Orlind

By Charlotte E. English

Orlind. Locked behind impassable mountains, buried under the weight of a vast — and terrible — history, the Seventh Realm has remained a mystery all the long ages through.

Until now.

For the Lokant sorcerers’ power and might grows by the day — and all their thought is bent upon Orlind. What secrets lie hidden behind so ancient an enchantment?

What powers could be worth a war to win?

For war has come to the Seven. The draykoni are on the attack — and Llandry’s home city is first in the firing line.

As Llandry fights to defend her home, Eva sets out upon the trail of the Lokant leader, Krays. If he’s bound for Orlind, then so is she — and what she finds there may change the course of history forever.

The mystery begun in Draykon reaches its climax in Orlind: an epic tale of valour and secrets, darkness and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frouse Books
• Release date: Apr 12, 2012

Charlotte E. English

English both by name and nationality, Charlotte hasn’t permitted emigration to the Netherlands to damage her essential Britishness. She writes colourful fantasy novels over copious quantities of tea, and rarely misses an opportunity to apologise for something. Spanning the spectrum from light to dark, her works include the Draykon Series, Modern Magick, The Malykant Mysteries and the Tales of Aylfenhame.

Book preview

Chapter One

‘Sir? Sir! Are you awake, sir?’

Aysun opened his eyes to find bare earth two inches from his face. A hand was shaking him, hard, and the voice — Ven’s voice, he realised — shouted directly in his ear. Even then he had trouble hearing the lad over the ear-splitting noise of destruction, shrieking draykoni and wailing alarms.

‘I’m alive,’ Aysun grunted, and Ven mercifully ceased his attempts to shake him to pieces. He tried to sit up, but his back protested forcibly. A curse escaped his lips as he eased himself back to the ground.

He lay still for a moment, trying to assess the damage. His body hurt almost everywhere, especially his back, but he didn’t think anything was broken. He flexed his limbs one at a time; all functional, if bruised. It was only his back that was the problem.

‘Help me up,’ he said to Ven through gritted teeth. The younger engineer was quick to obey, supporting his commanding officer until he was on his feet again. Aysun’s back continued to protest, but as it didn’t give way he ignored the pain.

‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘What’s the damage?’

‘The tree’s down, sir,’ said Ven. ‘The enemy gained a square hit on the cap, knocked most of it down in one. Took half the trunk with it.’

Aysun nodded. This was bad news; the tree in question had been one of a number of glissenwols that he’d turned into defence towers. Their wide caps were ideal for supporting war machines. He and Ven and their team had manned this one all yesterday and today, hurling boulders and explosives at the invading draykoni. They hadn’t done much damage, he had to admit; trying to hit an airborne enemy with missiles such as those was like trying to down a fly with a pellet gun. But they’d caused enough damage and enough confusion to break up the coordinated attacks the draykoni were attempting to launch against the city of Waeverleyne.

It was only a matter of time before those attacks were turned on the war machines themselves. The enemy draykoni had already retaliated in kind: they had collected up the boulders Aysun’s engineers had been hurling at them and started dropping them down upon the citizens of Waeverleyne. A few minutes ago, three draykoni had come at Aysun’s tree, each bearing boulders somewhat larger than his head. There hadn’t been time to evacuate. One minute he had a draykon in his sights and a missile ready to launch; the next instant all was confusion as the cap split and fell and Aysun fell with it.

He was grateful for two things. One, that his team had had the foresight to stretch nets under the glissenwol trees in case of just this calamity. The fall would have killed him otherwise.

Secondly, he was profoundly grateful that the exploding missiles he was using detonated on impact and left nothing behind. These, at least, could not be turned against the defending forces.

Ven was looking at him oddly, his expression apprehensive.

‘What is it, Ven?’ he asked tiredly.

‘I’m afraid that’s not all, sir, but I thought I’d give you a moment to catch your breath first.’

‘It’s caught. Out with it.’

‘Well… all but one of the towers are down, sir, and the last won’t hold up much longer. Also, we have three casualties among the engineers.’

‘Names.’

‘Polis, Aram and Niefer.’

‘Injured?’

‘Dead.’

Aysun closed his eyes. Polis had been younger even than Ven, and Aram and Niefer were two of his best.

He looked about himself, but from his new vantage point on the ground he couldn’t even see where the towers had previously stood. He would have to take Ven’s word for it.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘The towers weren’t working well, but they were all we had. We need another plan, and fast.’

‘There are some more suitable trees, sir. We’ve enough men left to build some new machines—’

‘No,’ Aysun interrupted. ‘Any more such towers will be shot down immediately, and the machines were not good enough.’ He thought for a few moments. Ven didn’t venture any more suggestions, but he did keep the other men from interrupting Aysun’s reflections and he was grateful for that.

‘We need information, for a start,’ he decided. ‘Which means we need some more people up in the air. But they’ll need to keep out of sight.’ He grabbed a passing man at random — a member of the now decimated city guard, by the look of him — and forced him to a stop. ‘Get me scouts,’ he ordered. ‘As many as you can. Glinnish — they’ll need wings. I want them up in the air, best vantage points they can find. But they mustn’t be seen. Make sure they’re coordinated — I want a report every thirty minutes. Understood?’

The man looked terrified, but he nodded decisively enough and left. Aysun turned back to Ven.

‘We need better machines. Something that can be more precisely aimed, that doesn’t take so infernally long to load, and that can’t be so easily destroyed. That means they ought to be ground-based. We were sitting targets up there.’

Ven nodded thoughtfully. ‘I have an idea or two, but…’ He trailed off.

‘But what?’

Ven’s eyes turned upwards. Following the direction of his gaze, Aysun saw three dark shapes soar overhead. A moment later, more rocks crashed around them. He dodged, only just in time as a chunk of glissenwol cap fell to the ground, landing with a deafening thump.

‘They’re not going to give us any time,’ Ven shouted, his hands raised in futile defence against the shower of leaves and bark and wood that fell around them. ‘Half the city could be destroyed by the time we’re ready. More than half.’

Aysun’s stomach clenched in outright fear at that thought. Ven was right. If he thought too long about the damage already done, it would break his heart. Many of the proud, soaring glissenwol trees had already come down, or been broken beyond repair. The draykoni were tearing the treetop buildings apart with teeth and claws; most of the inhabitants had been evacuated already, but not all, and the civilian casualties were far too high. Worse, their own explosives had been a mixed blessing. They had taken down two draykoni with the fragile balls of fire, but most had missed their targets and fallen instead among the trees outside of the borders of Waeverleyne, burning large areas of draping vines and soft blue moss into blackened wasteland.

And he was pretty sure that even those two draykoni they’d killed had come back. The draykons could regenerate their own; he knew that from Llandry and her strange friend, Pensould. But his team hadn’t been able to get to the bodies before the draykoni.

They had nothing to defend against this onslaught. Nothing. The guard had already dashed itself to pieces against the implacable beasts and the army was faring little better; they had no weapons that could stand long against a draykon. Even their guns were having little effect, as the beasts rarely came within range and even then, their hide was virtually impenetrable.

If matters continued in this way, Waeverleyne would fall, and soon. After that, the draykoni would move swiftly on to the rest of Glinnery’s settlements, and the realm would be taken in its entirety. Nothing would remain of his wife’s beloved country.

‘We don’t have any choice, Ven,’ he said, trying to sound firm. ‘If we don’t come up with something effective, and fast, it will be too late.’

Ven nodded shakily, his face pale. He wasn’t even Glinnish; he was a wingless human, a citizen of Irbel like Aysun himself. He was here because he worked for the engineering outpost that Irbel maintained in Glinnery as part of a complicated trade agreement. It wasn’t his home to defend, but he was risking his life anyway.

‘It’s not just Glinnery, my friend,’ Aysun reminded him. ‘Once they take this realm, what will they do next? They want Glour, that I know, but will they stop there? Doubtful. This is vengeance. They won’t hesitate to destroy Irbel as well.’

Ven nodded again, more firmly this time. ‘You don’t need to remind me of that, sir.’

‘Then we do it. Everything we’ve got goes into building a new weapon. Gather every engineer left alive and pull them out; we’re going to need everyone. And where is Rufin? I want him.’

‘I’ll find him,’ Ven promised. He left immediately, already shouting orders. Aysun felt a brief flicker of pride in the lad. He was young, but he had pluck. If Aysun had had a son, Ven was exactly the type of young man he’d have wanted.

He dismissed the thought, and squared up. His back still hurt, but he would have to live with it. His immediate task was to salvage everything he could from the wreckage of his previous batch of machines, and get them somewhere protected. Then he could work.

The salvage produced just enough solid timber and reusable metal parts to get Aysun’s hastily-assembled team started, and for that he was grateful. He had little time to reflect as he worked; he had to produce a workable design, as quickly as possible (though he did have Ven’s capable help there) and he also had to keep his fifteen engineers working at unprecedented speed, which meant maximising efficiency. He could only spare an occasional thought for the other cares that weighed upon him: the fate of his wife, for example, whom he had taken out of the city before the conflict began. She was with his irascible and much-detested father in the Upper Realms, where he hoped she was safe. But she had suffered some grave injuries, inflicted by one of the invading draykoni when she’d attempted a parley. Had she recovered? Would she recover?

And what of his daughter? Llandry and Pensould had used their draykon powers in some way that Aysun didn’t understand, trying to heal Ynara. They hadn’t managed to revive her. Instead Llandry had overextended herself and she, too, had fallen into a state of unconsciousness. She had been taken away at last by the strange white-haired man Aysun knew only as Limbane. He had been curiously powerless to prevent it. His only consolation was that Pensould vouched for the man, and had gone with them both. He hadn’t had time to communicate with Pensould in days, though he had given the man a voice device. What had become of Llandry?

In a strange way he was glad that he was too busy to reflect much on these matters, as they would have driven him mad otherwise. Save the realm, he told himself, and worry about the rest later.

And he would save the realm. He was determined. He would save it for Ynara and for Llandry, and hope that they would recover enough to enjoy it.

The sounds of on-going battle continued unabated as his team strove to build Aysun’s new machine. They were all trying to ignore the conflict, but he could see that the strain wore on them. They all had more than enough imagination to guess what was occurring outside, and the work could never progress quickly enough.

‘Calm down, Ays,’ came Rufin’s voice. ‘Strutting about like a frenzied bokren-bird isn’t going to get it done faster.’

Aysun scowled at his friend. Rufin — another Irbellian citizen — was no engineer, but he was something of a weapons expert. At least, he knew more about guns than anyone else Aysun knew, and as such his presence was necessary. But his acerbic comments didn’t help any more than Aysun’s pacing did.

‘How are the bullets coming?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ Rufin grunted. He was seated at a bench with two assistants under his command, the three of them fashioning Aysun’s newly-designed bullets as fast as possible. He’d managed to alter the design of a couple of manufactory gadgets to help them; the machine did the hard work of producing the raw object, and Rufin and his team refined them by hand. It was a dull, thankless task, but to their credit the three kept up the pace without complaint.

Aysun clapped him on the back. ‘If there are problems, let me know. Otherwise, keep it up.’

Rufin merely grunted again in reply. Aysun made his way back to where the first machine was being assembled, judging it about time for the next phase of construction. He was right: his engineers had just finished putting the frame together, and now it was time to fit the parts. Aysun had already wrought the new fittings and he remained in attendance while they were put in place, ensuring that everything went together as planned.

When the group finished, somewhat less than an hour later, Aysun surveyed the machine. A huge wood-and-metal frame supported an even larger gun, modified on Rufin’s advice. The weapon was designed to be fairly flexible in its movements, allowing the person who operated the gun to aim it accurately at moving targets.

The thing would take Rufin’s enormous, hide-piercing bullets in strings and fire them in a ceaseless barrage, and at a much longer range than any hand weapon. If it worked, it would satisfy all of Aysun’s criteria. Instead of one enormous missile, they would have many smaller ones, most of which had a fair chance of hitting the target and piercing the thick, scaled hide. If they could get enough of those bullets into a draykon, the beast would probably fall.

Failing that, they could at least shoot the wings to shreds and ground the beast, in which position the troops would have a much easier time of finishing it off.

‘Time to test,’ Aysun ordered. The engineers backed away from the machine, leaving Aysun to operate it.

He did so with enormous trepidation. This was the best effort his team could make. He had no more ideas, and they had no more time. If they couldn’t make it work now, they were out of options.

He powered it up, turning the crank as fast as he could. A stream of bullets shot from the weapon and thudded into the far wall with enough force to tear a large hole in the woodwork. He angled it up and down and it responded with ease.

By the time he’d finished, most of the wall was gone.

A cheer went up around him, and Aysun allowed himself to join in for a time. Then he sobered. That it worked in the workshop was fantastic, but they still had to test it against a real moving target.

‘Right, get it out there,’ he barked. He wanted to operate it himself, but he couldn’t; he was needed to oversee the construction of as many more of these things as his team could possibly produce. They would be handing this machine over to the army.

But for the first time today, he felt a touch of hope. They were no longer helpless against the draykoni.

The machine was wheeled out of the workshop and, cheered by their success, the engineers fell to work on the next with renewed enthusiasm. But the buoyant atmosphere didn’t last long. Half an hour later, a messenger came tearing into the building, shouting at Aysun to be heard over the noise of construction.

‘Sir,’ yelled the messenger. ‘The draykoni are gone.’

For a moment Aysun could only blink stupidly at the man. ‘Gone?’ he managed. ‘What do you mean, gone?’

‘They’re just gone! Ten minutes ago they all turned about and flew off together, like there was some signal they all heard but we didn’t. And that’s it. They’re gone.’

Some of the engineers had heard the messenger’s words and stopped work. Aysun halted the rest, and silence fell in the workshop.

True silence, for there was little sound either inside or outside of the building. The noises of battle had entirely died away. The man was right: the draykons had left.

The news ought to have cheered him, he knew. It meant his team had an unexpected reprieve, more time to prepare their new weapon against the next attack. But the draykoni’s sudden departure troubled him too much.

The enemy had been winning, decisively. Had Aysun’s new gun alarmed them that much? He doubted it. He hoped it would prove a potent weapon, but he had no illusions that twenty or thirty draykoni would flee the field on the mere appearance of one machine. There had to be some other explanation.

But what could it be? They might have taken their attack somewhere else; another city in Glinnery, perhaps, or even Glour. But all their might had so far been levelled at Waeverleyne. Why would they leave that conquest unfinished, and move on to another?

Aysun feared that this sudden departure was bad news indeed, far worse than any of them knew. But it was impossible to guess what might have motivated their enemy.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We make the most of this time. We’ll start working in shifts, so some of us can sleep, but I want at least ten of those machines ready before the draykoni come back.’

‘But they could come back at any time,’ somebody said, in a voice of bewilderment.

‘Yes,’ Aysun said. ‘I know. We’d better work fast, hm?’

Chapter Two

Trapped somewhere under the weight of her dreams, Llandry Sanfaer was unable to wake. Her conscious mind had been thoroughly subdued and her dream-self refused to release it.

This fact did not trouble Llandry overmuch. In fact, she had never felt less troubled in her life. It seemed to her that she occupied a perfect world, her dreams so full of tranquil colour that she never wished to leave. Her mamma was there, healed and well and restored to her usual beloved self. Papa was with her as well, and Sigwide of course. Their house had become an island, floating high over the glittering glissenwol forests of her home, the realm of Glinnery. Up there the weather was always beautiful and the air sweet, and no hint of trouble could reach them.

Some small part of her knew that her mind lied. She felt the perilous weight of care and trouble and harm that hung poised over her life, felt it as a distant shadow that threatened her perfect happiness. All her strength of will was gone, drained away while she lay insensate day after day. There was only the weak and frightened part of her soul, and that part of her only fled harder from the threat of disaster.

And so she floated quietly along in her beautiful dream and time wandered past. She felt that she had a guardian, some silent but immoveable presence that watched over her idyllic existence and kept all dangers far from her. This presence had never said a word, and she had never seen the particular form that it took; but she knew that it — he — was always there.

Only one day the presence developed a voice. It whispered her name, over and over again until she wanted to scream. The voice grew steadily louder and more insistent, shattering her peace. Then her guardian began to pull at her, tugging with invisible hands, bruising her skin in his eagerness to tear her away from her parents. She felt he would cast her over the edge of her island paradise and she would fall so many miles to the ground. There, of course, she would die. Hurt and bewildered and frightened by her guardian’s betrayal, she fought.

But he was much stronger than she. She had known it all along: therein lay the reason for her profound feeling of safety. As long as her guardian watched over her, all would be well. But when his strength and power were turned against her, she could not long resist. She tried to cling to the soft summer sun that shone on her little island, the clear skies and gentle breeze, her smiling parents and Sigwide asleep in her lap. She screamed her fury as she was dragged inexorably backwards, away from the parents who continued to smile, oblivious, as she was brought to the edge of the precipice and then cast, still screaming, over the side.

She fell, a long, long way. Her precious island receded rapidly until it dwindled to a mere speck in the endless skies. She continued to fall for so long she began to wonder if she would do so forever; perhaps there was no ground in this strange place. And so the impact, when it finally came, took her by surprise.

Agony flared, for a brief, searing instant, and then all awareness faded.

When she opened her eyes once more, she had the sensation that eternity had passed. Relief flooded her at finding herself alive; but that feeling faded when she realised that her perfect world was gone. No soft sunshine met her frightened gaze. The warmth and fragrance of summer was absent. Worse, no Mamma waited to greet her.

Instead, she was in a small, unfamiliar room. She lay in bed, virtually smothered under the weight of several heavy blankets. Armchairs and bookcases and cupboards met her wandering gaze: all mundane, and frighteningly alien. This was not her island, nor was it her home.

Growing frightened, she tried to sit up, but she was swaddled so tightly in her blankets that she could barely move. She tried to speak, but nothing emerged from her raw throat save a faint, and to her ears pathetic, whimper.

Suddenly the blankets were ripped away from her and she was grabbed, dragged into a pair of strong arms and alternately shaken and embraced with crushing force. Somebody was saying something, but it took some moments for her confused brain to let go of its tranquil dream and focus on the reality.

It was Pensould who embraced her, of course. He was apparently torn between relief and anger, for he was scolding her in a stream of words even as he held her to him with enough force to knock all the breath out of her.

‘Who could have guessed that I had saddled myself with such a lazy and indolent minchu?’ he was saying. ‘You will sleep your life away, little idiot, and never spare a thought for those unfortunate beings you leave behind. What of your parents, hm? Will you go into the Long Sleep without even me?’

‘Pensould,’ she managed at last in a dry croak. ‘Stop.’

‘Stop?’ he raged. ‘Is that all you’ve to say to me, wretched one? You ought to be eaten for your laziness. That is what should be done with lazy children like yourself. What more have you to say?’

‘You’re… killing me,’ she gasped.

His arms loosed their choking grip and he sat back a little.

‘It would serve you right, my wicked Minchu, if I did squeeze you to death,’ he retorted. ‘Tis undoubtedly what you deserve for the many, many hours of painful anticipation you’ve given me.’

‘That’s harsh,’ she objected. She might have said more, but she was occupied with replenishing her supply of air.

‘Is it?’ Pensould demanded. ‘Do you deny that you’ve been living in a most-happy dream world while the rest of us fret and worry out our hearts over you?’

‘I don’t deny it,’ she said crossly. ‘It was nice up there.’

He snorted. ‘Of course it was. What you were doing, disgraceful one, was wandering off, merry as a lamb, into your Long Sleep. That is, death, in your terms. Of course it was pleasant.’

He sounded so grumpy that Llan’s heart sank. She had been ripped from her comfortable world and restored, most abruptly, to a reality that offered only disaster and despair. She was distraught enough without suffering such severe disapproval from him as well.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, easing her weakened body into a sitting position and crossing her legs. ‘I wasn’t dying.’

‘Yes,’ he corrected. ‘You were. That state is precisely the state I placed myself into when I wished to stop living. Its eventual result is the slowing of all bodily processes until they cease, after which the body itself decays. It is a most pleasant way to pass on.’

Llandry felt a flicker of alarm. ‘Then why didn’t you wake me sooner?’

‘It had not occurred to me that you could accomplish the draykon Long Sleep in a human body,’ he snapped. ‘Nor that you would, indolent one. Luckily for us both, the possibility occurred to me in time. I have no idea whether draykon regeneration is also accessible to you in this shape you insist on wearing, and I would not like to test that just at the present.’

It occurred to Llandry that Pensould was at least as angry with himself as he was with her. Possibly more so. That realisation made her feel a little better.

‘Thank you for waking me,’ she said humbly. ‘I didn’t mean to die.’

Pensould sighed. ‘Little ignorant.’

‘Stop being angry with me,’ she begged. ‘I can’t bear it.’ Tears pricked at her eyes, to her intense shame, and her lip wobbled. Her muscles, left unused for so long, were weak and shaking and her mind was a disoriented whirl. And all the cares she’d had before came flooding back to her. She remembered the attack on Waeverleyne by Isand and two other draykoni. That attack had left her mother injured and unable to wake; Llandry had exhausted her own body trying to restore her health. And she knew that Isand’s attack on Glinnery was only the first of many.

Pensould softened. He embraced her again, but without the bone-crushing force he had used before.

‘Now, my lazy Minchu,’ he murmured. ‘You live, and so do I. All is well after all.’

She took a few deep breaths, enjoying the soothing warmth of Pensould’s embrace. Then the questions poured out.

‘How long have I been sleeping?’ she asked. ‘And what of Mamma? Why isn’t Papa here? Where is this room? And Siggy! Where is he?’

‘You are in the Library,’ he replied. ‘Limbane brought you here. Your father is building machines in Waeverleyne. He has left a voice-box with us, so you may speak with him if you wish, though he is very busy at the moment. Your mother is with your grandfather. I do not know how long you have been sleeping. I lost track of the days while you remained in Waeverleyne; since you have been here, of course, it is impossible to tell. And as for the furred gentleman you call Sigwide, he was taken to the kitchens by Master Limbane.’

That last made Llandry frown. Her grey-furred orting was stubbornly loyal, and though he was fond of food she wouldn’t have expected that he would consent to leave her. Not even if she was unconscious.

‘All right,’ she said cautiously. ‘Is… has Mamma woken?’

Pensould shook his head. ‘Not that I have heard. But I struggle to get your father’s attention at present. Perhaps something has changed.’

This was also poor news. What was keeping Papa so busy? Nothing good, she feared. And Mamma still lay asleep?

‘You’re quite right,’ she told Pensould. ‘It is high time I got up. Help me, please.’ She hung on his arm to steady herself as she climbed out of bed, alarmed by the trembling of her weakened body.

‘How did you wake me?’ she asked as Pensould steadied her on her feet.

‘Do you think it would work on Mamma?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said seriously. ‘What ails your mother may not be the same thing at all. She is not full draykoni as you are; there is more of the human in her. But!’ He held up a hand as she began to speak. ‘I fully concur that this approach must be tried on your noble mother at our earliest opportunity.’

Llandry nodded, satisfied. ‘You’ve been practicing your languages,’ was all she said in reply. ‘You sound almost as cultured as Lady Eva.’

Pensould beamed. ‘I’ve had much conversation with her,’ he said. ‘She has spent a lot of time here, watching over you. Also with Tren, who has been in much the same state as you, albeit conscious.’

Llandry blinked. ‘Tren? Why? What happened to him?’

‘But of course, you won’t have heard.’ Pensould busied himself with wrapping her in a warm dressing gown and finding slippers for her feet as he spoke. Llandry listened with renewed alarm to his tale of Tren and Eva’s errand and its disastrous end.

‘Griel stabbed him?’ she repeated in horror. ‘But he is alive?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Pensould assured her. ‘It was a close thing for a time, I understand, but Master Limbane fixed him. He has been recovering his strength.’

Llandry said nothing. She was still a little afraid of Tren, though she hoped nobody had noticed. He was too near her own age, and possessed too much in the way of good looks and easy confidence for her to be comfortable around him. But the idea that he might have died alarmed her more than she expected. And the fact that he had been wounded in the defence of Lady Eva appealed to the romantic side of her nature.

‘Maybe I could see him, soon,’ she decided. ‘Both of them, of course. But first, I want Sigwide.’

‘You must allow me to carry you for some of the distance,’ Pensould said immediately. ‘I know you wish to go to the kitchens at once, and I have no doubt we will find your disreputable furred friend there, but it is some way from here.’

Llandry noted with satisfaction that he made no attempt to dissuade her from going. ‘If I fall over, you may carry me,’ she said firmly. ‘But not until then.’

Pensould shook his head. ‘Straight from extreme indolence to stubborn over-exertion. A puzzle you are, my Minchu.’

To the relief of Llandry’s pride, she was able to reach the kitchens without being carried. They were obliged to pause a few times as she regained her breath and rested her shaking legs, but at last they arrived. The kitchens were situated on the lowest level of the Library, and they were large enough to cater to far more Lokants than seemed to reside here. A Lokant of the name of Bune presided over them with astonishing efficiency, aided by a small army of mesmerisingly complex and clever machinery. Llandry had spent some time down here before her illness, collecting food for Sigwide and watching the machines — and Bune — at work.

He saw her at once as she entered with Pensould, and his broad face split into a grin.

‘Well, Miss Sanfaer!’ he greeted with more than his usual joviality. ‘Limbane gives me the report whenever he comes down, but I’d not heard you were awake.’

‘Only just,’ she smiled. ‘How do you do, Bune? How kind of you to think of me.’

He was, as always, urgently busy cooking some great culinary masterpiece, but he maintained a conversation just as if he wasn’t tending to the contents of four or five pans and at least two ovens at once. ‘I could hardly forget, what with that terror of yours driving us all to distraction.’ He nodded at the far side of the room, where a cage rested on a wide shelf. Llandry realised with horror that Siggy was inside it.

With a cry of dismay she darted towards him, forgetting her weak legs. She would have fallen had Pensould not been speedily after her, bearing her up again. He helped her to reach the cage.

‘But why is he locked up?’ she asked, casting an anguished look at Bune.

‘Nothing cruel’s been done to him, don’t fear,’ said Bune. ‘It’s the only way we could get him to eat. As long as he was anywhere near you he wouldn’t touch his food. He couldn’t be removed from you either except by some measure of force, and then he had to be restrained down here or he’d be straight up to your room again. Had to keep him here ‘til he was too tired to fight more, then he might eat a bit.’

‘Oh, Sig,’ Llandry whispered. He’d seen her, and she felt his relief and excitement all mixed up with a powerful rush of affection. But he didn’t rush towards her as she expected him to, nor did he make any effort to escape from the cage.

‘Honestly, we were worried he wouldn’t survive,’ Bune added. ‘He’s that weakened now, what with starving himself and worrying over you.’

Previously Llandry would have said that the one thing Sigwide loved most in the world was not, in fact, herself but his food. Apparently she had been wrong. Unlatching the cage, she gently lifted him out and held him close. He was thinner than she’d ever seen him, and weighed far too little.

She looked at Pensould, properly taking in his appearance for the first time. He, too, was thinner; his eyes were shadowed with weariness and his pale face was newly lined with care.

A sigh escaped her. Guilt, that all-too-familiar emotion, swamped her again. Her loved ones loved her more than she realised, but in her fog of a dream she’d focused only on her own wishes.

‘Don’t blame yourself for that, Minchu,’ said Pensould, guessing her thoughts. ‘You were not in a state for rational reflection.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I suppose not.’

Bune appeared at her side, with a bowl of Sigwide’s favourite foods in one hand. ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting it at her. ‘It’s fresh. Perhaps he’ll eat better now.’

She smiled at him gratefully. ‘Thank you for taking care of him, Bune. He’s more important to me than I expect anyone realises.’

He winked at her. ‘I know, miss. You get back to getting well, now. From what I hear, you’ll be needing your strength.’

She nodded, allowing Sigwide to smell the contents of Bune’s bowl. He showed a faint flicker of interest, but hesitated.

Llan?