The Search for the Red Dragon

by James A. Owen

  “You uses your ’magination, Longbeard,” said Sadie Pepperpot. “That’s what makes the world interesting, you know.”

  “I suppose you’d have to,” noted Jack, “to have eleventy-seven courses.”

  “It all sounds grand to me,” said John, “as long as I don’t have to clean up afterward.”

  “That’s the best part about an imaginary feast,” explained Laura Glue. “You can simply imagine that all the mess that’s left over gets cleaned up by an imaginary Feast Beast, and as soon as you do, it’s done.”

  “Aw, they’re just Longbeards,” Pelvis scoffed. “I bet they don’t even know how to use their ’maginations.”

  Bert leaned close to the shock-headed boy and wiggled his nose. “That’s where you’d be mistaken, my boy,” he said. “If imagination is your cook, then these three fellows will make the greatest feast the Lost Boys have ever seen.”

  And with that cue, John, Jack, and Charles smiled and began to think of the most extraordinary foods they could dream of.

  And even Pelvis Parsley’s usual sour expression could not hold back the shrieks of delight he uttered when the first incredible dishes began to appear on the tables.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Echo’s Well

  Even if it had not been the most exceptional dinner they had ever attended, which it was, the companions would have stayed through to the end just to watch the children use their own imaginations to conjure up the Feast Beasts to clean up the leftovers. The creatures looked like large, furry rats, with great dark orbs for eyes and massive claws that were both threatening and delicate.

  The Feast Beasts devoured all the leftover food, then gathered up all the dirty plates and utensils—and ate those as well before scampering away into one of the buildings.

  Fred the Goat let out a huge belch and smacked his lips. “Mmm,” he said contentedly. “Tasted almost as good coming out as it did going in.”

  John frowned in distaste, but Charles merely laughed, and Jack let out a belch of his own.

  Sadie Pepperpot and Laura Glue implored Aven to go with them to see their garden, and the rest of the Lost Boys began playing a taglike game they called Monster and the Frogs while Bert and the three Caretakers retired to Daedalus’s workshop to discuss the recent events that had brought them together.

  “Hello, Jacks. It’s good to see you.”

  The workshop was what might have been created if Thomas Edison had been allowed to run loose in the British Museum with unlimited resources and a penchant for modernizing old artifacts. There were electrical generators and motors and steam engines wound in and around marble statues, stacks of parchment, and pieces of Roman chariots. Bronze Age armor lay in piles next to archaic telescopes and what appeared to be projection equipment, and in each corner of the expansive room was a brick oven over which hung bubbling cauldrons.

  The inventor indicated that the companions should sit in several Greek chairs set near the center of the workshop, while he moved from cauldron to cauldron, inspecting the experiments that were evidently still in progress.

  “Laura Glue told us you were Icarus’s brother,” said John. “Pardon my asking, but how is that possible?”

  “The man you know as Daedalus had two sons,” the inventor replied. “Icarus and Iapyx. As Caretakers, you are evidently well educated enough to know what befell Icarus, and if any of you are fathers, you can imagine the impact that Icarus’s death had upon him.

  “My father was one of the great inventors of history. He developed the art of carpentry, and with it invented the saw, ax, plumb line, drill, and even glue. Although,” he added ruefully, “the methods of using wax as a fixative turned out to be less successful than he’d hoped.”

  “He was also a very talented artist, wasn’t he?” asked Jack. “Many sculpted wooden figures that have been found throughout Europe have been attributed to Daedalus—it’s even said that his works have a touch of the divine.”

  Daedalus the Younger nodded. “It’s true, they did. And to some degree, he absorbed that from one of his teachers—a legendary builder named Deucalion.”

  “Our shipbuilder friend,” Charles whispered to John.

  “My father’s problem,” the inventor continued, “was pride. Daedalus was so proud of his achievements that he could not bear the idea of a rival—any rival.

  “His own nephew had been placed under his charge to be taught the mechanical arts, and he promptly developed inventions of his own that humiliated my father.

  “Daedalus was so envious of his nephew’s accomplishments that when an opportunity arose, he murdered my cousin. And for this crime, my father was tried and punished.”

  “How was the boy killed?” asked Jack.

  “Father pushed him from the top of a high tower,” said Daedalus. “And as punishment, he was imprisoned there forever, never again to leave.”

  Imprisoned? In a tower? At this, John and Charles exchanged a startled glance, but Bert gave no indication that it was significant, and Jack was too involved in Daedalus’s story to notice.

  “And your name?” said Jack.

  “I’d been the Healer for the Argonauts, then followed them to the Trojan conflict,” said Daedalus. “I took the name as a way of honoring my father’s memory, and then chose to continue his work as well.”

  “And improved upon his designs,” Jack said, “if Laura Glue’s wings are any indication.”

  “Thank you,” said Daedalus, smiling. “I’ve had time to get them just so.”

  “How did you end up here in the Underneath?” asked John. “Or in the Archipelago at all, for that matter? We’re a long way from Troy.”

  “A long way now,” replied Daedalus, stirring one of the cauldrons. “But not then.

  “In those days, the world was more unified. It was easier to travel to all the lands that exist. Many of the places that might be considered mythological by your world’s modern standards actually exist—they just take longer to get to than they once did.”

  Daedalus finished tending to his experiments and took a seat alongside the companions, who proceeded to relate to him all that had happened to them since Laura Glue’s arrival in Oxford. The inventor listened attentively, stopping them only briefly now and again to ask a question or clarify a point. And when they had finished, he steepled his fingers under his nose and leaned back heavily.

  “I was not here when the children were taken,” he said slowly, “so I cannot speak to the exact circumstances of their abduction. When I returned, Peter was also gone, and those few dozen children who had not been taken filled in bits and pieces, but, as children are wont to do, they did so imprecisely. So I can only speculate.

  “As to the message Peter sent, I believe it was meant to tell Jamie—yourselves—who it was who was taking the children.”

  “You know?” exclaimed John.

  “I can guess,” said Daedalus. “In your world, ‘The Crusade has begun’ might refer to any number of events. But here in the Archipelago, particularly in the older parts, such as the Drowned Lands or the Underneath, the word ‘Crusade’ has only ever referred to one great journey—the original voyage of Jason and the Argonauts.”

  “How does that help us?” asked Jack. “Peter wasn’t referring to that same Crusade, was he?”

  Daedalus shook his head. “Doubtful, especially after what you found in the Library of Alexandria. No, I think he was referring to something entirely new.”

  The inventor thought for a minute more, then jumped from his chair and strode to one of the bookshelves set against the walls. He scanned the titles, then chose a large volume whose covers were of carved slate. The front was engraved with the Greek letter alpha.

  Daedalus turned several of the pages, then looked up at the companions.

  “Do any of you know the origin of the name ‘Lost Boys’?” he asked.

  Bert frowned. “It—it’s never come up. I always assumed it was simply a term of convenience, used for all the children in Barrie�
�s stories, based on the orphans Peter had taken in.”

  John shook his head. “It has to be far older than that. Chamenos Liber, remember? Lost Boys. Perhaps the name came from the islands?”

  “No,” said Daedalus. “The islands that guard the Underneath were named because of who came here in the beginning, not the other way around.

  “Jason was a great hero, in many ways the archetype for all who followed after. He had a remarkable charisma and a fierce intelligence, and he managed to draw together heroes with more power, authority, and experience than himself. He traversed the world on extraordinary quests and saw his legend raised to immortality within his own lifetime. And that was his downfall.

  “He let it go to his head. He saw himself as invulnerable, invincible. There was nothing that Jason could not do, especially with the support of his Argonauts—the demigod Heracles, the musician Orpheus, even the great Theseus himself among them. And when Jason had achieved his greatest victory and captured the Golden Fleece of Colchis, he destroyed it all by betraying his own wife, Medea, without whom he would have failed.”

  “Yes,” said Jack, “after which, according to legend, she slew his sons in revenge.”

  “According to legend,” said Daedalus, tapping the book, “but not according to history. True history, which spun out here, in the Underneath.”

  Daedalus handed the book to John. “Can you read Ancient Greek?” he asked.

  “Well enough,” answered John, taking the book, “as long as it isn’t mixed up with Latin.”

  He scanned the page the inventor had indicated, then the next, and the next. “Amazing,” he muttered under his breath. He looked up at Daedalus. “I think I see what you mean.”

  “What is it, John?” said Jack.

  “According to this book,” explained John, “Medea never killed Jason’s sons, but brought them to these islands in exile. They were left to fend for themselves and became very bitter—they blamed their father for being abandoned here—so they discarded their Greek names and chose new names for themselves.”

  “What did they choose?” asked Charles.

  “You’ll never believe it,” said John. “They called themselves Hugh the Iron and William the Pig.”

  “Those are the men in Bacon’s History!” Jack exclaimed. “The ones who stole the Red Dragon!”

  “To them, they weren’t stealing,” said Bert, “but reclaiming their birthright.”

  “Just so,” said Daedalus. “The sons of Jason and Medea are the original Lost Boys.”

  “That must be the right deduction,” Bert said sadly. “William and Hugh must be the ones who have taken the children and caused all the destruction.”

  “They would have known the Red Dragon was once the Argo,” reasoned Charles, “and they did tell Bacon they were claiming their inheritance.”

  “They also said to give a message to Peter and Jamie,” said John. “At least William did. So perhaps he believed that only they would be able to understand the clue and help. What can they possibly have been thinking? How could they be on a crusade of vengeance while at the same time be sabotaging their own efforts by trying to do the right thing?”

  “That’s adolescents for you,” said Charles.

  “Satyagraha,” John murmured.

  “It’s the basic conflict between the two halves of men’s souls,” said Jack, “but Charles is right. There’s no way to determine what they were planning.”

  “You’d have to put yourselves in their sandals,” said Daedalus. “Imagine yourself to be them. Imagine you have been abandoned, and you will never grow old—but you will never have anything more, because you are trapped, and all paths to the future are seemingly closed to you. What would you choose? How would you act, if the means for retribution were placed within your grasp?”

  “How can I make a determination like that, when I’ll never be faced with the same circumstance?” said John. “I have grown old. I have begun a family. I can guess what they have endured, but the recollections of my youth will be imperfect. So there’s no way for me to know how I might have chosen, when I’m already on a path I can’t retrace.”

  “Ah,” said Daedalus. “But what if you can?”

  Daedalus led the companions out of his workshop and down a cobbled path between the gabled towers to a brightly lit clearing where Sadie Pepperpot and Laura Glue had their garden.

  There were rows of carrots and lettuce, clumsily arranged between clusters of beets, corn, and some leafy vegetables that none of them could readily identify. Laura Glue was excitedly leading Aven around from cluster to cluster and waved happily when she saw the companions approaching.

  “Jack! Charles! John!” she called. “You must see my snozzberries! They’re almost ready to harvest!”

  “Snozzberries?” Charles said behind his hand.

  “Third dessert course,” Daedalus replied.

  “Ah. Lovely,” said Charles. “Show us the snozzberries, my dear girl.”

  “I’m sorry I left,” said Aven. “I got caught up in a lot of old feelings. It’s a very comforting place for me.”

  “No need to apologize,” said Daedalus, “but you should come with us now. We’re going to the Well.”

  The inventor didn’t explain, but walked past the gardens and into a small orchard that stood on a grassy knoll. The children followed, circling the grown-ups like a whirlwind of paper cranes, and took turns interrupting one another in their haste to explain that the orchard was the reason Haven was built.

  “This is Raleigh’s Orchard,” said Laura Glue. “It was planted when the Indian colony first came here to the Underneath….”

  “But there was an argument with the people on some of the other islands,” added Sadie Pepperpot.

  “And so the Indians moved to the other island,” said Fred the Goat, “and we been at war with them ever since.”

  “The apples look very robust,” Charles noted, tracing one of the heavy fruits with a finger. “Do you mind if we have a few?”

  “The apples are for everyone,” replied Laura Glue. “Friend and enemy alike. But you must never, ever, eat the seeds.”

  “What happens if you eat the seeds?” asked Jack.

  Pelvis Parsley pointed up at the tree directly adjacent to them, and the companions realized that the apple tree…

  …had a face.

  Looking more closely, they could make out the shape of a human torso, and arms that had grown into branches. And it seemed as if the tree was observing them back.

  “He’s called Johnny Appletree,” said Laura Glue. “A long time ago, he traveled across distant lands planting seeds, and apple orchards sprang up wherever he went. Then he got on a ship going to Angle Land, but it never arrived. Instead it came here—and he found out that apples are apples everywhere, but in the Nether Land, you mustn’t ever eat the seeds.”

  “If it’s all the same,” said Charles, “I think I’d like apples from a different tree. It feels a little too much like taking someone’s ear to eat fruit from a tree with a name.”

  “Why was there war with the Indians over the orchard?” John asked. “Couldn’t they plant trees of their own on Croatoan Island?”

  “They didn’t go to war over the apples,” said Daedalus. “They went to war over Echo’s Well.”

  The children led the companions down the hill from Johnny Appletree to a pile of stones that sat in a circle of grass.

  They gathered around the stones, which were stacked several feet above their heads, and John realized that the stones forming the base were not actually stacked, but rose up out of the earth itself.

  On one side was a broad opening, which dropped away into a deep hole.

  “A well,” John observed.

  “Echo’s Well,” said Daedalus. “Look into it, but do not speak.”

  Hesitantly, John leaned over the opening and peered down. There in the darkness about a dozen feet below, a perfect reflection looked back at him. He leaned back and stepped aside so Jack
and Charles could do the same—and he noted that Bert made no move toward the well at all, even for a peek.

  “It is an old magic, from a time when magic was new, science was old, and vanity was all,” Daedalus said, in a manner that was exceedingly reverent. “When the proper words are spoken into the well, it may allow you to become what you truly desire to be.

  “If it is your wish to never age, you need merely speak into the well, and youth is restored. If it is your wish to become something other than what you believe yourself to be, then you may still get your wish—but may be no happier for it.

  “So,” Daedalus concluded, “this is your choice. To achieve your objectives at this critical time, to save those you have come here to save, you have to understand those who have come before. And to do that, you must become those whom you have been before. You must become boys who never grew up.”

  “Does it really work?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” said Aven, “it does. I’ve done it myself.”

  “Yes, you have, Poppy,” Daedalus confirmed. “Are you asking to do so once more?”

  Aven paused, then reluctantly shook her head. “I…can’t. I must admit, I’m tempted, but I think when we find my son, it needs to be his mother he sees, not another child.”

  “And you, Far Traveler?” Daedalus said to Bert.

  Surprisingly, Bert not only declined, but took a step backward, away from the Well’s opening.

  “I don’t know,” John replied, noting Bert’s reaction. “This has gone far afield of what I was willing to do.”

  “But think, John,” said Jack. “Understanding William and Hugh’s choices, and how Peter interpreted their actions, may be the key to everything going on. How can we decline, if this is the only way?”

  “I’ll do it,” Charles declared, to the others’ surprise. “I don’t think I’d mind spending a little time as a child again. Just for the energy, mind you.”

  Bert shifted his eyes to look at Daedalus, but the latter took no notice. His attention was completely focused on the three young Caretakers.