“The Flutter played havoc with their migration patterns and their genetic memory of landmass locations and Dragon hunting grounds, sending a lot of them aground to die,” the Drake said, “again, so I am told.”
“It’s nice of you to give the humans an escape hatch,” Gabriel said, “but it was really the way they used whale oil to lubricate their latest industrial revolution that did it. Anyway, when it became apparent that Dragons took a lot of feeding, HarvCorp pulled out their old research and it wasn’t long before we were seeing cows again. Or things that could almost pass for cows, if you squinted.”
“You’d have to squint a Hell of a lot for that to pass for a cow,” Greyblade jerked a thumb over his shoulder with a laugh.
“My friends also deleted a lot of the structural protocols and guidelines,” the Drake said. “We are not equipped to maintain smaller animals down here and it would be cruel besides, so the meat has to suffice.”
The slope and curve sharpened a little, before ending in an opening halfway up the wall of a wide, almost-spherical chamber. This one was lit by what looked like great formations of glowing green-white crystal in the ceiling, but Greyblade knew by looking at them that they were artificial growths of integrated lighting technology. He hesitantly identified them as being of Shallop design. Clearly they operated just as well here as they did in the bottomless vaults of the Vuoliér ocean.
Greyblade grinned behind his visor as he looked at what lay in the broad, shallow bowl of the cavern.
“So you do have a treasure trove,” he remarked.
INFORMATION
The ‘treasure’ was, like the Shallop light-crystals in the ceiling, largely artificial and alien in nature. Rather than the precious stones and metals for which Dragons were famed, the Drake had surrounded herself with technology.
There was too much to readily name and identify, although Greyblade’s helmet happily began outlining and cataloguing items by category, function, operability and legality. There was plenty from the negative ends of the operability and legality registers, a lot of it crushed beyond repair in the sinuous central valley of the collection. Greyblade saw smashed Argothmod robots and other relics of Dark Realms technology, and realised a lot of this had been intentionally placed where the Dragon would rest her undisguised body. In fact, Greyblade realised as they picked their way down from the tunnel mouth and into the piles of equipment, the whole hoard had been arranged to allow the Drake to rest there, and also utilise and enjoy the more useful surveillance and media devices.
It was a hoard, and a bed, and the centre of an information network that probably rivalled any other on the flatworld. They crunched up along the valley that would usually be filled with the Drake’s body, and the smell of ozone, electronics, fibrous nanoreceptors and zirgox dust overlaid the scents of rockmelt and reptile that filled the rest of the nest.
“This is … impressive,” Greyblade said. They entered the broad space where the banks of monitors and interface nodes and dreamglobes, the Gróbi infosats and Aishen Yachari combat probes and Vorontessi mage-glasses, all rose up like a small amphitheatre. Greyblade’s visor immediately swung towards an intricate brushed-chrome cigar-shape nestled amongst transmission and playback equipment. His voice cracked a little as he dropped into a whisper. “Is that … ?”
“The jewel of my collection,” the Drake said, “so to speak. An operational Pinian Brotherhood spy drone, the so-called I-Spies commissioned in the first act of Pinian sovereignty. She’s older than the Destarion, Sir Greyblade. Older than the Burning Knights. Older than the Ogres. Atomic profiling has put her age at almost a billion Firstmade years. Almost three hundred thousand turns of the urverse, and she still works. I don’t even know where she gets her information, where her receivers are, how wide her data net is. The things she shows are … more like magical images in a crystal ball than a data feed. But they’re always accurate. Some of them are events from worlds nobody I know has ever heard of, but I have no doubt those are accurate as well.”
“Amazing,” Greyblade murmured, stopping a respectful distance from the I-Spy and admiring her. “Have you … mentioned to the higher authorities that you have this?”
“The revered Firstmades have swarms of them, Sir Greyblade,” the Drake said. “I like to think they’re aware of her presence down here – and mine. These machines bring them as close to omniscience as the Gods Themselves. If they choose not to come down here and take her back…”
“I actually looked into the legality of it myself,” Gabriel added quietly. “These things predate a lot of Corporate law, but the general idea is that they’re self-determining entities – not legally sentient, but guided by what the Firstmades called ‘the cold whims of fate’. The I-Spies travelled, and extended their unseen eyes, according to criteria and algorithms we just don’t understand anymore. They’re more mystical than technological, the boundaries blurred by the aeons.”
“The Archangel is getting around to saying that wherever the I-Spies ended up, they were declared to be where destiny had led them,” the Drake said. “If destiny has led this one here, she is where she belongs and is seeing and showing what she needs to see and show. If she decides to leave, there is nothing I could do to stop her. Nor would I, if there were.”
Greyblade nodded. The Dragon was quite right. The Firstmades had been around for longer than most of the Gods, longer than Elder Races like the Molren … longer than anything, practically speaking, but the Infinites Themselves. The cultures and peoples of the urverse had taken many forms in that time, and it often felt like people today were still struggling to achieve the lost pinnacles of the past. Certainly when you looked at ancient monsters like the Destarion, and even older creations like the I-Spies, it seemed as though modern Corporate civilisation was little more than a degenerate gang of savages, squabbling amidst the towering derelicts of past glory.
And that was in places like Capital Mind and Barnalk Low. Then you found yourself on a world like Earth …
“The Drake has been collecting this stuff since she was a hatchling,” Gabriel said. “It almost seems to find her.”
“I’ve found I have an affinity,” the Drake said, crossing to another of the devices and calling up a sequence of shots, presumably, from cities across Earth with a few taps of her fingers. “Knowledge is worth more than gold.”
“That’s … forgive me,” Greyblade said, “it seems like a strange thing for a Dragon to believe.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met another Dragon,” the Drake said carelessly. “They’re not allowed into the Interdict. All I have is an instinct that has been growing steadily stronger since I was five years from the egg. To burrow, to sleep, to collect things of value. They calm me. This,” she gestured with her strange attempted hands. “This calms me,” she turned, and began activating more monitors and feeds. “Do you know the Pinians personally, Sir Knight?” she asked idly.
“I’m sorry?”
“Have you met the revered Firstmade Disciples of the Brotherhood?”
“Yes…” Greyblade said.
“Do you know why they stopped?”
“Why they stopped,” Greyblade repeated blankly.
“Why they stopped coming here. Why they stopped saving us. Why they stopped caring. Why they stopped trying. I can make a few educated guesses, myself, but I do not know,” the Dragon turned, settled her narrow frame on a bank of processing blocks, and studied Greyblade intently. “Please,” she went on when Greyblade hesitated. “I know you came here for information, but it is not like getting fuel for a vehicle. Or, in a way, it is. I need to know what kind of vehicle, what sort of fuel it takes, what expertise you have, your needs. It is no good simply giving you an absorption keg and sending you on your way.”
“You want to know about the revered Firstmades,” Greyblade said.
“I am aware of one version of the sorry story of the two hundred and thirty-seven years of the Exposed Earth, the world since the unFlutter,” the Drake
said. “Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say I know several versions. I would be interested in hearing if your story diverges from the Archangel’s, for example.”
“It might,” Greyblade said. “Our paths haven’t crossed that often during the … sorry story of the two hundred and thirty-seven years of the Exposed Earth.”
“Good times,” Gabriel grunted.
Greyblade exchanged a look with the Archangel, as one-sided as looks were when all he had to offer was an etched visor. He thought about their campaigns. The Worm. The sack of Heaven. The Dark Realms and the occupation. But what he remembered was the Pinians, the last time he’d really stood by their side on a battlefield not of human making.
There comes a time in every immortal’s dominion …
“I’m … not sure what happened,” he said, turning back to the Drake. “It’s part of what I want to find out from you, if I can.”
“Please, Sir Knight,” the Dragon insisted. “The more I know about what you know, the more I will see the shape of what you’re seeking. It is how my affinity works.”
“Alright,” Greyblade said, “let’s see.”
THE SORRY STORY OF THE
TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS
OF THE EXPOSED EARTH
When Earth, Hell and Cursèd emerged from their exile and were returned to their rightful places beneath Heaven, it was immediately apparent that something had gone wrong.
A certain amount, due to the ridiculously convoluted efforts of Moskin Stormburg of the Áea, was already known even though the fractious genius was almost as bad at communicating with the real world as he was with the one going on behind the veil of the Infinites. Earth’s condition, and the state of the Lost Disciples, was known in broad strokes and so when the veil abruptly vanished the Archangelic court was able to scramble some sort of response – or at least begin to. The human race, gasping for metaphorical air, blinked in dazed confusion at the Four Realms into which they’d just been slotted, and opened their mouths to start asking questions.
Before they could do so, before Heaven could send aid, before God could take a direct hand for the first time in two thousand, three hundred and seventy-eight years, things … became more complicated.
“We weren’t located and activated until later,” Greyblade said, “so whatever Gabriel has told you about the early years of the Exposed Earth is probably true. Enemy powers swooped in and took over, the Disciples were little more than human at the time and they were overwhelmed, there was a lot going on at once. Attacks on all sides, and Earth was flung right into the middle of it.”
Eventually, however, and one way or another, things had settled down. The Dark Realms, the Lapgods of Nnal, the Worm Cult, the Slumsville Wind, and an assortment of even more esoteric and hard-to-believe enemies were confronted in dizzying succession, and by the end of the Twenty-Fifth Century by common human reckoning, or a hundred and twenty-odd years ExE as the new count went, things were almost back to normal. It had been a traumatic reintroduction to the way the urverse did business.
What had actually happened during the exile, or the Flutter, or whatever people chose to call those millennia the worlds and Disciples were lost to Corporate senses … nobody really knew, not for absolutely certain. Gabriel had shared what he could, but it only confirmed that there had been a calamity. The exile had failed on some fundamental level, or had never been intended to be completely viable in the first place. And the Disciples had reduced themselves – or had been reduced – to the human level for the duration.
Hell and Cursèd were now known as the seared realms. They’d returned from beneath the veil scoured of life, settlements or any trace of infrastructure. A catastrophic miscalculation in the way the rolled-up worlds would operate, and how hospitable they would be to human and indeed any other form of life, had occurred. Gabriel and Greyblade had spoken of this in the past, and had never reached a conclusion.
“Everything we know about the Disciples’ power,” Greyblade told the Drake, “insists that there was no real way they could have kept Hell and Cursèd intact and habitable while they were spherical planets. Not even with the full realisation of their power as Firstmades. Probably not even with the Destarion awake and helping them. It’s possible there were structures and systems available that would have provided atmospheres and heat and other necessities to those planets, but they failed. And that’s inconceivable, because the architect of the exile was Limbo.”
“The Ghåålus,” the Drake said.
“That’s the one,” Gabriel said grimly. “The Ghåålus generally in charge of dealing with issues that might unravel the fabric of the urverse. Infinite power, infinite knowledge. The only way those worlds could die was with Limbo’s direct knowledge – and active failure to correct the breakdown.”
“Not necessarily true,” Greyblade disagreed. “It’s possible that there was some minor natural flaw, and Limbo just didn’t consider it important enough to fix. The exile’s continuation was more important than the lives of the people on Hell and Cursèd. But that really depends on what the exile was intended for anyway. Because if Limbo just needed to eradicate the Four Realms, or the three beneath Heaven, it would have been a matter of a snap of the fingers.”
“It’s still possible that the Disciples could have corrected the issue somehow,” Gabriel acknowledged, “and Limbo let the whole thing fail so it would teach them a lesson. Put all that blood on their hands. Like you say, it depends on why the veil was put there in the first place. We’ll probably never know. Limbo’s unlikely to pop up and tell us.”
“I also heard a lot of crazy stories about the Ghååla – the Infinites – losing Their power,” Greyblade said. The Drake leaned forward intently, and Greyblade pointed at Gabriel. “He knows more, though,” he said. “I wasn’t involved.”
“Thanks, Kisser,” Gabriel said in a low voice.
“It’s no good,” the Drake said, sounding amused again. “I know that the Archangel was involved in something of dreadful importance after the veil was removed, but he refuses to discuss it with me.”
“If the Infinites lost Their power at the beginning of the exile, more realms and Dimensions throughout the Corporation would probably have noticed it,” Greyblade said. “As for the end of the exile, that’s a different matter. Maybe the veil wasn’t supposed to lift at all, but Limbo was unable to maintain it. But it doesn’t really matter. Things, as I said, were very confused then – and there are a hundred stories, each more fanciful than the last. And just because Gabriel and I were involved, doesn’t mean we had a damn clue what was happening. When Firstmades and Ghååla go to war, mortals lower their heads and try to stay alive.”
“But you fought,” the Drake insisted. “When the Dark Realms and the rest invaded. You fought side by side with the Pinians.”
“I did,” Greyblade said. “We did. The Burning Knights. The Gróbs. The Áea-folk. The Wudsoie and the other forces of Doof’s Dimension. All the Brotherhood’s allies. We fought, and we confronted the worshippers of Nnal, the so-called Master Races Alliance, and the Worm Cult, and a half-dozen other ne’er-do-wells, and we gave them all a damn good hiding,” he looked at Gabriel, then at the Dragon, who was watching him with interest in her strange glassy eyes. “And then…”
“And then?” the Drake inquired.
“And then things went sour,” Greyblade said. “Without a war to fight, camaraderie became harder and harder to find. Humans realised how many aliens there were out there. They began to convince themselves that things had been just fine under the veil, and that their troubles had all come from outside.”
“Not all of them,” Gabriel remarked.
“Well no,” Greyblade conceded. “Evidently not all of them.”
“And things weren’t fine,” Gabriel growled.
“True,” Greyblade admitted again. “But the past always seems nicer than the present, and far nicer than the future. Because you can see the past, while the only certainty the future
contains is death.”
“Did you see the Milky Way cultists on the stairs?” the Drake asked in amusement. Greyblade nodded. “The Milkies,” the Dragon pronounced scathingly. “They call themselves the Stair People. A clever turn-around of the Elevator People, you see. The Elevator People may have their issues, but at least they know how to think. When the Milkies call themselves Stair People, it is as if they’re taking pride in how backwards they are.”
Greyblade nodded again. “That’s the way it can be, with humans,” he said. “They were given this world – to share, yes, and it looks like they’re not sharing anymore, and I’d like to know why they stopped – and they were given free choice. They could follow the Pinians, or not. They could board the Elevator and descend to Castle Void if they wanted. But for the most part, and for a while, everything was fine. Everybody got along.”
“I’d always planned on sending the humans forth from here in a ravening horde,” Gabriel said reminiscently. “Dealing with an overwhelming invading force from the moment the veil was lifted wasn’t part of my preparations. It shocked them into playing nice for a while.”
“Then the First and Third Disciples, Mygon and Dodge, vanished again for a century or so,” Greyblade took up the story, “and the Second, Ildar…” he turned his visor once again towards Gabriel.
“The First and Third wandered off and vanished again for an extended period of time,” Gabriel nodded, “and Ildar appeared with no memory of her preceding incarnation, although she remembered the rest. No connection between the events was ever established.”
“Yes,” Greyblade smiled, although the others couldn’t see it, “I recall the wild conspiracies but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge details. I can say that their absence had nothing to do with Earth, although it certainly didn’t help matters.”
“The popular line on Earth is that the Pinians had decided to see whether humanity was ready to look after Earth on their own,” Gabriel said, “the way they had during the exile.”
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