Here, There Be Dragons tcotig-1

by James A. Owen

  John continued to examine the Geographica, working through the extensive annotations dealing with the Cartographer’s island.

  “According to this note—if my Italian is reliable enough,” he said to himself as much as the others, “the place where we can find the Cartographer is an immense tower called the Keep of Time. Inside is a winding stairway lined with doors. The Cartographer must be behind one of them.”

  “But it doesn’t say which one?” asked Charles.

  “No. But there is a caution here not to open any of the doors. I can’t quite follow why….”

  “I suppose we could just stand at the bottom and bellow his name until he answers,” said Artus, appearing at the galley door holding a tray heavily laden with food. “At least, that’s how I used to call the Green Knight when he left me at the bottom of the Wishing Well on Avalon.”

  “They really put you through it, didn’t they?” said Charles.

  “You have no idea,” said Artus. “They claimed it was ‘knightly training,’ but I think it was mostly to keep me out of the way when they didn’t need any work done.”

  “Why do you call it a Wishing Well?” asked John. “Was it magic of some sort?”

  “No,” said Artus. “I just call it that because I spent most of my time in it wishing I was someplace else.”

  John wrapped the Geographica in a fresh sheet of oilcloth he’d found in the ship’s stores and stowed it securely in the rear cabin. Despite the constancy of the thunderheads on the horizon, the moon was again very bright, making the weather pleasant, and in other circumstances, their simple feast on the deck would have been considered an exceptionally fine midnight picnic.

  Jack and Bert joined them for the meal, but other than whining about the lack of marmalade, Magwich showed little interest in eating, asking instead when Aven planned to serve drinks.

  The bread knife she threw in response struck the mast next to the Steward’s head with a loud tung, and Artus quickly jumped to his feet to show Magwich where the water was stored, before Aven started throwing larger, sharper things.

  Charles shook his head in wonder. “How did Dickens ever think that someone like Magwich could be a Caretaker?”

  Bert shrugged. “He never said anything to me about it. But then, when I met Charles Dickens, he’d already retired and turned the Geographica over to Jules, who in turn recruited me.”

  “It’s possible then,” said John, “that you were recruited as a Caretaker because Magwich didn’t work out.”

  Bert thought on that a moment, chewing idly on a carroway seed and stroking his mustache. “I don’t know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “He’s certainly been no end of trouble,” said Jack, as Aven agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “When you think about it, he’s been a pivotal point for every bad event that’s happened: the theft of the kettle; the death of Archibald; the murder of the professor; the sham Council at Paralon. In fact, if it weren’t for him, the Winter King wouldn’t have been chasing us at all—because he wouldn’t know about the Geographica.”

  Suddenly, the White Dragon jerked violently, as if struck. Then again. “What the hell?” said Aven. “That shouldn’t be happening.”

  Rising, she bolted for the wheel, which was lurching back and forth as if the ship itself wanted to change course.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Jack yelled.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Aven shouted back as she wrestled with the wheel. “The ship is fighting our course, as if she wants us to turn around.”

  Jack ran to the foredeck and quickly scanned the sea with Aven’s spyglass. “I can’t see anything—no ships, no islands. Not even any debris in the water.”

  “Could we have lost something?” said Bert. “Maybe someone fell overboard.”

  John did a quick head count, and a terrible realization came over him.

  “Jack,” he said, his voice low, “where is Artus?”

  The others understood immediately.

  Charles rose, glowering. “Where is he?” he said, anger rising in his voice. “Where’s Magwich?”

  “Worse than that,” Jack yelled from the port side. “Where’s the rowboat?”

  John found his squire in the galley, where Artus lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor.

  “He knew,” John said, gesturing at Charles. “He knew—and I refused to listen. Forgive me, Artus.”

  The boy king-in-waiting blinked and slowly sat up. “He hit me—I’m so sorry….”

  “Not your fault,” said Aven. “It’s ours. We should have killed him. I said as much.”

  “At least we’re rid of him,” said Charles. “Did he take anything?”

  “Not much, as far as I can tell,” said Aven. “The rowboat, a few food stores, some water.”

  “It was planned, then,” said Bert. “He knew what he planned to do the minute we set foot on the White Dragon, and he saw that rowboat. He planned to escape all along.”

  “To what end?” said John. “Everyone in the Archipelago hates him.”

  “The ring!” Jack exclaimed, looking at Artus’ hands. “The ring is gone!”

  John closed his eyes, and his head dropped. “Oh. Oh, no.”

  He moved quickly out of the galley and returned a few minutes later, empty-handed. “It’s gone,” he said. “He took the Imaginarium Geographica as well.”

  “That’s why the ship was fighting our course,” said Aven. “She knew what he’d done and was trying to warn us.”

  A quick assessment of the nearby seas bore no trace of Magwich’s passage. Whichever direction he had taken the boat, it was impossible to tell. There would be no pursuit.

  “Now what?” said Charles. “Should we return to Paralon to consult with Samaranth?”

  Aven shook her head. “He already told us all he could,” she said. “He made that clear.”

  “But without the Geographica,” said Jack, “is there any reason to seek the Cartographer?”

  “No one knows more about it than he,” said Charles. “Even without it in our possession, he may still be able to tell us something we can use to destroy it. If—when—we find it again.”

  “It seems,” Bert said, “that we have no choice. We must continue forward.”

  Part Four

  In the Keep of Time

  “Look,” Artus said, pointing. “On the island. That tower…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Tower

  The course had been determined well enough that no further corrections or navigation were necessary—but once again, John felt as if he’d failed them all utterly. Aven was furious and not speaking to anyone, and even Artus was keeping a protracted distance. Only Charles and Bert were conciliatory—to a degree.

  “We couldn’t have known,” said Bert. “We had all the cards, and we thought the game was over—we didn’t expect that the Steward was still playing.”

  “I can’t believe I saved him,” said Charles.

  “What I don’t understand,” said John, “is why take the Geographica, too? He had the Ring of Power. If he planned to take it to the Winter King, or try to sell it, or even try using it himself, then what did he need the Geographica for?”

  “The summoning,” Jack said from the foredeck, keeping his back to them. “He needed it for the summoning of the dragons. The ring alone is not enough—the words must also be spoken. And now he has them both.”

  Dawn eventually came, passing into morning then afternoon as the companions slept, ate, and generally stayed out of one another’s way.

  Finally, the White Dragon approached a great circular chain of islands just as the sun had begun to set. The islands were gray granite and rose prominently out of the sea like sentinels—which in a fashion they were.

  There were no slopes, no low rises to the islands of Chamenos Liber—it was as if columns of stone had dropped from the sky and impaled themselves upon the glassine surface of the ocean.

  In the distance the largest
of them could be seen faintly through the mists. Aven tipped her head at John, and he nodded. That would be their goal. She had started to turn the ship to steer between the columns when Jack grabbed the wheel and gave it a vicious turn. The White Dragon came about, narrowly missing an impact with the nearest island.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Aven said, incredulous. “I’m doing the steering here.”

  “Sorry,” said Jack. “There was no time to argue with you—but I think it’s better that we skirt the smaller islands and approach the large one from the eastern side.”

  “It’s faster and more direct to cut straight through.”

  “Probably,” said Jack, “but I don’t think that’s mist out there—I think it’s steam.”

  The companions went to the railing and looked out into the center of the circle of islands, and they realized that Jack was right. The mist that obscured their view of the Cartographer’s island was contained within the granite pillars.

  “I remembered what John had said about these islands once being part of a volcano,” said Jack. “I thought it wiser to steer clear, even if we lose time.”

  “Well done, Jack,” said Bert. “It seems as if you’re the Caretaker of the White Dragon.”

  “Look,” Artus said, pointing. “On the island. That tower…” He leaned back, toppling into Charles. “I can’t see the top of it.”

  “The Keep,” John said, his voice hushed in the night mists. “The Keep of Time.”

  The island was nearly a mile across and, unlike its smaller, harsher siblings, was covered with grasses that sloped gently up to the base of the tower. The tower itself was perhaps forty feet in circumference, and it was inset with windows at staggered intervals as it rose, one about every twenty feet. The frame was wood, but the walls were granite. The stone of the tower was very ancient, and of a somewhat lesser gray than that of the islands, as if it were slightly ethereal, or not in the same focus as the ground on which it stood.

  Aven steered the White Dragon into the shallows where they could clamber off and walk to the pebbled beach that gave way to the grass. Standing on the shore, they looked at one another and realized they had no idea what they were going to do once they were inside. The entire purpose of their ordeals and long journey had been to bring the Geographica to the one person who could destroy it—and they had lost the book mere hours before they’d reached their goal.

  Expectantly, they all looked to John to lead the way into the tower. He felt like an idiot.

  The base of the tower was ringed with open arches that led inside, as if it stood on four massive feet one could walk between. The interior was more brightly lit than could be ascertained from without. A luminosity emanated from the floor, which faded farther up, to be replaced by the light from the windows.

  In the center of the floor was a raised circular platform, like a dais. On either side of it were two sets of steps that rose into the tower before curving back into each other in a great braided pattern. At each point where the braid of steps crossed was a door set deep into the stone walls, but they bore no visible hinges or handles. They were simply there.

  Jack stepped into the center of the tower. “I can’t see the top of it,” he said. “It seems endless.”

  “I couldn’t see the top from outside, either,” said Charles. “No doubt about it—unless the Cartographer is behind the first door we open, we’re in for a bit of a climb.”

  “Knock on wood that he is, then,” said Artus, reaching out his fist to rap on the bottommost door.

  Before his hand touched the polished wood, the door swung open. Inside was outside—the door didn’t open into a room within the tower, as they had every reason to expect, but onto the broad expanse of a mist-laden forest primeval.

  “It’s a swamp,” said Artus.

  “More than that,” said Bert. “I think it’s a doorway into the past—to the dawn of mankind itself.”

  “Is that an elephant over there?” said Charles.

  “That’s not an elephant,” said Bert, “that’s a mammoth.”

  “A woolly mammoth?” Charles said, incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It couldn’t be a mammoth,” said Jack. “They lived in colder climates—on steppes, snowy plateaus, that sort of place. This is a swamp.”

  “Argue with your own eyes,” said Bert. “Mine see a woolly mammoth in a swamp.”

  “It doesn’t appear to be moving,” said John. “Look—nothing in here is. It’s as if everything were made of stone.”

  It was true: The leaves on the trees did not stir; the clouds in front of the immense moon did not drift. Even the insects in the air were frozen in place, as if trapped in colorless amber. Until, that is, Artus took a step forward, past the threshold.

  The buzzing of the insects was immediate, as was the tang of rotting flesh and, they assumed, mammoth dung.

  The flora were swaying gently alongside the great river that lay just past the entrance, as were the fauna. An extraordinarily large head rose from the water and continued to rise, until the neck atop which it rested had grown to more than forty feet in length.

  “Is that a sea monster?” said Artus.

  “My old teacher, Sir Richard, called them ‘dinosaurs,’” said Bert. “Regardless, I think it’s time we took our leave of this place—he looks hungry, and I can’t run as fast as the rest of you.”

  Artus quickly stepped back, pulling the door behind him. “Agreed. I don’t think the Cartographer’s behind this one.”

  “Right,” said John. “Onward and upward it is.”

  Charles pointed to the twin stairways. “Clockwise or counterclockwise?”

  “Widdershins is always the prudent choice,” said Bert. “Counterclockwise.”

  Thus agreed, the companions began to climb.

  Every few levels, one of them would stop to open a door, each time revealing a different landscape from a different period of time. It was Charles who realized that the scenes were not random, but following a very distinct progression.

  “We’re moving upward in time,” he explained. “Each doorway is opening into a different point in the past. At the bottom, the beginnings of civilization. And as we move up, so do we move forward in time.”

  “What’s at the top, then?” said Aven.

  “Good question,” said Charles. “We may yet have a chance to find out—as far as I can tell, we haven’t even hit the Bronze Age yet.”

  “One thing about the past,” said Bert, “it smells awful. My clothes still reek of mammoth dung.”

  Jack took the next door, which also swung open at a mere gesture. Inside, a frozen diorama like the others depicted a brutal scene of combat between what Bert claimed were Mongols and ancient Icelandic warriors. There were missing limbs, and the ground was awash in blood.

  “I think this one’s a ‘no’ too,” said Jack, “but I’d say we’re firmly in the Bronze Age now, if we’re to judge by those axes they’re swinging.”

  “Uh, Jack?” said Charles.

  “Yes?’

  “Those huntsmen,” Charles said. “They’re coming this way.”

  Jack looked down and realized he’d inadvertently stepped over part of the threshold, unlocking the scenario from its frozen state. He quickly shuffled back—but the huntsmen, scenting fresh prey, and still maddened with bloodlust, were now coming at a full run.

  “You can turn it on,” said Jack, “but can you turn it off?”

  “Shut the door!” the others yelled together, and Jack did, just as a gore-laden bardiche buried itself on the other side.

  They held their breath, but heard no further impacts.

  “Apparently,” said Bert, “closing the door closes the portal.”

  “Thank God,” said Jack.

  Just then, a rumbling sound echoed throughout the tower, and the floor seemed to shift beneath their feet. As quickly as it had begun, it stopped.

  “What was that?” said John.

  “No clue,”
said Bert. “But it still smells awful in here.”

  “Yes,” said Aven, “it does. But why? That smelly prehistoric doorway was at the bottom of the stairs, and we’ve been climbing for hours. We have to be several miles high by now—why do we still smell it?”

  Jack was looking at the door the huntsmen had just attacked. “Artus? The door you opened below—you did close it, right?”

  “I’m almost certain I did,” said Artus. “Almost. Certain.”

  Before Jack could respond, a great mucous-colored maw with rows of sharp teeth rose up between the stairwells and chewed, swallowed, and regurgitated Artus’s certainty.

  The head and neck of the sea monster trailed downward to a great bulbous body, supported by four enormous flippers that were braced against both stairwells, using them like ladders.

  “How did it get through that door?” Artus shouted, startled. “It’s too large to fit!”

  “Curse it,” said Aven. “I left my sword on the ship!”

  Jack was casting about for a means of defense. There was nothing to be found—the walls of the keep were bare. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “If it came in, it can go out again,” said Jack. “John! Go over and below with Charles, and stand ready! Artus! Open a door behind me!”

  “Which door?”

  “Any! I don’t care which! Just be ready!”

  The monster had turned its head to focus on Charles, who was the closest. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do,” said Charles. “I’ve finally found something big enough to eat Maggot, and he’s nowhere around.”

  “Hey!” Jack yelled at the beast, waving his arms to get its attention. “Over here!”

  The sea monster scooped the air with its neck, and came nose-to-nose with the young man. “Damnation,” Jack exclaimed as he cocked his arm. “That worked too well.”

  Jack let fly with his fist and smacked the great beast square in the left eye.

  With an enraged roar, the sea monster lunged forward at Jack, who threw himself into the air across the open stairwell. John and Charles caught him by the arms and lifted him safely onto the opposite stair.