The Empire of Ashes (The Draconis Memoria)

by Anthony Ryan

  “Getting a little too human for their liking,” Ethelynne warned. “Drakes don’t really understand friendship. There is enemy and non-enemy and family. That’s all.”

  “What does that make me?”

  “If you want their help, you need to be family.”

  Clay sighed in frustration, mind wrestling with the gulf between his needs and his knowledge. “I travelled far with Lutharon,” he began again. “We saw and risked much together. He was bound to me but I let him go. To save his life I let him go. So you know you can trust me. And you know what we found beneath the mountain.”

  He summoned the memory of his encounter with the White in all its fiery, terrorised glory. The giants reared back from the vision of the White bathing the eggs in the waking fire, eyes blazing in distress as their rumbling became a snarl.

  “You’ve seen this before,” Clay went on. “You fought it before. Now it’s back. It will remember you, and you know it won’t forgive.”

  The giants swung their heads back and forth, eyes flickering in confusion, and Clay quickly realised forgiveness was another concept beyond drake understanding. “Your kind are still a threat to it,” he said. “It will want you dead. All of you. You know this.”

  He summoned another image, Jack’s memory of the battle at sea where Reds and Blues fought Blacks with human riders. “Once we fought together. Once there was trust between us.”

  The giants settled at the sight of his shared memory, their search-light eyes converging on him once more. One of them dipped its head, averting its gaze to focus the beams from its eyes on the ground close by. The light flickered and Clay saw images playing out in the beam: an infant Black lying dead beside the corpse of its mother, both with blood leaking from bullet-holes to the head . . . passing mountains viewed from behind the thick bars of a cage . . . two-legged creatures approaching with knives and gouges and buckets . . .

  Clay winced at the pain and distress leaking from these images, but forced himself to share it, despite a certain dreadful expectation building in his breast as the memories played out. When the last sequence came he viewed it with a wrenching sense of inevitability.

  . . . thrashing against the chains clamped to his limbs . . . crying out in rage as the harvester enters the vat to thrust the spile into his neck . . . pain and anguish as his blood leaks out . . . the female two-legged creature lands in front of him, clutching an infant . . . his chains are shattered . . . a glory of vengeance as he tears the harvesters apart, demolishes walls and houses, feeling his life seep away but determined to visit all the pain he can on his tormentors before it’s gone . . . assailing ships in the harbour until something freezes him in place, holds him tighter than the chains until a sudden final jolt and blackness.

  Clay let out a gasp and sank to his knees as the memory ended. “It was you,” he breathed. “One of you . . . all of you.” The rage was unjustified, irrational, but he couldn’t help it. “You bastards killed my mother. You know that?” He looked up at them, teeth bared in fury and loss. “You killed my mother! Do you know what you did to me?”

  “You lost a mother, Clay,” Ethelynne said. “But Lutharon lost his father that day. He was only half-grown when he felt it, his father’s memories slipping into his, all that rage. He came close to killing me, and I had raised him. But he didn’t, for our minds were linked and he saw my guilt and my grief.”

  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.

  “I trust him,” she told them. “The gift you have given is gratefully received. But he is one, and the White has many in its thrall, and he tells the truth of it; if the White lives, we will perish.”

  The giants’ rumbling became a discordant rattle that sounded like an avalanche. They reared back from Clay and Ethelynne, eye-beams lancing into the darkened sky as they let out a roar. Clay staggered under the weight of the sound, feeling as if it were tearing into him, pulling him apart. The surrounding vision shattered and swirled into a maelstrom of gravel, Clay feeling the sting of it in his skin, a sting that soon grew into a sharp continuous pain.

  “A drake’s mind laid bare,” Ethelynne told him, standing placidly amidst the swirl. “Not something a human mind can stand for long, but he has to do this to call to them.”

  She moved to Clay, reaching out to take his hands, which, he saw, were bleeding from a thousand or more tiny cuts. “Good-bye, Claydon,” she said with a warm smile. “It’s probably best if you don’t visit again. Not for a long time anyway. But, if you ever get the chance, do see if you can recover my note-books.”

  He tried to reply but his mouth filled with gravel that burned like a swarm of tiny bees. Ethelynne gave a sympathetic wince and leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek.

  * * *

  • • •

  He blinked awake to find his gaze immediately assaulted by a bright beam of sunlight streaming through the jungle canopy. Letting out a grunt of pain he sat up, blinking watery eyes until Kriz’s concerned face came into focus. “How long?” he asked.

  “A day,” she said. “And a night.”

  Time moves differently in the trance, he remembered.

  The tread of clawed feet on soft ground drew his gaze to Lutharon as he turned about, sinking to his haunches and angling his back towards them. Clay felt a faint sensation of impatience which he quickly realised wasn’t his own. Before his connection with Lutharon had been a vague thing, often feeling like he was trying to communicate through a thick fog. Now the drake’s mind was a clear and constant presence in his own. It was similar to his connection to Jack, but somehow felt deeper, Lutharon’s mind stronger and more coherent than the often-confused and scared soul Clay had poured into the fractured mess of Jack’s mind.

  “Looks like we’re going somewhere,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “We’re going to ride it?” Kriz asked with a doubtful pitch to her voice he knew had once coloured his own when presented with the same option.

  “Him,” Clay corrected. “And it’s easy once you know how. Ain’t no skill to it. Just a matter of holding on and letting him take you where he wants to go.”

  He moved to retrieve the Black crystal, which lay a few feet away, now shrunk once again into a small shard. Unsure whether it would be needed again but certain it would be a bad idea to leave it behind, he consigned it to his pack and strode towards the waiting drake.

  Kriz took some coaxing to climb up behind him. Lutharon seemed to have abandoned his previous antipathy towards her and barely shuddered when she tentatively grasped one of his spines, but she retained an understandable nervousness.

  “He hasn’t forgotten, has he?” she asked having finally settled herself onto Lutharon’s back.

  “I don’t think they can forget,” Clay said. “But they do recognise more pressing concerns. Hold on,” he added as Lutharon flared his wings, “and if you throw up, don’t do it on me.”

  A short loping sprint and they were air-borne, Lutharon pushing them higher with a few beats of his wings. The jungle fell away into a vast green blanket broken by the mist-shrouded, wedge-shaped bulk of the mountains. Clay let out a laugh at the familiar thrill of flying, something it turned out he had missed greatly, although he had forgotten how chilled the air could get only a few hundred feet off the ground.

  Lutharon angled his wings and flew south, gliding for a time as he let out a long, loud call. It was different than the other calls Clay had heard him make, pitched higher than a roar but with a sustained volume that ensured it would carry for miles. The mountains and the jungle slipped beneath them for the length of several miles before he saw it, another winged shape gliding through the sparse mist below. Lutharon let out another call, identical to the first, and this time there was an answer. The other drake repeated the call as it rose to fly level with Lutharon. It was a young male perhaps two-thirds Lutharon’s size, coiling its neck to take in the sight of Clay and Kriz but displaying no sign of aggression.

  Lutharon banked and began to fly in a wide circle, he and the other male continuing to call out. Another reply sounded to the rear and Clay looked over his shoulder to see two more Blacks rising to follow, with three more behind. Within the space of an hour the sky around them became filled with drakes, Clay losing count at twenty as it became impossible to keep track of them all as the ever-growing flock swirled around. The sound of their calls was extraordinary, a vast chorus of greeting and agreement that thrummed the air for miles around.

  Clay leaned over Lutharon�
�s side to peer down at the mountains below, seeing drake after drake rise from the broad summits. He also saw that not all the Blacks were answering the call. Some looked up at the huge whirlwind of drakes in obvious agitation but showed no inclination to join it.

  Guess they ain’t your kin, huh? he thought, running a hand over the scaly patch at the base of Lutharon’s neck.

  It went on for over an hour by which time they were flying in shadow, so great were the number of wings obscuring the sun. Lutharon let out a final call, longer and louder than the others, and the great flock of Blacks answered with a vast cry of their own, so loud Clay’s ears throbbed with it. Lutharon levelled out, the jungle seeming to blur beneath them as he beat his wings, a thousand or more Black drakes following as he flew south.

  * * *

  • • •

  They found the Longrifles trekking through the bush-country south of the jungle, keeping close to the tall cliffs that marked this stretch of the southern Arradsian coast. Clay obtained their location from Sigoral via the Blue-less trance, the Corvantine’s thoughts betraying a mounting but tightly controlled alarm at the sight of so many Blacks filling the sky. Lutharon set down a few yards from the company, all formed into a defensive knot with weapons at the ready. Contractor habits were hard to break.

  Clay dismounted and went to greet his uncle, receiving a warm but distracted embrace in response as Braddon’s gaze roved constantly over the Blacks as they circled overhead or folded their wings to descend to the cliff-top.

  “Seer damn me if you didn’t actually do it, Clay,” he said, fingers twitching on the stock of his rifle.

  “Best if you keep that slung, Uncle,” Clay told him. “You really don’t wanna stir up any unpleasant recollections amongst our present company.”

  Braddon nodded and slung his rifle over his shoulder, barrel down as marksmen always did, motioning for the others to do the same.