The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [77]
John flew to the window. “Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do,” he said to the other Caretakers. “It seems the Dragonships have come to the Nameless Isles.”
“Which ones?” asked Twain.
John pursed his lips. “All of them.”
It took the rest of the day to receive the new arrivals, which was still extremely expedient, considering Tamerlane House had never had so many guests at once.
The flight from Paralon had happened quickly, and so the only provisions the refugees had were what they had had onboard the ships. Bert, Twain, Defoe, Hawthorne, and John took charge of assigning quarters to the newcomers, and the other Caretakers began converting the conservatory into a war room. A meeting of the king and queen, the ship captains, and the Caretakers would have to be held as soon as possible.
Charles, on the other hand, had a plan of his own—which Jack was only too eager to share in. At present, there were at least three conversations Jack had managed to avoid on the trip to the Nameless Isles, and if he could delay them longer still, all the better.
“You heard about the book?” Charles asked as he, Jack, and Fred walked to the Pygmalion Gallery.
“Yes,” said Jack. “We keep ending up one step behind! I wonder if Kipling had something to do with it?”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“What would be helpful is if we knew where Kipling went,” said Jack. “I can’t get past the feeling that if we’d said something when we got here, we might be a lot further along.” He opened the doors to the gallery, and the three of them walked in.
“I wonder if they’ll keep his picture here now that his portrait is just a landscape?” asked Charles.
“I think we ought to just burn it,” Jack said irritably. “He won’t be returning to Tamerlane House now that we know what he is, so there’s no further use for the painting.”
“Maybe there is,” said Charles, running his hand across his head. “I have a strange idea, but I believe it will work.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack.
“We’re going to try taking this battle to the Chancellor’s doorstep,” Charles called back as he took the stairs two and three at a bound. “Fred, find Bert and bring him upstairs to the atelier. Jack, find Ransom, and bring him up as well. We need to talk to Basil Hallward.”
“It is possible,” Ransom mused after Charles had explained what he proposed to do. “Difficult, perhaps. But not impossible. What do you think, Basil?”
Hallward shrugged and chewed on the end of a brush. “It was a different painting,” he said. “When I created Kipling’s portrait, it was different.”
“So he had to have already been liberated from the real portrait beforehand,” said Charles, “and when Bert thought he was bringing him out, he was really just stepping through the Trump. It’s quite ingenious.”
“Remind me to be impressed later,” said Jack. “My question is, can you duplicate the painting as a Trump for us?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Hallward. “The only real criteria is that it has to be a real place, somewhere, and I have to know exactly what it looks like. And this place must exist, or else he couldn’t have gone through.”
“And if he can,” said Bert, “what then?”
“If we have a Trump,” said Charles, “Fred and I can go through and discover where their base of operations is. At present, they don’t know where we are, and we don’t know where they are. I’d like to shift the balance in our favor.”
Bert considered this a moment, then nodded. “Just one thing,” he said sternly, “no adventuring. Reconnaissance only. Learn what you can and come back. But don’t take any risks.”
“Fair enough,” said Charles.
Together the group of men and the badger went into the Pygmalion Gallery, where Hallward set up a makeshift easel in front of Kipling’s picture.
Ransom gave Hallward one of the blank Trumps, and slowly, carefully, the artist duplicated the scene depicted on Kipling’s portrait. “That should do it,” said Hallward. “It’s already dry, if you’d like to give it a whirl.”
Charles held the Trump up in front of him and concentrated on the picture. Slowly it began to expand, and in moments