Dragon Rider (Dragon Rider 1)

“The Gon-Khang,” murmured Guinevere. “That’s its Tibetan name. Okay, if you really want to know….”

When Barnabas Greenbloom came down the steps of the great prayer hall with Firedrake and the lama, he found Ben and his daughter still on the wall. Between them were Lola Graytail and Twigleg, both snoring. The children were so deep in conversation that they hadn’t heard the others coming.

“I don’t like to disturb you two,” said Barnabas Greenbloom, coming up behind them, “but Ben could try breaking the moonlight now. The lama has brought him one of the sacred stones.”

The monk opened his hands to reveal the white stone. It had a radiant glow even in the daylight. Ben got off the wall and carefully took the moonstone.

“Where’s Sorrel?” asked Firedrake, looking around for her.

“In bed,” replied Guinevere. “Full of breakfast and snoring.”

“You astonish me!” Her father grinned. “And what has our friend the rat to report?”

“Not a sign of Nettlebrand,” replied Ben, looking at the moonstone, which he thought seemed darker in the sunlight.

“Well, that’s a relief.” Barnabas Greenbloom looked at his daughter. “Don’t you think so, Guinevere?”

Guinevere frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, taking his daughter and Ben by their arms. “Let’s go find Sorrel and Vita, and then our dragon rider can see about solving the puzzle the djinn gave him. I haven’t been in such suspense for ages. I wonder what sort of creature will appear when Ben breaks that stone?”

40. Work for Gravelbeard

But Lola Graytail was wrong. Nettlebrand was lurking on the bed of the river Indus, sunk deep in the mud, just where the shadow of the monastery buildings fell on the water. The river ran so deep there that not the faintest reflection of Nettlebrand’s golden scales could reach the surface. He lay waiting patiently for his armor-cleaner to return.

Before Nettlebrand had dived deep into the river, Gravelbeard had jumped to the bank and hidden among some tufts of grass. And when, after a long day and half a night, Firedrake came flying out of the mountains to land behind the white walls of the monastery, the mountain dwarf set off. He trudged on, through fields and past huts, until at last he reached the mountain with the monastery on its slope.

Then Gravelbeard climbed.

The mountain was high, very high, but Gravelbeard was a mountain dwarf. He loved climbing almost as much as he loved gold. The solid rock of the mountain whispered and spoke under Gravelbeard’s fingers as if it had been waiting for him, and him alone, all this time. It told him tales of vast caverns with columns made of precious stones and veins of gold ore, and caves where strange creatures lived. Gravelbeard chuckled with delight as he scaled the rocky slope. He could have climbed forever, but by the time day slowly dawned above the peaks, he was hauling himself over the top of the low wall surrounding the monastery. Cautiously he peered down into the courtyard.

Gravelbeard had arrived just in time to see Firedrake and his friends disappear into the Dhu-Khang. The dwarf even followed them up the steps, but the heavy door of the hall was already closed before he reached the top, and hard as he tried to open it just a crack with his short, strong fingers, it wouldn’t budge.

“Too bad,” muttered the dwarf, looking around, “but they’ll have to come out again sometime.” He looked around the courtyard for a hiding place where he could keep watch on the steps and the courtyard unobserved. It wasn’t difficult to find a suitable gap in the old walls.

“Just the place,” whispered Gravelbeard as he pushed in among the stones. “Could have been made for me.” And then he waited.

He had chosen his hiding place well. Admittedly, when Firedrake and the others came out of the prayer hall again, Gravelbeard couldn’t see much apart from the feet of countless monks in their well-worn sandals. But when all the monks were up in the Dhu-Khang praying, Ben and Guinevere came and sat down on the wall only a stone’s throw away from him.

So now Gravelbeard learned that a flying rat had been out looking for his master but had failed to find him; and he discovered that the boy really did believe Nettlebrand had been buried in the desert sand. The dwarf saw the stone in the lama’s hand and heard about the djinn’s riddle. He saw Ben take the stone, and when Firedrake and his dragon riders went with the monk to try solving the riddle, Gravelbeard stole after them.

41. Burr-Burr-Chan

The lama led his guests to the other side of the monastery grounds and the place where the Gon-Khang and the Lha-Khang stood, one the Temple of the Angry Gods and the other the Temple of the Kindly Gods. And scurrying from wall to wall Gravelbeard, Nettlebrand’s spy, came after them.

As they were passing the red temple, the lama stopped. Vita Greenbloom had joined her husband.

“This,” she said, translating what the lama said, “is the Temple of the Angry Gods, who are said to keep all evil from the monastery and the village.”

“What sort of evil?” asked Sorrel, looking around uneasily.

“Evil spirits,” replied the lama, “and snowstorms, avalanches, rockfalls, disease —”

“Starvation?” added Sorrel.

The lama smiled. “Starvation, too.”

A strange shivery feeling came over Gravelbeard. Weak at the knees, he stole past the dark red walls. His breath was coming faster, and he felt as if hands were reaching out to him from the temple, hands ready to seize him and drag him into the darkness.