Lokant (30 page)

‘Um. Can I ask why you
ended it?’

‘No,’ she snapped.

‘All right,’ he said
mildly.

She maintained a mulish
silence for some moments more. Then she let out a long sigh.

‘I’m being terribly
petulant, aren’t I.’

He grinned. ‘A little
bit.’

‘It’s just that I feel
like I’ve lost all certainty. How can I possibly
know,
ever
again, that I have real friends? I’m glad I ended the engagement;
how could I be married, when I’d be eternally wondering whether my
husband married me voluntarily or because I in some way forced him
into it? It’s rearranged my whole future.’

‘I can only repeat
everything I said before. You may have doubts, but I don’t.’

‘You’re just being
stubborn.’

‘One should exercise
one’s talents,’ he replied gravely.

She smiled in spite of
herself. ‘I suppose you’re good for me, wretch. You keep me from
taking myself too seriously.’

‘That’s a bad
habit.’

‘Right,’ she said,
taking a deep breath and straightening her spine. ‘Enough moping;
there’s work to be done.’ She couldn’t just believe Tren’s words,
but he was right to pull her out of her poor mood. She would deal
with that issue again later.

Something passed
swiftly behind Tren’s eyes and he moved to block her path.
‘Wait.’

She looked up, puzzled.
His tone had lost all its notes of levity, settling into something
more serious than she was used to hearing from him.

‘I wasn’t really
speaking on Vale’s behalf,’ he said in a rush. ‘I was speaking for
myself.’

She tried to think back
over everything he’d said in the last twenty minutes or so. ‘What?
When?’

‘I know you.’ His hands
jangled in his pockets more agitatedly than ever, and she realised
that he was extremely nervous.

‘Probably you do, yes.
What’s the relevance?’

‘I’ve seen you in good
moods and bad. I’ve seen you in control and completely at a loss.
I’ve seen you upset and grieving, and I’ve seen you happy and
confident. Now I’ve seen you suffering something wholly unknown to
you before: self-doubt. Lack of confidence. I
know
you. And
I like what I see.’ He paused, cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘I
love what I see.’

Eva could only stare at
him, stupefied. ‘That’s a lot of words. My head’s spinning and I
can barely understand what you’re saying. Can you just keep it
simple please?’

‘Simple. Okay. I love
you.’

‘Um.’ She blinked.
‘Well, that’s straightforward enough. Mhm.’ For an instant her
heart swelled with happiness and something like relief.

Then it all drained
away.

‘Oh, Tren, don’t you
see. That just makes everything
worse.
’

He blinked, shocked.
‘What? How can it possibly...?’

‘Don’t you realise how
absurd
that sounds?’

Now he looked hurt.
‘Absurd? I don’t understand.’

‘Consider the
disparity. I’m more than ten years older than you. We come from
completely different backgrounds, move in different circles - we
don’t even have anything in common, Tren! Nothing! You can’t
possibly have an honest affection for me. It’s infatuation if
anything, and that’s probably just because you’ve spent enough time
with me to be thoroughly manipulated.’ To her embarrassment she
felt tears prickling behind her eyes.

‘You’d better keep away
from me for a while, and maybe it will pass.’

He muttered something
that sounded like a curse. ‘I don’t - I can’t - I don’t even - I
mean, you can’t seriously...’ His face registered pain, and her
heart twisted with guilt. ‘Ah, fuck,’ he said softly. ‘It was
exactly the wrong time to tell you that, wasn’t it?’

Thinking of escape, Eva
turned away, but Tren grabbed her arm.

‘Look, I can prove it.
You think you’ve imposed some perfect image of yourself on me? You
think I can’t see the truth about you? I know you too well. I know
the good things about you, and the bad. Did you encourage me to see
your conceit? Your vanity? Your irritating need to be right? Your
inability to fail gracefully? Those things weren’t part of your
plan, were they? But if I could see
those
things in you,
then how can I be wrong about the good? I’ve long since stopped
seeing the
perfection
that you project for the world in
general.’

Conceit. Vanity.
Failure.
Those words hurt.

‘Thank you for that. Is
this how you talk to all the girls?’

‘No. Just you.’

‘Lucky me. Anything
else to add?’

‘Yes. Those are your
weaknesses. Want to know about your strengths? You’re more truly
good-hearted than I’d ever expected from an aristocrat. You’re much
smarter than me, and almost everyone else too. You’re funny and
witty, you care about things and you’re capable of love, even
though you try to deny it. You’re strong-willed and determined and
hard-working. And you’re beautiful, more so every year. You
shouldn’t think that people are only drawn to you because you’re a
partial. All those qualities are as obvious to others as they are
to me.’ He was gripping both of her arms hard enough to hurt, his
face uncomfortably close to hers. ‘Come on, believe me. It’s not
like you to wallow in self-pity. You’re too rational for that.’

‘Please let go of my
arms.’

He didn’t. ‘Is that it?
Nothing else to say?’

She struggled until he
let her go. Her arms hurt; she massaged the pain away, looking at
him helplessly. Was he right? How could she possibly tell?

‘Could you just leave
me alone for a while?’ She turned her back on him, shutting out the
look of pain on his face. She crossed to the door quickly before
she could change her mind, and left him alone in the library.

***

Realising Eva’s intent,
Tren made to stop her as she brushed past him, but he was too late.
She was gone.

Idiot,
he cursed
himself. Eva could be difficult occasionally; he knew that, and he
ought to have handled her with greater care when she was in such a
delicate frame of mind. Stupid, to burden her with that when she
already had so much else to come to terms with. And he’d made such
a royal mess of it all.

He hoped he hadn’t
ruined his chances completely. A flash of panic lanced through him
at that prospect, and he shuddered. One mistake and he might have
fucked everything up forever.

‘If she doesn’t want
it, I’ll take it.’ Andraly stood in the doorway, wearing an
inviting expression. She wandered into the room, stopping far too
close to him. ‘Though I have to say, you aren’t great at
sweet-talking a girl.’

‘Huh. What?’

‘You heard me.’ She
smiled up at him.

‘I thought you were
angry with me.’

She frowned in
annoyance. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘You were quite vocal
about it when you found me standing outside your tower.’

‘Oh, that,’ she
shrugged. ‘I wasn’t really
that
unhappy to find a
good-looking boy on my doorstep, trying to get in.’

He backed away several
paces. ‘Look, apparently you heard some of our conversation so
you’ll understand if I don’t take you up on your, er, offer.’

Andraly chuckled. ‘How
about if I change the offer?’ She slid her chestnut wig from her
head, exposing white hair bound into braids. Each one of these was
quickly unbraided until her hair hung loose.

‘Now, watch closely,’
she commanded.

‘Er, I really need
to-’

‘Watch!’

Unfortunate that she
was standing between him and the door. He glowered at her, his
temper wearing thin.

His irritation turned
to shock as her features blurred and altered, becoming more
delicate and refined. Her eyes grew in size and changed colour; her
body lost some of its voluptuous curves and became slimmer and a
little taller.

After a few seconds,
Eva stood before him. Eva exactly as he knew her, down to the tiny
half-dimple that appeared in one cheek when she smiled.

‘What the -’ He backed
away, stumbling over furniture as she followed him around the
library.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?
Are you sure you won’t change your mind?’

‘That’s a sorc trick,’
he gasped. ‘How did you...?’

She wrinkled Eva’s
elegant nose. ‘Illusions are sorcerer territory, yes, but this
level of sophistication is rare. That, as you must know, is because
you would have to build all the personal details yourself. Nobody
really knows another that well. But that is not what I am
doing.

‘This, dear boy, is
pure Lokant. It’s a mental trick, see. I encourage your own mind to
tell you that it’s Eva that you’re seeing. It’s completely
convincing to you because it’s built from your own impressions.’
She kept coming on relentlessly, closing the gap between them. Tren
found himself with his back to the wall, his exit cut off by the
approaching Eva-lookalike.

She grabbed his hand
and applied it to her torso. ‘It even
feels
convincing. See
how easy it is to deceive oneself?’

Tren tried to pull back
his hand but she was scarily strong. ‘Let
go,
’ he said
angrily. ‘I don’t care how much you can make yourself look like
her, you are
not
Eva.’

Andraly stepped back at
last, wearing an expression of disgust that he’d never seen on
Eva’s face before. ‘A tendency towards monogamy is one of the less
interesting traits of your world’s inhabitants.’ Her face and body
returned to their usual patterns and she stood aside. ‘Go and be
miserable then, if you’d prefer.’

He went.

At two years old, Lyerd
Desandry was still a little unsteady on his feet. Avane picked him
up as he tumbled, yet again. She had stopped expecting to hear
screams and cries from him when he fell and struck his knees on the
hard ground. Other people’s children might be given to histrionics,
but not her son. He was giggling as she set him on his feet
again.

‘You’re getting
better,’ she smiled. ‘Once more around and then we’d better go
home. All right?’

They were standing on
the edge of the Virun Park, the largest piece of public ground in
the town of Glaynasser. This area was designed to appeal to
children: it had swings and a box full of sand, and plenty of space
to run about in. Lyerd embarked on his final run around the little
grassy square, his short legs pumping hard as he tried to outdo
himself. He completed his circuit without mishap and collapsed into
his mother’s arms, giggling.

‘Tired,’ he said,
holding up his arms.

Avane picked him up,
groaning at the weight. He was getting too big to be carried, but
she could never resist him when he smiled like that.

Turning to leave, she
froze. Standing only a few feet away was a stranger, a man,
watching her and her son. He looked quite old with his white hair
and lined skin. His eyes were weirdly colourless. He nodded to her
as she caught his eye.

‘A fine young man,’ he
said.

‘Thank you,’ she
replied, eyeing him doubtfully.

‘May I walk with
you?’

She shifted Lyerd onto
her hip, gathering her bag with her free hand. ‘I suppose so.’ She
wanted to say no but she couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse
his request.

‘Does he take after his
mother?’

‘Er, sorry? In what
way?’

‘You are a sorcerer, I
think.’

She shot him a
surprised glance. ‘How do you know that?’

‘One can tell these
things, sometimes. It is the truth, however?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Good, good. But are
you the sorcerer that I need?’

This man was making her
nervous with his strange talk. ‘I’d better hurry home,’ she said in
an apologetic tone. ‘Lyerd is about ready for his nap.’

‘His name is Lyerd, hm?
An old-fashioned name.’

‘It was my
grandfather’s,’ she said involuntarily, then wondered what had made
her say it.

‘Ah! Then you would be
Avane.’

‘How - how do you know
my name?’

‘I knew your
grandfather,’ the man replied smoothly. ‘I’d like you to help me
with something, Avane.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve no
time. My work at the school keeps me very busy and Lyerd needs so
much attention.’

The man stepped in
front of her, cutting her off. He looked at her gravely; despite
the lack of smile or welcoming expression she felt drawn to trust
him.

‘For a friend of your
grandfather’s you would find the time, I’m sure.’

‘Um, all right,’ she
said reluctantly. ‘What do you need of me?’

‘I just need you to
come with me for a while. I’ll tell you more soon.’

Her doubts returned
full force. ‘Where are we going? Is it far?’

‘Quite far, yes. Worry
not: I will see that you are returned at the proper time.’ He
gripped her wrist and she began to feel afraid again.

Now he smiled, but it
wasn’t a reassuring expression. ‘You see? It’s always so much
easier when people don’t make a
fuss.
’

Avane’s fear grew and
she began to struggle, trying to pull back the hand that he still
held in a fierce grip. He was fearsomely strong for a man of his
apparent age, his fingers digging hard into her skin.

‘Let
go,
’ she
cried.

‘I wasn’t really
asking
for your compliance. It would be nicer if you’d come
along quietly, but if I have to drag you, I will.’

‘
Who are you?
’

‘My name is Krays.’ He
tugged and Avane felt a falling sensation. With a cry of fear she
hugged her son closer, closing her eyes as the world dissolved
around her.

***

Ynara shut off the
voice box with a soft sigh. These strange, distant conversations
with her husband were inadequate compared to having him in the
house, but it was so much better than nothing that she always ended
them with reluctance. How long would he remain away from her this
time? Increasingly she resented the duties as Elder that kept her
from following her family.