Lokant by Charlotte E. English

through the gate first, disappearing from sight.
Eyas went next. Nyra waited, glancing at him enquiringly. He gave a
minute shake of his head.
    ‘How will you get
home?’
    ‘I’ll find a rogue.’
Rogue gates opened and closed by themselves, seemingly at random.
Recently they had been opening with much greater frequency than
normal; this posed a threat to Glinnery’s citizens who did not
possess any magical aptitude, as they could not see or sense them.
Glinnery’s sorcerers were working hard to close all of the rogue
gates before they could send any unsuspecting civilians through
into the adjacent world, but nonetheless Aysun was confident enough
that he would be able to find one at need.
    And if not, he would
worry about that later.
    Nyra hesitated. ‘Ynara
will kill me if I leave you here alone.’
    Aysun shrugged. ‘The
choice is up to you, Nyra. I’m not leaving, but if you stay I can’t
guarantee that I can protect both of us.’
    Nyra heaved a long
sigh, then turned back to her gate. Aysun thought she meant to step
through, but instead the shimmering in the air faded away and the
gate vanished.
    ‘I am our escape
route,’ said Nyra, turning back to him. ‘If we get into trouble
that we cannot handle, I will open a gate and we will go through
it, immediately and without question. You must promise me.’
    Aysun promised readily
enough. He was secretly relieved that Nyra had elected to stay.
    ‘The others are going
to be furious with you,’ Nyra observed.
    ‘Probably. Let’s move
on.’ Aysun shouldered his pack, but Nyra didn’t move.
    ‘Rufin was right,
Aysun. We need some kind of plan. We can’t just wander
aimlessly.’
    Aysun nodded. ‘I’m
working off the device. It’s got a lot of things wrong, but maybe
it has her direction right.’
    Nyra looked sceptical,
but she didn’t object. Aysun strode away into the trees, burying
his uncertainty under an aura of confidence. He heard the sound of
Nyra’s wings beating and then she was aloft, soaring over his
head.
    ‘I’ll be lookout,’ she
called as she passed.
     
    Twice that day, Nyra’s
timely warnings saved him just as he was about to blunder into
danger. It was a stark demonstration of how long he would have
lasted if Nyra had gone back to Glinnery after all.
    When at last they could
go no further, Aysun grimly hauled himself up into the branches of
the tallest tree he could find. He had no wish to sleep on the
ground again, not without Eyas and Rufin to take turns at keeping
watch. His sleep was uncomfortable and fitful; after a few hours he
gave up and merely sat, watching the colourful landscape of the
Uppers changing sluggishly in the sun.
    He’d noticed that the
changes happened faster when the light was strongest. Not that the
light conditions here could ever be termed low, but there were
times of the day when the sun shone with particular brilliance.
When clouds dimmed the sun and soft rain filled the air, as it now
did, the landscape seemed to fall into a half-sleep itself.
    A scrap of colour
floated past Aysun’s vision and he blinked, jolted out of his
reverie. With a quick motion, he caught the fluttering thing
carefully in his cupped hands and brought it close to his face to
examine.
    It was a tiny winged
creature only a few inches long from the tip of its long snout to
the end of its curled tail. Its wings were dusted with jade and
rose colours and it had soft, pearly fur covering most of its body.
With a shock, Aysun realised he had seen it before. This creature -
or one identical to it - had adopted Llandry after it had strayed
into the Sanfaer house. It had been attacked by Sigwide, Llandry’s
pet orting, but she had rescued it and after that it had stayed
close to her.
    Both Sigwide and the
winged survivor had gone with her when she had left her parents’
home, choosing to follow Devary in secret. Of the three, only
Sigwide had returned to the house. He had assumed that Llandry’s
other pet had gone with her into the