The Dragon's Gate

by Barry Wolverton

  “Have the borders of India changed?” said Lord Winterbottom. “There it is, on a map.”

  McNally glared at the deposed Royal Surveyor, but quickly recovered. “Her Majesty knows full well the importance of an accurate accounting of her realm, not just for revenue but for military intelligence.”

  “It’s called a surveyor’s wheel,” said David Owen, who thought he could defuse the tension.

  “We haven’t decided on a name yet,” said McNally.

  “Or the perambulator,” said Owen.

  “It’s definitely not going to be that,” said McNally. “Perhaps something in Her Majesty’s honor—”

  “The Royal Walker!” suggested Owen, who immediately regretted it.

  “I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” said McNally.

  Queen Adeline let out a deep sigh. “I have other engagements, you know. Let’s see what else you’ve brought.”

  They rushed through the rest of their presentation—an instrument called a theodolite, which measured angles more accurately than the transit, and a special McNally compass with the queen’s royal seal on it. And that was that. They were ushered out of the hall and granted the privilege of leaving Whitehall through the front gates, where their rickety wagon and crooked horses were waiting.

  McNally stripped off the blue coat and tossed it in the back.

  “Let’s hire a coach,” he said. “I’m not walking back to the river.”

  All the way back, David Owen kept thinking about what the queen had said, about the rogue admiral who had possibly scuttled their treaty with the Netherlands. He had heard the same story from two sources: McNally, of course, and Archibald Black, Bren’s bookseller friend whom David Owen had never liked.

  There had been the big announcement of the treaty, and then a few months later the truth came out—that this Admiral Bowman was to have been arrested at Cape Colony and the businessman, Mr. Richter, installed as the new governor—but something had gone wrong, and now the Netherlands was focused on repairing the damage.

  Owen had swallowed his pride to ask Archibald Black to find out more. In fact, the bookseller had already begun an investigation of his own, since he thought of Bren like a son. Black explained to Owen that he had never trusted the admiral, and there was something about a secret order called the Black Tulip, and a mysterious medallion called a paiza, which took on greater weight when Owen told Black that the admiral and Bren had spoken of a map and a lost treasure.

  Black had concluded that this admiral was in search of an island that had been erased from modern maps. All David Owen knew was that his son had gone off with a madman.

  “Should be easy enough to repair things with King Max,” said McNally. “We’ll need to draw up some new maps for the Netherlanders, of course. Perhaps spread the New World a bit wider than we have previously, show him how good it will look in orange. And of course, if there really is a war at Cape Colony, Britannia could help resecure the colony. Yes, this will all work out.”

  Despite his boss’s bravado, David Owen thought he sounded more hopeful than certain.

  When they got back to Map, David Owen first went home, but the small house was empty and cold, and he didn’t feel like starting a fire. So he walked into the Merchant Quarter until he was standing in front of Black’s Books. It was after hours, but he knew that Archibald Black spent most of his evenings at his store. He knocked.

  “Ah, David, I thought you might be a customer,” said Black, who somehow seemed to have grown thinner in the months since Bren left, even though he was barely more than bones to begin with.

  “People besides Bren come in here?”

  “Occasionally,” Black said stiffly. “Come in.”

  He made tea for them, but Owen just held his cup without ever drinking it.

  “How did Whitehall go?”

  “Fine. McNally is officially Royal Surveyor, but he’s fretting about things with the Netherlands and how that will affect his India plans.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Black.

  “I want to go after Bren,” said Owen, surprising both Black and himself.

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “The Indian Royal Survey,” said Owen. “I can get assigned to that, and I could take you with me. You’ve always wanted to travel.”

  “You’re not talking about a holiday,” said Black. “You’re talking about finding Bren. How exactly will going to India help?”

  “The mercenary you hired . . .”

  “Barrett,” said Black. “And she’s an antiquary, not a mercenary.”

  “Yes, well, you hired her not to dig up artifacts but to steal a map.”

  “Indeed,” said Black. “We’ve been through this, David. The paiza . . . what you overheard the admiral say to Bren . . . a certain rogue admiral’s obsession with vanished islands . . .”

  “And you still haven’t heard from her?”

  Black took a sip of tea. “No. But that could be for any number of reasons.”

  “If you still believe there could be a map in that Persian library that could help one locate this treasure island Bren may be stranded on, then I want that map,” said Owen. “And I have to assume at this point that Barrett failed to steal it. But the Royal Survey gets us close enough that we could go after the map ourselves. Passage secured and paid for by Her Majesty, the queen.”

  “We’re not explorers,” said Black.

  “You love Bren, don’t you?” said Owen. “Almost as much as I do?”

  Black said nothing.

  “Well, then,” said David Owen, standing up. “Thank you for the tea.”

  “Wait,” said Black. “Give it more time. Barrett’s message could’ve gotten lost.”

  David Owen nodded, his eyes full of sadness. “Think about what I said, Archibald.” And he left the store.

  CHAPTER

  9

  ROGUES

  The first few days on the island of New Amsterdam were like heaven to Bren. The weather was perfect, warm without being too humid. The food, despite being mostly fruit, fish, and vegetables, was delicious, as fresh as anything he had tasted. And his bed—his bed! Softer and more comfortable than any place he had ever lain down to sleep.

  And yet, there was the occasional sign that something was off.

  One night Bren was awakened from a deep sleep by the far-off sound of music, and possibly chanting, in the middle of the night.

  At lunch the next afternoon he could have sworn one of the men called Governor Wycoff “Lord Ananda,” or something odd like that.

  And after a few days it dawned on Bren that no one seemed to be native to this tropical island—just a few dozen Netherlanders, most of them men.

  Sean was clearly bothered as well, and one day he asked the governor to show them the tin mines that the Dutch Bicycle & Tulip Company had sent him in search of. If the governor was ill at ease with this request, he didn’t show it. He agreed to throw together a little tour of the far side of the island, where hills ringed the northern coast.

  “Now we’ll see just how legitimate this settlement is,” Sean told Bren.

  When they arrived, Bren was horrified by what he saw—a huge pit where trees had been cleared and rock torn away. When he used to go with his mother to lake country, she would always take him on walks through the unspoiled countryside and talk about how the earth was a living thing. But looking at this, Bren didn’t see how any living thing could tolerate such a gaping wound.

  “Horrific, isn’t it?” said the governor. “I don’t care how valuable the metal, it can’t be worth the cost of this much destruction, can it?”

  “How would you suggest we dig for gold, silver, and the like?” said Sean.

  The governor threw up his arms. “Why dig it out at all? What value is gold, really, except that kings want to fill their castles with it? You’ve been here a week already. Has this place not provided everything you could want? Fresh air, water, food, shelter? The pleasure of my company?”

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sp; “So you shut the mine down?” said Sean, looking around. There appeared to be just one mine entrance, and it was sealed shut. “And the company approved of this?”

  The governor shrugged. “The company wants for nothing.”

  Sean wasn’t satisfied. “That’s beside the point, isn’t it? If they sent you here to mine tin, how are you not delivering tin?”

  “We convinced them there were other resources here,” the governor said. “If they just gave it time. And speaking of time, we should get going if we want to make it back by evening feast.”

  And that was all the history of the island they got out of him on that day. But the feast that night was a bit less festive than usual. The governor hardly talked to anyone. Bren went to bed restless, worried about Sean, and had barely dozed off when Mouse shook him awake.

  “I need to show you something,” she whispered.

  Their guesthouse was down a road from the governor’s house, separated by jungle, perhaps a hundred yards away. But as soon as they stepped outside, Bren heard the rhythmic and foreboding beat of a drum, and this time, for sure, chanting—a language Bren didn’t understand.

  All he could think about was that horrible rebellion at Cape Colony . . . the screams and the panic and the butchery. Of course, the admiral had been the cause then, and the only inhabitants of this island, as far as he could tell, were Netherlanders. But then who was drumming and chanting?

  They crept closer. Bren tried following Mouse step for step, as she had the uncanny ability to move through the undergrowth without so much as bumping a leaf or crunching a single twig. By comparison, Bren felt like one of the governor’s elephants.

  The drum beat louder, and the chants rose higher, and before they reached the clearing they heard the crackle of fire. When they were close enough, they saw the Netherlanders circling an enormous bonfire. To Bren’s great surprise, they were all stripped to the waist, and some barely wore trousers, either.

  “Mouse, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. The chanting woke me up, so I snuck over here and saw this. Then I came back for you.”

  “We should go get the others—”

  “Wait,” said Mouse, and before Bren could stop her she had moved off to her left, circling the bonfire by perhaps a quarter turn. After a moment she motioned for Bren to join her.

  What he saw shocked him. The governor was there too—he was the one beating the drum and leading the chant, dressed in nothing but an animal-skin loincloth, his otherwise naked body glistening with sweat from the heat of the fire. Another man was doing an odd dance next to the fire—it was Bakker, the man who’d lost the lottery.

  “What in heaven’s name . . . ,” said Bren.

  “I daresay those chants are rising up to heaven.”

  The whispered voice behind them nearly made Bren jump out of hiding. Even Mouse spun around, frightened. Bren had never seen anyone successfully sneak up on her, ever. It was a young man, perhaps Sean’s age, slight of build but neatly dressed in cropped grey pants and a linen shirt, sporting a thin mustache that looked like it might’ve been penciled in with a graphite stick.

  “Who are you?” whispered Bren.

  “Your only chance of getting off this island,” said the man.

  “We have a boat,” said Mouse.

  “Take a closer look at that fire.”

  Bren and Mouse turned back to the bonfire. What had looked like ordinary pieces of stripped wood stacked around the edge were in fact oars. And at the heart of it Bren could make out the thwarts and curved parts of the keep and hull, along with their makeshift mast and sail.

  Their longboat would soon be a pile of ashes.

  “Sean, wake up. Wake up!”

  Bren was trying to whisper and shout at the same time; it wasn’t very effective, but finally Sean lifted his groggy head from the pillow.

  “What is it, lad?”

  “We need to go.”

  He sat up all the way. “Who is this?” he said, looking at the stranger next to Bren and Mouse.

  Bren opened his mouth to explain, then hesitated. “I don’t actually know, but—”

  “We have to get off this island,” said Mouse. “Trust us.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Sean, getting up and fumbling for his shoes. “Wake the others. Do you know if the governor left our boat at the beach, or brought it inland?”

  “Inland,” said Mouse.

  “And then he burned it,” said Bren.

  Sean stopped mid-lace. He turned to the stranger.

  “That’s where he comes in,” said Bren.

  Sean just shook his head and helped Bren and Mouse wake the others, which was no small task. Proper beds and soft pillows had had the effect of a strong drug on all of them, and it seemed as if they would never draw them all back from the land of dreams. The fact that Bren and Mouse were children didn’t stop anyone from cursing them for waking them up.

  “We’re going to the far side of the island,” said the stranger. “Opposite of where you came in.”

  “Who exactly are you?” said Sean.

  The stranger stood at attention, then bowed slightly. “Lady Jean Barrett, of the Staffordshire Barretts. My father is the Earl of Wolveren Hampton.”

  “Lady?” said Bren and Sean at the same time.

  “Naturally.”

  When they said nothing, she added: “Do you need proof?”

  They both blushed and fumbled over their next handful of words, before Sean managed to ask, “Are we really in danger?”

  As if to answer his question, the drumbeat grew louder, as did the chanting. Barrett led them out of the house, around the back, and into the jungle without so much as a lantern or torch.

  “You have a boat on this side of the island?” said Bren.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  That didn’t sound promising, but Bren and the others could do little more than follow the stranger, who passed through the jungle as if she had night vision.

  “I memorized the way this morning,” she said, reading Bren’s mind.

  “Are you alone?” said Mouse.

  “For now,” said Barrett, “but give me a minute.”

  The drumbeats had stopped, but now they heard shouting and running. The vacant longhouse had been discovered.

  “On a positive note, they don’t know which direction we’ve gone,” said Barrett. The end of her sentence was trampled by the sound of an elephant trumpeting, followed by a crashing through the jungle, like some elemental force was destroying every palm tree in its path.

  “I suppose they guessed right,” said Sean, and the whole escape party began to move faster, no longer worried about making too much noise.

  Barrett whipped out a striking scarlet sword and began whacking at the thick undergrowth, clearing a path as they went. Her use of the sword wasn’t wild, Bren noticed; she sliced vines and pared back ferns with the skill of a surgeon, her aim even more remarkable considering they were on the run.

  “Watch your step!” Barrett called out, just before Bren felt the ground begin to slope downward, and then fall off entirely. Bren and Mouse went down the hill first, rolling like barrels, and the others were right behind them. When they broke the last ticklish barrier of ferns, they were scattered about the beach, except for Barrett, who was already poised with her sword drawn and one fist braced defiantly at her hip.

  There was just enough light from a half-full moon and a sky full of stars to see that everyone was there, so Barrett turned toward the sea and, raising her fist, opened her hand all at once, as if she were scattering pixie dust. A bright flare of light shot upward, arcing toward the night sky, hanging there for an instant before exploding like Chinese fireworks.

  “Probably should have done that sooner,” said Barrett. “Didn’t want to set the trees on fire.”

  “How—” Bren started to say, but just then the half-naked governor, riding his elephant, and the other bare-chested Netherlanders came marching down toward the beach.
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  “Lady Barrett, I’d say we need that boat you promised,” said Sean.

  “Should be here shortly,” she said.

  Bren clasped the black stone around his neck, wondering if it could protect them all, the way everyone aboard the Albatross had been saved from the Iberian warships. He felt like a fool as soon as the thought crossed his mind; after all, he had never been sure what had happened then. Instead he looked at Mouse, wondering if she could do something. She nodded and opened the palm of her hand, showing Bren the white jade.

  “Why on earth are you running from us?” said the governor, who seemed genuinely hurt that they were trying to escape.

  “You burned our boat,” said Sean.

  “Don’t take it personally. It’s just that, in my experience, people sometimes need convincing of the ideas we hold dear on this island.”

  “And what ideas are those?” Sean asked.

  “Look around! This is Paradise! Netherlanders are so intent on imposing their ways on the East: the ridiculous European clothing, completely unsuitable for island life; the outdated ethics of international trade; the fear of anyone not born with blond or red hair.”

  “Right now, it’s you we fear, Governor.”

  “Please, call me Bung Ananda.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Bung Ananda,” repeated the governor. “I’m not a Dutch governor here. This is not a Dutch colony. This is Utopia.”

  Bren looked at this overweight, sunburned Netherlander standing there in his altogether and thought he could have made a better advertisement for his so-called Utopia.

  “If this is Utopia, then you won’t mind if we leave you to it,” said Barrett.

  “Ah, well, you see, it’s trickier than that,” said the governor. “Utopias are delicate. They require full investment, if you’ll pardon my using the crass business language of my former employer, and a certain amount of privacy. You are all welcome to stay, but I can’t let you leave.”

  No one said anything for a moment as Sean and Barrett took the measure of the man who now called himself Bung Ananda. Standing near the back of the group was Bakker, still mostly naked. Apparently the fact that his fellow crewmen were willing to kill him made Utopia sound appealing.