The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [56]
“Already begun!” John exclaimed. “You can’t be serious!”
One look at Bert’s face confirmed that it was true. “The war in the Summer Country has been raging for four years now,” the old traveler said, “exactly the same length of time we’ve been preparing for it here, although they may have fared the worse for it, since our war in the Archipelago has not yet begun.”
“But I thought taking Rose away from danger was supposed to stop the war from happening!”
“Stop? No,” said Chaucer. “Protecting the Grail Child was of the highest priority, and we are all grateful for your wisdom and diligence in doing so. But her survival was never meant to stop the wars—our adversary was going to see those begun regardless of the safeguards we put into place.
“Her survival was important, because it was the only way to ensure that the wars would end.”
Chaucer signaled to one of the ravens, who flew across the room and removed a book from a nearby bookcase. The raven laid it on the table and snuck a grape from one of the platters before it flew off again.
The book was roughly the size and shape of one of the Histories. The covers and binding were steel gray leather, and the pages themselves were so white as to appear cold. For leather and parchment to be so bereft of color, the book had to be ancient. More ancient than anything else the Caretakers had ever seen.
In contrast to the Geographica, which bore the Greek letter alpha on the cover, this book was embossed with an omega—the same letter Bert used as his personal emblem.
“This is the only book more dangerous than the Imaginarium Geographica,” he said, his voice heavy with responsibility. “It is filled with notations, and formulas, and stories, and even maps. But it is also as close a record as a book can be to a History of the Dragons. It has notes on the first time any dragon has ever appeared in any land, and it lists every one of their True Names. But even more importantly, it contains the prophecies that may yet save the Archipelago.
“In the past, it has been called the Telos Biblos, according to the Greek. We simply refer to it as the Last Book. It is one of a set of books—we don’t know how many. It was obtained only through great sacrifice, and it is the reason why we have come together today.”
“It was taken from the library of the first Caretaker to go rogue,” Chaucer continued. “John Dee. Very little is known about him save for rumors and whisperings, but we know that he recorded the True Names of the dragons—and he also planted the seeds for the Imperial Cartological Society, which blossomed under Burton.
“Because of this book, we know many of our enemies who were once friends. Milton. Kit Marlowe. De Bergerac. William Blake. Coleridge. Lord Byron.”
“I almost took him out of the game,” Percy Shelley commented, “if Mary hadn’t thrown the portrait into the tide pool to put out the flames.”
“What separates us from them is our belief in order,” Bert said sternly. “George Gordon, Lord Byron, was a Caretaker, and his portrait still hangs here, albeit turned over. He’ll never participate in a Gatherum, but he’ll not aid the enemy, either.”
“I knew Kit Marlowe,” put in Shakespeare. “He was quite a fair writer—for a traitor, that is.”
“The Last Book has remained here in the care of the Prime Caretaker for many years,” said Chaucer, “and through it we have learned many things about time, and space, and our own Histories. We also know that our adversaries have gleaned enough knowledge from this, and other books like it, to develop their own methods of moving in time and space, and that makes them more dangerous than ever.
“Because of this book, we know that there is going to be one last great conflict with the Winter King, but not what guise he will take. It may be his Shadow in disguise again, or Mordred himself risen from the endless deep, or both. We know that the three current Caretakers