Echoes in the Dark

by Robin D. Owens

  To her own surprise, mostly she was. By the end of that week she could untie simple knots she’d never seen before, sense the pattern from the strands.

  Sometimes, in the afternoons, they went to the Caverns of Prophecy and worked with the knots there…with odd results. Once Jikata saw horrible little things falling in a rain, once a Chevalier dying in a battle, eviscerated by a swipe of a black-furred monster’s wicked claws.

  Since the Singer insisted Jikata tell her every detail, each session was more exhausting. But when she learned she’d saved the Chevalier’s life—he’d had an emblem on his shield—it was truly worth it. That one act made her whole time here on Lladrana, in the Singer’s Abbey, worthwhile.

  One evening the monthly prophecy for Lladrana was scheduled in the crystal chamber. This was one of the Singer’s main duties and had been for time out of mind. It was one of these prophecies that had convinced the Marshalls to begin the Summoning process two years ago.

  Beforehand, Jikata had been led to the outer room of the Singer’s suite, but she could still feel the buzz of people’s Songs from the room next door, hear a conversation.

  “…not ready for at least a month,” the Singer was saying. The door opened and Jikata saw a group of people who appeared dressed in their best clothes…and Luthan. Jikata’s heart bumped a little when she saw the man in white leather. He was much more handsome, his Song more potent, than she’d recalled. She smiled at him, opened her mouth to greet him, and her arm was clamped by the Singer’s boney fingers.

  “You can see she is well,” the Singer said. “Now we must go. Moonrise is soon, the time for the prophecy. Jikata must learn this Song.” She pulled at Jikata and the sheer Power of the woman lifted her off her feet and moved her.

  “Salutations, Jikata.” Luthan bowed.

  His greeting was echoed by others, then a florid man waved at them as he rose from his bow. “And she will need to learn the Equinox Prophecy Song later this month,” he said in a native accent Jikata hadn’t heard before. He shifted his gaze to Jikata, with an approving yet calculating gaze. “A beautiful woman for our thousandth Singer. Unmarried…”

  “Salutations,” Jikata said in her smokiest voice.

  Everyone stared at her and she donned her performance manner. She hadn’t decided her course of action before the Singer and hefty Friends hustled her away with mutters about Krache men.

  Down in the prophecy chamber the Singer became all sharp business and Jikata had learned to be wary of this mood.

  A map spread before them, and though she’d seen one in Alexa’s book, and in the beginning of Marian’s, this map throbbed with color and action. Cascading notes became chords, transformed into melodies, then rushed through her like wildfire, flickering visions. Deep rolls of ocean waves; cheering as volarans and fliers dipped and whirled in aerial acrobatics; the glint of the sun on what looked like reflective sails of a ship; Luthan and a road through arching green branches—those were the flashing images. To her nose came a fragrance of summer and growing things, flowers, then the ocean.

  The Singer wound down the spell serenely. The Power and connection with the music of the spheres had worked on her as well as Jikata. Jikata’s ears rang and the Song settled in her blood and she knew she could Sing that spell in the future—any of the great spells, of Equinox or Solstice. It seemed like a gift that the Singer had given her, but Jikata didn’t know why…until they were outside the door of the room and she was Singing it shut and locked.

  Turning to her with fiercely bright eyes, the Singer said, “You are the only person who can open this door. When I die, there will be no other unless you train them.” Then she turned and whisked away, leaving Jikata standing in shock that was a mixture of pleasure and terror.

  Marshalls’ Castle

  As the second week ended without Faucon, Raine found herself wanting to be back at the Marshalls’ Castle. It wasn’t only because of Faucon, but because she’d bonded with the other women and heard their Songs in the back of her mind…and she thought they heard her Song. More than once in the past couple of weeks she’d felt their thoughts touch hers—usually during that time of serenity when she was sailing, and she believed they took some of that peace into their busy lives.

  Great things were happening at the Marshalls’ Castle and Blossom and Enerin wanted to return, though they hadn’t actually said so. Blossom was fretting about the other volarans who were testing to go on the invasion. Status in the herd was changing daily and she wasn’t there to assert her presence.

  Enerin’s parents were doing all sorts of feycoocu business, mostly at the Castle, sometimes showing up at the shore and whisking the little one away. Raine believed the magical beings were keeping their words not to manipulate the Exotiques, but she sensed they were trying to manipulate other events.

  On the second to the last day of testing, Raine left Creusse Crest after breakfast for the Marshalls’ Castle, Blossom handled the Distance Magic and Enerin matched their flight as a baby warhawk that made Raine ache inside.

  Because of the trials, they couldn’t descend to the Landing Field, or even inside the Castle itself, so they landed just outside the front gate. The guards there bowed lower and had more respect in their eyes for her, as well as a wink. They knew she’d been attending to her task. Raine also reckoned she was carrying herself better, had lost the last little cringe of the lowly potgirl.

  Before Raine and Enerin and Blossom had even exited the long passage through the main gate, Calli was running to welcome her. The Volaran Exotique enveloped Raine in a hug that smelled of the animals—rich, crumbling amber. A beautiful scent.

  “Come on,” Calli said, “you’re just in time for the start of the trials today.” She grinned and Raine noticed that the sun had lightened streaks of her hair. She was beautiful.

  And Raine was blessed to have such good friends. She linked arms with her. “All the others are there, of course.”

  “Sure,” Calli said. “It’s the best entertainment there is, a mixture of circus and wild west show, and rodeo, and…and…”

  “I get it,” Raine laughed and kept up the fast pace.

  “You have your own seat, of course, with the rest of us, in the Exotique stands.” Calli flashed a grin. “They play to us. Well, to me and Alexa anyway.”

  Enerin squawked. I want to see! She zoomed away.

  Calli laughed. “Her parents are there, perched on the rail of our box as hawks, preening.”

  As they entered the stable area, Blossom trotted away to be groomed. Later, the volaran said to Raine, There is much gossip to hear. Her rump wiggled and she lifted her wings and settled them in anticipation.

  Then Raine and Calli were through the stables and onto the Landing Field, where bleachers had been erected around the edges. It was packed. Raine’s nose twitched. She halted to sniff, but Calli dragged her on.

  “Wait. Popcorn? Do I smell popcorn?” Raine asked.

  “Bri discovered it growing outside Castleton. I don’t know how she knew it was popcorn, but it’s a new favorite. We have some for you.”

  Raine’s mouth watered. “Oh.” She was suddenly swamped with feeling for this place. It wasn’t Earth, it wasn’t home, but it, too, was beautiful.

  Especially the people. Faucon came into sight, running.

  22

  “I don’t know how I spent the nights without you,” Faucon said and hauled her up. As he touched her, their connection throbbed with music she thought the whole Castle could hear. Then he put her down and kissed her soundly. Raine. His whisper was in her mind and she knew she’d missed the closeness of it, his touch.

  Breathless, she said, “I don’t know, either.”

  “Come on!” Bri was there sharing a smile with Calli. “Sex later, trials now. They’re holding up the start for you.”

  “What?” Raine asked, dizzy from the hormones surging through her. She wanted a dim room with Faucon, not this bright carnival atmosphere of hundreds of people looking at her, the
m.

  But Faucon had twined fingers and was tugging her along in Calli’s and Bri’s wake. He grinned, too. His smile made her heart flop around in her chest. “I matched the best score—Luthan and Mace and his Shield and I. All at the top.”

  Raine bumped her hip against him, teasing, just before they took the first step up the stands to a canopied box. “I expected no less.”

  His hand went from her fingers to around her waist, the touch more intimate and also to steady her if she missed a step. Courteous, protective. More churning inside her. She wanted this man. He had every quality she’d ever admired.

  They entered the box where Alexa was nearly bouncing up and down on a trio of blue-green velvet pillows. “What took you so long, Raine?” Then she winked at Faucon. “Oh.”

  Before Raine could answer, trumpets sounded and the Marshall Loremaster announced, “The trials will now begin. Will those in group number twenty-two take their marks.”

  Raine sank into her seat on an emerald-colored velvet pillow and looked around. All the Exotiques and their men were there, the feycoocus were clustered at the corner of the box, claws curled around the rail. The stand was placed in one of the long sides of the irregular rectangle. To her left were the stables, to her right the maze, and before her was the width of the Landing Field. Beyond that the Castle wall and the cliff. No sound of surf here, but the laughter and hustle of energetic people who had rising expectations of a show. No scent of the beach…“Give me some popcorn!” she demanded.

  Faucon passed her a warm pottery bowl and the siren sounded and six volarans rose gracefully into the air, two pair of Chevaliers and one set of young Marshalls. The sight caught her breath.

  “Go!” shouted the Loremaster and they swooped around the field, racing.

  Faucon slipped his arm around her and reached into her bowl and their hands brushed as they grabbed popcorn. He smiled down at her and life became a gilded bubble of perfection.

  That night Raine was one of the few to take part in a “parenties ceremony.” It was a godparents bonding thing for Calli’s children. The little girl and older boy already had godparents—Marian and Jaquar—but those two were part of the invasion force. The new godparents were the chief Marshalls who’d stay behind, young Pascal and Marwey.

  The ritual was solemn and touching, Luthan officiated as the “representative” of the Singer, though it was an open secret among them that he no longer considered himself so. The children cried and Raine found tears slipping down her own face. Pascal and Marwey would be good parents, but the invasion—the stealth mission—loomed like a shadow over them all.

  After the ceremony Alexa and Bastien livened the Temple by providing tables of excellent food and sweets to buzz the kids.

  Studying Alexa, considering her personal Song, Raine realized that the woman truly believed that the Dark would be destroyed and some would survive. Alexa knew the odds were long that she and her husband, Bastien, would live since they were the premier fighters of the land, but she was willing to put all her effort into the task. Her innate optimism matched her husband’s and being with them eased Raine’s own fears. Maybe she was a weenie.

  So she talked and laughed and watched the feycoocus paddle as ducks in the sacred pool. Her spirits lifted and she paid attention to the little hum at the back of her mind. A trickle of melodic notes that had always been there when she was in the Temple. But now, after her time on the ocean and practicing her own unique Power, she could hear them better.

  Frowning, she drifted around the huge room sectioned off by fancy wooden screens until she stood before the huge silver gong.

  Of course.

  She studied it again and listened hard. Over the last week she’d been working with the navigation stones—the compass point gems and the hematite Power spheres. Corbeau had taught her how to tune them, infusing them with Power.

  She’d set them to frequencies that corresponded to magnetic north and south, the great plinths east and west of Lladrana. She’d become accustomed to hearing certain humming in the back of her mind, feeling it slide against her skin.

  The gong had the same effect on her, had since she’d first heard it. It hummed with some sort of navigational Power. As the builder and captain of many ships, she recognized a navigational instrument when she saw one.

  Light burst inside her head. Giddiness claimed her. She laughed and it rippled the chimes and vibrated the gong itself.

  “Raine?” asked Faucon, standing by the buffet table.

  She turned in wild joy. No one she’d prefer to celebrate with more. She ran and flung herself at him. He caught her weight and only stepped back. Good, solid man. Tough guy. Noble warrior Chevalier.

  “I’ve got it,” she shrieked and it echoed throughout the Temple, plucking notes from the chimes. Crystals in the beams flared bright, reflected glorious colors on the stained-glass windows. Raine remembered Archimedes in his bathwater. “Eureka!” She squeezed Faucon on the shoulders. Kissed him hard on his sculpted mouth. Man, what a zing that was!

  He grinned. “What?” As if he felt her joy, he whirled her around.

  The others crowded in a circle.

  “What?” The word came from the Exotiques in unison.

  Raine squeezed the top of Faucon’s shoulders, then wriggled so he’d put her down. “I know. I know.”

  “Know what?” asked Bastien.

  “Know what the Dark wants!”

  That quieted the room. Raine would be concerned, too, after the joy of discovery—of fulfilling one of her tasks—diminished and she settled down.

  Marian, the Circlet Sorceress, swept up in a long robe. “Congratulations.” Her lips were curved. She, as a scholar, would understand the rush of a problem solved. “What does the Dark want so much that it has been invading Lladrana for centuries to retrieve it?”

  Raine threw out a fist and caught the gong square in the center. It reverberated through the room, perhaps through the Castle and the town below, perhaps even through the land.

  Luthan stepped forward, saying quietly, “Sometimes when the gong is rung the Dark sends horrors to invade.”

  She sucked in a short breath. “Oh, no!”

  But Faucon slipped his arm around her. “If there’s an invasion, we’ll handle it, as usual.”

  “The Dark wants the gong?” asked Jaquar, Marian’s husband, another Circlet-Sorcerer-Investigator-of-the-Great-Unknown. He studied it, brows down, ran fingertips close to the surface of the huge circular piece of silver. Or silvery-colored metal. “Odd,” Jaquar said. “It doesn’t feel like silver.”

  “It’s not.” Raine stood tall, proud. “What it is, is a navigational tool.”

  “The Dark has a transdimensional ship?” Jaquar scowled.

  Raine shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. This could be a compass.”

  Marian said, “So this might be a tool the Dark uses to traverse the Dimensional Corridor whenever it wants. To wherever it wants. A compass and a key, perhaps.”

  “It isn’t only this planet, Amee, it wants to have as its own,” Luthan added.

  “It wants everywhere.” Alexa bared her teeth.

  “Everything,” Marian said.

  “Naturally.” Bastien crossed his arms. “Big, predatory, greedy evil always wants total dominion.” He flashed a charming smile. “It’s up to us to make sure it’s destroyed.”

  The alarm klaxon blasted: Northern invasion of horrors.

  Bastien’s smile widened. “That’s our cue.” He swung an arm around Alexa’s waist and lifted her to him, loping from the Temple into the courtyard, where the sound of wings of dozens of volarans landing came.

  “Shit,” Raine said.

  Faucon turned to her, laid a heart-pounding kiss on her mouth, brushed her temples with his lips. “I’m on rotation.”

  Raine stiffened her spine, released his hand. “Go.” She sounded choked, but that was too bad.

  He tilted up her face, his eyes intent. “Stay in my apartments.” A corner of his
mouth lifted in a smile. “I’ve had a new wardrobe brought in, rearranged the space so you can look out the window if you work at the drafting table.”

  He’d had a drafting table brought in, had noticed she liked it close to windows. Rising to her toes she kissed him. “Go.”

  Hesitating, he met her eyes. “A new bed, a while back.”

  She hadn’t thought of that important fact. Elizabeth had shared his bed here in the Castle. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Taking her hand, he lifted it to his lips, then tugged her along as he ran outside, calling for his squires and his second team of Chevaliers.

  Bastien and Alexa were already in battle gear, on volarans. The Swordmarshall met Raine’s gaze, then Alexa raised her voice. “We’ll meet again as soon as we get back.” She tilted her head to listen to the repeating pattern of the alarm. “Sounds like we need to reinforce the line on the northwest coast.” She turned in her saddle to Bastien beside her. “I told you that one fence post was weak, didn’t I tell you—”

  He leaned over and kissed her words gone, then said, “Ayes, you did.” Nodding at the rest of them, he said, “I anticipate that we’ll be back in two hours at the latest. We’ll see the rest of you then.” They rose, following other waves of Marshalls and Chevaliers flying northward, waving the newest Marshalls, their previous squire team, behind them protectively.

  Numb, Raine nodded. She’d already been nudged aside as squires dressed Faucon for battle. His volaran trotted up, and then there was one last press of his lips on her own before he took to the sky with his team.

  After all the warriors left and only dust stirred in the yard, Raine gave in and clenched her fists. “I did this. I…awakened it…called it…something,” she said to the remaining Exotiques.

  “No harm done.” Jaquar patted her on the shoulder. His voice was considering, his eyes looked like ideas were zooming in his mind a thousand miles an hour. “The incursions have been getting smaller. We haven’t had a casualty for weeks.”