Orlind by Charlotte E. English

towards the bronzed tree, but before she could reach it the
scenery underwent a slow, subtle transformation into something
else. It was nothing like the abrupt alterations that occurred in
Ayrien; there, the light of the Changing Moon shifted its colour
and the landscape would transform itself almost instantly. These
slow changes felt soothing in comparison.
    The mountains
faded away and grassy valley gradually vanished. The ground turned
to moss and stones and mushrooms of every imaginable colour popped
up underfoot, scattered with weird blossoms on contorted stems.
Boulders marched across the landscape, many of them five or six
times Tren’s height and all crusted with lichen and moss. There
were no trees at all, only tall, gnarled bushes delicately dropping
deep green needles all over the floor. Eva sensed many animals
wandering this strange environment and longed to investigate, but
Tren distracted her. He had picked something up from the ground,
and now he offered it to her.
    ‘ Flower?’ he said, handing her a plucked stem with a bow. The
stalk was dark blue and impossibly twisted; atop it drooped a
collection of purple bell-shaped blossoms that jangled faintly as
they were handed over.
    ‘ Thank
you,’ Eva said gravely. ‘Is it edible, too?’
    ‘ Probably not,’ Tren said in tones of regret. ‘But! I have
these.’ He held out his other hand to reveal a collection of
mushroom caps. He had picked all the most virulently coloured
ones.
    ‘ If
I’m not mistaken,’ Eva said with a smirk, ‘those are the type of
edible goods you give to someone you strongly dislike.’
    Tren looked down
at his palmful of mushrooms. ‘I thought they were pretty. No death
wish intended or implied.’
    ‘ Oh, decorative,’ she said, then stopped, lifting her head. She
was hearing something, though not with her ears. Her summoner
senses increasingly picked up a feeling like a subdued roar of
emotion. As she focused on it, it grew to such a pitch that she
felt a headache coming on, instant and sharp. Laced through that,
piercing her heart, was Rikbeek’s keening distress.
    ‘ Tren...’ she began, but her concentration scattered before she
could form a sentence. Animals were everywhere, camouflaged within
the masses of multi-coloured mushrooms that grew over every
surface. They were in a frenzy, some state between fear and deep
confusion; not a one went about its ordinary business.
    She thought back
a moon or two, when Llandry had first disturbed the draykon bone
and Ana and Griel had begun rebuilding the creature. The balance of
the two Off-Worlds had been disturbed; the life force and powers of
the draykoni race were so closely bound up with the energies of
Ayrien and Iskyr that this sort of upheaval was inevitable. The
realms had adapted to the absence of their draykoni masters, and it
had taken them some time to adapt to the reappearance of one of
those powerful creatures.
    It had caused
rogue gates to open with unnatural speed between the Off-Worlds and
the Seven Realms that existed adjacent to one another. It had also
sent the native animals into a wandering confusion, and in their
daze they had frequently strayed through those gates and become
stranded in the Seven. Some of them had become aggressive. The
Sorcerer and Summoner guilds had been busy for a while, sending the
animals back to their homes and closing the gates behind
them.
    All that had
happened because one draykon had resurrected. Eva knew of at
least three that now wandered the realms once more; those three had
gone straight to Glinnery - or Arvale, as they called it - and
launched an attack. Llandry had told her she expected them to wake
more of their fellow draykoni.
    How many more?
And if one draykoni resurrection had been enough to cause so much
trouble, what degree of havoc would ten or twenty or thirty
create?
    Eva spared a
moment to curse herself. She should have anticipated this problem,
but her mind had been focused too exclusively on