by Anthony Ryan
Ethelynne Drystone gave a nostalgic laugh, clasping her hands together as she reclined on the bed. “A thing unlikely to ever change. She still runs the Academy, I assume?”
“That and more. Got the Protectorate dancing to her tune now.”
She inclined her head, smile lingering as she studied him. “But you, I would guess, are not drawn from that august body. Are you, Mr. Torcreek?”
Blinds don’t wash, he reminded himself. No matter how far you get. “No, ma’am.”
Her eyes went to the unscarred skin on his right hand. “And unregistered too, I see. What a terribly interesting young man you are.”
He inclined his head at the ceiling from which a few more rumbling sounds had been heard as he ate his meal, accompanied by the scrape of what could only be claws on stone. Very large claws. “Not so interesting as you, ma’am.”
She just smiled some more, watching him eat for a time until she asked what he knew she would. “She sent you for the White, didn’t she?”
He saw little point in lying, since he suspected she already knew most of what he could tell her. “And you, if you could be found. Seems she never gave up hope you might be out here somewheres. Makes me wonder why you never tranced with her. Would’ve been an easy matter for her to send a company to bring you back.”
“Which presupposes that I wished to go back.”
“Seen more of the Interior than I ever wanted to. And if I could get myself off this Seer-damn continent tomorrow, I surely would. Yet you chose to stay out here all these years.” He shook his head and scraped the last of the soup into his mouth before setting aside the bowl. “Thank you for your hospitality, ma’am.”
“Call me Ethelynne. Formality is a wasted commodity in this place.”
“Alright, Ethelynne.” He turned to face her. “Where’s my company?”
“Where you left them.” She got up from the bed and moved to one of the vine-covered openings between the pillars. “Come, I’ll show you.”
The patch of vines she took hold of turned out to be a door of sorts, cunningly crafted so as to merge with the blanket of vegetation outside. She gave it a push and it swung out on a hinge, revealing a narrow balcony affording a view of the jungle that told Clay he was at a far higher elevation than even the temple’s summit. Krystaline Lake was a thin blue line far off to the left, indicating he was viewing it from the south. His attuned eye tracked across the verdant sea of jungle, picking out the overgrown towers and canals of the city before it came to rest on the bulk of the temple, except it wasn’t so bulky now. The top three tiers had gone, the building seemingly tumbled in on itself leaving only a blackened stump.
“The jungle had become one with the structure,” Ethelynne said, stepping out onto the balcony and resting her elbows on the balustrade. “When you burned it, the stones began to crumble.”
After tapping a tentative toe to the balcony floor, Clay went to join her. He looked down at the jungle below, fighting off another bout of dizziness. He turned his gaze to the ruined temple, wishing for some Green to enhance his scrutiny as all he could see was charred stone. “My company . . .” he began, surprising himself by immediately stumbling over the words, a catch in his throat.
“There is a network of tunnels under the temple,” she said, touching a reassuring hand to his forearm. “They strike me as a resourceful bunch. Though they may need a little help digging themselves out.”
He nodded, head lowered as he mastered himself. The thought of them all lying crushed under tons of rubble had been hard to endure, though he couldn’t claim any particular concern over Firpike. “You saved us before,” he said. “On the Red Sands. Why?”
“It only seemed polite. I’ve taken to visiting the Sands at regular intervals in recent years. Having espied your sojourn, it wasn’t especially difficult to guess your intent.”
“You know what we found there?”
All humour abruptly vanished from her face and she turned away, gaze flicking involuntarily to the south. “Yes.”
He was unable to keep the accusation from his voice when he said, “You let it live.”
“I had just drunk the heart-blood of a Red drake and used it to birth something far worse, killing a man I had begun to fall in love with in the process. It’s fair to say my reasoning was somewhat impaired. I got back on the raft and let the river take me away.”
“You and Wittler . . . ?”
She gave the smallest laugh and shook her head. “I was just a girl then, with silly notions. And he was a very impressive man, though considerably older. I’m often given to pondering what might have been if Clatterstock hadn’t powdered that confounded bone.” Her expression became grim, shot through with the pain of reluctant remembrance. “He saw, you know? Wittler breathed in the powdered bone and saw what I would do to him to survive. That’s the great secret Madame has sent you in search of, Mr. Torcreek. The White holds the future in its veins.”
He waited before speaking again, watching her thumb a small tear from her eye with an embarrassed grimace. “We think it’s in the Coppersoles,” he said. “We think the alignment might be a way to find it.”
She pursed her lips and gave a slight nod. “A fair deduction.”
He knew then he was looking upon a woman with a wealth of knowledge far beyond anything Skaggs, Scriberson or Firpike might possess. He also knew her desire to share it was limited, shaped by whatever she had been doing out here all these years. “Madame thinks it’s the key to everlasting profit,” he said. “My uncle, the others, they just hunger for a glimpse of it, like it’s hooked their souls somehow.”
She turned to face him, smiling again, a knowing smile. “And you, Mr. Torcreek? Do you lust for it, also? Or is it merely greed that drives you?”
He thought for a while before replying, everything he had seen and heard since leaving Carvenport babbling in his head like water on the boil. “Seen a lot on this trip,” he said. “What it left behind on the Red Sands, this place, what the mere thought of it does to otherwise clear-sighted folk. None of it bodes well for when we find this thing.”
She said nothing for a long time, standing and regarding him with the same knowing affection. Eventually she turned and glanced up to the roof of the tower, Clay following her gaze and immediately drawing up in shock. His alarm was such he came close to tipping over the balustrade, Ethelynne reaching out to steady him with a laugh. “It’s alright. He only bites when I ask him to, or when he’s particularly angry.”
The Black stared down at Clay with narrowed eyes, small tendrils of smoke leaking from its nostrils as it gave another low, rumbling growl. It sat perched on the tower’s stepped, pyramidal roof, sickle-like claws latched onto the stone and wings folded as its tail swayed gently behind. Blue eyes, was the only coherent thought to pop into his head. It has blue eyes. But these eyes were so different from the eyes of the Greens that had assailed them at the temple. There was no hate in them, no desire for blood or death. Looking at the way the light caught them, the way they gleamed, he knew he was looking into the eyes of something that looked back and understood what it saw. This beast can think.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Ethelynne said. “It seems we are all of like mind.”
—
“You drank heart-blood,” he said a short while later as they descended the tower’s seemingly endless stairs. She had paused to gather some choice belongings into her swaddling of rags, which she rolled up and slung across her shoulders. “That’s supposed to be fatal, even for us.”
“For some of us, I’m sure,” she replied. “But not me, apparently. I’ve done it twice now.”
Twice. “Don’t it hurt?”
“Certainly. The last time was the most agonising experience of my entire life.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“Because the reward outweighed the cost.”
�
�Reward?”
She laughed a little. “All in good time, Mr. Torcreek.”
“Claydon, or Clay if you like. Since we’re being informal and all.”
They emerged from the base of the tower onto a broad platform. It was much like those that formed the ground level of the rest of the city except it featured considerably more statuary. They all sat about gazing up at the tower, cracked and wreathed in jungle but still recognisable as representations of drakes and people.
“Guessing somebody of importance lived here once,” he commented, nodding at the tower.
“They called him ‘The Ordained,’” she said. “A quasi-religious figure of great learning and wisdom. Part scientist, part shaman.”
“How could you know that?”
“The inscriptions.” She pointed her stick at the unfathomable script etched into the tower’s base. “‘Know this as Home to the Ordained. All must show him honour.’”
“You can read this stuff?”
“Much of it. It’s been my principal project for much of the last five years.”
“Scribes said no-one can read it.”
“Scribes?”
“Scriberson. A Consolidated Research scholar who got attached to us on the way.”
“Well, Scribes and his fellows don’t enjoy my advantages when it comes to Interior artifacts.”
He nodded at one of the human statues. “Got another fella travelling with us says these weren’t Spoiled. Said the spoiling came later.”
“Yes, much later.” She paused to cast a wistful glance up at the tower. “Pity,” she murmured. “One of my more favoured homes.” From her tone he deduced she didn’t expect to return, something that added an ominous shadow to their next course.
“You didn’t live here the whole time?” he asked.
“Only the last few years. I tend to move around a fair deal. Sometimes I’ll even venture north to a trading post to buy sundry comforts and necessities. Ink and paper mainly, though I’ll confess a weakness for the occasional small cask of brandy.”
“They don’t ask who you are?”
“I make efforts to disguise myself. To them I’m just a madwoman who got separated from her company and kept roaming the Interior. Which, when you think about it, is fairly close to the truth.”
A gust of wind blew across the platform making Clay close his eyes against the stirred grit. When he looked again the Black had come to rest a short distance away. It opened its mouth to issue what he assumed to be a hiss of welcome as Ethelynne strode towards it, taking hold of one of the spines at the base of its neck to haul herself onto its back with accustomed ease. She wiggled her hips a little to wedge herself firmly between two spines then turned to Clay with an expectant glance.
“You must be crazy,” he stated, unmoving.
“I need to show you something,” she said. “It’s a long walk and, spry as I am, my knees are not what they were.”
“My company . . .”
“Aren’t going anywhere, and it’s only a short diversion.”
“Fine. Tell me the way and I’ll meet you there . . .”
He trailed off as the Black flexed its wings and coiled its neck to gaze at him, mouth opening to issue an unmistakably impatient squawk. “Best hurry up,” Ethelynne advised. “He might conclude you don’t like him.”
Somewhat to his surprise, Clay found his feet taking him towards drake and rider, heart rate seeming to double with every step. “He got a name?” he asked, halting at the beast’s side and keen to explore any avenue for delay.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t make any sense to you. I call him Lutharon for convenience. It’s from an old Mandinorian legend about a shadow demon.” She smiled again and inclined her head to the position just behind her.
“He able to lift both of us . . . ?”
“Just get on, you baby!”
He took a breath and reached for the spine behind her, finding it rough under his grip, like old shoe-leather. It took a few tries before he managed to haul himself into place, the sweat building on his brow the whole time as his heart kept on its steam-hammer rhythm. He sat as she did, wedged between two spines. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but neither was it unbearable. In fact, it reminded him of his first time on a horse outside the Protectorate gaol-house. Except horses got no wings, he thought as Lutharon rose from a crouch, Clay feeling the muscles of the beast’s neck shifting beneath the skin.
“Hold on!” Ethelynne advised as the drake turned about, making for the tower. He was perturbed by the joyful anticipation in her voice. “Tight as you can!”
He took her advice, gripping the spine with both hands, worrying that the unabated sweat leaking from his palms might dislodge them at any second. An involuntary yelp escaped him when Lutharon leapt, Clay finding himself staring up at the length of the tower as the drake’s talons found purchase on the vines and began to climb. “His kind are mountain dwellers!” Ethelynne told him, voice raised to a cheery pitch above the loud scrabble of claws and flexing wings. “Prefers to launch himself from an elevated perch.”
“Uhh!” Clay replied, fighting a rising gorge and resisting a strong impulse to close his eyes.
Lutharon climbed to about half the tower’s height, paused to angle his head and regard them with one bright blue eye, as if checking they were both still aboard. He gave a hiss of satisfaction then tensed before propelling his bulk away from the tower with a push of all four limbs. Clay always wondered why he didn’t scream as, instead of gliding gently away over the jungle, they plummeted straight down until he could see the cracks in the paving-stones that made up the platform below. Perhaps he was just too scared to scream, though at least he did finally manage to close his eyes. A lurching heave to his stomach told of a change in direction and when he forced his eyes open he saw they were now ascending, the jungle canopy dipping below his eye-line for a moment before Lutharon angled his wings and they levelled out.
Ethelynne gave an excited giggle and patted a hand to the drake’s neck, craning her own to call to Clay above the rushing wind. “No matter how many times, I never get tired of it!”
Clay could only nod and choke down vomit.
Lutharon gave two beats of his wings, sending them higher, Clay wincing at the chill though he found the view an increasing distraction from his fear. They were higher than any mountain now, higher than a human could ever get, and the world revealed below was rendered new. So small and so big, he thought as the jungle merged into a single emerald blanket. Off to the north the Falls were a mist-shrouded wonder, seeming to sparkle as they fed the mirror-like breadth of the Krystaline. He could even see Fallsguard, a narrow black spike jutting above the misted cascade. He wondered if it had fallen by now or if the major had somehow contrived to fend off the Spoiled. In either case, he could see no boats on the river.
Lutharon angled his wings once more and Clay looked down to see what remained of the temple. Evidently the fire hadn’t contained itself to the pyramid; black tendrils of ruined foliage snaked out into the canopy of trees so that it resembled the charred remains of a colossal squid. Lutharon flew over the ugly spectacle to take them west for a mile or more where he began to circle a small clearing, descending with every bank of his wings. Clay scanned the jungle for any sign of drake or Spoiled, seeing only yet more ruins through the trees and gaining an appreciation for how huge the city below must have been. He saw Ethelynne smooth a hand over Lutharon’s neck and the drake turned again, shortening his wings to bring them lower still, the ground flashing beneath before Clay’s stomach gave another lurch as the drake spread his wings and reared back for a landing.
“It’s this way,” Ethelynne said, lifting a leg to slip from Lutharon’s side and striding off into the trees. Clay’s dismount was less elegant and accomplished by expedient of the drake’s twisting his body to dump him onto the ground. One of Lutharon’s blue eyes gl
eamed down at him for a second before he trotted off in pursuit of Ethelynne. Not altogether sure he’s taken to me, Clay mused as he followed in the drake’s wake.
Ethelynne led them on a winding course through yet more ruins, even more overgrown and hard to discern than those Clay had seen during the trek to the pyramid. From the many shattered columns and levelled dwellings he judged that whatever had brought the city low had been particularly destructive here. He still saw no sign of any Greens or Spoiled but kept the Stinger drawn as a precaution.
“That’s not really necessary,” Ethelynne told him, turning as she paused at the foot of a stairway so thickly covered in vines and tree-roots it was barely recognisable. “They rarely come here.”
She continued to linger at the base of the steps, gazing upwards with both hands tightly grasping her carved walking-stick. Clay followed her gaze and saw that the steps ended on a raised platform extending away on either side, the ends of it lost to the trees.
“What’s up there?” he asked.
Ethelynne took a few moments to answer, and when she did her voice was soft. “Memory.”
She started up without another word, clambering over vines and roots with an energy that made Clay question her claims of infirm knees. He and Lutharon duly scrambled up after her, the drake’s talons shredding much of the foliage encasing the steps in the process. Coming to Ethelynne’s side Clay found himself looking down into some kind of rectangular bowl-shaped structure. It was at least three hundred yards long and about two hundred wide, the enclosing walls arranged in descending tiers to a flat surface. A large cylindrical tower rose from the centre of the surface, standing perhaps thirty feet high and twelve feet thick. It was heavily overgrown but, through the gaps in the vegetation, Clay determined that it had been fashioned from much paler stone than that used elsewhere in the city.
“The inscriptions I found here indicate it was some kind of sporting venue,” Ethelynne said. “People would gather in their thousands on festival days to watch athletes compete in foot-races and tests of strength. I believe it was as much ritual as entertainment.”