With a shrill cackle, the monster spread its spiny wings. Dead beetles and spiders dropped out of its plumage. “Don’t you know my name?” it screeched. “Don’t you know my name, fire-worm? I am the worst nightmare in the world, and you have woken me from my sleep. You are the light, but I am the deepest darkness, and I shall swallow you up. The two of us cannot be in the same place, any more than night and day can ever exist together.”
Firedrake stood there as if rooted to the ground. He tried to move. He wanted to breathe dragon-fire and drive the horrible cockerel-headed creature back into the crevice in the rock from which it had crawled, but he simply could not move at all. The monster’s eyes began to flash. The spines on its head quivered.
“Look at me, fire-worm!” whispered the yellow monster. “Look — deep — into — my eyes.”
Firedrake wanted to turn away, but those red eyes held him spellbound. They were filling his head with a black fog that was smothering everything he knew.
Suddenly a sharp pain roused him from his daze. Someone had stepped on his tail — hard. Firedrake whipped around and saw a man standing in the cave entrance, a man as thin as a rake and wearing shorts. He was holding a large round mirror high above his head.
Firedrake heard the monster behind him beat its wings.
“Move aside, dragon!” the man called. “Quick! Move aside, and don’t look at it if you value your life!”
“No, look at me, fire-worm!” screeched the cockerel-headed monster, lashing the rocks with its snaky tail. “Look at me!”
But Firedrake looked at the man instead, stepped aside — and the monster saw its own reflection.
It uttered a shriek so terrible that the sound echoed in Firedrake’s ears for days to come. Then it flapped its wings until the entire floor of the cavern was covered with poison-yellow feathers, puffed itself up so that the spines on its head touched the roof of the cavern … and burst into a thousand pieces.
Incredulous, Firedrake looked at the place where the monster had just been standing.
The man beside him, exhausted, lowered the mirror.
“My word, that was a close shave!” he sighed, propping the mirror against the cave wall.
Firedrake, still dazed, stood staring at the remains of the monster. Nothing was left of it but feathers and stinking dust.
The man cleared his throat and cautiously approached the dragon.
“May I introduce myself?” He bowed slightly. “Barnabas Greenbloom, Professor of Archaeology, special subject fantastic phenomena of every kind. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”
Firedrake nodded. He still felt numb.
“May I ask you,” Barnabas Greenbloom continued, “to breathe a little dragon-fire over the remains of that terrible creature? It’s the only way we can prevent the cave from being contaminated for hundreds of years. What’s more,” he added, holding his large nose, “it would get rid of this disgusting smell.”
Firedrake was still staring at the man in some amazement, but he did as he was asked. When he breathed blue fire on the monster’s remains they crumbled into a fine silver dust that filled the whole cavern with glittering light.
“Ah!” cried the professor. “Doesn’t that look wonderful? Yet again we see that beauty can arise from the worst of horrors, wouldn’t you agree?”
Firedrake nodded. “What sort of creature was it?” he asked.
“That,” said Barnabas Greenbloom, sitting down on a rock and mopping his brow, “that, my friend, was a basilisk. A fabulous creature like yourself, but one of the more sinister kind.”
“A basilisk?” The dragon shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Fortunately such monsters are very, very rare,” explained the professor. “The mere sound of their voices or one glance from their terrible eyes is usually enough to kill. In your place any mortal would be dead now, but even a basilisk can’t destroy a dragon so easily.”
“You destroyed it, though,” said Firedrake. “With nothing more than a mirror.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Barnabas Greenbloom with an embarrassed smile and ran a hand through his untidy gray hair. “There was no great skill in that, you know. A basilisk can’t survive the sight of its own reflection. As a matter of fact, I’ve never had a chance to try the theory out in real life until today, but that’s what all the books say, and books do sometimes get it right.”
The dragon looked at him thoughtfully. “I think you saved my life,” he said. “How can I thank you?”
“Don’t mention it!” The professor smiled at Firedrake. “It was an honor. Indeed, an extraordinary honor, I do assure you!” He was looking at the dragon with awe and admiration. “I could never even have dared to dream of meeting a dragon in my short human life span, you know. This is a very, very happy day for me.” Much moved, the professor rubbed his nose.
“You know a lot about what human beings call fabulous creatures, don’t you?” said Firedrake curiously, bending his neck down to Barnabas Greenbloom. “Most people don’t even know that we exist.”
“I’ve been doing research into the subject for more than thirty years,” replied the professor. “At the age of ten I was fortunate enough to find a woodland fairy caught up in the netting over a fruit tree in our garden. Since then, of course, no one has been able to convince me that fairies exist only in fairy tales. So why, I thought at the time, why shouldn’t all the other fabulous creatures exist, too? In the end I made it part of my professional career to seek them out — all the creatures described in the old tales, the most ancient stories of all. I’ve discussed rare minerals with dwarves, the flavor of tree bark with trolls, immortality with fairies, and enchantment with a fiery salamander. You, however, are the first dragon I’ve ever met. I was almost sure your species had died out.”