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He stretched out beside Ben, and was soon sleeping as deeply and soundly as Sorrel. His silver scales caught the starlight, and Ben sat there wondering how you could teach your own heart to love and not pay for it with pain. Was it better, in the long run, not to need anyone and so not to miss them? That night, Ben didn’t know the answer.
The possibility of not seeing Firedrake again for so long made everything he loved in MÍMAMEIÐR seem unreal. The foreign night surrounding him ate up his distant happiness, and the only thing that counted was the dragon.
When the sun rose, Ben hadn’t slept a wink all night, but he had come to a decision. He would help Barnabas with the griffins, but after that he wouldn’t return to MÍMAMEIÐR. Instead, he would make his way somehow or other to the Rim of Heaven. Ben couldn’t say that the decision made him happy. On the contrary, he felt as if he had made a plan to cut his own heart in two down the middle and throw half of it away. But what else was he to do?
Ben made up his mind to tell Barnabas once they had the griffin’s feather. Barnabas would surely understand his decision. After all, they both remembered that he had been a dragon rider first, and had only then become one of the Greenbloom family.
And what about Firedrake?
The dragon opened his eyes, as if Ben’s decision had woken him.
‘You look tired,’ he said as he stretched his scaly limbs. ‘Didn’t you sleep well?’
‘Not particularly,’ replied Ben. He would have liked to tell Firedrake right away that he would leave with him, but he couldn’t let Barnabas down. Not when he was searching for one of the most dangerous fabulous beings in the world. And then again… Ben had to admit that he really did want to see the griffins.
‘Will I see you again before we fly on?’ he asked. Barnabas had asked Firedrake to drop Ben off only somewhere near the temple, because a dragon at the temple itself would attract too much attention.
‘Of course,’ said Firedrake. ‘I’m not starting out until this evening. I always prefer to fly by night. Send Lola to me when the rest of you are ready to take off. But now let’s see whether Barnabas is waiting for you yet.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Temple to Garuda
When his time came, Garuda burst from the shell
of his egg, as incandescent as the sun and the fire-god
Agni. His radiance was like that of the fire which
will devour everything when this world ends.
The Mahabharata First Book: ‘Adi Parva’,
The Book of Beginnings
Barnabas was indeed already waiting for them. At first sight, the temple where Ben found him, in a courtyard surrounded by columns, looked deserted, as if no human being had wandered into its crumbling ruins for hundreds of years. But the god whose weathered likeness appeared everywhere on the remains of its walls probably did not think much of human worshippers. He had wings and a beak, and the ruins of his temple echoed to the voices of thousands of birds. They were sitting on the sand-brown walls everywhere, like feathered flowers: red, yellow, blue-black, emerald green or white as snow. Ben had never seen so many birds in one place before. They were whistling, croaking, cooing, and screeching in such shrill tones that Twigleg, who was sitting on Barnabas’s shoulder, put his hands over his sensitive ears.
Many of the birds were as large as him, or even larger. And all those beaks! Why hadn’t he gone with Hothbrodd and Lola instead, when they went in search of a calm river where they could refuel the plane in peace? Because Barnabas needed an interpreter, and he couldn’t refuse him, that was why.
‘Maybe you can guess why I chose this temple as our meeting place,’ Barnabas whispered to Ben. ‘Do you see who it’s dedicated to?’ He pointed to a fresco that adorned the wall to their left.
‘Garuda!’ Ben whispered back. ‘The creature ridden by Vishnu. Thief of immortality and god of the birds.’
‘Exactly,’ Barnabas replied quietly. ‘Many birds come to this place from very far away to ask for divine help. Who knows, maybe one of them can help us in our quest!’
Of course. That was why he had been told to come without Firedrake. Ben looked around the ruined temple.
‘Help human beings who are in league with the king of the snakes?’ croaked someone between the columns.
This remark irritated Twigleg so much that he did not translate what the discordant voice said until Barnabas cast him an enquiring glance.
Everyone knew the bird who drew a shimmering train of feathers after him as he stepped out from the columns. His beauty was as famous as his unmusical voice. So far Ben had seen peacocks only in zoos and the gardens of great houses, but he thought this one would have taken it as an insult if he said so. When he fanned out his magnificent tail, all was so still among the columns that even Sorrel wished the croaking, screaming voices would start up again.
‘My lord and master, the mighty Garuda,’ screeched the peac
ock, as he fanned his tail again, showing colours to outdo any rainbow in splendour, ‘will make you all feel the force of his wrath! How dare you bring a dragon to his shrine? That boy,’ he added, with his beak swinging around to point at Ben, ‘was brought here by one of those fire-breathing creatures! No less than three birds on guard here have told me so!’
‘Oh, don’t give yourself such airs, Magura!’
