They didn’t pause to confer, but ran immediately for the door. They were small enough to slip easily underneath, and within moments they were scurrying furiously away, spreading out over the three floors of the LHB building. Teyo had arranged that Iya would cover the ground floor, because he felt it would contain the fewest threats. It was dedicated mostly to kitchens, dining areas and storage; few agents would be in evidence, and he doubted the key was down here.
He and Jisp ran for the stairs and dashed up them. It was always disconcerting to find his legs suddenly so short, Teyo mused as he laboured to reach each step. It was fortunate that his tiny body was nimble enough to make up for it — most of the time.
Jisp darted away at the top of the first flight, and Teyo continued up to the top floor. He slowed to a more cautious pace, alert for any signs of activity. His sensitive nose caught a whiff of something human behind the second door he passed, and he gave it a wide berth. Most of the rooms were empty, fortunately, and he scrambled beneath each door to check the contents inside. Office, office, a filing room, another office, a water closet... nothing interesting on this side. Turning about, he dashed furiously back to the staircase and away to the other side, keeping his senses alert for any communications from Jisp or Iya as he ran.
He found the treasure room, as he liked to think of it, a few moments later. He knew it by the box of strangeness that was attached to the door, a white light blinking upon its surface. It was a stupid security system to employ, when every other door around here used a normal lock and key. One might as well hang a sign on the door saying, Here is all the good stuff!
On the other hand, he was pretty sure that was top-level Lokant technology guarding the portal to the goodies, so perhaps it wasn’t so stupid.
He dismissed Jisp and Iya back to Egg, and — steeling himself in case something weird and painful should occur — made a mad dash under the door.
The room was empty, as his nose had already informed him. Tall cabinets soared away to impossible heights on either side of him, lining the walls like rows of stern sentries. Each one of those bore a similar lock on each and every drawer, which was both promising and devastating at the same time. He hoped Kant had got him access to these, or he was going to have a problem.
He shifted back to his human form, praying that he wouldn’t set some screaming alarm off in the process. Nothing happened to break the silence, and he breathed a little easier.
Okay, drawers. He looked closely at the nearest ones, hoping for some guidance as to its contents or how to open it. Nothing. The drawers were all unmarked and identical. They didn’t even have handles. Gingerly, he set his fingers to one of them, probing for something — a handle, a catch, anything.
An alarming red light began to glow before his eyes, and a voice from nowhere said, ‘Access attempted.’
Teyo jumped back.
‘Teyodin Bambre,’ continued the voice. ‘Welcome.’ The drawer he’d touched slid open.
Teyo sagged a little in relief, and blessed Devary Kant. The man was certainly efficient. Cautiously, he approached the cabinet again and peered inside the drawer.
He saw a great many gadgets nestled inside, none of which he recognised. They were so far beyond his comprehension, in fact, that he felt an obscure shudder at the mere sight of them, and quickly moved on. The stone wasn’t there, anyway. He touched the next drawer down, which slid open exactly like the first, and perused its contents.
Ten minutes and half a room later, Teyo found the key. It lay snugly inside a little velvet tray, thoughtfully cushioned upon silk, its black stone veined with silver and white. Teyo could picture Halavere Morann, the dedicated and triumphant agent, coming in here with a colleague or two and showily placing it inside a secure drawer within the most secure room in the building. When it was stolen later on, nobody would be blaming her. He grabbed it, stuffed it into his pocket, and shut the drawer.
Next problem: exit. The door looked thoroughly impregnable, but if he had access to the drawers, he probably had access to the door as well, right?
Right. He touched it and the same disembodied voice announced his name. ‘Have a pleasant day,’ it added, which Teyo thought was a nice touch.
Still human, he made his careful way back to the stairs, keeping eyes and ears open for wandering agents. He didn’t dare shift at this point. If he took a tiny shape like Jisp’s, the chances of being seen were minimal, but how could he convey the key? Anything larger would attract a lot more attention than a middle-aged man in LHB uniform was likely to excite. So he risked it.
He saw no one, and made it all the way back down to the ground floor without being stopped. He was just beginning to feel that everything might be all right when a door suddenly opened and a woman stepped out. She was tall and white-haired and just a little bit haughty. For a heart-stopping second Teyo thought it was Halavere Morann, but a moment’s scrutiny revealed that she was not. His feelings of relief were short-lived, as he realised that he recognised her. This was the same woman that had taken the key from Baron Anserval’s treasure store.
Teyo instantly averted his face and walked on, hoping hard that she would ignore him. But she didn’t.
‘Excuse me?’ she called after him.
Reluctantly, he turned.
‘It’s late,’ said the woman sternly. ‘What are you still doing here?’
‘Working late,’ he said gruffly.
‘Whatever it is you’re doing can wait,’ she decreed with decided hauteur. ‘Off you go.’
Teyo needed no further invitation, and took himself off at once. She had been almost as displeased to see him as he was to see her, he judged; she must be here for the key, and had expected the building to be empty by now. Well, he was happy to oblige.
To his relief, he found Iyamar human again and sitting companionably with Egg, Jisp perched atop her left knee. He’d been half afraid that they might get into another altercation if they were left alone together for long — or worse, that Iya would get some crazy idea into her head of following him up to the top floor and “helping” him out. Youngsters got those kinds of notions sometimes.
‘Time to go,’ he said tersely. ‘Now.’ He all but threw the exterior door open and charged out into the soft light of the Evenglow. There had been a tinge of suspicion in the woman’s gaze that he didn’t like.
The three of them left the vicinity of LHB HQ at a run. Teyo didn’t permit them to slow down until they’d reached the station and boarded the nearest railcar. He slumped down into his seat and let out a long sigh.
‘Did you get it?’ Egg whispered urgently.
‘Teyo nodded once, earning himself a broad smile.
‘You were both great,’ he said, smiling back. ‘Thanks.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Egg said, grinning. ‘I can sit on boxes with the best of them.’
His lips curved in a lopsided smile. ‘You got us into the building, Egg.’
‘Yep, that’s my contribution. Twenty-one seconds of work.’
‘Twenty-two,’ said Iyamar.
‘That extra second makes all the difference,’ Teyo agreed.
Egg made a rude gesture at them both, and turned her head to look out of the window as the railcar began to move.
‘How was the shifting?’ Teyo asked Iya.
‘It was great!’ she said, sitting up straighter. ‘Much easier this time. And it was fun.’
‘Being a Jisp-a-like, or conducting reconnaissance?’
‘Both!’ she enthused. ‘It was fun and exciting.’
So she liked the danger, did she? Teyo made a mental note of that. For himself, he more tolerated than enjoyed those aspects of the job. If he felt entitled to free choice, he would be running a small fruit farm near the south-eastern coast of Nimdre and spending his days in peace. But that was his own fault. He’d messed up as a youth, and done a lot of things he shouldn’t. Until he was finished paying his self-imposed debt to society, he would have to stick to only dreaming about orchards and fresh
milk in the mornings.
‘So,’ said Egg slowly, without turning her gaze away from the window. ‘It’s back to waiting?’
‘Reckon so,’ said Teyo. Egg’s posture betrayed her displeasure at this idea, and Iyamar’s excited expression faded into chafed disappointment.
Teyo, in contrast, felt a flicker of satisfaction, or possibly relief. He could put up with the “excitement”, as Iya called it, of breaking and entering and thieving and running, but he liked to have a nice, calm interval in between episodes. It usually took a day or two for his heart rate to slow down.
Chapter Twelve
Ayra Delune’s navigational plan worked perfectly, right up until the wind got involved.
‘I don’t see that anybody invited it,’ said Lady Fenella petulantly, after a few frigid, windy, miserable hours of trying futilely to penetrate the fog bank that hovered above the highest peaks of the Sammerill Mountains. The area it covered was not vast, but it was surrounded by some kind of endless cyclone which repelled every attempt the pilot made to steer the airship into it. Some damage had been suffered in the process, and the Baron had at last declared a halt to the endeavour.
‘Quite right,’ said Lord Bastavere, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets against the biting cold. ‘Stand aside! I shall simply order it to take itself off. It cannot possibly refuse me.’
‘A job for darling Eva, perhaps?’ responded Lady Fenella, not quite in jest. If Eva (for as bosom friends they had of course progressed to first names by now) could order Iyamar back into her human form, who was to say she couldn’t order a cyclone around as well?
Her new best friend shook her head, amusement glinting in her eyes. ‘How lovely that would be! But no. The weather has no will, you see, and therefore I can have no effect upon it whatsoever.’
‘If you could,’ put in Tren, ‘no cloud would ever dare rain upon you again.’
Eva’s face lit up.
‘And!’ her husband added, ‘you wouldn’t be cold anymore, either.’
Eva did indeed look just a shade or two more miserably frozen than the rest of them. She was swaddled in so many layers her own shape was completely indiscernible beneath them, and she wore at least two scarves that Serena could see. Despite this, she was shivering violently and her face was stark white.
Eva sighed. ‘Stop tormenting me.’
At the Baron’s instruction, the pilot had directed the airship away from the circling winds that guarded the skies over the peak. They did not appear to be regaining any particular course, Serena noticed; the force of those winds emanated a long way out from the peak, and the ship flailed helplessly under it, drifting and turning apparently at random. The shuddering, jerky motion had become familiar over the last couple of hours, and everybody was stationed near to something solid they could hold onto — and as far from the ship’s rails as possible. Serena had considered going below, thus avoiding the dangers of the deck and some of the cold. But to be shut into a small cabin and thus miss all of the developments above was an intolerable prospect, and besides, she was afraid that the motion of the ship would soon make her ill.
She was nonetheless engaged in eyeing the distant railing with distinct misgivings when the Baron strode up to the little shivering knot of people. The man was insane as well as infuriating, Serena had long since concluded; he made no effort whatsoever to protect his own safety, instead striding about the deck as though he were invulnerable to incidental forces of nature like screaming winds.
‘I’ve spoken to my pilot,’ he announced, his voice raised to shout. ‘She’s trying to get us out, but it will take some time.’ He looked uneasy, Serena thought. It could not be the prospect of personal injury or death that troubled him; perhaps it was the prospect of costly damage to his precious ship.
Or something else?
Eva said: ‘Do we know where we are?’
The Baron’s unease grew more visible, and he shook his head, his lips tightly pressed together. ‘We have gone about too many times for Ayra to keep track.’
Eva glanced around, the Baron’s discomfort echoed in her face.
‘What is it?’ said Serena.
Eva sighed. ‘We’ve been blown well over the mountains, I suspect. I fear we will end up in Orlind, if we haven’t already.’
The word “Orlind” operated powerfully upon Serena. The mythical Seventh Realm had been abandoned and desolate until a couple of years ago, when an expedition led by Eva herself and the first draykoni, Llandry Sanfaer, had made some startling discoveries there. There had been talk of late of its being resettled by one of the new draykoni clans, though she was not sure whether anything had come of it.
Why any of this, or their proximity to it, should trouble Eva, was unknown to her. A question sprang to her lips; at the last instant she remembered the Baron’s presence and her own role, and changed it to a rapturous expression and a tiny bounce upon her toes.
‘Oh, but would that not be marvellous!’ she uttered, every word dripping with joy. ‘Only think! Orlind itself! How much I shall have to tell my friends on our return.’
Something flickered across Eva’s eyes, possibly annoyance, and she shook her head. ‘I haven’t been back since... well, since two years ago. And at that time, it was — not habitable. Not logical, or stable, or ... it was very dangerous. Especially to anyone airborne.’
It was unlike her ladyship to be so inarticulate, Serena thought with a flicker of alarm.
‘Airborne?’ echoed the Baron sharply. ‘Why?’
Eva merely shook her head, her vocabulary apparently exhausted. ‘I can’t explain.’
‘We went draykon-back,’ offered Tren. ‘Flew in over these mountains, though we never came up this far. Once we entered Orlind, it was as though... as though up and down had turned themselves around, or ceased to exist altogether. We didn’t know which way up we were, let alone which direction to go in. We were very lucky not to be injured.’
‘Or killed,’ added Eva bleakly. ‘We owe that to our draykoni friends, I think. They kept their wits about them, and landed us safely. I’m not eager to repeat the experience in an airship.’
Nobody said anything for a while. The prospect of sailing helplessly into Orlind only to be upturned, spun about and ultimately dashed to pieces thrilled no one. Even the impervious Baron was visibly disturbed.
‘How experienced is your pilot?’ said Tren at last.
The Baron’s lips tightened further. ‘Enough. I hope.’
An hour passed, or so Serena’s watch believed. To her, it felt more like two or three days. The wind’s unsettling influence upon their ship gradually lessened as time passed, and the beleaguered craft ceased to shudder and rattle so badly. However, this could only be because they had been pushed farther and farther away from the fog over the peak, and closer and closer to Orlind. Without Eva’s and Tren’s stories, Serena would have welcomed this as a good thing. Now she wasn’t so sure.
At least she felt less like she might topple over the side at any moment, or throw up over it, whichever happened first. She and her brother stuck closely together, a little apart from the rest of their group. She thought that Fabian was doing some protective hovering, which was touching, since it wasn’t especially like him. If the worst happened, hopefully he would catch her, thus preventing her untimely death — always supposing they didn’t hurtle over the side together.
Eyeing his taller, bulkier frame, she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to return the favour.
The Baron had gone back to harass the poor pilot. Whether his assistance would improve or hinder their prospects, Serena wasn’t sure. She could only sympathise with both the pilot and Navigator Ayra, who hadn’t moved from her position by the helm in the last few hours.
Serena was just beginning to relax a little when the airship lurched horribly to one side, dashing her to the floor. Fabian narrowly missed crashing down on top of her, for which she was extremely thankful. She lay still, waiting for the craft to right itself, b
ut it did not. It leaned further, shuddering, until Serena was heart-poundingly certain that it would overturn altogether. She stared anxiously above, searching for any sign of damage to the balloon. They were falling! Were they falling? She couldn’t be sure; perhaps it was only her fears talking. Or perhaps they had finally crossed into Orlind, and they were actually sailing higher? Unhelpful thought. She clung to Fabian and, hopelessly confused, closed her eyes...
...and the ship settled back with a snap and a creak. The deck felt level again, and after a moment Serena pushed herself up onto her elbows.
The pilot was yelling something. Had someone gone overboard? She could see Eva and Tren, and Fabian still lay nearby, but what about Ayra and the Baron? Steeling herself, Serena dragged her aching, frozen body to her feet and dashed forward.
She saw three figures assembled at the helm, as expected, and relaxed for a moment. All accounted for; no one overboard. Then her gaze travelled upward.
‘Draykoni sighted, southwest!’ hollered the pilot, still struggling with the helm. ‘Somebody get that Lokant woman!’
Draykoni, up here? That seemed unlikely. But the oncoming creatures were indeed draykoni, Serena realised, staring in wonder at their approach. There were two of them, their scales shining deep purple and white in the muted sunlight. She had seen draykoni before, of course, for Teyo had shifted a few times in her presence, and she’d seen Iyamar in that state. But she had never beheld them in flight, and from this altitude. They were impossibly graceful for such enormous creatures, and sailed gloriously through the skies as though they owned the air itself. She felt a swift, surprising stab of envy for a brief moment; not even Teyo’s magnificence up close had ever yet made her feel that she would like to try it herself.
The draykoni caught up to their ship very quickly and began to circle. Whether their intentions were peaceful or otherwise was not immediately clear. The humans on the deck gathered nervously into a knot, Serena with them, as though proximity to each other might protect them if the draykoni attacked. Was it her imagination, or was one of the draykoni eyeing the balloon that held them aloft? If it chose to use its fearsome claws and teeth upon it, their ship would be on its way swiftly downwards in seconds.
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