Draykon (18 page)

'Probably,' said
Eva. 'He learns fast.'

Vale nodded
approvingly. 'Fin, go dig up everything you can find on Geslin. The
usual procedure, please.' Fin deigned to answer the order with a
nod.

'Right, get on
with it,' said Vale. 'I want you all home as soon as possible.' He
was looking at Eva as he said it.

***

Ed Geslin's house
was on the twenty-seventh circle, right on the edges of the city.
It was an underground dwelling, obviously cheap lodgings. He had
three rooms carved through a series of great irignol roots. They
were neatly kept, and virtually bare of furniture or
possessions.

Eva wandered
through the house with her shortig hound padding along softly
behind her. The little dog thrust its sizeable nose into every
object it encountered. Eva hoped it was gaining enough of a scent
to track Geslin.

'Do you suppose
he cleaned out his house before he left?' Eva asked
Tren.

'No. Or, probably
not. Ed never seemed to have much need for ordinary things. His
house has been like this ever since I've known him.'

'Unusual.' Eva
slid open a series of drawers that were fitted into a wall. They
were all empty. 'Maybe he couldn't afford much.'

'That's a
possibility,' said Tren. 'The position of aide to Lord Angstrun is
well-paid, but he was sending as much as he could afford to his
family every moon.'

Eva stepped
through a low door into a small parlour. It was furnished with
nothing but a pair of chairs and a bookcase, devoid of books.
Finshay was sitting comfortably on the sofa.

'Slow getting
here,' he remarked.

'Sorry,' said
Tren.

Finshay grunted.
Ignoring Eva, he said to Tren: 'Better pick up the pace, Warvel.
The trail's already days old.'

Tren looked
irritated. He turned his back on Finshay without replying, and
began searching through the lone cupboard in the room, opening
doors and drawers. Eva joined the search, rather surprised to find
that there were items remaining in this piece of furniture. She
collected a well-read book, a comb and sparse items of clothing.
She laid them out for the shortig, then glanced back at
Tren.

'I got the
impression you've worked with the Chief Investigator before,' she
said. 'I thought you were part of Angstrun's crowd?'

'I am, but
there's always a sorc or two attached to the Investigator's Office.
That includes me, just now. I assist with investigating infractions
of the sorcery laws.'

'Should've got
someone else for this one,' said Finshay. 'Geslin's best friend is
going to aid in his capture, is he? Vale's judgement's
off.'

'Ed had nothing
to do with most of it,' said Tren firmly. 'Murder, theft? He didn't
do those things. I'm sure of it. He ought to be here to defend
himself. Besides, the Chief Investigator is right: he must have
some information.'

Fin said nothing.
Tren laid out two or three more items on the floor for the shortig
to sort through. Eva and the two men watched with interest as the
tiny black hound cast through the assembled objects with his
sensitive nose, turning each one around several times with his paws
and snout.

'You do your job,
Fin?' said Tren after a moment.

'Of
course.'

'What did you
find?'

'He went to
Orstwych.'

'You're sure
about that?'

'Pretty
much.'

'How?'

Finshay stared
back at Tren, making no reply.

'Come on, Fin,'
said Tren. 'We all need as much information as
possible.'

'Fine. Geslin's
sent a parcel out to Orstwych just after the full moon, every moon,
for the past two years. Hasn't missed a single one, until last
moon. Full moon last occurred about three weeks ago, meaning Ed's
parcel was due roughly two weeks ago. Why didn't he send
it?'

'He had nothing
to send?'

'Idiot. He didn't
send anything because he was planning to go in person. Means he
planned to leave ahead of time. May mean he was carrying something
he didn't want to entrust to the mail.'

'That's logical
enough,' conceded Tren.

'Not that we'll
find him at home with mother,' continued Finshay. 'Nobody's that
bloody stupid. Should be able to pick up his trail from there,
though.'

'I wonder if it
was just the money he was sending,' mused Eva. Finshay cast her an
irritated glance. She understood: she was supposed to stick to the
business of tracking, while he took care of the deduction. Her lips
twitched in amusement.

The shortig sat
down on its haunches at Eva's feet and gazed up at her, still and
alert, its long ears forward.

'The hound's
ready,' she said.

'All right, pack
up,' said Fin. 'Leaving in two hours, from the east gate. Don't be
late.' He strode away without looking back.

'I do believe we
have a self-elected leader,' murmured Eva.

'Fin's like
that,' said Tren. 'He can be difficult to work with, but he's good
at what he does.'

'I daresay. Now,
what of that image you spoke of?'

'Ah. Yes. Do you
have the gwaystrel here?'

Eva opened her
cloak to reveal Rikbeek in his usual spot, tucked into her
collar.

'Interesting
travel arrangements,' said Tren with a small grin. 'What does he
need in order to get the 'scent', so to speak?'

'Only to
observe,' she said. 'Honestly I don't know exactly what it is he
does, but a few minutes' observation seems to be
sufficient.'

Tren nodded
briskly. 'Tell me when he's seen enough.'

He closed his
eyes and stood in deep concentration for several long minutes. Then
his eyes opened. Where he looked, a shape began to form, slowly
solidifying into a human figure.

A young man stood
with his hands in the pockets of his shabby green coat. He was
laughing, apparently at a joke. He began to talk in a rather slow,
considered way, shaking his mousy-brown hair out of his eyes. His
mouth moved but whatever he was saying was barely audible, as if he
was speaking from a long distance away.

Eva released
Rikbeek, directing his attention towards the figure of Edwae
Geslin. The gwaystrel flew in circles around the image, darting in
and out. It emitted a stream of sounds, some of which were only
just within Eva's range of hearing.

'Can you make him
walk, Tren?' The sorcerer closed his eyes again, conjuring a new
image; now Geslin began to stride, apparently towards Eva, though
his feet made no progress on the ground. He walked in place for a
few minutes as Rikbeek dived and spun. Then the gwaystrel returned
to his station inside Eva's cloak and firmly snapped his wings shut
around himself. Eva caught an echo of the gwaystrel's thoughts. He
was thinking about food.

'Apparently he's
finished,' said Eva. Tren smiled, a little wanly. He looked sadly
back at the figure of Geslin, still striding on the spot. Geslin
vanished. Tren stood silently for a long moment, his hands stuffed
into his pockets in a gesture similar to his friend's. At length
Eva felt obliged to speak.

'How long have
you two been friends?'

Tren answered
without looking at her. 'We trained together. We were both
naturally strong sorcs, and there was competition between us at one
time. But Lord Angstrun took us both as aides. We became like
brothers after a while.' He looked at Eva then, but abstractedly,
his thoughts obviously elsewhere. 'I don't know why he would do
it,' he said at last. 'Ed didn't grow up here, but he would never
betray Glour. Or Angstrun.'

Eva thought of
the thunderous anger on Angstrun's face when he'd heard about the
Night Cloak crime. She could well believe that no rational person
would lightly betray him.

'I'm sure there
was a good reason,' she said, firmly.

Tren removed his
hands from his pockets, drew himself up, visibly pulled himself
together. 'I need to pack,' he said, with a brief smile at
Eva.

'Me too,' she
said. 'See you at the east gate.'

***

Edwae's mother
lived in Westrarc, a large town about thirty miles inside the
Orstwych border. The distance was swiftly covered by the four
nivvens put to Eva's carriage. The clustering irignol forests
lasted almost to the easternmost border of Glour, giving way at
last to expanses of smooth hills, gleaming pale under the moon. Eva
shivered, feeling exposed without the customary shroud of the dense
irignol, but the spread of light delighted her. It was like
travelling through a sea of moonglow.

Fin did not deign
to speak to anybody throughout the journey. He sat with his eyes
closed and his face turned away. Tren, too, was largely silent, but
in his case Eva understood it. He had probably known Ed's family
before, and now here he travelled to meet them in the role of
Edwae's pursuer, bound to return him to Glour for questioning and
probable punishment. It was a hard task. She knew not how to help
him, stranger as she was, so she was silent too. They made for a
cheerless company of travellers as they arrived in Westrarc under
the deep cover of Orstwych's Cloaked hours.

Westrarc was of a
wholly different character to Glour. They'd passed villages and
isolated dwellings on their way through the countryside, dotted
through tumbling wolds sparsely littered with contorted irignol
trees. Westrarc was on a much larger scale, its rounded, shapely
houses built of pale stone and often adorned with towers and
turrets. The roads were wide and smooth, walled on either side, and
the moonlight shone silver off the graceful buildings and pathways
of the town. Lanterns lit the roads, clear glass baubles shining
with artificial starlight that wandered lazily through the air,
adhered to nothing. Some of them kept pace with the carriage,
lighting the road with a muted glow until an approaching set of
globes took over their wardship. Eva watched as they drifted idly
away again, disappearing into the soft shadows at their
backs.

The hour was too
late to call upon Edwae's mother immediately, so Eva directed her
coachman towards her favourite inn, one of Westrarc's finest. It
was expensive and luxurious, facts which earned her more of
Finshay's copious scorn, but she ignored him. Where comfort was
available, she was always inclined to take advantage of it. The
next day, she took care to dress in the plain, simple clothes she'd
brought, eliminating all overt signs of her station.

Mrs. Geslin lived
in the south quarter of Westrarc, an area lacking the splendour of
the rest of the town. Its streets were narrow, buildings crowding
along them without much plan or reason. Some of the streets they
passed through were barely wide enough for two to walk abreast;
over these the houses leaned conspiratorially, the upper storeys of
opposing houses almost touching one another.

It was in one
such house that the remnants of the Geslin family lived, a dwelling
that was poor and shabby but nonetheless neat and clean. The Mrs.
Geslin who answered the door was made to match: a woman with the
form and features of only middling years, but who possessed the
weary air of a woman long careworn. She looked with frightened eyes
at Finshay, who did nothing to conceal his grim purpose. She looked
next at Tren, who tried to smile.

'Mrs. Geslin, how
are you. It's been a long time.'

'He's not here.'
The woman cut Tren off and tried to close the door on him, but
Finshay had inserted himself between the door and the frame. Eva
heard a swift, sad sigh from Tren.

'We aren't here
to hurt him, Mrs. Geslin, but we need to know where he is. Please.
He'll get his fair hearing.'

Mrs. Geslin
looked on him with scorn. 'Oh, he will? Them great lords in Glour
don't care for the troubles of folk like us, Pitren Warvel, and you
know that. They'll destroy him. How you could lend yourself to
this-' She looked on Tren with such withering contempt that Eva was
shocked.

Tren's pain was
clearly audible as he answered. 'It's all I can do to help him,
Mrs. Geslin. I know of nothing else that wouldn't imperil us both
the more in the end.' He paused, and the terrible anger in Edwae's
mothers face softened slightly. 'I need to know why he did it,'
continued Tren. 'Much may then be explained, and more can be done
for Ed.'

Mrs. Geslin bowed
her head, and at last she stepped back and opened the door wider.
Eva passed inside with the others. As she stepped into the tiny
hallway, neatly dusted but rather bare, she felt Mrs. Geslin's
scrutiny turned upon her. Her gaze was not a friendly
one.

'Sorceress,' said
Mrs. Geslin, low and harsh. 'Pale-haired witch! Are you the one who
led my boy astray?' Eva was astonished to see tears in the woman's
eyes, her hands trembling as they twisted in the folds of her
shabby old dress.

'No, I - your son
and I have never met,' she said calmly. 'And I'm not in the sorcery
line.'

'Why then do you
pursue my son, stranger to him and his ways?'