The Indigo King

by James A. Owen

  To return home, Myrddyn and Madoc needed two things: first, something to guide them—the maps, which would eventually form the basis for the Imaginarium Geographica; and second, a vessel touched by divinity, as Odysseus’s ship had been once, able to make the journey and traverse the Frontier.

  They could not help with those things, but they could provide a lot of information about the Archipelago itself. Too much, in fact. In their own time, when they’d first met each other, it had been Mordred’s objective to seize the Geographica in order to conquer the Archipelago. And that was after he’d only been back in the Archipelago for twenty years.

  Giving him, whichever of the twins he was, the means to return twenty-five centuries earlier could devastate the world more than Hugo’s mishap had. So they would organize, but not contribute to, the philosopher’s work.

  A not-too-casual mention by Anaximander that he was fascinated by the concept of time was enough of a prompt for John to pull out his gold pocket watch and proudly show it off. He explained the mechanism and workings of the watch, but much to Jack’s amusement and Anaximander’s confusion, the watch, as usual, didn’t work.

  “So it’s like my gnomon,” the philosopher concluded. “A stationary vertical rod set on a horizontal plane. But,” he added, still puzzled, “what is the transparent dome for? It seems it would work better if the rods were more vertically inclined.”

  “Oh never mind,” John said, setting the watch on the table and glaring at it. “It’s really best as a paperweight.”

  “It’s an excellent paperweight,” said Anaximander.

  Twice as they worked, the philosopher’s younger student, Pythagoras, brought food and drink. The second time, Anaximander left the companions for a moment to give more instructions to the boy.

  “John,” whispered Jack, moving around the table so Anaximander would not overhear them, “Chaz went out a long time ago. I don’t think he’s coming ba—”

  “I know,” John whispered back, his voice bitter. “I know, Jack. We still have time. Let’s just do what we can here, and hope …”

  John let the sentence trail off without finishing and resumed work on the maps.

  Chaz made it to within twenty feet of the portal, where he paced through the entire night. He couldn’t decide whether to go through or pee, so he merely paced, and argued with himself.

  He had paced through the night and into morning before the pressure became too bad, and he finally was forced to relieve himself on the broad wall next to the plaza entrance.

  “Aw, geez, Mister Chaz,” came a small voice from behind him. “D’you hafta do that out here, where everyone can see? What, were you raised in a barn?”

  Startled, Chaz turned around to see who had spoken. It was Fred, tapping his foot and trying not to watch as the human splashed urine all across the wall.

  “Fred!” Chaz exclaimed, with a chagrined, half-embarrassed look. “Have you been watching me pee?”

  “No,” replied Fred, “we’ve been watching you pace. We thought you must have been sent back t’ stand guard. You only just started t’ pee.”

  Chaz looked around worriedly. It might be a strange land, but he suspected a talking badger wouldn’t go unnoticed for very long. “What are you doing here? Why did y’ come through th’ portal?”

  The small mammal held up an hourglass. “Th’ time limit!” he exclaimed. “It’s almost up. You and Scowler John and Scowler Jack must return, right now!”

  The badger was right. There was only a thin layer of sand left inside the upper globe of the hourglass. Could it really have been twenty-four hours already? Chaz wondered. Regardless, he wasn’t about to be trapped in a place where he couldn’t speak or understand the language without getting a headache.

  “Okay,” he said, heading for the portal.

  “Wait!” Fred cried, pulling on the man’s shirt. “What about Scowler Jack and Scowler John?”

  Chaz sighed and rolled his eyes, then looked from the portal to Fred, and back again.

  “This way,” he said finally, fastening up the buckle on his trousers. “We’ll have to hurry.”

  By midday Anaximander’s entire map room was sorted and indexed, John and Jack were completely exhausted, and they were not one inch closer to discovering which of the twins was destined to become Mordred.

  “This would have been easier if he already had the hook,” Jack grumbled, yawning.

  “At the Ring of Power, when Artus and I were fighting Mordred, he said he was nearly as old as Ordo Maas,” John said, rubbing his chin. “I thought it was just bluff and bluster at the time, but the flood that took Ordo Maas to the Archipelago happened at the beginning of the Bronze Age, and the timing is right for the genealogy to work.”

  “That’s still almost a thousand years earlier than we’ve come,” Jack countered. “But I suppose it isn’t inconceivable that they both lived a long time, maybe centuries, in the Archipelago before coming here.”

  Before they could continue the discussion, the door burst open and Chaz and Fred rushed inside.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Jack exclaimed. “We thought you—”

  “Wasn’t coming back?” Chaz shot back. “Hah. Fat chance of that, eh, Fred?”

  The little badger looked up, surprised, then gave Chaz a thumbs-up and a grin.

  “Where have you—,” John started to say.

  “No time,” Chaz cut in. “You have to hear what I overheard last night, an’ then”—he pointed to Fred’s hourglass—“we got t’ go.”

  Chaz quickly recounted the whole argument he’d witnessed between Myrddyn and Madoc, repeating the strange Greek words as best he could. When he was finished, Jack snorted.

  “You don’t speak ancient Greek, Chaz,” he said mockingly. “I think you’re making things up out of your head.”

  “I’m picking up more than you know,” Chaz retorted. “An’ I didn’t need t’ understand it all t’ remember it.”

  “I don’t know, Chaz.” John said doubtfully. “It all fits, but Jack does have a point. We don’t know you heard what you think you heard.”

  “If it wasn’t me,” Chaz asked, glancing down at Fred, “if it was him, th’ other me, would you trust me?”

  “You mean Charles?” said Jack. “Of course.”

  “Then trust him,” Chaz said to John. “Somewhere I’m him, you say. Well, last night he was me. Trust him. I mean, me. Trust me, John.”

  John looked questioningly at each of the others in turn. Fred nodded immediately, and finally, more reluctantly, so did Jack.

  “They want to get Odysseus’s ship back, do they?” John began. “He got it from his father, Laertes, who was one of the original Argonauts,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Do you suppose the ship Anaximander saw was … ?”

  “The Red Dragon!” Jack said excitedly. “They came here from the Archipelago in the Red Dragon!”

  “Mmm, no,” said Chaz. “They called it something else … the ‘Aragorn’ or some such.”

  “The Argo,” said John. “Jason’s ship. That means that Ordo Maas, or at least his sons, had gone to the island to take the wreck of the Argo back into the Archipelago, in order to transform it into the first of the Dragonships—the Red Dragon.”

  “Exiled, eh?” said Jack. “I bet that’s the reason they were shipwrecked, and why the ship was taken back once they were here.”

  “One or t’ other has t’ be Mordred,” said Chaz, “but if the other is anything like th’ first, then wouldn’t he still be somewhere in the future, too?”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. “That’s brilliant, Chaz.”

  “We already have met both of them!” John said. “One of them is the Winter King—and his twin is the Cartographer of Lost Places! It’s the only answer that makes any sense!”

  “But which is which?” said Jack.

  Fred tugged on Chaz’s shirt and tapped the nearly empty hourglass.

  “The twenty-four hours!” Chaz said. “It’s almost up! We have to
go, else we’ll be trapped here!”

  “You’ve labored long and hard,” a voice said from the doorway. “I’ve brought you more refreshments.”

  Anaximander entered carrying a tray with a flagon of wine and two goblets. He started when he saw Chaz, and he studiously ignored Fred. “I’m sorry,” the philosopher said, awkwardly balancing the tray. “I’ll fetch another goblet.”

  “Where’s Pythagoras?” Jack asked. “Doesn’t he usually fetch the wine?”

  “I, er, sent him home,” Anaximander said. “I thought as a show of gratitude I would serve you the morning wine myself.”

  “No!” yelled Fred, leaping up to the table and knocking the tray from the philosopher’s hands.

  “Fred!” Jack began, but he stopped short as they all looked down at the spilled wine, which sizzled and bubbled on the stone floor.

  “Animal instincts,” said Fred, “and a good nose.”

  “Right,” Chaz said. His left fist snapped up, and he struck Anaximander brutally in the jaw. The philosopher went down hard, falling in a sprawl at the man’s feet. “Y’ unnerstand that?”

  The truth of what was happening slowly sank into John and Jack as Chaz and Fred headed out the door. “You didn’t make any of these maps, did you, Anaximander? One of your students did.”

  “The desire is there, but I have not the skill,” the philosopher admitted, teeth clenched. “It was that boy, that child.… He had such a hand, and such a clear mind for detail.… I had saved his life, after all. Wasn’t I entitled to benefit from that? Wasn’t I?”

  Jack cursed in English, then switched back to Greek. “We don’t care about that!” he said harshly. “We just want to know which of them it was!”

  “Jack! John!” Chaz shouted from the courtyard. “Now!”

  “Anaximander! Please!” John called as he backed out of the map room. “We have to know! We need to know! Tell us, please!

  “Who is the Cartographer?”

  But no answer was forthcoming. John and Jack raced out of the philosopher’s home as he collapsed in a wreck of tears and regret.

  Chaz, with Fred trailing behind, already had a good lead, and the streets of Miletus were broad and uncrowded. There would be no real gathering in this part of the town for another hour or two, John thought wryly. Not until the storyteller, whichever twin it was today, made his appearance in the amphitheater.

  To his credit, Chaz had slackened his pace just slightly enough to allow the badger to keep up, so John and Jack had nearly caught up to them by the time the thief and the badger had entered the portal.

  Jack raced through next, hardly pausing in the apparent act of running into a marble wall. John was close on his heels and cut the timing tightly enough to see the edges of the projection beginning to close in and lose their shape.

  He passed through the gossamer layers and turned around for one final look at Miletus—and saw Myrddyn and Madoc dash from an alleyway and into the plaza.

  In seconds the twin sons of Odysseus had spotted the unusual nature of the wall where the companions had vanished, and they moved quickly to follow, swords drawn.

  But it was too late. The projection began to fade as the slide was burned dry by the incandescent bulb in the Lanterna Magica, and in a moment, the portal had closed in front of them. Ancient Greece was history.

  “Curse it all,” said John. “I’ve forgotten my watch.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Grail

  The harsh white light of the Lanterna Magica cast deep shadows behind John, Jack, and Chaz as they stood, reeling from the chase, and realized they were once again safe in the projection room on Noble’s Isle.

  “The giants!” Jack exclaimed, looking around in trepidation. “Are the giants still outside?”

  Reynard moved to him, making soothing gestures with his paws. “No need to fear. They retreated when they realized you were no longer here. But,” he added, almost apologetic, “they may yet return. Were you successful in your mission?”

  At that both Jack and Chaz looked at John, who took a deep breath. “Well, yes and no,” he admitted. “I think we found the answer we were looking for—Mordred’s true name—or at least, we’ve narrowed it down. But we still don’t know how to use it against him.”

  Sitting to rest, the three men took turns recounting the events of the last day to Fred and Uncas, as Reynard ordered in food and drink.

  Chaz hungrily tucked into the pile of cheese and bread that had been brought in by three ferrets. “Truth t’ tell, I’m more sleepy

  than anything,” he said through a mouthful of food, “but this may be the best sandwich I’ve ever had.”

  Reynard bowed in gratitude and began to pour a cup of wine. Chaz stopped him, covering the cup with his hand. “If it’s all th’ same t’ you,” he said, looking at the others, “I’d just as soon stick t’ water or ale after this trip.”

  “Agreed,” said Jack, shuddering at the thought of how close he’d come to drinking the poisoned wine. “Thanks for the save, Fred.”

  The little mammal would have blushed if he could. As it was, he beamed happily and chewed a crust of bread Chaz had handed him.

  “One thing’s certain,” John said. “We went into that completely unprepared. We can’t do so a second time.”

  “To be fair,” said Uncas, “there were giants at the door yesterday.”

  Chaz nodded grimly. “An’ they could be lurkin’ about even now—so we’d best get prepared and decide what t’ do right.”

  “Is it me,” Reynard whispered to John, “or didst his countenance change during your journey into the projection?”

  “His appearance?”

  The fox shook his head. “Countenance. His … appearance beneath what we see with our eyes.”

  “Mmm, perhaps,” John mused, looking at his reluctant companion. “Maybe it has, at that.”

  “So,” Uncas began, “how do we prepare you better for the next trip, other than giving you the hourglass this time around?”

  “Yes,” said John. “You saved us there, too, it seems. As to being better prepared, I don’t think there is anything further that we can do. We simply don’t have enough information to work with.”

  “Maybe we do,” Jack said, a look of excitement on his face. “Remember? The warning! The warning in the book that was sent to Charles!”

  John swore under his breath. “I’d completely forgotten about it,” he admitted, “not that it would have done us any good where Verne sent us.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack. “Why not?”

  “At its earliest, the representation of the Grail wouldn’t have had any meaning at all until a few decades after the crucifixion of Christ. And we already know that Hugo was sent back several centuries later than that. So I don’t see how his warning is relevant to Verne’s mission.”

  “But it is relevant, don’t you see, John?” Jack exclaimed. “Hugo gave us the answer in his message! It’s the Cartographer! Mordred’s twin! His own brother would be capable of the Binding!”

  John’s brow furrowed in concentration as he considered Jack’s idea. It might in fact be possible—he was unclear as to the rules that regulated the power behind the Summonings and the Bindings, except that they had to be spoken by someone of royal birth. Artus was able to do it, as had Arthur, generations before him. Aven’s son, Stephen, could have done it as well. And they already knew Mordred was capable of doing a Binding—so the same might be true of his brother.

  “We know the Cartographer’s existence predates Arthur’s rule,” John reasoned, “and we’d already suspected that Mordred did too. And remember—back on Terminus, Mordred did say that he and Artus shared the same blood. So somehow the authority to speak Bindings and Summonings comes from somewhere beyond even Mordred.”

  “Fair enough,” said Jack. “That means his twin—the Cartographer—would possess the same ability. Hugo’s note mentioned the Cartographer, and Verne told us we needed to discover Mordred’s true n
ame in order to defeat him. We can’t do that here,” he said, waving his arms to indicate Albion as a whole. “There are no other kings able to do to him what he can do to us. And I don’t think the authority of the Caretakers can overpower the authority of the king.”

  “Mebbe that’s what this ‘Verne’ meant f’r us t’ do,” said Chaz, who was sitting against the wall, dozing, but still listening. “Mebbe it’s up t’ us t’ turn one of the brothers against the other.”

  “That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it?” Jack asked. “We have to convince whichever one is the Cartographer that his brother will eventually turn rotten, and that the only way to prevent it is to Bind him.”

  “But for how long?” wondered John. “Binding can’t really be permanent, unless …”

  Only Chaz and Reynard didn’t understand John’s unspoken thought, which the others knew as part of their own history: The only way to defeat the Winter King was to kill him. And even that had proven to be problematic.

  “Y’r still forgetting one thing,” said Chaz. “He in’t the Cartographer yet. And both of ’em were thrown out of the Archipelago, remember? I heard ’em say it. And they were both in on th’ plan t’ kill us, if you recall. When they was chasin’ us out of Miletus, they both had drawn swords. That says poison t’ me. Both of ‘em. They be poison.”

  “Isn’t the Cartographer your friend?” asked Uncas. “Back where we came from?”

  John shook his head slowly. “I don’t think the Cartographer is anyone’s friend, to be honest,” he said. “We went to him when we had to, and no more. And he gave us what he needed to, and no more. It wasn’t so much a friendship as it was cooperation between interested parties.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re seeking now?” asked Reynard, who had been listening from the back of the room all the while. “Not his friendship, but his cooperation?”

  “Yes,” Jack replied, “but we have less to argue with here. Back in our world, he was a virtual prisoner, locked in the Keep of Time, behind the door that bore the mark of the king.”