I recognised none of them.
‘What the…’ whispered Ori.
I swallowed. ‘Anybody know what this is about?’ I said.
No one did. We watched, stupefied, as a second team launched a similar attack upon Galywis, with identical results.
‘We need to do something,’ said Pense.
I agreed of course, but what? Why were our people attacking the Library? I searched the land and the skies for anyone I recognised, and at last I spotted Loret on the other side of the island. I thought I saw Avane, too, and a couple of her folk.
‘There,’ I said, and pointed them out.
Ori surveyed the mess of injured, furious and brawling draykoni in between us and them and squared his shoulders. ‘Right. Should be interesting.’ He looked at the skies and then back at the ground. ‘For once, I’m going to say that now is not the best time to be gigantic and airborne.’
I watched dismally as another rain of missiles shot down two more draykoni, and could only agree. ‘Let’s be tiny and hard to spot,’ I suggested.
Like me! Sigwide put in merrily.
‘Good idea. Ori, do you want to wait here with Gio? We will return once we know what’s going on…’ I stopped because I had seen a familiar shape in the air, not attacking the castle but overseeing the assault. Enormous, with green and white scales… ‘That’s Eterna! What is she doing here?’
‘No prizes for guessing that she is mixed up in this,’ Ori muttered. ‘Where there’s violence, there’s Eterna.’
I stared at her, eyes narrowed, trying futilely to divine her purpose merely from watching her. Last time we had seen her she had been a long way from here, seeking a new home for her people in Iskyr. Now she had brought them to war — again.
‘You would think her failure at Waeverleyne would put her off war games,’ I muttered, irritated. That woman was far too much trouble.
Pense and I hurriedly Changed, and soon afterwards three ortings scampered away in search of Avane: the two of us, and Sigwide.
One of the interesting things about shapeshifting is how much of an effect the physical shape you choose can have on the way your mind works. There we were in the midst of a raging battle, injured drayks all around us and more falling all the time, and the most forbidding castle imaginable coming ever closer as we ran. And I felt fear, yes; my little orting heart pounded furiously as we dodged and swerved and ran as fast as we could to reach the other side of the island. I also had to maintain my efforts to resist the muddling, nauseating effects of the amasku thereabouts, or I would have somersaulted my way to Avane, and probably ended up in a broken little heap about halfway there.
But alongside that, I was also oddly enchanted by the feel of the wind in my fur as I ran, the bounding motion of my lithe little body and the enthralling mixture of scents that reached my nose. It was thrilling. I wanted to skip with glee, and had to restrain myself from dancing my way past the fortress.
If that is how Siggy feels all the time, no wonder he is such a merry soul.
I was so distracted by the conflicting mixture of impressions and sensations that I failed to spot the bronze-coloured drayk falling out of the sky directly above us. Pense and Siggy dodged. I did not. I knew nothing of it until Sigwide barrelled into me, sending both of us rolling for about twenty feet. I stood up, dazed, all my fur standing on end with fright.
The ground shook as the draykon came down, one leg landing barely three feet away from my nose.
Watch out! Sigwide bristled with fury, his teeth bared in a snarl as he berated me. Considering that he was, for once, slightly larger than me, the effect was surprisingly intimidating.
I tucked my tail between my legs, trembling, and bowed my head. Sorry.
Siggy touched his nose to mine and leapt into a gallop once more. I followed. We skirted the moat, and found Pense and Ori waiting for us on the other side of the castle.
Minchu, you —
I know, I am an idiot.
— make a beautiful orting, he finished.
Oh. I touched my nose to his, as Siggy had just done with me, my tail wagging.
On we went, this time without mishap. Avane loomed as we approached, impossibly huge and stupendously purple. I squeaked as, with a casual sidestep, she almost squashed Pensould.
He hurriedly Changed, opting for his drayk shape rather than his human form. Avane.
She jumped. Oh goodness, I almost killed you.
I still breathe. What is going on here?
I Changed, too, though I took human shape so I could scoop up Sigwide. For all his irritation with me, he was not paying nearly enough attention to the forest of draykon legs hereabouts and almost got himself stepped upon, too.
Avane moved restlessly about, trying to watch the battle and talk to us at the same time. Llan, Pense, it’s Galy. He has gone mad.
He was always mad, Pense pointed out.
Yes, but now he is dangerously so. Look there. She pointed her nose a ways over our shoulders. We turned.
Near the water’s edge, a patch of stark, dead white land had blossomed. We must have run past it, but so intent had we been upon not getting crushed that we had failed to notice it.
Galy did it, Avane said, and she sounded both frantic and upset. We saw the patterns, Llan, in Ayrien and Iskyr. Everywhere there are corpses, there are traces of corruption — a trail. We followed it back to Orlind, and when we arrived… Eterna was already here, doing all this. She said she saw the fortress swallow one of her people and spit him back out like — like that over there. I didn’t want to believe her. But then he sucked in one of the Elders before our eyes, and the poor creature ended up over there, like that.
Avane grew more upset with every word. Pense and I soothed her as we could, but it was hard, for we were gutted by the news.
I hadn’t wanted it to be Galy. Seeing Eterna there had given me hope, for a little while. Maybe it was her after all, maybe the blame lay with somebody I already hated, someone I had little reason to like or sympathise with…
Instead, I had to accept that someone I liked and trusted was capable of terrible, unthinkable things. Perhaps Hyarn was right, and Galywis thought he was acting out of compassion. But that changed little.
Avane, was the Elder… mad?
Avane’s tail swished as she thought about that. I hardly know. She was enraged, yes, roaring fit to burst and intent upon destroying the castle with her claws alone if she could. But most of them are like that at the moment.
Did that mean most of Eterna’s people had gone mad, or that none of them were? Watching the airborne draykoni intent upon their assault, I had to agree with Avane: it was hard to tell. They were unstoppable, no matter how many of their people fell, and that did not speak well for their sanity just then. But battle fury could produce the same effects.
I saw something then that sent a chill through my heart: Nyden on the horizon, approaching on the wing with the half-dozen others he had taken with him. Ny, the only Elder in Nuwelin — the only Elder among my friends. And here he was, in the one place that posed a significant threat to him. I’d taken brief comfort in the notion that he was elsewhere, perhaps still searching for Eterna’s folk in Iskyr. And here he was after all.
Ny! I screamed, almost delirious with fright. Ny, you have to get away from here. GO!
He could not hear me, or perhaps he simply ignored me. As he drew closer, I felt waves of fury radiating from him. He was angry, but I did not think he was mad — not yet.
Pense hissed suddenly, and spat. Llan. Look.
I turned back to the fortress in time to see Galy’s roof open wide, revealing a yawning black pit of an interior. A shrieking draykon with cinnabar-coloured scales disappeared inside, its wings beating frantically in a futile effort to escape.
The roof reappeared with a cheery twinkle, sealing the creature inside.
Cinnabar. Pense, all those drayks Galy showed us during the visions. That was one of them! I think they are the ones he is targeting!<
br />
That thought turned my stomach, for among the dizzying parade of colours there had been one as night-black as Nyden…
Galy had had a few opportunities to kill Nyden already, and had refrained — perhaps because Nyden had only ever appeared in our company, and I would like to think that Galy would hesitate to destroy a friend of ours, even in his madness.
But that would continue only as long as Galywis remained rational enough to consider the matter. And from what I was then hearing and seeing, he had left all lucidity behind.
I was running before I knew it, straight for the dark fortress. ‘Galy!’ I screamed. ‘Galy, you have to stop this! Let the draykon go! DO IT!’
Like Nyden, he either failed to hear me or ignored me. I ran on, Pense two steps behind me, but bringing myself closer to those walls did not make me either more audible or more persuasive. The castle loomed, impenetrable and untouched, and the draykon did not reappear.
Change, Minchu, Pense ordered me, and I obeyed. We soared aloft, spiralling out of range of Galy’s missiles, and I tried again. Pense joined his voice to mine, and we roared together: ‘Galywis! We adjure you to stop! In the name of your friends and your people, remember yourself!’
He heard us. I cannot say how I knew, only that something shifted in the atmosphere, and I felt a brief flicker, a flutter of attention from the castle.
I held my breath. The strain of hovering there, far above the ground of Orlind, weary beyond words, my senses topsy-turvy and my head spinning, quickly took its toll and I almost fell.
I gritted my teeth, and held.
I saw a blur of gold out of the corner of my eye: Ori, Changed and on his way to us.
Llan, you crazy woman! he yelled. What are you doing?!
Something! I screamed back. Whatever I can!
But nothing happened. The fortress stood, Galywis unmoved.
Enraged beyond sense, Eterna shrieked her fury. As one, every one of her people who could still fly hurled themselves at the castle. Some of Avane’s people joined them, and even some of mine — I saw Liat in the middle of the fray, and even, to my shock, Sophronia.
Their numbers were considerable, and they were draykoni — physically formidable, and born of a magic they wielded as easily as breathing, even in the midst of the chaos of Orlind. United in fury, their assault should have been impossible to withstand.
But Galy held. Slits opened up all over his walls and a hail of missiles poured forth, drowning his attackers in a deadly flurry. Draykoni screamed and dropped, bleeding and despairing, and still their stolen comrade did not re-emerge.
Even my people, powerful beyond words and maddened with fury, could not prevail against the man and the place that had birthed them.
War, then, could not solve this.
We need to go, said Ori, and I knew instantly what he meant.
Yes, said Pense.
Let’s go, I said.
We spread our wings wide and flew high, and higher still. We winged our way over the heads of the attackers, keeping as much distance as possible in between us and them. I hoped it would be enough to protect us from Galy’s missiles, but I could not be sure. Would he be able to distinguish us from the others? Even if he could, would that prevent him from targeting us? I could no longer say. The Galywis we saw that day was a terrifying stranger; our friend had gone.
We flew on, aiming for the centre of Galy’s roof. Ori bellowed and cursed, hit by a stray something, but he did not stop. I’m fine, he insisted, his voice strained. Keep going.
We were directly over the roof and closing fast upon it when it abruptly opened. A draykon skeleton floated forth, stripped bare of its flesh and its energies, reduced to a bundle of pale, lifeless bones. The corpse drifted gently to the ground where it was laid tenderly down, as though deposited there for a peaceful slumber. The ground immediately around it turned shockingly white.
Eterna’s scream of rage and grief made the world shake. I felt it in my bones, and when every other draykon nearby joined in, my ears almost broke under the pressure.
It took me a moment to realise that I, too, was screaming.
‘GALY!’ I roared, too angry to feel any longer afraid. I folded my wings and plummeted downwards, aiming straight for the open roof. Galy had not yet sealed it again, but he could do so at any moment… I felt Pense join me and then Ori, and the three of us closed upon the castle at frightening speed. If the roof reappeared before we made it through, the impact would probably kill us.
We didn’t hesitate.
I braced myself, teeth gritted, and closed my eyes…
Heads up, came a dark voice out of nowhere, and my eyes flew open again.
Ny fell gracelessly past us in a blur of black shadow, and disappeared inside the castle.
NYDEN! The word emerged as a despairing shriek, for I had thought him distant still, distant enough, safe…
Then I was through into the depths of the fortress, Pense and Ori arrowing in behind me.
The roof snapped shut, and we were left in darkness.
So, said Nyden, There is no traitor among our lot.
I lay in a heap, too stunned and pained to move or speak for the moment. I had hit the ground way too fast, and no doubt acquired a number of new bruises for my collection in the process. I could see nothing, but I sensed Pense and Nyden and Ori not far away.
I gathered that, I replied with a sigh. It made sense at the time.
At least Pense would be pleased about that. He had said from the beginning that no draykon would so harm or betray another, and apparently he was right.
‘Galy,’ I said as I staggered to my feet. ‘Can we have some light, please?’ I felt some trepidation in addressing him, for I was all too aware that I knew nothing of this Galywis. Did he remember who we were? Did he still see us as trustworthy?
For an agonising moment the answer seemed to be no, for the darkness did not lessen one whit.
‘Please,’ I said again, and at last he complied. Light flooded the castle, and I saw that we were back in the same bland, stone hall where we had held our draykon-moot. That meeting had taken place only hours before, but it felt like a lifetime ago.
‘Thank you,’ I called, eager to keep Galy happy if I could. I had dropped out of draykon shape when I fell, and the chill of the hall raised goosebumps on my skin. At least, I chose to interpret it as an effect of the cold, rather than a physical manifestation of the nerves and uncertainty that set my stomach churning. I felt woefully ill-equipped to deal with this.
Ori, too, had resumed his human form, though whether voluntarily or not I could not say. He looked as shaken as I felt, and I noticed a little blood in his hair.
I am fine, he told me, noticing the direction of my gaze. Just hit my head a bit.
Pense was both unaffected and seemingly unperturbed by the fall and our predicament. He stood, arms folded, waiting in silence.
I went to Nyden. Ny, I told you to get out of here…
He had not troubled himself to stand up but continued to lie in a heap, splayed lazily across the cold stone floor. You may not have noticed, he replied, but the fighting does not appear to be achieving much. Eterna has lost her wits. She is merely getting everyone killed.
It is not wholly out of character for her, I reminded him.
So I hear. He stretched out comfortably, resting his snout upon one extended leg. I thought I would come and have a chat.
With Galy?!
Why not? Throwing draykoni at him is a waste of time.
You made bait of yourself?!
Nyden winked at me. One enormous wing flexed, and I felt the light touch of it brushing over my hair. He’d patted me on the head. It will be all right, he crooned. You worry too much, noble leader. He did not eat me before, did he?
All of which was so patronising I felt like smacking him. The twinkle in his eyes and the ironic twist to his lips told me he knew that, had wielded it like a tool with which to distract me from my fear. Better irritated with me than a
fraid of him, he murmured in my mind.
He was right. I summoned up all my memories of Galywis as I had known him before: the mad but harmless guardian of the Library of Orlind, who had welcomed us, talked to us, fed us his favourite things and never threatened us with any kind of harm. Even the Galy who had swept us up into the Library not long ago and carried us off. He had not harmed us then, either; all he had tried to do was talk to us.
Which sparked off a new train of thought in my mind. I had assumed he was trying to tell us of the danger to himself, to our people and to the island, in order to lead us to the culprits. But in light of everything we now knew, that no longer made sense. What had he been trying to say?
And what was he planning to do to Ny?
I went and stood by him, as though that would help at all. Whatever Galy’s plans for Nyden might be, it seemed unlikely that Pense or Ori or I could do a great deal about it. But I wanted to try to express to Galy that Ny was more than someone we travelled with from time to time. He was a friend.
‘We need to talk, Galy,’ I said, making sure that my voice held steady and betrayed none of my inner tremors. ‘What is going on here? Why are you doing all this?’ And silently I thought, over and over, don’t hurt Nyden. Please not Nyden, don’t hurt Ny…
I do not know what manner of answer I expected. Perhaps another whirl of confusing visions, or a door opening into some hitherto unseen chamber of the Library wherein some new clue might be found.
Instead, Ny twitched and shuddered and then groaned, a guttural, inhuman sound which shook me anew. He began to thrash wildly, his claws scrabbling helplessly at the stone floor.
Then he screamed, and convulsed.
‘GALY!’ I yelled. ‘Not Nyden! Don’t hurt him!’
‘I thought you wanted to talk,’ said Nyden, but it was not his voice. It was lighter in tone, milder, but also strained, as though every word cost an effort to utter. ‘Welcome back! Me and the old girl are always happy to see you.’
‘Galy?’ I whispered, horrified. Nyden lay still again now, but he was far from relaxed. His whole body was contorted, and only the whites of his eyes showed.
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