Page 31 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)

The Loquillan

Anya clutched her necklace tightly in her hand as they left the cave; the cave that had now become a grave.

“What was the name he called it?” asked Christopher as they emerged into the sunshine. She showed him, palm up: the little circular disk, shining in the light. It was wet with dragon saliva.

“A loquillan.” She rubbed the saliva on her sleeve and looped the chain round her neck. She wondered if her mother had known what it was—or if she too had thought it was just a necklace. “They show the future.”

“They do not,” said a voice, low and sharp. “That is untrue.” It was Naravirala. She was crouched among the bushes on the plateau; the cows were giving her a wide berth.

“Naravirala! I thought you had to keep away?” said Christopher.

“You were gone too long. Had you been any longer, I would have followed you into the cave.”

“And risked death?” he said.

The sphinx put one great paw against Christopher’s chest. “Yes.”

Anya frowned. “What do you mean, loquillans don’t tell the future?” she said. “They do!”

“The future is not given, it is made. The loquillan shows one possible future—the future that you dream of—and how to achieve it. It is not the future itself; there is nothing that can tell the future with certainty, not in the whole Archipelago.”

But that didn’t matter, Anya thought. It was splitting hairs, when her body ached for action. “If we could just make it work, it would show me the future I dream of—it would show me how to rescue my father! It would show me finding proof that Claude is a murderer!”

Gallia pecked her, hard. “That’s not how future-telling works, Anya.

Loquillans are better left in the keep of dragons.

They can drive people insane, hungry for a future that may never come.

They turn humans brutal, hunting for things they believe they’ve been promised.

The future isn’t something you have any right to before it arrives. ”

“But the dragon told me to use it.” Anya reached up to touch it, and closed the loquillan in her clenched fist. She would not let it go. As soon as she got back to Glimt, she would make it work for her.

—

Naravirala flew hard and fast, not stopping to rest. Her wings beat ceaselessly, hour after hour, and Anya sat low on her back with the wind roaring in her ears.

Irian and Nighthand were waiting for them on the lawn, tense and uneasy. They were not alone.

Next to them was a creature who made Naravirala halt the flap of her wings, and Anya jolted in the air and almost fell. Naravirala steadied herself and swept in smoothly to land.

He was a sphinx. Even from the sky, Anya could see he was far younger than Naravirala, and that his face was angry and urgent.

Naravirala called out as she padded across the grass to him. “Belhib?”

He bowed to her, catlike, rocking back on his great haunches, muzzle to the ground. “Mother.”

“What has happened? I told you. I had human dealings, dragon dealings. I will return as soon as—”

“You have sphinx dealings, Mother!” Belhib was breathless: not with exhaustion but with ire.

“A dead sphinx. Not on our mountain-side; in Leodwynn. She was found near a stream, near a dragon cave. She was young and keen to understand. I believe she went to seek out the cause of this flurry of death among the dragons. And now she herself lies dead. Our people call for your return, else…”

Naravirala stopped him. “I will come.”

She turned to Anya and Christopher. “I’m sorry.

I cannot stay.” She touched the dragon burns on Anya’s arms and face with her tongue, and Anya wondered at how immediate and total was the pain relief.

The sphinx took longer over Christopher, whose burns were deeper.

She looked at him hard before she said, “Farewell. Go inside—I must speak with Irian and Nighthand.”

“Why?” began Christopher, and Anya said, “We want to hear—”

But the sphinx’s look—a single narrowed eye—silenced them. The eye of a sphinx brooks no argument.

When they were gone, Naravirala turned to Irian and Nighthand. “How is your search? The sphinxes know what it is that you seek; we seek it too.”

Irian shook her head. “Nothing. But we have hopes. Ratwin has heard murmurs in the east, and there are rumors among the nereids.”

“Then I wish you good fortune. It is vital that you should succeed before others less scrupulous.”

“I know,” said Nighthand. “I think of nothing else.”

The sphinx gave a small, sharp-toothed smile. “Nothing?” She looked from Nighthand to Irian and back again. “I will send a message with the ratatoskas if I hear news.” Naravirala unfurled her wings. “Take care, one of the other. The stars tell that there is more blood and chaos yet to come.”

—

Anya beckoned Christopher to follow her to her bedroom in the palace, and crossed to the window seat. She took the loquillan from her neck and held it up to the light.

“Can I see?” said Christopher. He turned it over in his hand. “Did it always have writing on it?”

“What?” Anya snatched it back.

“The dragon saliva!” said Christopher. “It must have rubbed it clean.”

Around the outside of the metal disk, etchings had appeared; words, perhaps, though not in any alphabet Anya knew.

“It could be instructions!” she said. “For how to use it!”

“Wait a second—maybe the sphinx tooth will work with it!” But though Christopher tried, the script remained indecipherable.

Gallia flew to look. “I believe that script might be Kentavian,” she said. “The language centaurs write in. Ask Irian. She is a scholar.”

But Irian, when they found her in her study, was unable to read it. She turned the disk over in her hands. “I don’t think the loquillan is a wise tool, Anya. Look, here; I’m compiling a list of those who might help us: mages, dryads, the Flying Senate, presidents, councilors—”

“No! There’s no time! It has to be the loquillan!”

Irian sighed. “If you insist on it, then what you need is a book. A Kentavian dictionary. But they’re very rare.”

“It’s always a book with you,” said Nighthand. “I believe if you met a manticore, you would try reading a book to it.” But he was smiling.

“Is there a dictionary in the palace?” said Christopher.

Irian shook her head. “There were no books at all when we came; those you see I brought with me.”

Ratwin licked her paw and wiped it on her horn rather haughtily. “I did tells yous. The library of Glimt was hidden-secreted—vanished aways. The ratatoskas says there’s a secret doorways that leads to it.”

“Yes,” said Nighthand, “but ratatoskas also say that I once ate a karkadann for breakfast, which, while flattering, is untrue.”

Anya looked at the little ratatoska, and the ratatoska looked back, unblinking. “I believe Ratwin,” she said. “I think we should hunt for the lost library.”

“We’ve looked for it already,” said Nighthand. “And we didn’t find it.”

“But you didn’t have us!” said Anya. “You didn’t have Christopher, or a jaculus dragon, or two gaganas. Gaganas have eyes as sharp as their beaks. And you didn’t have me.”

Ratwin gave a hop of high pleasure. “We go huntsing-up and searching-down for the library!” she said. “You like huntsing, Nighthand.”

“Only,” said Nighthand, “for things I can cook and eat. I wasn’t born for finding needles in haystacks. But”—and he looked across at Irian, who met his eyes and gave a quick smile, causing him to flush across the forehead and neck—“in the current circumstances, I can make an exception.”