The Dragons of Winter

by James A. Owen

  “Jack . . . at the waterfall . . . Lloigor . . . and there was . . . he fell.”

  The ring stopped. That was all.

  “So,” Charles said glumly, “Lord Winter really is our Jack.”

  “He is not the Caveo Secundus!” Twist exclaimed. “He is dust! He is the smoke!”

  That got Burton’s attention. “Smoke?” he asked, more to his companions than to Twist. “Was Jack planning to become a tulpa?”

  “As far as I know,” Charles said, “Jack’s plan is to follow your own course of action, Bert, and join the portrait gallery at Tamerlane House. He has never spoken to me about becoming a tulpa.”

  “Well, unless he changed his mind, or someone made a tulpa of Jack against his will, we may never know what really happened,” said Burton.

  “Oh,” Charles said, as all the blood drained out of his face. “Oh dear.”

  “What?” asked Bert.

  “I, ah, I made a tulpa of Jack, just for practice, remember? But once I knew I could, I stopped concentrating on it, and it just faded away into . . .” He swallowed hard. “A whiff of smoke.”

  “You infernal fool!” Burton shouted. “It takes time to dissolve a tulpa! Time! And effort! And if even the smallest whisper still existed . . .”

  “Then someone could steal it, and build it up again,” said Bert. “As I think the Cabal did. Yes. Exactly that.”

  “B-But even if they did,” stammered Charles, “how would he have become Lord Winter?”

  “A tulpa that you make of another person has no aiua, no soul,” said Burton, “because unlike one you make and claim for yourself, it would just be a shell, a copy of someone who already has a soul. It would be the perfect vessel for an Echthros to possess.

  “Your choices destroyed the Archipelago,” he added, his face an inch from the hapless Caretaker’s, “and it’s your choices that may have doomed this world as well.”

  “Wait!” Rose exclaimed. “I’d completely forgotten!” She turned to Bert. “Can we play the rings again? Please? It’s important.”

  Bert complied, and again they listed to the rings. When they had done so, the companions all turned expectantly to Rose.

  “In all the rush to get away from Dys,” she said, “I forgot to tell you what happened to me while you were sleeping. I think I know now what it all meant, and what we’re supposed to do.”

  Quickly Rose told them of the moonbeam that led her to the Morgaine, and about the message she’d been given. They might have believed it was just a dream except for Rose’s conviction that it had really happened—and the fact that she actually had the multifaceted mirror Lachesis had given her.

  “Technically speaking, I think my father, as the Black Dragon, was supposed to be the last Dragon,” Rose said. “And we lost him when the Archipelago fell to the Echthroi, so I’m at a loss as to what riddle she meant.”

  “Maybe she meant the other last Dragon,” Twist offered helpfully. “The one in the next chamber.”

  The companions all turned to Twist, who returned their slack-jawed amazement with a wan smile. “I was going to mention it sooner,” he said helpfully, “but I don’t like to interrupt.”

  “Like the door in the wall outside, it takes two watches to open the inner chamber,” Pym explained, “and they are greatly treasured, so they almost never take them out.”

  Twist and several of the other Unforgotten ceremoniously unwrapped a box of folded palm fronds, which contained their greatest treasures: two of the silver Caretaker’s watches.

  “So that’s how they get to the outside,” Burton murmured. “Verne always was the good Boy Scout.”

  “One is Jules’s,” Bert confirmed, “and the other is . . . Twain’s? Or maybe Dickens’s.”

  “The watches survived all these centuries?” Edmund exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a watch that could last that long.”

  “These aren’t the silver watches the McGee family worked with,” said Bert. “These are cavorite. They’ll outlast pretty much everything!”

  Twist fumbled with the placement of the watches into the two slots, and an exasperated Pym stepped forward to help. “Here,” he said a bit gruffly. “You’re getting them in backward.”

  When the two watches were properly in place, something in the walls shifted, and a wedge of stone slid up into the ceiling. There, in a much larger room, was what Twist had called the last Dragon—but it was not really a Dragon at all. It was a Sphinx.

  It was perched atop a squarish, solid-looking structure that was approximately twenty feet wide, with a semicircular arch in front that held a metallic door. The Sphinx itself was greenish-gold, and indeed resembled a Dragon—but not a full-bodied Dragon, as they were thinking they’d see.

  She had wings, and the lower body, legs, and hindquarters of a Dragon—but her torso, neck, and head were those of something much more human, and her eyes were closed. Still, she had a terrible kind of beauty, and just looking at her inspired a hushed reverence.

  “Here,” Twist said, pointing to a plate set in the wall of the structure. “This may be the riddle you’re seeking.”

  It was. There were several lines of text, written not in English, but in . . .

  “Elvish,” said Rose. “If Jules left this here for us, and made certain only ring bearers and Caretakers could enter, then he left this riddle that could only be read by someone like John. Or,” she added with a wink at Bert, “his best student.”

  Rose brought the torch closer and translated for the others:

  Come not between the Dragon and her wrath;

  But give unto her a choice;

  Redeem her life, that distant past,

  By easing others’ strife;

  Or choose again, the folly path,

  In anger or in sorrow,

  And once more sleep, ’gainst her will,

  Till there be no tomorrows.

  Naming is waking, speak loudly and clear;

  Then offer the choice, and pay what is asked;

  No passage is free, all prices are dear;

  The heart of the Dragon belongs to the past.

  “So we’re to give her a choice?” asked Charles. “That’s not really a riddle, is it?”

  “The riddle is in naming her,” said Bert. “To wake a Sphinx, you must speak its name.”

  “They wouldn’t have left this for us without the means to solve it,” said Rose. “it’s probably in a book.”

  “The answer to the riddle is in a book?” Charles groaned, looking at Twist. “But which book? There are hundreds of them here, running all over the place, and it’s not as if we can simply skim through them for what we want.”

  “Then maybe it’s something we already know,” said Bert. “There are surely many stories where hidden names are the solution to the problem.”

  “Got it!” Charles said, snapping his fingers. He stood in front of the Sphinx, taking a heroic stance—feet spread apart, hands on his hips, chin lifted in anticipation of victory.

  “Rumpelstiltskin!” he declared in triumph.

  In response, the Sphinx didn’t even acknowledge that he had spoken, but merely continued to sleep.

  Bert slapped his hand to his forehead, and Rose blushed in sympathetic embarrassment.

  “What?” asked Edmund, clearly confused. “Is it working? Was that the right name?”

  “No, that wasn’t the right bloody name,” Burton growled. He frowned at Charles. “I can’t believe you thought that was worth trying, you idiot. And you call yourself a scowler!”

  “Actually, I think it’s pronounced ‘scholar,’” Edmund said helpfully.

  “Never mind,” said Charles, who was now both deflated and embarrassed. “That was the best example I could think of where a name was the answer.”

  “Maybe that’s just the wrong address on the right road,” Bert said, rubbing his chin. “John was including just such a thing in that new book he’s been working on, remember?”

  “That’s it!” Charles exclaimed. “
The lock on the door to Samaranth’s cave. It opened when we spoke the word ‘friend’ in Elvish.”

  “Really?” said Burton. “That’s a stupid idea.”

  Charles smirked. “That’s what he said too. At first.”

  “Just try it,” Rose said, clambering to her feet. “Speak the word ‘name’ in Elvish, Uncle Charles.”

  He did, but to no avail. The Sphinx remained impassive, unmoved, and the eyes stayed closed up tight. Burton argued that the original riddle was too easy to break—but noted that the door was also guarded by a large dragon—Samaranth—who had no problem roasting unwelcome visitors, so any other riddle using the same premise would, by necessity, need to be more difficult. So Charles tried both “friend” and “name” in Elvish once more—just for good measure—before trying both words again in Dwarvish, Orc, Goblin, Badger, and French.

  “Why French?” asked Bert after the last failed attempt.

  “Because,” Charles answered, “for all we know, Verne set the terms here, and not John.”

  “But John is the Caretaker Principia,” said Edmund.

  “And Jules Verne is the Prime Caretaker,” Burton said, answering the young Cartographer’s unspoken question, “and thus has greater latitude to muck about with history than his understudy.”

  “Oh,” said Edmund, looking up at the Sphinx. “Maybe when we left, that was true. But we have no idea when this was put here for us to find, or who among them was still alive to leave it.”

  “The boy has a point,” Burton admitted, “even if it’s a brutal one.” He turned to Twist, who was eager to help, but helpfully staying out of the way. “What about you? Do your people have a name for the Sphinx?”

  “Sure,” said Twist. “We call her Isis.”

  Charles tried that, but the results were the same—no response. “Why do you call her that, anyway?”

  “It’s engraved on the wall behind her,” Twist said, pointing at the near-obscured letters. “There.”

  “Not Isis!” Charles exclaimed, crouching for a closer look. “I—C—S! The initials of the Imperial Cartological Society! Someone in the past must have just started calling the Sphinx by these letters, and eventually that’s all anyone remembered.”

  “There’s no way any of the Caretakers, or Jack’s version of the ICS, could have anticipated the Unforgotten,” Bert said. “How could they? None of this should have been here. So any riddle they left, they would have expected us to be able to solve with whatever we had on hand. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of the books we have will be helpful.”

  “There’s one!” Rose said excitedly. “The Little Whatsit. If there’s only one real book left on Earth to use for solving a riddle, that would be the one I’d want. And Fred made certain that we’d bring it with us. That had to be their plan.”

  Burton scoffed. “The badger’s book isn’t going to tell us how to escape from this place,” he said, scowling at her. “We need a practical solution.”

  “That’s as practical as it gets,” Bert said. “The Little Whatsit can tell us when the Sphinx was created, and the Imaginarium Geographica can tell us where. And between the two, we may be able to discover her name.”

  “There’s only one problem,” said Charles. “We left all our things—including the books—back in Dys, at the dark tower.”

  “Then we know what we have to do,” said Rose. “We’ve got to go back.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Last Dragon

  Pym chose to remain with the Unforgotten, which suited the companions just fine—especially Burton, whose main contribution to the group seemed to be that he was suspicious of everyone. Not that Pym didn’t invite it—more than one of them noticed he knew how to open the Sphinx’s chamber in the pyramid, a place he had supposedly never been.

  No one the companions passed even glanced in their direction as they made their way up into the tower, to the room where they’d left their belongings. The door was open, but the room was not entirely as they’d left it.

  “It’s Archimedes!” Edmund exclaimed joyfully as he dashed to the far side of the room. There, perched on a beautiful mahogany stand, was the owl—whole again. The gash across his torso had been completely repaired.

  Forgetting the urgency with which they’d arrived, the companions circled around Archie in grateful relief.

  The bird was silent, but his head pivoted to each of the companions, observing them with an unblinking gaze. Rose almost hugged him, and for a moment, she thought Edmund actually would.

  “Greetings, Moonchild,” Azer said . . . “What do you desire?”

  But it was Rose, the one who had known Archimedes the longest, who realized something was wrong.

  “Step back,” she said, gesturing for the others to move away from the still-observant bird. “Something is amiss here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Edmund said, unwilling to move away. He stroked the owl’s back and beamed. “Tell them, Archie. Tell them you’re all right.”

  Archie looked at him, but still didn’t speak.

  “Archimedes,” Rose said slowly, “how long is a rope?”

  The workings of the bird whirred and clicked as it answered. “There is no answer to that query. It has no absolute value.”

  Rose frowned. “He taught me that question, when I was younger. It’s a test of numbers, but also of philosophical thinking. The answer is, ‘Exactly twice the length of the distance from the center to one end.’ But he answered it like . . .”

  “Like a machine.” Vanamonde appeared at the doorway and bowed.

  “We have taken the chaos from him,” a chilling and familiar voice said from the corridor behind Vanamonde. “We repaired his form and cleared all the clutter from his mind. He is now a creation of perfect order.”

  Lord Winter stepped inside the doorway and stood next to his servant. “How, pray tell, was he broken?”

  “He was . . . ah, damaged,” said Edmund. “Outside the city, when we found—”

  “It was an accident,” Rose said, interrupting Edmund before one of the others could. He was a smart young man, but he did not have the kind of experience the rest of them had in dealing with a Shadow-possessed person—especially one he might believe he could trust. “Thank you for fixing him.”

  “Of course,” Lord Winter said, almost dismissively. “Such repairs are a simple thing in the city of Dys.”

  “What clutter are you talking about?” Edmund asked. “Archie was smarter than all of us, and he never hesitated to say so.”

  “Indeed, and that is exactly my point,” Lord Winter said as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. This time, the click of the lock was definite. “His brilliance was cluttered with the detritus of free will—but we removed that. And now he functions as he was meant to—as a machine.”

  “We’re grateful that you helped Archimedes,” Bert said, “but it appears that we’re expected to stay here now, whether we like it or not.”

  “I apologize for treating guests in such a manner,” Lord Winter said with a tone of sincere regret. “I had assumed that you would be unable to cause any mischief if I allowed you to wander freely. It is obvious that I was mistaken.”

  “What mischief?” asked Charles. “We simply went to—”

  “The Renegades,” Lord Winter said. “The ones who have prevented us from completing our control of this world.”

  “The keepers of the faith, you mean,” said Bert. “The ones who preserved your own legacy . . . Jack.”

  Lord Winter tried to suppress a slight smile. “Not for much longer, I fear.”

  He spun about on his heel and opened the door. The corridor outside was filled with Winter Dragons—far more than the companions could evade or fight. “It is time to begin our negotiations,” he said curtly, “regarding what place each of you shall have in Dys. I would speak with Charles first.”

  He walked out of the room, with Vanamonde close behind. It was clear they expected the Caretaker to follow.
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  “You aren’t going to go?” Rose said, aghast.

  “I must,” Charles replied. “Following him, negotiating . . .” He dropped his head and gestured with his hands in frustration. “We may have nothing else left.”

  “Yes we do,” Bert said. “We have hope. And that cannot be taken from us.”

  “How can you say that, Bert?” asked Charles. “You’ve even lost your wife. Here, in this time, she never even existed.”

  “She did exist,” Bert said simply, his eyes brimming with tears. “She existed, and I loved her, and together we had a daughter whose name was Aven. And Aven lived a long, full life, and was brave and beautiful, and when it seemed as if all hope was lost for her, she found a way to keep it alive. And that act is what paved the way for your own redemption, Charles. To make right a mistake you have paid too dear a price for already. And you know, as much as the rest of us, that it’s in the darkest moments that hope shines brightest.

  “Here,” he finished, pressing Weena’s petals into the Caretaker’s hand. “Let these guide your choices. As they have mine.”

  Charles gave Bert a long, appraising look before slipping the petals into a pocket and turning away. The door closed behind him with silent efficiency as he strode away from the room. He did not look back.

  The Winter Dragons escorted Charles to an expansive room where Lord Winter was already waiting. He was looking out a window toward the Last Redoubt and did not turn when Charles entered.

  “Once, you were my mentor,” Winter said, never taking his eyes from the window, “and now it seems I have become the teacher, and he who was once my teacher may now become my apprentice.”

  “You were made a similar offer long ago,” Charles said softly, “by someone who also had no shadow. And as I recall, you declined the invitation.”

  At that, Jack lowered his head and smiled. “Not without a struggle, I assure you, old friend. I was young and far too innocent to understand what Mordred was offering me.”

  “As I recall,” said Charles, “he also had a penchant for stabbing his teachers.”