The Draykon Series (1-3)

Orlind: Chapter Twenty-One

'Is everything prepared?' Krays phrased it as a question, but his manner was confident. Offensively so.

'We are ready to take you to Limbane's study,' Eva confirmed, working hard to sound as confident and unconcerned as he did. But at her answer, Krays's manner changed from expectant to outright smug; he even smiled, a little bit. Seeing him in good spirits was far more unnerving than any threatening behaviour. Eva couldn't shake the feeling that they had just played directly into his hands, in some manner she wasn't aware of.

But it was too late to back out.

'Then do so now,' Krays said coldly.

Suppressing a shudder, Eva forced herself to hold out a hand to Krays, wrapping her fingers around his wrist with a feeling of acute revulsion. Tren took her other hand. She paused long enough to utter a silent but fervent hope that they were doing the right thing.

Then she accessed the Map. Having grown used to manipulating this strange piece of magic, it was a simple matter for her to locate Limbane's private and very secure reading room. With a final pang of misgiving, she completed the Travel process and deposited the three of them in Limbane's jealously protected space.

'Excellent,' said Krays with another of his chillingly good-humoured smiles.

Eva made no reply save a curt nod, and stood back with Tren as Krays looked around the room. They had made careful preparations before bringing Krays here. For one thing, Tren had designed a complex illusion to conceal the door. If Krays was hoping to go from here into the rest of the Library, he would have a difficult time locating the exit. Even Eva couldn't tell where it was.

They had also spoken with the handful of Lokants who remained in the Library. Those few had colluded with Eva to make it seem as though the Library still operated on full capacity, in case Krays did escape the reading room.

And finally, Eva knew well that Limbane's alarm system was part of the test. Krays had asked them to prove their power in Limbane's domain by finding a way for him to visit the reading room safely. If she and Tren wanted to convince him of their usefulness, they had to find a way to turn the alarms off.

So they had. The alarms on Krays's room had been silenced, not without considerable trouble on the part of the other Lokants. Now she watched, heart beating too fast, as Krays prowled around, poking into bookshelves and opening up chests, cupboards and Limbane's desk. He seemed comfortable enough so far, a fact which gave her vague hope that they might pass this test.

Then Krays stopped before a glass-fronted bookcase, surveying it closely. The glass was more of the strange stuff that Eva saw everywhere in the Library: the same material, or so she thought, that filled the lenses in her daylight-proof glasses and made up the surface of the walls in the chart room. Krays began to manipulate the bookcase's glass doors in ways she couldn't understand, touching some areas, drawing his fingers over the transparent surface. To her astonishment, the books that she could see through the glass changed: the worn leather-and-cloth spines faded away and stacks of compact boxes appeared, like the ones she had seen in Krays's Library.

Krays kept on with this for some time. Finally, he made a small sound of satisfaction, unhooked a set of diminutive tools from his belt and went to work on the keyhole. He got it open with minimal effort, extracted a single box, then shut the doors again. A quick check of the box revealed a thin slice of some kind of metal or crystal or - in fact, she had no idea what it was. But that it contained some kind of information she didn't doubt.

Krays looked up with another of those satisfied smiles. 'Thank you for your help,' he said. The words were polite, but the tone in which he uttered them was mocking.