The Dragon’s Apprentice

by James A. Owen

  He spread out the large sheets of parchment and selected one, handing it to Edmund. “Here,” Jack said. “Let’s try your skills out on one of these.”

  “All right,” said Edmund. “What do you want me to map?”

  “About twenty years shy of two centuries,” said Jack.

  “Hmm,” said Edmund. “I’m going to need more ink.”

  As the young mapmaker worked, John moved over alongside Burton, who was compulsively checking his watch and looking out the window. “You’re thinking about the boy, aren’t you?” John asked.

  Burton responded with a short, sharp nod.

  “We’ll find him, Burton. We will,” said John, gripping the man’s shoulder. “I swear it.”

  And this time, Sir Richard Burton didn’t knock aside John’s hand, but allowed it to remain on his shoulder, steadying him. John wondered if that was deliberate, or if Burton, for the first time since he’d known the man, was simply weary. It didn’t really matter, he supposed. Or maybe, it just shouldn’t.

  “What I’m concerned about,” Doyle was saying, “is whether the conflict with Defoe will have any ill effect on the future. After all, he sells the portrait of Captain Johnson to, well, us, in around a decade or so.”

  “They mean me,” said Burton, turning from the window. “I came here in the Indigo Dragon, specifically searching for Defoe to strengthen his ties to the Society. Our pact was sealed with the purchase of the portrait.”

  “I don’t think the future will be affected,” said Jack. “That Burton isn’t you, Richard—he won’t have had this experience and will have no reason to distrust Defoe. And for all we know, Defoe will end up trusting you more then because of your having met now.”

  “He didn’t mention it,” said Burton. “Why?”

  “I don’t think he would,” said Jack, “just as he won’t care about having seen us here. All he’ll recall is that he got the best of us.”

  “That’s not really a consolation,” said Houdini.

  “I’m actually more worried about what happens when we get back than I am that we’ll get back at all,” said Jack.

  “Why is that?” asked John.

  “Aven,” Jack replied simply. “How are we going to tell Bert? He’s already lost his wife in Deep Time—and now we’re going to have to tell him that he’s lost his daughter as well.”

  “Time enough for that later,” said Burton, sitting. “No pun intended. But we have more pressing matters to attend to, do we not? First we need to make sure we can get back at all. Then we’ll deal with grief and the grieving.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t feel that was important,” Jack said, frowning. “You took the news of your own daughter’s loss with barely a blink.”

  Burton leaned back in his chair and observed Jack with a wry expression on his face. “And you have determined from that reaction that I don’t care for Tiger Lily, or mourn her death?” he said evenly. “You would be wrong, little Caretaker. I will mourn her, in my own fashion, when I have time to do so. But now is not that time.

  “She lived her life as I raised her to,” he continued, “rich and full and honorably. She married well, and gave me an heir. I mourn that I was not there to share in more of her years, but that does not weaken the pride I feel as her father, nor does it make me love her less.”

  With that he spun around and strode from the room.

  John clapped Jack on the back. “I can’t say he’s wrong, old fellow.”

  “You know,” said Houdini, “if Theo were here, he’d have something profound to say.”

  Doyle looked on impassively. “It is from the dust that we came, and it is to the dust we must all return.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Jack.

  “And what about Coal?” Rose asked. “What can we do about him?”

  “We can’t stay here,” John stressed, “even to try to find Coal. Wherever Defoe sent him can’t be helped now. And if we are to have any hope of finding him in the future, the only way to do it is to keep our eyes on our larger goal. We have to fix the Archipelago. And then we’ll have a chance of finding Coal.”

  “In Morgan’s note, he said he and Elijah were trying to create a ‘chronal map,’” Rose said. “We know they did, eventually. That’s how he attuned his watch to get back.”

  “Shouldn’t we be able to do the same?” asked Fred. “The zero point he mapped to Tamerlane House is still there.”

  “Except,” said Jack, “he didn’t start from a mapped zero point, so even when he had the map, he spent two centuries trying to leap forward in time.”

  “Which,” Burton noted, “is exactly how long it would have taken him doing it the ordinary way.”

  “Do you remember when we moved through time using the trump?” John asked. “They tried it again and it never worked—and it didn’t really work for Hank, either.”

  “That may not have been Morgan’s fault,” said Rose. “Basically, he was trying to mix two incompatible means of travel. The trumps were meant to be used in space, and the watches in time.”

  “That’s what worries me,” said Jack. “His map worked in exactly a way it wasn’t supposed to. It effectively functioned as a ‘chronal trump,’ moving him in time and space. I’m worried that we’ll just be duplicating Hank’s efforts, and with just as little success.”

  “Fruitless?” said Fred. “He did make it back.”

  “Just in time to die,” said Burton. “I’d rather stay here, if that’s the choice.”

  “No, I think it may be just the direction we need to be looking,” said Jack. “Think about it—the Keep of Time functioned in the same way. Stepping through the doors moved you in time and space—and they were changeable. Basically, the keep itself intuited where and when we needed to go. If we can find a way to recreate that …”

  “I’ll settle for getting to Tamerlane House in 1945,” said John. “If we can.”

  “We’re about to find out,” said Edmund. “I think I’m done.”

  Edmund had followed the notes in Elijah’s maps, as well as the calculations that accompanied them. As well as he could determine, the map he’d made was identical to the one his great-grandfather had made for Hank Morgan.

  “All we have to do now,” said Burton, “is figure out how to use it without spending two centuries lost in history.”

  “He stepped through in space, but it didn’t let him step through in time,” said John. “It was the same problem he had with the projected message he left at Magdalen Tower.”

  “I think I understand what to do,” said Rose. “I think I know the reason I needed to be here.” She reached into her pocket, and just as she had before, she found the glowing ball of Ariadne’s Thread.

  She looked at the ball, then at the others. “Reweave the threads of history, that’s what Mother Night told me,” she said. “Somehow I have to use this thread to get us home.”

  “You’re forgetting the original purpose of the thread from mythology,” John said. “With it, you can always find your way back.”

  Experimentally, Rose unwound one end of the thread and let it dangle on the table.

  “Now that’s very interesting,” said Edmund. “How do you get it to extend into the map that way?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Rose.

  “The glowing thread,” Edmund said, pointing from the ball in her hand to the parchment on the table. “It’s connected directly to my drawing, see?” He grabbed the edge of the sheet and slid it back and forth. “It follows the map. How are you doing that?”

  “Edmund,” said Jack. “We can’t see anything.”

  The young mapmaker never heard the comment. He’d already become too absorbed in the strange light, and something deeper it seemed to mean to him.

  Dipping a quill in his ink, he started adding some new notations to the map, pausing every few seconds to observe his handiwork. He added another sketch to the center, and several symbols to the edges. Finally he put down the quill. “There,”
he said, breathing rapidly from the anxious effort. “Now it’s done. The thread just showed me a few things I hadn’t understood before.”

  “All right,” Jack said. “Let’s give it a try. Everyone, please focus on the map.”

  Half in fear that it might work, but more out of fear that it wouldn’t, the companions gathered closely about the table and stared at the map.

  The parchment trembled; once, then again. And again. And then suddenly it started to expand.

  “Here!” Jack exclaimed. “Hold up the other side, John!”

  Together the Caretakers held up the sheet as it continued to grow. In minutes it filled the whole width of the room, and as they watched, a picture began to form amid the symbols and equations.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked. “Should one of us go through first, to test it?”

  John shook his head. “It’s either going to work, or it isn’t,” he said, his voice full of resolve. “We all go together.”

  “What about Edmund?” Laura Glue asked. “Don’t we have to take him?”

  “She’s right,” said John. “If this works, and we want to do it again, we’re going to need him, just as the Watchmaker said.”

  “I agree,” said Ernest. “This is your destiny, my boy. You must go.”

  Edmund hugged his father. “What of Elijah’s maps? And all of his notes?”

  “You saved them from obscurity,” Ernest said to his son with honest pride. “They should stay with you.”

  “What of the rest of these?” said Houdini, eyeing the treasure maps. “These could be very … ah, useful.”

  “Not in our purview,” John said. “We aren’t treasure seekers, Harry.”

  “It was worth a shot,” said Houdini.

  “I’ll take the treasure maps with me,” Ernest said. “My time here in London is done, I think. The fire decided that, if for no other reason. I’m now officially retired from this whole business of maps, and I think maybe I’ll spend some time on a plantation in the Caribbee Sea.”

  “As a gentleman farmer?” asked Jack.

  “Or as a pirate,” Ernest replied, “but then again, these days, who can tell the difference?”

  “Doctor Franklin?” John said. “I’d like to invite you along, but I don’t think I can.”

  “Not a problem,” said Franklin, holding up his hands. “My place is here, in this time, and I’m content to leave it that way. Give my best regards to Verne—whenever he is.”

  “All right,” John said. “Bring down the animals from Paralon. I think we’re ready to go.”

  Good-byes were said, farewells given. And then the companions stepped through the map and into the future. It did not take long to discover if it worked. One moment they were in Franklin’s study in London, and the next they were elsewhere.

  They were in Rose’s attic room at Tamerlane House.

  “It worked!” Jack exclaimed. “Well done, Rose!”

  “Wait,” Burton said, holding up a hand. “We’ve moved in space, but we don’t yet know if we moved in time.”

  Together, he, Houdini, and Doyle all checked their watches, then nodded in agreement. “It’s all right,” Burton proclaimed with uncharacteristic relief in his voice. “They all say we’re back in 1945. Right when we’re meant to be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Third Alternative

  The companions’ successful return was met with great rejoicing at Tamerlane House. Not only were they home, safe and sound, but the journey had given them the seeds of hope that time might be fixed, and the Archipelago restored. But none of the good news made relaying the bad news any easier. During the celebration, Jack took Bert aside and told him privately about Aven’s last moments.

  “I can still hope,” Bert said somberly. “The Archipelago runs according to Kairos time, and that is not absolute. If it were here, in the Summer Country, I would be more fearful. But I’m glad you were able to speak to her, Jack. Very glad.”

  “You won’t be able to interact with her as we did,” Jack said as he pulled the reel from Paralon out of his pack, “but you’d still be able to see her, if you like.”

  Bert began to reach for the reel, then hesitated. He seemed to be debating the matter in his mind; then finally he decided.

  “Thank you, Jack, truly,” he said, curling up his fingers and folding his hands together. “Perhaps later.”

  The Far Traveler quickly moved on to give more instructions to the Caretakers Emeritis, and Burton moved over to a slightly puzzled Jack. “He’s putting up a brave front,” he whispered. “Give him time.”

  Jack tilted his head and replaced the reel in his pack. “I guess I was expecting him to respond more as you did.”

  “Maybe,” Burton said as he moved past Jack to grab a bottle of wine, “I was just putting on a brave front too.”

  Deftly Burton maneuvered himself alongside Bert, and then drew them both to a balcony where they could speak privately.

  “So, Far Traveler,” Burton began.

  “So, Barbarian,” Bert answered. “What did you want to speak to me about that was not for the ears of our colleagues?”

  Burton looked at him oddly for a moment, then poured wine into a glass that he handed to Bert before taking a swig from the bottle. “It seems we have something in common, you and I,” he said at length. The lost boy, my heir … he’s your descendant too.”

  Bert nodded thoughtfully and sipped at the wine. “I’ve considered that. It certainly gives him a colorful heritage.”

  “That’s an understatement. He has the potential to conquer the world, if he wished it.”

  “Lineage isn’t everything,” Bert countered. “Environment and upbringing have a lot to do with one’s potential. And all this boy knew was a legacy he couldn’t touch, a sheltered Aladdin’s cave of fairy tales read to him by hedgehogs, and several well-meaning adults who didn’t pay attention to him until someone else did. Yes, what he’ll grow up to become is exactly what troubles me about him, never mind his lineage.”

  “Do you think it’s possible?” asked Burton. “Will we be able to discover what’s happened to him?’

  Bert didn’t reply. After a minute, Burton returned to the party.

  Edmund McGee was already settling nicely into a suite of rooms Poe had offered him at the opposite end of the corridor from Basil Hallward’s studio. In a matter of hours, Edmund and Laura Glue had set up drafting tables, shelving, and enough reference material that the main room had already begun to resemble the old Cartographer’s room near the top of the Keep of Time.

  The main differences, Jack noticed, were that this Cartographer’s room had windows that opened, and a door that would never be locked.

  He even noted, with some amusement and a little mild understanding, that Archimedes had all but nested in one of the alcoves, which pained Rose ever so slightly. He had been her most constant companion and teacher during those years when she was maturing from a child into a young woman, and he was her closest friend.

  Still, he was also what he was—and his memories of the early days with Rose’s father and uncle still resonated strongly. Rose had a passing interest in her uncle’s handiwork, and she certainly had the facility for mapmaking—but it was not her passion. For young Edmund, it was. Not only did he have three generations of mapmakers behind him, but they had developed the family trade during one of the most exciting, thrilling, and unpredictable periods in human history.

  If anything, Jack concluded, Edmund was better primed and prepared to become a Cartographer of imaginary lands than Merlin was.

  • • •

  “Hank knew exactly what he was doing,” said Twain. “He didn’t choose Elijah McGee at random, and the skills of the family McGee are not mere coincidence.”

  He flipped open one of the Histories that Hank Morgan had been annotating through his jaunts in time and indicated a series of notes along one margin. “It’s here, you see—in the genealogy.”

  “This says that Elija
h McGee was descended from François Le Clerc,” John said. “He was a pirate, wasn’t he?’

  “Among the first who were called so,” Edmund Spenser said as he entered the room and the conversation. “In some quarters, he was even called the Pirate King. Quite a scoundrel—which, I suppose, is not a bad quality to possess if you’re going to be a pirate. He was a contemporary of mine, and we met on two occasions before his presumed death.”

  “Presumed?” said Jack. “There was a question?”

  Spenser nodded. “Eminently so. He supposedly perished after trying to commandeer a Spanish galleon and sail it, unassisted, through the Frontier.”

  John’s mouth gaped. “He knew about the Archipelago?”

  “Of course he did,” Spenser replied. “He was from the Archipelago. Sinbad wasn’t the only seafarer who made a practice of crossing from world to world when the occasion presented itself. He was just better at it than Le Clerc.”

  “Spenser never confirmed that the pirate was dead,” Twain said, “but Verne’s Mystorians have a working theory that he and his subsequent ships became the original source of the Flying Dutchman legends. Edmund did, however, manage to save Le Clerc’s ship.”

  “What did you do with it?” asked John.

  Spenser smiled, a broad, warm expression. “You know as well as anyone,” he said impishly. “It’s sitting in the south boathouse.”

  “The Indigo Dragon,” Jack exclaimed. “Brilliant!”

  “So you see,” Twain finished as he added a new notation to the book, “that boy was not selected at random. He has a fine lineage from the Archipelago itself—all Hank did was to bring the family trade full circle.”

  Eventually, as the companions knew it must, talk turned to the topic of Hank’s note, and the mysterious others who were able to manipulate time.

  “They must have discovered some way to combine the attributes of the trumps with the mechanism of the watches,” Verne said, looking askance at Bert, “and there are very few among us who could even conceive such a thing.”