The Dragon Men

why, actually.”

“What’s it do?”

“It twists the universe around itself. It transforms energy from one form into another and fires it. And it probably has a few dozen other uses we haven’t figured out yet.”

“How’s it do that?”

“It’s unique in all the universes,” Gavin said. “It-”

“No.” Uri held up a finger to interrupt. “It ain’t. Nothing’s unique. Nothing. The Dao teaches that everything has to balance. Everything has an opposite, and the opposite holds a seed of the original.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“It’s important, Gavin. You gotta understand.” From beneath his tunic he extracted a medallion. Two fishlike designs swirled around it in black and white. The white half had a black dot in it, and the black half had a white dot in it. When Gavin looked closer, he realized the two dots were actually the overall design done in miniature. He had never seen the design before, but it was compelling. He felt another fugue coming on, and he pushed hard to keep it at bay.

“The yin and the yang,” Uri said. “Female and male, water and fire, light and dark, mountain and valley, death and life, plague and cure. They can’t exist without each other. Sometimes one gets to be more powerful than the other for a while, but eventually the universe finds the balance. Plop a stone in a pool, and you create waves, highs and lows, but finally the pond becomes calm and smooth like the silk on an envelope.”

Gavin tore his eyes away from the medallion. “What does this have to do with Impossible Cube?”

“That Cube of yours can’t exist on its own any more than light can exist without darkness or joy can exist without sorrow. You said the Cube fires energy and twists the universe in weird ways. It’s unstable. So its opposite must absorb, take things in and hold them, make everything more stable. Those two things will find each other, pull together eventually to create a balance.”

Gavin almost protested again-Uri almost seemed to be attacking the uniqueness of Dr. Clef’s work, and even after everything the man had done, Gavin still felt a loyalty to Dr. Clef-but then he knew what the answer was, and it sent a little thrill through him.

“The Ebony Chamber,” he breathed. “It’s an infinite set that opens into an infinite number of universes. The Cube is a fixed point across the universe. They’re opposites. Why didn’t I see that when I started to put the two of them together?”

“You did what?” A tremor crossed the serenity on Uri’s face. “God’s balls, Gavin! What possessed you to do something like that? Yin and yang need each other, but they’re still separate. Together, they destroy each other completely.”

“I was in a clockwork fugue.” For a moment Gavin felt like a little boy who had been caught throwing rocks at windows. “I wasn’t thinking right. But Alice stopped me.”

“Alice?”

“Oh.” He felt flustered again. “She’s my. . we’re getting married.”

“She a clockworker?”

It wasn’t the reaction Gavin had been expecting. This entire conversation wasn’t anything he’d been expecting. “What? No. She cures the plague. But not in clockworkers.”

“Yin and yang,” Uri said with a nod. “One is earth and water, the other air and fire. They always find each other.”

“That’s not-I don’t-”

“Listen, Gavin, does the universe speak to you? Do you see what no one else does? What not even other clockworkers see? Tiny things?”

Here Gavin stared at him again. “Yes. Particles that move one another. I’ve never been able to explain it.” He began to grow excited. It was the first time someone else seemed to have experienced such things. “They have colors and. . flavors. Sort of. No, that isn’t right, but we don’t have words for what they are or what they look like. Maybe you can’t even give a name to something so small. Some of them affect each other without touching, in pairs. .”

He stopped. Uri’s serene expression remained.

“You’re going to say yin and yang, aren’t you?” Gavin said.

“I don’t need to.”

“But what does it all mean?”

“Why don’t you know how they all work?” Uri countered. He held up the medallion, swirling and enticing. Gavin couldn’t take his eyes from it, and he found answers sliding out of him like water from a sieve. “Why don’t you understand these tiny particles of yours?”

“I’ve tried, but something always seems to get in the way.”

“What, exactly, gets in the way?”

“Alice,” Gavin replied without thinking.

“How does she stop you?”

“She calls me back every time I go too deep.”

“Why does she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Why?”

“Because she loves me.”

“But if she loved you, she’d want you to be happy and find what you need to find.”

“She’s afraid I won’t come back. She won’t. .” He trailed off, and the rhythm faded.

“Won’t what?”

“She won’t let me go,” he whispered.

“Is that important?”

“Very.” He sat up straighter, and his wings clinked. “Those particles are the key to understanding everything, aren’t they?”

Uri merely gave the serene smile. He set the medallion aside, breaking the half fugue.

“If I understand the particles,” Gavin said slowly, “I’ll understand the universe. Become ‘one’ with it. And that’ll cure me because the secrets won’t burn out my mind anymore.”

“Yep, yep.”

Gavin blinked, surprised. “No mysterious questions? No strange double-talk?”

“Nope. You nailed it.”

“Let me see that amulet again.” Gavin took it from Uri’s proffered hand. The design was a snowflake frozen in metal and paint. The two dots of black and white that were themselves designs contained two dots of black and white that were designs, which contained two dots of black and white. They pulled him in and down, farther and farther down. The crystalline lattice that made up the medallion’s structure repeated itself, shapes within shapes, patterns within patterns. The tiniest particles hovered there, dancing in pairs. And what were they made out of? He reached for one of them, and it turned. So did its partner. Incredible. He could go farther down, pry the particle apart, and peer inside. Secrets whispered inside his head, scratching at his mind like an infinite number of cats in their infinite boxes. An overwhelming, endless field of infinitesimal boxes lay before him. It was too much, too powerful. The little bits pulled him in an infinite number of directions, and he had to keep himself together, had to. .

But that wasn’t it. Dad had said he needed to let go, let it flow, accept it. His heart pounded. He was facing his own obliteration. If he let himself fall apart, he would never find himself. Was this what Dad had seen?

The thought of his father brought a slash of anger. He was putting his trust in the man who had turned his back on his family. Sure, the plague had made Gavin do strange things, but he was fine now. Nothing was stopping him from writing-or even coming home. The anger tightened his chest, and Gavin became aware of his breathing, of the cold stones under his backside, of the wing harness dragging at his back, and then he was sitting in front of Uri, the medallion clenched in his fist.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

“I think you were close,” Uri observed.

“No.”

“You’re angry again.”