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“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.
“Can you show me the fishing village where your dracologist friend is at the moment?” he asked.
Barnabas Greenbloom bent over the map in amazement. “Young man, this is remarkable,” he said. “A true masterpiece of cartography, I’d call it. Where did you get it?”
“From a rat,” replied Sorrel. “Not that it’s been all that much use to us so far.”
“A rat! Well, well …” murmured the professor, examining Gilbert Graytail’s masterpiece more closely. “I wouldn’t mind having that rat make a map for me. These areas of yellow shading, for instance, are very interesting. I know some of them. What does the yellow mean? Ah,” he said, reading the key to the colors. “Yes, I see. Yellow means bad luck, danger. Yes, indeed, I can confirm that. And here, do you see?” He placed a finger on the map. “This is where we are now. All yellow. Your map should have warned you about this cave.”
