The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [2]
Prologue
It might be said that a mystery is simply a secret to which no one knows the answer. The answers to some mysteries may have been known, once, and then were lost as the centuries passed. But there are other secrets that are so ancient that the truth of them is impossible to discover, and they must forever remain mysteries.
No one living or dead knew the identity of the Architect of the Keep of Time.
Before Atlantis, before Ur, before any stone of any city was erected upon the Earth in the Summer Country or in the Archipelago of Dreams, the keep had stood.
The Earth was a wilder place in those early days, before the rise of man. Magic and myth mingled freely with history as all manner of creatures tried to make sense of the world around them. Some were more advanced than others, and they took it upon themselves to shape, and to organize, and to look after the welfare of the races that were developing on this young world.
Theirs was the first city, built when there was no division between the worlds, and no need for one. Their sense of wonder was unlimited, for they had no understanding at all of fear. All they knew was discovery, and challenge, and how to overcome. And so they continued to build and to explore and to expand their knowledge.
These creatures soon took note of the keep and realized that it was an anchor against the tides of time that otherwise might have ripped the world asunder. Why it was built, and who had built it, they did not know. But they chose to guard it, and they knew they could learn from it and use it to create a better world.
One among them, the eldest, discovered how to harness the flow of time by fashioning doors and fitting them into the openings that appeared throughout the ever-growing tower. This discovery came none too soon, for a new element had come into the world that threatened the destruction of all that was.
In the guise of a seeker of knowledge from the future, evil had come to their world—and slowly but surely, it was becoming stronger. In time, it would be too strong to resist.
A great council was held among the guardians of the keep to determine how they might avoid the cataclysm that seemed so inevitable, and again, it was the eldest among them who discovered the solution— but it would not be a solution without sacrifice.
Their beloved city would not survive. It would fall. And they themselves would have to accept a new calling—promotions to a new rank that would be permanent, because they would never again be able to lower their guard if the world itself was to survive.
The eldest was first to take the mantle of this new responsibility, then in turn, each of his companions, until all of them had done so. And then each of them chose a door.
To protect the future, they realized that they must also protect the past—and so one by one, they entered the doors of the Keep of Time, until there was no point in the past that did not have, somewhere behind it, its guardian.
The last of them remained behind, watching, waiting, until one among the new races could produce a king worthy of becoming a guardian himself. Only then could he rest, and lay down the seemingly eternal burden.
The world did change; empires rose and fell. Only the keep remained as it was. The great mystery of the Architect’s identity might never see an answer; and the secrets of the keep that were known were closely held.
But even so, only two things were sure: first, that to walk through a door was to cross over from the present to some point in the past; and second, that somewhere on the other side, there would be a Dragon.
THE SHADOW
DRAGONS
PART ONE
Inklings and Mysteries
… a man was standing as if he were waiting …
CHAPTER ONE
Ransom
“We are definitely lost,