The Indigo King (4 page)

“Remember what the Cartographer told us,” John said. “The doorways were focal points, not actually the pathways themselves.”

“You say that like you know what it means,” said Jack, “when really, we have no clue how the Keep or the doorways worked.”

“I think you’re both getting all hot and bothered over a piffle,” said Hugo. “Besides, look.” He pointed with the toe of his shoe. “It’s already open.”

Hugo was right. The door was sitting slightly askew within the arch. Not open enough to really see through to the other side, but enough to realize it could be pulled open farther—and so Hugo reached out, and did.

“Hold on!” Jack yelled as he and John both grabbed at Hugo. “You don’t know what’s on the other side!”

“What can it hurt to open the door?” Hugo reasoned.

“You’ve obviously never been to Loch Ness,” said John.

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind,” said Jack. “Hugo may be right. Look.”

The door had swung open to reveal … nothing.

It was just meadow on the other side.

“See?” said Hugo with a chuckle. “It’s just a set dressing, perhaps meant to scare us. Or maybe you’re taking a practical joke to unprecedented heights. Either way, I think it’s harmless.”

And then, as if to prove his point, Hugo walked through the doorway, and half a dozen paces on the other side. Then he turned and spread his hands, smiling. “Gentlemen?”

John and Jack both relaxed visibly.

“I was really quite concerned for a moment,” said Jack, as he crouched to sit down in the grass. “I—“He suddenly stopped talking, and his brow furrowed.

“What?” said John.

Jack didn’t answer but started moving his head side to side, looking at Hugo. Then his eyes widened and he jumped to his feet.

“Hugo!” he exclaimed. “Come back through the doorway, quickly! Hurry, man!”

Hugo chuckled again. “Jack, you sound like a mother hen. How much rum did you have, anyroad?”

John was looking around, anxious and worried. His Caretaker instincts had gone hyperactive—of them both, Jack wasn’t the one to panic easily—and he realized something was wrong.

Jack grabbed him and pulled him two feet to the left of the doorway. As John watched, Hugo vanished.

“Shades!” John hissed. “Hugo! Are you there?” He stepped back. Hugo reappeared.

“Have you both gone round the bend?” asked Hugo. “I’m right here.”

He was—but only if they were looking straight through the open doorway. If they moved to either side, and looked around the arch, he disappeared.

“Hugo,” said John, “we’ll explain in a moment, but for now just walk slowly toward me and through the door.”

But Hugo was having nothing of it. “This has gone far enough, I think. It’s been a grand joke you two have arranged, but I think it’s time to go.”

He walked forward and then, whether by happenstance or in defiance of his friends’ urgent pleading, he stepped over a fallen stone, and then around the frame rather than through it. And just like that, in a trice …

… Hugo Dyson was
gone
.

CHAPTER THREE

The Royal Animal Rescue Squad

It took several moments for John and Jack to realize what had happened—and when they did, they realized that there was very little they could actually do.

“Hugo!” John shouted. “Hugo, can you hear me?” But there was no response.

“The scenes we could view through the doorways in the Keep were static, remember?” said Jack.

“Until someone crossed the threshold,” said John. “I think Hugo put it into motion.”

“But we can see right through it!” protested Jack. “How can he have disappeared so completely?”

“It
is
another time,” said John, walking a wide circuit around the door. “He’s just moved out of earshot. He’s still here. He’s just … Elsewhen.”

“I really wish Charles were here,” said Jack. “This is more his forte than ours.”

“We’ll make do,” said John, hefting his walking stick with both hands. “Listen, I’m going to step inside, but I’m going to keep hold of this stick. I want you to remain here and hold on to the other end. That way, whatever happens, you can pull me back through.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I’m going to look around the corner and yell at that idiot to come back through,” said John. “With any luck, he’s stayed here in the meadow and is wondering where in Hades we got to.”

Gingerly Jack took hold of one end of the stick, and with a deep breath, John stepped through the door.

“So far so good,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “It really doesn’t look any different over here.

“Now,” he continued, “I’m going to move around the corner and see if I can spot Hugo.”

Keeping the stick firmly grasped in his left hand, John cautiously turned and moved to his right, around the arch, where he found himself looking directly …

… at
Jack
.

“Jack,” said John.

“John,” said Jack.

“I don’t think it worked. Why isn’t it working?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re holding on to the stick,” Jack suggested. “It’s keeping you anchored here, to this side.”

John made a noise of frustration, and then more on impulse than out of reason, let go of the stick. He leaned sideways and saw Jack leaning on the stick opposite the door.

He walked around to Jack, touching his shoulder to make sure it was not some sort of illusion, then went back through the doorway. Still nothing. Whatever it was that had happened to Hugo was not happening to John.

They tried reversing the process, this time with Jack playing the part of the canary, but with the same result.

Hugo was gone, and they were helpless to do anything about it.

* * *

The two Caretakers sat under a poplar about twenty feet from the door and stared at it, trying to decide what had just happened.

“This is bad,” said John.

“I know,” said Jack.

“This is very, very bad,” John said again.

“I know!” Jack shot back. “We’ve just lost a colleague!”

“More like we misplaced him, really,” said John. “After all, we do know
where
he is—it’s
when
that’s the problem.”

Jack scrambled to his feet. “Regardless, we haven’t the time to sit here moaning about it. We need to get to the Compass Rose and summon some help.”

“Who should we call?” asked John, standing and brushing the dry grass from his trousers. “Bert? Or perhaps Artus?”

“Whoever can get here the fastest—probably Stephen, with one of his new airships.”

“That’s right,” said John. “The magic feathers. Perhaps there’s even a ship not too far from England. It could ferry us to the Cartographer, and we can get to the bottom of all this.”

“You make it sound like getting some help is as easy as snapping your fingers,” said Jack, snapping his fingers. “If only—”

As if on cue, a ferocious rattling and roaring sound echoed across the fields, and a curious shape appeared on the other side of the Magdalen Bridge. In seconds it had moved swiftly into view.

It was a metallic conflagration of wheels, gears, levers, and belching smoke. It moved with the lurching fluidity of a caterpillar fleeing a swallow, and with the same urgency. It had a vague resemblance to the vehicle driven by their friend, the badger Tummeler, but only in the same way that an elephant and a goat were both mammals.

“Dear Lord,” declared John. “That contraption looks as if it was built by some fiend with his own three hands in the basement of a third-rate workhouse.”

“It probably was,” Jack said, “but it’s a welcome sight all the same.”

As the vehicle came closer, they could better see its makeup. It was essentially a truck, but it seemed to have unfulfilled aspirations of becoming a train. Or a fire engine. Or both. And hanging from every available surface were badgers.

In a cloud of dust and smoke, the motorized monstrosity screeched to a halt on the path above John and Jack, and a dozen badgers in emergency gear leaped to the ground. They moved into a loose formation, then saluted. After a moment (and suppressing grins), John and Jack saluted back.

The tallest of the badgers (and the one who had been driving) stepped forward and offered its paw.

John shook the animal’s paw. “I’m guessing you’re looking for us.”

“We are,” said the badger. “The Royal Animal Rescue Squad, at y’r service. Have I th’ honor of addressing Scowler Charles?”

“No, I’m John.”

“Ah,” the badger said, turning to Jack. “Then you must be …”

“I’m Jack.”

“Oh,” said the badger, craning his neck to look around the clearing. “Then Scowler Charles is …”

“In France,” said John.

As one, all the animals immediately slumped in disappointment and began fidgeting.

“Oh,” the apparent leader of the Squad said again. “We’re happy to meet you, too, but if Scowler Charles isn’t here, then p’rhaps we wasn’t needed after all.”

“How did you know we were here to begin with?” asked John. “What brought you looking for us?”

“We wuz told that on this particular Saturday, Scowler Charles would be in trouble an’ needin’ our help. We’ve been waiting for this day f’r as long as I can remember.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Jack, “but he isn’t here. We’re awfully glad to see you, though.”

The badger waved over one of the others, who pulled out a book that they both began examining with great fervor.

“That binding looks very familiar,” said Jack. “What is that book, anyway?”

“Th’ Little Whatsit,” answered the smaller badger. “It’s our guidebook of everything that’s anything.”

“Sort of like the Great Whatsit back on Paralon?” asked John.

“No,” said the first badger, “
exactly
the Great Whatsit. Just portable-like, so we have what we need to know when we needs it. Um, what year is this, anyway?”

“It’s 1931,” replied John.

“It’s the right date,” the badger said. “Maybe we’re in th’ wrong place! Oh dear, oh dear!”

All of the badgers’ eyes widened in shock, and the bigger ones started smacking themselves in the heads with their paws.

“But, Father—,” said the little one.

“Not now,” the first badger said, shushing him.

“Here now,” said John. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve failed,” said the first badger. “We’ve failed the great Scowler Charles!”

“I assure you,” Jack said soothingly, “Charles is fine. He’s nowhere near here. But our friend Hugo is in trouble, and you are, ah, exactly what we needed.”

“Really?” the badger said hopefully. He saluted again, and the others followed suit. “The Royal Animal Rescue Squad, at y’r service.”

“Thanks,” said John. “Say, none of you would happen to be related to our friend Tummeler, would you?”

The first badger nodded enthusiastically. “I is indeed! I am the son of Tummeler, and this,” he added, pulling the smaller badger with the book alongside him, “is the son of the son of Tummeler.”

“Well met!” said Jack. “And how are you properly addressed?”

“Charles Montgolfier Hargreaves-Heald,” said the badger, “but everyone calls me Uncas.”

“And you?” John asked, looking at the other, slightly smaller animal. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Fred,” said the badger.

“Fred?” said John.

Uncas shrugged. “Badgers named Charles Mongolfier Hargreaves-Heald name their children Fred.”

“Why not follow the tale completely and call him Chingachgook?” asked Jack.

The badgers wrinkled their snouts in distaste. “That’s a very strange name,” said Uncas. “Why would I call him that?”

“Didn’t you get
your
name from the Cooper story?”

“The who what?” said Uncas, shaking his head. “I was once in a play called
The Last of th’ Phoenicians
,” the badger explained proudly. “It was written by my father. He gots th’ name from there, an’ it stuck t’ me.”

“My mistake,” said Jack.

* * *

“What can we do for you, Master Scowlers?” asked Uncas.

John and Jack explained what had happened with the Grail book, and the evening stroll, and the door in the wood, and Hugo’s disappearance. All the while they were speaking, the badgers listened with great attentiveness.

“Well,” said Uncas when they had finished, “we really had expected to be rescuin’ Scowler Charles, but seein’ as we’re already here, an your friend Hobo—”

“Hugo,” John corrected.

“Right, Hugo,” said Uncas. “Since he’s in trouble, we’ll see what we can do.”

The badgers swarmed around their vehicle—which Fred explained was called the Howling Improbable—apparently preparing for whatever it was that a Royal Animal Rescue Squad did, while John and Jack watched in patient amusement.

“Do you think Charles is aware of the hero worship being spread around the animal community in the Archipelago?” asked Jack.

“Probably,” said John, “but if he isn’t, I’m not going to be the one who tells him.”

Jack gestured at the badger called Fred, who approached the men with a mixture of shyness and awe. “Yes, Master Scowlers?”

“Tell us about your book,” said John, crouching down to meet Fred’s eyes. “This ‘Little Whatsit.’”

“The prince, Stephen,” said Fred. “It was his idea, really. He thought it was impractical to have to go back and forth to Paralon every time he needed to look something up in the Histories. So he set Solomon Kaw and the other crows to work compiling important information and distilling it into a single volume.

“It doesn’t have everything about anything,” Fred concluded, “but …”

“It has something about everything,” Jack finished for him. “Brilliant.”

“I think so too,” Fred agreed. “I never go anywhere without mine. Grandfather Tummeler published it, like he did with the
Geographica
. It’s only been printed once, but Grandfather says something like this takes time to find an audience.”

“Pardon my asking,” said John, “but you don’t seem to talk in quite the same way as your father and grandfather. You’re a bit more …”

“Educated?” guessed Fred.

“I was going to say ‘articulate,’” said John, “but yes, educated will do.”

Fred looked over his shoulder to where Uncas was coordinating some sort of effort involving coiled wires under the chassis of the Howling Improbable.

“I studied with Stephen under Charys, and Solomon Kaw, and even Samaranth himself,” said Fred. “I always thought that maybe, just maybe, if an animal could make himself learn everything it was possible to learn, then I could make my grandfather proud of me. I even hoped … I thought maybe …”

“Maybe what, Fred?” Jack asked.

The little mammal shifted his feet and would have blushed, if not for his fur. “I thought it might be possible that if I could become a good enough scholar, I might even be able to become a Caretaker myself. Like Charles. Like you.”

John and Jack looked at each other, then smiled at Fred. “I think you’d make a very good Caretaker,” Jack told the badger. “A very good one indeed.”

* * *

“We’ve formulated a plan,” Uncas announced finally.

“Excellent,” said John. “What is it?”

“We’re goin’ back t’ the Archipelago and getting more help,” said the badger.

“What!” exclaimed John and Jack together.

“You’ve been doing …
things
around your vehicle for an hour,” said John. “And after all this, the best you can manage is to give up?”

“We’re not giving up,” huffed Uncas. “But an animal has to know the difference between fight an’ flight. And we wasn’t prepared to handle something like this.”

“What do you usually do?”

“Well, t’ be honest,” Uncas said sheepishly, “this be th’ first time we ever went out on a job.”

“The first time?” exclaimed Jack.

“Yes,” said Uncas. “In truth, the whole reason the squad was formed was for this one night, and after fourteen years, we’re, uh … we’re really not sure what t’ do.”

The little animal looked as if it might burst into tears at any second. Jack sighed heavily and sat down next to him.

“Fourteen years,” said John. “You’ve really been waiting fourteen years for this mission, tonight?”

“Yes,” said Uncas. “The Prime Caretaker is going to be very disappointed.”

“The what?” asked John.