Lokant

(Book Two of the
Draykon Series)

by

Charlotte E.
English

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by
Charlotte E. English

Cover design by Elsa
Kroese

All rights
reserved.

This ebook is licensed
for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
re-sold.

***

The moon was barely up
when the post carrier arrived, bearing a parcel so large that the
driver struggled to lift it. In the graceful, distinctive script of
the address, Lady Evastany Glostrum recognised the elegant
handwriting of her friend Ynara Sanfaer. She waved the postman
inside and signed the paperwork with a smile, though she felt
considerably puzzled.

She had recently
dispatched a letter to Elder Sanfaer, requesting an urgent meeting.
Ynara lived in Glinnery, a Daylands province where darkness never
came. Herself a resident of the Darklands, Eva could not
comfortably travel to Glinnery; her largely nocturnal eyes could
not bear the glare of the sun. As such, she had expected Ynara to
come to her.

Instead her friend had
sent a parcel. It took Eva some minutes of work with a pair of
scissors to open the well-packed box, and then subsequently to work
her way through the packaging that shrouded the contents. At length
she lifted out a completely unidentifiable contraption made from
metal and glass, finding no accompanying letter of explanation
along with it.

She turned the thing
over in her hands, puzzling. It was bulky, though not particularly
large. Two rounded pieces of glass adorned what could be the front;
behind them lay several other similarly sized pieces, though their
shapes varied. They vaguely resembled spectacles, though of no
variant Eva had ever seen before.

That thought sparked
off an idea. Hadn’t there been reports of new developments in
spectacle technology? She had heard of glasses - goggles, really -
that could fully protect a Darklander’s eyes against the sun.
Ynara’s husband was a prominent engineer; small wonder if he had
been involved in this project.

She tried them on. It
took a little adjusting to fit the headgear correctly, but at
length the pieces slid into place and the goggles clamped firmly
over her eyes, instantly smothering all light.

Eva blinked in the
sudden complete darkness. Well, so far so good. They were certainly
good at blocking out light. On the other hand, the headset was
heavy: already her neck was beginning to hurt. Eva took the thing
off with a grimace. Presumably Aysun Sanfaer intended to refine the
idea somewhat before it went into production for general
distribution.

In other circumstances,
the prospect of freely wandering the Daylands would have delighted
her. She had seen very little of Glinnery and nothing at all of
Irbel. Nothing either of Orlind, though nobody could claim to have
visited that distant, untouchable realm. She couldn’t even visit
Nimdre; it was the only one of the six accessible realms that
retained an ordinary day-night cycle, enjoying too many hours of
full daylight for the comfort of Darklander vision. As a worldly
woman fond of travel, the prospect of seeing the Daylands was
attractive.

But the timing was, to
say the least, unfavourable. She had returned to her home in Glour
City less than a moon ago, and duties and obligations crowded upon
her. She had neglected her role as High Summoner for many days
while she hunted a criminal with one of the Chief Investigator’s
men. Her possession of two skilled tracking companions - a shortig
hound and a web-winged gwaystrel - had made her instrumental to the
task, but she had been hard-pressed to catch up on her duties on
her return. And she had had very little time to address some
important questions that had been raised on the journey.

But Ynara was worried
about her daughter. Only a couple of moons ago, Llandry Sanfaer had
accidentally discovered an unusual gemstone which she had named
istore
after the stars. That stone had captured the
attention of thousands of people all the way across the Seven
Realms, and eventually it had led to thefts and even murders.
Llandry herself had been inevitably caught up in the affair; she
had journeyed secretly into Nimdre with a friend of her mother’s
and there she had disappeared. Eva was one of only two people who
knew what had happened to Llandry. If Ynara would not, or could
not, come to her, then she must go to Ynara. She owed it to her
friend.

Eva’s carriage conveyed
her only as far as the border between Glinnery and Glour, a journey
of some ten hours. Few carriage-ready roads wound through the dense
forests of Glinnery: since the residents held the benefit of wings,
they had little use for carriages. Eva disembarked with a sigh: she
had never been one to relish the prospect of a long walk.

Luckily for her, the
Sanfaers lived in the capital city, Waeverleyne, a mere few hours’
walk from the border - though it felt like a much longer trek to
Eva’s pampered physique, not used to strenuous walking or to the
heat of the sun. The beauty of her surroundings occupied her mind
for a time as she walked through Glinnery’s famed glissenwol woods.
Could these shades of blue and green and lavender, so vivid and
bright, truly be real? Or were they enhanced by the lenses of the
headgear that she wore? She was entranced by the soft blue moss and
the fronded purple-leaved ferns, the glitter of dayflies in the air
and the fragrances of sun-warmed blossoms.

At least until the
discomfort in her feet and legs reminded her of the wearisome toil
of the adventure. Recently she’d been obliged to do a lot of
walking, pursuing Edwae Geslin overland with her tracker hound. If
anything, that only made this episode harder, for she was already
tired. She trudged along in a state of intolerable dishevelment,
her hair blown out of its pins by the wind and her cotton gown
sticking unpleasantly to her skin. When at last she reached Ynara’s
home she took the opportunity to pause and admire the property...
and perhaps to catch her breath and smooth her hair while she was
at it.

The Sanfaer home was
situated close to the edge of the city. In Glour this position
might have indicated a lower status, but what mattered more in
Glinnery was the height of the glissenwol tree in which the
dwelling was situated, and the extent of the expansion around the
trunk. Ynara’s home was magnificent: her family had three storeys
spanning from the middle of a vast glissenwol trunk up to the top.
Seeking a way in, Eva observed a staircase winding its way up the
tree. That made sense, for Ynara’s husband Aysun did not have wings
like his wife and daughter.

The staircase was
blocked, which was not particularly surprising. For some weeks now
both the Daylands and the Darklands had been plagued with beasts in
unusual numbers, all crossing over from the Upper Realms or the
Lowers. Rogue gates leading to these two Off-Worlds had been
appearing too regularly, letting all manner of creatures through.
The staircase served as easy passage up to the Sanfaer home, but
that was no longer desirable when it invited aggressive visitors.
For her, though, its deactivation was mightily inconvenient. She
sat down in the dark blue moss, tired after her journey, her head
bowed under the weight of the curious headset. How should she
signal her arrival to Ynara? And how was she to reach the
house?

She had not been
waiting long before Ynara appeared on the balcony of her home. She
was a long way up, but Eva had no difficulty recognising her
slender frame and mass of dark hair. She waved and took flight, her
dark blue wings rapidly carrying her down to Eva’s level.

Her greeting was
friendly, though her anxiety showed in her face. ‘I’m so grateful
to you for coming,’ she said warmly. ‘I can’t leave the house, you
see, not for days at a time. In case Llandry comes home. Here.’ She
walked around the base of her tree, motioning Eva to follow. At the
rear, a switch of grey metal was set into the trunk, camouflaged
against the glissenwol’s smooth bark. Ynara pulled it sharply and a
clanking sound began somewhere above. As Eva watched, impressed, a
large box descended slowly from the skies. When it reached ground
level it stopped, and doors opened smoothly in the front.

‘Aysun’s latest
creation,’ Ynara explained, stepping inside. ‘They use them all the
time in Irbel, but here we only have a few for hauling freight up
to the heights. He fitted this when the beasts began surging
through.’

‘Ingenious,’ Eva
remarked, watching with interest as Ynara operated another lever.
The box lurched slightly as it began to rise, and Eva was obliged
to grab hold of a railing that ran around the inside. After that
though the ride was remarkably smooth. It stopped adjacent to
Ynara’s balcony and the doors opened again. Ynara ushered Eva into
the house and immediately turned to the windows. She closed
shutters and drew curtains from one room to another until the whole
building was dark.

‘I thought you may wish
to take those off once you got here,’ said Ynara, indicating the
cumbersome spectacles Eva wore. ‘They’re functional, but not yet
conveniently portable.’

‘Thank you,’ Eva said
with real gratitude. She took them off with alacrity, pleased to
find that the light levels were comfortable for her eyes. To Ynara,
though, it must be pitch darkness.

‘Won’t this be an
inconvenience to you?’

Ynara smiled briefly.
‘Not too much. I can still hear you.’

Eva nodded
absent-mindedly, then caught herself. ‘Of course,’ she said,
following her friend to the kitchen. Ynara had a light-globe in
this room, a silvery ball of soft light which she had set to hover
near the stove. Eva shut her eyes until Ynara had finished
preparing food, then the light dimmed. Ynara sat opposite, pushing
plates of food and drink at her.

Eva sat down, accepting
Ynara’s offerings gratefully. As she ate, her attention was caught
by shadowy movement in the corner of the room. A padded basket
rested there and a small grey-furred creature was curled inside. It
stretched out its long, thin body, its stubby tail twitching. Then
it resumed its slumber.

‘That is Llandry’s
pet,’ Ynara said. ‘Sigwide was left behind, somehow, when Llandry
disappeared. That alone frightens me inordinately: those two have
been inseparable since Llan was nine years old. She would never
leave him behind deliberately. And he is depressed - he does
nothing but sleep. I can’t decide whether he merely misses Llan, or
whether he knows that she isn’t coming back...’

Eva’s heart twisted at
the look of anguish on her friend’s face. She pushed away the food
- she could eat later - and searched for a way to begin. On her way
to Glinnery she had spent hours rehearsing what she would say to
her friend. How could she break such news lightly? Normally
comfortably eloquent, Eva found herself at a loss for words.

‘In my letter I assured
you that Llandry was not injured,’ she began. ‘That is perfectly
true. The last time I saw her she was in good health. But she has
been... she has been changed.’

‘She’s
been
changed?’ Ynara echoed. ‘By what? Or who?’ She was gripping the
table.

Eva sighed. ‘I’m just
going to tell you everything that happened. From the beginning.’
She began, talking slowly and clearly through her experiences of
the last few weeks. She spoke of the hunt for the reluctant
criminal Edwae Geslin, whose sorcerer friend Tren had been obliged
to aid in his capture. When she talked of their journey into the
perilous Lower Realms, Ynara said nothing. But when Eva spoke the
name “draykon”, Ynara blanched.

‘Draykon,’ she
whispered. Eva had expected her to be surprised, but she did not
seem to be. Instead she was aghast, electrified.

Eva cast her a
quizzical look. ‘Have you heard something of it already?’ The
common belief was that the mythical draykons, beasts with scaled
hide and vast wings, were nothing more than legend. But Ynara did
not look doubtful. As a member of Glinnery’s ruling Council,
perhaps she had received reports from Glour.

‘I’ve seen one,’ Ynara
said with studied calm. ‘Or in fact, I have heard one. So I
believe. Finish your tale, if you please, and I will tell you
mine.’

Eva blinked. ‘I... yes.
Very well.’ She went on, describing the two uncanny
sorcerer-summoners she and Tren had encountered. Eva had been
brought up to believe that those blessed with magical ability were
skilled either as summoners, those with a connection to beast kind,
or sorcerers, whose talents included skilled manipulation of light
and air. She had never heard of anybody possessing strong talents
in both areas; not until now. She and Tren had discovered two
apparent dual practitioners - the same two who had stolen and
killed for the mysterious istore stone. Ynara listened raptly as
Eva related how Ana and Griel - both from the Darklands realm of
Ullarn, or so Eva suspected - had sought to wake a draykon.