"You saved them from obscurity," Ernest said to his son with honest pride. "They should stay with you."

"What of the rest of these?" said Houdini, eyeing the treasure maps. "These could be very ... ah, useful."

"Not in our purview," John said. "We aren't treasure seekers, Harry."

"It was worth a shot," said Houdini.

"I'll take the treasure maps with me," Ernest said. "My time here in London is done, I think. The fire decided that, if for no other reason. I'm now officially retired from this whole business of maps, and I think maybe I'll spend some time on a plantation in the Caribbee Sea."

"As a gentleman farmer?" asked Jack.

"Or as a pirate," Ernest replied, "but then again, these days, who can tell the difference?"

"Doctor Franklin?" John said. "I'd like to invite you along, but I don't think I can."

"Not a problem," said Franklin, holding up his hands. "My place is here, in this time, and I'm content to leave it that way. Give my best regards to Verne-whenever he is."

"All right," John said. "Bring down the animals from Paralon. I think we're ready to go."

Good-byes were said, farewells given. And then the companions stepped through the map and into the future. It did not take long to discover if it worked. One moment they were in Franklin's study in London, and the next they were elsewhere.

They were in Rose's attic room at Tamerlane House.

"It worked!" Jack exclaimed. "Well done, Rose!"

"Wait," Burton said, holding up a hand. "We've moved in space, but we don't yet know if we moved in time."

Together, he, Houdini, and Doyle all checked their watches, then nodded in agreement. "It's all right," Burton proclaimed with uncharacteristic relief in his voice. "They all say we're back in 1945. Right when we're meant to be."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The Third Alternative

The companions' successful return was met with great rejoicing at Tamerlane House. Not only were they home, safe and sound, but the journey had given them the seeds of hope that time might be fixed, and the Archipelago restored. But none of the good news made relaying the bad news any easier. During the celebration, Jack took Bert aside and told him privately about Aven's last moments.

"I can still hope," Bert said somberly. "The Archipelago runs according to Kairos time, and that is not absolute. If it were here, in the Summer Country, I would be more fearful. But I'm glad you were able to speak to her, Jack. Very glad."

"You won't be able to interact with her as we did," Jack said as he pulled the reel from Paralon out of his pack, "but you'd still be able to see her, if you like."

Bert began to reach for the reel, then hesitated. He seemed to be debating the matter in his mind; then finally he decided.

"Thank you, Jack, truly," he said, curling up his fingers and folding his hands together. "Perhaps later."

The Far Traveler quickly moved on to give more instructions to the Caretakers Emeritis, and Burton moved over to a slightly puzzled Jack. "He's putting up a brave front," he whispered. "Give him time."

Jack tilted his head and replaced the reel in his pack. "I guess I was expecting him to respond more as you did."

"Maybe," Burton said as he moved past Jack to grab a bottle of wine, "I was just putting on a brave front too."

Deftly Burton maneuvered himself alongside Bert, and then drew them both to a balcony where they could speak privately.

"So, Far Traveler," Burton began.

"So, Barbarian," Bert answered. "What did you want to speak to me about that was not for the ears of our colleagues?"

Burton looked at him oddly for a moment, then poured wine into a glass that he handed to Bert before taking a swig from the bottle. "It seems we have something in common, you and I," he said at length. The lost boy, my heir ... he's your descendant too."

Bert nodded thoughtfully and sipped at the wine. "I've considered that. It certainly gives him a colorful heritage."

"That's an understatement. He has the potential to conquer the world, if he wished it."

"Lineage isn't everything," Bert countered. "Environment and upbringing have a lot to do with one's potential. And all this boy knew was a legacy he couldn't touch, a sheltered Aladdin's cave of fairy tales read to him by hedgehogs, and several well-meaning adults who didn't pay attention to him until someone else did. Yes, what he'll grow up to become is exactly what troubles me about him, never mind his lineage."

"Do you think it's possible?" asked Burton. "Will we be able to discover what's happened to him?'

Bert didn't reply. After a minute, Burton returned to the party.

Edmund McGee was already settling nicely into a suite of rooms Poe had offered him at the opposite end of the corridor from Basil Hallward's studio. In a matter of hours, Edmund and Laura Glue had set up drafting tables, shelving, and enough reference material that the main room had already begun to resemble the old Cartographer's room near the top of the Keep of Time.

The main differences, Jack noticed, were that this Cartographer's room had windows that opened, and a door that would never be locked.

He even noted, with some amusement and a little mild understanding, that Archimedes had all but nested in one of the alcoves, which pained Rose ever so slightly. He had been her most constant companion and teacher during those years when she was maturing from a child into a young woman, and he was her closest friend.

Still, he was also what he was-and his memories of the early days with Rose's father and uncle still resonated strongly. Rose had a passing interest in her uncle's handiwork, and she certainly had the facility for mapmaking-but it was not her passion. For young Edmund, it was. Not only did he have three generations of mapmakers behind him, but they had developed the family trade during one of the most exciting, thrilling, and unpredictable periods in human history.

If anything, Jack concluded, Edmund was better primed and prepared to become a Cartographer of imaginary lands than Merlin was.

"Hank knew exactly what he was doing," said Twain. "He didn't choose Elijah McGee at random, and the skills of the family McGee are not mere coincidence."

He flipped open one of the Histories that Hank Morgan had been annotating through his jaunts in time and indicated a series of notes along one margin. "It's here, you see-in the genealogy."

"This says that Elijah McGee was descended from Francois Le Clerc," John said. "He was a pirate, wasn't he?'

"Among the first who were called so," Edmund Spenser said as he entered the room and the conversation. "In some quarters, he was even called the Pirate King. Quite a scoundrel-which, I suppose, is not a bad quality to possess if you're going to be a pirate. He was a contemporary of mine, and we met on two occasions before his presumed death."

"Presumed?" said Jack. "There was a question?"

Spenser nodded. "Eminently so. He supposedly perished after trying to commandeer a Spanish galleon and sail it, unassisted, through the Frontier."

John's mouth gaped. "He knew about the Archipelago?"

"Of course he did," Spenser replied. "He was from the Archipelago. Sinbad wasn't the only seafarer who made a practice of crossing from world to world when the occasion presented itself. He was just better at it than Le Clerc."

"Spenser never confirmed that the pirate was dead," Twain said, "but Verne's Mystorians have a working theory that he and his subsequent ships became the original source of the Flying Dutchman legends. Edmund did, however, manage to save Le Clerc's ship."

"What did you do with it?" asked John.

Spenser smiled, a broad, warm expression. "You know as well as anyone," he said impishly. "It's sitting in the south boathouse."

"The Indigo Dragon," Jack exclaimed. "Brilliant!"

"So you see," Twain finished as he added a new notation to the book, "that boy was not selected at random. He has a fine lineage from the Archipelago itself-all Hank did was to bring the family trade full circle."

Eventually, as the companions knew it must, talk turned to the topic of Hank's note, and the mysterious others who were able to manipulate time.

"They must have discovered some way to combine the attributes of the trumps with the mechanism of the watches," Verne said, looking askance at Bert, "and there are very few among us who could even conceive such a thing."

"Do you think the Watchmaker may have had a hand in it?" asked John. "Could Dee have coerced him, or somehow bribed him to modify them?"

"I doubt it," said Verne. "He may be above our petty little alliances with their shifting lines, but he's also a good judge of character. And he can tell a Namer from an Un-Namer."

"At least we're in the Summer Country now," said Bert. "Our experiments would not have worked if we were still in the Archipelago."

"Why not?" asked Jack.

"We have never been able to traverse time inside the Archipelago," Verne explained, "only in the Summer Country. It's the nature of Kairos time, you see. It's more pure, more fluid-almost imaginary. Events there are given meaning only because of the connection to Chronos time, here in the Summer Country. That's why residents there age slowly, or not at all, and why without the keep, time travel was impossible. There are exceptions to this, of course, but we have come to realize that this should be treated more as a rule than a guideline."

"We'll have plenty of opportunities to practice," said Rose, "but even with all of our successes, I can't help feeling sad for all that we've lost. It seems too high a price to have paid."

"Maybe not so high as you think, dear child," said Verne. He was smiling broadly. "We have a surprise for you-for all of you, in fact." He pointed to the door of the banquet hall, where a tall, lanky man was just stepping through.

"Hello, Rose," he said warmly.

Rose looked up, and her gasp of surprise turned into a squeal of glee as Charles walked toward her.

Rose's delighted reaction was echoed by John and Jack, both of whom were moved to hug their colleague several times while tears filled all their eyes.

"Well done!" John kept exclaiming as he clapped his friend on the back, as if Charles not being dead was some sort of carnival award. "Well done, my man!"

"Thank you, John, Jack," Charles said amiably. "I'm only disappointed that when you needed me, I wasn't ready to accompany you. So sorry about that."

"It's fine, it's fine," Jack exclaimed. "We managed somehow, and your stand-in comported himself very well, very well indeed."

"Stand-in?" said Charles.

"We recruited Hugo," said Jack.

Charles's face froze in a mix of amusement and horror. "You're joking! Ah, no offense, Rose."

"They are joking, and none taken," Rose said as she chucked Jack on the shoulder. "It was Fred, of course."

"Right," said Charles. "Where is the young fellow, anyway? I should quite like to see him."

"He'll be down in a bit," John assured him. "He's upstairs assembling a lamp for our new Cartographer."

It was Charles's turn to be surprised. "New Cartographer?" he sputtered. "I die and everyone starts rearranging things on me."

"You don't know the half of it," said Jack. "But there'll be time for that later. Tell us how ..." He stopped. The initial excitement now past, they could finally take a good look at their old friend-who was no longer quite so old.

"I say," Jack murmured as he squinted at Charles. "Did you do something to your hair?"

"Got it back," Charles said jovially. "That's one of the positive things about becoming a tulpa-the body you create is exactly the one that you think of when you think of 'yourself.' It's the ideal you, so to speak-and mine happens to be around thirty."

"That's about how old you were when we first met, back in 1917," said Jack. "Remember, Bert?"

Bert nodded. "I do very well," he said, clearing his throat. "It was a good age for a Caretaker."

"The third alternative, they call it," Charles said when they'd settled back in their seats. "Everyone dies eventually. And there's also the course that almost all the Caretakers have chosen for ethical and moral reasons, which is to become portraits in the gallery and reside at Tamerlane House. But there's also the third way, becoming a tulpa, which Jules and Bert both advocated to me after that meeting at the Inn of the Flying Dragon."

"Bert advocated?" John said, surprised. "I didn't expect that."

"My personal feelings about it haven't changed," Bert offered, "and it remains a sore point between Jules and me. But something very significant happened that we've never had to deal with before. And that changed everything."

"What was that?" asked John.

"Stellan," said Bert. "We've always known the risks of leaving Tamerlane House, but never in our history had we lost a Caretaker in that way."

"We defeated the Shadow King only by the slimmest of margins," said Verne, "and Stellan was key to that victory. But had the journey taken just a little longer, or had they been delayed ..."

"We'd never have reached the wall, or my father," said Rose, "and we'd have lost everything."

Bert nodded. "None of which would have been an issue if Stellan had been a tulpa," he said, not really enjoying the admission. "Charles is still vitally important to the work we're doing now, and we didn't want to risk the same thing happening to him. So we offered him the choice, and he accepted."

"Also," added Charles, "I'm getting on amazingly well with Rudyard Kipling."

"It doesn't make you immortal, you know," Jack cautioned. "As we saw with Defoe, a tulpa body can still be destroyed."

"Oh, I'm completely aware of that possibility," said Charles, "and if we see that coming, I can still have my portrait done by Basil, and join the others in the gallery. And if that happens, then I'll have something really interesting to explore. I'm not terribly worried about it."

"After our discussion about his impending, uh, discontinuity," said Bert, "progress on Charles's portrait was halted while Jules and Rudy began to prepare him to create a tulpa."

"What did you do with the uncompleted portrait?"

"We found another use for it, which didn't require as much alteration as you'd think," said Verne.