At their knock, an old woman opened the door. Her expression was one of joy, then of sorrow at seeing her old friend. “To cross the threshold requires a price,” she said. “Will you pay it willingly?”
“I shall,” the great Dragon rumbled, “for myself, and my friend, Tummeler.”
“Then enter and be welcomed, Samaranth, and Master Tummeler,” she said. They stepped across, and she handed them an hourglass made of bone. “You have until the last sand runs out,” she admonished. “To the last grain, and no more.”
Samaranth nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Sycorax.”
She closed the door behind them and went to set their places for tea. If she had paused a moment more, she would have seen the black ship not far behind. Soon there would be more company. Very soon.
♦ ♦ ♦
The companions and the Caretakers spent the entire night telling and retelling stories, to catch up the companions on twenty years of missed history, as well as to tell the Caretakers about the unknown history of the keep itself—and about the sacrifice that had made restoration possible.
They bowed their heads, and there was a long, respectful moment of silence for the man who had been one of the greatest Caretakers of them all.
“To Scowler Jules,” Fred said, raising his glass.
“To Scowler Jules,” the Caretakers chorused.
“And what of Poe?” Charles asked. “What happened to him?”
John’s expression darkened, and he glanced at both Bert and Twain before he answered. “We haven’t seen him again,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “and I’m not certain that’s a bad thing.”
“I still don’t understand,” Rose said, “why we lost twenty years in passing through the doorway.”
“I think I know,” Shakespeare offered. “My gate was made from the keep, but it was not the keep. Not the same. It still relied on technology and mechanical programming more than simple intuition, and thus could be more precisely programmed. Whereas the doorway in the keep could not.”
“Wasn’t that the original reason the Dragons added doors to the keep?” Edmund asked. “To better focus the chronal energies?”
“I think so,” said John. “At least, that’s my understanding of how it worked for traveling in time.”
“That may also be the difference between the time-travel devices and mechanisms and your own uses of chronal maps and trumps,” Shakespeare said. “Those latter draw very strongly on will and intuition, and rely less on mathematics and science, and so I think they are subject to fewer laws.”
“Limitations,” Twain said, puffing on his cigar. “When you use science, you by definition put things in boxes. You create limits. And thus it follows you would be bound by those limits. But doing what these young’uns do,” he added, gesturing at Rose and Edmund, “that is, literally and in every other sense of the word, art. And art has no limitation.”
“So did it work?” Rose asked. “Has the keep been restored? Is the Archipelago back?”
“The keep, yes,” said Twain. “The Archipelago, no.”
“When it was being taken over by the Echthroi,” John explained, “we know from the message Aven left on Paralon that Samaranth somehow . . . removed all the lands and peoples of the Archipelago and took them somewhere safe. The problem is, we have no idea where.”
“Have you tried summoning him, from one of the Rings?” asked Madoc. “I’m not so good at it myself, but then again, I never had permission.”
“We have all tried it,” said John. “Every man and woman among the Caretakers, and a few associates and apprentices besides.”
“He was waiting,” a new voice said, “for the Imago to return, so that she would be the one to restore the Archipelago.”
It was the Watchmaker, the ancient being who resided on the island to the northwest of Tamerlane House. But the companions who had just returned from the deep past now knew him by a different name.
“Enoch,” Rose said as she and her companions moved forward to embrace him. The Caretakers were fairly stunned—the Watchmaker had never left his cave, as far as they knew. Ever.
“He had a name?” John said to Bert. “I never knew that.”
“The Summoning was not going to be sufficient,” Enoch said, ignoring the curious stares from the Caretakers, “not until the keep itself was restored. And now that has been done, you’re going to have to go find the lands of the Archipelago and bring them back.”
“Back from where, Enoch?” Rose asked. “Where did Samaranth take them?”