Seven Dreams (22 page)

Egg smirked.
‘Very touching.’ Teyo stood up just in time to witness her rolling
her eyes expressively and turning her back on the cute
couple.

Iyamar chose that
moment to disentangle herself and run down the arm of the chair,
gaining the floor just as Egg reached the doorway. In a flash she
was human again. ‘Hey!’ she yelled after Egg. ‘Jisp’s
much
nicer than you!’

Egg cast her a
withering look over her shoulder. ‘
Everyone
’s nicer than me,
darling,’ she retorted, and wandered off.

Iyamar turned to
Teyo and shrugged. The gesture was nonchalant, but Teyo thought she
looked a little injured. He paused to think for a moment,
stretching his back (ever since he’d turned forty, aches and pains
had seemed to develop much faster than he could like or approve
of).

‘
The
shifting’s coming along nicely,’ he offered with a
smile.

Iyamar’s face
instantly transformed into enthusiasm, followed by trepidation. She
could be deadpan when she needed to be, but when she wasn’t trying,
her every thought was lamentably obvious, prominently displayed
upon her pale face. That was youthful enthusiasm for you, Teyo
thought with a pang of regret. He couldn’t ever remember being that
excitable.

‘
Only
the smaller things, though,’ Iyamar cautioned. ‘I mean, nothing
that would — nothing that’s likely to — just the little
ones.’

Teyo unravelled
this incoherent speech without much difficulty. ‘Still not ready to
try your drayk again, then?’ he enquired.

Iyamar shook her
head vehemently. ‘No!’

‘
But,’
Teyo said carefully, doing his best not to look confrontational,
‘you used it when we first met you. On the road? When you held up
the carriage?’

Iyamar flushed
miserably. ‘Not deliberately.’

‘
Ohh.’
Teyo took a step back.

‘
It
happens when I panic, sometimes,’ she continued in a tiny
voice.

‘
Shapeshift?’

‘
Yeah.’ She shuffled her feet, staring at the floor. ‘It all
went wrong, and I was hungry and I had nowhere to sleep and the
carriage was about to leave and... I panicked.’

Teyo felt a stab
of sympathy at this speech. He hadn’t been certain what to make of
Iyamar’s ill-fated hold-up, though as he had got to know her
better, he’d felt reasonably sure that she had been driven to it
out of desperation rather than thrill-seeking or anything else so
daft. He’d been right. He didn’t like to think of such a young
person homeless and hungry like that, especially if it had come
about because other people hadn’t liked her draykon
heritage.

‘
That’s why you didn’t attack the carriage,’ Teyo said in
sudden realisation. ‘I wondered about that.’

‘
Right.’ Iyamar sighed. ‘I was busy trying to turn back into...
me.’ She fell silent, frowning, and Teyo waited for more. Nothing
else followed.

‘
We
can talk about it later,’ he offered, when her discomfort didn’t
abate.

‘
Sorry,’ Iya muttered, and slunk away.

Watching her go,
Teyo found himself thinking of the fit of panic she’d had when he
had first tried to encourage her to shapeshift. She was prone to
panic, it seemed, which was a shame; once she calmed down and
thought things through, she had considerable strength and talent.
Had he ever got so worked up about things in his own youth? It
seemed a very long time ago — it
was
a pretty long time ago
— but he had. Oh, certainly. He had far, far outdone Iyamar in
overreacting, although a small part of his mind still insisted that
he hadn’t been overreacting at all. Not one bit.

At her age, he’d
been a moderately prosperous stonemason’s apprentice. His father
had been the mason, and Teyo had begun learning the trade at the
age of ten. By the time his seventeenth year rolled around, he was
fairly skilled and beginning to take on jobs for his father’s
business. Then everything had changed, and Teyo had... lost it, for
a while. For a long while.

He still didn’t
like to think about it. Stooping carefully, he picked up a final,
stray piece of clay that he’d missed and added it to the dustpan he
held in his hand. He went to the bin, emptied the pan into it and
mentally threw all thoughts of his past transgressions away along
with the clay dust. Then he retrieved his coat, stepped out of the
door and wandered back to the city square to check the boards
again.

It was two days
later when the knock finally came at the door to their quiet
apartment.

‘
Finally,’ muttered Teyo, which earned him matching enquiring
looks from Egg and Iyamar. He ignored these. The two of them had
commandeered the parlour table and Egg was showing Iya how to make
a simple wig. He wasn’t sure why. Iya had taken to the project with
surprising enthusiasm, showing an equally surprising creative flair
— if slightly questionable taste along with it. The wig she was
making was rainbow coloured and covered in glass jewels. It was a
little garish to his eye, but Iya clearly loved it. So, more
curiously, did Egg. They were getting along comfortably enough,
with only a little sniping and grouching from time to time, so Teyo
didn’t interfere.

He gestured to
them to remain seated and went to the door alone, dusting off the
front of his jacket as he went. He’d managed to pick up some clay
dust and hadn’t even noticed until now. Pausing before the door, he
took a moment to cross his fingers, both literally and
mentally.

He opened the
door.

Ylona Duna really
was an extremely handsome woman, he thought upon beholding her
again. So was Lady Glostrum. Was it the Lokant heritage? They had
such regal bearing, such lustrous, snowy hair, and such stupendous
figures. Teyo gazed at her in silence for a moment, frowning
slightly, but abandoned the train of thought. With a sample size of
two, it was impossible to draw any useful conclusions. No, three!
He mentally factored Halavere Morann into his thinking, which did
no harm to his theory whatsoever.

Ylona returned
his stare with one every bit as measuring, and smiled. ‘Hello,’ she
said in a pleasingly low, smooth voice. ‘I believe you have my
stones.’

Teyo smiled back.
‘I own a stone or two, I think.’

Ylona leaned
against the door frame, hands in her pockets, and surveyed him a
little more. Well, Teyo could match her for nonchalance. He stuck
his hands into his own pockets, fixed a pleasantly vague smile upon
his face and waited.

‘
This
big, dumb routine,’ said Ylona after a moment. ‘It’s
well-practiced, I’ll give you that, but I don’t believe it.’ Her
accent was enthralling, Teyo decided, and instantly resolved on
prolonging their conversation for as long as possible.

He widened his
smile and his eyes, and said nothing.

Ylona’s smile
twisted. ‘Good, yes, but it
is
a waste of my time. Where are
my stones? Hand them over and we can all go back to our
lives.’

Teyo shrugged. ‘I
don’t have them.’

Her eyes
narrowed. ‘Is that a lie?’

Teyo felt a
whisper of compulsion begin to bear down upon him. It began as an
echo of that he had felt when Lady Glostrum had rescued Iyamar from
her involuntary shapeshift, though it swiftly grew much, much
stronger. ‘No,’ he managed to say, thankful that it happened to be
the truth.

‘
Hand
them over,’ she said again, and this time it bore the full force of
a Lokant’s will behind it. She was as powerful as Lady Glostrum,
easily. Perhaps more so.

Teyo’s right hand
emerged, involuntarily, from the pocket of his trousers and plunged
instead into the pocket of his jacket. His fingers closed around
the little round stone that lay there and he brought it out to show
her. It was black, veined with silver and white, and it felt warm
in his hand.

Ylona took it
immediately. ‘And the other one,’ she ordered.

Teyo’s left hand
repeated the same process and, shaking with the effort to resist,
it obligingly handed over a cream stone threaded with gold. Ylona
rewarded him with a cool smile and a murmur of thanks, which
intrigued him. Why bother to be polite when she had forced his
compliance in the first place?

‘
Your
team is very good,’ she said as she turned away. ‘My
compliments.’

Well, that was
nice. Teyo tried not to stare at her backside as she walked away,
and mostly failed. He would get used to women wearing trousers
someday, he supposed, but it might take a little time.

He went back
inside and shut the door.

‘
What
the hell was that?’ Egg demanded as he joined his
companions.

‘
Ylona
came for the stones.’

‘
I
gathered.’ She was on her feet, arms folded, staring at him in
undisguised disgust. ‘And you just let her have them?’

‘
I was
compelled!’

‘
Uh
huh.’ Egg looked him up and down, frowning. ‘Why aren’t you more
upset? Serena’s going to kill you. Actually, she’ll kill all of
us.’

Iyamar was
laughing. ‘Egg, if you hadn’t been so annoyed about all that clay
everywhere you’d know why he’s not upset.’

Egg lifted a
single eyebrow at her, with speaking contempt. ‘When you’ve
finished laughing at me, Iya dear, do please explain.’

‘
She’s
taken duplicates,’ Teyo said hastily, before the situation could
deteriorate any further. ‘I made them yesterday.’

Egg blinked at
him. ‘Duplicates?’

‘
They
look just the same.’ Teyo smiled.

Egg looked both
suspicious and thunderstruck. ‘You made them? How?’

‘
Well,
I used stone, and a bit of clay moulding, and some paint
—’

Egg held up a
hand. ‘Never mind. I don’t want the details.’ She gave a grudging
nod. ‘Good. How did you know she was coming?’

‘
She
saw me, on the way out. She didn’t suspect anything at the time,
but I thought she might work it out once she realised the stone was
gone.’ He paused, and added apologetically, ‘I didn’t really steal
it. The security box-thing knew me and let me in the drawer. I
imagine she got my name out of it later.’

‘
Eh?
How did it know you?’

He shrugged.
‘Lady Glostrum arranged a contact for me at the LHB. He set it
up.’

Egg sighed. ‘Okay
well, nice job on the duplicates. Won’t fool her for long,
though.’

‘
I
shouldn’t think so,’ Teyo agreed. ‘We’d better decamp. We’re in
Tarvale for the next few days. Oliver’s set it up.’

Egg was already
striding to the door. ‘Where?’ she threw back over her
shoulder.

‘
Tiny
village-type place. Twelve miles southeast. Oh, Egg! Hang on a
second.’

Egg stopped and
waited while Teyo fetched the purple blanket he’d finished
knitting. ‘Here,’ he said, holding it out to her.

Egg stared at it
and didn’t take it. ‘What’s that?’

‘
It’s
a blanket.’

‘
I can
see that.’

Teyo began to
feel awkward. ‘It’s for you.’

She blinked at
him. ‘You... made that for me?’

Teyo
nodded.

Egg hesitated,
then took it and stuffed it under her arm. Muttering a gruff
thanks, she left the room without meeting Teyo’s gaze.

‘
She
likes it,’ Iya decided. ‘Otherwise she’d have thrown it at
you.’

Teyo smiled.
‘Yeah. I know.’

Based on Eva’s
descriptions, Serena had expected to arrive in Orlind to find a
small, barren island of bare rock, separated from the mainland by a
long stretch of water.

That was not
exactly what happened.

They travelled to
Orlind under escort, following Avane and with her companion flying
behind. When the airship finally crested the last peak that divided
them from the Seventh Realm, the vista that lay before them
revealed no miserable lump of rock at all, but a flourishing island
of considerable size.

Serena, Anserval,
Eva and (to Serena’s delight) Fabian stood at the viewing deck
together. When Orlind at last came into view, they were all taken
by surprise. Even Anserval stopped mid-sentence in the middle of
one of his monologues.

The glittering
expanse of water that lay between the mountains and the island was
barely a few miles across, Serena judged, and it was surprisingly
serene. Where it met the foot of the Sammerills the water was of a
typical greyish hue tossed with green; as it approached the island,
however, the grey gave way to blue and the green to purple, turning
it a mesmerising twilight-violet colour where it met the shore of
Orlind.

The island itself
was no less startling. A short beach of silvery sand gave way to a
forest of tall trees with thin, curving trunks and silvery bark,
their leaves in all shades of blue, green and purple. The tiny
shapes of coloured birds were just visible wheeling and diving
above the treetops, and fishing out of the strange sea that
surrounded their home.