“Gonna have to do something about your leg,” Loriabeth’s voice echoed to him and he could hear the note of grim determination it held. “Got no other option, Clay.” A pause. “Soak it good. Alright, give it here. You’d best hold him down, he’s apt to kick something awful.”
Clay had begun to voice a query, which emerged as just another groan, when the void turned into a blinding white sky as a thousand hornets stung his leg as one. The pain was far worse than the Green’s bite. A shimmering blade of fire sliced from his leg to his brain, birthing enough agony to wrench him back to consciousness.
He came to screaming obscenities into Sigoral’s face, the Corvantine averting his gaze as spittle showered him. Clay tried to clamp his hands on the marine’s neck, fully intending to choke him to death, but found they were confined, strapped to his sides by a thick leather belt. He thrashed instead, the foulest insults streaming from his gaping mouth as a shudder arched his back.
“It’s alright, cuz!” Loriabeth’s face swam into view. “It’s us! Gotta do this to save your leg!”
“Fu-fuck you . . . !” Clay choked and screamed again. “Vicious . . . little bitch!”
“I’m sorry . . .”
He thrashed for a full minute, Sigoral’s hands like vises on his shoulders, keeping him pinned until exhaustion finally claimed him once more. He drifted away to the sight of Loriabeth staring down at him, tears streaming from her eyes as she whispered pleas for forgiveness.
? ? ?
“You’ve looked better.” She stood a few feet away, speaking aloud as she had in their only shared trance. She clasped the shaft of her spear with both hands, resting her weight upon it as she regarded him, the tattoos on her forehead bunching in amused appraisal.
“You’re dead,” Clay mumbled, then winced as a burning throb shuddered through his leg. “Go away.”
Silverpin gave a pout of mock annoyance. “Of course I’m dead. You shot me, remember?”
“It was an accident,” he muttered, casting his gaze around and finding himself in familiar surroundings. The cave in the Badlands where they found the infant White’s nest. Also, the first time they made love. Clay decided he really didn’t want to be here and made a determined effort to wake up. Nothing happened.
“This isn’t a dream, Clay,” Silverpin said.
Clay realised he was standing upright, his injured leg as straight and whole as before, though the pain it held was everything he expected. He turned around, taking in the surrounding environment, seeing none of the subtle or bizarre alterations a sleeping mind might make to a place plucked at random from the recesses of his brain.
“You shared the image with Miss Lethridge,” Silverpin said. “So it remains fixed. Just like me.”
“A talking memory?” Clay asked. “That’s what you are?”
“We shared a very special form of trance, a deeper and more powerful connection than has been established between two Blood-blessed for centuries. There were bound to be consequences. What are people, anyway, if not just a collection of memories? I suppose you could say you made me.” Her decorated brows bunched again in consternation. “Which kind’ve makes you my . . . father. Not sure I like that analogy.”
Clay stared at her for a long moment, finding no flaw in her bearing or expression. She was as he remembered her, too real and vital to be just a collage of images moulded by his slumbering mind. “So,” he said, “you’re a ghost.”
Her face grew sombre and she shrugged. “A murdered soul with unfinished business. A reasonable description, I suppose.”
“How come I haven’t seen you before?”
“It could be this portion of your mind was closed before now. Trauma can have a transformative effect on the brain. Or perhaps because you just didn’t want to.”
“Trust me”—he met her gaze, speaking in slow, unwavering tones—“I did not want to see you again.”
Her blue eyes twinkled a little as she smiled. “There’s no point lying in here. Can’t lie to yourself after all.” She glanced around at the gloomy interior, frowning. “This is boring. Let’s go somewhere else.”
There was no swirl of images like in his trances with Lizanne, just an abrupt shift from one location to another. This time they stood on the fore-deck of the Firejack, steaming sedately down a stretch of the Bluechurn he recognised as lying south of Stockade. The hard report of a gun-shot drew Clay’s gaze to the starboard rail where a red-haired woman was educating a young man in the finer points of marksmanship. “Damn, kiddo. Woulda thought a Blinds boy would know how to shoot . . .”
Clay turned away, fixing his gaze on the river ahead. “I miss her too, on occasion,” Silverpin said. “In fact, I miss all of them. However, thanks to you I at least get to see how they’re doing. You do know your little quest is going to get them all killed, I assume?”
“No,” he replied. “And neither do you.”
“Remember what I said about lying?”
“We had no choice. If you’ve seen what I have, then you know that. That thing you woke intends to eat the whole world.”
“No, only a large proportion of the people. And there truly is nothing you can do to stop it.”
He gripped the rail at the prow of the boat, knuckles paling with the force of it. “We’ll see. There had to be a reason for the vision.”
“Did there? What makes you think that? You caught a fractional glimpse of the future and immediately concluded it amounted to a providential message. From whom, might I enquire? A Corvantine god perhaps?”
He shook his head, refusing to look at her. “It has to mean something.”
“Everything means something. Water falling from the sky means it’s raining, and that’s all it means, whether you see it in the past or the future.” She moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder before pressing a kiss to his neck. “Face it, Clay, you led a lot of people into certain death for no good reason. Though it wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d had a choice.”
He turned to find her offering him a sympathetic grimace. “Meaning what?” he demanded, then shuddered as the pain in his leg lurched once more into full agony. The surrounding mindscape took on an immediate misty appearance, water and jungle shimmering into a formless fog. Silverpin, however, remained complete and all too real.
“Clay,” she said, shaking her head as the background faded into blackness. “Didn’t you ever wonder why they were so willing to follow you on such an insane course . . . ?”
? ? ?
He came awake with a shout, or would have if Sigoral’s hand hadn’t been clamped so tightly over his mouth. “Quiet!” the Corvantine hissed into his ear.
Clay relaxed, as much as he could with the pain still raging in his leg. Sigoral removed his hand before turning away, the butt of his carbine tight against his shoulder and barrel raised high to point at a much-denuded forest canopy. The three suns were visible through the sparse branches, the heat they cast down more intense than before, drawing fresh beads of sweat from his already moist brow.