Seven Dreams (9 page)

The Baron was
already opening the first door, and she was soon called to precede
him inside. She noticed, with further astonishment, that he did not
use a key to access this room. The locking mechanism was altogether
different, and involved the pressing of a series of buttons in some
kind of sequence. It was not at all reminiscent of anything she had
seen before, which raised interesting, and not wholly encouraging,
possibilities. Exchanging a brief glance with her brother as she
went inside, she concluded that he was as mystified by it as she.
She made a mental note to pursue this subject later, for before her
stretched a vast hallway well-lit by hundreds of floating
light-globes. The walls were lined with cabinet after cabinet, and
long glass-topped display cases occupied the centre of the room. A
swift glance revealed all manner of curiosities stashed behind
those glass panes, from statuettes and books to hair ornaments, tea
cups and jewellery.

There must be
many hundreds of objects down here, she realised with a sinking
heart. Maybe thousands. And if every other room in the Baron’s
cellar contained a similar quantity of goods, how in the world
could they identify which one was of interest to Halavere? Even if
the thing was so obliging as to resemble a classic key in shape and
structure, it could take forever to find it among all this
nonsense.

But she had
Fabian to help her — and Jisp, or possibly Teyo. Her passenger
clambered back down her leg as she formed this thought and slipped
away. Serena caught a glimpse of a tiny scaly body scuttling
speedily away, and hastily averted her gaze in case her host
happened to look.

The Baron began
his tour near the door, and Serena quickly realised that he
intended to recount the full history of each cabinet. Worse, he did
so with an air of decided pedantry, one hand clutched possessively
over hers as it rested upon his arm. Despairing, she tried once or
twice to hurry the tour along a little more quickly, or at least to
interrupt the lengthy flow he was working himself into, but with
little success. Lord Bastavere, with typical arrogance, rolled his
eyes and wandered off. The Baron paid little notice.

Serena was not
left to agonise for long in this state of wretched frustration. Her
irksome guide had just launched with gusto into an account of the
provenance of a tiny painting featuring two nymphs portrayed in
spectacularly lurid colours, when a short gust of wind sent her
skirts billowing. With this unexpected sensation came the sound of
somebody jumping softly down onto the floor from a height of,
perhaps, two or three feet. Startled — for nothing her brother
could possibly be doing would explain either the wind or the noise
— she turned.

A stranger stood
in the middle of the room, directly between a long case displaying
tarnished timepieces and an even larger case bearing a heavy load
of old coins. The woman was tall, with statuesque posture and dark
eyes. She wore close-fitting green trousers, a plain cream cotton
shirt, thick leather gloves and a purposeful expression. Her
pure-white hair was bound up in a style of severe practicality,
ruthlessly pinned down and wholly unadorned. She was not at all
old, judging from the smoothness of her skin, so she must be of
Lokant heritage.

But she was
not
Dame Halavere.

‘
What’s this?’ demanded the Baron. ‘I sincerely hope this woman
is an acquaintance of yours, Fenella!’

‘
I
have never seen her before,’ Serena replied tightly. ‘Unless I am
much mistaken, she is looking for something in particular.’ She
realised, belatedly, that her role had slipped during this speech,
but the Baron didn’t appear to notice. He strode off in the
direction of the intruder, shouting imperatives and threats, all of
which she ignored. Instead of
ceasing her disgraceful
intrusion
and
removing herself from this vicinity at
once,
or even of
explaining instantly how she came to gain
access to this place
, the woman walked briskly to the other
side of the room. Without pausing, she drew back her arm and
delivered a swift, brutal punch to the glass front of one of the
cabinets. The glass shattered, the woman reached forth and grabbed
a single object — and vanished.

Fabian, dashing
towards her with deadly purpose, was left standing stupidly on the
spot she had so recently occupied. The Baron was shocked into
silence, though alas, only briefly. He then responded with still
greater vituperation, cursing all and sundry and demanding
explanations of nobody in particular.

Serena merely
stood, thinking. The woman was no Partial Lokant, that much was
clear. She was a full blood, and powerful indeed. It was known that
the pure Lokants — and, very occasionally, one or two of the
part-bloods — could transport themselves over long distances in the
blink of an eye, but it was not thought to be a flexible ability.
It required major preparation beforehand in order to do it, and
something like a waypoint had to be laid down by somebody; one did
not simply transport oneself through doors, or past walls, or to
any spot which had not been previously selected and (in some
unfathomable way) prepared for the purpose. This much she
understood.

But this woman
had appeared in a very specific place, somewhere very private and
virtually inaccessible. Could it be that somebody had placed a
waypoint here, in this room? How had that been accomplished, and
why? Somebody among the Lokants must already have known, some time
since, that the Baron’s collection was likely to be of interest.
But how had they marked the place, and how had the woman known
exactly which cabinet to look in?

Most likely the
Baron’s staff were not as supremely loyal as he thought; the woman
must have had help from someone employed at the house. Damn, they
had worked fast. Serena choked on a feeling of deep chagrin, for
the job had failed utterly. If there were full Lokants involved,
and such powerful ones as their erstwhile visitor, the job had
never had any hope of success. All the efforts of the day and half
the preceding night had been wasted.

Or perhaps not,
entirely. She had not been close enough to see precisely what it
was that the Lokant had taken from the cabinet, but Fabian probably
had. She hoped that this one small thing, at the least, could be
salvaged from an operation otherwise doomed to failure from the
start.

There was nothing
to be gained from remaining any longer. The Baron was no longer of
any interest, and she was heartily tired of playing Lady Fenella.
She swept from the room with Fabian close behind her, leaving the
Baron loudly proclaiming his determination to register a formal
complaint with the LHITB.

Oliver Tullen’s
offices were situated near the centre of Irbel’s capital city,
Iving. It was a long way to go from the realm’s southern border
with Nimdre, but Serena felt the importance of consulting him at
once. She required his approval and advice regarding Iyamar, as
soon as possible. Moreover, their surveillance of Halavere had
ended in failure, and she was unsure how to proceed. The key, if it
was a key, was probably stashed away in some far-off Lokant Library
by now. It was impossible to follow; there were many Libraries, as
far as anybody in the Seven knew, and they were situated way
off-world. Nobody save another Lokant could hope to follow them
there. A report would have to be submitted to the LHITB, and beyond
that, Serena and her team were at a loose end.

She couldn’t even
be certain that Halavere had had anything to do with the theft, in
the end. True, she had met with a known Unspeakable and Baron
Anserval’s address had changed hands, but there was no indication
that she had been involved with the rest. Serena suspected that the
Dame might have contacts with one or more Lokant Libraries. Perhaps
they had used her — and, through her, the Unspeakables — to find
the supposed key, and Halavere had merely passed on the
information. Any such connection had to be reported, of course, and
Halavere would have to be monitored. She hoped that Oliver would
have more interesting work for Serena’s team.

She set out for
Oliver’s office early in the morning, leaving Egg and Fabian
behind. Iyamar had to be presented immediately, and she wanted
Teyo’s company too. Since he was most likely to be volunteered for
the task of training their new recruit’s draykon abilities, she
wanted him to be present to discuss it with their boss.

They were only
obliged to travel by nivven as far as the city of Trayce in
south-eastern Irbel. From there, the overland railcar conveyed the
three of them into Iving. It was a relatively new piece of
infrastructure, of which Serena heartily approved. Not of an
engineering turn of mind herself, she did not properly understand
by what means the long metal carriages were conveyed along the
rails that had been laid between Iving and Trayce — and other
cities — less than ten years ago, but the speed they achieved far
outstripped the capacity of even the liveliest nivven steed. Better
still, their interiors were luxuriously equipped with well-padded
chairs, allowing her to relax at her ease as she sped on her way to
the capital.

Iyamar had
clearly never experienced this mode of transport before. Her young
face was touchingly filled with a mixture of awe and fascination,
though she strove to hide it whenever she noticed Serena looking.
She was far more interested in the workings of it than Serena, too,
and peppered Teyo with questions, all of which he answered with his
customary patience.

At length Iyamar
fell silent, absorbed by the rapid passage of fields and hills
outside the window as they sped along. Serena took the opportunity
to ask Teyo a question she’d been postponing since the day
before.

‘
Yesterday,’ she murmured to him, keeping her voice low. ‘Tell
me that was Jisp.’

He grinned at
once, dashing Serena’s hopes, though he had the grace to look a
little sheepish. ‘Erm, ‘fraid not,’ he said, with a trace at least
of apology.

‘
No!’
said Serena, aghast. ‘Teyo.
What
possessed you to run up my
skirt?!’

‘
I
couldn’t let you all run off to the secret and interesting places
without me!’

‘
But
my
skirt
, Teyo?
Up
my skirt?’

‘
It
was the only thing I could think of at the time.’

Serena sighed.
‘You, um. You didn’t...
see
anything while you were under
there, did you?’

‘
Your
ankle,’ Teyo returned promptly.

‘
My
ankle.’

‘
Yes.’

Serena thought
about that. ‘Only my ankle?’

‘
There
was a lot of fabric going on down there,’ Teyo said apologetically.
‘But,’ he offered, brightening, ‘It
was
a very shapely
ankle.’

Serena eyed
him.

‘
Though now that I think of it, it looked more like a tree
trunk to me at the time.’

Serena’s eyes
opened wide. ‘My ankles are not of such stupendous proportions as
all that, Mr. Bambre.’

‘
My
perspective was a little disordered.’

Serena sighed. If
anybody had to be dashing up her skirt in the guise of a lizard,
she’d rather it was Teyo than anyone else. He was trustworthy,
unthreatening and, she was sure, quite uninterested in her in
that
kind of way. Still, to have one’s friends rummaging
around among one’s undergarments was a disconcerting experience for
any woman, and Serena could only gather her tattered dignity around
her, lift her chin, and stare frostily out of the
window.

‘
I
really didn’t see anything,’ Teyo muttered.

Serena ignored
that.

Oliver Tullen’s
eyes were pale blue, and piercingly intent. He studied Serena’s
little group expressionlessly as they were admitted to his office.
As ever, Serena had no way of knowing what he was
thinking.

They never
travelled to Oliver’s openly, without disguise. One never knew who
might be watching, after all. Serena had cast the three of them as
a well-to-do city family returning from a visit to the country.
They were dressed with neatness and propriety, though not
ostentatiously; the goal here was to blend in. Oliver’s gaze slid
from her to Teyo without comment, which meant, to her relief, that
their efforts had passed inspection.

He looked at
Iyamar for rather longer.

‘
Miss
Carterett,’ he said in his soft voice. ‘Mr. Bambre. What can I do
for you?’ He gestured to the chairs that were arrayed before his
desk.

Serena took one
gratefully. The shoes she’d chosen were but newly added to her
wardrobe of costumes, and they were pinching a little. ‘We need to
report,’ she replied, ‘and I’m seeking approval for a new
recruit.’

Oliver’s eyes
flicked back to Iyamar. ‘I see.’ He was a slight man in his
sixties, or thereabouts, with dark grey hair beginning to turn
white. He always wore the same thing: a dark blue shirt and deep
brown trousers and boots, with, as appropriate, a heavy black
cloak. He never wore jewellery. He was the uncontested master of
all things disguise; no one could best him. He had once turned up
at his own office in the guise of a lift engineer, and though he
had been Serena’s teacher and mentor for years, even she had not
recognised him.