The boy looked down at his feet uncomfortably.
“Oh, come on!” Sorrel chuckled skeptically. “We found him in a pile of old packing cases. A stack of crates and cardboard cartons on the other side of the world, and he didn’t know a thing about dragons and brownies, not a single thing.”
“That’s true,” said Firedrake. He bent his neck over Ben’s shoulder. “But he has become a dragon rider now, Sorrel, a true dragon rider. There aren’t many of those in the world. There never were many, even when dragons could still roam freely and didn’t have to hide. In my view,” he said, raising his head and looking around, “whether or not there’s something of the old dragon rider in him, here he is, and perhaps he really can help us defeat Nettlebrand. One thing fits, anyway.” Firedrake nudged Ben and gently blew the hair back from his face. “He’s as pale as the moon. In fact, rather paler at the moment, I’d say.”
Feeling rather embarrassed, Ben grinned at the dragon.
“Huh!” Sorrel picked up one of the fragrant petals and held it under her nose. “I’m a dragon rider, too, you know! I’ve been a dragon rider ever since I can remember. But no one’s making a big fuss about me.”
“You’re not exactly as pale as the moon, are you?” said Twigleg, scrutinizing her furry face. “More the color of storm clouds, if you ask me.”
Sorrel stuck out her tongue at him. “No one did ask you,” she snapped.
Professor Greenbloom cleared his throat and leaned against the old sarcophagus, evidently thinking hard.
“My dear Zubeida,” he said, “I assume you showed us this old inscription because you think Firedrake should not turn back, despite his sinister pursuer. Right?”
The dracologist nodded. “Right. Firedrake has come so far, and so many people have helped him along the way — I just can’t believe all that was for nothing. And I think it’s time for the dragons to fight back and banish Nettlebrand forever, instead of hiding away from him. Could there be a better opportunity?” She looked around at them. “We have a dragon with nothing more to lose, a brownie girl who can make enchanted ravens fall from the sky, a human boy who’s a true dragon rider and is even mentioned in an old prophecy, a homunculus who knows almost all his master’s secrets” — her bangles jingled as she raised her arms — “and a great many people who long to see dragons flying in the sky again. Oh, yes, I think Firedrake should continue his quest, but first I must tell him how to fly at the dark time of the moon.”
It was very quiet in the tomb of the dragon rider. They were all gazing intently at the dragon. Thoughtfully Firedrake looked down at the ground. At last he raised his head, looked steadily at them all, and nodded.
“I’ll fly on,” he said. “Perhaps what the writing on the stone says is true. Perhaps the prophecy really does mean us. But before we go on, I’d like Twigleg to see if he can find out where his master is now.” He looked at the homunculus, a question in his eyes. “Will you do that, Twigleg?”
Twigleg felt his legs beginning to tremble, but he nodded. “I’ll try,” he whispered. “As true as my name’s Twigleg and I was born in a test tube.”
When they returned to the village, it was deserted. The midday heat beat down, and the air seemed too thick to breathe. Even the children were out of sight. But the villagers were busy in their huts, cooking and baking, and their excited voices could be heard behind the colorful curtains.
“The whole village is expecting you to bring us luck,” Zubeida told Firedrake on the way to her hut. “They believe that dragon scales shed good luck like gold dust; they think it will settle on our rooftops and in the nets of our fishermen and stay with us long after you and your friends have flown away.”
“We must leave tonight,” said Firedrake. “The sooner we start, the harder it will be for Nettlebrand to follow us.”
Zubeida nodded. “Yes, you’re right. But if I am to help you outwit the moon when it is dark, you must wait until it is high in the sky tonight. Come with me.”
She led Firedrake and the others around behind her hut, where she had fenced in a plot of land. She had been growing flowers there, flowers with prickly leaves and tightly closed buds.
“As you all know, most plants need sunlight to live and grow,” explained Zubeida, leaning on the fence. “This flower is different. It lives on the light of the moon.”
“Extraordinary,” murmured Barnabas Greenbloom.
Vita leaned over the fence for a closer view of the strange plants. “I’ve never seen a flower like that before, Zubeida,” she said. “Where did you find it?”
The dracologist smiled. “I found the seeds up there in the dragon rider’s tomb. The plants that must once have lain there fell to dust long ago, but the seeds were still scattered around the sarcophagus. So I collected them, soaked them in water for a few days, and then sowed them here. You see the results before you. The petals we walked on in the tomb are the remains of my last harvest. I dry the flowers up there to get new seed. I’ve called them dragon-flowers — what else?” Zubeida Ghalib smiled and stroked one of the tightly closed buds. “They open only in moonlight, and then the blue flowers are so fragrant that moths come flying around them as if they were lamps. But most wonderful of all: The longer the moon shines down on them the brighter they glow, until the moonlight collects on their petals and leaves like dewdrops.”
“Amazing!” Barnabas Greenbloom looked at the dragon-flowers, fascinated. “Did you discover that by chance, or did someone tell you about these plants?”
“Can you say exactly what chance means, Barnabas?” replied Zubeida. “I remembered the age-old stories in which dragons once flew through the sky even by day. But only the oldest stories of all tell that tale. Why? I asked myself. How was it that a time came when dragons could fly only by moonlight? I looked for an answer in the inscriptions up at the tomb, and it was there — call it by chance if you like — that I found the seeds. I believe the dragon rider was on the track of the secret himself. After all, the dragon who cured him with dragon-fire came on a moonless night, didn’t he?” She looked into Firedrake’s golden eyes. “I believe these flowers gave that dragon the strength to fly, and the dew that collects on them has the power of the moon in it.”
“You think so?” Sorrel scrambled under the fence and sniffed the prickly leaves. “But you’ve never tried it out, have you?”
The dracologist shook her head. “How could I? Firedrake is the first live dragon I’ve ever met. And there’s no other creature that can rise in the air only with the aid of moonlight.”
“Hear that?” Sorrel turned to Firedrake. “You might just as easily fall out of the sky like a stone if you put your faith in these prickly things.”
Firedrake shook his wings. “Perhaps we won’t need their help, Sorrel. Perhaps we will have reached the Rim of Heaven long before the next dark time of the moon. But suppose there’s another eclipse, like the one over the sea? Suppose the moon disappears while we’re above mountains?”
Sorrel shook herself. “Oh, all right. You have a point.” She plucked a leaf from a flower and nibbled the tip of it suspiciously. “Doesn’t taste bad. More like catmint than moonlight, though, if you ask me.”
