The serpent bent so close to Ben’s hand that the tip of her tongue brushed his arm. “Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, it could be. Put it against my neck.”
Ben looked at the serpent in surprise, but he did as she asked. When the golden scale touched the serpent’s iridescent neck, her whole body shuddered so violently that Firedrake almost fell off her back.
“Yes,” she hissed. “That is one of the monster’s scales. It looks like warm gold, but it burns like ice.”
“It’s always icy cold,” said Ben. “Even if you leave it out in the sun. I’ve experimented.” Carefully he put the scale back in his little bag. Twigleg had disappeared from view entirely.
“Fair cousin,” said the sea serpent, addressing the dragon politely, “you must take good care of your little human. Possessing something that belongs to so wild and rapacious a creature is not without its dangers. Perhaps the monster will want its property back one day, even if that property is only a single scale.”
“You’re right.” Firedrake turned to Ben, concern in his eyes. “Maybe you ought to throw that scale into the sea.”
But Ben shook his head. “No, please!” he said. “I really want to look after it for you, Firedrake. It was a present, don’t you see? Anyway, how would the monster know I have it?”
Firedrake nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, how would he know?” He looked up at the place of the moon in the sky. A faint rusty-red glow was beginning to return.
“Yes, the moon will soon be back,” said the serpent, following the direction of Firedrake’s gaze. “Do you wish to take to the air again, fiery cousin, or shall I carry you over the sea on my back? You’d have to tell me where you’re going, though.”
Surprised, Firedrake looked at the serpent. His wings were still heavy, and his limbs felt as weary as if he hadn’t slept for years.
“Go on, say yes!” said Ben, patting the dragon’s scales. “Let the serpent carry us. She won’t get lost, and you could have a good rest, couldn’t you?”
Firedrake turned his head to look at Sorrel.
“I expect I’ll be seasick,” she muttered. “All the same — yes, you really could do with a rest.”
Firedrake agreed and turned back to the serpent. “We are bound for the village on the coast where the dragons were attacked. Someone we want to visit lives there.”
The sea serpent nodded. “Then I will take you to the place,” she said.
23. The Stone
The great sea serpent carried the dragon and his friends over the Arabian Sea for two days and two nights. She did not fear daylight because she was not afraid of human beings, but at Firedrake’s request she steered a course through the sea where no ship ever sailed. Her scaly back was so broad that Firedrake could sleep on it, while Sorrel tucked into her provisions and Ben stretched his legs. When the sea was calm, the serpent glided over the water as if it were a green glass mirror. But if the waves surged rough and high, she raised the coils of her body so far into the air that not a drop of spray splashed into the faces of her four passengers.
Sorrel overcame her seasickness by eating the delicious leaves she had picked in the valley where the djinn lived. Firedrake slept almost all through their sea voyage. But Ben spent most of his time sitting behind the high crest on the sea serpent’s head, listening to her singsong voice as she told him about all the creatures hidden from him by the waters of the sea. He was spellbound by her tales of mermaids, ship-haunting sprites, eight-armed krakens, royal mermen and singing giant rays, luminous fish and coral gnomes, shark-faced demons and the children of the sea who ride on whales. Ben was so captivated by the sea serpent’s stories that he forgot about Twigleg in his backpack.
The homunculus crouched among Ben’s things with his heart thudding, listening to the sound of Sorrel smacking her lips and the soft hiss of the great serpent’s voice, and wondering with every breath he drew where his master might be.
Had Nettlebrand really gone off to the desert? Was he still stuck among the dunes? Had he realized yet that Twigleg had fooled him, or was he still searching for Firedrake’s tracks in the hot sand? Twigleg’s head was aching, ready to burst with all these questions, but worse, much worse, he was tormented by a sound that came to his keen ears on the second day of their voyage with the sea serpent. It was the hoarse croaking of a raven.
Strange and menacing, that sound rang through the roaring of the waves, drowned out the hissing of the serpent, and made Twigleg’s heart thump frantically. Cautiously he crawled a little way out of the backpack, which was still hanging from one of Firedrake’s spines. The dragon was breathing peacefully, fast asleep. High above them in the blue sky where the sun blazed, a black bird was circling among white seagulls.
Twigleg withdrew his head until only his nose emerged from the coarse fabric of the backpack. Much as Twigleg wanted to think so, that wasn’t just any old raven who had lost its way and had been carried by the wind to this part of the world. No, it certainly wasn’t. If only the gigantic serpent would simply rear up and lick it out of the sky with her tongue, like a frog catching a fly!
But the serpent didn’t so much as glance at the sky.
I must think of a good story for Nettlebrand, thought Twigleg. A very good story. Think of something, he told himself, think of something, why can’t you?
The manikin was not the only one to notice the raven. Darkness had hidden the black bird during the night, but Sorrel couldn’t miss him against the blue sky, and soon she was sure that he was following them. Carefully keeping her balance, she made her way along the serpent’s body to Ben, who was sitting in the shade of the creature’s shimmering crest and listening to a tale of two warring mermaid queens.
“Have you seen it?” Sorrel asked him, in some agitation.
The sea serpent turned her head in surprise, and Ben reluctantly made himself emerge from the underwater realm into which her stories carried him.
“Seen what?” he asked, watching a shoal of dolphins cross the serpent’s path.
“The raven, of course,” hissed Sorrel. “Look up there. Don’t you see it?”
“You’re right,” he said in surprise. “It really is a raven.”
“It’s following us,” growled Sorrel. “It’s been following us for quite some time, I’m sure it has. All through this voyage, I’ve had a feeling that one of those beaky creatures was after us. I’m beginning to think there was something in what that white rat said about someone sending out those ravens as scouts. Suppose the golden monster’s behind it? Suppose the ravens are his spies?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Ben narrowed his eyes. “Sounds a bit far-fetched.”
“And what about the birds that covered the moon?” asked Sorrel. “In the old days, when the dragons were trying to escape the monster? Those were ravens, weren’t they, serpent?”
The sea serpent nodded and swam more slowly.
“Black birds with red eyes,” she hissed. “They’re still sometimes seen on the coast to this day.”
“Hear that?” Sorrel bit her lip angrily. “Oh, moldy morels! If only I had a stone to throw. I’d soon send that black feathery thing packing.”
