“There’s another reason to restore the zero points. I don’t think Rose being visited by the Morgaine—or one of them, anyway—was a coincidence. I think she was giving us a warning. ‘The threads of history are undone,’” he quoted. “That’s exactly what has happened.
“And Mother Night said to seek out the apprentice of the Dragon,” he reminded them. “Samaranth is the last Dragon. Where else should we seek his apprentice if not in the Archipelago?”
“Well reasoned, young John,” said Twain.
“But how will you cross?” asked Chaucer. “The Nameless Isles are connected to the Summer Country now.”
“We might try modifying the bridge,” Dumas suggested. “It did shift us forward in time.”
“But at what cost?” asked Twain. “What happens to Tamerlane House if the bridge is severed, or reset?”
“He’s right,” said Verne. “We can’t risk that. It’s the only stability we have.”
“Where did the orbs come from?” John asked Will Shakespeare. “The Dragon’s eyes you used in the bridge?”
“The Indigo Dragon,” Will answered. “In the south boathouse.”
“Could we use another Dragonship?” asked Fred. “I’d be willing to risk it.”
“There aren’t any more. When the Shadow King corrupted all the Dragon shadows, we also lost the use of the Dragonships,” lamented Jack. “As living ships, anyway.”
“And when we were ripped out of the Archipelago,” said John, “you left all the other Dragonships there, so we don’t even have any extra eyes to experiment with.”
“Ah,” said Verne, rising. “But we just might have an extra Dragonship.”
“What?” John exclaimed. “Even with the golden eyes, they’re still just ships, and may not be able to cross.”
“Not all of them,” Bert said with an unusual twinkling in his eyes. “There’s one left that is still a true Dragonship.”
“I’m sure the Shadow King made particularly certain to get the Dragons who became our ships,” said Jack, “just to keep us from being able to voyage back and forth across the Frontier.”
“A plan that worked, for the most part,” said Bert, “but recall, he was going by the History of Dragons in the Last Book, using their true names to seize their shadows. That’s where he missed one—a Dragon who was never named, because he was never known. A cipher, a mystery …”
“An enigma, a conundrum, yes, yes, yes,” Houdini said in exasperation. “How is that possible? Whose Dragonship did he overlook?”
Bert smiled. “His own.”
The south boathouse was large enough to hold several ships within two enclosures. One contained the Indigo Dragon and several smaller boats. The second enclosure, which was double-locked and safeguarded with runes, spells, and the seal of both the house of Arthur and the Caretakers, housed the Black Dragon.
During the companions’ first encounter with the Winter King, he attacked them and the much smaller Indigo Dragon with this dark, foreboding warship. It was only in the heat of battle, when the Black Dragon shifted course of its own accord, that they had realized it was a Dragonship in more than name alone. It was a true Dragonship—one that had melded the heart and living soul of a flesh-and-blood Dragon with the hull of a ship.
Ordo Maas, the great shipbuilder of ancient days gone by, knew of it, but not who built it. The Winter King claimed to have done so, but only Ordo Maas and the Dragons themselves ever knew the secrets of passage between the worlds—or so they had believed.
The ship was sleek and undamaged, and the chest of the great Dragon on its prow heaved with restrained energy and life.
When it was first captured, Ordo Maas had taken possession of it, but because of its mysterious origins, he relinquished it to the Caretakers’ stewardship. It had been locked in the boathouse ever since.
“We can only assume that the Shadow King thought we had destroyed his ship, Dragon and all,” said Bert, “or else why wouldn’t he have sought her out?”
“It makes sense,” said Burton. “Destroy what you do not use. It’s standard tactics. It’s what I would have done.”
“Lucky that it wasn’t you, then,” said John, “or we’d be out a resource now.”
“Even a stopped Caretaker is right twice a day,” said Burton. “If he wins the coin tosses.”
“Can it be controlled, is what I want to know,” asked Jack. “Not to sound too prejudiced against Dragons, but I was scared enough of the ones I knew of, and even more of the ones who actively liked me. I’m not sure I want to trust my life to one who has tried to actually kill me.”
“I think it can,” said Bert. “The Winter King was its master, but I don’t think it was a willing servant. Not completely.”
“All right,” Jack said. “I think we have the means. Now we just need to decide on a plan of action.”
The Caretakers reconvened in the great meeting hall to call for a consensus. The vote was unanimous, even including Byron and the Society members. Only Magwich and Grimalkin weren’t permitted a vote, and likely wouldn’t have voted if they had been. Or at least not quietly, in Magwich’s case.
“It’s decided then,” Chaucer said, thumping on the table for order. “We must discover what has happened in the Archipelago. The Dragon Samaranth must be sought, so his apprentice may be named. And somehow the zero points must be mapped so that time itself can be repaired.”
He turned to John. “Caveo Principia,” he said with respect and reverence, “this is under your purview.”
“We’ll sort it out,” John said, glancing quickly at Jack, who winked in agreement. “We may not be the young Turks we once were, but we’re still the Caretakers. It shouldn’t be anyone else’s responsibility.”
“And risk,” Jack added. “The two of us—”
“Ahem-hem,” Fred interrupted, clearing his throat. “That would be three of us.”
“My apologies, Caretaker,” said Jack. “Three of us.”
“As you wish,” said Chaucer, to a round of table thumping by the others.
“Hold on,” Burton said suddenly. “I see three—make that two and a half—Caretakers planning to go, but no representatives of the Imperial Cartological Society?”
“Pardon me?” said Jack, who was slightly offended. “I can represent both.”
“I’ll keep my pardons for myself,” Burton replied. “You may represent the ICS to the outside world, but in matters of the Archipelago, we all know what the reality is. I’m going along as well.”
“The Caretakers and Sir Richard—,” Chaucer began.
“Three and three,” Burton interrupted, gesturing to Houdini and Doyle. “They come with me. More witnesses, better reportage.”
“He has a point there, Geoff,” Twain said, tapping out his pipe. “And Richard is the most experienced among us for reporting on odd cultures and unusual scenarios.”
“It will be dangerous …,” Dickens began.
“If anyone else has the scars to match mine,” said Burton, stroking his cheek, “I’ll listen to their arguments. But I think I’m beyond contestation in this.”
“I have some bad scorch marks,” said Byron, raising his hand.
“Oh, do shut up,” Shakespeare said, “or I’ll ask the faeries to give you the head of a donkey.”
“Can he do that?” a horrified Byron whispered to Twain.
“Probably,” Twain said, winking at Shakespeare, who returned a halfhearted smile. Will was still stuck in a mood that was half elation and half misery. The first, because his bridge had worked—and the second, because the rest of the Caretakers, with a few exceptions, still wondered if his cleverness was just another mask he wore to conceal the idiot underneath.
“Burton does address a valid point,” said Chaucer. “This could be dangerous in the extreme. We should send someone else to help safeguard the Caretakers.”
“Whom did you have in mind, Geoff?” asked Twain. “Hawthorne, maybe?”
Nathaniel Hawthorne was,
among the Caretakers Emeritis, the most able-bodied and skilled scrapper. He was precisely the sort of man one would want to have in a fight. There was only one problem.
“He can’t,” said Chaucer. “This is a matter of time, and we have no way of knowing how that would affect a Caretaker who has already passed and is now a resident of Tamerlane House and the Pygmalion Gallery. We can’t risk a loss like …”
His voice trailed off, but everyone at the table knew he was thinking of John’s old professor Stellan Sigurdsson. He had traveled with Rose, Quixote, and Archie beyond the Edge of the World, but he’d exceeded the one-week time limit imposed on all Caretakers who resided inside the portraits. One week away from Tamerlane, and no more. And to take such a risk so close on the heels of the loss of Charles would be too much to countenance.
“Burton, Harry, and Sir Arthur are tulpas,” Chaucer said, hardly masking the distaste in his voice, “and so are not at risk with another time displacement. John, Jack, and Fred are still living in their Prime Times, and so are also at less of a risk. So there’s only one other among us we can send.”
“Of course!” Bert exclaimed. “Roger!”
“You do know he hates that name, right?” Twain said bluntly. “He prefers to be called the Tin Man now.”
John and Jack looked at each other in surprise. They hadn’t considered him as an option. Roger Bacon, one of the great Caretakers of antiquity, had never died—he had manufactured for himself the massive mechanical body that kept his brain, his soul, and his intellect intact. All within a form that could shatter boulders and wade through doors as if they were tissue.
“I’ll go fetch him,” said Hawthorne, rising from his seat. “I think he’s still in the workshed he shares with Shakespeare.”
“I’m going too,” said someone from the back of the room.
Jack started to shake his head in protest. It was Laura Glue who had spoken, and she was already glaring at him defiantly.
“Laura Glue, you can’t think—,” John began.
“You really expect to go?” said Dickens. “It could be very dangerous, child.”
“Of course I’m going!” Laura Glue exclaimed indignantly. “I was born in the Archipelago, and I’ve spent my entire life there, remember? Can anyone else here say the same?”
“Ahem-hem.” Fred cleared his throat.
“Except for Fred,” she added, winking at him.
Burton chuckled. “She has a point, I think.”
“That’s where home is for me,” she continued, walking the perimeter of the table so that she could look at each Caretaker. “You may think it’s safer to be here in Tamerlane House, but I’ll remind you, I am the head of the Valkyries. I can take care of myself. And no one here is going to stop me.”
Bert and Verne both looked askance at Jack, who shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands. “Don’t look at me,” he said sheepishly. “I couldn’t win an argument with her when she was eight.”
“I want to go too,” Rose suddenly said, realizing that her request sounded more like an afterthought once they’d given in to Laura Glue. “I think I could be helpful to you, Uncle John. And Mother Night did say that I was the only one who could reweave the threads that had come loose from history. Isn’t that just what the Watchmaker said we needed to do? To find those special points in time, to make them significant again? For that reason alone, I don’t think you can do this without me.”
As if her argument had been decisive enough to end the discussion, she folded her arms, closed her eyes, and smiled.
“She must,” Poe’s quiet voice spoke from somewhere above them. “Rose must go.”
“I disagree,” said John. “We’ve already lost Charles and Morgan—and that’s without the threat of these Shadows, these Echthroi, that Mother Night said were coming for Rose. I think she’ll be much safer here in Tamerlane House.”
“Not anymore,” said Burton. “The door has been opened for good, by way of Shakespeare’s Bridge.” He looked up into the shadows. “The islands are still Nameless, but they’re no longer lost, are they?”
Poe didn’t answer, but simply stood there, watching.
“This is going to be dangerous, Bert,” John reiterated, folding his arms. “She should stay behind, with the rest of the Caretakers.”
“I don’t think anywhere is going to be safe,” Rose said mildly. “Is it, Bert?”
The Far Traveler shook his head. “The girl is right, John,” he said with obvious resignation. John realized in that moment that Bert didn’t want her to accompany them any more than they did. But for some reason, she was meant to go. He looked at Rose and realized that she had not offered just to have a chance at an adventure. She really believed she was meant to do this. And he had no good argument why she shouldn’t go.
“She may not be safe anywhere,” said Poe, “least of all with you, in the Archipelago. But the fact remains that this may be what she is meant to do—even if it costs her everything else.”
John stepped into the center of the foyer underneath the railings where Poe stood. He looked up at the shadowed face of the great Caretaker. “Tell us why,” he said, not bothering to keep the anger out of his voice. “We have done many, many things on faith, Edgar. Sometimes things work out, but sometimes they don’t. And we have never defied you or the Caretakers Emeritis.
“I don’t believe you’re all-knowing,” John continued, his voice still sharp with fury. “ I think you’re making this up as you go along, the same as the rest of us. So I think we deserve to know why we should have to do as you say.”
Burton chuckled under his breath. “So, the little scholar has some dung up his neck after all.”
“That was, ah, brave,” Houdini whispered to Doyle. “I don’t think anyone, even Chaucer, calls him Edgar.”
“You don’t,” said Poe simply. “You have always had your free agency to choose—as does Rose.
“There are threads that are lost, and must be found again,” he continued, echoing Rose and Mother Night’s words. “She is the only one who can find them.”
“What else haven’t you told us?” asked John. “What else is happening here?”
“The Darkness is coming,” Poe said somberly. “Perhaps not now, this instant, but soon. Some of its agents already work against us. Some of them have been here, in this house. But make no mistake—the Darkness will come. And all of our work over the centuries has been to find the one light that will be able to stand against our enemy.”
“Echthroi,” Schubert said from the far side of the stairway. “Our enemy.”
“And you believe that Rose is that light?” John demanded. “Do you?”
Again Poe was silent. And John realized why. He didn’t need to answer a question John had known the answer to all along. Rose was the light. She was the one they had protected, who had come out of history to save them once before—as she might do again.
“All right, so the Grail Child has to go,” Burton said, “but with the addition of the mechanical man and the birdy-girl, you’ve got two more representatives of the Caretakers. I demand equal representation for the ICS.”
“As the Valkyrie noted,” said Poe, “she is simply returning home. She represents only herself.”
“Fine,” Burton acceded, “but you’re still up one with the Tin Man.”
“I had already planned on sending someone else along with you,” Poe said as a door to his right opened slowly. “I trust you’ll approve.”
From behind Poe, a tall, muscular, dark-skinned man stepped onto the landing and descended the stairs. He was dressed in the manner of an Arab, with a linen robe and head wrapping and broad leather belts. He was barefoot, and his skin was so black it was almost purple-hued in the light of the meeting hall.
He moved through the Caretakers and went straight to Burton—who, to the shock and amazement of everyone there, embraced the tall man.
“The End of Time,” Burton exclaimed. “I did not know you were still alive, but I’m not
surprised!”
“Master Burton,” the man said in a deep baritone voice that was flecked with a French accent. “It gladdens me to see you again.”
“What are you doing here?” said Burton as he clapped the man on the shoulders. “When did you get here?”
“I have been here, in these islands, for a very long time,” he replied. “I have been waiting for you, in fact.”
Burton wheeled around and pointed at Poe. “What kind of game are you playing, Poe? You had my friend here, with you, all this time?”
Poe didn’t answer.
“The End of Time?” Jack said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the reference.”
“It isn’t a reference, it’s his name,” said Burton, still eyeing Poe above. “He was my guide across Somaliland in the 1850s. I would not have survived if not for him. We called him Theo for short, and …
“Wait a minute,” he exclaimed suddenly. Burton looked over the man he called the End of Time from head to toe, then took a step back. “How is it that you’re here now? That was nearly a century ago.”
“He’s one of the Messengers,” Verne said, trying without success to conceal the smugness he felt at disorienting Burton so. “An adept, like Ransom and Morgan. Or didn’t you know that?”
“I … did not,” Burton said frankly. Doyle and Houdini looked at each other in surprise. This was a rare admission for Sir Richard, to not have known something about his own man.
At that moment Hawthorne reappeared with the Tin Man, who agreed to go. “And I’m taking Archie,” said Rose, as if defying Burton to argue with her—but he was too stunned by the appearance of the End of Time to care.
“Then we have our fellowship,” Chaucer declared. “Luck be with you all.”
The travelers left Tamerlane House to go prepare the Black Dragon, just as another argument broke out among the Caretakers Emeritis. “We’ve already shared so much,” Bert was saying, pleading with the others. “Why couldn’t we have told them this, too? Why not put all the cards on the table, so they can be fully informed about their choices?”
“It isn’t a matter of being fully informed, Bert,” said Twain, “but about how much they can bear.”
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