” muttered Barnabas Greenbloom gloomily. He put an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “I apologize, Guinevere. You were right, and I’m an old fool.”
“That’s okay,” replied Guinevere. “I only wish I hadn’t been right.”
Firedrake stretched out his neck over the wall and looked down at the river. The sun was reflected in its brown waters. “We must move faster than Nettlebrand, then,” he said. “That dwarf must have heard everything Burr-Burr-Chan said, and they’ll be setting off at once.”
“You mean you’ve found out where the Rim of Heaven is and that spy overheard!” Lola Graytail jumped up. “Well, so what? Didn’t you say this golden dragon can’t fly? It will be child’s play for Firedrake to shake him off.”
But Twigleg shook his head, looking unhappy. “You needn’t think it will be as easy as that. Nettlebrand knows many cunning tricks.” Angrily he slapped his bony knee. “Oh, why did Burr-Burr-Chan have to describe in such detail the place where the dragons live?”
“He won’t be able to find the entrance to the cave,” Guinevere pointed out. “Burr-Burr-Chan said no one could.”
“Just as long as we don’t lead Nettlebrand to it,” Sorrel growled grimly.
They all fell silent.
“It would have been really good if he had been buried in the sand,” muttered Ben, looking downcast.
The lama put a hand on his shoulder and said something. Ben looked inquiringly at Twigleg.
“That would have been too easy, dragon rider,” the homunculus translated.
Ben shook his head. “Maybe,” he said, “but I wouldn’t mind having it easy for once.”
Ben and the others had become acclimatized quite quickly to the thin air of the Himalayas, the Roof of the World, but the monks insisted on giving them provisions and warm clothing for their flight. Even Sorrel realized that she would have to wear human clothes over her fur to keep out the cold above the clouds. A boy of Ben’s own age took Ben and the professor to a building on the outskirts of the monastery where the monks kept food and clothing. Only on the way there did Ben realize how large the monastery complex was, and how many people lived in it.
“We’d love to come with you,” said Barnabas Greenbloom as they followed the young monk. “I mean Vita, Guinevere, and I. But I’m afraid human beings have no part to play in this adventure.” He patted Ben on the shoulder. “Except the dragon rider, of course.”
Ben smiled shyly. The dragon rider. Every monk they met bowed to him. He hardly knew where to look.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do afterward?” asked the professor, without looking at Ben. “I mean, when you’ve found the Rim of Heaven, and if everything goes well, and …”He cleared his throat, running a hand through his gray hair. “And if Firedrake flies back to the north to fetch his relations. Will you stay with the dragons for good?”
He looked at the boy almost shyly.
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. At the moment there’s no before and no after, if you see what I mean.”
The professor nodded. “Yes, I know the feeling. It’s common at moments of crisis. But,” he said, clearing his throat again, “but if you should feel like, I mean,” he added, wiping his nose with a large handkerchief, “I mean, if you’d like to be back with ordinary people after all these adventures …” He looked up at the sky. “Vita is very fond of you, and Guinevere’s often told me she wished she had a brother. Perhaps,” he concluded, looking at Ben and turning quite red in the face, “perhaps you’d like to think of us as your family for a while. What do you say?”
Ben stared at Barnabas Greenbloom, speechless.
“Only a suggestion,” the professor made haste to say. “Just one of my eccentric ideas. But we would —”
“Oh, I’d like to,” Ben interrupted. “In fact, I’d love to!”
“You would?” Barnabas Greenbloom sighed with relief. “I’m so glad. Well, that’ll make the wait here even harder for us. You may remember,” he said, smiling down at the boy, “that on our next field trip, we’re going to search for Pegasus.”
Ben nodded. “I’d love to come along and search, too,” he said and shook the professor’s hand.
All was ready for their departure by the time darkness fell over the mountains. Ben and Sorrel were well muffled up, with warm caps on their heads, gloves, and fleecy jackets. Twigleg sat on Ben’s lap, wrapped in a piece of lambskin, with the thumb-piece of a glove on his head for a cap. Sorrel’s backpack contained dried apricots and a thermos flask of “hot buttered tea — just in case,” as the lama said with a smile when Sorrel sniffed it suspiciously.
Firedrake did not mind the cold, and the monks didn’t seem to feel it, either. Wearing only their thin robes, they accompanied the dragon through the bitter cold of the night to the Dubidai caves. In the light of their torches, Firedrake shone as brightly as the light of the moon. Lola Graytail flew just ahead of him, her plane buzzing along. The rat had decided to accompany the dragon and was now waving to the monks as if she were the center of all the excitement.
Burr-Burr-Chan was waiting for Firedrake in the same hole in the rock face from which he had emerged earlier, but this time he was not alone. More Dubidai were peering out of other holes. They had all come out to see the strange dragon, and when Firedrake stopped beneath the caves and looked up an excited whispering arose. Furry heads both large and small gazed at the silver dragon.
Burr-Burr-Chan swung a sack over his shoulder, scrambled down the rocks, and climbed onto Firedrake’s crest as if he had been doing it all his life.
