Trielle turned to Garin. “Is that the road that you’ve been talking about?”
“Yes, it is,” he replied. “I’ve been studying this ever since I left the Oneirographicon. It seems clear that the lowest sphere is the Conclave, but I’m not sure exactly what the other spheres represent. Are they places? Concepts? And the road… It almost seems as if it leads out of the cosmos altogether. Also,” he added, “look here.”
Garin pointed to a shadow between the second and third spheres where the road seemed to momentarily vanish. The shadowed region formed a chasm that divided the bottom two spheres from the rest of the mountain, a rift in the otherwise smooth continuity of the image.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” he said with a frown, “but I think it’s important.”
Trielle studied the shadow for a few moments, then shook her head. “Garin, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to make of this at all. Part of me wants to believe that this map means something, but the only part that I can even begin to comprehend is the image of the Conclave at the bottom. If there is any truth to be learned here it was meant for you, not me.”
Trielle paused for a moment. “Garin,” she said finally, “are you sure, really sure, that this is anything more than an odd dream? And what if it is? How can we use it? Where does the road even begin?”
Garin stood in silent thought. “Trielle,” he said at last, “perhaps I am going mad. Don’t think I haven’t considered that. Perhaps this map may be nothing more than a foolish expression of my hope that this dying world is not all there is. But at this point, with Vai extinguished and the other suns on their way to the same fate, I guess I’d rather investigate a foolish hope than just give up. And if it is real, if there truly is a story that the world tells by itself, if the world truly does have some sort of intrinsic meaning, then we’ve lost something valuable and need to get it back. And,” he added,” we do know where the road begins.”
Garin gestured at the image, enlarging and recentering it until the first sphere filled the entire hologram and the worlds of the Conclave lay stretched out before them.
I can see them all, she thought in amazement. Latis, Garuda, Delphos… What kind of dream has this much detail?
Then that she noticed the road. When the image was smaller the road had appeared to stop at the edge of the sphere that contained the Conclave, but now she could see that it continued inside it; smaller, diminished in both size and grandeur, but still intact. Trielle’s eyes followed the road as it curved gently between the entropy clouds and finally ended at a small, nameless world near the outer rim.
“This is what I need your help with, Trielle,” said Garin. “I need to get to that planet. If the road exists at all, it starts there.”
Trielle thought for a moment. “All the worlds in the Conclave have at least one Kinetorium.”
Garin frowned, considering this. “But this is an abandoned world,” he said. “You saw the images from my dream: the broken buildings, the cracked pavement. Why would anyone maintain a Kinetorium there?”
“It might not be maintained,” she said, “but it still has to be operational. Think about it,” she continued. “The orbits that the Conclave worlds take around the three suns are artificial. Its one of the first things we learned in planetary kinetics. And the orbits are maintained by the interplanetary gravitic interactions created by the laridian rings housed in the Kinetoria. They’re the largest stable ring systems on most worlds. If this world’s core laridian ring is dysfunctional, it should be spiraling into the suns, not out on the rim. I doubt there will be a direct route, but there should be a sequence of fixed transit corridors that could lead you there.”
Garin nodded, the hint of a smile forming on his lips.
Chapter 5: The Edge of the Abyss
Garin and Trielle stood before the primary infochryst of the Scintillus Kinetorium. They left their home this morning as they always did, taking the Ether Chariot to Latis’ lightside as if on their way to classes at the Arx. But here their paths would diverge; Trielle going about her usual day while Garin traveled the transit corridors in an attempt to look for a way to the nameless world.
If it even existed…
There was always the possibility of the Arx Scientia noting Garin’s absence, but after discussing other possibilities it still seemed the best approach, as it gave Garin an entire day to search the gravitic transit web before he would be expected back at home.
Standing before the infochryst, Garin reflected on Trielle’s final concern.
“What if it is real,” she had said, “and you feel compelled to take the road. What should I do?”
Garin had responded in as reassuring a tone as he could muster. “Trielle, if the road truly leads outside of space, then it should lead outside of time as well. The trip may take no time at all from your perspective, no matter how long it may seem for me.”
In truth, however, he was worried also. After all, he had no real idea of what relationships between space and time were even possible. They trip may take no time at all from Trielle’s perspective, but he just as easily envision the superspace and supertime that obtained outside their universe as being somehow slower and more unchanging, so that a minute there would take centuries in Trielle’s framework.
I made a commitment, he told himself firmly, gathering his courage for what he had to do. Even if it was only a dream. I have to look.
“Garin,” said Trielle, bringing his attention back to reality. “Look at this map. It’s immense. How will we find what we’re looking for?”
The infochryst displayed a rotating three dimensional map of the entire Conclave, nearly ten thousand worlds intricately arranged over a sixty-five thousand light-minute volume all orbiting each other in a vast puzzle of motion. It was relatively easy to locate Latis. As the most central world of the Conclave, and their home location, the map highlighted it in brilliant blue. Below the map, a projected box of text displayed the names of the planets immediately accessible by Latis’s main transit corridors and offered to trace a pattern of corridors between Latis and any other world a traveler could name. And therein lay the problem, for the map of Garin’s dream, while intricate in its detail, failed to provide the name of the world for which he searched.
Garin closed his eyes, summoning the image of the Conclave from his dream-map. Although he had brought the Oneirograph with him he did not wish to draw undue attention to himself before the journey actually began, and was thankful for the sleepless hours he had spent committing the portion of the map that depicted the Conclave to memory the night before. Looking again at the infochryst, Garin took control of the map’s orientation from Trielle and began to rotate and resize it, shifting the image about in an attempt to orient it in the same way as the dream-map.
The enormity of the task quickly became apparent. The infochryst’s map was three-dimensional and exhaustive, containing all the worlds of the Conclave, while the dream-map was a two-dimensional projection containing only a small number of the worlds. Even knowing that the dream-map was drawn above the rotational axes of the suns did not help, as the Infochryst steadfastly refused to show the entropy clouds to which the dream-map had been oriented. The number of possibilities, while finite, was too high to be searched in a week let alone one morning.
Garin sighed in frustration.
“The world you seek is named Sha-Ka-Ri, first of the forsaken, in your tongue. But in aeons past it was known by another name.”
The words startled Garin, and he snapped his head around to see who had spoken. Behind him stood the old man that had accosted him a few days earlier. He wore the same shapeless, tattered robe, its folds concealing all but his head, hands and feet. Though the material of the robe was still stained and dirty, Garin noticed that in several small patches the stains had been removed, allowing glimpses of the robe’s original purity to show through. Despite his best attempts not to, Garin found himself staring at the man’s face, wrinkled and timeless with the appare
nt burden of untold centuries. Then Garin noticed that not all of the wrinkles looked natural; some appeared too white, too linear, as if caused by an outside force.
Are those… scars?
The old man met Garin’s gaze, the black pools of his eyes reflecting unseen lights, and Garin realized that his expression was quite different than when they first met. Lighter and more vibrant, it was as if the age he wore had somehow become a little less burdensome.
“Young one,” the old man repeated with a stern but compassionate tone. “The time is short. If you would seek Sha-Ka-Ri and the Sovereign Road, you must do so now. It is later than you think!”
Caught off guard by the directness of the old man’s approach, Garin could only nod wordlessly.
The old man began to move toward the infochryst with a swift stride that seemed somehow incongruous with his age.
“Wait,” called Trielle, hints of concern and fear surfacing in her words. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say,” said the old man sternly. “The time grows short and even now he begins to move against us. Soon the path will close.”
With several deft movements the old man reoriented the infochryst map. He then entered a series of text commands, and in response a world on the very edge of the vast orbiting structure of the Conclave began to pulse with a dull orange light.
“That is Sha-Ka-Ri,” declared the old man.
From the shining blue world of Latis, a series of linked lines began forming between worlds, inexorably leading to the orange globe at the Conclave’s edge. The first four links were bright green, the next three yellow, and the last a dark red. Garin nodded, recognizing the color scheme. Green represented the mighty arteries of folded space-time that served as the main transit corridors of the Conclave, while yellow represented lesser paths that lead to worlds with minimal to no population. Red represented stabilization corridors, rough gravitic ties intended only to bind worlds together in stable orbits that were never intended to handle living traffic.
Garin carefully examined the route, committing it to memort, then turned again to face the old man.
“This is not a path that the Conclave desires any to take,” said the old man. “For although none but we know of the Sovereign Road, there are secrets on Sha-Ka-Ri and the other forbidden worlds that the Lords of the Conclave wish to remain buried.”
“Secrets? Other forbidden worlds?” said Trielle. “If the Conclave is concerned about these worlds, then why doesn’t it simply release them from the gravitic web and let them fall into the suns or the entropy clouds?”
“Can a man ever truly destroy his own past?” asked the old man cryptically. “Now come! The time for questions has passed.”
The old man swiftly strode from the infochryst and entered a nearby elevator, Garin and Trielle close behind. The elevator rose swiftly into the heart of the Kinetorium, depositing them on a broad imagnite walkway that lead inward to the black sphere at the Kinetorium’s heart. Ahead Garin could see a circular distortion in space where the walkway met the wall of the sphere. A few moments later they stood at the foot of Angara Gate, a titanic whirlpool of darkness and blueshifted gravitic force that marked the entrance point to one of the great conduits traversing the Conclave, the first step to Sha-Ka-Ri.
Faced with the gate’s immensity Garin felt a pang of fear. He had used travel conduits before, of course. Almost everyone in the Conclave had. Yet he could not escape the conviction that this gate represented the first in a series of thresholds that would take him away from everything he had ever known. There, staring into that swirling vortex, he realized that everything he had experienced until now had been intellectual play, a dream that, had he wished, he could always wake from. But what lay beyond may well be the dream become reality, a reality that, once seen, could never be ignored again. He turned toward the old man, his eyes wide with apprehension.
The old man nodded, and placed his hand on Garin’s shoulder. A curious strength seemed to flow from his touch, and the fear began to subside. Suddenly the old man seemed to grow taller, his form taking on a grave authority that seemed to fill the Kinetorium with its presence.
“Garin,” said the old man in a thundering voice, “I charge you to seek the road and follow it to its end. Travel to Sha-Ka-Ri, there I will meet you and guide you to the Sovereign Road’s beginning. Do you accept this charge?”
Garin looked quickly to the side, expecting to find a gathering crowd drawn by the strange proceedings, but the bustling traffic of the Kinetorium proceeded as if oblivious.
Garin took a deep breath, nodding a wordless yes.
Trielle moved as if to speak, but Garin quieted her with a gesture.
“I’m going Trielle,” he said firmly, “you and I both know that. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but please, wait for me.”
With that, Garin turned and strode toward Angara Gate. Then he paused, facing the old man for one last set of questions.
“Sir,” said Garin, “You never told us who you were. We don’t even know your name. And… why do you call it the Sovereign Road?”
“You may call me Kyr,” said the old man simply. “That will do for now. As for who I am… That must be discovered, not told. As for the road, it is called sovereign for it is the first road, and thus king and master of all roads. And,” he added with the faintest hint of a smile, “it is in many ways the only road worth taking.”
Inexplicably comforted by the cryptic words, Garin laughed briefly before giving a final goodbye to Trielle and stepping into the conduit.
***
Trielle watched as Garin entered Angara Gate. His image blueshifted, seemed to hang for a moment in suspended animation, and then surged down the conduit wreathed by flashes of gravitic flame. An instant later he was gone.
I hope, for his sake, that he is right, she thought absently, and then froze, a deeper understanding of what it would mean if he was correct suddenly trickling through her mind like an icy rivulet coursing across a melting glacier.
Suddenly something touched her and she jumped in surprise. Snapping her head around, she saw Kyr’s bony hand resting on her shoulder. He was looking directly at her, the deep pools of his eyes filled with evident compassion.
“Young one,” he said, “You do not need to speak of it for me to see the concern that you bear for your brother. If I could, I would allay those fears, but to do so would be a lie. Nonetheless he must be sent.”
The words sounded warm and comforting, and yet the seeming callousness of their import coiled around her heart like a snake.
“You make it sound so easy,” she said, trying to contain her emotions. “Why Garin? Why now? You’ve just told me that you’ve sent him into danger.”
Kyr sighed, his eyes growing moist. “You do not understand as your brother does,” he said finally. “He senses, even if he does not know why, that you all are in danger. And he is correct in this. I have sent him because he alone has the vision to see through the lies that surround you all and the courage to seek the truth.”
Trielle shook her head. “The courage to seek the truth,” she muttered to herself. “What is truth anyway?”
“You are not the first to have asked me that,” said Kyr, his eyes distant, “though you ask it with more honesty.”
“Well,” she said, gesturing toward Angara Gate, “if he must go, then aren’t you at least going with him like you promised.”
“I am,” Kyr said simply, “but I will not use the conduits. In truth, I would not have sent Garin by means of the conduits if there had been any other way, but the means by which I travel would be impossible for him in his current state. I would advise that the entire Conclave cease using them as well,” he added, “for it is they, and other gravitic technologies like them, that are slowly unraveling the spacetime of your cosmos.”
Trielle’s eyes narrowed.
Surely this is too much, she thought. Gravitics unraveling our cosmos? This is the very definition of madness!
> As she considered the possibility of Kyr’s insanity, the tension mounting within her drained away and she began to relax. After all, if Kyr was mad, then Garin was in no real danger and would return tonight with no more injury than a slight loss of dignity.
“You are skeptical of this,” said Kyr, the hint of a smile forming on his face. “Good! You will need that skepticism in the days ahead, for true skeptics question because they desire the truth above all else, even when the truth contradicts their long-cherished notions. You see, young one, I have a charge for you as well. As your brother seeks to understand that which lies beyond and gives meaning to the world, you must seek out the truth of that which is poisoning it from within. You have both talked, have you not, about the lies surrounding the death of Vai?”
Trielle nodded, her eyes widening at the implications of his words.
How had he known?
“Then know also that these lies go deeper still. You have often questioned the workings of the laridian rings and other gravitic technology. Seek those answers now with open eyes and an open mind! Believe me when I tell you that behind Vai’s death, the impending dissolution of this cosmos, and your Conclave’s own past stands the same deception.”
Trielle opened her mouth to protest, but was silenced with a gesture from Kyr’s hand. His eyes flashed with blue fire.
“You may disbelieve me, young one, but I can see the workings of your mind and know you better than you know yourself. Search out the answers to prove me wrong. Search the answers to prove me right. It does not matter. In the end the truth will stand for itself. But do not ignore this charge, for when your brother returns he will have need of the fruit of your labors. How can he return and bring meaning to this world if there is no world left to return to?”
With that Kyr walked swiftly away. A crowd of travelers quickly surged into the gap between them, and when it had dissipated he was gone. Trielle sighed and began the journey to the Arx Scientia, alone with her thoughts. She did not know where to begin.
The Sovereign Road Page 5
