The First Dragon (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, The) by James A. Owen

ill-advised flight and were making their way over to the Zanzibar Gate to investigate—but not from the encampments. The procession was coming from the huge boat.
    An elderly man, dressed in desert garb, with a long gray beard streaked through with white, led the procession of women, children, and, the companions were surprised to see, a large contingent of animals.
    He raised a hand in greeting as he peered curiously at Laura Glue and Madoc in turn, taking particular care to look over their wings. In response, and perhaps as a bit of a challenge, Madoc flexed his shoulders and opened his wings to their full, impressive glory.
    Kipling stepped forward, expecting to address the old man, but Fred and Uncas beat him to it, throwing themselves to the sand at the man’s feet. “We greet you, oh Ancient of Days,” they said in unison. “Now and forever, we serve thee, Ordo Maas.”
    The old man chuckled and helped them both to their feet. “That’s all well and good,” he said, a cheerful expression on his face that bespoke earnest affection for everyone in their group, “but there’s no point getting sand in your clothes, now, is there?”
    “Ordo Maas?” Madoc said, dumbfounded. “ You are Ordo Maas?”
    The old man nodded. “The Children of the Earth—the animals—named me thus back in the days when all of them spoke as these two fine badgers do,” he said, scratching at Uncas’s head, which the badger would have hated anyone else doing, but which he seemed to love in the moment. “In my old kingdom, back in the Empty Quarter, I was known as Utnapishtim. But here, among the people of this great exodus, I am simply known as Deucalion.”
    “Deucalion, the son of Prometheus,” said Madoc, “who built a great ark and saved all the creatures of the earth from a deluge that covered the world.”
    “You’re mostly right,” Deucalion said. “My father wasPrometheus, and I have built a ship. But it hasn’t rained here in decades. Water is growing scarce. And my reputation is more that of a fool than a king or savior of animals.”
    “Just wait,” said Fred. “I think things are about to change.”
    ♦  ♦  ♦
    “Why were we brought here?” Kipling wondered aloud as they followed the shipbuilder back to his tents in the shade of the great boat. “I thought we’d end up closer to the city itself.”
    “Remember what Will told us,” Laura Glue reminded them. “Intuition plays a part in how the gate is guided. If we were brought to this place, it’s in part because this is where we needed to be.”
    “Perhaps the giants have something to do with it,” said Madoc.
    “You may be right in that,” said Deucalion. “The Corinthian Giants have prevented anyone from reaching the city who did not specifically have the Mandate of Heaven. It has been thus for generations.”
    “ ‘Generations’ is certainly the word for it,” Quixote said, straining backward to look up at the huge ship.
    “This wasn’t built overnight,” Madoc said with real admiration in his voice. “How long have you been working on this vessel, old one?”
    “From the time I was warned about the cataclysm to come, and my wife and I fled my kingdom to come here, it has been one hundred and forty years,” Deucalion said as he gestured for his sons and their wives to serve water to his guests—first to the goats, then to the badgers, and then to the rest. “We began our family with the birth of my eldest son in the same year we began constructing the ship, a decade after our flight into the desert. Andnow we are nearly finished, just as my youngest son, Hap, is reaching manhood.
    “But enough of family histories,” he said, turning to Uncas. “What is it that brings you to my tent?”
    “Some friends of ours have gone missing,” Uncas said, “and we’ve come looking for them.”
    “How come I can never explain our goals that simply?” Kipling whispered to Quixote.
    “Poetic license,” the knight whispered back.