Orlind (40 page)

‘
And
in the meantime, his absence doesn’t help us one bit,’ Eva sighed.
She was silent for a while, thinking things over. Krays himself had
given nothing away, of course, and their sojourn in his Library had
furnished little new information. What other leads did she
have?

The
note.
She had almost forgotten it in the chaos. Slipping a hand into her
pocket, she found the little folded piece of paper still in place.
‘Indren, have you ever heard any of them speak of
Orlind?’

Indren frowned at
her. ‘No, never. Why should they?’

That faint hope
evaporated, and Eva sank back into her chair again. ‘The name has
come up, that’s all. What do
you
know about the so-called
Missing Realm?’

Indren shrugged.
‘Only that lots of people
think
they know what’s out there,
but nobody really does. There have been explorations made, of
course, or rather
attempted.
They always resulted in
failure. The mountains are impassable in the truest sense of the
word.’

‘
Nothing out of the histories? No strange stories or legends or
rumours, anything like that?’

‘
Not
really. Plenty of wild theories without any supporting evidence of
any kind - fiction, if you will - but nothing credible. It’s widely
believed that there never has been anything beyond those mountains,
save for empty land.’

Well, Indren was
the professor; she would know what constituted “credible” or not.
Eva didn’t pursue that line of thought. ‘Then why is it considered
the Seventh Realm? Besides, how do we even know there
is
land beyond that point, and not just ocean?’

Indren raised her
brows. ‘Good questions, yes. As for the former, I suppose it’s
tradition.’

‘
Traditions have to begin somewhere, however.’

Indren’s eyes lit
up with that scholarly fervour that Tren sometimes displayed. ‘You
have some interesting points there. I’ll search the
libraries.’

Indren began to
get out of her seat, but Eva stopped her. ‘I wouldn’t bother.
Organisations like Krays’s have made a habit of raiding our
libraries before, and extracting any books they considered...
inconvenient. And I’ve reason to believe they’re hiding something
about Orlind.’

Indren’s eyes
widened. ‘Is that true? But what knowledge we must have
lost!’

‘
Quite
a lot of it, yes,’ Eva said grimly. ‘Look on the bright side,
though. Someday there’ll be a great deal of “lost” knowledge to be
rediscovered, by enquiring minds such as yours.’

That notion
brought a smile to Indren’s rather harsh face. ‘I will look forward
to it.’

Eva rose. ‘I
ought to be going. Thank you for seeing me.’

‘
Not
at all, m’lady,’ Indren murmured. ‘Wait,’ she added in a sharper
tone.

Eva waited, one
eyebrow raised.

‘
Have
you... that is, do you know what’s become of Dev? Is he with
you?’

‘
He is
not with me, and has not been for some time. The last report I
received indicated that he had travelled to Irbel with Ynara
Sanfaer, with the intention of seeking aid in the
conflict.’

Indren’s face
fell, and she stared at the desk. ‘Ynara Sanfaer... of
course.’

‘
They
were successful in that endeavour, by the way.’

‘
Well,’ sighed Indren, looking up with a forced smile. ‘I’m
pleased to hear that.’

The woman’s
obvious dismay touched Eva’s heart. Only imagine if Tren had showed
no lasting interest in her! That would be painful indeed. ‘If I see
him, I will tell him you asked after him,’ she said.

Indren managed a
smile. ‘Better not. Men don’t like to think they’re being nagged,
you know. Or pursued. Or even... cared about.’

‘
Do
they not?’

‘
Well.
Men like Dev, anyway. They prefer the excitement, and the exquisite
misery, of adoring the unattainable. The merely
attainable
holds little interest for them at all. I’m convinced he would view
such a comment as an attempt on my part to catch at
him.’

Eva shook her
head. ‘I could tell a few tales of male idiocy myself, but I must
go and ensure that my particular idiot male has survived his latest
... escapade.’

Indren inclined
her head. ‘Luck with that, m’lady. Come and see me again someday,
if I may impose so far upon you.’

‘
I
will be sure to visit with the news, once all of this is over,’ Eva
promised. A further exchange of civil farewells being completed,
she made her speedy way back to the Library.

The infirmary was
much quieter when Eva returned to it. Many of the beds were empty,
and fewer Lokant healers were on duty. The calmer environment
pleased her, until she realised that the bed Tren had occupied was
also deserted.

Heart pounding
with apprehension, Eva approached the first medic she saw. ‘Could I
perhaps enquire about a patient?’ she asked with studied calm.
‘Tren Warvel, a human sorcerer. He came in with torture wounds. Is
he...? I mean, did he...’

She couldn’t
finish the sentence, but the man smiled and led her out of the
infirmary into a small office. He sat at a desk that had one of
those interactive glass displays embedded in the centre, and
proceeded to do incomprehensible things with it.

‘
Discharged,’ he reported. ‘Though he has further treatments
scheduled.’

Eva felt dizzy
with relief. Seeing that empty bed had been a horrible experience,
and it took some minutes for her heart rate to return to normal.
Thanking the helpful Lokant, she hastened to Tren’s room on the
upper floors.

These were empty,
too. Puzzled and still a little afraid, she stopped to consider the
problem of his whereabouts.

Perhaps he was
waiting for her, just as she was searching for him. She used the
Map to reach her own chambers as fast as possible, but arrived to
find her sitting room unoccupied.

‘
Tren?’ she called, heading for the bedroom.

He was tucked up
in her bed, looking pale but otherwise well. The first thing she
noticed was his eyes: they were normal again, at least physically.
The swelling had gone from one and the bleeding from the other. He
looked her way as she entered the room, and this time he focused on
her and smiled. But for once, the smile didn’t reach his
eyes.

‘
My
hero has returned,’ he sighed. ‘Now I can die happy.’

‘
This
is becoming a bad habit,’ she said.

‘
I
know. I spend far too much time in a horizontal position.’ He
paused. ‘In some respects, though, I could argue that I spend far
too
little
time in a horizontal position.’

‘
It’s
the bleeding that I particularly object to,’ Eva retorted. ‘Perhaps
we could agree on there being less of that.’

‘
No
more bleeding,’ Tren agreed gravely. ‘I don’t enjoy it, you
know.’

‘
I’m
relieved to hear that.’

Tren eyed her.
‘Are you planning to stay on the other side of the room? Because I
think it would be more fun if you came a bit closer.’

He sounded like
Tren, but there was a strained edge to his words that suggested it
was an effort for him to maintain the usual banter. He was trying
hard to be himself, but of course he wasn’t. Traces of pain still
lingered in his eyes, no matter how much he tried to
laugh.

But she knew that
the banter was necessary for him. He clung to levity; it was the
only way he knew how to survive when the worst happened. So she
played along. ‘A bit closer?’ Eva took two small steps into the
room. ‘Is that better?’

‘
Better,’ he said with disapproval. ‘But not
much
better.’

Two more steps.
‘How about now?’

Tren measured the
remaining distance with a glance. ‘I’d say about five more ought to
be perfect.’

Eva took five
more steps. Before she had time to say anything else, Tren reached
out and pulled her onto the bed. She landed on his lap.

‘
Ouch,’ he sighed.

‘
So
you’re still hurting.’ She removed to a safer part of the bed and
peeled back the blankets. ‘Let’s see the damage.’

‘
All
the important things are intact,’ he protested, trying to hang on
to the blankets. She wrestled them off him and pulled up his
shirt.

His torso was
much healthier than last time she’d seen it, but many of his wounds
were not yet fully healed. She stared at them in silence, appalled
anew at the number and the character of the abrasions.

‘
All
right,’ she said, steeling herself. ‘Tell me what happened.’ She
let his shirt drop once more and replaced the blankets.

‘
Come
under here first,’ he said, lifting the blanket again. ‘I need some
closeness.’ There was no levity in his tone at all; that fact
encouraged her to obey without a moment’s delay. Only when she was
nestled as close as she could be without hurting him did he
begin.

‘
So,’
he sighed. ‘I got dragged off to one of those infernal cells of
his. Just like Dev described: sterile and impossible to break out
of. They left me there, but before long the woman came back - the
hard-faced one who seemed to be in charge - and Krays was with her.
They looked at me like I was some kind of lab specimen, and asked
themselves why I might be there. They weren’t speaking our
language, of course, but I understood enough to get the gist of it.
Krays said I was one of Limbane’s. It seems they’ve taken to simply
“disposing of” any of Limbane’s people they find wandering about in
there, no questions asked. Krays said the same policy should be
employed here, and turned to go.’

Eva’s frown
turned into a dark glower at this news. Limbane must have known
about Krays’s policy of casual “disposal”; no wonder he hesitated
to send any of his people into the rival Library anymore. But he
could
have mentioned that when she had revealed her own
plan.

‘
I
don’t know what made me think of it - desperation, probably - but I
recalled that note you had. As soon as I said the word “Orlind”,
Krays’s attitude changed. It was like he’d revised his conclusions
about me on the spot; instead of being a nuisance to be disposed
of, I had become someone dangerous.

‘
The
rest was... unpleasant. I was asked to explain what I’d meant, to
reveal what I knew about Orlind. The questions went on for a while:
what did I know, why had I mentioned it, who was I really, that
kind of thing. The whole time I was living in mortal fear that they
would realise I wasn’t a Lokant, or that would have been the end of
me. I didn’t think any mere human would have scared them that much.
I had to use quite a bit of sorcery to make sure they didn’t guess
about the wig. Difficult, under those circumstances.

‘
Anyway, I told them nothing - which wasn’t hard, given that I
knew nothing - and after a while they left. Apparently they had
some other plan for my entertainment, which didn’t sound fun, so I
made myself invis and when they returned, I managed to get past
them and out the door. I had to keep moving for a while after that,
while they searched. Eventually everything went quiet. And... a
while later you found me.’

‘
In
fact it was Rikbeek who found you outside the prison complex,
huddled against a wall.’

‘
Ah,
well. Hoorah for him.’

‘
I
don’t think I would have found you otherwise. Your invisibility was
very good.’

He frowned. ‘I
can’t have been wholly unconscious, then, or the enchantment would
have worn off. I suppose I was confused.’

The discussion
was making Eva tearful, which was absurd. Tears wouldn’t help. She
blotted her damp eyes on Tren’s shirt, a gesture he didn’t
miss.

‘
Hey,’
he murmured, tightening his embrace. ‘Everything’s all right now.
I’m fine, and you’re fine, in spite of your death-defying
heroics.’

She chuckled,
though the sound came out choked. ‘How impossible of you to be
soothing
me.’

‘
Shouldn’t I?’

‘
You’re the one who’s suffered. Not to mention the
disconcertingly direct threat of an unpleasant demise.’

‘
How
like you to talk fancy even when you’re upset,’ was all he said in
reply. ‘You can have a good sob, if you like,’ he added. ‘You’ll
feel better.’

‘
But
I’ll ruin your shirt.’

‘
You
can always get me some more.’ He smiled down at her.

‘
Traditions ought to be upheld, this is true,’ she agreed.
‘But, Tren,’ she said, pulling herself together with an effort.
‘Some questions for you.’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Did
you get any idea at all why they care so much about
Orlind?’

‘
None
whatsoever.’

‘
Damn,’ she sighed.

‘
Doesn’t matter though.’

‘
Oh?’

‘
The
experience may have been unpleasant, but at least it confirmed that
your mysterious note-writer is correct. Krays cares very much about
Orlind, and that’s all we needed to know.’