'If you hadn't ostensibly got yourself killed up here, Papa probably wouldn't have forbidden it. The fault for that lies at your door.'
'Blame me for that if you want to,' he said testily. 'Why do you think I never went back? Your father's happier having me as a scapegoat. But no matter.' He straightened in his chair. 'I believe you're closer to those bones than you realise, Llandry. I sense them because I've been up here so long it's seeped into my skin. But you...'
She sat silently for a moment, trying to take in everything he'd told her. His convoluted statements, vague hints and portentous addendums added up to nothing comprehensible; she could barely understand what he had said.
'How do you know all of this?' she said at last.
He shrugged. 'Unimportant.'
Llandry thought of all the rogue gates that had been opening across the Seven in recent weeks, how the animal inhabitants of the Off-Worlds had been streaming through in droves. 'You think somebody is trying to bring it all back. Is that it?'
Rheas pondered her question. 'No,' he said at last. 'I don't think that is it at all. The gates, the animals, all the upheaval - it's a side effect of something else.' He sat forward. 'Think about it. When magical talents are limited to the few, that puts those few in a strong position, doesn't it? You're eligible for all manner of prestigious and well-paid positions if you're lucky enough to be a summoner, or a sorcerer.' Llandry nodded, thinking of her mother and Lady Glostrum. 'Well, and what about the hierarchy within those roles? I think someone is well aware that, these days, the summoners and sorcerers of the Seven are barely touching the tip of the iceberg. If you could tap into the rest, that would place you in a very advantageous position indeed, would it not?'
'Tap into the rest?'
'I've been seeing animals lately that I've never seen before. I'm certain some of them were extinct until recently. Somebody's been experimenting, I would say. Now, ordinarily I am all in favour of experimentation. But dragging extinct animals back out of the past is carrying it too far. It's upsetting the balance of things, causing real chaos up here. And it opens up some dangerous possibilities. You spoke of whurthags being summoned, used as companions. That kind of dominance isn't possible if you've spent your life cosily enclosed in the Seven; you're too distant from the source, too closed, mind and soul. But if you've lived in the Off-Worlds, really opened yourself up to them, then believe me. It's quite possible.' He frowned fiercely at her, completely intent on his train of thought, and Llandry didn't dare interrupt. 'What if you could have any animal you chose as a companion, even one that was previously extinct? Even one that's twenty times your size? How about a muumuk? How about a draykon?' He spoke the word softly, as in awe. 'You'd be legendary. Unbeatable. And your - our - comfortable little world has no notion of what's going on. There's a world of chaos on the way and they've laid themselves wide open to it.'
'A draykon?' Llandry thought of the pattern of istore-bones beneath the ground in the little clearing she'd found, and her breath stopped. The sheer size of it... were such a thing to awaken, she couldn't even imagine the consequences.
Looking at her grandfather's face, she had a sudden conviction that this wasn't even the worst of it. But he said no more, and she remembered his words. It's better not to know.
She stood up again. 'Then I have even more reason to return to Glinnery. I can't simply sit up here and watch it all happen! What will this do to the people of the Seven?'
'You can't stop it, Llandry. It's already gone too far.' Rheas spoke low and firm, but Llandry shook her head.
'There has to be something I can do.'
'Llandry. Listen to me.' There was a new note of urgency in his tone that captured Llandry's attention. She looked at him, waiting. 'Our "friends" are understandably ambitious, but they're are out of their depth. A draykon can never be controlled; it is not like the other animals of the Off-Worlds. But it goes beyond that. Waking one of them up will set off a chain of events which I fear will involve you very personally. You mustn't leave here now.'
'I don't understand.'
He looked at her helplessly. 'I can't explain, you wouldn't have any way to understand. You wouldn't believe me. You have to trust me, Llandry.'
'Trust you? You rejected my mother, abandoned my father, and now you're trying to keep me against my will. You've given me facts without evidence and plenty of apparently baseless speculation, and you're keeping information from me. Why should I trust you?'
Rheas slumped back in his chair, defeated. 'Maybe it's meant to be,' he muttered to Mags. 'Maybe I can't stop it. Maybe I'm not meant to.'
'What?' Llandry shook her head. She didn't want to know. 'Thank you for helping me,' she said, meaning it. 'You saved my life. But I have to go.' She looked at Mags's friendly face, wearing a sad smile, and at her dejected grandfather. 'I'll come back someday,' she said. 'And I'll bring my parents.' She kissed Mags's cheek and touched her grandfather's hand, briefly. Neither of them said anything. She walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the valley.
Chapter Twenty Six
Eva thought fast, or tried to, but her horrified mind was slow to co-operate. There were stories about the draykon, telling of their strength, their longevity, their indifference to the boundaries between the Seven Realms and the Others. It was said that they were scarcely corporeal, as changeful as the Off-Worlds themselves. Eva had no way to tell if these stories were true, but the sheer, staggering size of the skeleton before her was evidence enough of their power to change everything. She didn't want to imagine the chaos and, probably, destruction a creature like this would wreak should it be awakened. The delicate balance between the Seven Realms and the Off-Worlds would disintegrate.
She had the horrifying sense that everything was spiralling out of control. Ana was circling the skeleton with the istore piece in her hand, the pendant from which she'd extracted it lying discarded on the floor. Several possible means of detaining Ana flitted through Eva's mind, but against the success of all was Griel and his pair of whurthag pets. The sorcerer possessed a relaxed air and an unruffled, unhurried demeanour, but Eva had no doubt he was alert to her actions. He strolled around the room, hands in his pockets, watching his wife work. Each time he passed Eva he gave her a pleasant nod, as if passing an acquaintance in the street.
Ana, on the other hand, was oblivious. It didn't seem to have occurred to her that Eva might refuse to participate in her scheme. She was intent on the bones of the draykon, running her hands over those parts of it that lay within her reach. She had the air of a collector admiring her latest acquisition, weirdly overlaid with the proprietorial pride of a mother. What did she really expect to happen? Would it really bow to her will, consent to act as her companion? Eva doubted it. She had to be prevented from waking the draykon, but how? Eva's stunned mind, laced with panic, refused to offer any answers.
Tren wandered nonchalantly in Eva's direction and leaned against the wall, mimicking Griel's casual manner. He smiled at Eva, bending his head close to her ear to speak in a low murmur.
'What are we doing about this?'
Eva shook her head minutely. 'Do you have any ideas?'
'What, no plan?' Tren lifted his brows at her.
'I'm not infallible,' returned Eva, irritably. 'Ana needs to be stopped, but not forcibly or we'll have a pair of whurthags down our throats. If we can get the istore off her, even better. But, Tren, I've a horrible feeling we're too late. That thing is already half awake.'
Tren's brows lowered into a frown. 'I think there's more going on here than we realise.' Tren told her about seeing Griel in the jungle, and finding the directions on the door. 'I could swear, when I opened that door, that he winked at me,' Tren finished. 'I feel like I'm being led around by the nose. Why would he do that when he killed Ed?'
This made no sense. It sounded as though Griel had deliberately ensured that Tren discovered their underground dwelling. 'Ana spoke of your helping him,' she murmured. 'Maybe he wanted your assistance.'
<
br /> 'With what? I don't see what there is for another sorc to do in all this.' He paused. 'Your role is obvious enough.'
'Is it?'
'Ana's confident, but even she must realise she can't control a newly-awakened draykon by herself. Probably not even with Griel's help.'
Eva's stomach turned over. Tren was right; she was detained here for the privilege of battling wills with a confused and probably enraged creature larger than her house. Her mind reeled at the prospect.
'I don't know. I can't think.' Eva felt desperate. Her usually able mind shied away from the sheer enormity of the circumstances; the odds were stacked against every idea that occurred to her. 'I'll think of something, I promise, but I need more time. Perhaps we could distract her, somehow.'
'Somehow,' echoed Tren. 'Right.' He paused for a moment in thought, then flashing Eva a quick grin he moved away from her, heading for where Ana was crouched over one of the draykon's feet.
'So, why am I here?' he said, quite loudly.
Ana didn't look up. 'Griel,' she said briefly, her tone an obvious command. Griel sauntered over and Ana flicked her fingers in Tren's direction, absently imperious. She was running her other hand over the skeletal draykon, her eyes gleaming.
Tren was moving before Griel could reach him. Several tall ladders were set against the draykon's sides, leading to scaffolded platforms high up in the air. He scaled one of these quickly and began to walk around the beast, running his hands over it in appreciation of its smoothness.
'Oh, they come off,' said Tren, as if agreeably surprised. He plucked at the skeleton, apparently removing several pieces of stone, and then began to juggle with them. He added an offensively cheerful whistle as he wandered off.
Ana jumped up, her expression outraged. 'What? That shouldn't be possible! Don't touch anything! Get off there! Griel!' She looked around for her husband, but he was nowhere in sight. With an exasperated sigh, she abandoned her task and began to climb a nearby ladder.
Intrigued, Eva stepped surreptitiously closer to the draykon and examined it. Each bone was enormous, much longer than her own, but a close look revealed that many of them were laced with cracks, as though they had been pieced together from many smaller segments. She fitted her fingers around a tiny chunk of istore and pulled, then tugged harder. It wouldn't move. It felt like the stones had been embedded in granite.
Tren was bluffing, then. He might have bought her a few extra minutes to think, but no more. Could she find a way to remove some of the bones? Probing the skeleton with her summoner's senses, Eva searched for a weak point, some way to interfere with the cohesion of the skeleton. Nothing. She probed more deeply, working with the speed of desperation, but it was futile. The creature was almost complete; its building life force streamed through each bone, binding them to one another. She would have as much luck attempting to take a bone out of her own arm.
Even the suggestion of it seemed to trouble Ana, however. She reached the place where Tren had been standing moments earlier and began to run her hands anxiously over the bones, looking for gaps. She smiled when she found none.
'Griel, kill the boy,' she ordered. 'He is a liability.' She swung down from the scaffolding with the ease of long practice. Alarmed at this sudden escalation, Eva worked her way around the skeleton, obliged to keep close to the wall. She found Tren on the other side of the room with Griel not far away. The two whurthags had left Griel's heels and were stalking Tren, backing him into a corner. His casual demeanour had vanished, and a look of panic crossed his face as his back hit the wall. He was weaponless, and his sorcery was little use in this kind of fight.
Of course, her summoner skills were little use in a fight like this either. But she had to do something.
Heart pounding, Eva stepped in front of Tren. Ignoring his objections, she shoved him bodily out of the way.
'Deal with Ana,' she said tersely. She focused on the whurthags, tuning out everything else that was happening around her. The beasts approached with stealthy grace, muscles bunching and lengthening under night-black hide. She could see the pale stone of the floor through their insubstantial forms. Cold, icy-hued eyes transferred their deathly gaze from Tren to herself. Fear weakened her limbs but she held her ground, bearing down with her will. Before she'd only needed to control the beast long enough to send it through the gates that Tren opened, but now that she herself stood in the Lowers that option was no longer open to her. She would have to wrest control of them from Griel, and then retain that control. She knew that when summoners failed at this, the first person the creature turned on was usually the summoner. And now she faced two of them alone.
She took a deep breath.
The thoughts buried in the fog of the beasts's minds were a chaotic swirl of sensations and urges, like those of most animals. She sensed hunger, a desire for meat, and - chillingly - a burning resentment against the one who mastered them. The whurthags resisted her efforts to influence them, snarling their objections in low growls that sent a shiver of new terror through her. She worked harder, grimly determined, and at last the slow, menacing approach stopped. The whurthags waited, the tips of their tails twitching.
Eva heard shouts, men's voices, though whether it was Tren or Griel who cried out she was unable to say. Her concentration wavered and she almost lost the tentative control she'd established. She ruthlessly thrust aside her anxiety - she couldn't help Tren any more just now - and bore down, searching their minds for the kill order they'd received from Griel.
She found their impressions of Tren, flickering images formed of his height and size in relation to their own, his scent, his way of moving. They sensed his sorcery, interpreting it as a cloud of dark, enveloping fog. They were - had been - intent on him, but Eva found no kill instinct. What she found instead was 'guard'. They had been backing him into a corner, not to kill him but merely to keep him there. Griel had encouraged them to scare him, but he had not asked them to kill him.
This was of a piece with his earlier behaviour towards Tren, though it still made little sense to her. Nonetheless, she noted the information. If Griel was working at cross purposes to his wife, perhaps she could use that.
She found her own image in their minds, a softer figure, heavily scented in a way that tormented the whurthag's sensitive noses. They saw her as a more direct threat, as though she were an equal, an animal as strong as they were. To her surprise, their image of her was also wreathed in a dense fog of sorcery, though hers was paler and flickering with light. In her case, not only was there no kill order but she detected the opposite: they had been firmly instructed not to hurt her.
Tren was right: she was to be kept alive in order to help subdue the draykon. Not that it was much of a reprieve: the prospect was at least as terrifying as facing down a pair of whurthags determined to kill.
The sounds of fighting intruded on Eva's mental world. Instinctively she glanced up, catching a brief glimpse of Tren twisting a protesting Ana's arm behind her back. He reached for the stone she carried, but Griel grabbed him and hauled him off Ana. The sorcerer glanced Eva's way, and she sensed the tug of his mind as he sought to summon one of his whurthags. She gripped hard; the beast faltered, and held.
Surprisingly, Griel grinned at her. Then he turned his attention back to Tren, who was trying to work his way out of the other sorcerer's grip. Griel was a few inches taller than Tren and built rather bigger. When it came to a physical fight, Tren didn't stand a chance.
Anxious to help, she grimly filtered out all the distractions and refocused her will on the beasts. Sweating, she fought hard to turn their attention on Griel. If they would only distract him long enough to free Tren, there was still a chance that she or Tren could stop Ana.
But then a scream of triumph lanced into her mind like a knife, shattering her absorption. Ana's voice screamed again, shrill with euphoria, and Eva's focus disintegrated entirely. Abandoning the whurthags, she looked up to see Tren on the floor, pinned there by Griel. A bruise on his face stood test
ament to his struggles, but now both of them had stopped fighting. They stared up at the draykon, awed.
Eva glanced up, too, but before she could discern any detail there was a flash so bright that it seared her eyes. She covered them with both hands, feeling tears of pain and shock drenching her face. The light receded but she remained as she was for several long moments, afraid that she would open her eyes only to find herself blinded.
Somebody barrelled into her. Her eyes flew open in spite of herself, but she could see very little through the burning after-images that danced across her vision. At least she still had some semblance of vision at all. Arms wrapped around her and she realised it was Tren.
'She's done it, she's added the last piece,' Tren gasped. 'I couldn't stop her - I tried, but Griel-.'
Tren broke off as the skeleton began to pulse with an indigo glow. A feeling of unbearable energy filled the chamber, beating against her flesh, and she struggled to breathe. She could only cling to Tren, her mind numb with the knowledge that they were too late.
Ana appeared, flushed with excitement. She dragged Eva and Tren apart with astonishing strength, and grabbed Eva's hands.
'Feel it,' she said, and planted them against the draykon's side. Eva gasped as that terrifying energy ripped through her, leaving her weak. Ana had released her hands but she couldn't pull them back; she felt welded to the creature as the bones shuddered, growing hot. Her vision was returning, but something was wrong with it: she could see straight through Ana's chamber, straight through the fabric of the world. Layered with it was a forest she recognised as Glour, irignol trees clustering in a darkened forest. Though recognisable, the Middle Realms were hazy in her vision, as if glimpsed through poor quality glass.
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