The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [12]
When they had finished, Jamie stared into the fire, considering, for several minutes.
“I was terribly sorry about Stellan,” he finally said. “I read about his death in the papers, of course. But it never crossed my mind that it had been the work of the Winter King. In the next couple of years, as the war wound down, I suspected that Bert and Jules had taken some sort of action with regard to the Archipelago, but I tried to put it out of my mind. When I left, I vowed to be done with it—and for better or worse, I’ve kept that vow. Until tonight, that is.”
“You were Arthur Conan Doyle’s replacement, weren’t you?” Charles asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Jamie. “There have always been three Caretakers, more or less, although once called to the task, those who previously served as Caretakers never seem to be completely removed from the responsibilities it entails, as you may have noticed,” he said, smiling broadly.
“Before Jules Verne, I believe it was three Americans who answered the Call. Then Jules, then Bert, who was to become the new Caretaker Principia. Harry Houdini and Doyle were recruited at the same time by Jules,” he said. “But they both had the same problem—neither of them wished to keep the secrets of the Archipelago. Houdini, in fact, wished to expose them to the world, and did his best to do so.”
“Whoo.” Charles whistled. “That can’t have gone over well with Bert.”
“Bert was the least of their worries,” said Jamie. “At one point, it had gotten so bad that Samaranth himself had come to England looking for both Houdini and Doyle—and it wasn’t just to take back the Geographica. He’d heard about that business with the photographs and the fairies—which had been brought over on the Green Dragon, incidentally—and he planned to end their tenure definitively.”
A shudder passed through John as he recalled watching Samaranth do that very thing in the final battle with the Winter King. When Samaranth was holding him in a claw high above the waterfall at the Edge of the World, and after every chance for redemption was given, the evil man still struck out at the great dragon, who subsequently dropped him. John couldn’t imagine what it must have taken for Samaranth to go looking for vengeance.
“It’s never been confirmed for me by Jules or Bert,” Jamie continued, “and Arthur certainly wouldn’t speak of it, but some mishap between Doyle and Houdini is what resulted in the Winter King’s knowledge of the Geographica.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” exclaimed Charles. “How irresponsible can one be?”
“Up until that time, there were objects other than the Geographica that had been entrusted to the Caretakers,” said Jamie. “And whatever those items were, the Winter King took them and used them to facilitate the construction of a new Dragonship.”
“The Black Dragon,” Jack said with a shudder. “I know it better than I’d have liked to.”
“And that was the reason Doyle and Houdini were removed as Caretakers?”
“Mostly. One reason among many, I’m afraid. Bert was the Caretaker Principia at the time, so the responsibility was his. He took the brunt of it but managed to keep Samaranth from killing Houdini and Doyle. Jules returned briefly as the Caretaker Principia before Bert resumed the post. This was just prior to finding Stellan Sigurdsson, and then, after a succession of briefly tenured, well-intentioned replacements, I was finally enlisted as the new third Caretaker.”
“And then you quit,” declared Jack.
“I prefer to say I ‘resigned,’” Jamie said mildly. “And I do hope that you’ll take a more civil