James Owen - Here, There Be Dragons

Chapter Sixteen

Aven stopped. “Isn’t that what we wanted?”
“Not now,” said John. “Not now that we know the real stakes.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that he intends to use both the Ring of Power and the summoning in the Geographica to try to call on the dragons,” said John, “and I don’t think that’s all there is to it. Look at what happened above—Artus opened the locked door with a touch, because he is the true heir. Don’t you think the same conditions might hold for summoning the dragons as well?”
“That’s an excellent deduction, John,” said Charles.
“Agreed,” said Bert.
“No pressure,” Jack said to Artus.
At the bottom of the staircase (where Artus surreptitiously closed a certain door), the companions laughed with relief and gratitude—happy sounds that ceased the moment they stepped free of the keep.
There, silhouetted by the rising sun, they saw a ship equally as large as their own moored next to the White Dragon. It was the Black Dragon—the Winter King had been searching for them after all.
Aven cursed and cast a venomous look at John. All of his notes in the Geographica had been in unaffected modern English—a child could have located the island.
Leading the Winter King and several dozen Shadow-Born–bearing longboats onto the shore was Magwich. The Steward was clutching the Imaginarium Geographica closely to his chest. And even at that distance, they could see that the Winter King was wearing the ring.
“He has what he wanted,” said Jack. “There’s no reason to come looking for us here.”
“Unless he came to the same conclusion we did,” said Charles. “Magwich heard the same story from Ordo Maas that we did, remember? The Winter King now knows exactly who Artus is.”
“Do we run?” said John. “He’s cut off any chance of retreat to the White Dragon.”
“Quickly,” Charles said to the others, “come back onto the stairs.”
“Are you stupid?” said Aven. “We’ll be trapped.”
“No,” said Charles. “I don’t think we will.” Without another word, he started racing back up the steps.
Jack and John exchanged looks of confusion.
“It took us half the night to reach the top,” said Jack. “I’m already exhausted. We can’t repeat that again, even if we’re being chased.”
Aven grabbed them both and propelled them toward the stairs, where Bert and Artus were already following closely behind Charles. “No time to argue,” she said. “It’s the only option we have.”
Strangely, the Winter King’s henchmen didn’t seem to be pursuing them, instead remaining at the bottom.
They were several flights up when Jack stopped, sniffing at the air, then peering down the stairwell.
“Smoke,” he cried. “They’ve set fire to the keep! We have to go back!”
Charles stopped and looked at Jack. The younger man was breathing hard, more from fear than exertion.
“Jack,” Charles said, “throughout this entire adventure, you have jumped willingly into every fray. You have accepted every fantastic marvel and irregularity we have encountered as if nothing were amiss. And all the while, I’ve done very little but question the reality of what we have seen.”
“That’s why I don’t understand what you’re doing now,” said Jack. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not logical to climb higher into a tower that’s just been set on fire.”
“Precisely my point,” Charles said as he continued to climb. “It isn’t logical. But then, nothing about this tower is. But I just saw my friend John go into a room and talk to someone we know to be dead, and emerge a changed man for having done it. And I believe that it happened. So if I’m going to take one thing on faith, I think I can take another—so shut up and follow me!”
“Are you going back to the Cartographer?” Jack said, panting. “He’s more trapped here than we are, remember?”
“Not that high,” Charles said over his shoulder. “Not quite.”
Bert grinned. “I think I know what he has in mind. Quickly now—do as he says.”
The companions continued their flight up the stairway as the minions of the Winter King began to fill the openings at the base of the tower, while the smoke rose up behind them, as if it were a predator in pursuit of its prey.

Charles’s assessment that the tower did not play fairly with the laws of space and time appeared to be correct: In a fraction of the time taken for their original ascent, they had reached the upper levels of the keep. The smoke from the fire below, while still evident, was no longer the air-constricting cloud it had been earlier, and the sounds of their pursuit had faded.
“Why wouldn’t they follow us?” Jack said.
“I think they are,” said Bert. “The Shadow-Born wouldn’t fear the fire—but perhaps the tower is growing for them while it’s been shrinking for us.”
“It’s the same kettle,” said Charles. “To them, it’s not yet begun to boil—while to us, it’s boiling already, even though it’s been the same amount of time.”
“We’re nearly at the top,” John said. “We’ve passed the door that led into London, so we won’t be going to last week. And the Cartographer can’t help us. So where are we going, Charles?”
“There was one more door before the Cartographer’s, remember?” said Charles. “If the one below was the recent past, and the one above is the present, then the one in-between might be just what we need.”
“And what if it opens onto Outer Mongolia?” said Jack.
“It won’t,” said Charles.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t,” Charles said, grinning. “But I believe.”
“That’s not very logical,” said Bert, trying to suppress a grin.
“No, it isn’t,” said Charles as they reached the next-to-last landing, “but it wasn’t logical for John’s door to open into a study in London, either. It was just what he needed it to be.”
“And what do you need it to be?” Bert asked as Charles extended his hand to touch the door.
“The base of the keep, right after we entered,” said Charles.
The door swung open onto the grassy knoll that sloped down to where the White Dragon was anchored. The moon was still directly overhead; not morning, but midnight. And there was no sign of the Black Dragon or the Winter King.
“Hang on,” said Jack. “If we just came out of the keep right after we entered it, then aren’t we still inside somewhere? And won’t we—they—still be trapped when the Winter King does arrive?”
“I don’t think so,” said Charles. “I think they’ll do as we’ve just done, and escape unscathed as we’re about to do.”
“What if they choose a different course?” asked Jack. “What if the ‘us’ in the keep now don’t listen to you?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Bert assured them. “Trust me—I’ve done research.
“That’s the thing about time travel—you’re always moving forward, even when you go back.”

Safely aboard the White Dragon, they cast off from the shore and circled around to the other side of the island before they unrolled the Cartographer’s map.
“It’s a simpler course than it would seem,” said John. “We have to go a bit farther north, but then, it’s all due west. West, to the very edge of the world.”
“Best watch we don’t sail right off, eh, Aven?” Charles joked.
“Agreed,” she said, folding her arms. “Good thinking, Charles.”
“Oh, ah, thanks,” Charles stammered. “I wasn’t serious, you know.”
“You should be,” said Aven. “I’ve heard of this place—Nemo said the other sailors all talk of it in hushed whispers when they’ve had too much ale. It really is the end of the world, and if we’re not careful, it’s entirely possible that we’ll sail right over the edge. But don’t worry,” she added with mock sweetness. “I understand that there’s no ending to the void beyond, so we’d never hit bottom.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said Artus.
“No,” said Bert. “It means we’d just keep falling, and falling, and falling, for all eternity.”
“Oh,” said Artus.
“If we set out right away,” said John, “we’ll have the entire night to gain an advantage over the Winter King. Remember—he’s going to be coming here, looking for us.”
“I still don’t understand why he won’t find ‘us,’” said Jack. “This time stuff makes my head hurt.”
“Trust me,” Bert said again. “We’re ahead of him, in more ways than one.”
“What happens when we do reach the island?” said Aven.
“We have the advantage of surprise,” said John. “Whatever is to take place there, we’ll be able to prepare for, long before he reaches us. We have the White Dragon—it should get us there with exceptional speed.”
“She, not it,” said Aven. “Let’s do it.”
Jack and Charles set about preparing the sails for travel northward—although the ship was already prodding itself in that direction. Not all of the motive power would come from the winds.
Aven took the wheel, and Artus, trying to make himself useful, climbed up to the crow’s nest.
Bert and John stood at the prow, enjoying the respite they’d found, however limited it might be.
“Tell me, lad,” said Bert. “What did the professor say to you in the tower?”
John smiled. “He said to listen to you, and that he had all the confidence in the world that we would defeat the Winter King.”
Bert gave John an odd look. “Did he really say that?”
“Close enough,” said John. “But then, the Cartographer said as much, didn’t he? We went in with nothing, and came out with little more. What did he tell us that we didn’t already know, except that our victory or defeat may come down to a matter of will?”
The old man nodded. “I’m glad you got that chance,” he said, “to see him—Stellan—one more time. I would have liked to myself. Ah, well—plenty of time to do that in the future, eh, my boy?”
Bert walked away to speak to Aven before John had a chance to ask him what he meant.

The White Dragon left the islands of Chamenos Liber in relative silence, and calm seas. Only one pair of eyes watched it pass. High above them in the clear night sky, the great silver and crimson crane watched a few minutes longer, then wheeled about and began to fly south with increasing speed.
Part Five