She shook her head. “Of all the pure-bred species the Blacks were always the hardest to control, more intelligent than the others and more aggressive towards humans. This was partially why Father was never able to successfully cross-breed them. The White contains blood lines from all drake species, except the Black.”
“Guess that’s why they didn’t join its war,” Clay said. “And why they fought him when he rose before, fought alongside the people who lived here to bring him down.”
“That I can’t explain,” Kriz replied. “It’s clear that the world my people built fell, and the civilisation that grew in its place was able to achieve some kind of symbiosis with the drakes.”
“Heart-blood.” Clay remembered the mosaic from the hidden city that lay on the far side of the lake. “Their queen would drink heart-blood and bond with a Black. That’s what bound them together. With this”—he nodded at the crystal—“we won’t have to.”
He heard his uncle let out a faint groan and turned to find him frowning in grim realisation.
“Captain?” Skaggerhill asked.
“He means we’re gonna have to go find us some Blacks,” Braddon said, “to make friends with.”
“That’s what you need?” Clay asked later, nodding at the glass vial in Kriz’s hand. The others were all sleeping, Clay and Kriz having taken the first watch. She had returned the Black crystal to its original state and now sat regarding the vial in one hand and the blade-shaped shard in the other. “You drink that and you can unlock the memories Zembi put in there?” he went on.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes tracking from the shard to the vial but making no move to drink it.
“Is it dangerous?” he asked, sensing her reluctance and switching to her language.
“All knowledge is dangerous, but all knowledge is precious. The contradiction at the heart of everything the Philos Caste studied or created.”
“Convergence,” Clay said. “What is it?”
Kriz was silent for a time, turning the vial over in her fingers, face rapt. “Does this look like drake blood to you?” she asked, holding the vial out to him. He took it, holding it up so the fire-light illuminated the contents.
“Kinda,” he said, handing it back. “Looks a little like one of the more expensive Ironship dilutions. Colour’s different, though.”
“Then it might surprise you to know that no part of what is in this vial came from a drake, except the knowledge of how to make it. This is what your people call product, Clay. It will do everything Blue will do, but it was not syphoned from the corpse of some unfortunate beast. It was made.
“Zembi believed that the abilities of the Blood-blessed lay dormant in all of us. What else could explain the random nature of the Blessing? If only a small proportion of the population developed the ability during early adolescence, an ability they clearly didn’t inherit, then the same potential rested in all of us. If the right formula could be found, it could unlock that potential. Think of it, Clay, a whole world of people able to share their thoughts, craft wonders, walk this earth without fear. This is what we were working for all those years under the ice. This is the key to convergence. This”—she held up the vial once more—“is synthetic product. Anyone can drink it and harness the power it holds. Not just the Blessed. Anyone.”
“The White,” Clay said. “You needed it to make this?”
She lowered her gaze, Clay seeing a mirror of the shame he had seen on the face of her younger self in the trance. It’s unfair of me to despise you so, she had told the sickly White as it glared at her from the pit. Like you, it appears I should never have been born. “There is more than just drake blood in the White,” she said.
It took him a moment to realise the import of what she had said, a chilly fist closing around his heart as the implications struck home. “People,” he said in a slow, hard rasp. “You used people to make that thing.”
“Not people. Human tissue, mostly unfertilised eggs and plasma. Zembi had developed a method of blending organic material at the microscopic level. Another barely understood gift from the crystals. It took years, there were many failures.” Kriz’s head lowered farther still, voice dropping to nearly a whisper. “Many . . . things were brought into this world, things we are fortunate did not live for more than a few minutes after hatching. Then came the first White, and Zembi thought he had his discovery, the ultimate triumph of the Philos Caste. Its blood was unique, much easier to study than the other breeds. It gave us clues as to how to formulate synthetic compounds, clues we would never have had if it hadn’t been born.”
“But it got out, while you slept it got out, turned him into a Spoiled and somehow made it to Arradsia.”
“All knowledge is dangerous, all knowledge is precious.” Kriz looked again at the shard in her hand. “At least now we have a chance to discover how it got out.”
“Could be he only had that thing because the White allowed it. Maybe it wanted him to give it to you. For all we know you’ll drop down dead the moment you enter the trance.”
Kriz jerked her chin at Preacher’s sleeping form on the other side of the camp-fire. “Your friend gave us a lesson in faith the other day. Maybe it’s one we should heed.”
“Faithful he surely is, but he’s also crazy.” Clay reached out, placing his hand over hers to cover the vial and the shard. “Don’t. At least not here, not now. Wait till we’re back on the ship, or at least somewhere that could be called civilised. We got what we came for.”
She gave a small grin, slipping back into her accented Mandinorian to ask, “That an order, Captain?”
“If you like. We got a long way to go and a better chance of surviving this trip with three Blood-blessed ’stead of two.”
She gently pushed his hand away and looked again at the items in her hand before nodding and consigning them to the pocket of her jacket. “As you wish. I wouldn’t want anyone calling me a mutineer.”
In the morning he woke in time for his trance with Zenida Okanas, spending several minutes in contemplation of the vial in his hand. It did happen, he thought, replaying the events at the lake in his head. I tranced without drinking. But how? There was only one explanation that made any sense. Heart-blood. He had been able to maintain a mental connection with Jack from the moment he drank Blue heart-blood, and what else could that be called but a kind of trance? If he could trance with a drake, why not a human?
Checking his watch to confirm the moment had arrived, he shrugged and returned the Blue vial to his wallet. One way to find out.
Closing his eyes he concentrated on Zenida’s face, reasoning it would summon enough memories of her to establish the connection. Nothing happened. He tried to recall every interaction with the Varestian woman, discovering they were few in number, just enough in fact to forge enough of a connection for the Blue-facilitated trance. Looks like I need something more for this one, he decided, pondering that moment on the raft again. The trance with Kriz had seemed to occur naturally, without any conscious decision, as if his fear for her had reached down to the bottom of the lake and forced its way into her mind. Fear . . . Fear is an emotion. When they first met, Lizanne had tutored him on the basics of the trance, explaining that mental communication required some form of emotional connection between the two parties. It’s how we remember one another in the real world, she said. Not through faces but feelings, however slight. Think of all the people you must have met in your life. Now ask yourself how many you remember. Comparatively few, I imagine. You remember those who made you laugh, those who made you cry, and, especially in your case, Mr. Torcreek, apparently those who made you angry most of all.