Seven Dreams (17 page)

‘
Egg,’
she said forcefully, interrupting the next chapter of her enraged
musings.

‘
What?’

‘
Do
you have any objection to the job?’

‘
Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ said Egg promptly.

Serena
frowned.

‘
It’s
the principal of the thing!’ exploded Egg. ‘I don’t want a snotty
aristocrat for a boss!’

‘
Not
to worry. I’ll be your boss,’ interposed Tren, with a beaming
smile. ‘That ought to be acceptable, shouldn’t it? I am no
aristocrat.’

‘
Married to one,’ Egg muttered.

‘
Still
a one hundred per cent, pure-bred commoner,’ said Tren
cheerfully.

Egg muttered
something inaudible and fell silent.

‘
Excellent,’ said Lady Glostrum. ‘That’s settled.’

Serena felt a
flash of excitement. Fabian’s lack of interest in the puzzle was
mystifying to her, though to be fair, her lack of interest in
Valore Trebel was equally mystifying to him.

‘
Does
anybody else have any objections?’ she said quickly, and looked
around at Teyo and Iya, hoping very hard that they would not. Teyo
gave her a gentle smile by way of answer, and Iya said nothing at
all. But since she voiced neither objections nor approval, Serena
took her silence as assent. ‘Great!’ she said, beaming. ‘What do we
know about the riddle?’

Lady Glostrum
grinned at her enthusiasm. ‘Nothing at all, save that it is most
likely of Lokant fabrication. Though of course, we haven’t the
faintest idea how it might be done.’

The words in the
sky were still there, two days later. They had neither faded nor
vanished, remaining unchanged no matter the hour of the day. Nor
were they confined to Irbel; pictures of the riddle in the skies
above the other Realms had flashed up on the boards very quickly.
In the Darklands realms — Glour, Orstwych and Ullarn — the words
were traced across the night-dark heavens in pale silver moonlight.
In Nimdre and Orlind, the riddle’s appearance altered with the
changing of the light, from sparkling black during the day to
ghostly moonlight at night.

‘
I
can’t help suspecting some degree of draykon involvement with it,
though,’ Eva continued. ‘Which is why I shan’t object to having an
extra draykon or two at my disposal.’

Teyo said, ‘I
don’t know of any way to do
that
.’

‘
No,
that’s what all the others said, too,’ said her ladyship
comfortably. ‘But we’ll figure it out.’

‘
I
don’t understand what it’s for,’ said Teyo. ‘The
riddle.’

Tren said, ‘Yes,
good question. A few days ago, we were asking ourselves how to find
other sites like the Balbater dig, with no clues whatsoever. They
could be anywhere. All we can guess is that there is, or was, one
in each of the Realms, although how long ago these sites were
created and scattered, we know not. What was the world like in
those days? That’s why we’ve got historians and archaeologists
involved.

‘
It
did occur to us that the case was virtually hopeless. We’d have to
get half the world involved in order to find all the sites, said
we. And possibly, someone else had the same thought.’

Lady Glostrum
nodded. ‘I suspect that whoever’s behind this has no more idea how
to find them than we do, so they’re using us. And what better way
to get half the world involved than to set up a giant treasure
hunt? It’s clever.’

‘
Fiendishly,’ said Serena.

Egg muttered
something acerbic and luckily inaudible.

‘
Where
does the door go?’ said Iyamar.

Serena looked up
in surprise. The girl had been so quiet, she’d almost forgotten her
presence. But Iya — interested in spite of herself, it seemed — had
drawn closer, and now watched Lady Glostrum and Mr. Warvel with an
expression of keen curiosity.

‘
We’ve
no notion,’ said her ladyship with obvious chagrin. ‘It’s the first
mention we’ve heard of a door. Though I suppose, if we have keys of
some kind, there being a door to be opened isn’t the greatest
surprise.’

‘
We
have people working on that, too,’ Tren offered. ‘Not that we
needed to ask. I think the history faculties at virtually every
university in the Seven dropped everything they were doing and
started hitting up the books and maps. If they find any mention of
mysterious keys or doors or the Seven Dreams, I daresay we’ll all
hear about it.’

‘
I
don’t think they’ll find anything,’ Lady Glostrum said. ‘Remember
how nobody knew the draykoni had ever really existed, until
suddenly they reappeared? Every mention of them in every book had
been excised by Lokants long ago. They’re very thorough, when they
want to hide something.’

Tren grimaced,
and nodded. ‘True enough.’

‘
So,’
said Serena, ‘what is our task?’

Lady Glostrum
just looked at her for a moment. ‘I’m not sure you’ll like
it.’

Serena’s brows
rose. ‘Oh?’

Her ladyship
shifted in her chair. ‘All right. I have two things in
mind.’

Serena
waited.

‘
Firstly, we aren’t going to be the first to reach all of these
sites. Maybe none of them. Other people are going to find at least
some of those keys, and we’ll need to get them back.’

‘
You
mean steal them,’ said Egg flatly.

Lady Glostrum
gave her a cool look. ‘If it comes to that. I hope that it won’t.
But remember, please. We don’t know what this is about, but it is
certainly a matter of international security. I don’t want those
keys falling into the hands of whoever’s using us to find them;
Lokants and power tend to become explosive when mixed together. If
I have to use underhand means to prevent that, I will.’

Serena nodded.
She didn’t like the idea of stealing the “treasure” from people
who’d found it fair and square, but she had to admit the justice of
Lady Glostrum’s reasons. ‘Fair enough.’

‘
The
other thing is...’ said her ladyship, and hesitated.

‘
Yes?’

‘
The
first site was underground,’ she said. ‘That was convenient. But
the riddle suggests that not all of them are.’

Seven Dreams I
wrought anew and cast them sea to sky.
Indeed.
‘And?’

‘
If
there are any in the sea or in the sky, we’re going to need some
way of reaching them.’

‘
Is
that why you want draykoni shapeshifters?’ said Teyo. ‘To search
the skies?’

Lady Glostrum
hesitated. ‘Not exactly. I understand that the draykoni aren’t all
that well suited to staying in the air for long periods of time, is
that right?’

‘
True
enough,’ Teyo admitted. ‘Better for short, screamingly powerful,
rage-filled and utterly terrifying bursts of speed.’

Lady Glostrum
grinned. ‘I’ve travelled by draykon-back before, and I wouldn’t
like to so burden friends again. I had something else in mind,
namely the Irbellian mailships, or something like them.’

That was clever.
Irbel possessed an efficient mail delivery system whereby the post
was carried by air. The mailships were balloon-based flying
machines, slow but stable, and certainly able to remain aloft for
long periods. Neither the machines nor the technology were shared
with, or sold to, other Realms, nor were they available for
purchase or hire, save to the few very wealthy citizens of Irbel
who could afford it.

As that
reflection crossed her mind, a feeling of foreboding swiftly
followed.

‘
Do
you,’ she said carefully, ‘happen to know anybody with an
airship?’

Lady Glostrum
coughed. ‘I gather from Mr. Tullen that we do indeed know
somebody.’

Serena
sighed.

‘
Baron
Anserval has a particularly fine specimen,’ Lady Glostrum
continued.

‘
I was
afraid you were going to say that,’ muttered Serena.

‘
It
would give us a huge advantage,’ Lady Glostrum said quickly. ‘No
one else is going to have an airship to hand! We might find the
skyborne ones before anyone else.’

Serena inched a
little closer to Fabian and leaned disconsolately against
him.

‘
What?’ he said, blinking down at her. ‘Oh. He’s not all that
bad, sis.’

Serena blinked
incredulously at her fatuous brother.

‘
Oh,
right,’ he amended after a moment. ‘No, he really is that
bad.’

‘
It’s
lucky,’ said Serena, turning her attention back to Lady Glostrum,
‘that the head of the LHB can just commandeer his airship. No need
for me to get involved there.’ She smiled brightly, an expression
which quickly faded when her ladyship shook her head.

‘
My
authority doesn’t extend so far, I’m afraid. Besides, I’d like him
to give us his airship voluntarily. Leaving a trail of resentful,
powerful people behind me isn’t my favourite approach to any
job.’

Serena’s
shoulders slumped, but she made no further objections. Anserval was
an idiot and in possession of a particularly repellent personality,
but if she had to deal with him in order to pursue this most
intriguing of mysteries, she would live with it. At least she only
had to put up with him for as long as it took to persuade him to
hand over his ship.

‘
When
do you want to leave?’

Lady Glostrum
smiled. ‘Five minutes ago wouldn’t be too soon.’

Her ladyship left
Serena with one parting injunction:
Do not, under any
circumstances, talk to him about the keys.
He might already be
aware of the connection between the riddle and his stolen property,
in which case there was little to be done. On the other hand, given
the vastness of his collections he may have only a vague
recollection of the stone’s appearance and may not be aware of its
significance at all; and if this was the case, Lady Glostrum wanted
to preserve his state of ignorance.

True, if he knew
that he might get his stolen artefact back he might be more
co-operative. On the other hand, since they had no intention of
ever returning it to him, raising such expectations might prove to
be horribly awkward later.

In the end, it
hardly mattered. The Baron was flatteringly eager to perform any
service for his dear Lady Fenella that he could, and was delighted
to minister to her charming fascination with the treasure
hunt.

‘
No
doubt it is a product of the liveliness of your mind, my dear!’ he
declared, kissing her hand. ‘Curiosity and an eagerness to learn!
How I cherish such qualities.’

Lady Fenella gave
a suitable simper. ‘Oh, my lord! How kind you are.’ She tried her
best not to choke on the words as they emerged, and managed the
business with only the tiniest catch in her voice. Barely
noticeable at all, really.

‘
I
wish,’ said he in a low, intimate voice, ‘that you would call me
Farran.’

Lady Fenella
bowed prettily.

‘
Especially,’ he continued, pressing her hand in a most
unnecessary manner, ‘since we are to be travelling companions! In
such circumstances as those, one would wish — would one not? — to
be on terms of familiarity.’

Serena blinked.
‘We... we are?’ she faltered.

The Baron gave a
soft, indulgent laugh and squeezed her hand again. Her fingers were
growing slightly damp under this persistent attention. ‘My dear
Fenella! My affection and esteem for you could not be higher, I
assure you. You cannot imagine, however, that I could permit my
precious ship to be taken out on a lengthy voyage without my
attendance and supervision?’

A tiny voice at
the back of Serena’s mind began to wail something incoherent. ‘But,
my dear Baron!’ said Lady Fenella with a coquettish laugh, ‘I must
almost begin to imagine that you do not quite trust me.’

The Baron bowed
over her hand, kissed it softly, and looked at her with a roguish
twinkle in his green eyes. ‘My dear Fenella,’ he murmured. ‘Of
course I do not.’

Well,
damn.

The Baron proved
to be infuriatingly inflexible on this point, and since Lady
Glostrum’s attempts to find an alternative craft failed, they were
obliged to accept the good Baron’s irksome company on the
voyage.

This pleased her
ladyship almost as much as it pleased Serena. The presence of
anybody on the ship who was not, and could not be permitted to
become, fully conversant with all the facts would certainly create
unwelcome complications, even were he likely to prove a congenial
colleague. Since there was little chance of the latter, no one was
much delighted.

The voyage would
go ahead, however. Not all of Serena’s team were to go, which
disappointed her, but she couldn’t fault Lady Glostrum’s logic.
They would have no use for Egg or Iyamar in the air, and there was
little reason to imagine that even Teyo’s shapeshifting might prove
useful at this stage. The Baron’s ship could convey up to ten
people in safety, and since three of those must be the pilot and
crew, that left space only for her ladyship and her husband, Serena
and Fabian (as Lady Fenella and Lord Bastavere), and the Baron,
plus two others Lady Glostrum wished to bring. Since these included
an expert navigator and one of the best cartographers in the Seven,
Serena couldn’t fault her choices.