The companions each thanked the Cartographer in turn and left the map-covered room. He was back at his desk, working, before they closed the door.
The Cartographer of Lost Places scumbled lines on the parchment at a furious pace for several minutes before finally capping his quill and laying it aside. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, weary, and not for the first time. He suspected, but did not know, not for certain, what was to follow in the Archipelago, and in the world beyond. But what was to take place in the Underneath was a complete mystery. All that he knew was that the Caretakers, particularly the one called John, must find their way through the maelstrom of events on their own. It would be the only way for them to be prepared when the imago finally arrived.
“So the end justifies the means, eh?” he murmured. “This is a dangerous game you play at, Jules. It’s beyond me—and I was more than three millennia old before you were born. But one of them should have been told. He should know that he will not see the end of it. It’s only right, only just. Isn’t it?”
He waited, almost as if he expected a response, but none came. With a deep sigh, the Cartographer picked up his quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and resumed his work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chamenos Liber
The companions expected an easier descent down the tower, but they soon realized it wasn’t to be. The rumbling they experienced earlier had resumed at an increasing pace, accompanied by vibrations that nearly shook them from the stairs. They kept close to the walls and moved as quickly as they dared. “I think it’s the instability the Cartographer mentioned,” Bert, in the lead, called over his shoulder. “More pieces of the tower are crumbling.”
“I hope we moored the ship high enough,” said Jack. “It would be a sorry mess to find it had drifted free because the wall it was tied to suddenly fell into the ocean.”
“Don’t worry,” Aven said. “Her crew is good. They’ll keep the airship close and will be watching for us.”
“Good to know,” said Jack, sounding less than reassured.
They were close enough to the bottom to see open sky below when a tremor struck and dislodged the entirety of the counterclockwise stair. It fell past, taking chunks of the clockwise stair with it, along with several doors.
“Glad we’re not going up,” Charles remarked. “Actually, I’m glad we’re leaving altogether.”
“Cut the line, Jack,” she said softly.
Bert stopped them, putting his arm out protectively. He looked at Aven, and her brow creased with worry. “We should have already come to the window where the Indigo Dragon was tethered,” Bert said. “That we haven’t only means that that part of the tower has already fallen.”
They were thirty feet from the disintegrating base, and below that was open air. Above, there were sections of steps missing. They could go no farther down, but neither could they go back the way they’d come. They were trapped.
“What can we do?” asked Jack.
As if in answer to his question, a familiar whirring noise rose outside the nearest window, and the Indigo Dragon came into view. One of the fauns expertly tossed a line through the opening. Aven caught it and secured it through the bracing under the steps, then pulled over the rope ladder.
“You first,” she said to Jack.
“I’ll wait, thanks,” he replied. “Charles?”
“Already over here,” Charles said, waving happily from the deck. “I was motivated.”
Bert went next, then John. Jack was about to cross when another violent shudder shook the tower, and the stairway collapsed.
Jack was halfway onto the ladder, but Aven had been standing on the steps. There was no time to shout. It was all she could do to flail about for some kind of purchase, and she managed to twist the anchorline around her wrist before she fell.
The other end was still tied to the bracing, which weighed several hundred pounds. Aven cried out with the pain and tried to reach up to Jack, but he was too far out of reach.
“Aven!” Bert screamed. “Jack, can you reach her?”
“I’m trying,” Jack gasped. “Give me a minute.”
That was more time than they had. The weight of the bracing was dragging Aven down—and pulling the Indigo Dragon dangerously close to the tower.
“Cut the line!” Aven hissed.
“Never,” said Jack. “Hang on, I’m coming!”
He wound his feet through the ladder and swung backward, upside down—but it was no use. Her outstretched hand was still too far to reach.
The airship lurched sideways again, and the propellers screamed with the strain. It was a losing battle. Slowly, the ship was being pulled closer to the wall.
“Cut the line, Jack!” Aven said again. “Save the ship!”
“I’m not going to do that!” Jack yelled back. “I made a promise to look after you, and I’m keeping it.”
The look in her eyes softened, but she saw the situation more clearly than he did. “I can’t reach my knife to cut myself loose,” she said. “Not like this. And we’re all dead if the airship smashes into the wall! Cut me loose! It’s the only way!”
Jack looked at her, only a few feet away, and stretched his arms in despair. Grinding his teeth, he called up to Bert. “Throw me a knife! Quickly!”
One of the fauns clambered out onto the ladder as the ship jolted close enough to the tower to scrape a propeller against the stone, sending a shower of sparks over them. He passed a short dagger down to Jack, who took a deep breath and looked at Aven.
“Cut the line, Jack,” she said softly.
And with a single stroke, to the horror of his friends, he did. Aven dropped away into the mist without a sound.
“Jack!” Bert screamed as the shaken young man rushed across the ladder and onto the deck. “What have you done? What have you done?”
Jack ignored him and ran to the wheel. “We have two miles,” he yelled to the crew. “Cut away anything that will drag us back, and dive! We can still catch her! Dive! Now!”
The crew responded instantly, shifting the rudder, spars, and propellers to alter the pitch of the ship. With a vicious jolt, the Indigo Dragon tipped downward and began to drop.
John, Charles, and Bert grabbed hold of whatever they could and braced themselves. The fauns, seemingly oblivious to the danger, were cutting off anything that created wind resistance: the anchor, gone; the rope ladders, gone. Even the extra casks of food and drink were quickly tossed over the railing, to disappear in the airstream above them, so they could gain more speed. Faster and faster the ship flew—but in seconds, it was obvious it would not be fast enough. The time it had taken Jack to get aboard again and take charge of the ship would cost them dearly.
“We have to go faster!” Jack yelled, looking around. “The balloon! It’s creating too much resistance! We have to deflate it!”
“Are you crazy?” Bert shouted back. “It’s what’s keeping us aloft! It won’t do any good to save Aven if we crash and die right after!”
“No one’s going to die today,” said Jack. “John! Take the wheel!”
John staggered forward and clutched at the wheel, while Jack leaped over his friend and grabbed Aven’s sword from its place above the cabin door. Wrapping one of the guy lines around his wrist, he jumped into the air and the line snapped taut, holding him parallel to the rearmost part of the balloon.
With one long stroke, Jack split the center seam on the back of the balloon, and the gases inside escaped with a roar.
In an instant, the airship had become an air rocket, and it was hurtling even faster toward the water.
“I see her!” John shouted, pointing.
Below them, now free of the line and the stair bracing that had trapped her, Aven was attempting to slow her descent by spreading her arms and legs. It was working—between her push against the wind and the plummeting speed of the ship, they would overtake her in moments.
And moments later they would hit the sea with the force of an explosio
n.
The fauns took hold of the wheel and maneuvered the ship until it was angled to fall below Aven. With excruciating slowness, they met, matched, and exceeded her speed, and the airship came up underneath her. Aven slammed roughly into the now-deflated balloon, and Jack caught her with his legs and free arm.
“Now!” he shouted to the fauns, who had anticipated his order and had already redirected the propellers. The force of the sudden shift slowed their speed, but ripped off one of the guide wings with a strangled screeching of torn wood and metal.
John threw himself against the wheel and turned it to compensate for the lost wing. The wind roared in their ears, and the water stretched across the horizon. The second wing ripped away, and suddenly their speed increased, but the Dragon at the prow acted as a natural rudder, and suddenly they also had direction—still down, but also forward.
But it wasn’t enough.
The ship hit the water at tremendous speed. It had pulled up just enough to avoid a straight-on impact, but it bounced off the surface of the water so violently that the rudder and both propellers were thrown off, and it hit thrice more before slowing down to a skimming glide, finally settling into the sea, and at last, stopping.
It was only by sheer luck that none of the companions had been ripped away in the barely controlled fall. They sat on the deck, too stunned to speak, as the perspicacious fauns began to clean up what still remained of the Indigo Dragon.
Aven, still breathing hard, looked at Jack and laughed. “The good old Indigo Dragon,” she said. “I knew she wouldn’t let me go.”
“I helped too, you know,” said Jack.
“I know,” said Aven. “I knew you would. That’s why I told you to cut the line.”
“That was exhilarating,” John commented from the foredeck. “And I never, ever, want to do it again.”
“Incredible,” said Bert, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it.”
“Neither can I,” added Charles, standing up and looking around. “The Indigo Dragon is a boat again.”
It had been a miraculous rescue, but the damage to the Indigo Dragon was nearly total. There was no way to steer, no motive power, and the balloon had a twenty-foot-long gash in it.
“I don’t mean to be a sour apple,” said Charles, “but did you realize we’re in the middle of the Chamenos Liber?”
“That’s exactly where we wanted to be, isn’t it?” said Jack.
“Yes,” Charles replied. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s awfully hot, and it seems to be getting hotter.”
He was right. The cloying smell and thickened air were the result not of fog, but of steam rising from the volcano below.
“We still don’t know how to open the portal,” said Charles, “and I don’t think we can afford to sit here for very long.”
“If we can repair the balloon,” said Aven, “we may be able to reinflate it. Then we could at least move a safe distance away to reassess our situation.”
“Our situation may become a catastrophe, as a wise man once said,” stated Jack. “Can’t the Indigo Dragon motivate us out herself?”
“She may be float-worthy,” said Bert, “but remember: She was rebuilt as an airship. She’s not equipped to move about in the water anymore—not that freely, anyway.”
“Those are our options, then,” said John. “We try to repair her enough to get outside of the volcanic cone…”
“Or we get steamed to death,” put in Jack.
“Or someone might come looking for us,” said Charles, hoping to elicit a hopeful smile or two. But no one offered one. As the steam continued to swirl about the ship, the companions moved to separate areas of the deck and set about making whatever repairs they could.
They worked throughout the remainder of that day, and then long into the night. After assessing all the damage, a quick vote focused them on repairing the balloon itself as the most viable means to leave the Chamenos Liber. As Bert gently reminded the others, the only course they could follow after that was to somehow get back to London to retrieve the Imaginarium Geographica, and then return to open the portal to the Underneath.
What was unspoken but clearly on the minds of them all was just how difficult that would prove to be.
The only ones who knew where they had gone were Artus and Tummeler. And it would be several more days at minimum before either of them would begin to worry that something was amiss—and even then, what could they do?
All the ships in the Archipelago had been burned. There would be no way for any rescuers to reach the Indigo Dragon, or for the Indigo Dragon to reach safe haven, in less than a month at best. It was possible the dragons could help transport them across the Frontier and back—but again, at present, the Indigo Dragon was all but marooned, and her crew and passengers were being slowly steamed to death.
And all the while, precious hours were passing. Passing, while the children remained missing and an unknown adversary wreaked havoc with history.
Aven was supervising the repair of the balloon. The fauns were remarkably versatile and had plundered the blankets in the cabin below to use for stitching material. The work was slow going, but Bert cautioned that despite their urgency, it was better to ensure that it was done right the first time—or else they might find themselves in hotter water later on.
“Very funny,” said Aven.
“Pun intended,” said Bert. “If I can’t joke about imminent death, then I might as well just resign.”
“Resign from what?” asked Jack.
“Depends on the day,” said Bert. “Aven, I wanted to ask—when the Cartographer translated the name of the islands as ‘Lost Boys,’ you reacted very noticeably. Why is that? What does that phrase mean to you?”
The fact that Aven didn’t immediately reply was an indication of just how deeply she felt about the question. Finally she handed her tools to one of the fauns and stood against the cabin wall, her arms folded.
“Obviously it’s also a reference to Jamie and Peter’s Lost Boys,” she explained. “It was the name that all the children who came to Peter’s secret hideaway went by—but he wasn’t the one who started using it. It began long before Peter’s time. And I also didn’t know it referred to a place—especially one that guards the Underneath.”
“But why would that bother you?” asked Jack. “We’ve mentioned the Lost Boys several times, and you never blinked.”
“It wasn’t just mentioning them,” Aven said. “I just suddenly realized that I might have actually been to the Underneath before. I think it’s what Peter and Jamie called ‘the Nether Land,’ and I know another way to get there.”
Jack started. “You mean a way other than the portal? That’s wonderful!”
Aven shook her head. “There is a way, back in your world. But it won’t do us any good.
“It…was meant to be a secret,” she continued, with a hesitant glance at her father. “It’s how Jamie was able to go back and forth to the Archipelago without using the Dragonships.”
“Ah,” said Bert. “I’ve often wondered about that. It was one of Jamie’s great secrets,” he told Jack. “He refused to work on any maps or annotations of the Nether Land, and he stoutly refused to discuss it when the subject came up. It was one of the first conflicts we had with him as a Caretaker.”
“There is a wardrobe in London,” Aven went on, “one of two that originally belonged to Harry Houdini. He claimed to have built them himself, but Jules always suspected that he stole the principles behind them from the inventor Nikola Tesla.”
“You mean ‘borrowed,’” said Bert mildly.
Aven shook her head. “Stole. Tesla tried to have him arrested for stealing his papers, but Houdini ate the papers in question, then broke himself out of jail to ask the magistrate to release him for lack of evidence.”
“I see. Forget I asked. You were saying?” said Bert.
“Houdini built two wardrobes for use in his stage act,” said Aven. “He or a member of the audience
could enter one, then instantly appear in the other, which was placed at the opposite edge of the stage. He pushed the limits further with every performance, moving one wardrobe to the balcony, then the lobby, and once even to the street outside, where a surprised volunteer emerged and was nearly run over by a carriage. Shortly after that, the trick was discontinued, and he never performed it in public again.”
“The trick had lost its appeal?” Jack asked.
“Hardly,” said Aven. “It was the biggest draw of the day. But he found a more useful application for it. Because of his skill as an escape artist, he was approached by both Scotland Yard and the United States Secret Service to work for them as an intelligence-gathering agent. His touring show was his cover, and in the rare event he did get caught by a foreign agency, he could simply free himself and walk away.”
“Handy,” said Jack. “Where do the wardrobes come in?”
“Houdini realized that the ability to instantly transport himself from any location would make him unsurpassable as a spy,” said Aven. “So he would often arrange to have one of the wardrobes delivered to government offices, or royal residences, on the pretext that the delivery was a mistake. It was always returned to him, but in the meantime he could count on having an open door to wherever it was.”
“And the other wardrobe could be kept in his dressing room for a convenient escape,” said Jack. “Impressive.”
“Exactly,” said Aven. “There were the occasional sightings of him in places he wasn’t supposed to be—but how can you bring charges against a man who was seen onstage only minutes later, by an audience of five hundred, in a theater a thousand miles away?”
“That explains something else,” mused Bert. “Houdini and Conan Doyle used the wardrobes to avoid Samaranth, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Aven said, suppressing a giggle. “They did. They were crisscrossing Europe trying to stay out of sight while you tried to talk sense into Samaranth. Giving up the wardrobes was part of the offer they made in exchange for his not roasting them whole.”
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