Read Online The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) by James A. Owen - Free Book Online Page A

I disagree with most of that,” Fred replied, “but isn’t time exactly what we have the most of?”
    She shook her head and pulled him to one side of the grand porch at the main entrance. “If they were simply lost in time, then yes,” she whispered, “but we are also trying to outmaneuver an enemy who is better at time travel than we are. They know more than we do. And I don’t think they’ve spent the last couple of months just waiting on us. I think they’ve been busy. And that means we have no time to waste.”

Shakespeare . . . looked at the small company.

“So what d’ you want t’ do?”
    She looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot, then leaned in close. “Tonight, meet me at that place where we hid that thing that one time,” she said as she pushed open the door. “We’re going to sort it out.”
    ♦  ♦  ♦
    “So, how are we going to sort it out?” Houdini asked John as he diplomatically maneuvered the Prime Caretaker away from the front door and toward one of the side yards.
    John realized the magician was simply trying to make sure he didn’t stride right into another confrontation with Jack, and he felt more relieved by the gesture than manipulated. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “but I simply can’t risk trying something that leaves us worse off than we already are. Rose and Edmund together could travel into Deep Time, and now, with Madoc, we may be able to as well. But if we lose him, we’re two steps behind again.”
    “Two steps behind Dr. Dee, you mean,” said Houdini, “but I would dare to disagree. The boy prince could have chosen sides at the battle on Easter Island, and he didn’t. I think that’s why Dee hasn’t acted yet—his trump card is still an indecisive child.”
    “An indecisive child with the power over time and space,” John replied, “who may yet take John Dee’s side.”
    “Maybe,” a voice said from just ahead of them on one of the paths from the west end of the house, “but we have Will Shakespeare on our side. And,” Kipling added as he reached to shake John’s hand, “they don’t.”
    Twain, Dickens, Verne, and Byron were just behind Hawthorne and nodded in agreement. “That’s one security we have,” said Verne. “They can’t duplicate what Will is able to do with his constructs. As far as I know, their watches have no greater range than ours do.”
    “You’re forgetting two things,” said John. “One, they have the Chronographer of Lost Times. Dee. His Imaginarium Chronographica marks far more zero points than anything we know of, so they can move about in time more freely. And,” he added with a grimace, “Telemachus, and the Ruby Armor, is still a wild card here. If he doesn’t cooperate, couldn’t Dee just kill him and take the armor to use himself?”
    “No,” Verne answered as they rounded the west wing and walked toward Shakespeare’s shop, “or else he’d have already done so. The armor can only be used by an adept, and there are only two we know of for certain—Telemachus and Rose. And anything else Dee could try would require cavorite, and that’s not so easy to come by.”
    “I thought the Nameless Isles were made up almost entirely of cavorite,” John said, shading his eyes to look at the surrounding islands. “Couldn’t someone else just sneak over the bridge, mine some of the ore, and start making their own gate from scratch?”
    In answer Hawthorne grabbed a large sledgehammer from Shakespeare’s tools and strode over to where a boulder of cavorite was protruding from the scrubby lawn. Grasping the handle with both hands, he swung the hammer in a high arc and smashed it down on the stone. It impacted with a loud thunderclap of metal on rock, and the hammer shattered as if it were porcelain. The stone looked as if it had never been touched.
    “Been suggested, been tried,” he said, slightly breathless from the effort. “Cavorite is harder to mine than adamantium,