The Indigo King (24 page)

“What in Hades is out there?” John said to no one in particular.

“It’s Nothing,” Hugo said simply. “The door opens into Nothing.”

John closed the door and stepped away from it, thinking. “We’ve changed something,” he said, gnawing on his fist in thought. “I think we
did
change the world, after all. Because the one we came from, Chaz’s world, is no longer there. At all.”

“But this room still is?” asked Jack. “How is that possible?”

“Perhaps we’ve changed things again,” John said morosely. “We left Chaz, centuries ago, in a world that didn’t turn into his. And we took away someone who was already there.” He gestured to Rose. “Who’s to say we didn’t do exactly the wrong things?”

“Do you believe that?” Hugo asked. “Do you believe either one of those choices could have been different?”

“No, I don’t,” John answered. “That’s what confuses me. I don’t see any other path to have taken other than the one we have.”

“Then we should follow it the rest of the way,” said Hugo. “We can’t go out of this room by the door—so I think we’re meant to go through a projection one more time. Why else would it still be here, waiting?”

“I think you’re right, Hugo,” said John.

“Should we try to take the projector with us again?” asked Jack. “It might be useful.”

“To what end?” John replied. “We’re out of slides. And unless another one magically appeared, we couldn’t use it anyway. No,” he said with finality, “I think the room was still here because the projection tied us to the other timeline. It kept it intact, for as long as there’s a projection.”

“So what happens when the slide burns out?” Hugo asked with a gulp. “Do we vanish into the Nothing too?”

“I don’t plan to be here to find out,” John said, grabbing his pack. “Take everything we can fit into our bags,” he instructed. “We have two choices. We can go back through to Camelot and take our chances, or we can use the last slide Verne left for us and have faith that we’re being looked after, even now.”

“Do you have that much faith, John?” asked Jack.

John looked at the silver and red dragon watch given to him by Ordo Maas, then at Rose, who had come with them into an unknown future. “Yes,” he answered. “I do.”

With no more discussion, the companions gathered their few belongings together and prepared for a final trip in time.

“Of course you’ll be coming with us,” Jack said to Uncas. “We’re all going together, wherever and whenever it is.”

Verifying that everyone in their small party was ready to go, John gave the signal, and Uncas switched the slide from the sixth-century picture of Camelot, which was already charring at the edges, to the last slide.

It was not what they’d expected.

In front of them, on the wall, a startled monk dropped the bundle of wood he was carrying and crossed himself. That was not what they’d hoped, that the portal was opening in the presence of someone, but not unexpected. But they were unprepared for the effect the last slide had on the projection room itself.

It trembled and shook and began to come apart at the seams and fall away into Nothing.

John and Hugo pushed Rose through the portal, then began to step through themselves. “Hurry, Uncas!” John shouted over the howling winds that were sucking at the walls of the room. “Hurry!”

The door shuddered, then ripped away from the wall, spinning off into the dark. The wall itself followed seconds later. Uncas and Fred rushed forward and jumped through, rolling in the brush on the other side.

Jack tossed the bags and packs through the portal as the other side wall ripped away, and the chairs began flying around the room, then up through the shattering ceiling.

Hugo crossed over, and then Jack. John took one last look into the room and stepped away just as the floor began to disintegrate.

Standing safely amidst the shrubbery and trees that had been visible through the slide, the companions watched in chilling fascination as the rest of the room fell away into Nothing, finally taking the projector with it, and in another instant the projection blurred, then blinked out.

The room, and the Lanterna Magica, were gone.

They found themselves standing in the company of a slightly frightened and extremely bewildered monk.

“Be ye angels, or be ye demons?” he asked in clear Old English.

“We be … I mean, we are men,” said John.

“And badgers,” added Uncas.

“And you?” the monk asked Rose.

“I’m Rose,” she answered simply and, to the companions’ surprise, in the monk’s own language.

“Of course you are,” the monk replied. “Are you seeking sanctuary?”

“We’ve actually just come from there,” said Hugo, “but if you’ve some handy, we wouldn’t decline.”

The monk looked at him and shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I am happy to help. You are not quite what I expected, but if you carry the sign …”

The companions looked at one another with puzzled expressions. The sign? What was he talking about?

Then, on impulse, John reached into his pocket and withdrew the watch that bore the image of the red dragon, Samaranth.

The monk’s expression changed from one of cautious surprise to one of relief. “You do bear the sign. That means you are the … how did he call you? The Caretakers?”

It was the companions’ turn to be surprised. “We are,” John said, nodding.

“I’m Geoffrey of Monmouth,” the monk replied. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Restoration

Geoffrey led the companions up the claustrophobic stairway and into his study. “The message said that I was to wait for three scholars, called Caretakers, who carried the sign of the dragon, and that when you arrived, I was to use the, uh, flower to contact the knight.”

“You have a Compass Rose?” Jack said, suddenly excited. “Which knight?”

Geoffrey shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said, moving aside several piles of parchments. “I’m just riding along on the skiff. I haven’t any idea where the river is flowing.”

“Jack,” John said, looking over the monk’s accumulations. “I think I’ve read some of these! I think these are some of the actual Histories!”

“I can do you one better,” said Hugo. “There’s one over here that I actually
wrote
in.”

The others clustered around Hugo’s discovery and realized they recognized it themselves. It was the Grail book that had been sent to Charles.

“Oh, yes, that,” Geoffrey said from behind a mound of books. “A very odd Frenchman gave it to me only recently. I had just begun transcribing it, but then parts of several pages mysteriously disappeared. I can’t imagine what happened to them.”

“That’s too bad,” said Jack. “I’m sorry your work was interrupted.”

“Oh, it didn’t slow me down too much,” Geoffrey told him. “I’m quite good at, uh, extrapolating details from limited information.”

“Making things up out of whole cloth, you mean,” said Jack.

“More or less, yes,” Geoffrey admitted. “Sorry about the mess, by the way. I’ve been collecting these writings for years, and I just ran out of places to keep them all.”

“I think we can fill in some of the fabric here,” said Hugo, “at least where my own contribution is concerned.”

On a clean sheet of parchment, Hugo recreated the entire message he’d actually written, which had been truncated by the torn page:

“Oh, Merlin?” said Geoffrey. “I’ve written a biography of him. A fascinating man.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jack told him dryly.

“Someone sent the book to us,” said John. “So someone, somewhere, somewhen, knows more about this than we do.”

“Found it!” Geoffrey exclaimed happily. “Now, if I can just remember the working of it …”

“Here,” Jack said, taking the Compass Rose. “Allow me.”

He swiftly found the appropriate place and made the mark that would bring someone from the Archipelago.

“One thing’s certain,” John said as Geoffrey, accompanied by Fred and Uncas, went to fetch some bread and cheese for his guests. “We prevented Mordred from establishing the Winterland. Geoffrey of Monmouth is in the twelfth century. If Mordred had regained the upper hand, Geoffrey wouldn’t be here now, in our England.”

“So you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve, then,” Rose said as she examined Archimedes. “This is good, is it not?”

“It is,” John replied, clearly uncomfortable discussing Mordred in front of his own daughter. “Now our objective is to simply return home to our own time.”

“You’re here now,” said Rose. “Doesn’t that make this time your time?”

John rubbed his temples. “She’s another one of those, isn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Jack. “And more are on the way, unless I miss my guess.” He pointed at the Compass Rose, which had begun to glow. “Company’s coming.”

Geoffrey and the badgers had just returned with the food when there was a sharp knock at the door below.

Rather than bring someone else into an overcrowded room, they all went down to meet the new visitor.

It was the Green Knight.

Jack and John both cried out in joy at the thought of a reunion with Chaz, but an instant later their faces fell. This was indeed the Green Knight, but it was a different one.

“I am called Abelard,” the knight said in a clipped French accent, bowing deeply. “Have I the honor of addressing the Caretakers?”

John and Jack stepped forward. The knight looked confused. “I was told to bring you all with me. You are not all Caretakers?”

“We all are indeed,” John said hastily, “after a fashion, that is.” The Green Knights were not traditionally known for their intelligence, and the last one he knew personally, Magwich, would sell his own mother, then forget to collect the money.

Geoffrey was taking both the strange appearance of the knight and the invitation with aplomb. John admired that—even if he was a bit bemused at the monk’s rather disorganized personal style. Suddenly, looking up the stairs, all the elements of the happening came together for John in a burst of insight.

“Geoff,” John said, tapping him on the shoulder, “how would you like to relocate your collection of books and manuscripts and receive a special education on the history of the kings of Britain, all at the same time?”

“That sounds very intriguing,” Geoffrey answered, rubbing his hands together. “What must I do?”

John smiled. “Grab your hat,” he said briskly, sizing up the Green Knight. “We’re going visiting.”

* * *

The Green Knight had come to Caerleon in the beasts’ ship, the Green Dragon. It was one of the larger of the Dragonships, and also the most wild and free-spirited. With the knight’s help, and under Geoffrey’s mostly efficient direction, the companions were able to load the monk’s entire collection onto the ship in a matter of hours.

With the work done, they all boarded the ship one last time, and slowly it pulled away from the shore and set sail for the Archipelago.

“It was good of you to wait and help us bring all the books and manuscripts,” John told the knight. “We appreciate it very much.”

The knight bowed. “It was my pleasure, Caretaker.”

“Are you the Abelard I would know of?” asked John. “The philosopher poet?”

The knight seemed startled by this, then regained his composure and bowed again. “I am honored that you would remember me as a poet,” he said with a lilt of pride in his voice. “It was, in truth, one of the later accomplishments in my life.”

“How is it that you were chosen as a knight of Avalon?” asked Jack.

The knight sighed. “It was Bernard of Clairvaux,” he said, the shimmying of the leaves on his shoulders attesting to the emotion he felt in sharing the confession.

“He had succeeded in having me accused of heresy. I became ill at the priory of St. Marcel, and it was there that I was approached by my predecessor, a knight called Gawain. He offered me the chance to serve, and I accepted, most gratefully.”

“I know of your work too,” Geoffrey said quietly. “In fact, I have the only complete copy of your
Historia Calamitatum
.”

“I am pleased by this,” said the knight, and it showed. He looked near to bursting.

“Your predecessor was Gawain,” Jack mused. “Who was his predecessor?”

“The greatest of us all,” the knight replied. “He served for many years as the first Guardian of Avalon and set the example by which those who came later follow.”

“Are we going to Avalon, then?” Jack said, almost tearing up at the description of Chaz.

The knight shook his head. “That was not my instruction. Tonight we are going to the Chamenos Liber.”

“We’re going to the Keep?” asked Jack.

The knight nodded. “Someone has asked to see you.”

John and Jack looked at each other and traded knowing smiles. There was only one man in residence at the islands of Chamenos Liber—only one man who could have requested them by the title of Caretaker here, in the twelfth century.

At the Keep of Time, the companions all disembarked and began to climb the stairs of the impossibly tall tower. Finally they reached the top of the steps, and the door that was second to last in the Keep.

The door was locked, and the keyhole under the mark of the High King seemed so new it might have just been installed that hour. John was about to knock when Rose reached out her hand and touched the door. The lock disengaged with a soft click.

“Come in,” said a now familiar voice. “Enter freely and of your own will.”

John gave the door a gentle push, and it swung open to reveal a room that was only just beginning to be filled with the clutter of maps and globes and the accumulated cultural bric-a-brac of two thousand years that they remembered from the first time they’d seen it. And sitting in the center, working at his desk, was the Cartographer of Lost Places.

The Cartographer gave the companions a careful, lingering look of appraisal before speaking again, and when he did, it was to Rose. “Greetings and salutations, daughter of Madoc.”

Unexpectedly, Rose walked to the Cartographer and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Uncle Merlin.”

He shook his head at this and gently pushed her back.

Was that a tear on his cheek? John wondered. Or just a trick of the light?

“No,” the Cartographer was saying, “I haven’t needed a name in a very long time, and it’s doubtful I’ll need one again. It’s best for all concerned, especially you, dear Rose, to simply call me the Cartographer.”

“As you wish,” she said, stepping back and taking Hugo’s arm. She was trembling, he realized suddenly. The gesture had been more difficult for her than it had appeared.

“You hesitate,” the Cartographer said to the others, noting that they had come inside the room but remained clustered by the door, as if they were comforted by the option of easy escape. “With good reason, probably. I was an excellent example of what not to do when you’ve been gifted with near immortality and unlimited opportunity.”

“It’s been a revelation, that’s for sure,” Jack said brusquely.

“Merlin?” asked Geoffrey, pulling at his collar. “As in, the real Merlin?”

John chuckled. The knight made of wood and leaves hadn’t fazed the monk, nor had the talking badgers. A living Dragon-ship was similarly accepted, as was a tower made of time. But the thought of actually meeting the man whose life he’d been chronicling made Geoffrey twitch and shift about as if his bladder were full.

“Real is a matter of perspective,” the Cartographer said, “and it’s a matter of what is worth remembering and what is worth passing on to those who inherit the future.”

“We almost lost, didn’t we?” said John. “We almost brought about Mordred’s victory.”

The Cartographer looked at him for a breathless moment, the nodded. “We almost did. All of us, together, who were there.”

“What happened?” Hugo asked. “What did I do to cause the crisis in time?”

“In the history you remember, the one you first came from,” the Cartographer replied, “Mordred defeated me as you feared he would, and then was challenged by the boy. Mordred broke the rules of the tournament and attacked Arthur after he’d chosen not to fight his uncle. The boy, bless his scrappy heart, fought back and actually won.

“He drew Caliburn, became High King, and united two worlds. Because he had beaten Mordred in fair combat, the tribes united under his rule.”

“So when I interfered by throwing the knife and disqualifying both Mordred and yourself …,” Hugo began.

“Arthur won by default when I refused to fight,” the Cartographer finished. “And though he was worthy to draw the sword, he did not unite the people. And I …” He paused, composing himself. “I used that against him, until you came and set things right again.”

“How can you remember all of that?” asked Jack. “What happened the first time? That was a different timeline than the one we changed.”

“I have an acquaintance,” the Cartographer explained. “One of the more recent kings of the Silver Throne, Arthur’s son Eligure, chose to allow me a visitor. And that visitor has shared certain knowledge with me about pasts that were, and a future that may be.”

“Verne,” said John. “You mean Jules Verne.”

“The same,” he confirmed. “He has impressed upon me the need to keep detailed Histories of the events of the Summer Country as well as of the Archipelago. That’s why I asked Abelard to fetch the monk—what was your name again?”

“G-Geoffrey,” came the reply, his voice shaking with trepidation. “Of Monmouth.”

“Ah, yes,” the Cartographer said. “I understand you have amassed quite a library as it is, am I correct?”

“You are,” said Geoffrey. “It’s in the ship below.”

“Excellent,” said the Cartographer. He started rummaging through a stack of maps in the corner. “Eligure’s brother, Artigel, has already created a great library within the city they are building on the island of Paralon,” he went on, removing a large, leather-bound book from the pile. “All of your collection can go there, but this”—he handed the book to Geoffrey—“must be in your possession always.”