The Search for the Red Dragon (17 page)

The Croatoans put their captives
in a small lodge made of wicker and animal skins, but that nonetheless also had leaded glass windows. It might have seen other uses, but it was obvious to them all that this was now their prison.

The fires outside were allowed to burn down to embers, and eventually the settlement grew quiet as deep night descended on the Underneath.

In the lodge, the companions slept. And sleeping, they dreamed. Not dreams of their recent adventures (and ordeals), but dreams that seemed to be searching for the meaning that lay beneath all that had transpired.

John had no fear.

He had often wondered what it meant to be afraid of something, but in the years since the war, he had gradually come to realize that nothing made him afraid. He had witnessed the deaths of many friends and had seen himself placed in mortal danger. And he had emerged from those experiences changed—for the better, he hoped. But unlike the physical changes borne by those who had been wounded in some way,
John’s change was invisible; he was no longer afraid of death.

…a regal, thin-framed man…spread his arms in greeting.

His new attribute showed itself, not through an irrational recklessness, but rather in a disregard for any personal price he might pay for a course of action. The best word he could use to describe this awareness was from India: satyagraha. It meant to do anything, give anything, sacrifice anything, to pursue what was right without harming another. And to do it without regard to self.

The only fear John had was for his children.

He had often dreamed of them falling from a great height, and just out of his reach. Falling, like Icarus flown too close to the sun, too far away for a father to save. Sometimes he dreamed that he could almost reach them, and once, when the dream was of his eldest son, he dreamed that he extended his hand and grazed the boy’s fingers before he fell.

Thereafter, he determined that if the boy was close enough to touch, he was close enough to hold—and save. And that played constantly in John’s thoughts afterward. Chopping firewood for the household stove, he sometimes imagined that a large split log was a child’s hand, and he carried it from the woodpile to the hearth using only the tips of his fingers, holding on by the least, most tenuous grasp. He often lost the wood, as the splinters it left reminded him. But he grew stronger; and eventually he could carry a huge log between his fingers as far as he chose to walk, without risk of dropping it.

After that, he still dreamed of children falling—but he never again failed to save them.

Jack dreamed about desire. Not so much about the desire
for
things, or desire to
be
something, but about the
meaning
of desire. And in that way, he also dreamed of fear.

As a child, he once dreamed that he could leave behind the dreary life he saw ahead of him, and go to a place where he could be a child forever; and he knew that he desired it. But awake or asleep, he chose to smother his desire.

As he grew older, his dreams manifested themselves in action, and he followed his desire to be a hero and have a life of grand adventure—but his fears were also realized, and those close to him paid a dear price. And again, he put away his desire.

Now he was torn between what he wanted to do and what he knew he must do. And it seemed that the two were often the same; but he could never be sure. And, unable to decide, Jack ceased dreaming and slept fitfully the rest of the night.

Charles also dreamed. And in his dream, he could fly. And it was glorious.

Dawn, or whatever it was that passed for dawn in the Underneath, was still to come when the companions were awakened by someone poking at them in the darkness.

It was Laura Glue.

“C’mon,” the girl whispered anxiously. “We’ve got to leave, now! It’s almost morning!”

“What happens in the morning?” said Charles, still groggy from sleep. “And, uh, weren’t you a prisoner, like us? How did you get free?”

The girl shook her head, almost frantic. “No time, no time! We have to go now!”

She untied Charles, who then helped her to free the others, and carefully they opened the door of the lodge. Outside, the two stocky men appointed as guards were lying on the ground in poses that suggested unconsciousness rather than sleep.

“We bonked them on the noggins,” Laura Glue whispered. “Took ’em right out.”

“‘We’?” said Jack.

In response Laura Glue pointed to two shadows standing at the base of one of the bluffs that bracketed the settlement.

It was Aven, who was waving and looking around to make certain they were unobserved, and one other.

“Hairy Billy?” John said suspiciously as they approached. “Isn’t he Burton’s toady?”

“Perhaps,” said Aven, who was hugging her father. “But once he was a boy called Joe Clements, who ran away from home to become a Lost Boy. He was one of the last full-blood Algonquin among the Croatoans, and they mocked him, calling him ‘Injun Joe.’ So he went someplace where he could choose a new name—his own name. With us.”

“How do you know we can trust him?” asked Charles.

In answer, Hairy Billy pushed aside his ornate necklaces and showed them a plain leather cord, looped through a silver thimble identical to Laura Glue’s.

The massive barrel-chested Indian turned and pulled something from a bramble bush that he handed to John. It was the
Imaginarium Geographica
.

John started to stammer a thank-you, but Hairy Billy merely
smiled his openmouthed, grotesquely tongueless smile, then turned and motioned for them all to follow.

Jack grinned. “Burton thought he was so clever with his secret society and covert agents,” he said. “He didn’t realize it works both ways.”

In silence they followed the Indian through the underbrush of the pine forest for almost a quarter of an hour before finally emerging into a broad clearing. There ahead of them was the unmistakable rise of another island, and in between, nothing but a mile or so of moist sand. In the distance was a sound of thunder, which grew louder with each passing second.

“That’s not thunder,” Laura Glue said when she realized they were scanning the sky for storm clouds. “We have to hurry, please!”

Hairy Billy made several motions with his hands, indicating that he could go no farther with them, then squeezed Aven’s shoulder briefly and disappeared into the trees.

Back in the direction from which they’d come, there arose a great hue and cry, and a roaring of fury that could only have come from Burton.

“Our absence has been noted,” said Bert. “We’d best hurry along.”

“To what end?” said John, scanning the expanse ahead of them. “They’ll be on us in a few minutes, and then we’ll be back where we started—only this time, there’ll be no pacifying Burton.”

“Listen to her!” cried Aven, grabbing Laura with one hand and Bert with the other. “Just follow us and try to keep up!”

With that the three took off at a dead run across the sand. John, Jack, and Charles had little choice but to follow.

It was when the companions were almost halfway across the
expanse of sand that their pursuers burst out of the forest and onto the sand. Turning to gauge their pursuit, the Caretakers suddenly realized what the increasingly loud sound was.

It was not thunder. It was the incoming tide. And it was rushing across the sand with terrifying speed.

“Step in time, gentlemen,” John yelled as he picked up his pace. Up ahead, Aven, Laura Glue, and Bert had nearly reached the nearby high ground, which, in just a few moments, would be an island.

The sound of the water was so deafening now that they could no longer hear the cries of their pursuers, but a stolen glance back told them that a number of Croatoans had indeed followed them out onto the sand.

The force of the water was pushing a wall of air before it that nearly knocked them off of their feet, and the spray from the foam had already soaked them to the skin before they reached the cluster of rocks where the other three were waiting anxiously.

John reached the rocks first, then Jack, and finally, the water crashing down at his heels, Charles. Just inches away, a flood of biblical proportions filled the expanse between them and Croatoan Island and as far as the eye could see.

The noise it brought was a sound of ragged beauty. The harmonies of a wall of water falling into a narrow space speak of chaos, and strength, and inevitability, and they are beautiful in their terrible splendor.

The Croatoans foolish enough to pursue them didn’t even have time to scream before being swept away, while on the opposite shore, Burton and the rest of their pursuers had been completely cut off by the thundering waves.

“Mustn’t we keep running?” Charles said to the others, who were watching the roiling waters rush by. “It’s going to settle in a few minutes, and they’ll just be after us again.”

Laura Glue giggled, shook her head, and pointed.

Out in the water was one of the Croatoans, who’d been identified at the council as Jinty. He was nearly seven feet tall, and his great stride had allowed him to far outpace the others, trapping him in the onrushing tide. But instead of pushing forward, he seemed to be frantically trying to get back to the dry shore where Burton and the rest had stopped.

He was mere yards from safety when a great beast, which resembled a porpoise the size of a London bus, snatched him between jaws filled with needlelike teeth.

“That’s jus’ one of the
little
ones,” said Laura Glue. “Until the tide goes out again tonight, no one’s going to be chasing us.”

In a flash the girl’s expression shifted from triumph to one of misery. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “I’ve lost my flower!”

Jack placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Laura Glue. We don’t need it anymore—not while we have you. You saved us again, didn’t you?”

He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “That, my dear girl, was a kiss,” he said.

Laura Glue blushed. “Jamie’s kisses are prettier to look at,” she said, smiling, “but that was okay too, f’r a Longbeard.”

The companions moved farther along the shoreline and began to explore the island the girl had led them to. It was not dissimilar to Croatoan Island, but it seemed…
older
. More ancient. The trees were more deciduous than evergreen, and they radiated a scent
of antiquity, as if they’d always been there. As if they’d always
be
there.

But of all their reactions to this new topography, Aven’s was the most profound. In direct contrast to their surroundings, she actually seemed…
younger
.

And it was then that her father realized where they were.

“This is it,” Bert said, “isn’t it? This is Jamie and Peter’s Nether Land.”

“I think so,” said Aven, looking at Laura Glue, who was happily bobbing her head in agreement. “It feels right. I can’t say for certain until we’ve gone farther inland.”

“This way!” Laura Glue exclaimed, grabbing Aven and Jack by the hands. “Follow me! I know the way!”

With one last look across to the island where shortly before they’d been held as prisoners, the companions stepped into the broadleaf forest and disappeared into the Nether Land.

Laura Glue marched them through increasingly dense foliage, often taking pathways that seemed to the others to be illogically convoluted. But she insisted that the twists and turns and switchbacks were necessary, and Aven generally agreed.

“The Lost Boys have been at war with the Indians for a long time,” Aven told the others. “Booby-trapping the forest is one way to fend off any attacks—or at least, slow them down long enough to warn us that enemies are coming.”

“What kind of booby traps?” Charles said, craning his head around nervously. “And are they effective?”

“Effective enough,” replied Aven. “Peter gave the job to two brothers, the Skelton boys, and just the initial tests were enough
to keep the rest of us from tromping around out here without checking on where they put the traps.”