The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [46]
“What are you looking at, Jack?” she asked. “You’ve been staring at the water since we got here.”
“Look at this,” Jack said, waving her over without taking his eyes off the sea below. “There, just below us, see? That dark impression in the water? Could it be some sort of submarine, like the Yellow Dragon?”
Aven squinted and peered down to where Jack was pointing. “It’s not a ship—it’s a shadow. See, where the airship is casting a similar shadow on the water, and how it changes position with the light?”
“Huh,” said Jack. “Whatever’s casting that is a great deal bigger than the Indigo…”
Jack stopped and swallowed hard. He and Aven looked at each other as a sudden realization occurred to them. Then, together, they looked straight up.
“Oh, shades,” said Jack.
Charles was just starting to collect himself when Jack and Aven rejoined the others. They were both grinning like Cheshire cats.
“What?” said John. “What are you two smiling about?”
“Good news,” announced Jack. “Charles didn’t destroy the tower after all.”
“Not all of it, anyway,” said Aven.
“I’m confused,” said Bert.
As if on cue, the Indigo Dragon circled around to a point opposite the island and the risen sun—and the broken shadow that split the sea to the northern horizon fell across the airship.
The companions and crew all looked upward and saw what was casting the shadow.
High above them, like a great gray comet frozen in its descent to Earth, was the Keep of Time.
“Oh, thank God,” said Charles.
As the airship began to ascend, it occurred to the companions more than once that what they were attempting would have been impossible with any of the other Dragonships—including the original Indigo Dragon.
In terms of distance, the tower was only perhaps two miles above them. But if that measurement were applied to the portion of the keep that had been consumed by fire, then it represented thousands, perhaps even millions of years of history.
The Indigo Dragon approached the lower part of the floating tower and confirmed their supposition. It was jagged and charred, and the damage rose several hundred feet higher, then stopped. At some point, something had stayed the advance of the flames, but the damage done was inconceivable.
Aven guided the ship higher, to a point considerably past the charred portions, and at Bert’s direction threw an anchor line through one of the windows that opened into the stairway. Once secured, they maneuvered close enough to tether a rope ladder fashioned from the old ship’s riggings (“We kept some of it out of nostalgia, you know,” said Bert), and one by one they began to climb across.
Inside, the keep was exactly as they remembered it, save for the haze that obscured what remained of the lower levels.
“Watch your step,” Bert warned. “Wouldn’t be advisable to slip off the stairs.”
“You’re a master of the obvious,” said Jack.
“You’re the Caretaker Principia,” Aven said to John. “Lead on.”
Together, the companions began to climb.
It took sustained climbing for most of the day to reach the uppermost doors. The tower was silent except for an occasional rumbling noise that emanated from below.
“Forgive the sentiment,” said Charles, panting slightly, “but I almost wish the fire had burned up more of the place, so we wouldn’t have quite so far to walk.”
“I’m with Charles,” said Jack. “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just fly the ship higher and enter a window closer to the Cartographer’s room.”
“Because,” Bert said, “the Keep of Time is also a judge of character. Remember how the last time the descent seemed to take less time than the climb up? That’s because it did. And do you recall the door we stepped through for our escape?”
“Right,” said John. “When we went through, it opened up down below only an hour earlier from when we’d entered.”
“It took us where and when we needed to go,” Bert affirmed, “because we earned it by our efforts. We could have flown higher, true—but I suspect it would not have shortened the distance we needed to climb.”
As if on cue, the ceiling seemed suddenly closer, the stairway