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‘Welcome to MÍMAMEIÐR,’ said Firedrake. ‘To the only place in the world where you and I do not have to hide. I am very sorry that such a sad reason has brought you here, yet I am glad that you have come just now! Until today there was an old dragon keeping watch over this place, but he has left us, and I can’t take his place because I am needed at the other end of the earth. For the time, therefore, there is no guardian in MÍMAMEIÐR who has our strength and can provide the protection that it deserves.’
The Pegasus bowed his head. ‘I am not sure that I still have that power, firebird,’ he said. ‘Too much is sapping my strength.’
‘I know about your sorrow, and the game of hide and seek that this world makes us all play also steals strength from you and me,’ replied Firedrake. ‘But as you will see, this place can give you back much of it, even if it cannot heal your heart. Enjoy the freedom of not having to hide! And of being surroun
ded by creatures that humans still meet only in stories. Act as MÍMAMEIÐR’s guardian for a while. Its inhabitants deserve our help, and I shall be able to fly away with my mind at rest!’
Ànemos glanced back at the stable where the orphaned nest stood. Firedrake followed his glance.
‘I know it’s no comfort,’ he said, ‘but pain often makes us stronger. And you are surrounded by friends, even if we hesitate to see humans in that light. The Greenblooms saved me and my kind when there was hardly any hope left. Wait and see: they’d risk their own lives to preserve the lives of your children!’
The Pegasus looked doubtfully at the dragon. ‘Tell me how they helped you.’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Firedrake.
‘All the better,’ replied the Pegasus.
Ben stole away as Firedrake began his tale – even though he would have liked to hear it and be reminded of their adventures together. But there was something else he had to do. And with luck, it too would be a story worth telling some day.
CHAPTER TEN
Griffins Love Gold
Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to
in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into Paradise.
Christopher Columbus
It is often very small things that make our greatest dreams grow. Barnabas Greenbloom’s dream of meeting a Pegasus some day began on his eighth birthday, with a present from an aunt he didn’t like: a sticker album entitled Pictures From Greek Mythology. He had soon spent all his pocket money on the little bags with the stickers to be collected, and had been disappointed every time the pictures turned out to show gods or heroes. The monsters had interested him much more: Scylla and Charybdis, the Cyclops, Medusa – he had stared at them for hours on end. But his greatest treasure was Pegasus. At night he had dreamed of sitting between the horse’s wings and flying away to the stars.
The winged horse born from the blood of a beheaded Medusa… Barnabas had now met several Medusas. They had considerably nicer natures than their reputation suggested. Of course! How could a really horrible monster have given birth to something as wonderful as the Pegasus? He and Vita had met descendants of Scylla and great-grandchildren of Charybdis (all of whom did live up to their fearsome reputation). They had at least discovered a very well-preserved Cyclops skeleton in a Cretan cave. But they had spent twenty years searching in vain for proof of the existence of the Pegasus. They had both been almost sure that the winged horses who flew through Barnabas’s childhood dreams had disappeared from this world as irrevocably as dodos and sabre-toothed tigers, or the unicorns whose existence in the past was suggested now only by a shaggy species of wild horse in Mongolia that had the maimed base of a spiral horn on its forehead. But then, in the mountains of Greece, they had finally found themselves on the trail that Barnabas had been hoping to discover for so many years: hoof prints that shone like silver, and beside them a few feathers, some white and some copper-coloured. When they finally stood face to face with the Pegasi, Barnabas had stared so ecstatically that to this day he was surprised Ànemos hadn’t given a mighty kick to remove his own existence from this world.
After that, they had sent Lola Greytail to Greece regularly, to make sure that all was well, and when one day the rat brought back the photo of eggs in the nest he and Vita hadn’t been able to sleep for nights. Many of the inhabitants of MÍMAMEIÐR had laid bets on whether one of the foals would be a blue Pegasus, the legendary kind that could apparently fly to the moon. But now… now none of them minded what colour the foals would be, so long as they just hatched safely! Barnabas would have given one of his hands to be sure of that, ten years of his life, all he possessed… but instead, for the foals’ sake, he had to go in search of the only fabulous creature that he really had never wanted to encounter.
Barnabas Greenbloom was a peace-loving man. Even as a child, he had hated people who trod on beetles or threw stones at stray dogs. Nothing made him angrier than those humans who tormented other beings for fun or out of boredom – although by now he knew that the reason for their cruelty was often only fear of everything strange. And maybe Barnabas Greenbloom was so easy-going because he had always been very fearless and full of curiosity about all that was new to him. But what Barnabas did know about griffins made him suspect that, for all his curiosity, he would not like them in the least. They were the most warlike of fabulous beings, creatures who took cruelty for a virtue and sympathy for weakness, who lived for everything he abhorred: war, fighting, the subjugation of weaker beings…
Before setting out, he read every story about griffins that Twigleg had found in the library, hoping to find something that would make him like them better. By his own standards, however, even those described as good and noble were callous murderers. As for their obsession with gold and treasures – he had nothing but profound contempt for that! A voice inside him whispered: these winged monsters are never going to give you a feather, Barnabas; you’re an incorrigible dreamer. But he had made Ànemos a promise. And he did want to see those foals flying over the fields of MÍMAMEIÐR…
When Hothbrodd announced that everything was ready for take-off, Barnabas once again went over to the stable where two geese were warming the nest they had built for the Pegasus eggs. Ànemos was standing in the doorway, as usual. It was as if he couldn’t bear to look at the orphaned eggs.
‘I hear that Firedrake has asked you to protect MÍMAMEIÐR while we’re away,’ said Barnabas. ‘I’m grateful to you. Guinevere and Vita will do all they can to keep your children alive until we get back, and I give you my word of honour, we’ll save them!’
By way of answer, Ànemos touched foreheads with Barnabas. ‘If you succeed, Greenbloom, I will call one of the foals after you,’ he said.
‘Oh no, you won’t!’ Barnabas retorted. ‘It’s a strange name for a human, and certainly not suitable for a Pegasus!’
Then he went to say goodbye to Vita and Guinevere. And to Firedrake, Sorrel and Ben, all three of whom he would soon be seeing again in India.
Hothbrodd’s aircraft had a nose like a dragon’s, and had a cabin with seats in it behind the cockpit. Twigleg was already waiting in the cabin when Barnabas came on board. The plane spread its wings as silently as a bird when Hothbrodd started it, and the engine that took it up to the sky, which was still dark, whispered no louder than the wind. But Hothbrodd’s co-pilot was Lola Greytail, so the two of them were already arguing only a few minutes after take-off. About the music to keep them awake during the long flight, about the right height for the plane, about Hothbrodd’s habit of chewing wild garlic, and Lola’s inability to sit still. The pair of them enjoyed these arguments, and Barnabas and Twigleg were so used to them that, in spite of the raised voices from the cockpit, they were soon fast asleep. After all, no one knew how often they would get a chance to sleep on this expedition.
It was almost four thousand kilometres from MÍMAMEIÐR to southern Anatolia. But Hothbrodd’s plane was very fast as well as quiet, and the sun was just rising behind rocks as yellow as sand when they reached the first stop on their journey.
The runway on which Hothbrodd landed (far from skilfully, in Lola’s opinion) seemed as deserted as if time and humanity had forgotten it centuries ago. The woman who made sure that uninvited visitors had exactly that impression was waiting beside the abandoned runway in a dusty jeep. Bagdagül Ender and Barnabas had known each other since they were both five years old when, bored to death by the conversation of their parents, who were friends, they had gone off to watch horned salamanders together. Bagdagül had grown up in southern Anatolia, and had now made a fine reputation for herself in protecting the endangered animal species of her native land. Asian lions, rare bats – Bagdagül spoke up for them all. She was a founding member of FREEFAB, and not far from the runway, in the caves carved out in the sides of the surrounding mountains by a long-forgotten civilisation, she ran a conservation refuge similar to MÍMAMEIÐR.
Most people would probably have
taken the dog beside Bagdagül for just an albino with an unusual coat pattern, but Barnabas knew that it was one of the very rare cloud-dogs she had saved from extinction.
