Draykon (14 page)

The seven black
pebbles formed a neat semi-circle around it.

Elder Sanfaer
leaned forward and picked up a small blue pebble. Comparing the map
on the table with the one in her hand, she carefully placed the
blue pebble in the centre of the circle.

'That is the
location of Llandry's cave.'

Six Glour
officials and five Glinnery delegates stared at the map, silent.
The implication was too obvious to need naming.

'Well,' said
Guardian Troste, at length. 'I think that raises more questions
than it answers.'

'The University
of Waeverleyne is studying the stone. Some theories have been
presented, but nothing solid has yet emerged.' The speaker was one
of the Glinnery Elders, an elderly man whose hair was almost white.
His face was mapped with wrinkles, but his bright blue eyes were
sharp, focused.

'Elder Shuly,
perhaps I could exact from you an agreement to notify Glour if your
scholars discover anything significant.'

The white-haired
man bowed his head to Guardian Troste. 'Of course.'

Eva watched all
of the Glinnery officials covertly. Four of them bore wings, neatly
folded against their backs. Glinnish wings had always fascinated
her; they were not feathered like a bird's but more like a
combination of a gwaystrel's and a daefly's wings, thin membrane
over bone and painted with colour. She had a secret envy of their
power of flight.

The fifth was
unwinged, his colouring and accent suggesting Irbellian heritage.
Eva had learned that he was Elder Sanfaer's husband, which
interested her. He had said nothing throughout the meeting, merely
watching with an intense, fixed attention which might be unnerving
were it directed at a particular person.

Troste looked at
Professor Mayn, head of Glour's University. He sat silent as usual,
tugging thoughtfully at the tip of his long nose.

'Professor, we
need to get the University involved immediately. Whatever you can
come up with about this so-called istore should be brought directly
to me. Top priority, please.'

Mayn nodded. 'Am
I going to be needed here for the rest of the meeting?'

'Not urgently.
I'll see that you are summoned at once if anything comes
up.'

Mayn stood up,
his bald head gleaming beneath the light-globes. 'I'll begin at
once, then. Excuse me.' He left quietly, closing the door behind
him.

Lord Angstrun
stood up as well. He had withstood the meeting with ill-concealed
impatience. Now he towered over the seated officials with the air
of a thundercloud about to erupt.

'For my part,
I've a mess to clean up and a criminal to catch. If I may be
excused?'

'Not yet,' said
Troste, calmly. 'Sit down a moment, please.'

Angstrun scowled,
but he obeyed.

'Altering the
Night Cloak is a serious offence,' continued Troste. 'Is it yet
confirmed who is responsible?'

Angstrun
grimaced. 'More or less. I'm a minion down. One of my aides - one
of my best, typically - has absconded without leave. Naturally this
suggests a rather terrific guilt over something.' He glanced at the
Glinnery delegates, sighed, and elaborated. 'I have six assistants
taking care of the Night Cloak, two on duty at any given time. They
maintain the Cloak, activate it at moonset, deactivate it at
moonrise, repair leaks, that kind of thing. I daresay you have the
same arrangement.' He glared at Laylan Westry, Glinnery's Chief
Sorcerer, as if the Cloaking system was entirely her
fault.

'We do,' she
said, mild in the face of Angstrun's lack of manners.

'One of them has
vanished. Young chap, not the sort to go to the dogs I'd have said,
but you never know. He has the ability and the necessary access to
move the Cloak, and his disappearance implicates him.'

Vale spoke up.
Today he was looking most handsome in uniform, his Chief
Investigator's badge prominently displayed on his left lapel. 'And
the other five? It couldn't have been any of them?'

'Naturally it
could
have been any of them, but I don't think it was. They
know what I'd do to them if I found out. Anyone with enough guts to
do the deed would have wits enough to put a lot of distance between
the two of us.'

'You're sure the
man left voluntarily?'

'No,' said
Angstrun briefly. 'That's your job.'

Vale permitted
himself a small smile. 'True enough. What's the name?'

'Ed Geslin.
Edwae, that is.'

'Thanks.' Vale
scribbled messily in a small notebook, chewing on his lower lip as
he pondered the information. It was one of the habits Eva found
most endearing.

'Thank you, Lord
Angstrun,' said Guardian Troste. 'I believe that's
everything.'

'Fine.' Angstrun
stood up. 'I'll pull back the Cloak, unless anyone has any more
objections.' He glared fiercely down at the group.

'I do.' Elder
Sanfaer's eyes held a hint of amusement as she looked at Angstrun,
though her tone was quietly firm.

'Oh, you do?'
said Angstrun, with dangerous calm. 'On what grounds,
pray?'

'We would like to
examine that cave before we return to Glinnery, and it would be
preferable to have the company of several of those gathered here.
Including you, Lord Angstrun. Your collected expertise will be
invaluable.'

'Approved,' put
in Guardian Troste. 'The cave is clearly central to these
incidents. It is high time it was properly
investigated.'

Angstrun looked
at the ceiling. 'Do you realise how long it takes to restore the
balance of the thing after an interruption? The Cloak goes back at
moonset tomorrow, and not a minute later. Better do what you need
to before then.'

'That will be
plenty of time,' said Elder Sanfaer, gracing Angstrun with a smile.
'Thank you.'

'In the meantime,
I've some assistants to question.' He left without another
word.

'Well.' Troste
looked at Eva. 'High Summoner Glostrum, perhaps you'd share the
progress of your efforts regarding the whurthag
problem.'

It was late when
the meeting finally closed. Eva took the first opportunity of
speaking privately to Elder Sanfaer, catching up with her outside
of the Council Hall.

'Ynara. You
received my letter, I hope?'

Elder Sanfaer
inclined her head in assent. 'Yes. Thank you for the
warning.'

'And your
daughter? Has she been harmed? I heard of civilian
injuries.'

Ynara nodded
again, to Eva's dismay. 'She was the first to encounter the
whurthag, on her way to that cursed cave. The worst injuries were
to her arm, but she is healing fast. I only wish... I wish we had
understood at the time what we were dealing with.'

Eva touched her
arm in sympathy. 'Just as I wish it had been possible to banish the
whurthags before they started killing our citizens. It's not
possible to know everything in advance, alas, much as I
try.'

'Eva, I'm sorry.
I should have sent condolences for your friend. I'm afraid I was
too preoccupied with Llandry.'

Eva smiled sadly.
'Your daughter's safety is by far the more important consideration
of the two.'

'I worry about
her every minute. I've left her well guarded, but
still...'

Noting the shadow
of worry in Ynara's eyes, Eva felt suddenly strange. Had she
followed her friend's path in life, she might by now have had her
own daughter, a girl nearing adulthood. She couldn't immediately
decide whether or not she regretted the lack.

Shaking off the
thought, she smiled and asked, 'You'll be leaving
tomorrow?'

'Yes, certainly,'
said Ynara. 'As soon as we are finished at the cave.'

'Why don't you
and your husband dine with me tonight? Vale will be joining
us.'

Ynara smiled.
'Thank you, that would be a pleasure.'

'Lovely. My
carriage will be here momentarily.'

They waited in
silence for several minutes, facing the horizon where the waxing
moon was slowly sinking out of sight. Eva could almost feel the
waves of tension from her friend as she stood, still but restless,
her fingers twined through her husband's.

'She'll be all
right, Ynara,' said Eva softly. 'A woman couldn't ask for more
dedicated parents.' She was thinking of her own as she spoke: her
mother, who'd died so young, and her father, distant and uninvolved
in her life until he too passed away. She'd been alone since her
fifteenth year. It was possible that she envied Ynara's daughter,
just a little, for her safe, loved existence.

'She's right,'
said Aysun in his gruff, laconic way. 'Llandry's tougher than she
looks, too. Takes after you.' Eva glanced over to see him kiss his
wife gently. An encouraging smile sat oddly on his lined face, but
the expression held the more power for that.

'I hope you're
right. Both of you.' Ynara smiled, but her heart obviously wasn't
in it.

***

Eva was out well
before moonrise the next day, mustering her summoners. Angstrun's
sorcerers were present in greater numbers than before, closing the
several new rogue gates that had appeared overnight. By moonrise
the forests west of Glour City had been thoroughly explored and
declared free of dangers.

Next it was the
turn of Commander Iver and his Glour colleagues to advance on the
cave. A contingent of summoners and sorcerers attended them in case
of off-realm perils, though Eva was not permitted to be part of
this initial exploratory force. She waited with Elder Sanfaer and
her husband, flanked by the University heads, Lord Angstrun and
Chief Sorcerer Laylan Westry. The mood was tense: everyone
remembered well the lurid pictures of the whurthags' earlier
victims, obligingly spread by the daily papers.

Commander Iver
returned at last, bringing some of his men with him. Eva noticed
Tren was one of the three sorcerers that had gone out with the
group.

'It's clear,'
said Iver, reining in his nivven. 'No signs of occupation at all.
Though, that cave must be pretty well hidden; we haven't found it
yet.'

Ynara moved her
nivven forward. 'I've detailed instructions from my daughter. I
believe I can find it.'

Iver nodded, but
he looked annoyed. 'It might've been helpful to have her here in
person.'

Ynara's jaw
tightened. 'So it might have, but I forbade it.'

Iver looked at
the sky, controlling his irritation with obvious difficulty. He
said nothing more, however, only turned his mount and rode away in
the direction from which he'd come. Ynara followed, with her
husband riding beside her. Eva touched her heels to her nivven's
flanks, urging the mare to keep step with the riders
ahead.

They were right
on the edge of the irignol forests. Within a few minutes, the
irignol and glostrel trees melted away, replaced by the towering,
broad trunks of the trees known as glissenwol. Eva looked up,
fascinated, noting the incredible height of the things. She could
faintly discern the glissenwol caps overhead, their deep colours
camouflaging them under the night time. Long, draping vines hung
from the tops, swaying in the breeze, painted silver in the
moonlight. She sensed a lack of health about the proud trees, a
hint of sickness as though their vitality was steadily draining
away the longer they remained without sunlight.

Her nivven was
not enjoying the moss that covered the forest floor. The mare's
hoofs sank deeply into the thick, spongy stuff, and she snorted in
disdain. Eva patted the beast's neck, easing her irritation with
images of the warm stable and bag of feed that were to come
later.

The riders up
ahead drew to a halt, and Eva reined in. She watched as Elder
Sanfaer dismounted, handing the reins of her nivven to her husband.
She advanced, flanked by Commander Iver and a crew of
guards.

'I need a bit
more light,' Eva heard Ynara say. Tren obligingly opened a hand,
releasing a dancing light-globe into the air. The glow steadily
brightened until it dazzled Eva, and she looked away.

'Perfect, thank
you,' Ynara said.

Eva blinked,
hoping her eyes would grow accustomed to the light. They did not.
She stopped trying to see Ynara's actions and closed her eyes,
listening for activity.

Ynara's soft
sound of discovery alerted Eva to her progress. She opened her eyes
carefully, grateful to note that the light-globe was gradually
dimming again. Ynara and Commander Iver stood before a pair of
closely-growing glissenwol trunks. The space between the trees was
choked with vines and ferns, but as Eva watched Iver found a way to
slip through. Then his tall frame disappeared abruptly into the
ground.

Several of Iver's
men went down next, followed by some of Eva's summoners, and then
Tren. Ynara and Aysun waited until most of them had
emerged.

'It's empty,'
Iver said, shaking loose dirt from his hair. 'Completely, I'd say,
but you'll know best.' He nodded at Ynara and retreated out of the
way. Eva approached as Ynara and Aysun disappeared into the cave.
She followed, finding an opening in the ground just big enough for
her to slip into. A mud slope led down into a dirt-walled cave,
barely high enough for her to stand upright. She noticed some of
Iver's men had to stoop in order to remain inside.