The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) Read Free Page B

year ago to make its way here. It’s been sailing for . . .” He looked at Twain. “I can’t do math.”
    “Oh, uh,” said Dumas, who was good with numbers. “About a . . . um, a thousand years, give or take.”
    “A thousand years,” Houdini repeated, glaring at da Vinci. “So we know there’s still a living Dragon at its heart. And as far as using it,” he added, looking at John, “that isn’t our choice. It’s his. And we all know who the Black Dragon once was—so what he’ll choose to do is anybody’s guess.”
    “He’ll do it,” said John.
    “You sound pretty confident of that,” said Dumas.
    “I am,” said John, “because he’s already sacrificed himself once for his daughter, and I have no doubt he’ll do it again.”
    “Why?” asked Houdini.
    “Because,” said John, “I’m a father too, and it’s what I would do.”
    “There’s just one problem,” said Shakespeare. “It’s a Dragon ship , not a Dragon. I don’t know if that will work to activate the portal. It may be that the only use for it is as a ship.”
    “It’s all well and good,” Dumas said, giving the Black Dragon a cursory glance, “but of what use is a Dragonship with no Archipelago to cross over to?”
    “More to the point,” said John, “if we can’t separate the Dragon from the ship, how can we power the gate?”
    “Do you really need to, though?” asked Jack. “The bridgedidn’t need anything but a Dragon’s eyes to work.”
    “I was hoping to engineer the gate to operate on the same principle as the bridge,” said Shakespeare, “but that’s, it would seem, apples and oranges.”
    “I think I understand,” said John. “The Dragon eyes were sufficient enough talismans to permit us to cross between worlds . . .”
    “But to traverse time, to activate the mechanism, requires a living Dragon,” Shakespeare finished. “It’s a conundrum, to be sure. That’s why this new development is so thrilling—the Black Dragon still has within it a living, breathing Dragon . . . and that may be sufficient to activate the Zanzibar Gate.”
    “In other words,” Jack said, grinning from ear to ear, “the Caretakers are back in the game.”
    “Bangarang!” said Fred.
    ♦  ♦  ♦
    Under Shakespeare’s direction, Houdini and John piloted the Black Dragon off the beach and around to the small island where the Zanzibar Gate had been constructed. But proximity was not enough.
    “It has to go through the gate,” Shakespeare said glumly. “The Dragon has to go through first, or else it can’t be activated properly.” He turned to Jules Verne, who had typically taken charge of situations like the discovery of the ship—but who had instead chosen to stand back in deference to John. “Is there any way to . . . separate the Dragon from the ship? To perhaps remove the masthead?”
    Verne glanced at John and Twain, then shook his head. “No method that I know of,” he answered. “As far as I know, no one’s ever tried. No one except Ordo Maas knew the process for making a Dragonship—and when the Archipelago was lost, we lost him as well.”
    “That’s not entirely true,” offered John. “He admitted that the Black Dragon wasn’t one of his, remember? Someone else must know the secret, because someone had to create the Black Dragon .”
    Verne looked at John, eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said. “You might have something at that.” He turned and tilted his head at Bert. “Someone one of us may have already met.”
    Bert moved quickly to Verne’s side, eyes glittering. “Surely he can’t still be alive?” he said, his voice trembling with excitement. “I mean, it could only be . . . He’d be the only one . . . But to still be alive, after all these centuries . . .”
    “Maybe,” Verne said, pulling at his beard. “It is possible, Bert.”
    “Who are we talking about?” asked Jack.
    “A possibility,” Verne said enigmatically. “Ordo Maas was not the only