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

by Owen, James A.

  Madoc shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. Samaranth taught me that this plane borders heaven itself, and so that may be where they have returned to. Why, I have no idea.”

  “It was the Echthroi,” said Fred. “The entire Archipelago was lost to shadow. I don’t think any Dragon would stick around to watch over a world that we screwed up that badly.”

  “Maybe when we put everything right,” said Rose, “the Dragons will return again.” She looked up into the darkness and sighed. “Maybe.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “It shouldn’t be too long now,” Madoc said as he and Rose consulted the Imaginarium Geographica. “We’re almost there, at the End of the World.”

  “There was a time not long ago,” said Uncas, “that we believed Terminus and th’ waterfalls was the End of the World, but then we found out it went beyond that. And now, we’re finding out that the boundary is even farther away. I’m starting to think there’s no end to anything!”

  “There was also a time,” Jack said wryly, “when you would have taken my shadow for the chance to have that book, Madoc. And done many other terrible things besides.”

  “Jack!” Rose exclaimed. “I can’t believe you said that!”

  “It’s all right,” Madoc said, shushing her. “It’s better that I know these things, if he feels they are worth saying.”

  “This will be difficult to hear,” Jack said. “You are not the man now that you were then.”

  Madoc considered Jack’s words, then slowly nodded his head. “True,” he said at last, “I am not. I have been several men since that time, and a Dragon besides. But I think I am better than I was. I hope I am. And if that is true, I should be able to bear an accounting of my own darker choices.”

  “Fair enough,” Jack said, turning to the others. “During our first great conflict with, ah, the Winter King, we discovered something that chilled us all to the core. We were focused on safeguarding the Imaginarium Geographica and by extension the Archipelago, but Mordred knew how connected this world was to our own. And he knew that as devoted as we had become to seeing through what we had promised Bert and Professor Sigurdsson we would do, we might abandon our responsibilities as Caretakers if something we cared for more was threatened.”

  “Something?” Rose asked, looking at her father.

  “Someone,” Madoc replied, meeting his daughter’s gaze.

  “Several someones, actually,” said Jack. “Mordred had dispatched several Shadow-Born to the Summer Country, to seek out and . . . murder our loved ones. Charles’s wife. My mother, and best friend. And John’s young wife, Edith, as well as his eldest child, then newly born.”

  Uncas glared at Madoc with barely contained fury. “That in’t right,” he said, his voice low and trembling. “Goin’ after younglings . . . That in’t right.”

  Strangely enough, it was the badger’s anger that affected Madoc most of all. Everyone else—every human—he faced squarely, fully accepting that his past sins were choices for which he would continue to pay. But he struggled to meet the badger’s eyes.

  “Charles never knew,” Jack continued, “and I was still young and brash enough not to understand the gravity of the situation. But John knew, and understood. And he realized that if we abandoned our duties here to try to race back to save our loved ones, then both worlds might be lost. So the decision was made to soldier on and try to find a way to defeat the Winter King. It was the only way we could save them.”

  He paused, and put a hand to his forehead. “I . . . I found out later, through James Barrie, and some of Verne’s Mystorians, that the Shadow-Born came closer than we realized to killing our families. In fact, two of them were right outside Edith’s door—close enough to hear her singing lullabies to young John, the baby, in his crib.

  “It was in that moment that Charles and Tummeler figured out how to use Perseus’s shield to close Pandora’s Box and reseal all the Shadow-Born within it. At once, all the—the Shadow-Born vanished, including the assassins that had been dispatched to the Summer Country.”

  “I never heard that story,” Uncas said, eyes shining with pride. “Your grandfather was a credit to badgers everywhere,” he said, clapping Fred on the back. “A credit, I tell you.”

  “The reason I wanted to share that story,” Jack continued as he leaned against the railing, “is so that you understand that all our choices are cumulative—and we must always keep the bigger picture in mind. Sometimes . . . sometimes the stakes that are more personal can distract us from the goals that are more necessary to achieve. And that’s—that’s when you must be resolute. . . .”

  The Caretaker’s voice trailed off as he rubbed his temple. “I—I think I need to sit down.”

  Before any of the companions could assist him, Jack’s eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward, already unconscious.

  Standing atop the rocks before them . . . was a Cherubim . . .

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  The Lonely Isle

  “It’s happened several times,” Jack admitted as Laura Glue dabbed at his forehead with a damp cloth. “Mostly just headaches, but they’ve been increasing in frequency and intensity over the last few years. And in the last several months, I’ve started having blackouts.”

  “And no one at Tamerlane House noticed?” asked Rose.

  Jack shook his head and propped himself up to a sitting position. “I’m good at hiding the headaches,” he admitted. “That’s what a lifetime of British reserve will do for you. And only Dumas ever saw me black out, but I managed to explain it away. I didn’t want any of them thinking something was amiss.”

  “You’re already dead,” Charles said bluntly. “You’re technically a portrait, Jack, and I’m a thought-form given flesh. People like us don’t get headaches or have blackouts. It simply doesn’t happen.”

  “If he’s stable for the moment,” said Edmund, “we can discuss it later. I think we’ve arrived.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The wall at the End of the World stood above a shallow beach, which was barely wide enough to pull a boat onto, but the wall itself rose so high that not even the keen-eyed Archie could fly high enough to see the top of it.

  “Is it even possible to get over or through?” Jack asked. “Can it be done, Madoc?”

  “I could not have done it then,” said Madoc. “That is indisputable, because heaven knows I tried. I walked the length of the wall in both directions until my strength gave out, and the only way to restore it was to return here, to the center. The compulsion was unbearable, but crossing was impossible. And thus is hell on earth attained. But now, yes—it may be possible.”

  “Because you’re a Dragon?” asked Fred.

  “A Dragon can cross,” said Madoc. “A true Dragon, at any rate. I have been one in the past, and the Zanzibar Gate proved that I carry with me some of the aspect of a Dragon still. But this is different.”

  “How is it different?” asked Charles. “It’s just a wall, isn’t it?”

  “On this side, yes,” said Madoc. “But behind it is the true Unknown Region. It is the source of the Dragons, and all the magic that is in the Archipelago. It is the true beginning of the world, and whatever lands we may find might very well be within sight of the shores of heaven itself.”

  “So how do we get over it?” asked Charles.

  “We don’t go over,” said Madoc. “We go through.”

  Two great doors, hundreds of feet high, with sculpted angels on either side, suddenly materialized out of the mist and gloom as if they had been there all along—which, the companions realized, they probably had been.

  “It’s like with the Zanzibar Gate,” said Laura Glue. “Your presence alone activates whatever is needed.”

  “Such is the power of a Dragon,” Madoc murmured. “If only I had known then . . .”

  He took the reins to the goats from Fred and urged them onward with a gentle shake, and quickly, they crossed the wall into the Unknown Region.

  ♦ ♦ �
�

  “It’s an old children’s poem, I think,” Madoc said as they surveyed the landscape past the Great Wall. “Something about an impossible desert, or something like that . . .”

  “I can tell,” Archie said, dropping from his perch atop the airship’s balloon, “that you have sorely neglected your studies while I’ve been away.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Madoc replied with a grin. “ ‘Away’?”

  The clockwork bird ignored him and instead began to recite a poem. To his delight, Laura Glue joined in, chanting the verses along with him.

  Cross the uncrossable desert, tally-yee, tally-yay.

  Climb the unclimbable mountain, tally-yee, tally-yay.

  Swim the impassable sea, tally-yee, tally-yay.

  Find the house that angels made,

  On the isle of bone.

  Pay the price that angels paid,

  On the isle, alone.

  Choose the Name that shows your face,

  Drink your tea and take your place.

  At Hades’s gate or heaven’s shore.

  There to live, forevermore.

  Tally-yee, tally-yay.

  “There, Caretakers,” Madoc said, winking at Rose. “Find that bit of wisdom in your little Geographica.”

  “It isn’t in the Imaginarium Geographica,” said Fred. “That’s what the Little Whatsits are for. Page two hundred ninety-six.” He looked up at Archimedes. “I see what you mean about his education.”

  Madoc laughed. “Point taken, little fellow.”

  “So what does it all mean?” asked Charles.

  “It’s our map,” said Jack. “All the wisdom in the world can be found in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. And, it seems,” he added, scratching Fred behind his neck, “in the Little Whatsits.”

  “I see the end of the desert already,” Laura Glue said, shading her eyes, “and beyond that, the mountain.”

  “Surely Samaranth passed this way years and years ago,” said Charles.

  “Perhaps,” Rose said. “But remember what Enoch told us—time has been flowing differently here. It changes with one’s own perception.”

  “And,” said Madoc, “we aren’t carrying the history of an entire world on our shoulders. It’s going to go much more quickly for us.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  As Madoc predicted, the passage over the mountain and then across the sea went quickly; in a short while, the airship passed over the last of the bridge, where it was tossed about by the storm clouds that circled the island.

  “The Lonely Isle,” said Fred. “The last haven in all the world.”

  “There’s an inn on top,” Charles shouted over the wind. “Aim for that, and let’s see if we can’t land without crashing.”

  They needn’t have worried—once they were close to the inn, the storm stopped. It was around the island, but in the center, it was calm. Outside the inn were some scrubby trees where they could tie up the goats and leave the airship.

  “We’re either just in time, or barely too late,” Jack said. He pointed to the other side of the island, where a familiar black ship, also converted to an airship, had been moored.

  “The Black Dragon, or, ah, Black Cat, or whatever it is now,” Charles sputtered. “They’re already here!”

  Quickly the companions rushed up to the door, which swung open at their approach. A tall, stern-looking woman with a frazzle of graying hair spread out behind her stood there, appraising the newcomers.

  “Do you know where you are?” she asked. “This is no place for visitors. There is a price to pay to sup at this inn.”

  “What price is that?” Madoc asked.

  “One life, for one hour here,” she said. “One of you must give themselves to death, or none may enter.”

  “All of us are coming in,” Laura Glue said as she rummaged through her bag. “I’ve got a pass.”

  She pulled out the bone hourglass that the Serendipity Box had given her, turned it over, and twisted the valve. Slowly the grains began to slide through the neck of the glass.

  “This is acceptable,” the woman said, “as long as you understand that all of your party must abide by the glass. If any still remain on this island when the sand runs out, then all are forfeit, and if you cross the threshold again, you will die the final death, and not return.”

  “I understand,” said Laura Glue.

  The woman could barely suppress her expression of surprise and delight. “Then you are welcome here on Youkali,” she said, “but there is one more caveat—whatever you are Named, you must cross this threshold as you really are. None can be here in this place except as they truly are, and not as they appear.”

  “We know who we are,” Rose said. “And we’re not afraid to pass.”

  The woman stood aside, and one by one, the companions entered. Rose and Edmund simply walked across the threshold, unchanged, as did Uncas and Fred.

  “We animals in’t very complicated,” Uncas explained as they passed.

  Charles also passed unchanged. “I do feel a bit more like a writer than an editor,” he said, “but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  Quixote, however, youthened considerably as he entered the inn. “To be young in one’s heart is the greatest achievement,” he said.

  “Good work,” said Uncas.

  Jack’s change was much more dramatic, as was Madoc’s.

  On entering, Jack became a boy again, as he had once been on the island of the Lost Boys. And Madoc lost his wings, and much of his age, becoming a fresh-faced youth not much older than Jack.

  “Ah,” said Charles. “So now we see the truth of things. And our Madoc truly is Madoc again.”

  “Come,” the woman said as she ushered them into the next room. “You may join our other guests for tea.”

  In the main room, the companions were astonished to see the tea party taking place. Sitting around an elaborately set table were five guests: a very young man with red hair that kept spilling into his eyes; a very young woman who was demurely nibbling at a cookie; an older, bearded man who wore an expression of such sadness that it was almost palpable; a very aged man, who was so old that his skin resembled the most fragile parchment, and whose eyes radiated hatred; and a badger, who immediately leaped up to greet the newcomers.

  The reunion of Tummeler with his son and grandson, and with his old partner Charles, was so filled with joy and happiness that even the old woman started to tear up. The three badgers and the Caretaker whooped and hollered and hugged one another until it seemed they would burst.

  “To see that, something so wonderful, I would pay almost any price,” the young man said.

  “Samaranth?” Rose exclaimed. “Is that you?”

  “It is,” the young angel replied, nodding, “but you’ve come just moments too late. I’ve already lost the Archipelago to Dr. Dee.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The companions all suddenly realized that there were hourglasses of bone identical to Laura Glue’s in front of each of the guests, but only one, in front of the old man with the terrible visage, was still trickling sand through the glass.

  As if in confirmation of Samaranth’s words, he reached out and grasped a crystal box, which was glowing a soft purple, and pulled it across the table closer to him.

  “The Archipelago,” said the man they now realized was Dee, “is mine.”

  “How did you cross the threshold?” Charles exclaimed. “You would have to sacrifice a life to—”

  “That’s exactly what I did,” Dee said, gesturing at a sorry-looking shadow in the far corner. “What do you think I brought Crowley for?”

  “My time ran out, all too quickly,” Samaranth said, “and as Sycorax can confirm, I cannot take the Amethyst Box with me without destroying the entire Archipelago.”

  “But the time limits,” Jack began.

  “The box is protected,” the woman Sycorax said, “but it must be taken elsewhere, away from this house, before it can be opened.”<
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  “We can take it!” Rose exclaimed, reaching for the box.

  “No!” Dee shouted. “I have already claimed it! By the rules of Deep Magic, it is mine!”

  “Is that true?” Rose asked Samaranth as her face fell. “Is it his?”

  “Yes,” said Samaranth. “It is. But the box can only be opened with a Master Key, and the Master Key may only be turned by an angel, or,” he said, pointedly not looking at Madoc, “by a Dragon.”

  “Hah!” said Uncas. “You really blew it then, Dee. We got the only Dragon left, an’ he’ll never help you.”

  Dr. Dee ignored the badger, instead focusing his attention on Rose.

  “I was there, in the City of Jade, before the deluge,” Dee said, his voice soft, and his eyes glittering. “I went there for two purposes. The first was to find a Master Key—one of the keys the angels used to unlock anything in creation—and the second, to find, and bind, an angel.”

  He stood and picked up the box. “Time to go,” he said, smiling at Samaranth, and then at Rose. “Be seeing you.”

  Madoc, Charles, and Edmund all started to move for Dee at once, but a shout stopped them in their tracks.

  “No!” Sycorax said sternly. “This is the last of the Free Houses, and no violence may be committed here.”

  “In other words,” said Charles, “ ‘take it outside.’ ”

  “Just so,” said Sycorax. “He still has sand in the glass and may do as he wishes.”

  Rose looked at the other three glasses on the table. “But you can’t, can you?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “I think I understand. All of you here—you’re already . . .”

  “Yes,” Samaranth said, nodding. “We are already on our way to the final death, where we will cross over into the next stage of being.”

  “I waited,” the girl said, speaking for the first time, “so that I could meet you, the daughter of my heart.”

  “Who are you?” Rose asked.

  “The one who built the bridge, but could not finish it,” the girl replied. “Perhaps someday, you will finish it for me. I hope you will.”