Got themselves trapped in the Cut, Clay realised. Bet the captain’s pissed about that.
He centred Jack’s gaze on the twisting coil of the Green barrier, several yards thick and growing thicker as more drakes swam to join it. It’s time to fight, Jack, Clay told the Blue, which caused an immediate resurgence of his fear. Clay tried to calm him again but this time the terror couldn’t be stemmed. I’m sorry, Clay said, guilt and resignation mingling in his heart. But I need Last Look for this.
He dived deep into the Blue’s memories, pulling together all the messy remnants of Jack’s life, forming them into an ugly ball that throbbed with violence. Clay pushed himself into the ball, fighting nausea at the blood-lust he found. Rummaging through the shifting mass of slaughter and madness felt like sinking his hands into a charnel-house trough. Finally, he found what he was looking for, the still-living core that had been Last Look Jack. It was a dark, twisted thing, denuded of much of its being but still holding on to all that useful hatred.
See them? Clay asked it, focusing the Blue’s gaze on the Greens once more. They ain’t drakes, they’re men. He took an image of one of the Greens and remoulded it, shrinking the tail and growing the limbs, sculpting the head into a ball rather than a spear. Jack’s hunger swelled at the sight, then blossomed further as Clay spread the remade image of the Green to its brethren. Within seconds what had been a mass of drake flesh had become a mass of men, and Jack required no further encouragement.
The shared awareness began to fragment as Jack surged upwards into the Greens, flame erupting from his mouth. Clay felt himself convulse as the subsequent kaleidoscope of horrors played out, man after man roasted or snapped into bloody remnants, except they weren’t men. Even at his worst Jack had never experienced such an ecstasy of vengeance. His mind exulted with it, as if this were the pinnacle of his quest to rid the seas of humankind.
Clay was vaguely aware of the Superior passing by, but Jack was too preoccupied with his feast to pay the ship much mind. Soon, however, he began to feel pain amongst the fury, Clay’s hands scrabbling at his body as he felt the Greens tear at his hide. He started to choke and gasp as the weight of them bore him down, Greens worrying their way past his scales to the flesh beneath whilst flames licked at Jack’s eyes. Clay let out a groan as ever more of the Blue’s blood seeped into the sea and his mind became a distant, withered remnant.
I’m sorry, Jack. He sent the thought after the Blue as his mind flickered in the depths, flared bright for one last second and then died. I’m so sorry.
He didn’t wake until the next morning, blinking the blur from his gaze to find a ring of concerned faces staring down at him. “Told you he weren’t dying,” Loriabeth said, poking Sigoral in the ribs.
“Fever’s gone,” Kriz said, crouching to press a hand to his forehead. “Your temperature was a little alarming for a while.”
Clay shook his head, finding he had only the most dim recollection of the previous few hours. There had been dreams, he knew that, but he had a sense of being fortunate not to remember them.
“What was that?” Kriz asked. “Has it happened to you before?”
“Jack died,” Clay said, climbing to his feet. “The ship ain’t waiting for us in the Torquils no more. We’ll have to find another way back to it.”
He shrugged away their helping hands and turned his gaze to the lake. Jack’s demise kept replaying in his head, provoking a sick, guilty jab at his gut with every repetition. “Uncle’s right,” he said. “We need a raft. Time to find some trees.”
Constructing a raft of sufficient dimensions took two full days, much of the time spent harvesting the necessary wood from the infrequent trees found on the lake’s western shore. Kriz oversaw the design whilst Skaggerhill and Sigoral did the bulk of the construction, they being the most familiar with water-craft. When it was done they had a square platform some twelve feet wide complete with four oars for steering. They carried it to the shore for a test launch, which confirmed it could actually float and bear the weight of Kriz’s apparatus.
“Now we just need somewhere to look,” Braddon said.
That night Clay drank Blue and sank into the trance, his relief surging at finding Lizanne waiting for him though he was surprised to find her usually neat whirlwinds a roiling mess.
I don’t have long, she told him, mind curt and urgent. Here.
One of the whirlwinds swept towards him and unfolded into what at first appeared to be a confused, vaguely circular jumble of scribbled text. Co-ordinates, Lizanne added, pushing a set of numbers into his mind with an uncharacteristic clumsiness.
Ow! Clay protested, the intrusion sending a pulse of discomfort through his mindscape. What—?
No time.
And she was gone, leaving him dazed on Nelphia’s dusty plains.
“Five miles north along the coast,” Sigoral said after plotting the co-ordinates onto his map. “Just under three miles from shore.”
“Three miles is a lot,” Skaggerhill said. “’Specially on a lake as rich in Greens as this one.”
“Can’t be helped,” Clay said. “We’ll go out only in daylight, for just a few hours at a time. Me and the lieutenant will accompany every trip.” He pulled on his pack and moved to take one of the ropes securing the raft to the shore. “Best get to towing this thing whilst there’s still daylight.”
They reached the required stretch of coast by midafternoon, towing the raft along the shore-line until Sigoral confirmed they were in the right place.
“You don’t want to wait for tomorrow?” Clay asked Kriz as she prepared her breathing apparatus.
“There’s plenty of daylight left,” she said, fixing a pipe onto the pump then connecting the other end to the helmet she would wear whilst underwater.
“Seems pretty simple,” Clay went on. “Maybe I should . . .”
“It’s not,” she said. “And you shouldn’t.”
They launched the raft a short while later, Clay and Sigoral imbibing Green and manning the oars to ensure a swift transit, whilst Braddon and Preacher kept a close watch on the surrounding waters. Kriz took charge of the tiller, keeping an eye on Sigoral’s compass as she steered them towards the required spot. After a quarter hour of rowing the raft took on a wayward spin, Clay noticing that the lake’s surface had become much more lively.
“I think this is it,” Sigoral said. “The chart you drew indicated a circular current surrounding the site.”