The First Dragon(36)
. . . save for one.
Enkidu was standing away from the throng, not watching the flying ship but instead staring directly at the Prime Caretaker sitting in the circle at Tamerlane House.
“This is as far as I can take you, O spirit guides,” the boy said. “I have tried to be where I felt you needed me to be, so you could see the things you hoped to see, but I can go no further. I must prepare for what is to come. And so must you.”
With that the images projecting from the table vanished, and the room was plunged into darkness.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Good Lord!” John exclaimed, jumping up from the table. He was almost choking on his own words. “Wh-what was that, Arthur? What just happened here?”
“I’m sorry,” Conan Doyle said as he and the others also rose. “I thought you understood—it’s not simply remote viewing. We are almost physically with him. That’s not a hard, fast rule—none of this is set in stone—but he knew we were present the whole time we were watching. And somehow, he understood it was necessary.”
“And, it seems, done,” said Jack. “How are we to follow them now? We don’t even know if Rose, Edmund, and Charles are in the city!”
“Yes, we do,” said a voice from the doorway. It was Poe, the master of Tamerlane House.
In the hierarchy of Caretakers, Poe occupied a unique position somewhere above that of Caveo Principia, and even above Jules Verne when he was the Prime Caretaker before John took over the role. According to Bert, Poe had a unique understanding of space and time, and supposedly could manipulate both when it suited him to do so—but in John’s experience, he rarely involved himself in whatever the Caretakers were dealing with unless it was a serious crisis. His appearance here was both good and bad.
“The Telos Biblos was written in Samaranth’s own hand, from the time before the Archipelago itself was created, and there are accounts in it we have never understood until now.”
He held up the book, so devoid of color that the pages appeared cold, and promptly ripped it in half.
Before any of the shocked Caretakers could react, Poe continued to tear the pages loose from the binding, then threw them into the air. They swirled about him like leaves in a storm, and then they began to slow, emitting a strange, unearthly glow.
Gradually the pages flowed past Poe and over to the table, where they reassembled themselves in order, and then began to expand until they filled the entire impression inset within the table. The light emanating from them grew stronger, and as the Caretakers again took their seats, images began to form in the light, and faint sound could be heard coming from the pages.
“Look and listen,” Poe said, still standing near the doorway, “and see how the world you have cared for came into being.”
“The Jade Empress,” Samaranth said . . .
Chapter ELEVEN
The Oldest History
“What do you think?” Rose asked the two men as Samaranth readied himself to attend the summit. “Should we go with him?”
“I don’t know,” said Edmund. “It’s history—whatever’s about to go on has already happened, and I’m loath to get involved and possibly mess something up.”
“We already did,” said Charles. “Didn’t you hear him? The keep is damaged—that means it hasn’t fallen just in the future, but in the past as well. If we leave things as they are and try to go back, we may find our own history has been irrevocably changed.”
“You’ve been spending too much time talking to Uncle Ray,” Rose said, “but I think you’re right. That’s exactly what we’d be risking. So I don’t think we have anything to lose by trying to learn as much as we can while we’re here.”
“I agree,” Samaranth said. It was still unnerving to all three of them that this youthful man-child had the eyes of the wise old Dragon that they knew.
“Whoever you are, it is obvious to me that you understand more about how the world works than most of the principalities,” he said as they left the Library. “If you listen, and learn, it may help you to better . . . take care, of your own world.”
“That’s pretty much exactly what we had in mind,” said Charles. “Lead on, Macduff.”
“Samaranth,” the angel corrected. “Your memory needs work.”
“Sorry,” said Charles.
♦ ♦ ♦
The great and spacious building where the summit was being held was less an amphitheater than it was an enormous ballroom—and in all the significant ways, that was exactly what it was. Staircases rose from the floor below, which was several hundred feet lower than the entrance, and connected a series of platforms that extended almost to the ceiling, which was so far above them that clouds had formed inside the room. There were fountains that fed streams of mingled light and water flowing through the air from platform to platform at varying levels. Everything was glass and marble and solidified light, except for the huge circle of fire in the center, and the dais above it, which stood at the far end of the chamber. Atop it was something familiar to all three of the companions.