Evastany

7 IV

7 IV

I have to say, Gio is rapidly becoming my new favourite person! (Always excepting Tren, of course. I had better spell that out, for he will read this journal someday and I would not like him to be unhappy with me when he does).

‘Gio,’ I said over dinner on the second night of his stay. ‘How would you like turn teacher, and be shamelessly used for my own, nefarious purposes forthwith?’ I have always been given to subtlety in my communication, and do not believe in alarming unsuspecting souls with strange requests out of the blue.

Gio, to his credit, took it in stride. I begin to think him unflappable. He blinked at me, a forkful of roast meat halfway to his lips, and said: ‘I shall be happy to help you in any way I can, my lady, of course.’

I told you he was polite!

I did not tell him how unwise it was to hand me an invitation without limits. I would not put him to any truly nefarious purpose, of course; I was jesting about that. But as I said, there is a great deal I need him to do.

Tren tried, bless his foolish heart. He caught Gio’s eye and widened his own, shaking his head slightly in a clear warning.

One which sweet Gio entirely failed to understand. I do think he is a little naive in some particulars. He certainly has not much encountered humour before, which I think is rather sad. He stared at Tren in obvious confusion, glanced uncertainly at me, and returned to studying Tren’s face as though an explanation might materialise upon closer attention.

Ori took pity on him. ‘I wouldn’t call her ladyship demanding,’ he said, ‘at least, not in her hearing. But she is… er, particularly motivated, shall we say? She tends to have about a thousand projects on hand at any given time, and if you are too quick to volunteer your services, you may find yourself urgently busy for about the next fifteen years.’ He turned a cherubic smile upon me as he completed this speech, hoping, perhaps, to deflect my justifiable wrath by pure force of adorability.

Unfortunately for me, it worked like a charm.

Gio’s face registered consternation — whether because he feared Ori was speaking the literal truth or because he feared he had somehow given offence, I do not know. I swallowed my urge to laugh, and tried my best to appear kindly instead. ‘I shall not unduly burden you, I promise,’ I assured Gio, with a conciliating smile.

It occurred to me halfway through that my idea of conciliating might come across as vaguely motherly. And then I realised that, in Ori’s case at least, I am literally just about old enough to be his mother.

I stopped smiling.

Tren knows me far too well, and instantly guessed the reason for my abrupt alteration in manner. He was so unkind as to convulse with laughter, almost choking upon his meal in the process.

I was tempted to extract some of the exquisite braised carrots from my plate and flick them at him, but I recollected in time that I am a woman of dignity and refrained.

Gio spoke up. ‘Uh, my lady? What is it you would like me to teach, exactly?’

First things first. ‘Ori has rather misled you, in using my full and proper title.’ I directed a quelling look at Ori as I said this, but he only twinkled at me and grinned, so I abandoned my attempts to encourage good behaviour.

To Gio I said, ‘Please call me Eva.’

His eyes widened, and he shook his head. ‘Oh, I could not.’

Oh, dear. What did I do to the poor chap? I fear I may have inadvertently got up on my pedestal a little, and overawed poor Gio. The house and the furniture and the servants and the jewels probably do not help, either.

Oh, well. If being nice does not work… ‘You must,’ I replied, ‘For I insist.’

He blinked. ‘Oh… th-then of course.’

I beamed. ‘Good. Well then, what I require is a trained Lokant, preferably a full-blooded specimen with the complete range of powers. We are gathering up partials with a variety of untrained abilities, you see, and they are in sore need of teaching. Most of them do not know what they are, and have no notion whatsoever of what they may do.’

Gio swallowed. ‘Ah… I am not much of a teacher, ma’am.’

Ma’am. Not Eva, but it was an advance upon my lady, so I let it pass. ‘You do not need to be greatly experienced at the art of teaching,’ I assured him. ‘I am sure you will do very well.’

‘The fact is,’ Tren put in, ‘you are the only candidate we have for the post. Easiest job interview ever.’

Gio looked at Ori. It is quickly becoming clear to me that Ori is the driving force in that relationship, odd though that may seem. I do not know what Gio’s age might be; he looks more or less of an age with Ori, but being a Lokant, it is impossible to know. He is probably older, perhaps a great deal older, and he is undoubtedly powerful in his own right. But Ori’s charisma and exuberance tend to carry all before them, and Gio is curiously unsure of himself for a man in his position.

Well, he has had a deplorable range of influences thus far in his life.

‘I will do my best, then, ma’am,’ said Gio.

‘Excellent.’ I paused to consider my options. I could give him time to get used to his first job before I broach the topic of the second, which might be both kind of me and politic. He does give the impression that he might be easily overwhelmed.

On the other hand, perhaps it would be best to get it all out of the way at once. Brutal, but efficient.

‘I also need to regain access to a Library or two,’ I said, hoping that my casual tone would soften the impact of the request.

Gio choked. Mightily.

Ori handed him a glass of water, which Gio dispatched in three swallows. When he had finished spluttering, he stared at me in consternation. ‘You want access to a Library?’ he repeated. Then he bethought himself of a detail he had missed, and added, ‘More than one!’

‘Ideally. You see, Lokants are tricky folk, as I imagine you are aware. If one requires information, one cannot blithely go to a single Lokant, or just one Library, and expect to be given the full and accurate truth about anything whatsoever. One would do far better to consult multiple parties, compare their accounts, and do one’s best to extract whatever miserable morsels of truth from it that one can.’

‘Eva used to have access to Limbane’s Library,’ Tren said, probably to reassure poor Gio that I wasn’t talking complete nonsense.

Gio’s brows went up. ‘As in, the coming-and-going variety?’

‘Everything.’

Gio turned the raised eyebrow treatment upon me. ‘Used to?’ he echoed.

I suppose it was fairly my turn to be put on the spot. ‘I relinquished it,’ I admitted, and permitted myself the faint hope that he would not enquire further.

Hopes, dashed. The eyebrow, if possible, arched even higher. ‘Oh?’

I drummed my fingers upon the table top, trying to think of a way of explaining my decision that wouldn’t make it sound as bad as it was.

Oh, forget it.

‘I lost my temper.’

At the other end of the table, Tren grinned, and tried to hide it behind a hastily-taken mouthful of food.

‘Limbane,’ I continued, ‘is a secretive, manipulative, cold-hearted sneak and I wanted nothing more to do with him.’

‘Those qualities aren’t all bad,’ Tren said. ‘Under the right circumstances they can be beneficial.’

‘They are perfectly acceptable when I engage in them,’ said I with a glower for my unhelpful fiancé. ‘I do not recall giving Limbane permission, however.’

Tren beamed sunnily upon me and blew me a kiss, following which I was unable to maintain my gravity and began to laugh.

Poor Gio looked hopelessly confused. ‘Limbane is no connection of mine,’ he warned me. ‘I cannot even get hold of him, necessarily, let alone persuade him into restoring your access to Estinor.’

‘Estinor?’ That word drew a blank.

‘He gave you access to the place but didn’t tell you its name?’ Gio looked incredulous.

I threw down my napkin. ‘See, that is what I mean about secretive. Why would he tell me the name of his Library, if he had no particular means to gain by doing so? The most maddening man! And all the rest of them, the same! If they would only stop meddling in our poor worlds, I could go on peacefully ignoring Limbane forever. As it is, your blessed grandmother is up to no good and somebody needs to tell me what is going on.’

Tren has developed a bad habit of acting as my voice of reason. It is no real consolation that I perform the same service for him. ‘Limbane is hardly likely to be the person to elucidate on that subject,’ he opined. ‘Even if he has any idea what Dwinal’s game is, which may or may not be likely.’

‘He is a place to start. The fact is, Tren my love, I am used to leaning upon Limbane’s soft parts until he does more or less what I want him to do. I would have to start from the beginning, with anybody else.’

With which statement, I had the satisfaction of observing that I had made all three of the gentlemen uncomfortable, and applied myself to the remains of my dinner in peace.

I left Gio to think that over for a day or two while I occupied myself with other concerns. I’d given him a spacious bedchamber on the third storey, directly next door to Ori’s. I wasn’t sure if their relationship had progressed to the point of sharing a bedroom yet, and decided to let them sort it out for themselves.

Meanwhile, I had my two letters to reply to.

One was from a woman in Orstwych, who introduced herself in terse terms as Heliandor Rasset. Thirty-three, unmarried, bank clerk by profession. White-haired since birth. Free to start training right away.

I wrote to offer her a bursary on the spot.

The second was from a Faronni Nallay, supposedly from Glour, though her name sounds Ullarni to me. Four-and-twenty, white hair, a painter. It was an artistic letter, all told, though light on actual information.

No matter. I offered her a bursary, too, for we are not exactly overwhelmed with applicants.

I also remembered someone else: a girl, about ten years old, currently enrolled at Glour City’s Sorcerer academy. Susa. She had been tested for Summoner ability some moons back, at my instigation, and failed — sort of.

Let me explain something. For ages now, we have been habitually dividing human magical abilities into two categories. There’s Sorcery, which typically involves things like manipulation of light and shadow, illusions, glamours, gates through to the Off-Worlds, that kind of thing. And there is Summoning, my own former field of specialisation, which has more to do with animals — talking with them, working with them, controlling them and so on.

It has taken until recently for us to learn that these things are all derived from the same ultimate source: draykoni heritage. I have a draykon ancestor back somewhere in my family tree, and so I am able to access some small, diluted aspect of their peculiar abilities. We have probably been in error to imagine that Summoning and Sorcery cannot co-exist in the same individual; after all, the draykoni can manage all of the above at once, and plenty more besides. But for whatever reason, those of us with minimal heritage tend to gravitate towards one group of abilities in particular, hence the labelling system.

So, back to little Susa. As a sorceress, nobody expected her to have any ability as a summoner, and so it proved; except that she demonstrated herself capable of controlling beasts anyway, in ways that made no sense at the time. I have since learned what it means to have Lokant heritage, which is much rarer, and brings its own gifts (or burdens, depending upon one’s perspective and, frankly, upon one’s mood). Susa, with her white hair and her gift for domination of weaker beings, is of Lokant blood, so I am going to need to have her trained.

It is interesting to note that the Lokant trait does not always breed out consistently. Neither one of my parents had white hair. I will check, but it is not especially likely that Susa’s parents are white-haired either. And what that seems to mean is that merely having Lokant blood somewhere in the ancestry is insufficient: if one carries the potential to wield their powers as well, it comes with the physical indicator of the prematurely pale plumage. (I realise that plumage is not precisely an accurate word to use here, but I was unable to resist the delicious alliteration of that sentence. My apologies).

Anyway, I fear I have wandered from the point. The point is that Susa shall be our third student, and a class of only three will make a gentle beginning for poor Gio. So I rationalise away my disappointment at receiving so few applicants. I know that the white hair is rare, but it is not so rare as this, I think? I wonder what is deterring people from coming to us.