The Indigo King - James A. Owen [53]
“Not scared,” Jack said in response to the owl’s comment. “Just cautious.”
“Caution, fft,” the owl scoffed. “That’s not really the attitude to have if you want to take over the world, now, is it?”
“Why would I want to take over the world?” asked Jack.
“Why else would you come to Alexandria?” the owl replied. “All the fashionable would-be world conquerors do.”
Alexandria. So, John realized, they were in Egypt, but at the edge of the influence of the Greek world. And certainly later than the common era they’d been to in the other projection.
“It’s simpler than that,” Chaz said in surprisingly passable Greek. “We just need to find someone.”
“Mmm,” said the owl, obviously losing interest. “And what is this someone’s name?”
“We’re not really sure,” Jack admitted.
“That would make it harder, wouldn’t it?” the owl replied with no trace of sympathy.
“What’s your name?” Chaz asked.
The owl preened. Apparently he wasn’t asked his name very often. “Archimedes,” he replied. “A pleasure, I’m sure.”
“Archimedes? Like the mathematician?” asked John.
The owl hopped up and down in irritation. “Why does everyone ask me that? Why does no one ever think that a bird can’t also be a mathematician?”
“Sorry,” said John. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
The owl scowled. “Pythagoras should have built me as an eagle instead of an owl. No one ever questions an eagle.”
“A clockwork owl?” Jack whispered. “Intriguing.”
“What are you working on, Archie?” asked Chaz, looking at the slate. “Looks complicated.”
Any irritation the owl might have felt at being called “Archie” was set aside by the chance to discuss the notations on the tablet.
“It’s a math problem,” he said, giving John a poisonous look, “for the trials. You know about the trials, do you not?”
“We’re strangers here,” John began, before Archimedes cut him off with a disgusted noise.
“I know you’re strangers here,” the bird said. “I just watched you walk through a wall. Locals don’t really do that much. And you aren’t here as conquerors, or if you are, you’re the most ill-prepared conquerors I’ve ever seen.”
“We’re not conquerors,” Jack confirmed.
“You’re the funny one in the group, aren’t you?” asked the bird.
“It depends on the day,” said Jack.
“People come here for only two reasons,” Archimedes continued, “to start an insurrection to try to unite the world, or to prepare for the trials.”
“Trials for what?” asked John.
“To become Caretakers, of course.”
“Caretakers? Of the Imaginarium Geographica?”
“The what? No,” the bird replied, exasperated. “Of the Sangreal.”
“The Holy Grail?”
The bird glared at him. “Why do you repeat everything I say? You must be the stupid one of the group. Which isn’t saying much, is it?
“Yes,” Archimedes said as he went back to his equations. “The trials are to test those who would become Caretakers—of the Holy Grail.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Imaginary Geographies
The three companions retreated a few feet away to confer privately, while the owl went back to its figures and calculations.
“That seals it,” whispered Jack. “It’s no coincidence we came here now. The Grail has to figure into our mission to find Myrddyn and Madoc.”
“I can’t see how,” said John, “unless they’ve become somehow entwined with the Grail lore this far back. Remember, we’re still centuries from where Hugo ended up.”
“Perhaps he discovered that somehow,” suggested Jack, “and that’s why he included it in the message to us.”
John rubbed his forehead and chewed on his lip. “No,” he said finally, “I can think of another reason they’d be here now. They’ve come for the trials. Remember what they claimed they wanted to do, back in Miletus?”
Chaz nodded. “They wanted t’ find a way t’ get back to th’ Archipelago.”
“Right,” said John, “and to do that, they needed a route, and directions, and something else—an object touched by divinity that would allow them passage through the Frontier. And at this point in history, can you think of any other object that fits the description better than the cup of Christ?”
The companions turned