Seven Dreams (35 page)

Serena had been
less delighted to discover that Bron was to be temporarily assigned
to their team.

‘
I’m
sorry,’ Oliver had said in response to Serena’s indignant protests.
‘G.A.9 have informed me that they would like one of their people
along, and I can’t refuse them.’

Serena had been
forced to fume over it in impotent silence. Even
Oliver
couldn’t refuse G.A.9! What an interfering, power-tripping bunch of
busybodies they were. Worse, Bron had behaved as though he expected
her to be delighted. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that
she might feel anything else. On beholding her evident lack of
rapture, he had simply put it down to resentment.

‘
I
know it’s hard, having to work with someone who’s better equipped,
better trained and more experienced than your people, but it’s for
the best. I can help you.’ He’d given what he apparently thought
was an encouraging smile. ‘I won’t rub your faces in it, I
promise.’

Too late
,
thought Serena sourly. She didn’t think he was more experienced
than her team (excepting Iyamar), but that G.A.9 gave more
comprehensive training and offered superior equipment could hardly
be denied. He hadn’t lost any time throwing
that
in her
face.

Oliver had given
her private instructions, too: On no account whatsoever was she to
permit Bron access to the keys, once they were secured. The glass
one from Glour was hidden, and she was confident that Bron knew
nothing of it; she had allowed him to think that Mae had taken it.
The Orlind key was safe with it. Eva still held three, so that left
two in Ylona’s possession.

Or in the
possession of the Unspeakables. Teyo didn’t think that the Yllandu
would consent to be used as errand boys. If they were involved,
they’d expect to be treated like equal partners, and that meant
they’d be holding at least one of the two outstanding
keys.

Bron agreed. More
than that, he asserted that G.A.9 had received positive
intelligence to that effect. In this one respect, Serena
begrudgingly allowed him some leeway. With all their superior
resources, G.A.9 probably held more information about the Yllandu
than anyone else, even the Torwyne. Galling, but true.

And so, to the
Unspeakables they must go. The organisation had long since spread
itself across the Seven, and possessed headquarters in every Realm.
The chief of them all was in Nimdre, for in Nimdre alone could they
receive both Daylanders and Darklanders with tolerable
ease.

Halavere Morann
was based in the Yllandu’s Nimdren offices, and Ylona was known to
frequent the place, too. Not that it could rightly be called an
office; only the street-level entrance, a law office, could be so
named. The rest lay underground. It spread beneath several streets
in the port city of Tinudren.

The assignment
would be hard on Teyo, Serena knew, but they were relying on his
connections for entrance. Trying to masquerade their way inside
would be futile; the Yllandu knew their members all too well for
that. Teyo had contacted a former associate within the
organisation, and she had consented to get them inside.

What they did
after that was up to them. Serena was heartily glad that they now
had
two
draykoni among the team, for she expected to rely
heavily upon their shapeshifting talents.

In the hours
before their departure, tensions ran high. Iyamar was not ready.
Serena knew it, and so did Iyamar herself. Their youngest member
veered back and forth between towering over-confidence and
crippling self-doubt. At present she was wallowing in the latter
phase, and her nerves were infecting the whole team. Egg repeatedly
threatened to bang her head against some obligingly solid object,
but only because her own nerves (which she would never admit to
feeling) were frayed to shreds by Iyamar’s pacing and fretting.
Teyo, meanwhile, walked about with his usual calm, but Serena could
see the signs of strain. He was facing a much harder task than the
rest of them, and Serena was proud of him for his composure — and
more than a little bit worried about him.

Only Fabian was
untouched by the doubts and fears which assailed the rest of his
team. The prospect of infiltrating the closely-guarded headquarters
of the most ruthless criminal organisation in the Realms caused him
no qualms whatsoever; on the contrary, he was delighted, and
looking forward to it with alarming fervour.

He cherished
hopes of finding the elusive Valore Trebel somewhere down there.
Serena had the extra task of keeping him on track, his mind on the
job at hand. She wasn’t at all sure that she could do it. Fabian
had detached himself almost completely from the matter of the keys;
he’d stopped even pretending to care about it, or even to pay any
attention to it. All his thoughts were for Thomaso Carterett and
the woman who’d caused his suicide.

As the time
finally arrived to depart for Tinudren, Serena felt a headache
approaching. She loved her team, and felt the greatest confidence
in their abilities, but they had never felt so disparate, so little
together
. She’d lost Fabian completely; Teyo was inflexibly
lost in his own thoughts; and Egg and Iya bickered all the long way
to Tinudren, stopping only when Teyo (surprisingly) threatened to
throw them into the road. And there was Bron, an intruder in their
midst, wholly unwelcome and offensively critical. His presence only
added to the general discomfort, Serena’s most of all.

She had wanted to
take only two with her on this assignment, but that hadn’t worked
out. She would need Iya and Teyo’s shapeshifting abilities, and
possibly Egg’s talent for lock-picking and thieving. Bron simply
refused to be left out, and her orders were to include him in all
possible respects anyway. As for Fabian, she didn’t dare leave him
unattended. There was no telling what he might get up to if left
alone for too long, and she didn’t want to have to worry about him
while she was supposed to be focusing on the job. Not that he would
consent to be left behind, not when their destination was the one
place he could hope to find news of Valore Trebel.

She could have
left herself behind, of course, but that didn’t work either. Teyo
absolutely declined the job of leading the team on this mission,
and she couldn’t trust Fabian to do it with his current abstraction
from reality. And so, all of them must go, and she must merely hope
to providence that they could keep it together long enough to
complete the job.

All she could do
was ensure that
her
discomfort didn’t show. She found
herself play-acting as the calmly unruffled and effortlessly
competent Serena she knew they needed. It was a shame that the act
didn’t work nearly so well on herself as it appeared to on the rest
of her team.

Nightfall over
Tinudren. Having arrived early, they had passed the time in a
nearby eatery. A more cheerless gathering Serena had rarely
endured, for Teyo and Fabian were still engrossed by their own
thoughts, Egg and Iya were not speaking to each other (or to
anybody else, much), and Bron’s nose was too high in the air to
allow for conversation.

‘
Time
to go,’ Serena said at last, gratefully abandoning the remains of
the cake she hadn’t really eaten.

Darkness
blanketed the city like a comforting cloak as they regained the
street. Serena checked her timepiece: ninth hour of the afternoon
and a quarter. Perfect. Teyo lead them past the front entrance to
the law offices which masked the Yllandu
’
s lair, and around
to the back. He had arranged for significant help getting inside.
If all had gone well, one of the rear exits ought to be occupied
only by Teyo’s contact.

They hung back
and waited while Teyo went up to the door and knocked. Serena
couldn’t see what followed, for the darkness was too complete. In
half a minute, though, Teyo was back.

‘
All’s
clear,’ he whispered.

Moments later,
they were inside and the door was closed behind them by Teyo’s
erstwhile friend. She was about Teyo’s age, Serena judged, or
perhaps a little younger. Full-figured and stately, she was
undeniably attractive, with long black hair and dark eyes. She
greeted Teyo with a degree of intimacy which left Serena wondering
about the precise nature of their shared history.

Something else
caught her eye. The woman had closed the door with every appearance
of complacency, but something was slightly off. Perhaps it was the
hard lines of tension about her mouth, or the way her eyes darted
to the door and back to Teyo. Serena caught his eye, her own asking
a question, but she could read nothing useful in the glance he gave
her.

‘
This
way,’ he said softly. Pausing only to clasp the woman’s hand in
thanks, he led them down a flight of stairs and farther into the
heart of the Yllandu’
s
domain. The way was clear, as
promised, but still they took the precaution of sending Iyamar
ahead as scout. She shapeshifted into a tiny furred meerel,
camouflaged in black, and scampered away.

‘
Go,’
Teyo said a few moments later, apparently on signal from
Iyamar.

They proceeded in
this fashion through several winding corridors and down two long
flights of stairs. After entry, the next challenge was to discover
where the keys might be hidden, but Teyo had waved away this
question. In the heart of the Warren, as it was sometimes known,
there was a room — the “Heart” — devoted to the use of the Yllandu
leader and his or her closest associates. Anything of particular
value would be stored there. Getting in was no small task, of
course, but Teyo had sought help there too. The extent of his
knowledge and his connections surprised Serena a little, and she
began to wonder just how deeply involved in the organisation Teyo
had been.

Their path wound
down and down, and still no one was to be seen. This seemed far too
much to hope for, even if Teyo’s allies were extensive indeed, and
Serena’s misgivings grew.

She stopped.
‘Tey...’ she began.

‘
I
know,’ he said grimly. ‘This is too much.’

They had spread
out somewhat on the way down. Bron had insisted on taking the lead,
citing “combat training” as his reasons, and Egg had taken up a
position at the rear. Serena waved them back.

‘
Something’s amiss,’ she said. ‘Teyo’s good, but even he
couldn’t get us a free ride right into the heart of the
Warren.’

‘
Haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone, ahead or behind,’ said
Egg. ‘It’s not right.’

Bron shrugged.
‘So maybe it’s a trap. It’s too late to worry about that. We must
be close to the Heart by now?’

He directed the
question at Teyo, who nodded. ‘Almost on top of it. But there’s a
big job on tonight, that’s why we picked the timing. It might just
be that.’ He sounded doubtful, but Bron was already nodding
enthusiastically.

‘
Then
we go on,’ said Bron decisively. ‘Whatever’s waiting up ahead, we
can deal with it.’

Serena frowned.
Her instincts told her to withdraw, but was that option still open
to them? And, much as she hated to admit it, perhaps Bron was
right. If most of the Yllandu were out, and Teyo’s friends had
decoyed the rest, a quiet walk is exactly what they’d get. They
should at least
try
to secure the keys; time was running
short, and they didn’t have the leisure to be
indecisive.

‘
All
right,’ she said curtly, gratified to note that her team waited for
her approval before they moved. They proceeded down one last,
shadowy flight of stairs and around a long, winding, echoing
corridor, its walls featureless. A pronounced chill hung in the
air.

‘
Here,’ Teyo said then, and stopped before a nondescript door.
It was identical to the others that lined the walls, and she could
see no possible way for Teyo to identify it as special.

He took out a
key. Not a Seven Dreams key, but a normal door key. To Serena’s
astonishment, he inserted it into the lock.

It was no
ordinary lock, of course. It bore some of the same security
features as the LHB’s offices, but the technology was a little
different. The key Teyo held
looked
ordinary, but when he
turned it, lights flashed and a buzzing noise sounded, brief and
sharp.

‘
You
have a
key
?’ Serena hissed.

Teyo nodded. His
face was impassive, but she detected a hint of pain, and shame,
lurking in his eyes. ‘Don’t ask,’ he said softly.

Serena very badly
wanted to ask; she began to suspect it might be her duty to do so,
in fact. How could Teyo possibly have a key to the Heart of the
Warren? A valid, functioning key? His involvement with the
organisation had ended years ago... hadn’t it?

Now was not the
time. An instant’s lurking suspicion entered her heart, only to be
immediately dismissed. Teyo’s loyalty was above question; she
couldn’t seriously doubt him, not for more than a moment. Whatever
his explanation might be, she trusted that it would be
sound.

He paused before
the door, head slightly tilted as though listening. Serena heard
nothing, but she detected a brisk movement at the floor as
Iyamar-the-meerel whisked underneath.