Seven Dreams (28 page)

Nobody had yet
had chance to set up any lights here, Teyo supposed, as the passage
that lay beyond the entrance was pitch dark. Fortunately, Teyo had
excellent night vision in his current shape. He wondered whether
Iyamar had foreseen that, or whether it had been a lucky choice.
Neatly-cut stairs spiralled down into the darkness. The topmost two
or three had been damaged in the explosion (or something) that had
broken open the passage, but the rest appeared unharmed. Iyamar was
already scrambling down them.

Teyo started
after her. He was too tiny to navigate them easily, and his long
claws skittered on the smooth stone surfaces of the steps; he had
to go carefully. Or rather, he
chose
to go carefully.
Iyamar, heedless with youth, all but fell down the stairs.
Actually, she
did
fall down a couple of them, tumbling
end-over-end and giggling as she went. Teyo sighed inwardly.
Teaching that one caution might be an interesting task.

The bottom of the
staircase had just come into view when the stairs abruptly
disappeared. Teyo barely had time to register that something like a
tree had taken their place as he utterly failed to catch hold of
it, and plummeted a long way down. It wouldn’t have seemed like
much in his human shape, but as small as he was, it felt like a
very long way indeed. He landed painfully, bounced and landed
again, even more painfully than before. Dazed, he lay for a few
moments, panting, before his confused brain remembered
Iyamar.

Iya?
He
scrambled up and dashed about in circles for a minute, trying to
see her.

A stray giggle
reached his thoughts.
Interesting,
she said.

Teyo discovered
that he couldn’t roll his eyes while he wore the shape of a small,
furry thing. He tried hard, though.

He stood up and
shook himself, enjoying the way his thick fur felt as it flew out
and then settled smoothly back down again. The way his bruised
muscles felt was less pleasurable. He made a few absurd gestures
with his paws before realising that he couldn’t brush himself down.
His cheeks made a fair effort at blushing, and he hoped Iyamar
hadn’t seen.

Are you coming
or not
? she demanded, and he heard her paws pattering away. He
hurried after her, taking note of his surroundings as best he
could. The stairs had indeed become a tree, a very tall one which
stretched away without apparent end. He hadn’t fallen
that
far, he was sure, or he could not have survived. What was going on
with this place? He left the tree behind as he ran after Iyamar.
There was grass of some kind under his paws, and his twitching nose
detected the presence of some delicious worms underneath. This was
no illusion, he realised with wonder. The earth was real, and
populated with all the wildlife he would expect to find. The grass
growing atop it was real, too. He thought back to the underground
Balbater site and its gorgeously coloured, vibrant trees and vines.
How was any of it possible?

The sensation of
the springy grass and moist earth beneath his paws was delicious,
and no dangers threatened. He threw caution to the winds and raced
after Iyamar, his tail streaming out behind him. He felt free and
wild and overcome with joy, almost demented with happiness. He
didn’t remember ever feeling like that before.

The sensations
lasted until an enormous pair of human legs appeared suddenly
before him, as vast and immoveable as tree trunks in his
perception. He came to an abrupt halt an instant before he ran into
them face-first, and sat down on his haunches, panting for breath.
Iyamar sat not far away.

So much for
teaching
Iyamar
caution. What had got into him? There was
something in the air down here, he decided; something strange about
the place.

He looked up. The
human was by no means as oblivious to their presence as he’d hoped.
It was a woman, he judged from the skirtish thing she was wearing;
he couldn’t see her face clearly. He could tell, however, that the
face in question was turned in his direction.

The human said
something in a booming voice, hands planted upon her hips. It
wasn’t in any language Teyo understood. She bent down to examine
them, and before Teyo could move an inch he was grabbed by a pair
of ungentle hands and hauled skywards. He wriggled and struggled,
claws flailing, but she was firm. She said something else, in
Glinnish this time, but Teyo’s grasp of the language wasn’t up to
deciphering it. She cycled through a couple more languages, and
finally spoke in Nimdren.

‘
How
about this one?’ she said. Teyo responded with another wild attempt
at escape, which failed.

‘
Ah! I
see we’re getting somewhere,’ said the woman in Nimdren. ‘It’s a
lovely job, but I
do
think you ought to take your proper
shape, don’t you? Skulking about like this! It is very rude
indeed.’

She put him down,
and grabbed the end of his tail before he could run away. Having
snared Iyamar likewise, she crouched there implacably,
waiting.

What do we
do?
squealed Iyamar silently.

No help for
it,
Teyo replied, and shifted human. He turned to face their
persecutor, dusting off his garments with what he hoped was a
casual air. ‘Good morning,’ he said gravely.

Iyamar flashed
into human shape beside him, though she adopted none of his calm.
She stood with her arms folded, glaring accusingly at the woman.
‘You hurt Teyo!’

The woman — who
was, not unexpectedly, white-haired — stared critically at Teyo,
and looked him over. ‘Not very much, I think. What are you both
doing in my dig site?’

She may be
white-haired, but she was elderly enough that Teyo wasn’t positive
she was a Lokant. Probably she was. Her face was traced with fine
wrinkles, and deeper ones marked her eyes and mouth; laugh lines,
he thought, though she was not smiling now. Her hair was long, but
very fine, and swept up into a messy bun at the back of her head.
She looked to be of considerable age, but she possessed an air of
vigour that belied her years, and her eyes were peculiar indeed:
pale purple, and very intent upon Teyo. No mere human,
this.

‘
We’re
looking for keys,’ Teyo said bluntly, ‘like everyone
else.’

‘
Yes?
And which one are you working for?’

Teyo blinked in
confusion. ‘Which one? What?’

‘
Which
Library. You’re probably Ylona’s people, aren’t you? She said,
years ago: humans would get it done. I imagine she’s got a lot of
you running about by now. We evicted a few when we
arrived.’

A flash of red
curls caught Teyo’s eye: Egg was sneaking up behind their
interrogator. He managed not to look at her, but something alerted
the fierce Lokant woman, for she whirled and caught Egg before she
could take so much as another step. ‘More! Are there many more? Did
you bring a whole army?’

Egg rolled her
eyes and sagged in the woman’s grip. ‘Honestly, Teyo. I get past
eight guards in my
human
shape and you two get yourselves
caught,
and
me, within five minutes? So much for your
amazing draykon powers.’

‘
That’s the last of us,’ Teyo volunteered, and wondered at
himself. ‘And we aren’t working for Ylona. We’re working for the
LHB.’

He shut his mouth
abruptly, and frowned. Egg stared at him with a
what are you
doing?!
expression, but he couldn’t help it. It was that damned
compulsion again, although this was much more subtle than anything
he’d experienced before. He hadn’t even noticed her doing it until
his mouth had opened and all manner of things had fallen
out.

‘
What
is this “LHB”? enquired the woman.

‘
The
Lokant Heritage Bureau. Actually, it’s called the Lokant Heritage
Information and Training Bureau, or something, but that’s a whole
mouthful of words, isn’t it? So everyone just calls it the
LHB.’

The woman nodded
repeatedly with an impatient expression. ‘Yes, yes, fine, I don’t
care about that. Who is your employer? Why do these “LHB” people
want the keys?’

‘
We’re
working for Lady Glostrum,’ said Teyo despairingly, his mouth
running on and on without his consent. ‘She wants the keys because
she doesn’t want any of you to have them. Says you can’t be
trusted.’

The woman stared
hard at him, her expression indecipherable. Then, shockingly, she
broke into laughter, and the compulsion upon Teyo relaxed. ‘Hah! Is
that what she thinks? She’s entirely correct, of course. Shouldn’t
trust any of us as far as you can throw us. I believe that’s the
expression?’ She surveyed all of them, smiling, as congenial as she
had previously been fierce. ‘So you’re working with Eva? Hmm. Do
you know her well?’

Teyo exchanged a
look with Egg. Her face said the same as his, he imagined:
what
in the world is this now?

‘
Not
well,’ Teyo said carefully, pleased to discover that he could speak
as he chose once more. ‘We only met recently, and briefly at
that.’

‘
Pity,’ said the woman. ‘Still, it’s a link. Better than I
expected. Oh, but let us introduce ourselves! You may call me Mae.
I won’t trouble you with my full name. It is far too long and
complicated to bother with. And you are?’

She was polite
enough not to compel any of them to answer. A moment’s silence
passed as all three hesitated, uncertain.

‘
Oh,
come on! I’m sorry I pulled you about earlier,’ she said to Teyo.
‘I thought you were Ylona’s, you see. It’s different, now.’ She
smiled at Teyo. ‘I already know your name, thanks to your friend
here. You’re Teyo, correct?’

Teyo sighed.
‘Correct. You can call the others Iya, and Egg.’

An eyebrow went
up. ‘Egg? Very well. I daresay there is a story behind it. You’ll
tell me, perhaps, when we are better acquainted.’

Egg’s face took
on a worried look. ‘Better acquainted? Are we planning to
be?’

‘
Oh,
bound to be!’ said Mae cheerfully. ‘You’re working with Eva. Can’t
be helped.’

‘
So
you know her?’ said Teyo.

‘
Not
yet, not yet. All just a matter of time.’ Mae beamed upon them
all.

Teyo squinted at
her. ‘Just who exactly are you?’

‘
Mae.’
She smiled.

‘
Mae
who? You’re a Lokant of which Library?’

Her eyes opened
wider. ‘What do you know of the Libraries, dear?’

‘
Nothing at all,’ Teyo admitted.

Mae grinned. ‘I’m
not of any Library.’

‘
Oh? I
thought all Lokants were part of some Library or other.’

‘
You
really don’t know anything about Lokants, do you?’

Teyo smiled a
little sheepishly. ‘I guess not.’

Mae turned away
and began to walk. ‘Most Lokants are,’ she said over her shoulder,
apparently trusting to the three of them to follow. ‘Not all. I
find it’s much more comfortable not to be. Can’t think why everyone
gathers together like that. Are they afraid to be alone? Leads to
all manner of unpleasant politics. I prefer to keep to
myself.’

‘
And
yet,’ Teyo said, hastening to keep up with her surprisingly brisk
pace, ‘here you are, involving yourself in some grand Lokant
venture.’

Mae rolled her
eyes. ‘Yes, well. Sometimes people are idiots, darling, and
somebody has to sort them out.’

‘
So
this is about some Lokants being idiots?’

Mae glanced at
him sidelong. ‘Don’t think I don’t see you fishing, Mr.
Teyo.’

‘
Damned secrets,’ Egg muttered. ‘We’re up to our collective
necks in this mess, and no one will tell us what it’s
about.’

‘
Perhaps you’d rather not know?’

‘
How
can I tell that without knowing?’ Egg retorted.

‘
An
intriguing point,’ Mae said. ‘We’ll discuss it
sometime.’

The environment
around them abruptly shifted. The grassy meadow disappeared, along
with the insects and birds and flowers and everything else. The
landscape transformed into cool greyish-silver rock littered with
chunks of what appeared to be crystallised sugar, though surely it
could not be. The cavern roof overhead disappeared behind a cape of
swirling white mist, almost cloud-like in its density. The air
smelled, oddly, of hot, spiced cayluch.

Mae’s stride
didn’t falter for a second, and she took no note whatsoever of the
alteration.

‘
What
is
that?’ Iyamar said, staring around herself in unabashed
amazement.

‘
Draykon trickery,’ said Mae indifferently. ‘Though it’s a bit
more impressive to manage it here, I admit. They had some powerful
help.’

There were few
people around; Mae’s guards were doing (on the whole) a good job of
keeping the crowds away. Teyo saw no one at all, until another
uniformed Lokant came running up and said something, breathlessly
and incomprehensibly, to Mae. She replied in the same language, an
expression of relief crossing her face, and received into her hands
a key. This one was pale blue with cloudy swirls of purple covering
its surface. Teyo barely had time for a glimpse before it
disappeared into Mae’s pockets and she turned crisply
about.