Excerpts from THE GOLDEN AGE, my debut novel from 2001. Arkhaven Comics is reprinting the excerpts mirrored here.
Episode 03
Hidden in the Sense Filter
The man was speaking: “You are blind to what is plain before your eyes! Behold the mirrored layer of tissue growing over all these leaves. It is to block the true sun from the knowledge of these plants. Tracking a sun, which merely rises and sets, is easier than anticipating retrograde motion, I assure you. Complex habits, painfully learned through generations, would be instantly thrown aside in one blast of true sunlight. And therefore these little flowers have a mechanism to keep the truth at bay. Strange that I’ve made the blocking tissue look mirrored; you can see your own face in it… if you look.”
This comment verged on insult. Phaethon replied hotly: “Or perhaps the tissue merely protects them from irritants, good sir!”
“Hah! So the puppy has teeth after all, eh? Have I irked you, then? This is Art also!”
“If Art is an irritant, like grit, good sir, then spend your genius praising the society cosmopolitan enough to tolerate it! How do you think simple societies maintain their simplicity? By intolerance. Men hunt; women gather; virgins guard the sacred flame. Anyone who steps outside their stereotypic social roles is crushed.”
“Well, well, young manor-born — you are a manorial, are you not? Your words sound like someone taught by machines — what you don’t know, young manor-born, is that cosmopolitan societies are sometimes just as ruthless about crushing those who don’t conform. Look at how unhappy they made that reckless boy, what’s-his-name, that Phaethon. There are worse things in store for him, I tell you!”
“I beg your pardon?” Strange. The sensation was not unlike stepping for a nonexistent stair, or having apparently solid ground give way underfoot. Phaethon wondered if he had somehow wandered into a simulation or a pseudomnesia-play without noticing it. “But… I am Phaethon. I am he. What in the world do you mean?” And he took off the mask he wore.
“No, no. I mean the real Phaethon. Though you are quite bold to show up at a masquerade like this, dressed in his face. Bold. Or tasteless!”
“But I am he!” A bewildered note began to creep into his voice.
“So you are Phaethon, eh? No, no, I think not. He is not welcome at parties.”
Not welcome? Him? Rhadamanthus House was the oldest mansion of the Silver-Grey, and the Silver-Grey was, in turn, the third oldest Scholum in the entire Manorial movement. Rhadamanthus boasted over 7600 members just of the elite communion, and not to mention tens of thousands of collaterals, partials and secondaries. Not welcome? Phaethon’s sire and gene-template was Helion, founder of the Silver-Grey and archon of Rhadamanthus. Phaethon was welcome everywhere!
The strange old man was still speaking: “You could not be him: Phaethon wears grim and brooding black and proud gold; not in frills like those.”
(For a moment, oddly enough, Phaethon could not quite recall how he usually dressed. But surely he had no reason to dress in grim colors. Did he? He was not a grim man. Was he?)
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