The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) (7 page)

“So,” Twain said softly, “he is the Hook no longer, but fully a man again, our Mordred is.”

“He is more Madoc than Mordred, I think,” said Dickens. “He is, at last, perhaps once more the man that he set out to be.”

Laura Glue sat next to the bed, facing this strange young man whom she had met only once before, when he was older, and weathered by the events of his long life. In a way, it felt like another
first meeting to her. She wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, watching as his breathing became more regular, until he finally opened his eyes.

“Hello there,” she said.

“Rose?” he asked, propping himself up with the pillows. Then his vision cleared, and he realized his nurse was not his daughter. After a moment he added, “I’m, ah, Madoc.”

She giggled. “I know that. We have met, you know.”

He reddened. “I remember. It’s just . . . more like a dream now. It’s been so, so long.”

“Only a year for me, since we saw you in London.”

“Which was a century before I gave myself over to my other self to become the
Black Dragon
, and then over a thousand years since that,” he said, more awed by the reality of it than anything else. “And now here I sit, in this body that I remember having centuries earlier, before I . . .” He paused.

“Before you became the Winter King.”

Again, he blushed. “Or at least before I became Mordred, at any rate.” He stopped and looked away, out the window. “I still remember those things too, girl. I still remember the choices I made. And . . . I don’t regret them. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“You must have been capable of making some good choices,” Jack offered from the doorway, where he, John, and Fred had crowded past the other Caretakers. “Otherwise, you’d never have become the Dragon’s apprentice.”

“Mmm,” Madoc answered noncommittally. “There have been times I almost regretted that particular choice too,” he said, “but when I was in the presence of my daughter, it all seemed to have happened for a reason. It seemed necessary.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Madoc,” said Jack.

“Not everyone was the son of Odysseus and was offered the whole world as his kingdom,” Madoc replied. “But I was, and I still made many mistakes.”

“So was your brother,” Jack suggested, “and he had more opportunities than you did to choose a direction for his life, but for my money, he didn’t turn out any better than you did. Uh, I mean worse,” he corrected quickly, after a poke in the ribs from John. “Uh, sorry.”

Madoc shook his head and grimaced. “I don’t know. Perhaps if I had chosen a better teacher . . .”

“Better than Samaranth?” asked John.

Madoc’s face darkened. “No,” he said. “A . . . different teacher. Samaranth, I should have heeded more. But then again,” he added, looking around the room, “Myrddyn is nowhere to be seen, and I am here—again. So that should say something, I think.”

“It does,” said Jack. “Truly.”

“We know you’ve made many sacrifices,” John said, “but we need your help once more—as a Dragon. As the only one left.”

Madoc exhaled heavily and swung his legs to the side of the bed. “All right,” he said. “Tell me what . . .” He paused, finally noticing he carried considerably more bulk than before.

He flexed his wings, which filled the small bedroom. “Well, these are new.”

“Yes,” Laura Glue said. “And your eyes,” she added, moving closer and turning his head to the light. “They’re silver.”

“Silver is nothing but dragon’s blood,” Madoc said. “It has healing properties, and sometimes manifests itself during a transformation.” He flexed his wings again, and the Caretakers could
see that the leathery black was shot through with veins of silver. “I suppose I didn’t expect it to leave a permanent marker.”

“I like them,” she said, looking at his eyes. “I liked them when they were violet, and I like them now. The wings, too. They make you look . . . imposing.”

“Yes,” Jack whispered behind his hand to his friends, “because he was such a shrinking violet
before
the wings.”

“And I like that you are a good and compassionate person, and very forgiving, much like my daughter,” Madoc said, glancing past Laura Glue to the others crowded into the room. “Is Rose here? I was hoping to see her.”

Before John could respond, Fred moved closer to the bed, whiskers twitching. “That’s why we done this,” he said nervously. “That’s why we brung, uh, brought you back, ah, sir. We need your help. Rose needs your help.”

Madoc looked at the small mammal a moment, then stood up. “All right, Caretakers,” he said, addressing all of them at once. “I haven’t eaten in more than a thousand years, so what say you find us something to fill our bellies while you tell me why my daughter needs an old apprentice Dragon’s help.”

The path was well lit with lanterns . . .

The part of the garden
at the Kilns where the bridge was located was not visible to passersby, but the driveway where the Duesenberg had been parked was. Precautions had been taken to ensure that no one passing through Oxford would notice anything out of the ordinary, but then again, usually no one was looking—it was what made the Kilns a perfect entry point to Tamerlane House.

No one, that is, except for the two men sitting in the black Bentley across the street. They were looking, and they saw a great deal. Warnie had noticed the car parked there earlier, but thought little of it—the enemies he had been warned to watch out for didn’t drive automobiles.

Thus it was that no one, not even Warnie, seemed to take note when the two men emerged and crossed the road. Focused as they had been on taking Argus to see the
Black Dragon,
the Caretakers had simply crossed over the bridge, sealing the portal behind them without ever looking back. There were guards posted, and magic runes protecting the entry to Tamerlane House and the Nameless Isles . . . on that side of the bridge. But no one considered that if both sides were not protected equally, then both sides were equally vulnerable to their enemies. But no one was looking for enemies in Oxford.

If someone had been looking, he might have noticed the near-identical black coats and bowler hats the two men wore, and the round black glasses that hid the dark orbs that occupied the places where their eyes should have been.

If someone had been looking, he might have noticed the identical black pocket watches both men carried, which chimed at the same moment.

“It is time, Mr. Kirke,” said one.

“Indeed it is, Mr. Bangs,” said the other.

In hindsight, John thought, that was the Caretakers’ greatest mistake. They should have been more cautious. They should have taken better care. If they had, then perhaps things would have gone differently when the two men knocked on the door at the Kilns.

♦  ♦  ♦

In the dining hall, Alexandre Dumas and the Feast Beasts quickly put together what Dumas referred to as “a light dinner,” which nevertheless consisted of enough food to have stocked the Kilns for a year. Madoc kept refilling his plate and eating as the various Caretakers took turns explaining what had been happening in the Archipelago. He made no comment, only nodding occasionally and grunting. Shakespeare was last to speak, and he explained how he believed the Zanzibar Gate would work, and why it required a Dragon.

“The question is,” Madoc said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched as a courtesy to Dumas, “am I still in fact a Dragon? I still have the wings, but I feel more like a man again.”

“It is an office, not merely a descriptive term,” said Bert. “One is not a Dragon until a Dragon calls you to be one. And once you have become a Dragon, a Dragon you shall remain until a Dragon says otherwise. And,” he added, “seeing as you’re the only one left, I don’t anticipate that happening anytime soon.”

“And if we do this, and somehow find the Architect and convince him to rebuild the keep, the Archipelago will be restored?”

“There’s no way to know for certain,” said Verne, “but this is the first necessary step to finding out.”

“And the
Imaginarium Geographica
is of no help to you in this? Or the Histories?”

“The Histories that record the future are little more than unfulfilled prophecies,” said Twain, “and the
Imaginarium Geographica
was unmatched as a travel guide, but, I’m sorry to say, sorely lacking as a time travel aid. Anyroad, Rose, Edmund, and Charles have it with them, whenever they are.”

“We know the Archipelago itself
can
be restored,” John said, indicating the open facsimile
Geographica
on the table in front of them, “because all the maps were still there in the original. When the Winter King . . .” He looked at Madoc and swallowed hard. “Sorry. When, um,
you
first tried to conquer the Archipelago,” John continued, “and the lands were covered in Shadow, they vanished from the
Imaginarium Geographica
. But they’re all still here, so there must be some way to restore them.”

“Not all,” Fred said quietly. Laura Glue moved closer to him and put a reassuring arm around the little mammal’s shoulders. “Avalon in’t there, and neither is Paralon.”

“I’m sorry, Fred,” said John. “I didn’t forget.”

“Some of the lands are missing?” Madoc asked in surprise. “I thought they weren’t Shadowed.”

“Not Shadowed, as you remember it,” Jack said quietly. “Destroyed, by the Echthroi. The rest, according to what Aven told us before she . . .” He swallowed hard. “The rest were somehow removed, and taken elsewhere by Samaranth. Where he went, I cannot say.
But it’s a moot point if we can’t reestablish the connection between worlds by restoring the keep.”

“Well,” Madoc said, standing, “either it’ll work, or it won’t. So let’s go see what Master Shaksberd hath wrought.”

♦  ♦  ♦

Most of the company at Tamerlane House left to walk to the ferryboat Twain would pilot over to the island where the gate stood. Washington Irving and the half-clockwork men they called Jason’s sons stayed behind with Dumas to guard the bridge, and the Elder Caretakers, having wished Madoc and the others good luck, stayed in the house.

Also remaining behind at Verne’s insistence were the Zen Detective, Aristophanes, and his escorts, Uncas and Don Quixote. The detective protested, claiming foul play, until Twain judiciously let slip what they had originally done with Daniel Defoe after he had defied the Caretakers. After that, Aristophanes was more than content to wait things out in the comfort of the house.

As the companions walked across the expanse of sand and stone to the boathouse, Poe watched from seclusion high above. John caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye and gave a plaintive wave, which, after a moment, Poe returned before closing the drapes.

♦  ♦  ♦

“So, this enemy, the Echthroi,” Madoc said as they clambered into the ferryboat. “They are a constant threat?”

“Mostly through their agents,” Bert said with a sigh. “The shadow-possessed servants called Lloigor.”

The Caretakers were almost relieved when mention of the Lloigor caused Madoc to shudder. He had, after all, been one of them—the one the Echthroi once considered their greatest weapon.

“I’m sorry,” said Madoc. “Sometimes, when you live long enough, you don’t realize what kind of life your choices have culminated in. It is a path of a thousand steps—but the first step in the wrong direction can change it all. I let my bitterness determine my choices, and I was swayed by having followed the wrong teacher. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for my part in it all.”

“You’ve more than made amends, Madoc,” Laura Glue said, looking not at him, but to John, for reassurance. “You have already done more than we could have hoped.”

“At least there haven’t been any more incidents with some of the fouler creatures who used to serve the purposes of, ah, the man you were,” Jack said, shuddering at the memory of their first encounter, long ago, with the creatures called Wendigo.