Lokant (14 page)

Llandry swallowed.
‘Where can I go to evade them?’

Devary smiled sadly.
‘The first thing you must do is get far away from me.’

‘You aren’t coming with
us?’

He shook his head. ‘You
heard him, Llan. He has put a tracer on me. I do not know how this
thing operates, but it is clear that he was able to find me and
travel to me without any difficulty. I must get this “tracer”
removed, somehow, and in the meantime we must ensure that I am not
again used as bait to get to you.’

Llandry nodded, feeling
heavy at heart. ‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know. But,
listen carefully, they will send others after you. They will be
much less sympathetic than me. You must be careful. Now, please,
you must leave me before somebody else is able to use my tracer to
find you.’

‘But - but wait, what
will you do? We can’t just leave you.’

‘I will find my own way
home, Llandry, you must trust me. Please, go now.’

He is right.
Pensould’s voice in her heart gave Llandry no comfort. It hurt to
walk away from Devary and leave him alone, deep in the realm of
Iskyr without aid, but after another brief embrace she did just
that. She took one last glance at him, looking suddenly small and
powerless by himself, before she changed into her draykon form and
followed Pensould into the sky.

***

Devary watched as the
two draykons ascended into the heavens and began to recede, their
forms growing smaller and smaller until they vanished. He stood for
a moment, feeling curiously lost. The one thing he most wished to
do was to protect Llandry; he owed her that, her and her mother,
after failing her so badly before. She had almost been taken
because of him. She might have been killed.

But that was the one
thing he could no longer do. He had to stay far away from her. How
then could he help her?

He thought of the
question she’d asked him, her eyes revealing the panic she was
trying to suppress.
Why do they want me?

He felt that he should
be able to answer that question. He had not been given any
information, but finding information was his job. He was good at
it. He had been a successful agent of Draetre’s university for more
than two decades, and his speciality was uncovering peculiarities
in the practice of magics. Sorcery and summoning... and, perhaps,
whatever form of magic his employers were using.

The source of it all
was the university. He knew it was a small establishment,
officially dedicated to the study of magical history. And so they
were, but alongside that they studied the more obscure branches of
magic, including feats, practices and artifacts that were not
understood - in some cases, not even believed in - outside of their
faculty. And their methods were not always considered ethical
within the academic community.

It was this university
that had turned Devary, at a young age, into an agent of discovery.
A
spy,
Llandry had called him, and she wasn’t entirely
wrong. He had always been good at making people like him, getting
them to trust him, encouraging them to confide in him, and this he
supposed was why he had been recruited.

He had never yet turned
his abilities against the university itself. But something about it
was wrong. The university’s methods had grown steadily more
ruthless, ever since his superiors had changed from the likes of
Professor Indren Druaster - a woman who could be harsh and
ambitious, but never amoral to his knowledge - to the pale-haired
man they had narrowly escaped. If they were now turning the force
of the faculty against individuals like Llandry, then his scruples
meant nothing.

He would find out why
they wanted her. He would find out who they were and how they were
able to perform feats that were impossible even for the most
powerful sorcerers. And he would find a way to extricate Llandry
from whatever scheme they had in mind for her.

And the logical place
to start must be the university itself.

Having decided on this,
he felt much better. Gathering his focus, he began the task of
opening a gate back to the ordinary world. He had no idea where in
the Seven he would emerge, but he would find his way to Draetre
somehow.

Tren tapped lightly on
the door of Mrs Geslin’s cramped house. Through the flimsy wood he
could hear the squabbling voices of her young daughters and a
clattering of metal. He guessed that Mrs Geslin was cooking.

He knocked again,
louder. When he still received no response, he tried the door.
Finding it unlocked, he ventured inside.

Three young female
faces looked up at him in surprise as he entered. He smiled
reassuringly.

‘It was open,’ he
explained. ‘Hello, Mindra. Larrin, Kaye.’

‘Tren!’ Mindra came up
to him immediately. She was the oldest of the three, almost
thirteen, and quite forthright. She took charge of him at once,
shutting the door firmly behind him and towing him towards the
kitchen.

‘Ma’s making dinner,’
she said. ‘You’ll stay, of course.’

‘Er, if it’s all
right...’

‘Of course it is. Ma
always makes enough for you, just in case you turn up.’

Mindra’s mother stood
at the sink in her tiny kitchen, managing a series of large pans
with ease. ‘That’s right,’ she said, smiling at Tren. ‘I won’t have
you starved when you’re good enough to come to us.’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t
come last week,’ he apologised.

‘Workaholic.’ She
smiled at him again. Deep lines were graven on her face and her
eyes were shadowed with pain, but today she sparkled with life.
Tren hadn’t seen her in such a good mood since... since before her
son, Tren’s friend Edwae, was killed.

‘Is everything
well?’

She put down the pan
she was holding and crossed the room to give him a kiss on the
cheek. She had always been more affectionate with him than his own
mother had ever been. ‘Come and eat,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you all
about it.’

As usual, Mindra made
sure that Tren sat beside her at the meal. She tended to address a
constant flow of conversation to him; very little of it was of much
interest but he paid her the courtesy of his attention anyway. Mrs
Geslin indulged her daughter for a time, but at last she
interrupted.

‘Hush now, Mindra. Tren
wants to hear about our good fortune.’

‘Can I tell him?’

‘Let me do it, dear.
Tren, you were but a boy when you met Ed’s father, but perhaps you
remember him?’

‘Quite clearly, yes.’
Mr Geslin had been a jovial man, the sort who expected good things
around every corner. Usually the strength of his belief had seemed
to be enough to secure them.

‘Well, things have been
hard since he passed away, you’ll know. To think, if I’d known
before about his investments we could’ve been spared all that.’

Tren blinked. ‘His...
investments?’

Mrs Geslin beamed at
him. ‘I never thought of Andrus as one to think of the future
overmuch, but turns out I was wrong. He was laying a bit by every
year and putting it into one of them schemes that pays interest.
We’ve regular money again, and good money too.’

Tren pondered this. He
had to agree: Andrus Geslin hadn’t been bothered about planning for
the future. He expected such things to take care of themselves. How
curious that he’d been making provision all along.

‘You’ve just found out
about this?’

Mrs Geslin nodded. ‘A
letter came, oh, four days ago now. Explained the whole matter, and
told me how to collect it. I took that letter to the bank, and sure
enough they gave me this moon’s money. One hundred osts.’

Tren whistled. A
hundred osts was near enough what he earned - or had earned - as a
Night Cloak maintenance officer. It was a healthy sum; plenty to
provide for the surviving Geslin family.

‘That’s wonderful,’ he
said sincerely. ‘Though I wonder how it is that it’s only just come
to light?’

‘Oh, the letter said
something about misplaced files or whatnot. Here, I’ll find it.’
She abandoned her half-eaten dinner and bounced out of her chair
before Tren could stop her. She was back half a minute later with a
sheet of paper in hand.

‘There, Pitren Warvel.
What do you think of that?’

He scanned it quickly.
It was from Ayven and Meerch, the biggest bank in the realm of
Orstwych. It announced the transfer of Andrus’s previously inactive
account into her name and summarised the relevant assets. He was
interested to note the nature of the scheme: apparently the late Mr
Geslin had been purchasing stock in a local light-globe
manufacturing firm, and the profits were tidy indeed. He made a
mental note of the company’s name: Lawch & Son.

‘Wonderful,’ he said
again, handing the letter back. ‘Ah... I actually came to offer you
some relief... I mean, now that Ed’s money has stopped, and,
er...’

Mrs Geslin understood
him at once, in spite of his awkward mumbling. She laid a hand over
his with a smile. ‘You’re a good lad, Pitren Warvel. You and Ed are
- were - the best men I know. But you needn’t worry about us now.
We’re cared for.’

Tren nodded numbly,
swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. Her belated use of the past
tense brought home to him Edwae’s absence at the table. He had been
visiting this house since they were both boys, and he hadn’t yet
got used to being at the Geslin house without his friend.

‘Will you stay
here?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.
We’re comfortable here, and it’s home. But how nice to be able to
choose, hm? Perhaps we will move.’

Tren merely nodded. He
and Edwae had worked for Lord Angstrun together until Ed had got
mixed up in the istore crisis. It hadn’t ended well for him. Coming
here always revived Tren’s sadness at Ed’s fate, and his own guilt
at being unable to save him.

Mrs Geslin noticed his
distress, for a flicker of pain crossed her own face and she
quickly changed the subject. ‘What of that lady friend of yours?
I’ve never met such a fine lady in my life. I hope she’s been
keeping you company, back in Glour City.’

‘Something like that.
We’ve been working together on the draykon mystery.’

Mrs Geslin nodded
knowledgeably. Tren had already told her the whole story; he felt
she deserved to know, even if some those details weren’t strictly
to be released to the public. ‘She might’ve known she was welcome
to come with you. I was a mite snappish when we met before, I’ll
admit, but she’ll overlook that.’

Tren smiled inwardly at
the idea that Eva had only stayed away out of politeness. ‘I’m sure
it’s not that. She’s getting married tomorrow.’ He managed to say
it smoothly, without betraying any particular feeling about it.

‘Oh?’ Mrs Geslin sat
back and looked at him appraisingly. ‘To who?’

‘Lord Vale. He’s the
chief of Glour’s investigative force.’

That statement seemed
to remind her of the vast gulf in status between herself and Lady
Glostrum, for she dropped her gaze and nodded. Lady Glostrum was
not just another of her son’s friends; she was a peer in her own
right. It was a distinction that Tren had never managed to forget,
in spite of the friendly way Eva herself always treated him.

‘I just hope she hasn’t
misled you, my Tren,’ Mrs Geslin said finally. ‘These white-haired
girls...’

She didn’t finish the
sentence. They both knew that Ed himself had been thoroughly misled
by Ana, the white-haired sorceress who had woken the draykon.

Tren shrugged, not
liking this turn in the conversation. ‘She’s happy. Is there
somewhere I can sleep tonight? The sofa will be fine. I’d like to
be off at moonrise.’

‘Of course. Mindra will
find you some blankets.’ Her eldest girl nodded enthusiastically
and was gone in an instant. The other two stopped squabbling and
grinned at him in a manner he found mildly unnerving.

‘Where are you off to?’
Mrs Geslin began clearing plates and he stood to help her.

‘Ah, well... it’s about
the draykon research. When we were in the Lowers, we found some
interesting things that I never got chance to look into.’

‘Tren Warvel. Never
tell me you’re going back into the Lowers, and without her
ladyship?’

‘It’s important,’ he
said defensively.

‘So important that it
can’t wait until after her wedding?’

‘Yes.’ It sounded lame
as he said it.

He followed her as she
walked back to the kitchen, a stack of plates in her hands, shaking
her head in disapproval. ‘I never understood why some young men are
so anxious to get themselves into trouble.’

‘I won’t get into
trouble. I know how to manage down there.’

She fixed him with a
hard stare. ‘All I’m saying, Tren, is if you get yourself killed
too I will... Well, I...’ she trailed off, looking suddenly so sad
and afraid that Tren almost lost his nerve.

‘I’ll be all right,’ he
said, giving her what he hoped was a confident smile. ‘And I won’t
stay long. I’ll come right back, I promise, and let you know I’m
still alive.’

She nodded, subdued.
‘Mind you do. I’ll be waiting.’

Leaving the Geslin
house early the next morning, Tren didn’t proceed immediately with
his plan to return to the Lowers. He had another errand to complete
first.

He took a public
carriage to the other side of the populous town of Westrarc. On the
outskirts of the settlement was the premises of Lawch & Son,
the light-globe manufactory that Mrs Geslin was now involved with.
The establishment proved to be a large one, but it didn’t take him
long to find the information he needed. Stepping inside the office,
he introduced himself to the dapper clerk as a representative of
the Glostrum Estate.

The man’s face lit up
with instant recognition. ‘Ah, marvellous! It’s some time since we
received word from her ladyship.’