The Shadow Dragons

by James A. Owen

  Next to the handle on this door was a small Greek letter pi— the mark of the Caretaker Principia. John’s mark—which he had never made.

  John filed the observation away in the back of his head to be addressed later. For now, he wanted to discover the identity of the strange man who was conversing so easily with young Rose.

  The man who had introduced himself to Rose as Don Quixote was now making similar introductions to Jack and Charles. Archimedes was ignoring them altogether and had instead focused on the books to one side of the great bed.

  The room was almost identical in size to the one farther up where the Cartographer resided. But rather than a clutter-filled workplace, this room had been appointed for comfort. The elaborate four-poster bed was covered in goosedown quilts and draped with finely embroidered heavy silk curtains. There was a tall window with lead-lined panes of milky glass, and several beautiful oil lamps. The books were scattered about, as were the habiliments of a knight: a lance, a sword and scabbard, and authentic—if tarnished—sixteenth-century Spanish armor.

  If this is not the real Don Quixote, John thought, he has certainly made the effort to play the part.

  The old man rose from the bed and straightened his nightshirt. He was impossibly thin and wore a thick beard that pointed in two directions. His hair was more gray than black, and more white than gray.

  “If the lady will shield her eyes,” Quixote said diplomatically, “I should like to dress.”

  Rose obediently stood in the corner, looking over Archimedes’ shoulder as Charles and Jack helped the old knight dress. His clothing and armor were humble but fit him well. Once he was dressed, he again sat on the bed, and Rose sat beside him.

  “You said you were waiting for us,” she asked. “Why?”

  “Because of the Prophecy, of course,” Quixote replied. “You do know about the Prophecy, do you not?”

  “We’ve heard rumors,” said Jack, “but we’ve been a little too pressed for time to ask anyone about specifics.”

  “Well then, I shall tell you,” Quixote declared. “After all, it is your Prophecy.”

  “Ours?” said John. “How do you know?”

  “Because,” replied Quixote, “you are the only ones, other than the Frenchman, who have come through that door in nearly four centuries. He said that I would meet three Caretakers, and it would be my honor to aid them in their quest.”

  The Frenchman. Obviously Verne, thought John, whose interest was suddenly piqued. “You called us Caretakers,” he said. “Do you know about the Imaginarium Geographica?”

  “Know of it?” said Quixote in surprise and mock chagrin. “Why, in all modesty, if it had not been for me, there would be no Imaginarium Geographica to take care of. It is one of the greatest, most important books in history—but even great books may, on occasion, be lost. And when that happens, it falls to heroes such as myself to find them again.”

  “It’s hard to imagine a Caretaker losing the Geographica,” said Jack, winking at John. “The height of irresponsibility, if you ask me.”

  “Accidents happen,” John said, reddening. “People do misplace things, you know.”

  “Exactly so,” said Quixote. “That’s one of the reasons there are three of you, did you know?

  “The book known as the Imaginarium Geographica has passed through a number of Caretakers,” he went on. “Dante, and Chaucer; Giovanni Boccaccio; Petrarch. But sometime in the sixteenth century—my century,” he added with a bit of wistful pride, “a Caretaker managed to lose the Geographica —and at the precise time when a terrible conflict was brewing in the Archipelago.”

  “What kind of conflict?” asked Jack.

  “Let me ask you this,” replied Quixote. “Have you ever read about a tyrant who called himself the Winter King?”

  “Once or twice,” John deadpanned. “So to speak.”

  “At that time, there were rumors of his arrival in the Archipelago,” said Quixote. “The first concern was that the Geographica be kept safe, and there seemed no safer place than within the halls of Paralon itself. So it had always been kept in the Archipelago. But somehow the book was stolen, and the worlds were plunged into a shadow of fear. No one knew where it had gone, nor what use the thief would put it to. All that was known was that it had been taken across the Frontier, into the real world.

  “The Caretaker, Miguel de Cervantes, was summoned to a meeting of the Parliament in Paralon, where all the races of the Archipelago had come together to debate the matter. His guide and messenger, a tall, thin Spaniard, agreed to venture out into the real world to search for the Geographica.”

  “You,” said Charles. “That was you.”

  “Just so,” the knight said, bowing his head in acknowledgment. “In my search, I encountered a scholarly detective named Edmund Spenser, who helped me to discover that the Geographica was not lost, but had indeed been stolen. The thief was Tycho Brahe, who was a scholar of Ptolemaic geography and had heard of a marvelous book that contained maps said to be created by Ptolemy himself.”

  “That’s mostly true,” Archie piped up from the corner, “although he did have some help—and some of his students actually did all the real work.”

  “While Spenser and I pursued the Geographica, Cervantes had an adventure of his own, wherein he met an ethereal creature called the Lady of the Lake. He gave her a kiss, and she gave him a bracelet in return and also the secret of passage between the worlds.

  “On Cervantes’s return to England, he was reunited with myself, Spenser, and Brahe, whom I’d brought to London. I had found the Geographica once more, and it was determined that there must always be three Caretakers, to avoid such a catastrophe ever happening again.”

  “We know about that,” John said, opening the book and turning to the endpapers. Below the names of those who had come before, Cervantes, Brahe, and Spenser had signed their names in the front of the Geographica with the same quill and the same ink.

  The old knight nodded and beamed at the sight of the book. “I witnessed the signing myself,” he said proudly. “It was one of the great moments in a life full of such moments.”

  “Why didn’t you sign?” Charles asked. “You had every right to become a Caretaker, and more than enough reason to justify it.”

  Quixote shook his head. “I am a messenger at worst, and a knight with noble ambitions at best. I am inquisitive, but it was not my destiny. Also, I asked, but was not chosen.”

  “Chosen by whom?” wondered Jack.

  “By the Prime Caretaker,” Quixote replied. “He said that at that time, those three must needs be the Caretakers—that I had had my role to play, and perhaps would again.

  “As to the three who were chosen, the Geographica, together with the bracelet given to Cervantes, was passed from one to the other, the better to keep it secret and safe. When one of the three died, another would have been in preparation to take his place. And as Geoffrey of Monmouth did before them, the Caretakers, often writers as much as geographers or scholars, shared a fictitious version of their adventures with the world. I know that Miguel did as much with regards to my stories, if not with his own adventures.

  “Spenser went on to write The Faerie Queen, and that feckless thief, Brahe, passed on the Geographica to Johannes Kepler.”

  “Few men of science have been chosen to become Caretakers,” said John, “but it makes sense that Brahe passed it to Kepler. Scientist to scientist, as it were.”

  “In those bygone days,” said Quixote, “science was about explaining things, and thus was as much an art as anything else. But in later years science became about proving things—when all that was ever really required of science or art was to simply believe.”

  “Spenser and a later Caretaker—Wordsworth, I believe—both wrote of Arthur’s sons, Artigel and Eligure,” said Charles. “It’s one of the better volumes in the Histories.”

  “You mentioned a Prophecy,” Jack interjected, “and you said it relates to us. How is that? What is the Prop
hecy?”

  Quixote sighed heavily and began again. “As you know, the Imaginarium Geographica was passed on year to year to new Caretakers. It was in the care of one of the most recent of their number, a Frenchman called Jules Verne, in the first years of the twentieth century, when mysteriously, the bracelet of the Lady of the Lake was stolen. For a brief time, the Geographica itself was also lost.

  “Soon after, stories of a dark, evil presence that lingered on the edges of the Archipelago, not quite living, yet not dead, began to reappear. An evil waiting for its opportunity to seize power. An evil referred to in veiled whispers only as ‘the Winter King.’ For years the stories had persisted, almost fading away into myth and fable, but now the stories began anew. And this time, the whispers went, the Winter King was not waiting and watching—he was at work. He was building a ship called the Black Dragon, which he intended to use to cross the Frontier and conquer all of the Archipelago of Dreams.

  “It was only then that the Frenchman, Verne, realized that the Winter King was no new villain, but an old threat, who had before plunged the worlds into war. And he recalled a Prophecy, made centuries earlier, that should such an evil once again appear, he would be defeated only by three scholars from your world. And from that day forward, Verne devoted all his time and resources to finding and preparing the three for the battle that was to come.”

  “What?” declared Jack. “Do you mean us? We’re the three?”

  “We were the Caretakers when the Winter King was defeated,” said John, “so it’s possible.”

  “But we already defeated him,” Jack exclaimed, “so what does that mean?”

  The Caretakers looked to one another in resignation. They all knew it could mean only one of two things: Either the Prophecy Quixote spoke of was wrong, and they hadn’t needed him to defeat the Winter King at all; or he was right, and a final conflict with their greatest enemy was still to come. The old man in the white place had also referred to a prophecy—and that was too unlikely to be a simple coincidence.

  “We must take him with us,” Jack suddenly said. “Don Quixote, come with us, please.”

  At first John was surprised by the urgent tone in Jack’s voice, but a moment later he realized what his friend’s motive was.

  The Keep was still crumbling. And the next tremor would destroy Quixote’s room.

  The knight needed no further prompting. He, Rose, and Archimedes gathered a few items in a small knapsack, while the Caretakers conversed near the door, which Jack had propped open.

  “His story does make sense,” Jack whispered. “Cervantes was a Caretaker, after all. And we all know Caretakers have fictionalized real events and peoples from the Archipelago in their stories. We’ve done it ourselves!”

  “I can’t recall the generalities of his story, much less the specifics,” said John. “Did we overlook it, Charles?”

  “That’s just it,” Charles protested. “It’s not that I might have overlooked his story in one of the Histories—it isn’t in the Histories at all. I’ve been very thorough, especially after the Dyson incident—and I’m telling you, the story he’s related to us is nowhere to be found.”

  “And what was that about Jules Verne losing the Geographica?” said John. “I can’t believe that. He’s always too many moves ahead of any adversary. I can’t believe he’d ever countenance such a blow.”

  “Then again,” said Jack, “we were once young and stupid—or at least, younger and stupider than we are now. We learned to become the men we are in part because of the mistakes we made. Couldn’t the same be possible for Verne?”

  “We’ve overlooked something else,” said Charles. “Hank Morgan also mentioned a Prophecy. So it isn’t just Quixote. Something larger is afoot, I’m sure of it. But do we believe him or not?”

  “Either way,” said Jack, “I don’t think we have a choice—we have to take him with us, or he’ll perish with the next tremor.”

  The three companions silently agreed. On that point, there was not—could not—be a debate. Every other door in the keep, save for the Cartographer’s, opened into an entire world at a particular point in the past—and when the doors fell, the passageway was simply severed. But this room was actually part of the keep—and to stay within it would be too great a risk.

  “All set,” Quixote said, having also loaded himself down with a considerable array of weaponry. “What is our destination?”

  “Up,” said John, pointing. “We go up.”

  The company, which now numbered six, stepped from the room and closed the door. John felt the small click of a lock under his fingertips, and the pi symbol seemed to glow faintly as the door closed.

  “What has happened to the tower?” Quixote asked as he looked worriedly over the railing at the damaged keep and the nausea-inducing drop. “It is eternal, is it not?”

  “Everything ends,” said Jack. “Eventually.”

  The old knight shook his head sadly. “I fear you are right. But still, it is a fearsome sight.”

  “Look up, old fellow,” said Charles. “That’s my answer. Always look up.”

  Quixote nodded, then took a position behind Jack as together, the companions and their new acquaintance began to climb.

  As the group ascended the stairway, the Caretakers explained to the knight whom it was they were going to see.

  “I have heard stories of this man, if a man he truly is,” said Quixote, “but I have never seen him with my own eyes. Only in stories, and from the things the Frenchman says, do I know him at all.”

  “He’s a difficult man to understand,” John said, “but then again, he’s also two millennia old. We’ve all spent time with him in our calling as Caretakers, but we also had the chance to know him at various points in his youth. I regret to say that if we had been more perceptive, or simply better examples and less fearful, he might have become a better man than he is.”

  “You knew him in his youth?” said Quixote. “Two millennia ago?”

  “It was under unusual circumstances,” said John.

  “Those were indeed unusual circumstances,” said Quixote, “if you could manage such a journey through time.”

  “It was an accident,” Jack put in, “involving a scholar and two badgers.”

  “That would probably be enough,” said Quixote. He looked down at Rose. “And you, young Rose? Do you also know this Cartographer of Lost Places?”

  Rose smiled. “I’ve only met him once,” she replied, “but in a way I’m closer to him than the Caretakers are. I’m his niece.”

  “His niece?” Quixote said in surprise, wondering at her obvious youth. “If that is so, then either you have also slept for many years in a tower, so that the days pass you by, untouched—or you have a remarkable parentage.”

  “You have no idea,” said Charles.

  It took very little time, relative to their previous visits, for the companions to reach the top of the stairway and the second to last door. John and Jack took furtive glances at the last door a bit higher in the keep—the door that opened onto the future.

  Rose had already guessed her role in this visit. The door was locked, to be opened only by one of the descendants of Arthur— but as had been proven once before, being Arthur’s cousin was authority enough. Rose reached out and opened the door.

  It swung into the room on silent hinges, revealing what could only be described as organized clutter. Maps and globes and parchment and books filled the space, making it seem smaller than Quixote’s room some forty doors below. In the center of the cartological maelstrom sat a familiar figure, who was busy at work.

  “Oh, drat,” the Cartographer said without looking up from his desk. “Is it already the end of the world again?”

  . . . on the edge of the uppermost shelf was a small glass bottle . . .

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Last Map

  Rose entered the room first, followed by Archie, the three Caretakers, and Quixote, who was still trying to take stock of what was going on
—as well as when and where, for that matter.

  “Hello, Uncle,” Rose said. “You’re looking well.”

  “What?” the Cartographer said, tilting his head and peering over the top of his glasses. His expression softened when he saw the girl. “Looking well for my age, you mean,” he went on, putting down his quill and standing to better appraise his visitors. “It feels like a thousand years since I last saw you, child.”

  “Nearly that, Uncle,” said Rose as she moved forward and embraced the old man. After a moment’s hesitation, he returned the hug and even kissed the top of her head.

  “What do you mean, the end of the world?” John asked, closing the door. “Which world are you talking about?”

  The Cartographer sighed. “Your first question is ripe with stupidity, but your second redeems you,” he said with a snort. “To make maps, or assist with annotations, or sign autographs for a badger requires only one or two of you to come see me, but for”— he paused and counted heads— “five of you, plus my niece, to come means some kind of disaster is imminent, and at the rate this tower has been crumbling, my guess is that the world is ending.”

  “So when the tower is destroyed, the world will end?” asked Charles.

  “My world will, at any rate,” said the Cartographer, “so I don’t really make a distinction.”

  “I’ve apologized before,” Charles offered, “but repairing the keep really is something that’s beyond my abilities—or anyone else’s, for that matter.”

  The old mapmaker waved his hands dismissively. “I wasn’t chiding you, boy,” he said with a huff. “We’ve all known what the inevitable end would be. But still, it would have been nice if you’d dropped in more often to chat. Brought me some cookies, a comic book or two. A better television would have been nice. You can imagine what the reception is like here in the Archipelago.”

  “We’ve come as frequently as we’ve been needed,” John started to protest, “and more often in recent years.”