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The Indian roller pointed her beak to a doorway leading into the interior of the temple. The darkness beyond competed with the feathers of two drongo birds who were as blue-black as if someone had dipped them and their extravagantly long tail feathers in ink. Twigleg was not at all happy about such darkness, but he knew from experience that gates like this one held a magical fascination for his young master.
‘She’s sitting above the niche where people leave gifts for Garuda. She thinks that if she doesn’t eat, and just sits there day in, day out, Garuda will have pity on her some day and take her home.’ You could tell from the Indian roller’s voice what she thought of such hopes. She herself came here only for the tasty insects that lived in the old temple walls.
Barnabas took Ben aside. ‘Do you think you could go looking for this lost parrot yourself ?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘She might be less frightened of a boy than of a grown man. I’d really like to send Twigleg to her on his own, because he’s about her size, but a parrot might only too easily…’
Barnabas stopped when the homunculus cast him a glance of alarm.
‘Sure!’ said Ben. ‘I’ll be happy to look for her. But if I do find her,’ he added, glancing at Twigleg, ‘I may need an interpreter.’
The homunculus looked anxiously at the dark gate behind which the lost parrot was said to be hiding. But he couldn’t say no to anything Ben asked of him. And they had been in dark places together before.
‘I’ll take good care of you,’ Ben promised. ‘Word of honour!’
It’s your own fault, Twigleg, thought the homunculus as he climbed up to Ben’s shoulder. Why didn’t you pick a master who was happiest among bookshelves, and found the rest of the world as disturbing as you do?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Very Far From Home
I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains –
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
Twigleg wasn’t sure what he thought of torches. Darkness stimulated the imagination so much less than the probing beam of light that Ben was shining on the interior of the old temple. Every image carved on the weathered walls seemed to waken to life as the torch picked it out from the shadows, until Twigleg was firmly convinced that Garuda himself was prowling after them, with golden claws and a beak that could break the limbs of a homunculus like matchsticks.
The sounds were almost worse than the images! All the fluttering and scurrying that came to his maddeningly sensitive ears… no, he really wasn’t born to be an adventurer. But he had given his heart to a boy who didn’t know the meaning of fear, and who was intent on looking into every nook and cranny of this world.
There!
What was that?
Twigleg clung to Ben’s jacket so tightly that he almost broke his own stick-thin fingers.
Didn’t it sound like a snake?
No, Twigleg, he reassured himself, this is a temple of Garuda. They throw snakes off the walls in clay pots here, didn’t you hear the hoopoe say so?
Oh!
Something or other was fluttering just above their heads. But all that Ben’s torch showe
d them was a huge bat. Not that Twigleg was sure whether it would turn down a tasty morsel of homunculus. At his size, you were on the menu of an alarmingly large number of creatures.
‘There!’ whispered Ben, running the beam of light over a frieze of stone birds. They surrounded a niche where dried fruits and grain lay in front of a weather-beaten statue. It was difficult to say what god it was meant to be, but Twigleg thought he saw a hint of wings.
‘That could be Garuda, don’t you think?’ whispered Ben.
Twigleg was shaking too badly to manage a convincing nod.
‘Can you say something?’ Ben asked quietly. ‘Something like: we come as friends. In some kind of Indonesian language? Or in South-Asian Parrot, if such a thing exists.’
‘It definitely does,’ Twigleg whispered back. ‘I can speak twelve of the eight hundred and fifty-three known dialects of Parrot!’
‘Excellent!’ replied Ben, turning the torch on a very alarming ledge shaped like a snake that ran along the ceiling above them. ‘Try it! Tell her we want to take her home.’
He wasn’t afraid of anything! Not the faintest trace of fear in his voice!
