Orlind (48 page)

‘
Leave
it and use Rikbeek?’ Llandry suggested.

‘
No
good,’ Eva said. ‘I’d need an army of Rikbeeks to see enough of
what’s going on, and besides I think the fog may interfere with
him, too. Tren, can you handle invisibility on five people at
once?’

‘
If I
have to,’ he said, ‘but it’ll take all my
concentration.’

‘
Then
that’s your task, please. Keep it up as long as you can. If he
can’t see us he can’t stop us.’

‘
Right.’ Nobody spoke or moved for a few minutes while Tren
worked his sorcerer magic upon them. ‘Done,’ he said at
length.

‘
Thank
you. Drayks, get rid of the fog, please.’

Llandry wondered
briefly whether the task would be as simple as that sounded, fog
being both all-pervasive and incorporeal. But it required only a
light touch to send the fog streaming away. The indigo sky cleared,
revealing faint stars, echoes of the two moons of the Lowers and a
shadow of the Uppers sun all crowding the heavens.

And other things.
The fog had muffled sound as well as sight; once it was gone the
distant buzz of machinery reached her ears and overhead soared the
dark shapes of flyers. In shape and form - as far as she could see
in the twilight - they differed from Irbel’s constructs, but the
principle was the same. Fear clutched at her as she thought,
perhaps they simply wished to destroy the Library after all. She
waited, tense, for the sound of gunfire, but none came.

Instead, as she
looked at the plane a dark figure dropped from it and fell away
towards the rock of the island. Something like a gathered sail
blossomed over the figure’s head and the headlong fall slowed to a
gentle descent.

Once the newcomer
was safe on the ground, the flyer began dropping a series of
smaller objects at intervals, each one’s descent supported in the
same way. That these were Krays’s energy collectors she didn’t
doubt. And was that Krays himself, running to intercept each one as
it reached the ground? He was fitting them together, working fast;
with every new device that reached him the construct he was
building grew larger.

‘
We
need to get in the way of that,’ Eva said calmly, her voice pitched
low. ‘What can we do about that flying machine?’

‘
There’s more than one,’ Llandry said, noticing another dark
shape coming into view over the edge of the island.

‘
Okay,’ Eva murmured. ‘If each machine is carrying several of
those devices, we’d do best to destroy the flyers before they can
drop too many of them. Tren, do you think you can maintain the
invisibility if they shift to draykon form?’

‘
Maybe,’ Tren said, a note of desperation in the
word.

‘
Why
don’t we each take care of our own visibility?’ Llandry
suggested.

Eva looked at
her. ‘You can do that?’

She nodded. ‘We
experimented with it before. Though it might be hard to keep it up
in this place.’

‘
Compromise,’ Tren said. ‘Use the Cloak method. It’s a simpler
matter of blending yourself into the darkness, and it’s just dark
enough out here to pull it off.’ Tren explained the process,
talking fast. ‘Pensould, try it first?’ he finished. ‘Tell me when
you think you’ve got it.’

‘
I’m
ready,’ Pense said right away.

Tren lifted his
brows but didn’t argue. ‘All right, the invis is gone. How’s that
looking?’

Llandry could
tell from Pense’s voice where he was in relation to herself.
Staring at that spot, she could faintly see a hint of movement, but
it was like the natural shift of shadows in the twilight. If she
hadn’t been looking for him, she doubted she would have noticed
anything.

‘
Great,’ Tren said with relief. ‘Llan next.’

It took her a few
moments longer to get the hang of it, but once she grew comfortable
with the process she found she could maintain it without wasting
too much concentration on it.

But while she’d
been working at it, Pense had already shape-shifted and
gone.

‘
In
the air, Llan, if you’re ready,’ Eva murmured. ‘Pensould went for
the flyer to your left.’ Looking up and to the left Llan saw the
machine she meant.

‘
Going,’ she said. Shape-shifting while holding on to her Night
Cloak was tricky, and in her haste she almost ruined it. But soon
she was in her draykoni shape and still - she hoped - shrouded from
sight.

On my way,
Pense,
she told him, unnerved by the fact that she couldn’t see
him.

Hurry,
he
replied.
The machine has dropped one device already and is
readying a second. I will attack before it can release
another.

Llandry was happy
to hurry, but she had another problem to deal with first. How could
she safely fly in this topsy-turvy, inside-out space? Merely
remaining upright on her two human feet was challenge enough.
Remembering their flight in, she shivered. If she took off when she
wasn’t ready, her confusion of mind would send her plummeting back
to the ground in short order. Eterna was right: Orlind was
particularly dangerous to draykoni.

Rework the
pattern, Minchu,
Pensould told her urgently.
As I have
taught you. It is hard, but you are strong enough.

Rework the
pattern. It sounded so simple when he said it that way, but it
wasn’t. She would have a difficult time unravelling the mess that
was Orlind, before she could impose any semblance of order upon it.
But needs must. She rushed to comply, reworking the fabric of the
world around her, forcing it to confirm once more to ordinary rules
of up and down, untangling the confused mess of Iskyr and Ayrien
and Irtand until she stood in a little space that made
sense.
The pressure on her confused brain eased and she
could stand without struggle.

So far so good.
Now she just had to accomplish that trick while flying, constantly
reordering every piece of sky that she flew through to maintain the
clarity that she needed to stay aloft. Panic gripped her at the
very idea. It wasn’t a matter of strength alone; she would have to
do about six things at the same time!

She couldn’t
delay any longer. Pensould needed her help, and every moment that
she hesitated allowed Krays to proceed that much further with his
plans. Steeling herself, she rose a few feet into the air, pushing
her reordered pattern onto her surroundings as she did
so.

She quickly
realised that she could hold that pattern in her mind and project
it outwards with reasonable success. The effect was only a fleeting
change; underneath the realm remained impossibly tangled and
chaotic. But a brief alteration was all that she needed as she
sailed through. Calming herself with a deeply indrawn breath, she
fixed the pattern in her thoughts and steadied herself. She could
do this.

Minchu!

Llandry flew hard
to catch up with Pensould. She wobbled a little halfway along, when
her concentration slipped for an instant and panic rushed back in.
But she caught herself and flew on.

Go for the
wings,
Pensould said as she neared the machine he was preparing
to attack.
I’ll take the one on the left, you the
right.

Whose
right?

The
machine’s right, when it’s facing forward.

All right.
Llandry got into position near the assigned wing.

Do it now!
came Pensould’s cry.

Llandry dived at
the flying machine’s fragile-looking wing, prepared for it to be
stronger than it looked. The machine was only half her size, but it
was fast and she couldn’t tell what defences it might
have.

She thought about
trying to tear off the wing, but it was made from a sleek metal
that she guessed would be hard to grip with her smooth talons. So
she settled for crashing into the protrusion from directly above,
allowing her full weight to collide with it. A satisfying
splintering sound resulted and the wing dipped low, half torn
off.

The flyer began
to fall and she spun away, checking to make sure her Cloak was
still intact. Pensould was still invisible, but she could see that
he’d made short work of the flyer’s other wing. The machine
dropped, spinning, and crashed into the rock below. Smoke billowed
up, obscuring her view of the wreck.

Not enough
altitude!
came Pensould’s voice.
That will not be enough to
destroy all the devices as well as the machine. I’m going for
them.

Llan would have
helped, but that would be dangerous when she couldn’t see him; they
might collide. So she hung back, watching in fascination as a
bundle of the cloth-wrapped devices rose into the air apparently of
their own accord. They floated high, higher still, until they were
further up than the flying machine had been. Then Pense released
them and they went plummeting back down.

The noise of
impact was terrific. Staring down at the twisted mess of machinery
scattered across the rock, Llan doubted that it would be possible
to reassemble those constructs.

Looking around
for Krays, she saw ... nothing. A quick circuit around the island
confirmed her fears: he wasn’t here. That meant one of two
possibilities. He may have already gone into the Library, in which
case she couldn’t guess what might happen next. Or he had realised
he was dealing with a Cloaked enemy, and had used his stolen
draykon magics to conceal himself in the same way. Could he do
that? Were his new abilities that strong?

She didn’t know,
but that would be bad news indeed. If their invisibility protected
them from harm, Krays’s also shielded him from their interference.
They wouldn’t even know what he was doing, let alone find an
opportunity to interfere with him.

She relayed this
to Pensould, hoping he had seen something of Krays. He had
not.

Keep at the
flyers,
she told him.
I’m going to talk with
Eva.

She flew as
silently as she could back to the place they had left Eva and Tren,
and shifted back to human form. ‘
Eva,’
she
hissed.

No
answer.

‘
Eva?
Tren?’

Wandering in
circles revealed no sign of them. And what of Ori? She hadn’t heard
from him since she and Pensould had gone after the flyer. Was he
with Eva?

Ori!

She sent the cry
as far as she could, hoping he would hear her, wherever he had
gone. When no answer came, she called a second time, still more
urgently.

Stop shrieking
like that, Llan,
Ori replied at last, sounding irritable.
Krays Cloaked and we are after him. Eva says you and Pensould
should carry on with the flyers.

All right,
but
-

Can’t
talk more, sorry! Just keep intercepting those devices!

Llandry sighed,
but she let him go. She would have to trust that the three of them
could handle Krays, and that she and Pense could handle the flying
machines between them.

More
machines,
Pensould reported.
And they are firing. Needing
help, Minchu.

With a start, she
recognised the harsh staccato sounds she was hearing as gunfire.
The flyers had realised they were under attack from an airborne
enemy, then, and were defending themselves. Her task was only
getting harder. But if this was to be her contribution to the
fight, she would give it everything she had.

Coming to
you,
she told Pensould and donned her draykon form once more.
Securing her Cloak, she leapt into the air.

***

Eva had almost
followed Llandry’s example and left her animal companion behind.
But while Sigwide was fragile, easily hurt and unlikely to
contribute much to their task, Rikbeek was another
matter.

Now she was
relieved that she had brought him along.

It was Tren who
had first realised that Krays might conceal himself. They had had
no confirmation that Krays’s attempts to usurp draykon magic had
succeeded, but if they
had
, Tren pointed out, he would be
quick to follow their example and adopt some form of
invisibility.

Tren had been
right. As the first flying machine came crashing down, Eva had kept
her eyes on the dark figure working feverishly on the ground. He
had looked up at the sound of the crash... and then
vanished.

Ori was preparing
to assist Llandry and Pensould, but she stopped him. ‘Stay with us,
Ori. We may need you in a minute.’ Inwardly she was cursing herself
for not anticipating this. Her strategy was already in tatters;
instead of Pensould, who was strong and capable of acting alone,
they had only Ori by himself. He was strong, too, but he was also
the least experienced of the three draykoni. He’d had little time
to accustom himself to his abilities. If it came to a face-to-face
battle with Krays, would he be able to hold his own?

Well, it was too
late to fix the situation. Pensould was urgently busy. If she tried
to swap him and Ori now, the flying machines would be dropping more
devices while the pressure eased on them and Krays would be quick
to take advantage of that. She would have to have faith in
Ori.