Here, There Be Dragons

After a time, she extended her hand to touch him, to say something to change his mind, to reassure him that what he was going through, while bitter, and a harsh lesson to learn, was nevertheless just a part of growing up. But somehow, none of the words seemed adequate to express what she felt, and they died in her throat.
Aven held her hand near his shoulder a moment more, then dropped her hand and walked out of the room.

Aboard the Blue Dragon, which had been converted into a makeshift hospital, Charys shook his head in defeat. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
The centaur was tending to the pallid forms of those who had fallen to the Shadow-Born, including Falladay Finn. The centaurs had long been valued for their knowledge of medicine and the healing arts, but what had been done to his friends and comrades was beyond his ken.
“I don’t know,” he said again, with uncharacteristic reserve. “They live, but have no will, no fire. Their spirits are gone, and I have no idea how to restore them.”
“It stands to reason,” Charles suggested, “that they are trapped inside Pandora’s Box, doesn’t it? If the Shadow-Born are created by forcing someone to look inside, and they are capable of ripping away and…and… absorbing the shadows of others, then where else could they have gone?”
“That’s true,” said Aven. “They all disappeared at the moment you and Tummeler closed the box.”
“I think the best thing we can do is to take it back to the Morgaine on Avalon,” said Bert. “They’ve had it longer than anyone. They might be able to help us.”
“Or Ordo Maas,” said Charles. “He has experience with it as well, although considering that it involved his wife, and her expulsion from the Archipelago, I can imagine that he won’t be too happy to see it again.”
“There must be some way to do it,” said John. “I can’t believe that the process is irreversible. The problem is, the only way to let anything out is to open it,” he continued, “and then you’re back to the problem of not being able to look inside without being trapped yourself.”
“There’s obviously some trick to it,” said Charles, “or else Mordred wouldn’t have been able to use it either.”
“I know how the Winter King did it,” said a voice from the doorway.
It was Jack.
“I know how the Winter King did it,” Jack said again. “And I can do it too.
“I can free the Shadow-Born.”

…a throng of people—hooded, gray as death…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Into the Shadowed Lands

Jack came into the room and stood facing his friends, arms folded in a gesture that, John thought, seemed very much like one the old Jack would have made: defiant, confident, sure.

“Now, Jack,” Bert began, “I know you want to help, but…”

Jack ignored him. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” he said, pacing across the room, “and there is only one reason that the Winter King could use the box without being trapped in it himself—he had no shadow.”

John and Charles looked at each other, startled. That was one point they hadn’t considered.

“So,” Jack continued, “it stands to reason that only someone with a similar condition could reopen, and use, Pandora’s Box to free the shadows trapped within.”

“That’s a huge leap of logic,” said Bert. “None of us knows enough about it, or even the process he used to steal shadows, to risk using the box.”

“I can,” Jack said for the third time. “Do you remember, on the Indigo Dragon, when the Winter King asked me to join him, and I refused?”

“Yes,” said John. “He whispered something to you—something you claimed you couldn’t even understand.”

“I didn’t understood it until now,” said Jack. “It didn’t make any sense to me then, but after Aven and I talked a little while ago, I remembered something similar the Cartographer said. And that’s when I realized what I could do.”

“What did Mordred say to you, Jack?”
“He said, ‘Shadows cannot exist without the light. But without the shadows, the light has no meaning.’”
“A wise statement,” said Charys, “even considering the source. But why would that make you think you could look into the vessel without losing your shadow?”
“Because,” said Jack, “I’m the only one here who knows what it is to give up one’s shadow—and then to choose to take it back.”
“There remains one problem,” said Eledir. “The box is known to be a forbidden magic. Samaranth has made this clear. It was not to be used by Archibald, and we know what happened when Mordred used it. If you were to try, would that not incur the wrath of the dragons yet again?”
“Not to make it worse,” Charles put in, “but we also need to consider something else. When Tummeler and I closed the Box, the Shadow-Born disappeared. What if we open it again, and they all reappear? We could suddenly find ourselves up to our necks in Shadow-Born.”
“No, I don’t think they would, and I don’t think we will,” said Artus.
“Archibald and Mordred both used it to subvert another’s will,” he continued, “to control. Jack would not be using it to conquer, but to restore. And I don’t think even the dragons would have an argument with that. And I think bringing forth Shadow-Born is a matter of intent. Sometimes Mordred needed a dozen, and sometimes a thousand. He just withdrew the number he needed. But it was always an act of will, not just happenstance. The same rules apply.”
“The High King has spoken,” said Charys. “I will not oppose it if Jack wishes to try.”
“Agreed,” said Eledir.
“All right,” Artus said to Jack. “Do what you will.”

The rest of the group moved to the far side of the room, so as not to inadvertantly look into the cauldron. Jack sat in a wooden chair between it and the bed where they’d lain Falladay Finn, facing away from the others. He looked back at his friends and gave a little smile. Then, with no preamble, he reached up and removed the shield from the top of Pandora’s Box and looked directly inside the opening.