CHAPTER 31
Clay
He pulled Kriz close, trying to cover them both with his duster. A blast of heat prickled his skin as the Black’s flames swept over the Green leather. Then the heat abruptly vanished and the ground shuddered as something heavy came to earth near by, Clay grimacing as a drake’s roar filled his ears. It was different from the challenging screech of the Black that had just tried to roast them. This was the deep, throaty roar of a mature male, and he had heard it before.
He drew the duster back to find himself bathed in shadow. A large claw scraped the earth close to his head and a glance upwards revealed a massive scaled rib-cage that swelled and contracted as the beast above let out another roar. It was answered by a chorus of screeches from the other drakes, the huge shape shifting above Clay and Kriz, the air whooshing as its tail whipped and its wings flared. Clay saw the other two Blacks spread their own wings, but in obvious supplication rather than challenge. They lowered their heads and backed away, emitting small, low-pitched grunts as they retreated. The third Black, however, was not so easily cowed.
Clay ducked as another blast of flame rushed between the male Black’s rear legs. The duster protected them from the worst of it but not all, Clay letting out a shout as fire licked at the back of his left hand, scorching the flesh. The shadow and the claw disappeared as the male Black leapt, the ground trembling when it landed a split-second later.
Clay looked up from his scorched hand to see the two drakes locked in a fierce if brief struggle. The larger male had the smaller female pinned beneath his forelegs, jaws clamped on her throat. She let out a defiant roar, earning a fierce, punishing shake of the head from the male. He held her there for several seconds, jaws slowly tightening until she grew still and let out a low-pitched grunt.
The male released her, folding his wings and settling into a resting crouch, tail twisting placidly. He didn’t look at the female as she rose and darted forward to retrieve the egg she had been offered. Clutching the prize in her jaws, she cast a final glance of deepest antipathy at Clay and Kriz, then turned about and launched herself into the air after a short sprint. Clay turned at the snap of wings, seeing the other two drakes following suit.
“Here,” Kriz said, taking out a vial of Green and tipping half the contents over his hand. Clay took a moment to let the product banish his pain before approaching the male, having motioned for Kriz to stay put.
He moved into the beast’s eye-line, extending a tentative hand to smooth the scales of his foreleg. Lutharon let out a low rumble as the human skin met his own, the muscle shuddering much as it had done back on the Superior the night Clay sent him away. “Hello again, big fella,” Clay said. “I gotta say, it’s awful nice to be remembered.”
Lutharon lowered his head, letting out a rumble of greeting that took on a much more ominous tone when his gaze flicked to Kriz. She stood at a decent remove, the Black crystal hovering before her and producing a familiar tinkle as it expanded.
“What are you doing?” Clay asked.
“What we came here for,” she said, gaze locked on Lutharon. Clay saw that she held a vial of Red in her hand. “It needs energy to activate,” she said.
“Be better if I did it,” Clay said, moving towards her. “He knows me.”
“And hates me.” Kriz’s eyes were wide, features the rigid mask of one who has recently escaped death. “All of them do. If I do this, perhaps they won’t . . .”
Her words were drowned out as Lutharon let out another roar, wings flaring once more as he sank into a threat stance. Clay noted how the drake’s eyes were focused on the now fully expanded crystal. It revolved slowly, resembling some kind of hole in space in the way it exuded no light save for a small glimmer on the tips of its spikes.
“Stop,” Clay said. “He doesn’t like it.”
“He doesn’t have to . . .”
Lutharon gave a sudden intake of breath followed by the throaty rattle that told of disgorging combustible gas. Clay lunged towards Kriz, dragging her aside. Lutharon let out a fierce and sustained jet of flame, aimed not at Kriz but at the crystal. With Kriz’s focus distracted the stream of Black keeping it in the air vanished and it fell to the ground, a dark smudge amidst the torrent of flame.
Lutharon’s fire died, leaving a sizable blaze in its wake. Clay squinted through the flames to make out the jagged shape of the crystal. It seemed to be completely undamaged, the centre of it still as dark as before but the spikes glowing brighter. Lutharon evidently found this unacceptable and began to take another large breath.
“Don’t!” Clay shouted, moving to stand in front of the Black, arms raised.
“Clay . . .” Kriz said. “It’s active.”
“What?” He turned, blinking in confusion at the sight that confronted him.
The crystal hung in the air once more, risen from the flames. Its jagged spikes now glowed with a fierce white light, though its centre retained the same absolute darkness.
“You doing this?” he asked Kriz.
“No. The fire. Energy, remember?”
Clay took a step back as the crystal drifted closer, finding himself backing into Lutharon. The Black didn’t move, Clay glancing up to see that the drake’s gaze was now fixed on the crystal, not with rage, but rapt fascination.
“How do we shut it down . . .” Clay’s voice trailed off as his gaze returned to the crystal, finding it snared by the dark, light swallowing void at the centre. Like a hole in the world, he thought before he fainted. Something you can fall into . . .
“You look older.”
Clay blinked, finding his eyes filled with bright sunlight and his head buzzing with disorientation. He staggered a little, steadying as a hand gripped his elbow. “Quite a trick you’ve pulled this time, Claydon,” a young female voice said. “Making your way in here. You must tell me how you did it.”
He blinked again and his vision cleared to reveal the small, oval face of a diminutive woman about his own age. Despite her youth he knew her instantly. It was the eyes, as bright, open and inquisitive as he remembered, and the half smile playing on her lips. It held a hint of mockery but betrayed mostly the simple affection of greeting a valued friend.
“Miss Ethy,” he said, the name emerging in a laugh as he drew her into an embrace.
“Just Ethelynne will do,” she said, voice muffled against his shoulder. “As I told you before.”
She drew back, eyes searching his face as a frown put a single line in her otherwise smooth forehead. “How long has it been since . . . ?” She grimaced and shrugged. “Well, you know.”
“Months,” he said, his joy muted by the knowledge that this was a trance. Another ghost, he thought. Like Silverpin.
He looked around seeing a tall mountain range. It wasn’t the grim majesty of the Coppersoles or the jungle giants of the Carnstadts. Here the air was far colder, and the peaks not as tall and placed closer together to create a maze of deeply weathered stone. The landscape had a gnarled, twisted appearance conveying an impression of ruin, even though there was no sign of civilisation.
“Only months?” Ethelynne asked, gaze still roaming his face. “You really need to take better care of yourself.”
“A lot happened after you . . . left.”
“And not for the good, I assume?”
He shook his head and gestured at their surroundings. “I’ve never been here,” he said. “Wherever it is. How can I craft a trance from somewhere I’ve never seen?”
Her smile returned, the mockery more in evidence now. “You haven’t. This isn’t your mind, it’s Lutharon’s.”
Clay took another survey of the mountain range, finding it as perfect a mindscape as he had ever seen. Even Lizanne would have had trouble matching the precision of detail, the slight variation in the chilled air. But he saw no vestige of drake perception in it. His trances with Jack and the drake memories Ethelynne had shared gave him an understanding of how they perceived the world, and it wasn’t like this.
“No drake saw this,” he said. “This is a human memory.”
“Quite right. How perceptive you’ve become.”
She turned, moving to the edge of the broad summit on which they stood. “The Cragmines of western Arradsia,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “As captured by my very own eyes quite some time ago, when I was still spry enough to climb all the way up here. Fascinating geography, don’t you think? No one’s really all that sure how they formed. There is evidence of glaciation but that’s only a partial explanation.”
“I got a new friend who might be able to help with that,” he muttered, fighting a sudden lurch in his chest as he watched her take in the view. She seemed so real, so alive it inevitably summoned memories of her death, a death he hadn’t been able to prevent. A ghost, he reminded himself. Living in Lutharon’s mind like Silverpin lived in mine.
“The White . . .” he began but she waved him to silence.
“I do seem to recall your doing your damnedest to ensure I didn’t follow you,” she said.
“If you hadn’t maybe you’d be talking to my ghost just now.”
“Ghost?” She pursed her lips. “A name that fits, I suppose. Though I would hate to think Lutharon feels he’s being haunted.”
“It was you. You kept him by me after the White rose.”
“Not entirely. I merely encouraged an impulse that was already there. He does seem to like you, you know. Thank you for making him leave, by the way. He would certainly have perished on the ice.”
“Least I could do.” He looked around at the mountains once more. “Was it the heart-blood? Is that what kept you here?”
“Lutharon and I shared minds for many years. I suppose I am the echo of that connection.” She beckoned to him and started to descend the steep, rocky slope below the summit. “Come on. I would like you to see something.”
Clay followed her, traversing a series of narrow ledges and granite boulders protruding from the mountain side. Ethelynne appeared almost childlike as she hopped from ledge to boulder with all the sure-footed skill of someone who had followed this course many times. Clay was markedly more careful, forcing her to loiter with amused impatience as he navigated the often-damp rock.
“You never did like heights, as I recall,” she observed. “It does rather make one wonder, though. I mean, would it make any difference if you fell? We are both just a collection of memories. It’s not like we have any bones to break.”
“Feel free to try it,” Clay replied, inching his way along a ledge. “I ain’t too keen on finding out.”
“No, me either.” She leapt nimbly onto a granite outcrop and paused to peer down. “But it’s strange that it hasn’t occurred to me before. All the time spent in this place and I’ve never been tempted to just jump and see if I go splat.”
“Maybe Lutharon won’t let you. It’s his head. Guess he makes the rules.”
A ten-minute descent brought them to a narrow crevice where the flank of the mountain levelled out. An infant Black crouched at the edge of the fissure, small wings and tail twitching as it peered into the depths, a series of soft plaintive grunts issuing from its snout.
“This is where I found him,” Ethelynne said, moving to crouch a short distance from the keening infant. “All those years ago.”
The infant whirled at her approach, a warning hiss emerging from its mouth. It seemed to have no awareness of Clay, its gaze fixed on Ethelynne, jaws snapping as she extended a hand holding a morsel of meat. Clay moved to the edge of the crevice, looking down to see the large, crumpled form of an adult Black far below.
“He was barely two days old when the Contractors killed her,” Ethelynne said. “I couldn’t just leave him to perish. But there was only one way to save him. And it scared me.”
“Heart-blood,” Clay said, eyes lingering on the drake corpse. “I had my own taste not long ago. Ain’t got any plans to repeat it anytime soon.”
“You drank heart-blood?” Ethelynne straightened, a mix of sympathy and fascination on her face. “What species?”
“Blue. A great and fearsome Blue of terrible reputation . . . He died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Clay nodded, casting a final glance at the dead drake and moving away. “We got things to talk about,” he said. “Plans to make.”
“Plans?”
“Yeah. War plans. The White’s got itself an army now, and they’re killing a lotta people. Those they don’t kill they turn into Spoiled. We’re fighting it, but things ain’t going so well.”
“And you want Lutharon to join your war?”
“Not just him. The Blacks. All of them. They fought it before, we know that. We need them to fight it again, and finish it this time.”
Ethelynne folded her arms, her head tilting and lips pursing in an expression he knew indicated her fearsome mind was hard at work. “Just how did you get in here, Claydon?” she asked. “You still haven’t told me.”
He looked down, exerting his own will in a brief experiment as he wasn’t sure he possessed any power here. The rock beneath his feet obligingly turned to moon-dust, a portion of which he raised and moulded into the Black crystal.
“What is that?” Ethelynne asked, moving closer to extend a finger to one of the glowing spikes. Clay assumed it had been quite some time since she had seen something so completely unfamiliar.
“Be easier to show you,” he said, expanding his will further. The surrounding mountains transformed into the forest that greeted him when he first stepped into the strange world beneath the ice. “Welcome to the last enclave of the Philos Caste . . .”
“Incredible.” Ethelynne let out a small laugh as the enclave faded around them, shifting back into the Cragmines. He had shown her all of it, every scrap of memory he could summon regarding the enclave, every morsel of information he had acquired.
“All those years in the Interior,” Ethelynne went on, shaking her head. “I had no idea, no clue whatsoever. I thought the temple builders must have been the first people to walk this continent. But all the wonders they crafted were just an echo of something greater.” She paused, summoning the vision of the Black crystal he had shared. Ethelynne’s gaze darkened as she stared at the glowing spikes revolving around the void. “Or perhaps,” she said, “it was something worse. Something best consigned to the past.”
“We need it,” Clay insisted. “We need it to ally with the Blacks . . .”
“Ally? Or enslave? The ancients did remarkable things, but committed the most vile acts in the process. There are memories in here, deep and very old. So nightmarish and confused it’s hard to make sense of them, and they’re so painful I only tried once. Were I to delve deeper would I find your friend there, scalpel in hand?”
Clay saw little point in denial. “Yeah,” he said. “She’d be there. But she ain’t what she used to be. None of us are. And it don’t change the fact that we got a war to fight. When the White’s done with us you know it’ll come for them. It remembers and it don’t forgive. Lutharon and all his kin will have to fight it anyways. With us they got a better chance.”
The rock beneath their feet began to shudder and the sky darkened from misty grey to red-tinged black. A cacophony of fracturing rock assailed Clay’s ears as the mountains began to twist and grow. Cliff-faces became wings and boulders claws. What had been a jagged ridge slowly revealed itself as the spiny neck of a huge drake. They rose all around, wings spreading, tails and necks uncoiling. The crescendo of shattered stone subsided into a low murmur, reminding Clay of distant thunder as the host of giant drakes lowered their heads to regard him, eyes shining with a bright red glow.
“It’s not me you need to convince, Claydon,” Ethelynne told him. “It’s them.”