Seven Dreams (29 page)

‘
That’s that. What do we have left?’

Since she was
speaking Nimdren again, Teyo assumed the question was directed at
him. ‘Ullarn and Glour still unaccounted for,’ he said.

‘
Two
left. Right.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll
tell me where the rest are?’

Teyo considered
this. She hadn’t compelled him, which she could have. He took that
as a gesture of good faith. On the other hand, he didn’t want to
give up all their secrets.

‘
I
know that Ylona has one,’ he said. ‘The rest are...
safe.’

‘
The
rest being three,’ she said.

‘
Right.’

‘
Four
for our side, one for Ylona’s. Not bad.’

Our side? Teyo
raised his brows at that, but he didn’t question her about it — not
least because she gave him no opportunity. She was off and striding
away once more, heading for the exit this time. Teyo felt some mild
regret that he couldn’t stay just a little longer. He was
fascinated by this site’s changefulness and curious to discover
what other forms it might take. But Mae was right: business
wouldn’t wait. Perhaps he could return some other time.

‘
Come
along,’ Mae called over her shoulder. ‘We have a lot to do, and
never enough time.’

That
called for a question or two. ‘We?’ he echoed.

‘
I’ll
be joining up with your employer soon enough,’ Mae said. ‘And since
you three and I clearly have the same goals in the meantime, we’ll
be working together.’

‘
I
don’t think so,’ said Egg. She stopped walking. ‘I answer to Teyo,
and until he decides what we’re doing, I’m going
nowhere.’

Mae stopped,
turned, and surveyed Egg with an air of exasperation. ‘Very well.
Mr. Teyo?’

Teyo sighed
inwardly, wondering anew how Serena put up with it. ‘She’s got the
key,’ he reminded Egg. ‘Serena would probably want us to stay close
to it anyway.’

In order to
steal it back,
he thought but didn’t add.

‘
Not
with any view to purloining the key for yourselves, I hope?’ said
Mae, with a piercing look at Teyo.

He suffered the
uncomfortable feeling that she was reading his mind. Surely that
wasn’t possible. He swallowed. ‘Um, no,’ he lied. ‘Certainly
not.’

Egg shot an
accusing look at Teyo. ‘You’ve got an answer for everything,’ she
grumbled.

‘
Um,’
said Teyo. ‘Aren’t I supposed to?’

‘
Are
you?’

‘
I
mean... that’s my job, isn’t it? Until Serena gets
back.’

‘
Right,’ said Egg. ‘Keep on keeping on, Tey.’

He frowned,
confused. Was Egg annoyed with him or not?

She’s just
grumpy because she didn’t get to steal anything today,
Iya told
him silently.
And we weren’t impressed enough about her sneaking
past those guards.

She might be
right, certainly about the latter part. Egg would never show it,
but she suffered from some feelings of inadequacy on occasion. Here
she was in a team of five. Two of them were draykoni shapeshifters,
and the other two were accomplished actors and masqueraders and
were unquestionably the leaders of the group — at least when they
were here. Egg sometimes felt that she had too little to offer.
Nobody else felt that way, but it was never entirely possible to
convince Egg. He was impressed that Iya had figured that out; Egg
wasn’t easy to read. The girl had discernment.

Teyo made a
mental note to be suitably admiring later, towards both of them. It
was one of the things Serena did well: complimenting and praising
her team’s efforts without being patronising or condescending. She
was great at encouraging everyone.

Mae stopped near
the entrance to the site and stared upwards. Neither the stairs nor
the tree were presently occupying the space; nothing at all
was.

‘
That
being the case,’ Mae said, as though they had been discussing the
problem, ‘let’s do something else. Hang on to each
other.’

‘
What?’ said Teyo.

‘
Quickly, quickly. We’re pressed for time.’ When they still
didn’t move, she grabbed Teyo’s hand and mashed it together with
Egg’s, then repeated the process with Iyamar. ‘Hold on tight!’ she
said merrily, then took hold of Iya’s free hand in one of her
own.

The next few
seconds were vile. Teyo felt a sucking, rushing, squeezing
sensation which brought with it violent feelings of nausea and
dizziness. The world around them went dark — darker — and then
brightened suddenly into glaring sunlight. It also became a great
deal busier in an instant. People surrounded them on all sides, and
the noises of talking people, rumbling wheels and assorted other
human sounds rose abruptly to tumultuous levels and sadly assailed
his ears.

Looking around
numbly, he saw tall buildings of wood and silvery metals winding
around the trunks of vast trees. Colour was everywhere, rich shades
of indigo and teal and jade and many more. The people around him
were a glorious mixture: pale skins and dark, winged and wingless,
all ages and shapes and sizes. And in the near distance, he saw the
glittering sea.

They were, in
short, in the middle of Tinudren, the largest coastal city in
Nimdre and its main trading port. It was a city Teyo had known well
at one time, though he preferred not to remember those
days.

‘
How
did we get here?’ he said faintly.

‘
Don’t
think about it too much,’ said Mae. She was already off, aiming for
the bank of bulletin boards that occupied the centre of the city
square. He saw dazzling images flashing past of site after site,
some he recognised and others he did not. The headlines
accompanying them were not familiar.

Wirllen: Fourth Site Discovered!

Wirllen was in
Ullarn, Teyo remembered vaguely. This wasn’t a site he had heard
about yet. Reading on, he learned that the discovery had been made
in the last few hours by the Torenn Institute, and they had secured
the key. The media didn’t appear to have learned about the Orlind
or Glinnery sites yet, so this was actually the sixth site. One to
go.

‘
Torenn,’ said Mae disgustedly. ‘That’s Ylona.’ She chewed
absently on a fingernail, a habit which surprised Teyo to see in so
powerful and imposing a woman, and finally sighed. ‘So it’s a race
to the last key. I hate that.’ She turned abruptly to one of her
ever-present aides and said, ‘Glour?’

The man
nodded.

Mae turned back
to Teyo. ‘Where was Eva going to?’

Teyo hesitated.
He didn’t precisely know where Eva was, so he couldn’t give away
her location. But did he trust this woman enough to tell her what
he did know?

No. Eva was
right: Lokants were tricky. How did he know she wasn’t working with
Ylona, and all her apparent distaste for the woman was merely an
act?

Mae sighed again,
more deeply this time. ‘I am sorry to do this. I prefer not to, you
understand. But this is important.’ The feather-light compulsion
settled upon Teyo again, and when Mae asked, ‘Tell me what you know
of Eva’s location,’ he replied instantly, ‘She went up by
airship.’

‘
Airship.’ Mae nodded crisply, and turned back to her aide, who
had retrieved a map from somewhere. He pointed to three
locations.

‘
No,’
said Mae to the first. ‘Ullarn site is found. And no, not likely.’
She inspected the third point closely, then nodded. ‘Orlind it is.’
Before Teyo had time to process her intention, let alone object to
it, she had grabbed the three of them once more and away they went,
hurtling through space — or were they simply stepping through some
kind of doorway, albeit one that was far too squeezingly small?
Moments later, Tinudren had vanished and instead they were standing
in a lush, richly-coloured forest. The air was warm and damp and
full of fragrance. Was this Orlind?

Teyo stared,
briefly, and then he closed his eyes. The way it
looked
was
remarkable, but the way it
felt
was... he struggled to find
the words. This was unlike any place he had ever been before. He
felt in tune with it in an unfamiliar way. Energy thrummed gently
through his bones, imparting a sense of well-being, of harmony, of
happiness... of
belonging.
He felt soothed and calmed and
energised, all at the same time. He also felt empowered, as though
everything he could do — everything
draykon
he could do —
was amplified.

Iyamar wore a
similarly poleaxed look on her face, he noticed when he finally
opened his eyes. Egg merely looked annoyed.

‘
Special, isn’t it?’ said Mae, nodding. ‘No wonder it spawned a
civil war.’

Teyo groped for
some words to offer, and found none.

‘
All
right, you pull yourselves together and I’ll come back for you
later,’ said Mae, more or less kindly. ‘I want to find out if Eva
is here somewhere.’ She strode away, two of her aides trailing
loyally in her wake.

‘
So,’
said Teyo weakly. ‘This is unexpected.’

‘
Right,’ said Egg, but then she seemed to realise that their
sudden transportation to Orlind wasn’t quite what Teyo had meant.
She looked from him to Iyamar and back again, her air of disgust
growing. ‘Oh, crap. This is another one of those things you two get
but that I’ll never understand, isn’t it?’

Teyo and Iya
exchanged an uncomfortable look. ‘Um, sorry,’ Teyo
mumbled.

Egg made a
revolted noise and turned her back. ‘I’m going somewhere else,’ she
announced as she walked away.

Teyo felt a
headache gathering between his brows. ‘I really, really hope we get
Serena back soon,’ he said to Iyamar, and instantly regretted it.
It wasn’t professional. He was supposed to be exuding an air of
unflappable composure.

But Iya nodded.
‘Me too,’ she said fervently.

Teyo tried not to
feel offended.

‘
Nice
try,’ said Bron in a smirkful voice. ‘Really, you’ve got to try
harder to get around me. Oh, not that I mean to disparage your
skills. You’re amazing! Really! But G.A.9 is different. You don’t
get training like that anywhere else.’

Serena had been
caught attempting to sneak into Bron’s quarters on the airship. She
had waited until he was busily occupied with a group of draykoni,
all of them deep in conversation. Bron had been doing most of the
talking, she’d noted with disgust. The primary topic of
conversation was probably himself.

But here he was,
catching her red-handed only a few minutes after she’d entered the
ship. How he had managed to extract himself without her noticing,
follow her here and creep up upon her unheard, she didn’t know; he
really did have impressive skills. But it didn’t matter. Eva still
had the real stone, and Bron was still protecting an appealing
fake.

Serena bit her
lip with a show of disappointment and embarrassment, and hung her
head. She had begun to develop a whole new Serena over the past
couple of days, without precisely planning to. The new Serena was a
little in awe of Bron, much more impressed by his superior
abilities than her pride wished to admit, and prone to bouts of
self-doubt each time she failed to steal back the key. This persona
flattered Bron’s ego and kept him happy, and as long as he was
occupied with his boasting, his swaggering, and his kindly attempts
to teach her some of his magnificent abilities, he wasn’t thinking
too closely about his shiny stone, or what might have happened to
it before he received it into his own hands.

‘
Actually, I’ll be honest,’ Bron continued. ‘Part of it’s about
superior equipment. Look, see this thing?’ He reached up over the
top of the doorframe and detached something. It was tiny, dwarfed
in the palm of his large hand, and composed primarily of metals.
‘It’s hooked up to something I wear on my belt. Warns me when
someone comes in here.’ He put the gadget back where it had come
from, and smiled at Serena. ‘Expensive stuff, I’m afraid. I know
Oliver would love to have some of those little
trickies.’

Serena forced an
expression of grudging admiration into her eyes, and nodded. ‘Um,
how do they recruit at G.A.9?’ she asked.

Bron laughed.
‘Wanting to switch teams? Can’t say I blame you, but I don’t think
it will happen. They take people young, and there’s years of
intensive training to go through before you get to go into the
field.’

Serena encouraged
him to chatter on in this vein for a few minutes, until she was
sure his thoughts were suitably diverted from the key. Keeping her
indignation hidden was the most difficult part of the task, but she
was growing used to Bron. His absurdities were as likely to incite
laughter as aggravation. Fortunately, she was a champion at
maintaining her composure.

But then there
came an abrupt change of conversational direction. Bron leaned
closer, twinkled down at her out of his undeniably gorgeous eyes
and said, ‘Ah, so. One of the guys told me about a special glade on
the north shore of the island. It’s got a pool that’s suitable for
swimming. Do you fancy taking a look, later?’