The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [110]
Madoc brandished his right arm, which bore the tarnished hook. “It was your students whom I have to thank for this,” he said, waving the hook in the air. “And also for making me the man I am now. And that you cannot change.”
“Will you take my word of honor?” Quixote said suddenly. “My word, as a knight, that whatever it may take, we shall deliver you one of the doors?”
Madoc tipped his head back and laughed. “I might, if you were a real knight,” he said brusquely. “Go back and play your little games with windmills and shrubberies and fat, useless squires. There’s nothing for you to promise here.”
“My word then,” offered Sigurdsson. “As a Caretaker of the Imaginarium Geographica.”
“A bit more appealing, but no,” said Madoc. “Not that I doubt your sincerity, but from what I can gather you appear to be dead— and dead people have a way of living down to one’s expectations.”
“Then will you take my word?”
Rose stepped between the knight and the professor and laid a comforting hand on Madoc’s hook. He started to protest, but after a moment lowered it. Rose took his other hand in hers and looked up at him, her face serene.
“I am your daughter,” she said softly. “I am the child you never knew, who was raised by someone you claimed to love. In her name, and on her blood, which also runs in my veins, will you take my word that whatever we must do, we will somehow find a way?”
At first, as she spoke, Madoc would not meet her gaze. Then, slowly, he lifted his eyes to look at her.
“Green,” he said quietly, “flecked with violet. Her eyes were not violet.”
“But yours are, Father.”
He looked at her a moment more, then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. “Your word I will take.”
“Then we agree,” Rose said. “If you will repair the sword, we will give you one of the doors from the Keep of Time.”
PART SIX
Reign of Shadows
“Show them what it looks like when a hope is fulfilled…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Return
It was not by accident that it began in Oxford.
The darkness that began to spread over the cities of Europe covered England first, then moved east.
The Allied forces had been assured that it was all according to some greater plan—but calls to the Chancellor went unanswered, and it was no comfort to them when they received reports that their enemies’ strongholds were also being plunged into darkness.
It had been unsettling enough to receive the strange reports of ships manned by children that appeared and disappeared, mounting raids against friend and foe alike before disappearing into the mists. But this strange darkness was worse, because it had been foretold. It was worse because it was darkness with form, and with purpose.
One by one, the cities of the world were made dark by the shadows of the Dragons.
Hank Morgan watched numbly as the shadows covered Oxford, then London, and Paris, and Berlin, and Cairo, and Amsterdam, and Tokyo, and Rome, and on and on.
He returned to the Kilns in Oxford and looked around at the tumbledown wreck the cottage had become in the last seven years. Reaching behind a cupboard, he retrieved a hidden Trump and quickly began to sketch in the details of a destination he’d been told never to draw.
A few moments later he stepped through the card to Tamerlane House.
With Quixote and Archimedes’ help, Madoc soon had the forge glowing hot. He had several rough but still incredibly inventive tools, which could be attached to his hook for a multitude of uses. Once the coals were turning white with the heat, he waved off the knight and the owl and went to work.
Rose watched from the sand not far away, while Professor Sigurdsson was content to sit in the boat and read. “It’s John’s book, you know,” he said in explanation. “I’d like to finish it before the trip is over.”
Rose knew what he was avoiding saying, and she resented slightly that he was not more direct—but at the same time, she was a little bit grateful for the lie.
Quixote quickly realized that the work Madoc was doing was far