“Like the Thousand and One Nights!” he murmured.
“Like the what?” asked Sorrel.
“Thousand and One Nights,” repeated Ben. “They’re stories — lots of stories — about flying carpets and so on. Some have djinns in them.”
“Fancy that,” muttered Sorrel. She was tired of rocks and sand. All this gray and yellow and brown hurt her eyes. She wanted to see trees. She wanted to hear leaves rustling in the wind, not the eternal chirping of crickets. At her insistence, Firedrake had already come down twice to land by signposts, but neither had pointed the right way. Ben had told her they wouldn’t and held the map in front of her nose, but her impatience was driving her crazy.
“It must be the next one, though,” she said. “It must be the next time the road forks, don’t you think?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, sure.” Suddenly he leaned forward. “Hey, Sorrel!” He pointed down at the ground in excitement. “Look at that. Down there. See?”
The slopes of the dark mountains by the roadside were shining brighter than the sea in the moonlight.
“Oh, no!” groaned Sorrel. “It’s them. You bet your life it’s them.”
“It’s who?” Ben leaned so far forward he almost fell off Firedrake’s back. “Who, Sorrel?”
“Elves!” Sorrel hauled on the strap holding her. “Firedrake!” she cried. “Firedrake, fly higher! Quick.”
Surprised, the dragon slowed down and looked around.
“What is it?”
“Elves!” cried Sorrel. “Look! The place is absolutely swarming with elves!”
The dragon immediately rose higher, beating his wings powerfully.
“Oh, no! cried Ben. “Can’t we stay just a little lower? I’d love to see elves at close quarters.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Sorrel shook her head sorrowfully at such human folly. “No way! They could have love-arrows with them and then, being a stupid little human, you’d be besotted with the next crow we happen to pass. No, no, and no again.”
“For once, Sorrel’s right, young master,” Twigleg backed her up. He was nestling inside Ben’s jacket, with only his head looking out between two buttons. “We can thank our lucky stars if they don’t notice us.”
Disappointed, Ben looked down at the glittering swarm.
“Oh, no!” Sorrel groaned. “The road forks just ahead. Now of all times! And there’s a signpost there, too.”
“I’ll have to fly lower or Ben won’t be able to read it,” called Firedrake.
“Lower?” Sorrel rolled her eyes. “Oh, wonderful! Now, with those glitterbugs swirling all over the place! Death caps and destroying angels, there’s going to be trouble.”
Firedrake descended slowly, until at last he landed on the asphalt of the road.
But when Ben tried to compare the professor’s writing with the lettering on the signpost, he saw that swarms of sand-elves covered the sign. Scarcely any bigger than brimstone yellow butterflies, these elves were the color of the sand itself, with shimmering wings and hair dusted with green. They giggled and hummed as they whirred and fluttered around the sign. It made Ben quite dizzy to watch them.
“Now we’re in trouble,” muttered Sorrel. “Big trouble!”
A little group of the featherweight elves left the main swarm and flew toward Firedrake. They settled on his spines, his nose, and his horns. Some of them fluttered around Ben and Sorrel, too, giggling as they pinched their cheeks, tugged their hair, and pulled their ears.
Twigleg drew his head in until only his nose was visible between the buttons of Ben’s jacket. “Young master!” he cried. “Young master!”
But what with all the twittering and giggling of the elves, Ben couldn’t hear the manikin. He sat there entranced and watched the shimmering little creatures.
“Well, do you like them up close?” whispered Sorrel.
Ben nodded. An elf tickled him under the chin, putting out its tiny yellow tongue. Then it settled on his knee, winking at him. Ben marveled at its brightly colored wings.
“Hey, you!” Sorrel looked over Ben’s shoulder at the elf. “Would you be kind enough to move off that signpost? We have to see if the road down there is the right way for us.”
The sand-elf crossed its legs, folded its wings, and grinned at the brownie girl.
“No, it’s not the right way,” it twittered. “Absolutely not.”
Ben looked down at it in surprise. “How do you know?” he asked.
“Because it’s the wrong way,” replied the little creature, winking at him again. “Undeniably. One-deniably, two-deniably, three-deniably wrong. See?”
The elf was then overcome by such a fit of the giggles that it almost fell off Ben’s knee. Sorrel groaned.
“Which way should we go then?” asked Ben.
“Go any way anyday,” replied the elf. “Just not that way, no way should you go thataway.”
“Oh,” muttered Ben, baffled.
A second sand-elf flew up and perched on the shoulders of the first, grinning from pointy ear to pointy ear. “What’s up, Mukarrib?”
“They want to go the wrong way,” twittered Mukarrib. “Tell them it’s the wrong way, Bilqis!”
“He’s right, it’s the wrong way!” twittered Bilqis immediately. “In fact, I’d say it’s the wrongest way of all, no doubt about it.”
“I can’t stand this!” growled Sorrel. “If those silly little flitterbugs don’t get off that signpost this minute, I’ll —”
“What did your friend say?” Mukarrib asked. “Should we take offense?”
Three more elves flew up and settled on Ben’s shoulders, giggling.
“N-no, of course not!” stammered Ben. “She just meant you have pretty wings.”
Flattered, the sand-elves giggled, and one fluttered down to settle on Ben’s hand. Enchanted, he lifted the little creature in the air to look at it more closely. It weighed no more than a feather. But when the boy carefully raised his other hand to touch its iridescent wings all the elves flew away.
Firedrake turned his head around to them. “What next, Sorrel?” he asked. The little creatures were turning somersaults all over his spines.
“You could shoo them off with a puff of dragon-fire,” suggested Sorrel. “I’ve no idea how they’d react, but we have to get moving.”
The dragon nodded. Then Twigleg suddenly reached his arm out from under Ben’s jacket and pinched the boy’s hand.
“Ouch!” cried Ben, looking down at the homunculus in surprise.
“Young master!” whispered Twigleg. “Young master, I know how to get rid of them. Lift me up!”
Luckily the elves were occupied with sliding down Firedrake’s tail. Mukarrib and Bilqis were turning cartwheels in the air, and the three elves who had perched on Ben’s shoulders were dancing around and around in the air above Sorrel’s head. Ben took Twigleg out of his jacket and put him on his shoulder.
“Wish me luck,” whispered the manikin. “I hope they react like the mountain-elves I know.” Then he cleared his throat, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice:
