Echoes in the Dark

by Robin D. Owens

  Luthan Sang.

  Jikata was caught in the moment, in the Song, then realized that the main Singer was flagging. Her voice was clear and true and still had incredible Power in it for the task, but she tired.

  The rhythm was of a sea shanty and the main purpose or element was creation—physical building. Not surprising since the deck of a ship was settling on lower structures inside the boat. Ship.

  Jikata shouldn’t disrupt this great spell, but she could help. Matching the note, she added her voice.

  Luthan’s head jerked up and he looked at her, but no one else seemed to notice. She was just part of the chorus, a melding of voice and Power. It had been a long time since she’d been satisfied with that, but she was now. She felt unusually shy. All these people gathered together for one purpose, trusting each other to practice Power together and Sing and make a great thing.

  Togetherness and trust.

  She hadn’t had much of that in her life except the recent days with Chasonette and Luthan and the volarans. If she wanted to do a “poor little me” she could cast a glance back at her life and think that there hadn’t been a feeling of real togetherness since she’d lost her parents. Ishi had been an emotionally isolated person. As was the Singer.

  Her gaze went to the five Caucasian women, one at each cardinal direction and one in the center of the circle. The Exotiques. All the Power of the others flowed through them. Every single person there—even the Friends—trusted these women implicitly. The personal Songs woven into the pattern also resonated with affection, admiration for them. Personal knowledge of each other was of a depth that Jikata hadn’t even had with her own touring crew.

  She wanted that, hadn’t earned it yet.

  But melding her voice and her strength and her range and her Power into the Song was a good start.

  She blinked, thinking that the bluish atmosphere surrounding the Ship held a new sheen.

  And suddenly she heard more than the soundtrack, the setting around her, the voices. She heard the mental contact of the women.

  That’s enough for today, the voluptuous redhead with a gleaming gold band around her forehead said. Marian, the Circlet. We would do better to save the masts and rigging and sails for tomorrow.

  The woman in the middle, arms raised, gave a slow shake of her head. No! Today, now. I feel… She flung her arms wide and Jikata heard her Song take on strength and Power. With surprise, Jikata realized that the woman had connected with Amee and the planet was pouring Power into her. A minuscule amount for Amee, a thread too thin to see, but huge to the woman. Her Song gathered strength, her expression became beatific. A ripple went around the circle of Singers and more Power pumped from them. Jikata strengthened her voice, slowly moved to stand behind Luthan. No one was looking at her. All were focused on the woman at the center who glowed like a goddess.

  Her fingers moved gracefully, tiny swoops, and more planks for a top quarterdeck flew into place, snicked together. Jikata saw several layers—coats—of energy slide over the construction, into each fiber of the wood. Huge masts rose, settled with efficient thunks into the boat, rigging threaded like embroidery, sails slowly unfurled.

  Jikata yearned to be a part of this, to contribute more. Gently, gently, finger by finger, she set one hand against Luthan. He trembled. The man in front of him arced, but the Power surge was regulated, swept around the circle, by strong minds.

  Teamwork.

  Many of these, including Luthan’s brother, were intricately entwined in a team that had worked, fought together. Life and death. They knew their Songs, their limits, their strengths. Jikata nearly gasped in amazed pleasure at the link, but kept her voice steady, and curved the fingers of her left hand around Luthan’s waist, helping modulate the Power herself.

  Song was all.

  Raine should have been tired and hoarse—she had been. But then she’d been sucked downward deep into the dark heart of the ocean. Darkness! She struggled against it, then discovered it wasn’t the darkness of evil, but the blackness of the absence of light. No more evil than the brightest sunburst.

  The dark of the true deeps, the bottom of the ocean where water glided over the lowest crust of the planet. She accepted this darkness, this water, this Song. And connected with Amee. She knew it couldn’t be anything else, such a surge of Power that washed exhaustion from her, made her stronger.

  The other Exotiques had spoken of their connection with Mother Earth, and then their connection with Amee, but Raine had never been certain of that. Now she knew. Mother Earth had a saltiness to her water, a faint metallic harshness from all the years man had used machines. A taste Raine’d grown up with and knew. Now an underlying sweetness, from the planet’s nature, she thought, flowed through her.

  She smiled, feeling Powerful, in every way. And she noticed a couple of new voices added to the mix running through her. Luthan’s, just recognizing his individuality now. Another, the…strongest, most flexible. She welcomed them but concentrated on her work. The Deauvilles and other sailors had wanted some carving on the rails, the inside panels of the ship, around the deck and below, so she let them direct her. She worked fast, this energy connection with Amee could burn her out if she let it. So she added pretty carved flourishes.

  Her hair went damp as she lifted the figurehead—a statue of a woman whose image had just come to mind.

  It was a gigantic ship. It had to be to accommodate the volarans, though they had informed her that since the ship would travel at volaran Distance Magic speed at night, they would rotate off it so they might be free of constraints that hampered wingless humans.

  Greater than anyone on Lladrana had ever seen.

  Then, as her breath faltered and the sun hit the middle of the sky and beamed bright and shining on the sea, she Sang the last of the ritual, her voice alone, and added the name to the side of her ship, in fancy Lladranan and in English.

  The Echo.

  All she knew, all she had, she sent into the ship and she let the dimness of exhaustion, sparkling with the fading bits of Power, claim her.

  Somehow Jikata was drawn to the center, along with the other four who’d been part of the circle. Their knees gave out at the same time as Raine uncurled her fists and let the Power sustaining them all go. The women tumbled into a heap, Jikata felt soft body parts under her arms, she thought her head was pillowed on Raine’s thigh. With her last puff of breath, she said, “This isn’t the vision I had of us meeting.”

  Then, with careful steps, Luthan was towering over them, breathing deeply but raggedly. “Not my vision, either. We met on a road. Alexa accused me of betraying the other Exotiques for not bringing you immediately to them.” His voice changed from flat to almost wondering. “I gave that vision a ninety percent chance of happening.”

  A chuckle came near Jikata’s right elbow. She didn’t have the strength to look down, but when Luthan’s brother strode up, then hauled up the small woman by her waist, Jikata saw silver hair and an upside-down face. Alexa. The Swordmarshall was flipped into her husband’s arms and she leaned against him, but grinned at Luthan. “Just goes to show that not all your visions come true. Not even those in the ninety percentile.”

  Luthan gave her a slightly wobbly bow. “You reassure me.”

  “It reassures us all,” his brother said and kissed his wife.

  “Welcome back, Luthan,” said another man and Jikata couldn’t guess who he was. “This must be the famous Jikata.”

  She was so limp, she could only snort inwardly.

  “Time to clean up this heap,” said another man. “Where’s my Bri? I can’t see Raine, either. Raine, I congratulate you on an excellent piece of work. Everyone is still here admiring it.”

  Which meant everyone was still here seeing the famous Jikata, the Exotique Singer, in a heap. She was amused at herself for thinking of her image. Just in these few moments she received the impression that the other Exotiques had formidable reputations but not sophisticated ones. Though if this is how they all u
sually ended up after a great performance—ritual—that was understandable.

  There were a couple of gleeful chuckles, a child’s piercing shriek that had Jikata flinching. A small foot hit her in the shoulder blade as a little girl scrambled over the pile of them with great cheerfulness and disregard.

  “Calli?” said a man in a voice that held the timbre of a good singer. “Sit up, the children are concerned.”

  Jikata recalled Luthan had told her that Calli, the Volaran Exotique, had adopted children. The little girl thought all this was a fine game, but an older boy radiated desperation.

  “Sitting,” a woman said in a slurred voice that held a bit of western twang.

  Jikata decided she should right herself and her image and rolled to hold out an imperious hand to Luthan. He took it and smoothly pulled her to her feet, kept a hand under her elbow. She was the focus of many gazes, so she stood straighter.

  Alexa’s green eyes scanned Jikata up and down and she smiled impishly. Still leaning against her husband—more for love than for support, Jikata thought—Alexa held out a hand. “I like your work.”

  That was said at the same time another hand was offered and another voice said, “I admire your work greatly.” The tall, voluptuous redhead, Marian the Circlet Sorceress.

  “Thank you,” Jikata said in a composed tone that was at odds with her sudden inward nerves. In an impulsive gesture, she took both their hands and a snap sizzled through her—them.

  Bastien grunted and stepped back, Marian caught Alexa’s hand and closed the circuit of energy that whirled through them.

  “Let me in there,” said a light voice. “And, Marian, I’ll remind you that you didn’t have any songs by Jikata on your PDA, but I did on my music player. I’m Bri Drystan Masif and you’re just as gorgeous in person as you are on stage and in videos.” Jikata’s hand was detached from Marian’s and taken by another, a vivacious brunette with hazel eyes. The circle was connected again, though the energy was dampened.

  Marian said, “Bri and Raine have an affinity for the water elements. I’m fire, like you.”

  “Just as well I come between you, then,” Bri said, grinning and squeezing Jikata’s hand.

  Jikata should have been withdrawing into her public persona, but she wasn’t. The sheer connection she had with these women, the bond she seemed to share, was a wonderful feeling she didn’t want to give up. It was as if she were meeting sisters she hadn’t known before. And, again, that feeling should have dismayed her, would have on Earth, but here on Lladrana it felt right and natural. She returned the squeeze of fingers to Bri, passed it on to Alexa. “Thank you,” she said for Bri’s compliment.

  Then Jikata turned her head and her attention to the performer of the day. “Raine?”

  A startlingly handsome man was helping her to her feet, kept a possessive arm around her.

  “Fabulous dress,” Jikata said, even the Singer had nothing like this one. Especially since Jikata sensed it had been made with affection and love. It must have been a long time since anyone felt affection and love for the Singer. Admiration, devotion, respect…many of the cooler emotions that Jikata had been the recipient of herself, but she wanted more, and here on Lladrana she could get it.

  “Thanks,” Raine said. She stood a moment where she was, her bare toes digging into the sand. Centering herself? Grounding? There was a distance to her gaze as if she still felt the effects of the ritual. Not surprising.

  “And I’m Calli Torcher Gardpont.” A blond woman inserted herself firmly between Jikata and Bri. Another new Song that immediately became precious, adding to all the things Jikata had sensed about the volarans, more nuances to Songs of herd and flight.

  Marian, the Sorceress, shook her gold-banded head. “Two waters and two fires, with only one earth and air. I don’t know how this will work, or why—”

  “Raine was needed to build, raise, the Ship,” Alexa pointed out. “And there’s only one Jikata,” Alexa said. “Only one strong four-octave voice.”

  “The weapon knot demands a four-octave voice,” Jikata said, she hoped calmly. She had extrapolated that from the Singer’s range and what Luthan had told her. She was sure she could Sing at a great ritual such as the one she’d just witnessed, but untying the weapon knot called “City Destroyer” in the heart of the Dark’s Nest—a volcano?—was a whole different matter.

  “Ayes.” Marian sent her a penetrating glance. “Haven’t you read the Lorebooks I sent?”

  Jikata returned her stare with a cool one of her own. “I just came off a long tour, have spent weeks with the Singer learning Power, and,” she added pointedly, “your Lorebook isn’t exactly a tiny volume.”

  Alexa snorted.

  Before Marian could answer, Raine stretched out her hands, curiosity in her eyes.

  “Jikata, the new Exotique, the Singer,” Raine said softly.

  “Ayes.” Jikata nodded, then shook Raine’s hand in disbelief as she followed the woman’s stare to the Ship. “Fabulous job.”

  Raine glowed.

  Jikata took her hand and got another kick…definitely a water element, whirlpools of the deep sea at the bottom of the ocean where there never was any light.

  But there was. There was fire in the depths if she listened. The heated opening of a vent to the core of the planet.

  Raine gasped. “Darkness and light. Cold and heat.”

  Bri sent a surge of head-clearing energy, healing energy, around their closed circle and Jikata caught another mixture of darkness and light. The darkness of infinite space and the bright pinpoints of stars.

  “We’re together, finally,” Marian said.

  “We’re where we are fated to be.” The words came from Jikata without volition.

  It was true. A future of darkness and light awaited them, this time evil and good. Would the Dark swallow them? Or the light bless them?

  34

  The rest of the day was spent watching teams of Circlets move The Echo from its precarious raising point out to the open sea of the bay through Power. Lucienne Deauville also allowed that the Ship needed to “settle into itself.”

  Alexa had called a conference, limited to the Exotiques and their men, a few minutes before the celebration. It was Jikata’s first conference and she sat back and observed.

  “How much do you think the Dark knows about the ship?” Raine asked.

  Bastien shrugged. “We’ve spread rumors, the Circlets have set a befuddling spell on the manor and its grounds, kept most of the crucial information to ourselves. Even done some meetings with no-tell spells. Done the best we can to minimize our risk. What gets out, gets out. Anything else?”

  Luthan hesitated, then nodded to Chasonette. “The bird has brought murmurings of some folks banding together to defeat the Exotiques before they lead us to extinction. Several times.” He shifted uneasily. With a grimace, he ran his fingers through his hair. “I sense that it’s based on the same affliction I have, the repulsion reflex.”

  “Hate crimes.” Alexa’s eyes narrowed, her lips thinned. “Nothing I despise more than hate crimes.”

  In that instant Jikata knew the shadow prophecies that had trailed after Alexa had been true. She would have made an excellent federal judge in the States.

  Expressions hardened. Bri’s husband, Sevair Masif, the stonemason and Townmaster said, “I’ve made the rounds of the village, of the fair, every day. I haven’t heard anything like that here.”

  Raine frowned. “There were some sailors who had that reaction to me when I first came, but I don’t know that I’ve seen them again…don’t know that I saw them well enough in the first place to recognize them. Also…”

  “Also?” Alexa’s tone was cross-examination sharp.

  “Also there were a couple of Seamasters who Sang in the Apology Ritual, but didn’t mean it.”

  Faucon said, “I’ll check that out.”

  “Good,” Bastien said.

  Marian sighed. “We can only minimize the risk. But it’s still�
�”

  “A big, whomping risk,” Alexa said.

  Raine fidgeted again. Jikata realized that of all of them, she was the one that fear weighed down the most, the heroine of the day.

  It was the strangest launch party Raine had ever attended and was interspersed with talk, talk, talk. None of the Exotiques, particularly Raine, could escape for more than the few minutes it took to go to the bathroom.

  Exhilarating to have all this praise heaped on her, the launch party to end all launch parties—though the ship had just been raised, not actually launched.

  Raine noticed Jikata got her fair share of attention, but people tended to be more wary around her—a new, unknown Exotique, one who had been trained by the Singer and might even replace the Singer. The vital woman Raine and the others had connected with had disappeared behind a public mask that Raine envied. She wasn’t used to being a star.

  When all the discussion and celebration was over and silence encompassed the manor, Raine left the house and walked down to the beach.

  Song still rolled within her like a low undercurrent, something that might stay with her forever. The Song of the deep oceans of Amee, the streams and flows of the waters, the everlasting surf against shore.

  Perfect.

  And there, anchored out a ways, in just enough water to accommodate her draft, was her ship. The Echo sat in the moonlit night as lovely as any dream.

  She thought it was more beautiful than any sailing ship built on Earth. Her design, but the sweep of its line had a Lladranan flair.

  For now, there was no one on her. Tomorrow sailors would swarm over her, learn her planks and her paces, her sails and her speed. The next day they would start the tests for who’d crew her.

  Tonight the ship was Raine’s and only Raine’s.

  She stripped down to the long underwear Lladranans wore, waded into the chill sea and let the shock of the cold take her first breath, then swam fast and hard to the lowered rope ladder.