The fate of two worlds is at stake in this new addition to a series that blends fantasy and legend.
Seven years after the events of The Shadow Dragons, John, Jack, and Charles are finally able to return to their beloved Archipelago of Dreams. But even as old friends celebrate their return, new concerns shadow the reunion: the threat of Ecthroi, primordial Shadow. And perhaps even worse, the apparent splintering of Time itself.
Now the Caretakers must fight against their most fearsome enemy ever and attempt to restore Time, journeying through a forgotten Door from the destroyed Keep of Time in order to seek out the Dragon's Apprentice. Failure will mean the end of both of the worlds. But success will carry its own price-a price that may be too high even for the Caretakers to bear.
World War II has been raging for three years, but a more terrible evil is just over the horizon. The last stones are falling from the Keep of Time, and the Imperial Cartological Society, led by Richard Burton, has collected doors and is building a new tower at the request of an old enemy: the Winter King's shadow. He has a terrible weapon -- the Spear of Destiny -- that can be used to command the shadows of anyone it touches.
The Shadow King uses the Spear of Destiny to enlist an unstoppable army of Dragon shadows. And after the Archipelago falls, the Shadow King intends to use the turmoil of World War II to take over both worlds.
All the legendary Caretakers, past and present, come together to save two worlds, and their only hope lies with a small group of companions who are on the quest for the broken sword Caliburn: the Grail Child, Rose Dyson; her clockwork companion, the owl Archie; a dead professor of ancient literature; and the mythical knight Don Quixote.
On a September evening in 1931, John and Jack, two of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, discover a plea for help on a medieval manuscript -- which seems to have been written by their friend, Hugo Dyson! When they rush to warn him, Hugo walks through a door in time -- and vanishes into the past. And in that moment, the world begins to change.
The Frontier, which separates our world from the Archipelago of Dreams, has fallen. Dark and terrible beasts roam throughout England. No one can be summoned from the Archipelago. All the world lies under the reign of a cruel and terrible king.
The only hope to restore the proper order of things lies on a forgotten island, where a time travel device left by Jules Verne must be used to race through history itself -- from the Bronze Age, to ancient Alexandria and the founding of the Silver Throne -- in one night. And in that single night, John and Jack will find that the only way to save their friend and stop the chaos destroying the world is to solve a two-thousand year-old mystery: Who is the Cartographer?
It has been nine years since John, Jack, and Charles had their great adventure in the Archipelago of Dreams, and became the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. Now, they have been brought together again to solve a mystery: someone is kidnapping the children of the Archipelago. And their only clue is a mysterious message delivered by a strange girl with artificial wings: "The Crusade has begun." Worse, they discover that all of the legendary Dragonships have disappeared as well.
The only chance they have to save the world from a centuries-old plot is to seek out the last of the Dragonships -- the Red Dragon -- in a spectacular journey that takes them from Sir James Barrie's Kensington Gardens to the Underworld of the Greek Titans of myth. With friends both familiar and new, they will travel through an extraordinary landscape where history, myth, and fable blend together to tell the oldest story in the world. And along the way, the Caretakers of the Geographica will discover that great deeds alone do not make heroes, and that growing up may be unavoidable...but growing old doesn't have to be...
An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica -- an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.
Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds. And in the process, they will share a great adventure filled with clues that lead listeners to the surprise revelation of the legendary storytellers these men will one day become.
An extraordinary journey of myth, magic, and mystery, Here, There Be Dragons introduces James A. Owen as a formidable new talent.
