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CHAPTER ONE

A New Place and New Friends

It was a greatborn a man I would

have been ull or a fish

Eugene O’Neill

It all looked so familiar to Firedrake The misty woods outside the entrance to the cave The s air Every leaf and every flower rerown up But Scotland was far away, and so was the Rions in this world had called their home for two years now

Firedrake turned and looked at the dragon lying behind him on a bed of moss and leaves Slatebeard was the oldest of thes twitched in his drearey sky, but he would soon be setting out on the longest flight of all To the Land of the Moon, as dragons called the place to which only death opened the door Slatebeard was the only one who had stayed behind when the othersjourney had been too strenuous for hiood friends he had found a new place to live when the ancient hoons was drowned in the waters of a reservoir

The cave where Slatebeard slept was not a natural one A troll had built it, to the instructions of huons needed But caves for dragons were not the only accommodation to be found here in MÍMAMEIÐR Trolls, ie here, although soian winters MÍMAMEIÐR – Firedrake thought the name sounded as mysterious as the creatures who stayed there They could all find suitable living quarters, and those places were all different too Caves, nests, stables, tiny houses for i forests, below the ht outside, ith dew

‘How’s Slatebeard this ?’

The boy standing at the entrance to the cave had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday His hair was as black as a raven’s feathers His eyes looked out at the world fearlessly and with curiosity, and Firedrake would have flown thousands of miles at any time just to see him

Ben Greenbloom

When they had first met in an abandoned harbour warehouse, Ben had no surname yet He was a boy with no parents and no hoon rider, and had taken hiave them both new homes On the way, Ben had even found parents and a sister: Barnabas, Vita and Guinevere Greenbloom, protectors of fabulous anions could wish for

‘Sleeping a lot,’ replied Firedrake ‘But he’s fine He’s getting ready When I next visit you he’ll be gone’

Ben stroked Slatebeard’s shi darker every day, as if he were turning into the night, the favourite tihts shone in the darkness above the gigantic sleeping body, likein the sun

‘It’s beginning,’ Ben whispered

‘Yes’ Firedrake laid his muzzle on the boy’s shoulder This was the first tion peacefully leaving this life Firedrake had had to explain it to Ben and the Greenbloo about it in any of their books, maybe because none of the people who had been so keen on chopping dragons’ heads off in the old days had waited around to see what happened next

Ben looked up at the roof of the cave, where on dies, he so stars,’ Firedrake had explained ‘The oodbye to life on earth, the more of them there

are But if his death is violent, there will be red stars in which his pain and anger live on Unfortunately there are a number of those in the sky!’

Slatebeard would surely not sow any red stars All the inhabitants of MÍMAMEIÐR would see to that And they would all miss hion when his longing for Firedrake was too much for him The Rim of Heaven was hidden in the mountains of the Himalayas, and they were terribly far from Norway

‘Firedrake! Oh, they all deserve to be barbecued! I know dragon-fire has to be used cautiously, but it would be in a good cause!’

Ben knew the voice that sounded so shrill in the cave almost as well as he knew Firedrake’s

Sorrel