Lokant (23 page)

‘Because - because I
can’t know that I won’t ever need to do it again.’

She regarded him
silently for a few moments. He steeled himself for a renewed
barrage of anger from her, but it didn’t come. Instead she spoke
softly.

‘Why did you go without
me, Tren?’

‘You were busy with...
with weddings, and suchlike...’

‘Nonsense.’

‘So it appeared.’

‘You couldn’t have
waited until I was finished?’

‘It was important!’

Her eyes narrowed. Then
she gave a deep, exasperated sigh. To his complete surprise, she
put her arms around him and pulled him close.

‘You’re a fool,’ she
said.

‘Probably,’ he agreed.
He hesitantly hugged her back, feeling awkward. She’d never shown
him any real sign of affection before.

Dishevelled she may be,
but she still smelt delicious.

‘So,’ she said at last,
releasing him. ‘Are you going to tell me what in the world is going
on here?’

‘Oh... yes. I’m to take
you to the others. Um, I was probably supposed to fill you in a bit
first.’ He grinned sheepishly.

She arched a brow. ‘You
are disgracefully behindhand.’

‘Hey. I was distracted.
Somebody was busy lambasting me.’

‘Well, get on with it
now.’

‘No time now. They’ll
be wondering where we are.’ He offered her his arm with exquisite
courtesy. ‘If you’ll attend me, Lady Vale.’ It felt strange and
unpleasant, calling her that, but he got the word out
creditably.

She took his arm. ‘I’m
not Lady Vale, Tren.’

He frowned. Keeping her
own name was an unusual decision, but this was Eva. She frequently
rewrote the rules. ‘Pardon my error, Lady Glostrum.’

She looked at him for a
moment, but said nothing. With an uncertain smile, he led her out
of the chart room.

A group was awaiting
them in Limbane’s reading room. Llandry and Pensould were there
along with Limbane and Andraly. Tren felt Eva’s surprise at
beholding this curious assembly.

‘Llandry? What?’

For her part, Llandry
was obviously delighted and awed in approximately equal measures.
If she had been shy with him, it was nothing compared to her manner
on addressing Eva. She managed to stammer out a greeting, smiling
with obvious pleasure but blushing all the same. The more awkward
Llandry was, the more protective her companion became. Tren was
amused to see Pensould glare at Eva and bare his teeth slightly as
he drew Llandry towards him.

‘Pensould, isn’t it?
I’m not going to harm her.’

Llandry’s face betrayed
some of the surprise that Tren felt himself. She knew the other
draykon already? How Eva managed to keep one step ahead of everyone
never ceased to amaze him.

‘Your mother has been
in touch,’ she said dryly in answer to Llandry’s unspoken query.
‘The two of you caused a stir in the interrealm press.’

Pensould beamed with
pride, but Llandry looked crestfallen.

‘I - we - I didn’t mean
for that to happen,’ she said.

Eva patted her
shoulder. ‘Your mother managed to suppress most of it. She’s a
resourceful woman.’ She looked enquiringly at Limbane, who so far
hadn’t said a word.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Tren,
stepping in. ‘Lady Glostrum, this is Limbane, um, just Limbane. And
you’ve met Ms Winnier?’

Eva made her courtesies
with exquisite manners. As she did so, Andraly leaned towards
Limbane and spoke one word in an undertone. ‘Unclaimed.’

Limbane’s eyebrows
rose.

Eva’s eyes flicked from
Andraly to Limbane and back again, betraying her uncertainty. Then
she smiled, her virtually unshakeable self-possession back in
place.

‘Would somebody be so
kind as to tell me what in the world is going on?’ She looked
straight at him. ‘Tren? Who are these people?’

‘Librarians,’ he
said.

‘What.’

‘It’s what the word
“Lokant” means. Please, sit down,’ he begged as she continued to
hover in the centre of the room. ‘Limbane will explain.’

‘Again,’ muttered
Limbane under his breath.

Tren watched Eva
closely as she took a seat. Her eyes were thoughtful, her mind
obviously busy putting the pieces of this mystery together. He knew
it wouldn’t take her long.

She looked at Andraly.
‘Ms Winnier. Is that your natural hair colour?’

Limbane laughed. ‘Oh,
Krays made a mistake in letting you alone.’

Andraly was grinning
too. With a few quick, deft movements she loosened the wig she wore
and pulled it off. Underneath that her hair was pure white.

‘I’d have dyed it, but
the colour just won’t take.’

Eva was silent for a
moment. ‘Then - that means -’

Limbane smiled briefly.
‘Why don’t I start at the beginning?’

‘All right,’ said Eva
faintly. Tren wished she’d placed herself a little closer to him;
somehow she had ended up on the opposite side of Limbane’s
comfortable room. He sighed inwardly and resigned himself to
watching her reaction from a distance.

‘Lokant. As Mr Warvel
has already informed you, it does indeed mean “librarian”, in our
tongue - a language that has never been spoken in your world. And
before you ask,
this
is the Library. You are sitting in
it.

‘I’m afraid our race
predates the human one by a long way. I won’t say how long; the
human mind isn’t equipped to comprehend the full stretch of time.
Usually we keep to ourselves. We study the different worlds,
document their workings and contents and add those records to the
Library. There is more knowledge here than any of you could
possibly imagine. Andraly, for example, is based long-term in
Ayrien, supplementing our thin records there.

‘But others of our race
are more meddlesome. We have learned - far too late, I fear - that
the Sulayn Phay organisation returned to this world some time ago.
They have been creating considerable mischief and all of you are
bound up in it.’

Limbane’s gaze settled
on Pensould. ‘Some of you have been creating additional
complications all by yourselves.’ Llandry looked dejected, but
Pensould was completely unruffled by Limbane’s disapproval.

Eva spoke up. ‘So the
other organisation - Sulayn Phay? - are you saying they are
responsible for the draykon crisis?’

‘No,’ Limbane replied
after a moment. ‘Indirectly perhaps, but I doubt that they intended
to return the draykon race to this cluster of worlds.’

‘Why not?’

Limbane smiled thinly.
‘That is a story for another time.’

‘There’s a great deal
you aren’t telling us,’ Eva said.

‘Of course,’ Limbane
admitted comfortably. ‘All in good time, my dear.’

Eva made a small sound
of annoyance. ‘Ana and Griel. Are they part of this
organisation?’

‘Something like that,’
replied Limbane. ‘If we wander back in time a number of generations
- we won’t say how many - we come to a time when some of us
entertained ourselves by mixing with the human societies. We called
it “study”, and it was, but it went much further than that for
some. I don’t think any of us expected that the two races would be
able to successfully breed, not until it happened. The likes of Ana
and Griel are the descendants of those kinds of unions. Not
Lokants, but retaining some of our traits. The hair colour always
breeds true, for some reason, along with a few of our
abilities.’

‘The vanishing,’ Eva
said, nodding. Her face, always pale, was very white now. ‘That
means that I -’

‘You are part Lokant,
yes. In fact, you are descended from one of my very favourite
colleagues. She’ll love to meet you. Perhaps later.’

Eva was silenced. She
stared at Limbane with her dark eyes very wide.

‘But I... I
cannot...’

‘That’s just because
you haven’t been trained,’ Limbane said, guessing her query. ‘Ana
and Griel were adopted by Krays, it appears, and put to work at
some nefarious project or other. Why he didn’t tap you as a recruit
is something of a mystery.’

‘Krays?’

Tren felt obscurely
relieved to find that Eva didn’t know everything after all.

‘Krays. Formerly a
Librarian, now part of the Sulayn Phay group. He seems to be
heading up whatever project is going on here. Making use of the
partials was inspired, it has to be said.’

‘Partials?’

‘Part-blood
Lokants.’

‘So you don’t know what
they’re up to?’

Limbane shook his head.
‘I tried asking him, but he didn’t want to talk to me for some
reason. That is why we require assistance.’

Eva sat back, her drawn
face speaking of the headache she was probably suffering. ‘Oh?’

Limbane steepled his
fingers and looked at the ceiling. ‘We know that Krays is after
Miss Sanfaer, for some reason unknown to her. We know that he has
put Ana to work collecting draykon bone from the realm of Iskyr,
possibly from Ayrien also. We know that Sulayn Phay had something
to do with the re-emergence of the draykon race, though it may not
be the outcome they had intended. What does all of this add up
to?’

Tren had a question.
‘Limbane. How could such a thing happen by accident?’

Limbane cast him an
amused glance. ‘Oh, it was no accident I’m sure. Not exactly. I
suspect that Krays has encountered some insubordination among his
recruits. If Ana is collecting draykon bone now, we may tentatively
assume that she was doing so before, on Krays’s orders. But she and
her husband diverted the bones to their own purpose. What I am more
interested in is what Krays wants them for.’

To his surprise,
Llandry spoke up. ‘So - so we are... a mistake?’

‘I’ll get to that, Miss
Sanfaer,’ Limbane said in a gentler voice. ‘But no. You yourself
are no mistake; the timing is merely not as we had intended.’

Eva blinked at that.
‘We? What did you have to do with the draykon affair?’

‘A lot, in fact. But I
believe we have had revelations enough for the present. I encourage
you all to partake of the Library’s facilities; take as long as you
need, time is currently ignoring us. Lady Glostrum, Ms Winnier took
you to the chart room for a reason. I believe you may find it
interesting to peruse more closely.’ He looked at Llandry again.
‘You too, Miss Sanfaer.’

‘What about me?’ Tren
asked.

Limbane grinned. ‘I
imagine that you, Mr Warvel, will be happy enough to place yourself
at her ladyship’s disposal.’

With that, the old
gentleman stood up, smiling. ‘All right, off you go. I have some
other matters to attend to. We will reconvene at some point fairly
soon, and before you ask, yes, I will answer more questions at that
time. Now, go.’

Ynara knew the Vanse
family a little. Sayfer Vanse was a strong summoner, his wife only
a little less so. Orillin, as expected, followed in his parents’
footsteps and had been enrolled in Summoner School at a young age.
He was already shaping up to be one of his generation’s stars.

But that didn’t explain
why he was attracting the attention of an obscure university
faculty as far away as the realm of Nimdre. Dev’s brief missive
wasn’t exactly clear. Being Dev, it hadn’t occurred to him to
explain how or why he’d left her house, where he’d gone to, or what
he was doing now. His scrawled mess of a note merely babbled about
some connection between Orillin and Llandry, saying that they
shared a great many ancestors.
Something to do with Llan’s
draykon shift?
he had written. Ynara sighed a little.
“Something”? Dev ought to be better at conveying information; he’d
certainly had enough practice at it.

She could make some
inferences herself. If Llandry’s metamorphosis was a product of her
ancestry in some way, then Orillin himself may have similar
potential. She couldn’t guess why Dev’s university was especially
interested in the possibility, but she could guess that it probably
did not mean good news for Orillin.

There was a final note
of warning in Dev’s missive that unsettled her.

Get him out of
Glinnery.

When she showed the
note to Aysun, he looked grim.

‘If this boy is
anything like our Llan, he has a world of trouble on the way.’

Ynara couldn’t disagree
with that. ‘Dev meant for us to do something about it,’ she
replied. ‘I wish he’d been more explicit; it’s hard to protect
someone from a virtually undefined threat.’

Aysun shrugged. ‘It
doesn’t matter. We know what Llan went through - what she’s still
going through.’

‘We couldn’t protect
her.’

Aysun smiled grimly.
‘Because she’s a headstrong girl, like her mother. What we can do
for this boy is get him out of here before somebody comes looking
for him.’

‘And take him where
exactly? Hiding didn’t work too well for Llan, as I recall.’

‘I have an idea.’

Aysun’s workshop was a
cluttered mess. This was unusual, but Ynara didn’t say anything.
She watched as her husband searched frantically through the piles
of objects, picking up and discarding sundry bits and pieces. At
length he found what he was looking for. He attached a small piece
of metal to a box that he held in his hands, tinkering with the
mechanics for some minutes. Then he placed it down on the high
surface of his workbench. The box emitted a crackling sound for
several seconds, then the noise cleared.

Aysun pressed a button.
‘Rufin. Rufin.’

Nothing happened. He
tried again, repeating the name several more times. Then, to
Ynara’s amazement, another voice came out of the box.

‘Ays? What the bloody
hell? You made it work, you raging genius.’

‘No time for that, Ruf.
Get Eyas and get here, by tomorrow.’

‘You going to ditch us
again like last time?’

‘No. Stop wasting time.
You’re not here by noon tomorrow, we’re going without you.’