Seven Dreams (12 page)

‘
Fabe?’

‘
Yeah?’

‘
Get
everyone ready. I’m going to see Oliver, and then I think we’ll all
be taking a little trip south.’

Wisely, Oliver
did not attempt to interfere with Serena’s plans. It might have
been the shine of enthusiasm in her eyes, or possibly the way she
threatened to pelt him with custard if he refused; either way, he
took her ideas seriously and made no opposition to her going. He
did note, in a dry tone, that one or two obstacles stood in her
way.

‘
It’ll
be swamped,’ he observed. ‘You’ll never get in as you
are.’

Serena merely
nodded. She’d already anticipated as much, and had relayed
instructions to Fabian accordingly.

And he had done
an admirable job of preparing her team, she found on her return to
their apartment. She arrived to find that Teyo and Egg had donned
their LHB uniforms once more and bore convincing-looking
credentials. Fabian and Iyamar had taken the guise of a pair of
university academics from, they informed her, the history faculty
of a tiny university in far eastern Nimdre which nobody had ever
heard of. Their identification documents looked real enough,
though; Fabian had dashed them off in record time, but he had done
a typically excellent job on them nonetheless. They had prepared a
matching costume for Serena, who donned it hastily but with care.
When she was finished, Serena Carterett had disappeared in favour
of a slightly dumpy Nimdren woman approaching middle years, her
light brown hair untidily drawn up into a bun, her clothes simple
and serviceable.

‘
Very
good work, Mr. Trall,’ Serena said to Fabian, practicing her
Nimdren elocution.

He bowed with the
stiff, somewhat imperfect grace of a stuffy older man, his brittle
grey-locked hair flopping slightly into his eyes. ‘You are too
kind, Miss Huandre.’

‘
Mrs,’
Serena corrected.

Fabian coughed.
‘Forgive me.’

She gave him a
regal nod of forgiveness, the majesty of the gesture mildly belied
by the twinkle in her eyes, and hefted her pack full of Emergency
Things. ‘Off we go!’

They took the
railcar southwards, and within a few hours they disembarked on the
outskirts of Balbater, prepared to walk the rest of the way. Though
as it happened, they weren’t obliged to. News of the site had
spread fast, and, as Oliver had predicted, there was a great deal
of traffic on its way from Balbater to the site, which lay a mile
or two to the west of the town. Some enterprising souls,
particularly quick off the mark, had set up a nivven-and-cart relay
service from the town to the dig, and Serena found two waiting. She
sent Egg and Teyo on ahead in the first cart, and followed a couple
of minutes later in the second with Fabian and Iyamar.

They were both
excited by the prospect of the site, she judged, though Fabian hid
it well. Iyamar really did not, though Serena was too touched by
the girl’s enthusiasm to correct her demeanour. It was Iya’s first
real mission, even if there was little for her to do but show up.
Serena remembered all too well how she had felt on her first
expedition, several years ago now, and took more than a little
pleasure in the sparkle in Iya’s eyes as the younger girl took in
the countryside.

Soon, the fields
gave way to jagged hills and the road narrowed. Serena sat with
barely concealed impatience as their driver was obliged to slow for
the passage of other carts trundling back and forth. Then, as they
approached the site itself, they had to crawl their way through
crowds of people. Serena cursed the boards just a little. If they
hadn’t made such an event of it, most of these people — bored
bystanders, for the most part — wouldn’t be here. Then she
remembered that she wouldn’t have known about the site either, and
swallowed her irritation.

At last, they
were set down near the base of a rocky hill that rose abruptly away
to the west. Serena paid their driver while Fabian collected her
bag. Iyamar, dressed once again as a boy, jumped down with alacrity
and stood staring around herself in high anticipation. She was
playing the student to Serena’s professor, so her eagerness was not
at all out of place.

Serena looked
around for Teyo and Egg, but couldn’t see them. She hoped they had
already gained access to the site. She couldn’t see the entrance to
the dig itself amidst the throng of people, and it took some
minutes before Fabian discovered it and led Serena and Iyamar
there.

Two LHB agents
stood guard over it on high alert, their eyes ceaselessly scanning
the crowds. As she watched, two daring enthusiasts approached the
guards, talking animatedly, but they were briskly turned
away.

‘
I
didn’t expect the LHB,’ Serena muttered to Fabian. ‘Do you think
Egg and Teyo made it through?’

Fabian gave a
minute shrug. ‘Couldn’t say. Let’s try our luck.’

Serena let Fabian
take the lead, following closely behind him with Iyamar. He
addressed the nearest LHB agent in his thick Nimdren accent, and
waved his fake identification documents. There followed a
conversation which Serena couldn’t hear over the tumult of the
crowd, but it appeared to be successful, for Fabian gave her a nod
and gestured forward. Serena allowed the agent to glance at her and
Iya’s documents, which he did with gratifying brevity, and they
were through.

The dig site was
situated underneath the rocky hill, Serena surmised, for the
entrance was a jagged crack in the side of the hill. She wondered,
briefly, how the crack had come to be there; it must, surely, be
newly-made if the site had been but just discovered. She expected
to find some kind of natural passage on the other side, but
instead, and to her great surprise, she found a staircase of stone
blocks, neatly made and showing no signs of wear at all. What was
this place, that someone had taken the trouble to build stairs but
few people had ever used them?

Fabian led the
way down, and Serena motioned Iyamar to go ahead of her. She
brought up the rear, pausing occasionally to examine her
surroundings. The staircase wound around and steadily downwards;
someone had scattered light-globes all the way down, so the stairs
and walls were properly illuminated. At the top, the rock appeared
natural enough in its dark grey hue and blocky appearance. But as
she climbed down, she noticed that the appearance of the
surrounding walls — and the stairs beneath her feet — was changing.
Colours began to creep in: dark shades of blue and purple at first,
so dark that they could barely be discerned against the solid, deep
grey. They began to grow brighter and more vivid, and developed
veins of something that shone white in the light. By the time they
reached the bottom of the stairs, the walls around them were
turquoise, violet and gold.

Fabian stopped,
so abruptly that Iyamar almost collided with his back. He had not
seen the pictures, Serena realised, so the site was a complete
surprise to him.

She swiftly
discovered that the images she had seen did little justice to the
reality. A large cavern opened up ahead, so crowded with
incongruous vegetation that Serena could only guess at its true
size. The vines and foliage that had appeared so sumptuously tinted
in the pictures were infinitely more so now that she stood before
them herself. Cerulean and deep purple leaves shone in the radiance
of the light-globes; the grass underfoot, in its many luscious
green tones, resembled the finest plush velvet; and the river, part
of which passed by almost directly ahead, glittered darkly, the
deepest black Serena had ever beheld. Everything shimmered and
pulsed with a kind of energy that she didn’t understand at all; she
felt it beating upon her skin. The atmosphere was warm and humid,
and the air heady with fragrance.

She could not
even begin to imagine how such a place could exist underground. As
far as she could tell with a cursory examination, the verdure
around her was no sculpture; it lived, and grew.

‘
Wow,’
whispered Iyamar.

‘
Wow,’
agreed Serena.

An air of hushed
expectancy hung about the place, so heavy that Serena felt they
might even be alone down here. As they advanced into the cavern,
however, she soon began to see other people. Scholars from, no
doubt, many universities were at work all over the site, examining
and discussing everything that they saw, making sketches and taking
pictures and samples. For the first time, Serena wondered at its
classification as an archaeological site. Nothing that she saw
appeared to be ancient, or even aged.

There was still
no sign of Teyo and Egg, or anybody who was obviously from the LHB.
Serena walked about a little, getting her bearings. Leaning close
to Fabian, she murmured, ‘We need to split up. If we don’t hurry
we’ll be too late.’

He nodded, and
Serena quickly dispatched her brother and Iyamar to different parts
of the cavern. The thing she sought had been situated on the banks
of the glittering black river, but that proved to be larger than
she had expected and apparently ran through the whole of the site.
What if they were already too late? The only lead that had emerged
in weeks and she’d lost it... she sped up, pushing her way through
the thick foliage as she followed the river into the depths of the
cavern.

Many strange and
unfathomable things met her eye as she anxiously scanned the
ground. The riverbank was scattered with rocks and stones in all
manner of colours, and an occasional object that looked man-made.
Many of them interested her exceedingly, but she did not pause to
examine them. She pressed on.

Until she rounded
a gentle curve in the river’s path and came to a dead stop. Ahead
of her, two women stood talking. They both bore the white hair that
proclaimed their Lokant heritage, and Serena’s eyes narrowed. One
of them, she was almost sure, was the same woman who had invaded
Baron Anserval’s private collection and taken the strange key. The
other’s face was familiar to her as well, and it took a moment for
her to realise why. This woman, dressed in practical shirt and
trousers and totally unadorned by any kind of jewellery, was none
other than Lady Evastany Glostrum herself: co-founder and chief of
the LHB, and a minor celebrity in her own right.

What was she
doing talking to the thieving Lokant who’d ruined Serena’s
mission?

Her gaze
travelled down as far as the ground, and she froze. There at the
thief’s feet was the object Serena was looking for: the tiny,
insignificant little thing she had seen on the bulletin
board.

It was a round
little stone, its shape resembling a seashell. This one was cream
in colour and threaded with gold, but Serena was almost sure that
she was looking at another “key”, if such it was. And the same
damned thief had found it first.

She hadn’t
claimed it yet, though; why not? Perhaps she hadn’t seen it, or
didn’t realise its connection to the first (if there was one). Or
perhaps she simply wasn’t interested. Serena stayed back, keeping
herself out of sight and hoping fervently that both women would
turn and walk away, leaving the stone alone. They talked for a few
moments longer, their conversation inaudible to Serena, and then
Lady Glostrum nodded a gracious farewell and left, rapidly
disappearing into the verdure.

As soon as Lady
Glostrum was out of sight, the other woman stooped down, grabbed
the cream-and-golden stone and slipped it into her
pocket.

Serena swore, and
pulled out her voice-box.

***

Teyo and Egg had
secured entry to the site easily enough, though the problems had
begun soon afterwards. The real LHB was already in residence, and
not just guarding the entrance. He’d been prepared to see perhaps
one or two stray officials down here, and it wouldn’t have been
difficult to avoid them. But they were here in force. Even their
leaders were here in person. Teyo couldn’t guess whether Lady
Glostrum and Tren Warvel knew every agent of the LHB on sight, and
he didn’t want to find out.

Egg’s brows rose
when she saw the groups of LHB agents, and she swore a bit under
her breath. ‘That complicates things,’ she muttered.

‘
Yeah,’ Teyo agreed. He and Egg shrank back against the cavern
wall as a group of three agents went past, faces grim, their eyes
scanning the cavern for... what? Did they know something about the
Lokant woman who’d taken Baron Anserval’s key? Did they know about
the second key that might be lying down here? Did they know what
the keys were for?

Those were
questions for Oliver to answer, he decided, dismissing the problem
from his mind. For the present, he and Egg needed to focus on
finding the second key before someone else did — either the
thieving Lokant woman or the LHB — and without being stopped and
questioned by any of the real Bureau agents. Tall order.

But every time he
and Egg emerged from their hiding place and attempted to resume the
search, barely a minute would pass before another Bureau official
(or two, or three) walked past, and they were obliged to duck into
hiding again. Once, they turned a corner only to find Lady Glostrum
herself just ahead. She was not looking at them, and they were able
to dart away without being seen. But it was close.