Lokant (7 page)

‘Huh.’ Aysun repeated
this process a few more times as Nyra stood and watched. At length
she grinned.

‘Something odd about
that.’

‘Reckon so,’ Aysun
agreed. He hesitated, then told Nyra about the history of Llandry’s
similar pet.

‘Well,’ Nyra said when
he had finished, ‘
seeing
another one the same might be a
coincidence. But the chances of a different one showing particular
interest in you aren’t high.’

‘Right,’ said Aysun.
But he still hesitated. He was obviously being encouraged to go
left, but according to his device Llandry’s trail lay straight
ahead of him.

Nyra solved it for him
by taking off and veering to the left.

‘I’m supposed to be the
leader here,’ he called up to her. She ignored him. With a sigh,
Aysun trudged after her.

As he walked after his
unlikely guide, Aysun had the odd sensation that he was covering
more ground than he ought to have been. The landscape flowed past
him, melting freely and rapidly into new formations. He passed
through glissenwol forests that seemed vast, only to meld suddenly
into rolling hills and then into boggy marshes and on into leafy
woodland. There was a curious buoyancy to his stride, as though his
legs stretched themselves and ate twice the regular distance with
each step. Occasionally he saw buildings through the trees or away
on the horizon, towers and tree houses and once a sprawling
mansion. But he was drawn on relentlessly, never given pause to
examine the structures that he glimpsed.

He was taken into a
narrow pass through a series of mountains that had abruptly
shimmered into view moments earlier. Beyond it lay a house built
from stacked stone, with mullioned windows and a walled garden
visible to the rear. The architecture was wholly Irbellian in
style, of the traditional sort popular in his grandfather’s day; it
looked so familiar that he instinctively stopped to examine it more
closely.

A buzz sounded in his
ear and he caught himself before he was tempted to waste too much
time here. But then his winged friend flew over the gate and made
its meandering way through an open window at the front of the
house.

A few moments later,
the door opened and a grey-haired woman appeared. On seeing him,
she clapped her hands together, beaming.

‘He’s here!’ she
called. ‘And oh my, is this Ynara?’ Nyra descended from the skies
to stand next to him. Her lips quirked into a grin at that.

‘Not a bad thing to be
mistaken for Ynara,’ she murmured.

‘Hm. Doesn’t look like
her.’ The voice was a male one but Aysun couldn’t see who
spoke.

‘Come out, and say
hello.’ The grey-headed lady in the doorway stepped aside, ushering
someone else through. The man who emerged was stooped, his hair
closer to white than grey, but it took Aysun less than two seconds
to realise who this was.

‘Hello, son,’ said his
father.

Aysun stared, his mouth
set in a grim line. Then, wordlessly, he turned and walked
away.

For a time, Llandry
Sanfaer of Waeverleyne had ceased to exist.

For a time, only the
draykon lived on, nameless and needing no name. She who was once
Llandry had lost sight of herself altogether, forgotten who she
truly was in this new shape of hers. The old Llandry had lain
imprisoned somewhere in the centre of her heart, while a new
Llandry, one proud and vicious and strong, had danced in the skies
of the Uppers. She had flown hundreds of miles at impossible
speeds, swooped and turned and dived, chased and hunted and fed and
sped on once more; testing the power of her form she found it
strong, stronger than anything.

Keeping with her,
always close, was the larger draykon: the one whose awakening had
kindled the draykon fire in her own soul and gifted her with this
glorious new destiny. Together they had spanned the world: explored
every forest and meadow, traversed every lake and sea, the
landscapes below rippling like water and as changeful as the winds
as the draykon energies touched them. Exhilarated, fascinated,
drunk on power and strength, Llandry had flown on and on - until at
last the small part of her heart that remembered her former life
had stretched and grown and made itself heard.

Mamma, and Papa. Their
faces came to her first, large and vivid in her clouded thoughts.
Then she remembered more, her mind flooding with images: Devary
Kant and Nimdre; the attack on the edge of the Glinnery forest; her
grandfather and Mags his wife; the two pale-haired magical
practitioners who had revived her draykon companion; the agony of
her first Change. Once these half-faded memories were acknowledged
and sought, they could not be stopped; not until Llandry was fully
herself again, in mind if not in body.

Then to effect the
transformation back to her human shape, so small and feeble and
weak in comparison. Finding her way back to her home - or was it
her former home? - was surpassingly easy, even once human again. It
was the work of the briefest thought to wander between the worlds;
a shift in focus was all it took and she could see the three worlds
superimposed over one another, each separate and distinct yet
irrevocably tangled. Narrowing her focus was all she needed to do,
and her next step would carry her into a different series of
realms. How simple, then, to go home; and yet how hard, for she
herself was not the Llandry her parents had raised, and never would
be again.

But go home she
must.

She covered most of the
distance in the Uppers, tracking her progress across all three
worlds at once. When she judged herself near to Waeverleyne, she
changed back to her human shape before stepping through into
Glinnery itself. Her own, familiar grey wings carried her to her
mother’s balcony.

No time at all did she
have to prepare herself, for Ynara was already standing there, her
hand on the door as if she had just that instant thrown it open.
Her mother - beautiful and mussed, as always - said nothing for a
long moment, merely stared at her daughter. Llandry could not read
her expression.

‘
Llan,
’ she
gasped at last, as if drawing in air after long deprivation. Then
her arms went around Llandry and she clung to her.

A thud sounded from
behind her, and a male voice cursed in a language long dead.
Llandry winced as her mother’s gaze moved to take in the stranger.
He had shifted out of his draykon form as she had, but his human
appearance could be alarming.

‘Er, Ma... this is
Pensould.’

‘Pensould,’ repeated
Ynara faintly.

‘My friend,’ Llandry
added.

Ynara nodded.
Reluctantly, she let Llandry go and stood back to survey the
newcomer. She surveyed them both, in fact, her gaze lingering
longest on her daughter.

‘Is it true? I heard
that you - you -’

Llandry interrupted, so
that her mother wouldn’t have to find the words. ‘Draykon,’ she
said with reverence. ‘It’s true, Ma.’

Ynara’s eyes widened
and her honey-gold skin paled. Llandry bit her lip, holding her
breath as nerves danced within her. How could her mother possibly
understand?

‘Changed you may be,
but you’re still our Llan,’ Ynara murmured. ‘We thought you were
lost.’

‘I was,’ Llandry
replied, swallowing a lump that had materialised in her throat. ‘I
found my way back.’

‘This is your sire?’
came Pensould’s voice. ‘Dam?’

‘Mother,’ Llandry
corrected.

Pensould’s gaze swept
over Ynara critically. The contrast between his pale eyes and his
ink-black hair still shocked Llandry a little whenever she looked
at him. As did the strikingly blue colour of the veins that showed
themselves through his stark white skin. Long hours she may have
spent in teaching him to Change, but he hadn’t yet fully mastered
his human form.

He grabbed Llandry’s
arm and jerked her backwards, gripping her wrist possessively. ‘My
mate,’ he said to Ynara.

Llandry suffered a
surge of annoyance. ‘No,’ she said to him distinctly. ‘I am not. I
told you not to say that.’

He shook his head. ‘My
choice, not yours.’

Ynara’s eyes narrowed.
She took Llandry’s free hand in hers and gently drew her away from
Pensould. ‘Why don’t you both come in?’ she said.

Pensould was a true
draykon. He had never before taken human shape, and had little
understanding of what it meant. Human customs were beyond him, and
he had slept through most of human history. It had taken Llandry
some days to effect her transformation back into human form, and
considerably longer to teach the technique to Pensould. He wasn’t
particularly taking to it.

Sitting with her mother
listening to Pensould speak, both his talents and his shortcomings
were equally obvious. He spoke Glinnish haltingly, and he revealed
his ignorance of her world with almost every sentence. But that he
could speak her tongue at all was remarkable; he remembered every
word that he heard and he seemed to have no difficulty
understanding their meaning. His progress was slower outside of the
Upper Realm, but still he was (she would have said) impossibly
quick. It was as though he absorbed the sense of their utterances
by some means other than a purely intellectual understanding of the
words themselves.

‘Soon, you will do that
too,’ Pensould informed her, interrupting himself.

She blinked.
‘What?’

He tapped her head,
hard. ‘Your senses are dull. Flat. Too human. But I can feel you
waking.’

‘Waking?’

‘Becoming more clever.
More draykon.’

Llandry scowled. ‘I am
human.’

Pensould smiled, a
rather frightening expression displaying too many teeth. ‘No.
Human-shaped outside, draykon inside.’

‘I can assure you,
Llandry is entirely human. I gave birth to her myself. I detected
no sharp teeth, no claws, no unusual proportions.’ Ynara kept her
voice steady and her eyes on Pensould.

‘Wings, though.’ He
grinned. ‘I have seen humans before, long ago. No wings then. Why
do you have wings now?’

‘I...’ Ynara faltered.
‘Theories have been made, but no entirely satisfactory explanation
has been found.’

Pensould leaned forward
suddenly and grasped one of Ynara’s wings. He tugged it, ignoring
her discomfort, pulling it partially open.

‘Not feathers like a
bird. Not thin like a daefly. Webbed, strong. Draykon wings.’

Ynara opened her mouth,
but nothing emerged.

‘You, Sire-of-Minchu,
are maybe half draykon. No, more. But you stay human; you wish it.
Minchu-’

‘
Mother
,’
interrupted Ynara. ‘And who is Minchu?’

Llandry’s cheeks
warmed. ‘It appears to mean “mate”, Ma.’

Ynara’s grey eyes
settled on her. Her brows lifted, ever so slightly. Llandry
coughed.

‘I’m not “minchu”.’

‘Minchu,’ continued
Pensould, unfazed, ‘she is almost all draykon. I can feel it, not
so much here but in Iskyr, she is strong. Draykon heart.’

‘Iskyr?’ queried
Ynara.

‘Upper Realms, Ma.’

Ynara was looking
increasingly bewildered. ‘Llan, please. Slow down.
Who is
Pensould? Where did he come from?’

‘How much did Lady
Glostrum tell you?’

‘Everything she
witnessed herself, I believe.’

‘Well, Pensould is the
draykon that the Ullarn sorcerers resurrected. His were the bones
that I found. I know what he means, Ma.’ Llandry shifted in her
chair, sitting more upright. ‘In Iskyr - the Uppers - I could sense
his presence. I found his bones, and I
felt
him waking. It’s
like having several more senses than humans -’

‘I used you,’ Pensould
interrupted. He sounded faintly abashed. ‘Your energy. I needed it,
to come back. It hurt, yes?’

Llandry frowned at him.
‘Hurt? Yes, it hurt. A lot.’ She didn’t like to remember that
experience. As she had felt Pensould’s essence roar into life under
her hands, she had been struck by incapacitating pain, unable to
prevent herself being dragged through the boundaries between the
worlds and deposited in the Lower Realms where Pensould in his
draykon form was stirring into life.

‘I suppose it was you
who pulled me through,’ Llandry said darkly.

‘Yes,’ Pensould
admitted without remorse. ‘You were too far away.’

Ynara groaned, and
Llandry looked with quick alarm at her mother. ‘Ma? Are you
well?’

‘Yes,’ she replied
faintly. ‘I’m told my daughter is not a human but a draykon - a
creature that, until recently, was not thought to exist at all; I
learn that she has become the “minchu” of another draykon and that
she has recently been made to suffer extreme pain and discomfort by
her self-elected spouse; and after weeks of absence she suddenly
reappears and now she sits in my living room, chattering with
astonishing comfort about her new form, as if such things were no
sort of surprise to her at all. Of course, I am quite well.’

Llandry was silent. It
was true that it had taken her precious little time to adjust to
her draykon form; instead of feeling uncomfortable in the new shape
she felt rather as though her human body was the wrong one. As a
draykon she was a different person: no longer shy, afraid, out of
step with her own peers, but strong and comfortable in her skin.
The experience had been a revelation. She knew in her heart that
Pensould spoke the truth, but it was hard to admit such things to
her mother.

For now, she elected to
change the subject. ‘I have more to tell you, Mamma, and Pa as
well. Will he be home soon?’

‘Your father,’ Ynara
said slowly, ‘is in the Uppers, looking for you.’

Llandry was speechless.
She would never have imagined that Aysun, with his lifelong fear of
the Uppers so deeply ingrained, might go so far as to go after
her.