The Dragon’s Apprentice

by James A. Owen

  “Something is amiss here,” said John. “Pull him up.”

  Jack and Doyle pulled Franklin to his feet but kept a solid grip on him. “All right,” John said. “We’re listening.”

  “Not everyone who looks out for the welfare of this world has to travel to imaginary lands to do it,” said Franklin, “or to the ends of time. Some of us like to remain involved in the affairs of this world, and help others where we can.

  “I am not a Caretaker,” the Doctor went on, his voice low, “I am a Mystorian, and I have only one other thing to say: Verne is with you.”

  “Verne!” John exclaimed. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “When you’re losing the game, sometimes you have to change the rules,” said Franklin. “This is the Great Game, and there are new pieces on the board—Verne’s Mystorians. The Caretakers cannot do all that is needed on their own, not even with the help of your enemies. So Verne has recruited more friends. It is the only way to defeat the Echthroi.”

  “I still cannot believe—,” John began.

  “John, the boy!” shouted Burton. “We’ve been focused on the wrong opponent!”

  Defoe had retrieved the portrait of Charles Johnson and was holding it under one arm. The other was casually draped around the shoulders of the little prince.

  “Don’t hurt him, Defoe!” John shouted.

  “Hurt him?” Defoe said mockingly. “I won’t hurt him.” He looked down at Coal. “We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  The boy smiled hesitantly, then nodded.

  “Coal,” Jack said slowly, beckoning to the boy, “come here.”

  “You aren’t my friends,” the boy said softly. “You won’t read to me, or play with me. But he gave me a present. No one’s ever given me a present before.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to track him,” said Defoe, “but you’re more than welcome to try.”

  The Caretakers gasped as they realized what Coal was playing with, what gift Defoe had given him.

  It was Defoe’s watch. His Caretaker’s watch.

  An Anabasis Machine.

  “They don’t work, you know,” John said, his voice steady. “There’s something wrong with them.”

  “You mean they don’t work properly,” Defoe shot back. “That’s why I’ve been stuck here in London for so long. But they’re working now—at least as long as you don’t care where—or when—you end up.”

  “Oh no,” John breathed. “He wouldn’t.”

  “You trust me, don’t you?” asked Defoe.

  The boy looked up at him, face open and hopeful, and nodded.

  “Then,” Defoe said, “turn the dial at the top of the watch just as I showed you …

  “… and make a wish.”

  “Coal, no!” Jack shouted. “Don’t touch it!”

  But it was already too late. The little prince spun the dial at the top of the watch …

  … and disappeared.

  “Defoe!” Burton roared. “I’ll have your head on a stick for this!”

  Suddenly an explosion rocked Craven Street, and all the companions were thrown to the ground. The force of the blast made their vision blur and their ears ring, and when they had regained their senses, Defoe and the portrait were gone. Worse, the house of Ernest McGee was in flames.

  “Oh dear God,” John exclaimed. “Rose is in there!”

  “It’s on fire!” Edmund yelled. “They’ve set my father’s house on fire!”

  “All our maps!” Ernest cried. “All of our family’s work! It’s burning!”

  The companions had a choice: pursue Defoe and the portrait of Captain Johnson, or go rescue Rose and try to salvage what they could of the McGee legacy.

  “The boy is already gone,” John said to Burton. “There’s no point in pursuing Defoe, not now. Rose comes first. It’s not even a question.”

  Burton looked in one direction, then the other, wrestling with the choice before him, and finally, cursing, turned toward the fire. “Promise me, Caretaker,” he hissed, “when this is all done, we’ll have a reckoning with Defoe.”

  “I swear it,” John said over his shoulder. “We will.”

  The flames had not yet reached the stairway, which was where John found Rose. She was already unconscious, but still breathing. Burton and Doyle ran past to look for the Pyratlas and the rest of the maps, but the heat was too intense. The fire had started in the library, and all the aged paper made for excellent tinder.

  “Please!” Edmund pleaded. “Please, Jack! All the maps are there! Everything my family has created! We can’t just let them burn!”

  “There’s nothing we can do, Edmund,” said Jack as he held tightly to the panicked young mapmaker. “It’s too late. I’m so sorry.”

  “Son, oh my son,” Ernest gasped. “It’s all right. They’re only maps.”

  Edmund leaped up and embraced his father. “But it’s your life’s work!” he sobbed. “Yours, and Grandfather’s, and Papa Elijah’s!”

  “Shh, now,” Ernest said, stroking the boy’s hair. “Never mind the maps. We’ll make more. We are McGees, are we not?”

  Suddenly a bolt of furry lightning zoomed past them and into the conflagration. “What was that?” Doyle shouted.

  “That was the stupid badger!” replied Burton as they backed down the stairs, coughing. “Caretakers,” he muttered. “They’re all the same.”

  They got Rose to a clean spot on the grass where they could give her air, and she started to cough.

  “She’ll be all right!” said John, thrilled and relieved at once. “She’s going to be all right.”

  “Hey—where did Franklin go?” Jack exclaimed, looking around for the Doctor. “John, he’s disappeared.”

  “Curse it,” John muttered under his breath. He hadn’t been able to ask what the Doctor had meant by his cryptic remarks about Verne and being a Mystorian. And he was still not convinced that Franklin was not in league with Defoe, or worse, the Echthroi.

  “Fred’s in there!” Burton shouted. “He went in for the maps.”

  “I’ll get him,” said Laura Glue, her face set with determination. She pulled a cord on her blouse, and in an instant her wings popped out from the pack she wore on her back. In another moment she was airborne and winging her way toward the upper stories of the house.

  “Good Lord!” John exclaimed. “When did she do that to her wings?”

  “I did it,” said Houdini, “when I was tinkering around in Franklin’s workshop. It’s nothing, really—just a simple matter of miniaturizing the mechanism.”

  “No doubt, you’re a genius,” John said. “I just hope the wings are flameproof.”

  Archimedes hovered at the edge of the flames and smoke and shouted instructions to Laura Glue as she darted close to the conflagration, searching for a way in.

  At last she found her opening and dove inside. She emerged a minute later, wings trailing smoke, with the little badger draped over her slim arms. He was holding on to a stack of papers for dear life.

  The flames took a terrible toll on her wings, nearly crippling their maneuvering ability, and she corkscrewed crazily against the firelight before plummeting toward the cobblestones below. But just before she hit them, a bulky figure threw itself across the street and under her and Fred, absorbing the brunt of the fall.

  John, Houdini, and Burton rushed over to where Arthur Conan Doyle was staggering to his feet. “Never mind me,” he wheezed, waving them off. “Just knocked the wind out of me. Look to the girl and the badger!”

  Fred was in worse shape than the Valkyrie, but he was alive, and he had salvaged a large stack of maps.

  “You were amazing, Fred!” said Jack. “I can’t believe you got them all!”

  “Not all,” he said in a small voice. “I gots all I could, Scowler Jack.” He was curled up in a ball, and the edges of his fur had been badly singed. His clothes and cap were blackened from the smoke and fire, but the maps were in near-perfect condition.

  “I
wouldn’t have been burned at all,” he whimpered, “’cept that my stupid scarf got caught on a windowpane when Laura Glue was helping me make my great escape.”

  “Any escape you walk away from is a good escape,” Houdini said with real admiration, “but when it’s by the skin of your teeth, it’s truly a great escape—and everyone around you knows it.”

  Ernest and Edmund were examining the maps Fred had managed to salvage, and as they set aside each one the old mapmaker’s eyes shone brighter and his smile grew wide.

  “Bless your badger’s heart,” Ernest exclaimed as he laid down the last map. “You saved them all.”

  “All?” Fred said in surprise. “I only managed to get a dozen or so.”

  “Fourteen, to be exact,” said Ernest, “but the right fourteen. The most important ones in the lot. The ones I could not have recreated, because all those who gave me their secrets are dead.”

  “The legacy of the McGee family will live on then,” said Houdini.

  “Of that,” Ernest said as he hugged his son again, “I have no doubt.”

  Rose was sitting up now and seemed to be in shock. Her eyes were wide and her breath was coming in short gasps—and despite the bright light of the flames, her shadow was nowhere to be seen.

  Suddenly a scream rent the night air, sounding clear and shrill even over the roaring of the flames.

  “Dear God in heaven,” Ernest wheezed. “Someone’s still inside!”

  “There! Look!” Laura Glue exclaimed. The others looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a face in the upper attic window. It was Lauren.

  Edmund looked at Laura Glue and Rose with a mix of shame and fear; then his expression changed to one of resolve. He leaped to his feet and bolted for the building’s facade—but the heat was too great to even approach.

  Laura Glue jumped into the air, wings straining, but after a few staggered bursts upward, she fell back to the cobblestones. The effort to save Fred had taken its toll.

  “Can you fix my wings?” she yelled at Houdini. “Make them work again?”

  The magician shook his head and looked at the fire. “Not quickly enough!”

  Lauren screamed again, then went silent as the flames and smoke covered the windows and rose past the rooftops.

  “She’s gone,” Ernest said, sobbing into his son’s shoulder. “Oh, Edmund, we’ve lost her!”

  Suddenly a huge, muscular figure burst out of the adjacent alley, running full-out. Without a pause or look backward, he leaped over the threshold of the ground floor and disappeared into Ernest’s house.

  The companions looked at one another in amazement, as if they couldn’t believe what they had just seen.

  “Bloody hell,” whispered Burton.

  “That’s the way to do it!” Archie exclaimed, whooping and screeching as he launched himself into the air. “Go, boy! Go!”

  “Oh, father …,” Rose began.

  Then, as quickly as he had entered the burning house, Madoc crashed through one of the upper windows carrying a limp figure wrapped in a sodden blanket. He plummeted to the earth with a sickening crunch, then rolled free of the unconscious girl. “Quickly!” he gasped, his face drawn tight with pain. “Get her to fresh air! Hurry! She may still live!”

  Houdini, John, Jack, and Fred tended to Lauren, while the others moved Madoc to a cool spot on the grass. He was badly burned—all of his hair and beard were gone, and one eye was blistered shut. He was covered with burns—too many to survive for long.

  “Why did you come?” Rose asked him, sobbing. “How did you know where we were?”

  “He said … my daughter needed me.” Madoc coughed. “How could I not come?”

  “Who said that?” asked Jack. “Who told you, Madoc?”

  In answer, Madoc lifted his hand and pointed …

  … at Benjamin Franklin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Choice

  You knew there was going to be a fire,” John said, rising to his feet with fists clenched. “How?”

  “I didn’t know for certain,” Franklin answered. “Let’s just say it was a very strong might-have-been that ended up happening after all.”

  Burton growled and stood next to John. “All I want to know,” he said, his voice low, “is whether you’re in league with Defoe.”

  “Had I been formally apprenticed as a Caretaker, Defoe would have known about me, and I wouldn’t have been able to help you,” Franklin answered. “I was here in London for a different purpose. Hank Morgan started the process with Elijah, but someone had to be here a century later to build it up in young Edmund. That job fell to me. And I believe he’s now ready for what you need him to become.”

  “The girl,” Madoc rasped. “Is she all right?”

  “Why did you go in there?” Rose asked him, sobbing.

  “Thought … she was you,” said Madoc. “Wasn’t going to leave you in there alone.”

  “Rose is fine, Madoc,” said John. “I got her out in time. But Lauren …” His voice trailed off.

  “I didn’t know she was still in there!” Rose exclaimed, her voice breaking. “Defoe told me she was leaving with him!”

  “What?” John said. “Weren’t you his prisoner, Rose?”

  “That’s not exactly what was happening,” Archie said as he landed in the grass nearby. “It was more of a conversion than a kidnapping. He’s a smooth talker, he is. And Rose is still very young.”

  “A conversion?” Fred asked, confused. “You shouldn’t ought to have talked to him, Rose.” He shook his head sadly. “He in’t t’ be trusted.”

  “Nor was I, once, too,” Burton said quietly. “Yet here I am, your ally. Let her speak.”

  “I—I’m so sorry,” Rose stammered. “I didn’t understand….”

  “It’s all right,” said Madoc, taking his daughter’s hand in his own. “I think I finally do.”

  Laura Glue reached out instinctively and took Edmund’s hand in hers. They intertwined fingers and silently wept.

  “John,” Houdini said, his voice breaking with anguish, “I don’t think the girl is going to make it. There’s just too much damage.”

  “No!” roared Madoc as he lurched to his feet. He threw himself to the ground next to Lauren and clutched her hands. “No,” he said again. “I won’t allow it. Not while I can still prevent it.”

  “Madoc!” John exclaimed as he and the others tried to pull him back. “Don’t make yourself worse. You’ve done all you can.”

  “Not yet,” Madoc rasped. “Ask … my daughter. She knows. She knows there is still a way.”

  They looked at Rose, but she didn’t answer. She was staring at her father.

  “I don’t think I can,” she said finally, her voice dulled with remorse. “My shadow is gone, father. I’ve lost it. It isn’t that I’m not willing—but I don’t think I’m worthy. Not any longer. Not after this.”

  “Oh, my girl,” Madoc said, touching her face. “I wasn’t … wasn’t suggesting that you offer yourself. You paid my price, a long time ago. Now …” He coughed, spitting smoke and blood. “It’s my turn to pay yours.”

  With John’s help, he sat up and moved close to Lauren. Madoc bent his head over the dying girl and whispered, so softly that it could barely be heard.

  “Mine for hers,” he said with faint breaths. “My life for hers … I offer this freely…. It is my will…. Mine for hers.”

  In that moment, a blinding light erupted from the injured girl. It enveloped all the companions, and when again they could see, the girl was gone. In her place, sitting on the grass, with Madoc’s head on her lap, was a regal woman, dressed in a fine Elizabethan gown. Her skin was porcelain, and her eyes gentle. She could have been fifteen, or five hundred—either would have looked the same.

  “Hello, Rose,” she said with a voice of crystal. “I am Lady Twilight.”

  “The Starchild has been lost, but the Moonchild still remains,” said Lady Twilight. “The new thread remains unbroken. And t
hus the tapestry may yet be woven once again.”

  “But I’ve failed!” said Rose. “All the choices I’ve made have been wrong.”

  “You have made the choices you made,” came the reply, “and those choices have brought you here. Every choice, every decision, shapes you into who you will become.”

  “And my choices have ended an innocent life,” said Rose bitterly, “and maybe my father’s as well.”

  “The girl you called Lauren is a part of us now,” Lady Twilight said. “It was her purpose to be here, now, so that you could be tested—but she lived a worthy life, and her heart was pure. And now she—I—am serving the Light as I was meant to, as the Three Who Are One.”

  “Like Gwynhfar,” Jack murmured to John. “When she died, she became one of the Morgaine too.”

  “If I was being tested,” said Rose, “then I failed.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Lady Twilight, “but then, you were not the only one being tested.

  “Now only one choice remains. Tell them.”

  This last she said to Madoc.

  “Tell them,” she repeated, her musical voice stern.

  Madoc closed his eyes. “It was Rose. You started the fire, didn’t you, daughter?”

  Rose didn’t answer, but simply closed her eyes.

  “That’s why Franklin went to find him,” said Jack. “Somehow, he knew.”

  “This is exactly how it happened before!” Fred said bluntly. “She’s being accused of something she didn’t do, just as her father was! And all of history condemned him for it. This isn’t right!”

  “Hush, Fred,” said John. “That isn’t what’s happening here, is it, Rose?”

  “No,” she answered, her voice shallow with anguish. “I didn’t know Lauren was still—I—I only wanted to destroy the maps.”

  “Destroy them?” John said, incredulous. “But why, Rose?”

  “Mother Night told me it was up to me to set things right, to find the Dragon’s apprentice,” said Rose, “but when I failed to convince Father to become a Dragon, everyone stopped paying any attention to me at all. Then another of the Morgaine reminded me that I still had Ariadne’s Thread and told me I needed to act. And that was when I met Defoe.”