Lokant (18 page)

Something in the
woman’s tone warned Eva that she wouldn’t like Tren’s plans. ‘I
expect he didn’t want to bother me,’ she replied smoothly. ‘I’ve
been much occupied with government meetings of late,
unfortunately.’

Mrs Geslin wasn’t
convinced. ‘Seems it’s an important matter to leave unmentioned.
It’s not like my Tren to be inconsiderate and forget to tell these
things to folks as care about him.’

Eva winced inwardly.
That comment hurt. ‘I certainly care about Tren’s whereabouts and
welfare, Mrs Geslin. I’ve been concerned about him since I received
his note. In it he only said that he had an urgent errand to attend
to. His departure was, I admit, unexpected.’

Mrs Geslin shifted in
her chair. ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ she said. ‘If Tren
didn’t tell you himself, mayhap he didn’t wish for you to
know.’

Eva was growing nervous
now, but she hid it behind her usual unflappable manner. ‘I collect
that he’s doing something of which I would disapprove. Is that
right?’

Mrs Geslin sagged
suddenly, her face revealing her tiredness. ‘Seems there’s nothing
as can keep our boys safe,’ she murmured. ‘Not when they’re
determined to get themselves into difficult situations. He told me
about your research, Lady Glostrum. He said it was no use wasting
any more time in the city; that you weren’t finding anything. Not
when those books you found are gone.’

Eva had a sudden
premonition. ‘He didn’t... he went looking for the books, didn’t
he?’

‘He said maybe the
books were taken back to where they was found. Or if not, maybe
there’s more as can be uncovered there, if a man were to be
determined enough to go looking.’

‘
Determined
enough?’
Eva repeated, her voice rising. Her heart sank like a
rock, then began to beat hard with fear. She knew without asking
that Tren had gone back to the enigmatic tower they’d found, a
building stranded in the middle of the Lowers that appeared and
disappeared with the changing of the moon. He may have to find -
and fight - his way through many Changes before he reached the
tower, and then what? They knew almost nothing about it. It had
been deserted when they had been there before, but it might not be
this time.

She found her voice at
last. ‘How could he have gone alone?’ To her dismay, her mask of
smoothness had abandoned her; her voice betrayed her feelings.

Mrs Geslin nodded with
some private satisfaction. ‘It’s clear there’s more to all this
than I’m aware of, your ladyship, and I can’t answer that question.
But believe me, if I’d known he was going without your knowledge
I’d have made sure you were informed.’

That explained the
slight chill in Mrs Geslin’s manner when Eva had first arrived. She
had thought that Eva had consented to Tren’s expedition, willingly
leaving him without help or support. The thought was a mortifying
one.

‘He didn’t take anyone
else along?’

Mrs Geslin shook her
head. ‘He said you’d disapprove of him sharing all your findings
with random folk, and he wasn’t sure who he could trust. He wasn’t
sure who
you
would trust. He was confident he could manage
alone.’

Of course he was. She
could believe that all too well of cheerful, sanguine-tempered
Tren. He would expect good and hope for better. She rose
decisively.

‘Then there is no time
to be wasted. I apologise for the brevity of my visit, Mrs Geslin,
though I’m sure you understand.’

‘You take some care,
Lady Glostrum. I’ve a notion you’re the last person Tren would want
to see hurt on his account.’

It was the work of a
moment to guess where Tren had gone. He would retrace their steps,
following the route that had taken them to the tower the last time.
He of course could open a gate if he arrived to find the old one
had gone; she would simply have to hope that it remained open.
Luckily, this time she was not tracking anyone; she would not have
to travel all the way on foot. Directing her coachman to convey her
to the nearest possible road, Eva sat back to wait, most
impatiently, for the beginning of her next journey into the
Lowers.

Devary Kant slipped
into the grounds of Draetre’s University of Magic at such an early
hour that the sun had not yet risen. After days of travel and only
a few hours of sleep, he was tired, but he felt he had little time
to waste.

He entered the building
with the casual air of a regular visitor - as indeed he had been,
once. He wanted to check the library’s catalogue; he knew first
hand that the university held some unusual texts, because he had
helped to build that collection, and not always by entirely
above-board methods. But first he had to talk to someone.

He wasn’t surprised to
find that Professor Indren Druaster was already in her office. She
was notoriously dedicated - obsessive, even - and she was always
the first person to arrive and the last to leave. Devary wondered
sometimes what she did at the university during the lonely hours of
the early morning and late night. He knocked on her door and
entered.

She looked up with an
air of annoyance, but that expression quickly changed to surprise
on seeing him.

‘Devary, what a
pleasure.’

‘Professor.’ He crossed
to her desk, picked up one of her hands and kissed it. As he had
hoped, her manner warmed immediately. She had always liked those
little gestures. He smiled and took a seat without waiting for an
invitation.

‘Devary, dear, I can’t
tell you how glad I am to see you well.’ She paused, studying him
with narrowed eyes. ‘You
are
recovered, I suppose?’

‘Oh, quite. Thank you.’
He watched her closely, looking for anything unusual in her
manner.

‘Ah... good. I had
heard that your injuries were severe. I’m relieved to see that
report was in error.’

Devary didn’t answer.
He and Indren had been colleagues and friends for years, but lately
he didn’t know who at the university he could trust. He had no
intention of telling her any more than was necessary for his
immediate purposes.

‘So, how is that nice
little girl you brought with you last time?’

Interesting. Was there
a reason she had brought up the topic of Llandry so quickly, or was
it a coincidence? ‘She is fine, as far as I know.’

Indren made a soft
clucking noise of disapproval. ‘Poor girl, what a mess she got
herself into. Why did you bring her along, anyway?’

‘That is not important.
Indren, I need to know if you talked to anyone about Llandry.’

The teasing manner she
often adopted with him faded into a cool stare. ‘With “anyone”? You
know I am obliged to report all of the university’s doings to my
superiors.’

Devary sighed inwardly.
‘And who are those people?’

‘You know them as well
as I do.’

‘No. I don’t believe I
do. I think that you endangered Llandry by speaking of her to your
bosses.’

If he expected surprise
from her, he was disappointed. What did surprise
him,
however, was a trace of fear in her eyes.

‘This... isn’t a good
place to discuss these things, Dev.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s
nowhere I can go that I won’t be watched, so I’m unconcerned.’

She paled. ‘You’ve been
tracered?’

Another shock of
surprise. ‘Tracered. Yes. So I am told.’

‘You’ve been promoted,
then.’ She smiled slightly. ‘In which case you’re in a position to
tell
me
more.’

He blinked. Llandry’s
attacker had spoken of his being considered for promotion at one
time... ‘Promoted? I don’t think so. But I don’t know what you’re
talking about, Indren.’

She shook her head. ‘If
you’ve been tracered, it amounts to the same thing.’

‘What?’

Indren stood up. ‘Walk
with me.’ The sun was beginning to rise outside, lightening the
grounds to a dull grey. Devary followed Indren out of the building
and onto the well-kept grass around the university premises.

‘Why are you asking me
these questions, Dev?’ she began once they were clear of the
building.

He related to her the
latest attempt to capture Llandry, and how it had ended. He sensed
a palpable tension from her when he described the man who had
almost taken her.

‘I don’t know what you
did to attract his attention, but you’re in trouble,’ she said when
he had finished.

‘Who? Who is he?’

‘I don’t know much
about him,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘He’s known as Krays.
He’s not often seen; I think he’s a higher-up, doesn’t usually
dirty his hands with the grunt work. If he’s after Llandry in
person, then she is in more trouble than ever.’

Divining from this that
Indren knew nothing about Krays’s purpose in seeking Llandry,
Devary’s heart sank. He asked her anyway.

‘He is not the type to
share his motivations,’ she said wryly. ‘But...’ she hesitated.
‘Understand, I am not supposed to share this information. You did
not get it from me.’

He promised.

‘I saw him once, last
moon. He came into the office late at night, ordered me to drop all
of my current lines of enquiry and take up a new research.
Genealogy.’

‘...
genealogy?’

‘I know.’ She smirked.
‘Not our usual area of expertise. He said he wanted the lineage of
all the most powerful magical practitioners traced back as far as
possible. Then broadened, to identify any individuals with similar
genealogy but who aren’t trained. Did I understand that Llandry’s
an untrained summoner?’

Devary nodded warily.
‘A strong one, I think.’

Indren sighed. ‘Before
you ask me, no, I don’t know what all of this is intended to
discover. But it seems to me that what we’re really looking for is
people with similar lineage to Llandry. A lot of powerful sorcerers
or summoners in their family trees. We’re finding mostly summoners
in Glinnery and Irbel and more sorcerers in the Darklands,
generally speaking, but of course there’s some crossover. And there
are more untrained people with the potential to be significant than
you might think.’

Devary nodded. He could
follow the logic, as far as it went; the sorcerer and summoner
training schools would have full records for all of their students,
but people like Llandry who had never attended an academy would
have passed unnoticed. And it had long been known, or at least
suspected, that magical ability was largely hereditary.

He was silent for a few
moments as his mind clicked through the possibilities. ‘They’re
looking for people with similar abilities as Llandry,’ he
concluded. ‘But there are many summoners across the Seven, so it
isn’t her strength as a summoner that’s significant about her.’

Indren finished the
thought for him. ‘Llandry is the only known practitioner who can
metamorphose into draykon form. This is staggering to the magical
community; until a moon or so ago we weren’t even sure that
draykons had ever existed, not in the way they were represented in
legend. So questions were asked. Is it something all summoners have
the potential to do? But Llandry is untrained. The likelihood of
her spontaneously discovering that on her own seems small, and we
would have expected to see some level of shape-shifting occurring
elsewhere before now. So it must be something unique to Llandry
that grants her that ability.’

‘But it might not be
unique, merely very rare.’

She nodded. ‘It was
suggested that there may be some form of mutation in her biology
that allows for it. That makes me concerned for Llandry. If what
you say is true, that Krays himself is after her, then the
consequences of capture will be severe.’

Devary frowned. ‘A
mutation? But what of the other draykon?’

‘Precisely. We
currently have
two
live draykons on our hands: one is
Llandry, and the other, as I understand it, is the creature whose
bones were spread over the Seven and subsequently reunited and
restored. I heard a whisper that somebody from this department was
involved in that, but I haven’t been able to confirm it.’

To hear Indren talking
like an agent was disconcerting. She had never been part of that
side of the faculty; people like Devary brought the information to
her, and she analysed it. Things had clearly changed.

‘It has been posited
that Llandry may have effectively created the form herself out of
her own imagination, based on the old stories. But the existence of
the second draykon refutes this notion. What we appear to have here
is a so far inexplicable link between an ancient, extinct species
and a human girl of twenty.’

‘That is another
question,’ Devary remarked. ‘I have never previously heard of an
extinct species being resurrected, not until the last couple of
moons. Then suddenly we were seeing it happening repeatedly.’

Indren nodded
enthusiastically. ‘Yes. There have been a lot of reports - most
confirmed - of previously extinct species coming through the rogue
gates from Lowers and Uppers both. We might have been mistaken in
some cases; perhaps they were merely rare, not extinct. But it
seems unlikely that this explanation applies to all of them: some
fifteen species at least. And for them to appear all at once? It
has not been accomplished by any known ability. However...’ She
stopped walking, her eyes travelling up Devary’s form to his face.
‘I’ve never heard of a man, near death, being well enough to travel
alone less than a moon later either.’

Devary took her hand.
‘Indren, we’ve been friends for years. Can I trust you?’

‘I won’t willingly
betray you to Krays, if that is what you’re asking.’ She was
affronted at the idea, but Devary ignored that.

‘Krays healed me. He
took me somewhere, I don’t know where, but some deathly silent
place where I didn’t see a soul except him, once. I don’t know what
happened. I woke up, whole and healthy.’ He told her about his
escape from Krays’s unknown infirmary.