The Dragons of Winter Page 22

  “If we’re somewhere in Greece,” asked Edmund, “where would we go to find the keep if we did look?”

  “In this era,” Bert said, turning to look at the ocean, “it would be . . .”

  His voice trailed off as his jaw dropped. The others looked out over the water and were similarly shocked by what they saw.

  Far in the distance, with the bearing of thunderclouds, and the slow, steady movement of tectonic plates, giants were striding through the ocean. They were pulling islands behind them by great chains, much like the ones the companions had seen circling the Earth in the ancient future.

  These were the giants of old, not the misshapen, mythological creatures. These were Titans, and they were awesome to behold.

  “What are they?” Edmund asked, his voice trembling with awe.

  “The Corinthian Giants, of course,” a voice said as they gawped. “They are almost finished here, and will soon move on to other climes.”

  It was a woman, tall and regal, and speaking with the bearing and manner of a queen. She was dressed in a simple tunic, but her belt and jewelry were equal to the cost of entire cities.

  She was speaking in ancient Greek, which Rose understood easily, and Charles less so. Bert and Edmund would have been completely out of luck—but somehow they understood her.

  “What are they doing?” Edmund said, motioning to the giants.

  She seemed taken aback by the question, as if she expected they would already know. “They are taking the rest of the lands through the Frontier and into the Archipelago, as was agreed at the—” She stopped and examined them more closely. “You are not the Watchers. And you are not of Corinth. Who are you?”

  Edmund was the most startled to be spoken to in Greek and to realize he understood it completely, being the companion with the least amount of experience with magic. “How is it that I can understand your words?” he exclaimed in openmouthed astonishment. “Or that you can understand mine?”

  “A minor incantation,” the woman said haughtily, “and if you do not know even that much of me, then it is a waste of my time to be conversing with you at all.”

  “We beg your pardon,” Rose said. “We are strangers to your land, and meant no offense.” As she spoke, she bowed deeply and took one knee to the sand—a gesture of deference and respect. As she did so, the woman noticed Rose’s bracelets, which her grandfather had given to her. They were golden, ornate, and the mark of royalty. Not something worn by someone bowing to a stranger.

  The woman took a step backward. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Has my husband sent you? I have broken no laws. My children are my own, and if I choose to hide them among the islands of the Archipelago, it is my own business. He will wander an eternity before he sees them again.”

  “By Zeus,” Bert whispered to Edmund and Charles. “She means Jason! This is Medea!”

  “And the sons she is talking about are William and Hugh,” Charles whispered back.

  “That’s terrible!” whispered Bert, remembering the wraith that Jason became after searching for his lost sons. “If there was ever a man who needed a hand, it’s him.”

  “But we have the Geographica!” Charles exclaimed. “We can take him right to the island where she abandoned their sons!”

  “At what risk?” Bert said with a touch of surprise. “We could irrevocably damage the future in the process.”

  “Haven’t you already done that?” asked Edmund. “The Archipelago has already been swept away. Can anything we do here really make it worse?”

  “The Archipelago is not what I’m worried about,” Bert replied, casting a glance at Medea, who was still conversing with Rose. “In this time, the Summer Country is still very much connected to the Archipelago. And everything that has happened, did happen. Every moment that we spend here risks derailing that, and possibly changing our futures.”

  “When the rest of the islands of the Mediterranean are taken across,” Medea was saying in answer to something Rose had asked, “then the Corinthian Giants will return for Autunno—this island.

  “The last remnant of old Atlantis, the Silver Throne, sits in my temple,” she said, “and when Autunno is taken through the Frontier, it will be the seat of power of both worlds.”

  Bert and Charles looked at each other, confused. The Archipelago was not built overnight—they knew that much from the old shipbuilder, Ordo Maas. It had taken centuries. But this was the first they had ever heard about Medea becoming Queen of the Silver Throne.

  “Begging your pardon,” said Bert, “but you are Queen Medea, are you not?”

  She tilted her head slightly in acknowledgment. “I am. Since the death of my father, Aeetes, I have become queen of Corinth.”

  “And what of your husband, Jason?”

  Her face darkened. “My husband is . . . occupied elsewhere. I don’t expect that he shall return soon, if at all.”

  “A queen should not be walking thus, unattended and alone,” said Rose. This was closer to her own era, Bert knew, so the mannerisms and proper courtesy to royal blood came more easily to her.

  “My chariot was damaged crossing the Frontier,” Medea answered. “Only one of my Dragons chose to attend me after . . . a dispute with my husband. And her strength was insufficient to weather the storms as smoothly as with both. One of my shipbuilders is down the beach,” she said, pointing, “but I fear it’s beyond his skill to repair.

  “A shame to have to have him killed,” she added. “He did build good ships.”

  “The chariot,” Bert murmured to the others. “That’s how it was done, before Ordo Maas built the Dragonships. The Dragons personally escorted Jason and Medea to the Archipelago, through the Frontier.”

  “I have experience at a forge,” Edmund said bluntly. “I could effect the repairs your chariot requires.”

  Medea’s eyes brightened for a moment, then dimmed in distrust. “At what cost?”

  “A boon,” Edmund said evenly. “I shall do you this service, and you’ll owe me one in return.”

  She shook her head. “That’s too high a price,” she said haughtily, tossing her head and folding her arms. “Still . . .” She thought a moment, glancing now and again at Rose’s bracelets.

  “Agreed,” she said finally—to Rose, not Edmund. “But if your servant is unable to fix it to my liking, then you and all your servants will stay on Autunno to serve me, until I choose to release you.”

  Rose bowed. “We have a bargain.”

  Medea turned and strode down the beach. Quickly the companions gathered their things and followed her.

  “You’re not offended to be called ‘servants’?” Rose asked her companions, smiling.

  “I’ve been there before,” Charles replied. “I’m just happy she didn’t call me ‘Third.’”

  The stables were well-appointed and had all the materials necessary for Edmund to reshape Medea’s chariot.

  “I can do this,” he whispered to Rose, “but just the same, I’d give almost anything to have your father with us for the next few hours.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Rose reassured him, “and for what it’s worth, so would I.”

  “I didn’t know he’d been trained as a blacksmith,” Charles remarked. “I thought he came from a line of silversmiths.”

  “He wasn’t trained by a smithy,” Rose said, grinning. “He was trained by a scientist—Dr. Franklin. That may not mean much in twentieth-century Oxford, but in ancient Greece, it makes him a Magic Man.”

  The young Cartographer set to work, and in short order had restructured the chariot to be pulled by a single creature instead of two.

  “You did that rather easily, and quickly,” Medea said as she looked over his handiwork. “Impressive. Perhaps too impressive. I think that maybe I bargained too quickly, Master Smith.”

  “I said I could do it, and I have done it,” he replied, wiping his brow with a cloth.

  “And far more quickly than that fool Argus,” she said. “If I’d left him to it,
he’d have taken a week, and the wheels would still rattle.”

  “Your shipbuilder’s name is Argus?” Edmund asked, as casually as he could manage. “As in, the man who built the Argo for Jason and the Argonauts?”

  “Yes,” she said, face darkening. “Why?”

  He set the cloth aside. “That is the boon I ask. Spare his life.”

  “What are you doing?” Rose whispered.

  “I know what she did to her sons,” Edmund whispered back. “She’s a really horrible person, and so I asked for the one thing I know will twist her in knots to grant me.”

  Rose was surprised by Edmund’s request, but nonetheless nodded her agreement. “That is our request,” she said to the queen. “Spare the shipbuilder Argus.”

  “A boon is a boon,” said Medea, “but this is more. This is blood. By what right do you ask a life-boon?”

  Rose glanced back at Edmund, who folded his arms defiantly. “By right of blood—blood ties of family, great-grandmother,” she said softly, her voice low and cool, but with a trace of menace nonetheless. “A bond that cannot be taken, only given.”

  Medea did not understand what she meant by these words—and had no way of knowing that Rose was descended from the bloodline of the Argonauts. But it was Edmund’s handiwork on the chariot that gave her pause. This youth was no mere servant. He was clearly a Maker—and thus, not to be trifled with. That the young woman who bore the ornament of royalty also claimed a blood-bond told Medea she should not overplay her hand.

  “Agreed,” she said, and made as if to leave, but paused in the doorway of the stables.

  “Interesting that this should be your request, today of all days,” Medea said.

  “Why is that?” asked Rose.

  Medea shook her head. “Just coincidence, or perhaps . . . fate,” she answered. “He was to be killed in service of another blood-debt, which is still owed. But no matter—I gave you my word. And the word of a queen of Corinth is sacrosanct.

  “The regent of the Old World will be arriving soon, and I must prepare for him. The shipbuilder will be freed, as you have asked.”

  The queen of Corinth left the stables, and a few moments later they saw she was good to her word, as a young, rather ragged man appeared at the doorway.

  He looked curiously at the strange band of travelers, then walked over to Edmund and offered his arm, in the old Greek tradition.

  “I understand you are the one who is responsible for my good fortune,” Argus said slowly, “and I find I have no words to . . .”

  Edmund took his arm. “A boon was given for your life,” he said. “Perhaps someday, you’ll do the same for another.”

  Argus stepped back and bowed. “I will. You have my word—although my skills are rarely called upon these days. Few adventurers are bold enough to hire a shipmaker who can bind the spirit of living creatures into a vessel.”

  The companions all stilled at hearing this.

  “Have you ever bound a Dragon to a ship?” Bert asked. “Could you, if someone wished it done?”

  Argus laughed. “I have the skill, but no one will ask me to,” he said. “Not while my master is still working in the trade. His are far better than mine.”

  “Who is your master?”

  “The greatest of all shipbuilders,” Argus replied. “Ordo Maas.”

  A bright gleam suddenly appeared in Bert’s eyes. “Does anyone else have this skill other than yourself and Ordo Maas?”

  Argus folded his arms and shook his head, grinning. “None living, or otherwise. Only he and I.”

  “That’s awfully self-assured,” said Charles.

  “Not at all,” said Argus. “Merely the truth.”

  “That’s the boon,” Bert said suddenly, glancing at Edmund, who looked startled, but nodded his assent. “Someday, perhaps many years from now, someone will ask you to build such a ship. All we ask is that you do it.”

  “Done and done,” Argus said in surprise. “And a bargain at twice the price.” He stretched his back and turned to the doorway.

  “Again, you have my gratitude,” he said. “I have to go find my master—but I shall always remember. Call on me if you are ever in need. And when the time comes, I’ll build your ship.”

  With that, he trotted off down the beach.

  “What was that all about?” Charles asked. “What Dragonship did you want him to build, Bert?”

  “One that in our time, he’s perhaps already built,” Charles’s mentor replied. “A ship that only Ordo Maas could have built, but didn’t. A ship that no one living knows the origin of. A ship,” he added, looking pointedly at Rose, “that has been at the heart of one of the great mysteries of the Archipelago.”

  Charles gave a low whistle. “Do you really think so, Bert?”

  “I do,” Bert said, nodding. “I think we’ve just saved the life of the man who will build the Black Dragon.”

  Before the companions could discuss this extraordinary turn of events further, another voice called out from the darkness at the far end of the stables. It sounded inebriated.

  “Was that the shipbuilder, Argus?” it called out. “I was s’pposed t’ kill him today. Blood-debt, you know.”

  Cautiously, Edmund picked up an iron bar, as did Charles, and they motioned for the others to stay back. “Who goes there?” Charles called out.

  “I’d say it’s the Comedian, but the Comedian is dead,” said the voice. It was coming from the far stalls, away from the entrance, where the torchlight didn’t reach.

  “I’d say it’s th’ Philosopher, but the Philosopher is terrible at Philosophizing,” the voice rambled on. “So I must be th’ Executioner—’cept you just freed the executionee, so I think I’m out of a job again.”

  As he spoke, they heard another sound—rattling chains. He was not a servant of Medea, but a prisoner.

  “You sound very familiar to me,” Charles said. “Something in the tenor of your voice—I’ve heard it somewhere before. Did you say you were a philosopher?”

  “I did, but I don’t mind telling you again,” came the answer. “I was a philosopher. Of some renown, I might add, although of late”—he clanked his chains for emphasis—“I seem to have fallen into disfavor with th’ queen. Again.”

  “Ah!” Charles said as he and Edmund lowered the iron bars. Whoever this drunkard was, he was no danger to them. “A learned man, then.”

  “A learned man who’s just been sick all over his sandals,” said the voice.

  “Mmm, sorry,” said Charles. “I’m Charles, by the way, and these are my friends Rose, Bert, and Edmund. Despite the circumstances, we’re very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “And I you,” the voice replied. “My name is Aristophanes.”

  Standing at one of the tall windows . . .

  the Chronographer of Lost Times waited . . .

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Unicorn

  The flight from the Goblin Market was marked by both the speed Uncas was driving, and the nearly endless stream of curse words being generated by the Zen Detective. Apparently, he was fluent in over a dozen languages—at least, fluent enough to competently curse.

  At Aristophanes’s urging, Uncas flipped on the projector and drove them through a slide to an out-of-the-way spot where they could catch their collective breath and locate the next object. The badger chose a grassy field in Finland. Other than the Duesenberg, the only thing that broke the monotony of the fields was a small fishing shack that stood on the top of a cliff in the distance. “It’s th’ calmest place I knows of,” Uncas said as they got out of the car. “Nothing exciting ever happens in Finland.”

  Aristophanes inserted the second parchment into the Machine Cryptographique and carefully typed in a question. As swiftly as before, the Infernal Device returned the answer: “Pohjola.”

  Uncas rummaged through the maps and stopped on the second to last. He stared at it with a bewildered expression and looked up at Quixote and Aristophanes. “I, uh, I have it.
I think.”

  “So?” said the detective. “Will we be able to find it?”

  Uncas nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”

  Aristophanes waited. “Well? Where is this ‘Pohjola’?”

  The little mammal pointed at his feet. “Right here. We’re standin’ on it.”

  “Give me that!” Aristophanes exclaimed, snatching the map out of the badger’s paws. A moment later, though, his expression changed. “Well,” he admitted, handing the map back to Uncas, “this might be easier than we thought.”

  Quixote was dumbfounded. “You mean he’s right? That we just happened to pick a place to hide from that mob, and we ended up coming to the very place we needed to go next?” He shook his head. “That’s just too incredible to believe.”

  “That’s Zen for you,” Aristophanes said, shrugging. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home.”

  The little old fisherman who answered their knock at the hut acted as if they were expected and invited them in. “Would you like some sima? Sweet mead?” he offered as they sat on the pelt-covered benches inside. “I have just made it, fresh. But,” he added ruefully, “I have no lemon. It would be lemonless sima.”

  Quixote gave Aristophanes a look that said what they were both thinking—the old fisherman had spent way too long inhaling the salt air. But Uncas cheerfully accepted, and with shaking hands, the old man poured them all a drink.

  “I assume,” he said, sipping mead from his own cup, “that you’ve come to ask for the Sampo. Well, I have some bad news for you—I have no idea where it is.”

  “Is that some sort of, uh, magical object?” Uncas asked, winking at Aristophanes, who rolled his eyes and groaned inwardly. The badger had no sense of subterfuge whatsoever.

  “It is,” said the fisherman. “Everyone thinks I have it because of those cursed stories in the Kalevala. ‘Ask Kullervo,’ they say. ‘Go seek Kullervo—he’s bound to have it.’ And on and on. As if I’d end up with a magic box that grants you all you desire. Not after the life I’ve had, I wouldn’t. Every time something good started to happen, someone evil would turn my cows into bears, and my family would get eaten while they were tending to the milking. Very frustrating.