The trance fragmented then, Clay experiencing a jolt of pain as the shared memories flitted through his head in a kaleidoscope of wrecked ships and slaughtered sailors. Jack’s existence had evidently become an unceasing epic of vengeance, days and nights consumed by the hunt, the endless search for more monsters to kill. He preyed upon whales or giant squid only when his hunger grew into pain; otherwise, he scoured the oceans for ships, destroying all he could find, but there were always more.
Then came a change, a shift in the torrent of rage and tireless hunting. Jack had shunned the company of his own kind for years, ignoring their songs of greeting whenever he passed close to a pack. He knew on some basic level he was no longer one of them, their songs of bonding and play or the joy of the hunt were echoes of something forever lost; Jack had only one song, the rage song. But then came the day he heard something new, not a plaintive cry drifting through the depths, but a song within his mind.
Clay felt another jolt of pain as the song enveloped him, alien and dislocating, and yet dreadfully familiar. The White. The depth of malice was unmistakable, although he found it impossible to fully comprehend the intricacies of the beast’s thoughts. But he could feel them, the new sense of purpose seeping into Jack’s mind, merging with his rage. Clay could sense the Blue struggling against this intrusion. He had a purpose of his own and wanted no other, but the White would not be denied. Soon a fresh torrent of images accompanied the sensation, another ship viewed through the eyes of another Blue. This ship was different however, a warship judging by its guns. Also, it had no paddles. The Superior, Clay realised, watching a young woman raise a pair of revolvers on the deck below. Loriabeth, the day the Blue attacked us.
The image changed as Loriabeth’s bullets struck home, filling it with a red mist that obscured much of what came next, although Clay was able to discern the sudden halt in movement, recalling how he and the Varestian Blood-blessed had used Black to hold the Blue in place whilst Captain Hilemore and Lieutenant Steelfine readied the cannon. There was a flash amidst the red mist and the vision turned instantly to black.
The sense of purpose flooding Jack’s mind altered, becoming an implacable command as the image of the Superior reappeared. This time Clay was able to discern a clear meaning in the White’s thoughts: Go south . . . Kill them.
Clay reeled in shock as Jack’s memories swirled around him. It sent him after us. It knew where we were going. How? The answer dawned swiftly, accompanied by a tinge of self-reproach at his failure to realise it sooner. Silverpin. The remnant of her consciousness had been living in his head since her betrayal and death beneath the mountain. It followed her scent, forced poor mad Jack to hunt us down.
Another tumble of memories: Jack finding himself part of a pack once more, although the Blues he swam with sang no songs. The destruction of Kraghurst Station and his repressed but still-evident relish at the sight of so many small monsters burning. Jack chasing the Superior through the channel between the Chokes and the shelf, the crushing weight of the huge wedge of displaced ice bearing him down to the depths, so far down the pressure threatened to crush his mighty body like paper. But he hadn’t died, somehow struggling from under the descending weight and straining damaged muscles as he sought the surface. Soon exhaustion claimed him, leaving him limp and drifting on the current. He would have subsided back into the depths had the pack not found him, coming together to bear him up to the surface and the salvation of the air. Still, he was wounded, needing time and sustenance to heal. The other Blues brought walrus and whale-meat, starving themselves so he might eat. Had he still been capable of such things, he would have sung the song of thanks. But they were not truly his pack and such songs were a distant murmur of who he had once been.
He ate, he healed, he waited, and then came the great upsurge of heat from below, fracturing the ice and allowing him to hunt down the monsters that had wounded him. He marshalled his silent pack, sending them out into the newly sundered ice, ranging far until one found his quarry. A new ship, one with no bloom of heat within its hull, but with monsters roving its deck. Jack, though mad, was far from stupid. Having recently suffered at these creatures’ hands, he opted for a more cunning approach, sending his pack to bear the brunt of their terrible, unnatural defences. He watched the sundered, flailing Blue bodies fall one by one, clamping down on his rage, forcing patience into his damaged mind. Only when the last of his pack had slipped into the depths, trailing a cloud of gore from the rent in its neck, did he determine to strike.
Then a new distraction, a fresh bloom of heat from below accompanied by a great cloud of bubbles as something rushed towards the surface. Jack had no notion of what this thing was, his vision unable to penetrate the hull to discern any heat sources within. But, as it bobbed to the surface and he watched four monsters clamber out, he knew he had found his first easy prey for a long time. A shallow dive then an upward rush was enough to leave the creatures struggling in the water. Jack made for the closest one, grunting in momentary pain as one of the monsters on the ship cast something at him, small but possessed of enough speed to tear a hole in his scales. But it was a familiar sting, his scales bore the scars of many such irritations, and with the prey so close he paid it scant heed.
The creature struggling in the water below stared up at him with its tiny, bead-like eyes, its claws fumbling for something about its neck. A weapon, perhaps. As if anything so small could threaten him . . .
Clay watched the image of himself struggling in the water freeze and then shatter, leaving him in a formless, multicoloured fog. Mist swirled around him, coalescing into dense, vibrantly hued clouds then breaking apart. Here and there he caught glimpses of firmer memories, Blue bodies drifting, dismembered sailors, burning ships. This then was the mindscape of Last Look Jack. Beneath the horror Clay could feel a deep weight of confusion pressing in on his own consciousness, shot through with a growing anger.
You can feel me in here, can’t you? Clay asked, hoping the drake could discern some meaning in his thoughts. The surrounding mist shimmered, reddish forks of lightning crackling as evidence of Jack’s burgeoning rage. Well, you’re stuck with me, for now at least. So let’s talk.
The lightning flashed again, blood-red tendrils reaching out from the fog to envelop Clay, lacerating him with implacable, utter rejection. He steeled himself against the sensation, fighting off the waves of nausea and confusion that threatened to end the trance. I know you got good reason to hate me and my kind, Clay persisted as the nausea blossomed into an ache. But the White . . . He choked off as the ache transformed into an abrupt burst of agony, deep within his being. The mindscape shimmered again and he felt the imminent loss of the trance as Jack exerted all his will to cast out the hated intruder.
Bargaining won’t work, Clay realised, reasserting his own will, the mindscape flaring bright about him, revealing yet more scenes of death and fire. He’s just too crazy. He struggled to remember everything Ethelynne had said about the effects of drinking heart-blood, how it had enabled her to control Lutharon. No, he reminded himself. Not control. A “mutual understanding,” she called it. But how to birth understanding in a mind damaged by so many dire memories? He paused as more of Ethelynne’s words came back to him: Drake memory does not die with the individual, but rather accumulates down the blood line over many generations.