Seven Dreams (21 page)

At least she felt
less like she might topple over the side at any moment, or throw up
over it, whichever happened first. She and her brother stuck
closely together, a little apart from the rest of their group. She
thought that Fabian was doing some protective hovering, which was
touching, since it wasn’t especially like him. If the worst
happened, hopefully he would catch her, thus preventing her
untimely death — always supposing they didn’t hurtle over the side
together.

Eyeing his
taller, bulkier frame, she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to
return the favour.

The Baron had
gone back to harass the poor pilot. Whether his assistance would
improve or hinder their prospects, Serena wasn’t sure. She could
only sympathise with both the pilot and Navigator Ayra, who hadn’t
moved from her position by the helm in the last few
hours.

Serena was just
beginning to relax a little when the airship lurched horribly to
one side, dashing her to the floor. Fabian narrowly missed crashing
down on top of her, for which she was extremely thankful. She lay
still, waiting for the craft to right itself, but it did not. It
leaned further, shuddering, until Serena was heart-poundingly
certain that it would overturn altogether. She stared anxiously
above, searching for any sign of damage to the balloon. They were
falling! Were they falling? She couldn’t be sure; perhaps it was
only her fears talking. Or perhaps they had finally crossed into
Orlind, and they were actually sailing higher? Unhelpful thought.
She clung to Fabian and, hopelessly confused, closed her
eyes...

...and the ship
settled back with a snap and a creak. The deck felt level again,
and after a moment Serena pushed herself up onto her
elbows.

The pilot was
yelling something. Had someone gone overboard? She could see Eva
and Tren, and Fabian still lay nearby, but what about Ayra and the
Baron? Steeling herself, Serena dragged her aching, frozen body to
her feet and dashed forward.

She saw three
figures assembled at the helm, as expected, and relaxed for a
moment. All accounted for; no one overboard. Then her gaze
travelled upward.

‘
Draykoni sighted, southwest!’ hollered the pilot, still
struggling with the helm. ‘Somebody get that Lokant
woman!’

Draykoni, up
here? That seemed unlikely. But the oncoming creatures were indeed
draykoni, Serena realised, staring in wonder at their approach.
There were two of them, their scales shining deep purple and white
in the muted sunlight. She had seen draykoni before, of course, for
Teyo had shifted a few times in her presence, and she’d seen Iyamar
in that state. But she had never beheld them in flight, and from
this altitude. They were impossibly graceful for such enormous
creatures, and sailed gloriously through the skies as though they
owned the air itself. She felt a swift, surprising stab of envy for
a brief moment; not even Teyo’s magnificence up close had ever yet
made her feel that she would like to try it herself.

The draykoni
caught up to their ship very quickly and began to circle. Whether
their intentions were peaceful or otherwise was not immediately
clear. The humans on the deck gathered nervously into a knot,
Serena with them, as though proximity to each other might protect
them if the draykoni attacked. Was it her imagination, or was one
of the draykoni eyeing the balloon that held them aloft? If it
chose to use its fearsome claws and teeth upon it, their ship would
be on its way swiftly downwards in seconds.

Eva came running
up, yelling something. Serena was by no means ignorant in the
matter of languages; she spoke Nimdren fluently in addition to her
native language, and she was proficient in Glinnish and two of the
Darklander tongues as well. But whatever Eva was saying was like
nothing she’d ever heard before, and the sounds were completely
alien to Serena’s ears.

They appeared to
have some kind of an effect upon the draykoni, for the subtle
menace to their movements faded. They continued to circle, but with
a fluid grace which spoke of a relaxed state of mind to Serena’s
eyes, and she relaxed herself a little bit.

But only for an
instant, for one of them suddenly flew directly at the ship at some
speed. Serena jumped, heart pounding, and tried to scramble
backwards; a futile instinct, for where was she going to go? But
there was no juddering impact, no attack whatsoever. In the blink
of an eye, the vast draykon with the glittering, deep purple scales
vanished and a human woman fell, rolling expertly, onto the deck.
She wore a set of slim eyeglasses like Eva’s, proclaiming her
Darklander heritage. Her dark curls were bound back into a neat
ponytail, and her clothing was as purple as the scales of her
draykoni form.

And she was known
to Eva, apparently, for her ladyship went flying forward and
wrapped the woman in a huge embrace. ‘Avane!’

The woman, Avane,
returned the salutation with every bit as much enthusiasm, and
repeated this ritual with Tren, who had by this time joined the
party. The three fell instantly into animated conversation. They
were speaking some bizarre mixture of Darklander tongues with some
of those strange words Eva had used mixed in — were they a draykoni
language? They were also speaking at such speed that Serena
couldn’t follow most of it, but she picked up a few words. Avane
and her friend were on patrol duty today, she guessed, and they’d
come to investigate the airship that had wandered so close to the
Orlindian border. There followed a lot of irrelevant conversation,
principally relating to people called Lyerd and Ori. After a while,
Serena tuned this out.

Eventually the
conversation was over. Avane ended with, ‘And you know they would
love
to see you,’ or something like that. Eva turned back to
her airship companions — forgotten for the past several minutes —
and made an “everything is fine” gesture.

‘
It’s
safe,’ she announced unnecessarily. ‘These are friends, and we can
safely go into Orlind.’

Serena, Fabian,
the Baron, the pilot, Wrob and Ayra remained in their nice, secure
knot of human flesh, and nobody moved.

‘
We
aren’t going to die!’ insisted Eva. ‘Honestly! I don’t yet
understand what they’ve done or how, but Orlind’s different. We can
fly there.’

‘
What
about the peak, and the Dream?’ demanded Anserval, drawing himself
up. ‘After all,’ he added pompously, ‘that is why we are here, and
it is just a little bit pressing, don’t you think?’

Eva, Tren and
Avane all turned identical contemptuous stares upon Anserval, who
seemed oblivious to this derision. ‘We may be able to help you with
that,’ said Avane coolly. Her tone implied an addendum: ‘
If
you aren’t too obnoxious.’

Anserval looked
as though he wanted to object further, but he was caught and he
knew it. Their attempts to reach the peak unaided had utterly
failed, and had, moreover, brought both ship and passengers into
danger. He disliked the feeling that the direction and control of
the airship had been wrested from him, though everyone else had
known from the beginning that Eva was in charge. Serena watched
with mildly vindictive amusement as he struggled, and finally
capitulated.

‘
Very
well,’ he said grandly. ‘Perhaps we may visit Orlind for a little
while. Not too long, mind! We have an important task
here!’

Avane turned her
back on him without comment. She seemed to have got his measure
very quickly; either she was very observant indeed, or Eva and Tren
had forewarned her about the Baron somewhere during that hasty
conversation. These reflections left Serena’s mind in an instant as
Avane ran towards the rail, vaulted over it and disappeared into
thin air.

‘
Wha —
what did she—?’ Serena spluttered, and ran to look. Could she
shapeshift in mid-air like that? She could, apparently, for there
was the dark purple draykon some way below, turning a playful
somersault in the air.

Serena turned to
find Eva and Tren behind her, a strange smile curving Eva’s lips.
‘She’s gained confidence, wouldn’t you say?’ she murmured to her
husband.

‘
Marvellously,’ he agreed.

Serena looked for
Fabian, and found him still standing with Wrob, Ayra and the pilot
whose name Serena still hadn’t caught. They were discussing
something earnestly, or three of them were; Fabian stood ostensibly
listening, but Serena recognised the look on his face. He wasn’t
paying all that much attention. Even the prospect of seeing the
mythical Orlind — a prospect which thrilled
her
to no end —
couldn’t interest him much compared with the prospect of
revenge.

She sighed, and
turned away.

Jisp was in
love.

Iyamar’s
Jisp-a-like form had been attractive, undoubtedly, but Jisp’s
response to it seemed far out of all proportion to Teyo. The little
orange creature had taken to following Iya around, mewling
plaintively, until Iya gave up and shapeshifted. Jisp’s extreme joy
on beholding the object of her affection fell somewhere between
heart-warming and befuddling, Teyo felt, with some annoyance. After
all, he and Jisp had been friends for a long time and she’d never
felt that way about him. (Not that he wanted her to; that would be
awkward. But still).

Iyamar didn’t
seem to mind, and since they were both ladies, there was no chance
of a litter of tiny Jisps arriving anytime soon. Teyo hoped that it
would help Iya grow more comfortable with her shapeshifter
abilities, and so he let it be, content to watch Jisp’s lovesick
antics with tolerant amusement.

Until Jisp began
with the poetry.

To the Glory
of Thy Tail
was the title of the first one. Jisp shyly
approached Iyamar when she was looking particularly lizardly and
gorgeous, her scales pearly white and shining gloriously. Jisp
dropped a mouthful of bright red berries before her, and announced
the title of her composition. Then she lifted her tiny head and
began:

Your
tail is so long,

So
very long,

And so
scaly.

She paused for a
response, radiating hope.

There was a long
silence. Teyo sensed confusion, embarrassment and amusement from
Iyamar, all of which he hoped she was managing to hide from Jisp.
She made an encouraging noise and Jisp, blazing happiness,
continued.

There
is nothing so pearly

as
your scales

which
are...

Jisp paused
grandly.

Pearlier than pearls.

That appeared to
be the end, for Jisp sat back on her haunches, beaming a
lizard-grin, and gazed adoringly at Iyamar.

Iyamar flailed.
That was...
she began.

Jisp beamed yet
more widely.

Amazing,
finished Iya weakly. This feeble praise appeared to satisfy Jisp,
for she hurled herself at her friend and rubbed her tiny body all
down the length of Iyamar’s, quivering with pleasure.

Teyo felt an
almost insurmountable desire to laugh. He was obliged to cough hard
to dispel the feeling, which sent a gust over his worktable and
propelled bits of drying clay all over the polished wooden floor.
Oops. He’d made an appalling mess of the parlour with his new
project, which he’d better clean up before Egg saw it. Considering
her foul mouth, raging temper and total indifference to attire or
trinkets it seemed out of place, but she was a stickler for
cleanliness, and insisted on perfect neatness in their abode at all
times.

He surveyed the
object he’d made with a critical eye. It wasn’t a bad piece of
work, actually, which relieved him somewhat, as he hadn’t worked
with stone or clay in some years. He picked up a tiny brush and
carefully applied a little more paint. There, finished. Hastily —
noting in passing that Iya and Jisp were now curled up together in
the crook of an armchair, whispering about something — he began to
sweep up the clay.

Not fast enough.
The front door slammed and three seconds later Egg came stamping in
like a little whirlwind, shivering theatrically and rubbing her
arms.

‘
It’s
damned cold out there!’ she announced, then stopped dead. ‘What’s
all this crap?’

‘
Soon
to be taking up its new residence in the bin,’ Teyo said in a
soothing voice. ‘Pretend it never happened.’

Egg aimed a kick
at his side, which thankfully she did not quite land. She tended to
wear enormous boots with steel in the toes, which his ribs
fervently objected to.

She might have
said something else — something rude, most likely, and loudly
voiced — but her eye fell on the Jisp-and-Iyamar snuggle that was
still ongoing in the armchair and she stopped, mouth
open.

‘
You
know,’ she said after a moment, her eyes narrowing, ‘for a girl who
screamed blue bloody murder at the prospect of having to
shapeshift, she’s sure doing a lot of it lately.’

Regretting his
undignified posture upon the floor more with every moment, Teyo
tried to catch her eye to deliver a warning look, but she wouldn’t
look at him. ‘Yes, Egg,’ he said, busily sweeping, ‘isn’t it
great?’