Seven Dreams

by English, Charlotte E.

  ‘They’re all ready, father,’ said one of the younger Lokants, a young man with a shock of wild white hair and a penchant for dark clothing.

  His father smiled. ‘I knew you’d do well at this task,’ he said. ‘I’ll see them, of course, but we must conceal the keys first. Matters are growing urgent.’ He unhooked a bag from his belt and opened it. The first item he drew from within made Serena catch her breath, for she recognised the seashell shape and the cream and golden colours. He handed the little stone to his son, and then proceeded to give another stone to each of the other five assembled Lokants. The last one went into his own pocket.

  ‘Quickly, quickly,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, father,’ chorused the six young Lokants. Then, one by one, they began to vanish, blinking out of existence until only their father remained in the room. He removed the final stone from his pocket and smoothed his thumb over the sky-blue surface, his expression a little sad. Then he, too, disappeared.

  ‘That is Rhoun Torinth and his six children,’ came Mae’s voice, cutting through the vision. ‘With draykon help, they created the Dreams as hiding places for the seven keys. It was overly elaborate, perhaps, but they were all highly creative. I believe they gloried in the project, as necessary as it was. Anyway, let’s move on.’

  The glittering chamber vanished and an inky, consuming darkness filled Serena’s mind for several discomfiting moments. Then her mind’s eye flared with colour and light once more. She was looking at... a library? The word was far too pale and feeble to describe the sheer, mind-bending glory and complexity of what she was seeing. She seemed to be standing in the centre of a chamber so vast, her mind couldn’t take in the enormity of it. Shelves lined every inch of the curving walls, even spanning the ceiling; how the books contained therein didn’t fall down onto her head, Serena couldn’t begin to imagine. Round doors appeared everywhere, each one made from the same pale, glittering substance that Serena had seen in Rhoun Torinth’s room. These, too, were scattered all over the ceiling as well as the walls, cheerfully ignoring the usual rules of the physical world.

  Not every shelf contained books in the way that Serena understood the term. There were plenty of those, certainly, but many shelves bore row upon row of spherical, shining objects similar to the one Mae had inserted into the device. Did they, too, contain visions of past events?

  This was merely one room in this vast and complex Library. Serena had no doubt that every single one of the many doors led into similar chambers. The probable extent of this labyrinthine place almost overwhelmed her mind. How much knowledge, how many ideas, must be stored here?

  ‘The repository,’ she said aloud, as her mind made the connection.

  ‘Yes,’ responded Mae. ‘It is often called that, though its true name is Teoricq.’

  ‘It’s a Library?’ asked someone else — Tren, probably.

  ‘Something like that,’ Mae said.

  This was what the keys were for, Serena realised in an instant. This repository, containing unfathomable knowledge, was locked away somehow and the seven keys would open it. ‘Who made this?’ she asked.

  ‘It used to be the focus of all of our efforts,’ Mae replied. ‘Every Library would contribute copies of every discovery they made, on any topic, in any world. But it grew too large, and too powerful, and many of the secrets it contains are dangerous. There was talk of disbanding the repository, and redistributing its contents. Some were in favour of destroying it altogether.

  ‘It was Rhoun Torinth, in the end, who sealed it off. He was gifted with remarkable foresight; some said he could see the future, or at least glimpses of it. He foresaw the conflicts over Orlind, the site of the greatest and most powerful of our Libraries. There was nothing we could not do with such a tool! He saw that there would be war over it, and that the Library would be destroyed. And he knew that the disagreements regarding Teoricq could easily reach those levels — would inevitably do so, if we weren’t stopped. So he sealed it, and he wouldn’t tell any of us how to undo it. It made him somewhat unpopular, as you may imagine.’

  ‘But he made the keys,’ murmured Serena.

  ‘Yes. Not that any of us knew it, at the time, save for his children. He also foresaw that a day might come when we would need some of the contents of Teoricq urgently. The keys were meant to allow for a way back, but only in the case of dire need.’

  ‘Why hide them on this world?’ asked Eva. ‘There are more. Many more. And Lokants go everywhere.’

  ‘Because of Orlind,’ said Mae simply. ‘This world was special to us at that time. Many of our greatest works were completed here, using the peculiar and as yet unequalled energies and facilities that Orlind provided. And when I say “Orlind”, I mean both the realm and the Library. The latter... well, it was our best. I doubt we’ll ever see another like it.’ She paused. ‘Personally though, I think that Rhoun also knew that we’d drift away from this world, after Orlind’s destruction. All the better for a hiding place.’

  ‘So, what’s the dire need?’ Teyo asked. ‘Why is Ylona trying to dig all of this up? And how did she find out about the keys?’

  ‘Ylona Duna is her wedded name,’ Mae replied. ‘Her true name is Ylona Torinth.’

  Serena thought that over. ‘She’s Rhoun Torinth’s daughter? But then she helped him make all this.’

  ‘Yes, she did, in some part. But Rhoun didn’t even trust his children with the entirety of the secret. They helped him to create the Dreams, but I don’t think they knew where all seven of them were placed, or where the keys were hidden.’

  ‘So Ylona knew roughly how to open Teoricq, but she lacked the details,’ said Egg. ‘Fine. But why is she trying to get at it now? What does she want from the repository?’

  ‘Something came to light recently, among Lokant society,’ said Mae. ‘Some of Rhoun’s notes surfaced. He was a far more remarkable man than anybody realised. Quite brilliant. We still don’t know how he could see, or sense, events that were yet to come, and we never before knew that he’d developed a way to travel back to events long past.’

  Serena blinked. ‘Time travel? That’s what Ylona is after?’

  Egg snorted. ‘Oh, come on. That’s not possible.’

  The vision of the repository finally faded, and Serena stood blinking, confused, in the sudden absence of it. Her gaze focused on Egg who stood, arms folded, an expression of irritated incredulity on her face. ‘Lots of pretty weird things have happened lately, I grant you. But time travel?’

  Mae raised an eyebrow. ‘You can be spirited across the realms in the blink of an eye; talk to someone far away with the aid of a box of metal pieces; use the most powerful sorcery to create the Daylands and the Darklands; communicate with animals as though they were human; shapeshift into myriad alternate forms and sail the skies as draykoni, but time travel is too much for you to swallow?’

  Egg looked briefly disconcerted. ‘Well — but —’

  ‘But what?’ Mae interrupted. ‘Rhoun Torinth was always a bit of a mystery to us. The discoveries he made, the things he knew, were unthinkable to most of us. In your parlance, he was a genius. Lokants bend time habitually; our Libraries hold it more or less in stasis, in fact. These things are common to us. But to wander backwards through time as easily as we wander forwards? Or to jump ahead to a future era, as easily as hopping over a puddle? That’s different. That’s awe-inspiring. And if Rhoun could do such things, that explains a great deal.’

  Serena began to feel a sense of mild foreboding. ‘You talk about him in the past tense,’ she observed.

  Mae nodded at her. ‘Rhoun Torinth was killed in the Orlind conflict. He almost certainly saw it coming, but he chose to seal off Teoricq anyway, and by doing so he closed the door on the one thing that could have reversed his death.’

  ‘Why?’ Serena asked. ‘Couldn’t he have used it to reverse the Orlind conflict? To change something so it never happened? Maybe it would have been a good thing, to share the time travel secret with the rest of yo
u.’

  ‘That conflict isn’t the kind of thing that could be stopped. Rhoun was a genius, but he was still just one man. What could he have done? Even if he killed the people who principally drove the war, there would be others. That was the future he saw: endless conflict, endless war. Lost the battle? Never mind. Hop back in time and try again. It could have gone on forever.’

  Serena sighed. The story of Rhoun Torinth was tragic, and it touched her heart; not least because her thoughts jumped inevitably back to her own father. If she had the power to go back to the events that led up to his death and change them somehow, would she take it? Her heart wanted to say yes, but her head knew that the question was infinitely more complicated than it seemed.

  She sneaked a glance at Fabian, who sat on the other side of the room. He had been wholly silent throughout this exchange, but she could easily guess his thoughts. If he could bring back their father somehow, he would do it without hesitating and hang the consequences.

  Which troubled her a little. The keys were almost all found, and the way to the gate was open. She gathered from Mae’s comments that their self-appointed Lokant leader was in favour of keeping Teoricq sealed. Would Fabian agree?

  Did she?

  To Serena’s surprise, Iyamar spoke up. Her young voice was tentative but clear as she said: ‘If all Ylona wants is her father back, why can’t you all just let her do it? It’s not much.’

  Mae surveyed the youngest member of Serena’s group, her expression grave. ‘It doesn’t seem like much, does it? But Rhoun Torinth was no ordinary person, as we’ve seen. If his death were averted, who knows what would happen? We can’t even begin to guess. And it’s not just the special people. If I died tomorrow, I wouldn’t live to have an impact on the world around me in the future, and as a result, something else would have to happen instead. Those things could be very important. How am I to know?

  ‘And then, what if my death is reversed, I live another ten years, and at the end of that time I am responsible for someone else’s death? Whether I intended it or not, I have killed someone. If I had not been brought back, the person I might later have killed would not have died. You would, in effect, be trading someone else’s life for mine. The consequences to actions that seem very small can be significant, and it is all entirely beyond anyone’s comprehension. Do you understand?’

  Iya thought about that, and finally nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Mae with a smile. ‘Anyway, I am by no means sure that Ylona merely wants her father back. She may want a great many more things besides, including the resurrection of the Library of Orlind; or if she doesn’t, someone else will. And these “Yllandu”, as they call themselves, what of them? What has she promised them, in return for their aid? The whole thing is unthinkable. It’s far, far too dangerous to allow anybody to enter Teoricq.’

  A long silence followed Mae’s words. Serena thought it felt like a doubtful silence. Her own thoughts were disquiet. She could see the sense of Mae’s words clearly enough, but she could guess at Ylona’s feelings, too. Couldn’t there be some kind of compromise?

  ‘I’m glad we all agree,’ said Mae at last, in a dry tone. ‘If we are fortunate, the whole business will be cleared up in a few more days, and then you may all go about your lives and forget such matters as Lokant Libraries, secret repositories and time travel altogether.’ She smiled beatifically.

  To Serena’s mind, this vision of uncomplicated peace sounded rather dull.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Some time later, Teyo sat comfortably tucked up in a storage cupboard near the heart of Bron’s airship. It was primarily used for storing cleaning equipment, judging from the plethora of scrubbing, mopping and polishing accoutrements between which Teyo was now nestled. In his lap lay half of a blanket; his hands were busy knitting the rest. He was using a particularly soft yarn dyed rose, peach and pale gold: sunset colours. Just looking at it was restful.

  No one had assigned him a cabin. Bron had said, very coldly, that the rest of Serena’s team had not been invited aboard precisely because there was no space. Looking at the size of the ship, Teyo doubted it. Bron apparently harboured some kind of ill-will towards the three subordinate members of Serena’s team, and perhaps especially towards Teyo himself. The reason why was unclear.

  The cupboard was comfortable enough, however, and most importantly, it was private, at least until somebody decided it was cleaning time above decks. He had made a tolerable seat out of a few buckets and layers of cloths, and Jisp sat snoozing on his knee, her head resting against the soft ball of yarn. He had peace and leisure, at last, for the contemplation of Mae’s various revelations.

  Lady Glostrum had lost no time in warning them that Lokants withheld information. Mae probably hadn’t lied, she said, but she probably hadn’t told them the whole truth either. The message was clear enough: Mae could only be trusted so far, and Ylona probably much less. Her ladyship appeared to feel some resentment on this score, which Teyo could understand well enough. The keys, the riddle in the sky, the endless mysteries: these Lokants were using the people of the Seven as puppets to get the tiresome work done, without any intention of sharing the rewards. The riddle may speak of “finding the door” and winning prizes, but he agreed with her ladyship: the chances that Mae, or the rest of her kind, would permit any denizen of the Seven Realms to step through this door into the Teoricq Repository were non-existent. The whole thing was a false promise, and that was poor show indeed.

  But Teyo felt no especial concern about this. What bothered him more was the unanswered questions. Who had put the riddle in the sky, thus sending all seven realms on what was, for them, a wild goose chase? Mae had strongly implied that it was Ylona, but she hadn’t said so outright. What if it had been Mae? Was she blaming Ylona for her own actions? Were Ylona’s motivations really as Mae had said?

  And what of Teoricq? It wasn’t just about Rhoun Torinth, and his story, as told by Mae, couldn’t be relied upon as the absolute truth either. What else was hidden away in the repository? Had it really been sealed off and inaccessible for so many years? Or was Mae protecting something she saw as her own? She wasn’t a member of any Library, she had said. Perhaps that was true, and perhaps not. Either way, she was remarkably high-handed in deciding, for everyone, what should or shouldn’t be done with Teoricq.

  He was growing increasingly troubled about their involvement in the whole peculiar business. In theory, they were available for hire for any job that didn’t involve violence, as long as it had Oliver’s support and approval. This one did; their boss was fully in favour of their helping Lady Glostrum with anything she required. But why did Oliver feel that way? Did he know something they didn’t? Asking him was useless, for he was unrivalled at impenetrability.

  Lady Glostrum’s motives were clear enough: she distrusted the Lokants (apparently with good reason), and wanted to intercept whatever it was they were doing before they could do any harm to the Seven. That he could support, whole heartedly. But Mae had gradually, but inevitably, taken over the mission, and she was much more inscrutable. What did she expect to do with the keys, if they managed to acquire all seven? It was his job, his and his team’s, to get those keys back from Ylona and deliver them to Lady Glostrum. Or to Mae, if she succeeded in swaying Eva to her cause. Did Teyo really want to be involved with this?

  If they could talk to Ylona, perhaps they could get a more balanced perspective. On the other hand, she would probably lie to them as well. The problem was insoluble, and Teyo frowned severely at his knitting as he struggled with it.

  His reflections were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. He jumped, startled by the interruption, and dropped one of his needles. Was this the crew, come to start the cleaning? The cupboard was dark, and he couldn’t see the face of whoever was peering around the door.

  ‘Tey?’ hissed a young, female voice.

  ‘Iya?’ he replied. ‘How did you find me in here?’

  ‘Scent,’ she replied laconicall
y. Squeezing herself into the crowded cupboard, she shut the door behind her, leaving them both in near darkness. Teyo’s tiny light-globe only illuminated his knitting; he couldn’t see more than a few inches beyond it.

  ‘Good use of shapeshifting,’ Teyo said, remembering his duties as mentor. ‘You’re really coming along with that.’

  He felt, rather than saw, Iyamar smile, and she puffed up a bit with pride. ‘I don’t know what I was so worried about,’ she said. ‘It’s really fun!’

  Teyo smiled, a little wistfully. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the kind of burning enthusiasm that seemed to afflict Iyamar daily. ‘And drayk-shape?’ he enquired.

  Iya hesitated slightly. ‘Okay, that one still troubles me a little. But it’s going better.’ She paused. ‘I just feel so... huge and deadly like that. You know? As if I’ve been given the biggest, deadliest weapon in the realms and told to go have fun.’

  Teyo laughed. ‘I know what you mean. It is odd, when you’re used to being a soft little human with blunt fingernails and tiny teeth and hide made out of flowers and rainbows.’

  Iya giggled. ‘Right! And then suddenly you’ve the hide of a drauk and a muumuk put together, and you’re the size of a few houses. I’m terrified I’ll squash someone, and that’s just the least of it.’

  Teyo nodded. ‘You’ve got to get used to all the senses you don’t have as a human. Draykoni can be effortlessly graceful, despite their size, and they are extremely sensitive to their surroundings. It just takes a little while to figure out where all those things are.’ He lifted the light-globe until he could see Iya’s face, and peered at her. ‘You didn’t track me down to talk about shapeshifting. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Iya cheerfully, and probably mendaciously. She had seated herself cross-legged atop a large bucket and perched there, grinning, like an overgrown sprite. ‘I just came to catch up.’

  Teyo let the silence stretch.