The Dragons of Winter (18 page)

“Dr. Carroll, if you please,” said Carroll.

Verne sighed, then went on. “Yes—what
Dr.
Carroll has been working on is the instances where the trumps were used to traverse time.”

“It was actually that Clarke fellow who thought of it,”
said Baum. “He’s got a lot of good ideas, that one.”

Now it was Carroll’s turn to scowl. “Yes, yes he did,” he said with an irritated look at Baum, “but I’ve been the one developing the actual science behind the theory.”

“The young theoreticians have been invaluable to our processes,” said Franklin. “Especially that Asimov fellow, the Russian. He’s going to outshine us all, I think.”

“Easy for you to say,” Newton said without really joining the conversation. “It’s easy to create great works when one stands on the shoulders of giants.”

“He’s a little sensitive,” Baum whispered. “The first time Newton met Asimov, the joker offered him an apple.”

“It’s young Asimov’s work that has allowed the Mystorians to help us calculate probabilities on the might-have-beens to come,” Verne explained. “It’s one reason I have the Messengers traveling so frequently gathering information. The more we know about what has happened, the better we can predict what may happen in the future. And the wonder of it all is that it’s completely based in scientific principle. He calls it ‘psychohistory.’”

“No offense,” John said, hesitant to speak, as he fully expected he was about to offend someone, “but there’s something slightly disconcerting about knowing that such intense scientific research is being carried out in a hotel in Switzerland by a group of ghosts and children’s book authors.”

“I should like to point out that most of your colleagues at Tamerlane House,” Franklin said sternly, poking his walking stick at Verne, “including your French tour guide there, are in fact themselves deceased. So I’d like to know just what you have against ghosts.”

“I’m doubly offended,” said Baum, “seeing as how I’m both a ghost and a children’s book author, as is Charles.”

“I’m a mathematician,” sniffed Carroll. “And it’s Dr. Carroll, if you please.”

“Really, I meant no offense,” John said, holding his hands up in either supplication or surrender. “Honestly, some of my best friends write books for children.”

“And you don’t?” asked Baum.

“Not really, you see,” John began.

“Wait a moment,” said Holiday. “Didn’t you write the book about the little fellow with the furry feet? And trolls? And dwarves?”

“Well, yes,” John admitted, “but—”

“What do you call that, then?”

“It’s actually an initial tale that I’m broadening into a much wider invented mythology for—”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah,” said Baum. “Elves and dwarves and trolls. Fairy tales. You’re a children’s book author, John.”

Before John could argue the point further, they were interrupted by another knock at the door.

“Ah,” Verne said as he rose to usher in the new arrival. “Unless I miss my guess, that’ll be our secret weapon coming along now.”

John stood and took a place next to Verne to greet the newcomers. The first was tall, firmly built, and had a crest of white hair that gave him the appearance of a classical philosopher. His eyes flashed briefly as he noticed John’s presence, but he said nothing and merely smiled as he took his companion’s coat.

The second man was smaller, more slender, and noticeably older than the other. Verne stepped forward to greet him first.

“Hello,” the slight gentleman said as he entered the room and removed his hat. “I apologize for being late. I had a concern I was being followed and so some extra precautions—and delays—were necessary.”

John nearly fell off his feet, astonished, confused, and delighted all at once. He was so taken off guard that he forgot to offer his hand to the bemused man, who was clearly enjoying the effect his arrival had on the younger Caretaker. John looked at Verne. “Is this some sort of illusion? How is he here?”

“Not an illusion,” Verne replied, smiling broadly. “A Mystorian. One our adversaries would never have suspected, never watched, because they thought that they already were watching him. It was just a
different
him.”

John recovered a small degree of his composure. “So, the last person they would suspect of becoming one of your special operatives was someone who was already a Caretaker,” he said, “so to speak. Ingenious.” He wiped his hand on his trousers and quickly offered it to the bemused Mystorian. “It’s a pleasure to be meeting you at last.”

“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” the gentleman said, taking John’s proffered hand. “My name is H. G. Wells.”

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN
Lower Oxford

According to Aristophanes,
the first destination they needed to travel to in their quest for the Ruby Armor was very close—practically in the neighborhood.

“Oxford?” Uncas said, surprised. “That’s right under the scowlers’ noses.”

“Literally, in this case,” said the detective. “Quite literally, in fact.”

The street Aristophanes guided them to was less than two miles from the building where Jack kept his teaching rooms at the college, and it was small enough that they were able to park the Duesenberg and get out without attracting undue attention.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat, or a scarf, or something?” Aristophanes said to Uncas as he glanced around the street. “I know this is a university, and everyone has their nose buried in books, but some deliveryman or other passerby might take notice we’re strolling along with a talking animal.”

“I’ll be honest,” said Uncas, “it’s not indifference to th’ opinions of passersby that lets me walk around in th’ open.” He produced a small piece of parchment from his vest pocket. It was covered in runes.

. . . atop a ladder, was a woman who could only be the librarian . . .

“Ah,” the detective said in understanding. “A glamour. That makes sense.”

“All most people see is a short feller with hairy feet,” said Uncas. “Maybe a beard.”

“Well then,” Aristophanes said as he led them to a nondescript door at the end of the alley, “you’ll not be surprised at where we’re going. Everyone there is using one glamour or another.”

The door opened onto a stairwell, which dropped away several floors below ground level—much farther than any basement should have extended. It was lit with torches that were set at regular intervals, but nothing other than the granite walls of the stairwell was visible until they reached the bottom.

Aristophanes threw open the great green wooden doors at the bottom of the stairs, and revealed an enormous cavern that seemed to contain a city at least the size of Oxford above.

“Welcome,” the detective said, “to Lower Oxford.”

The three companions wove their way through the warren of buildings that seemed to have been cobbled together from every culture on the continent—none of which had been updated since the fifteenth century, and many of which seemed far, far older.

“These buildings seem to predate Oxford itself,” commented Uncas.

“Little badger,” Aristophanes said with a touch of irritation at the animal’s small thinking, “most of these buildings predate
England
.”

There were Moorish harems, and Byzantine bazaars; English banks and colleges; and Ottoman markets that could have been operating since the first millennium.

As they walked, Aristophanes explained that this was one of the Soft Places that were known only to the lost and disenfranchised—that it was all but lost to those who never looked, and only findable by those who were truly lost.

“The Caretakers would barely take note of such a place,” he said brusquely, “although perhaps that Burton fellow might. And most other people would take no notice of it at all. In a way, what happens every day in Lower Oxford is exactly what happened long ago to the entire Archipelago.”

He stopped. “They just stopped believing. Here,” he said, gesturing down a crowded street. “This is the district we want.”

All the buildings along the street bore Chinese markings, including the one where they stopped.

“This is one of the oldest libraries in existence,” Aristophanes explained, pointing at the cracked, faded sign above the door. “It was here, in this spot, for two thousand years before I was born, and was collecting stories of the earliest cultures of the world when our ancestors were living in caves and hunting with obsidian spears.”

“What does the sign say?” asked Uncas.

“You know it already,” said the Zen Detective. “The statues in the window should give you a clue.”

Inside the windows on either side of the door were paper lanterns, a stringer of plucked, headless ducks—which made Uncas shiver just a bit—and four soapstone statues. Each was of a different Chinese man, but all four bore attributes . . .

. . . of
Dragons
.

“Ah,” Quixote said, looking up at the sign. “‘Go ye no further, for here, there be Dragons.’”

Aristophanes nodded. “Or something to that effect. Those four statues represent the four great dragon kings of ancient China, and this shop is what remains of the library that began when they ruled under the Jade Empress.”

Quixote wanted to ask something about who the Jade Empress might be, but the detective had already pushed open the door with a loud jangling of bells and entered the shop.

The shop that purported to be a library was tightly packed with shelves, which made passing down the aisles difficult for Quixote, and almost impossible for the stouter Aristophanes. Smoke from a brazier hung cloyingly in the air, and there were small birds in cages hung randomly throughout the clutter.

Toward the back, the aisles suddenly opened up to a wider working space that was ringed about with more shelving that reached to the ceiling ten feet above. To one side, atop a ladder, was a woman who could only be the librarian Aristophanes had told them about on the drive.

She was short and plump, and wore a tight silk dress, which was straining at the seams in a number of potentially inconvenient places. Her black hair was pinned up neatly with long sticks carved into the shape of dragons. And she was not in a very receptive mood.