Orlind (12 page)

Avane nodded on
her way past, her dark curls bobbing. ‘Limbane showed
me.’

‘
Could
you meet us there? It’s the only place big enough for four
draykoni.’

‘
Definitely,’ Avane said. ‘Ten minutes.’ She collected up a
selection of Lyerd’s toys, then disappeared out the
door.

Orillin picked
himself up off the floor, dusting down his clothes. ‘What’s the
chart room?’

‘
Oh,’
Llan said, surprised. ‘I thought Limbane would show
you.’

‘
He
said he didn’t have time for a full tour.’

‘
I
could explain, but it’d be better to just go straight there and
have a look at it.’

‘
Very
well, milady,’ Orillin said with a bow. ‘Lead on!’

Llandry opened
her mouth to object - she was no lady! - but she shut it again.
Orillin’s manner was teasing, though not in a cruel way. He
probably hadn’t meant it seriously.

Keeping her
fingers linked through Pensould’s, she led the way to the chart
room.

The sheer size of
it always took her aback, even though she’d been here many times
before. The ceiling rose and rose, so far above her head she could
barely see the domed shape that it took at its very top. The width
and length of the room were immeasurable, or so it seemed. The
walls were actually screens, covered in names; once in a while the
lists updated themselves with new entries, or existing entries
developed colour.

‘
It’s
a genealogy tracking system,’ Llandry explained as Orillin began
wandering the walls. ‘Draykon and Lokant blood. We’ll find you on
here, somewhere.’

‘
Amazing!’ Orillin enthused. ‘And the colours mean?’

‘
Blue
for summoners, purple for sorcs. Silver means Lokant heritage, gold
is draykoni.’

Orillin thought
about that. ‘So my name would be...’

‘
Gold
and blue, mostly. Like mine.’

He whirled to
face her, beaming. ‘That’s true! I forgot we were related. Cousins
of some sort, I suppose, a few times removed?’ He trotted back to
her, his hand out. ‘Well-met, Cousin!’ He shook her hand with an
enthusiasm she couldn’t quite match. His eagerness was a little
disconcerting.

‘
I’ve
never had a cousin before,’ she offered.

‘
Oh, I
have a few,’ Orillin said. ‘Didn’t like most of them, though. Stuck
up people. You aren’t stuck up, I hope?’

Llan blinked.
‘Um. I hope not.’

He looked at her
narrowly. ‘Just shy, I think. That’ll soon pass. We’re bound to be
friends, and I’m relying on you to make sense out of this
craziness.’

She laughed a
bit. ‘As soon as I can make sense of it myself, I’ll be happy to.
But I’m not sure how long
that
will take. As far as I can
tell, the Lokants delight in refusing to make sense.’

He grinned.
‘Limbane’s a tricky one, that’s for certain. And that other one,
the woman? Andraly?
Scary!’

Orillin’s manner
was interesting. He didn’t try to put her at ease or to make her
comfortable. He didn’t try to be kind at all. He merely treated her
as if they were already the best of friends.

To her surprise,
it was working pretty well. Already her discomfort was
fading.

‘
I
can’t call you Cousin forever,’ Orillin was saying. ‘Do you prefer
Llandry, or something else?’

‘
Llan,’ she said. ‘That’s what people usually call me.’ Not
many people - only her parents and Devary - but she supposed it
still qualified as a nickname.

‘
Llan,’ he repeated, then pointed at himself. ‘Ori. My parents
called me Lin for a while, but it sounded girly so I asked them to
stop.’

She grinned.
‘When was that?’

‘
I was
five.’

She chuckled. He
could be strong-minded, then, in spite of his cheeriness of
temper.

Avane arrived as
Ori and Pensould were acquainting themselves with one another.
She’d detected a touch of suspicion in Pensould’s manner when Ori
was around, recognising it as jealousy waiting to erupt. Hopefully
Ori’s completely unthreatening personality would put his mind at
rest. Her cousin wanted her for a friend, nothing more.

‘
Let’s
sit down for a minute,’ she said, and waited while the other three
collected themselves around her. She looked at Ori, then at Avane.
‘How much has anyone told you about the situation in
Glinnery?’

‘
Bits
and pieces,’ Avane said.

‘
Almost nothing,’ said Ori.

‘
Well,
let’s start there.’ She recounted the whole story, starting with
the draykon - Isand - that she and Pensould had woken, and
everything the enraged creature had said. No one interrupted as she
explained the ensuing series of events, right up until the meeting
in Rheas’s house.

Finally, she
looked at Avane, who came from the Darklands. ‘Isand spoke of
Glour, or Everum as she calls it. They want it, but as far as I
know they’ve focused on Glinnery first. Hopefully we can stop them
before they turn on the other realms.’

Avane nodded, her
dark eyes wide. ‘I’m willing to help. Whatever I can
do.’

‘
Me as
well,’ Ori said, all traces of fun gone from his manner. ‘How are
the defences holding in Waeverleyne?’

‘
I
don’t know. We have a voice-box connection to my father, but it’s
either broken or he’s too busy to answer.’
Or dead,
a dark
voice insisted on whispering at the back of her mind. She stepped
on it. ‘Our task is to train you two. Once you’ve mastered
draykon-shape, we’ll be going to Waeverleyne to do... whatever it
is we can.’

‘
Let’s
get on with it, then,’ said Ori, springing to his feet.

‘
Will
Limbane allow it?’ Avane said, rising somewhat more
decorously.

‘
Probably not,’ Llandry admitted. He was adamant that all of
them must stay in the Library, where he could protect them from
Krays. But they had their own homes to protect. ‘Eva will be coming
for us. She’ll talk him around.’

Pensould was
moving away from the group. When he’d covered a reasonable
distance, he Changed. His human shape - tall, strongly-built and
handsome - disappeared and in his place stood an enormous draykon,
scaled in blue and green.

Ori stared. So
did Avane. Neither of them had actually
seen
a draykon yet,
she realised; they’d only heard tales. What must it be like to be
told you had it in you to become such a magnificent - and
terrifying - beast? Her own Change had come upon her without
warning; she’d had to get used to it after the fact.

‘
Okay,’ Ori said slowly. ‘I think I see how it’s
done.’

That seemed
doubtful, but she didn’t object as he jogged off into an open space
and stopped, his eyes shut. Llan watched him absently, thinking.
The fact that the two of them needed training was obvious enough,
but the question of
how
exactly was a difficult one. She’d
taught Pensould to take human shape, but he’d started out with a
draykon’s instincts for the state of flux that reigned in the
Off-Worlds. How to explain all this to a pair of humans?

Her train of
thought was interrupted when something like a soundless explosion
erupted in front of her, energy streaming through the chart room
like a cyclone, taking her breath. Ori was on the ground, contorted
with pain. A scream tore from his throat.

Then he was gone.
The draykon that took his place was shimmering white and gold,
smaller than Pensould but bigger than Llan in her draykon form. She
watched, flabbergasted, as the new draykon stretched out his wings
and roared.

Wow,
said
Ori’s silent voice in her mind.
This is fun.

Llandry blinked.
He’d mastered the Change
and
the silent speech in a matter
of minutes?

How inadequate
did
she
feel.

Good work,
she replied, keeping her faint feelings of resentment hidden. He’d
had a lot of summoner training, while she hadn’t; perhaps that was
what made the difference.

Or maybe he was
just that much more brilliant than she was.

Ah
well.

‘
Avane?’

The older woman
was staring at Ori-the-draykon too, her face a mixture of awe and
trepidation.

‘
I
don’t think I can do that,’ she whispered.

That bloody
hurt,
Ori said in her head.
Does it always
hurt?

Only the first
time,
she replied.

Okay,
great! Pensould, man, teach me to fly!

She shook her
head, torn between amusement and exasperation. Turning her back on
Ori and Pensould, she took Avane away to the other end of the room.
‘You can do it,’ she said. ‘Most of it is instinctive, and those
instincts are born in all of us, even if they’re buried at the
moment. You’ll get it.’

Avane looked
paler than ever. ‘It hurt him.’

‘
Yes,’
Llan said bluntly. ‘It does hurt at first, a lot. But that
fades.’

Avane took a
breath. She’d had a child, of course. Pain wasn’t wholly unfamiliar
to her.

‘
Don’t
worry,’ Llan said, trying to be reassuring. ‘We have time. The
Library gives us that, at least. We’ll keep at it until you’re
comfortable with it.’

Avane bit her
lip. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s give it a try.’

Chapter Nine

Ana brought
Rikbeek’s tiny body up close to her face and stared at him.
‘Disgusting,’ she spat. ‘Why do you keep this thing
around?’

Eva didn’t reply.
The sight of her poor Rikbeek shrieking and struggling in that
woman’s unsympathetic grip enraged her. Without pausing to think,
she grabbed the hand that held Rikbeek and yanked, twisting it
around behind Ana’s back. She shoved it high, with almost enough
force to break the bone. She was hoping for a scream, but Ana
merely grunted.

‘
Drop
him,’ Eva snarled in her ear.

Ana’s head turned
and she shot Eva a sideways look of hate.

Eva upped the
pressure on her arm. A look of acute pain crossed Ana’s pale face
and she gasped. Her fingers opened and Rikbeek shot into the air.
The gwaystrel flew straight up, plastered himself to the ceiling
and stayed there.

‘
Thank
you.’ Eva applied one last twist to Ana’s arm for good measure,
enjoying the squeal of pain this evoked. Then she released the
woman and stepped back.

Tren was looking
at her like she’d grown an extra head.

‘
Why
are you here?’ she said to Ana, ignoring him.

Ana flashed her a
brilliant smile. ‘No! I get to ask a question first. What are
you
two doing here?’

Tren caught her
eye and shrugged, and she felt the illusion that disguised her fade
away. He was right. If she’d been recognised anyway, there was no
point in maintaining the pretence of being anything other than a
partial Lokant.

Eva thought about
lying. No easy lie was going to satisfy Ana. The last time she’d
seen Tren and Eva, she had been in the process of waking - and
trying to dominate - Pensould in his draykon form. She’d know that
no coincidence had brought them to Indren’s office.

No point lying,
then.

‘
We’re
looking for a way to destroy your former master,’ she said
bluntly.

Ana blinked, then
her eyes narrowed. Tren shifted uncomfortably, and Devary went
still. Only Indren looked on, her expression unchanged.

Eva was gambling
on Ana’s probable feelings about Krays. In resurrecting the draykon
she’d been disobeying Krays’s orders, and both she and her husband
had been punished for it. Krays had allowed her to think he’d let
her injured husband die. Probably she still thought that. Those
were some good reasons to hate a person.

‘
What
do you know of my “master”?’ Ana’s voice was thick with
suspicion.

‘
We’re
aware that he - Krays - was behind the draykon bone grab a couple
of moons ago. You and Griel were in charge of that operation, but
you put it to your own purposes instead. When Griel was injured,
you took him back to Krays’s Library; that’s why you disappeared.
You wanted him to heal your husband, but Krays was very angry with
you. He said no. Am I right so far?’

Ana said
nothing.

‘
Excellent. Krays shortened your leash somewhat after that,
didn’t he? You were last seen overseeing the removal of more
draykon bone from Iskyr. Its ultimate destination was either Ullarn
or Draetre. Krays has - or had - workshops in both places,
experimenting with the creation of some very weird technologies.
His devices combine mechanics with biological matter and draykon
bone. We don’t know what they’re for, though we know he uses some
of them as guards around his Library building. And you’re tracered,
so you’re taking a huge risk coming here. Is that
enough?’