Orlind (27 page)

‘
Limbane will help,’ she said, trying to sound confident. ‘It’s
Krays. He’s always delighted to thwart that man.’

She didn’t voice
any of the questions that plagued her thoughts and weakened her
confidence in her own pronouncements.
Would
Limbane help? It
would be highly dangerous; was he so anxious to thwart Krays that
he’d agree to take his Lokants into a warzone?

And even worse,
what if he
couldn’t
help? What if these mechs were beyond
even his knowledge?

Eva pushed these
reflections away and grabbed Tren’s hand. ‘We’ll be back soon,’ she
told Ana and the still-silent Griel. She was gone without waiting
for a reply, darting through the Map back to Limbane’s
reading-room.

Limbane did not
like to be disturbed. All Lokants were therefore forbidden from
travelling straight into his reading-room; instead they were
expected to transport themselves to the corridor directly
outside,
and subsequently knock like civilised
people.

Eva had disobeyed
this stricture once before, when Tren had been stabbed and bleeding
to death on the floor of Griel’s house. On this second occasion she
was again going straight from Griel’s home to Limbane’s inner
sanctum, and her news was no less urgent.

Limbane wasn’t
alone when she and Tren arrived. Andraly was sitting with him,
probably goading him about something judging from the wicked look
she wore. Eva cut in upon their conversation without
ceremony.

‘
Limbane, have you ever heard of anyone building
draykon
mechanicals before?’

Limbane’s brows
snapped down. ‘What? Of course not. Why would anybody want to do
that? Such a thing would be monstrously oversized. Completely
unworkable. And what have I said about interruptions?’

Eva ignored the
last part. ‘Krays doesn’t seem to think so.’ Quickly she apprised
both of them of recent events, stressing everything that Llandry
had gabbled to her about the appearance and functions of the
mechanical things. If she understood Limbane at all, there would be
two things most likely to persuade him to help: the prospect of
aggravating Krays would be the strongest one, and alongside that,
sheer academic curiosity about his rival’s latest
creation.

As she had hoped,
Limbane instantly began to ask questions. Lots of them. ‘They are
fully airborne? What is the size? What are they made from? You say
they breathe flame?’

‘
I
know nothing else,’ she said. ‘I spoke to Llandry for only a couple
of minutes. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go and look at
them yourself.’

Limbane waved a
dismissive hand. ‘Can’t do that, it’s far too dangerous. They’ll
probably manage to destroy one at some point. We can pick it up
later for inspection.’

‘
Maybe
they will,’ Eva said, fighting to keep hold of her temper, ‘one, if
they’re lucky - before they are destroyed themselves. They need
help, Limbane.’

‘
They
are grown men and women. They can manage their own
problems.’

So much for her
control over her temper. She could almost feel it break as pure ire
bubbled up and threatened to choke her.

She went for
Limbane, ready to lash him to pieces in her fury, but Tren got
there first. He grabbed the old man’s shirt, hauled him out of his
chair and pulled him up to face level. Tren was a few inches taller
than the Lokantor, as well as younger and stronger; Limbane hung
helplessly in his grip, toes barely touching the floor.

‘
That
isn’t good enough,
’ Tren hissed. He dropped Limbane, all but
hurling the man away from him. Limbane backed away but Tren stalked
after him, inexorable.

‘
I am
the
Lokantor,
’ Limbane protested, sputtering with
indignation. ‘This is not how discussions are held in my
Library!’

‘
Well,
we weren’t having a discussion,’ Eva snapped. ‘This is not
negotiable.’

‘
Lady Glostrum,’
Limbane began with heavy
sarcasm.

‘
Don’t
try to tell me this is not your problem!’ she shouted. ‘What have
you and your miserable friends really been doing in our Cluster,
hm?’

Limbane eyed her,
wariness in every feature. ‘What do you mean?’

‘
I
hardly know! Nobody thought it necessary to explain to a mere
partial
what exactly it is about our worlds that you people
find so attractive. But you’ve been hanging around us for a long,
long time, haven’t you? Well,
you
brought this problem to
us. Krays has given considerable assistance to the draykoni;
whatever he’s expecting to get in return has something to do with
you, I would bet any money on it. This is
your
fight as much
as ours,
Lokantor
.’

The look on
Limbane’s face could best be described as
cornered.
She was
on to something. Eva paused to breathe, ashamed to realise that her
cheeks were damp with tears of frustration.

‘
You’re going to gather up your people and get out to
Waeverleyne, right away. If you can’t do that, then our
friendship,
such as it is, is over. I’ll not help you with
another thing. You want to know what Krays is up to? You find out
yourself.’

Limbane snorted.
‘You think yourselves so indispensable? I can send someone
else.’

‘
Then
why haven’t you?’

Silence.

‘
You
can’t, can you? The whole lot of you have built a lifestyle out of
spying on each other. Krays knows every single one of your people,
as you know his. And he’s already got at just about every other
partial Lokant in our worlds. We are your only options, and you
know it. So there’s your choice.’

Limbane’s eyes
flicked to Tren’s face, still immovably grim, and back to Eva’s.
Then, surprisingly, he looked at Andraly, his eyes asking her a
question.

All trace of her
customary mirth and cynicism had gone from Andraly’s face. She
glanced briefly at Eva, then took her grandfather’s hand and gave
it a squeeze.

‘
She’s
right, grandfather,’ she said. ‘You made this. Better fix
it.’

He
hesitated.

‘
Wouldn’t it be a shame to see all that work go to waste?’
Andraly added, with a tiny smile.

‘
Manipulative wretch,’ he snarled at her, pulling back his
hand. ‘All right,
your ladyship
, I’ll do what I can,’ he
said, turning a ferocious glare on Eva. ‘No promises. Have you any
idea how hard it is to disable an airborne mech?’

‘
Not
the slightest,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I came to you.’

Limbane may be
difficult to deal with, but he was certainly efficient. Eva and
Tren had been ordered to wait in the chart room; they hadn’t been
there long before Lokants started arriving.

And kept
arriving, in ones and twos and threes. Most brought some manner of
equipment with them: tool kits and belts, boxes and chests, and
myriad mechs and devices Eva had never seen before. They kept
coming, until even the chart room began to feel full. Looking over
the crowd, Eva guessed there must be over one hundred Lokants
gathered.

‘
I
never realised there were so many people in this Library,’ Tren
whispered to her, staring out at the sea of white-hairs.

‘
Me
neither. This is an impossibly big building though, recall. There
must be a lot that we haven’t seen.’

‘
Didn’t Limbane once say that Krays’s Library was much
smaller?’

Eva smiled a
little. ‘I hope so, or our errand could take a decade.’

Limbane arrived.
He stood near the main door, speaking to nobody, frequently
checking a complex-looking timepiece that he wore on his belt. With
the arrival of a few more Lokants, he apparently decided that they
were ready.

‘
Right, quiet down,’ he barked, and they did, almost instantly.
‘You’ll all know why we’re here. A rival Lokantor’s exercising
advanced mechs in unsuitable places and we’re going to call a halt
to that, all right? Maximum efficiency, please. You all know your
roles: stick to them. This is a warzone we’re heading for and it’s
not going to be pretty. Any questions?’

‘
Specifics of the mechs, Lokantor?’ someone asked.

‘
Getting to that,’ Limbane said. ‘If anyone has any objections
to this, you’d better leave now. Once we get out there it’s going
to be too late.’

Something was odd
about this speech. With a jolt, Eva realised that Limbane wasn’t
speaking the language of Glour or Glinnery, as he did with her. The
language was close, so close that she had no trouble understanding
what he’d said. But it was subtly different in many small ways. How
could that possibly be?

‘
What’s the destination, sir?’ a female voice
called.

‘
19th
Cluster.’

A murmur went up
at that, as if Limbane’s answer, meaningless to her ears, meant
something important to them. Eva made a brief effort to locate
Andraly, hoping for some answers, but she couldn’t see her in the
mess of people.

‘
Quiet,’ Limbane shouted. ‘The mechs in question are a new
type. My information is currently limited, but here’s what I’ve
got.’ He repeated Llandry’s descriptions, with a few additions
incomprehensible to Eva. He followed that with a string of commands
to various Lokants, none of whom Eva was acquainted with, in which
he named a series of objects, none of which she’d heard of. The
exchange was a rapid one: each person addressed responded with a
quick “Yes, sir,” or “Confirmed, Lokantor,” and then the discussion
was over and the Lokants began to travel away. As the room emptied
around her, Eva had to privately applaud Limbane, no matter how
angry she still felt with him. He could get things done.

Finally, the
chart room was deserted except for her and Tren, Limbane and
Andraly. Limbane looked at her.

‘
Satisfactory?’ he asked tonelessly.

‘
Quite.’

He nodded. ‘Then
go to your task. And get me something good.’ He vanished and so did
Andraly, with a small, sardonic parting smile for Tren.

Eva let out a
long sigh. ‘That’s all we can do, I suppose. Carry on with the
plan.’

Tren looked at
the distant ceiling. ‘I feel like there must be more we can do to
help.’

‘
There
really isn’t. Besides, you saw the numbers Limbane took. If a
hundred Lokants can’t save the Seven from Krays’s mechanicals,
nothing can.’

Tren nodded,
still looking dubious. Or rather, guilty. She wrapped her arms
around him, holding him close.

‘
I
know,’ she said. ‘You feel like we’re running away. But we’re not.
We’re going straight to the source of all this trouble.’

‘
Think
we’ll get him?’

She shook her
head. ‘I don’t know.’

Tren kissed her,
and she could feel him shaking.

‘
Right, well,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s go.’

***

Llandry put her
voice-box away, tucking it carefully into her clothes. Talking to
Eva was always comforting: the older woman never failed to sound
confident and in control. If anybody could talk Limbane into
helping Waeverleyne, she could. The conversation had left Llandry
with a flicker of hope; faint, but it was there.

Finding Iver’s
intensity unnerving, she had gone outside for the conversation, out
of his line of sight. That had proved to be a mistake. The noise of
her father’s machinery was almost painful, filling the air with the
rat-tat-tat
of the automated guns and the roar of
explosions. Overhead the draykoni continued to shriek as they dived
and swooped, trying to get at the machines half-hidden under the
surviving thicket of the forest.

The defence of
the city was not going well. Iver’s men had downed a few of the
live draykoni, and Iver had his men using her father’s net launcher
machine to claim the corpses and drag them into secured areas.
Nobody wanted the draykoni resurrecting their fallen comrades. In
spite of this, a couple of the corpses had been reclaimed and
revitalised and it was likely that the same would happen to the
rest. Pensould had told the Commander about the degree of energy it
took to resurrect another draykon - they wouldn’t be able to keep
it up indefinitely. But Iver hadn’t been reassured. The few
casualties they’d inflicted had been too hard-won.

The last corpse
to be reclaimed by the enemy had been taken by a draykon-construct.
The monstrous thing had made a dive for the ground, banked at the
last minute and gone up again, a draykon corpse in its claws. The
body ought to have been too big and heavy for it to carry, but it
had taken it far enough away for its living allies to safely take
the load. Every one of Iver’s strategies was quickly and neatly
defeated by the teams of draykon and draykon-constructs, and she
could see desperation in his eyes when he’d spoken to
her.

Heartsick, she
darted back into the ramshackle building Iver was using as
headquarters. Heads turned in her direction as soon as she
appeared, faces displaying a mixture of hope for her errand and a
new dread. Something else had happened.