The New Age

by Chris D'Lacey

  Its scales were fully open. Stars were sparkling in all the places its seeds would sit. Although she could not say why, Mell blew softly across the cone and the stars spread as dry seeds would in a breeze. Some fell on Gariffred. Some fell on Gabrial, Grendel, Gus. Some fell on Mell herself. But most of them settled on the wearmyss, Gayl.

  From Gayl’s eye came a glowing fire tear. It rolled down her cheek and dripped into the snow, lighting it in glistening shades of amber. And where the light from Gayl touched the roots of Leif, green shoots began to appear.

  Mell gasped and stood up quickly. She turned a full circle. Shoots were everywhere. Small, but growing fast.

  “Fly,” she said. She flapped at Gariffred, who immediately took off. “Fly!” she cried at Grendel and the others. She ran for Gus’s back and clambered on smartly. “Fly,” she cried to him as well, slapping his neck to encourage him to lift.

  They took to the air, every dragon present. They circled and watched a young forest grow in the place where fire had claimed the old trees. Thus, the New Age on Erth would commence, with the death of a dragon commingled to a man of the Kaal, and their eternal union to a child of the forest.

  Mell closed her hand around the cone she’d been given and held it close to her beating heart. “Galan aug scieth,” she whispered to the universe. “Here the tale truly begins …”

  The Dorothy Frutton Retirement Home

  Erth timeline, present day

  “Emily.”

  “Dr. Whitaker. Thank you for coming. Sorry to be bringing you out so late.”

  “Not at all, not at all. Besides, it’s a lovely evening for a drive. Agatha, again?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Remind me, which room?”

  “She’s in the lounge.”

  Dr. Whitaker raised an eyebrow.

  “She refuses to go to bed.”

  “I see. And she’s rambling again?”

  “Worse than ever.”

  “About dragons, you said?”

  Emily smiled. She gestured down the hall.

  The small lounge was lit by nothing but moonlight, flowing in through the garden windows. Dr. Whitaker threw Emily a questioning glance. “She wanted the lights off,” Emily whispered. “To see the stars better. Shall I … ?”

  “No.” Dr. Whitaker stayed her hand. “It’s all right. I’ll talk to her as we are.”

  He walked over to the windows and pulled up a chair.

  In an armchair facing the garden sat a light-framed, elderly woman. She was wearing slippers and a dressing gown. Her slender face was creased by ninety years of life, but her eyes were still as keen as a hawk’s. She was blessed with a strong head of hair.

  “Miss White? Agatha? It’s Dr. Whitaker. We met last week. Emily tells me you’ve been a bit restless.”

  “Hair.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Whitehair. Not White.” The old lady’s voice grated like a rusty door hinge. “We’ve all been Whitehairs. Since the dawn of time.”

  The doctor put down his bag. He perched forward on the final third of his chair. “What’s that you’re holding?”

  Agatha closed her hand around a small object tight to her breast.

  “It’s a pinecone,” Emily informed the doctor. “She says it’s been in her family forever.”

  Dr. Whitaker’s thin mouth twitched at the corners. He followed Agatha’s gaze outside. “I love clear nights like this,” he said, brushing a little fluff off his knee. “I could see every star on the drive over here. Do you have a favorite star, Miss White … hair?”

  The hawk eyes scanned the sky. “Cantorus,” she answered.

  “Cantorus? I don’t think I know—”

  “Coming into alignment with Crune.” Miss White raised a finger. She pointed upward through the window. “That’s where he went. There. To Cantorus.”

  “Who?” asked Emily.

  Agatha’s gaze slid into the middle distance somewhere between herself and the window. “Ren,” she breathed. “And the girl went to Crune. That’s where the New Age truly began, on the moons of Ki:mera, when the sons of Godith were turned into stars.” She smiled, as though it was all coming back. “Aye. Ren and Pine. They were the first.”

  “The first what?” Dr. Whitaker asked.

  The old lady swayed a little. Her gaze settled on the night sky again. “The first Hom to colonize the dragon world.”

  The doctor and Emily exchanged another glance.

  Emily crouched by Miss White’s chair. “Agatha, is Ren your son?”

  The old lady snorted like an engine blowing steam. “I have his auma. Here, in my heart. Passed down on his mother’s side.”

  “Auma?”

  Miss White threw the doctor a scornful glance. “Dragon fire,” she hissed at him. It seemed for one moment that she might even breathe some. Her hand closed tighter around the cone.

  Emily offered a comforting hand. “Agatha, sweetheart. Just come to bed, huh? The doctor will give you something to help you sleep.”

  “Don’t need doctors,” Miss White snarled. “I have herbs. I can sleep all I want to. I must stay awake. Mustn’t miss it.”

  Dr. Whitaker glanced at the garden. “What exactly are you waiting for, Agatha?”

  “The eclipse of Seren,” Agatha replied, fogging up a tiny area of glass. “I must beg Her forgiveness. I’ve failed to bear young. Or find a new keeper. Don’t you see? I have no one to give this to.” She opened her hand and let the pinecone balance there. Its scales twinkled where they caught the moonlight.

  Dr. Whitaker clicked his tongue quietly. He interlaced his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. “Why is it important to pass that on?”

  “So the Hom don’t forget,” Miss White said grittily, her pale green gaze now drawn to her hand. “It’s all here. In the seeds. The legacy of the Wearle. It must be bestowed or they will all be forgotten.”

  Dr. Whitaker scratched his well-trimmed beard. “‘They’ being … ?”

  “Dragons,” Emily said quietly.

  Agatha stared at the garden again. The wind was chasing leaves around the lawn. “She couldn’t bear it,” she said plaintively. “The queen. Grendel. Despite her pledge, she couldn’t bear to live out her life on Erth. Not without the wearmyss at her side.” The old eyes began to mist. “So they left. All of them. Never to return. And now, when I die, no Hom will remember.”

  A tear rolled down the old lady’s cheek.

  Emily touched her gently on the shoulder. “What can we do to make it better?”

  “Believe,” said Agatha, gripping her hand. “If you truly believe, you can take the cone, child.”

  Dr. Whitaker hummed to himself. His hand went down and unclicked his bag. “I’m going to give you something, Agatha. It’s mild, I promise. But as Emily says, it will help you to sleep. We can talk about this again tomorrow.”

  Agatha hardened her gaze. She pressed three fingers against the window and drew an invisible sign there. “Fool. There’s no such thing as ‘tomorrow.’”

  The doctor smiled to humor her. “Well, according to my calendar, there is. Water, Emily?”

  Emily nodded. She reached over to a table and half filled a glass.

  As she moved to hand the glass to the doctor, a sharp pink light shined over the garden, as if something had slit the air with a laser.

  “It’s happening,” said Agatha.

  She let go of the cone. But instead of tumbling to her lap or to the floor, it hovered in midair and began to spin. Dr. Whitaker’s mouth fell open. He dropped the pill he was holding in his fingers. The pill Agatha White would never take. At the same time, Emily dropped the glass. It hit the arm of a chair and tipped its contents. A small avalanche of water headed for the carpet. A carpet that would never be wet.

  For Agatha was right. Far, far away, in the distant night sky, Cantorus and Crune had come into alignment and eclipsed Seren.

  And time on Erth had mysteriously stopped …

 
(OR THE WAY THINGS WERE, OR MIGHT HAVE BEEN)

  Floor 108 of the Great Librarium

  Time period: Undefined

  “Again? You stopped the Erth timeline? AGAIN?”

  Azkiar’s ear tufts looked like two rockets set for launch. Aurielle had rarely seen a firebird so flustered. His feathers were rustling to such an extent that the little creatures who sheltered among them were leaving in droves, along with the dust.

  Aurielle lowered her cream-colored head. “I had to,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked sharply.

  “The sector keeps fading, petering out.”

  “What?”

  Aurielle leaned forward, mantling her wings. Her apricot ear tufts sat up straight. “Whichever way the daisies bend, the timeline only runs to one descendant of Ren’s mother—and that descendant always fails to pass the memories on. You know what that means. Graven and the Erth Wearle will be forgotten. Their words will fall out of the books.”

  Azkiar shortened his beak at the tip. It was moments like these when he yearned to be back on Floor 17 sorting out the timelines of toads and rabbits. “How many resets have you done?”

  Aurielle bunched her claws. “Six.”

  “SIX?!” The dust exploded off him. “You do realize you’re only allowed seven?”

  She gave a timid nod.

  Azkiar sat down in a huff. “Well, there’s only one thing for it.” He arched his eyes toward the ceiling.

  Aurielle sighed. The Dome. Yes. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But after six resets there was no other option. They must visit the Dome on the top of the Librarium, and there seek help from the Higher.

  “Will you come with me?” she begged.

  “I suppose I’ll have to,” he grunted.

  That made her chitter happily. Azkiar might be the grumpiest firebird in the Librarium, but he always helped.

  She spread her wings and dashed outside, gathering speed again as she turned and flew upward. Her aim was to land by one of the windows that opened outward on the shell of the Dome, before quietly slipping inside. Azkiar did just that, closing the window behind him as tradition dictated. But Aurielle, because she was so concerned to find a solution to the Erth situation, flew through a window at speed and found herself deep within the matrix of stars the firebirds knew as the “Is.”

  Immediately, she felt a Presence all around her, and saw what she thought was a length of ribbon, twisting and curling in the glittering space. As it twizzled, it produced three uniform contrails, making the ancient symbol of the universe, the same sign Gayl had left on Pine’s hand, the sign Mell had drawn in blood in the Wild Lands, the sign Agatha had made on the window of the Dorothy Frutton Retirement Home.

  To Aurielle’s amazement, the sign began to take form. And what a form! With barely a whisper of movement, a small dragon materialized in the Is. Aurielle was charmed and a little bit terrified, even though the dragon was no bigger than she. It had huge, kind eyes and glistening green scales. She formed the conclusion that it might be a male, though its auma was so far-reaching and radiant that it could have had many, many identities. She nearly crumpled inside when he smiled at her.

  “Hello, Aurielle.”

  “Hello,” she squeaked.

  At that point, Azkiar appeared in the matrix.

  “Ah, two of you,” the dragon said gladly. He sat back, pressing his paws together. “How can I be of help?”

  “It’s all my fault,” Aurielle blurted. This wasn’t the opening she’d rehearsed on her flight, but the words just tumbled out of her beak and now she couldn’t seem to stop them. “A page broke free from an old Erth volume. It was all about Graven, the firstborn son of Godith.”

  Azkiar snorted through one nostril. “He’s a dragon. He knows who Graven is. Get on with it. And keep it short.”

  Aurielle bowed so low she almost toppled over. “When I studied the book the page had come from, I saw the terrible unrest on Erth, caused by the finding of Graven’s auma. So, with Azkiar’s permission”—Azkiar rolled his eyes—“I formed a plan, a very BIG plan, to settle the timeline and put things right. Would you like to see a summary?”

  “I would,” said the dragon. He beamed brightly.

  So Aurielle produced a vast collage of i:mages, showing the web of dimensional links between all the major events on Erth and the fateful “occurrences” her plan had engendered. It was all there, from Ren in the mountain rescuing Gariffred, to Garon entering the world of the Wyvern. The last few i:mages showed what became of G’restyn and Graven when they stood before Seren on Halo Point. Both were transformed into bright new stars and sent out into the universe to be orbited by Crune and Cantorus respectively.

  “Perfect.” The dragon drummed his claws. “You’ve done well, Aurielle. It’s a very good plan.”

  She lowered her head. “There were … casualties.”

  The dragon looked at her kindly. “There always are.” He moved a paw and sent her a rainbow of healing. “They’ll be cared for. You know that.”

  Aurielle nodded.

  “So what was the problem?”

  Oh, yes. The problem. Aurielle ruffled her wings and shuffled her feet. She straightened her beak and twice attempted to calm her breathing.

  But Azkiar had grown impatient by then and he said it all for her. “The plan keeps failing at a crucial point. The timeline diminishes after the same number of Erth iterations. The end result is that dragons fade from the Hom consciousness. Aurielle has performed six resets of the timeline and it’s always the same. It trickles down to one believer when there ought to be millions. That’s why we’re here.”

  “I see,” said the dragon. “Six, you say?”

  Aurielle blushed profusely. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

  The dragon hummed and tapped his paws together. “There must be a glitch.”

  Azkiar sucked in sharply. That was a word he didn’t like to hear. Glitches in time were the worst embarrassment a firebird could suffer.

  “Run it through again,” the dragon said. “As fast as you like. Show me all the details, not just a summary.”

  So Aurielle closed her eyes and re-i:maged the complete timeline, everything from Grendisar’s first Erth visits, to Ned Whitehair dying, the goyles, the Gibbus, the pinecone Mell had taken from Leif. It even showed Leif’s auma spreading into the mountains and cleansing the last grains of fhosforent on Erth. Every little detail was there, all the way down Mell Whitehair’s generations to Agatha in the retirement home.

  When it was done, the dragon tapped his paws together again. Then he twiddled a claw and brought back one particular scene: the part where Mell had made the sign in blood on the cavern wall.

  Aurielle flattened her ear tufts when she saw it. “Was I wrong to allow them to use the sign?”

  “No,” said the dragon. “The sign is everything. But watch what happens to it as the blood runs.”

  Aurielle gasped loudly. A trickle of blood from the topmost line had run down and joined with the central one! How could she have missed something that simple?

  That crucial?!

  Azkiar covered his eyes with one wing. He was thinking exactly the same thing.

  “But I don’t understand,” Aurielle spluttered.

  “Don’t make this worse,” Azkiar advised.

  Aurielle frowned. Not an easy thing for a firebird to do. “The lines of the symbol represent the history of men, dragons, and ice bears.”

  (For firebirds, this was a universal truth.)

  “Thank goodness bears weren’t involved,” muttered Azkiar. Whenever bears were mixed up in something, there were always ramifications. (That was another word he didn’t much care for.)

  “But the lines that merged are the ones for men and dragons,” said Aurielle.

  “So?” Azkiar puffed his feathers.

  “Well, wouldn’t that make the belief patterns stronger?”

  “It doesn’t quite work that way,” said the dragon. “When the line
s run together, it narrows the field to the strand of the character who made the sign. So if Mell’s family line should come to an end …”

  Aurielle slumped her wings. “Then I really have failed.”

  The dragon’s mouth curled up at the edges. “No, Aurielle. You haven’t failed. You’ve done the right thing; you’ve come to me.”

  From somewhere under his arm, he magically produced a notepad. On the pad was a drawing of the symbol with its pesky trickle of blood in place. Out of nowhere, the dragon then produced a pencil stub. Aurielle noticed it had a neat tip. But the dragon chose not to write with it. Instead, he turned the pencil upside down. On the blunt end was a tiny eraser. Azkiar and Aurielle both leaned forward and watched him gently rub out the line that was running from the top wave toward the middle. As he did, the stars around him reconfigured and a huge vision of Erth appeared. There was Mell in the Gibbus cavern, slung over the tall one’s shoulder. She made the sign on the wall with the blood from her fingers. And though a little blood ran from all three lines, Aurielle knew they would never meet now. By the time the dragon had blown the rubbings off his pad, the timeline had run right through to Agatha, who was sleeping contentedly in her chair. Emily was putting a blanket around her. The pinecone tumbled out of Agatha’s hand. Emily picked it up and carefully placed it in the dressing-gown pocket. Then she kissed Agatha gently on the head, stroked her wonderful hair, and said, Sweet dreams. Say hello to your dragons from me. Hrrr!

  Aurielle wiggled her tail in delight.

  Azkiar sighed. Tail wiggling! So embarrassing, especially in the presence of Infinite Creativity.

  “That’s it—she believes,” Aurielle said.

  “Not just Emily,” the dragon added. “In this timeline, most Hom do—though they’ll never be quite sure why they believe. Even those that don’t will want to believe. It’s all there, Aurielle, deep in their auma. The timeline is flowing beautifully now. Dragons will never be forgotten by the Hom. And those who seek the truth about Graven and G’restyn will find it—if they look hard enough. Now, there’s one last thing we need to do. For the sake of the bookshelves on Floor 47, we need to let go of the failed volumes and install just one—with a new title.”