Evastany

by Charlotte E. English

  As for the school, the “Miss” Faronni had spoken of turned out to be Tynara. “Sir” was a man of around Hyarn’s apparent age (it’s so hard to tell with Lokants) who was introduced as Dan. He had a sloppiness of dress and a laid-back demeanour which interested me, for it set him apart from most of the other people I met up there. Our third teacher was to be… Gio. All very good, except that it would interfere with his espionage activities where Ylona was concerned — something I could hardly expect Dwinal to realise.

  Complications, complications.

  Anyway, by the time we were kindly escorted home, we were fully up to date with all the official things, everybody was very happy with everybody, and blah blah blah.

  I may have sneaked some time to go wandering about the place in hopes of stumbling over this mythical draykon Lania talked of, but I found nothing.

  29 IV

  Confusingly, we returned to Glour City to find that it was… approximately two hours after we had left. Time runs strangely in those Libraries, mostly in that it doesn’t. I think the inhabitants are all about ten thousand years old as a consequence, but most of them don’t look over forty.

  How I hate them, sometimes.

  Anyway. I discovered the date by the simple expedient of confusing Adonia.

  ‘We are returned!’ I said to her, sweeping into her office with the air of one long absent (to me it had been some days, after all).

  She, however, blinked at me as though I was mad, or perhaps just making fun of her. The latter she does not like, not at all. We quickly learned to stop making mild jokes about her clothes. ‘From… where?’ said she. ‘When are you leaving again?’

  ‘I have left, and come back!’ I don’t know why I said this with the air of a woman making an announcement of great importance. If I expected Adonia to be delighted, I was soon disabused of any such expectation.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and blinked. ‘That was fast.’

  Then she went to her desk, sat down, and began reading a magazine.

  ‘Yes, well, we thought we would be longer away but the business was completed rather quickly…’ I didn’t fancy trying to explain Lokant Libraries and relative time to Adonia, but my attempts to find an alternative way to excuse our remarkably brief absence might have been spared. Adonia merely nodded vaguely, her eyes fixed upon her magazine.

  ‘I’ll be in my office,’ I said, and withdrew.

  Adonia said nothing.

  Ori came back, overflowing with enthusiasm as I had expected, and entered into our new project with gusto. ‘I’ve thought about the possibility before,’ he told me, and I wasn’t much surprised. ‘I’d love the chance to look into it properly.’

  ‘I would love you to do so,’ I informed him. ‘Though surreptitiously, please. I want Dwinal to feel that we are addressing the matter, but not too expeditiously. Any discoveries we make should be kept quiet, for now.’

  ‘Naturally, naturally.’

  ‘Where’s Gio?’

  ‘He went back, for now. He’ll follow soon.’

  ‘Hm. Ori, I need you to do something else first.’

  He beamed at me with limitless enthusiasm and said grandly, ‘Anything.’

  I raised a brow. ‘That’s dangerous, as you well know.’

  His grin widened. ‘I trust you.’

  ‘Fool.’

  He visibly braced himself. ‘Very well. Out with it!’

  ‘I need to see Llandry.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s easy!’

  ‘It is? You know where she is?’

  ‘She’ll be on Orlind.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Ori shrugged. ‘It will take a little time to get there, but it’s not hard.’

  I have been to Orlind before. In fact, I was part of the very expedition which discovered the place was not lost, as we’d long assumed. It’s only an island now, and a tiny one at that; once it was the Seventh of our Seven Realms, and every bit as significant as the other six. Its decline is a sad tale, but the important point is, Orlind is still there.

  It is… not easy to get to. It lies beyond Irbel, and there’s a vast and inhospitable mountain range in between. Those mountains are very high. And where you have high mountains you also have high winds, snow, and in short, cold.

  I hate the cold.

  I tried to be encouraged by Ori’s nonchalance. I know he has been back a few times since, and he assures me that Orlind itself — once so chaotically broken that it was extremely difficult, unpleasant and frightening to visit — is now quite safe.

  All right, then. If Llandry can muster her courage and venture places she would infinitely prefer to avoid, so can I.

  I won’t burden you with the details of our miserable journey. I will spare you the pitiful vision of me, bundled up in thirty-five layers and still uncontrollably shivering. I will certainly spare you the details of my gritted teeth, wretched mood and embarrassingly poor temper. In some ways, I think I bore with our first journey thither much better. At the time, we were swept up in adventure, travelling with a sense of high urgency and vast possibility. It was a voyage of discovery, and too fraught with danger to leave me with much time to think about the cold or discomfort. Returning in a more leisurely fashion, minus the sense of impending doom, wore my resilience to shreds and I am not proud of my behaviour.

  So let’s move on. I will merely state that Ori conveyed Tren and I over the mountains with inexhaustible patience and good cheer, no matter how I complained, and on the other side… well, we received a view, which was new. No enshrouding fog, this time, no clinging mists to hide the island from our sight; it lay before us, a floating disc in the sea, barren and dead. I was prepared for this, but still, it was a sorry vision. Very little was growing down there, and to be honest with you, it looked like nothing ever would. It was basically a desert.

  Ori soared gracefully over the water and landed on the southern edge of the island. Nothing was nearby, not the smallest sign of life, and I could not refrain from asking him (rather waspishly, I am sorry to say) why he had chosen so desolate a spot for our disembarkation when our purpose in coming was to find the people.

  He waited until Tren and I had slithered our way down to the ground from his broad back, and then he shifted human. ‘Because,’ said he gravely, ‘I thought you might like to get comfortable first.’

  It was a lot warmer down on the island than it had been up in the heights. I walked about a bit, bouncing and rubbing my arms and indulging in all the usual antics we could call I am freezing help me. After a while I realised that Ori had meant more than merely warming up; he was tactfully suggesting that my appalling mood did not perfectly fit me for company just then, and I might want to (bluntly put — why beat about the bush after all?) get a grip.

  I did that, with Tren’s assistance, who proved adept as ever at both warming me and cheering me. I am terribly hard work sometimes, am I not? I made a mental note to make it up to both of them later. I made another mental note to remember, another time, that cold and discomfort are not the end of the world; they almost certainly won’t kill me; and, as a grown woman, I can deal with this.

  Once we had recovered both our warmth and our equanimity (I say we because it did belatedly occur to me that the other two are by no means cold-proof, even if they bore the weather with more grace), Tren and I returned to Ori’s draykon back and we did a little bit more flying. There was not far to go after that — it is a small island, as I have mentioned. We flew until we encountered a little settlement set up upon the bleak, dead surface of Orlind, a knot of makeshift houses made from who-knows-what. They looked like they were dreamed up in a hurry, and they probably were. Llandry’s people had some building materials, I suppose; the Library of Orlind, once blown to bits, left a fine debris of stone and wood everywhere. But the products of such broken chunks of stone, hastily erected, were not beautiful.

  Not that it mattered. The place had a welcoming atmosphere, and an air of industry and cheerful activity which could not but a
ppeal. And since one of the first people we saw was Llandry, I immediately felt quite at home. She was in her draykon shape, all misty-grey scales and graceful curves — beautiful. But when she saw Ori, already landed and shapeshifted, she flashed into her human shape in an instant, becoming the girl I had first known: slim, brown-skinned, her abundant black hair pulled back into a tail.

  ‘Ori!’ she squeaked, and hurled herself at him. I mean that literally. Shy Llandry Sanfaer, reserved, timid and tightly controlled as she has always been, went for Ori at a gallop and leapt on him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked, laughing. ‘You’d think I had been away for a year.’

  ‘It must be at least a moon, which is almost as bad!’ she told him, tickling him with shocking ruthlessness. ‘I’ve regretted sending you away!’

  ‘Now, now. You wouldn’t dispatch poor Gio into Lokant territory alone, would you?’

  ‘Never,’ Llandry agreed, letting Ori go with visible reluctance. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Um. Well, he’s in Lokant territory alone, just at the moment.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ll explain. But you’ve ignored poor Eva and Tren.’

  Llandry’s head whipped around, and it immediately became apparent that she had not seen us. She was pleased — I think I can say that she was pleased. It was difficult to tell, for all the overflowing exuberance with which she had greeted Ori vanished without trace, and her greetings for us were much more subdued. But she smiled, and looked happy, and said some appropriate things. She even consented to hug Tren, though she did not hazard an embrace with me. Nor did I offer.

  The fact is, I think Llan is a little in awe of me. Possibly even afraid. She is always on her guard around me, more reserved than ever, clearly trying to be on her best behaviour at all times. It is flattering, I suppose, as far as it goes, but it somehow obliges me to be on my best behaviour, too. So, friends though we are, much as we’ve been through together, we treat each other with a careful, slightly stilted politeness which cannot but put something of a damper on things.

  ‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’ said Llandry (do you see what I mean? Ori she almost knocked flat in her delight; to me she says to what do we owe the pleasure!)

  ‘We come seeking aid,’ I said, hoping that an admission of need might put her at her ease. ‘We have one or two problems.’

  The gambit succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, for Llandry beamed at me with such delight that I was somewhat nonplussed. ‘Really!’ she declared. It was not so much a question as an expression of jubilation.

  My tendency towards sarcasm got the better of me, I am afraid. ‘Really,’ I assured her. ‘But they are not of the gravest kind; you need not be so excessively concerned.’

  Happily, she took this sally in good part, and grinned at me. ‘I’m only thinking of all the times I have come to you with a problem, and landed all kinds of complications in your lap. I shall be happy to return those many favours, if I can.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I said briskly. ‘Then we had better begin by relaying the news, for there is quite a bit of it.’

  Llandry listened to everything I had to tell with spellbound fascination. I wish I had such an audience for my every communication, it is most satisfying! Only perhaps poor for my ego, were I always to be treated with such deferential attention. I believe Llandry thinks I can do no wrong, too, and I am sorry to say that I encouraged that belief by lightly glossing over the various mistakes I have made lately. When she reads this journal she will know all, and I hope she will not judge me too harshly.

  When I reached the part about needing draykon assistance, her eyes lit up in a fashion that struck me as… calculating. Can I possibly express how strange that was? Llan is the last woman in the world to manage cold-blooded calculation. She’s the sensitive type, very feeling, diffident and unsure of herself (though that last part, I am happy to say, seems to be fading quickly; she is taking to her new life better than I might have expected). Anyway, she is more likely to break herself to pieces trying to help someone else than to operate under ulterior motives, and seize upon an opportunity to advance her own cause. That speculative light in her eye made me uneasy — and also intrigued. This new Llandry was not known to me. What would she do?

  ‘How many teachers do you need?’ she said, smiling.

  Uh oh. Something about that smile worried me, too. ‘Well, we are hoping to retain the use of Ori, for a while. We do expect Gio to come back from Lokant-Land eventually, and besides, we like Ori.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ori gravely.

  Llandry looked a little disappointed, but she did not oppose my request. ‘Of course, if that’s what Ori wants to do.’

  Ori gave her a hug. ‘I’ll come back,’ he promised. ‘Just not quite yet.’

  Llandry nodded, but her face was thoughtful and her gaze strayed back to me. ‘But you want one more, right? At least one more, or you would not be here.’

  ‘Yes. I have at least eight students to manage already, and we expect more. Possibly many more. I’d like Ori to have help.’

  May I admit something here? You may be wondering why I had gone to all the trouble of visiting Orlind myself, especially considering how much I hate the passage over the mountains. I could have sent Ori by himself, with instructions to collect a friend. It would have been far easier, and it is not as though I don’t have a thousand other things to do.

  The fact is, I have missed Llandry, and Pense, and Avane and all the rest. It has been pleasant having Ori with me; more so than I would ever have anticipated.

  For a time, Llandry and I were bound up in the same adventure. Our paths often crossed, we worked together, we had the same goals. It was a difficult time, but a lively one, and we accomplished so much.

  But things changed. Llandry’s duties took her away to Iskyr (the Upper Realm), and then to Orlind. Pense and Ori went with her, of course. They have survived adventures aplenty since then — adventures I have had little to do with, because my own duties took me back to Glour City and (ultimately) Off-World altogether.

  I miss our old fellowship. Nothing would please me more than to whisk Llandry back with me, install her in my school, and keep her at my side for as long as I can. Pensould, too. He is her mate, one of the ancient type of draykoni with no human blood at all. He’s… intriguing. He came wandering up about halfway through our conversation and stood nearby, listening with the impassive face, and interpolated only a brief comment, the substance of which I cannot remember. But there’ll come a moment where he will know exactly the thing to do, precisely the piece of information we need, and he will proceed to get things done with a kind of blunt practicality that has nothing to do with ordinary human behaviour. It’s refreshing. And effective.

  I cannot take Llandry, or Pense. They are needed here. Reviving Orlind is a mission of grave importance (I love being able to say that), and I cannot justify removing those who are leading the project. Even if they would consent to come, which I doubt.

  I might, however, be able to get away with taking Avane. She is like Llandry and Ori, a human shapeshifter rather than an ancient pure-blood. What’s more, she is a Darklander like me, a native of Glour, and near enough my own age. I like her a lot. I always wanted to get to know her better.

  I know she is important to Llandry, too, so I broached the topic with as much subtlety as I could muster.

  ‘I want Avane,’ I told her.

  Well, sometimes directness is best.

  Llandry blinked. ‘Oh.’

  She looked… crestfallen, which was as I had expected. But I was rapidly forced to revise my conclusion, for it was not that kind of dismay that I saw in Llandry’s face.

  ‘But…’ said Llan, and hesitated. ‘Surely—’

  ‘Avane would like to go, I think,’ said Pense, who blinked his black, black eyes at me and attempted something that was probably supposed to be a smile. ‘She suffers under the light.’

  As well she might, being used to the comfortably da
rk conditions of Glour. ‘Perfect,’ I enthused.

  Llandry nodded. ‘Oh, you may borrow Avane with my blessing, if she would like it! I can have no objection to that.’

  ‘Then, what?’ said Pensould gently, for he could see as well as I could that Llandry had something else on her mind.

  Llan beamed at me. ‘Only two teachers! That is a good start, but should you not like to have one more? What if you get many more students? And besides, three minds to grapple with the problem would be far better than two, no?’

  ‘Doubtless,’ said I, watching Llandry’s face with decided wariness.

  ‘You will have two human shapeshifters, which is great! They will know exactly how to relate to your human-Lokant students, and I am sure Ori and Avane will do wonderfully. But should you not like to have an ancient along, too? They see things differently, you know. They have an entirely different perspective.’

  Very good point, which is one reason why I’d gladly walk off with Pensould if I could. If we need people who are less hidebound by our age-old assumptions, traditions and beliefs, who better to entreat for aid than someone who predates all of it, and has never understood any part of our human interpretations of their arts anyway? I encouraged this line of thought, though I didn’t lose my sense of foreboding. Llandry was being far too strenuously helpful.

  ‘Best of all, an Elder!’ she said. ‘Nothing could be better! They are stronger, older, wiser, more powerful, they know everything there is to know about the draykon arts—’

  ‘All true, but do you not need your Elders here?’ I interjected. ‘I understood you were finding them most useful yourself, and were rather shorter on supply than you would like.’

  ‘Oh, that’s changed now,’ she said airily. ‘We have a few floating around, and I can easily spare one for you.’

  Ori cast her a suspicious look. So did Pense.

  So did I. ‘Who do you have in mind?’

  Llandry gave me a winning smile, and beckoned. ‘Come with me.’

  I followed.

  Llandry led us around to the back of the ramshackle houses. Someone had made a pool there, all clear waters and wisps of steam — it was heated! It looked a bit sad somehow, though, for it was adrift in an expanse of dead and barren dirt. The water was not all that clean, and the air smelled odd.