Clay looked again at the giants staring down at him with their search-light eyes. Grief, he thought, trying to quell the myriad memories of his mother summoned by the vision of the rampaging Black. They don’t know forgiveness but they do know grief, and we gave them a whole lot to grieve over.
“It’ll end,” he said, getting to his feet. “Fight with us and it’ll end, we won’t hunt you no more. There’ll be no need. We found something, y’see? A new kind of product. Fight with us and we’ll leave you in peace.”
He meant it, with every ounce of his being. There were no lies in the trance and he knew they saw all of him now. But that also meant they saw the small kernel of doubt, the awareness that whatever offer he made here might well be ignored in the aftermath of victory.
“My promise is all I can give,” he said. “But it’s something. And you know you’ll only get death from the White. It’s got human blood as well as drake, which means it hates what it can’t control. Fight with us, like you did before. I know you still hold those memories, you still remember the time when human and drake lived in peace. Together you fought the White and you freed the Spoiled. Come with me and free them again.”
The beam focused on the ground flickered, Clay seeing new images appear in the light. The beam grew in size, the light swallowing Clay so that he stood in the shared memory. Another city, he realised, gazing round at the temples and buildings, noting how many were scorched and damaged, rubble littering the streets along with numerous corpses. Dead Greens and Reds lay alongside human and Spoiled, smoke rising above the carnage. Here and there he could see the body of a Black. However, there was still life in this city, people crouching beside the fallen, others wandering in a daze. Close by he could see a group of people standing in a circle. A large male Black stood outside the circle, neck coiled as it peered at what lay inside it.
Moving closer Clay heard voices raised. Two people amongst those gathered, a man and a woman were engaged in a bitter argument. She wore a long blue robe whilst he was clearly a warrior judging by the spear he carried. He was evidently fresh from the battle that had raged here, Clay noting the livid burn mark on the bronze skin of his shoulder and the dark blood that covered the head of his spear. The woman was uninjured but her face was stained with a mix of soot and blood, meaning she hadn’t been idle in the conflict either. He realised there was something familiar about her clothing, her robe and her head-dress of feathers stirring his memory of the mosaic in the hidden city.
“Blood-blessed,” he said. “A priestess.”
“One who has drunk heart-blood,” Ethelynne said, appearing at his side, nodding to the male Black.
“Can you tell what they’re saying?” Clay asked as the man and the woman continued to argue, their words meaningless to him.
“Only a small part of it. Lutharon’s kind have a fractional understanding of human language. I’ve often delved into his more ancient memories, trying to learn more about the vanished civilisation I spent so many years searching for. Some words and phrases have become clear but . . .” She paused, grimacing in consternation. “Without my note-books translation is ever a frustrating task.” Her gaze narrowed as she noticed something beyond the warrior and the priestess. “However, I suspect their discussion has much to do with him.”
There was a Spoiled within the circle, tightly bound with rope that had been secured with pegs thrust into the earth, keeping him on his knees. He looked around at his captors with no sign of fear, his deformed face betraying nothing beyond mild curiosity. Even when the priestess ended the argument with a shout and a hard slash of her hand, the Spoiled barely reacted as she strode towards him and sank to her haunches. She stared directly into his eyes, gaze unwavering, commanding whilst the Spoiled blinked in response and spoke a short few words in a dull monotone.
“Any notion of what that was?” Clay asked Ethelynne.
“He’s speaking the same language,” she said, frowning in concentration as she tried to translate. “‘Soon . . . you and I . . . walk mirror . . .’ No. Not walk mirror.” Ethelynne gave a huff of self-annoyance. “‘Become as one. Soon you and I will become as one.’”
Clay turned back as the woman replied, Ethelynne providing a halting translation. “‘No . . . soon you . . . will fly, no, ascend . . . to life.’ I think they use the words ‘life’ and ‘freedom’ interchangeably.”
Clay watched the priestess reach for something around her neck, seeing her remove the stopper from a small copper vial. She kept her gaze locked onto the Spoiled’s as she drank, then took on the stillness that indicated a trance state. The Spoiled suddenly jerked, straining against his bonds, elongated teeth bared in a grimace as he tried vainly to tear himself free, then he stopped. All expression left the Spoiled’s face as his struggles ceased and he took on the same stillness as the priestess.
“She’s trancing with him,” Clay concluded. “But how? He didn’t drink.”
“I don’t think he’s even Blessed,” Ethelynne said, then let out a short laugh of realisation. “We know they communicate mentally, and the only known means of doing that is via a trance state. Meaning the Spoiled must be in a permanent trance state from the moment of their conversion. It’s how the White controls them. Any Blood-blessed could trance with a Spoiled if they form a connection.”
The trance continued for some time, priestess and Spoiled remaining in absolute stillness. The surrounding circle of people grew restless, the warrior the priestess had argued with pacing back and forth with his spear clutched in readiness. Seeing the way he looked at the crouching woman Clay realised the man’s opposition to this attempt had been based on concern rather than suspicion. Was he her lover? Husband perhaps? Did she even know he loved her? All questions he knew would never be answered.
Finally, the priestess opened her eyes and stood up. As she did so the Spoiled collapsed, all strength seeming to seep out of him as he lay, head nuzzling the dirt. He seemed to be twitching but then Clay heard the soft sounds coming from his throat and realised he was weeping. A shadow of guilt passed over the priestess’s face as she looked down at the Spoiled before she straightened, putting a commanding expression on her face as she turned and issued a curt command to the warrior. He approached the Spoiled with a wary reluctance, peering down at the sobbing deformed face with a mixture of disgust and bafflement.
The woman spoke again, flicking a hand impatiently as Ethelynne translated. “‘Life . . . is given . . . Freedom is given. He is free.’”
Clay was about to ask a question but the warrior voiced it for him. “‘How?’”
“‘Freedom lives . . . exists in all . . . head, minds . . . Allowed him . . . memory . . . remember.’”
“He remembered being free,” Clay said. “And now he is. Can it be that simple?”
Ethelynne’s gaze clouded with sympathy as she looked at the Spoiled who continued to lie on the ground sobbing even after the warrior had cut away his bonds. “I doubt that, for him, anything was ever simple again. It seems you can free a mind from bondage, but not the memory of crimes committed in that bondage.”
The scene became dark, the tableau of the freed, guilt-wracked Spoiled lying between the warrior and the priestess faded into shadow. When the light returned they were back on the mountain side with the giant drakes looming above. Their eye-beams slowly shifted to converge on Ethelynne, the giants issuing a loud inquisitive rumble.