Draykon (38 page)

Her grandfather
looked up, regarding her over a pair of wire-rimmed
glasses.

'Hello, Llandry,'
he said in his rough voice. He still didn't smile.

'Hello,' she
mumbled, almost inaudibly, busying herself with straightening her
blouse. This stranger looked like her father, but his gravity and
lack of warmth unnerved her. He did not feel like family. She hoped
he would say something else, but he just looked at her.

'I-I don't know
your name,' she said. 'Pa never said.'

'Rheas,' he
replied.

'Rheas...?'

His mouth
twisted. 'Ah yes. I forgot that Aysun took his wife's name. Rheas
Irfan.'

Llandry nodded.
He was scowling at her as though his son's actions were her fault.
She hovered nervously, finally taking a chair as far away from
Rheas as possible. He grinned at her mirthlessly.

'Afraid of me,
are you? Timid thing. Must get that from your mother. It doesn't
come from my line.'

Llandry felt a
hint of annoyance.
Good
, she thought.
Annoy me and I'll
stop feeling afraid of you.

Rheas sat back,
picking up his book again, but he didn't read it. He kept his gaze
on Llandry.

'Don't you have
questions for me?' he said at last.

Llandry did, but
she didn't know how to ask them of this cold, fierce man. She
looked down at her hands. 'Mags said you brought me here,' she said
to her lap. 'Is that true?'

'Certainly. I
didn't want my only grandchild to be slain before I got a chance to
meet her.'

Afterwards
would be all right, would it
? Llandry cleared her face of all
expression, steeled herself, and looked up. She felt a quiver of
anxiety at Rheas's intent study of her, but she refused to look
away.

'How did you know
I was in danger?'

'Surely that's
obvious, Llandry. You've had an irilapter following you for weeks -
or did you think that was a coincidence?'

'An
irilapter?'

Rheas sighed.
'Mags, where did the stupid creature go?'

'He's here,
lovie. I gave him a dish of honey and he's been happy as can be.'
Mags approached, her hands cupped around something winged and
colourful.

'Prink?' said
Llandry, in complete incomprehension.

'Prink? Is that
what you called it?' Rheas was amused. He allowed Mags to place the
irilapter on his lap, then waved her away. He stroked Prink's
wings, very gently, and the irilapter actually began to
purr.

'An old friend of
mine,' said her grandfather. 'When the orting stopped speaking to
me, I sent this little man to take over.'

Llandry was
slightly reassured by his gentleness with Prink. Perhaps he wasn't
as fierce as she'd thought.

'You were
watching me through Prink?' Wait, that wasn't all. 'Through
Sigwide
?'

Rheas nodded,
obviously laughing at her. 'I'm surprised your father didn't guess.
Quite a huge coincidence, wasn't it, for you to happen across a
helpless baby animal in the middle of a rogue portal? I was hoping
to bring you through, but your mother was too fast for me. No
matter: you kept the orting.'

Llandry blinked,
nonplussed. She remembered that day clearly: her mother's fear, her
own heartbreak at the prospect of parting with the tiny orting, and
her father's trepidation. And her grandfather had meant to take
her? She added that to the list of his offences, feeling a
comforting buzz of anger inside that seared away her
timidity.

'So... you're a
summoner?'

He shrugged
indifferently. 'I suppose that's the label you might put on it down
there. I never cared much about these things until I came here.
Spend enough time up here, it matters. You pick it up.'

'How?' Llandry
struggled to understand. He obviously had considerable summoning
talent - more even than anyone she knew, because she'd never heard
of anybody using a companion as a spy before. Yet he also
controlled the gates, apparently, or was it Mags who had opened the
gate that she'd fallen through?

'Think about it,'
he said, watching her. 'You live up here year after year, breathing
the air, drinking the water, eating the plants and the animals. It
changes you.'

Llandry
backtracked. 'Sigwide stopped talking to you?'

'He transferred
his loyalty entirely to you,' replied Rheas. 'He wouldn't let me
use his eyes anymore. I had to improvise something else. Now, it is
my turn for a question or two. What in the world have you been
doing, my dear, to attract so much ...
negative
attention?'

'I thought you
were watching.'

Rheas grimaced.
'Irilapters are flighty. They aren't the most reliable spies. I
missed a few episodes of your little drama.'

Llandry
stiffened. Little? She told him the whole story, blushing as she
admitted her own mistakes. When she had finished, he opened his
mouth to speak but she cut him off.

'No. I have
something to ask you now.' He lifted his bushy brows at her and
waited. She realised she was clenching her fists in her lap, and
made an effort to smooth them out.

'
Why
have
you been sitting up here, watching us, interfering with our lives
and never telling anyone you were alive? You didn't even tell your
own son! How could you do that to your family?' She was very angry
now, and she knew that it showed. She didn't care: let him see how
disgusted she was with him.

Rheas's eyes
glittered at her. 'Perhaps not everyone has the same value for
family that you do,' he suggested. She snorted, turning her face
away from him.

'Your father and
I didn't get along well,' he said, more quietly. 'We fought about a
lot of things, particularly about your mother. When he insisted on
moving to Glinnery to marry her, I cast him off. I told him never
to come home. A year or two later I left Irbel forever and settled
up here.'

Llandry was too
incensed to speak for several moments. 'How could you object to my
mother?' she said at last, controlling her voice with an
effort.

'I thought her a
silly, flighty Glinnish woman, fit for nothing but arranging
flowers and decorating her hair. Like most of the rest of them.' He
said it flatly, unapologetically.

'She's nothing
like that!'

'Perhaps I was
wrong,' he conceded. 'Nonetheless, for your father to turn his back
on his Irbellian heritage - to just up and leave for her - was
unforgiveable.' He paused. 'At the time.'

Rheas's last
words took some of the fury out of Llandry's anger. 'At the
time?'

'I tried to go
back, once,' he said. 'I regretted what I'd done. I was going to
explain, maybe even apologise. But when I saw Aysun, I couldn't
approach him. I knew he wouldn't welcome me. It was shortly after
you were born.'

'Foolish male
pride,' said Mags. Llandry realised she was standing behind her
chair, listening.

Rheas cast Mags
an irritated look. 'Perhaps. But she's here, isn't she? I got her
out in time. So you see my 'meddling', as you term it, has not been
for nothing.'

This speech
puzzled Llandry, but she concluded that Mags had not approved of
Rheas's spying on her.

'Thank you for
rescuing me,' said Llandry, rising decisively to her feet. 'But now
I must go home.'

Rheas's heavy
grey brows snapped together. 'What?'

'I need to find
out what has happened to my... my friend. And to Sigwide.' Rheas's
brows rose at her hesitant use of the word “friend”, then he
frowned again, looking more fierce than ever.

'You can't go
back, especially not after everything you've just told me. You must
stay here, where you will be safe.'

Llandry snorted
with laughter. 'Safe? Not even a full unit of guards could keep me
safe. What makes you think you can do better?'

Rheas chuckled
grimly. 'Glinnery guards? Flimsy pansies, not soldiers at all. I
could do better than that by myself.'

Llandry looked
pointedly at the cane that rested against his chair, and he
scowled.

'This is my
territory,' he said. 'I have complete control over it. Nobody will
enter without my consent. I'll show you.' He rose slowly from his
chair, leaning heavily on his cane. Mags hovered, trying to grasp
his elbow to help him up, but he waved her off
irritably.

'I'm fine, woman.
Now, then.' He moved to the window, beckoning Llandry to follow
him. She did so, unable to suppress her curiosity. What she saw
outside surprised her. The glissenwol forest was gone, completely
gone. The house stood instead in a pretty alpine valley, ringed
with distant mountain ranges.

'How far did you
bring me?' she said, her heart sinking. She must be miles and miles
away from where she'd come through. How would she ever find Devary
again?

'Not very far at
all, in fact,' he said, glancing shrewdly at her.
'Watch.'

She watched.
Nothing happened for several seconds, and then all at once plants
started to erupt from the ground before the house. They grew
rapidly into tall vines with thick stems, growing and growing until
they were taller than the house. They put out leaves and developed
thorns. Within minutes the house was surrounded by a thicket of
vicious-looking vegetation, blocking out the valley. Some of them
then proceeded to grow mouths and began snapping at passing
flies.

'That's only the
start of it,' said Rheas, his tone self-satisfied. 'So you see,
you're safer up here.'

Llandry shook her
head. 'And my friends? Devary? Sigwide?'

'The orting will
be fine. He can take care of himself. As for your 'friend', he's a
grown man, is he not? He can take care of himself, too.'

'But that
wouldn't be right. He was in danger protecting
me.
It was my
fault that all of it happened in the first place. And he was
carrying the pendant.'

'Ah, yes. The
istore
. Do you have some of it with you? This is quite
important, Llandry.'

Llandry felt in
the pocket of her trousers, suddenly anxious. She had pocketed the
piece she'd taken from the ground a few hours before, but had the
stone fallen out when her clothes were washed? No, there it was,
cool and smooth in her hand. She drew it out and handed it to
Rheas. When the stone touched his skin, he gasped and almost
dropped it.

'You're telling
me you have no idea what this is?' He was glaring at her, brows
drawn together, angry. She lifted her chin. He couldn't intimidate
her anymore, not now that she knew how he had treated her parents.
How he'd spoken of her mother.

'I think I do.'
She told him about the clearing with the gems embedded in the moss.
He nodded grimly.

'There are a few
of those sites, scattered about.'

She looked up at
him, startled. 'How do you know about them?'

'I've found many
of them over the years, the same way you did. I can't help but
sense them.'

She took a deep
breath. He spoke slowly, portentously, and she sensed that he knew
more than he had told her.

'Why do I sense
them?'

He looked at her
seriously. 'It would be better never to know, Llandry. Believe me.'
He sat down in his rocking chair again, settling into it with a
sigh. 'If you've had as much trouble over it as you say, I imagine
somebody else has been making some accurate guesses about it.
Possibly several somebodies.' He regarded her carefully. 'You're a
summoner yourself, I think you said?'

'Yes... well, not
really. I was never trained.'

'But you have the
ability. Any sorcerous talent?'

'Of course
not.'

He laughed
softly. 'Of course not. Spoken with such conviction. You've never
even tried, have you?'

'No,
I...'

'Your mother is a
sorcerer, yes? A strong one, I am willing to wager.'

'She hasn't
practiced in years, but yes. What does this have to do
with...?'

'So you've strong
sorcerer heritage on your mother's side, summoner on mine. Why do
you think it's hereditary? Why do only
some
people have
these abilities?'

Llandry was
growing impatient. 'I don't know! It doesn't matter. I'm not a
sorcerer, I'm not even a trained summoner. I don't have anything to
do with any of this.'

Rheas snorted.
'The ignorance is stunning.' Llandry bristled, and he raised an
eyebrow at her. 'Not you personally. Well yes, you personally, but
it's not your fault. Your society is ignorant. They've forgotten
everything because they've lost their connection with it. Wilfully
severed it, in fact. The so-called Seven Realms, so perfectly
controlled and enclosed, everything relentlessly tended and
deliberately designed. They've squeezed the life out of it and they
don't even realise what they've lost.' His lips twisted into a
sneer. 'Because they're
afraid
of it. Afraid! So they push
it away, forbid travel to the Off-Worlds, limit and fiercely
control anything that comes out of them. They fear the unknowable,
and in the process forget almost everything they ever knew about it
in the first place.' Mags was patting his hand, soothingly. She had
probably heard that rant before.