Seven Dreams (23 page)

As the airship
grew closer, Serena discerned more details: the trunks were striped
in colours, weirdly contorted seashells in strange hues lay
littered across the beach, and flickers of movement revealed the
presence of darting animals among the trees.

‘
What’s all this?’ Serena breathed.

Eva shook her
head. ‘I don’t know. Last time I was here... it’s been almost two
years. I realised — I
hoped
— it might have changed, but
this is... this is beyond anything.’ She sounded awed and a little
breathless. Tren merely stared and said nothing at all. She
wondered what he, with his draykoni heritage, made of this sight.
He was no shapeshifter, but as a powerful sorcerer he must possess
strong draykon blood. Did he see or sense anything that Serena did
not? Did Eva? She wished, suddenly and fiercely, that she hadn’t
left Teyo behind. She wanted his thoughts and his unique
perspective on this dazzling place. More than that, she wanted him
to see it.

There was nowhere
in all of this for their ship to land, but Avane made no move to
stop or slow down. They sailed serenely over the tops of the trees
and found, on the other side of the forest, an open area of lush
bronze grass. Arrayed around the edges of this peculiar meadow was
a variety of structures. Some were built from branches and grass
and leaves and resembled enormous nests, although they appeared to
possess several levels like some human dwellings. They were decked
in jewels and flowers which appeared to be growing out of the
sides. Others were clearly houses in a more traditional style,
though they were built into the sides of jutting outcroppings of
bronze-coloured rock. Serena couldn’t tell what they were made of,
except that it vaguely resembled the goldish wood of the silner
trees of Irbel, albeit with an eerie glitter she didn’t recognise
at all.

And there were
draykoni everywhere, wildly varied in shape and hue and even size.
Serena was surprised to see some very small draykoni flitting
amongst their larger brethren. Having only ever seen Iyamar’s very
large drayk-shape and Teyo’s still vaster one, it hadn’t occurred
to her that some of them might be very diminutive as
well.

She was also
surprised and delighted to observe a fair number of humans working
and living in apparent comfort alongside the draykoni. Some of them
were probably shifters themselves, but perhaps not all?

Anserval’s
airship came down slowly in the centre of the meadow and their
party was free to disembark. Eva and Tren reached the gangway at
the same time as the Baron, and the three of them paused to eye
each other.

‘
Watch
Anserval try to steal it,’ Fabian muttered in Serena’s
ear.

‘
He’ll
try,’ she murmured back. ‘I doubt Eva will have it, though. This is
her territory.’

Baron Anserval
drew himself up with an oily smile, and actually smoothed his
luxuriant moustache. His expectation that he would, of course, be
the first to set foot in the unexpectedly glorious Seventh Realm
was evident in his posture, his smug expression and the air of
entitlement he never lost no matter where he went.

Eva lifted her
chin very slightly and stared at him, her face devoid of expression
save for a faint question in her eyes.

The Baron
coughed, and bowed smoothly. ‘After you, your ladyship.’

Eva nodded once,
the barest gesture of courtesy. ‘Thank you.’ She swept past him and
down towards the ground. Tren followed, utterly failing to hide his
smile, and the Baron consented to a poor third place.

Serena glanced at
Fabian. His blond Bastavere hair was wildly disordered; the high
winds had made a mockery of his attempts at neatness. Tutting,
Serena stood on tiptoe and neatened it with her fingers. Perhaps it
was silly, but she didn’t know who they might meet down there in
Orlind, and she wanted them both to make an acceptable impression.
Only belatedly did she remember that neither her character nor his
would ever consent to appear in public in a disordered
state.

‘
Fix
my hair,’ she ordered. Fabian raised his brows at her, but he
complied competently, if slightly clumsily.

‘
You’ll do,’ he pronounced. Ayra and Wrob had already preceded
them down the gangway. Serena linked her arm with Fabian’s and they
made the descent together. Her eyes darting everywhere to take in
the sights and her mind and spirits almost overwhelmed with awe and
excitement, Serena had never found it harder to play a role. What
she really wanted was to bounce down the gangway and hurl herself
into the beauties and intrigues of this marvellous place. Instead
she forced herself to keep her enthusiasm within the bounds that
suited Lady Fenella, and to keep her chin as high as her
character’s obvious superiority demanded.

The Baron was
awaiting her at the bottom, his back pointedly turned to Eva and
Tren, who stood not far away. Serena had enjoyed some hopes that
his admiration might be turning in the direction of Lady Glostrum’s
compelling beauty, but her ladyship had fallen well out of favour
today. Thus, Lady Fenella was restored to all the dubious honour of
the Baron’s charming attentions. With an inward sigh, she accepted
the proffered arm and forced herself to stand still and calm, and
follow Eva’s lead.

Which was to
wait, apparently, though she was not sure what they were waiting
for. Eva and Tren stood closely together, an air of delighted
expectancy about the pair of them and their faces turned away from
the airship. There was no sign of Avane or her erstwhile companion.
Ayra, Wrob, the pilot and the airship crew were all wandering about
exploring the meadow, and Serena would have liked to join them, but
something told her to stick with Eva for the present.

The air was
surprisingly warm, and within a few minutes Serena was glad to
strip off the heavy coat, scarf and gloves she had been wearing up
in the air. It was as she was engaged in unwinding her scarf that
she realised there were two suns in the sky: one large, golden,
normal one, and a second, much smaller one which shone faintly
pink. The Seven Dreams riddle was visible here, as well, and from
her current vantage it floated neatly between the two.

‘
How
is that possible?’ Serena said to Fabian, pointing out the second
sun.

Fabian stared at
it for a long moment, and then turned a few circles, searching the
sky for... something? She couldn’t read his expression. ‘Odd,’ he
finally pronounced. ‘I didn’t realise we were going
off-world.’

‘
We
have? How?’ It was not possible to travel to one of the adjoining
worlds — the Uppers or Lowers, for example — without passing
through a gate, and that was noticeable because it was painful.
Nothing like that had happened; they had sailed gently and serenely
into Orlind’s airspace and landed and that had been
that.

Fabian shrugged.
‘I don’t know, but how else can you get one sun back in Irbel and
two just over the Sammerills?’

Serena cast a
look of enquiry at Eva and Tren, who shook their heads and shrugged
in similar
I don’t know
gestures. Lady Glostrum and Tren
might have been some of the first people to set foot in Orlind in
modern times, but they were out of touch, and obviously as out of
their depth here as she.

A diminutive
figure appeared out of nowhere and hurled itself at Eva, who
staggered. Serena, startled, wondered briefly whether this sudden
assault was friendly or not, but was soon reassured, for a
delighted, three-way embrace was going on between Eva, Tren and the
newcomer. It was much like their reunion with Avane, only this time
there was a great deal of excited chattering and squealing attached
to it. Serena wondered idly who this might be, and inspected her
nails while she waited to find out.

‘
Rena,’ said Fabian, watching this display impassively. ‘What
are we doing here?’

Surprised, Serena
said, ‘In Orlind?’

‘
Yes.
Well, yes, but I meant, on this journey. Why were we on that
ship?’

‘
Eva
invited us.’

The look he gave
her was both amused and knowing. ‘She invited you, you mean, and
you dragged me along in hopes of distracting me.’

‘
That’s not true,’ Serena said reflexively, even though it
was.

‘
Yes
it is, but let’s not get side-tracked. What have we contributed so
far? Nothing. We are spectators. I don’t see why she wanted either
of us, if Teyo and Egg weren’t needed.’

Serena frowned.
‘It’s on account of the Baron,’ she replied hopefully. ‘We needed
his ship, and he’s fond of Fenella.’

Fabian scoffed at
that. ‘Come on. Lady Glostrum could’ve charmed it out of him, if
she’d wanted to.’

Serena couldn’t
deny that. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she had been
little acquainted with her ladyship before the voyage began.
Witnessing the way Anserval’s eyes had repeatedly strayed towards
Lady Glostrum, though, she couldn’t deny that Fabe had a
point.

Which made her,
what? A bystander? It was lowering to think of herself as so wholly
unnecessary on so exciting a voyage, and it made no sense either.
Why would Lady Glostrum make a point of including her, if there was
nothing for her to do?

‘
There’ll be something,’ she said, trying to sound confident.
‘She just hasn’t said what it is, yet.’

‘
Hmm.’
Fabian said nothing further. His eye had travelled to the Baron
Anserval, who had wandered off somewhere — unaccompanied by Serena,
who had refused his offer of escort — and had now come back again.
He wore a wide, satisfied smile, and glanced towards her ladyship
and her chattering colleagues with an indulgent air of geniality.
Perhaps he thought Lady Glostrum had somewhat sacrificed her
dignity with the squealing, and was back in charity with
her.

‘
Touching display, is it not?’ he observed. ‘Do we know who
these people are?’

People?
Belatedly, Serena observed a second figure standing a tiny bit
apart from Eva, Tren and the first of their visitors. He was now
visible, having separated at last from the crushing embrace. They
made a strange-looking pair, Serena immediately thought. The
diminutive one was female, with the darkish brown skin and vast
wings of the people of Glinnery. Her black hair was neatly braided,
and she was dressed in trousers, boots and a shirt like Eva. Almost
exactly like Eva, in fact; Serena might have guessed that they were
outfitted by the same tailor.

The other, who
had not participated in the physical display of affection, was
male, and rather taller. His skin was also a few shades lighter
than his friend’s, though his hair was as dark. His eyes were
startlingly blue, no shade that Serena had ever seen before in a
human. His clothes were a little unorthodox, too; he wore
essentially the same shirt and trousers combination as his
companion, but his clothing was cut a little oddly, as though he
might have designed them himself without much idea of how a shirt
was put together. They were also oddly coloured, and decked in
strange accessories.

The Baron’s
shamefully rude question was overheard, and all four looked up.
‘Allow me to introduce my friends,’ Eva said after a moment, and
without an apology. ‘Lady Draykon Llandry Sanfaer, and her mate,
Pensould.’

‘
LadyEva,’ said Pensould, in the midst of a sinuous and
slightly alien-looking bow in the Baron’s general direction. ‘I do
not know why you insist on using these silly human words when we
have much better ones.’ He pronounced the name as though “Eva” and
her title were all the same thing.

Silly human
words? This, then, was no human who could shapeshift into a
draykon, but rather a draykon who could shapeshift into a human. He
was undoubtedly extremely old, and... alien. Serena’s curiosity and
interest were caught at once, and she hoped she would have chance
to get to know this Pensould better.

Eva’s lips
twitched. ‘You’re quite right, and I apologise. When will I learn?
This is the Baron Anserval, dears; Lady Fenella Chartre; and her
brother, Lord Bastavere.’

Serena performed
the expected curtsey, coaxing Lady Fenella’s dimple into her
beamingly smiling cheek and a bright sparkle into her eye. ‘Lady
Draykon!’ she gushed. ‘My word, that is a fine title. I had not
thought to meet with such eminence in mythical Orlind!’ Her mind
was busy as she spoke, reflecting on the significance of that
title. It was rare indeed. It had been bestowed upon only a handful
of people, all of them shapeshifters who had performed significant
services to their various realms and homes. They tended to serve as
ambassadors between the draykoni courts and their home
realms.

Such importance
did not appear to suit Llandry, however, who blushed and said with
surprising awkwardness: ‘Eva, you did promise not to use that silly
title.’

‘
Gracious me, I am in everybody’s bad books! It is your own
title, Llan, and you earned it fair and square.’ Receiving only a
reproachful look in response, she relented. ‘All right, I will not
use it if you prefer.’

Anserval was
oddly silent, nor had he moved. She expected that from Fabian, but
why would the good Baron pass up his chance to charm these fine
people? Serena glanced sideways at him. He was smoothing his
moustache, his face thoughtful and devoid of the fatuous pomposity
she had come to expect from him.