The Dragon’s Apprentice

by James A. Owen

  “I think it was the taller one,” Fred replied. “He had copper-colored hair and a brown vest.”

  “Almost all of them wore brown vests, you idiot,” said Burton.

  “Oh,” said Fred, crestfallen. “Then I’m not sure.”

  “I remember him,” said Laura Glue. “I’ll get the book back, never fear.” With that, she turned and took off at a dead run in the direction the constable had gone.

  “This is getting out of control,” John said miserably. “Archie, follow her and try to keep track of where we are. We’ll stay on Craven Street until we hear from you.”

  “Not a problem,” Archimedes said as he launched into the air after the Valkyrie.

  “Hey,” Jack said, looking around. “Where did Houdini and Doyle go?”

  “I’m not their nursemaid,” said Burton. “I was watching the boy. Besides, they’re grown men. They can look after themselves.”

  “That’s exactly what worries me,” said John. “We’re about one public disaster away from destroying the entire timeline.”

  There were many reasons why Laura Glue had become the captain of the Valkyries at such a young age. For one, she was raised among the Lost Boys, and thus was a world-class authority at hide-and-seek. She was also the best flyer of her generation and could maneuver herself in ways that other flyers couldn’t even fathom doing. But above all, she was captain because she never lost her quarry once she started tracking it. And a thieving boy in eighteenth-century London was not going to be any challenge at all—or was he?

  She found him in short order, running about two blocks ahead of her, but when he realized he was being followed, he disappeared.

  Twice more she found him, and twice more he lost her—until finally she took to the air and tracked him from above, finally dropping down and cornering him in an alley. It didn’t hurt that she had Archie flying above to help her narrow down his possible paths.

  “How did you find me?” he gasped, less startled by a flying girl than by the fact that he couldn’t lose her. “No man is able to track me when I don’t want to be tracked!”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Laura Glue said primly, “I am no man. And I’ve played hide-and-seek with boys a lot smarter and more skillful than you, so no matter where you went, I’d have found you eventually.”

  “But it took you no time at all!” he exclaimed. “How is that possible?”

  “I have a secret weapon,” she said, holding out her arm. There was a flapping of wings, and to the boy’s utter astonishment an immense owl landed on her arm and fixed him with an intense glare. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the bird was preening at having tracked him so easily.

  Laura Glue held out her other hand. “The book, if you please,” she said sternly, “or you’ll find out what else Archimedes is able to do.”

  He reluctantly handed over the atlas as Rose, Fred, and the men came running up behind her, having followed Archimedes.

  “Bloody hell, girl,” Burton huffed as the men caught up to the Valkyrie and her quarry. “You can run, can’t you?”

  “It helps that she’s a tenth of your age, Sir Richard,” said John, who was breathing hard himself. “I thought your type didn’t get tired.”

  “We’re hardy, healthy, and younger than you,” Burton countered, “but we can still get winded.”

  “You wouldn’t be,” said Jack, “if you kept yourself in the same kind of shape as your colleagues.”

  “What are you doing stealing from people anyway?” Laura Glue asked the boy. “It’s not polite to steal.”

  “I didn’t damage it at all,” said the boy. “I only wanted to look at the maps.”

  “Argh,” John growled. This whole escapade was coming apart at the seams. “How did you know there were maps?”

  “When I knocked over the little fellow, it spilled out of his pack, and I saw what it was. I only wanted a look.”

  “He’s damaged it, Scowler Jack,” said Fred. “Look, some of the pages have come loose.”

  “Come loose?” John said. “That’s impossible.”

  Fred handed him several maps, all drawn on thick parchment. They bore a superficial resemblance to those in the Geographica, but on touch, John could tell they were different.

  “These aren’t from the Geographica,” he said in astonishment. “These are entirely new maps. I’ve never seen them before in my life!”

  “Where did you get these, boy?” Burton exclaimed as he grabbed the youth by the lapels and lifted him off the ground. “Tell us, and tell us truthfully, or I’ll cut your tongue from your head.”

  “I didn’t steal them!” the boy exclaimed. “I didn’t! I swear by King George I didn’t! I just stuck them in the book when you started chasing me!”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” said Jack as he pushed Burton aside and smoothed out the boy’s collar. “There are better ways to persuade people, Burton.”

  He held up one of the maps with one hand and grasped the boy’s shoulder with the other. He didn’t approve of Burton’s manner, but he knew a street-sharp boy when he saw one, and he didn’t want to go through another chase-and-evade if he could help it.

  “These maps you had,” Jack said. “We just want to know where you got them.” The boy didn’t answer, just stared sullenly at Jack and the others.

  “If you won’t report me to the magistrate,” he said finally, “I won’t tell anyone about your talking dog.”

  “I’m not a dog, I’m a badger!” Fred retorted.

  “Right,” said the boy. “Pull the other one.”

  “Really,” Jack went on. “We’re not going to report you for stealing the maps. And no one will believe you about the badger, anyway.”

  “My master would, and for the last time I didn’t steal the maps!” the boy retorted. “I made them.”

  “What’s your name, boy?” asked John.

  “Edmund,” he replied. “Edmund McGee.”

  “Who taught you how to make maps like these?”

  “My father, but he hates making maps,” Edmund explained, “even though that’s what our family has done for three generations. When we lived on St. Lucia, in the Caribbee Sea, I was never allowed to touch his maps. I only made these because I’m apprenticed to someone here in London, who teaches me other things in exchange for the maps I make for him.”

  “But these maps,” John said, “don’t depict any lands I know, and I know all of them. Where did these come from?”

  “I made them up,” said Edmund, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “In the Old Way.”

  “Hah,” said John. “I haven’t heard that in a while.”

  “What does it mean, the ‘Old Way’?” asked Fred.

  “It’s something the old explorers used to do many ages ago,” John explained, kneeling to draw in the dust with his finger. “They’d start out on an expedition with only a vague notion of where they were going. They might have been spurred by some fragment of a myth, or a legend passed village to village, about some enchanted land just beyond the bounds they knew.”

  He traced a jagged outline of an island in the dust, then added a rough compass, and almost as an afterthought, a sea monster. “You see, they’d make the maps first—then sail out to prove that they existed. And more often than you’d believe, they found something at the end of their journey. Sometimes it was an island in the Archipelago, and sometimes it was Greenland, or Australia.”

  “So did wishing make it so?” asked Fred.

  “Not wishing,” John replied. “Believing. They believed, and they found what they were looking for.”

  “Namers,” Rose said suddenly. “Like Mother Night and Mr. Poe mentioned. They were Namers, and they found the places they named.”

  “That’s a remarkable insight,” said Jack. “I suspect you’re very close to the mark.”

  “Here,” John said as he leaned over again. “Let’s see if we can’t make this one happen.” He wrote “Fred’s Isle” under
the drawing and stood up. “Perhaps we’ll run across it one day.”

  “Don’t forget this,” Edmund said as he crouched and added a notation in the dust. “You don’t want anyone going there unawares.”

  John whistled. The boy had added the words Hunt sic Dracones—“Here Be Dragons.”

  Edmund shrugged. “I know that Dragons aren’t real,” he said matter-of-factly, “but it’s bad form not to give people the warning.”

  “What does your master teach you in exchange for these imaginary maps you make?” asked Jack.

  “Lots of things,” Edmund said brightly. “Chemistry, and geology, and philosophy. He also invents things like kites, and, well, a lot of other things.”

  “He sounds like quite a fellow,” said John.

  “You probably know him,” Edmund said, shoulders slumping as he realized he might be getting into trouble after all. “He wears a pocket watch just as you all do.”

  The Caretakers and Burton all glanced at one another. This might be exactly the stroke of good luck they needed. A watch meant a Caretaker—or did it?

  “He can’t be,” John whispered to the others, “or we’d already know who it is.”

  “Maybe he’s an apprentice we don’t have a record of,” offered Jack.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Burton. “I haven’t a clue who the boy is talking about.”

  “We’d like to meet your master,” John said to Edmund. “Right now.”

  “He’s a scientist, except for when he’s a publisher,” Edmund said as he led them back toward Craven Street. “Or a historian. Actually, I suppose he’s a lot of different things rolled into one.”

  “And he makes kites,” said Jack.

  “That too,” said Edmund. “Most of the children just call him the Doctor.”

  He marched the companions to a broad, well-appointed house that was several stories tall. It was in the nicer part of Craven Street, more sparsely populated than where they’d just come from.

  “Privacy is good,” Jack murmured.

  “Doctor Franklin?” Edmund called out at the door. “May I come in?”

  “Enter freely, and unafraid,” came the response from somewhere in the bowels of the building. “Unless you owe me money—then I hope you’ll pardon me while I locate my pistols.”

  “He’s just joking,” said Edmund, waving the others inside. “I think.”

  The companions followed the boy down a narrow corridor and past a staircase to a large room in the back, which was sunlit through an expanse of windows that ran almost floor to ceiling on the north wall. Every other wall was covered edge to edge with art, and newspapers, and maps, and all manner of bric-a-brac.

  The room resembled an Aladdin’s cave, if the genie had been some combination of Copernicus, Aristotle, Newton, and Hadrian. An immense round table sat in the center of the room. It was claw-footed and was covered with all manner of books and pamphlets in every conceivable language. On one side of the table and spilling onto the floor were small models in clay and metal, the use for which the companions couldn’t even begin to guess.

  Across the floor and piled on numerous bookshelves were volumes on the sciences, the supernatural, diplomacy, agriculture, history, and several other topics that John thought might get their owner either arrested or burned at the stake were the public aware of them.

  Another worktable on the east wall was laden with more papers and scrolls, and several scientific instruments, only a few of which were readily identifiable. But of all the extraordinary paraphernalia that filled the room, those that were most intriguing were the expansive maps tacked along the west wall down to the floor. They were covered with notations that were more metaphysical in appearance than cartological, and seemed to include several hand-drawn corrections. Many were of European regions, based on the topography, but several others were completely unfamiliar to John, the Principal Caretaker of the greatest atlas in the world.

  That alone, if for no other reason, made the stout occupant of the room compelling to John—and there were many other reasons to find him compelling. He wore a black skullcap that seemed barely able to contain the explosion of hair that sprouted underneath. He had on a silk dressing gown that was embroidered with numerical symbols and equations, as if he were an alchemist who was unwilling to walk the length of the room without his formulas at his side. The house was old and crumbling at the seams, but this room alone justified its existence—and the owner himself seemed as if he could justify anything by sheer charisma alone. His bearing was one of gravity and sage wisdom; but his face, dusty with plaster and drying powder, bore the liveliness and delighted curiosity of a child.

  It’s no wonder, John thought as he moved forward and offered his hand in greeting, that the local children are drawn to this man. I’ve only just seen him, and already I find myself hoping to talk to him about anything and everything.

  “Greetings, gentle sentients,” he said, rising from his chair. “I’m Benjamin Franklin.”

  One by one, the companions introduced themselves to the Doctor, leaving out the fact that they already knew exactly who he was and what role he’d played in history. John and Jack introduced themselves as Caretakers, although they didn’t say what for, and Burton said he was a traveling historian, and Theo his aide-de-camp.

  Oddly enough, of all of them, Burton seemed the most impressed on meeting the Doctor, although Franklin paused and blanched when he shook Theo’s hand.

  He greeted the young women more formally, and looked with rapt interest at Archimedes.

  “And you, my fine young fellow,” Doctor Franklin said, scratching Fred’s head. “You must be the third Caretaker, eh?”

  “He’s a talking badger,” said Edmund, “but I promised not to tell the magistrate.”

  “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone,” John reminded him, rubbing his temples. “You’re a bit of a trial, Edmund.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Franklin. “I’m rather fond of talking animals.”

  “How many do you know?” asked Fred.

  “You’re the first one,” Franklin admitted, “but I’m a good judge of character.”

  While Edmund showed Burton, Rose, Theo, and Laura Glue around Franklin’s study, Jack and John withdrew to a corner to converse privately.

  “What do you think?” asked Jack.

  John’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m as impressed as you are, Jack. That’s not my concern.”

  “It’s Fred, isn’t it?” asked Jack. “Franklin didn’t so much as blink that a talking badger showed up in his parlor.”

  “If that was all it was, I’d be more relieved. What worries me is what he said to Fred about being the third Caretaker. We introduced ourselves as Caretakers—but we never said anything about whether the others may or may not be. So why assume there would be a third at all? And why go right to Fred?”

  Jack pursed his lips and frowned. “Those are really good questions.”

  “Here’s something else,” John said, handing Jack one of Edmund’s maps. “I recognize these.”

  Jack reacted with surprise. “You’ve seen them before?”

  “Not these exact maps, but this kind of parchment, and the hand in which the map was drawn,” John whispered. “It matches the map that Hank Morgan had made to return to Tamerlane House.”

  “Remarkable,” said Jack. “We need to meet Edmund’s father, I think.”

  “Why so reserved?” Franklin said, interrupting. “So many wonderful things to see here, and you’re whispering in a corner.”

  “Forgive our rudeness,” said John. “We didn’t mean any—”

  “Nonsense,” Franklin said, waving his hands. “I’ve been talking to Burton, and he’s told me you have no place to stay. Is that correct?”

  “It is,” said John. “We’ve only just arrived in London.”

  “As it turns out,” said Franklin, “I have an entire upper floor that is completely unoccupied. I never use it—I prefer to stay down
here, working. If you would consider staying as my guests, I’d be happy to have you.”

  It didn’t take any discussion to decide to accept. “We will,” said John. “Thank you, Doctor Franklin.”

  “Pish-tosh,” he replied. “It’s my pleasure.”

  “There’s one other thing,” said Fred. “How would you like to meet a few more talking animals?”

  “Do tell?” said Franklin. “Another badger?”

  “Not quite,” Fred replied, “but the hedgehogs are pleasant enough.”

  Franklin laughed. “Really?” he said. “Bring them on, Caretaker Fred.”

  It took another two hours to move all the animals that had been at Paralon from the alley over to Franklin’s house without being seen. But once they were there, John realized that they had found in Benjamin Franklin the ideal host. He was fascinated enough by the creatures to be preoccupied with them for days; and he was an unusual enough character that they believed him when he agreed to keep their confidences.

  It was growing dark by the time Jack and John could persuade Edmund to take them to his father’s house. As reluctant as he was to take them there, he insisted his father would be even more reluctant to discuss the family trade.

  The house of Ernest McGee was at the far end of Craven Street, closer to the tumbledown homes of the ne’er-do-wells and rabble of London. It was probably significant in some way, Jack thought, that there was very little difference between the children at the poorer end of the street and those from the more well-heeled households.

  Edmund seemed to be walking slower and slower the closer they got to their destination, and John realized he really was dreading this visit.

  They were greeted at the door by the McGees’ servant girl, a slim, clean-faced young woman named Lauren, who was not much older than Rose or Laura Glue. It was obvious she was responsible for maintaining the entire household. Ernest greeted them in the drawing room, flashing a brief smile when he saw his son, which was replaced with a scowl when Edmund explained why they wanted to speak with him. It didn’t take very long at all for the discussion to turn rancorous and short.