Echoes in the Dark (16 page)

“Who
are you?” Jikata breathed.

11

I
am the
planet Amee thanking you for coming. But air is not your element and you know
that. Try others before you settle on the one you love.

Jikata
started from her daze, opened her eyes. Placed the lyre carefully in the stand.
Then she went to the blue crystals and the dark wooden chair inlaid with a
lighter wood in a complex pattern. On a wooden pedestal was a delicate stone
bowl. In the bowl was swirling water.

“Go
ahead,” the Singer said. “Look into the water. Feel the Power around us. See
what the bowl shows you.”

Jikata
had no sooner glanced into the bowl than Amee was back, her face troubled.
I
have called you and the others here for a purpose. You give me hope after ages
of despair.
Her star-pupil eyes flashed like a supernova, tears ran down
her face, then she vanished.

With
a shaky breath Jikata levered herself from the chair, moving within a dream.
The air around her was thick with sound, tinkling crystalline whispers and
vibrations she couldn’t hear, could only feel.

She
went to the obsidian throne. The Singer had placed a fat red pillow on the
seat. Jikata sank into it, looked at the top of the obsidian pillar for a few
seconds before she saw the mirror. Reaching out, she found its edges and
tensed, not wanting to cut herself. She raised it until she saw her own face,
ghostlike, brown-black hair, brown eyes, more amber than chocolate. Behind her
the opposite wall with the red streak glowed. Then it wasn’t her face but
Amee’s. Her gaze reflected wariness, too.
I am fighting and will fight. I
ask you to do the same.

The
mirror fell from Jikata’s fingers, thumping onto a soft black pad she hadn’t
seen. Once again she rose and with measured steps went to the red-orange fiery
wall that had drawn her from the first. As she came near, flames ignited and
danced in a brass brazier.

She
sat and was enveloped in warmth. Amee stepped from the fire, wearing a red
gown, hand again at her side. She nodded to Jikata.
Jikata, you are here, at
last.
The sweet, terrible smile.
You must know that should you wish, you
can become the thousandth Singer. All you have seen here could be yours. The
comforts and the Power and the joys of living a life full of music, of
listening to your gift of prophecy and thereby helping others. Composing. That
can be yours.

One
corner of her beautiful lips twisted.
Along with the temptation of Power,
the burden of foreseen knowledge, the duties and responsibilities of the
Singer.

“I’m
just becoming accustomed to here,” Jikata said.

Amee’s
smile saddened, her star-spark pupils shone behind tears.
I brought you to
help me, to fight with me and for me. But you are not alone in this endeavor.
Finally she removed her hand from her side. A black, hideous swollen sluglike
leech gnawed on the woman, and the red of her dress was nothing compared to the
red of her blood.
Help save me.

Jikata
stared in horror at the evil thing, then skin on its head rolled back and she
saw shiny, depthless, black eyes that sucked the light from the room as it
sucked the energy from Amee. It smiled.
First her, then you.
It cackled
in her mind.

Everything
went dark.

Creusse Crest

F
aucon’s yacht
was two-masted with red and orange sails furled and tied down. A gorgeous Tall
Ship. Soon Raine would make her own ship. Joy blossomed in her. Who knew after
all those bitter wars with her family that she’d wanted to build a Tall Ship…?
There must be more of her family in her than she expected.

The
future of ships on Lladrana was what she, Raine Lindley, would make it. That
sent a shiver down her spine. It would be more like a galleon than a schooner
or pleasure yacht. Good thing she’d designed hundreds of hulls and sails, and
now if she remembered her doodlings in middle school, a Tall Ship or two….

Her
ship would be as beautiful as this yacht, grander than anything her family had
made. As for yachts…she could build something for Faucon, or other rich
Lladranans, faster, sleeker than this pretty lady.

But
her Tall Ship was one thing only—a troop transport. She set her mouth. No
reason it couldn’t be lovely, and they’d want fast.

She
just didn’t know how fast the thing would go without real power or Power—magic.
She walked along the upper deck, all tidy. No doubt Faucon had a top-notch
crew. No indication here of any other propellant source than the sails ready
for the kiss of the wind. There was a polished stick where a wheel would be on
Earth and she was sure it connected to a rudder, but nothing more.

She
went down a level, found the crew’s quarters, hammocks hanging, and grimaced.
That was the most efficient way for people to sleep on a ship. She wondered
about the fighters. She thought of their tired and grim faces and realized that
they wouldn’t care much as long as they had a chance to destroy the Dark and
its Nest and the monsters it kept sending to Lladrana.

Raine
only hoped that her last task was building the ship, not fighting the Dark
itself.

The
galley, sitting area and cabins were all gleaming wood. The crew quarters had
been in the stern of the ship, and Raine’s eye had told her that there was no
“engine” compartment between that room and the ocean.

Now
she stood in Faucon’s large and luxurious cabin and studied the wall behind the
big bed. There was something beyond that wall, snugged in the forecastle, the
front of the bow.

“Your
reason for being here is?” Faucon asked.

Singer’s Abbey

J
ikata awoke on a
fainting couch and jolted upward, but as her mind spun she realized she wasn’t
in Ghost Hill Theater but in Lladrana.

“The
first true vision can be intense,” the Singer said. “Especially if you touch
the Song, or if you see your future.”

Without
saying a word, Jikata took a few deep breaths, looked around. “How did I get
here?”

The
Singer smiled. “I used Power.”

Which
could have meant she dragged Jikata through the caverns or teleported her or
something altogether different. Jikata decided she didn’t need to know. “We’re
in your suite above the crystal room?”

“Ayes.
Only Singers are allowed in that room. It is where the
Singer
experiences the Song. Others—Chevaliers testing to become Marshalls, those who
wish a Song Quest—are given drugs to open their minds to our innate Power and
we link with them here. Now go to your own rooms and rest and eat, perhaps
meditate.” The autocrat was back in full force. “I have had a blank journal
placed on the desk in your suite. You should record today’s vision.” The Singer
grimaced. “In English since you have not begun to learn written Lladranan.”

Jikata
thought she was doing well to learn spoken Lladranan so quickly.

There
was a pecking on the door.

Another
moue from the Singer. “Your bird companion awaits. Go listen to its silly
chatter.”

Jikata
was glad to escape.

Creusse Crest

R
aine should have
known someone would tattle on her. Blossom had told some person or some volaran
and here was the man himself. “I needed to see a Lladranan ship,” Raine
answered. “Figure out the Power source.” She would
not
let his Power or
his wealth or his sheer attractiveness intimidate her.

“Why
didn’t you ask Marian?” He didn’t move, lounged with a shoulder propped on the
doorjamb.

She
threw up her hands. “I have, time and again! But she only shoves a book at me
and I can’t read Lladranan. Then she goes off to craft a Songspell that will
destroy the Dark and am I supposed to follow her and interrupt
that?
”
Her voice rose with irritation, but she didn’t modulate it. The man didn’t like
her anyway, no need to put polite manners on. Though she did wish he didn’t
cause her insides to quiver with incipient lust. He’d always been sexually
appealing to her, and had never shown that he even liked her with the flicker
of an eyelash. Had refused to let her on this yacht.

She
stood her ground, rolled with the slight swell of the ocean beneath her feet,
jutted her chin. “Or should I have gone down to the nearest fishing village to
look at a boat, hoping I’d find someone I could trust who wouldn’t kill me?”

His
expression, which had softened at the mention of Marian, went hard again. “I
assure you, your attacker has been punished. He was banished from Lladrana. I
made sure that he shipped out on a merchanter from one of the City States. He’s
half an ocean away by now.”

Raine
inclined her head. “Thank you. Now I know this has interrupted your day—” she’d
seen enough Chevaliers to understand the fresh stains of monster gore on his
leathers “—so if you will point me to the power source, I’ll be glad to get out
of your way and let you go about your business.” He probably
did
have
business, he was a merchant prince.

Then
he smiled and had her heart flopping in her chest with the contrast of white
teeth against his golden skin and the sensual curve of his blush-colored full
lips. Uh-oh. Thinking about him too romantically.

He’d
turned on his heel and that saved her from looking like a fool since her mouth
had dropped open and she was sure her eyes had glazed. It hadn’t been one of
the sarcastic smiles he usually aimed her way, this one had had real humor in
it.

“Here,”
he said.

At
his voice she pulled her feet from the deck and hurried after him outside the
door and to her right. He’d drawn back a curtain and opened a narrow door that
led to an equally narrow passageway. “Light,” he said and the tiny corridor
lit, still paneled in pretty wood. He took three steps and was out of sight,
behind his cabin’s wall. When she joined him, he gestured. “The Power source.”
He tucked his thumbs in his belt, grinning fully now, liking her slack-jawed
shock as she stared at four huge slickly smooth stones, each nearly five feet
in circumference and arranged in a diamond pattern.

She
squeaked a sound, didn’t even know what she’d intended to say so couldn’t cover
it up with rational words.

“Brighter,”
Faucon said and the light in the room intensified.

He
tapped the top of the stone nearest them and Raine saw a beautifully faceted
emerald inset into the sphere.

“Directional
stone, west,” Faucon said, touched a forefinger to the shiny great stone beneath—surely
it couldn’t be hematite? “Power stone.”

Raine
shook her head, trying to make sense of this. “I don’t understand.”

He
indicated the jewel in the sphere nestled in the prow, a shining golden topaz.
“Directional stone, north.” He pointed to the one to their far right, a
sapphire, “Directional stone, east.” The last was a richly red ruby.

“Huh,”
she said, brilliantly.

He
laughed and some of the lines in his face eased. He would have fought hard in
the battle. And he didn’t have to. He could have stayed here in the south of
Lladrana where no monsters had ever reached and tended to his estates and
wealth and business. But he’d answered the call to arms a few years ago and
fielded two teams on the battlefield.

Hell,
she really was falling for him and he’d done nothing to encourage her.

She
marched back into the sitting room. Her gaze fell on her model that she’d left
floating in the Castle Temple.

He
was still chuckling as he closed the door and pulled the red drape over it with
the sound of brass rings running over a curtain rod.

He
picked up the model and one of his long elegant fingers stroked it. “Come up to
the castle and have dinner.” His smile hadn’t faded as he’d made the offer and
she thought that was a good sign he was beginning to tolerate her. “We’ll talk
about ships.” He studied the model, turning it in his hands to observe the
detail. “I’ve never seen anything like these designs of yours, but I do
understand how they would make a ship go faster, or, in this case—” he held up
the small wooden ship “—carry a number of us to the Dark’s Nest.”

He’d
included himself in the invasion force. Raine’s stomach knotted. “Have they
chosen the Chevaliers who will go?”

Raising
his brows he said, “Do you really think that the Exotiques will make me test
like the others? I field two teams and will help finance this expedition. There
will be a couple of us that will go without testing. Luthan, for another.”

Raine
crossed her arms, would have liked to hitch her hip on a table to add to her
attitude, but he was between her and it. She met his eyes with a cool stare of
her own. “Ayes, I think the Exotiques will expect you to test like the rest of
the Marshalls and Chevaliers who intend to destroy the Dark.” She didn’t really
know, but it sounded good.

Faucon
shook his head and laughed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” He shrugged.
“Very well, I’ll test. I’ll ‘make the cut’—that’s the Exotique phrase, ayes?”