Llandry

by Charlotte E. English

  After that, there is water to cross, for as soon as the mountains end, the ocean begins. Fortunately, what is left of Orlind is not so very far out — it used to be part of the mainland, of course, before much of it fell into the sea.

  Then there is the peculiar enchantment that hides the island from sight under a shroud of mist, blocking out much of the light as well as prying eyes. At least we knew what to look for, this time.

  I will not recount our struggles in passing these obstacles, wearied as we already were. It was a series of trials and a great strain, and I am in no more hurry to dwell on the remembrance of it than you probably are to hear every detail of that journey.

  I will share my dismay when I realised I had given Nyden no instructions on how to pass through those mountains.

  Ori knows, Pense reminded me.

  Ori is not here!

  He will be. Remember, time passes differently in the Library.

  That could not be good enough. I landed on the gentle slopes before the peaks really began, taking a moment both to catch my breath and to think.

  I needed to leave somebody here to guide the others, but who? Pense could not be spared and neither could I send him on alone without me. I thought briefly of Sigwide, but swiftly dismissed the notion. Much as I adore my orting, he is not blessed with sufficient… elasticity of thought, shall we say, to hold and relay such a complex idea.

  That did give me a different thought, though.

  We had already observed that there were traces of a corrupting taint even in Irbel. Amasku is not so strong a force in the middle realms, as we think of them — or Irtand, as they are known elsewhere. Those sensations of wrongness gave me prickles of disquiet, for I had not expected that the problem might infect anything beyond Iskyr and Ayrien.

  The animals thereabouts were feeling it, too, though to a lesser extent, and they could have no understanding of the cause of their distress. They only knew that they were so; uneasy, alarmed, slightly confused. I closed my eyes and focused upon the creatures nearby, seeking their traces of warmth and bright notes of thought and feeling.

  A few daeflies drifted from flower to flower — too small. I sensed subterranean creatures I could put no name to grubbing through the earth and rock below. Birds wheeled through the skies, confusing me with their erratic patterns of flight and gabbling streams of thought. Not useful.

  At last I found what I was hoping for: a trace of a drauk, not too far away.

  I turned human again, and set off after it. They are small beasts, and would only flee if I tried to approach in one of my larger shapes.

  I cannot imagine you have ever tried to have a conversation with a drauk, and if not, I do not especially advise it as a hobby. They are crotchety creatures, prickly and paranoid and totally uninterested in chatting. I could only get this one’s attention by appealing to the unaccountable fear I knew it was feeling.

  I know why your spine itches and your head aches, I told her. I know why you cannot rest and your prey runs from you, too frenzied to be caught. I can mend this, but I need help.

  Such promises I had taken to making. As I spoke yet another, I hoped fervently that I could keep it.

  The drauk, busily scuttling away from me one moment, stopped and turned to face me. They are curious animals, simultaneously graceful and graceless, with long, thin bodies, glittering black scales, pointed snouts and spiky ears. Not to mention their wickedly sharp claws, which I had no intention of coming into contact with.

  What do you want?

  Drauks are not particularly gracious creatures either.

  It took me a little time to explain my idea, and to persuade the drauk into going along with it. That done, the drauk scuttled away to fetch its brethren and I resumed my search.

  The search paid off spectacularly when I encountered an orboe. PERFECT!

  I did suffer a moment’s regret that Ori was not there. When it comes to managing animals he is far more adept than I, especially the larger ones.

  But in Ori’s absence, I steeled myself and went after it. If you haven’t seen an orboe (and probably you have not, for they are not commonly found wandering around in the Seven) then permit me to paint a picture here: a typical orboe is a four-legged beast, more than six feet long and shaggily furred. Everything fearsome you can imagine by way of teeth and claws is probably applicable. They have massive jaws, and look like they could chew through my leg with minimal trouble.

  This particular one was grey-furred, paler than Sigwide — a pretty shade, like benign summer clouds. That did not make it look any less fearsome to me, and I did wish a little that I did not so badly require its help.

  Then I realised how silly I was being. I am, after all, a draykon. It might have been more appropriate to pursue a drauk in human form, but it wouldn’t hurt at all to have my own claws and teeth for this part.

  The orboe could not help but notice when he developed a draykon audience of one. At first he took fright and squared up to me, teeth bared. I had to give him full credit for courage, for in that shape I was by far the stronger.

  But then he stopped, and the fight slowly drained out of him. I felt scrutinised.

  Then I was hit by a surge of joviality. The orboe actually ran at me and rubbed his fur all over my leg.

  Hallohellohellohallohullooo! he said. He even touched noses and thoughts with Sigwide, fully as though they had met before. That part definitely confused me, for an orboe could eat an orting in one bite.

  Graaf...? I said doubtfully.

  Graaf! the orboe repeated with dazzling cheer. Where is my Ori?

  Coming, I assured him, which only increased his delight. Graaf, what are you doing wandering around Irbel alone?

  Graaf thought about that. Ori left me here, he finally decided.

  Right here? When had Ori been this way, and what for?

  Not right here, Graaf amended. Near. Maybe? Somewhere.

  I gathered from this that Graaf was growing as confused as the other creatures hereabouts. Ori had probably left him in Iskyr and he had wandered through a rogue gate into Irbel.

  Graaf, I want you to help me, I told him. And I need more of your kind.

  The last part took a little longer to arrange. I opened a gate through into Iskyr, a more stable one than the rogue ones that sometimes emerge, and held it while Graaf went in search of any nearby orboes. He came back fairly quickly, to my relief, with three females, and another two joined us soon afterwards.

  Perfect, I told him.

  When Pense and I took flight again, we left behind a trail formed of drauks and orboes. The drauks may be small, but their deep black scales stand out well upon the slopes, even from the air. And the orboes, of course, are easy to spot.

  When Nyden or any of the others reach this place, they will see a line of beasts pointing the way towards the pass through the mountains. Graaf promised faithfully to keep the line together for as long as possible and to add others to it. I hoped his attention would not wander away from the task too early.

  That is possibly the strangest thing I have ever seen you do, Minchu, said Pense with wry amusement as we soared up into the mountains.

  I think it is the strangest thing I’ve ever done, I agreed, laughing. As I said, my life doesn’t get any less weird.

  I admired my obedient line of beasts for as long as they remained in sight. Soon, though, we were deep in the mountains, winging through Ori’s pass as fast as we could. The air is thin up there, the wind is fierce and I cannot say that traversing it is an enjoyable experience. At least we knew what to expect this time, which made it a little easier.

  When we came out of the pass, we were faced with a vision of the island of Orlind which differed rather markedly from before — insofar as, we could actually see it. We were forced to search for it last time, because it was hidden in a shrouding mist way out over the sea. Now the mist was gone, and the sky was virtually cloudless. We saw the island at once, a small plateau of land adrift not far from the coast. It lo
oked dry and bare from this distance, a patch of desert in the middle of the sea.

  Do you want to rest? asked Pense.

  I thought about that. Yes, I said fervently. Fatigue weighed down my wings and made me feel heavier than ever, and sluggish. Worse, my thoughts were sluggish too. But we have not time, I think.

  Pense’s wings twitched, and I sensed his disapprobation. But my attention was diverted from anything else he might have said, because something odd caught my eye below.

  We had not yet reached the sea. The mountains sloped gradually down to the coast — no sheer cliffs in this part, at least — and those slopes were as thickly grown over with alpine plants as they were on the other side. These, though, were vividly purple and lavender and blue and green, except for a neat, pure white patch not far from the shore. We were so far up that the white area was but a fleck in my vision, and I almost missed it.

  My heart sank.

  Going down, Pense, I told him. I folded my wings and dived.

  I suppose I hoped that it was merely a little anomaly in the plant life here, a patch of albino vegetation or something. Of course, it was not. As I drew closer to it, I could see that it was a neat patch of stark white decay, everything in it stone dead.

  We landed on the edge of the circle and gazed at the place in silence. Another collection of lifeless draykon bones, a perfect skeleton, whole and undisturbed. There was not a flicker of amasku discernible, not only within the corpse itself but also the whole of the lifeless circle.

  So close to Orlind. It was the clearest link we have yet discovered between the dead ones of our kind and the beleaguered island… perhaps I had been hoping that they were not related, that the troubled and troublesome Library was not responsible for yet more death. No such luck.

  I thought back to our first conversation about this, before everything had become so much more complicated.

  What could drain the life out of something like this? I had asked that of Pense, and he had not known.

  The power required to drain the life out of a draykon is… to call it considerable would be to badly understate the case.

  I thought of the shattered pieces of metal Ori had shown me, a collection of unidentifiable shrapnel carelessly gathered from one site and as carelessly preserved.

  Pense, I said, and my thought held so much tension that he stopped at once and looked at me. Did we see Limbane at the Orlind laboratories, in Galy’s visions?

  Not that I recall.

  If Limbane knew it was not impossible to extinguish a draykon soul, I bet Galy knows it too. And probably Krays. Somewhere in those visions was a clue…

  The white room, said Pense.

  That skeleton! I interpreted it as partially constructed but it wasn’t, was it? It was dead, like this one. And everything around it was dead, too, only it was one of those empty white featureless laboratories so it didn’t show…

  And then a spray of metal…

  The machine we saw. I was thinking faster now, fully alert for the first time in some hours, my mind alive with realisation and horror. It did not look like the ones Krays built, but it was not that different either. It was the same thing, Pense! An energy collector. Krays didn’t invent those — or if he did, it was not recently. In Galy’s mind we saw an early version, and Krays’s ones were an improvement upon it.

  Yes, Pense agreed. But they still explode if they are overburdened.

  I felt sick. Which they would be, if somebody used them to drain the life out of a draykon, and everything around it.

  Or more than one at once, Pense added. As we found in Ayrien.

  Damn Lokants and their secretiveness, their coldness, their ruthlessness. They created wonders, but at what cost!

  Any of them could have used those collectors, I said with frustration. Limbane, Krays, any of their people. But why would they? What do any of them gain by killing the results of their own projects?

  Pense just shook his head. We cannot yet know.

  I rubbed at my eyes, hit by another wave of tiredness. And more. The taint of corrupted Orlind was stronger here, and I felt it with every heartbeat. It muddled my mind, nauseated me, made my heart pound with a nameless fright. We have to press on, I said to Pense. There can be no more answers here.

  We left the poor skeleton behind, and I felt a pang of regret at leaving it there alone, its grave unmarked.

  We flew, and the island expanded in my vision. I saw the black castle Nyden had described, planted in the centre of the barren land. It looked stark and forbidding, its flags flying defiantly.

  Orlind is sinking, he had said.

  Was it smaller than it used to be? I could not tell.

  The island was still undergoing Changes last time I was here, but I saw nothing of the kind now. It seemed more lifeless than ever — no animals, nothing growing, nothing moving. Just those dark, ugly flags whipping in the wind.

  Pense, I said, struck by another thought. That’s why the sickness is spreading. Those machines that Krays brought here, to siphon off the amasku… I wonder if somebody has taken them away? They’re being used to kill Elders instead, and the structure Galy made to contain the problem is broken.

  Could be, Pense agreed. We will ask Galywis.

  If we could wring any sense out of him, yes. We would have to try. He was the only person who knew where he had hidden those machines in the first place.

  It grew steadily harder to forge onwards, assaulted as we were by the sickening whirl of energy that marred the island. We flew slower and lower, forced to fight to stay alert, to keep a grip on our senses. I felt that wave of befuddling confusion again, my mind insisting that I was upside down, sideways, inside out… it hits you with frightening force the moment you reach the island, and it takes the fiercest concentration to resist it, to remake the space around you as it needs to be.

  I gritted my teeth, forced down the wave of panic that it always induces in me, and flew on.

  A moment later, I realised we were not alone on the island. Two figures paced around the base of the castle, one a youthful male figure wearing a red cloak, his hair pure white…

  Is that Gio? I said in shock.

  The figure turned and saw us coming.

  An instant later, he vanished. So did his companion, a woman with the same characteristic snow-white hair.

  That was Gio! What is Gio doing here?! And who was that with him?

  He did not wish to give us the opportunity to ask him that question, Pense observed.

  My bad feelings grew. Gio, who I was beginning to trust because he had shown signs of being a real person after all and I wanted to like him. Gio, who had taken my Ori away and had not yet returned him. If he betrayed us I would eat him piece by piece.

  I was alarmed to realise that I meant that last part.

  If Gio is here, where is Ori?

  I felt Pense’s concern echoing mine. Ori had gone off with Gio alone — we had let him go alone.

  Hail, fellows! came a distant voice. If you go in the creepy castle without me I will be eating you when you come out.

  I banked and turned. Nyden was behind us, winging his way across the sea with enviable insouciance. He was but a black speck on the horizon at first, but he approached swiftly, swiftly on those enormous wings of his. Behind him came Ivi, Larion and Meriall.

  For a second I could almost have wept, so relieved was I to have help. I was more certain than ever that we were going to need it.

  Nyden flashed his teeth in a grin as he drew level with us, and dipped his wings in an oddly dandified greeting. You waited! I love you.

  Be careful here, everyone, I said. Orlind is tricky and it will dump you on your head if you don’t watch out.

  We noticed, said Meriall drily, and indeed, she was weaving about with an air of confusion, visibly steadying herself. So were the others.

  I looked back at Nyden, puzzled, for there was no trace of distress with him. Ny, do you not feel the chaos?

  Yep, he said cheerily. What
a ride.

  A ride? I stared at him in utter disbelief. Nobody could possibly feel that and be entertained by it.

  Nyden gave me a sudden, penetrating look, as though he had never seen me before. Is that an orting strapped to your foreleg?

  Yes it is.

  He blinked sleepily at me, and sucked thoughtfully upon one long fang. May one be permitted to ask why you carry tiny, edible passengers bound to your fine and shapely limbs?

  Sigwide sensed that he was under discussion, though the cheery greeting he gave Nyden suggested he had missed the substance of the conversation.

  Nyden grinned, wide and toothily. Hello, snack. I am delighted to see you too.

  He is not edible!

  Dear lady, he most certainly is. Tasty, too, though they make no more than a morsel.

  Sigwide is not for eating, and stop changing the subject. How does it make you feel, Ny? This place.

  Can we please land for a minute, said Ivi. She was struggling, and I reproached myself for not thinking of it sooner.

  We winged down and perched upon the shore, keeping to the edge of the island. It grew swiftly worse the nearer you got to the centre, and we all needed a little time to gather ourselves before we ventured that far.

  Not too close to the edge, though. I saw what Nyden meant: the pale, lifeless earth had turned boggy near the water. Sinking indeed. I stepped a little too close to the sea and my foot sank deeply into mud which felt more like quicksand. I hastily withdrew.

  Ny? I prompted, as he lazily floated down and landed, light as a daefly, upon the bare earth. Pense and I landed rather more heavily, and Ivi, Larion and Meri all but collapsed onto the ground, graceless and frightened and relieved.

  Alive, he replied. He was restless, dancing from foot to foot and shuffling his wings. Energised, certainly — perhaps too much so. But his reaction was markedly different from the others. He was thriving on this messed up place, though not in a healthy way. He was frenzied, everything in him going too fast. For all his habitual display of laziness, I got the sense that he was barely in control of himself.