Echoes in the Dark

Jikata! The Singer’s voice.

Suddenly she wasn’t there and then, but here and now. That was Zen, this is Tao, she thought with ironic humor. Her throat still burned.

The Singer was frowning, her face wrinkled into a thousand lines that spoke of age and experience…and some of them of lost love. “What did you see?”

Jikata cleared her throat. “The man from the other night.”

“The night you were Summoned.”

“Yes.”

“Ayes.”

Did the Singer mean her to parrot “Ayes?” Jikata didn’t want to play games. She nodded.

“That is Luthan Vauxveau, a wealthy, Powerful noble of the Chevalier class. He wore Chevalier leathers and is my representative to the rest of Lladrana,” the Singer stated.

Chevalier meant what? Horseman? Knight? One of those who flew on the winged horses?

A knight in white leather. Was that as good as in shining armor? He looked more like a Western knight than a shogun. No, he acted more like her idea of a Western knight, though her ideas of both knights and samurai were formed by the media.

As the Singer crossed to a dark red door, Jikata understood that though the woman had spoken telepathically, she hadn’t seen into Jikata’s mind and that was a blessing. She didn’t want anyone to do that.

The Singer opened the door and gestured Jikata into what looked like a closet. She wasn’t claustrophobic, but it was hardly big enough for three people. Everyone on Lladrana seemed to think personal space was a lot smaller than Jikata believed.

The Singer waved her hand up and down. A moving box.

An elevator.

We descend to the Caverns of Prophecy now.

Jikata hesitated. The Singer lifted her brows. I promise neither will hurt you. Jikata wasn’t accustomed to being patronized in her own mind. She shrugged and got in.

The Singer Sang a scale, starting at the top of her range and descending. The elevator moved gently and silently down. This is the only moving box in Lladrana, and I am the only one who can Sing the songspell.

Then the door opened and they were in the caves. As Jikata watched, mist gathered into wraithlike shapes and solidified….

A piercing high C and the mist dispersed. Middle C and Jikata’s vision blurred and she understood the Singer had curved some sort of force field around them. Handy. From her last time in these caves, Jikata figured that the man in white, Luthan Vauxveau, didn’t know that particular spell. But Jikata had also sensed that the man didn’t know the Caverns. Thinking back, the majority of the Friends didn’t know the caves, either.

The Singer walked with a sure step through dark brown rock tunnels, following a spell light brighter than Jikata had learned to make…yet, in the two days she’d been here. “Time passes the same?” She wanted reassurance.

“Ayes.” The old woman didn’t pause, but as they turned left, Jikata saw a tiny marking on the rock wall at about her eye level. High for the Singer, lower for the rest of the Lladranans. The Lladranans, like most Earth peoples, had grown bigger and taller over generations? The sense of the caverns was ancient. Long smoke smears—from torches?—were even with Jikata’s head.

They jogged right and went through an old door. Jikata didn’t recall going through the door before, but now the Power was stronger. It slid smoothly across her skin with a touch that sent warning throughout her body. Danger, visions ahead!

Seven Mile Peninsula

Blossom dispersed the Distance Magic bubble without a sound and she and Raine spiraled slowly downward to a tall gray keep on the bluff overlooking an equally gray sand beach. This was the estate the Lladranans had offered Raine. The place itself was well-kept and looked old and weathered, but still seemed a good stronghold. It was on the southwest side of a small piece of land thrusting into the ocean called Seven Mile Peninsula.

Around it were green fields. The village that supported the castle was farther south, where the land smoothed toward the ocean and provided a good port. Part of the income for the village would come from fishing. Raine wondered if any of the folk could help her if she accepted the estate or whether they’d be as suspicious as the Seamasters themselves. As she and Blossom flew south, still within the boundaries of “her” land, Raine saw a huge building and docks with several boats, one being built the old-fashioned way.

They would owe fealty to you. Want to descend?

No! She could imagine what her father and brothers would say if some clueless guy from the government showed up. But she spotted a couple of men dressed in bright green who shaded their eyes as they watched Blossom and her fly over the open sea. The men raised their arms and waved. Raine thought she even saw a flash of teeth through bearded smiles.

She would rather figure out things on her own. A matter of pride, particularly since she’d been considered useless when she’d first arrived. Her ego and pride had been battered out of her, then, and were just reviving. A thought struck—Blossom?

Ayes?

The land where you found me…the hamlet where I worked, is it owned by anyone? At the time she’d thought the place was owned communally by the Seamasters since it was near Seamasters’ Market, where the great fisherfolk held seasonal fairs.

Blossom snorted. Owned by a great Chevalier. She now knows to keep a better eye on it, and on the Townmaster. The volaran snapped the Distance Magic around them once more. Raine relaxed into the ride, checked Blossom’s and her own energy levels, which were good, and let the flight soothe Blossom’s irritation—that Raine hadn’t committed to staying on Lladrana, hadn’t adored the castle or the estate, and at the memory of Raine’s mistreatment.

Raine went quiet, was sorry she couldn’t see their route to Faucon’s castle, but could tell when they flew over ocean or island on their trip. The feel of the water, more than the sound of surf against land, filled her.

Singer’s Abbey

Caverns of Prophecy, Caverns of Prophecy, the syllables pattered a rhythm. Jikata had a wonderful voice, an instrument, she knew that. Since arriving on Lladrana she’d felt Power. Magic outside her that ruffled, pulled at magic within her. She’d enjoyed learning magical spells.

Did she really think she had a “gift” of prophecy?

Uneasily she recalled the hunches she’d felt all her life, even before the chimes and gong the last couple of years, though her intuition had flashed more often since then. She’d known that to further her career she would have to leave Denver, disappoint Ishi, who wanted her to be a teacher. Jikata could never see herself in a classroom, only and always on stage, singing. Was she supposed to ignore the gift of a beautiful four-octave voice?

Arguments with Ishi buzzed around her head and she grew irritated with the past and herself for dwelling on it. She’d accepted being disinherited.

Ishi’s death, and now the air around her, brought it all back.

Flashes of intuition, vivid dreams that sometimes came true. She hadn’t believed she was psychic. It was easier, even here, to believe in magic outside herself.

They moved into smoothed rock hallways. These floors had thick carpets and their footsteps were lost in fine wool. Jikata still sensed the layers of sediment of the ages above her. Below her was the throbbing heartbeat of the planet. The dim sound seemed to ignite a glow of light in her chest and expand it.

A few minutes later they came to a door of black wood with a rounded top and strap work and hinges that seemed like iron, but were tarnished silver. Beyond the door was a hum of great Power.

The Singer looked at her and for the first time dissatisfaction was gone from the back of her eyes, leaving them serene. Whatever Jikata dimly sensed beyond the door, the Singer felt a hundredfold more strongly.

“You have trained enough to open the door. Listen closely.” She inhaled from her diaphragm, Sang crystalline notes from four octaves in a pattern that stirred Jikata’s blood.

The doorknob glowed, an intricate design of gleaming silver. The Singer touched the knob, said “Lock,” and the knob turned black-on-black again. Then she waited, gaze fixed on Jikata.

Jikata ran a couple of scales to warm her vocal cords. Had she known the Singer would make another of her impatient demands, Jikata would have limbered up her voice as she walked. Then she replicated the Song and the doorknob glowed once more.

“Good.” The Singer nodded shortly. She touched the knob and they both stepped back as the door swung outward.

The Singer went in first. “This is the true Chamber of Prophecy, where Power gathers. This is the room where every Singer for time out of mind has listened to the Song—of Amee, of the universe, of the great creative being we name the Song. It can be many tunes or one or even pure silence.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper.

Jikata stepped into the room and onto layers of thick, colorful rugs and gaped. In the middle the rugs became a pyramid, smaller and smaller until one just long enough to cradle the Singer was on top. There was a down mattress atop it.

The glitter of the walls took her breath. She was in a massive geode, a domed chamber with walls of protruding crystals all colors of the rainbow. Every color of quartz. Or were they tourmaline, precious gems, colored diamonds? She didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine the number or the color variations, the sizes of all the crystals, all of which would resonate with a different note.

They seemed to emit sound beyond her hearing. She quivered like a tuning fork.

“It’s the Power,” the Singer said with relish. “Some of the crystals store it, some project it, some even dampen it. The Song is endless and various.”

Jikata couldn’t speak. She blinked and blinked again, then narrowed her eyes to slits and shaded them with her hand. Even the filters she’d been building didn’t stop the unheard melodies affecting her so she rocked on heels and toes.

The Singer breathed deeply and Jikata understood the Power here supported and refreshed the Singer, probably led to her great age. But one thing Jikata had agreed with Ishi on was that living to a great age was not a goal to be sought at all costs, not even if the quality of life was acceptable.

For everything there is a season. She’d recorded that song because she’d agreed with it.

The Singer went to the pile of rugs and sat on an edge. She gestured. “I do not need the tools in the four directions of the room, but you may. We must explore which divination tool is best for you. Look around.”

The room wasn’t big, perhaps twenty feet in circumference, enough space for the rugs in the middle and the largest rug—surely commissioned for this chamber. As Jikata turned in place, she saw four different…thrones, and noticed that where they sat there was a shading streak of the same color. Deep blues spearing down to the palest shade of blue that seemed almost clear; the same with reds through orange to citrine with only a hint of yellow; dark purple amethyst to the lightest of lavender; great milky crystals that became more and more translucent until only the reflections on their facets showed they were there.

Each streak of color was equidistant from the others. The chairs were of silver, of gold, of polished wood, of slick obsidian. All had fat pillows near them in bright contrasting colors for seat and back. All had a pedestal she could barely see between the back of the chair and the wall.

She walked to the clear stones. On the pedestal was a harp that appeared to be fashioned from thick glass, shaped like an ancient lyre.

“Ah, my own element, air,” the Singer said approvingly.

Jikata yearned to touch the instrument. “I don’t know how to play it.”

The Singer’s laugh was sincerely amused, her face crinkled with humor, and Jikata saw the vibrant woman she’d been before age and sickness and something else—worry…the burdens of being a great oracle?—had taken their toll.

“It is meant to be strummed, a tool to vibrate the air around you so the visions come. Sit, try it.”

Jikata hesitated.

“We will not be leaving this room until we have found your best tool,” the Singer said calmly. “I was first here when I was nine. Two days after I arrived at the Abbey.”

But she was a Lladranan. The small woman’s hand was on Jikata’s shoulder, urging her down. Jikata sat on the silver chair and took the glass harp in her hands. It wasn’t large—about a foot and a half and fit easily in her lap. She didn’t know how to hold it, so she put her arm behind the glass top and set the bottom at an angle on her opposite thigh.

“If you have a question, ask. If not, just let your mind relax and see what comes.” The Singer’s voice lilted, hypnotic.

Creusse Crest

Blossom dropped the Distance Magic for the final time and Raine saw it was late afternoon. In the near distance was a crescent between two jutting promontories that was Faucon’s land. His castle was built of a golden-toned stone and both sprawled and rose like a small city in itself.

Raine said, We—I—don’t need to go to the castle. I want to look at Faucon’s yacht down on the dock, it shouldn’t take very long.

But Blossom was licking her lips. I have flown far and deserve good food.

Raine shifted uneasily, enough to have given Blossom wrong cues, if they hadn’t been ignored. Raine hadn’t asked Faucon’s permission to inspect his ship, to come here and demand food for a hungry volaran. She’d hoped to pop in, look at his yacht and pop back out, no harm done. She should have asked, even if he did avoid her.

Blossom said, You should go up to the castle to greet the people. You did not thank them for your care last month.

Because I was knocked out and taken away! But Blossom had said enough to prick an underlying guilt in Raine. The housekeeper of Faucon’s castle and a couple of maids had been the first people to treat her decently since her arrival on Lladrana. Raine would have written thank-you notes but she still didn’t know how to write.

Blossom alit on the dock near the yacht and Raine dismounted. She’d no sooner began to stretch her muscles before the flying horse took off to the castle above. Raine ground her teeth, then turned to the yacht. Beautiful lines, wood painted white, it was about two hundred feet long and one glance told her no money had been spared in her making. She walked to the stern and probed with her Power, her magic, for a rope ladder, then found and lowered a gangplank that had fancy carving on the sides. Raine just shook her head and gently settled the plank on the dock, then hurried up it.

The rocking of the ship under her feet made her catch her breath, and swallow hard. She hadn’t been on a boat in eight and a half months. She closed her eyes and a small moan of pleasure escaped her as her soles tingled and she got her sea balance. Somehow the water beneath her wasn’t like Earth oceans. Were the tides and the ocean swells that different? Lladrana had a moon that looked only a little larger than Earth’s. Maybe it was the difference of the planet Amee under the ocean, or with the ocean, or whatever. Raine sniffed and again shook her head at the fanciful notion.

Singer’s Abbey

Letting her mind wander, Jikata strummed, closed her eyes against dazzling brightness. How odd that such a conglomeration of crystals should form a hemisphere focusing Power and prophecy. Surely it couldn’t be natural.

I made it. Crafted it like you craft your melodies. A rippling laugh and Jikata angled her head to see a Lady dressed in a white toga, a Lladranan woman with long silver hair, dark eyes that showed a brilliant white starlike pupil. She held her hand against her lower abdomen. I wanted my peoples to listen to me. She smiled and it was the sweetest, most heartbreaking smile Jikata had ever seen. There are places like this in many lands, but only my Lladranans listened.

“Who are you?” Jikata breathed.

11

Iam 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

Faucon’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

Jikata 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.”

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