Lokant (20 page)

And of course it was
lumbering its way directly towards him.

He slid off the rock,
trying to be quiet. Its vision might not be spectacular, but he had
no idea whether its senses of smell and hearing were any better.
Would it follow him? He opted to hide rather than run and tucked
himself against the side of his rock that was furthest away from
the muumuk. Drawing his sorcerous Cloak around himself, he prayed
that sufficient shadow covered the ground here to allow him to
blend in.

Slowly, far too slowly
for his liking, the muumuk lumbered past his hiding place and away.
He held his posture for some minutes more, wondering as he did so
about the mysterious Changes in this world. When the light altered
and this landscape faded, what happened to the creatures that
populated its surface? Where did those enormous muumuk beasts go?
And why was he himself not carried with them? As far as he knew, no
one had yet produced a satisfactory answer to that question. It was
one of the many mysteries of the Off-Worlds.

He stood up at last,
shrugging a dusting of mud off his coat. The Changes were still
coming fast in the Lower World of Ayrien; he’d waited barely an
hour between each one so far, so as near as he could judge he had
perhaps half an hour before the next. He had nowhere to go, and in
fact he had no wish to go far, or he may take himself out of sight
of the tower once it did finally emerge. So he sat down again with
his back to his faithful rock, and waited.

But before he’d been
seated many minutes his attention was caught by an odd flicker of
movement ahead of him. He tensed, fighting the temptation to stand
in order to see better. If it was another dangerous beast, he
didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

But it didn’t look like
one. The movements of the tiny figure more resembled the smooth
two-legged gait of a fellow human. He watched intently as the
figure grew steadily closer.

Certainly a human, and
a female one he guessed. Fortunately he was still Cloaked; if she
looked his way she would see nothing but a dark patch of shadow at
the base of a tall rock. He waited, hoping she would come close
enough for him to see her face; but after travelling towards him
for a time she veered away to the right and slowly vanished again.
All he could determine about her was that her hair appeared to be
brownish.

For a moment he
considered following her. It was rare to encounter other humans
down here. Was she a herbalist, here to harvest the unique plants
of Ayrien? Part of a summoner exploration party? Or was she
connected in some way to the mystery he and Eva pursued?

But while his real
errand remained uncompleted, could he afford to chase after this
lone figure on the mere hope that she was relevant in some way? He
paused a moment in indecision, and as he did so the grey light
drained away and a purple radiance bathed the ground instead. Tren
stood up, all thought of the mysterious woman forgotten. As he
watched, the rocky terrain pulsed and vanished; in its place
emerged the soft hills and meadow grass he’d been hoping for.
Whistworms emerged from their burrows and began crawling up the
stalks, hoping to reach the fragrant blossoms that crowded the
low-growing bushes. After a brief check for threats - he didn’t
know for sure that the muumuks wouldn’t still be wandering this new
environment - Tren climbed his rock again and stood tall, shading
his eyes against the silvery light of the larger, constant moon
that shone perpetually overhead.

For a heart-pounding
instant he thought that the tower was gone. Therein lay the
potential for disaster; it hadn’t occurred to him that the building
might not re-emerge with the meadow, and what would he do if it did
not? He had no possible means of determining where it had gone.

But no: his observation
was merely hindered by a touch of mist that clung to the cool
ground. He spotted the indistinct image of a tall, thin structure
some way off and his heart leapt. Jumping down from his rock, he
aimed for it at a run.

When he arrived at the
base of the tower, his heart beating hard with exertion and his
shirt sticking to his skin, he discovered another problem. He’d
forgotten that the peculiar building had no door or other
discernible means of entry. What had Eva done last time? She had
caused the stone itself to form a ladder by some method that
remained somewhat unclear to him.

Running his fingers
over the stonework didn’t help. He felt nothing but cold stone,
fixed and immutable. Mustering his will, he tried again, pushing
harder at the blocks. Eventually, tiresomely slowly, the stone
softened the barest bit under his hands and the tip of one finger
sank slightly into the rock...

‘Can I help you with
something?’

The voice, female and
waspish, cut through the silence like a whip and Tren jumped back,
staring around for the source. Leaning out of the window near the
top of the tower was the woman he’d seen earlier, her
chestnut-brown hair loose around her face.

After a moment’s
scrutiny, he recognised her as the same woman who had wandered into
Eva’s study and taken Andraly Winnier’s memoirs.

‘Um,’ he stammered. ‘I
might have knocked, if you had a door.’

She narrowed her eyes
at him. ‘You’re the book thief.’

‘What?
You’re
the book thief.’

‘I can’t steal what was
mine in the first place.’

‘That was your
book?’

‘By virtue of the fact
that I wrote it. Have you come to steal it again?’

She wrote it? Tren
thought that through. ‘Then you’re Andraly Winnier?’

‘Yes,’ she snapped.

‘You were friendlier
before.’

‘I didn’t have a runt
of a human male sticking his fingers in my stonework at the
time.’

‘Runt?’ Tren pulled
himself up to his full, six-foot -and-a-bit height.

‘All right, you’re a
beanpole, but in
years,
boy, you might as well be about
three. What do you want?’

Tren sighed. What was
it with imperious older women casting aspersions on his age? He was
twenty-five, not twelve.

‘I was wondering what
became of the book,’ he replied. ‘And I had some hopes of reading
the parts that I didn’t get to study before.’

She considered him for
a long moment, her face unreadable. ‘You’ve some nerve,’ she said
at last.

He spread his hands
apologetically. ‘The matter’s urgent.’

‘Oh? What matter?’

He considered for a
moment before he spoke. ‘The matter of Llandry Sanfaer and her
draykon friend,’ he said, hazarding everything.

Her eyes narrowed
again. ‘You’re a friend of Llandry Sanfaer?’

‘Er. Sort of. I mean,
we’ve met, though I don’t think she was in any condition to
remember me at the time.’

Andraly Winnier made a
sound of disgust and disappeared from the window.

‘Hey, I - wait -’ She
was gone. Tren subsided, cursing inwardly. He looked around,
seeking some other way to reach the distant window, but then the
stonework crunched oddly and a line snaked its way through the
blocks, forming a door. It opened to reveal Andraly standing on its
other side, glaring at him.

‘Hurry up,’ she
said.

He hurried.

‘I thought this tower
belonged to someone else,’ he said a little later, sitting
uncomfortably in Andraly’s workroom at the top of the building. She
sat easily in a rocking chair on the other side of the room,
keeping her pale eyes fixed on him. He’d had no luck guessing her
age or anything about her. Her face was neither young nor wrinkled;
her eyes gave nothing away.

‘Oh? Upon whom did you
obligingly bestow ownership of my home?’

He winced. ‘Look, I
know the circumstances of my arrival weren’t ideal, but I didn’t
mean any harm. Could we drop the acidity?’

She smirked. ‘You were
planning to break in.’

‘I didn’t know it was
your house! I thought it belonged to an Ullarni sorcerer I’ve
reason to dislike.’

Her eyes opened a
little wider at that. ‘Ullarni? Why would you think that?’

‘Because it’s
practically on the doorstep of a recurring rogue gate that opens
into Orstwych, right on the Ullarn border. I followed the sorc down
here and I thought that this must be something to do with him.
Especially when we found an istore ring in here.’ He flicked a hand
at the floor not far from his chair, pointing out where the object
had lain.

‘We?’ Andraly
prompted.

‘I was with Lady
Evastany Glostrum at the time.’

Her face cleared. ‘Ah.
That’s interesting.’

‘Is it?’

She shifted in her
chair. ‘Were you also the person who turned all my belongings
upside down?’

It was fair to note
that the place was a lot tidier than it had been last time he’d
visited. ‘Um, no. It was a mess when we got here.’

Andraly rolled her
eyes. ‘I really need to work on my security. That ring wasn’t mine,
by the way. I’ve never had such a thing in here. I suppose my
first
uninvited guest made himself at home here - I found a
number of objects that didn’t belong to me - and then my
second
intruder stole from both of us.’

Tren sighed. Her
repeated use of words like “stealing” and “intruder” and “thief”
was making him nervous. ‘Look. Griel killed one of my friends. He
was also responsible for the death of one of Lady Glostrum’s
friends. We felt we had reason to do as necessary to catch up with
him.’

‘Griel?’ Her brows
lifted.

‘The sorc.’

‘Hmm. A bad character
to get tangled up with. Poor judgement.’

Tren sat forward,
electrified. ‘Oh? What do you know about him? We’ve hardly been
able to find out anything.’

She shook her head.
‘Nor would you; his kind tend to be well camouflaged. Well, I
suppose I must forgive you for your thievery, even though I
did
have to travel an awfully long way to get my book
back.’

‘That’s true. How did
you know where to find it?’

She gave him a
withering look. ‘There are ways, book thief. I’m not foolish enough
to leave my life’s work lying around without any means of tracking
it should it happen to wander off.’

Tren was silenced.

Andraly resettled
herself, crossing her legs. ‘So. About Llandry Sanfaer. How are you
mixed up in her business?’

‘I don’t know about
that,’ Tren said. ‘It’s my turn to ask some questions. Who are you?
If you wrote those memoirs - all of them - why do they span such an
impossibly long period of time? And what’s your interest in
Llandry?’

She smiled. ‘That’s
asking far too much. Pick one.’

He shook his head. ‘All
or nothing.’

‘You do realise I have
you at a disadvantage, yes? You’re locked in
my
tower
without obvious means of escape.’

Tren shrugged. ‘If you
were really inclined to take exception to me, you could’ve kept me
out in the first place.’

‘Fine. Tell me your
story first, then we’ll talk about mine.’

‘You’d better keep that
promise.’

She arched a brow. ‘Or
what?’

‘Or... I’ll
unalphabetise all your books.’

Her eyes flicked to her
perfectly ordered collection of tomes, then back to Tren’s
face.

‘Start talking. Begin
by telling me your name.’

Tren complied.

It took some time to
relate the entire tale to Andraly. He began as far back as he
could, with the emergence of Llandry’s istore jewellery wares at
the Glour Market and the subsequent uproar it had caused. Andraly
nodded impatiently through most of this, suggesting that she knew
that part of the story already, but she didn’t interrupt him until
he began to relate the part he and Eva had taken in the tale. Then
she frequently questioned him, picking minute details to verify or
clarify, and his pace of narration slowed dramatically.

But when he talked of
the circumstances of Llandry’s first metamorphosis, she listened
with rapt attention. Her eyes were faraway, as though she were
adding his information to her existing store of knowledge. When he
had finished the questions started up again, and he answered them
until his throat was sore from talking.

At length she sat back,
staring at the ceiling for some time.

‘I can see we should
have talked to one of you before,’ she commented at last. ‘Though
we were unaware that anyone else had been closely involved in the
business save Griel and his wife.’

‘So you do know
them.’

‘Something like
that.’

Andraly stared at Tren
for so long that he began to feel uncomfortable.

‘It’s your turn to
start talking,’ he reminded her after a while.

‘Not here,’ she said,
standing abruptly. ‘I think I’ll take you somewhere more
secure.’

Tren stood too, feeling
uncertain. ‘Er. That sounds great, but where are we going?’

She grinned wickedly.
‘I really think my colleagues would like to meet you.’ Her fingers
fastened around his wrist with a fiercely strong grip, making him
gasp with sudden pain. Before he had time to raise any further
objections, her image wavered and she blinked out of existence.

And he, helpless, was
dragged along with her.

Pensould was still
angry.

He had been flying at
an enraged speed for so long that Llandry felt ready to drop, but
he showed no signs of slowing. And he wouldn’t speak to her.

Pensould, please. I’m
sorry.

No response. Llandry
wasn’t sure he had even heard her. He had blocked her out
completely, intent on his crazed search. Ever since he had learned
of the extinction of the draykon race, he had grown steadily more
urgent in his quest to bring them back to the worlds; now, having
seen, and failed to halt, the fate of a fellow draykon - its bones
exhumed and scattered - he was unstoppable.