Draykon (6 page)

***

Her supply of raw
gems ran out three days later, but the crush of bodies outside her
house had not diminished. She'd stopped going anywhere near the
door, not even to collect the mail that continued to pour through
her letterbox. Every time she approached the front of her house she
could hear them talking, sometimes shouting, banging on her door.
She stayed near the back of the house.

But now she had
ten completed items to mail, twenty-five more to make (not counting
those orders that were probably lying, unopened, in her hallway)
and no more istore. She would have to find a way to leave her house
undetected.

She waited until
the late hours of the Eventide, a time when most people across the
city of Waeverleyne were asleep (usually including herself).
Creeping to the front of her house, she found that everything was
blissfully quiet. She packed her tools and her packages in a pack
slung low on her back beneath her wings. Then, eschewing her front
door, she slipped out of her kitchen window and climbed onto the
roof.

Waeverleyne lay
in the soft, low eventide light that was artificially created by
Glinnery's sorcerers. That meant it was night time beyond the
Dayland enchantments, a time when Daylanders were not usually
roaming abroad. On the other hand, the muted light was more
favourable for the Darklanders. She would still have to be careful.
She took to the skies, angling up and up until she was flying just
beneath the vast, spreading caps of Glinnery's signature glissenwol
trees. She reached the nearest mail station without encountering
anybody, and slid her collection of small packages into the secure
box one by one. Then she was away once more, aiming this time for
the outskirts of Glinnery and her cave in the ground. Nothing
reached her eyes or ears save the usual soft sounds of eventide,
and she finally began to relax.

Then three
figures appeared in the air before her, cutting her off. She
stopped, startled. Her wings beat slowly, holding her aloft as she
studied the three. Two men and a woman, all clearly citizens of
Glinnery, though the features and clothing of one suggested some
Nimdren blood. They smiled pleasantly enough at her, but their
intention to detain her was clear. She said nothing, waiting. The
woman spoke first.

'I sent you a
letter.'

'So did I.' That
was the Nimdren.

'You never
answered.'

'So we thought
we'd ask you in person.'

The third man
approached, looking her over. His eyes lingered on the belt at her
waist, the bag hanging from her shoulders. 'On your way there now,
are you? They said you only come out of your house for more istore.
That's true, isn't it? We've been waiting for days.' He spoke
lightly, trying to smile, but there was an intensity about him that
unnerved Llandry. She shook her head, mute.

'We're going with
you. That's probably easier for everyone, isn't it? No doubt you're
too busy to write letters.'

Llandry shook her
head again, searching futilely for her voice. The man frowned, and
all three fluttered closer to her.

'We understand
you want to keep it for yourself. Who wouldn't? But don't you think
that's selfish? We do.'

She angled her
wings, retreating a little further backwards with each slow beat.
They followed her, inexorable.

'All right,
you're not going there now. That's fine. Why don't you just tell us
where to find it?'

Llandry blinked,
one word circling around her mind. 'Selfish?'

'That's right.
Don't you want anyone else to benefit from it?'

Guilt worked at
her, eroding her certainty. Maybe they were right. Should she have
ignored the letters? Was she behaving like a good businesswoman, or
was she being greedy?

She opened her
mouth, intending to tell them everything. Perhaps they sensed her
weakening, for all three of them descended on her, circling her
eagerly. Their proximity, their urgency, silenced her again and all
she could think about was escape.

She dropped,
flying hard. She heard them behind her, calling out to her as she
wove through the tree trunks, trying futilely to lose them. They
dogged her all the way to the balcony of her home. The doors were
locked and barred from the inside, she remembered with chagrin. She
darted around the building, threw herself back through her kitchen
window and slammed it closed. Knocking came from different parts of
her house in succession, signalling that her pursuers were seeking
a way in. She stood frozen, gasping for breath, terrified. What did
they mean to do if they did get in? There had been an air of
desperation about them, as though they strove to act rationally but
something spurred them relentlessly on. What was it about her
pretty istore stone that created such fervour?

***

Exhausted from
her eventide activities, Llandry slept late the next morning. She
rose to find her parents seated in her living room, though the
atmosphere was strained. Her mother looked up as Llandry entered.
She was unusually pale, her face drawn and her eyes
hard.

'Ma, Pa...'
Llandry stopped in the doorway, unwilling to approach her livid
parents. 'How did you get in?'

'You mean past
the hordes of intruders swarming around your house?' said Ynara
icily. 'I sent them away, of course. I could have done so earlier,
had it occurred to you to contact us.'

Llandry winced.
Her mother only spoke so formally when she was truly angry. 'I'm
sorry, Ma. I didn't want to worry you.' She felt suddenly silly. It
certainly hadn't occurred to her that her mother might be able to
get rid of them.

Ynara snorted.
'Did it occur to you that you might be in danger of worse than
having your picture taken?'

'They were just
reporters, Ma.' Llandry risked a glance at her father. His face was
closed, unreadable.

'You're sure of
that, are you?' Ynara slammed her book down onto the table and
stood, advancing on Llandry. 'Yesterday I received a note from Eva
Glostrum. You remember her from the Market, I'm sure. She tells me
her istore ring was stolen. It was sent to a jeweller's,
apparently, for some small adjustment, and lifted overnight. Just
that ring.' Ynara lifted her brows and gave Llandry that stare, the
one that expressed her extreme disappointment. It never failed to
reduce Llandry to a miserable bundle of apologies.

'Furthermore,'
continued Ynara, 'My jewel box is missing. Naturally my beautiful
istore bracelet is missing with it. What that means, I'm sure
you'll gather, is that somebody has entered our house in the last
couple of days and walked off with my jewellery. Nothing else, you
understand. Only
the jewellery
. The implications of that are
obvious enough. We came at once.' Llandry squirmed under her
relentless stare. 'I don't know how you've avoided a break-in here,
Llan, but remarkably you seem to be in one piece.'

The use of her
nickname suggested her mother was beginning to relent. Llandry drew
in a breath, her eyes blurring. Ynara was rarely angry, but she was
truly terrifying when her ire was properly aroused.

'I'm sorry,
Mamma,' she managed around the lump in her throat. 'I'm okay,
really.'

'Nice job with
the barricades,' Aysun put in. She smiled lopsidedly, glancing at
the furniture she'd piled against the large window when she'd
returned last eve.

'Thanks,
Pa.'

Ynara sighed and
embraced her. Llandry clung to her, weak with relief.

'Nobody's hurt
you, have they?' her mother asked, fiercely. Llandry shook her
head.

'Fine, well. Your
“friends” are in custody overnight. They'll be released tomorrow.
They'll be facing prosecution if they bother you again. Meanwhile,
Llan, I want you to come home for a while. We need you under our
eye, where we can keep an eye on you.'

Llandry
stiffened. 'But, Ma, my house. I'm happy here. I can
manage.'

Ynara cast a
meaningful glance at the shuttered window and its leaning barricade
of furniture. 'I'm sure you can.'

'It worked,
didn't it?'

'Please, Llan. If
anything happens to you...' Ynara didn't need to finish the
sentence. Llandry knew that her parents wouldn't sleep unless they
knew she was well. Sometimes the intense love they had for her
could be stifling. She suppressed a sigh and nodded her
head.

'All right, Ma. I
need today to clear up a few things, then I'll come home
tomorrow.'

Ynara hesitated,
then nodded. 'Then I'm requesting a guard for you for tonight. Just
to make sure.' Ynara steered Llandry to a seat and pressed a cup of
tea into her hands, stroking her hair.

'Llan, you have
to give this up.' Her father, hitherto uninvolved, now fixed her
with a stern stare. 'This is out of control. Your safety is more
important than your career.'

Llandry winced
inwardly. He was right, too much so for her to argue with him.
Truthfully she'd begun to drown under the weight of her sudden
success; she wouldn't much regret being freed of the
burden.

Except in one
particular. Her istore was gone, entirely so. She'd used up the
last pieces, fully expecting that she would soon be retrieving
more. Not a single stone was left for her to keep. That part was
intolerable.

'I agree, Pa,'
she said aloud. 'I'll make an announcement - no doubt there's a
reporter or two still milling around somewhere - and the boards can
pick it up. I suppose all those letters can simply be
returned.'

Ynara narrowed
her eyes, suspicious. Llandry kept her face carefully blank. If she
could satisfy her mother and father with her easy capitulation on
this point, perhaps they wouldn't think to extract any inconvenient
promises from her. Such as a ban on visiting her precious
cave.

'All right, love.
Thank you,' Ynara said at last. 'I'll take the message for you
later.'

Llandry thought
fast. Her parents would certainly stay until the guards were in
place around her house. Nothing less would satisfy them. Nor would
she have any opportunity to slip out to her cave after her return
to her mother's house. It would have to be this eventide: now that
the swarm of reporters was gone, she would only have to evade the
guards. She knew her house better than they would: slipping out
would be easy. It would be a quick journey, straight to the cave
and straight back, collecting a mere few small stones. As long as
she had one of her precious gems to hold and carry about with her,
that would be enough.

Chapter Six

Eva stood in the
conservatory of her home on Glour's prestigious Fifth Circle,
carefully dripping nara-fruit juice onto a bed of parchment strips.
From beneath a neat nest of twigs emerged a questing nose, tiny,
black and twitching with eager interest. She opened her thoughts to
the creature, showing it images of food, and juice, and warmth.
Parchment rustled as the mouse emerged, promptly sinking its small,
sharp teeth into her finger. She allowed it to draw her blood along
with the juice, smiling at its enthusiasm. This one would make a
fine culinary assistant to an artisan chef.

She nudged the
mouse back into its parchment nest and withdrew her hand. It had
built itself a home in the corner of her conservatory, settling
close to the glass where the silver moonlight came through
particularly strongly. The mouse seemed happy, but it would be time
to move it soon.

First, though,
she had a bird ready to depart the nest. Just now it was hanging
upside down from the roof of the conservatory; a curious posture
for a bird, but then, it was called a bird only because nobody knew
how else to categorise it. She coaxed it down, drawing it to her
with a mixture of command and entreaty. She took the role of its
mother in the bird's mind, a being to be both trusted and obeyed.
The bird soared gracefully downwards, settling on Eva's shoulder,
gripping her with talons that clenched and unclenched restlessly.
Eva winced as those surprisingly sharp claws pierced her skin. She
objected still more when it began to peck at her ear, insistent and
wholly oblivious to her pain.

'I suppose that
is a mark of affection, is it?' She stroked the bird's soft
feathers, careful to avoid the webby membrane of its wings. She
slipped her hand into a thick leather glove and held up her hand.
The bird walked obligingly onto the glove, smoothing its indigo
feathers nonchalantly.

She'd taken to
calling the little dringle-bird Skritch, a charitable
interpretation of the effect its pacing had on the flesh of her
shoulders. She was rather glad he was now ready to be delivered to
his new companion-master, a herbalist living a few circles
away.

She had spent the
day inspecting the vast kennels the summoners kept outside the
city. It was a ritual she observed every moon, even though it was
years since she'd found anything to object to in the kennel
masters' handling of the animals. Breeding season was approaching,
and this year there was a good chance of a few new shortig pups.
The species was notoriously hard to breed, and almost equally hard
to track down in their native habitats in the Lower Realms. Their
impressive tracking abilities made them in high demand with Vale's
men, however, and he'd begged her to up the numbers available this
year. Tricky, but she was certainly up to the challenge.