Draykon (8 page)

Vale poked his
head around the door frame. 'I'd like a few words, Mr. Wrobsley, if
I may.'

Eva crossed to
him, shaking her head warningly. She pulled him out into the
hallway, pulling the door to behind her.

'He's in deep
shock,' she said. 'He's barely hearing anything I say to him. Eyde,
listen.' She told him the story of Meesa's istore ring, sparing no
details.

'I don't think
she would have taken it off, especially not so soon,' she finished.
'I think your men should search the house, see if they can find the
ring. If not, then - then it's possible her death had something to
do with it.' She took a breath. 'Nobody ever found out who stole my
ring, did they?'

'No. We found
nothing.'

She nodded.
'Also, I - I saw something, when I found Meesa's body.'

'I was coming to
ask you about that, actually. Did you see the attacker?'

'I think so.
Parts of it. Thin frame, black hide, pale eyes. Not a native of the
Seven - definitely a Lowers beast.'

'It's hard to be
sure of that, Eva. What of Orlind?'

Eva sighed.
Unlike the other six realms, Orlind was almost completely closed to
outsiders. It was difficult to determine whether it was even
inhabited, and Glour's libraries could offer nothing but theories
and speculation about what lay behind the wall of mountains that
separated it from Irbel. 'I can't answer that question. Maybe it
came out of Orlind - somehow - but my belief is that it's not of
the Seven.'

Vale nodded. 'I
trust your instincts. Do you know what it was?'

She hesitated. 'I
have... a theory. Maybe. I need to look into it.'

Vale nodded. 'All
right. Let me know what you find out.'

There came a
violent knocking at the door, a hammering repeated with frantic
urgency. Eva exchanged a look with Vale.

'Probably
family,' said Vale. 'We need to keep everyone out of here for now.
My boys aren't finished yet.'

'Moment. I'll get
it.' Eva stepped resolutely to the door, suffering a stab of
trepidation. To whom was she to break the news?

But when she
opened the door, a young man in the uniform of the Investigative
Office stood there, breathing hard.

'Looking for the
Chief,' he gasped.

Vale strode
forward. 'Bensley. What is it?'

'Another death
reported, sir, on Circle Eleven. Saudran Iritan. Some kind of beast
attack.'

'Right.' Vale
turned to Eva, looking grim. He kissed her perfunctorily on the
forehead, squeezing her arms gently. 'Go home,' he said.
'Please.'

She shook her
head. 'I am staying with Numinar. He shouldn't be left
alone.'

He nodded. 'Just
be careful when you leave.'

'Eyde. Find out
if Iritan had any taste for jewellery.' Vale gave her a quick nod
of understanding, collecting up several of his men with swift
orders. They left in a knot of uniforms. Eva sighed as the door
shut behind them. Only two remained, charged with the removal of
Meesa's body. Eva watched sadly as the silent form of her friend
was taken out of the house.

She returned to
Numinar. He sat where she had left him, still silent and
unresponsive. She sat down beside him, took one of his hands gently
in hers, and prepared to wait.

***

The reports
reached her the next day. She had remained with Numinar throughout
the moonlit hours and on, as the moon disappeared and the Night
Cloak shrouded Glour. She had at last persuaded him to rest; he'd
responded like a man half asleep, and needed all of her help even
to find his way to bed. Her own rest must wait until she reached
home.

She travelled
home via public carriage, half hoping to find Vale waiting for her.
Instead she found a note, addressed to her in Vale's handwriting.
She could barely focus on it to read the words.

Eva,

Three
deaths overnight. Iritan had an istore necklace. Alen Marstry, the
third victim, had an istore circlet. Both pieces missing. Both
attacked by some kind of beast. Also found three recent reports of
jewellery thefts beside yours, all istore. Looking into it. See you
at moonset.

Eva shivered,
suddenly feeling fervently glad that her ring had merely been
stolen. Her mind obligingly showed her Meesa's poor ruined face
once again, reminding her of the hideous quantity of blood that
stained her shredded clothing. Eva had no trouble picturing herself
in that position, her own istore ring conspicuously absent from her
blood-covered hand.

Stop that,
she told herself sharply. She folded the note, tucking it into her
sash. Firmly banishing all thought of tiredness, she left the house
again, this time heading for the Bulletin Office.

Within half an
hour of her arrival, a new announcement was spreading throughout
the bulletin boards across the city.

All
examples of the substance known as "istore" are to be turned in at
the Investigative Offices immediately. Continued possession of
these items is known to place the owner in EXTREME peril. Act at
once.

An hour later,
five dark-winged birds took to the sky, bearing urgent messages
across the realms.

Chapter Seven

Three guards had
been assigned to protect Llandry's house. They arrived in the early
eventide, all youngish men in light armour with weapons strapped to
their uniforms. The prospect of having to speak to these grim-faced
people was enough to close Llandry's throat on the spot, but
fortunately they were not much inclined to talk. They took her
mother's instructions silently, taking up positions at her front
door, the back door and outside the largest window. When her
parents had gone she wandered the house for a time, feeling as
though she was under siege.

As the strong
light of day began to fade, she suffered some doubts. Her mother's
fears may seem exaggerated to her, but they were not unjustified.
What if someone still lay in wait for her? Were they really gone?
She shouldn't be so willing to endanger herself for the sake of a
gem. She hovered near her kitchen window, nibbling at a fingernail.
The proximity of her guards didn't prevent her escape: if she was
careful she could slip out without being seen by the man at the
rear door. But should she?

What it was about
the istore that drove her, she couldn't say. But nonetheless it
did. Pursuit or not, she would go. Besides, tomorrow she would
release the location of the cave and her part in the matter would
be over. It wouldn't matter if she was followed today.

Her mind made up,
she slid silently out of the window. Her stature was a source of
embarrassment to her under normal circumstances; the winged
citizens of Glinnery were not typically very tall as a race, but
she was particularly diminutive. Now she blessed her size, her
slight figure easily fitting through the frame. She pulled herself
up onto the roof and lay silently for a moment, listening. Below
her stood a silent guard. He had positioned himself directly before
the narrow wood-and-rope bridge that connected her dwelling with
her neighbour. She watched as he took a few paces onto the bridge,
looked around himself, then paced back to his original station. He
hadn't seen her.

Llandry waited
until a passing cloud bank cast a misty grey shadow over the
forest, then she silently took to the skies. She flew low, keeping
beneath the cover of the glissenwol caps, trusting to their wide
trunks and blankets of draping vines to conceal her movements.
There was no sign of pursuit on the ground or in the air behind
her, and she relaxed. She flew south and east, making for the
vicinity of the border into the Darklands. Eventually she saw the
darkened skies of Glour looming ahead of her and she began her
descent, landing gently in the thick mosses wet from the day's
rain.

She paused,
disorientated. The surroundings were familiar: clusters of entwined
glissenwol formed a tangled wall stretching away to her left,
crowded with an obscuring thicket of ferns and moss. The path to
her cave lay behind this mass of foliage, she knew the route
perfectly. But the opaque darkness of Glour loomed close, too
close. It should be a dark mass on the horizon. Instead, the
eventide light was abruptly cut off and plunged into shadow barely
one hundred feet ahead of her. Had she flown off course? She
stepped forward warily, scanning her surroundings for familiar
landmarks.

She stepped
softly towards the wall of twining trees, twisted easily between
the glissenwol trunks, ducked to avoid the hanging vines. The path
was slightly overgrown, but unmistakeable; this was the same route
she had passed through many times before. Her cave lay two hundred
feet ahead, through the overgrown passageway and into the grassier
space beyond.

Now that passage
lay under shadow.

Llandry walked
forward until she stood with the tips of her red boots on the very
edge of the divide. The transformation from light to darkness was
abrupt: the air blurred into dusk for a mere few feet and then the
solid darkness of the night took over. The moon was up, silvering
the land below, but with her Daylander eyes it was a strain to see
into the darkness that cloaked the forest ahead of her. She could
just make out the outlines of half-grown, pale glissenwol caps
shrouded in palpable darkness. Starved of light, they were already
fading, their shining pale trunks turning sickly, the vibrancy
draining from their crumbling caps.

Anxious, Llandry
flexed her wings. Then she sat, wrapping her arms around her
drawn-up knees.

'What do you make
of that, Siggy?' she murmured. Sigwide stared up at her with wide,
trusting eyes, his long body quivering either with tension or
excitement. Llandry lifted him into her lap, stroking his short
silver-grey fur soothingly.

'I don't think
it's a good sign, either,' she agreed.

She could not see
the entrance to her cave, which meant that the hillock beneath
which it lay must now be situated some distance into the gloom.
Raised as she had been under the perpetual light of Glinnery,
Llandry had no night vision at all. Could she even find the way to
her cave? What would she find there if she did? The spread of the
Night Cloak may have quite another cause, but Llandry felt a
settled dread that its expansion into the vicinity of her cave was
no accident.

She ought to
return home. She had other work to do; if this was a mere mistake,
it was a boundary problem that would soon be resolved. But tomorrow
she would be restored to her parents' house, under her mother's
constant, concerned scrutiny, and there would be no further
opportunity to return. If she wanted her istore, it would have to
be done now. In its natural environment, the stone emitted its own
light, illuminating the interior of the cave; all she had to do was
find her way to the entrance. Surely she knew it well enough to
find her way there blinded.

Sigwide's
trembling had calmed. She gently placed him on the floor and stood
up.

'Stay here, Sig.'
The orting sat obediently on his haunches and blinked at her, his
black nose testing the air.

Llandry tucked
her long hair more firmly under her cap and checked her tools,
hidden away inside her cloak. Then, resolutely, she stepped into
the gloom.

Immediately the
air changed. The gentle warmth of Glinnery faded, replaced by a
soothing coolness. The sounds of Glinnery forest receded as
thoroughly as though a thick wall divided her from the glissenwol
canopy. This was no illusion, then; she truly stood in Glour
territory.

She strode
forward a few paces and stopped, waiting for her eyes to adjust to
the darkness. She stood silently for some minutes, her sensitive
ears alert. No sound broke the silence of the night. She moved
ahead, stepping lightly through the crisp, dying moss that still
carpeted the floor. She proceeded slowly and carefully, using her
hands to warn her of obstacles. She trusted her instincts to guide
her, walking in what she hoped was the accustomed
direction.

A flicker of
movement caught her attention. She paused, ignoring a ripple of
nervousness.

It's only the
dark
.
Darkness cannot hurt me
.

She moved ahead
again, lifting her chin, trying to generate a feeling of
confidence. She had made it most of the way there. The cave must be
within fifty feet or so of her location, if her instincts had
guided her well.

But then came the
sharp sound of twigs cracking underfoot - the sounds of another
person, or large animal, walking some way ahead. She froze,
unwilling to meet a Darklander out here, groping her way through
territory that had become unfamiliar. How could she possibly
explain what she was doing, a Daylander creeping through the
darkness without a light? She stood perfectly still, listening
hard. Her straining eyes discerned a lean shape a foot or so before
her, the outline of a beast's narrow head and long, powerful legs.
In the darkness she could gain no clearer impression of the
creature, except that it must be large. Movement flashed perilously
close to her face.