The Draykon Series (1-3)

Lokant: Chapter Ten

He passed many long hours at the city library, but Eva did not arrive. He found nothing relating to the mysterious Eterna Conflict, and nothing about Ayrien, but that was much as he expected. It was clear by now that this area of research was, for whatever reason, beyond the capacity of the city resources.

Sometime after moonset he abandoned his hope of seeing Eva and went home. There he found a note lying on the floor.

Mr Warvel,

I apologise for my failure to appear at the library today. Vale and I have decided to proceed at once with the wedding. It is another outstanding obligation that I am anxious to remove, that I may focus entirely on our joint venture. We both hope you will attend our modest ceremony at the City Hall on the 12th of this moon.

E. Glostrum.

For a moment he struggled to breath as a cold, sick feeling settled somewhere in the pit of his stomach. The twelfth was five days away. Five! And the coldness of the address hurt. She'd stopped calling him Mr Warvel some time ago; to resurrect it now placed him at an insurmountable distance from her.

He found a chair and sat down. For some minutes he merely sat and tried to breathe, reading the note over and over again. The twelfth. Five days.

Then, with shaky composure, he sat at his desk and wrote a reply to her ladyship. It was not a particularly long response, but it took him some time to form the words.

He posted the letter at the nearest post box. Lady Glostrum had dispatched hers by the expedited messenger service, but he was in no hurry for her to read his reply.

When he returned home, he drew his sturdy travelling bag out of the depths of his wardrobe and began to pack.

***

Carefully, experimentally, Devary Kant flexed his left arm. Most of the left side of his body had been badly injured during his fight with the white-haired sorcerer and his inexplicable escort of whurthag beasts, but now he was whole and hale; not even a scar remained as a souvenir of his ordeal. The muscles of his arm responded perfectly. Encouraged, he went through a few experimental blocks and strikes and stretches, slowly at first then with increasing speed as he pulled off each move perfectly.

His body, then, was fully recovered, even if his mind remained perturbed. His superiors obviously didn't trust him, as he had been locked into his recovery room ever since he had been deposited here. Presumably he was to be released and sent on his errand at their pleasure. He would rather do it at his own.

Llandry Sanfaer. He knew from Ynara that she had last been located in the Upper Realms. How long ago that had been he couldn't say; it had been impossible to measure the passage of time in this stark room where the light levels never varied and he never caught a glimpse of the sky. Llandry might be anywhere by now.

Nonetheless, he would follow the only clue that he had. And if he found her, well... he would handle that when it happened.

He collected the few possessions of his that remained in this room. His clothes had been taken shortly after he arrived, but to his relief they had reappeared, laundered and mended, sometime while he slept. His daggers were gone, of course, and that loss pained him, for they were expensive, perfectly balanced weapons that had been designed for him years ago. But no matter. He would acquire another pair.

The matter of escaping from this place would be no small feat. There were no doors or windows in the bare walls. The one time he had caught sight of his captor, the man had appeared apparently out of the air, as he had done at Ynara's house. Devary could not render himself insubstantial, but he was capable of another kind of translocation. Just barely.