The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [119]
The Indigo Dragon was still in the possession of Burton and the Croatoan Indians. The Keep of Time was still crumbling and would continue to do so. And there could be rogue Caretakers back in their world who were actually working for the Imperial Cartological Society. Basically, Charles declared, the entire adventure was still a catastrophe.
“Not a catastrophe,” said John. “More a eucatastrophe, I think. It was all grim and terrible to a point, but things seem to have worked out in the end.”
“Jack,” said Charles, “he’s making up words again.”
“Yes,” Jack replied, “but he’s getting better at it, don’t you think?”
“You’re forgetting the most frightening loose end of all,” said Bert. “Our great adversary still exists.
“Your shadow may be separated from you—may be captured, or imprisoned, or twisted and manipulated—but it cannot exist without you.”
“Cannot exist?” said John. “As in, your shadow will not outlast your death?”
“Correct,” said Bert. “And if that truly was Mordred’s shadow we faced, then our old adversary, the Winter King, is still alive.”
It was time to return home. There were matters there that needed tending to, and the companions felt that for the moment, they had done enough.
“After you,” John said to Jack.
Jack looked at Charles, who also nodded that he should be first, and with a last smile at Bert, Jack stepped into the wardrobe.
One by one, they pressed the furs aside and emerged from the wardrobe onto the fourth floor of the town house near Kensington Gardens. First Jack, then Charles, and finally, John. They were greeted by a beaming figure holding a tray.
“Welcome back,” said Jamie. “I’ve made tea.”
Epilogue
On an enchanted island at the Frontier of the Archipelago of Dreams, a cave stood empty. Where once there had been weavers, and a loom, only dust remained. And where a great tapestry that was as big as the world had once covered the walls of the cave, there was only a cobweb, woven by a spider that had only that day taken up residence in the cave.
Seven hundred years earlier, or just yesterday, Roger Bacon, the Caretaker Principia of the Imaginarium Geographica, pulled his cloak tighter to ward off the chill drafts that passed through his small alcove. The only light came from the tallow candles mounted upon his table, and there were no sounds save for the ticking of the timepiece he’d been given; a gift from the Frenchman.
Bacon carefully dipped his pen into the inkwell and continued writing the Histories to which he had devoted a considerable part of his life.
In the year 1212, a boy named Stephen, who claimed to be directed by Heaven itself, called upon the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve to rally around him in a great Crusade against the infidels and heretics in the East.
Thirty thousand children chose to follow him, and together they boarded seven great ships—and were never seen again in the world beyond. But they were not lost—Stephen brought them to the Archipelago, where he joined with the Great Shadow and the Sons of Jason, and together they began a Great War that devastated all the lands that are.
As he wrote these words, the ticking suddenly stopped, and the wind was stilled. Then, as he watched, the words on the page began to shift and change, and suddenly he could not remember writing what had been there before, but only what appeared there now, in ink still glistening:
Thirty thousand children chose to follow him, and together they boarded seven great ships—and were never seen again in the world beyond. But they were not lost—Stephen brought them to the Archipelago, where he and his master, the Great Shadow, were defeated by the bravery and wisdom of three scholars, and the power of a mother’s love.
But the Great Shadow escaped, and the ships vanished with him into Time’s embrace. And the Great War that was to be waged in the Archipelago may yet take place far in the future, in a conflict referred to by the Frenchman called Verne…
…as the Second Great War of the World….
And as he closed the book, the ticking began again, and the breeze, warm now, flowed