The Shadow Dragons

by James A. Owen

  “Does that lead outside?” John asked.

  “Yes,” said Poe, “but the entrance is guarded by a forty-foot-tall flaming red bull. No one comes in or out without my permission— and even then, it’s a crapshoot.”

  The cave had been built out with brick walls that formed dozens of rooms, as if someone had tried to impose a sense of order on the chaos of the cavern.

  Poe moved down several levels until he came to a shallow niche, where he placed the painting.

  “You think putting me down here is a punishment?” Defoe sneered. “Someone’s bound to come exploring and find me.”

  “They won’t after we’re through,” Poe said, as he picked up two trowels and handed one to John. “The mortar’s in that canister. I’ll fetch the bricks.”

  “You are not seriously considering this,” Defoe exclaimed as John and Poe laid down the first row of bricks. “This is barbaric.”

  “Well,” said John, “I have been accused of worse.”

  “But—but you’re Caretakers!” Defoe said, eyes grown wide with panic. “You’re supposed to help people.”

  “That,” said Poe, “is precisely what we are doing.”

  The wall was almost complete. John spread the mortar on the last row, and Poe put two more bricks in place.

  “Stop!” Defoe shrieked, having dropped all pretense that he was not bothered by his situation. “You can’t! John, don’t do this!”

  “Ironic,” said John. “That’s the last thing I remember someone saying to you”

  “For the love of God!” Defoe screamed as Poe slid the last brick into place. “For the love of—”

  Then, nothing. It was a good wall.

  “There’s another irony for you, John,” Poe said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Everyone thinks I wrote that story as entertainment. No one ever realized it was actually an instruction manual.”

  “You promised what to whom?” John said in astonishment. “Absolutely not.”

  Rose had finally been able to reveal what she had promised to Madoc in return for restoring the sword—and she chose to tell the three Caretakers in the presence of her uncle, the Cartographer, in his room atop the Keep of Time. It was an appropriate place to do so, she said, because she had made a second decision in concert with Aven and Stephen—to release the Cartographer from the keep.

  “It was the only way,” said Rose. “He would not have repaired Caliburn otherwise.”

  “You didn’t see what happened when Hugo Dyson went through one of the doors,” said Jack, his face flushed with emotion. “The entire world changed into the domain of the Winter King. We had to traipse through two thousand years of history just to fix it—and that was all mostly by accident. Do you know what kind of damage he can cause if we give Mordred himself the means to go into the past?”

  “I agree,” said Charles. “He went into exile, and that’s where he should stay.”

  “I gave him my promise,” Rose said firmly. “And so did Professor Sigurdsson,” she added, looking askance at John. “And we didn’t give that promise to Mordred, we gave it to Madoc.”

  “It’s the same person,” said Jack. “What difference does his name make?”

  “Jack,” said Bert mildly, “of all of you, I would have thought you would be the most receptive to the idea of giving the door to Madoc.”

  “Me?” Jack said in surprise. “Why?”

  “Because you alone have had the experience of getting a second chance you never expected to have.”

  “You mean Nemo,” said Jack, nodding. “I’ve considered that. It’s a strange loop to be caught in—to know I’m still the one responsible for his death in his future, while having had the chance to teach him, to mentor him, in my present creates conflicting feelings I don’t quite know how to process.”

  “It’s very simple,” said Bert. “Your actions now redeem your actions then. Nemo knew his part and valued you for what you would one day become—a good man.”

  “How can we do any less for Madoc,” John said, “considering it’s in large part our fault that he became the man he is today?”

  Throughout the entire discussion, the Cartographer had remained silent, observing but not offering any opinion either way. Rose stepped over to his desk and laid a hand on his arm.

  “You knew him best, Uncle Merlin,” she said plaintively. “What would you choose?”

  The Cartographer looked at her for a long moment, then swallowed hard. “I—I have no right to suggest a course of action here,” he finally said. “I betrayed him at every turn, and if we’re laying our cards out on the table, I have to take as much responsibility as anyone for the evil he’s done.”

  “What would you choose?” Rose repeated, more firmly this time. “You cannot answer badly, Uncle. And whatever you say, it won’t change my decision to free you from the keep.”

  “That’s the reason I hesitate,” the old man replied. “If we are discussing justice, then he should stay, as punishment for his crimes. But if so, should I not continue to pay for mine, and also his, which he committed because of what we made him into?

  “But if we are discussing an act of mercy, which you are offering to me, then would it not also be an act of mercy to offer freedom to him as well?”

  “There are no longer any Dragons to compel you to stay,” said Rose. “None save for Samaranth, and I think he’d agree with my decision.”

  “Then . . . yes,” said the old mapmaker. “If you are asking, I would choose freedom for myself—and for Madoc.”

  The keep trembled, and below them they could hear the muffled sounds of stones ripping away from the walls.

  “You’d best hurry,” said the Cartographer. “There are only a few doors left.”

  Quickly the Caretakers raced down the stairway to where a door was hanging precariously from a half-fallen archway. They grabbed it just as the stairway below was starting to buckle, and then secured it onboard their own airship.

  “Good enough and done,” said John.

  “Yes,” Jack said, grimacing. “Heaven help us all.”

  “What will you do?” Charles asked as they returned to the Cartographer’s room.

  “For centuries I have made maps based on the descriptions of others,” he replied. “I have long wished to return to the journeys I abandoned so long ago in my youth, and I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “Would you like to take anything with you?” asked Rose.

  He looked around the small room of Solitude, which had been his only home, and shrugged. “I brought very little with me, and there’s little here I wish to keep.”

  He bent down and retrieved a black scabbard from behind his chair. “Here,” he said, handing it to Rose. “Give this to your cousin Stephen. It belongs with his sword, anyway.”

  The Cartographer gathered together a few rolls of parchment, some bottles of ink, and several pens, and wrapped them all together in a large sheet of oilcloth.

  “That should do it,” he said as another rumble shook the remains of the tower, “and just in time, from the sound of things.”

  “Then it’s time, Rose,” John said, stepping back.

  Rose used a small knife to cut into her palm, which she then placed against the old man’s forehead as she began to recite the words of power:

  Myrddyn, son of Odysseus

  By right and rule

  For need of might

  I thus free thee

  I thus free thee

  By blood bound

  By honor given

  I thus free thee

  I thus free thee

  For strength and speed and heaven’s power

  By ancient claim in this dark hour

  I thus free thee

  I thus free thee

  As she spoke the last word, the lock on the door popped open with a quiet click. It would lock no longer.

  The Cartographer was free.

  They stepped out into the tower, onto the last landing that rema
ined, then down to the awaiting airships: the companions onto the Indigo Dragon, and the Cartographer onto the Scarlet Dragon.

  Both airships descended, then pulled away from the tower as another rumble shook a few stones free.

  “Farewell,” John called out. “May the wind be at your back, Myrddyn.”

  “Oh, hell’s bells, lad,” he said over his shoulder as the Scarlet Dragon picked up a crosswind, “call me Merlin”

  Their task completed, the companions laid a course for Terminus one last time. They had one errand to complete, and then they could at long last return home. None of them chose to look back. None of them were even tempted.

  And so, no one was watching at the isles called Chamenos Liber when the last stones fell from what was once the Keep of Time. The final door never fell, but simply swung open as the archway around it crumbled. The sky darkened for a moment, as the future became the present, then vanished into the past.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Notion Club

  “You realize, you cannot return to the Archipelago,” Bert said with obvious remorse. “It may be impossible for you to do so now. At least,” he added, “for the next seven years, anyway.”

  When all the loose ends had been attended to in the Archipelago in 1943, the companions had returned to Tamerlane House, where Poe activated all their pocket watches as functional Anabasis Machines. He then instructed them in the use of the time travel devices, and after Ransom delivered them back to the Inn of the Flying Dragon, John, Jack, and Charles returned to 1936.

  “You went back only minutes after you originally left,” said Bert, “so Ransom had already led the Yoricks away. And without Rose, they will have no reason to return to Oxford.”

  That had been the most difficult decision—to leave Rose at Tamerlane House, where she could continue her education under Poe and Jules Verne.

  Bert had arranged for them to meet again a week later at the Inn of the Flying Dragon, and he and Ransom brought Rose and Fred with them.

  “You can meet her here whenever you like,” he said, handing them a card with a drawing of the inn. “And with the Trump, you can contact her if a need arises. But you cannot return to the Archipelago. Not until after the point you left in 1943.”

  “Greetings, Caretakers and company,” said the stout, bearded man . . .

  The companions were stunned. “But we’re the Caretakers,” said John. “How are we to look after the Archipelago if we can’t go there at all?”

  Before Bert could answer, the mop boy brought a tray of drinks to the table.

  “Thank you, Flannery,” Jack said, smiling. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you too, sir,” the boy said as he put the tray of drinks on the table. He bent closer so that only Jack could hear.

  “I just wanted you t’ know,” Flannery whispered, “Mr. Ransom spoke t’ me as you’d asked, an’ he warned me about the you-know-what in the you-know-where that you-know-who told you about. And I’ll be nowhere near there then. I’m going to finish school on Prydain.”

  “Really?” said Jack. “On Prydain? That’s exceptional, Flannery. What do you plan to study there?”

  The boy stood up and took the now empty tray. “Music. I plan to learn to sing, and play an instrument or three, and tell stories in epic songs. The next time you see me,” he said proudly, “I won’t be mopping up at a tavern—I’ll be Flannery Flem the Bard.”

  Jack winced, as did Charles and John.

  “You know,” Charles offered, “if you do plan to study on Prydain, you might want to consider changing your name ever so slightly to something more local.”

  “Change my name?” said Flannery.

  “All performers have a stage name,” said Jack. “Like Houdini, and . . . well, other performers.”

  “I’ll do it!” Flannery said. “Thanks!”

  “You cited Houdini?” Charles chided as he lifted his ale. “What kind of example does that set?”

  “Says the man raising a Magwich plant,” said Jack.

  Charles spit out the ale he’d just drunk. “Good point,” he said, coughing.

  “You knew,” John said to Bert. “You and Verne knew how this would go. So why not just take Rose to Tamerlane House to begin with?”

  “It was necessary,” said Bert, “because it would have been impossible to hide Rose otherwise. To some, she is all but invisible. But to those who know how to look, she shines like a beacon. There was nowhere and nowhen in space and time where she could be safely hidden—so we arranged for her to skip ahead in time to the point where she would be needed most. The point the Shadow King never wanted her to reach. But more important, we needed the three of you to skip ahead in time as well.”

  “Why?” asked John.

  “Because,” Bert answered, “according to a future History, you already had.”

  “Did you know?” Jack asked, looking at Ransom. “Did you know the Trump would move us in time as well as space?”

  Ransom shrugged, then shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I, ah, suspected it was possible, but I couldn’t have said for sure. We were whistling in the dark, really. Making things up as we went along. Hank has more of a knack for time travel than I, and Rappaccini’s daughter is better at spatial concepts. But yes, I did think merging the two was possible. We’d just never tested it before, nor assessed the risks.”

  “I don’t think it would have worked,” Charles remarked, “if it hadn’t been for that old man in the infinite white room.”

  “We have some associates looking into that,” said Ransom. “We don’t know who he is, but we do suspect you’re right, Charles. Somehow he aided you. We just can’t tell how. Or why.”

  “The old man’s technique may work,” said Bert. “Using a Trump twice. But we have too few agents to have risked anyone in a test.”

  “As you did with us,” said Rose.

  Bert sighed. “Yes. We had to try it. And the theory was sound.”

  “That was a dangerous way to test the theory,” John said, casting a watchful eye at the girl, “given Rose’s importance.”

  “But won’t that danger still exist now?” said Jack. “If she’s there, in the Archipelago where she can be discovered, won’t the work we accomplished be undone?”

  “The work has already been done,” said Bert, “but your concern is also ours—so Jules plans to take her Elsewhen to continue her training.”

  “Elsewhere?” asked Charles.

  “No,” said Bert, signaling to Flannery for more drinks, “Elsewhen. And Tamerlane House is as safe as . . . well, houses. At least in the Archipelago.”

  “We still have a lot of questions,” said John. “Almost all of them about the Caretakers. I just can’t seem to keep the rules straight— but I suspect in part it’s because you haven’t yet told us what all the rules are.”

  “Secrets make you sick,” Fred commented.

  “Didn’t Freud say that?” asked Charles.

  The badger shook his head. “Beats me if I know. I figured that out watching Magwich.”

  “All the secrets are out now,” said Bert, “and the Prophecy has been fulfilled. There’s no need for more secrets, so ask what you will.”

  “So we have to stay in England, while all of this unfolds, without changing anything,” said Jack. “How is that resolving the war that will come?”

  “You already have,” said Bert. “When Ransom sent you into the, ah, ‘future,’ you changed the events that needed changing. So there’s no need to do it again. But if you try, if you alter anything now, and in the coming years, you risk the very victory that you’ve already won.”

  “But there will still be a war,” said John. “We know it’s coming, and we know how and where it’s going to start. Shouldn’t we try to do something about that? Isn’t it the right thing to do?”

  Bert sat down across from John and clasped his hands together in thought. After a moment, he looked up and answered. “That’s how a man sh
ould think, John, yes, and it’s to your credit that you would take such a large thing upon yourselves. But there is, as always, a greater canvas to consider, and the matter of free agency among the rest of humanity.”

  “Haven’t we already tampered with that,” said Jack, “and more than once? We’ve gone back in time two millennia when it was necessary. Wasn’t that considering the greater canvas and taking away the free agency of two thousand years’ worth of the entire world?”

  “You didn’t initiate that,” Bert replied in soft rebuke, “you were responding to the actions of our adversaries. They put the causes into play, and your job was to make sure the effects preserved the free agency of the world. Had you not done so, we would be living in Albion still, under the rule of the Winter King.”

  “But things will change anyway,” said Charles. “Jamie’s wardrobe, for example. Burton only got it because we supposedly weren’t here to claim it. How do we deal with that?”

  “You must remove yourselves from any and all dealings with the Archipelago, and anything associated with it,” said Bert. “To take care of the future, you have to become invisible in the present. Throw yourselves into your work. And try not to think about altering events—else we risk changing the result we wanted all along.”

  “That’s a terrible answer,” said Jack.

  “There’s something else, Bert,” said Charles. “We’ve spent a lot of time in the company of seemingly dead men—some who have eluded death via the portraits in Tamerlane House, which I understand. But there are others, like Burton, who never had a portrait painted but are still walking about. Are they traveling in time, like yourself, or have they managed to avoid death by some other means?”

  Bert tipped his head back and laughed. “By my bones, Charles, you’ve quite a mind! And you’re more right than you know.

  “There are indeed several ways of defying death, but very few that are moral, and fewer still that are honorable.”