“It was also the source of much of the music and literature of the entire Archipelago,” he said, “with libraries second only to those at Paralon. Its loss was profoundly felt.” The shadows that obscured the islands were in fact clouds, thick and black, that had settled down onto the land itself. The clouds not only cut off the land from view, but also the light of the sun. A dead gray light was all that penetrated through the clotted air, leaving a soft, chalky, shadowless light that resembled nothing so much as the mythical land of the dead. The White Dragon approached slowly and cautiously, but no signal heralded their arrival. It was as if no one noticed they were there. A small harbor was found, where they could moor the ship and get a closer look at the shore. And what they saw was both horrifying and heartbreaking in its enormity. The island was thickly wooded, with trees similar to those on both Byblos and Paralon. All along the shore were willow trees that had wildly overgrown, as if they’d not been tended to in many years. Among the trees was a throng of people—hooded, gray as death, and all but motionless. As they looked, they could see thousands upon thousands more silhouetted in the dim light. This was indeed the source of Mordred’s army, for these half-living beings looked just like the fallen warriors on Terminus. “Oh my,” Bert said softly. “This may take a very long time.” “No,” said Jack. “Maybe not. It’s not just the people—the spirit of the land is sick too. Can’t you feel it?” “What do you want to do, Jack?” said John. “Help me carry the cauldron to the shore,” said Jack. “Then I’ll do what I’ve always done, and make it up as I go along.” On a rocky outcropping of the shoreline of Prydain, Jack once again opened Pandora’s Box—but instead of placing his hand over the heart of one of Mordred’s human victims, he placed one hand inside the box and put the other deep into the loamy soil of the land. In moments there was a flash from the cauldron. Then a river of shadow and light twined together and ran across Jack’s shoulders and into the earth. As they watched, the light and shadow streaked across the landscape, touching every tree, rock, house, and hovel as it raced along unopposed by anything in its path. All of the people touched by shadow wavered and fell, then began to stir, and finally rose to their feet, shaking their heads as if waking from a bad dream. And, in a manner, they were. “How is this possible?” John said to Bert. “How can he be doing this, all from a talisman that caused so much evil and misery? “He can do this,” said Bert, “because he reached into it more deeply than the Winter King wanted to, or ever would. “Remember the legend of Pandora’s Box? When it was opened for the first time, and all the evils of man escaped out into the world, there was still one thing left inside, which was the redemption of all the rest. “Hope.” In minutes the entire land had been completely transformed. Every person in sight bore a shadow, now clearly visible as the clouds burned away and let the unaffected sunlight stream through. Jack turned to his friends, panting from exertion but smiling broadly. “How’s that?” John and Bert cheered, and Charles pumped his fist in the air. “That’s the way, Jack! That’s how an Oxford man gets things done!” All the lands that had been shadowed were along the southern edge of the Archipelago. So the White Dragon simply traveled in a slow curve along the lands, guided to where they needed to be by the telltale smudge of darkness the shadow created on the horizon. As Jack transformed each land, the map would reappear in the Imaginarium Geographica, as if it always been there and always would. “We’ll have to let Tummeler know,” said Charles. “Or he’ll be stuck publishing an abridged edition.” They visited land after land; lands they had never heard of, and others they knew well from story and myth. Hy-Breasil. Lilliput. Charos and Styx. Hel. Asmund. And on and on and on. And finally, at the end of more days than they would have liked, but far, far fewer than they had first expected, they realized that there were no more blank pages in the Geographica, and no more dark clouds below the horizon. They could, at last, go home. Bert turned the great wheel and pointed the White Dragon in the direction of the Frontier. “Bert,” John began, as he, Jack, and Charles approached the little man one evening. “We’ve been looking through the Imaginarium Geographica, and we think there’s a land missing.” “Really?” said Bert. “But I thought we’d taken care of all the shadowed lands. How could we have overlooked one?” “Not one of the vanished maps,” said Charles. “A map that’s never been in it to begin with.” “Ah, I see,” said Bert. “Which land were you thinking we’ve misplaced?” “We’ve only heard about it here and there,” said Jack. “But Ordo Maas mentioned it first. He called it the Summer Country.” “Ah,” said Bert, smiling. “The Summer Country. One of the greatest of the lands, and spoken about with reverence for many, many years. It’s interesting that you should mention it, for the Summer Country was one of the lands that Mordred—the Winter King—wished to find more than anywhere else.” “The way Ordo Maas spoke of it,” said Jack, “made it seem as if it might be another place altogether—as if that’s where he would go when he died.” “Heaven?” said Bert. “It’s entirely possible. It all depends on your point of view.” “How can the existence of a place depend on one’s point of view?” asked Charles. “Very easily,” said Bert, “or have you already forgotten the Keep of Time? There were real, physical places behind those doors—but you can argue that they didn’t exist until the door was opened. When John opened a door and found the professor, that place existed for him, based on his belief that it was there. As did the door that provided our escape. It was what Charles needed it to be. In a manner of speaking, he believed it into existence. So is it with the Summer Country.” “So the Summer Country is whatever people want it to be?” said Jack. “It is the way most people speak of it,” said Bert, “but you are correct—the legend is based on a place that actually exists. “The Summer Country is a land greater than any in the Archipelago of Dreams, because it has within it everything to be found in the Archipelago, and more. But where someone like Ordo Maas could find it anywhere, the Winter King would never find it at all. Because to him, it is always just out of his reach—when, in truth, he had it in reach all along.” “It sounds,” John said, “as if you’re talking about our world.” “Yes,” said Bert. “Your world is the Summer Country.” Chapter Twenty-Four Much of the remaining voyage back was spent reexamining the Geographica and making notations on the maps that had reappeared since the defeat of the Winter King and the reawakening of the Shadowed Lands. Until just a few days before, the companions would have given—would have done—anything, for immediate passage
