The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [65]
The tribe took little notice of most of the companions—as if marching a group of prisoners through the village were an everyday occurrence—but every villager they passed took special notice of Laura Glue.
This didn’t go unseen by the girl, and she gripped Aven’s hand all the tighter.
In the center of the village was a great circle of stones, like low altars, and adjacent to each stone was a fire that had been stoked to blazing.
As they approached, Bert couldn’t contain the sigh of relief that escaped his lips.
In the center of the firelight was the Indigo Dragon. Not the entire ship—but the living masthead.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Bert. “At least they rescued her.”
“Rescued?” said Burton. “Hardly. The Indigo Dragon was our first prisoner. We just went back for the rest of you.”
“How did you know she’s called the Indigo Dragon?” asked John.
Burton tipped his head at Bert. “Ask him. I’m sure he knows who I am.”
Bert glared at their adversary, which was a surprise to John—Bert hardly ever glared at anybody.
“You’ve all heard of him, I believe,” Bert told the others, “or at least have a passing familiarity with his writings. What you don’t know is that Charles Dickens chose him as an apprentice caretaker, with Nemo’s blessing. But it didn’t work out, and he was dismissed.”
“Was that before or after Magwich?” asked Charles.
“Does it matter?” said Jack.
“Good point,” said Charles.
“He faked his own death and disappeared,” Bert informed them. “No one expected to hear from him again.”
“A fair enough assessment,” said Burton. “I had made a fortune with my books and decided to create a new future for myself in the Archipelago of Dreams. I had been here again for only a short while when I became caught up in a terrible storm. When it finally passed, I found myself here, and my ship was destroyed. The Croatoans nursed me back to health, and as payment, I let them make me their leader.”
The companions’ heads were spinning with a thousand questions, but as usual, it was Aven who returned them to the matters at hand.
“I’m glad you rescued the Indigo Dragon,” she said, “but what of her crew? There were more than twenty fauns aboard. Were any of them injured?”
“Not to begin with,” Burton replied. “But they put up much more of a fight than you lot did.”
“And so you killed them?” Aven exclaimed. “What a waste of life.”
“Oh, they weren’t wasted,” Burton said. “In fact, they were delicious.”
The companions were speechless with shock—except for Aven.
“Barbarian!” she exclaimed. “You’re no better than a Wendigo!”
“Rightly so,” said Burton. “We men of the West have always been more barbaric than our counterparts in the East. How much more so might we be, now that we’re in the westernmost lands that exist?”
Near the ring of stone and fire was a large structure that appeared to be the central meetinghouse for the Croatoans. The companions were allowed to sit on mats that were laid along the center of the building, and they took in their strange surroundings.
The walls were lined with great carved chairs like the British Parliament, and the room was brightly lit with torches that were Norse, according to John. The mats on which they sat were Persian, as were the tapestries adorning the walls and draped over the chairs.
Burton took his place on a pedestal at the far end, and other officious-looking members of the Croatoans filed in and took the rest of the seats.
With pomp and flourish, Burton introduced the members of the Indian council as they entered. It was slightly disconcerting to the companions to see men dressed so strangely, and speaking in unusual tongues, introduced as Murthwaite and Kelso and Jiggs and Barnaby. There were more traditional Indian names as well, often attached to European ones, in an unusual but nearly seamless marriage of cultures.
“This is almost a textbook model of cultural democracy,” whispered Jack. “I’d love to do an actual case study on how they came to implement it.