The New Age

by Chris D'Lacey

  “Trying to teach me my job,” the Curator grumbled, spinning the stone fast in his nimble claws. He suddenly stopped it dead. “Just a moment.” He blinked his scholarly eyes. To one side of his head, a detailed cubic i:mage consisting of many racks of stones appeared. As he turned the i:mage and ran his eye along it, stones lit up like raindrops hitting the surface of a pond. In a heartbeat, he’d highlighted a gap.

  “I thought so,” he growled. “This stone was removed without my permission. Great Crune, it’s been tampered with! The cryptographic codes have been altered to carry some sort of … shadow.”

  Or vapor, thought Goodle, keeping very quiet.

  “What’s more, it’s long overdue!”

  Oh, good. That was all Goodle needed: a penalty for returning a memory stone late. “De:allus Garodor didn’t say anything about that. Please may I return it myself? I promise I’ll be careful.”

  “Certainly not.”

  Goodle ground his teeth. Now what should he do? He was reasonably certain that flaming a curator and storming the Archive would be considered a major crime. Being first assistant to De:allus Garodor wasn’t quite as straightforward as it seemed.

  Gorenfussental said, “This stone was originally encrypted by an Elder. It contains sensitive information. I’ve heard about that planet you say it came from. There are some peculiar rumors flying around the graig about that place. Things no blue should ever be involved with. What in the name of Godith was this stone doing there?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out,” said Goodle.

  The Curator would not be moved. “This theft will have to be reported to the Higher.”

  “No!” Goodle stamped a foot.

  “No?” growled the giant.

  “You HAVE to let me through! I’m on a mission of the highest priority!”

  “And I’ve got a tail made of moondust! Now fly, you young reprobate. Before I clip your wings and kick you to the far side of Cantorus.”

  “I can open it,” said Goodle.

  “You? Open this?” A long snort traveled down the tall dragon’s snout.

  “I can prove it,” Goodle said. He was desperate now. And desperate times called for desperate measures. The Curator had called him a reprobate, so a reprobate he would have to be.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. I:maging had never been one of his strengths, but he did it now, perfectly—stage one at least.

  “What’s this?” said Gorenfussental, looking at the numbers floating before him.

  “De:allus Garo—” No. Goodle thought again. “De:allus Grendisar’s secret code.”

  “GRENDISAR? That hoary degenerate! Now I’ve heard it all. Be gone, before I summon the Veng!”

  Goodle closed his eyes again and sent the code into the memory stone’s lock. It broke open, still in the Curator’s grasp.

  And out came the vapor.

  “Bother,” it muttered, looking up at the Archive entrance. “Bit rusty with the old coordinates, I see.”

  Gorenfussental dropped the pieces of stone and staggered back with his mouth wide open.

  “Problem?” Grendisar said to Goodle.

  Goodle nodded. “Don’t hurt him—please?”

  Grendisar rose up to five times his size. He was about to go through all the motions of roaring, clawing, and shadow-eating when Gorenfussental fainted in a crumpled heap.

  “Well, that was easy,” Grendisar said, swishing back to his normal size. “I must confess, it’s rather fun being a vapor.” He clapped his misty claws together. “So, Goodle of Aldien. Here we stand, on the threshold of uncovering a great mystery!”

  “Umm,” said Goodle. He couldn’t help but gulp.

  “Excellent. Excellent,” Grendisar said brightly. “Right, then. Shall we go in?”

  Before Goodle could raise a note of caution, Grendisar had flowed between the Archive’s giant pillars (carved in the likeness of Gorenfussental the First) and disappeared from view. Goodle looked down at the current Curator, praying he would never be forced to i:mage the state he’d left the old dragon in. Gorenfussental was flat on his back with his feet in the air. A most undignified pose for a dragon of his status. Quietly begging the Curator’s forgiveness, Goodle checked around for signs he hadn’t been spotted, then gathered up the pieces of the memory stone and went after Grendisar as fast as he could fly.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d visited the Archive. As early as their third turn, young dragons were shown around it by their pers. It was a breathtaking experience. The Archive was somehow bigger inside than it appeared from the outer, and almost as complex as Ki:mera and its graig. Labyrinths within labyrinths within yet more labyrinths. An impossible depth of intraspace. No one, not even the wisest curators, could gauge the full extent of it. A few wingbeats in, and most juveniles were lost.

  In every labyrinth, memory stones floated in perfectly arranged Clusters of carefully graded colors. On their inaugural visit, young dragons were encouraged to select any stone that appealed to them. They were then shown how to open the stone and how to use i:maging techniques to find additional stones that might be linked to their original choice. This was a risky procedure, for if the i:maging proved too wayward, it could lead a young dragon so deep into the Archive it might never find its way out. Per Gantiss liked to tell a tale about an unfortunate dragon called Gorme, who was lost among the Clusters for years. Gorme was eventually discovered wandering a remote labyrinth spouting words of dragontongue that rhymed. (The whole wyng had winced when they’d heard that.) For this reason, the pers would encourage the dragons to examine no more than three related stones on their first trip, which usually confined them safely to the same labyrinth.

  Every dragon, no matter how lowly, was allotted an access code. The code determined where in the Archive a dragon could roam and how many stones they could borrow at one time. Failing to return a stone on time incurred an automatic ban, which only the Curator could reverse. It was a sad fact that many fighting dragons visited the Kashic Archive once, broke the returns rule, accepted their ban, and never went back.

  Goodle had always returned his stones on time.

  But until this business with Elder Givnay, he had never heard of a stone going missing before. He was puzzled about that, and with very good reason. On his first trip, he had learned an important fact about the Archive: Whenever a stone was removed from its Cluster, the Archive noted it. The Archive, not the Curator. Goodle had found this hard to comprehend. The explanation, when it came, had frightened him a little. He remembered being perched in the spectacular Labyrinth Auditaurum, hearing per Gantiss bellowing in a weighty but somewhat lackluster voice, The Kashic Archive is more than just … a data store. It is a living … kompendium of thoughts, moods, and … other dreary matter (his voice had tailed off a little there). To navigate successfully, one must engage with it on a conceptual plane, not a logical one.

  Goodle was ruminating hard on this as he hurried after Grendisar, still carrying the memory stone Elder Givnay had removed illegally. It didn’t take a giant leap of intellect to deduce that Givnay had used his mental prowess to somehow put the Archive into disArray. Many dragons had feared the Elder because of his ability to commingle with their minds and effectively take control of them. What if Givnay had commingled with the mind of the Archive and found a way to confuse or deactivate a Cluster? That would explain how he’d smuggled the stone out undetected. But the contents of the stone—all of Grendisar’s work, in effect—would have been little more than background reading. And while the stone cited Erth as the probable location for Graven’s shattered heart, there was nothing in the data to say where on the planet his blood would be found.

  But help was at hand.

  While Goodle had been brooding on this niggling conundrum, the Archive had been working with him. It had noted the i:mages of Erth in his mind and adjusted its mystifying intraspace to draw him into a crucial labyrinth. Grendisar was there already, drawing stones to him at a dizzying rate, spilling their i
:mages all over the labyrinth. Goodle landed on a central viewing pedestal, staggered by the wealth of pictures in the air. The whole history of Grendisar’s trips to Erth was swirling around like leaves in a gale.

  “Look at this, young blue.” Grendisar froze an i:mage of a canyon Goodle had never seen before. “Came across it on my first trip to Erth. Marvelous example of volcanic unease in the deepest layers of the planet. Oh, and here’s one of—”

  “De:allus!” Goodle stopped him there. He wasn’t here to see pictures of Grendisar’s favorite landmarks. They were supposed to be solving the Graven riddle. “Have you found any clues about the fhosforent?”

  “No,” the vapor said with a hum, shuffling a few of the i:mages around. Here in the Archive, his ghostly form was very much at home. He could sift the i:mages almost as fast as he could pop out of sight.

  A poor i:mage of the old Prime, Greffan, flashed by, prompting Goodle to ask, “Is there a record of Greffan’s reports?”

  “Um?”

  “Greffan. The Prime who led the Wearle before mine.”

  Right away, a stone zipped out of the Cluster and hovered in Goodle’s eyeline. It was gray, like the one he was still holding, and probably encrypted in the same manner. He let go of the stone between his claws. It quickly floated back to its rightful position. The new one clicked open and displayed its contents.

  “A fine range of mountains,” Grendisar said.

  “This was our domayne,” Goodle muttered as pictures of Skytouch and its ice-bound lake panned out before him. Over the top of the i:mages came a gruff narration, presumably recorded by Prime Greffan.

  I am pleased to report that phasing into a coastal area of the planet named Erth has been a success. The domayne I present for you here is an excellent habitat for dragons to colonize. The ground is unspoiled and well served by fresh water. Food is abundant. Air quality good. Threats can only be described as minimal. We have been forced to repel some irritating challenges from the semi-intelligent species known as the Hom, but we have them under control and could eradicate them at will, if directed. As requested, some i:mages of the mineral deposits, taken from the zone we were instructed to inspect.

  A number of pictures popped up of the quarry near Vargos, where the old per, Grogan, had lost his life. One of the i:mages showed a thin seam of fhosforent, glowing pink. It made Goodle shudder to see it.

  The mineral supply in this region is plentiful. The pink ore highlighted, which the mappers have named f hosforent, has made remarkable enhancements to our flame. The ore is fragile and swiftly degrades. We do not have the full resources to mine it. Samples will be brought to Ki:mera if they can be stabilized.

  With wider regard to the classified work of De:allus Grendisar, I find no evidence of the fallen son of Godith. There is an interesting auma about this world, but I cannot bring myself to believe that Graven’s heart lies hidden here. I suggest that further researches be abandoned.

  “A travesty!” cried the vapor.

  Indeed, thought Goodle. He’d hoped for more from Greffan’s report. Some small clue he could work with. An unsolved riddle was worse than an itch in the ear canal. And having come this far, he did not want to let De:allus Garodor down.

  He ran through the data again and suddenly had a new burst of inspiration. It was all to do with the throwaway part of Prime Greffan’s report. Instructed, Greffan had said. Instructed by whom? The Elders? The Higher? Who had wanted to know about the mineral supply?

  Goodle gasped and almost fell off his pedestal as a new stone appeared at the end of his snout. It was small, this one, and hard to see. He tried twice to unlock it. Both times, the stone refused to open. (One more false try and it would disappear.) “Grendisar, what’s happening?” he said, watching the stone rotate. It threw out an eerie wisp of light that strobed the space between Goodle’s eyes. Was it a stone or just a ball of light? It was hard to tell.

  Grendisar floated over. “Oh, my fuzzy scales. Where did that come from?”

  “I can’t open it,” said Goodle.

  “Nor I,” said the vapor. “That is not a memory stone, Goodle of Aldien.”

  Goodle reeled back. The light came with him, holding its place.

  Grendisar sighed in amazement. “All my days, I never saw such a wonder.”

  “De:allus, stop babbling. Tell me what it is.”

  “That is a heart star, my friend. The essence of a dragon long dead—and marooned. The Archive must have been protecting it. I would bet my dusty isoscele that none of the curators knew about this. But who is it? And why are they here?”

  “I don’t know,” squeaked Goodle. And right at that moment, he really didn’t care. A high-pitched tone somewhere deep within the Archive had made him start. The memory stones had all begun to flash. One by one, they closed up and flew back to their Clusters.

  Goodle looked sharply left and right, alarmed that the star was staying with him. “What’s that noise? What’s happening?”

  Grendisar wafted a claw. “The alarm, I expect.”

  “What?!”

  “The Curator must have woken and summoned the Veng.”

  VENG! Goodle put out his wings. “We’ve got to fly!”

  “I’m afraid there is little point, my friend. The heart star has you in its thrall. It will not release you until it has what it needs.”

  “What does it want?”

  “A good question,” Grendisar hummed.

  “Oh, you’re hopeless!” Goodle wailed at him. “I wish I’d stayed on Crune.”

  “Of course!” Grendisar exploded briefly into particles. “You have the answer plainly! Crune is the clue. How could I not see it? Well done, Goodle of Aldien. I must commend your logic before I die.”

  “Die?”

  “Alas, it is time,” De:allus Grendisar said. “The Veng have never liked vapors. They will take much joy in turning me to smoke. Fear not, I will feel no pain. I will lead them in a dance, you can be sure of it.”

  “Can’t you—can’t we—please get away?” Goodle had his wings at full stretch now. But Grendisar was right about the star. Somehow it was holding the blue to the pedestal.

  “Not I,” said the vapor, resigned to his fate. “I have drifted far too long. But at last I see my work has purpose—though I was but an instrument all along. Your destiny is all that matters now.”

  “What destiny?” squeaked Goodle. At any moment, he was going to be arrested or flamed. The alarms were getting louder. He could smell the Veng coming. They were closing fast, from every direction.

  Grendisar gave a sigh of content. “This is the work of firebirds, my friend.”

  “What?” Goodle’s voice chords almost snapped. Firebirds? The so-called monitors of time and space? They were an even bigger myth than Graven!

  But Grendisar plainly believed in them. “Only they could weave such a ruse with the Archive to bring you and me to this meeting with him.”

  “Who?” cried Goodle. Why didn’t this vapor ever speak plainly? “Meeting with who?”

  “Stay where you are or you die!” roared a voice.

  Veng! They were in the labyrinth!

  Grendisar flashed his tail, unafraid. “If I am correct, the weight of the universe will soon lie upon your wings, young blue. ’Tis a lofty responsibility you bear.”

  “Grendisar, tell me the dragon’s NAME.”

  But a bright flame had already hit the vapor, lighting him up in a flare of orange. In a faraway voice, he wailed his final words, “Bother! I hovered too long, as always. Fly with mercy, Goodle of Aldien. Forgive, forgive, forgive …”

  Forgive what? thought Goodle, staring at the place where the star ought to be.

  But the heart star was no longer there.

  It had flashed into his mind and was melding with his auma.

  With it came the first light of understanding.

  “YOU?” he said, oblivious to the catch of flames licking around him.

  I hope you don’t mind, said a Presence in his
head. The Archive thinks we’re perfectly matched. I won’t harm you. Violence was never in my nature. And don’t worry about the Veng. We’ll be gone in a blink.

  “But you can’t be him. He’s …”

  G’restyn, yes, the Presence said proudly. Younger brother of Graven. Second son of Godith. Lord of Crune. Do you like that title? I made it up myself. G’restyn: Lord of Crune. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think … ?

  Garodor opened his eyes. All around him, like the shell of a giant egg, were the curved stone walls of the Alcazar Labyrinth, the only place in the entire body of Ki:mera that might be called a prison. Thankfully, there was no other dragon present. Scribblings and scorch marks made by previous occupants were carved on every rock, but all the marks were old. The prison had been empty for some time, it seemed.

  Garodor settled on a piece of graig toward the center of the intraspace. He folded down his wings and breathed deeply through his spiracles, rolling back the lids on his eyes as he did. The dazzling light from their finely jeweled surfaces barely dented the purple ambience. But this wide open, his eyes could see all around his body, ready to spot any signs of attack.

  He raised himself to full alertness, and spoke.

  “If you want my advice, you’ll show yourself, boy. I put a time delay into the phasing pattern, which means our arrival won’t be detected immediately. But soon the intraspace will start to reconfigure, and that will send a signal out across the graig. Your invisibility won’t help you then. This labyrinth was commissioned by the Higher. It has direct links to the Aurauma Fantalis. As such, it has a degree of consciousness. The Alcazar can synchronize with every shift its occupants make. It can hear a sound as quiet as your heartbeat and measure the heat from the flick of an eye. Once it detects a shift, it will be able to predict your movements and know exactly where you are. And don’t be fooled by the gaps in the walls. They are bound by a prismic field that can’t be shattered, flamed, or phased across. The only way you’ll get to the other side is by shining a light weave over the locks. For that, you will need a De:allus eye. Time is ticking down for you, Ren. It won’t be long before the Veng arrive. Then the Sensaurs will come, and not even a reborn son of Godith could resist the combined force of their strange minds. I suggest you talk to me. Now.”