Griffin's Feather Page 4

  Barnabas crouched on the bed of down and straw, and examined the walls, which were now covered with woollen cobwebs. ‘Vita says the stallion isn’t eating,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure Holly Undset will change that,’ said Ben, sitting down too. ‘Remember the water horse that wouldn’t eat? It was half dead when we pulled it out of the fjord, but two visits from Undset, and soon it got its appetite back and swam right over the fjord with Guinevere on its back!’

  Barnabas nodded. ‘So it did. Thanks for reminding me. I only wish we could tell Undset more about Pegasi! No one disputes that they were born from the blood of a Medusa, but even I don’t know much more about them, in spite of all the years I’ve been studying them. They’re still shyer and more suspicious than ordinary wild horses, and they can be very dangerous if they think there’s any threat to them. We should be glad if Ànemos will let Undset examine him. It’s little short of miraculous that Vita managed to persuade him to come here. Very likely he agreed only because he’s still numb from the loss of his partner.’

  Behind them, a few fungus-folk were smoothing down the straw for the Pegasus nest. Four of them looked like walking fly agarics, the other two like button mushrooms with arms and legs. The fungus-folk made no secret of their dislike of human beings, but they eagerly mucked out the stables of MÍMAMEIĐR because the dirty straw was very useful to them in their work of raising mushrooms. Fungus-folk, mist-ravens, hedgehog-men – many fabulous creatures from the surrounding forests worked at MÍMAMEIĐR in exchange for food, clothing, or accommodation. It made it easier for them all to survive, particularly in winter.

  Ben pulled one of the silvery goose feathers out of the straw and stroked its shimmering down. ‘Do you know what a griffin’s sun-feather looks like?’ he asked Barnabas.

  ‘They’re larger than your hand, and look as if they were made of pure gold. All the same, they’re said to be as light and soft as the goose feather you’re holding. Sounds like magic, don’t you think?’

  Yes, it did.

  ‘Do you know,’ Barnabas whispered, ‘I’m beginning to quite like the idea of going in search of those creatures. Even if it’s definitely not nice to think that the survival of the last Pegasi may depend on the generosity of a griffin. One of my heroes, the great Nahgib Said Nasruddin, left extensive accounts of a pride of griffins that he observed in South Anatolia over eight hundred years ago. The last entries in his records were written by Nasruddin’s servant, because the leader of the pride had torn off his arm and kept him for years in a basket, like a bird. A powerful prince had ransomed him with a chest full of gold. In the account that Nasruddin dictated to his servant, he says: “Never approach a griffin without gold. The lions of the sky love only war better than their treasures.”’

  It certainly didn’t sound as if you could simply ask a griffin for one of its feathers as a gift.

  ‘Do you know where we could look for them?’ A firemander scuttled across Ben’s hand. It felt like hot wax running over his skin. ‘Didn’t Jane Gridall say no trace of them has been found for hundreds of years?’

  Barnabas took his glasses off his nose and began polishing the lenses with his shirt tail. By now Ben was as familiar with that process as if Barnabas Greenbloom had always been his father. That was a good feeling.

  ‘Decades ago there was a rumour that a pride of griffins was living on an Indonesian island,’ said Barnabas. ‘Although I must admit that’s not very precise information. After all, there are over seventeen thousand islands in the Indonesian archipelagos. And even if we do find griffins, the feather will be no use to us unless we can make it back here to MÍMAMEIĐR ten days from now at the latest. Not much time for the journey, our search, and negotiations with the griffins. But three Pegasus foals!’ Barnabas perched his glasses back on his nose and put his arm around Ben’s shoulders. ‘Did you know that the birth of a Pegasus is said to bring seven times seven years of good luck? The world could do with that amount of luck, don’t you think? We’re going to save those foals! Even if I have to let a griffin tear my own arm off in return! Although please don’t repeat that within earshot of Vita and Guinevere!’

  The stable door opened.

  Hothbrodd put his head around it, but before a word could pass his green lips, Twigleg scuttled between his legs.

  ‘He’s here, master!’ he cried in his shrill voice.

  Even for a homunculus more than four hundred years old, the last Pegasus is exciting.

  ‘Can you speak Indonesian, Twigleg?’ Ben whispered as he lifted the manikin up to his shoulder. He felt embarrassed to admit that he didn’t know just where Indonesia was.

  ‘It all depends, master,’ replied Twigleg. ‘There are over seven hundred languages spoken in Indonesia. I’m fluent only in Sundanese and Minangkabau, but I can make myself understood pretty well in ten other dialects.’

  Ben could never work out how such a tiny head could hold so much knowledge. His own, by comparison, seemed to him like an empty and very dusty attic. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine how he had ever managed without Twigleg. And yes, of course it would have been good to know of a safer way to save the Pegasus foals than finding a sun-feather, yet he kept on wondering what it would be like to meet a griffin. Were griffins as terrifying as basilisks? Or as Twigleg’s old master Nettlebrand, who still haunted Ben in his nightmares? Did their front legs end in birds’ claws, or in lions’ paws like their hind legs? The pictures he had seen didn’t agree with each other.

  And then Ben forgot the griffins.

  Outside the stable, the night was glittering with glow-worms and the fluttering of gleaming fairies. Even the stars seemed to shine more brightly, and the wind in the trees rustled in welcome. It was as if, suddenly, the whole world was made of nothing but music and light.

  The last Pegasus had come to MÍMAMEIĐR.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Last Pegasus

  O, for a horse with wings!

  William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act 3, Scene 2

  If you were friends with a dragon you met many wonderful beings. Every one of them had given Ben precious memories, but none had enchanted him as much as Firedrake himself – until he saw the winged stallion standing beside Guinevere in the yard. The happiness that Ben felt when he was near Firedrake was made of air and fire, of silver moonlight, of the power of flames dancing in the wind. The Pegasus made him feel a very different kind of happiness. It tasted of earth, of driving clouds and thunder, grass wet with dew, and starlight caught in feathers and fur.

  Ànemos was not much larger than an ordinary horse, and certainly not white, like most of the pictures you see of winged horses. His coat and his wings were the dull red of the light of the setting sun. Only his hooves were as silver as Firedrake’s scales.

  So much strength and beauty. So much light. But sorrow for the loss of his companion surrounded the Pegasus like a second shadow. Vita and Guinevere followed Hothbrodd as he carried the eggs into the stable. Ànemos, however, went over to Barnabas, his hooves heavy with despair.

  ‘Thank you, Greenbloom,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Sadness cripples my wings and my mind, and it is difficult for me not to give up my children for lost, like their mother. It comforts me to see that you still have hope.’

  Barnabas found it terribly difficult not to tell the Pegasus about the griffin’s feather, but Ànemos would want to come with them, just as Firedrake would, and griffins would be even more dangerous to him than to the dragon.

  ‘Yes, I still have hope,’ replied Barnabas. ‘But first we must make sure you get your strength back. I have asked the doctor who treats the fabulous creatures entrusted to our care to come. I hope you’ll let her examine you?’

  ‘A doctor?’ The Pegasus bent his head. ‘She will find a broken heart, Barnabas. Can anyone live with that?’

  Holly Undset didn’t keep them waiting long. She was neither very tall nor very slim, she changed the colour of her hair every month, she liked Norwegian sweaters too large for her,
and she almost dropped her medical bag when she saw Ànemos standing outside the stable. His red coat shone in the moonlight as if he were a copper statue woken to glorious life. Undset gave Barnabas a happy smile to thank him for all the magic that he had shown her. Then she asked the Pegasus to follow her into the stable. When she came out again, she looked both relieved and concerned.

  ‘He’s healthy, so far as I can tell,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ve never treated a Pegasus before, although their anatomy is surprisingly like a horse’s. But such sadness! The foals are probably our only hope of giving him new courage to live. If he loses his children too…’ Undset shook her head anxiously. ‘You must save them, Barnabas!’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Barnabas replied. ‘I only wish we had more time. ‘

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Long Way and Not Much Time

  Living wild species are like a library of books still unread.

  Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning

  the library without ever having read its books.

  Congressman John D. Dingell, ‘The Endangered

  Species Act: Legislative Perspectives on a Living Law’

  The room where Gilbert Greytail drew his maps was difficult for humans to enter, not to speak of trolls like Hothbrodd. Even for visitors of Twigleg’s size, the pathways through Gilbert’s mountains of books and journals were like menacingly narrow ravines. In the harbour warehouse where Ben had met the white rat for the first time, things had looked much the same. Gilbert’s research material was stacked everywhere, and could easily topple over. Three days ago a nisse child had been buried under the mounds of paper, but luckily nisses were a very resilient species.

  Guinevere had opened the door with the utmost caution, as she always did, but she and Ben still sank up to the knees in what came to meet them. The avalanche didn’t consist solely of books, cartons and index cards. There were press cuttings and printouts, and they were all mixed up with seashells, picture postcards, travel souvenirs and goose feathers. It was almost miraculous that in the midst of all this chaos, Gilbert could draw maps that gave the Greenblooms very accurate images of the world.

  ‘Gilbert?’

  As usual, Ben couldn’t spot the rat amidst the chaos, until Guinevere pointed up to the sheet of Perspex that Hothbrodd had fitted among the shelves a few weeks ago, at Gilbert’s request. A rat’s tail was dangling over the edge of it, and looking through the Perspex Ben could see Gilbert sitting at a desk that was enormous for someone of his size. The rat could be heard muttering curses: cursing the ink that dried too slowly, the paint that refused to flow from his pen exactly as he had hoped, the paper that wouldn’t lie flat… The bad language that Gilbert mixed into his curses showed that he had grown up as a ship’s rat. It was better not to mention either that, or the rumour that Gilbert Greytail had become a cartographer because he was prone to sea-sickness. The rat had been convinced to draw his wonderfully comprehensive maps in Norway, instead of the city of Hamburg with its warehouses, after the Greenblooms agreed to employ all his main informants as well: an albatross, two seagulls, a grey goose and a dozen ship’s rats. He had also demanded a new computer. But Gilbert’s talents were worth all that.

  ‘We’ve come about the new map, Gilbert,’ Guinevere called up to him. ‘The map for the journey to Indonesia. My father wants to leave soon. Is it ready?’

  Barnabas had announced his decision just before midnight. Yes, they would go looking for the griffins. Vita was not particularly happy about that, but the sight of the mourning Pegasus and the three orphaned eggs left her no choice.

  ‘Hello, Guinevere!’ The rat’s tail disappeared, and Gilbert looked down at her through his gold-framed glasses. The white paws clutching the edge of the Perspex sheet were stained with ink. ‘Of course the map is ready.’ Gilbert’s voice was as soft as the down of baby chicks – it always was when he spoke to Guinevere. Otherwise it was more like the sound of sandpaper.

  ‘Unfortunately the information about the location of your destination was vague. So I’ve also put in parts of Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and the Philippines. Lyo-lyok?’

  The head of a grey goose appeared beside Gilbert. Ben had been wondering who was the owner of the webbed feet that he could see through the Perspex. Lyo-lyok took the folded map in his beak and flew gracefully down to a pile of paper within reach of Guinevere.

  ‘I assume the homunculus is going to keep a record of the journey again?’ called Gilbert, as Guinevere took delivery of the map from the goose. ‘Tell him to improve his handwriting, please. It took me days to decipher his account of the kraken mission!’

  ‘I certainly will!’ Ben shouted up to the rat, although he had no intention of doing any such thing. Twigleg could take great offence if anyone criticised his handwriting. He was proud of every ornate flourish.

  Gilbert’s maps fitted easily into any jacket pocket, but when Guinevere unfolded his latest masterpiece on the big table in the library, it took up so much space that Barnabas had to move the collection of fossilised paw prints and hoof prints away. Gilbert’s maps were works of art on paper. You could unfold them again and again, and still see new details that the rat had hidden in some fold or other, even weeks later. Safe paths and places to stay, obstacles and dangers – you could even pick up information about the weather from Gilbert’s maps, and Ben had often wondered whether the rat wasn’t working with some kind of magic himself.

  At the request of Barnabas, Gilbert had marked two routes to help them search for the griffins. Barnabas was going to take the one shown in red ink. It included a stopover in south-east Turkey. The other route, in emerald green, was the one that Firedrake would take on his return to the Rim of Heaven. The two of them intersected in India, and so Firedrake had suggested that Ben could fly to that point with him and Sorrel – an offer that Ben, of course, had happily accepted. Fortunately there were three pairs of phoenixes in south Vietnam, so the dragon had not been surprised by the planning of that route. Those few who really knew where their mission was taking them had been pledged to secrecy by Barnabas himself, so that neither Firedrake nor the Pegasus would learn of it. It was not the first secret that had to be kept in MÍMAMEIĐR.

  Hothbrodd had built the aircraft in which Barnabas would travel, like the freight plane that had brought the Pegasus to MÍMAMEIĐR, almost entirely of wood. The troll could persuade almost any tree to grow exactly the branches that he needed for his work. He had made the plane that the Greenblooms used for long-haul flights like this one with the help of an oak four hundred years old; it had put out branches specially suited for the wings. The elevator, loading hatch and propulsion drives were made of stormwood – whatever that might be. Hothbrodd was giving nothing away about that, any more than he would describe the engine itself, which would run on leaves, sand or seawater. James Spotiswode had spent many nights studying it without discovering its secret. ‘I talk to it,’ was all that the troll would mutter if he was asked. The plane could take between four and eight passengers (changing size according to the number). It could come down on water as easily as on land, and looked fantastic, because Hothbrodd had covered it – like all his constructions – with Viking carvings.

  There had been hardly any discussion about who exactly was to go on the griffin mission. Vita and Guinevere were staying behind to look after Ànemos and, together with Undset, make sure that the eggs did not get chilled before the expedition returned, it was to be hoped with the feather they needed. Another member of Barnabas’s team, as well as Ben and Twigleg, would be Lola Greytail, one of Gilbert’s many cousins, who was not just the only female rat aviator but also FREEFAB’s most valuable scout (among many other reasons, thanks to the fact that her plane was not much larger than a crow, and so was equally inconspicuous).

  At first Hothbrodd was far from enthusiastic when Barnabas asked him to be the fifth member of his team. Trolls are extremely reluctant to leave their native forests. But when Ben filled the screens in the libr
ary with pictures of all the trees to be found in the Indonesian jungle, the troll growled with resignation and set about packing.

  Their precise destination was still uncertain, so Gilbert had drawn another map on the back of the first. It showed the many islands of Indonesia, and was anything but an encouraging sight. Where were they going to find a guide through that labyrinth of islands, someone who was both discreet and wouldn’t think them crazy when they revealed what they were looking for? Barnabas had a couple of former colleagues in Indonesia, but when Vita offered to get in touch with them he shook his head. ‘I doubt whether a human guide is the most promising solution on this trip. But I have another idea. Do you remember the Indian temple that the Whispering Cobra told us about?’

  Vita gave him a knowing smile, but when Ben asked more about the temple, all Barnabas would say was, ‘Wait and see. But I promise you, it’s an interesting place!’ He was rather more willing to talk about their stopover in Turkey. ‘I’ve asked an old friend there to get me something that we can barter for the feather,’ he said. ‘As you’ve heard, griffins are very materialistic creatures. I’m afraid it would be no use even setting out if we arrive empty-handed.’

  Empty-handed…

  Vita and Guinevere tried hard not to look too worried when, in another Skype session, Inua Ellams once again warned Barnabas earnestly about the aggressive instincts of griffins. In dealing with even the most legendary of monsters, the Greenblooms themselves preferred to use not weapons, but cunning and their knowledge of those creatures’ weaknesses – and generally weapons were no use against fabulous beings anyway. Years ago, Vita had discovered a plant poison that could immobilise even the most dangerous of them for a few life-saving seconds, and Ben and Twigleg had developed tiny arrows to inject the poison under any skin, however tough. They were fired off from fountain pens and ballpoints, but Ben had also used drinking straws, cigars, mobile phones and chocolate bars. As on all FREEFAB missions, those arrows would be their only weapons.