Orlind (17 page)

Griel shrugged.
‘Larger than we have achieved. Always, he is unsatisfied. He wants
greater capabilities.’

Eva spoke up.
‘And you have no idea what he intends to do with these
devices?’

Griel shook his
head.

She sighed. ‘Ah
well. It was worth a try.’

‘
The
question,’ said Tren, ‘is what do we imagine our good friend will
be
able
to do with these devices? What will he do with the
collected energies, if he succeeds?’

Eva stared at Ana
and Griel, who merely stared blankly back. Her heart sank: they’d
hoped for answers, but instead they had gained more questions and
more bad news. And this felt like seriously bad news. What would a
man like Krays do with a vast natural power source? Certainly
nothing good. What new disaster was about to befall their
beleaguered cluster of worlds?

Chapter Twelve

No one was
surprised to find that the missing draykoni were not in the Middle
Realms. Llandry was relieved, though, in a way. She didn’t wish to
see any other cities suffering the same fate as Waeverleyne; and if
she was honest, she didn’t want the attention of the Seven Realms
to be divided between multiple warzones. Her home city would need
all the help they could get if it was to survive.

But when the four
draykons had crossed into Iskyr, something else had caught her
attention and distracted her from the problem at hand. She had
noticed a buzz of disturbance among the animal populations of the
Seven Realms; her summoner senses, though untrained, had fed their
distress through to her quite clearly. Once in the Off-Worlds,
though, that buzz was intolerably amplified.

She extended her
thoughts, tentatively touching her mind to that of a few of the
beasts that wandered the ground or dived through the air. Wincing,
she dragged her mind back. What she felt in their confused brains
was madness, pure and simple, the sort created by uncontrollable
fear and real panic. The collective effect hurt, and soon a fierce
headache beat at her brow.

Avane’s silent
voice sounded in her mind, full of confusion and pain.
What is
that?

Pensould dropped
back to fly beside the smaller, darker draykon. Llandry could feel
him soothing the frightened woman, explaining the situation to her
in a soft whisper. She felt for Avane, and Ori: neither of the two
had had any time to get used to their new draykon powers before
they’d been hurled into this mess.

All Llandry could
do throughout the long flight was try to filter out the clamour and
keep her mind on the search. They’d encountered the same problem in
Ayrien, and by the time their search was over all four were utterly
exhausted, body and mind.

They hadn’t found
any sign of the missing enemy.

Landing carefully
in ruined Waeverleyne, the four changed back into their human
shapes and found places to sit. Even Ori’s cheerfulness was largely
gone, eroded away by the demands of their errand.

‘
What
now?’ he said, after he’d caught his breath.

‘
Some
of us should sleep,’ Llandry said. ‘Avane for certain. You also,
Ori, if you can.’

‘
All
of us should sleep,’ Pensould interrupted.

The prospect was
tempting. Llandry’s small frame shook with weariness, and her tired
mind could barely form sentences coherently. But she couldn’t sleep
yet.

‘
I
have to report to Pa,’ she said.

Pensould sighed.
‘Then we will do that together. After which, we will sleep. Is that
an agreement?’

Llandry wanted to
keep going, but she knew she couldn’t, so she nodded. Pense wrapped
an arm around her shoulders, keeping her shaking legs from dumping
her on the ground. A gentle wave of soothing, strengthening energy
poured into her and she jerked away.

‘
Don’t
do that!’

‘
Why
not?’ Pensould demanded. ‘You need it.’

‘
So do
you.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m
bigger and stronger than you. I can take it.’

‘
I’m
not so feeble!’ she retorted, drawing herself up. She set off
again, determined to walk the distance without aid.

And she did, too,
all the way to Aysun’s impromptu engineering workshop (albeit only
a short distance). Within, activity was still high. Llandry spotted
her father on the far side, bending over some large and
violent-looking piece of half-constructed machinery. Three other
Irbellian engineers were crouched around the thing. Whatever they
were doing looked delicate, but as soon as Aysun saw her he came
over.

One look at her
face told him enough. He wrapped her in a quick hug, heaving a
brief sigh. ‘Well, that’s good as well as bad,’ he said. She’d left
Sigwide with her father, thinking that he wouldn’t bear the long
flight very well. The orting expressed his relief at seeing her by
sticking his nose in her ear and scratching her face with his small
claws.

Ouch,
she
told him.

Sorry,
Sigwide said, full of remorse. He wagged his stubby tail, tucked
himself into the carry-pouch she always wore at her waist, and went
back to sleep.

‘
How’s
it going in here, Pa?’

He shrugged. ‘No
idea. We’re developing a few ideas, but whether they’ll do the job
is guesswork. Haven’t got a clear idea of the weak points on those
beasts.’

‘
Hm.’
An idea occurred to her, and she sneaked a sideways glance at
Pensould. For all his attempts to hide it, he was exhausted. But
maybe after he’d slept...

‘
Would
it help if you had some expert assistance?’ she said to her
father.

‘
Course.’

Llan looked up at
Pensould. This was a difficult question to ask of him. The invading
draykoni were still his people. Fighting them as individuals was
one thing; sharing the weaknesses of all draykonkind with a human
might well be another.

Fortunately he
read the question in her eyes, and she didn’t have to ask it. He
hesitated, then sighed. ‘For you, Minchu, yes.’ To her surprise, he
cupped her face in his hands and dropped a light kiss on her mouth.
Then he turned to her father.

‘
I
must sleep, a little. Then I will return to assist your
team.’

Aysun’s weary
face registered a flicker of relief. ‘Thank you.’

Pensould nodded.
Taking Llan’s hand, he led her away from the workshop.

‘
I’m
sorry, Pensould,’ she began, but he waved her apology
away.

‘
This
was not of your making. We will all have to make some difficult
choices before the end.’

Llandry woke a
few hours later, still tired but more alert. She’d relayed her
findings to Eva via her father’s voice-box, and now the problem of
the missing draykoni lay in Eva’s hands. Her ladyship had promised
to do everything possible to determine whether the disappearance
had anything to do with Krays. For her part, Llandry couldn’t think
of anything else she and her fellow hereditaries could do to
discover them. She’d have to leave it alone for now.

But the draykoni
weren’t their only problem. The burned forests and ruined buildings
of Waeverleyne were crawling with beasts driven mad. The city’s
summoners had been working tirelessly, day after day, to control
the situation, but their options were limited. Only a handful were
as powerful as Lady Eva, or as Llandry herself; the rest lacked the
strength to control the more powerful creatures for long. They’d
teamed up with the sorcs to get gates opened and beasts dispatched
back to Iskyr, but this was only a temporary solution. Holes were
still ripping their way through the flimsy barriers between the
worlds, forming rogue gates which brought more beasts through to
Glinnery. For every animal sent back, at least one more appeared
somewhere else. The beasts were causing a lot of damage: they kept
the defenders of Waeverleyne too busy to rest and prepare
themselves for the return of the enemy.

But there was
Rheas. Llandry’s puzzling grandfather had untold tricks up his
sleeves, things he’d learned during his twenty-something-year
sojourn in the Upper Realm of Iskyr. Somehow he’d managed to keep
his own home free of the raging creatures, and Llan was determined
he’d show her how to do the same in Waeverleyne.

And if he knew of
a way to calm them down altogether, he’d tell her that,
too.

She found him
camped out in the remains of someone’s house, near to Aysun’s home.
At her indignation Rheas merely shrugged. ‘They aren’t using it
anymore.’

Llandry hoped the
owners had been evacuated rather than killed. Someday they might
return to reclaim what had once been a neat, comfortable dwelling
halfway up the trunk of a medium-sized glissenwol tree. Most of the
walls were still intact, though parts of the ceiling had fallen
in.

‘
We
need to go down,’ she told him. ‘Avane can’t fly, and there aren’t
stairs.’ That thought made her frown. ‘Wait. How did you and Mags
get up here?’

‘
Never
mind that,’ he said impatiently. ‘Who is Avane, and why can’t she
fly?’

‘
She’s
another draykon-human, and she’s from Glour.’

‘
So I
suppose she’s also blind.’

‘
No.
Limbane gave her glasses.’

‘
You
and the blond fellow can bring her up.’

‘
Ori,’
she sighed. ‘All right, we’ll try.’

Luckily, Avane
wasn’t much taller than Llandry herself, and she wasn’t heavy. She
suffered the indignity of being hauled up the glissenwol trunk in
silence. Llan hoped they hadn’t hurt her on the way.

Rheas stared at
the three of them in silence. ‘And,’ he said after a while, ‘why
have you brought me these people?’

‘
Grandfather,
’ Llandry said, already losing her
patience, ‘we’re here to learn whatever you’ve got to teach us.
You’ll have noticed there’s a problem still raging on out
there.’

‘
I
agreed to help, not to teach a ragtaggle bunch of
beginners.’

Ori stiffened in
annoyance at that. He’d gone almost all the way through summoner
training before he’d had to go into hiding, and he was very
talented. Avane, on the other hand, was truly a beginner at
everything but sorcery, and she felt her lack of experience sorely.
As usual, Rheas was ruining the hopes and spirits of everyone
around him.

‘
If
you could do it by yourself, why haven’t you already?’ Llandry said
coldly.

Rheas’s lips
stretched in a thin smile. ‘It takes time.’

‘
It’ll
take less time if five of us are working on it.’

Mags appeared
behind Rheas, laid a gentle hand on his arm and stretched up to
whisper something in his ear. Whatever it was didn’t improve his
temper, but it did change his mind.

‘
Fine,’ he growled.

Mags’s only
response to Llandry’s questioning look was a comfortable
smile.

‘
Start
with you,’ Rheas said, pointing at Llandry. ‘Fetch your
friend.’

She blinked.
‘Which friend?’

‘
The
one with the fur,’ he said, speaking insultingly slowly.

Oh... he meant
Sigwide. The orting was asleep in his carry-pouch again, but he
roused quickly enough when she lifted him out.

Food?
he
said.

Not
yet. Later.

Disappointed, he
twisted in her grip and she set him down on the floor.

‘
No!’
Rheas barked. ‘Pick him up. You’ll need some contact.’

She gathered
Siggy up again.

Rheas glared at
her. ‘I can’t understand why you need to be taught,’ he grumbled.
‘You’re on the edge of it already but apparently you need to be
nursed through these things.’

That stung, but
Llandry stiffened her resolve to avoid a fight.

‘
Rheas,’ Mags said in her gentle way.

His eyes flicked
toward her, and back to Llandry. ‘Fact is, you can only get so far
with ordering them around. Got to make yourself the same. Then you
can get them to do anything.’

‘
Okay,’ said Llan. ‘How do I do that?’

Rheas tapped his
head. ‘Put yourself in his place. You blend your mind with his, you
become the same being for a while.’

She blinked. He
made it sound so simple.

Well, perhaps it
was.

Gentling Sigwide
in her hands, she reached out for his thoughts the way she always
did. This had become so much easier since she’d come in to her
draykon powers; she could now communicate with him much better than
she ever had before. They held conversations, albeit simple ones.
She still wasn’t sure whether the simplicity was down to Sigwide’s
being, essentially, a simple creature, or whether she still wasn’t
adept at talking with him.

She tried to get
closer, imagining some way of joining her thoughts and his. Sigwide
merely stared back at her, his mind remaining stubbornly separate.
She kept up the attempt until her head ached, without success. She
couldn’t sink any further into his flitting thoughts.