The New Age

by Chris D'Lacey

  Before Garodor could raise another question, the darn they were on began to spin so fast that the Veng had soon quickened to a dizzying blur. The next thing Garodor knew, he was perched on a mountaintop not unlike Skytouch. Graven, still trapped in his phasing loop, was on another peak nearby. And on a third, just across an empty patch of sky that seemed too small in proportion to the peaks, sat G’restyn. There was nothing but static cloud below and a canopy of glittering stars above, despite the fact they were sitting in the light.

  Garodor dragged his claws against the rocks. They grated with the right degree of friction, but had no real sense of solidity underfoot. “This is a construct,” he muttered.

  “Indeed,” said G’restyn. “I’ve moved us into the Aurauma Fantalis and created a pleasing environment, I hope. Now, I must tell you—”

  “About Goodle,” Garodor cut in. He stared pointedly at the blue. “You’ll tell me first about Goodle. If I remember the legends correctly, the second son of Godith was flamed on Crune. So who or what are you, ‘G’restyn’?”

  “I am what you see,” he said plainly. “My fire tear was preserved in the Archive. I always knew I might be released one day, though I had to wait an interminably long time for a dragon of the correct disposition to come through. You would have thought that countless generations of dragons would have produced one compatible with me a lot sooner—though I suppose you could argue that I wasn’t really needed until now. I’m deeply grateful to Goodle. We are well matched. This is a pleasant union, I assure you. I am whole in body again, and Goodle feels his life has purpose. My time in the Archive was endlessly fascinating, but I’d forgotten how rewarding simple things can be: the wind beneath a pair of wings, for instance.”

  “There is no wind.”

  “Would you like some?”

  “No. I want to know what’s going on, G’restyn. Why have you been ‘released’? You said you weren’t needed until now. Needed for what?”

  G’restyn shuffled his feet and looked poignantly at his brother. “Ki:mera is in crisis. Only we, the sons of Godith, can save it.”

  Garodor’s yellow eyes came to a point. “What are you talking about? What crisis? Are we threatened by invasion? Disease? War?”

  G’restyn shook his head. “Our G’ravity is fading.”

  “What?”

  G’restyn sat up straight, somehow managing to look more Goodle-like than Goodle ever had. “The evidence comes from the Archive. It regularly measures the pulses from Seren. They are weakening. Cracks are appearing in the graig. Small pieces are flying off and causing collisions with other graig. The orbits of Crune and Cantorus have changed. They’re drifting, De:allus. Their poles have moved. Ki:mera is steadily breaking apart.”

  Garodor’s eyelids wrinkled—a painful mode of expression for a dragon with eyes as prominent as his. “The orbits of the moons have never been stable. And faults appear in the graig all the time. Restructuring the labyrinths with constant flamework is bound to weaken any domayne. But it’s never going to break the whole network apart. Millions of dragons will live and die before a star like Seren burns out.”

  G’restyn twizzled his ear stigs and hummed. “Ordinarily, I would agree. But this is Ki:mera. It’s completely unlike any other star system. What is Seren to dragons outside your class?”

  Garodor sighed before replying. “The heart of Godith.” Even now, after all Garodor had seen and experienced, when a conversation dipped into the realms of fantasy, his responses became correspondingly terse.

  “And if the Archive is right and the pulses are waning?”

  “Are you trying to tell me Godith is dying?”

  “Not dying. Just … discontent.”

  “About what?!”

  “Him.” G’restyn nodded at his brother. “Now his blood has been found, there will be no peace until his auma is secured. In the meantime, Ki:mera continues to deteriorate.”

  Garodor twitched. Here at last was a meaningful statement. If an Elder like Givnay could be tempted into darkness, other dragons might be led astray too. “So what are you planning to do? If your brother gets free of this phasing loop, he’ll kill us both and destroy Seren for fun.”

  “Not while I hold this.”

  In his claws, G’restyn materialized what looked like a memory stone. He clicked it open to reveal a glittering fire tear.

  Garodor’s jaws opened and closed. “Is that … ?”

  “My brother’s tear. Yes. It too was kept hidden in the Archive. This is the most precious jewel in the universe, De:allus. This will heal the darkness inside him.”

  “And then?”

  “We must stand before Seren—and Ki:mera will be saved.”

  “Stand before Seren? Where?”

  “On Halo Point.”

  Garodor blinked in shock. Halo Point was the closest piece of graig to Seren, well inside the thermal zone where dragons, for their safety, were not allowed to fly. According to the best De:allus calculations, no dragon could survive the Point for more than four wingbeats. And should they be fool enough to test the heat of Seren, the intensity of light would blind them in an instant. “You’ll die there, G’restyn. You both will.”

  The blue dragon shrugged. “That is our destiny. We will be one with our Mother again. Ki:mera will be stabilized and the New Age that the Archive predicts will begin.”

  “And Ren? What happens to the boy and his horse?”

  G’restyn sheathed and unsheathed his claws. “Yes, well, that’s the puzzling part. According to the Archive, the boy still has a role to play on Erth.”

  “How? Ren’s as much a part of Graven as your brother’s heart.”

  G’restyn nodded in agreement. “It is a strange conundrum, I agree. One worthy of Goodle’s input. What I’m about to show you might shed more light on it.”

  G’restyn blew a fine stream of air from his nostrils and the cloud base quickly dispersed. In the space between the peaks, a panoramic landscape of Erth appeared. To Garodor’s amazement, they were peering at a view of the mountain range the Wearle had colonized.

  “This is not a construct,” G’restyn said. “The Aurauma is allowing us to see events as they actually happen.”

  Garodor swallowed a plug of smoke. They were watching Erth’s timeline unfold? How was that even possible? He looked again and saw movement on the sheltered side of Vargos. Dragons were gathering with some urgency there. They appeared to be flocking to Grendel’s eyrie. Was this the coup Prime Grynt had always feared?

  G’restyn waved a claw and zoomed the i:mage. “Grystina’s female—the wearmyss, Gayl—has been abducted by the matrial, Gossana.”

  “What?” Garodor reeled in shock. “Why would Gossana do that?”

  “The matrial has been tainted by an enemy who call themselves the Gibbus. The Wearle is gathering to go in search of the myss.”

  “What do these creatures want?”

  “Power, De:allus.”

  “The fhosforent?”

  “Perhaps. More likely Gayl’s auma, taken through her blood. Records suggest that early tribes of Gibbus have clashed with dragons at some point, probably in the time of De:allus Grendisar. More disturbingly, one of their food sources is crows …”

  “Then they too must be carrying Graven’s auma.”

  “In fragments, yes. Enough to turn them hostile. They are growing in strength and appear to have some unusual abilities. As part of their plot to seize Gayl, they have taken some Hom captive.”

  G’restyn swished his tail and the scene changed again.

  “That’s the Hom settlement,” Garodor muttered, looking down on a cluster of burned-out shelters.

  G’restyn nodded. He blinked and the i:mage homed in on the captives. “There has been fierce conflict and more will follow. Yet the Archive predicts that one of these prisoners will rid the Erth of the last grains of fhosforent.”

  Garodor looked at the faces—and saw one that made his hearts beat double. “That’s Ren’s mother. I remember her we
ll. She fought bravely for the boy when we went to the settlement once to take him captive. She attacked a Veng commander. Is it her? Will she be the one who removes the fhosforent?”

  “For the boy’s sake, I pray not.”

  “Why?”

  G’restyn inhaled a wisp of smoke. “It’s written in the Archive that whoever removes Erth’s fhosforent will die …”

  On hearing these fateful words, Garodor turned toward the black dragon, almost willing Graven to fly. “Release him, G’restyn.”

  “Release him?”

  “Yes. Bring your brother out of the phasing loop and return his fire tear. If Ren’s mother is in danger, the boy must be given a chance to save her.”

  G’restyn lifted his face to the stars. He made no sound, but his blue eyes flickered at extraordinary speed as his mind commingled with the Aurauma. “That cannot happen. If any one of us were to intervene on Erth, it would cause a major disruption to the timeline.” As though by way of compensation, he added, “The Archive has more to show you.”

  Before Garodor could interrupt, G’restyn was swishing the cloud base again. A very different scene now appeared before them.

  A goyle was flying through a bright blue sky, above an open stretch of water. It had no injuries Garodor could see, but it was tossing its head from side to side and thrashing its tail like a thing demented.

  “I don’t understand,” Garodor said, watching anxiously. “I thought the goyles were all destroy—?” He looked up, wary of what he was saying. The one “true” goyle was still suspended in a phasing loop beside him. More worryingly, Graven had seen the i:mage and his eyes were darkening, as if he was trying to reach out to it.

  “This is a recording from a memory stone,” said G’restyn, in answer to Garodor’s question. “The dragon affected is Garon.”

  “Garon? Garon the blue? Gabrial’s father?”

  “Yes.”

  A long gulp ran down De:allus Garodor’s throat. Few dragons other than Veng had suffered the goyle mutation. Garon was one of the unlucky ones, it seemed. “Why is he flying so awkwardly?”

  “He is struggling to resist the change. He has escaped the war that destroyed the first Wearle and has flown beyond the mountains—to distance himself from that domayne so he cannot harm any other dragon. He’s invoking every spark of his auma in an effort to i:mage his way out of the mutation. Watch. You’re about to see something extraordinary.”

  Suddenly, the sky around Garon flashed and turned a peculiar shade of orange. At the same time, he lost control of his wings and began to plummet, over a body of water filled with many islands.

  “What happened? Where is he?”

  G’restyn tapped a foot. “His anguish has caused him to i:mage a small rip in the framework of space. He’s entered a parallel world.”

  “What?”

  “Look. He’s crashed.”

  Garon had hit a wall at the entrance to a cave, snapping the suspension arches of his right wing. An excruciating injury, even for a goyle. Garodor winced as he watched the creature crawl inside the cave and out of sight.

  G’restyn said, “This is where the girl, Pine Onetooth, will find him. You can see her here with the wearling, Gariffred, and a roamer called Gus. They were drawn to the rip while they were fleeing the Wearle.”

  “Fleeing?”

  “The details do not matter. Note the creatures that come to greet them.”

  Garodor blinked in astonishment. He opened up the joints in his neck to get a better look. “What are they?”

  “Wyvern. A gentle-mannered class of dragon. One of many related species sewn throughout the vastness of my Mother’s universe.”

  Garodor shook his head in wonder. Parallel worlds. New species of dragons. Even for a De:allus this was hard to take in. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “The Archive wishes you to see it. You will live to verify the tale, De:allus.”

  “G’restyn, I’m a scientist, not a storyteller.”

  “That’s why it must be you. No other dragon would be believed. You have been chosen to speak of these events when the moment comes, when Ki:mera must know.”

  “Chosen? By whom?”

  G’restyn wiggled his snout. “If I tell you, they’ll expect me to erase it from your memories.”

  Garodor leaned forward. “They? Someone planned all this?”

  G’restyn took a breath. “Firebirds,” he whispered.

  “FIREBIRDS?!”

  Now Garodor had heard it all. Firebirds were an amusing topic the Academy had discarded centuries ago. The age-old belief that a species of dragon-like birds who lived in a cloaked dimension of the Archive could travel the universe monitoring time, space, and the force of G’ravity was utterly preposterous. And yet here he was, the greatest scientific mind of his age, sitting in a construct in the Aurauma Fantalis, talking to one of the sons of Godith while the other was trapped in a phasing loop …

  All the same, he shook firebirds from his mind. And almost angrily, he said, “If what you’re showing me is genuine, I can’t just sit back and watch it happen. Gariffred is in terrible danger. A dragon so young could not survive a goyle attack. I must act. Where is the drake now?”

  G’restyn commingled with the Aurauma again. “Gus is seeking the source of the rip so they might pass through it and return to the mountains. The drake is alive. He will rejoin the Wearle soon.”

  Garodor breathed out. Well, there was some relief in that. “And the goyle? What became of Garon?”

  Here, the news was not so assured.

  “Undetermined.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The goyle’s timeline is excluded from my vision.”

  “You can’t see it? Why?”

  G’restyn merely shrugged.

  A cold spike ran down Garodor’s spine. “Are we part of it?”

  G’restyn fanged his lip. “I don’t know. But …”

  “But what? Come on, G’restyn! You’re supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Think!”

  “That disturbance on the temporal fringes … The Archive has traced its origins. It runs all the way back to the island world …”

  “No,” said Garodor, looking anxiously at Graven. “No, no, no. We have to leave, G’restyn. Right away. The goyle in those i:mages—it’s coming for your brother.”

  The De:allus was right. In that moment, a sound like the crack of thunder shook the Aurauma. Garodor spread his wings, but was blown toward Graven as the sky cracked again. He flashed his tail for balance, only to feel his isoscele connect with the phasing loop—and puncture it.

  The release of energy blew him—and G’restyn—far aside and sent ripples all through the Aurauma Fantalis. G’restyn’s construct immediately popped. Clouds and mountains faded away and quickly morphed back to a web of stars.

  But something new had appeared among the stars, a dragon that was almost a clone of Graven. Huge, blue, and ready for conflict.

  Gabrial’s father, Garon.

  Free at last, Graven spread his wings. All around him, as far as the eye could see, appeared wave after wave of virtual fire. Ren, it seemed, had been completely overcome, Grystina’s influence finally quashed. Here, in the sway of the Aurauma Fantalis, the evil black dragon of legend was all.

  He saw Garon and roared, “Bow to me!”

  Yet Garon, his own wings spread and beating, faced him fully, showing no fear.

  “Why would a dragon bow to itself? Look closely, Graven. Touch my mind. I have your blood running through my veins. We share the same auma, you and I.”

  The black dragon lengthened his fangs. “I am Lord of the Stars and all they look upon!”

  “And I am sent by Seren to claim you. I was healed by Her light. And so will you be. No more dragons or Hom shall be harmed in your name. Let the boy go and give up the false heart that beats inside him. Come to me, in peace.”

  Dark smoke poured from Graven’s nostrils. “If it’s peace you
seek, you shall have it—in death.”

  And he launched against Garon, his huge tail flashing through the starlight, dragging rivers of flame in its wake. His body grew to six times its size, jaws a chasm of endless night. His fangs were like mountain peaks tipped with blood, his great hooked claws as sharp and frigid as ancient ice. He snapped his jaws around Garon and swallowed the blue dragon whole. For Garodor, who would indeed live to tell the tale, it was the single most terrifying sight he’d ever witnessed. Like G’restyn, he assumed that Garon was dead. But Garon was smarter than any of them had supposed. At the point the jaws clamped down, he opened his mind and phased into the frame of Graven’s body. He had done what vapors were always feared for: become a wraith inside a host.

  The effect on Graven was almost as horrifying as it was humbling. He shook and shook, and the world shook with him. For several bone-jarring moments, it appeared he would tear the Aurauma apart. But as his size returned to normal, two incredible things happened. His body blurred and broke apart, freeing Ren and Wind in the process. They careered into space, dazed but unharmed. What was left merged into dragon form again—but with one important difference. The scales could not settle to a single color. They were blue, part purple, then blue again. And in places, just for a moment or two, the brilliant wings glowed with the sheen of Graven’s birth color: gold.

  G’restyn shook off the mild concussion he’d suffered in the blast and flew to his brother’s side, materializing a piece of graig for them to land on. Graven was weakened, seriously so. He fell against his brother’s shoulder, panting. Any sign of wickedness had left him.

  “I must leave, quickly,” G’restyn said to Garodor. “Take the boy home. Erth needs him. My destiny lies on Halo Point.”

  “G’restyn, wait. What of Garon? What should I tell his son, Gabrial?”

  “That his father tamed the mighty Graven and gave his life in the service of his Wearle. Galan aug scieth, De:allus. Tell our story true.”

  And with a wave that could have come from Goodle’s paw, G’restyn and Graven disappeared into the darkness.