The New Age

by Chris D'Lacey

  That was good enough for Gus. No time to wonder how these gateways worked; his task was simply to get the goyle through it to whatever lay beyond. He sped forward, keeping a tight grip on Garon. The arc was in his eye line, glowing softly to guide him in.

  “Hold on!” he cried to Pine. “This is going to be tight!”

  He checked on Gariffred and saw that the drake was in his slipstream, a little way behind but well on track. A small rush of pride ran through Gus’s breast. That drake was worthy of any dragon’s care. If they survived this adventure and rejoined Gabrial, the blue would hear well of his son’s heroic progress.

  Whoosh! L’wen-Gar flashed through the portal. Gus was not so neat. The far point of his right wing clipped the stone and dragged some surface crystals off, but it wasn’t enough to break his momentum.

  One by one, they all landed on a high sloping plateau, a ramp to a vast array of stars. Even before he set the goyle down, Gus could feel a sense of wonder flowing through his hearts. He’d never seen so many glittering points of light so close. He could almost reach out and pluck one. It made him think of the Aurauma Fantalis, the fabled web of celestial energy that surrounded Ki:mera. The stars that shined there were said to be the souls of dragons, dead. Common dragons were not permitted to fly there, for the Aurauma was a place of infinite power and inexplicable mystery, the legendary eyrie of Godith. Gus felt his throat harden. If this place was anything like the Aurauma, something extraordinary was about to happen.

  “What do we do?” he barked as more and more Wyvern came through the arc. The singing started up again. But Gus was happier for it now. At least it was keeping the goyle calm.

  Pine looked at L’wen-Gar.

  L’wen-Gar said, “The Aether has called Pine. Pine must answer.”

  Pine looked again at her scars. They were glowing, and changing color too. Instinctively, she raised her hand.

  To Gus’s amazement, the stars began to stir.

  “That’s impossible,” he muttered. He took a step back.

  Graark! The drake rose up on his toes.

  “Seren is coming,” L’wen-Gar whispered.

  “What?” said Gus.

  All around him, the Wyvern song had changed to a chant: Seren. Seren. Seren. Seren.

  And the stars were quickly changing their pattern, realigning themselves to the shape of Pine’s extraordinary wound.

  As Gus looked on in awe, the stars swirled and came together in a single ball of light.

  The Wyvern gurgled in delight. SEREN!

  “It can’t be,” Gus breathed. “That cannot be …”

  For he knew about Seren. All dragons did.

  Seren was the star at the center of Ki:mera.

  The so-called beating heart of Godith.

  Gus’s mind was in turmoil. This didn’t make sense. Even if this was Seren pouring its energy over the plateau, how would the Wyvern know the star’s name? From an early age, all dragons were taught that Seren was the absolute center of the universe. Their universe. How could the bright star possibly show here? On a world so very different from his?

  Seren or not, the star was shining directly on them, its rays inspecting every living thing present. Pine was the first to feel its power. The girl arched backward as a ray much brighter than all the rest struck her. It raised her aloft with her arms outstretched, her robe and lank hair streaming out behind. Gus could only look on, spellbound, as she slowly began to transform. Jagged wings grew out of her back. Her eyes took on a slanted shape. Stigs emerged above her ears. For a few spectacular moments, Pine was turned into a unique winged creature. But the changes did not last. The wings faded, the stigs retracted, and the eyes returned to their rounded shape. She was set down gently, but flopped in a heap at Gus’s feet. His hearts beat a note of concern. But her pale Hom face was perfectly calm. And when she’d landed, three shafts of light had gone into her hand. It seemed to Gus that she had been explored (or educated), to see how she might be … improved. Was this the future of her species, he wondered, because Gayl had given her dragon auma? If so, what did that mean for the boy, Ren Whitehair, who had more dragon auma than Pine did in his veins? Some of it from the dark dragon, Graven.

  Like this goyle.

  The strange rays now fell on Garon, bathing him in a halo of Wyvern orange. At the same time, a voice entered Gus’s mind.

  You seek healing.

  Gus steadied himself. He could feel the power of the star inside him, touching his mind in a way he would never be able to explain. Suddenly, a monumental idea struck him. What if this was the Aurauma Fantalis and the Aether was simply the Wyvern name for it? That would mean the island world was somehow linked to Ki:mera. But why should that not be so if Godith was everywhere and part of everything … ?

  This creature has been trapped by darkness, he replied. He was dragon once. I wish him so again.

  You care for him.

  This was not a question. In his mind, Gus could see an extraordinary i:mage of the star’s light exploring his third heart. His spiritual center was being tested, his motive for bringing Garon here verified. At the same moment, he had another intuition of a small, colorful bird flashing past him, just like the event he’d experienced when the slit had opened between Erth and the island world.

  And then the voice said something … odd.

  Do not fear him. He is the way.

  Without the need for Gus to express another thought, the starlight lifted Garon clear of the plateau and turned him back into his dragon form. The Wyvern gasped. Gariffred turned at least three circles. Gus, for his part, could only swallow. There in the sky was Gabrial’s father. Bold. Blue. Utterly magnificent. As perfectly composed as a dragon could be. But for one thing.

  His eyes were black.

  Gus feared right away that the healing had failed. He saw the star pulse and felt the contact wane. It seemed to him that the goyle had reversed the situation and drawn on Seren’s power to satisfy its needs.

  What’s more, the creature was looking at Gariffred. Its powerful gaze singled out the wearling, as if the drake was the sworn enemy, the one real threat to the goyle’s dominance. Its jaws opened. Its claws spread. And though no light poured out of its eyes, Gus saw Gariffred held quite motionless and knew that the creature was in the drake’s mind.

  Later, in his confusion and torment, Gus would curse himself for not doing more. Though he’d flared into action to protect the wearling, and Pine had tried to assist, neither was any match for Garon. He bowled them aside with a mighty roar. By the time Gus was on his feet, Gariffred had collapsed, the sky had grown dark, and Seren’s light was breaking into star clusters again. Gus saw the blue dragon phase. In a blink, it was gone, on a direct course for Seren’s last position.

  Straight for the heart of Ki:mera.

  Skytouch, a few days earlier

  “De:allus Garodor. You sent for me?”

  The novice roamer, Goodle, folded down his wings and dug his claws into the glistening ice, punching through multiple layers of snow to find a suitable foothold. To the less experienced eye, it must have looked as if he was doing his best to throttle the mountain peak. But landings had never been Goodle’s strength. And they certainly didn’t come much harder than this: ice, altitude, howling winds, and a precipitous slope just begging him to take a humiliating tumble. Thankfully, he’d set down without a real wobble and without spraying snow all over the De:allus. And on the plus side, it wasn’t every day a roamer like him was allowed to perch at a higher level than the Prime, whose eyrie lay far below. But why had he been called to Skytouch? he wondered. He looked nervously at Garodor and prayed he had done no wrong.

  “I understand your name is Goodle?”

  “Yes, De:allus.”

  “From the Aldien bloodline?”

  “Yes.”

  Garodor nodded. The soft rays of yellow from his haunting eyes were struggling to penetrate the burgeoning gloom. A snowstorm was building. He would not be sorry to miss it. “I’ve kn
own Aldien dragons before,” he said. “Intelligent, but not ambitious. Isn’t that how you’re described?”

  The blue hung his head. Was this a test? Perhaps he had done something to offend the Elders? “I am loyal to the Wearle and try my hardest in everything I do, De:allus. May I ask why you’ve summoned me here?”

  Garodor rolled his shoulders to even out the stiffness in his wings. He’d been sitting in the cold for a good while now, thinking about this unique planet and its troubled history. About the traitor, Givnay, and his knowledge of fhosforent. About memory stones and the Kashic Archive. About Ren Whitehair.

  About what lay ahead.

  “The Prime wants me to have an assistant. I’ve studied all the profiles and chosen you.”

  It took an extended moment for these words to seep into Goodle’s consciousness. For a fraction of that interval, Garodor wondered if he’d overestimated the blue’s intelligence or if water was condensing on Goodle’s brain, causing some sort of vocal malfunction. Finally, there came a response: “Me?”

  The blue’s squeak of surprise sent a small avalanche sliding down the mountain. He had to scrabble a little to hold his position.

  “Would that appeal to you?”

  Would it appeal to him? Goodle was almost fainting with excitement. “Why, yes! Yes, of course!” The De:allus rarely worked with dragons outside their own order. To be asked to assist one as senior as Garodor was a giant leap in status for an ordinary roamer. “De:allus, it would be an honor. What would you like me to do?”

  Garodor blew out softly, dotting the air with warm, red cinders. “Would I be correct in thinking you like solving puzzles?”

  “Yes!” cried Goodle. This was wonderful! The surprises just kept on coming. Suddenly, this wintry peak didn’t seem so cold or so bleak anymore.

  “Then you’ll be good at analyzing patterns.”

  Goodle nodded fiercely. “Oh, yes. Once, I looked at the Telaurean constellation when Cantorus had risen to its highest southern aspect and saw—”

  “Yes, yes, Goodle. There will be other times for stars.”

  “Sorry, De:allus.” Goodle hardened his gaze, trying to strike a proper balance between eagerness and elation. “You have a puzzle for me?”

  “A very demanding one. I warn you, the work may be tedious. It will require a great deal of concentration. And there is some chance of danger.”

  That pricked Goodle’s bubble of enthusiasm. He had to work hard for a moment to stop his emotions from going into a spin. “I’ve faced danger before,” he said, stiffening the scales on his chin to prevent a ripple running down his throat. “Will I need to fight?”

  “No,” Garodor assured him. “The danger, if any, will come from the puzzle itself. Do you remember this?”

  He held up a glowing orb. A thread of light was dancing at its center.

  Goodle’s blue eyes widened. “Is that the memory stone found in Gabrial’s eyrie?”

  Not long ago, Goodle had been given the awkward duty of standing guard at Gabrial’s eyrie while Gabrial had been confined to his cave. During a visit from Garodor, Gariffred had come forward with three small pieces of rock he’d found. When joined together in the right manner, the pieces had made this stone.

  “Yes,” said Garodor, handing it to him. “You may recall it was removed from the Kashic Archive by Elder Givnay.”

  Goodle nodded, trying not to flinch. He didn’t want to be involved with anything to do with that traitor. But to show weakness now would displease the De:allus. He kept his head up and listened.

  Garodor said, “I’m going to use my powers of transference to share its contents with you. The stone contains a partial record of Erth’s history, recorded by an old De:allus called Grendisar. I want you to roam the Kashic Archive and locate the Cluster this memory stone came from. Find every link to it, no matter how small. I want you to piece together everything you can about this planet and our involvement with it. It won’t be easy. Some stones might be hidden or partially encrypted. You’ll need my code to unlock them. I’ll transfer that to you as well. Be aware, this is a secret mission. You must share your findings with no other dragon but me. No one. Do you understand?”

  Goodle nodded, ice crystals dancing on his steamy breath. Garodor was right: Trawling the Kashic Archive collating snippets of information was the perfect task for an Aldien dragon. But as errands went, it was a strange assignment. Until this moment, Goodle had assumed that Erth was only recently discovered. How much history could there be of this planet?

  He was about to ask that very question, when he heard another dragon approaching. It was Garret, the Wearle’s chief mapper. Now, for the first time, Goodle realized why they were meeting here, on Skytouch. “We’re going home,” he muttered. “Back to Ki:mera.”

  “You sound disappointed,” Garodor said.

  A tiny part of Goodle was disappointed. He wasn’t entirely happy on Erth—the goyle wars and these troubling rumors that Graven had risen in the Hom boy, Ren, served to keep him awake most nights. But to leave while the Wearle was on battle alert felt a little like failure. He prayed that this task with the memory stones would prove to be of worth.

  Garret landed smoothly, reading the icy terrain with ease. Like all mappers, a calm air of confidence radiated off him. He’d clearly been summoned to help De:allus Garodor reverse the coordinates of the fire star that had brought the two Wearles to Erth, the same portal that would open a pathway back to Ki:mera.

  “De:allus. Goodle.” Garret greeted both dragons with a nod of respect. “Just the two of you, I take it?”

  “Yes,” said Garodor. “I’ve asked Goodle to assist me with a project I’m working on; we’ll be phasing into the same patch of sky. Will the wind be a problem?” It was moderate, despite the high exposure, but lively enough in gusts to rock a dragon of Garodor’s size.

  “No,” said Garret, “but it’s going to snow soon and you should phase before it does. Here are the coordinates.”

  Right away, Garret produced a stunning i:mage of the precise region of sky they needed. Erth’s star system was beautifully mapped in three revolving dimensions of green. At the spatial center of the map were the vital points of red that would open a “rip” in space when Garodor poured his auma into them. Creating a fire star required the mental powers of at least two dragons highly skilled in the art of physical i:maging. But once a portal had been initiated, space “remembered” the site of the rip. It was then a relatively simple matter for a competent dragon to reopen it.

  As Garodor’s gaze locked on to the coordinates, the sky began to rumble and the first hint of a dazzling white line appeared.

  “Goodle, are you ready?”

  “Yes, De:allus.” Goodle snapped to attention. His physical form was about to dissolve into the dark energy of the universe. A dangerous experience if you didn’t concentrate.

  “Merge with my mind so I can give you the information you need. Stay fixed and I’ll take us through together.”

  “Yes, De:allus.”

  One interesting thing about journeying through a fire star was that it could be done on a group basis. A whole Wearle could pass through the portal together if the individual dragons were to put their trust in an experienced leader. Goodle had arrived on Erth in just such a manner, by joining his consciousness to the extraordinary mind of the old Prime, Galarhade. The rest of the Wearle had done the same. It must have been a terrifying moment for the Hom when sixty dragons had materialized in the same zone of sky, right over these mountains. On Ki:mera, dragons popped in and out of space all the time and no one even raised an eye ridge.

  Putting his functional senses to sleep, Goodle quieted his mind so he might commingle easily. But straightaway, he sensed that something was wrong. As he melded with Garodor’s consciousness, he thought he felt another presence ripple between them. But if Garret wasn’t traveling, how could that be? In that instant, Garodor transferred the contents of the memory stone. It came to Goodle in a powerful rush, as if the
De:allus had felt an urgent need to unload everything before they reached Ki:mera. And what a load. Goodle’s head was swiftly overcome with the incredible notion that Erth was not a new colony, that other dragons had visited the planet before the two Wearles he knew of. That—

  Fzzzt!

  The edges of the fire star fizzed with energy.

  Space warped. Time rippled apart.

  And horror of horrors, Garodor cut the mental connection.

  Goodle, not without reason, panicked.

  Great Crune! What was the De:allus DOING?

  BANG! A crack like a thunderbolt. A searing burst of light. The harsh tug of G’ravity. A feeling of being one with the universe.

  Goodle was through the fire star and spreading his wings.

  That was the second time he realized something wasn’t right. The Ki:meran sky was always colored a faint shade of purple.

  The sky he was crossing was definitely blue.

  For a moment, he thought the portal had rejected him and spat him back to some far-flung corner of Erth. But when he looked down, all he could see was a rocky terrain drained of every color but a pale blue gray. He flapped toward the highest rocks he could see and landed on one to get his bearings. It was daytime, but when he stared into the sky, he could see the faint lights of Ki:mera in the distance. He knew right away what had happened. The power of the fire star, combined with his cry, had displaced the phasing point and taken him to Crune, the smaller of Ki:mera’s moons.

  Garodor was nowhere to be seen.

  Goodle’s heart sank into a dire rhythm. Crune had a breathable atmosphere, but in the circumstances, that was cruel consolation. The whole moon was a dry, infertile rock, with no food source and probably no water. He couldn’t leave; there was simply nowhere to go. The nearest Ki:meran labyrinths were far across open space, impossible to fly to. And he couldn’t phase across a distance that great without creating another fire star, something he alone wasn’t capable of doing. Whichever way he looked at it, his future was grim. He was going to die here alone, pining for his home world. All he had was this pointless memory stone with its ridiculous scripts about Erth. In frustration, he hurled it against the rocks and watched it split into its parts again.