XVI. Return

Stars.

Overhead, the infinite depth of the night sky, swept impossibly clear by freezing wind.

Still points of light – white, blue, red, glittering gold, so sharp as to almost hurt.

On distant horizons, a jagged line of mountain ranges the circle of a sleeping giant-king's crown, snow and ice for silver and diamonds.

Fire and flames, heat and embers are as sweet and restoring to an exhausted Sandragon as food and drink, shelter, rest, comfort and a warm welcome are to any exhausted traveller. With a sense of relief Sikander curled in closer to the raging fire as it blazed through the Phoenix's nest. He breathed in flames and aromatic smoke flaring from rare woods. The heat seeped through his battered skin into his tired bones, warmed and comforted him. The roar of the flames sounded like the gentlest of lullabies to Sikander. His body absorbed energy, strength and vitality from the heat of the fire. His wounded wing began to heal with a speed that would beggar belief.

In a matter of hours Sikander regained enough strength to spread his wings around the fire and bathe in the flames. All around the cold desert wind continued to pound him, but now its force had no more strength against him. When it grew too cold on one side he would just turn round and draw warmth there from the fire-nest. He soaked in the heat, drank it, breathed it, felt born again in that wonderful heat.

But the wind never stopped and after enjoying the warmth of the fire-nest for a long while, Sikander began to realise that the wind could blow for ever, but the fire could not burn for ever.

This thought was not very clear at first. It was born as a mere notion in the back of his mind, vague, almost unperceived. But soon it came into clear hard focus. It pulled Sikander out of his fire-trance made him see that he should set off soon, while his strength was back, before the cold and the wind could get the upper hand over him again, as they were bound to do once the fire burnt out.

Sikander would have loved to wait and see if the Phoenix's children would hatch, to see of they would need help, coming out of their shattered eggs into a bleak and lonely world. But the cold wind never stopped and Sikander knew it sap his strength quickly once the fire burned down.

He decided to wait there no longer, reared up, spread his wings over the flames, and rose into the air, spun away from the fire-nest and its golden treasure of Phoenix-eggs. With a strength he had almost forgotten, the Sandragon arched his wings, rode the wind, soared up into the dark night sky. The fire below shrank into a speck of golden-red light on the dark surface of the Roof of the World.

Many things are known, but many many more cannot be explained. Ask the most learned person "Why?" or "How?" four or five times in a row and by then, if they are half-honest, even on their best subject they must reply "Don't know." Many creatures know how to find their way home over great distances – birds fly from point to point across continents and seas. Salmon and sea-turtles swim across vast oceans and return to lay their eggs at the same spot where they were born. Cats and dogs make their way across whole countries to find their lost masters and mistresses. Just how they do it, nobody knows. But they can and they do. So it should come as no surprise that after his long journey, ranging the four corners of the earth and many of the seven seas, Sikander had no doubt at all aout which way to head for home.

For a long time he continued to gain height, till he reached a point where there was no reason to climb any further. He well clear of the tallest of Fimbulgard's towers, and could feel the wind blowing around him in a strong and steady stream, set fair for his journey home. From there he could fix his wings and ride the wind homeward, rest in it and on it, comfortable as an eastern prince riding a magic carpet.

That same blast of cold air which had been his direst enemy, which had almost been his undoing and defeat when outbound, now became a gentle and generous friend homebound. As Sikander settled into position for his return flight, moving in and with the wind instead of against it, he could scarcely even feel it any more. The long miles of frozen desert, which had near cost Sikander his life to cross before, now rolled past below so fast and so easy that the Sandragon felt like laughing or crying, for the difference was so great.

The Icedragon's wall was all the more impressive seen from far above. From up on high Sikander could see just how far the massive chain of huge peaks soared above all the surrounding mountains, banners of powdered ice torn from them by the gales whipping around their heads. Great rivers of cloud and storm, Fimbulgard's savage home in the valleys below looked motionless, peaceful, seen from that height. Glaciers glowed in the moonlight as Sikander sailed over the snow leopard's realm and glided on through the night.

The air was no less cold than it had been before, but now he had to spend no energy fighting his way through it and the very idea of the dear Dreamdesert growing closer warmed his Sandragon heart.

As he flew on without moving his wings an inch, without making the least effort, Sikander looked forward to getting home again. The feeling reminded him with pleasure of how he had looked forward to coming home as a young childragon at the end of a long day's playing and exploring the desert around his rocky home. In those far-off days he had felt that he had covered great distances and discovered extraordinary new things. Now those childhood journeys seemed tiny and their wonders plain compared to the things he seen and learnt on his way to the Phoenix. Might not even these seem puny and plain to him one day, or to some other creature with more experience than he had now gained?

Sikander flew on homeward, riding the wind. He grew to love that wind no less than a horseman far from home loves his loyal horse, carrying him back to hearth and home. Dawn and dusk, midnight and midday the wind never weakened. It carried the Sandragon high above the snowy mountains until they subsided into tall foot-hills draped in thick green forestland, then over lower hills still, carved by men into contour-line paddy terraces green with rice-plants. Sikander flew across patchworks of farmland laced with irrigation streams, rivers, pathways and roads, speckled with villages and small townships. He crossed shimmering lakes and thick dark green jungles. Neither wind nor dragon ever stopped. A jagged coastline, white and turquoise, marked the boundary between land and deep blue open sea, and the Sandragon flew ever on. And on. Far below, rings of rings of islands, each standing in its halo of coral – all slipped past as the Sandragon rode the wind on homeward.

On blew the wind till it carried the Sandragon back over land again.

At last one night Sikander saw the tree-shadows on the moonlit landscape below grow rarer and rarer from one to the next, greater and greater the distance between each tree and its neighbour, broader and broader the empty spaces. Then he found that the dunes were growing taller and taller beneath him, rank upon rank like waves marching across the face of a great sandy sea. The sweet musty scent of desert herbs and dry grasses told him that at last he was again flying over his homeland – not just any desert, but the very Dreamdesert which he had left behind so long before.

The rising sun, still hidden below the eastern horizon, started to chase darkness from the line dividing sand from sky.

If anyone had been watching three tall craggy peaks rising from the centre of that deep sandy desert, they would have seen a golden-red spark slice down from a great height across the night like a shooting star.

And two pairs of eyes were watching.

Sikander's parents had felt that he was coming home and had spent the night at the top of the tallest cliff, searching the starry vault for the sign of their returning son. So as one golden-red flash swooped down, two others shot upwards to meet it in broad counter-rotating arcs.

The three Sandragons' hearts nearly burst with joy to see each other again, all three safe and sound. Sikander's parents flew so close to him that they were almost hugging him with their wings and all together the three dragons spiralled down towards their craggy home.

To Sikander's surprise his parents did not lead him in towards the ledge which was the threshold of their mountain home. Instead they flew straight down to the sand and landed just before the entrance to a gorge which Sikander knew wound in between the three masses of the triple desert mountain and hid a small fresh-water spring.

Tired as Sikander was after many long days' ride home, and pleased as he was to see his dear parents again, his curiosity would not wait. As soon as the excitement of being together again settled a little, and as soon as all three dragons had finished laughing and saying how glad they were to be together again, Sikander asked,
"Why did you come down to land just here?"
"Aah," said his mother dragon, mysteriously, "come and see."

The three dragons slipped into the narrow gorge as the sun rose fully behind them and flooded the desert in colour with morning light. The walls of the passage were striped and patched, hatched and cross-patched in every shade of red and yellow, purple, pink and golden sandy-yellow. The sky was a bright blue ribbon winding far above.

Sikander's curiosity grew as they wound deeper and deeper in between the mountains. They reached a circular clearing at the end of the ravine, with a deep pond of clear cool water. Sikander saw that there was something there which had not been there when he had left: a tall and beautiful apple tree, with a broad stout trunk and a full crown of dark green leaves. Sikander's parents walked slowly up to it and curled themselves around the trunk in a ring on the sand.

But the surprise was not so much the tree itself: the real surprise was its fruit. For the tree bore the very golden apples which are Sandragons' favourites, which grew on just one tree in all the world, on an enchanted island, the devil's own job to find in the middle of the ocean, guarded by a ferocious and atrociously bad-tempered old dragon.

"You see," said Sikander's father, looking very pleased and satisfied at Sikander's clear amazement, "while you were out chasing a Phoenix, we brought home a hoard that never ends."

"How?" asked Sikander with a mixture of admiration and delight at seeing so many of those wonderful apples.

"It was your sisters. One day they came with us on an apple-raid. Poor old Hesperon the guardian-dragon nearly went berserk when he found he could not chase all four of us at once. We had his tree almost stripped bare and were ever so pleased. But then Hesperon caught me. I had a dozen apples spilling from my claws and he got me just as I was trying to recover one which I'd dropped.

The old monster said he wanted all his apples back or he'd take my head off. He was so angry that he really might have done too. But Sonia and Saskia told him that if he so much as scratched me they would feed all his apples to the fishes and burn the tree down into the bargain. So in the end Hesperon cooled down and with their quick tongues your clever sisters beat a deal out of him.

We gave him back all the stolen apples and agreed never to disturb him again. He let me go and gave us one little apple seed and one long lesson on how to grow this tree."

Sikander listened in happy exhaustion to this grand story and laughed. He wished he had been there to see the exchange.

"Well," Sikander's father dragon said, "that is our story and this is our hoard.
Now what about yours?
You seem to have travelled home very light.
Did you find your way?"

"I did." replied Sikander, "To share my hoard I would have to tell you the story of all my travels and I think you already have most of the jewels I found. But perhaps one day I shall have a little childragon of my own. Then I may have someone to spin my tale to on a warm summer's evening."

So saying, Sikander Sandragon lay down in the shade of the apple tree by the pool of clear water, rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes.