“We’ve seen you since then,” said Jack. “Many, many times, in fact. How is that possible if you’ve been here all these years?”
“Where is here?” Bert asked. “‘Here’ wasn’t created until Hugo went through the door. And once that happened, everything forward changed.”
“I still don’t see how that would affect your return to England,” said John. “Our past hasn’t changed. Why did yours?”
“Jules and I travel via means that take us outside of time and space,” said Bert. “If we’d simply come back on one of the Dragon-ships, we’d never have noticed a difference. Jules has always kept his own counsel, though, and insisted that we needed to travel by his usual method, so we did.”
“You’ve mentioned time travel before, Bert,” John said, “but you’ve never gone into detail about how you really do it. It never came up as a factor in our roles as Caretakers until the problems with the Keep of Time, so I never asked about it.”
“And those problems are the very ones that caused this, aren’t they?” Bert said, his voice harsh. “If you’d paid closer attention to your responsibilities, then maybe we wouldn’t be here now.”
“That’s hardly fair, Bert,” Jack exclaimed. “You were there with us when Charles led us out of the Keep, before Mordred set it aflame.”
“Don’t bring me into this,” put in Chaz, “even if it’s the other me.”
“Jack’s right,” said John. “There were things you and Verne could have told us—about time travel, for example—that might have prevented this. But you always seemed to be playing your own cards close, Bert.”
“You weren’t ready yet,” the old man replied. “At least, in Jules’s estimation you weren’t. We had focused on you, John, as the one with the most potential to learn about the intricacies of time as well as space. But then we realized it might be Jack who possessed the greater capacity. We were wrong on both counts, it seems. No offense.”
“I can’t be offended,” Jack said, “when I don’t even understand what you’re talking about.”
“So you get my point,” said Bert. “Excellent. No, we realized it was Charles who had a bent for not only time travel, but also for interdimensionality. So we came back to England specifically to warn him.”
“Same with th’ Royal Animal Rescue Squad,” Uncas put in. “We were gived our instructions by th’ Prime Caretaker fourteen years ago.”
“That’s what I find intriguing,” said John. “Verne obviously knew more than he was telling you, Bert, to set a plan into motion that involved a rescue effort on the very day that these events would be set into motion in your own future.”
Bert stood and hobbled his way over to the mantel of the small tumbledown fireplace at the far side of the shack. On it sat a skull, a scroll, and a small box of a unique design.
Bert removed the box and set it in the center of his small table. The box wasn’t polished, but it was shiny with age; great, great age. The wood it was constructed of was pale, and there were cuneiform-like markings carved into the top and sides. Across the bottom were signs of scorching, as if it had been held to a flame. Jack reached out to lift the lid, but Bert slapped down his hand with the ash staff.
“Not so quickly, lad,” the old man said. “No telling what’ll come out of the Serendipity Box. Don’t want to let anything out that’s best kept in, for now.”
“What is a Serendipity Box?” Jack asked as he rubbed his knuckles. “Some sort of Pandora’s Kettle?”
“Not so dire as that,” said Bert. “It was your mentor, Stellan, who actually named it, John. What it was called before that, I can’t say.
“As the legend goes, it was given to Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, who passed it to his own son, Enos. Where it went after that is mostly lost to the mists of antiquity. But sometime in the past, it came into the possession of Jules Verne, and it was he who explained its workings to myself and Stellan.
“Adam explained to his son that the box could be used but once, and it was his choice alone when to do so. It would give whoever opened it whatever they most needed, and so the old Patriarch advised Seth that he should save it for a crisis, for a time of great peril, and only then open the box.”
“What did Seth use it for?” asked John, who still had not decided whether he even wanted to touch the Serendipity Box, much less open it. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It was too long ago, and there are too many versions of the stories to know for sure,” Bert replied. “Some say that he was given a knife with which to avenge his brother, Abel. Others, that it contained three seeds from the Tree of Life, one of which he placed under Adam’s tongue when he died, the second of which he planted in a hollow at the center of the Earth, and the last of which he saved. One story even says that his wife, whom some called Idyl, sprang forth fully formed from the box, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, and that she was not a Daughter of Eve at all.
“There is a fragment of scripture that claimed Enoch and Methuselah both used the box, and another that claimed it had been used by Moses to part the Red Sea. An entirely apocryphal account says that it was the Serendipity Box that held the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot. But no historians I know of believed it.”
“Why is that?” asked John.
“Because,” said Bert, “according to the story, it was Jesus Christ himself who gave Judas the box.”
“Who had it between then and now?”
Bert shrugged, then rubbed absentmindedly at the stump of his right arm. “Jules and Stellan had some theories, and we read through the Histories at Paralon for clues, but apparently miracle boxes that are only good for a single use aren’t worth writing about.”
“Jules never said where he got it?”
“Here,” Bert said, rising and taking the skull from the mantel. He tossed the skull to John, who jumped up and caught it against his chest. “Ask him yourself. And let me know if he answers—I’ve been talking to him for years now, and he hasn’t said a word.”
The companions were speechless, except for Chaz, who watched with mild interest. “Kept it, did you, old-timer?” he said blithely as he walked to the window to pull back the curtain and peer outside. “I suppose the king wouldn’t notice one more or less in his tower walls.”
“This is Jules Verne?” John asked, flabbergasted. “He’s dead?”
“The world we knew thought he died in 1905 anyway,” said Bert, “and he may well have. But he had a lot of traveling around to do, in time as well as in space, and he had the bad fortune to end up here, with me, in this dismal place.”
“What happened?”
“Mordred was waiting for us,” said Bert. “He knew we were coming, somehow, some way. And before we could gird ourselves up to work out what had happened to us—hell’s bells, to the whole bloody world—Jules was killed.”
“There was no way to contact the Archipelago for help?” Jack asked, taking the skull from John and hefting it in one hand. “Samaranth, or Ordo Maas? Anyone?”
Bert shook his head and looked at Jack intensely. “You still don’t get it, do you, boy? In this place, there is no Archipelago! Mordred destroyed it all centuries ago, and then set about destroying this world as well! The only creatures or lands who survived were those who joined him, like the giants and the trolls! Everything and everyone else—dragons, elves, dwarves, humans … all gone! There was no way to contact anyone, and no one to hear the call if there had been a way!”
“Could you have used the Serendipity Box?” asked Jack.
“I did use it,” Bert said, sitting again. “And as Jules had said it would, it gave me what I needed. At least,” he added, “I hope it did. Only time shall tell.”
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” said Uncas. “There’s nothing but crackers in here, anyway.”
The others turned back to the table to see the box, top flung wide, spilling over with oyster crackers. Uncas was happily shoving them into his mouth with both paws, whil
e Fred stood a few feet away with a horrified expression on his face.
John took a bowl from a cupboard and emptied the box into it, then closed the box and replaced it on the mantel, higher than a badger’s reach.
“Oh, great,” Jack groaned. “We have one chance each to get something miraculous from that box, and Uncas wastes it on crackers.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Bert said with a chuckle. “It isn’t a magic genie’s bottle that you rub to get three wishes. It gives you, and you alone, one time, what it is that you need the most. So,” he finished, rubbing Uncas on the head, “it’s likely that it doesn’t matter when or where or how Uncas opened the box. It would probably have been full of oyster crackers just the same.”
“Forry,” said Uncas through a mouthful of crackers. “I juff willy wike ‘em.”
“I think you might be correct,” Bert mused, turning to John. “I think perhaps Jules had planned ahead for something only he was privy to. Something that’s happening right now.”
“Hold on, you old goat,” Chaz said, still glancing out the window and fidgeting nervously. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas.…”
“But don’t you see?” Bert exclaimed. “If all of this was fore-told—was anticipated—by Jules, then that changes everything!”
“What are you talking about?” asked John.
“The Serendipity Box was left for you, John. Jules left it for you, and Jack, and Charles. He said you’d come for it. I just never imagined it would take fourteen years.”
“I’m surprised Mordred didn’t take it for himself,” said Jack.
“He did,” Chaz answered, gesturing to his face. “He opened it, then flew into a rage at whatever it was he saw inside. Then he tried to burn it, but I managed to steal it back. That was the day I got these scars.”
“Mordred didn’t know the box can’t be destroyed,” said Bert. “I’ve kept it here since, waiting.”
“He does have a habit of trying to burn things that can’t be burned,” said Jack, clapping Chaz on the back. “Well done, old boy.”
“We met,” Bert said, indicating Chaz, “using the same logic you used to come here. I went looking for you, as you came looking for me. For better or worse, I found him.”
Chaz made an obscene gesture and looked out the window again. “Sky’s brightening. Sun’ll be up, soonish.”
“We’re together again, is what matters,” said Jack. “Any reunion of friends is a good happening.”
But John was not nearly so pleased. He was putting together parts of the puzzle that made more sense to him than he liked, and he was slowly realizing that as safe as they felt at that moment, they might in fact be in greater danger than ever. There was a connection of some kind between Chaz and Mordred that had not been revealed. But there was one question on his mind that was even more terrible.
“Bert,” John intoned dully, “why were you spared? Why was Verne killed, and not you?”
Bert closed his eyes and sat silently for a long moment before answering.
“Because,” he finally said, “it was what had to happen.”
“Practicality,” said Chaz. “You did what you had to do.”
John stood up and backed toward the door. “What did you do, Bert?”
“What I was destined to do,” Bert replied, his face gone cold. “I just never got thirty pieces of silver.”
“You sold him,” Jack whispered. “You sold Verne to Mordred, to save yourself.”
“I won’t argue that on the face of it,” Bert said plaintively, “but I take exception to your implication. I did what I had to do to survive to this point in time—but it was not of my own volition, and I compromised myself greatly to do so. I’ve made many more compromises since, all to make certain that we would be here, tonight, to have this very conversation. So were my actions virtuous, or shameful?”
“That,” an icy voice said from just outside the door, “depends entirely on one’s point of view.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Noble’s Isle
All of them save for Uncas and Fred recognized the voice immediately.
“May I come in?” it said, in a tone that made it sound more like a statement than a query.
Bert sighed heavily. “Enter freely and of your own will, Mordred.”
The door opened, and silhouetted against the rising sun they saw the imposing figure of the man they had known as the Winter King. The man they had caused to be killed. The man who, more than once, had tried to kill them. And their most trusted ally had just invited him into his house.
Mordred was not significantly different from when they had seen him in their own world. He seemed perhaps more aged, more weathered here. He was stouter, and slightly round-shouldered, but his arms were corded with muscle, and his hair cascaded down his back in a mane. He was dressed in royal colors and had the bearing and manner of a king.
He was in appearance, John realized with a shock, everything one would expect a king to look like, to emanate. And he suddenly understood how a man could be a tyrant and still rule: It was a question of the ability to command, to draw respect, even in the wake of evil acts.
Immediately John and Jack took defensive stances in front of Bert and the badgers, but Mordred ignored them, leaning casually against the door frame and addressing Bert.
“My old friend, the Far Traveler,” the king said. “We meet again.”
Bert glared at him. “Nothing going on here concerns you, Mordred,” he said, gripping the staff so tightly his knuckles turned white. “You needn’t have come.”
“Oh, but everything in my kingdom concerns me, Bert,” Mordred replied. John and Jack, still facing their enemy, didn’t notice the blood drain from Bert’s face at the mention of his name. “The citizens who walk my streets, as well as the Children of the Earth who live beneath them.”
This last he said to Uncas and Fred, who both hissed at him in reply. They did not need to have seen him before in the flesh to realize they were facing the greatest adversary of legend, whom Tummeler had told them about.
For his part, Bert simply slumped in the chair, his chin resting on his chest. He seemed already defeated in a game where the stakes had not even been named. “Why are you here, Mordred?”
“Why?” Mordred replied in mock surprise. “I have simply come to meet the two new friends I have waited to meet for so very, very long.”
Waited to meet? John thought. Had Bert given them up as well? John looked at his mentor, but the old man simply continued staring at the king.
“That’s very bold, to come here alone,” Jack said to Mordred, taking the lead in the game being played out in the shack. “Maybe you don’t have any memory of it, but we have all clashed before and seen you bested in battle.”
“Is that so?” Mordred purred condescendingly. “What battles were these?”
“I beat you on the ocean, with a ship called the Yellow Dragon in the Archipelago of Dreams, and he,” Jack said, gesturing at John, “beat you in a swordfight.”
Technically, everything Jack said was true—although there had been luck and allies aiding him in the sea battle, and John had not precisely won the swordfight. Either way, the bravado didn’t faze the king.
“I think not,” Mordred said, smiling. “At any rate, the loss of a battle is not the loss of a war—or its victory, either.”
“You’ve certainly learned a few things,” John said. “There’s no disputing that. It’s a shame it didn’t make you a better ruler.”
“Whether I am a better ruler than others might have been is not for you to judge. There is only one man who ever lived who was fit to judge me, and he—”
Mordred stopped, almost violently, as if he had spoken too openly. “All that is important to a ruler,” he continued, “is strength, and mine has been more than sufficient for a very, very long time.”
“Bold words, given the odds,” said Jack. “I count four to one.”
“Five, if you stack the badgers,” said John
.
“I count far fewer than that,” said Mordred. “The Far Traveler—Bert, is it?—really only counts for half, don’t you think? And the animals are even less to me. So that makes it even, doesn’t it, Chaz?”
Uncas and Fred let out small howls of dismay, and Bert’s head dropped farther to his chest.
John looked at Chaz, astonished. “Don’t tell me you’re taking his side.”
Chaz refused to respond—which was response enough.
“Of course,” Jack spat, clenching his fists. “He’s like the Wicker Men—a lackey and a traitor. He was going to sell us out to the Winter King all along.”
It was Bert’s turn to be surprised. “Chaz!” he exclaimed in shock. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“You’ve always known how I gets by,” Chaz shot back. “It never bothered y’ before.”
“It always bothered me, Chaz,” said Bert. “I know you’re better than this. I always have.”
“That wasn’t me you knowed,” said Chaz. “That was some other bloke called Charles. Not me.”
“But … but …,” Bert sputtered, “you knew I was looking for them. Why would you sell them out to Mordred, only to bring them …” His voice trailed off, and he let out a despairing breath. “You gave him my name too, didn’t you, Chaz?”
“Actually,” put in Mordred, “a little bird told me. Hugin. Or Munin. I forget which. Ravens all look alike to me.”
“What’s in a name?” Jack said, breaking through the pall that had settled over the room. “Calling Chaz ‘Charles’ wouldn’t make him less of a traitor, so why does it matter whether or not Mordred knows your name?”
“True names are imbued with power—and knowing someone’s true name gives you some of that power yourself,” Mordred said in response. “Enough, at least, to do what must be done. Am I correct, Far Traveler Bert?”
“That’s what you did,” John said to his old mentor. “You told him Verne’s name, and somehow Mordred used it against him.”
Bert seemed caught somewhere between lashing out in anger and bursting into tears. He sat, trembling, and glared at Mordred and Chaz.
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