The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) (22 page)

He stared at the Archons in disbelief, not even entirely certain what he was being asked. But after a long moment, he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d like to pretend that it’s at least a temptation, but it isn’t.

“We have come a long way together, to try to make right some terrible wrongs, and I cannot step off that path, and away from my daughter. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

Instead of disappointment, this announcement brought still more looks of approval from the Archons. “Then tell us,” Enoch said. “What can I do to help you? Why did you come here, seeking me out?”

“We came looking for the Architect of a great tower,” Rose answered, “and we were told that you were the man who built the first city. If you could do that, then surely you might also know how to build—”

“The Keep of Time?” asked Enoch.

“You know it?” Rose asked.

“I do,” he said, rising to his feet. “Come. Walk with me, and I’ll show you.”

♦  ♦  ♦

The companions and the Archons followed Enoch as he took a small trail to the top of a nearby hill, where there was a clear view
of the horizon, unimpeded by the great trees and mountains that ringed the valley.

“There,” he said, pointing to the setting sun. “Watch, as it turns to twilight. Then you’ll be able to see it clearly, even from here.”

There were a few thin, high clouds, which followed the curve of the horizon, and the sky was denser, here in the distant past. Not thick, or cloying, but simply . . .
richer
. The fading light flowed through the sky in wave after wave of ambers and purples, and then, when it finally started to ebb, they saw it.

A pencil-thin line that stretched from sea to sky, lit brilliantly by the last rays of the sun.

“There is your keep,” said Enoch. “It still stands, as it has always stood—and it was built long before my time. If it is the Architect of that tower you seek, you will not find him here.”

“It’s like a small Ring of Power,” Charles said . . .

The desert crossing was terrible;
the mountain crossing was worse. The great beasts that carried the Archipelago on their backs faltered often, and the great Dragon worried they would not last much longer—and then they were over, and the path eased.

While they crossed the long, narrow bridge that would take them to the Lonely Isle, there to wait again until called upon by those whom the old Dragon had entrusted to make things right, he told stories to his small friend, to better pass the time.

He had not been close to any of the Children of the Earth, not really, not as an angel, and not as a Dragon. But in times of need, the badger had always been there, with loyalty, and bravery, and heart. And the Dragon realized that in this one small example, he could demonstrate why an entire Archipelago was worth the effort to save. If there were five among all the peoples and creatures who were like the badger Tummeler, it would be worth it.

“There had been Makers, and there had been many, many Namers,” the great Dragon explained, “but there is only ever one Imago, and one Archimago, walking the earth together at the same time. The Archimago had vanished into the mists of history—but the Imago, the first in thousands of years, was reshaping the world.

“There was a great battle between the first giants, who were the children of the angels called Nephilim and one of the Sisters of Eve called Lilith, and the Dragons. It culminated in a struggle between their greatest, Ogias, and the greatest of us, a she-Dragon called Sycorax, who finally subdued him with the help of the Imago, T’ai Shan.

“She was the youngest of a family of gods, who was judged to be weak and cast out of their house. What her name had been before no one knows, but she took her new name
from that of an angel who saw her for what she was, and gave her introduction to the star Rao, who would give her his fire, and taught her to use it.

“But the angel Shaitan disappeared before the rest of his order descended to become the Dragons of this world; Rao betrayed his kind and was deemed Fallen; and T’ai Shan, after saving the world and returning it to the people she had loved and cared for, gave her armor and her power over to them for their use, and then left the world behind.

“First she crossed an uncrossable desert. Then she scaled an unclimbable mountain. And finally she reached an impassable sea, so she labored for the rest of her days to build a bridge of bone, so that others who followed behind her would find the path to heaven easier to walk.”

“A desert, a mountain, and a bridge of bone over the sea,” said Tummeler. “That sounds exactly like the path we’ve been walking.”

“Yes,” the Dragon said. “Exactly like that.”

♦  ♦  ♦

“That’s impossible!” Charles declared. “The island the keep is built on is a long journey away, deep in the Archipelago. There’s no way we’d be able to see it from here!”

“And yet, there it stands,” said Madoc. “That
is
the true keep.”

“Distance is less of an obstacle in this time,” said Enoch, “and it is not so long since meaning was divided from duration, and time
itself took two paths. The longer they remain split, the further what is meaningful grows apart from all else.”

“If he in’t a scowler,” said Uncas, “he ought t’ be. He sure talks like one.”

“True that,” said Fred.

“Have you ever seen it up close?” Rose asked. “Is it damaged?”

“It is,” Enoch said, taken aback by the question, “although my father has told me stories passed down from the days of the Adam, when it was said the tower was whole, and unbroken. But no one living has ever seen it thus. I’m sorry I cannot help you find your Architect.”

“What do we do now?” Edmund asked.

“The Zanzibar Gate has one more trip left in it,” said Rose. “If we go home, we will be back at square one, or worse. But if we try to go out one more time, we may find what we need. I think it’s worth trying.”

“So those are our choices, then,” said Charles. “Either we go home, or we take one more shot in the dark—literally—to try to discover the Architect.”

“This
is
why we came,” said Rose. “All the sacrifices, everything we’ve been through . . . It’s all for nothing if we fail. And either we go home, or we take one more chance. I say we take it.”

“Agreed,” said Edmund.

“All right,” said Charles.

“Ditto,” said the badgers.

“In for a penny, night on the town,” said Laura Glue. “I’m up for it.”

Madoc turned to the Archons. “Is there anything you might tell us to help? We simply need to find out who first built the keep—and
no matter how far back in time we go, we can’t seem to locate him.”

“Traveling in time is a difficult proposition,” said Seth. “It flows in two directions, you know.”

“This in’t our first time at the Sweet Corn Festival, you know,” said Uncas. “We’ve done this before.”

“My point,” Seth said, grinning at the badger, “is that time and history are two separate things. They have been since the time of the Adam. Before that, they were one, and mixed together freely. After that, they moved in divergent ways.”

“What happened that changed everything?” asked Madoc.

“The moment when the Imago was slain by the Archimago,” said Enoch. “That is the moment when history truly began.”

The companions all went still. “What Imago?” Madoc asked slowly, putting a hand protectively in front of Rose. “And what Archimago?”

“The first Maker, and the first Namer,” Seth said. “My elder brothers. That was the moment when time was divided. If meaning is what you seek, search out that moment above all others, and perhaps you will find what you need.”

“That’s part of the difficulty,” said Edmund. “The way the Zanzibar Gate—the pyramid structure we came through—works is by programming a date or period into it, which we can refine with an illumination of whom or what we’re seeking. But we don’t know anything about the Architect, and if time is separate from history, that’s even worse—because history is what gives us the markers by which we set the dates.”

“It seems to me,” Enoch said, “now that you have explained how your mechanism works, that the answer to your question is very simple.”

“Simple?” Uncas all but hollered at him. “We’ve had the best scowlers and the best minds of all of history tryin’ t’ figure out how t’ make this work for years now. How can it be simple?”

“Decorum, my squire,” Quixote admonished him. “Always decorum, even at the end of all things.”

“Exactly,” said Enoch.

Suddenly the diverse pieces of the puzzle came together in Rose’s head, as she realized what the Maker was trying to tell them.

“The beginning,” she said, excitement rising in her face. “All this time we’ve been trying to figure out exactly
when
the Architect built the keep, and everyone we’ve met has told us the answer!”

Edmund frowned, still unsure of where she was leading them. “Except all anyone was ever told is that it was built long before their time,” he said. “That it has always existed. Even the Caretakers have said as much—that it was there because it had always been there since . . .” His eyes went wide with the realization.

“. . . since the beginning,” he finished. “Can it be?” he asked Rose. “Can it really be that simple?”

“Nothing is
ever
simple,” Fred said, looking at his father, “but sometimes, things are easier than we make them out to be.”

“I’m afraid they’ve lost me completely,” Quixote said, looking down at Uncas. “Are you following any of this?”

“I am,” Laura Glue said brightly. “We’ve always worried about how to go back further and further, to find the right place in time when the keep was built, when what we should have been doing was trying to go back
before
it was built!”

Madoc threw his head back and laughed. “That’s brilliant,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “I am overcome.”

Edmund jumped to his feet and pounded a fist into his hand. “It’s
too perfect not to try,” he said, almost breathless with anticipation. “All we have to do is turn all the settings to zero and go through the gate. It should allow us to return, right here, at the moment of the keep’s creation.”

“I agree,” said Rose. “We’ve been so worried about who built the keep that we’ve forgotten that it’s just as important
when
it was built. And if we go to
when
, we’ll finally find out
who
the Architect is!”

“
That’s
what you’ve all been debating?” Archie said as he glided down and landed on Edmund’s shoulder. “I could have told you that much.” He looked at Madoc and made a clucking noise. “Did you learn nothing from my philosophy lectures?”

“This is all very exciting for you, isn’t it?” Enoch said to the badgers.

“You have no idea,” said Fred.

♦  ♦  ♦

The companions bid the Archons farewell and prepared the
Indigo Dragon
for one final trip through the gate.

“Here,” Enoch said as they climbed aboard. “The visitor, Telemachus, said that when you realized where you needed to go, I should give you this.” He reached out and put the silver watch into Madoc’s hand. “He told me that you had no watch of your own, and so this is yours.”

“You don’t want to keep it?”

Enoch smiled. “I’m a Maker, remember?” he said, stepping away from the airship. “I’ll make more.”

“All right,” Edmund said, rubbing his hands together. “There is nothing guiding us but the settings on the gate, and I’ve set them all for zero. Everyone cross your fingers.”

Fred engaged the internal motor of the airship and urged
the goats forward at the same time. Within moments they were going toward the gate, which glowed as Madoc came near, and in a moment more, they were through.

♦  ♦  ♦

At Tamerlane House, the word quickly spread that Poe had some grand revelations to share, and no one wanted to miss out, so the great hall was quickly filled with all the residents and visitors it could hold. Caretakers Emeriti took most of the seats around the table, while the Mystorians filled in the standing room next to the walls. For his part, the detective Aristophanes brought in a couch from one of the other rooms for himself and the Messenger Beatrice, and, surprisingly, a chair for the shipbuilder Argus. Only the half-clockwork men called Jason’s sons, known as Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, remained outside to guard Shakespeare’s Bridge. Hawthorne and Irving went out one last time just to check on them before the meeting commenced, but otherwise, everyone at Tamerlane House was present.