The Draykon Series (1-3)

Orlind: Chapter Five

'So,' said Tren as Llandry turned away. 'Exploring, huh?'

'Haven't you ever been curious about the Daylands?' Eva asked, turning her face up to the sun. The lens in her glasses reacted to the increased light and steadily darkened the tint, keeping the light level comfortable for her. She wondered briefly if Limbane might let her keep them.

'I suppose,' said Tren. 'Well, yes, but I haven't got so far as to make it a priority wish of mine. There's plenty of the Darklands I haven't even seen yet.'

'I concur. We should make some more excursions into the Lower Realms sometime. Or Ayrien, I should say. I still haven't got used to that.'

'It's a much prettier name,' Tren said, pacing away a few steps. 'So... you want to just walk around?'

'And look at things. Yes.' There was plenty to admire. Her glasses filtered out much of the light but somehow the colours remained astonishingly vivid to Eva's eyes. She had expected to see something similar to Glinnery's glissenwol forests, but she and Tren stood in an entirely different landscape. Rheas's house lay in a valley, carpeted in green-and-gold grasses and feathered with purple alpine foliage at its highest points. It was ringed in mountains glimpsed but distantly on the horizon, their grey-purple shapes stretching into the sky. Few trees grew here; Eva saw only three, widely spaced across the sloping ground. All three were very different: one sported leaves of a bronze colour echoing the shades of the grass around its trunk, another was decked in dazzling green, and the third had no leaves but instead wore a dress of reddish-purple vinery. Even the smallest of the trees was enormous, dwarfing Eva and Tren as they walked beneath it.

Even Rikbeek was impressed. Her grouchy gwaystrel extricated himself from the folds of her skirt and went aloft. She wondered for a moment how he could comfortably do so when he was a native of the dark Lower Realms, but then remembered he didn't have much vision anyway. He used other means of finding his way around. He flew about in mad approval, his thoughts buzzing with enthusiasm. This was odd. Nothing excited Rikbeek that much except blood; she'd never known him go into a tizzy over mere flowers and mushrooms.

Eva turned her steps towards the bronzed tree, but before she could reach it the scenery underwent a slow, subtle transformation into something else. It was nothing like the abrupt alterations that occurred in Ayrien; there, the light of the Changing Moon shifted its colour and the landscape would transform itself almost instantly. These slow changes felt soothing in comparison.

The mountains faded away and grassy valley gradually vanished. The ground turned to moss and stones and mushrooms of every imaginable colour popped up underfoot, scattered with weird blossoms on contorted stems. Boulders marched across the landscape, many of them five or six times Tren's height and all crusted with lichen and moss. There were no trees at all, only tall, gnarled bushes delicately dropping deep green needles all over the floor. Eva sensed many animals wandering this strange environment and longed to investigate, but Tren distracted her. He had picked something up from the ground, and now he offered it to her.

'Flower?' he said, handing her a plucked stem with a bow. The stalk was dark blue and impossibly twisted; atop it drooped a collection of purple bell-shaped blossoms that jangled faintly as they were handed over.

'Thank you,' Eva said gravely. 'Is it edible, too?'

'Probably not,' Tren said in tones of regret. 'But! I have these.' He held out his other hand to reveal a collection of mushroom caps. He had picked all the most virulently coloured ones.

'If I'm not mistaken,' Eva said with a smirk, 'those are the type of edible goods you give to someone you strongly dislike.'

Tren looked down at his palmful of mushrooms. 'I thought they were pretty. No death wish intended or implied.'