The Shadow Dragons (17 page)

As the Strange Attractor pulled up to one of the boulevards that led to the main part of the city, a badger jumped out of the brush next to the road and flagged them down.

“Uncas!” Jack exclaimed.

“Dad!” Fred shouted as he slammed on his brakes. “What are you doing out here?”

“You can’t go into the city, and nowhere near the palace,” said Uncas. He was obviously very upset—he’d twisted his hat into a knot.

“Why not?” said Artus. “What’s happened?”

“The Senate convened early, and the Chancellor was granted sovereignty over the entire Archipelago!” Uncas cried. “He started by putting out a call to have you arrested for instigating the attacks on Kor!”

“And so it begins,” Artus said, his face darkening.

“This is a put-up job,” exclaimed Jack. “You’re being set up for a fall, Artus.”

“What should we do?” Charles asked.

“Already in the works,” Uncas said as he climbed into the back of the Strange Attractor. “We’re to meet everyone at Halsey Cove.”

“Who’s everyone?” asked Charles.

“Y’know,” Uncas said.
“Everyone.”

Halsey Cove was an old, seldom-used port several miles south of Paralon proper. It was more archaic, but architecturally more elegant than the main seaports. It was also occasionally used for covert meetings of any kind. Ransom was standing at the head of the docks when they pulled up.

“I trust you heard there’s a party being thrown in your honor back at the palace,” said Ransom.

“I heard,” Artus said. “I think I’ll skip it.”

“While you’ve been having tea with a dragon,” Ransom said, grinning wryly, “I’ve been gathering a few friends.”

The companions climbed out of the vehicle and realized that Uncas had been telling the truth: Everyone was indeed waiting.

Five of the seven great Dragonships of legend were assembled at the docks. Their captains, along with many personages and creatures who remained loyal to the Silver Throne, were waiting in formation for the king. And foremost among these were the queen, Aven, and her son, Prince Stephen.

The companions rushed forward and greeted them joyfully. Bert, Aven’s father, embraced her with tears in his eyes. She hugged him tightly, then stood up straight to take Jack’s measure as he was taking hers.

She had aged, as had he, but she was still the pirate girl he had adored, and she still had the mettle in her eyes that made her the greatest captain in the Archipelago.

“Hello, Jack,” she said, embracing him tightly.

“Hi, Aven,” he said, smiling. “It’s good to see you.”

“Well, um, yes,” said Artus. “Jack, Charles—you remember our son, Stephen.”

Both men took turns shaking Stephen’s hand—and reeling. They’d known Artus at an age younger than this, and he was always a hero at heart—but Stephen was a heroic figure in every sense of the word.

Artus had been thrust into the role of king as a young man, after a childhood that had consisted of being raised by three witches who occasionally dropped him down a well; one remarkable journey to become a knight and slay a dragon, which had turned out successfully at the time, but which became less so as years went by; and then a sudden revelation that he was the heir to the throne of the entire Archipelago. It was all very heady and would have been hard to process for anyone. For someone who preferred to be on an equal status with his own subjects, and who preferred his friends to call him “Bug” when in private, it was nearly impossible. But he had managed to survive, and to prosper.

His son, Stephen, on the other hand, was born to authority, and he proved to be a stunningly effective commander. He was the perfect synthesis of leader, explorer, and inventor. It was he who first proposed that all the legendary Dragonships be converted into airships. And under the watchful eye of the shipbuilder Ordo Maas, and with the permission of the Dragonships themselves, he performed every conversion himself.

Thus he had a personal rapport with every Dragonship that was second only to those they had with the captains who piloted them. This was more impressive when one realized that he had spent the last years of his childhood as a brainwashed prisoner of the King of Crickets, who was really the Winter King’s Shadow in disguise.

As a young man, he had been impressive enough with his noble features and proud bearing. But as an adult, Stephen cut a majestic figure. He wore a leather vest and trousers that mimicked those of the Valkyries, but he also wore the symbol that marked him as a man of legend: the horns and pelt of the Golden Fleece. Together with the mighty double-edged ax he wielded, there were few men in any world who would not pause at his arrival.

“He’s the first mate on the
Green Dragon,
under the new Captain, Rillian,” said Artus.

“I don’t think I know him,” said Jack, looking around at the group.

“He’s a unicorn,” said Uncas.

“Really?” said Jack. “The only ones I’ve seen were those poor beasts in the Winterland. And what that Wicker Man had done to them,” he added, shuddering. “Awful.”

“Unicorns?” Fred asked. “Oh, you mean the Houyhnhnms. The larger ones, probably pulling a cart, or some such.”

“There are unicorns
smaller
than horses?”

Fred laughed at this.

“You human scowlers,” he said, “have always gotten that wrong. Unicorns aren’t another name for a horse with a horn. It’s a classification for
any
animal with one. In fact, most unicorns are mice. It’s just that no one ever really notices the ones
here”
—he crouched low and waved at the ground—“because they’re always looking for the ones up
here.”
He stood on tiptoe and pointed upward.

“So this Captain Rillian . . . ,” Charles began.

“Pleased t’ meetcha,” said a voice from below. Charles bent low and shook the unicorn mouse’s paw. “And I you, Captain.”

“Ho, Caretakers!” said a tall, graying centaur. “Are we up to picking a fight?”

“Charys!” Jack exclaimed, clasping arms with the centaur. “It’s a pleasure to see you again!”

“The pleasure is mine, Caretaker,” Charys replied. “I very much enjoyed those books you wrote. Traveling to other planets, oh ho?” The centaur laughed and clapped him on the shoulders. “What an imagination you have!”

“What books was he referring to?” asked Charles as the centaur trotted over to shout some orders at another group arriving in the cove. “When did you write about space travel?”

Jack shrugged, bewildered. “I haven’t the foggiest. It’s something I’ve been toying with, and Ransom certainly sparked some interesting ideas. But I’m a blank slate.”

“That’s the annoying thing about time travel,” said Charles. “You always feel like you’re late to the party, even when you aren’t.”

There were other familiar faces as well: Eledir the Elf King; Falladay Finn, of the Dwarves; and the Valkyries, led by Laura Glue.

“We have everyone,” she said to Aven and Artus. “Everyone still loyal to the Silver Throne. We’re almost ready to go.”

“Are you abandoning the Archipelago?” Jack asked in astonishment.

“No,” said Aven. “We’re moving the base of operations for the true government to a safer place.”

“We’re consolidating our power,” said Bert, “and we’re going to do it in the Nameless Isles.”

“Is this a coup?” asked Laura Glue. “I think we’re starting a coup.”

“We might be at that,” said Aven. “We’re only waiting for one more ship to arrive.”

“Oh, yes,” said Artus. “Of course.”

“He came through with one of the Time Storms a year ago,” said Artus, pointing out into the cove. “I think you’re in for a real surprise, Jack.”

Just past where the
White Dragon
was moored, the surface of the water had begun to bubble and roil about. A ship was surfacing. A very familiar ship.

The great, gleaming bulk of the
Yellow Dragon
rose up out of the water, and the port hatch lifted. A man both familiar and not stepped out onto the hull and crossed his arms defiantly.

Charles looked on in wonderment, while Jack reeled with the shock of the sight before them.

The man was scarcely out of his teens, if that, but his manner and bearing—and his arrogance—were instantly familiar.

“Speak, and be recognized,” called out Uncas. “Who be ye, and where be y’r allegiance?”

“My allegiance is to my ship and crew,” the youth replied, dropping off the ship onto the dock, “and to the Archipelago and those who serve her. And as for me,” he finished, jabbing a thumb at his chest, “I am the seventh son of the seventh son of Sinbad himself, and I’m here to pick a fight.”

He strode over to Jack and stuck out a hand in greeting. “Nemo is my name.”

The gatekeeper was a blind man . . . covered in tattoos . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Abaton

Geoffrey Chaucer
called the Gatherum of Caretakers to silence, then addressed the first order of business. “This is one of the reasons we required you to stay at Tamerlane House,” he said to John. “We are the historic Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, but we are also past our times. Outside of these walls, we can influence very little, and for too short a time.

“But you are still young and vital—and you are the current Caveo Principia. The Principal Caretaker. And so while we may debate, and offer opinions and counsel, the ultimate decision must be yours.”

“Which decision is that?” asked John.

“Whether or not,” Chaucer said evenly, “Richard Burton is right.”

The concept stunned John into silence. Right about what? About the Archipelago? Were they actually considering the position of their enemy as being more worthy than their own?

“I understand what you must be thinking,” Charles Dickens said. “After all, I was the one who recruited him as my apprentice. But ever since your first clash with him, we have been debating whether or not there might not be some merit to his point of view.”

“Secrecy has been the mandate,” added Twain. “It always has been. But there comes a time when we must acknowledge that the horse may have left the stable long before we barred the doors.”

“What do you mean?” asked John.

“These,” Hawthorne said, tossing a copy of Tummeler’s
Geographica
on the table. “They’re everywhere.”

“Everywhere in the Archipelago,” John corrected. “We were very clear about that. Tummeler was more than happy to comply, and I know Artus was keeping an eye on his operation.”

“That’s part of the problem,” said Chaucer. “This move Artus made to turn the kingdom into a republic has only made his affinity for the ways of our world grow stronger. We fear that an embargo may not be sufficient.”

“Copies are bound to slip across the Frontier,” said Irving, “and we no longer believe that Artus would see that as a threat to the Archipelago.”

“Wasn’t the Silver Throne established to unite
both
worlds?” John asked. “Under the rule of Arthur?”

“That was the original plan, and one of the reasons to have Rings of Power in both,” said Chaucer, “but that was effectively ended when Mordred returned and killed Arthur. His heirs were able rulers, but they constrained themselves to rule in the Archipelago, not in the Summer Country. And as the years passed, the divide simply grew broader.”

“And now,” continued Twain, “we fear that Artus may seek to reestablish a foothold in the Summer Country. And if that happens, even in the attempt, he will compromise everything that is here.”

John leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “If it’s as risky as you say, then isn’t the debate about Burton moot?”

“Burton cares less about rule and authority than he does about the welfare of the Archipelago itself,” said Dickens. “He was, and is, an explorer at heart—and he simply wishes to share his discoveries with the world.”

“That’s something I’ve often wondered about,” said John. “If Burton believes so strongly that the truth of the Archipelago should be known, why hasn’t he spread copies of the
Geographica
far and wide a long time ago? All he’d have to do to expose all of us is tell the truth—so why bother with the cloak-and-dagger machinations and plotting?”

“For the same reason that Houdini and Conan Doyle chose discreet silence,” said Twain. “Without the permission of either the dragons, the king, or the Caretakers, Samaranth would hunt them down and roast them otherwise.”

“Which alludes to my point about Artus,” said Chaucer. “Our oath of secrecy was to protect the Archipelago as well as the atlas itself.”

“It seems to me we’ve strayed far afield from our point,” said Twain, “which is that as the
Geographica
becomes more widely known, it becomes far less rare—and less dangerous.”

“There are still many things within the actual atlas that are secret,” said John. “We certainly didn’t allow Tummeler access to
those.”

“There will always be secrets, just as there will always be mysteries,” said Chaucer. “But stories will go on regardless. All we are really given is the opportunity to shape how the stories are told.”

“There is one great difference between them,” a soft voice said from somewhere above. Poe was watching, listening.

“Mysteries are meant to be solved, to be discovered. But secrets are meant to be kept, to remain hidden,” he said, “and sometimes one doesn’t discover a secret was actually a mystery until it’s too late.”

“What is it?” asked Twain. “What’s happened?”

“The book,” said Poe. “Someone has stolen the Last Book.”

The entire room was pin-drop silent for a few seconds before it exploded into an uproar. Caretakers were yelling at one another, and yelling for order, and one or two were simply yelling.

“That’s done it,” said Irving. “We’re done for.”

“Someone should be flogged,” said Shakespeare.

“It was bound to happen,” said Defoe.

“Will everyone please be quiet!” said Chaucer.

Suddenly a shot rang out, and the entire room went silent again.

Mark Twain blew the smoke off the barrel and pocketed his small silver gun.

“A gentleman never fires a pistol unless it’s to defend a lady’s honor or to quiet a herd of braying jackasses,” he said. “Luckily, since Lady Shelley and Miss Dyson are among us, I got to do both at once.

“We like to pretend that we’re civilized and organized,” Twain continued, “but when we’re taken by surprise, we suddenly fall apart like clay soldiers. We have the Caretaker Principia with us, and the Grail Child. The Prophecy will be fulfilled—as long as we don’t derail it ourselves.”

John stood up to better take advantage of the momentary lull. “Samuel’s right. We need to organize, and I think the most important concern isn’t that the book is gone, but that it was taken at all.”

“I concur,” said Chaucer. “We still have an enemy in our midst.”

“Well,” Grimalkin said as he appeared in the center of the table, “you’ll have plenty of help discovering who he is. There’s an entire armada pulling into the harbor.”

John flew to the window. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do,” he said to the other Caretakers. “It seems the Dragonships have come to the Nameless Isles.”

“Which ones?” asked Twain.

John pursed his lips. “All of them.”

It took the rest of the day to receive the new arrivals, which was still extremely expedient, considering Tamerlane House had never had so many guests at once.

The flight from Paralon had happened quickly, and so the only provisions the refugees had were what they had had onboard the ships. Bert, Twain, Defoe, Hawthorne, and John took charge of assigning quarters to the newcomers, and the other Caretakers began converting the conservatory into a war room. A meeting of the king and queen, the ship captains, and the Caretakers would have to be held as soon as possible.

Charles, on the other hand, had a plan of his own—which Jack was only too eager to share in. At present, there were at least three conversations Jack had managed to avoid on the trip to the Nameless Isles, and if he could delay them longer still, all the better.

“You heard about the book?” Charles asked as he, Jack, and Fred walked to the Pygmalion Gallery.

“Yes,” said Jack. “We keep ending up one step behind! I wonder if Kipling had something to do with it?”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“What would be helpful is if we knew where Kipling went,” said Jack. “I can’t get past the feeling that if we’d said something when we got here, we might be a lot further along.” He opened the doors to the gallery, and the three of them walked in.

“I wonder if they’ll keep his picture here now that his portrait is just a landscape?” asked Charles.

“I think we ought to just burn it,” Jack said irritably. “He won’t be returning to Tamerlane House now that we know what he is, so there’s no further use for the painting.”

“Maybe there is,” said Charles, running his hand across his head. “I have a strange idea, but I believe it will work.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jack.

“We’re going to try taking this battle to the Chancellor’s doorstep,” Charles called back as he took the stairs two and three at a bound. “Fred, find Bert and bring him upstairs to the atelier. Jack, find Ransom, and bring him up as well. We need to talk to Basil Hallward.”

“It
is
possible,” Ransom mused after Charles had explained what he proposed to do. “Difficult, perhaps. But not impossible. What do you think, Basil?”

Hallward shrugged and chewed on the end of a brush. “It was a different painting,” he said. “When I created Kipling’s portrait, it was different.”

“So he had to have already been liberated from the real portrait beforehand,” said Charles, “and when Bert thought he was bringing him out, he was really just stepping through the Trump. It’s quite ingenious.”

“Remind me to be impressed later,” said Jack. “My question is, can you duplicate the painting as a Trump for us?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Hallward. “The only real criteria is that it has to be a real place, somewhere, and I have to know exactly what it looks like. And this place must exist, or else he couldn’t have gone through.”

“And if he can,” said Bert, “what then?”

“If we have a Trump,” said Charles, “Fred and I can go through and discover where their base of operations is. At present, they don’t know where we are, and we don’t know where they are. I’d like to shift the balance in our favor.”

Bert considered this a moment, then nodded. “Just one thing,” he said sternly, “no adventuring. Reconnaissance only. Learn what you can and come back. But don’t take any risks.”

“Fair enough,” said Charles.

Together the group of men and the badger went into the Pygmalion Gallery, where Hallward set up a makeshift easel in front of Kipling’s picture.

Ransom gave Hallward one of the blank Trumps, and slowly, carefully, the artist duplicated the scene depicted on Kipling’s portrait. “That should do it,” said Hallward. “It’s already dry, if you’d like to give it a whirl.”

Charles held the Trump up in front of him and concentrated on the picture. Slowly it began to expand, and in moments it was large enough to step through.

“Are you sure you don’t want any of the rest of us to go with you?” Bert asked.

“You can’t spare the resources,” said Charles. “And besides, Fred and I are basically reprising another successful espionage partnership. His grandfather and I made quite the team.”

Fred beamed. “That you did,” he said proudly. “May our venture be as successful.”

“Very well,” said Ransom. “I’ll keep the card open here on this end. If you have any trouble, come running. But remember, Charles . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

Charles nodded. “I understand. If the portal is discovered, you’ll have to close it.”

“We’ve opened it this time,” Ransom said, “but I don’t know if we can do it again. Time is of the essence, Charles.”

The two men shook hands, Ransom shook Fred’s paw, and Charles thanked Bert and Hallward for their help. And then he and his apprentice stepped through the portal in search of the Town That Didn’t Exist.

In his own explorations, Charles had once come across a place in Germany where a narrow alley between a distillery and a seed merchant actually led to an entire district outside space and time.

The entire community seemed sickly and poorly maintained, with faded whitewash on the houses and holes in the cobblestone streets. The seasons themselves were confused in that place, and the trees were barren even in springtime.

He had always planned on exploring it at greater length, but others in the area had stumbled on it and ransacked the hidden village. Not long after, a series of grisly murders occurred in all the nearby German towns, and people whispered that it was the vengeance of the dark spirits who dwelled within.

It was only then, at the moment he was passing through the Trump, that he recalled that the townsfolk who claimed to have seen the spirits described them as men with oversized bird skulls for heads.

He tried to contain the shiver that rolled up his spine, and only just managed to disguise it as stretching before Fred noticed.

“Are you worried?” asked Fred.

“Not in the slightest,” said Charles.

“Good,” said Fred. “So am I.”

There was a signpost pointing to Abaton that stood just before a half-crumbled gate. The gatekeeper was a blind man, dressed in a loincloth. Every inch of his body was covered in tattoos—some pictorial, but most were words and random markings.

He perked up as he heard them approach. “What business have ye in Abaton?”

Charles sighed. It was not good espionage to declare your intentions. “Our own, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s my job to ask, no need to be twisty about it. Sign your names, and enter.”

“Sign?” said Charles.

“With the stylus,” said the man. “On my skin. I am the keeper of the gate, and all who enter and leave must sign.”