The Dragons of Winter

by James A. Owen

  “What are you doing?” Winter screeched. “What—”

  “Silence!” Rose commanded, with the full confidence and authority of her heritage. The Lord of the Night Land went instantly quiet. “I am the Grail Child Rose Dyson, daughter to Madoc the Maker, apprentice to the Black Dragon, and I thus bind thee.”

  Lord Winter trembled and shuddered, but stood stock-still as Rose continued to speak:

  By right and rule

  For need of might

  I thus bind thee

  I thus bind thee

  By blood bound

  By honor given

  I thus bind thee

  I thus bind thee

  For strength and speed and heaven’s power

  By ancient claim in this dark hour

  I thus bind thee

  I thus bind thee

  Rose released her hold on Lord Winter, who remained frozen in place. The Winter Dragons kept a discreet distance, waiting to see how this would play out—but the shapes floating overhead were vibrating madly enough to make the air buzz with their anger.

  “That won’t hold him long,” Rose said, panting with the effort of the binding, “but it’ll hold him long enough, I think. Now,” she declared to her companions, “we must run for our lives, and for the sake of the world we left, and all we hold dear. Now! Run!”

  Without a backward glance, the friends gathered up their belongings and ran into the pyramid.

  PART FIVE

  The Corinthian Legend

  . . . the Goblin Market was a cacophony of ornate wagons, huts, tents . . .

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Goblin Market

  Of the many notable events that marked the Victorian age, the most significant was one witnessed by only three people.

  The creation of the Black Dragon was attended only by Mordred, the Winter King, who summoned the Dragon that was to become one with the ship; Argus, the shipbuilder, who was compelled by a Binding and an ancient promise to perform the task; and Mordred’s mentor, Dr. John Dee, who watched from a nearby rooftop as Mordred and Argus went about their work.

  It wasn’t until the shipbuilder was done, and dismissed, and Mordred had sailed the newly christened Black Dragon out of the harbor on the Thames and into the open sea that the great red Dragon, Samaranth, spoke to the doctor.

  “Ill met, Dee,” the Dragon growled, not bothering to cover the rising anger in his tone. “You should not have done this.”

  “I,” said Dr. Dee, “have done nothing—nothing except teach the student that you betrayed and abandoned.”

  “You have corrupted his spirit,” the Dragon rumbled.

  “His brother did that when he betrayed him,” Dr. Dee spat back. “I have simply shaped what was already there.” He turned and faced the great beast with no trace of fear. “You had your chance, Old Serpent,” Dee said. “Now I am going to shape him into the great man he was always meant to be.”

  “He is not the Imago,” Samaranth said. “Once, perhaps, he might have become such. But that time is past.”

  “The Imago, if he exists, will be made, not found, Dragon,” said Dee. “We have differed on that point before.”

  “Regardless, he is not now worthy, even if he has the skill. And now you have given him a Dragonship—the means to cross through the Frontier.”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “To what end?”

  “Order,” said Dee. “To bring order to two worlds that have fallen into chaos under your stewardship.”

  “You are not seeking to create the Imago at all,” the Dragon concluded, more to himself than to Dee. “This cannot be permitted to continue.”

  “There are many streaks of white in your beard, Dragon,” said Dee. “You are getting old.”

  “Your services are no longer needed, Dee. There are others better suited to the task. I only hope,” Samaranth said with a hiss of melancholy, “that it is not too late to undo what you have done.”

  “There are none qualified to replace me,” said Dee. “Whom would you have, Old Dragon? Will Shaksberd? Or that old fool, Alighieri?”

  “I have all of history to choose from,” Samaranth replied, “and choosing wisely is the one thing that I must take the time to do, whomever it is that I choose.”

  He stopped and drew in a breath, as if intending to exhale on the Scholar—but stopped, as he realized Dee was completely unconcerned.

  It was only then that the Dragon noticed Dee’s shadow was moving about completely independently of its owner.

  Samaranth took a step backward and hissed. “You have fallen,” he said, his voice laced with sadness. “You have joined the enemy, John Dee. And that choice will result in nothing but suffering for your protégé.”

  “The Winter King may surprise you yet, Dragon,” said Dr. Dee. “It took me decades to choose to give up my shadow in the cause of order. It took Mordred far less time to do the same.”

  The Dragon stretched out his wings and shook his head. “He will never sit on the Silver Throne,” Samaranth said as he took flight. “The Caretakers will see to that. And he will never,” he added as he vanished into the clouds, “be the Imago.”

  The Scholar watched until the Dragon disappeared from view, then took a small pocket watch out of his coat.

  “Perhaps,” he said to no one in particular. “But if not him,” he finished as he twirled the dials on his device, “then certainly another of my choosing will.”

  The rain on the Welsh mountainside lasted only three-quarters of an hour and was sufficient to settle the dust, and little more. When Don Quixote and his squire, the badger Uncas, awoke during the morning’s sunrise, the Zen Detective Aristophanes was already busying himself with breakfast. His bedroll seemed untouched. Quixote couldn’t tell whether the detective had slept much, or at all, and decided it was the better part of knightly decorum not to ask.

  After a surprisingly delicious meal, during which Quixote reversed yet another judgment he’d made about the gruff detective, the three companions set about determining their plan of action.

  Uncas carefully opened the vellum folder Verne had entrusted to him and spread out the fourteen maps of Elijah McGee.

  “There really aren’t too many of them, you know,” said Quixote. “We could practically go about locating the armor by trial and error.”

  Aristophanes scowled. “No, we really couldn’t,” he said. “There isn’t time.”

  “I know this is important,” said Uncas, “but until we met you, and asked about th’ glasses, we didn’t even know the armor existed. So why do we suddenly have a timer on finding it?”

  “Anything to which attention is paid becomes a magnet for more attention,” Aristophanes said primly. “I promise you, even if Song-Sseu has not already sold the knowledge that we are looking for the armor and in possession of the McGee maps, there will still be a dozen other denizens in every one of the Soft Places who will take note of our arrival. And once the first piece has been found, word will spread—and from that point, it will be a race. And those who would also seek the armor will think nothing of killing us to get even a single piece, much less the whole set.”

  “So, this quest becomes more dangerous the more successful we are,” said Quixote. “That sounds like a Caretaker’s mission, all right.”

  “Fair enough,” said Uncas. “We’d better get cracking, then!”

  Aristophanes unfolded the first sheet of parchment, on which he had asked the location of the Ruby Dagger, and read the name the machine had typed: “Castra Regis.”

  Uncas scanned the maps and quickly found the one that matched the name. “It’s a close one,” he said happily. “Staffordshire.”

  The detective’s brow furrowed in puzzlement as he looked at the map. “Castra Regis was the ancestral home of an infamous family called Caswell,” he said, “but both it and the neighboring mansion, Mercy Farm, were destroyed when . . .”

  He stopped and put a finger on the map. “Here,” he said, voice rising
with excitement. “This is the place, I’m sure of it.”

  The knight and the badger peered closely at the spot on the map. “Th’ crossroads?” asked Uncas. “Why there?”

  “All the interesting stuff happens at a crossroads,” Aristophanes said, “and especially at this one. It’s in a wood called Diana’s Grove. And that’s where we’ll buy the dagger.”

  “Buy, and not find?” asked Quixote.

  “Yes,” the detective said, standing. “Diana’s Grove is the site of one of the oldest Goblin Markets in the world. That’s the place, I’m sure of it.”

  “A market!” Uncas said, brightening. “I love markets. That don’t sound dangerous at all.”

  “I said ‘interesting,’ not safe,” retorted the detective. “Just follow along with me and pay attention. And don’t touch anything.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” said the badger.

  Aristophanes smirked and hooked his thumb at the knight. “I was talking to him.”

  “Rude,” said Quixote.

  The Goblin Market was not the Victorianesque tapestry the companions might have been expecting, but rather a ramshackle collection of carts, wagons, and makeshift pens for various horses and horselike creatures.

  “This is, ah, quaint,” said Quixote. “It seems a little horse-centric for a market. Or is it run by Houyhnhnms?”

  The detective sighed and gave the knight a withering look. “This isn’t the market, you idiot. This is where all the pack animals are stabled. I thought it would be better to leave the Duesenberg here than to drive up to a Seelie Court–run Goblin Market in a 1935 automobile. The market,” he finished, only slightly less exasperated, “is over that rise, there.”

  Both Quixote and Uncas chuckled in understanding as they topped the small hill and the full wonder of the market came into view.

  Sitting just beyond the crossroads indicated on the map, the Goblin Market was a cacophony of ornate wagons, huts, tents, and all other manner of temporary structures, which nevertheless looked as if they had always stood there. That was because, according to Aristophanes, they always had.

  The explosions of color were scattered among and amid the trees, which themselves seemed to be first growth, and in a few places were built into the fabric of the market, lending their trunks and branches to the anchoring of the tents.

  In the distance, the ruins of both Castra Regis and Mercy Farm stood over the small hollow like watchful sentries, but slightly more benignly than the real sentries, armored wraiths, who gave the companions a careful once-over as they crossed the road and entered the market.

  At one of the tents, a man in a turban was selling the wind, in various gusts and gales. Each one came with a caution about when and where the bag could be opened safely, as well as a customer satisfaction guarantee that promised the wind would work—but allowed that no promise could be made about the destination to which it carried the purchaser.

  At a small cart, another vendor, a stout, bespectacled shopkeeper, was demonstrating various clockwork animals, some of which were real, and some mythical. He winked at Uncas, intuiting that the badger might be an easy mark. “The windup monsters are good company for extended trips,” the shopkeeper explained, “but for some real entertainment, it’s hard to beat the Steam Crows.” He proffered one to Uncas. “Would you like to see how it works?”

  Aristophanes rather brusquely guided Uncas and Quixote away from the tempting display of toys. “Keep your eyes open and touch nothing—nothing,” he said, waggling his finger for emphasis. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘you break it, you buy it’? Well, here, just touching something can be considered an ironclad contract. It’s Seelie Court law. So don’t touch anything I don’t tell you to touch.”

  One small woman was selling hand-painted calendars, which changed the seasons as the pages were turned. Patrons were looking through the various works, and as they did so, the seasons in her tent changed from summer, to fall, to winter, and back again. Summer was by far the most popular, with fall a close second, so the tent was full of gentle, warm breezes that scattered crimson and gold leaves, amid the only occasional flurry of snow. No one, it seemed, was all that interested in spring.

  “Here’s the fellow we want, unless I miss my guess—and I seldom do,” Aristophanes said, pointing down the slope to a smithy’s shop. It was set against the side of the hill so it could take advantage of the slope for the bellows on the forge.

  “My name is Schmendrick,” the smithy said, giving the companions the once-over. “What can I be doin’ f’r y’ t’day?”

  “We’re looking to barter,” Aristophanes said with as much authority as he could muster. “We have relics from the Summer Country to trade, and”—his voice dropped to a softer tone—“even a few from the Archipelago.”

  “Really?” Schmendrick exclaimed. “Those be rarer and rarer these days, ever since th’ Day of Charles’s Lament.”

  “Ooh,” Uncas groaned to Quixote. “We best not tell Scowler Charles there’s people callin’ it that.”

  “He shouldn’t be surprised,” said Quixote. “He does berate himself over the whole destruction-of-the-keep matter rather often.”

  “I’m working here!” Aristophanes said to the badger and the knight. “Why don’t you two go browse around in the next tent? And remember . . .”

  “Don’t touch anything, I know, I know,” Uncas grumbled. “Come on, sir,” he said to Quixote. “Let’s fraternize with th’ wee folk.”

  “Do y’ have any deadly nursery rhymes?” the smithy asked. “They’re really useful for takin’ care of changelings, if y’ know what I mean.”

  “No,” said Aristophanes, “but I’m sure I can find something to your liking, if you have what it is we’re looking for.”

  Schmendrick squinted up at him. “An’ that is?”

  “The Ruby Dagger.”

  The smithy’s eyes widened and darted from side to side, to see if anyone was listening. “I might be able t’ help you,” he replied. “Come, let us discuss what you have t’ offer.”

  As the detective and the smithy continued to speak in hushed whispers inside the shop, Uncas and Quixote browsed the wares of the tent three spaces down, in the lee of a large stone. The proprietor was a wizened old woman with a hat that resembled a tree growing from her head, on which were perched two buzzards, who seemed to be doing all the negotiating with the customers.

  The goods the woman—or possibly the vultures—were selling were ornamental crystals of every color, shape, and size. Some had been set into pendants, and others, sculpted into miniature cathedrals. Some had even been set into the hilts and scabbards of weapons.

  “Asking a smithy who makes weapons for a dagger that already exists isn’t very Zen,” Uncas said as he peered through the tiny doors of an amethyst city. “He’d be better off looking over—”

  The little badger gasped, then slowly, carefully, drew a bronze-hilted ruby knife from out of the back of the display.

  “Is it . . . ?” he breathed.

  “I think so,” said an astonished Quixote. “We should go get Steve.”

  “Don’t worry,” Uncas said smoothly. “I got this.”

  “Badgers?” one of the vultures squawked as Uncas examined the dagger. “We don’t need no steenkin’ badgers!”

  “Why not?” the other vulture replied.

  “Iff’n his money’s good.”

  “We can pay,” said Uncas. “No fuss, no muss.”

  “See?” said the second vulture. “Say hello to my leetle friend.”

  The first vulture sighed. “All right, all right. That one ees a bad piece, anyway. Eet can only damage Shadows. No good for cutting oxen or Harpy. What you got to trade, leetle badger?”

  “Hmm.” Uncas thought a moment, then rummaged around in his pocket. “Y’ seem t’ like crystals,” he said, producing a small ebony shard from his pocket. “P’rhaps you’d trade f’r this, straight across?”

  Both vultures snorted in contemp
t, and even the old woman tsk-tsked at Uncas.

  “You be crazy badger,” said the first vulture, “to be thinkin’ we take a sliver—”

  “It’s a shard, actually,” Uncas corrected, “and it’s from th’ Nameless Isles.”

  That stopped both vultures cold, and the old woman’s jaw dropped open. It also got the attention of several other patrons at nearby shops.

  “Deal,” the second vulture said, snatching up the shard before Uncas could change his mind. “A pleasure do business with you, my leetle badger friend.”

  With a broad smile that would light up a barn, Uncas leaped into the pathway to find the detective, who was still arguing with the smithy. “I have it!” Uncas proclaimed proudly—and loudly. “I have the Ruby Dagger!”

  “Oh, fewmets,” Schmendrick cursed, apparently having been close to a deal for the dagger he didn’t have. “C’n I interest you in a carnelian ice pick, mebbe?”

  “Never mind.” Aristophanes strode out of the smithy’s to meet the triumphant badger. “At last!” he exclaimed as he lunged forward—and tripped over a discarded Spanish helmet at the edge of the tent.

  Aristophanes went sprawling, and his hat flew off, landing at Quixote’s feet.

  The smithy, the old woman with the vultures on her head, and several others circled around to look at the strange purple man who was cursing under his breath as he dusted himself off.

  “A unicorn!” Schmendrick whispered in astonishment. “I haven’t seen th’ like! Not in a hound’s age!”

  “Unicorn!” the haggard old woman echoed, bellowing at the top of her lungs. “Uuuuunicooorrrnnn!!!!”

  “Oh, dung,” said Aristophanes. “Run.”

  “What?” said Quixote. “They—”

  “Just shut up and run!” the Zen Detective shouted as he grabbed the knight by the arm and the badger by the collar and propelled all three of them down the pathway and out of the wood.