Draykon (26 page)

She had drunk her
usual tonic, but when a crowd of Nimdren singers came into view,
laughing, filling the road with chaos, Llandry's artificial
lassitude wavered and her brief euphoria vanished. When some of
them glanced at her, curiosity evident in their lingering gaze,
anxiety returned with a crushing rush and her hands began to shake.
Crowds of people, too much noise... she dug in her bag for her
bottle and took another drink, breathing too quickly. For a moment
she was almost overwhelmingly tempted to return to her room and
wait meekly for Devary, but she suppressed the impulse. She was a
grown woman: she would not waste her brief taste of freedom by
hiding in her room. Drawing her hood further down over her face,
she clutched her cloak closer around herself and took a deep
breath. With a sweep of her long skirts, she was gone, stepping
quickly into the streets.

She wandered for
some time, until the serene twilight had altogether gone and the
moon - half full - shone fitfully from behind a scattering of
clouds. Every turn took her to some new sight or curiosity. She
studied buildings of the most puzzling and original architecture
she'd ever seen. She sketched their most intriguing features in her
notebook, wishing she could see them again in the daylight with
their full colours on display. Everywhere she went she heard music,
sometimes lively and uplifting, sometimes dreamily melancholy. The
latter reminded her of the airs Devary had often played, and she
was uncomfortably reminded that she had left him behind. Perhaps it
was time to return to the Harp.

But ahead of her
she could see a large square, crowded with people. Her first
instinct was to retreat, and she was on the point of turning when a
number of fluttering awnings caught her eye. A market, then?
Finding this prospect quite irresistible, she firmly buried her
fears and stepped into the crush.

She was rewarded
immediately by the sight of myriad colourful wares spread out for
her perusal. Her artist's eye caught and appreciated the unique
style of the skilfully-wrought goods that she saw: jewellery worked
in metals rich and dark, winking with exotically-coloured gems;
clothing in colours and textures of extraordinary beauty; musical
instruments painted and engraved; food and delicacies artistically
displayed and emitting tempting aromas. She forgot the crowds
around her in her absorption. Sigwide's enthusiasm echoed her own;
he sat up high in his sling, nose questing, his thoughts a blur of
excitement. She found a stall selling plump, glossy nuts and
purchased some for him. He crunched happily on them as she wandered
the market.

She chose gifts
for her mother and father, and a new garment for herself: a pair of
loose trousers with gathered cuffs at the ankle, billowing and
romantic. They would be perfect for flying. She was in the process
of choosing a gift for Devary, more hesitantly and with a crippling
lack of confidence in her judgement of his tastes, when her elbow
was seized.

She looked up
quickly, instantly alert and alarmed. Consciousness of the swirling
mass of shoppers rushed in on her again all at once, and she had to
swallow a sense of panic. At her elbow stood a woman with
Darklander skin. Though she was obviously not old, her hair gleamed
white in the muted sheen of the light-globes. She was finely
dressed, with an obvious air of wealth and ease. She smiled at
Llandry in a manner far too familiar for a stranger.

'A visitor from
foreign parts, I'd guess,' said the woman, with an accent even
thicker than Devary's. Her manner was so entirely devoid of
self-consciousness or awkwardness that Llandry's own increased by
comparison, and she made no response save to nod her head in a cool
fashion.

'Your stature
suggests Glinnery,' said the woman, making a show of looking down
at Llandry as if from a long way up. Indeed, she was taller, but
not so extremely so as all that. Llandry bristled slightly. 'Are
all your countrymen so silent?' the woman continued. 'I had not
heard it of so artistically talented a people.'

'I need to
depart,' Llandry said. She turned to go, but found her elbow once
again seized in a determined grip. She looked angrily down at the
hand that detained her, a deceptively dainty-looking appendage well
covered with glittering rings.

'A moment,' said
the woman, in a tone of deeper seriousness. 'That is a most
interesting piece of jewellery. Did you buy it here?'

Llandry looked
down at herself, startled. She didn't remember putting any
jewellery on before she left her room. A quick touch to her throat
confirmed it: no bracelets jangled at her wrists, and no necklace
lay against her neck.

'I'm not-' she
began, but the woman was looking at Sigwide. Llandry's heart sank.
The orting was shuffling in his sling, still bristling with
excitement, but his enthusiasm had nothing to do with the market.
His mouth was full of silver, a slender chain dangling from his
teeth.

From the chain
hung Llandry's ill-fated istore pendant.

Sigwide carried
it with care and obvious pride, full of himself for his
accomplishment. Llandry felt briefly like strangling him. When had
he taken it? She instantly recalled, with horrible clarity,
Sigwide's antics near the end of their journey. Bored and restless,
he had taken to nosing in Devary's pack. They had both been amused
as he entertained himself with various of Dev's possessions, but
she hadn't dreamed that he might have been going for the pendant.
Or that he could secrete it somewhere without either her or Devary
noticing.

Perversely the
stone shone in this near-darkness with a particular radiance
Llandry had never seen before. No wonder it had attracted
attention. She sighed deeply.

'Well?' The woman
spoke sharply, and Llandry's eyes narrowed in
irritation.

'No,' she said
shortly, pulling her arm from the woman's grasp.

'Oh, then I must
know where you bought it! I simply must have one the same, exactly
the very same as that.' The woman's eyes lit as she stared at
Sigwide and his treasure. Llandry hastily took it from him,
ignoring his protests, and stuffed it into the pocket of her
cloak.

'I did not buy
it,' Llandry said, and then immediately regretted offering even so
small a piece of information to this obstructive
stranger.

'Oh? It was a
gift, then, from a lover no doubt. I see that in your pretty face.'
The woman laughed.
Quite, quite wrong
, thought Llandry
irritably, but she had finished humouring her oppressor.

'Unless... you've
an artist's eye for beauty. I could not help observing that as I
watched you shopping. Perhaps you are the creator of that fine
piece.'

'You were
watching me?'

'Strangers do
attract notice, especially when they look as though they are trying
to hide.' She smiled again, a much less pleasant expression than
before, and her eyes flicked over the large hood that still covered
most of Llandry's face and hair. 'I will pay you a great deal to
make me such a pendant,' she said then. 'In fact, I will pay you a
great deal more for that very pendant that you wear. Let me take it
away with me now.' She produced a little wrist-bag from somewhere
and opened it, displaying its contents. It was bulging with
sovereigns.

'It isn't for
sale,' said Llandry. 'And I cannot make one for you.'
Which is
the truth
, she reflected.

'Is there nothing
you want?'

Llandry shook her
head, turned her back on the woman and walked away, ignoring her
attempts to detain her. She walked quickly and fast, aiming for the
Harp, hoping to lose herself in the crowds of shoppers, singers and
wanderers. She was aware of the woman following close behind for
some time, and even once her footsteps had died away, she had the
uncomfortable feeling that the woman's eyes still followed her as
she hurried on, gripping her cloak close as if its dark fabric
could swallow her whole.

Chapter Eighteen

Shattering pain
gripped Eva's body as she emerged from the gate between the realms,
surging brutally from her head to her feet and the tips of her
fingers. She felt as though her body was trying to shake itself to
pieces, prevented only by force of will. She resisted the
temptation to buckle under it, drawing quick, painful breaths as
she willed the assault away.

How could I
have forgotten this
? The pain was as bad as it had been on her
first visit; time and absence had removed her resilience to it. She
suffered in grim silence, enduring wave after wave of agony until
finally, mercifully, it began to recede. Only then did she have
leisure to notice Tren's fate.

He'd fared worse
than she. He lay curled up on the ground, gripping his head in his
hands as if it sought to separate itself from his body. He made no
sound at all.

'Sorry,' she
gasped. 'Should've remembered to warn you about this.'

'Would've been
nice,' gritted Tren.

'I forgot how bad
it gets.' Here came the nausea, now, always the second stage. She
didn't try to speak as her stomach pitched and roiled and her limbs
trembled with stress. She resisted the tide, but Tren was not so
fortunate. She turned away as he compulsively emptied his
stomach.

'Well,' gasped
Tren at last as he pulled himself more or less upright. 'That was
deeply miserable.'

'You get used to
it.' Eva still felt shaky and weak, but she pulled herself
resolutely to her feet. 'Eventually.'

'I don't think I
can walk,' said Tren.

'Proximity to the
gate makes it worse,' Eva replied, gathering her skirts. 'So,
walk.' She cast about, searching for her companions. The shortig
she found nearby, gnawing on something it had picked up in the
bushes. She set it to scout the vicinity for anything telling.
There probably wasn't much chance it would find a clear trace of
Edwae's erstwhile employer, but it was a possibility.

Rikbeek she could
not find. Casting her senses out further, she discerned a brief
flicker of his presence some distance away. Curious.

'Tren?'

'Coming.' He
joined her with a groan, swaying slightly. She gripped his elbow,
letting her fingers dig sharply into his flesh.

'Ow.'

'Stop
complaining.' She started walking in the direction she'd sensed
Rikbeek, dragging Tren forcibly with her.

'Stop. I'm
stable.' He pulled his arm free of her grip, maintaining the quick
pace she set without her encouragement. She gave him a brief,
distracted smile, then turned her attention to the dense forest
that surrounded them.

It was a mirror
image of the tree cover that reigned above, at first glance, but
the longer she looked, the more she observed to belie that
impression. The trees were taller, much taller, swaying dreamily
under the influence of a harsh, cool wind. Their contorted forms
were vaguely incorporeal, tissue-thin and brittle. Tattered, lacy
leaves spread in a thick blanket overhead, sumptuous with dark
colours and glittering faintly in the silvery-white light of the
moon that shone down on this ethereal forest.

Moons, in fact,
for the enormous, pale moon that hung high overhead was echoed in a
smaller moon that hovered low over the horizon. It sent a deep red
light shimmering weirdly through the interlacing branches of the
trees, a dark counterpart to the strong, clear moonlight above. Eva
blinked, puzzled. She'd never seen a red moon here
before.

Tren was staring,
barely paying sufficient attention to where he was putting his
feet. He was absently rubbing his arm where she'd gripped
him.

'Sorry,' she
said.

'Hm? Oh.' He
chuckled. 'You were a bit brutal.'

'Mm, well, it's
not wise to spend more time here than is strictly necessary. We
need to find Ed's employer as soon as possible, and get
out.'

'Why's it so
inadvisable? This place is
beautiful
.'

'That's exactly
why. The crossing almost crippled us both, but now look at you.
You're like a child with a bowl of sweets.'

'I'm not.' He
made a point of drawing himself up a little straighter, assuming a
purposeful air. 'I am completely business-like.'

She smiled. 'Just
be wary. There's an air of tranquillity about the Lowers that's
liable to send a person's wits to sleep.'

'I can't imagine
that happening to you.'

'Ha. When I first
came here, I spent about seven hours lying under a tree staring at
the moons. I didn't even notice the time pass. I certainly didn't
notice the astwach sneaking up on me. I was lucky to
escape.'

'You were here
alone?'

'I know it was
stupid. I was young, stupid and conceited at the time.'

'But not
anymore.'

'Ouch.'

He grimaced. 'I
was referring to the stupid and conceited parts.'

'Oh, I don't
know. I still have a shade or two of conceit. More than that, some
would say.'

'You're a little
preoccupied with what people say about you.'

That gave her
pause. 'Am I?'