Seven Dreams (18 page)

It was not
strictly necessary to bring Fabian along, of course, but on this
point Serena had been as inflexible as the Baron. Firstly, she
refused to be obliged to put up with Anserval’s company for days —
possibly weeks, who knew? — without the support of her brother; she
was not at all convinced that he might not develop some highly
unwelcome ideas, otherwise. Also, she hoped that the mission might
serve both to interest Fabian in the hunt, and to distract him from
his obsessive focus on the matter of Valore Trebel. He was not
pleased, but she had insisted. As a result, he was not speaking to
her when it came time to board the vessel.

Anserval had his
own airfield (of course), situated not far from his stupendous
country mansion. The six of them met their host at the entrance,
all of them dressed in the thickest, warmest clothing they could
find; they had been well warned about the likely temperature far
above ground. Escorted to the ship on the Baron’s arm, and regaled
with many a tiresome detail about the engineering and the cost of
the craft, Serena nonetheless felt a degree of excited anticipation
she had scarcely experienced before. This only increased when she
saw the airship, moored in the centre of the wide airfield and
awaiting their embarkation.

Its size alone
rendered it an impressive sight. The ship part — or gondola, as the
Baron swiftly informed her — was so large, she wondered at
Anserval’s pronouncement that it would only house ten. This
apparent mistake was soon explained when he assured her that she
and her brother would have the use of multiple cabins, and that
Lady Glostrum and her husband would enjoy the same — because, he
told her earnestly, how could he expect gently-bred, aristocratic
ladies (and their gentleman escorts) to suffer anything less than
the finest accommodation he could offer? Serena, who would have
preferred to hand over the extra cabins to Egg, Teyo and Iyamar,
was forced to content herself with only a polite demur.

The balloon held
her attention for some time (Anserval called it the “envelope”,
which in Serena’s view sounded so absurd, she preferred to think of
it as a balloon). It dwarfed even the spacious proportions of the
gondola beneath, swollen with (as she was now informed) some kind
of gas which would, once the tethers were released, raise it up
into the skies. He had a great deal more to tell her about the
workings of the airship, but she, being wholly uninterested in such
technicalities — especially when related by him — ignored him.
Since her brother did likewise, Anserval was left to display his
superior knowledge unattended.

Inevitably, the
balloon was bright, shimmering gold in hue, but Serena was relieved
to see that the gondola had been painted in a much more handsome,
dark plum colour. The ship accordingly bore a sumptuous appearance
which she found pleasing. It also bore an appearance of such
staggering expense that she was a little floored by it. She’d known
that Anserval was rich, but this? What else might the infuriating
man have at his disposal? And why, when surrounded by so much
privilege, could he not manage to be just a little less
repulsive?

She and Lady
Glostrum were escorted on board ahead of everyone else, even the
pilot, and by the Baron himself. He did the honours with so much
pomp and ceremony that she was thoroughly exasperated by the time
she had been shown to her cabin(s) and left to settle in. She
didn’t waste long on this task; she wanted to be on deck when the
ship took off.

Fabian apparently
had the same idea, for she met him on her way back up to the
observation deck a few minutes later. He had donned Lord
Bastavere’s haughty expression, and apparently had no intention of
dropping it for her. Serena refused to coax him out of his poor
mood. Accordingly, they walked up to the top deck together in
silence.

They found Lady
Glostrum, the cartographer and the navigator in a cluster on the
largest of the viewing platforms. They were discussing something
involving papers, which Serena instantly felt that she didn’t want
to miss. Lady Glostrum greeted her with a smile as she approached,
and immediately said,

‘
My
lady Chartre, and Lord Bastavere! How wonderful of you to join us.
We were discussing our first destination.’

Lady Fenella
responded with a dazzling smile and a curtsey in response to Lady
Glostrum’s bow. She interpreted these signals to mean that they
were to play up the supposed status of her character and Fabian’s,
and made a note to play along. ‘Oh, wonderful!’ she said with every
scrap of Fenella’s limitless enthusiasm. ‘And where are we
bound?’

The cartographer
made her a perfunctory bow, his lack of interest in aristocracy
very apparent. His name was Wrob, though she had not been told his
family name. He was rapidly approaching fifty, she judged, and he
was almost certainly Irbellian in nationality, for he bore the same
medium-brown skin as Serena and Fabian. But his hair was much
lighter than theirs, almost blond, and greying at the temples. He
surveyed Lady Fenella in her expensive silken flight attire with a
dispassionate expression in his greyish eyes. ‘Here,’ he said, and
with a little reluctance handed her the maps he had been showing
her ladyship. ‘I have marked with a cross the three locations we’d
want to look at. I suggest that we begin with the Sammerill Peaks.’
He smiled thinly at Lady Fenella and added, ‘Those are the
mountains to the west, bordering Orlind.’

Serena leafed
through them, maintaining an expression of vacuous, vague
enthusiasm upon her face even as her brain whirred rapidly through
the implications of Wrob’s choices. The locations he had marked
were all in the midst of mountain ranges, and she knew that at
least one of them — the mountains that divided the empty realm of
Orlind from Irbel — were virtually inaccessible on foot, and known
for the constant cloud cover that shrouded the tallest peaks. She
nodded her approval, flashing the good cartographer a beaming
smile. Anything could be hiding in those clouds!

‘
Wonderful!’ she gushed. ‘What a clever, clever man you are.’
She handed back the maps, noting in passing the way his lip curled
derisively before he recollected himself and smoothed out his
expression. She spared an instant to regret that she was forced to
play her most vapid character for the entire voyage, and cursed the
Baron all over again. She could no longer remember why she had ever
found Fenella amusing to play.

Their navigator
was a woman of similar age to Wrob, and Serena wondered if they
might be colleagues. They certainly seemed familiar with one
another. Her skin and hair were much darker than Wrob’s, almost
black, and she eyed Lady Fenella out of mildly sardonic black eyes.
She was introduced as Ayra Delune.

‘
These
places couldn’t be a little easier to reach, could they?’ she
sighed.

Wrob rolled his
eyes. ‘Complaints, complaints. If they were easy to find, someone
would’ve found them already.’

Ayra rewarded
that comment with a withering look. ‘Easy for you to say, Mister.
You just have to point at the map and say, “Destination confirmed!”
The hard stuff is up to the rest of us.’

‘
Wishing you hadn’t agreed?’ said Wrob, with a knowing
smile.

‘
Not
even for a second.’ She grinned, and Wrob grinned back.

The pilot, a
middle-aged woman with the friendliest demeanour Serena had ever
seen, approached at that moment to receive instruction. Serena
stood silent and a little way back, until she realised that the
pilot was looking at her.

‘
Where
are we headed, ma’am?’ she said.

Ah, yes. As the
ostensible leader of this little party, Lady Fenella would have to
give instruction.

‘
I
believe our good cartographer has all the answers!’ she said
airily, earning herself a wry look from Wrob. He went off, however,
to give instructions as to their first destination, and Serena
could relax. She was happy to do whatever she could on this
expedition, but deciding where to go was not something she was
qualified for.

The Baron joined
them soon afterwards, and Serena was obliged to bear another
lengthy lecture on the workings of airships, mixed together with
lists of the other rare, wondrous and expensive things the Baron
was fortunate enough to own. Serena bore it with as much fortitude
as she was able, all the while enviously eyeing Fabian, who had
wandered to the rail and leaned upon it with every appearance of
ease.

At last, the ship
was ready to fly. Serena ran to join Fabian, abandoning the Baron
mid-sentence, and proceeded to ignore everything that was going on
around her in favour of the view that promised ahead. She watched,
breathless with anticipation, as the airship’s engines started with
a roar and a rattle and the craft began to rise. The ground dropped
away much faster than she had expected, and she gasped in delight.
She and Fabian gazed in silence as fields, woodlands and streams
fell away before them and the world expanded into a vast horizon of
green and brown, beneath infinite sky.

Finally, Fabian
said: ‘I suppose I would have missed this, if you hadn’t forced me
to come.’

Serena permitted
herself a smug smile. ‘Still angry with me?’

‘
Yes,’
said Fabian, with a dark, sideways look at her. ‘But maybe a bit
less.’

Teyo folded his
arms and stared at Egg and Iya. Iyamar wore a belligerent
expression, while Egg looked amused. Annoyingly amused.

‘
We
aren’t going anywhere until you two sort this out,’ he said
firmly.

‘
We
aren’t going anywhere anyway,’ Egg pointed out, hurling herself
into a chair and putting her booted feet up on the
table.

Teyo sighed.
‘That’s not the point.’ They were stuck at the apartment with not
enough to do. Teyo welcomed the opportunity to continue training
Iyamar, but her lessons with Egg had ground to a halt since their
altercation of a few days ago.

‘
I
don’t see what Fabe and Serena have to do on this voyage that we
couldn’t,’ Egg added.

Teyo said
nothing. Privately, he agreed with Egg; he’d been disappointed not
to be taken along on the airship when some of his team were going.
Serena had left him in charge, though, and he had to be
professional.

Besides, the job
they’d been given was important too, whenever it finally got
started. Lady Glostrum had said,
About half the world’s out
looking for these Dreams, and it won’t take long before somebody
finds one, and a key along with it. When that happens, I need you
to go get it back.

Teyo made a few
trips out to the city boards every day to keep an eye on the news.
That way, when the next site was discovered, he’d know about it
within a few hours.

Egg had declined
the honour of participating in this duty, deeming it a boring
run-around, and had instead devoted herself to the completion of a
couple of new wigs for their collection. Not a wholly unproductive
activity, as it went, but not quite what he’d had in mind
either.

Under normal
circumstances, Iyamar could be even more taciturn than he. She was
voluble when she grew excited about something, but otherwise her
young mind appeared to be too busy with her own thoughts to bother
much with talking. The recent drama had been an exception, to say
the least. She had nothing to say now, apparently. She merely
stood, watching Egg with a wary expression and a posture that said
she had no intention of apologising. She had apologised to Serena
and Teyo days since, but she would not forgive Egg’s
behaviour.

Teyo decided to
appeal to their better sides, supposing either of them had one.
‘Please,’ he said, lowering his arms. ‘We’ve got a job to do, and
it’s important, and we’ll mess it up if we can’t work together
properly.’ That elicited zero response, so he continued, ‘Anyway,
do you have any idea what Serena will do to me if we don’t get
those keys when they turn up? She left me in charge, so it’s going
to be my guts on the line.’

Egg
smirked.

Iya
glowered.

Teyo sighed and
threw up his hands. ‘I have no idea how Serena puts up with any of
us,’ he muttered, and walked out.

He also had no
idea how Serena ever got anybody to mind her. Somehow, she did. She
had talked Iyamar into accepting shapeshifter training with a mere
few, clever, well-timed words — drawn, he thought, from a clearer
understanding of her character than any of the rest of them had yet
achieved. She was perceptive.

Egg she managed
through a mixture of bribery, cajoling, crisp commands and wry
jokes. Somehow she always knew which ones to apply and when.
Apparently she understood Egg pretty well, but he couldn’t say the
same for himself.

He just didn’t
have the knack of it. He wasn’t given to fretting, but he was
beginning to worry just a little bit today. What could he do if his
team wouldn’t obey him and wouldn’t listen to each other? How could
they expect to accomplish anything useful if two-thirds of their
vestigial team weren’t even speaking to one another?

It would take a
while yet before anybody found another Dream, he consoled himself.
They were incredibly well-hidden. They had to be, or they would’ve
been found long ago. And nobody had any clues, save for the riddle
that still hung eerily in the skies. Nothing much would happen for
a few days, at least. Time enough for him to figure out what to do
with his frustrating colleagues.