Lokant (40 page)

Behind all walked a
woman nearer his own age, raven-haired and almost incandescent with
fear. In her arms she carried a tiny little boy.

Devary instantly gave
up trying to decipher this curious collection of people. He moved
instead to the side of the limping man. The fellow was obviously
suffering great pain, but he clutched a gun in both hands, aiming
it unwaveringly down the hallway ahead of them.

‘Can I help?’ Devary
offered.

The man’s only response
was to draw another weapon from a holster on his belt. It was a
mere pistol, but Devary felt better having it in his hands.

‘Shoot when I say,’ the
man gritted.

Ahead of them, Limbane
and the blood-stained girl were checking the final few doors. The
corridor terminated in a dead end; Limbane reached it with a snarl
of frustration.

‘
Where’s the
boy?
’ He paced back a few steps. ‘There must be more
cells.’

The girl shook her
head. ‘Not on the layout plan, sir.’

‘Then where in the
-’

‘Who are we looking
for?’ Measured footsteps approached from behind Devary. He whirled
round, heart thumping. That voice was too familiar.

Krays stood blocking
the exit.

Limbane strode past
Devary, shouldering him out of the way. ‘Krays,’ he said coldly.
‘You’re a devious bastard, you know that?’

Krays looked annoyed.
‘How in the blazes did you find us this time?’

Limbane chuckled. ‘Two
can play the tracer game, Kraysie.’

‘You’ve killed a couple
of my men.’

‘You’ve shot two of
mine, possibly killed one,’ Limbane replied with a shrug. ‘We’re
even.’

Krays’s cold eyes
flicked to the dark-haired woman and her child, then moved to
Devary. ‘Rescue party? I can’t imagine what kind of an interest
would be sufficient to get
you
personally involved,
Limbane.’

‘The fact that you find
these people so very interesting is enough for me, Kraysie. Though
I’m puzzled. What have you done with the other one?’

‘What other one?’

Devary thought Limbane
would say something else, but instead his fist lashed out and
connected with Krays’s face. The other man crumpled, his expression
a picture of surprise.

‘Unusually direct, but
effective,’ murmured one of the women.

‘Lacked finesse, sir,’
panted the wounded man.

‘Grab him,’ Limbane
directed. But Krays wasn’t entirely unconscious. As Limbane’s team
went to secure him, he muttered something and vanished.

‘Crap,’ said the
wounded man.

Limbane shrugged. ‘He’s
slippery. Right, we’re out of time. We’ll have to come back for the
boy. For now, let’s get out of here.’

Watching Griel heal his
own arm was almost as chilling as watching him slash it open in the
first place. He had all the ability that Eva lacked, conducting the
operation with the careless lack of concern that came with supreme
confidence. He gritted his teeth as his muscles slowly knitted
themselves closed and the torn edges of his skin merged into a
whole once more. It took some time, and by the end of it Griel
sagged in his chair, exhausted.

He noticed Eva’s close
scrutiny. He looked again at her white hair, the same as his own.
Questions formed in his eyes, but he didn’t speak them. He remained
grimly silent.

Eva wasn’t willing to
let him close up, not yet. They needed to know more.

‘How long has this been
going on?’

No answer.

‘If you weren’t meant
to be waking the draykon, what were you supposed to be doing?’

Still nothing. Griel
had descended into a morose, stubborn silence from which he refused
to rouse himself.

Eva spoke more gently.
‘Griel, please. There are some very wrong things occurring and I
need more information in order to make them right.’

He looked up at that.
‘You? What can you do against Krays’s organisation?’

‘Not just us. We have
help.’

‘Oh?’ Griel
straightened, the suspicious look back in his eyes.

‘I’ll gladly share, but
first I need more from you.’

Griel let out a sigh.
‘We were tasked with retrieving all the bone from the Glinnery
source. It was to be conveyed to Krays’s factory, here.’

Tren interrupted him.
‘Here? In this city?’

Griel shook his head.
‘Not in Wirllen. Out in the sticks. Krays spent most of his time at
the factory, I believe. He was building his machines already, and
he thought that the bone could revolutionise the design. In that,
he was right.

‘My wife disliked being
kept on the edges of Krays’s project. She had other ideas and
resented being used as a lackey. She conceived a different plan. I
knew it couldn’t end well, but what could I do? She was always so
headstrong. I supported her in it because I had no other option. I
certainly couldn’t betray her to Krays.

‘I was right, of
course. Even with your fortuitous arrival and interference, nothing
could dissuade or stop her. Nothing could control that draykon,
either. I took the creature’s bite for her. When I woke up, I was
like this.’ His face darkened. ‘The first thing Krays told me was
that my wife was dead. She was killed for her complete betrayal of
her orders. And me, I was put in charge of a new workshop. It’s
been difficult, finding ways to undermine that bastard, but I’ve
done it. I give him false reports on the workshop’s useage of the
bone, and I find unobtrusive ways to distribute the surplus.’ He
smiled savagely. ‘It’s pitiful, as rebellion goes, but it feels
good.’

Eva mulled that over.
‘This workshop. Where was it? Wynn Street, Wirllen South?’

Griel’s brows rose.
‘How did you... oh, the light-globe manufactory. Yes, that was the
last one. They’re only kept open for a moon or so, then they’re
moved to new sites. I suppose he’s afraid of prying eyes making
inconvenient discoveries.’

‘But you aren’t.’

Griel gave a
half-smile. ‘Certainly not. I kept hoping somebody would
investigate; I didn’t dare directly contact the authorities but I
spread the addresses around. Can’t say I expected it to be you who
would find us, though.’

‘You don’t know where
he’s getting the bone from?’

Griel shrugged. ‘He’s
pulling it out of the Off-Worlds but I don’t know how he’s finding
it. I might guess he’s using someone like Llandry Sanfaer - someone
who’s sensitive to the stuff. Or maybe he’s invented something to
do the same job by now.’

Eva made a decision. ‘I
think you should come with us, Griel. Your knowledge will be
useful.’

He laughed. ‘Where to?
There’s nowhere I can go that he won’t find me.’

‘There’s one
place.’

He shook his head,
vehement. ‘No. I’m marked; tracered, they call it. Everywhere I go,
he can find me. He can be upon me in seconds.’

Eva met his gaze and
held it, applying a touch of her will to force him to consent. She
didn’t know if it would work on a fellow partial, but it was worth
the attempt.

‘Please, Griel. Trust
us. There’s someone you ought to meet, someone who can help. And
you’re wrong about Ana. Krays lied to you.’

His reaction was
unexpected. He paled abruptly, staring at her as if he’d never seen
her before.

‘You’ve been trained.
You’re one of
them,
aren’t you? All along, you’ve been
leading me to betray myself. I should’ve known.’ He was on his
feet, the knife back in his hand.

‘
No,
Griel. I’ve
been trained, but not by Krays. Please, calm down.’

Her efforts were
useless. Fear and paranoia had taken him; he was losing
rationality, becoming a creature of blind instinct. The knife he
carried glinted wickedly in the low light.

‘Eva, forget it. We
need to get out of here.’ Tren took hold of her arm.

She made one last
effort to reach him. ‘Your wife is alive. She was seen recently, by
-’

Griel snarled with pure
rage and lunged for her. The knife flashed down; a body barrelled
into hers, knocking her to the floor. She waited, breathless, for
the pain to start, but nothing happened.

Heavy steps lumbered
past her as Griel ran for the door. She watched him go, mildly
surprised. Why didn’t he translocate? But he was a powerful healer;
perhaps, like her, he lacked the full spectrum of abilities and
hadn’t mastered the PsiMap. That certainly explained his dedicated
use of stationary gates last time they had encountered him.

Her reflections were
interrupted by a groan from Tren. It was his body that had knocked
her down, and he still lay on top of her.

‘Thank you for that,
Tren, but you’re heavy,’ she managed, gasping for breath under his
weight. ‘Please. Get off.’

He didn’t move, so she
gave him an unceremonious shove. He toppled onto the ground and lay
still.

‘Tren?’

‘You couldn’t possibly
be - a bit more -
gentle
with me, I suppose?’ Tren’s speech
was strained and punctuated with pained gasps. A stab of fear
lanced through her, and she crawled to his side.

‘What did you do... oh,
no.’ Griel had aimed - if such a wild slash could have a specific
target - at Eva’s middle. Tren had taken it instead, high on his
side. An ugly gash was laid open in his flesh; his shirt was
soaking through with blood.

‘You
idiot.
’

‘Wha...? I save your
life and you -
insult
me?’

‘Yes,’ she said
brutally. ‘You’re the most impossible, absurd, air-brained
idiot
of my acquaintance.’ Her hands were busy as she spoke;
she’d taken a cushion from a nearby chair and was pressing it into
the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.

‘Sorry,’ Tren replied
weakly.

‘What did you do that
for?’ Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them back ferociously.
Now was no time to be feeble.

‘Stupid question isn’t
it? That - hurts, by the way.’

‘I know it hurts, dolt.
Stay still. I’m going to heal you.’

‘No you aren’t.’

‘Wha - I’m not?’

He shook his head
minutely. ‘You’re rubbish at healing, remember?’

She stiffened at that.
‘
Rubbish?
’

‘Take me - back to the
library,’ he gasped.

She reached for the
PsiMap in her mind, but then she paused. Translocation may be fast,
but it placed heavy demands on the body. What would that do to
Tren? Had he strength enough to survive the pressure of the
journey?

‘No good.’

‘Take me -’

‘You might
die,
Tren.’

‘I see you’re -
determined - to - kill me yourself.’ He was struggling to breathe
by now, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

‘Stop talking and just
breathe, idiot.’ She removed the cushion and peeled back his shirt.
The wound was not large, but it was deep, and blood flowed
undiminished. She knew what she had to do, in theory: she must bind
the flesh by force of will, mastering Tren’s physical functions
herself.

It couldn’t be that
different from mastery of the will over beast kind or other
intelligent minds. This was something she could do.

‘Depends. Have I -
persuaded you?’

‘Shut up.’

‘And you - tick me off
for - playing the hero.’

With a small,
inarticulate sound of frustration, Eva stopped his wayward mouth by
applying her own to it.

‘Now shut up,’ she
whispered against his lips.

He was silent for three
seconds.

‘Wish I’d - known that
before. If I wanted to - win the lady’s favour I just had to - to
-’

‘Be quiet and let me
get on with this?’

‘- impale myself on
something sharp,’ he finished.

She swallowed a
despairing laugh. He was right: he probably had saved her life. She
would save his in return.

Working tentatively,
she made a mental survey of the wound. The shape and extent of it
was easy to grasp; she saw what needed to be done. But the means
evaded her. She brought her will to bear upon it, alternately
trying to coax and then order the body to re-knit the flesh, mend
the muscle and skin and renew itself. It was like trying to relay
information to someone who stood fifty feet away, with a howling
gale in between. Her communications failed; Tren’s body would not
react.

Perhaps she had
misunderstood the process and was going about it in the wrong way.
Frantic now, she tried to think her way back through the task fast
and efficiently. Tren had finally stopped talking, but that was
probably because he now lacked the energy: his eyes had closed and
his breathing was shallow and thin.

Panic destroyed all her
attempts at clarity.

‘All right, you win,’
she muttered. Gathering him close, she accessed the PsiMap and
found Limbane’s reading room. Calling Rikbeek back, she barely
waited for him to grab on to her clothes before she made the jump,
back through the aether to the Library.

***

Limbane was
thinking.

It was always a long
and involved process, when he did it properly.
Thinking
involved not just musings or idly putting a few things together.
Thinking
meant locking his door, settling into his chair,
closing his eyes and committing himself to a prolonged examination
of the relevant sequences of facts, circumstances, events and
occurrences until he began to see the patterns that lay behind
them.

He had a considerable
mess to deal with. Facts and events crowded upon one another,
tangled up with occurrences that may be mere happenstance or may be
significant. Too many characters now littered the gaming board; he
was beginning to lose track. They must be set straight so that all
may proceed in order.

The biggest problem, as
usual, was Krays. That man had been trouble since before he’d
betrayed the Library and set up a rival organisation. His band had
always been too small to truly challenge the power of the Library,
but he had been a persistent irritation ever since Limbane had
become the Lokantor, the Library’s director and leader.