Llandry by Charlotte E. English

Author:Charlotte E. English
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dragons, shapeshifters, high fantasy, fantasy mystery
Publisher: Charlotte E. English

‘Termination,’ said Pense abruptly. ‘Is there more said of that, Ori?’

Ori shook his head. ‘No, and I checked thoroughly because that occurred to me, too. But you brought an answer back with you, no? They merely killed that poor mad drayk in a usual kind of way.’ He frowned as he spoke, and I could well understand why. The impersonal way in which the poor creature — subject thirty-eight — had been treated, brought to life and then dispassionately killed, was chilling. I wondered whether it had been maddened, like the one we had seen in the Library.

‘I wonder what happened after it was revived,’ said Pense.

‘Yes,’ I said, frowning. ‘If they killed it because it was mad, what would they do when it came back? And what did the rest of its “creche-mates” do?’

‘It isn’t said.’ Ori turned a few more pages. ‘But here, look. Umm, I’m going to paraphrase this bit, it’s long.’ He read for a moment, and nodded. ‘That trick of coming back from the dead? It caused them some problems, it seems — probably with the mad ones.’

Here, I thought, was a possible motive for their developing some way to more permanently erase us. If they felt their creations were turning mad beyond repair, and were opposed to their revival, perhaps they had gone looking for a way to more lastingly disable the poor creatures.

‘Which is another interesting question.’ Ori abandoned the book and looked hard at me. ‘How did she go mad, that one you saw?’

‘I hardly know, we saw little of her. But… it was as though her flow had become twisted somehow, like… like it had turned inside out, started running backwards. I’m not explaining this very well.’ I paused and thought, frustrated with the effort of trying to articulate so obscure a phenomenon.

‘It felt like a very small, localised version of what has happened at Orlind,’ said Pense.

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Not the same exactly, not at all, but similar. And it probably felt similar to the draykon, too. Her flight was erratic, like she had trouble working out which way was up or down, and she scarcely felt like a sentient being — like she had lost her own sense of identity.’

‘You don’t know how that happened?’

I could only shake my head. ‘The first we saw of her was when she came crashing in, already mad.’

‘But termination,’ Pense interrupted. ‘We were not finished with that, Ori.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Ori went back to his book, brow furrowed. ‘This book was written some years after the project was concluded, I gather. Listen to this: It is difficult to separate the body of a draykon from its animating essence, as the two are intrinsically bound up with its personal amasku, or life flow. Each draykon is a spark of the same fire, and to extinguish any individual flame is almost impossible. The degree of force required to accomplish this is beyond the scope of most scientists, and certainly beyond the scope of this study. Ori looked up.

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