3. The Elephant

As the lion bounded away, Sikander felt that he had made at least one small step forward in his search for the Phoenix. He now knew for sure that there was at least one other animal who might have some information concerning the whereabouts of the wonderful bird. Now he must find the King of Beast's king of spies and see if the snake would be willing to help.

Sikander climbed to the top of the clump of rock which the lion had just left and soared off, swooping down at first to gather speed, then zooming up into the sky. As he climbed he saw that the zebra had managed to escape the hungry lionesses and was munching grass again, as though nothing had happened. The huntresses were skulking around out of range in a bad mood and the lion was making even more noise than the night before.

"Which way now?" wondered the dragon as he climbed into the blue. Scanning the horizon, one quarter looked a little darker and cloudier than the others so, for want of a better idea, Sikander began to fly in that direction, due south.

Once again the wind blew in Sikander's favour. The further he flew south the warmer and moister the air became. The clouds around him, at first just puffs of cotton-wool floating in the sky and mottling the savannah below with shadows, grew larger and larger, until the dragon found himself threading his path between huge suspended castles and cathedrals of white and grey. Far below the land grew greener and greener, thicker and thicker with trees.

Three days and three nights of hard flying brought Sikander over a great jungle, which from far above looked like a thick dark green carpet. On and on he flew, wondering how he would ever manage to find one specific snake in this vast rain forest. And as he wondered how to solve this problem, Sikander noticed that the light was failing, the sky growing darker, even though it was not yet anywhere near evening. Storm clouds were growing above and around him, closing in around him, cutting out the sunlight and turning the whole land and sky-scape a dull grey-green. Then quite suddenly the air turned much colder, the wind began gusting sharply. Blinding streaks of violet lightning flickered and lashed between the clouds, lighting them up from the inside in purple, pink, black and sickly pale yellow. Sikander began to feel very unhappy about the flying conditions. To be on the safe side he flew down nearer to the tree-tops, now shaking hard in the gusty wind.

Then the rain began. A few large dollops at first, it suddenly grew more and more intense. Soon Sikander began to wonder if he was flying or swimming. He kept going, feeling more and more cold and miserable. The wind grew stronger and stronger still, howling, whistling and roaring all round him. Having to fly though this dreadful weather was beginning to get Sikander seriously worried. The storm was throwing him around like a bit of driftwood in a gale-force sea. "It can't get any worse than this." he thought, and of course that is exactly what it did. Hail-stones the size of eggs started whipping down, making it impossible for Sikander to see where he was going and rather painful even for a steel-skinned Sandragon.

Just then he saw a gap in the scudding clouds and the trees below. Without a second thought he dived down, intending to land and get under any shelter available as soon as possible. Squinting through rain and hail as he planed down towards what looked like a nice flat landing surface, Sikander wondered what was making all that spray just there. A moment before it was too late Sikander realised that the attractive flat runway was a river. If there is one thing a Sandragon likes even less than rain it is being submerged in water. Recovering speed with a couple of wing-beats, Sikander flattened out and skimmed across the surface of the river over to the bank, where he landed in the shelter of giant trees.

Even under the cover of the forest conditions there were far from ideal. It was a dark, cool and damp place, but still much better than flying through the storm up above. Down here the fury of the wind was kept well away. The thick roof of leaves and branches kept the driving rain and hail off. Water still came down, but in a fine spray and occasional drips. A musty smell of rotting vegetation pervaded everything.

Sikander had never felt more tired in his life. He crawled over to a large boulder at the foot of a gigantic tree and curled up against it to rest a little.

"Do you mind?" said the boulder. Sikander jumped: "Oh! So sorry."

The boulder stood up and turned into a great elephant that looked almost as tall as the trees themselves. He flared his ears out and looked even bigger than before. The elephant stared piercingly at the Sandragon through wise old eyes that seemed to have seen it all before. Sikander looked in a sorry state, shivering with cold, some ice still left on his wings and steam curling off his body. He was in no fit state for conversation, so the elephant decided to leave him alone for the time being and settled back down onto the bed of soft leaves where he had been lying when the Sandragon arrived. Sikander felt most grateful for this understanding on the elephant's part, closed his eyes and in a few moments fell fast asleep. He dreamt of a dark-skinned man wearing a turban, carrying a stick with a hook at one end. He was searching through a jungle and calling out: "Rajah! Dear Rajah! Come back! Come back to your mahout!"

Many hours later, the following morning, Sikander awoke to find himself in deep shadow, pierced here and there by rays of intense sunlight which somehow managed to shine through all the branches, leaves, vines and creepers that seemed to form a solid roof overhead. The elephant had vanished and there was nobody in sight other than a couple of large butterflies, of a most beautiful deep blue colour, chasing and weaving around eachother at random through the light and shade. Tree trunks rose around Sikander like massive columns of some ancient temple. All seemed very peaceful and quiet. Sikander could hear the noise of the river-water flowing past not far away. In the distance some animal was making an odd hooting screeching noise. A cricket began a rhythmic creaking and was soon joined by others. The Sandragon stayed put, looking around and taking in his new surroundings.

"Good morning." The deep booming voice just behind Sikander made him jump again. The elephant seemed to have materialised out of nowhere. He could move as quietly as a ghost when he wanted to.

"Did you sleep well, you most unusual creature?"

"Yes thank you. But I am not an unusual creature, I am a Sandragon and my name is Sikander. Who are you?"

"I am Rajah the Pachyderm" replied the elephant grandly, "Lord and Master of this Forest."

Sikander looked at the great big elephant and thought it was easy to see why this enormous creature was in charge of the forest: no ordinary animal could possibly refuse to obey an order from such a gigantic beast.

"Would you care for some breakfast?" asked Rajah, and without waiting for an answer, "Then come with me."

The elephant lowered himself to the groumd, set one fore-leg out in front of him so as to make a step, and made a gesture with his trunk inviting the dragon to climb onto his broad back. "Hop on. This way we shall get there quicker."

The Sandragon had never ridden on an elephant before but thought that it would not be a good idea to refuse the invitation of the Lord and Master of the Forest, so he climbed up and settled on the elephant's back, resting his chin between the great creature's ears, each the size of a dinner table.

The elephant seemed to hardly move, but swished through the jungle without a sound, following an invisible track which wound left and right away from the river, deeper and deeper into the rainforest. After they had been going for quite some time Sikander decided he could lose nothing by asking the elephant if he knew anything about the Phoenix.

"The Phoenix? Oh yes, I know that fellow. Very polite. Most reserved. Not very talkative. Always welcome though. Collects some of my best seasoned hardwoods against consignments of pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, rubies, sapphires, topaz and turquoises, then vanishes away for years on end. Very good business indeed. Fine fellow. Haven't seen or heard of the old bird in seventy-nine years, five months, three weeks and a day."

Sikander was astonished by the elephant's precise recollection of the time that had passed since he had last seen the Phoenix.

"Aah well, not that I could forget. After all, I do have the memory of an elephant." observed Rajah.

Breakfast turned out to consist of large bunches of bananas, straight from the tree to the consumers. Sikander ate the first few raw, then discovered that they improved considerably when skinned and lightly toasted with dragonfire beforehand. Rajah was most impressed by Sikander's creative culinary talents and soon the two creatures became firm friends. After finishing off the entire crop of a substantial stand of banana trees, Sikander decided to try another question:

"I have told been that there is one animal hidden in the jungle who may know where I might find the Phoenix."

"Indeed," mused the elephant, swaying his trunk from side to side, "And what animal might that be?"

"Well, the Lion told me to ask his Chief of Intelligence, a snake, who lives somewhere in this jungle. But the trouble is that I have no idea where to find the snake. I don't suppose you might know?"

The elephant looked at the dragon with a most intense searching kind of look, as though weighing up many different aspects of the situation so as to decide what to do next.

"As it happens, I have an arrangement with the King of Beasts, under which I provide certain facilities and resources to members of his covert community in return for various rights and privileges which he extends to my family in other matters. The snake you are looking for moves from one safe-house to another on my territory every night and nobody knows where to find him. No one other than myself that is. But why should I tell you where to find him?"

Sikander was put on the spot by this question - he could think of no compelling reason why the elephant should tell him where to find the Lion's chief of spies.

For lack of any better reason the Sandragon told the elephant the whole story, starting from his chance meeting with the Shadowhawk and explaining everything that had happened up to that point. "After all, if the Lion didn't want me to find the snake, he wouldn't have mentioned him in the first place," he concluded.

The elephant looked a bit sceptical about this last notion and thought it all over a bit more. "Well," he said at last, in a deep rumbling voice, "you look like an honest young feller-me-lad to me, so I shall trust you on your word and let you know where to find the Spysnake. I hope I shall not regret this. If any trouble comes of it, the King of Beasts will come looking for me and that will upset a most delicate diplomatic entente which took years of hard work and negotiation to establish."

This sounded like the best news Sikander had headr since the start of his journey and put him in a very good mood indeed.

"Tonight you will find the Spysnake at Cobra House. It is a large termite mound by a lake, near the ruins of an ancient royal city. Head two hundred miles due south from here, turn east from the mountain, forty miles, look for an octagonal bathing pool and when you find that you'll soon recognise the spot."

"Thank you." Sikander was going to set off there and then, but Rajah stopped him,

"Hang on, you will need a code to call the snake out - he'll never talk to you otherwise. When you arrive, knock at the door seven times, then five times, then three, then one. The password is NAGA."

"Thank you again, most kind of you," said Sikander, "Now I must get on my way or I'm afraid I may not find the Cobra House before it gets dark."

The Sandragon and the elephant parted on the best of terms and as he set off again Sikander hoped that he might one day have a chance to return the elephant's favour.