Lokant (10 page)

Another gate offered
him passage into the Lower Realms, or so it appeared, and he
pressed on feeling encouraged, for there must also be a gate into
the Uppers.

At last he found just
such a gate. He tensed, ready to hurl himself through it, but for
an instant he paused. This collection of gates was remarkable; he
had neither seen nor heard of anything like it across the Seven. So
where was he? He would have dearly liked to remain and explore in
the hopes of answering that question; but once again concern for
Llandry spurred him onward.

He clutched at the gate
and pulled, dragging himself through the hole he had made in the
curious shroud. Gritting his teeth against the nausea that such a
gate always generated, he stepped through.

The pain hit him
halfway. He resisted the temptation to stop, suspended as he was
somewhere between wherever he had come from and wherever he was
going to. The not knowing added to his sense of disorientation and
he had to force his way out of the gate. He fell through at last
and dropped to the ground, his body a mass of pain as if the two
worlds between them sought to tear him apart.

As soon as he could
breathe again, he staggered upright and wrenched the gate closed.
Almost immediately the pain receded and the nausea ebbed away.

He stood in a sea of
moss, soft and thick and mottled in shades of yellow and green. An
enormous sun shone powerfully overhead and he soon began to sweat.
A glance at his surroundings revealed nothing on the horizons but
empty sky above and hills covered in moss below. There was nothing
to suggest a starting point, nowhere he could begin in his
search.

Still, at least he had
escaped into the Upper Realm. Stretching out the limbs so recently
creased with pain, he lifted his chin and set off in pursuit of
Ynara’s daughter.

Llandry was learning
that when two stubborn old men were placed into the same room
together, their individual stubbornness not only doubled but
increased tenfold. On the topic of any degree of reconciliation,
they were both wholly intractable. At last, dejected, Llandry fled
their mutual chill of manner and took refuge in the garden behind
Rheas’s house.

Inevitably, Pensould
followed her.

‘You see, Minchu,’ he
said, sitting on the grass at her feet, ‘where one has been
wronged, one cannot forgive. Your father understands this. Where
one has wronged, one cannot likewise forgive. Your grandfather
understands this also. Only you and the Mags expect
differently.’

‘Mags, Pensould, not
the Mags. If we think it possible, why shouldn’t they?’

‘It is because you are
female.’

Llandry bristled.
‘Don’t tell me it is because women are stupid, or inferior, or some
such nonsense.’

Pensould bristled as
well, in so like a manner that Llandry wondered if he was making
fun of her. ‘No draykon female is stupid or inferior. You are
strong, but you see things differently. And I, too, am
different.’

‘Oh? In what way are
you different? You’re a male as well.’

‘But I am no ordinary
male. I am the special and magnificent type of male which you have
never before seen. From me, you should expect marvels.’ Pensould
gave her a hopeful smile, in which he showed too much of his
teeth.

Llandry couldn’t help
smiling back. ‘Are you indeed? How fortunate that I should have met
one of those by chance.’

‘It is not chance,’
said Pensould solemnly. ‘It is fate. You are wrong to resist
me.’

‘Oh? You pursue me
because I’m the only female draykon around.’

‘Not so.’ Pensould
looked affronted.

Llandry stood up and
flexed her wings. ‘Well, anyway. I think it’s time to take Papa
home.’

Llandry waited with
anxiety as Pensould helped Aysun to seat himself on Llandry’s back.
She had never carried a human before, and this was her father; what
if she hurt him?

She hadn’t chosen to
use a gate because she didn’t want to take him straight home, not
right away. She’d come to realise how much her father had missed
out on during his years of self-imposed exile from the Uppers. It
was her home, now; she couldn’t imagine leaving it, no matter how
much she loved Glinnery and her parents. She wanted her father to
see some of its beauty, to feel the magic of the place. She hoped
he might then understand her choice.

Once in the air, she
circled away from her grandfather’s house and began a tour of some
of her favourite places in the Uppers. It took some time, for she
flew slowly to avoid hurting or losing Aysun. But it was worth it.
As they flew over lakes and waterfalls, woods and valleys,
mountains and wolds, she felt Aysun’s tension relax and his
suspicion and fear give way to wonder.

That was victory enough
for today. Careful not to overdo it, she headed for home. It was an
advantage that, for her, passage through the boundaries was
virtually seamless, with none of the nausea and pain that marred
the experience of traversing a sorcerer-wrought gate. Nonetheless,
Aysun endured it as though it were an ordeal; Llandry could feel
his tension return tenfold as he sat between her vast wings.

Ah, well. He would grow
used to that soon enough as well.

When they arrived home,
a small sea of reporters awaited them.

They were assembled
just far enough from the Sanfaer home that Ynara herself probably
couldn’t see them from the window. Llandry guessed that she had
thrown them out, but they, unbelievably, had outright disobeyed the
order of an Elder and lingered anyway. As Llandry landed gracefully
and let Aysun down from her back, the flashing lights of many
image-capture machines went off around her.

And under the onslaught
of their curiosity and their scrutiny, Llandry felt her old nerves
crowding upon her for the first time since her transformation. She
shifted back to her human form clumsily, too aware of the intrusive
gaze of her audience. Pensould however strode up to them in his
draykon form, flexing his wings and lifting his chin. He roared for
their benefit, then slowly metamorphosed into his still-imperfect
human shape, obviously relishing the attention. Grabbing his arm,
Llandry dragged him away.

‘You’re such an
exhibitionist,’ she muttered as she pulled him towards the
elevator.

‘Are you displeased?
But they are here for a show! I must not disappoint. Why are we
walking?’

‘Because you... oh.’
Previously Pensould had been wingless, like her father, but now she
noticed he had sprouted a pair of grey wings like her own.

‘I forgot, before.’

‘Well, my father must
still walk.’

‘He must grow some
wings as well. I will tell him.’ Pensould turned around to do just
that, but Llandry grabbed his hand again and pulled him back.

‘He can’t, Pensould.
For us, our human shapes are fixed.’

‘Can’t? Nonsense. For
lesser humans, perhaps, but I can feel plenty of ability in him.
Why, he is almost as much draykon as you or I, Minchu, and you too
could change this shape of yours if you wished.’

Llandry stopped,
electrified by this idea. ‘I could?’

Pensould tsked. ‘Your
education has been lacking. For you, very little is fixed. You must
learn this. If you can manipulate the world around you as you
choose – and this I have seen you do – then why not yourself
also?’

Llandry noticed
abruptly that Pensould’s colouring had improved immeasurably and
his mannerisms were becoming steadily more passable as human. He
was perfecting his image very quickly indeed. In fact he was even
learning how to make himself quite handsome by human standards.

‘That’s a horrible
idea,’ Llandry said at last. ‘Imagine if anybody could appear in
any way that they liked, changing all the time. You’d never know
who was who.’

‘Of course you would. I
know who you are because you
feel
like my Minchu. It has
nothing to do with your face.’

Llandry had no time to
reply, for they were at the door. Aysun had still said nothing at
all, and when the door opened to reveal Ynara he merely embraced
his wife and then disappeared inside. They heard the door to his
study close – not loudly, but firmly – and then silence.

Ynara looked at
Llandry. ‘It didn’t go well, I take it.’

‘Not particularly well,
no.’ She paused. ‘Although not for the reasons you might
think.’

‘It’s good to have you
home, love,’ said Ynara later, over cups of Llandry’s favourite
white alberry and freyshur tea. Sigwide lay curled contentedly in
Llandry’s lap, having exhausted himself with ecstatic greetings as
she arrived. ‘I visited your home while you were away,’ continued
Ynara. ‘It’s clean and waiting for you.’ Her eyes flicked to
Pensould, and Llandry read her thoughts clearly enough. Would
Llandry’s strange new friend be moving in there with her?

Llandry winced
inwardly, because her news was worse than that. ‘We aren’t staying,
Ma. At least not yet. See, Pensould believes there are more
draykons to be discovered. There are certainly more bones, and if
we could find and reconstruct them we could wake up more like him.
Like us, I mean. And...’ she took a deep breath, for this was the
part that truly inspired her. ‘He says there may be more like
me.’

Ynara took a long
breath too; Llandry knew she was trying to control her instinct to
object to anything that took Llandry away. ‘Like you in what way
exactly?’ was all that she said.

‘Draykons who were born
human. I can’t be the only one.’

Pensould nodded firmly.
‘I can tell, and I will teach you to recognise the draykon energy
as well.’

Llandry looked back at
her mother, knowing that her eyes were shining with delight at the
idea. ‘Don’t you see, Ma? This has changed my life. If there are
others, they have to know what they are.’

‘I can see that it has
changed you,’ Ynara said thoughtfully. She sighed, and for a moment
her face was so sad that Llandry’s resolve wavered. But she hid the
expression behind a smile. ‘How do you plan to proceed, love? It’s
a big world.’

‘Pensould says he
sensed a draykon grave not long after he woke, so we’re going to
start at his old resting place. The place where I changed. He’ll
teach me to seek them out even on the wing. Between us I’m sure
we’ll find it fast enough.’

‘Then what? How did you
wake, Pensould?’

Pensould’s thick brows
knit together. ‘Regenerative ability is something all draykons
possess. We need the help of a fellow to rebuild body structure,
and then a stimulus, and above all a reason to wake.’

‘A reason?’

Pensould nodded
emphatically. ‘Draykons are long-lived and slow to fade, hence we
may be re-awakened if we choose. But many do not choose to be drawn
out of slumber.’

Llandry frowned as
well. ‘Why wouldn’t you? Nobody wants to die.’

Pensould lifted a brow
at her. ‘No? If you think about it you will see that this is not
true. Imagine that you have been alive for many, many long years
and you are very weary. Would you not choose to rest at last?’

The thought made her
obscurely sad, but she could see the sense of it. ‘Is that what
happened with you?’

‘Yes. That was a very
long time ago, I think. I find that nothing is the same now that I
am awake again.’

‘Then why did you
choose to return?’

Pensould thought for a
moment. ‘The agent of my recovery was quite insistent. I was drawn
halfway out of slumber by sheer irritation.’ Llandry remembered the
way he had lashed out against the summoner who had awoken him. The
white-haired awakener had escaped the punishment, but only because
her husband had taken the blow instead. He had not survived
Pensould’s wrath.

‘But that’s not all. I
could have returned to sleep, but I did not. That is because I
sensed you near to me.’ Pensould beamed at her, and Llandry’s
cheeks warmed.

‘Oh...’

Ynara cleared her
throat. ‘When are you two planning to leave?’

‘Soon, Ma. I’m sorry.
But we’ll come back when we can.’

Ynara gave a short
sigh. ‘Well then, love. We’d better persuade your father to come
out of the study.’

Taking leave of her
parents was a sad experience. Llandry had lived either with them or
close to them for all of her twenty years; they had loved and
supported her entirely without condition for those two decades, and
it was hard to leave them behind. She also suffered somewhat on
seeing her father’s obvious distress. It had hurt him badly to
learn that his father Rheas had voluntarily deserted his family
twenty-odd years ago.

But as Llandry and
Pensould flew away – ignoring the flash of image-captures below
them – her sense of excitement and possibility swiftly swept away
her sorrow. Sigwide had chosen to come with her, and she realised
how much she had missed his cheery little consciousness while
they’d been separated. He lay nestled between her shoulder blades,
his small claws gripping her hide to hold himself in place. She had
wondered how he might take to flying with her in this new way, but
he seemed entirely untroubled as long as she was near. Nor did her
new shape trouble him. She thought of Pensould’s words –
it has
nothing to do with your face.
Apparently her orting companion
also identified her not by her human shape but by some other sense.
Was it only humans who relied so heavily on outward
appearances?

As Llandry and Pensould
crossed into the Uppers, all her discomfort drained away. She had
been attracted to the draykon bone – or istore, as she had thought
of it then – because of the soothing and strengthening effect it
had on her. In her draykon form she felt the same effect when in
the Upper Realm, only amplified. She couldn’t imagine living
anywhere but Iskyr, as Pensould termed it.