Me or Gio? Then presenting this fascinatingly unusual man to me was not the true goal of this meeting. I realised they had put Rastivan in the centre, with two flanking him on either side, which was probably not a coincidence. He was also right at the back of the room; if he wanted to reach the door, he would have to make it past all four of them first.
I heard Gio shut the door behind me.
Me or Gio. What did the two of us have in common? We were the only Lokants of our little group, and… the only ones with a way out of the Library.
‘How nice to meet you, Rastivan,’ I said, with my blandest smile. ‘I am always delighted to meet fascinating people, of course. What do you do in Sulayn Phay?’
Rastivan’s eyes flicked to Gio behind me, and then back to my face. He looked cowed, and I wondered if he had only just realised that he’d landed in the centre of a fine trap. ‘I am a, um. Research specialist.’
‘Oh?’ said I politely. ‘How interesting. What is your subject?’
Rastivan did not seem to know what his subject was, for he hesitated. His eyes flicked to Gio again.
The more I looked at Rastivan, the more I felt that something was amiss with him, some small subtlety out of place… was it his eyes, a brighter green than I had ever seen before? Was it his features? He reminded me a little bit of Pense in the early days of his shapeshifting, when he had not yet fully grasped how humans tended to look…
Enlightenment dawned, just as Nyden spoke.
‘This is boring,’ he announced. ‘And stupid.’
I opened my mouth to enquire as to his meaning, but Rastivan’s survival instincts chose that moment to fulfil their assigned purpose. Aware all at once that the scenario could not possibly end well for him, he made a swift, hopeless leap for the doorway.
Nyden was ready for this. He surged out of his chair and leapt at Rastivan, brought him down in a brutal tackle, and ruthlessly beat the bigger man’s head against the hard floor until he passed out. Then Ny looked at me with an unpleasant smile. ‘Give us a lift home?’
I concealed my surprise. ‘By all means.’ Gio came too, to my relief, because dragging Nyden plus that massive side of meat around would not be easy on me. We bundled them up between us, and made the leap back to HQ.
‘Draykon?’ I queried, once we had safely come out in the entrance hall of my poor, flooded building.
‘Draykon turncoat,’ said Ny, and bared his teeth at the unconscious form of Rastivan. We had let the side of meat slip from our grasp as we’d arrived, and he now lay in a damp heap on the sopping-wet floor. ‘Sneaking around at Phay with his shoddy disguise, cosying up with Dwinal. We heard him, talking like an idiot. How easy it is to trap a draykon, if you grab them straight from the Long Sleep! How many more he can deliver! He’s an ancient. He should know better.’
So here was our informant, the person responsible for handing over the likes of Nindrinat for enslavement. ‘I wonder what he was getting out of it,’ I mused.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are there others?’
Ny shrugged. ‘No sign of any more, but maybe. Keep an eye out.’ Rastivan stirred, his eyelids fluttering. With a broad, delighted smile, Nyden viciously kicked him in the head, and Rastivan subsided into unconsciousness once more. ‘We let him think we were at Phay for the same reasons. The competition, if you like. Invited him to a cooperative meeting.’
‘Very clever.’
Nyden gazed down at Rastivan with such fury, even I felt uneasy. ‘I will deal with him,’ he said to me with chilling glee.
I surveyed Ny, thinking. I could see that Rastivan’s fate was not going to be pleasant. If I left Nyden to his own devices… how far would he go? How much could be justified?
Draykon business. I decided not to interfere. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
Perhaps Nyden guessed at my deliberations, for he gave me a more genuine smile and a bow. ‘Come get me in a day or two.’
‘Yes, sir.’
To my surprise, Gio looked more concerned about Rastivan’s possible fate than I was. Gio, who carved holes in his own people without a qualm, if need arose.
‘He sold Nindrinat into slavery,’ I reminded him.
‘I know, but…’ Gio watched Nyden, who in turn was watching Rastivan with the intense anticipation of a predator about to enjoy a particularly succulent meal. ‘He’ll take him apart.’
‘Good point.’ I tapped Ny on the shoulder. ‘Can I ask him a couple of questions, before you take him away?’
‘Interrogation!’ said Nyden grandly, and stepped aside. ‘I was forgetting that.’
I shook my head in mock dismay. ‘Some spy you are.’
‘I cannot help it if I am better at the violent bits.’
‘Everybody has their strengths.’ Nyden had clobbered Rastivan nicely; I had to wait a few minutes before he began to come around again. In the meantime, I had Nyden restrain the captive, which he accomplished by sitting on Rastivan’s chest. His hands changed: long, wicked claws erupted from his fingertips, and these he sank deeply into Rastivan’s shoulders. When the draykon woke, his first sight was of Nyden’s face close to his, long teeth bared. His first sensation, pain.
‘Welcome awake,’ growled Nyden.
I wasn’t going to waste time asking Rastivan questions and hoping he would reply. Too risky, too long-winded, and too much of an encouragement to Nyden, who I was sure would take great delight in torturing him.
I do have these sparkly Lokant powers, however, and I am rarely afforded so beautiful an opportunity to use them.
So Ny threatened, and I smacked Rastivan around with a nice, blunt compulsion. ‘To whom do you report?’ I asked him.
Rastivan blinked at me, his face blank. ‘The one called Dwinal.’
‘How many draykoni have you delivered to her?’
I waited in confident expectation of another prompt answer, but none came. To my distaste, my compulsion wasn’t holding; it was running off him like water, his eyes were clearing, he was moving. I’d forgotten that draykoni are somewhat more resistant to the art than humans — or perhaps it is merely that my ability is lacking, for Gio stepped in. His idea of a nice, blunt compulsion made mine look like a light caress with a feather. He smashed Rastivan’s mind with the mental equivalent of a ton of bricks, and snarled: ‘How many?’
‘Sixteen,’ panted Rastivan, who seemed unable to breathe.
We ignored his sufferings. Sixteen? ‘You lie,’ I said faintly.
‘No.’
I exchanged an appalled look with Gio. We had expected there would be more draykoni held at Sulayn Phay, of course, but privately, I had imagined there might be one or two or three… sixteen changed everything. Sixteen made for a whole different set of problems. Sixteen meant that finding them was no longer the biggest challenge we faced; getting them out was going to be far more difficult.
A fight broke out at my feet. Rastivan was throwing off Gio’s compulsion, too, ignoring all further questions, and generally getting belligerent about everything. Nyden was taking him apart, as Gio put it, and enjoying himself immensely. A brief survey assured me that, as powerful as Rastivan might look, he was no match for Nyden, and he knew it.
‘He’ll be fine,’ I told Gio, referring to Ny. ‘Come on.’
I had spent about three minutes reviewing our options, which was sufficient time to conclude that they were limited. We had badly underestimated the extent of the problem; now that we were better informed, the time for creeping, careful action was past.
‘We are going to need help,’ I told Gio as I went outside. ‘Lots of it.’
My manner worried Gio, but he was too wise to try to stop me. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘First, we need to get in touch with our allies.’ I went to the post box and rummaged within it. I found a number of letters, all of which I discarded, for they were mere paper and could not contain what I was looking for. There were no packages, no parcels.
‘Damn,’ I muttered.
I told him about the voice-boxes made by Llandry’s father, and her promise to try to secure one for me.
‘Did you tell her about the post shenanigans we had happening?’
‘I… yes, I imagine I did.’
‘Llandry’s too clever to send it here by post, then.’
‘Wise man that you are.’ I did some thinking. If Llan wanted to deliver something important and she was unwilling to trust it to the post, what would she do with it?
‘It’s a long way to travel, just to drop off a voice-box,’ Gio said. ‘She might have sent it somewhere else?’
I rolled my eyes, momentarily exhausted by my own stupidity. ‘Like my house, for instance. She knows where that is. Hayes has probably got it.’
Thither we went, the quick way, for Gio set up a transloc point outside my front door some time ago.
I rang the bell and Hayes appeared, all neat black coat, perfectly groomed hair and raised eyebrows. ‘My lady?’
‘Dear Hayes. Has an odd-looking package arrived for me recently? Possibly marked “incredibly, unimaginably important” as well as “shockingly fragile”?’
‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, and I swear I saw his lips twitch. It is not easy to make Hayes laugh; he is far too self-possessed. ‘I will fetch it.’
He did so with marvellous promptitude, and within a few moments I had a voice-box in my hands once more. It was an odd feeling. The last time I had one of those things, there was a war going on.
‘I hope it works,’ I muttered, and tried it. It was much simpler than the one Limbane gave me, clunky and almost juvenile by comparison. But a promising fizz of sound emerged when I activated it, and I spoke at once. ‘Llan.’
Nothing happened.
‘Llan?’
Nothing.
‘LLANDRY!’
‘Yes.’ The box buzzed. ‘Yes! Eva!’
‘Dire emergency!’ I warned. ‘Darling that you are for arranging this thing! We need all draykoni on hand at my house, as soon as you can get here. There are at least sixteen like Nindrinat somewhere in Sulayn Phay, and we need to move.’
‘Sixteen?!’ I heard the awe in Llandry’s voice, and she fell silent for a long time. Too long.
‘Llandry!’
‘Yes. Sorry. We are coming.’
The box stopped buzzing. ‘Excellent,’ I murmured, and tucked it away. ‘Onward.’
Gio and I returned to Sulayn Phay to find an empty suite of rooms. The silence unnerved me; it was starkly at odds with the urgency I felt, with the turmoil in my mind. The peacefulness seemed wrong.
‘Where is everyone?’ murmured Gio.
‘I am sure they’re well,’ I said firmly, though I felt a twinge of concern. Never mind that now. ‘Gio, we need to get into your grandmother’s rooms.’
I had been hoping I’d never have to say that to him, for the effect was immediate: he turned white, and took an involuntary step backwards. He swallowed. ‘Eva… you… have no idea what she’ll do if she catches us there.’
‘I have an inkling, I think, and I am sorry to ask you to place yourself in such danger. But matters are too urgent to admit of any further delay. Thanks to Rastivan, we are now certain that Dwinal was behind the capture of Nindrinat and the others. We need to know why. We need to find out what this “new establishment” of hers is supposed to be. If winning her confidence through winning back her trust isn’t working, then we must try a more direct approach.’
He nodded, but I could see that he felt neither reassured nor resolved. He looked like he wanted to be sick. With a long sigh, he rubbed at his eyes. ‘Do you think, once this is all over, we will manage to have a quiet life for a while?’
‘I hope so,’ I said fervently. ‘I want to get married and live happily ever after.’
That prompted a tiny smile from Gio, and he said softly: ‘Me too.’
‘Sadly, the best way to secure such a future is to send Dwinal packing.’
He nodded, more thoughtfully this time. His colour was returning a little. ‘I do not have access to those rooms,’ he admitted. ‘She has never trusted me enough to grant me that again, and I didn’t really expect her to. So, I will have to do as I did before: find someone else who can get in, and um… make use of them.’
I remembered well how he had previously achieved that. I wasn’t present myself, but Llandry wrote of how he had cut an implant out of someone’s arm — someone to whom he was possibly related — and used that to open the door. ‘Do you think your grandmother might be ready for that possibility, this time? Would it still work?’
Gio opened his mouth, and nothing came out. He shut it again, and grunted.
‘I think I am minded to gamble,’ I offered.
Gio’s eyes widened. ‘Gambling is… risky.’
‘Highly. It is not for the faint of heart, certainly. Will you hear my idea?’
He nodded once.
‘I think that there’s trouble in Dwinal’s camp. All is possibly not well between her and Hyarn. I think that when Hyarn came here and offered to help with “anything we might need”, he was trying to tell me that he was disposed to support us in opposing her.’
‘You’re going to ask Hyarn to let us into Dwinal’s chambers?’
‘Exactly.’
Gio gave me the wide-eyed stare of a sane man confined in close quarters with a madwoman. ‘You must be joking.’
‘No. I did say that matters are becoming somewhat urgent. Time to be bold.’
‘Is that bold, or crazy?’
‘Sometimes the two are indistinguishable.’
‘What about what you said before? What if it’s all a trick?’
‘The best way to find out how a trap works is to spring it.’
‘And be trapped.’
‘What choices do we have? Being careful and wise and tentative has only wasted a lot of time. While we were doing that, Rastivan and company were out enslaving sixteen draykoni. We need to stop this, immediately.’
Nothing Gio said could dissuade me, I am afraid. You might have noticed, I can be stubborn once I have set my mind on something. The poor boy came up with a few alternative ideas for getting into his grandmother’s personal space; all of them struck me as shaky, unlikely to succeed, and scarcely less risky than approaching Hyarn. Eventually I decided the debate by leaving the room, leaving Gio to trail helplessly in my wake.
I was fairly sure I knew where to find Hyarn, but I wanted to visit the schoolroom first in hopes of finding Tren there. In this I was disappointed, but I did find Avane, enjoying a drink in between classes. She looked, as ever, worried.
‘Nyden is well,’ I told her, for I had a suspicion that question was on her mind. Her manner toward him had changed somewhat, since he had shown signs of a better nature (or at least a different one). ‘We left him making mincemeat of Rastivan.’
She smiled faintly and said, in her soft way, ‘He will enjoy that.’
‘He was taking great pleasure in it, when we left,’ I agreed. ‘Where has everyone gone?’
‘Ori’s teaching with Tynara, much to his disgust, because everyone else has gone in search of captives. There was an agreement to launch a major search. I had instructions to send you and Gio after them when you returned, for you’ve access to places they do not.’
‘We have another errand first, after which we will gladly join the search.’ I told Avane what our errand was — somebody needed to know where we had gone, in case all was disaster and ruin. Avane was no happier about the plan than Gio, but she did not argue as he had done. She merely gazed at me, huge-eyed, with the air of one taking a final, fond look at a dear friend whom she would never see again.
‘Be careful,’ she said.
I liked that she did not try to dissuade me. If one overlooked her obvious certainty that it would only end in catastrophe, it made for a pleasant vote of confidence.
Avane set down her cup, and rose. ‘I must take over from Ori in a few moments
. I’ll tell him where you are.’
I pictured Ori tearing after us in a blaze of fury that I could dare to put his lover (fiancé…?) in danger. ‘Perhaps better not, right away.’
But Avane proved unexpectedly immoveable. ‘He has a right to know, and you may need the help.’
Fair, and fair. I didn’t argue further.
We left. ‘Are you and Ori planning to wed?’ I asked Gio as we returned to the corridor.
He blinked, taken aback by the sudden question. ‘Ah… why do you ask?’
‘Your desire for wedded bliss appears to equal my own.’
He said nothing right away. ‘I have not asked him,’ he admitted.
‘Shall you?’
‘If I can find the courage.’
That might have been the moment for a pep talk, for I had no doubts about the likelihood of Ori’s accepting such a proposal. But it was not my place to interfere (you hear that, Tren? I chose not to meddle!), and we were in a bit of a hurry.
‘Away we go,’ I warned Gio as I grabbed his wrist. I translocated back to that little library on the other side of Sulayn Phay, where we had found Hyarn before. He had looked so at home there, I’d got the impression that it was possibly a favourite space of his.
To my relief, there he was, reclining in the same chair as before. A stack of books rested on the table beside him, and he held one open on his lap. He looked up as we materialised before him, and smiled.
‘Lady Glostrum,’ he greeted me. ‘Maeval.’
Gio’s face twisted in disgust. ‘Don’t call me that.’
His reaction puzzled me for a moment, until I remembered that Maeval had been Krays’s family name. Apparently it was also Gio’s, and he was less than happy about it.
Hyarn responded with a respectful nod. ‘Gio, then,’ he amended.
I felt emboldened by this kindness towards Gio, small as it was. Could I reasonably take it as a sign that Hyarn was more kindly disposed towards the grandson than the grandparents? Was that wishful thinking? Did I give Hyarn too much credit?
I took a moment to wander the library, surreptitiously checking whether anybody might be near enough to overhear our conversation.
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