Dragon Rider (22 page)

He looked down the hill to where the sea lay in the sunlight. “Nettlebrand is hoping we will lead him to the Rim of Heaven. He wants us to find him the dragons who escaped him in the past.”

Ben looked at Firedrake, horrified.

“Of course!” cried Sorrel. “He doesn’t know where they are. When he took the dragons by surprise in the sea here, the sea serpents helped them get away, and since then he’s lost all trace of them.”

Firedrake shook his head. He looked at the humans, a question in his eyes. “What am I to do? We’re so close to our journey’s end, but how can I be sure Nettlebrand’s not following us? How can I be certain one of his ravens won’t be following me under cover of darkness if I fly on?”

Ben was transfixed.

“That’s right,” he murmured. “He’s probably known for ages what the djinn said. And Twigleg saw a raven back there in the ravine, didn’t he? Oh, no!” Ben brought his hand down on the back of the stone dragon. “We’ve probably been a
great help to the monster. He was just waiting for us. And I even asked the djinn his question for him.”

No one said anything. The Greenblooms exchanged anxious glances.

Then, very quietly, so quietly that Ben could hardly hear him, Twigleg said, “Nettlebrand doesn’t know what the djinn told you, young master.”

The words had come out of Twigleg’s mouth as if of their own accord. As if they were tired of being held back and swallowed all the time.

All the others looked at him. All of them.

Sorrel narrowed her eyes like a hungry cat.

“So, just how do you know that, little titch?” she growled in a menacingly low voice. “How come you’re so certain of what you say?”

Twigleg did not look at her. He didn’t look at anyone. His heart was beating as if it would burst out of his narrow chest.

“Because
I
was his spy,” he replied. “I was Nettlebrand’s spy.”

29. Twigleg the Traitor

 

 

T
wigleg closed his eyes. He was waiting for Ben to brush him off his shoulder or Firedrake to breathe dragon-fire over him and turn him into some kind of bug — but nothing happened. It was very silent among the old columns, that was all. A hot wind, blowing off the land to the sea, ruffled the manikin’s hair.

When still nothing happened, Twigleg opened his eyes and glanced sideways at Ben. The boy was staring at him with such horror and disappointment that his gaze cut the homunculus to the heart.

“You!” stammered Ben. “You? But … but what about the ravens?”

Twigleg looked down at his thin, spindly legs. They were all blurred because his eyes were full of tears. The tears ran down his sharp nose, dripping onto his hand and into his lap.

“The ravens are his eyes,” sobbed the homunculus, “but I … I’m his ears. I’m the spy the professor heard about. I gave everything away. I told him that the professor had two
of his scales, and you were looking for the Rim of Heaven and were going to ask the blue djinn the way, but … but …” He could say no more.

“I might have known it!” snapped Sorrel. And in a single bound she turned on the homunculus, reaching for him with her sharp claws.

“Leave him alone!” said Ben, pushing her away.

“What?” Sorrel’s coat was bristling with rage. “You’re not still standing up for him, are you? Even when he tells you himself how he’s betrayed us to that monster?” She growled, bared her teeth, and took another step forward. “I felt all along there was something not quite right about this little creep. But you and Firedrake were so crazy about him. I ought to bite his head off, that’s what!”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Sorrel!” said Ben, putting his hand protectively in front of Twigleg. “Stop carrying on like that. You can see he’s sorry.” Carefully he lifted Twigleg down from his shoulder and set him on the palm of his hand. Tears were still running down the manikin’s nose. Ben took a dusty handkerchief out of his pocket and gently dabbed Twigleg’s face dry.

“Nettlebrand was my master,” stammered the homunculus. “I polished his scales and cut his claws, and I had to tell him a thousand and one tales about his heroic deeds. He
could never hear enough of them. I’ve been his armor-cleaner ever since I was made — though what I was made
from
I don’t know.” He sobbed again. “Maybe I’m only a crab with snapping pincers myself. Who knows? Anyway, the man who created Nettlebrand brought me into the world as well. That was hundreds of years ago — and dark, cold, lonely years they’ve been, too. I had eleven brothers, and Nettlebrand ate them all.” Twigleg buried his face in his hands. “He ate the man who made us, and he’ll eat you, too. You and all the dragons. Every last one of them.”

Guinevere suddenly went over to Ben. Pushing back her long hair from her forehead, she looked at the homunculus sympathetically. “But why does he want to eat all the dragons?” she asked. “He’s a dragon himself, isn’t he?”

“He’s not a real dragon!” replied Twigleg, sobbing. “He just looks like one. He hunts dragons because that’s what he was made to do. Like a cat that’s born to catch mice.”

“What?” Incredulous, Barnabas Greenbloom looked over Ben’s shoulder. “Nettlebrand isn’t a dragon? What is he, then?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Twigleg. “I don’t know what kind of creature the alchemist made him from. His armor is some kind of indestructible metal, but no one knows what’s underneath it. Our maker gave Nettlebrand the appearance of a dragon so that he could get close to them more easily
when he went hunting. All dragons know it’s best to avoid humans, but no dragon would flee from one of its own kind.”

“That’s true.” Zubeida Ghalib nodded thoughtfully. “But why did the alchemist need a monster to kill dragons in the first place?”

“For his experiments.” Twigleg mopped the tears from his eyes with the hem of his jacket. “He was a very gifted alchemist. As you can see, he’d discovered the secret of creating life, and I’m the proof of it. But he wanted more. Like every alchemist of his time, he wanted to make gold. Human beings are absolutely mad about gold, aren’t they?”

Vita Greenbloom stroked Guinevere’s hair and nodded. “Yes, some of them,” she said.

“Well,” Twigleg continued in a trembling voice, “my maker discovered that the essential ingredient for making gold is the ground-up horns of dragons, a material even rarer than ivory. In the old days he paid knights to go hunting dragons and bring back their horns for him, but the knights weren’t killing enough. He needed more horns for his experiments — many, many more. So he created Nettlebrand, his own dragon killer.” Twigleg looked at Firedrake. “He gave him the shape of a real dragon but made him much, much bigger and stronger. The one thing Nettlebrand couldn’t do was fly, because the alchemist had made
his armor from an indestructible heavy metal that even dragon-fire couldn’t melt. Then he sent Nettlebrand out hunting.”

Twigleg fell silent for a moment, looking out to sea where the fishing boats rocked gently on the water.

“He caught them all,” the homunculus whispered. “He came down on them like a terrible storm. My maker was carrying out experiments day and night. And then the dragons suddenly disappeared. Nettlebrand searched high and low, until his claws were blunt and his limbs ached with walking. But they were nowhere to be found. My maker was furious. He had to give up his experiments, but he soon discovered that was the least of his worries. Nettlebrand began to get bored, and the more bored he was, the more violent and evil-tempered he grew. My maker created enchanted ravens to search the world for the missing dragons, but in vain. Then Nettlebrand, in his rage, ate all my brothers. He spared me only because he needed someone to clean his armor.” Twigleg’s eyes closed as he remembered.

“And then,” he went on quietly, “on a day when yet another raven came back without news of any dragons, Nettlebrand, the Golden One, ate our maker, too, and with him the secret of his own origin. But,” said Twigleg, raising his head and looking at Firedrake, “he’s still searching for dragons. The last group he found escaped when two sea serpents
and his own impatience robbed him of his prey. However, he’s learned his lesson. This time he’s waiting patiently for
you
to lead him to the dragons he’s been searching for all these years.”

The manikin fell silent, and the others did not speak. A fly settled on Twigleg’s thin legs, and he brushed it away wearily.

“Where is he now?” asked Ben at last. “Is Nettlebrand somewhere close?”

Sorrel looked around uneasily. None of them had stopped to think that the golden monster might be quite near them already. But Twigleg shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Nettlebrand is far, far away. I did tell him about the djinn’s answer,” he added, a small smile appearing on his tearstained face, “but I was lying to him. For the first time ever.” He looked at them proudly. “For the very first time in my life, I, Twigleg, lied to Nettlebrand, the Golden One!”

“You did, did you?” inquired Sorrel suspiciously. “And you expect us to believe you? Why would you suddenly lie to him when you’ve been such a fabulous spy, fooling all of us?”

Twigleg looked crossly at her. “Certainly not to save your shaggy skin!” he said nastily. “I wouldn’t shed a tear if he ate you!”

“Huh, it’s
you
he’ll be eating!” Sorrel snapped back furiously. “Always supposing you really did lie to him.”

“I did, I did!” cried Twigleg, his voice trembling. “I sent him off to the Great Desert, far, far away, because … because …”he added, clearing his throat and glancing shyly at Ben, “because he was going to eat the little human here, too. And the young master was kind to me. For no reason at all. He was kind and friendly, just like that. No one was ever friendly to me before.” Twigleg sniffed, rubbed his nose, and looked down at his sharp, bony knees. Very quietly, he said, “So I decided he can be my master from now on. If he likes.” The homunculus looked anxiously at the boy.

“Your master! Oh, orange birch boletus!” Sorrel gave a scornful laugh. “What an honor! And when are you planning to betray
him?”

Ben sat down on the stone dragon and put Twigleg on his knee.

“Never mind all this nonsense about masters,” he said. “And don’t keep calling me young master, either! We can be friends, can’t we? Just ordinary friends, okay?”

Twigleg smiled. A tear ran down his nose again, but this time it was a tear of joy. “Friends,” he repeated. “Oh, yes, friends!”

Barnabas Greenbloom cleared his throat and leaned over the pair of them.

“Twigleg,” he said, “what did you mean just now about sending Nettlebrand into the desert? What desert?”

“The biggest desert I could find on the map,” replied the homunculus. “Only a desert can hold Nettlebrand prisoner for a while, you see. Because” — Twigleg lowered his voice, as if his old master were lurking in the dark shadows cast by the stone dome — “he speaks and sees through water. Only water gives him the power to move instantly from one place to another. So I sent him where there’s less of it than anywhere else.”

“He is lord of the water,” said Firedrake softly.

“What did you say?” Barnabas Greenbloom looked at him in surprise.

“It’s something we were told by a sea serpent we met on the way here,” explained the dragon. “She said Nettlebrand has more power over water than she does herself.”

“But how does he do it?” asked Guinevere, looking inquiringly at the homunculus. “Do you know, Twigleg?”

Twigleg shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know all the secrets the alchemist told him. When one of his servants spits or throws a stone into water, the image of Nettlebrand appears. He talks to us as if he were actually there, even if he’s at the other end of the earth. But no, I don’t know how it’s done.”

“Oh, so that’s what you were up to beside that water
cistern,” said Sorrel, “when you tried to make me think you were talking to your reflection. You treacherous little locust! You—”

“Stop it, Sorrel!” Firedrake interrupted her. He looked at the homunculus.

Ashamed, Twigleg bent his head. “She’s right,” he murmured. “I was talking to my master.”

“And I think you’d better carry on doing just that,” said Zubeida.

Twigleg turned to look at her in surprise.

“You may yet be able to make amends for your treachery,” said the dracologist.

“Exactly the same thing occurred to me, Zubeida!” Barnabas Greenbloom struck the palm of one hand with his fist. “Twigleg could be a kind of double agent. What do you think, Vita?”

His wife nodded. “Not a bad idea.”

“What exactly does a trouble agent do?” asked Sorrel.

“Simple! Twigleg just has to act as if he were still spying for Nettlebrand,” Ben explained. “But he’ll really be spying for us. Get it?”

Sorrel wrinkled her nose.

“Yes, of course! Twigleg could go on fooling him!” cried Guinevere. She looked intently at the homunculus. “Would you do it? I mean, wouldn’t it be too dangerous?”

Twigleg shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind that,” he replied. “But I’m afraid Nettlebrand will have found out by now that I betrayed him. You’re forgetting the ravens.”

“Oh, they turned back into crabs,” said Sorrel airily.

“He has more than just those two ravens, fur-face,” snapped Twigleg. “For instance, there was the one out at sea when you played that trick on him with the stone. He was the bird I used to ride on, and he was already suspicious. Your stone will have annoyed him to no end.”

“So?” growled Sorrel.

“Don’t you have anything but fur inside your head as well as on it?” cried Twigleg. “Doesn’t it strike you that he may have been so furious that he rushed off to see my old master? Don’t you think Nettlebrand will suspect something if the raven tells him we were crossing the Arabian Sea on the back of a sea serpent? Although I told him the dragons were hiding in a desert thousands of kilometers farther west?”

“Oh. I see,” muttered Sorrel, scratching herself behind the ears.

“No.” Twigleg shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for me to report back to him. You mustn’t underestimate Nettlebrand!” The homunculus shuddered and looked at Firedrake, who was gazing down at him anxiously. “I don’t know why you’re looking for the Rim of Heaven, but I think you ought to turn back for fear of leading your
worst enemy exactly where he wants to go in his wicked dreams.”

Firedrake returned Twigleg’s gaze in silence. Then he said, “I set out on this long journey to find a new home for me and the other dragons who flew north long, long ago to escape Nettlebrand and the human race. We had a place in the north, a remote valley — it was damp and cold, but we could live there in peace. Now that human beings want that valley, the Rim of Heaven is our only hope. Where else shall we find a refuge that doesn’t belong to humankind?”

“So that’s why you’re here,” said Zubeida quietly. “That, as Barnabas has told me, is why you’re looking for the Rim of Heaven.” She nodded. “It’s true that the Himalayas, where that mysterious place is believed to lie hidden, are no place for human beings. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never discovered the Rim of Heaven myself—because I’m human. I think
you
might well find it, Firedrake. But how can we keep Nettlebrand from following you?”