Evastany

5 V-1

5 V

I did remember to ask Llandry about that mystery draykon out at Sulayn Phay.

‘I haven’t heard anything about that,’ she said, but she looked troubled, and I wondered whether the possibility had sparked off something in her mind. But she would not be drawn further on the subject, merely adjured me to consult her if anything else about it came to light.

By the time I reached Glour City, the matter had largely faded from my mind. We returned to find that our two Lokant tutors, Tynara and Dan, had arrived and were kicking their heels at HQ with Adonia. Neither of them were delighted about this. They had brought our students with them, and Fostiger had arrived as well, so we had nine partial Lokants to house and five tutors to settle in. It made for a busy week, I can tell you.

Within a few days, though, we had everybody comfortable, lessons were underway, and our little school was officially functional. And all right, there were some problems. Tynara and Dan found us unsophisticated, poorly organised and risibly ignorant, and they made no secret of the fact. Some of the students apparently concurred with their opinions, and were not best pleased to be relocated to Glour City when they could have stayed at Sulayn Phay (and how is that for ingratitude! Rescued from the clutches of their vile kidnappers and they saw us as the oppressors!) Nyden clearly had no idea how to behave like a responsible human (sort of) being and had to be guided (if not pushed) through every part of his day.

Avane and Adonia between them made fairly short work of Nyden, however; the students mostly settled in; and I found it possible to ignore Tynara and Dan. And lo, we did all exist in peace and harmony for…

… a day or two. After which point it began to occur to Ori and I that there was still no sign of Gio, and that this seemed like a bad sign. Ori began to look meaningfully at my arm — the wrong one, but I could hardly expect him to remember which bit of me his boyfriend had carved a hole in — and murmur about “going to check on him”.

At first I felt only that Gio’s continued absence was inconvenient, considering that we were deprived of his services, and all the diligent lesson planning he had done with Ori was going to waste. But as the days passed I became concerned, too.

‘He’s probably just, um… busy?’ I tried.

Ori looked sceptical, to say the least. ‘Busy doing what?’

‘Being indispensable to Ylona?’

‘And he hasn’t come back even once, to catch us up? To make sure we know he’s okay? I find that hard to believe.’ We were in my office at HQ and Ori couldn’t sit still. He had occupied my visitor’s chair for about five seconds and then got up and paced about. He was still pacing.

So Gio was absent and one of our draykon tutors was largely incapacitated by worry. And much as I hate to admit it (I like to at least pretend to live up to my reputation for cool, unruffled composure), I was not much less anxious myself. When you are dealing with Lokants, anything that seems wrong… probably is.

I watched as Ori danced another agitated figure-of-eight around my visitor’s chair, chewing upon his fingernails and generally presenting a picture of abject misery. It struck me how hard on him it was to wait, lacking the means to follow Gio himself. He had to rely on me.

‘Where is Tren?’ I said, rising from my own chair where I had been reclining at my ease.

Ori understood my gist at once. He shot me a grateful look, said breathlessly, ‘I’ll get him!’ and charged out of the room.

I took a few moments to inform one or two people of where we were going — Avane, specifically, for I trusted her the most out of those we were leaving behind — and awaited Tren and Ori at the office door.

They soon arrived, Ori looking desperately anxious but also a bit relieved (to be doing something productive about Gio’s absence, no doubt).

‘So we’re going?’ said Tren.

‘Immediately,’ I replied.

‘Good. I don’t like this silence.’ He took hold of my left hand, and Ori my right, and I translocated us away.

Translocation is a fairly easy process, once you get the hang of it — that is, translocating alone. Taking other people along gets a lot harder, because people are heavy and one has to more or less drag them through the fabric of the world. I am not all that physically strong. Taking two fully grown men along with me was not the most pleasant experience.

I’d chosen a transloc point near the schoolroom we had now emptied out. We all but fell into the room, with an embarrassing lack of grace. Ori was raring to go in search of Gio at once and immediately but I needed a breather. My arms hurt, my head hurt and I was gasping for breath.

‘Hold up a moment, Ori,’ said Tren, while doing that nice solicitous thing he does when I have done something either exhaustingly impressive or impossibly stupid (or both).

‘Sorry,’ said Ori with a sigh, but he could not stand still. He paced the corridor, peered through the door into the schoolrooms, paced a bit more.

‘I’m all right,’ I said, only slightly untruthfully. ‘We should not go haring off willy-nilly, however.’ (Willy-nilly is such a wonderful word, is it not? I don’t get nearly enough opportunities to use it). ‘Let’s think. Where is Gio likely to be, and what might reasonably have happened to him?’

I looked at Ori as I said it, because he had spent time up here with Gio before. If anybody knew where Gio had lately taken to lingering, it would be Ori. I only knew that Dwinal was probably the last person to have lately seen her grandson.

‘I know where his new quarters are,’ Ori volunteered. ‘He ditched the ones in Dwinal’s wing but Ylona gave him new.’

‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

Ori hesitated. ‘I, um. Don’t know how to find them from here.’

‘Which part of the Library are they in?’ I summoned the Map in my mind, and tried to mentally muster the strength for another transloc.

‘It’s, um.’ Ori blinked.

I waited.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, shame-faced.

I suppose there had to be something our star scholar was no good at. Apparently, finding his way around wasn’t always his strongest point. Will you blame me if I admit to feeling a tiny, tiny flicker of relief? It is unnatural for a person to be so entirely without weakness or failing as Ori has thus far appeared to be.

It was an inconvenient time to manifest such a flaw, admittedly. I looked at Tren, vaguely hopeful of some small miracle. Perhaps he, somehow, would know where to look?

He shook his head with a rueful smile, and my hopes were dashed.

And both of them stood there, waiting for me to figure out what to do.

Egads.

I mentally reviewed our options. Asking someone was the most obvious solution, but it raised one or two difficulties. One was simply how to explain our presence in the Library at all, considering that I wasn’t supposed to have an implant. And what were we going to ask?

‘You know, I think we are in Dwinal’s wing,’ I offered. ‘That dining area I went through is nearby, and it was pretty full of people who seemed to be her associates.’

Ori and Tren nodded thoughtfully. ‘So,’ said Tren, ‘That means…’

‘That means we are probably on the wrong side of the Library. Ylona does not like Dwinal at all, why would she base herself and her supporters anywhere nearby?’

‘It’s the best logic we’ve got,’ said Ori dubiously.

‘Thanks.’

He gave me a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry.’

I collected up my unhelpful gentlemen, braced myself, and whisked us off to the other side of Sulayn Phay. I’d picked a transloc point at random; over there was uncharted waters as far as I was concerned, and I had no idea where we were going. Time to be intrepid, if we wanted to find Gio.

We came out in a library. Fitting, I suppose; we were in a Library, capital L, and hitherto I hadn’t seen much in the way of books or records or suchlike. It was a pretty room, long and narrow with a staggeringly high glass ceiling. All of the walls were fitted with shelves as one would expect, but the library otherwise deviated from the classical structures with which I was familiar. One side of the room was crowded with objects I would recognise as books; leather-bound, for the most part, and scrupulously dusted. Most of the other shelves housed an array of objects I did not recognise, made from unfamiliar materials… I would hazard a guess that they are for the storage of information, too, but more specifically than that I cannot say.

‘I like this place,’ said Ori, staring at the book-crowded side with undisguised avarice.

It would have been so beautifully convenient if the library had been empty, but of course it wasn’t. Seated in a chair underneath the grand, clear, arching window was Hyarn.

‘Perfect,’ I muttered. So much for my brilliant logic.

It was too much to hope that he might not have seen us, of course. Absorbed in a book as he appeared to be, he nonetheless looked up when we blew in, and greeted us with a polite, even kindly, smile.

That smile put me on my guard immediately.

‘Hello,’ I said, trying to be casual.

‘You are looking for a book, perhaps.’ He took in my two companions with mild interest, and apparently decided to pretend that we had all come in by the door, for he said nothing about our mode of travel.

‘Actually,’ — and I decided on the spot not to bother dissembling, because it grew tiresome and we lacked the time — ‘We are looking for Gio.’

Hyarn closed his book. ‘I can assist you there. Gio is with his grandmother.’

‘What?’ Ori blurted.

‘I know, it may surprise you.’ Hyarn regarded Ori with that same kindly smile. ‘I am happy to tell you that there has been something of a reconciliation between the two. They are on excellent terms, and Gio has returned to his old quarters. You may find him there.’

That rang false to all of us, but I was not unduly worried. Gio had mentioned that Ylona wished for him to return to his grandmother’s side, for the purposes of learning about her doings. It did seem oddly abrupt, considering how little I knew he liked the assignment, but doubtless he had his own reasons.

‘Thank you,’ I said to Hyarn. I hesitated a moment, wondering whether he was minded to say anything else, for he had the air of one about to speak. But he said nothing, and we went away — via the door, like ordinary people. I think it unlikely in the extreme that Hyarn remained unaware that I had been translocating around his Library, but why make that problem worse?

Rikbeek shifted in my skirts, and began muttering darkly in my mind. He was thinking about biting, and I almost sent him after Hyarn just because. The man irritated me, and he had killed Galy. He deserved to be munched upon.

I managed to hang onto my essential decency, however, and left Hyarn unmolested by tiny gwaystrel.

‘I don’t like it,’ grumbled Ori as we left.

‘Calm,’ I advised. ‘We will soon learn what’s afoot.’ I shared the same sense of foreboding, though I did not want to admit to it.

‘If you can get us to the main library building in Dwinal’s wing, I can probably find Gio’s old quarters,’ offered Ori. I remembered that he had spent some weeks up here with Gio before, prior to the demise of Orlind.

‘Wonderful.’ I realised with a sinking feeling that I would now have to cart everybody back across the Library again. What joy is mine.

I did so without complaint, which perhaps you will agree was gracious of me. I managed not to scream on the other side, too, for which I was proud of myself. My poor body. It did not appreciate such treatment.

I had no real idea which was the main library building, of course, but it wasn’t that hard to guess: the Map made it easy to pick out a room that was bigger than all the others, and thither I went. It proved to be much like the room in which we had encountered Hyarn, only much larger.