The First Dragon(78)

Standing atop the rocks before them, drinking in the energies of the storm swirling above, was a Cherubim—one of the oldest angels from the City of Jade. And he was not happy.

The Caretakers and the companions who had been in the city and witnessed the transformation of angels suddenly realized that the aspect of children, of youth, that angels like Samaranth wore so easily was simply so they could more easily commune with mortals. Here, now, Grimalkin had shed that aspect of himself completely.

Around his neck was the collar he had worn as a cat—but everything else had changed. He stood nearly twelve feet tall, and had four feathered wings that stretched out behind him like a wall of steel feathers. He had great claws and wore armor that was stretched tight over muscles that rippled with the power of heaven itself. But most significantly, he now had four faces: the face of an ox, the face of an eagle, the face of a lion, and the face of a man, which bore some of the aspects of the Cheshire cat that so many around Tamerlane House had seen so often.

“Fear me, little thing,” the angel rumbled, looking at Dee. “You have summoned your own doom.”

“I’m not afraid of any Dragon who ever was,” Dee said menacingly, “or of any angel. And I am prepared for you . . . Shaitan.”

Shaitan, far from being cowed as Dee expected, merely smiled and spread his arms. “I am not a Dragon, as you can plainly see,” he said, his voice a soft purr that nevertheless carried echoes of thunder in it. “I never descended, and so I am still an angel, still Cherubim, exactly as you intended for me to be.”

“And still able,” Dee said, “to do everything that a Dragon could do here, in this place. That is why I have released you now. To do my bidding one last time.”

“Stop!” Rose shouted as she drew Caliburn from its scabbard. “Stop, Dee! You know what I can do with this.”

“Little Imago,” Dee sneered. “It is far, far too late.”

He turned back to the angel, arms spread. In one hand, he held what looked like a green crystal. It was glowing, just like the buildings in the City of Jade. “Shaitan! The time is now!” Dee proclaimed, his face a mask of triumph. “Take the Master Key, so we may release the Archipelago and deliver both worlds to the eternal rule of order—so we may deliver them both to the Echthroi.”

“Excuse me,” Edmund said, raising a finger, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Everyone turned in surprise to look at Edmund McGee. He seldom took point in a battle, and none of them could understand why he would challenge Dee in such a manner.

The young Cartographer was holding up a trump. It depicted the towers of the City of Jade, along with a familiar face.

“Hello there,” Kipling said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d get around to saving that world before this one meets its doom. I can see the water from here.”

“Save the commentary,” said Edmund. “Do it!”

“Grimalkin, called Shaitan, called the Cheshire cat,” Kipling said, “I release you from your Binding. Thrice I bound you; thrice I release you. I release you. I release you. I release you.”

There was a clap of thunder, and a rending of the sky as the angel’s collar flew apart and shattered into fragments of light.

“Impossible!” Dee cried. “He was bound to me! To the Echthroi! He is all but Echthros himself!”

“Bound by you?” Kipling asked through the trump. “That’s what he thought too. But a creature who is bound to one cannot be bound to another. And I got to him first.”

Dee looked dazed. “B-but all these years, he has served us!” he said, confused. “He has been a spy in the House of Tamerlane! He has killed agents of the Caretakers!”

Kipling’s expression darkened at this, but he merely nodded. “All at my direction, I’m afraid. When I bound him, that was the one thing I ordered him to do—to serve John Dee, and follow his orders as if he were bound to him, until the day when I released him. Which,” he added, smiling more broadly now, “I just did.”





“Over?” Jack snorted. “It’s never over until you win . . .”





Chapter TWENTY-THREE


The Last Battle



The angel Shaitan looked down at John Dee, who suddenly seemed a lot smaller. “Little thing,” Shaitan said, “you have caused my countenance to be darkened. You denied me the opportunity to serve the Word by becoming a protector of this world. And there is a price to be paid.”

“Not me!” Dee shrieked, pointing at the trump in Edmund’s hand. “I never bound you! Kipling! He’s the one!”