'It's good to have you home, love,' said Ynara later, over cups of Llandry's favourite white alberry and freyshur tea. Sigwide lay curled contentedly in Llandry's lap, having exhausted himself with ecstatic greetings as she arrived. 'I visited your home while you were away,' continued Ynara. 'It's clean and waiting for you.' Her eyes flicked to Pensould, and Llandry read her thoughts clearly enough. Would Llandry's strange new friend be moving in there with her?
Llandry winced inwardly, because her news was worse than that. 'We aren't staying, Ma. At least not yet. See, Pensould believes there are more draykons to be discovered. There are certainly more bones, and if we could find and reconstruct them we could wake up more like him. Like us, I mean. And...' she took a deep breath, for this was the part that truly inspired her. 'He says there may be more like me.'
Ynara took a long breath too; Llandry knew she was trying to control her instinct to object to anything that took Llandry away. 'Like you in what way exactly?' was all that she said.
'Draykons who were born human. I can't be the only one.'
Pensould nodded firmly. 'I can tell, and I will teach you to recognise the draykon energy as well.'
Llandry looked back at her mother, knowing that her eyes were shining with delight at the idea. 'Don't you see, Ma? This has changed my life. If there are others, they have to know what they are.'
'I can see that it has changed you,' Ynara said thoughtfully. She sighed, and for a moment her face was so sad that Llandry's resolve wavered. But she hid the expression behind a smile. 'How do you plan to proceed, love? It's a big world.'
'Pensould says he sensed a draykon grave not long after he woke, so we're going to start at his old resting place. The place where I changed. He'll teach me to seek them out even on the wing. Between us I'm sure we'll find it fast enough.'
'Then what? How did you wake, Pensould?'
Pensould's thick brows knit together. 'Regenerative ability is something all draykons possess. We need the help of a fellow to rebuild body structure, and then a stimulus, and above all a reason to wake.'
'A reason?'
Pensould nodded emphatically. 'Draykons are long-lived and slow to fade, hence we may be re-awakened if we choose. But many do not choose to be drawn out of slumber.'
Llandry frowned as well. 'Why wouldn't you? Nobody wants to die.'
Pensould lifted a brow at her. 'No? If you think about it you will see that this is not true. Imagine that you have been alive for many, many long years and you are very weary. Would you not choose to rest at last?'
The thought made her obscurely sad, but she could see the sense of it. 'Is that what happened with you?'
'Yes. That was a very long time ago, I think. I find that nothing is the same now that I am awake again.'
'Then why did you choose to return?'
Pensould thought for a moment. 'The agent of my recovery was quite insistent. I was drawn halfway out of slumber by sheer irritation.' Llandry remembered the way he had lashed out against the summoner who had awoken him. The white-haired awakener had escaped the punishment, but only because her husband had taken the blow instead. He had not survived Pensould's wrath.
'But that's not all. I could have returned to sleep, but I did not. That is because I sensed you near to me.' Pensould beamed at her, and Llandry's cheeks warmed.
'Oh...'
Ynara cleared her throat. 'When are you two planning to leave?'
'Soon, Ma. I'm sorry. But we'll come back when we can.'
Ynara gave a short sigh. 'Well then, love. We'd better persuade your father to come out of the study.'
Taking leave of her parents was a sad experience. Llandry had lived either with them or close to them for all of her twenty years; they had loved and supported her entirely without condition for those two decades, and it was hard to leave them behind. She also suffered somewhat on seeing her father's obvious distress. It had hurt him badly to learn that his father Rheas had voluntarily deserted his family twenty-odd years ago.
But as Llandry and Pensould flew away – ignoring the flash of image-captures below them – her sense of excitement and possibility swiftly swept away her sorrow. Sigwide had chosen to come with her, and she realised how much she had missed his cheery little consciousness while they'd been separated. He lay nestled between her shoulder blades, his small claws gripping her hide to hold himself in place. She had wondered how he might take to flying with her in this new way, but he seemed entirely untroubled as long as she was near. Nor did her new shape trouble him. She thought of Pensould's words – it has nothing to do with your face. Apparently her orting companion also identified her not by her human shape but by some other sense. Was it only humans who relied so heavily on outward appearances?
As Llandry and Pensould crossed into the Uppers, all her discomfort drained away. She had been attracted to the draykon bone – or istore, as she had thought of it then – because of the soothing and strengthening effect it had on her. In her draykon form she felt the same effect when in the Upper Realm, only amplified. She couldn't imagine living anywhere but Iskyr, as Pensould termed it.
She followed as Pensould led her with unwavering confidence back to the place where he had once rested, his blue-green scales gleaming in the bright sun. For herself, she barely recognised it; there was nothing to draw her back to the place as for Pensould, and she supposed she had been somewhat distracted the last time she had been here. He circled the location a few times, gliding effortlessly close to the ground.
I sense nothing, he communicated to her at last. She didn't recognise the language he used when he spoke to her this way – if indeed he was using anything that could classify as a language at all. But she always understood what he said.
There was something here, he continued. I know it. How can it be gone?
Perhaps you misremembered, she suggested diffidently. It was a confusing time.
I was not mistaken. He said it with unanswerable finality.
Llandry hazarded nothing further, merely waited while he made up his mind.
We will go to the west, as we did before. Pensould dipped his wings and soared westwards, and she followed. West indeed they had gone after her startling transformation; west a long way and still west, until they were so deep into the Realm of Iskyr they seemed to have left the human world far behind. Out there, Llandry felt the currents of the world's energy grow stronger, fiercer and more irresistible; for some time she had steeped herself in them, happy to forget what she had once been. Only after the thrill had finally ebbed a little had her buried self-knowledge reasserted itself.
As she flew she wondered, would it happen again? Would she lose herself in the glorious strength of her new form, the energy she held at her beck and call? She was mistress of this world, bending it to her will with increasing ease as she grew more practiced. She and Pensould amused themselves by reforming the lands they flew over, creating tableaus for each other. For him she wrought a set of tiny draykons out of mist, which danced in the air as he passed. For her he reshaped all the flowers to resemble ortings that squeaked greetings as she flew over them. Llandry felt Sigwide's curiosity and delight at the trick, and she had to steady him with her tail to keep him from jumping off her back in his excitement. She could so easily forget herself altogether with such wonders to occupy her.
Then in the midst of her enjoyment came a note of familiarity which tugged at her consciousness. Somewhere below her walked somebody that she knew. She thought immediately of her father, but no – he had been deposited safely in Glinnery and it was impossible that he could have beaten them here. Her grandfather, then? It didn't feel like him. She was not yet so adept as Pensould at identifying people with senses other than her sight, but still she felt fairly sure that it was not Rheas that wandered beneath the trees below.
She thought of ignoring the tug; it might only be that her newly awakened draykon senses, being untrained, were misleading her. But the tug of familiarity nagged at her.
Stop, she called to Pensould. Wait for me; I'll return. She circled and flew back at speed, aiming unerringly for the source of the sensation. Immediately she realised she had done this before in exactly this fashion: allowed herself to be drawn by precisely this same beacon. It was Devary who walked below.
It was not long since she had sped to his rescue, newly transformed into her draykon shape. She had felt his pain and fear increasing as she grew closer, and on reaching him she'd found him badly injured and near death. She sensed none of that now. Could it really be Dev, wandering in the Uppers this far west? Surely he still lay at her mother's house, healing far too slowly.
She thought back. Her mother had not said that he was well; she had only said he did not die. She had thought it an odd phrase to use at the time, but distracted by her father's danger she had not enquired. In fact, she had not even confirmed that he was still at Ynara's house. Nor had she thought to do so on her second visit.
Guilt hit her in a rush, and she flew faster. Soon she could see him; her draykon heart fluttered with recognition at the sight of that lanky figure and its customary ranging gait, dark hair tied back out of his pale face. He did not have his lyre with him, which was odd, but odder still was his obvious glowing health. Expensive medical care notwithstanding, injuries like his could not possibly have healed less than a moon after the wounds were received.
Wary, she circled in the skies. Perhaps it was an illusion; she could have brought it on herself, the way she still sometimes inadvertently painted the realm of Iskyr to resemble the comforting familiarity of Glinnery. But he looked up, and when he saw her his face and posture registered complete shock. Then he smiled.
'Llandry,' he called. His Nimdren accent produced a slight peculiarity in the way he said her name. She had always liked to hear him say it. If he was a figment of her imagination, surely he would not speak? She landed carefully, not too close to him, and waited as he approached.
'Llandry, is that... is that you? Truly?'
With a thought, she shimmered back into her human form.
'Really truly,' she smiled. There was a time when she'd been a little afraid of Devary, with his handsomeness and his charming manner. She was pleased to note that this was no longer the case.
She was less pleased when she realised, with a sudden shock, that if anything he was afraid of her. He stared at her looking somewhat wild about the eyes, and he was slow to approach. A sudden lump rose in her throat. Had her parents felt that way too?
'I'm still me,' she said quietly.
He shook his head. 'I don't think you are.'
Her smile trembled, but she forced it to hold. 'Dev. I'm so pleased to see you, and to see you well, but... how? And what are you doing up here?'
'Yes, I – I need to explain some things to you. And I fear it must be done quickly, before we are located.'
Llandry frowned, puzzled. 'Located? By who?'
'My employers. Llan, I was never fully honest with you and I'm sorry for it. But I feared – I feared you would reject me if you knew.'
Llandry sensed his anxiety and hurried to calm him. 'Dev, I doubt anything you can tell me would have that effect. You're the first real friend I've had, other than Mamma and Pa.'
'And Sigwide,' he said with a small smile. The orting lifted his nose in Devary's direction in acknowledgement, and he chuckled.
'I first met your mother years ago – before you were born. But it was not an accidental meeting. I was sent. As a very young man I was recruited by an agency in Nimdre – based in Draetre, my home town – to gather information. This organisation was attached to the university of magic and technology. You remember our visit? Indren Druaster was one of my earliest colleagues. The university studied the history of magic and engineering; our task was to learn of the newest discoveries and techniques made by the various scholars and organisations of the Seven Realms.
'My agency has been troubled in the past by some of Irbel's technological creations, and they wanted information about Irbel's recent inventions. But you must know that infiltrating Irbel itself is extremely difficult; they keep their developing technologies under close watch. It was thought that a recent expatriate may be an easier target: somebody who no longer lived under Irbel's aura of secrecy might be more easily persuaded to discuss their work.'
Devary sighed. His face looked worn, even haggard, and his eyes were anxious as he looked at her.
'My task was to get close to your mother, if I could, so that in turn I could become acquainted with your father. He was then, as he is now, a talented engineer; at the time he had only recently left Irbel. To his credit, he never betrayed a word to me about the projects he had been involved with back in Irbel. I learned nothing of use. But your mother found out why I was there, and she... well, she was very angry. As of course she had every right to be. That is why I left Glinnery. We were only recently reconciled, and only then because I was able to swear to her that I had distanced myself from the agency. I was – I am – truly sorry about that betrayal. Your mother's friendship is deeply important to me.'
He paused, awaiting a reaction, but Llandry was unable to give one. Her mind was too busy, putting together all the little things that had puzzled her about Devary. How he hinted at an old quarrel with her parents but would never give her the details. She had overheard him telling Ynara that he had been "sent" to learn more about the istore; an assignment he had accepted in order to prevent a mysterious "they" from sending someone less sympathetic. And he always carried daggers – which he clearly knew how to use well - even though his ostensible profession as a travelling musician offered no justification for it. It all made a horrible amount of sense.
'The worst part,' Devary continued, and now he sounded as though it was truly hard for him to speak, 'is that my employers will not let me desert my post at the agency. They still have a use for me, and they are able to force me to perform it. My task this time is specifically you, Llan. I don't know what use they have for you but I don't think it can be good. I am telling you this now because you must be warned; you need to take yourself far away, somewhere they can't reach you.'
Llandry remembered to take a breath. Her stomach clenched in fear at his last words; it was not long since she had last been hunted, hounded for the draykon bone that only she knew how to find. But that was over; the bones had all been found and taken. What possible use could she now be to anyone?
'Your employers,' she said at last. 'Who are they? Why would they want me?'
Devary paled. 'I think... I have suspected for some time that the agency is not as it once was. Perhaps it was never as I believed it to be. Some of the people I have lately seen are not... they do not look Nimdren. They speak Nimdren like natives but something about them is not right. I don't know who they are. Now, Llandry, there is nothing more I can do for you. I wish it were not so but they are able to do things no sorcerer can match and I am powerless against them. You, though – as a draykon you may fare better, if you are warned. Now, please, you must keep away from me.'
He started to back away as he said this, as if he intended to put distance between the two of them as quickly as possible. Llandry started to say something to call him back – puzzled and alarmed by his revelations, she had more to ask – but something pulled at her draykon senses and she stopped. She felt the atmosphere warp and bend, a disturbance so subtle she almost missed it. It was not like a sorcerer forcibly pulling open a gate; it felt more like somebody inserting a blade and deftly slicing a neat opening.
A presence came sliding through it, a tall man with pale hair. Was it blonde or even paler than that? His eyes were blue and very direct as they settled first on Devary and then on Llandry.
'Excellent work, Mr Kant. I knew you would not disappoint us.'