The First Dragon(80)
The Valkyrie turned to make a sarcastic comment to Fred, and for the first time they realized that the two badgers and Quixote were still close to the inn, sitting with Tummeler. Even during Dee’s confrontation with the angel, they hadn’t left him.
Suddenly Tummeler inhaled a massive breath, and then began to speak. “I am a commander, first class, in the Royal Animal Rescue Society,” he said, exhaling as hard as he could, “. . . retired.”
“He’s still alive!” Charles shouted, half in astonishment and half from joy. “Come quickly! We have to help him! Tummeler is still alive!”
“How?” Jack asked, looking at Samaranth, who shook his head in response. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, Don Quixote,” the Caretaker said softly.
“A portrait?” Uncas said. “At Tamerlane?”
“There are no portraits of . . . well, any animals in Basil’s studio,” Jack said, casting a sorrowful, apologetic glance at Tummeler’s son and grandson. “Uncas, Fred . . . I’m so sorry.”
“A tulpa!” Fred exclaimed, clutching at Charles’s coat. “Y’ did it once before, with someone else, t’ make th’ tulpa of Jack!”
“And look how that turned out in the future,” Charles answered bitterly. “He became Lord Winter and turned the whole world over to the Echthroi. No,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m partly to blame for what’s happened here, because I did that foolish, foolish thing—and I cannot countenance doing it again, for anyone.”
“It only went badly because Jack was still alive,” said Rose. “Can’t you make one for Tummeler, for his aiua to enter?”
Charles shook his head. “There simply isn’t enough time. It would take a miracle to save him now.”
Uncas leaped to his feet. “Brilliant, Scowler Charles! That’s it exactly!” The little badger dashed away to where Rose had dropped her bag when she drew her sword, and returned bearing a box.
It was the Serendipity Box. And he presented it not to Charles . . .
. . . but to Don Quixote.
Uncas trembled as he proffered the box to the wizened old knight, who knelt to receive it.
“I know I’m just a squire,” Uncas said, voice quavering with emotion, “an’ squires is supposed t’ help their knight, not ask for boons. But . . .” The little badger risked a glance at the barely breathing Tummeler. “He’s my pop. Will you . . . Will you please make a wish, and open th’ box?”
“Of course I shall,” said Don Quixote. And with no hesitation, he opened the box—but all that was within was what looked like an oversize playing card.
“A trump,” said Jack. “It’s a trump! And look,” he said, gesturing at the illustration on the card. “It’s the waterfall, at Terminus. We can escape before the sand in the hourglass runs out!”
No one else was listening. Instead they were watching in sorrow and disbelief as the Serendipity Box fell to pieces in Uncas’s paws. There was nothing else inside, and now the box itself was crumbling to dust before their eyes.
“There has t’ be something else!” Uncas cried inconsolably. “There’s no time t’ take him back for help!”
“No,” a very weak voice answered. “But there is time for you to go catch the Indigo Dragon and save our world. The box knew. It gave you what you needed most. And that wasn’t t’ save me.”
Tummeler lifted his head, trembling. His strength, his life, were nearly gone. Charles clung to him more tightly as tears streamed down his face.
“I did what I was asked,” the old badger said, “and Samaranth and I saved the Archipelago. . . .”
“Balderdash,” Charles said. “We know it was really you who did all the work.”
“But it will all be lost,” Tummeler continued, “if you don’t go, now, and do what y’ have t’ do.”
Uncas knelt next to his father. “But you . . .”
Tummeler shushed him. “I got what I wanted, my boy,” he said, looking at his son and grandson, and up at Charles. “I got t’ be a hero, at last.”
“You were always a hero, Tummeler,” said Charles, but his old friend didn’t hear him. Tummeler was dead.
“We will mourn him after,” Madoc said, “but he was right—the hourglass is nearly empty, and we have to leave now.”
Quickly Rose and Edmund focused on the trump, and it began to expand. In minutes they could clearly see the rocky outline of Terminus above the great waterfall, and soon it was large enough for all the companions to step through.