That was the third time he knew that something wasn’t right.
The stone opened and a vapor emerged.
The spirit of a long-dead dragon had risen.
His name, as Goodle would shortly discover, was Grendisar.
“Vapor, be merciful!”
It was rare to see a dragon cower, but acts of bravado were not generally advised in the presence of vapors. Although Goodle had never encountered one before, the rules about vapors were clear. Flying away angered them. Any use of flame was likely to get you turned into a fireball. Legend even had it they could kill your shadow, then become your shadow so they might haunt you for the rest of your days. The best a dragon could do in such a situation was apologize for disturbing the phantom, ask for its mercy, and hope it went away.
(The mercy part was especially important.)
Yet this vapor didn’t look particularly menacing. It had the bulging yellow eyes of a De:allus, for a start. It was also very old. Even in its wraith-like form, its body color was leaning to red, a shade associated with dragon longevity. And from the way it kept looking at its limbs, it seemed more fascinated with its feat of materialization than with any desire to do Goodle harm. A few muddling moments went by. Goodle shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He swished his tail quietly to check that his shadow was still intact and wondered if he couldn’t just … creep away? To his left was a decent-size rock. If he could shuffle over and crouch behind it …
“Ah.”
Too late! The vapor had spoken! Goodle froze with one leg off the ground. What did “ah” mean exactly? Ah, he’d been spotted? Ah, the vapor was glad to be alive? Ah, it was in pain? Ah-ha, a shadow to gobble? What?
“And who would you be, young dragon?”
The voice wafted across the space between them.
“I am G-Goodle, from the Aldien line.”
“Is something amiss with your voice?”
“No,” Goodle squeaked.
“I would see a healer all the same. Sounds squeaky. Probably needs more grit. Well, now, where are we?” The vapor poked a nearby rock.
Goodle gasped as the claw went straight through the stone and emerged cleanly on the other side. “Crune,” he gulped.
“An interesting choice,” the vapor said, sending a puff of dust into the air. “Still, always useful to get one’s bearings.”
Goodle nodded and finally put both feet on the ground. He cautioned himself that it was early days yet, but it seemed as if the spirit was going to spare him. Bravely, he tried to ask a question. “Vapor, if I may—?”
“Vapor?” it said in a voice that almost blew its head apart. Every time it turned or extended a limb, the lines of its body would separate briefly before catching up with the flow of movement. It was making Goodle feel quite queasy. “Well, yes,” the thing muttered. “I have been dead for … well, I don’t know how long precisely. Perhaps you do? I assume it was you who took the memory stone out of the Archive?”
“Not I,” said Goodle, feeling the need to bow. “It was shown to me by Garodor, a dragon of your class. If I might ask, I saw the stone in parts once before. Why is it you’ve only emerged now?”
“An excellent question,” the vapor said. “I suspect I miscalculated the holomorphic loop and the stone required a more energy-dependent exit strategy.”
Goodle looked puzzled.
“A good thump; I was stuck.”
Goodle nodded. Now he got it. He steadied his hearts and asked another question. “Forgive me, are you … Grendisar?”
“Indeed I am,” the vapor said proudly, shaking his phantom wings. “You know my work?”
“Some of it,” Goodle muttered, searching through the information lodged in his head. The entire contents of the memory stone were there, plus some analytical data from Garodor himself. “You were on Erth long ago,” Goodle said, as i:mages, scripts, and theories began to accumulate at the forefront of his mind. “You believed that Graven’s heart was banished there, smashed into fragments and scattered among a flock of … of crows. And Garodor believes that Graven’s blood is … Oh!”
Goodle staggered back as if the ground had cracked open. His tail swept fretfully over Crune’s surface.
“No, that can’t be. The fhosforent was his? It was Graven’s blood?” His eyes stared wildly. “That’s why we saw goyles. The mutants were made in Graven’s i:mage. Then it’s true. He is risen. He—Hhh!”
While Goodle had been ranting, the vapor had come close enough to touch his misty isoscele to Goodle’s head. It felt as if a cold spike had entered Goodle’s mind, and everything he knew was flowing out through it.
“Hmm,” the vapor murmured excitedly. “Yes, yes. Fascinating. Of course. Of course. De:allus Grinwald always used to say that if the heart was shattered there must be blood. I suspected if that were so it would seep into the crust of the erth and be lost. Dear me, how wrong I was. I should have guessed the blood might crystallize. And like any mineral, dragons would ingest it. And now it has made traitors of once-noble dragons and even drawn the Hom into its web of darkness. Hmm. I see from the memories of De:allus Garodor that the boy you seek is carrying what remains of Graven’s heart. Fascinating. Fascinating. We will try to avoid Ren Whitehair for now, lest his impulsions vary our course.”
“But, De:allus Grendisar, no one knows where the Hom boy is. How can we avoid him if—?”
“Of course we know where he is,” Grendisar snorted, an act that made his facial features blur. “Has your brain begun to leak out through your ears?”
Goodle hoped not. That wasn’t on his list of vapor atrocities, though it probably ought to be.
Grendisar went on, “What would you do if your mother had condemned you to a life of eternal darkness and now you were risen again?”
“I … I would seek her out—I think,” Goodle muttered.
“Quite,” said Grendisar. “And where would you go to seek her out?”
Goodle turned his head and stared at the web of lights in space. Suddenly, it was all becoming clear. He understood now what had slipped alongside him at the entrance to the fire star. It was Ren, riding his strange invisible horse. That’s why Garodor had broken the link so urgently. He must have detected Ren’s presence as well.
“He’s there,” he breathed, hardly able to stop himself quaking.
“Indeed,” said Grendisar, as if it was nought but an interesting anomaly. “Like us, the boy is eager to learn the truth. Or he wishes to wreak some kind of devastation—that is yet to be established. But the evidence is perfectly clear. He has broken through the boundary between two worlds. The boy you call ‘Ren’ is in Ki:mera.”
“Now, then. How shall we cross this void … ?”
Grendisar tapped his claws together, producing a cloud of reddish fuzz. He was on a high rock, staring far across space at the strange maze of lights that was the dragon world, Ki:mera. At the center of the maze winked the bright star, Seren, which was lighting the world with a faint purple glow.
“… Ah, I think I have it.”
Without warning, Grendisar suddenly took flight. Goodle arched his neck to watch the vapor flowing over him. To his relief, Grendisar reassembled on a rock just behind him.
“Wait!” Goodle cried.
Grendisar was holding up the memory stone, turning it deftly as though he were on the verge of disappearing—fittingly, in a puff of smoke. Having found someone—or rather some thing—to talk to, Goodle did not want to feel marooned again.
Grendisar squeezed his eye ridges together. “You have your own notion of how to cross the void? Splendid. Speak up. Do not be afraid to share your calculation.”
Goodle shook his head. “I trust your judgment in these matters, De:allus. I simply ask that you take me with you. Please?”
Grendisar paused, looking as puzzled as a vapor could look. “Is our mission not mutual? Of course you must come! If my conjectures are correct, we can use the ancient forces embedded in the stone to phase ourselves straight
into the Kashic Archive.” He gave a mischievous grunt. “We might even sneak past that crusty old Curator. Now, there’s an adventure, don’t you think?”
“About that,” said Goodle. “About … the adventure. What did you mean when you said that Ren might be seeking the truth?”
But now that he thought about it, Goodle was beginning to realize he didn’t have to ask for an explanation. The principal facts were all in his head. As he shuffled the underlying details in his mind, the full pattern of Garodor’s misgivings began to fall into place. The entire mystery was built around one suspicion: The discovery of Graven’s blood—the fhosforent—had not been an accident. Some unidentified power on Ki:mera had reignited Grendisar’s theory that Graven’s heart was hidden on Erth and had sent the first Wearle to investigate. But how did they know where to find the fhosforent? And more important, why did they want to raise the dark dragon? To wreak some kind of revenge on Godith? Who was really behind all this? And what of Ren, the real thorn under the scales, dragged into the drama by a wearling’s bite? He was dangerously unpredictable and, worse, still at large. Who in the world could count themselves safe while a brash Hom boy was shielding the deadliest auma known to dragonkind?
“Ah-ha,” said Grendisar, too deeply embroiled in his calculations to be bothered with Goodle’s murmurings. “I have set the coordinates. We are ready to phase.”
He threw the stone to Goodle. A map, not unlike the kind of thing Garret had i:maged on the peak of Skytouch, was buzzing around it.
“Open it once more, if you please.”
So Goodle did as he was asked and clicked the stone open, using the coding shared by Garodor. Waves of energy began to radiate from its interior. Before long, Goodle was bound in a halo of light.
“Excellent. Excellent,” Grendisar said. “Wake me when we reach the Archive.”
With a whoosh, he collapsed his shape to a single rotating spark and whizzed into the nuclear core of the stone, dancing with the sparkling atoms there.
Goodle allowed himself a gulp. Then he closed the stone carefully and concentrated hard on his journey’s end.
The Kashic Archive.
BANG! For the second time that day, he was moving across the universe.
With a skidding jolt, he stopped.
Immediately, a voice boomed, “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE PHASING!”
Goodle opened his eyes. He had reached the Kashic Archive, but he wasn’t inside it as Grendisar had hoped. He was on the great stone plateau at the starlit entrance. The way in was blocked by a giant of a dragon.
He was as red as Hom blood and almost as thin.
His name was Gorenfussental the Twenty-Third.
Better known by his dignified title: the Curator.
For the third time that day, Goodle found himself addressing a dragon of much higher rank. “Forgive me, Curator. I … misjudged my coordinates.”
“I’ll say you did,” the Curator growled. “Nearly took my eye out with your isoscele! Why do you underscaled miscreants have to PHASE everywhere? What’s wrong with flying? You’ve got wings, haven’t you?”
Goodle straightened them against his back.
The Curator leveled his bony neck, making the hinged scales crackle and pop. He was easily twice the size of Goodle, though most of that was measured from top to tail. Gorenfussental and his illustrious ancestors had been managing the Archive since the dawn of time (allegedly), and each new descendant was longer and thinner than the last. No one really knew why. Goodle had heard it said that the records of dragon history were growing so fast they were stretching each curator’s mind to the limit, and therefore a longer one had to be found if the one in charge looked in danger of exploding. He suspected that was a myth put about by the pers, though he wouldn’t have been in the slightest bit surprised if the twenty-third curator had blown his stigs right here. Despite the fawning apology, Gorenfussental was still grumbling.
“Young dragons. Always jigging in and out of intraspace. Wouldn’t have happened in my day. No wonder you’ve all got bellies the size of Crune.” He nodded at the memory stone. “Returning that, are you?”
“Yes,” Goodle said, fanging his lip. The mention of Crune had made him nervous. The Curator, if he wished, could open any stone. Thankfully, he was showing no interest in this one. Goodle wondered, in passing, if it was a crime to harbor a vapor inside a memory stone. He’d never heard of a dragon being charged with that offence. He rather hoped he wouldn’t be the first.
“Well, leave it over there with the others.”
Goodle looked over his shoulder. Memory stones of many different colors were stacked in a shallow depression of the flame-carved rock that made up the outer wall of the Archive labyrinth. Like all the great edifices of old Ki:mera, the main façade of the Archive had been formed from a refired graig—one of the millions of rocky “fragments” that together made up Ki:mera’s mass.
A philosophical debate had raged for centuries about the origins of the graig. From the De:allus point of view, Ki:mera didn’t make sense. De:allus Garodor, no less, had lectured at the prestigious Labyrinth Scientii on what he called Improbable G’ravity and Inverse Contrastructure. He, Garodor, was the main proponent of a highly contentious theory that challenged the accepted view of Ki:mera’s creation. It basically suggested that far from pouring Her gush of fire into a limitless void and i:maging Ki:mera from nothing, Godith had blown apart an existing planet, leaving Her divine light at its core.
It wasn’t hard to appreciate the logic in this. Stripped down to its basics, Ki:mera was little more than a spherical collection of millions of misshapen rocks: the graig. Some pieces of graig were entirely free-floating, suspended in Ki:mera’s deep G’ravitational field. They were known as darn. But most rocks were joined to at least one neighbor by a multiplex of winding bridges or conduits, many reaching farther than a dragon eye could see.
Viewed from space, the whole world was a tangle of cavernous, three-dimensional labyrinths. A gigantic mesh of fractured rocks, some as big as Erth’s mountain ranges. Yet, it was a constantly changing environment. The art of flame-carving (a favorite pastime for creative dragon minds) had seen thousands of graig enhanced or reconfigured, some into structures as grand as the Kashic Archive, more often into decorative eyries, places for dragon families to settle.
It might have seemed impossible that anything could live on a world made up of broken stones. But even the smallest of labyrinths had their own indigenous microclimate, with an atmosphere the dragons could breathe or adapt to. Every labyrinth was capable of supporting a variety of life-forms. The bigger systems flowed with water, maintained small oceans, and grew Erth-like flora, though nowhere in Ki:mera was there an assembly of life as all-inclusive as that found on Erth. And not a single labyrinth supported the freethinking bipeds the dragons called Hom. Their discovery had been one of the real surprises of Godith’s greater universe.
At the heart of it all was the giant star, Seren. The G’ravitational pull of the star, balanced against the weaker forces radiating from the moons of Crune and Cantorus, combined to keep the whole maze stable. Light flowing off the star permeated every bit of intraspace (the gaps between the graig), creating a fluctuating ora, or glow. The color of the ora was predominantly purple due to starlight reacting with crystals embedded in the graig. It would fluctuate to green sometimes, producing ribbons of both these colors when Crune and Cantorus were in certain alignments. And all around the planet—if planet it could be called—acting like a shield between Ki:mera, its moons, and the rest of the universe, was the mysterious Aurauma Fantalis, the intricate web of sparkling lights that dragons believed to be the home of Godith and the final resting place for their souls.
“Over there, I said. Are you deaf as well as clumsy?”
Goodle snapped to attention. “Sorry, Curator.” Yet again, he bowed. Any more of this and he’d end up as bent as an aged matrial. “If I may, I’d like to return this stone to the Archive myself.”
“Re
turn it yourself?” Gorenfussental stretched a little more. “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you think I’d let a blundering roamer anywhere near my Clusters and Arrays? I’d have stones floating everywhere! Just put it with the others and flap off.” He flipped a claw in the direction of the widest bit of intraspace.
Goodle raked in his claws. This wasn’t going well.
“You’re still here,” the Curator said dourly.
Goodle swallowed hard. Yes. He was. Still here. It was time to be brave and put his best scales forward. He’d been tasked with a great responsibility. A secret mission. A puzzle to solve. He must do his duty and see it through.
He sat up boldly and puffed his chest. “I have orders from De:allus Garodor. He wishes me to gather information from any stones linked to the one I’m carrying and—”
“Garodor?” The Curator’s ear frills widened. “How would a mischief-maker like you know a dragon as respected as Garodor?” The crusty eye ridges creaked, shedding scale dust over Goodle’s snout.
“I am Garodor’s assistant. And I don’t make mischief. I have traveled from the second colony on Erth, where the only De:allus present was Garodor. He chose me to help him because of my Aldien bloodline and, and …”
“Well?” The Curator tilted his head.
Goodle gulped. He’d gone a little too far with his boast. There was no and. Now he would have to make something up. “Because … I enjoy researching our past!”
That seemed to do the trick. Gorenfussental hummed approvingly. “Let me look at that.” He flicked a claw, inviting Goodle to hand the stone over.
“It’s just historical data,” said Goodle, hoping not to give the stone up.
“Of course it’s historical,” Gorenfussental huffed. “Do you think I don’t know my own Clusters? It would be red if it were a battle stone, green if it carried environmental records, yellow if … oh, just give it to me!” He leaned down and snatched it from Goodle’s grasp. Until then, Goodle hadn’t paid much attention to its color. When Grendisar had sealed himself back into the structure, he’d dimmed the orb’s glow, leaving it with just a vague gray tint. It was dull compared to the ones in the stack.
The New Age Page 14
