The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The)

by Owen, James A.

  “That would mean,” said Enoch, “that either you are a great Namer, or you have not yet been completely made, and thus cannot be Named—not completely.”

  “We have come here seeking a Maker,” said Rose. “And possibly a Namer as well.”

  Enoch nodded. “I know. He told us to expect you—or at least, to expect someone—who would be seeking him.”

  Charles stepped forward, eyes flashing with anticipation. “Someone else told you to expect us? But aren’t you the Architect?”

  Enoch blinked. “Is that a name?” He shook his head. “He never spoke that word. But he told us he had chosen to Name himself, and he was called Telemachus.”

  Rose’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, and she turned to the others. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that Telemachus, who had been manipulating events in time to keep them moving forward, might actually be the very being they were seeking.

  “What did he say, exactly?” she asked.

  Enoch shrugged. “He simply said he was the one who could help you, and that you would come seeking him.”

  “This guy,” Uncas said to Quixote behind his paw, “is like the Zen master of not being helpful.”

  “He was here? You met him?” Edmund asked.

  Enoch nodded. “He visited us here, long ago, in the days of my youth, and learned many things from us. And in turn, we also learned many things from him, such as the art of making these.”

  He held out his hand and from it dropped a silver pocket watch, with an engraving of a Dragon on the case.

  “Azer,” said Rose. “Samaranth’s wife. I never realized that was who was on Bert’s watch—most of the Caretakers have one like Verne’s. . . .”

  “With the red Dragon?” Enoch asked. “I liked those less. There’s something pure and geometrically pleasing about a simpler design. The original one he brought to me was broken, but it was simple to repair, and I think I improved upon the workings in the process.”

  Edmund suddenly brightened. “We have something similar in one of our bags,” he said, grinning, “that was damaged beyond our ability to repair. But it may not be beyond yours. Would you mind having a look at him?”

  “Him?” Enoch said in surprise.

  In response Edmund simply walked back over to the Indigo Dragon and returned carrying the clockwork owl, Archimedes. He had been damaged on their trip into the future, where they battled the man who called himself Lord Winter. The agents of Winter had repaired the bird, but in doing so had taken away . . . something. He was now completely an automaton, with none of the fire of life he had possessed before.

  Madoc sighed heavily when he saw the clockwork bird. “Ah, Archimedes,” he said. “Perhaps my oldest friend, and one of my great teachers.” He looked at Enoch. “Can you?” he asked. “Can you help him?”

  The Maker gently took the bird from Edmund and examined him closely. “It’s possible,” he said finally. “Physically, he is unharmed. But his aiua has been smothered, almost extinguished. I think you can call it back, though.”

  “Call it back?” said Rose. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that,” said Enoch. “His aiua is bound to yours, even after death. To restore him to life, all you need to do is call him, and he will respond.”

  “It’s that simple?” asked Edmund.

  “It’s that hard,” said Enoch. “The call must be with the full desire of your heart. Your aiua must draw his back. There is no other way.”

  “All right,” said Edmund. “I’ll give it a try.”

  “Not your aiua,” Enoch said, pointing past Edmund to Madoc. “His.”

  Madoc stared at the Maker in surprise. “Why must it be me?”

  “Your aiua is most intertwined with his,” said Enoch, “so it must be yours that calls him.”

  Madoc took the damaged bird from the young man and cradled him in his arms. “That’s all I have to do? Just believe him well?”

  “Believing is seeing, Madoc,” said Fred.

  “No,” said Enoch. “Believing is being. So believe.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The Dragon Madoc held the clockwork bird as gently as he could and closed his eyes. Instantly the choices and decisions of a lifetime flashed through his mind, filling him with regret, sadness, and then . . .

  . . . happiness. And contentment. And a feeling of rightness about his place in the world. And as he focused on these thoughts, he realized how much a part of who he was could be attributed to the teachings of this cranky, crotchety, wise, and beloved old bird. And that was when he felt it happen—a change, like a blessing made tangible.

  “What,” Archimedes said, “did you do to yourself, Madoc? You have wings!”

  Madoc opened his eyes. “I wanted to be more like one of my best teachers,” he said, unable to suppress a grin.

  “That’s what it would take,” Archie replied. “It certainly wasn’t going to be through your penmanship.”

  The companions gathered around the newly himself bird, laughing and cheering in celebration. Enoch, however, simply stood apart from them, arms extended, with his eyes closed and head tipped back.

  “What are you doing?” Fred asked him, curious.

  “Communing with my father,” said Enoch.

  “Uh, you mean you’re praying?”

  “Hmm,” Enoch said. “Yes, I think that might be the right word. It is how we Archons communicate.”

  “Archons?” asked Charles. “You mean as in rulers?”

  “That word will do,” said Enoch. “Look—they are there, above.”

  For the first time, the companions actually took their eyes off the entrancing scenery and looked to the sky—and they realized what it was that was creating such an ethereal glow over the landscape.

  The Archons were immense personages, less giants than men and women seen through a lens of majesty. Five beings, floating high in the air, were sitting cross-legged in the center of impossible geometries of light. They were drawing in the air as Enoch had been, but where he was simply making shapes and figures, they were weaving tapestries that moved and flowed with life. It was creation itself painted in the air above them.

  “Astonishing,” Charles murmured. “And you can commune with them?”

  Enoch looked surprised. “Of course,” he said. “I am one of them. I simply wore this body to make it easier to commune with you.”

  As if on cue, the Archons turned their heads, noticing for the first time that they were being observed. The light around them brightened—and when it faded again, five men and women had joined Enoch.

  “These are the other Makers,” Enoch said by way of introduction, “at least, all of us save for one. This is Abraxas and Eidolon, and Sophia and Lilith, and this—” he gestured to the last man—“is Seth. My father.”

  “Seth,” said Charles. “You are—you are a son of the Adam, then?”

  The Archon nodded. “One of them, at least.” He gestured at Rose. “Is that my father’s box?” Seth asked. He was pointing at the Serendipity Box in Rose’s bag.

  “I believe it is,” she answered, handing it to him. “Would you like to have it back?”

  “I would,” he answered, “if you have no further use for it.”

  “A shame,” Laura Glue said. “I never actually got to use it.”

  “You should,” said Seth, proffering the box to the Valkyrie. “The one mistake people always make with the box is waiting until the need is both mortal and immediate before deciding to open it—and ofttimes, that’s the moment when they realize it’s already too late.”

  Laura Glue grinned and flipped open the lid. Inside was a space far larger than the box could have contained—an endlessly vast void.

  “Ah,” Seth said, nodding in approval. “A larger gift. Those are always interesting.”

  “Is that good or bad?” asked Fred.

  “Neither,” Seth replied. “It’s merely interesting.”

  The young Valkyrie reached into the box to her shoulder. “I can
just feel it,” she said, screwing up her face with effort. “It’s . . . just . . . out . . . of . . . my . . . Aha! Got it!”

  Triumphantly she pulled out a tall, narrow hourglass. It appeared to have been made from bone, and had a valve in the center, where the glass was narrowest between the globes. The upper sphere was empty, but the lower was half-filled with a very fine alabaster-colored sand that seemed to glow in the waning light.

  “Hmm,” she said, frowning. “It’s just an hourglass.”

  “Not just any hourglass,” Seth said, reaching out to examine the device, “and not filled with any ordinary sand. These particles of dust were gathered on the shores of the ocean that reaches to heaven, and can forestall death itself for a full hour. If it’s carried on a vessel, all who travel aboard it will be immune from the call of death until the last of the sand runs out.”

  “Holy cats!” Fred exclaimed. “That’s like the best thing ever!”

  “Except for lemon curd,” said Uncas. “But yes, all things considered, it’s pretty keen.”

  Laura Glue handed back the box, and Seth held it to his ear. “Hmm,” he said. “It sounds as if there is one gift left to it.” He handed it back to Rose. “You’d better keep it, just in case. Father would be happy to know it’s been so thoroughly put to use over the centuries.”

  “You’ve given us great gifts,” Madoc said as the Archons and companions seated themselves in a circle around the clearing. He looked up at Archie soaring happily around the treetops, and at the Valkyrie’s hourglass and the Serendipity Box. “We have very little to offer you in return.”

  “I have a broken sword,” Rose answered wryly. “It was a great weapon, once.”

  At Enoch’s urging, she removed the shattered pieces of Caliburn from her bag and handed them to the Archon.

  “It is great still,” Enoch said. “It is Named—and it still has great power. It needs only to be repaired. Would you like one of us to do so? It is easily arranged.”

  “No need,” Madoc said, rising to his feet. “Just show me to a forge, and I can take care of it myself.”

  He didn’t notice the looks of approval that were traded among the Archons’ faces, but Rose did.

  One of the Archons, whom Enoch had introduced as Abraxas, led Madoc to a forge that was as fully modern as any he’d ever used. He had repaired the sword once before, at the beach of the Great Wall at the End of the World, but that time, he had the use of only one arm. This time, with both hands strong and capable, the muscle memory soon returned, and he was hammering away at the sword from underneath a cascade of sparks and steam.

  The night passed, and then a full day, before Madoc rejoined the others. “It seems I am always repairing this sword,” he said with a gruffness that wasn’t entirely convincing. “Here,” he said as he handed it to Rose. “Try not to break it this time.”

  Again, a gesture made by Madoc was met with approving glances among the Archons, but this time they didn’t escape his notice. “What?” he said with a note of real irritation in his voice.

  “There are only ever seven Makers in the world,” Seth answered, “and many years ago, one of our number, the first, the best, was taken from us. We have waited many centuries for another to take his place. And if you wish it, Madoc the Maker, you may join us.”

  He stared at the Archons in disbelief, not even entirely certain what he was being asked. But after a long moment, he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d like to pretend that it’s at least a temptation, but it isn’t.

  “We have come a long way together, to try to make right some terrible wrongs, and I cannot step off that path, and away from my daughter. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

  Instead of disappointment, this announcement brought still more looks of approval from the Archons. “Then tell us,” Enoch said. “What can I do to help you? Why did you come here, seeking me out?”

  “We came looking for the Architect of a great tower,” Rose answered, “and we were told that you were the man who built the first city. If you could do that, then surely you might also know how to build—”

  “The Keep of Time?” asked Enoch.

  “You know it?” Rose asked.

  “I do,” he said, rising to his feet. “Come. Walk with me, and I’ll show you.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The companions and the Archons followed Enoch as he took a small trail to the top of a nearby hill, where there was a clear view of the horizon, unimpeded by the great trees and mountains that ringed the valley.

  “There,” he said, pointing to the setting sun. “Watch, as it turns to twilight. Then you’ll be able to see it clearly, even from here.”

  There were a few thin, high clouds, which followed the curve of the horizon, and the sky was denser, here in the distant past. Not thick, or cloying, but simply . . . richer. The fading light flowed through the sky in wave after wave of ambers and purples, and then, when it finally started to ebb, they saw it.

  A pencil-thin line that stretched from sea to sky, lit brilliantly by the last rays of the sun.

  “There is your keep,” said Enoch. “It still stands, as it has always stood—and it was built long before my time. If it is the Architect of that tower you seek, you will not find him here.”

  Part Five

  The Fall of the House of Tamerlane

  “It’s like a small Ring of Power,” Charles said . . .

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  At the End of All Things

  The desert crossing was terrible; the mountain crossing was worse. The great beasts that carried the Archipelago on their backs faltered often, and the great Dragon worried they would not last much longer—and then they were over, and the path eased.

  While they crossed the long, narrow bridge that would take them to the Lonely Isle, there to wait again until called upon by those whom the old Dragon had entrusted to make things right, he told stories to his small friend, to better pass the time.

  He had not been close to any of the Children of the Earth, not really, not as an angel, and not as a Dragon. But in times of need, the badger had always been there, with loyalty, and bravery, and heart. And the Dragon realized that in this one small example, he could demonstrate why an entire Archipelago was worth the effort to save. If there were five among all the peoples and creatures who were like the badger Tummeler, it would be worth it.

  “There had been Makers, and there had been many, many Namers,” the great Dragon explained, “but there is only ever one Imago, and one Archimago, walking the earth together at the same time. The Archimago had vanished into the mists of history—but the Imago, the first in thousands of years, was reshaping the world.

  “There was a great battle between the first giants, who were the children of the angels called Nephilim and one of the Sisters of Eve called Lilith, and the Dragons. It culminated in a struggle between their greatest, Ogias, and the greatest of us, a she-Dragon called Sycorax, who finally subdued him with the help of the Imago, T’ai Shan.

  “She was the youngest of a family of gods, who was judged to be weak and cast out of their house. What her name had been before no one knows, but she took her new name from that of an angel who saw her for what she was, and gave her introduction to the star Rao, who would give her his fire, and taught her to use it.

  “But the angel Shaitan disappeared before the rest of his order descended to become the Dragons of this world; Rao betrayed his kind and was deemed Fallen; and T’ai Shan, after saving the world and returning it to the people she had loved and cared for, gave her armor and her power over to them for their use, and then left the world behind.

  “First she crossed an uncrossable desert. Then she scaled an unclimbable mountain. And finally she reached an impassable sea, so she labored for the rest of her days to build a bridge of bone, so that others who followed behind her would find the path to heaven easier to walk.”

  “A desert, a mountain, and a bridge of bone over the sea,” said Tummeler. “That sounds exactly li
ke the path we’ve been walking.”

  “Yes,” the Dragon said. “Exactly like that.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “That’s impossible!” Charles declared. “The island the keep is built on is a long journey away, deep in the Archipelago. There’s no way we’d be able to see it from here!”

  “And yet, there it stands,” said Madoc. “That is the true keep.”

  “Distance is less of an obstacle in this time,” said Enoch, “and it is not so long since meaning was divided from duration, and time itself took two paths. The longer they remain split, the further what is meaningful grows apart from all else.”

  “If he in’t a scowler,” said Uncas, “he ought t’ be. He sure talks like one.”

  “True that,” said Fred.

  “Have you ever seen it up close?” Rose asked. “Is it damaged?”

  “It is,” Enoch said, taken aback by the question, “although my father has told me stories passed down from the days of the Adam, when it was said the tower was whole, and unbroken. But no one living has ever seen it thus. I’m sorry I cannot help you find your Architect.”

  “What do we do now?” Edmund asked.

  “The Zanzibar Gate has one more trip left in it,” said Rose. “If we go home, we will be back at square one, or worse. But if we try to go out one more time, we may find what we need. I think it’s worth trying.”

  “So those are our choices, then,” said Charles. “Either we go home, or we take one more shot in the dark—literally—to try to discover the Architect.”

  “This is why we came,” said Rose. “All the sacrifices, everything we’ve been through . . . It’s all for nothing if we fail. And either we go home, or we take one more chance. I say we take it.”

  “Agreed,” said Edmund.

  “All right,” said Charles.

  “Ditto,” said the badgers.

  “In for a penny, night on the town,” said Laura Glue. “I’m up for it.”

  Madoc turned to the Archons. “Is there anything you might tell us to help? We simply need to find out who first built the keep—and no matter how far back in time we go, we can’t seem to locate him.”