I wanted to run over and look, but that would waste time, so I stayed where I was. ‘An original?’ I prompted.
‘Looks like it. No parents recorded.’
I beamed, already feeling vindicated. I’d had a secret theory growing in my mind, but lacked the certainty to share it with anybody. It was only a hunch. But here was the first point of possible confirmation: Myir was a first-generation drayk, a prototype.
Pense found Ludino soon afterwards. ‘Also an original,’ he called. ‘Which, I never knew.’
‘Pense. Those you think of as elders. Are they all first generation?’
He shrugged. ‘I do not know. We have never phrased it in such terms amongst ourselves, for … well, if any of us know of our true origins, it has not been widely discussed. We only know that some of us are far older than the rest.’
‘Is Eterna an elder?’
He paused to consider. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I would say that she is ancient but I would not apply the term Elder. But before you ask, I cannot articulate why.’
I smiled, satisfied. My theory was quickly coming together. At that point, I would have bet money that Eterna was no elder because her mother was one, an original.
It was me who found her upon the charts at last, though I almost scrolled straight past her in my hurry. Eterna. I had adjusted my focus a little as my theory developed; I expected to find Eterna a generation or two farther down, but probably only one. So it proved. Both her parents were recorded: Astrand, a female, and Tynval, a male. Neither had progenitors listed.
‘Astrand!’ I shouted, forgetting caution in my exultation. ‘That’s it. All three are first generation. What’s the betting that the rest are, too?’
Ori adopted the idea at once, which pleased me greatly, for he is so much more analytical than me and consequently more likely to see problems I overlook. But he said, ‘Llan! You are a little genius!’ and fell at once to theorising further upon the point. ‘Of course, we have considerably more than three corpses to account for, so it is early to become too attached to the idea. But three out of three makes for a significant emerging pattern! What if all the dead drayks are first generation? We have assumed one of two things: either the violence is random or it is personal, with some kind of vendetta against each individual victim. What if it is both more specific than the former and more general than the latter? It could well be! Somebody wants all the first generation draykoni dead!’
Pense said nothing. He was frowning.
Pense? I said, tentatively. I didn’t want to disturb his train of thought, whatever it was, but his expression troubled me.
‘Am I on here?’ he said aloud.
‘You must be. We all are.’
Pense shook his head. ‘When we were here before, with Limbane, he said that I was not listed — because I have no descendants, and because my parents were never recorded. He said I predate this system.’
I blinked, shocked. I had forgotten that entirely. ‘Are you sure?’ It was not that I doubted him, but his words made no sense considering everything we had just found.
‘Perfectly.’
Now I was frowning, too. ‘How can you predate this? These are the oldest draykoni there are.’
‘Do we know that for certain?’ said Ori. ‘Or is it merely that they are the oldest according to this study? Perhaps the information is incomplete.’
‘No,’ said Pense firmly. ‘I am no Elder. I cannot be older than Ludino and Myir. They were most certainly my seniors.’
‘Forgive me, Pense, but I have to ask you how you are so certain of that,’ said Ori apologetically. ‘I hardly imagine the draykoni have birth records.’
Pense opened his mouth, but shut it again without speaking.
‘Um,’ said Ori, suddenly diffident. ‘You do remember your parents, Pense? Right?’
Pense sighed, and ran both hands through his hair. Another gesture he had picked up from Tren. ‘I have forgotten many things,’ was all that he said.
‘Oh.’ Ori stood, blinking, and said nothing more.
I did not like the direction this was going in. If I was right and somebody wanted to eradicate the oldest draykoni, where did Pense fit in with that? If he was older even than Ludino and Myir and Astrand, would that make a target of him, too?
‘I cannot be,’ Pense said at last, more confidently. ‘There is… an aura about the Elders, something about them that is indefinably different from the rest of us. It is their Mark. And I have it not.’
Hmm. As far as I know, I have never met a real Elder — not a living one, anyway. I have been thinking of the term as merely meaning pretty old, and apparently I’ve been wrong to do so. I cannot say that I knew what Pense meant by Elder, if not that, but I found his certainty reassuring. I take his word over Limbane’s.
The discrepancy is odd, though.
‘If you have what you wanted,’ said Gio suddenly, ‘I might suggest that we go.’
Which was a fair point. We had got so carried away with the thrill of success that we had forgotten the danger of discovery.
But now that it came to it, I felt torn about leaving. ‘This is a Library,’ I said.
Ori grinned at me. ‘Gosh, is it? Good work, Llan.’
I stuck my tongue out at him, only belatedly remembering that I was meant to be projecting an aura of maturity and competence — for Gio’s benefit, if for no other reason. I didn’t want him thinking me immature.
Too late.
‘What I mean,’ I persevered, ‘is that this is the ultimate source of information for all the topics we are interested in. We could find all the answers here, instead of trying to glean them from a mere handful of Eva’s books.’
‘In theory,’ said Ori, ‘but it would probably take us weeks of searching to uncover anything useful. You remember how big these places are, right?’
I sighed, feeling deflated. ‘That is true…’ I had to concede. But my gaze strayed to Gio. ‘Unless we had help.’
Gio had no trouble catching on to where my line of thought was taking me, for he looked up at once. ‘Uhh, it is not that simple. I don’t know where everything is in this Library, either. You would need an … archivist, you would call it.’
‘Which is?’
Gio looked at the door and then back at me, shifting restlessly. ‘Oh, archivists are the ones who devote their lives to organising their Library and keeping the collections current and maintained. It takes an unthinkably long time to become useful at it and there are not many of them.’ He smiled at me and added, ‘And no, before you ask. I do not happen to have a conveniently open-minded and discreet archivist friend I can introduce you to.’
I paced a moment, thinking. ‘Is there no way we can quickly identify what we need?’
‘No.’ Gio looked at the door again. ‘Orillin is right, I think you are forgetting the size of the facility. There’s eons worth of information in here, spanning more worlds than you can imagine. Without the help of an archivist, it could take weeks.’
I felt a new respect for Eva’s tenacity — or perhaps her persuasiveness — in tracking down the several books we had already consulted, as well as managing to have them copied. She was devious.
‘We need to go,’ said Gio, more urgently this time.
‘You can come back any time you like, can’t you?’ I said to him.
He looked at me with narrowed eyes. ‘No, I am not searching this Library top to bottom looking for books for you.’
‘Why not?’
He struggled with various unvoiced thoughts and shared none of them. Finally he rubbed at his eyes and shrugged. ‘All right, if I must. But I can promise nothing. What is it that you want me to find?’
‘We need to know how it is possible to permanently kill a draykon. That is the core problem.’
‘Fine. Now can we please go?’
I wondered what was making him so restless — until I heard voices approaching, and the sounds of footsteps.
‘Yes, that is most definitely s
omeone coming,’ said Gio with a grimace. ‘More than one person, so if we could please move along?’
Gio’s urgency was contagious, if hard to explain. Pense, Ori and I all ran for Gio full speed, and barely in time. I reached him first, being the closest; his hand closed over mine in a crushing grip. Gio gathered up Ori a second later, but Pense had wandered far and could not close the distance in time.
The door opened.
I sensed Gio’s fear, a gigantic, shocking surge of it that far dwarfed my own. For a horrible moment I thought he would vanish on the spot and leave Pense right there, but he managed to hold.
Pense sensed it, too. He gave up on reaching us on foot and simply dived, hitting Gio in a tackle. Gio fell, dragging Ori and I with him — but before we hit the ground there came that nauseating surge and we were elsewhere.
We fell in a tangled heap in the middle of Nuwelin. I lay dazed for a moment, conscious of a sharp pain in my back. It took me a few seconds to gather myself, and then my first priority was to check on the others.
Gio, Ori, Pense — all present. Siggy safe in his carry-pack upon my chest, though most definitely not asleep anymore. He was wriggling wildly, alarmed and frightened. I think that the level of fear among the four of us had badly got to him, he has always been sensitive like that.
Whaaaaaaat. That’s all I could hear in my head, Sigwide screaming that word at me.
I sighed and sat up carefully. As I soothed Siggy, I was interested to note that the spot Gio had chosen to travel to really was right in the middle of Nuwelin. We had landed not far from our meeting place, and it was occupied.
‘Morning,’ I said weakly.
Larion raised a hand in languid greeting, not troubling to move from his semi-recumbent posture upon the floor. ‘Everything all right?’ he said.
‘Fine,’ I croaked. I staggered to my feet with a groan and shook myself, relieved to find that my back still functioned, however much it hurt. Pense and I went through our usual ritual of checking each other over for injury — how sad is it that we have had to do this so often, in our relatively short time together?
‘As a mode of travel,’ said Ori, ‘the thing has its pros and cons.’ He stretched, wincing.
Gio merely lay prone, making no move whatsoever to get up. He folded his hands underneath his head and smiled vaguely at me. ‘Normally it is conducted with more style and significantly fewer bruises.’
I watched him, thoughtful. He looked calm now, supremely so, all his earlier fear gone. Or perhaps it was not so much fear as… blind panic, out of all proportion with the extent of the risk. It was never very likely that we would be caught, but what was likely to happen if we were? Limbane would be displeased and perhaps angry with Gio. And so what? That prospect was nowhere near terrifying enough to explain Gio’s fear.
What kind of trouble did he expect to be in, and why?
‘Why were you so rattled?’ I asked him.
He met my gaze briefly, and looked away. ‘Some of my grandfather’s people are touchy about intruders. And the chart room is not exactly open access, even to me.’
He was way overdoing the show of relaxation, maybe in an attempt to compensate for his panic before. I watched as he plucked a blade of grass, saluted Larion with it and began to chew upon the end.
I dismissed him from my mind for the time being, and turned to Larion. ‘Any news?’
Larion shook his head. ‘Nothing. In fact, everything has been remarkably peaceful while you were gone. An occasional corpse, of course, but that’s only to be expected.’
I wanted to see the new gravesites, but I had to accept there must be little point. Ori would have investigated them, and if he said they were typical of the pattern then I trusted him.
I felt an urge to kick Gio, lying so lazily upon the ground instead of hunting for the books we needed. But I could not help sympathising with his probable feelings in the aftermath of such fear, even if the source of it mystified me. I had felt such panic often enough myself.
So I let him be for the present.
Pense joined me. Minchu, I am returning to Orlind. Do you wish to accompany me?
I grasped his point at once. The corruption. Yes, of course we must attend to it.
He nodded. I cannot help thinking that, as pressing a problem as the dead draykoni are, this may be more so. And it is being overshadowed by everything else.
I could hardly argue there. I felt a momentary shame at permitting myself to be so distracted, but I suppressed it. Not a helpful attitude. We were but few, and we were outfaced by the variety of problems we were trying to deal with.
That stray thought, though, gave me an idea. We need help, I told Pense. We need to know the extent of the problem, and we need some idea of what may be causing it, besides Galy’s absence. It could take us days or weeks to cover enough ground alone.
Pense eyed me, slightly uneasily. What do you have in mind?
For a start, we must send Nuwelin out to survey Iskyr, and get Avane’s people to do the same Below.
Pense nodded, still wary. That is sensible.
And… I also want to talk to Eterna.
That won me a long sigh. Must we go through that again?
Do you think I enjoy her company? I would far rather never see her again. But this is her home, too, and her people. The threats we face — the corruption, the deaths — affect them all equally, and they deserve to be informed no less now than before.
Pense rolled his eyes. You have an exaggerated sense of honour.
It is not just honour. It is their home, and they are as responsible for defending and preserving it as we are. And we could use the help. This is all getting away from us, Pense, and you know it.
I expected another argument, but I was surprised by a hug instead. That’s my Minchu, he said with a mental chuckle. One half honour, the other half uncompromising practicality.
This was no description of me that I recognised, but if it meant Pense was happy with me and willing to go along with my plans, then I would gladly take it.
11 VIII
Hurrah, More Problems!
It was decided that Meri and Larion would take word to Avane, Pense and Ori and I would travel to Eterna’s people and the rest would begin the task of determining the extent of the corruption in Iskyr, guided by Nyden. Gio was dispatched to undertake his search at his grandfather’s Library. The discussions proceeded smoothly enough, to my relief, and few argued with me this time.
I would like to think this is because my decisions have, thus far, been proved broadly sensible and they are coming to trust me.
It is probably more that they do not much care. After all, they have never been to Orlind, never experienced the corrupted amasku for themselves. We can tell them that it is dangerous, and they will believe us, but it lacks the impact of actually walking through it, of learning how it feels and what it does to you.
Sadly, they would soon learn.
Before we could depart, I had the problem of Sigwide to solve. It is easy enough to cart him about with me when I am human-shaped, but I intended to shift and fly with my bigger wings for this errand, and I have yet to perfect a means of carrying a tiny orting along while I do it. He is so small compared to my grander shape, it would be easy to crush him, or lose him and fail to realise it.
I ended up strapping his carry bag to my foreleg. Actually Ori did it, since I could not manage it myself once I had Changed. He was secure there, with little chance he would fall out, and I could see him even mid-flight and make sure he had not got lost.
It would have to do. Unwilling to waste any more time, we attended to this problem as quickly as possible and then took to the air. The rest of the people of Nuwelin departed around us, soaring away in groups of two or three, and for a short time the skies were vivid with the coloured scales of myriad draykoni.
And so we flew south once more, and a little westerly. My mind was fixed upon Sigwide as we took off. I was unsure how he would react to this new experience
of flight, though he was accustomed to flying with me in my human shape. I fly a lot faster as a drayk, apart from anything.
I was braced for distress, but instead I received a different reaction. As soon as my four feet left the ground, a sound I had scarcely ever heard from Sigwide before filled my mind and it took me a moment to identify what it was.
My orting was giggling.
Hysterically, perhaps, for my timid Siggy could scarcely be enjoying himself? But I felt no fear from him. He was having fun.
How I can still underestimate him after so many years together, I do not know.
Heheheheheeehhheeehehehee chortled Siggy in my mind, and on I flew, my spirits lightened by the sound of his mirth.
I was mentally prepared for the same long, tiring journey we had undergone before, but we had been travelling for barely three hours (as far as I could guess) when we encountered a sight which halted us at once.
We were flying over low hills which rose to small mountains in the near distance. Those mountains were so beautiful: dramatic swells of craggy, silvery rock, their sides coated in bright green mosses and flecked with blue and violet alpine blossoms. The light of the twin suns glinted off them in shimmering waves, which only made them more achingly beautiful to behold.
It also made it really easy to see the legion of draykoni approaching on the wing, spreading over those glittering mountains in a wave of colour.
STOP! I yelled, banking hard. I had overdone it, I fear. My scream must have resounded painfully in the minds of my friends because Ori, probably half dozing, almost fell out of the sky.
Who are they?! I was still shouting, but honestly, I was shocked. And afraid. I thought I knew all the draykon colonies in Iskyr and here was another! Out of nowhere! And we had passed this way fairly recently. Where could they possibly have come from, and most importantly were they friendly?
Calm, Minchu. Pense enfolded me in a mental hug until I pulled myself together, and then gently let me go.
Embarrassing, I know. The heroes in adventure stories never panic, do they? It is lowering. In my defence, I was almost as dozy as Ori at the time.
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