The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [60]
“Dear Christ,” said Charles. “It did mean ‘Fall.’”
And the Indigo Dragon fell.
PART FOUR
Into the Underneath
“Hello, boy,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Croatoan
The old man waited until he could no longer hear the clicking noises that indicated his captor’s presence, and was certain that the beast-children who served him were also gone, before speaking. “It’s all right,” he said into the darkness of the cave. “They’ve all gone now.”
A pearlescent glow began to emanate from the large mirror opposite the frame where he was tied, and images that extended far deeper than the mirror should have allowed began to swirl into clarity.
Whether it depicted fog, or flame, or simply chaos swimming beneath the silvered glass, he could not tell—but eventually a single image sharpened and came into focus.
The mirror showed the head and shoulders of a woman. She was neither young nor old, but seemed to be an ideal combination of youthful beauty and mature experience. She wore a loose-fitting tunic draped low across her collarbone, and a single silver necklace. Her dark hair was pulled up in the back and fastened with silver pins.
Her eyes were deep-set and weary, and showed her to be much older than her appearance indicated. She looked at the old man and smiled.
“Hello, boy,” she said. “How do you fare?”
“I’ve had better days,” the old man admitted, “but I’ve had worse, too, so I suppose it all evens out eventually. Time will tell.”
The woman hesitated. “So—there’s been no word?”
“None,” said the old man. “But I have hope.”
“Based on what?” she said sharply. “You sent a child to seek the help of your greatest enemy. Don’t you think that’s an act of desperation?”
He laughed and shook his head. “That’s not what I did at all. I sent my granddaughter, whom I trust fully, to seek the help of a Caretaker of the Imaginarium Geographica.
“That isn’t a desperate act. That’s a plan.”
The passengers of the Indigo Dragon didn’t fall so much as they descended; they were still dropping with great speed, but it didn’t feel as if the descent were unfettered, more as if the drop through the portal were being controlled.
Even so the impact was hard, and no one was conscious enough to hear the splintering of wood as their craft struck something much more massive, flinging them to and fro, and came to a stop.
It may have taken minutes or hours for the companions to awaken in the diffused light of the Underneath. But when they awoke, they might as well have imagined themselves to be near any common seashore in their own world. The shore was sixty or seventy feet below what they’d actually landed on: a great wall of wrecked, rotting, moldering ships. Hundreds of them, of every make and vintage, stretching away far into the distance; ships with names like the USS Cyclops and the HMS Rosalie and the Spray of Boston.
The companions all began to collect their wits, taking stock of the unusual scene they’d landed in. The sails (on the ships that had used them) had mostly rotted in the sea air, leaving a neglected field of masts pointing skyward, awaiting a harvesting that would never come. There were rafts and dinghies; pirate ships and tugboats; gondolas and even a Chinese junk. There were also other ships: great gray metal behemoths that were unrecognizable to them. And there were a number of aircraft as well, although many of these were also of an unfamiliar make.
Below the wall of ships was a narrow, sandy beach that was broken by shallow inlets ringed in a reddish stone. A short distance behind that was the tree line of a thick, old pine forest, and birdcalls could be heard coming from somewhere within.
A few hundred yards above them, where the Indigo Dragon must have fallen through the portal, was a vortex of water that receded upward as they watched. In seconds it dissipated into vapor and mist, as if it had never been there.
There was a yellowish light, but there was no sun.
And there was no sign of the Indigo Dragon.
John was quick to come fully awake and alert, and he did a brief head count. Charles