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  Here, There Be Dragons

  ( The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica - 1 )

  James A. Owen

  An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica -- an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.

  Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds. And in the process, they will share a great adventure filled with clues that lead readers to the surprise revelation of the legendary storytellers these men will one day become.

  An extraordinary journey of myth, magic, and mystery, Here, There Be Dragons introduces James A. Owen as a formidable new talent.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by James A. Owen

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  S IMON & S CHUSTER B OOKS FOR Y OUNG READERS is a trademark of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Book design by Christopher Grassi and James A. Owen

  The text for this book is set in Adobe Jansen Pro.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in pencil, pen and ink, and much good labor.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Owen, James A.

  Here, there be dragons / James A. Owen.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Three young men are entrusted with the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of fantastical places to which they travel in hopes of defeating the Winter

  King whose bid for power is related to the First World War raging in the Real World.

  ISBN: 1-4169-5137-7

  note 1 I. Title.

  PZ7.O97124He 2006

  note 2—dc22

  2005030486

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For nathaniel

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Part One: The Imaginarium Geographica

  Chapter One:

  The Adventure Begins

  Chapter Two:

  An Unusual Tale

  Chapter Three:

  Flight to the Harbor

  Chapter Four:

  Avalon

  Part Two: The Archipelago of Dreams

  Chapter Five:

  The Corsair

  Chapter Six:

  The Tick-Tock Parliament

  Chapter Seven:

  The Forbidden Path

  Chapter Eight:

  An Invitation to Tea

  Part Three: The Children of the Earth

  Chapter Nine:

  Into the Shadows

  Chapter Ten:

  Marooned

  Chapter Eleven:

  The Shipbuilder

  Chapter Twelve:

  The White Dragon

  Part Four: In the Keep of Time

  Chapter Thirteen:

  The Tower

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Night Passage

  Chapter Fifteen:

  The Cartographer of Lost Places

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Fire and Flight

  Part Five: The Island at the Edge of the World

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Hope and Despair

  Chapter Eighteen:

  The Final Battle

  Chapter Nineteen:

  The Circle of Stones

  Chapter Twenty:

  The Return of the Dragons

  Part Six: The Summer Country

  Chapter Twenty-one:

  The High King

  Chapter Twenty-two:

  All Their Roads Before Them

  Chapter Twenty-three:

  Into the Shadowed Lands

  Chapter Twenty-four:

  The Return to London

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  List of Illustrations

  “There’s a very strange man outside,” said Jack.

  “I trust you can take it from here, correct?”

  “The Indigo Dragon,” Bert said proudly. “My ship.”

  The statue was wrapped in vines and overgrowth.

  “…it seems I have a battle to fight.”

  …the members of the Parliament filed in and took their seats.

  “Quickly!” Tummeler shouted. “Master scowlers! Get in, get in!”

  “Will you drink with me? Or do you want to plunder, and die?”

  “Arm yourselves, and prepare to be boarded.”

  “I know all of the Children of the Earth.”

  “My sons…came across a small, badly battered boat.”.

  “Where’s Magwich?”

  “Look,” Artus said, pointing. “On the island. That tower…

  “John, my dear boy. Please, come inside.” .

  “If you’re here about the annotations, you’re early.”

  …the Winter King had been searching for them after all

  “I greet you also, my friend the Far Traveler.”

  “They will attack within the hour,” Charys said

  “That’s the place,” said John “I’m certain of it.”

  “John,” said Artus breathlessly, “those aren’t stars”

  “I still intend to have my victory here and now.”.

  “The dragons have returned whether or not we stay is up to you.”.

  …a throng of people—hooded, gray as death…

  …twinkling in friendly greeting, the lights of London began to appear

  Acknowledgments

  Here, There Be Dragons began its life as an uncompleted ten-page outline, which was my last presentation to the last producer I met on an interminably long trip to Hollywood. It was that producer who worked with me to shape the story over the next few months, and who, in November of 2004, suggested that we begin approaching publishers. The book you are holding would not exist if it were not for the interest, advice, and encouragement of Marc Rosen, and the support of David Heyman.

  My home team at the Coppervale Studio, Jeremy, Lon, and Mary, were invaluable in assisting me with layouts, backgrounds, commentary, and various forms of moral and medicinal support as I worked on the illustrations. They’re all better at their jobs than they know they are.

  Craig Emanuel, my rock of an attorney, gave me to Ellen, Julie, and Lindsay, my managers at the Gotham Group, who took all of a second to “get” the story, not much longer to sell it, and a great deal much longer holding me up while I finished writing it.

  My editors at Simon & Schuster, David and Alexandra, taught me what editors are for, and made me look good, and smarter than I am. My art director, Lizzy, reminded me how fun collaborating can be and made the book look wonderf
ul. And my publisher, Rick, made a publishing deal feel more like an invitation to a family reunion.

  Kai Meyer, who as a fan of my comics work was the first to ask if I’d like to write something in prose, along with his colleagues Frank, Hannes, and Sara, are the reasons I had the experience and confidence to write this book. My mother Sharon and wife Cindy are the ones who offered understanding, support, and sympathy when I decided to illustrate it, too.

  And finally, in the most unlikely pairing I can think of, I want to thank my daughter Sophie and my friend Dave Sim, the former with drawings and the latter with twenty-year-old essays, for reminding me that I love what I do.

  You all have my gratitude and sincere thanks.

  Prologue

  It was a very distinct sound, the quiet scraping of steel on stone, that first told him that his visitors had arrived, followed by a strange sort of tapping and the shuffling of feet.

  The tapping outside in the alleyway became more pronounced, and he suddenly realized it was less the sound of tapping than it was a soft cacophony of claws, snapping together in anticipation. He set aside his pen and notebook and settled back in his chair. There was no denying it. It was time.

  The strained amber light of an English afternoon streamed through the greasy windows of the door as it slowly opened into the study.

  He refilled his pipe with his special cinnamon tobacco mix and noted with passing interest that clouds were beginning to gather on the far horizon.

  A storm was coming.

  It didn’t matter, he thought to himself with some satisfaction. He had said the things he needed to say to the person who needed to hear them. He had protected that precious stewardship that needed protecting, and passed it to those who would use it wisely and well.

  There was, he concluded, not much more that could be asked of an old scholar, in this world, in this lifetime.

  The silhouette in the doorway gestured to him, and he caught a glimpse of wickedly sharp steel, which curved to a point, as the visitor’s arm rose and fell. The clicking noises in the alley grew louder.

  “Greetings, Professor,” the shadowy figure said. “Might I have a word with you?”

  “It’s not here,” the professor said, lighting his pipe and drawing deeply on it. “You’re too late.”

  His visitor appraised him for a moment before concluding that the professor was speaking the truth. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said. “That does not bode well for you.”

  The professor shrugged. “What happens to me is no longer important. You may claim my life, but I’ve put an empire forever out of your reach—and when all is said and done, which of the two matters more?”

  The visitor gestured again, and the tapping noises outside gave way to snarls and animal howling.

  There was a rush of bodies, and in seconds the small study was filled with ancient steel, and pain, and blood.

  When the noises again faded to silence, the visitors left the study as they had found it, with one exception.

  It would be several hours before the first raindrops from the approaching storm would begin to freckle the paving stones in the street, but the professor would not see them fall.

  Part One

  The Imagination Geographica

  “There’s a very strange man outside,” said Jack.

  Chapter One

  The Adventure Begins

  The slim,cream-colored note may just as well have been inserted into a bottle and tossed into the ocean rather than sent by post, for by the time John received it, the professor was already dead.

  For perhaps the hundredth time, John took the note out of his pocket.

  My Dear John,

  Please make all haste to London. There is much, too much I’m afraid, that should have been explained to you well before now. I only pray that this letter finds you well enough to travel, and that you will bear me no ill will for what is to come. I do not know if you are ready, and that is my own burden to bear. But I believe you are able, and mayhap that is enough. I hope it is.

  Professor Sigurdsson

  The letter had been dated a week earlier, the ninth of March, 1917, and had reached him at the hospital in Great Haywood the day before. John cabled a reply to his mentor, requested a temporary leave, dispatched a note to his wife of less than a year at their home in Oxford, explaining that he would be absent for perhaps several days, and immediately arranged passage to London.

  It was the messenger who delivered the cable who found that a murder had occurred and notified the police. John knew without asking that the officer waiting at the platform in London was there to speak with him, and why.

  The train from Staffordshire had run late, but this was not unexpected, nor was it any longer even an inconvenience. It was simply one of the erosions of normality that came with a constant state of war.

  John had been on leave from the Second Battalion for several months now, since before the holidays. To the doctors, he had pyrexia; it was “trench fever” to the enlisted men. In simpler parlance, his body had grown weary of the war and manifested its protest with a general weakness of the limbs and a constant fever.

  On the train John fell immediately asleep, and his fever coalesced into a dream of a mountain of fire, spewing hot ash and lava into the trenches of the French countryside, consuming his comrades as they held fast against the German offensive. John watched in horror as those who fled the trenches were cut down by gunfire. Those who remained, crouched in fear, were swallowed up, the sons of England become children of Pompeii as they died in flame and smoke….

  He awoke to the shrill whistle of the train, signaling their arrival at the station in London. He was flushed and sweating and looked for all the world to the awaiting constable as if he was complicit in the murder of the man he had come to see. John wiped his brow with a kerchief, shouldered his backpack out of the luggage racks, and stepped off the train.

  His arrival, and his subsequent departure with the policeman, were noted by no less than four individuals, mingling invisibly within the crowds exchanging places between the platform and the trains. Three of them were cloaked and walked a bit awkwardly, due to the inverted joint in their lower legs that made them walk as if they were dogs, striding upright on two legs.

  Exactly as if they were dogs.

  The strange figures disappeared into the throng to report what they had seen to their master. The fourth, which had been sitting alongside John on the train, slipped out of the station and turned down the street taken minutes before by the constable and the young soldier from Staffordshire.

  “I’m just saying that there are a number of uses for an English night far superior to investigating a murder,” said the inspector in charge of the murder scene, a stout, affable fellow called Clowes. “You can bet the killer, whoever he may be, isn’t out traipsing about in this muck. No, he’s home by now, having done his business for the day, warming his toes by the hearth and sipping a nice mulled brandy, while I have to be out here on the verge of catching my death….”

  Clowes caught himself mid-complaint and gestured in apology. “Not that talking with you lot is all that bad, mind you. Circumstances.”

  It took John a few moments to realize that he was not the only one being interviewed that evening about the professor’s murder. For the first time, he noticed the other two cuckoos, shivering, nodding at the questioning police, wondering how they’d come to be in this particular dreadful nest.

  Shaking hands, they introduced themselves. The younger one, called Jack, was straw-haired and fidgety; the older, Charles, was bespectacled and efficient. He was answering the constable’s queries as if he were tallying an account at Barclays. “Yes. I arrived in London promptly at four forty. No, I did not vary from my planned agenda. Yes, I realized he was dead right away.”

  “And your reason for the visit?” asked Clowes.

  “Delivery of a manuscript,” said Charles. “I’m employed as an editor at the Oxford University Press, and Professor Si
gurdsson was to add annotations to one of our publications.”

  “Really?” said Jack. “I’ve just been accepted there.”

  “Well done, Jack,” said Charles.

  “Thanks,” said Jack.

  “So, boy,” said Clowes. “Your name is Jack, is it?”

  “Yes sir,” Jack said, nodding.

  “Ah. Not the Jack from up Whitechapel way, are you?” asked Clowes.

  “No,” Jack replied before he had time to realize that the inspector was making a joke. “Oxford.”

  “Two of you at Oxford, eh?” said Clowes. “That’s an interesting coincidence.”

  “Not coincidence,” said Charles. “Selective association is a privilege, not a right.”

  “I’m a Cambridge man myself,” said Clowes.

  “Oh, uh, sorry,” stammered Charles.

  “Never actually did go to university myself, mind you,” Clowes said to John behind his hand. “But he looked like I’d seen him in the Queen’s knickers, didn’t he? By the way—where are you from, ah, John, is it?”

  “Birmingham, although I’m billeted at the hospital in Great Hayward at present.”

  This was not entirely correct, but John thought that pointing out that all three of them were actually from Oxford might not make his evening any easier, nor theirs, for that matter.

  There was a certain kind of brotherhood that arose from the shared experiences of warfare, particularly among young men who had shared a trench for a fortnight. It was a different kind of fraternal experience to have been brought together as strangers, who otherwise had very little in common, united only by a murder.

  “Never met him,” Jack said of his affiliation to the corpse. “In fact, I had just arrived here in London for the evening, to deliver papers for a solicitor in Kent.”

  The inspector blinked, then blinked again and turned to Charles.

  “My story is not much different from his, I’m afraid,” Charles said, adjusting his glasses. “I was only here on university business.”

  “That leaves you, John,” said Clowes. “I suppose you didn’t know him either.”

  “No,” said John. “I knew him quite well. He was my tutor.”