Serena nodded and lapsed into silence for a while, apparently deep in thought. ‘So, this woman is a friend of Lady Glostrum’s,’ she said at last, and Teyo realised he was forgiven. ‘That could be useful to know. Although, it’s also a bit worrying. You don’t suppose the LHB is behind the theft of Anserval’s stone?’
‘Couldn’t say,’ Teyo replied, frowning at a minor glitch in his pattern. ‘But I have to doubt it.’
‘You never know with those people,’ Egg muttered darkly.
Teyo raised a brow at her. ‘It seems unlikely.’
‘Oh?’ Egg cast him a faintly disdainful expression. ‘Are you personally acquainted with her ladyship?’
‘No, but I believe the LHB to have a well-deserved reputation for fair dealing. I don’t think they’d stoop to theft. Anyway, Oliver’s been working with them for the past year. There’s a solid alliance there, and I don’t think he’d be that far wrong.’
Egg snorted. ‘Her LadyGlostrumship is as capable of corruption as the next person, and Oliver’s as human as the rest of us. I wouldn’t bank on it.’
Teyo regarded her with some curiosity. Egg could be acerbic, but she wasn’t usually prejudiced or unfair.
‘I think we can leave that to Oliver,’ Serena said smoothly, before he could make any reply. ‘He’s the better person to approach her about that connection, and we have to trust him. He’s never gone far wrong before.’
Teyo nodded. Egg subsided, muttering, into the blanket that she had drawn all the way up to her chin.
Serena stood up wearily, tugging at the buttons that fastened her drab, oversized shirt. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said with a tired smile. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Before she had taken two steps there came a knock on the apartment door, and she froze. Exchanging one brief, startled look with Teyo, she murmured, ‘Who could that possibly be?’
Teyo shared her confusion, and alarm. The location of their dwelling was supposed to be known only to Oliver, but there wasn’t the smallest chance that he was the person at the door.
Serena cast a helpless look down at herself. She was half-in and half-out of costume, and looked a ragged mess. Teyo motioned to her to sit down and went to the door himself, while Egg emerged from her blanket and stood up, wary and alert.
There was a peephole in the door, which Teyo made immediate use of. On the other side stood a tall, regal-looking woman with white hair tied up in braids. She wore sturdy trousers and boots and a plain shirt, along with a mildly troubled expression.
Teyo started back, convinced for a horrified second that the Lokant woman they had crossed earlier in the day had discovered them. Then he thought better of it. This woman was wearing headgear with dark-tinted lenses to block out the light, and she was accompanied by a similarly-equipped man with the characteristic pale skin of a Darklander. The lady was not a full Lokant, then, but a partial, for she was a native of the Darklands to the east of Irbel.
‘It’s Lady Glostrum,’ he said.
‘What?’ said Serena. ‘How can that be?’
‘Let’s find out,’ said Teyo, and opened the door.
Her ladyship was greeted with the total silence of three stunned people. She smiled a trifle uncertainly, and dipped her head in greeting. ‘I hope you will forgive the intrusion,’ she said in a mellifluous voice. ‘It is urgent that we speak with you at once.’ When nothing but silence greeted this announcement, she added: ‘We saw Mr. Tullen, earlier in the day. He sent us to see you.’
Teyo recovered his scrambled wits. ‘Of course,’ he murmured, and ushered them inside. Observing the way her ladyship’s companion — her husband, Tren Warvel, he thought — glanced guardedly behind himself as he entered the apartment, Teyo took the precaution of triple-locking the door.
Serena and Egg performed a brief dash about the room, preparing chairs for their unexpected visitors and dimming the light-globes as low as they could possibly go. Low enough for the Darklanders to remove their headgear, it seemed, for they both set aside their lenses gratefully.
‘I hope we haven’t alarmed you,’ said Mr. Warvel with an apologetic smile. He offered a note to Teyo, who was nearest to him. The note was clearly in Oliver’s handwriting, and arranged with typical terseness. See these people, it said, and was followed by nothing save a scrawled signature. Teyo passed it to Serena without comment.
Serena made hurried introductions. Teyo knew her well enough to see the embarrassment she felt at appearing in such attire before such visitors, though he didn’t imagine that it was apparent to Lady Glostrum or Mr. Warvel. The two paid close attention to the names of Serena’s team, he thought; he wasn’t sure why. Reclaiming his former seat, Teyo took up his knitting and prepared to sit in quiet observation. Serena would handle the talking — unaided by Egg, apparently, whose scowl suggested she was keeping a number of unpleasant thoughts unspoken.
Lady Glostrum began without preamble: ‘What really happened down at the dig site today?’
Serena considered the question, her eyes slightly narrowed. ‘What account did you receive from your friend?’
Neither seemed to require any elucidation of the term “friend”. ‘Something important was stolen from her today,’ Lady Glostrum replied. ‘Some Lokant artefact, the identity of which she was not inclined to share.’ Her ladyship paused, eyeing Serena’s half-costume, and continued, ‘The three academics she accused were not academics, I think?’
Serena nodded once.
Lady Glostrum reached into a pocket and withdrew the gold-threaded stone. ‘Oliver Tullen called at the LHB headquarters this afternoon, and gave this into my keeping. I believe you know a little more about it?’
Serena’s brows rose as she saw the stone, and a look of consternation came into her eyes. ‘Ah... does your friend know that you have that?’
‘I have not yet told her,’ replied her ladyship.
‘Shall you?’
‘That depends on the outcome of this conversation.’
Serena looked at Teyo. He gazed steadily and confidently back. He and Egg had delivered the stone into Oliver’s own hands; if Lady Glostrum possessed both that and a note with Oliver’s signature, Teyo felt no reason to doubt her.
Serena nodded once, and related in all due detail the events of Dame Halavere’s ball and their subsequent visit to Baron Anserval’s house. Teyo noted, with some amusement, the flicker of distaste that crossed both Lady Glostrum’s and Mr. Warvel’s face when the Baron was mentioned, and wondered how these two knew his lordship.
When Serena came to recount how the Lokant woman had stolen the first stone — or key, if indeed it was — she looked disappointed, which was not what Teyo might have expected. She did not interrupt Serena, however, listening with close attention to the end of her account.
When Serena had finished, Lady Glostrum turned her attention to Teyo. ‘That word, “key”,’ she said. ‘It was you who first heard it applied to those stones?’
‘Yes. I got it from a contact within the Unspea— within the Yllandu organisation.’
The faint glint of amusement in her ladyship’s eyes suggested that she could guess what the rest of the abandoned word would have been, and also that she appreciated the joke. She understood Ullarni, then.
‘That’s all that you know?’ she enquired. ‘Do you have any information regarding why they’re thought to be keys, and what they might open?’
Teyo shook his head. ‘If anybody knows, it will be the higher-ups, and I don’t have access to them.’
‘Perhaps not even they,’ Lady Glostrum mused.
Mr. Warvel cleared his throat apologetically and looked at his wife. ‘It does sound as though Ylona’s been playing both sides.’
Lady Glostrum sighed and nodded. ‘Ylona is the Lokant from whom you took this stone,’ she explained to Teyo, Serena and Egg. ‘Ylona Duna. She is, indeed, a consultant with the LHB, and one of our liaisons with the Libraries. In fact, the LHB was present at the Balbater site on her advice
. She said she expected to find a very important Lokant artefact, though she would not tell me what it was, or why she had reason to believe it would be discovered there.’
She looked a little sad. ‘Friend of yours?’ Teyo ventured.
Lady Glostrum nodded once. ‘But it would not be the first time that a Lokant has turned out to be... not what I thought.’ She frowned, and added, ‘I wish I could believe that her motives are good, even if her methods are questionable. But I cannot guess at her goals.’
‘Halavere?’ queried Mr. Warvel.
His wife’s face darkened. ‘That is another problem, yes. I hadn’t suspected her of such dealings. I knew she was close with Ylona, though. I wonder what Ylona promised her?’ She gave herself a little shake as if to dismiss her reflections, and sat up a little straighter. ‘I will do what I can to wring some more information out of Ylona,’ she said decisively. ‘Or to trick it out of her, if necessary.’ She looked down at the stone in her hand, considering. ‘I think for the present this might be safest left with you. It seems certain that Ylona has, as yet, no idea of your identities or involvement. The same cannot be said for mine.’
She made a move to hand it to Serena, but something caught her attention and she raised the stone close to her eyes, frowning slightly. ‘There is something written,’ she murmured. ‘It is a little faded, and in an old Lokant dialect...’ she trailed off. ‘It says,’ she continued at last, ‘Seven Realms, Seven Dreams.’
Serena’s brows rose. ‘Perhaps, then, there are seven stones. Or keys. Or whatever.’
Lady Glostrum smiled with faint irony. ‘There are Lokant Librarians involved, so naturally it is destined to become very complicated indeed. Seven stones will be the least of it, I would think.’
‘Do you think you can get the first one back from Ylona?’ Serena asked.
Lady Glostrum looked doubtful. ‘I’d imagine she’s taken it back to her Library, which none can access. But I’ll try.’ She looked at Teyo. ‘At the risk of repeating myself: did anything about “Dreams” come up when you talked with your Unspeakable contacts?’
Teyo’s lips curved in brief appreciation of her use of the irreverent moniker. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I can ask around.’
‘I wonder if the site is one of these “Dreams”,’ Lady Glostrum mused. ‘It struck me as reminiscent of Ayrien — the Lower Realms. You know that draykoni can manipulate that realm, and the Uppers, into taking whatever appearance they choose? The nature of that site — a jungle underground, the colours, the confused mixture of vegetation and lifeforms, the fact that it appears to be alive but doesn’t seem to grow — all of that reminds me strongly of Ayrien. Though I have never seen anything like it within the Seven before.’
‘But if this Ylona is so interested in the place, and it contained a Lokant artefact, surely it is a Lokant site?’ said Serena.
‘Perhaps it has merely been appropriated by them, at some time in the past,’ Lady Glostrum mused. ‘Or perhaps it is both. Draykoni and Lokants have been known to work together before, you know.’
Serena nodded slowly, thinking. ‘Who discovered the site?’ she asked abruptly.
Lady Glostrum blinked. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Maybe Ylona had something to do with it,’ Serena continued. ‘Maybe she knew it was there. If it is one of those “Dreams” and there are six more, maybe she knows where to find those, too.’
Egg finally spoke up. ‘If she did, why didn’t she just go and take the stone herself? Why report the discovery, wait until it was full of people and then go in search of the key?’
‘Good point,’ Serena conceded. ‘But it’s not all bad. If her information is limited and there are more of these keys, maybe we’ve got a chance of finding them first.’
‘With zero information,’ Egg said dryly. ‘The first site was hidden in a hillside near Balbater. What are we going to do, search every inch of every Realm?’
‘Anyway, if it’s the first site of seven that’s been found, how is it that Anserval had one of the stones?’ put in Teyo.
Lady Glostrum sighed. ‘Too many questions, and I can’t answer any of them. Yet. We’ll need more information.’ She looked at Teyo, and he nodded to her.
‘I’ll do what I can with the Unspeakables,’ he confirmed.
‘And I’ll do what I can with Ylona.’
‘I’ll see Oliver,’ Serena added. ‘He might get the Agency on it, if he thinks it’s important.’
Lady Glostrum smiled. ‘Ylona is the leader of a Library I’ve dealt with before, and it wasn’t much fun last time. If they are involved, then it is important. And likely to involve a number of things we’d prefer to interfere with.’
‘Not only that,’ Egg added, ‘it seems as though the Unspeakables are heavily involved, too, and they always need a good thwarting.’
Lady Glostrum opened her mouth to say something else, but a sound like a muffled roar crossed with a scream drowned out whatever it might have been. Teyo sat up, dropping his knitting. The scream had been human, but the rest sounded more like draykoni.
Fabian’s head appeared around the door. Ignoring the extra company, he barked, ‘Teyo, get here,’ and vanished again.
Teyo ran to the hallway. There was no further sign of Fabian, but he didn’t need to be told that Iyamar was in trouble. He went straight to her room, where he found Fabian blocking the doorway.
‘Move,’ growled Teyo, and Fabian backed away.
Iya was half-standing, half-crouched in the middle of her room. She was mid-shift, somewhere between human and draykoni; her body had already taken on the polished amber scales and some of the expanded proportions of her draykon form, and her wings were beginning to sprout. What was she doing, trying to shift in here? The room wasn’t nearly big enough to accommodate her as a draykon. She would break it to pieces.
In another second he realised that she was fighting the change. Her face briefly reappeared, pale and distraught, but the long muzzle, sharp teeth and glittering eyes of the draykon soon reasserted themselves. And she was growing.
With horror, Teyo realised that she had never yet learned to control the shift.
Iya was obviously panicking, and Teyo began to feel panicked himself. Fabian had summoned him because he was the only one who had even the smallest chance of helping her. But what could he do? She had to shift back herself, he couldn’t do it for her.
Iya, breathe slowly and focus on your human shape, he told her. Don’t let the draykon distract you. You’re a human girl, with pale blonde hair and blue eyes...
He talked on in similar fashion, but it wasn’t working. He couldn’t even tell whether she was hearing him. She grew so big that her back brushed the ceiling; her panic grew in proportion, and she began thrashing wildly. Teyo heard the splintering of furniture and the crash of objects striking the ground.
Then he was roughly shoved out of the way, and Lady Glostrum strode into the room. She took a brief, appraising look at the stricken Iya and then shouted: ‘Look at me.’ Her voice rang with authority, and Teyo found that he couldn’t help obeying her command, even though it had not been directed at him. He stared at her, transfixed.
‘You are a human,’ said Lady Glostrum firmly. ‘You will not shift here.’
Teyo did not seriously imagine that such an approach would work; if it was as simple as speaking to her, he would have done that himself. But... but the draykon was shrinking, disappearing. A minute or two passed agonisingly slowly as Iyamar gradually regained control of herself, her human form appearing more and more solid as the moments passed. She stood, trembling with shock and fear and exhaustion, her thin face stark white. Feeling shaken himself, Teyo went to her at once, gently bade her sit down upon her bed, and wrapped her in a blanket.
‘What was that?’ whispered Iyamar, staring at Lady Glostrum with a mixture of relief, awe and horror in her young face.
‘It is a Lokant ability,’ said her ladyship. ‘A compulsion. I am sorry. It was brutal, but neces
sary.’
‘That was terrible,’ said Iyamar bleakly. ‘But... thank you.’
Lady Glostrum nodded, and turned to leave. She was brought up short by the sight of Serena, Fabian, Egg and her husband all gathered just outside the room, staring at her in horror.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Did you all feel it?’
‘I should say so,’ said Egg acidly. ‘Can you all do that?’
‘Any full Lokant can, though the degree of talent varies. Very few Partials can.’
Nobody spoke.
‘It probably wouldn’t have worked if the young lady had been actively trying to shift,’ said her ladyship. ‘Draykoni aren’t so easily persuaded as that, in fact! All I have done is to reinforce her own will.’
This explanation did not do very much to settle the alarms of her ladyship’s audience, Teyo’s included. The silence continued, and Lady Glostrum began to look a little uncomfortable.
Then Serena came forward, smiling. ‘You’ve saved the roof of our apartment and Iyamar’s peace of mind besides. And we are grateful. Just a bit... surprised.’
‘Horrified,’ corrected Egg. ‘Is Ylona the one training you?’
Lady Glostrum nodded.
‘So she can do all that?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Brilliant,’ muttered Egg. She spun around, as though literally turning her back on the whole mess, and stalked away.
Chapter Nine
Iyamar, Egg and Teyo were arguing. Loudly.
Serena sat with Fabian in the parlour of their apartment, she sipping from a large mug of steaming cayluch, Fabian half-lying in his armchair with his long legs stretched out before him and his eyes directed ceilingward. His dark hair, unbound, spilled messily over the cushions; Serena guessed that he hadn’t brushed it for a day or two. She itched to neaten it for him, but knew better than to interfere.
The raised voices emanating from the next room belonged mostly to Iyamar and, to a lesser extent, Egg. Teyo she barely heard, which surprised her not at all. He rarely spoke above a normal volume, and never shouted.
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