She only realized she had been beating at her temples when two massive hands grasped her wrists and pulled down her arms. She stared up into Gunth Mach’s emerald eyes.
And for the first time, the Daughter spoke inside her mind. ‘ Release, now. Breathe deep my breath, Destriant. ’
Kalyth’s desperate gasping now caught a strange, pungent scent, emanating from Gunth Mach.
The world spun. She sagged back, sprawled to the ground. As something unfolded in her skull like an alien flower, virulent, beguiling-she lost grip of her own body, was whipped away.
And found herself standing on cold, damp stone, nostrils filling with a pungent, rank stench. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she cried out and staggered back.
A dragon reared above her, its slick scales the colour of rust. Enormous spikes pinned its forelimbs, holding the creature up against a massive, gnarled tree. Other spikes had been driven into it but the dragon’s immense weight had pulled them loose. Its wedge-shaped head, big as a migrant’s wagon, hung down, streaming drool. The wings were crumpled like storm-battered caravan tents. Fresh blood surrounded the base of the tree, so that it seemed that the entire edifice rose from a gleaming pool.
‘ The slayer, the Otataral Dragon, has been bound. But it will be freed… ’ Sag’Churok’s words echoed in her mind. ‘ They will free it. ’ Who? No matter, she realized. It would be done. This Otataral Dragon would be loosed upon the world, upon every world. A force of negation, a slayer of magic. And they would lose control of it-only mad fools could believe they could enslave such an entity.
‘Wait,’ she hissed, thoughts racing, ‘ wait. Forces in opposition. Take away one-spike it to a tree-and the other is lost. It cannot exist, cannot survive looking across the Abyss and seeing nothing, no one, no foe . This is why you have lost your god, Sag’Churok. Or, if it still lives, it has been driven into the oblivion of insanity. Too alone. An orphan… just like me.’
A revelation, of sorts. What could she make of it?
Kalyth stared up at the dragon. ‘When you are finally freed, then perhaps your “other” will return, to engage with you once more. In that eternal battle.’ But even then, this scheme had failed before. It would fail again, because it was flawed-something was wrong, something was… broken. ‘ Forces in opposition, yes, that I do understand. And we each play our roles. We each fashion our “others” and chart the course of our lives as that eternal campaign, seasons of gain, seasons of loss. Battles and wounds and triumphs and bitter defeats. In comforts we fashion our strongholds. In convictions we occupy our fortifications. In violence we forge our peace. In peace, we win desolation. ’
Somewhere far behind her, Kalyth’s body was lying on half-dead grasses, cast down on to the heart-stone of the Wastelands. ‘ It is here. It is all here. ’
‘We are broken indeed. We are… fallen.’
What do to, then, when the battle cannot be won? No answers burgeoned before her. The only truth rearing to confront her was this blood-soaked sacrifice, destined to be un-done. ‘Is it true, then, that a world without magic is a dead world? Is this what you promise? Is this to be your future? But no, for when you are at last freed, then your enemy will awaken once more, and the war will resume.’
There was no place in that scheme for mortals. A new course for the future was needed. For the K’Chain Che’Malle. For all humans in every empire, every tribe. If nothing changed in the mortal world, then there would be no end to the conflicts, to the interminable forces in opposition, be they cultures, religions, whatever.
She had no idea that intelligent life could be so stupid.
‘They want a faith from me. A religion. They want to return to the vanity of the righteous. I can’t do it. I can’t. Rythok had better kill me, for I will offer them nothing they want to hear.’
Abruptly, she was staring up at a cloudless blue sky, heat rustling across her bare limbs, her face, the tracks of dried tears tight on her cheeks. She sat up. Her muscles ached. A sour taste thickened her tongue.
Still the K’Chain Che’Malle faced her.
‘Very well,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I give you this. Find your faith in each other. Look no further. The gods will war, and all that we do will remain beneath their notice. Stay low. Move quietly. Out of sight. We are ants in the grass, lizards among the rocks.’ She paused. ‘Somewhere, out there, you will find the purest essence of that philosophy. Perhaps in one person, perhaps in ten thousand. Looking to no other entity, no other force, no other will. Bound solely in comradeship, in loyalty honed absolute. Yet devoid of all arrogance. Wise in humility. And that one, or ten thousand, is on a path. Unerring, it readies itself, not to shake a fist at the heavens. But to lift a lone hand, a hand filled with tears.’ She found she was glaring at the giant reptiles. ‘You want a faith? You want someone or something to believe in? No, do not worship the one or the ten thousand. Worship the sacrifice they will make, for they make it in the name of compassion-the only cause worth fighting and dying for.’