Seven Dreams (39 page)

‘
Stop
.’ Rhoun Torinth barked the word with a vehemence
which took them all by surprise. He was angry: his hands had balled
into fists, and his eyes blazed. ‘I would not proceed any further
with that line of thinking,’ he said after a moment, and more
calmly. ‘I have lost more than you can imagine, and yet I
cannot
permit myself to feel as you do. I thought, once upon
a time, that my discovery was a gift; a blessing. What a fool. The
constant temptation — the
compulsion
— to change every
little thing in my life that displeased me; to fix every problem
that assailed my friends, my children; to strive, in short, for a
perfect world where nothing could ever go lastingly wrong. It was
intolerable,
and dangerous beyond words.’ He passed a hand
over his face, suddenly weary. ‘As long as I am here, I am safe
from it,’ he said dully. ‘Or I was, until now.’

‘
For
that, I am sorry,’ said Serena. ‘But my mind is
unchanged.’

Torinth scowled
at her. ‘Some people refuse to be helped,’ he muttered, and then
straightened. ‘Very well. On this
one
occasion, I will make
an exception. I have made mistakes, in the past. Perhaps your
venture will be more successful than mine, and I will have atoned
for some part of them.
However,
I will never do so again.
Whatever happens next is your affair, and yours to live with. Is
that clear?’

Serena nodded
vigorously, a broad, relieved smile gracing her face. ‘Yes!
Completely!’

She began to
utter ecstatic thanks, but Rhoun Torinth cut her off with an upheld
hand. ‘Don’t thank me,’ he said. ‘You could be walking into total
disaster, every last one of you.’

This
pronouncement was met with nothing but silence, and he sighed. ‘I
was hoping your colleagues might have a little more sense,’ he said
to Serena, ‘but apparently they stand with you. Very well: let us
go.’ He held out both of his hands.

His audience
stared at him in confusion. ‘What do we need to do?’ said
Serena.

Torinth laughed.
‘You were expecting something more impressive, perhaps. A machine
of some kind, with flashing lights and exciting buttons and levers?
Or a magical gate, swollen with mystic power. I must be a
disappointment indeed, compared to such lofty ideas, but the truth
is that
I
am the key to time travel.’

‘
Oh,’
said Serena.

‘
It’s
related to the Map, you see. I discovered that it is possible to
step over
time
as well as
distance,
and thus to move
about freely in all directions. Remarkable, no? Someday, some other
of my people will come to the same realisation, but I am relieved
to hear that it has not happened yet.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Some
would say that my mind works in unusual ways. Perhaps I will prove
to be altogether unique.’

Oh, no. Teyo
hated the way the Lokants whisked people about all over the Seven.
It was like being picked up none-too-gently and hurled, at
bone-rattling speed, across unthinkable distances. And Torinth
proposed to cart them through time as well as space? Teyo
swallowed, and tried to brace himself.

‘
I
need you to tell me precisely where you were when your brother
died,’ Torinth said, as Serena gripped his hand. ‘And
when.’

Serena described
both in as much detail as she could muster, and Torinth nodded. ‘We
will make the attempt.’

And they did,
with no further preparation or even warning. Iyamar went forward to
take Torinth’s other hand, and forcibly grabbed Teyo’s as well. The
next instant, the repository was gone and Teyo was hurtling through
a dark expanse of something, or nothing. The experience lasted for
barely a second, but it felt much longer. Teyo was left shaking,
dizzy, nauseous and deeply confused.

He had no time to
recover. He, Serena, Egg and Iyamar stood once again in the strong
room at the bottom of the Warren, but Torinth had vanished
somewhere along the way. Two guards lay on the floor nearby; they
were the ones Teyo himself had clubbed senseless, and apparently
this event had only just happened. Teyo suffered a moment’s
surprise upon seeing Bron, for he had forgotten his existence
completely. Halavere Morann and Fabian were already
gone.

They were barely
in time. Teyo exchanged one brief, startled, panicked glance with
Serena, and they both ran for the door, Egg and Iya barely a step
behind.

The hallway was
full of people. Teyo stopped dead in surprise. It had been empty
before; where had these people come from? Their attire was more
casual than protective, so they were not guards. They produced
weapons rapidly enough, though, when they saw Teyo. One of those
random happenstances Torinth had hinted at, Teyo thought with an
inward groan. A group of Yllandu had business down here, and they’d
chosen this precise moment to conduct it. Teyo must have missed
these people by seconds, last time.

He eyed the
sudden sprouting of deadly weapons with a mixture of panic and
dismay. These assailants looked eerily familiar. Nimdren citizens
for the most part, they looked like younger versions of himself.
He’d worn the same kinds of clothes, carried the same kinds of
weapons, once upon a time. And he’d known how to use them,
too.

Many years had
passed since those days, and he’d most willingly avoided all
weapons and violence ever since. His body remembered some of the
moves; he dodged and struck with his fists, bringing the first man
down. But he couldn’t hold his own against all of them, and he had
his team to protect. He needed to shapeshift, but his rattled brain
couldn’t focus long enough to effect the change — not while he was
simultaneously fending off attacks from three directions at
once.

Then Bron was
there, bellowing something incomprehensible. He wielded a long
dagger in one hand and some type of firearm in the other, both of
which he utilised against the Yllandu with all speed. Slashing at
the nearest foe with his right hand, he fired with his left. The
man dropped, bleeding from two places at once.

‘
Don’t
kill them!’ Teyo shouted, furious. Their attackers may be
criminals, but how could they justify saving Fabian’s life at the
expense of other people’s? Bron cast him an annoyed look and shook
his head, even as he fired again. ‘No choice,’ he returned and
fired once more. Two more Yllandu went down.

Teyo had no time
to argue with him, or to regret his actions, for these people were
blocking his path to Fabian. Desperate, he took advantage of the
cover Bron provided and shifted whurthag once more. He was hoping
that the mere sight of his horrific claws and teeth would clear a
path for him, and it worked, to a certain extent; some of the
Yllandu backed away, though whether it was out of surprise or fear
he couldn’t tell. He didn’t care. He barrelled through, using his
body weight to shove obstacles aside. A horrible growling from
behind him told him that Iyamar had followed his example; good. He
could trust her to shield the others. Breaking free of the pack of
assailants, he ran full-tilt for the stairs where Fabian had
died.

They were empty.
He charged all the way up them and around the corner, and found no
one at the top. No one was in sight, anywhere.

He stood, heart
pounding with full-blown panic. What had happened? Had Halavere
taken a different route from before? Had she stayed downstairs,
disappeared into some other room? Or had Fabian caught up with her
somewhere else?

Teyo’s great
lungs heaved in a deep breath as he forced himself to calm down. It
wasn’t all bad, he reminded himself: Fabian couldn’t die again on
this staircase if he wasn’t
on
this staircase. But any
number of other appalling things could happen to him, or to his
team downstairs.

They had the
priority, he decided. Fabian’s earlier fate was averted, one way or
another. Meanwhile, the rest of his team were in danger. He charged
back down the stairs and came to a sudden halt at the
bottom.

Serena, Iyamar,
Egg and Bron were just starting up them, Iya still wearing whurthag
shape. Serena’s face was thunderous, and Egg and Iya had their
backs turned firmly upon Bron, who was trailing behind them covered
in blood. Teyo eyed the quantity of blood uneasily.

What
happened?
he asked Iyamar, silently.

He killed
every one of them,
Iya told him.
He wouldn’t stop. Said it
was a matter of security, and he was the best judge.

Teyo smothered a
surge of rage. How many of them had there been? Five, six? Bron had
undoubtedly protected the team, but at such cost! It gave him no
comfort to think that all six of the dead Yllandu would have
slaughtered every one of his team without a second thought, had
they been given the chance. The kinds of firearms Bron wielded
weren’t readily available to all. They were new technology,
expensive and rare. Some Yllandu carried them, but not all.
Apparently, these hadn’t.

Or had they? Bron
was trailing because he was weakened, and he wore a strip of torn
cloth bound tightly around one arm. Wounded by knife or
gun?

Where’s
Fabe?
said Iyamar.

No
idea.

‘
Fabian’s missing,’ Teyo announced out loud.

Serena turned
frightened eyes upon Teyo. ‘Right,’ she said, visibly pulling
herself together. ‘We’re splitting up. Iya, you’re protecting Egg.
Tey, Bron and I are with you. Notify each other the instant you
find something. Egg, do you have your voice-box?’

Egg dug hers out
of a pocket and waved it.

‘
All
right, we’re all in communication. Iya, Egg, this floor please.
Tey, Bron; we’re going up. Go.’

They advanced up
the stairs in a tight knot. Bron insisted on going first, despite
Teyo’s whurthag form. The hallway above was empty as they reached
it, but a moment later a door opened and a man stepped out. He
stopped on the threshold, blinking in surprise at the sight of
three strangers ascending the stairs before him.

He wasn’t a young
man. His brownish hair was liberally laced through with grey, and
his face displayed the wrinkles and lines of long experience. But
he had the posture of a man well able to handle himself, and his
surprise was brief. A split second, and he launched himself at
Bron.

Teyo realised,
with a sickening lurch in his stomach, that he knew the man.
Distracted, he struggled to shift human in time — his mouth worked
— “LEVAN!” he bellowed. “Stop!”

Levan stopped
indeed, his face swivelling towards Teyo etched with an expression
of extreme surprise.

Bron shot him.
The sound of the gun firing was swiftly followed by a curse from
Bron, who dropped to his knees beside the fallen man.

‘
Friend of yours?’ Bron said tersely.

Teyo fell in
beside him with a nod, staring in dismay at the blossoming stain of
blood spreading over Levan’s shoulder. He had been something of a
mentor to Teyo during his early days as Yllandu. The man was
crooked to the core, but he’d been good to Teyo when he’d
desperately needed a friend.

‘
I’m
so sorry,’ he gasped. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’ He was no
medic; he couldn’t tell whether the wound was fatal or not, and
there was
nothing
he could do for Levan now.

His former mentor
stared up at him in silence, confusion warring with some other,
unrecognisable emotions in his face. ‘Tey?’ he said at last. ‘What
are you—’

‘
VALORE TREBEL!’ It was Fabian’s voice, raised in a bellow of
pure rage. Shouting followed, but softer and too confused. Teyo
couldn’t make sense of it.

‘
Fabian,’ gasped Serena, and bolted away in the direction of
the noise, Bron right behind her. Teyo stared after them both and
then back at Levan, torn between the conflicting needs of his
friends.

Levan looked at
him, his lips twisting in a sardonic smile. ‘Go,’ he croaked.
‘There’s sod all you can do for me anyway.’

Teyo went after
Bron. The two of them tore away in the direction of Fabian’s voice,
but they couldn’t catch Serena. She ran with desperate speed,
rounding a corner in the corridor ahead of them and vanishing from
sight.

Teyo caught up
three seconds later. Three seconds too late? Fabian had found
Halavere, but her guards hadn’t accosted him this time. He had
acquired a firearm from somewhere and was pointing it at Halavere
Morann’s head. She, too, had drawn a gun, as had both of her
guards, but the fact that three other weapons were trained upon him
did nothing to daunt Fabian. Teyo suffered a jolt upon seeing Fabe,
alive and well; the image of his dead and bloodied body was fresh
in his mind. It took a moment for him to realise that the gun in
Fabian’s hand very closely resembled Bron’s.

Bron realised it
at the same instant. ‘Hey,’ he blurted, ‘That’s where — Fabian, you
need to put that down. It’s not — you can’t just grab it
and—’

‘
Shut
up,’ muttered Fabian. ‘Does it look like I can drop it right
now?’

Bron trained his
own weapon upon Halavere. ‘I’ll shoot you before you can hurt him,’
he said.