The Search for the Red Dragon

by James A. Owen

  John looked startled. “You know it?” Bert asked him.

  “Yes,” John said. “It’s from the Old Testament. Isaiah, unless I miss my guess.”

  “You didn’t,” said Charles, “but what does it mean?”

  “All along,” mused John, “we’ve made mistakes and missteps because we were thinking like adults instead of like children. We haven’t even paid enough attention when we knew it would be important to do so.

  “I think this means exactly what it says. We must be led by a little child.”

  They all turned to Laura Glue, and Charles knelt in front of her. “Laura Glue,” he said gently, “our good-luck charm. Can you help us?”

  “I’ll try,” she replied cautiously.

  She looked at the books, then slowly began to circle the room. She passed the illuminated Bibles John would have chosen, and the incunabula that would have been Charles’s preference.

  Finally she stopped and withdrew a small, battered Bible from the shelf. It was an old German Bible, and it was small enough to easily fit in her hands. A child’s Bible.

  Inside was an aged slip of paper, with the outline of two tiny hands.

  “Albert’s hands,” Asterius said, taking it from her and nodding. “The ghost tracings of a child long gone are still totemic and still bear power. You have found what you need.”

  Nimbly Asterius folded the paper into a key and inserted it into the lock on the gate, which instantly popped open.

  The companions stepped inside a dark hallway lined with doors and lifted the lantern. From the darkness beyond, they could hear children’s voices, and among them a familiar voice calling out “Olly Olly Oxen-Free.”

  It was Jack.

  When he heard the voices of his friends, Jack called out with joy, and it was only a few twists and turns down the corridors to the cell where he was being held.

  There were happy hugs and handshakes all around, and the light of the lantern showed that not only was he unharmed for his experience, but the second shadow was intact as well.

  Hurriedly Jack told them what he had learned from Abby Tornado and the others.

  “Well,” said Aven, “now we know what happened to the ships in the Archipelago.”

  “We aren’t going to leave the children here, are we?” said Jack.

  “Of course we aren’t,” John said firmly. “They’ll be coming with us. All of them.”

  “No!” Asterius protested, wringing his hands. “There’s been no paperwork to allow it! It simply can’t be permitted!”

  The companions’ only answer came from Aven, who drew her long knife and pointed it at the small creature.

  Asterius sighed.

  “You see?” he said to Charles. “No respect.”

  In moments the rest of the cell doors had been opened, and the corridors that had been black and silent were ablaze with torchlight and the joyful laughter of children.

  PART SIX

  The Ninth Circle

  Something else was coming through one of the rifts in Time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Shadows and Light

  The old man had become fevered, and with the fever came delirium. So he began to speak, to tell stories, for it seemed as if no help would be coming after all, and all that remained for him was to tell stories and, finally, to die.

  “This is a story,” he began, his voice weak but clear, “about the secret of Perpetual Youth. Not Eternal Life, for there is an ending to all things. But to live one’s span with the energy and vigor for life that one has as a child is a treasure worth seeking. And seek it I did. But when I found it, I realized it was not so much a secret as a terrible, terrible truth—and truths, once learned, can seldom be unlearned.

  “The secret is a great lie. For there is no such thing as Perpetual Youth. It is only an illusion.

  “Illusions can be kept. Illusions can be cherished. But they can never become real. And to choose to see oneself as a child forever is only that—illusion.

  “All things grow. All things change. And eventually, all things must pass. It is the way of life. To stay young is to remove oneself from the motion of the world. But to grow up is to take hold of that motion, and use it, and shape the world for those who come after. It is not a choice. It is a responsibility.”

  “You’re ill, Peter,” said the woman in the mirror, “and that’s merely a collection of useless platitudes, not a story. You should be quiet, and rest.”

  “A story?” the old man said. “I know a story. Once there were two children, a brother and sister named Phrixus and Helle, whose stepmother was a witch. She was a great beauty and had seduced their father into marriage.

  “She hated her husband’s children, and often wished there were some way to rid herself of them. And so on the anniversary of her marriage, she had an idea: She constructed a house deep in an ancient forest. Its walls were made of sugared bread, and sweet wine flowed across its floors. Its roof was made of almond cakes, the windows were framed in boiled licorice root, and inside, cooking over the fire, was a cauldron of a confection she called Turkish delight, which smelled of winter, spring, and summer all at once.

  “Children were drawn to the house, as all children would be, and one day, so were Phrixus and Helle. But they saw her for what she was, and saw what she was trying to do to them, and they forced her into the oven she intended for them and burned her to a crisp. Then they escaped by flying away on the back of a magical golden ram, and they lived happily ever after.”

  “You have it all wrong,” the woman in the mirror said. “They escaped on the ram long before I ever built the cottage on Centrum Terrae, and it wasn’t for them that I built it. It was for my own children. And I never meant to harm them.”

  The old man chuckled, then coughed. “I’m getting my stories confused again, aren’t I? I was confusing that tale with the story of Medea.”

  The woman in the mirror seemed to withdraw, then the image clarified again. “They’re the same story,” she said, her voice subdued. “You just have the details wrong, Peter.”

  “How could I have forgotten how Jason betrayed Medea?” the old man said. “Or how she followed him to the ends of the Earth, and beyond, and then farther still. And finally she took upon him the revenge she had so long sought.”

  “She paid the price for her choices,” the woman said. “A far greater price than she ever expected, and so did her husband. He is but a shade, and she a reflection. So why, after all this time, can they not be forgiven?”

  “Because,” replied the old man, “it is her sons who paid an even greater price than that. A price they continue to pay. A price they will always be compelled to pay, until the day they forgive themselves.”

  “But they did nothing wrong!” the woman in the mirror exclaimed. “Nothing!”

  “And never telling them that, Medea, is the sin you cannot repent of.”

  It was difficult to count the number of children the companions freed from Asterius’s labyrinth, because they wouldn’t stand still long enough to be counted.

  At Charles’s best estimate, there were between one and two hundred. The majority of them were Lost Boys, and so there were many happy embraces and reunions with Laura Glue and Aven.

  The rest of the children, perhaps thirty of them, were from various islands in the Archipelago of Dreams.

  Bert, John, and Charles decided that while Asterius was harmless enough, there was still a very real possibility that the stories of Circe were also true, and none of them wanted to meet the enchantress—especially with hundreds of children in tow.

  “She also tended to turn her visitors into swine,” added Charles, “so I’m for leaving here, posthaste.”

  “Agreed,” said John. He gestured out over the water. “It’s low tide still, and the next islands are close, in the same district as this one. So I think we can actually walk across.”

  Charles clapped his hands. “That’s right! These are the Wandering Isles, where they greet traveler
s like royalty! What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Charles and the two-shadowed Jack took off at a trot across the shallow water, splashing other children along the way. Soon all the children were running and splashing their way across the narrows to the eighth group of islands.

  “I think if we had any illusions about this being a stealth operation,” Jack said to Bert, “they’ve pretty much been shattered now.”

  The Wandering Isles were very similar to Aiaia, and the heritage of the inhabitants was obvious from the architecture of the Grecian houses and temples that dotted the nearby hills.

  The shore was open and well cultivated, and there was evidence of fishermen having been there recently. A large number of chickens bustled about pecking at insects and scorpions.

  “That’s a sign of civilization,” said Charles. “A society with well-contented chickens is a well-contented society.”

  “You’re a very odd man,” said Bert.

  “I get that more often than you’d think,” replied Charles.

  “What next?” Aven said to John. “Does the History say where else we need to go, or what we need to do?”

  John shook his head and showed her the book. “The pages after the ones about Aiaia have been ripped out. We’re on our own, I’m afraid.”

  A peal of thunder rumbled through the air, and several of the children squealed in response.

  For the first time since the companions had come to the Underneath, storm clouds began to gather overhead. Black, foreboding, they were an ill omen, and Bert pulled his collar tighter and shuddered as he watched the clouds rolling in.

  “This is no ordinary storm,” he said to Jack. “Aven and I have witnessed its like before. This is a Time Storm.”

  He pointed skyward, just to the east. “Up above us is the Keep of Time, and as it crumbles, more and more portals into the past are being loosed,” he explained. “They are colliding here, intersecting, with no boundaries and no control. And I believe the center of every crisis we have encountered is here, in this very spot.”

  As Bert spoke, the air above them began to shimmer, as if they were viewing a mirage. Suddenly an airplane burst into view, engine screaming.

  It was a large silver twin-prop plane, of a make that John didn’t recognize. It roared past, just skimming over the surface of the water, and close enough they could see the face of the woman piloting it and that of her navigator sitting behind her.

  A stencilled name on the fusilage identified the plane as a LOCKHEED ELECTRA, but that was all they managed to make out before the pilot pulled up, gained altitude, and vanished to the east over the towers of Aiaia.

  “That’s not good, if that was who it appeared to be,” Bert said darkly, “although it’s nice to know she wasn’t actually lost in the Pacific.”

  “Who was that?” asked John.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Bert. “What does matter is that the plane came from somewhere in the future—around 1937 or so. Time is starting to fracture.”

  “Look,” Charles said, pointing to the east. “Here comes another one.”

  They looked, but it wasn’t another plane that was dropping rapidly out of the sky toward the beach.

  It was the Indigo Dragon.

  The decks were manned by the Croatoans, and an all-too-familiar man was at the wheel.

  “Greetings,” Burton called out with a wave. “We meet again, Caretakers.”

  Before the companions could respond, the Croatoan warriors, all heavily armed with knives and spears, had leaped over the sides of the airship and encircled them on the sand. Once more they were captives.

  “You planned to use the airship all along, didn’t you?” John said.

  “Of course,” said Burton. “The chance to gain both an airship that could finally take me out of the Underneath, as well as a Dragonship that could cross the Frontier back into the real world, was too good to pass up. Besides, your crew had done most of the repairs, anyway.”

  “You mean before you ate them,” Charles spat. “But how did you find us?”

  In answer, Burton merely smiled—and held up Laura Glue’s Compass Rose.

  Bert groaned. It had still been attuned to seeking the Caretakers. All Burton had to do was follow the glow.

  Aven pieced together something else. “We didn’t really escape from you, did we?” she said coldly. “You allowed us to escape, just so you could follow us.”

  Burton nodded and grinned more broadly. “That I did,” he replied. “And you are far too trusting, you helpless wench. Just because Billy could show you a shiny trinket, you thought you could trust him. And you were wrong.”

  From the foredeck of the Indigo Dragon, Hairy Billy smiled—but it wasn’t the smile he’d shown them before, the smile of a friend and collaborator. This smile was cold and cruel. He took off the silver thimble he wore around his neck and dropped it to the deck as if it were trash. In that moment the companions realized the full extent of how they had been manipulated and betrayed.

  “But why, Burton?” said Bert. “What purpose did it serve?”

  “You wouldn’t willingly tell me where you’d taken our children,” replied Burton, “so we had to let you think you’d escaped so we could follow you. And from the looks of things,” he added, looking around at the children playing in the sand and surf, “it was the right decision.

  “Now,” he said, as he stepped closer and a more threatening tone crept into his voice, “where are our children? And where is my daughter Lillith?”

  None of them knew how to answer, or to even say anything that Burton might believe.

  At least, John thought to himself, none of the children had yet realized what was taking place there on the beach.

  None, save for one—Jack.

  Burton didn’t know one of the children was actually a Caretaker.

  Quietly Jack was moving among the children, whispering to them, and several had already begun running toward the Indigo Dragon.

  Burton realized that they were about to be overwhelmed with children, and he barked a series of harsh commands to the Indians who were still aboard.

  The rest of the Croatoans climbed out of the ship and began to herd the children toward the nearby fishing cottages—which was exactly what Jack had intended to happen. He was hiding under one of the small fishing boats, and his expression told John that he needed to keep Burton’s attention, even if only for a few more moments.

  “I’ll tell you where your children are,” John said, much to the others’ surprise, “if you’ll answer a single question for me.”

  “Fair enough, Caretaker,” agreed Burton, still fingering the spear that he had loosely cradled in his arms. “What is your question?”

  “Why are the Pan and the previous Caretaker enemies?”

  Charles’s jaw dropped, and he stared at John in amazement. That was not what he had expected him to ask of an avowed enemy of Peter Pan’s.

  The reaction of the Croatoans was different. They looked at one another and nodded, as if this were one of the common stories of their people. Even the expression of the one called Murthwaite seemed to shift to one that was more respectful as Burton began to answer.

  “Well asked, Caretaker,” the explorer said, a soft burr in his voice. “The Pan and his friend-now-enemy were as brothers once. They met here in the Archipelago, and it was here that the Pan showed his friend the secret of how to never grow old.

  “Then,” he continued, “they met a maiden, and she gave them each a kiss. The Pan rejected his, for he thought that keeping it would make him grow old, and he feared this most of all. But the Caretaker kept his kiss and fell in love with the maiden, and together they began to grow up.

  “However, the Caretaker had fears of his own, as well as reasons that compelled him to return to his world—and so he gave her a choice. He would leave the Archipelago and abandon his duties, and her as well. Or she could come be with him, grow old with him, raise a family with him—but at the price of never
returning to the Archipelago.”

  Aven was silent, but the tears streaming down her cheeks told her friends that what Burton said was true.

  “I never knew,” Bert whispered. “I never realized that was the choice she had.”

  “Ah, Aven…,” Charles said, his voice low.

  “The old Caretaker, your predecessor, and the Pan have been enemies ever since,” said Burton. “Now—I’m losing my patience. Where are our children?”

  John’s mind raced for some kind of an answer, whatever he could say that wouldn’t make the situation worse—but suddenly Burton was distracted by something more pressing. The other Croatoans’ shouts caused him to turn and gasp in surprise as he watched the Indigo Dragon lift away from the beach and rise swiftly into the air.

  At the wheel, a smiling Jack waved, and in moments the airship was out of reach of the Croatoans’ spears and arrows. Without a backward glance, Jack piloted the ship over their heads, pointed it westward, and vanished.

  Burton howled in fury and turned to John. “You’ll pay for this, Caretaker. I promise you that.”

  He pulled his knife and was about to strike at John when suddenly the sky turned black and the island vibrated with thunder. Over the water, the air had begun to shimmer again. Something else was coming through one of the rifts in Time.

  It was not an airplane this time. It was a ship. Large, of a familiar design, it was a graceful, majestic vessel, and it slid smoothly through the air and water until it solidified in the shallows just footsteps from the Croatoans and the companions.

  Aven let out a shout, and Bert’s mouth dropped open even as his eyes welled up with tears.

  It was the Argo.

  The long-missing Red Dragon had appeared at last.

  Burton’s eyes blazed with recognition. To him, the appearance of another Dragonship, here, now, only confirmed his suspicions—which meant the two men at the helm, as young as they appeared to be, were his enemies.