Three beats passed.
Garodor tightened his claws.
Could he have been wrong about the fire star?
No.
His primary heart banged against his chest as a shimmer of light wriggled out of the intraspace and Ren Whitehair faded into view. He was on a piece of graig right in front of Garodor, astride the white horse that had once belonged to Ren’s father, Ned. They called the beast Wind. She was a curious creature, said to command mysterious powers. She had once been possessed by the spirit of a goyle and, like Ren, was touched by the auma of Graven. The twisted horn that grew from her forehead was not showing at present. Likewise, no wings were sprouting from her shoulders.
Ren himself looked no different from the scrawny Hom child Garodor had first met in Prime Grynt’s eyrie. His hair was still the color of faded corn, his face pale, his eyes alert. But the childlike air of injustice that had once governed his boyish features had now been replaced by a sullen weariness more in common with that of a hard-bitten warrior. Darkness had sharpened the points of his eyes. Phasing him into this labyrinth was a risk. No cave nor pit nor high mountain ledge had held the boy captive for long. And while Ren might struggle to break free from this confinement, there was nothing to stop him turning on his captor with whatever powers he or his mount possessed. Garodor knew he must be wary.
The boy reached forward and stroked Wind’s mane. From his mouth came a faint breath of praise. “You’ve been clever, De:allus. I guessed you would detect our presence in the fire star, but I didn’t think there would be time enough to rearrange your endpoint. I underestimated you. Bringing us here … there was courage in that.”
Perfect dragontongue, eloquently spoken in that thick Hom accent. Such progress in such a short space of time. Garodor glanced at the hand that Gariffred had bitten. The star-shaped wound was still at its center.
“You know where you are?”
Ren looked all about him. “I’m where the dragon high command has always wanted me: imprisoned. I thought we were on the same side, you and I?”
“Tell me your purpose and we might be.”
Ren smiled faintly. “Where is Goodle?”
“Far away, I hope.”
“In the Archive?”
“I doubt it. Is that where you hoped I would lead you?”
“Wind will take me wherever I ask her to. And no Veng will halt my progress, I assure you.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
Again, the boy looked vaguely about him. “I told you in the forest when Grynt tried to flame me, any dragon who stands against me will suffer. I let Grynt live because I didn’t want a host of dragons coming here, roaring that they’d witnessed the wrath of Graven. His spirit rages inside me. It cannot be burned again. It has been weakened by generations of dying crows, but the spark is alive, nurtured now by the auma of Gariffred, tempered by his mother, Grystina.”
“She’s still commingled with you? Grystina?”
Wind snorted quietly, prompting Ren to cradle her ear. “She has been with me since the day I learned that dragons and Hom could be of one mind. I value her Astrian wisdom, especially in the face of Grynt’s stupidity.”
Garodor lidded his eyes a little. In those few moments, a harsh tone had cracked the swell of Ren’s voice. A sign, perhaps, that he was not entirely in control of Graven. Dark scales were rising along the boy’s arms. More troubling were the changes taking place in Wind. Black stripes had appeared down her neck and flanks. Her wings and horn had swiftly materialized, as if she—or the force that controlled her and Ren—was tired of this dialogue and was eager to force an escape.
Aware that time was ebbing away, Garodor blurted, “Listen to me, Ren. If you were shadowing my meeting with Grynt, you’ll know the reason I returned to Ki:mera. Whoever sent the Wearle to those fhosforent seams never meant for the Hom to be involved. That dragon—if a dragon it was—is to blame for everything that has happened on Erth and should be brought to justice.”
A slight growl left Ren’s lips. “I will bring justice to bear, De:allus. And any who stand against me will suffer.”
“No,” said Garodor, shaking his head. “You are in terrible danger. Show yourself as a black dragon and Ki:mera will rise up as one and destroy you, no matter how much power you think you might have.”
Ren touched Wind’s head and the dark lines faded. She calmly folded her wings. “Then speak your terms: What would you have me do?”
“Go back to Erth. Seek Grymric’s help. Make your ties again with Gabrial. Forge an alliance between our two species. Let me find out who’s behind all this and what can be done to set the spirit of Graven to rest.”
Ren pulled on Wind’s mane and glanced at the spaces in the labyrinth wall. “It may be too late for that. The Veng are coming. Wind feels their presence. You would be wise to break us out of here. Unless you would be witness to more dragon deaths.”
“Ren, don’t do this,” Garodor begged, watching the darkness grow in him again. “You might take the first wave, but many more will follow. If Grystina is with you, she knows I speak truly.”
He is right, she advised, sweeping into Ren’s mind. We cannot fight them all.
Wind whinnied all the same, as if she might try. For a moment, her beautiful head transformed itself into a dragon’s skull. It was black and driven by thoughts of violence. But Ren spoke strongly to her, commanding a different transformation.
In the short time it took the Veng to stack up around the labyrinth, Ren and Wind had combined their auma and turned into the shape of a youthful green dragon. Garodor was still recovering from the shock when a Veng commander spoke through one of the hearing vents, demanding to know what was happening.
Garodor calmed his breathing and said, “I am Garodor, First Warden of the Academy Scientii and Regulator of the De:allus Class. By order of the Elder, Grynt, this roamer and I have returned from an exploration of the colony known as Erth. I made the mistake of letting him control the fire star coordinates, and look where he’s brought us. I kept him here to teach him a lesson. I’m sorry to have disturbed your routine, Commander.”
A dark growl filtered through the labyrinth walls. “You. Roamer. Identify yourself. I don’t remember seeing your face before.”
The green dragon raised his head. “I am … Gren,” he said.
“What line are you from?”
There was a pause.
“LINE?” barked the Veng.
“Carlassian,” said the dragon.
The Veng commander snorted. “As I thought: an idiot. Your name is noted. Don’t let me hear it again. Next time, De:allus, choose your assistants more wisely. I suggest you post this one to a lonely graig as far away from me as possible.” It barked a harsh command and the Veng were gone as quickly as they’d arrived.
Garodor allowed himself time to stop shaking. When his wings were steady, he looked slowly at the dragon in front of him. “If I set you free and swear no treachery, will you give me your trust and let me help you?”
The green dragon nodded.
Garodor took another long breath. Then, sending out a spectrum of colors from his eyes, he strobed the nearest opening. It shimmered down its center and two lines of light moved out to the sides. “Stay in that form and follow me,” he said. And he swiftly flew out of the labyrinth, with his young green “assistant” close behind.
Garodor led them to an isolated darn, well away from any fixed dragon communities. He landed on the dark side of the slow-spinning rock, out of the glow from Ki:mera’s center.
“We’ll be safe here,” he said, shuttering his wings, “but we cannot stay long. I made the mistake of telling that Veng commander we had come from Erth, a place rated a high security risk. If he checks and finds there was no ‘Gren’ listed on those missions, there’s going to be trouble.”
Ren brought his isoscele around in front of him, twisting it in the way a man might check the quality of a sword. “Have no fear, De:allus. I’ll be ready.”
“Why have you brought us here, to this rock? We should go to the Archive and finish this.”
“Finish what, Ren? What is your purpose here? I’ve already told you, Ki:mera will resist you in force if it has to. Finish what?”
“My complete transformation, the perfect union between Hom and dragon. I am the alliance you spoke of just now. When I unlock the Archive’s secrets, I will be the most powerful being in the universe.”
“And tell me, which mother will you sit beside then: Mell or Godith?”
“Raargh! You mock me?”
“No,” said Garodor, leaning well back as he heard the dragon’s fire sacs fill. To his horror, two hornlike stigs had curled out of the back of Gren’s head. They were ugly and twisted and strung with fine barbs, the clearest indication yet that Ren was on the verge of transfiguring into something close to a goyle. “I merely say to you, this is a false quest. I’m trying to help you—Graven also. Entry to the Archive will not be easy. The labyrinth you were in just now is nothing compared to the power of that place. Even with Grystina’s help, you’d struggle to break down its tiered encryptions. Any life-form that isn’t pure dragon will set off the Archive’s internal alerts. If it thinks it’s being invaded or attacked, it will rearrange its core dimensions and—”
Ren, let me speak with him, Grystina said suddenly.
Ren roared again and tossed his dragon head from side to side. I TIRE of words! Be gone from me. Let my destiny unfold. Let Graven rise!
No, you are Ren. And you will always be Ren. A boy with dragon auma inside you. When we go to the Archive, you will master the darkness. I will not let Graven’s angry heart shatter yours. He can be healed. And so can you.
I do not want HEALING; I want revenge!
For Graven?
Aye, Ren replied. For the Kaal also. It was She, Godith, who caused these wars by sowing Graven’s heart among an army of crows, She who turned the Wearle into goyles, She who drew my kin into battle. I will face Her boldly and She will answer to us BOTH.
Very well, Grystina said urgently, fearful of losing her grip. The fury in Ren was mounting at a rate beyond her control. But I must speak with Garodor first.
Why?
I have a confession to make. When you have heard it, I will leave you—for good.
Speak to him? How?
Transform again.
Into what?
Into me. See the fear of you in Garodor’s eyes. My form will be easier for him to bear.
A ray of light passed through a hole in the darn, making Gren’s horns stand out even more. Is this a trick?
No, Ren. Do as I ask. Change into me.
Gren looked to his left. The far edge of the darn was lit bright silver. A sign that it was turning into the light. You have until the light fully comes.
Agreed.
And so, to Garodor’s utter astonishment, Gren altered his body shape again and appeared to the De:allus as Grystina. The De:allus had met her several times before and could verify the i:mage was no fake. Mid-green, she was, with a noble face, flecked with decorative flashes of white. She had always possessed magnificent eyes, as stunningly beautiful as Gossana’s were brutal. “Matrial …” he gasped.
“De:allus, listen well. We do not have long. Earlier, in the Alcazar Labyrinth, you spoke about bringing justice to those who had caused the goyle mutations. I must now confess my part in it. I have the answer to the question you seek. It was Givnay who sent the first Wearle to Erth—but it was me who showed him how to search for fhosforent.”
“You? How?”
“A casual exchange of words, nothing more. We met by chance on the Day of Moons. He was debating Graven’s existence with another of your class, De:allus Grinwald. Givnay challenged him about the properties of blood. I suggested, in jest, that Graven’s blood, if spilled, might have changed color. You may recall that Seren turned pink at the eclipse. That color will haunt me always. I’m certain my words were a fateful spur for Givnay’s obsessive quest to locate Graven. I know he’d been studying maps of Erth.”
Garodor pored over these words for a moment. What Grystina had said seemed too absurd to have any real credence. Yet how many great discoveries had turned purely on a moment of chance? “Why didn’t you speak of this before you came to Erth?”
“I should have, but I had no proof. The Higher would have ridiculed me.”
“So you took matters under your own wing?”
She nodded. “When Greffan’s Wearle did not return and I heard the reports about fhosforent, I began to grow suspicious. When I learned that a second Wearle was heading for Erth and that Givnay would be part of it, I suspected his intent was not entirely spiritual. So I followed him. I applied for the second Erth mission, saying I was in a laying cycle and wanted to have my wearlings born on the planet so they might claim the new world as their own. Givnay was furious. As queen-elect, I ranked above him. I asked him to oversee the mining of fhosforent and bring samples to me as soon as Gariffred and Gayl were birthed. While I was in the mountain, Givnay saw what was happening to dragons who ingested too much of the ore. He quickly realized what it must be and what the blood might do for him. By then, I had become a liability. When he saw the chance to be rid of me, his grievances, old and new, came to the fore. If Ren had not been in the mountain that day, none of this would have ever been known.”
“And now it has brought us to this,” said Ren. In an instant, he’d abandoned dragon form in favor of his natural self and Wind. “Time to leave, De:allus—but we will not go to the Archive.”
There was a threat embedded deep in those words. What’s more, Ren’s eyes had suddenly turned black. “Why?” asked Garodor. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do,” the boy said darkly. “While Grystina was speaking, I read her thoughts—and her treacherous intent …”
Ren—?
SILENCE! He crushed her voice.
He let Wind rear. From the center of her head came the twisted horn. “Grystina cut you off before you could finish your description of the Archive. You were intending to say that if the Archive detects a form it does not recognize, it will rearrange its core dimensions to snare the invader in its fractal matrices. A dragon could disappear in there and never be discovered, isn’t that right? Grystina was planning to lure me to its labyrinths and subdue me there. But I have suppressed her deceit. And now only you can stand in my way.”
“Hmm, not quite,” said a voice.
Against his better judgment, Garodor whipped around.
Perched on the highest point of the darn, casually peering down at them, was a blue dragon.
Garodor almost capsized in shock. “Goodle? How—?”
“That is not Goodle,” Ren said angrily, forcing the words through gritted teeth.
The blue dragon tilted its head in acknowledgment. “You’ve changed, brother.”
Brother? The blood almost froze in Garodor’s veins.
Ren broke into a wry smile. “Then perhaps you would rather see my true form, G’restyn.”
“Ren, NO!”
But Garodor’s cry was wasted. Ren’s resistance had finally run out. With a roar that broke the darn in half, he and Wind were transformed once more.
Into the black dragon of legend.
Graven.
In that moment, it must have seemed to Garodor that everything he’d ever lived and worked for was sure to be destroyed—by a creature, quite literally, of mythical proportions. Graven’s regeneration was both startling and terrifying in equal measure. Yet this was no red-eyed monster standing proud against the purple intraspace. Graven looked magnificent, as perfect a dragon as Garodor had ever seen. The De:allus felt weak in th
e presence of a beast so huge and imperious. He found himself wanting to bow.
Yet there would be no conflict. G’restyn quickly saw to that. He closed his eyes in deep concentration and Graven simply froze on the spot, his jaws open and ready to flame, his strapping wings just beginning to lift.
Garodor was stunned. “Wh-what have you done to him? Is he dead?”
“Oh, no,” said G’restyn, blowing a smoke ring. “I’ve put him in a phasing loop for his own safety. It will be easier to talk without my brother blowing scorn upon us. He always was difficult; the legends don’t lie.”
Garodor looked warily at the energy field shimmering around the black dragon. Loops were usually the result of a lack of focus on behalf of the dragon who was trying to phase. They normally broke down quite quickly, “popping” the individual into a random area of space. “Is it stable?”
“Utterly,” G’restyn reassured him. “Though it won’t last long if those Veng attack.”
In the distance, beyond the piece of broken rock supporting Graven, a large wyng of Veng could be seen. As always, they were in battle formation.
Garodor’s hearts began to beat out of time. “I knew it. I knew they’d look for us.”
“Actually, we’re not the target,” said G’restyn. “My sensory links to the Archive suggest there’s been a spatial disturbance on one of the temporal fringes. They’re probably going to investigate that.”
“Disturbance? Has someone else followed me from Erth?”
“I doubt it. But the Archive doesn’t tell me everything. We should avoid any ruckus all the same. Come, De:allus, I have much to show you.”
The New Age Page 16