Lokant (16 page)

Pensould used an
expression completely outside of Llandry’s comprehension, dripping
with horror and rage. She made a hasty landing on his left, and
instantly she could feel the energy emitted by a cache of draykon
bone buried under the moss.

What? Pensould? What is
it?

For some time he was
too busy thrashing his wings and roaring to answer. Then his voice
thundered in her head, making her wince.

Thieves! Bone thieves
have been at work, do you not feel it?

Bone thieves? The term
made her tremble, for she too had been a bone thief once. She had
not known what it was that she was plundering, but still; now that
she did, her remorse was undiminished.

That said, her actions
had led to the resurrection of Pensould. As had the actions of her
apparent enemies, the two white-haired sorcerer-summoners who had
reassembled Pensould’s skeleton in the Lowers. The thought was an
odd one.

Llandry circled around
the other draykon, taking care to avoid his thrashing wings. The
ground had been partially dug up, the earth exposed by pulling back
the grass and moss. The area had later been covered up again to
conceal it, but there was no hiding it from Pensould. Focusing on
the disturbed area of earth, Llandry began to see what he meant:
the energy of the bones was at low ebb, guttering like a fading
light-globe. She raked back the loosely thrown moss and trained her
sensitive draykon eyes on the tumbled earth, trying to see the
damage.

Then she felt stupid.
What had Pensould said to her?
You must stop trying to fly like
a human.
Perhaps she also stop trying to see like a human.

Closing her eyes to
remove that distraction, she instead reached out with some other
sense. She couldn’t say what it was, precisely, but something
shifted in her mind and instead of seeing trees and grass and moss
with her eyes, she saw the patterns of energy that those living
things created, suspended in her mind’s eye view. For a moment she
was mesmerised by this new landscape traced in glowing lights.

Turning her attention
downwards she saw a skeletal pattern of draykon bone, emitting a
faintly pulsing, ghostly silver light. That light was dimming as
she watched, the light bleeding away through the rents in the
skeleton’s structure. Many bones had been removed, and some were
damaged. She felt the slumbering draykon’s discomfort, spasms of
pain wracking its buried consciousness. The realisation made her
gasp, sent her out of her trance.

Is that what I did to
you?

Pensould didn’t answer.
He had calmed enough to stop cursing and roaring, though he
remained highly incensed. He was stalking in circles, prowling with
the graceful menace of a hunter.

Someone approaches.

Startled, Llandry felt
a moment’s heart-thumping panic. She forced it down disgustedly.
She wasn’t an undersized and powerless Glinnish girl anymore; she
was a powerful draykoness.

Who could the intruder
be? The most likely answer was that the grave robbers were
returning. And if that was the case, Llandry wanted some answers
before Pensould ate them.

Pensould. Human
shape and hide. Quickly!
She was already shifting as she spoke,
her body compacting itself back into her small two-legged form.

No! They must be
punished.

They will be punished,
but not yet. We need to know who they are and what they’re
doing.

Pensould roared his
frustration in her mind, but he didn’t utter the cry out loud. She
ran to him, grabbing his arm as he took on his other shape, and
dragged him out of the clearing. She wormed her way into the centre
of a cluster of bushes, dragging Pensould mercilessly behind
her.

Careful, I am not as
small as you.

Stop talking.

A woman swept into the
clearing, head high, her posture and gait arrogant. She was
speaking, addressing the stream of men who trailed behind her in
lofty, authoritative tones. Llandry was shocked to see that many of
the men bore Glinnish wings.

‘The bones are
delicate, so I expect you to use extreme care. You have one hour to
get them out.’

There was something
wrong with her head. As the woman came closer Llandry realised she
was wearing some kind of mask or headdress that covered most of the
top half of her face. The contraption had large lenses that
completely hid her eyes.

One of the men spoke up
tentatively. ‘Couldn’t the bones be removed from in the Lowers,
ma’am? I thought you said they’ve a presence in all worlds.’

‘Idiot,’ she replied.
‘Would I do it this way if it were that simple, with this
cumbersome monstrosity?’ She tapped the headgear that she wore as
she spoke. ‘The corresponding location in the Lowers has been
claimed by a pack of worvilloes. I don’t particularly feel like
fighting my way through those, do you?’ When she turned to address
her men, Llandry noticed that her hair was bright white.

‘I, um, no ma’am.’

The woman turned away
from him. ‘Get on with it, please. This stupid hat-thing
hurts.’

Her accent was strange.
Llandry realised with a start that she had heard it before. She had
heard that
voice
before. The white hair... it was the woman
she had met in Draetre, the one who had tried to buy her istore
pendant. Llandry had refused, but soon after that encounter Llandry
had found herself the target of attempted robbery and abduction.
She had no doubt that this woman had something to do with it.

She relayed this to
Pensould silently, her thoughts turning. She had the nagging
feeling she had seen the woman again since then, though she
couldn’t remember where.

I know her,
Pensould returned grimly.
She is the thief, the restorer. The
irritating buzz in my mind when I slept.

Yes! That was it.
Convulsed with pain and confusion, Llandry had been barely aware of
her surroundings when Pensould had awakened and she herself had
discovered her draykon form. But distantly she recalled that voice,
talking and then later, screaming.

Why didn’t you kill
her?

I tried. The other one
intervened.

The other one?

Pensould showed her an
image of a tall white-haired man, whurthags at his heels. She did
not remember seeing him.

I will kill her
now.

No. What if there are
others? We must find out where they are taking these bones.

Pensould was not
swayed.
They can plunder no more graves if they are
dead!

We need information,
not bodies. Do you not wish to know why they are doing this?

Pensould subsided,
muttering. Llandry kept a close eye on the white-haired woman,
wondering how she intended to effect the transfer of the bones. If
she allowed her consciousness to blur, Llandry could detect the
warm energy of the realm of Glinnery only a heartbeat away, and the
shadowy realm that her people thought of as the Lowers. Moving from
one to the other was not a matter of travel at all, not really; she
shifted through the worlds with no more than a thought.

But this ability had
come with her discovery of her draykon shape. This woman was no
draykon; she would have to convey the bones the human way, by
opening a gate through to the Seven and then another to the Lowers.
The process of crossing gates was always hard on the human body,
leading to pain and nausea. She didn’t see how this woman was going
to accomplish the task quickly.

As her workers set to,
the woman began to pace. Llandry realised she was nervous, her body
radiating tension. Some minutes passed and Llandry could see no
reason for it - until, without warning, another pale-haired figure,
a man, appeared beside her. Llandry sucked in her breath. His tall,
spare frame and his lined face were instantly recognisable. He was
the man who had tried to abduct her not long since. Remembering the
way he had seized control of her will, she forced herself to make
no sound that could give her away.

His manner was menacing
as he turned to the woman. She, however, radiated as much anger as
fear and spoke to him with chilling coldness. Their words were lost
on Llandry, spoken in an alien tongue; but it was obvious that the
man was in charge, that he was angry with the woman, and that she
resented everything about their situation.

Llandry could
understand that. The man terrified her, too.

Their conversation
over, the man glanced at the woman’s lackeys, who redoubled their
efforts when they noticed his eyes on them. Then, to Llandry’s
relief, he disappeared.

She frowned. That trick
continued to bother her. He gave little warning of his movements,
no tell-tale shift in the atmosphere and certainly none of the
clumsy rending at the fabric of the worlds that sorcerers were
guilty of. It all added to his ability to frighten her. She
wouldn’t have any way of knowing when he was near.

Pensould shifted beside
her, his restlessness unabated. She laid a hand on his arm,
uselessly, and resigned herself to an uncomfortable hour. She could
feel the pain the men were inflicting on the slumbering draykon
throughout, and her resolved frequently wavered, but she stuck to
her plan. With considerably greater difficulty, she kept Pensould
to it as well.

Llandry puzzled over
the matter as she lay on her stomach in the moss with her legs and
arms slowly turning numb. This woman had already woken one draykon,
and it had availed her nothing; she had merely made an enemy of
Pensould. Why would she seek to do it again? And her connection
with Llandry’s would-be abductor was worrying as well. Pensould had
said that Llandry’s presence had a great deal to do with his full
awakening; was she supposed to have something to do with the repeat
performance as well?

At last the men had
finished. Llandry flexed her limbs experimentally, aware that she
may have to be ready to move at any moment. But before she had
prepared herself to emerge, the man appeared again. The workers had
laid the bones out onto a large sheet of fabric, carefully placing
them in some sort of order. Their careful work didn’t seem to
interest their employer very much, for he gathered up the fabric
and the bones together into a messy bundle.

Pensould, time to
move.

Llandry began to worm
her way out of the undergrowth that concealed her, taking care not
to lose sight of the pale-haired man and woman and their bundle of
stolen bones. The female directed her winged workers out of the
clearing and they trotted dutifully away. Llandry supposed they
must have a gate waiting nearby to take them back to Glinnery.

All right, we –

She stopped in
astonishment. The man vanished as he had before, taking the bones
with him. To her surprise and dismay, the woman flickered briefly
and disappeared in the same manner.

‘Oh, no.’ She ran to
the spot where they had been standing moments before. No clue
remained to indicate where they had gone.

‘I’m sorry, Pensould. I
thought she would leave the same way she came, through a gate or
something. Did – did you know she could do that?’

‘Apparently the
disappearing is not unique to the colourless man.’ Pensould’s tone
was clipped and cold, his posture stiff with indignation.

You should have let me
eat her.

Llandry said nothing.
She couldn’t entirely disagree.

Eva arrived home to an
empty house. Her footsteps rang sharply on her tiled hall floor,
echoing in the silence. Nobody waited to greet her. Nobody except
Rikbeek, that is, and he didn’t count. Being bitten did not qualify
as social interaction. Not when the biter was a gwaystrel,
anyway.

Even Milyn had the
evening off and had gone out. In her current mood, Eva would have
welcomed the sight of Tren sitting at her desk, deep in a book, or
even Vale ensconced in the rocking chair in the conservatory. A
pang of loneliness hit her, sharp and cutting.
It’s as I
deserve,
she couldn’t help thinking. She had brought it on
herself.

True, the day she had
had didn’t help. She may not be an official member of the Council
anymore, but Vale had been right: she’d been summoned to the
meetings anyway. It had taken up most of her time for days as the
Council and assorted experts, consultants and otherwise interested
parties debated the draykon issue with far greater fervour than
they ever had before. But to little effect. She had no new
information to offer and it was patently obvious that the Council
was at a loss. The best they had been able to do in the end was
form yet another research team, led by Professor Mayn of the city’s
university. Eva knew they would meet with little success.

The sight of a large
box resting atop her parlour table drew a flicker of interest
despite her depressed spirits. The label was stamped with the name
Lawch & Son. Excellent: the light-globe manufacturers only sent
her unsolicited shipments when they had something wholly new to
share with her. And having given them a considerable investment for
development a few moons ago, she had hopes that their newest
products would be magnificent indeed.

Eva opened the box.
Contained within many layers of packaging was a large light-globe,
larger than any she’d seen before. It rested inside a patterned
metal cage, and as she lifted it out it was already glowing.

Glowing
pink.
The shade was startlingly similar to the pink glow that had
suffused Ana’s abominable daefly garden in the Lowers.

A letter was tied to
the cage with string. She released the globe, letting it drift
upwards to hover over her head, and quickly read the letter.

...
your
representative, Mr Pitren Warvel, encouraged us to offer you this
advance sample of our new product...