The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [3]
“Of course,” said John, pointing to a bundle of books and papers on the rear seat. “It’s there in the middle somewhere.”
Charles’s eyes widened in shock. “Here? Out in the open?” he exclaimed. “Not locked away or anything? John, are you out of your mind? That’s, that’s…” He lowered his voice again. “That’s the Imaginarium Geographica. The single most valuable book on Earth. Don’t you think it’s a bit, ah, risky?”
“Not at all,” John said with a trace of smugness. “Take a look at the lecture on top of the pile.”
Charles adjusted his spectacles and peered more closely at the document. “It says, ‘A proposal for syllabus reform as regards the study of Ancient Icelandic.’ And the rest appear to be notes on courses in Comparative Philologies.”
He climbed into the seat next to John and gave his friend a puzzled look. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how many people, even at Oxford, would care about such things?”
“Precisely my thinking,” said John as he started up the car. “I have a hard enough time getting the undergraduates to pay any attention to Anglo-Saxon, much less Old Icelandic. What better protection for the Geographica than to bury it amongst manuscripts that no one else will care about?”
It had been nine years to the day since John and Charles had met each other in London. Nine years since they and the companion they were going to see had gone on the most extraordinary expedition of their lives.
Exceptional circumstances had brought the three young men together at the scene of a murder. The dead man, John’s mentor, Professor Sigurdsson, had been one of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica.
The Geographica was an atlas of maps of a place called the Archipelago of Dreams—a great chain of islands that had been coexisting with our own world since time began and had influenced many of the great men and women of history.
But not all of those influenced by the Archipelago were influenced for the better.
A man called the Winter King tried to use the Geographica and the knowledge found within to conquer the Archipelago. Another Caretaker, Bert, enlisted John and his two friends to travel into the Archipelago to try to stop the Winter King. And somehow, despite terrible odds, they managed to do it.
The Winter King lost, and fell to his death over the edge of an endless waterfall. A new order was established in the Archipelago, under a new king and queen. And the Geographica now had three new Caretakers: John, Charles, and the youngest of the three friends, Jack.
But there had been prices paid for their victory. Allies were lost. Mistakes were made. And although there had been a measure of redemption, there were some events that would never be far from their thoughts.
Events in the Archipelago resonate with those in our world—which was then still in the midst of World War I. John resumed his service in the military just as Jack began his. Only Charles was spared, due to his general nervous nature and age. And when finally, the war ended, they all resumed their lives as if the war, and their adventure in the Archipelago, had been imaginary aberrations, or dreams.
And perhaps John could have convinced himself that it all had been a dream, if it were not for the great leatherbound book that he still possessed. He had not had so much as a message from Bert since the old tatterdemalion had returned them to London aboard the White Dragon—one of the great living Dragonships that were able to cross the boundary between our world and the Archipelago.
At least, John mused, there hadn’t been any more murders. Or another war. He didn’t think the planet could survive a second war on the scale of the one they’d come through. But then again, much of the responsibility for those events could be attributed to the Winter King—and he had been dealt with.
John had been working in his study at Oxford when the messenger boy arrived with the note from Jack’s brother Warren that requested he come to see Jack immediately. As he was reading it,