The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [4]
That was five years ago, and other than a few flurries that necessitated the counsel of the Caretakers—usually just John— there had been no reason to return to the Archipelago. The rogue Caretakers, led by the adventurer Richard Burton, had remained hidden, and there was no sign of the Winter King’s Shadow. There were still difficult problems to deal with: The Keep of Time, where the Cartographer resided, had been crumbling apart since their first trip to the Archipelago; and the king, Artus, had tried to replace the monarchy with a republic, to only limited success. But the years of the Great War were far behind them, and all was right enough with the worlds here and beyond to set aside duty and responsibilities for a few hours to better enjoy a pleasant spring walk in the English countryside.
“It’s a shame that Hugo could not join us,” Jack said. “We’ve had too few occasions as of late to catch up with him.”
“Uncle Hugo wanted to be here,” came a voice from somewhere above them, “but he had some obligations to attend to in Reading that could not be delegated elsewhere. He sent me along anyway, because he knew you needed to discuss the Problem.”
Rose Dyson dropped down from the birch tree she’d been climbing and dusted herself off, then moved to stand next to Jack.
The “Problem” she referred to was evident to all three Caretakers. When she returned with them to the present from the sixth century, she was barely an adolescent. Tall, perhaps, but the auburn-haired Rose was still obviously a child—and that was, as Hugo put it, the “Problem.”
He had placed her in a boardinghouse near his teaching post in Reading, where she was enrolled in school as his niece. And over the course of five years, she had not visibly aged a day.
“It’s a natural law without a demonstrable basis,” Bert had told them once. “Denizens of the Archipelago age more slowly than we do in the Summer Country. Days and nights are the same as those here, but they’re often out of sync.”
This much they had witnessed for themselves on numerous occasions. Night in Oxford turned to day upon crossing the Frontier, and vice versa. And once, even the seasons had been reversed: Jack had traveled from Oxford in late summer, only to find the Archipelago in the grip of a terrible winter. So it wasn’t just a matter of slight temporal differences—there were rules of time at work between the worlds that no one had as yet been able to decipher.
“Is the fact that she was born there, and brought here, the reason she hasn’t aged?” Jack proposed.
“Not necessarily,” offered Charles. “She hadn’t aged normally on Avalon, either. But given her peculiar lineage, there may be no precedent for the kind of person she’ll become.”
“I’m a conundrum,” Rose said from a few feet up the path, where she was using a branch to lever up a large stone. “Or an enigma. I forget which.”
John nodded in agreement. “That’s for certain. I’ve been thinking of contacting Aven and Artus about continuing her schooling on Paralon. At least there she’ll not be questioned, no matter her age.”
“Plus, she’s family,” said Jack. “She and Arthur were cousins, so that would make her an aunt, or second cousin, or some such.”
“Twenty generations removed,” added Charles.
“All of which doesn’t change the fact that you’ve managed to get yourselves lost,” came an irritated voice from above. “Of course, I know exactly where we are.”
John rolled his eyes. “Of course,” he said drolly, looking sideways at the others. “Having him up there is like having a conscience that won’t shut up and won’t take suggestions.”
Complicating matters further was the other teacher the companions had brought forward from the past as a companion for Rose—the great owl Archimedes. That he was in fact a clockwork construct was the least of the problems he caused Hugo