The Search for the Red Dragon

by James A. Owen

  “Private, eh?” said John. “Now who’s keeping secrets?”

  “A necessary function at the onset,” retorted Burton, “else we’d have risked being discovered by those like yourself, and possibly losing our greatest resources.”

  “What resources?” Bert asked.

  “We have our own apprentices in the society,” said Burton. “And we wanted them as untainted as possible—or converted to our cause before you could reach them.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jack. “I was pretty young when I was recruited into all this.”

  “We get them younger still,” said Burton, “so that if they’re approached by one of you, they already believe in a different agenda.”

  Bert’s eyes widened in horror as he realized whom Burton was referring to. “Harry. You mean Harry, and Conan Doyle, don’t you?”

  Burton laughed again, and it was at once mocking and triumphant. “How do you think the Winter King and his minions were able to track you so quickly?” he said. “They nearly caught you that night in London, didn’t they?”

  John felt the blood drain from his face. “How could you know about our meeting at the club in London, when you’ve been trapped down here?”

  “I get reports from those who sometimes fall into the Underneath,” said Burton, “as well as from books, newspapers, and diaries that come with the occasional ship. I read about the break-in at 221B Baker Street in a copy of the Illustrated London News that came down with a dory. And your adventures in the Archipelago became the stuff of legend fast enough, so I put the pieces together.

  “And as to the Winter King—how do you think he was able to operate so easily in your world, if not for the help of those who shared his goals?”

  “World domination?” John said wryly.

  “No,” said Burton. “World reunification.”

  Charles was still processing Burton’s revelation. “So Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle were…”

  “My apprentices,” Burton confirmed. “I recruited them before you and that idiot Verne had the chance to.” He gestured brusquely at Bert. “They were barely more than boys, but they had the minds for it—and the will to defy those who would keep this knowledge for themselves.”

  “So for decades now,” said Jack, “there has been, what? A counter-Caretaker organization, run by the British Crown?”

  “Victoria may have sanctioned the society, but the seeds of its founding were Elizabethan,” Burton said, turning again to Bert. “Surely you know to whom I’m referring?”

  Bert’s face darkened. “That’s apocryphal. There’s no evidence of John Dee’s betrayal—not that it has any bearing on us now.”

  Burton crossed his arms and began to pace, as if giving a lecture. “No? Then think on this: How many Caretakers have been formally enlisted throughout history?”

  “Formally?” said John. “That’s easy enough to guess—most of their signatures are inside the Geographica.”

  “Right,” said Burton. “Three every generation or so, for several hundred years. But consider—how many more, like myself, were initiated into the mysteries of the Geographica and the Archipelago, only to be cast aside when they were deemed unworthy?”

  “If Magwich is any example of one who was cast out,” put in Charles, “then I’d say it was pretty justified.”

  “I can’t argue with you there,” Burton said. “But not all of those chosen were top-notch either. Cervantes is a good example of that. Can you imagine anything worse than a Caretaker who actually loses the Geographica?”

  “I’m sure he had other good qualities,” Jack said, trying not to look at John, who swallowed hard and blushed. “But setting aside Magwich, isn’t it possible there were valid reasons the other, ah, apprentice Caretakers were rejected?”

  “No!” Burton shouted. “It wasn’t that they were unqualified, but rather because of the same inconsequential difference of opinion that cost me the opportunity! They each disagreed with the first fundamental rule of being a Caretaker of the Imaginarium Geographica!”

  “Secrecy,” said Bert.

  “Yes!” Burton roared, eyes ablaze. “The damned secrecy! Keeping the wonders and marvels of the Archipelago of Dreams confined to the libraries and offices of a few secular scholars. Even the selection process itself is offensive. The Caretakers are supposed to be among the greatest, most creative thinkers of the world. But for centuries, the position has been reserved mostly for light-skinned Europeans, and even among them, mostly scholars from Oxford. That’s part of what I founded the society to change.”

  He circled his captives, feral, hefting the Geographica in his hands. “It was my mandate from Queen Victoria herself,” Burton said, “to acquire the Imaginarium Geographica and replicate it. To make copies of it, so that any man, woman, or child, whatever race, religion, or creed, could have a copy for themselves!”

  Burton lifted the book over his head, and his voice rang throughout the small valley. “I intend to make this, the rarest of books, so common that it can be purchased on any street corner!”

  The sound of Burton’s proclamation rang and echoed throughout the structure, and to his surprise, the companions merely blinked and smiled.

  “Uh,” Charles began, “I really don’t know how to tell you this, old fellow, because I don’t want to dampen your spirits about something that obviously means a great deal to you—but it’s been done.”

  Burton paused for a moment, then lowered the book and squinted menacingly at Charles. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Charles continued, “you’re a bit behind the times. An enterprising badger named Tummeler has been publishing copies of the Geographica for almost a decade now. There were several copies on the Indigo Dragon. It’s in its fourth printing now.”

  “Fifth,” said Bert.

  “Pardon,” said Charles. “Fifth.”

  The expressions on the faces of the other companions told Burton that Charles spoke the truth.

  He looked closely at Bert. “And you agreed with this? You allowed it to be duplicated, for anyone to own?”

  “Anyone in the Archipelago, yes,” said Bert. “I still stand by my oath as a Caretaker—open knowledge of the Archipelago is too dangerous to be released into the world. Or,” he added, “watched over by those who cannot be trusted to guard its secrets.”

  Burton’s response was a look of fury and a brutal, openhanded slap across Bert’s jaw.

  Aven cried out in anger, and the council of Indian Elders rose to their feet with a clamor of shouts and harsh language. Murthwaite began blowing into a conch shell and calling for order, and Laura Glue crawled underneath one of the unoccupied chairs to hide.

  With a gesture, Burton quieted the room, then turned back to the companions. The fury was not gone, but merely subdued.

  “I’ve allowed my own desires to direct the tenor of our discussion,” he said in a low, even voice. “We have brought you before the Council of Elders for something more important. And while it’s likely that you will be put to death, I give you my word as a gentleman that it will be swift and painless if you answer my question, and answer it honestly.

  “What have you done with our children?”

  John visibly relaxed. Perhaps the fear and concern behind that question was the reason for their brusque treatment—and this might even give them an opportunity for a nonlethal resolution after all.

  “Whatever our differences regarding the Geographica and our role as Caretakers,” he said, “I think we are more alike than you know. The reason we are here in the Underneath is that we are seeking our own children. The children of the Archipelago—including her son”—he nodded at Aven—“have gone missing. Our mission is the same, Burton.”

  “Is that so?” Burton sneered. “Then how do you explain her?”

  He was pointing at Laura Glue, still hiding under the chair. “If your children are missing too, how was she spared?”

  “It was Grandfather,” Laura Glue said defensively. “
He knew how to keep me from the men.”

  “Which men?” Burton asked, still suspicious.

  “The men with the clocks in their bellies,” said Laura Glue. “They came to get us, and he sent me away. He put plugs of beeswax in my ears and said they would keep me safe.”

  “Beeswax?” Burton snorted. “Of what good is beeswax?”

  “I suspect that the children were lured away somehow,” offered Bert. “The beeswax may have been meant to block out the sound.”

  “Impossible,” Burton said. “We Croatoans keep sentries, and they are well-trained. None of them heard any Clockwork Men—not a toot, whistle, plunk, or boom. We didn’t see or hear the children being taken,” he continued, “until it was too late—and I heard a single child, my own daughter, Lillith, cry out. When we got to the shore, we saw them running about in the darkness. They were all children, being directed by one they called Stephen.

  “We rushed toward them, but it was too late. The children were being taken away in ships—living ships,” he added with a snarl and a dark look at Bert, “and in moments they had vanished completely. And there is only one enemy we have had these many years whose army consists of children.”

  “The Lost Boys aren’t an army!” Laura Glue said hotly, forgetting her fear and clambering from under the chair. “We’re just children, and that’s it and that’s all!”

  The surprise in Burton’s face was surpassed only by the expressions of the Indian Elders. They were genuinely shocked, appalled, and even fearful at the child’s mention of the Lost Boys.

  Burton gestured to Hairy Billy, who moved with a swiftness that belied his bulk and in a flash had Laura Glue locked in his arms, immobile.

  Burton stepped closer and sniffed at her like an animal, appraising.

  “I thought you smelled familiar,” he murmured. “You have the stink of the Pan, unless I miss my guess.”

  “Grandfather doesn’t stink!” cried Laura Glue. “Except after dinner sometimes, but he pretends he’s asleep.”

  “Grandfather, eh?” Burton said with a sideways glance at the Elders. “I think we now have something with which to barter our children’s release.”

  “But we just explained to you,” said Charles. “We didn’t have anything to do with your missing children.”

  “And yet,” said Burton, drawing a finger along the girl’s cheek, “we found you on our shores, in possession of a living ship, accompanied by the progeny of our great adversary.

  “I think someone is lying to me. And that is a very dangerous thing to do.”

  He barked a few curt words in a language none of them understood, and with that, the council was ended. Ignoring their protests and exclamations of anger, Burton took Laura Glue by the hand and Aven by the shoulder and led them both out of the lodge.

  At Murthwaite’s direction, several other burly men joined Hairy Billy in pulling the companions to their feet and marching them briskly out of the building and down a small path that led away from the main settlement.

  As they marched, the companions realized that the guards were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard, and so they immediately began to formulate a whispered plan of action. The first order of business was rescuing Aven and Laura Glue.

  “Not to be a wet blanket,” said Charles, “but we need the Geographica, too. There’s too much in it we may yet need if we’re to rescue all the children.”

  “I’m not leaving them to Burton,” whispered Jack. “Especially Laura Glue. You saw how he looked at her when he realized her lineage.”

  “Of course,” said John, “we won’t leave her, or Aven, either. And we do need the Geographica. But we’re outmatched, outnumbered, and have no real idea where we are or where we’re to go if we can escape.”

  “Technicalities,” muttered Charles, eyeing the silent guards around them.

  “I don’t think we can leave,” Bert said suddenly. “The clues we’ve been looking for might be right here.”

  “Can’t leave?” John exclaimed. “Good heavens, Bert, why in blazes not?”

  “Two reasons,” said Bert, his face darkening. “One—Burton referred to the ships that took their children as ‘living’ ships. So I think I know what’s happened to our missing Dragonships, and to what use they’re being put.”

  “Agreed,” said Charles. “They’re being used by this ‘Stephen’ rogue to kidnap children.”

  “That’s what makes the second reason even worse,” said Bert in a choked voice. “Much worse.”

  “Why?” asked John.

  “Because,” Bert said, turning to look at Jack. “The name of Aven’s son, the kidnapped prince, my grandson…

  “…is Stephen.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Haven

  The Croatoans put their captives in a small lodge made of wicker and animal skins, but that nonetheless also had leaded glass windows. It might have seen other uses, but it was obvious to them all that this was now their prison.

  The fires outside were allowed to burn down to embers, and eventually the settlement grew quiet as deep night descended on the Underneath.

  In the lodge, the companions slept. And sleeping, they dreamed. Not dreams of their recent adventures (and ordeals), but dreams that seemed to be searching for the meaning that lay beneath all that had transpired.

  John had no fear.

  He had often wondered what it meant to be afraid of something, but in the years since the war, he had gradually come to realize that nothing made him afraid. He had witnessed the deaths of many friends and had seen himself placed in mortal danger. And he had emerged from those experiences changed—for the better, he hoped. But unlike the physical changes borne by those who had been wounded in some way, John’s change was invisible; he was no longer afraid of death.

  …a regal, thin-framed man…spread his arms in greeting.

  His new attribute showed itself, not through an irrational recklessness, but rather in a disregard for any personal price he might pay for a course of action. The best word he could use to describe this awareness was from India: satyagraha. It meant to do anything, give anything, sacrifice anything, to pursue what was right without harming another. And to do it without regard to self.

  The only fear John had was for his children.

  He had often dreamed of them falling from a great height, and just out of his reach. Falling, like Icarus flown too close to the sun, too far away for a father to save. Sometimes he dreamed that he could almost reach them, and once, when the dream was of his eldest son, he dreamed that he extended his hand and grazed the boy’s fingers before he fell.

  Thereafter, he determined that if the boy was close enough to touch, he was close enough to hold—and save. And that played constantly in John’s thoughts afterward. Chopping firewood for the household stove, he sometimes imagined that a large split log was a child’s hand, and he carried it from the woodpile to the hearth using only the tips of his fingers, holding on by the least, most tenuous grasp. He often lost the wood, as the splinters it left reminded him. But he grew stronger; and eventually he could carry a huge log between his fingers as far as he chose to walk, without risk of dropping it.

  After that, he still dreamed of children falling—but he never again failed to save them.

  Jack dreamed about desire. Not so much about the desire for things, or desire to be something, but about the meaning of desire. And in that way, he also dreamed of fear.

  As a child, he once dreamed that he could leave behind the dreary life he saw ahead of him, and go to a place where he could be a child forever; and he knew that he desired it. But awake or asleep, he chose to smother his desire.

  As he grew older, his dreams manifested themselves in action, and he followed his desire to be a hero and have a life of grand adventure—but his fears were also realized, and those close to him paid a dear price. And again, he put away his desire.

  Now he was torn between what he wanted to do and what he knew he must do. And it seemed th
at the two were often the same; but he could never be sure. And, unable to decide, Jack ceased dreaming and slept fitfully the rest of the night.

  Charles also dreamed. And in his dream, he could fly. And it was glorious.

  Dawn, or whatever it was that passed for dawn in the Underneath, was still to come when the companions were awakened by someone poking at them in the darkness.

  It was Laura Glue.

  “C’mon,” the girl whispered anxiously. “We’ve got to leave, now! It’s almost morning!”

  “What happens in the morning?” said Charles, still groggy from sleep. “And, uh, weren’t you a prisoner, like us? How did you get free?”

  The girl shook her head, almost frantic. “No time, no time! We have to go now!”

  She untied Charles, who then helped her to free the others, and carefully they opened the door of the lodge. Outside, the two stocky men appointed as guards were lying on the ground in poses that suggested unconsciousness rather than sleep.

  “We bonked them on the noggins,” Laura Glue whispered. “Took ’em right out.”

  “‘We’?” said Jack.

  In response Laura Glue pointed to two shadows standing at the base of one of the bluffs that bracketed the settlement.

  It was Aven, who was waving and looking around to make certain they were unobserved, and one other.

  “Hairy Billy?” John said suspiciously as they approached. “Isn’t he Burton’s toady?”

  “Perhaps,” said Aven, who was hugging her father. “But once he was a boy called Joe Clements, who ran away from home to become a Lost Boy. He was one of the last full-blood Algonquin among the Croatoans, and they mocked him, calling him ‘Injun Joe.’ So he went someplace where he could choose a new name—his own name. With us.”

  “How do you know we can trust him?” asked Charles.

  In answer, Hairy Billy pushed aside his ornate necklaces and showed them a plain leather cord, looped through a silver thimble identical to Laura Glue’s.