Gravelbeard had opened up a long crack, thin as a thread, in the dragon’s stony shell. When he raised his hammer again to widen it by just a fraction, the stone quivered beneath his feet, very faintly, barely perceptibly. Gravelbeard put his ear to the crack and listened. A rustling noise came from it, the sound of scales scraping against rough stone. More fine lines cracked open beneath the dwarf’s feet. He leaped clear and landed on the sleeping boy’s soft stomach.
“Ouch!” Ben sat up in alarm. “What’s up?”
Twigleg rubbed his eyes, dazed.
“Done it!” cried Gravelbeard, dancing around on Ben’s stomach in his stout boots.
Twigleg turned to the stone dragons.
“Listen, young master!” he whispered.
But Ben had already heard it for himself. Sounds of snorting and groaning were coming from the stone.
“Firedrake!” Ben grabbed Twigleg and Gravelbeard and leaped back. “Firedrake, wake up! He’s moving!”
The others all woke with a start.
“What’s up?” cried Lola, jumping out of her plane.
“He’s hatching out!” cried Ben. With two bounds, the rat was on his shoulder.
The gray stone into which Gravelbeard had driven his hammer cracked, crumbled, crunched open—and burst into a thousand pieces.
They all retreated in alarm.
Dusty and coughing, limbs stiff, a dragon crept out of the ruins. His eyes were still half-closed. He struggled out with faltering steps, shaking a few stones off his scales, and opened his eyes. Confused, he looked around him, like someone waking from a dream.
Maia took a step toward him. “Shimmertail,” she said. “Do you recognize me?”
For a few moments, the dragon just looked at her. Then, slowly, he stretched out his neck and sniffed.
“Maia,” he said. “What’s happened?”
He turned his head to Firedrake, who was standing behind Maia. “Who are you, and” — he added, staring at the brownies and Ben, who had Gravelbeard, Twigleg, and Lola all on his shoulders — “who are these?”
“One of them’s a Dubidai!” replied Burr-Burr-Chan, crossing his four arms. “Remember them, Shimmertail?”
Shimmertail nodded, still confused. Then his gaze fell on the molten remains of Nettlebrand’s armor, and he flinched back in alarm.
“He’s here!” he whispered. “The Golden One is here, too!”
“No, he was here!” said Sorrel, scratching her stomach. “But we melted him down.”
“Well, not us exactly,” added Burr-Burr-Chan. “Firedrake and Maia did it.”
Shimmertail took another cautious step toward Maia. “You defeated the Golden One? Just the two of you?” He shook his head and closed his eyes in disbelief. “This is a dream,” he murmured. “A beautiful dream. It must be.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Maia, nudging him until he opened his eyes again. “The golden dragon is dead.”
“Or sort of dead, anyway,” added Ben.
Shimmertail turned to the boy in amazement. “The dragon rider!” he whispered.
Maia nodded and blew the stone dust off Shimmertail’s forehead. “The dragon rider has come back, and the Golden One is defeated.”
“Just like the old stories,” murmured Shimmertail, gazing at Nettlebrand’s molten armor. “Like the stories you always used to tell, Maia.”
“But it wasn’t the stories that defeated him,” said Ben, putting Lola and the dwarf down on the ground.
“No, it wasn’t, it was us!” cried Sorrel, spreading her arms wide. “All of us together. Brownies, dragons, the little human, the homunculus, the rat, the mountain dwarf. A story to melt anyone’s heart!” She chuckled. “Sad to say, you slept through the whole thing. Like them.”
She pointed to the other dragons, still crouching motionless inside their stony skins. Shimmertail went over to them. He stood among the ruins of his own stone shell, unable to take it all in.
“What happened?” he asked softly. “Tell me, Maia. What’s all this if it isn’t a dream?”
The she-dragon went over to him and gently nuzzled his dusty flank. “Does that feel like a dream? No, you’re awake. The mountain dwarf there woke you.”
Gravelbeard proudly thrust out his chest.
“Will he wake the others, too?” asked Shimmertail.
The dwarf crossed his arms and grinned. “Of course. If we can make a little deal.”
“Just like you!” called Twigleg from Ben’s shoulder. “Exactly what I expected you to say, slate-brain. A dwarf never does anything for free. What do you want? Gold? Jewels?”
“No!” cried Gravelbeard indignantly. “Nothing like that, you spidery-legged homunculus. Like I said before, I want to stay in this cave and tap at its walls just a little. Clean and polish up its beauty. And maybe pick out a tiny little stone now and then. That’s all.”
Maia looked down at him with an ironic smile. “You’ll pick out more than one little stone, dwarf,” she said. “You’re greedy. All the same, we’ll let you stay here if you wake the other dragons.”
Gravelbeard bowed so low to her that he had to hold his hat on.
“I’ll wake them!” he cried. “All of them, Your Silverness, all of them. I’ll set to work at once.”
And with his hammer already in his hand again, he climbed the nearest petrified dragon’s tail and started chipping away as if his old master were breathing down his neck.
Firedrake and Maia took the dusty Shimmertail between them and led him down the long tunnel to the outside world, where he had not set paw for more than a thousand nights. The black ravens had disappeared. The three dragons flew over the valley in the light of the thin sickle of the waning moon, and Shimmertail washed the dust off his scales in the lake.
The toad that had lent Nettlebrand its life sat on the bank, watching. And with every moonbeam that fell on the scales of the silver dragons, its dark memories faded.
55. What Now?
At noon the next day, Firedrake was perched on a rocky outcrop high above the valley, unable to sleep. Gravelbeard’s tapping and hammering had driven him out of the great cavern. The light and warmth of the sun usually made him sleepy, but it wasn’t working today. Firedrake kept raising his head from his paws, looking at the surrounding peaks, and sighing.
After a while, Ben joined him. He climbed the rocks, sat down beside the dragon, and looked at him anxiously. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why aren’t you resting?”
“I can’t seem to fall asleep,” said Firedrake. “What are the others doing?”
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, nothing special. Well, no one’s asleep. Sorrel is getting Burr-Burr-Chan to explain the Dubidai method of cultivating mushrooms. Maia is telling Shimmertail all about what happened while he was asleep. Gravelbeard is tapping away, and Twigleg’s flying on a sightseeing trip with Lola.”
“Really?” Firedrake nodded and then sighed again.
“What are you going to do now?” Ben looked inquiringly at the dragon. “I mean, are you going straight home to the north now that you’ve found this valley?”
