The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The)
Read The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) Online
Authors: James A. Owen
Part One: The Return of the Black Dragon
Chapter Two: The Prodigal Dragon
Chapter Three: The Shipbuilder
Part Two: The Last Flight of the
Indigo Dragon
Chapter Five: The Zanzibar Gate
Chapter Six: The Hot Young Turks
Chapter Seven: The City of Jade
Chapter Eleven: The Oldest History
Chapter Twelve: The Tears of Heaven
Chapter Fourteen: The First Dragon
Part Five: The Fall of the House of Tamerlane
Chapter Seventeen: At the End of All Things
Chapter Eighteen: The Architect
Chapter Nineteen: The Keystone
Chapter Twenty-one: Tabula Rasa Geographica
Chapter Twenty-two: The Lonely Isle
Chapter Twenty-three: The Last Battle
Chapter Twenty-four: The Reign of the Summer King
For my children
“. . . I miss all the Dragons.”
. . . Houdini and John piloted the
Black Dragon
. . .
“Please,” he said. . . . “Feel free to look around . . .”
. . . not all the aspects of the Dragon had been shed
The path was well lit with lanterns
Shakespeare . . . looked at the small company
.
The speaker was sitting on a dais at the center
An elderly man . . . led the procession
. . . Kipling . . . started the long trek to the distant city
.
Enkidu was . . . staring directly at the Prime Caretaker . . .
“The Jade Empress,” Samaranth said
The Watcher Salathiel lifted a huge, curved golden trumpet
The beasts were tended to by smaller creatures
. . . his reflection was no longer that of a young man . . .
. . . everything around them glowed with pulsing, vibrant, living lights . . .
“There. . . . Watch, as it turns to twilight.”
“It’s like a small Ring of Power,” Charles said . . .
“These are my colleagues, Mr. Kirke and Mr. Bangs.”
The shipbuilder had already completed the work . . .
“Look,” Telemachus said. . . . “See what your efforts have wrought.”
. . . the island where the last inn stood
Standing atop the rocks before them . . . was a Cherubim . . .
“Over?” Jack snorted. “It’s never over until you win . . .”
“It seemed like the place I should be.”
I first suggested the idea of H. G. Wells having owned an atlas of maps to imaginary lands in the first of my Myth World novels, published in Germany over a decade ago. It was a couple of years later that I wrote up a ten-page proposal for a film called
Here Be Dragons
, which I subsequently turned into a book proposal, and which, a couple of years after that, was developed into the published book
Here, There Be Dragons
. It will have been eight years between the publication of that first book and the publication of this one, and in that time readers who started the series in grade school will be finishing it in college.
The entire journey has been one of unusual synchronicities. If the magazine ventures I was involved in had not imploded, I would not have gone out soliciting movie studios and publishers to buy my personal creative work. My attorney, Craig Emanuel, connected me with the managers at the Gotham Group, who connected me with Marc Rosen and David Heyman at Heyday Films. If not for David’s interest and Marc’s encouragement and assistance in fleshing out the story, I may not have held on to it long enough to decide to pursue a book deal first. And if Julie at the Gotham Group had not called David Gale at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, then perhaps none of these books would have existed at all.
But all of those connections happened, the books exist, and a great many people helped push this cart along the way.
Craig Emanuel, Julie Jones, and David Schmerler at Loeb & Loeb have constantly and consistently looked after my interests and made sure that the contracts went smoothly.
Julie Kane-Ritsch, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lindsay Williams, and Julie Nelson played a similar role at the Gotham Group, and more than once went out of their way to make sure my bills were paid.
David Gale began all of this by saying yes to the first book, and he and Navah Wolfe made all of the books better than I imagined they could be. The rest of the team at Simon & Schuster, including Carolyn Reidy, Justin Chanda, Jon Anderson, Lizzy Bromley, Paul Crichton, Laurent Linn, Siena Koncsol, and all of the wonderful people who worked on making and selling the books reshaped my career, and I am grateful to all of them.
My friends are the ones who held me together in every possible way through the making of this series: Brett, Shawn, Heidi, Robb, George, Bill, Irene, Ray, Shannon, Dave, Daanon, Kristin, Homer and Effie, Russ and Bekki, John and Valerie, Kevin and Rebecca, Tracy and Lisa, and Tracy and Troy. My mother, Sharon, and brother Jason were also there when I needed them to be, and they all made it possible for me to do the work I do.
Lon, Mary, and especially Jeremy helped me to find my arête in my art, and in the work we do together. There would be no Coppervale Studio without Jeremy. And there would be no reason to do the things I do without my family: Cindy, Sophie, and Nathaniel drive me to be a better artist, a better writer, and a better man.
All of you made these books possible, and I can’t express my gratitude enough.
Stories have existed since the beginning of the world, and human history itself consists of little more than the stories that survived. All stories are true—but some of them just never happened
.
The story of the first murder is one that is both true, and real
.
There is, however, a secret part of the story about the first murder that almost no one knows, because there were only two witnesses, and one of them was bound not to speak what he knew. The other, of course, was dead. And the world where dead men speak had not yet come into existence, not really—because it was the murder itself that created it
.
The first Maker was their mother, and the first Namer, their father. They were brothers, twins, although as in the way of all things, one was called the elder, and the other, the younger. It was their parents who called them such, and so they did not question it. It was only after they had grown to manhood that they were given their secret names and were told what their true purpose in the world was to be. With purpose came callings, the first of their kind in the world, and the most crucial
.