Echoes in the Dark

by Robin D. Owens

  Raine couldn’t answer him, found her throat closing once more as she wished that she hadn’t learned what the siren meant. She didn’t want to go to the library and watch as Chevaliers and Marshalls fought and maybe died. But she didn’t feel like she had any choice.

  And the pressure on her to raise a ship soon had just increased.

  Every single person here would want that now.

  The next couple of days Raine and the Deauvilles discussed and refined the ship’s blueprints. She’d never worked so hard or long or modified a plan more. But she’d never built such a massive ship, had to design it for people who’d see it as revolutionary. And the design and ship had never been so critical.

  They’d set the time for the ship-raising for the next full moon, before the week’s end, and Raine and Faucon checked on the materials for it every day.

  By the time they’d finished the very last changes to her design, Raine believed the ship would be exactly what the Exotiques needed for an invasion battleship. It looked like a galleon, with a lot of space for stores, areas for hammocks for the crew and the Marshalls and Chevaliers, six tiny cabins for the Exotiques and their men. There was a quarterdeck for the volarans, and additional space on the deck for them and observers. It wouldn’t be the fastest or most wind-efficient ship, but it would serve its purpose.

  She and the shipbuilders pushed back from the study table and the oldest male Deauville reported the last of the materials had arrived. Raine was impressed when he said all would be laid out on the beach and sandbars—he glanced at her here—just before the raising. Only his family, Raine, Faucon, Corbeau and the three feycoocus would be aligning the materials. Circlets would provide Power for them to use in moving the huge timbers for masts, the great planks for the rudder and hull, lesser ones for the decks, the sailcloth and the miles of rope.

  Raine thanked the man, thanked them all again, then said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand. You didn’t mention the great Power stones, the hematite. Where will we get those?”

  They stared at her, then looked away. Madam Lucienne Deauville smiled, then ducked her head. “Why we will raise them from the deep. Many of the great stones are found that way. Amee provides.”

  Raine’s turn to stare. “You’re serious?”

  They all nodded. “Ayes,” Madam said.

  Raine rolled her shoulders. “When do we do that?”

  The family shared a glance. “We make the rudder and the hull below the stones, set the Ship plan out, then raise the spheres.” Lucienne shrugged. “Not a difficult matter.”

  “Ttho?”

  “Ttho,” Madam Lucienne said firmly. “Amee provides.”

  Raine just shook her head.

  The night before the raising went well. Raine found laying out the materials for the ship taken out of her hands as the Deauvilles hustled around her. She “supervised.” The sea stayed calm, barely lapping over the beach and the sandbars where Raine had felt the ship should be built, and the family seemed to accept that she’d chosen well. Madam Lucienne made a humming noise Raine took for approval. The eldest son held the design plans and watched the pattern form with an eagle eye, sharply correcting any missed detail.

  Finally it was ready. Except for the stones.

  The ship-raising pentacle had been incised in the proper spot on the beach by the great Circlet Bossgond himself, and the way he hovered near it, Raine figured he’d be spending the night to make sure that design wasn’t smudged.

  Madam Lucienne ignored that drawing, gestured for her sons to follow her example and roll up their rough pants, then slogged out to the area slightly under water where a section of the hull had already been assembled…by Power. It had snapped together easily with just a little Song and imagery and Power from Raine.

  Lucienne waved at Raine to come, so she turned up her pants and went on out. The water was cold but not frigid.

  All this preparation had strung her nerves tight.

  Madam patted her with a heavy hand on Raine’s shoulder. “All’s well.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.” A decisive nod. “All is well.” Lucienne rubbed her hands. “Now we call the stones from the deep.”

  She scanned the beach, gestured to Faucon and Corbeau to join her and her sons and Raine. The feycoocus were already floating on the water, eyes sharp, waiting for the ritual to begin. Lucienne pointed at Alexa and Marian, who’d been watching with curiosity. “You come out here and help!” she shouted.

  Alexa grinned and took off her boots and socks, folded up her jeans. Marian huffed and sang a little couplet that was snatched away by the wind and her magical gown shortened. By itself. She walked a couple of steps and her shoes and socks fell away and she was barefoot.

  “Nice trick,” Madam’s eldest son muttered.

  He was standing next to Raine. For this Song, she was between him and Faucon and they alternated male, female, even when Jaquar, Marian’s husband, joined them.

  Lucienne hummed the starting chord rustily, and her sons drowned her out.

  Then she Sang, of the sea, the tide, the wind. Boats Powered by stones…

  Raine let the cadence of the ocean take her, closed her eyes and swayed and Sang. Sang of the tide going out, of settling down, down, down into the sea, where secrets lay, treasures hidden by Lady Amee to keep them safe. All the riches of the planet were in these depths.

  Rising once again to the water’s surface, feeling the foam of wind and wave, breathing the sea air.

  “And done!” Madam shouted.

  Her son and Faucon squeezed Raine’s hands, dropped them and Raine opened her eyes and staggered back at the sight of four huge shining round hematite stones.

  “Ha!” said Lucienne, trudging back to the shore and her linen socks, sturdy shoes.

  “Looks good,” Faucon said with satisfaction, kissing Raine’s temple. He carefully placed the directional jewels on each stone, then walked with Raine back to the beach.

  “Huh? I missed it!”

  “It was a sight to see.” Still grinning, Alexa zoomed her hand up. “Four big pieces of rock shooting out of the ocean, plopping down on your ship. Incredible.” She glanced at everyone. “And easy. Hardly took any effort.”

  “Amee provides,” Lucienne said smugly.

  “Amazing,” Marian said. Raine could tell she was already framing her report in her mind.

  “A good bit of sea magic,” one of the shipbuilders said.

  “A good omen that the raising will be a success,” said another.

  Raine hoped so.

  As was their habit, the Exotiques and their men had after-dinner drinks in the library. It had spread throughout the gathering that the group was available for any casual problem-solving that wouldn’t go on the record, and in a much better mood as a bunch than if one approached them individually.

  They’d already dealt with a young, stuttering teenaged Scholar—the level below Circlet—who’d been accepted in Marian’s academy. He’d come from a sea family and had been sailing and working on his own maps of the northern waters and passageways for years as a hobby. Did they want to see them?

  They wanted copies. As soon as possible. He left with a sweaty and proudly shining face.

  Then came a young female Marshall pair, Sword and Shield, fingers entwined. They’d passed the trials, and were on the invasion force. They’d had second thoughts—Raine sensed it was the Sword—and wondered if they could be released?

  Alexa heaved a dramatic sigh of relief, hand on her chest, then jumped up and hugged them both. It seemed she had wanted the Shield to stay and work with the understudies posing as the Exotiques at the Castle.

  The Shield had a special gift for luring horrors, which was needed to make the magical barrier strong. Alexa and Bastien sent the women off with their blessings. Alexa went immediately to her waiting list and used her crystal ball to call the Castle and the head of the Marshalls there to tell the next pair of Marshalls to report to Creusse’s Landin
g at once.

  She shared a troubled glance with her husband as she was told their former squires, the newest Marshalls, were whooping loudly enough to be heard throughout the Castle.

  Raine hadn’t questioned anything regarding the trials before, but now she was weighing the seafolk who’d crew the ship. Hesitantly, she said, “The new replacements will be as good as those who just left?”

  “Better,” Bastien said, snagging his wife as she paced back and bringing her in to sit on his lap. “The Sword wasn’t ready, but we can’t dismiss on slight feelings if the scores were high, and theirs were, individually and as a pair.”

  Alexa grimaced. “Our scoring system was public—as I thought it should be after all the secrecy of the Marshalls in the past—but it didn’t really allow for hinky feelings.”

  “On the other hand, that was the Pair I had the most concerns about,” Bastien said philosophically, kissed his wife briefly, then looked at Raine. “The entire list of those who qualified were ties, sometimes three or four had the same score. We could replace the entire complement of Marshalls and Chevaliers on the Ship three times with those who scored at the top.”

  Something within Raine eased. She wanted the best to go. To protect her friends. To have a better chance to destroy the Dark.

  The doorharp strummed, and Corbeau’s wife came in after an “Entre” from Faucon. Her eyes were wide and her expression was of suppressed excitement. She shut the door behind her and said, “There is a contingent of Friends here who wish to see you. I believe they came from the Singer’s Abbey itself.”

  Everyone focused on her and she straightened to her tall height. “They didn’t tell me what they wanted, but there’s been snatches of whispered rumor that the Singer has lost the new Exotique.”

  “I heard that,” Jaquar said.

  Bastien sat up, holding Alexa tight. “Luthan. My brother hasn’t been around lately.”

  “Luthan.” His name came from Raine’s lips at the same time as everyone else’s. This phenomena didn’t surprise her anymore.

  Grinning, Bastien said, “He’s got her.”

  Faucon said, “Show them in.” He smiled, too, and Raine felt the fizz of interest and satisfaction in his Song.

  The woman smiled back at him. “I don’t think they are expecting all of you.” She made a wide gesture.

  “Even better,” said Marian.

  “And we don’t really know a thing,” Alexa said with satisfaction.

  “But it would be good for them to stay and participate in the ship-raising tomorrow,” Raine said, considering. “Friends from the Singer’s Abbey itself.” She nodded decisively. “Show them in.”

  The woman curtsied to her. “Yes, Lady.”

  All the Friends said was that they were told to come by this date. They did ask if the Exotique Singer had arrived.

  Sinafinal and Tuckerinal and Enerin, who’d been dozing on various laps as cats and kitten, perked up and began cat-chattering. Then they stalked over to the Friends and sniffed their hems.

  Marian said the feycoocus informed her that the Exotique Singer was a volaran ride away and enjoying herself. The feycoocus went to see her every day. With a piercing look Marian asked how the Singer and her Friends had come to lose Jikata.

  The Friends shuffled, and muttered inaudible answers.

  Alexa invited them to spend the night and take part in the ship-raising ritual the next day.

  That perked them up and they left.

  Luthan is taking care of the Exotique Singer, Sinafinal said with authority. She will join us when it is right.

  And that was that. As usual, no more could be gotten from the feycoocus as cats.

  On the Road

  Jikata’s Song drew Luthan. Not just her personal Song that had woven around him from the moment they’d met, and that he’d breathed in every moment they were together. This was actual Singing of a tune he’d never heard before, a tune she’d begun making one morning and had refined note by note, over a few days. She wasn’t only a Singer, but a composer, and her talent awed him.

  Her voice and the Power behind it snared him. As he walked toward where she sat in front of the pavilion as the stars came out, he finally admitted to himself that he’d had prophetic flashes of the Song and look of her all his life. Dreams that had awakened him sweaty and yearning for something he knew wasn’t found on Lladrana.

  Now she was here, and there had been no instinctive revulsion for her. Surely a blessing.

  All he had to do was offer her his hand. Problem was he didn’t want to do that, he wanted to yank her to him, feel her soft body against his, under his, wrap himself in her long hair and bury himself in her and race to the top of the mountain of ecstasy.

  But she Sang a Song of dawn becoming a soft summer morning and volarans playing in the pearl-pink lightening sky.

  He looked at her with jaw clenched, quivering in every muscle, wanting her. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, couldn’t remember the last, any other woman, when his eyes were on Jikata. And he’d never had a woman like her. Would never have a woman like her, a Songsmith, a Singer, an Exotique.

  A woman born to Sing the Dark to its Doom.

  He could see that in her, the courage and strength and Power it would take to do that—Sing a weapon knot loose, bond with other women and meld their Songs together to rid a world of an evil being.

  She looked toward him where he stood in the deep shadows, watching. He didn’t think she could see him, but she’d heard his Song, just as he heard hers. That intricate Song that was as utterly beguiling as the scent of her skin, the ripple of her laughter.

  So he stepped from the shadows into the firelight and she glanced up at him with a smile…then stilled.

  If she’d shown fear he wouldn’t have touched her, but her gaze warmed and her smile curved and deepened into that of a woman looking at a man she wanted to touch her.

  He was lost.

  With the measured step he’d learned after his wild days—days that were flickering in his mind about how to take and love a woman rough—he came to her. Grasped her arms and lifted her from her feet until her face was even with his.

  She deserved tender and gentlemanly.

  He feared he’d give her rough and wild.

  While he fought for control, she pressed her lips against his and sent her breath into him and he shuddered with need. Her tongue swept his lips and he opened his mouth and her taste was that of rich sweet cream.

  He swung her into his arms, and trusting his feet to be sure while his mind was spinning, he took her into the tent. He didn’t stop at the spareness of his space but went into the luxury he’d brought for her—the thick rug, the plump pillows, the small feather mattress all bespelled to inviting softness.

  There he laid her down.

  That was the last bit of gentleness between them.

  They fought off each other’s clothes, panting, moaning. He might have sworn at a stubborn buckle, then it was open. Her hands clutched his shoulders, kneading deep into muscle, and his explored the texture of smooth woman and silky hair.

  They came together as if they’d always fitted to each other, mated, and the ride was wild, her Song spiraling them high, matched with his, until they flamed together and he was consumed.

  He lay atop her, not wanting to move, knowing he was heavy on the smaller woman, but he could barely put two thoughts together, let alone command his muscles.

  She purred, nipped at his biceps, and bliss shot through him and he shuddered again.

  “Much better,” she said in a husky voice carrying the Exotique accent, “than sleeping alone, with you near.”

  He’d only be able to grunt, so he said nothing.

  Then with a satisfied hum she rolled them over until he was pressed into the mattress and she was atop him and having her breasts and soft body settle into him so wonderfully it was near pain.

  “We won’t sleep apart again, will we, Luthan?”

  He had to find
his voice. His arms tightened around her. “We might never sleep again.”

  She chuckled and it tugged every nerve in his body.

  “I’ve wanted this since we’ve met.” She propped her arms on his chest, her voice came above him.

  He realized his eyes were closed and he needed to see her. Fabulous woman, beautiful sparkling eyes, cheeks with a hint of rose, lush mouth. His mind went blank again, but he managed to say, “Me, too.”

  She wriggled atop him and all sensation centered back to his sex, which rose. “No,” he said, putting his hands on the globes of her bottom, loving the roundness, the texture. “No sleep tonight.”

  But they did. They slept and dreamed. Together.

  He walked in a smooth tunnel of rock, holding her hand. Beneath them was the rumble of molten earth and the stench of evil. Outside he could hear fighting, Marshalls and Chevaliers and volarans battling monsters. Screams of pain and dying. Shrieks of mindless fury.

  Jikata blinked and looked around her. “What is this place?”

  32

  He looked down at the woman and was blinded by her physical beauty, then heard nothing but her wondrous Song. “You know where we are, and you really should read the Lorebooks,” he said mildly.

  She tilted her head. “I think they would be too fearful all at once.”

  He considered, nodded. “Maybe.”

  “I would rather you tell me bits as I ask.”

  “Done,” he said, then shook his head. The woman was Powerful enough to receive prophecies anywhere on Lladrana and draw him into them with her.

  They came to an opening that was one of several around a huge cavern within the mountain.

  She frowned. “What is this?”

  “The volcano of the Dark’s Nest.” Outside the mountain, the human voices became lost in monsters’ roars. A liquid chuckle rose from the depths. Jikata shivered. Luthan moved until he was at her back, his arms wrapped around her.