The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) (12 page)

“Laura Glue, no!” Kipling yelled, just a moment too late. She rose sharply into the air before she understood her mistake and dropped back down to the
Indigo Dragon
.

“Uh-oh,” said Fred. “I think we’re about to have some company.”

A group of people had indeed seen Laura Glue’s brief, ill-advised flight and were making their way over to the Zanzibar Gate to investigate—but not from the encampments. The procession was coming from the huge boat.

An elderly man, dressed in desert garb, with a long gray beard streaked through with white, led the procession of women, children, and, the companions were surprised to see, a large contingent of animals.

He raised a hand in greeting as he peered curiously at Laura Glue and Madoc in turn, taking particular care to look over their wings. In response, and perhaps as a bit of a challenge, Madoc flexed his shoulders and opened his wings to their full, impressive glory.

Kipling stepped forward, expecting to address the old man, but Fred and Uncas beat him to it, throwing themselves to the sand at the man’s feet. “We greet you, oh Ancient of Days,” they said in unison. “Now and forever, we serve thee, Ordo Maas.”

The old man chuckled and helped them both to their feet. “That’s all well and good,” he said, a cheerful expression on his face that bespoke earnest affection for everyone in their group, “but there’s no point getting sand in your clothes, now, is there?”

“Ordo Maas?” Madoc said, dumbfounded. “
You
are Ordo Maas?”

The old man nodded. “The Children of the Earth—the animals—named me thus back in the days when all of them spoke as these two fine badgers do,” he said, scratching at Uncas’s head, which the badger would have hated anyone else doing, but which he seemed to love in the moment. “In my old kingdom, back in the Empty Quarter, I was known as Utnapishtim. But here, among the people of this great exodus, I am simply known as Deucalion.”

“Deucalion, the son of Prometheus,” said Madoc, “who built a great ark and saved all the creatures of the earth from a deluge that covered the world.”

“You’re mostly right,” Deucalion said. “My father was
Prometheus, and I have built a ship. But it hasn’t rained here in decades. Water is growing scarce. And my reputation is more that of a fool than a king or savior of animals.”

“Just wait,” said Fred. “I think things are about to change.”

♦  ♦  ♦

“Why were we brought here?” Kipling wondered aloud as they followed the shipbuilder back to his tents in the shade of the great boat. “I thought we’d end up closer to the city itself.”

“Remember what Will told us,” Laura Glue reminded them. “Intuition plays a part in how the gate is guided. If we were brought to this place, it’s in part because this is where we needed to be.”

“Perhaps the giants have something to do with it,” said Madoc.

“You may be right in that,” said Deucalion. “The Corinthian Giants have prevented anyone from reaching the city who did not specifically have the Mandate of Heaven. It has been thus for generations.”

“ ‘Generations’ is certainly the word for it,” Quixote said, straining backward to look up at the huge ship.

“This wasn’t built overnight,” Madoc said with real admiration in his voice. “How long have you been working on this vessel, old one?”

“From the time I was warned about the cataclysm to come, and my wife and I fled my kingdom to come here, it has been one hundred and forty years,” Deucalion said as he gestured for his sons and their wives to serve water to his guests—first to the goats, then to the badgers, and then to the rest. “We began our family with the birth of my eldest son in the same year we began constructing the ship, a decade after our flight into the desert. And
now we are nearly finished, just as my youngest son, Hap, is reaching manhood.

“But enough of family histories,” he said, turning to Uncas. “What is it that brings you to my tent?”

“Some friends of ours have gone missing,” Uncas said, “and we’ve come looking for them.”

“How come I can never explain our goals that simply?” Kipling whispered to Quixote.

“Poetic license,” the knight whispered back. “It’s a privilege, not a right.”

“I see,” said Deucalion. “And I take it from what you said earlier about expecting to find yourselves in the city that you hope to find them there?”

“We do,” said Uncas.

“You may be right, but without the Mandate of Heaven, you’ll never know,” Deucalion said. “Nothing living can get past the Corinthian Giants.”

In one fluid, graceful motion, Kipling rose to his feet. “I think that’s my cue. I’m going to go have a look around,” he said jovially. “I’ll see if I can’t get the lay of the land, so we can make a game plan for finding our friends.”

The shipbuilder started. “You want to go into the city?”

Kipling bowed. “That is where, it seems, all the action is. And I am a man of action.”

“We could all try to—,” Quixote began before Kipling cut him off with a gesture.

“Alone would be best,” he said. “Just reconnaissance, I promise. I’ll be back as soon as I can manage.”

“Is that wise?” Laura Glue asked.

“I’m head of the Espionage Squad, remember?” Kipling said, feigning hurt feelings. “I’m just going to go have a look around. And besides,” he added, glancing from Madoc’s wings to Laura Glue’s, “I’ll attract a lot less attention than the rest of you will.”

Deucalion sighed heavily. “Man of action you may be, but it is impossible. As I have told you, unless you have been given passage into the city by an emissary, the giants will permit no one living to cross the boundary.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem, then,” Kipling said with a wink as he exited the tent, “since I actually died some time ago.”

Deucalion looked at Fred and Uncas for an explanation, but the Caretaker merely shrugged, and the knight’s squire stifled a chuckle.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” said Laura Glue, “but trust me, he’s alive enough to do what he must.”

This time it was the shipbuilder’s turn to smile. “As are we all, my child. God willing, as are we all.”

. . . Kipling . . . started the long trek to the distant city.

The Echthros watched,
and waited.

It was in the house because of the Binding it wore, and so, when it was called upon, it was forced to serve the master who had fashioned it. But in between those summonings, it was still a creature of will, doing as it pleased. And it pleased the Echthros to be here, watching these little things play at the machinations of the world as if they were gods. No—as if they were the only gods; as if they were all the little gods there were.

It had played a part in the choices they made, partly in service to the Binding, and partly because it found the events taking place to be interesting. Once, in service to the Binding, it had even killed someone who had spent thousands of years doing little more than helping others.

And once, very recently, it had spilled one of its master’s secrets, perhaps the most important one. The Echthros claimed to have done so because of a covenant it had made oh so long ago—a covenant made almost at the same time it had been bound, when it was not yet an Echthros, but a free creature, who walked unafraid through the streets of the City of Jade.

The covenant did not compel servitude as the Binding did. Maybe that was why the Echthros chose to honor the request and offer help to the Caretakers’ friends.

Or maybe it was simply another aspect of its service to Shadow. It didn’t know. But soon, it might find out.

♦  ♦  ♦

Samaranth’s question hung in the air for a long moment before any of the companions chose to answer. Rose opened her mouth to speak.

“We are not here to Un-Name you,” she said again, slowly and carefully. After all, Samaranth might have seemed afraid in that moment—but he was still an angel. There was no way to know what that might mean in terms of the power he could wield if he felt threatened . . .

. . . or felt the need for retribution.

“We have come a . . . very long way, to ask for your help,” said Edmund. “We have no desire to interfere with you, or your summit, or anything to do with the city. We simply want to ask you a question.”

Samaranth already seemed calmer, something that might have been due more to his curiosity about these strange visitors than to their soothing words. “All right,” he said, having decided that whatever these creatures were, they were no threat. “What do you want to ask of me?”

“The Keep of Time,” Rose began. “You say that you know how it works, and that you understand how important it is to both this world and the one out there. What we want to ask is if you have also discovered who built the keep.”

The angel immediately shook his head. “That is the one question we have never been able to answer,” he said, “although it is an answer I have sought myself, in secret, because unless that answer is discovered, nothing we do here will be of any value whatsoever.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it is damaged,” Samaranth answered, “and unless it is
repaired, it will someday vanish altogether, and the connection to this world will be destroyed. And when that occurs, there will be nothing to prevent the Un-Namers from sweeping over the face of the earth.”

♦  ♦  ♦

As Kipling expected, passing the line of Corinthian Giants was spectacularly easy. His state of being as a tulpa, a living thought-form that possessed the aiua, or soul, of Rudyard Kipling, apparently made him a different enough kind of creature that the living monoliths paid him no heed whatsoever. They remained impassive, and immobile as stone. He was still human enough, however, to attract the attention of several among the refugees encamped along the living wall—and several of them, seeing how he passed successfully, attempted to do the same.

He watched with a bemused expression on his face, wondering just what method the giants would resort to for repelling the invaders—but an instant later, the smile dropped off his face.

The first two refugees had just reached the narrow isthmus between two of the giants’ feet when a horrifyingly loud booming horn sounded in the sky, and one of the giants looked down. A beam of light erupted from the giant’s cowled face, incinerating the refugees to ash.

Sickened, and berating himself for not being more careful, Kipling fashioned a turban out of his jacket to protect his head from the hot sun and started the long trek to the distant city.

♦  ♦  ♦

“It stands to reason that he wouldn’t know,” Charles said to the others. “If he had known, surely Bert, or Verne, or
someone
back home would have discovered the identity of the Architect years ago.”

“Not necessarily,” said Rose. “He wasn’t tame when we knew him,
you know. And there were times he did deliberately conceal information so that we’d have to discover the answers ourselves.”

“Also,” Edmund put in, “if he is the oldest of all his kind here, then it’s not very likely that anyone else in the entire city would know more than he does.”

“Age does not equal knowledge,” Samaranth said. He turned to Rose, scowling slightly. “Did you just call me ‘tame’?”

She blushed furiously and changed the subject. “I’m sorry we bothered you, Samaranth,” she said contritely. “I hope we haven’t interfered too much with your work.”

“You seem to know a great deal about who I am,” the angel said, giving them a look of appraisal, “and I still know nothing of you. Where did you say you hailed from?”

“There is only so much we can share,” Rose began in answer to Samaranth’s question, “without risking terrible damage to our own future. And yours,” she added quickly. “I can only ask that you trust us, and that you try to believe that our intentions are good.”

The angel considered her words and pursed his lips. “I don’t have to try,” he said finally. “Your countenance bears out your intentions, and I can read you like a book.

“My concern now, and the concern of all those who are eldest within the City of Jade, is in continuing the Naming of all that has already been made, so that all those who reside here may continue to live here in peace. One world should be sufficient enough to share, even among the principalities.”