Then she stopped by Alexa, who wept over a pair of men locked in each other’s arms, between their volarans. All four seemed to exude love.
“Our old squires, the newest Marshalls.” Alexa held onto Bastien. The men’s batons weren’t standing straight up in the ground like the pictures Jikata had seen in the Lorebooks, but were in their hands.
Like the rest of them, Alexa let tears trail down her face. She looked at the flat, glassy plane, glanced up at the jagged lip of the volcano crater. “How many are entombed here?”
Bastien shuddered. “It’s not natural, to see them so.”
“Ayes, it is.” Jikata’s voice was thick. “Like Jaquar said, a monument from the planet Amee herself.” She began Singing the most beautiful, saddest Song she knew, Samuel Barber’s “Agnus Dei.”
The Exotiques wept around her.
Her Song broke again a few notes from the end, but music itself swelled through her, them, around them, echoing off the glass.
The feycoocus Sang, led by Tuckerinal, who knew the tune, and there were more than the three Jikata knew. More than a dozen perched on the rim of a furled glass wave.
Sing with us, said Sinafinal. You are Lladrana’s Singer now.
Again a heavy weight settled on her shoulders, constricted her chest.
Truly, the passing of an era.
And thank the Song for such a terrible era’s passing, Luthan said mentally. Like the other men, there were wet trails on his cheeks.
Koz limped heavily toward them. He’d taken the time to look at all the bodies between Bossgond’s and the two new Marshalls’.
Jikata saw Koz shake his head hard, thought she saw tears fly away. His hands opened and fisted. He thumped his chest. “And I’m still here. All these, too late to save, dead before the explosion.” He pivoted on his heel, pointed. “The Ship! Everyone else must have been rescued.”
“A quarter,” Calli said softly. “So many volarans dead.”
The feycoocus’ Song mixed with Chasonette’s as she flew toward them. They looked to see the Ship sailing full power toward them with people cheering and volarans rising to the sky.
Jikata hiccupped with sobs.
Then it came, the call of Mother Earth, rolling over Jikata like an inexorable tide.
The Snap.
Jikata—Mother Earth, sending her own promises of the future. Jikata experienced the feeling of being on stage before thousands, all roaring in approval, joining with her to sing her latest platinum album. Oh, the rush of applause from such an audience! The scent of hot California earth came, directions from an impatient man who wanted her to say her lines just so. Her, a movie star. An Oscar and gold Grammys. A life of ease and wealth and luxury on a rich world. Her home planet grateful that she hadn’t been invaded by any wisp of the Dark. Jikata would be creative and successful and loved.
Jikata, whispered Amee, echoing like it was from the chamber in the Caverns of Prophecy, all the way from the Abbey.
“Jikata.” Luthan wrapped her in his arms. “Beloved,” he said in a thick voice.
The winds came.
Not the tearing forces ripping through the Dimensional Corridor just before it shifted like a kaleidoscope forever. But the real winds of Amee, with the hint of coldness this far north.
Earth pulled at her with its delicious melodies, its underlying soul-tune that was the pulse of her own blood.
“Jikata.” Two voices Sang, Luthan’s and another, one that put an English spin on her name. A voice she thought she’d recognized.
Mist surrounded her, them, then dissipated and Jikata saw they all stood together on one side of a stage.
“What is this place?” Calli asked in awe.
“Ghost Hill Theater,” Jikata said and her voice wasn’t mere words but a Song.
Alexa snorted. “Huh.” She looked around, “Nice place.”
“Ayes,” Jikata said, lifted her arm and pointed. “Restored by him.”
Trenton Philbert III stood, hand clasped with his wife, his lady, who Sang with a mediocre voice, but the pulsing colorful auras of light around her were awesome. They stood before a group of people dressed in evening clothes. Most were men who looked like Raine, but there was a threesome who clumped together in a manner that even Jikata, raised in Denver, recognized as ranchers.
“My father,” Calli said faintly, “his wife and stepson.” She looked down at herself, at Jikata, and Jikata was very aware that they appeared like they’d been in a fight to end all fights.
But they’d saved a world.
“I don’t have anyone there,” Alexa said in a strained voice.
Bastien picked her up and held her close, “Good,” he said, then made soothing noises.
“Neither do we.” Marian stood hand-in-hand with Koz, a false smile frozen on her face. “Mother must have died.” Jaquar stepped close and wrapped an arm around her waist.
Bri was sobbing openly, and Jikata finally focused on the elegant woman that had her face—her twin, Elizabeth, who was held by her husband, flanked by her mother and father.
Trenton put an arm out when a couple of powerfully built men surged toward Raine. “They have fought for an entire world—”
“Two,” Juliet said crisply. “For Amee and for Earth, because if that Dark had triumphed it would have crossed the corridor to the nearest planet, which is our Earth.”
“You can’t go to her, but you can see she is fine, and can talk to her,” Trenton ended.
“Fine!” Raine’s father’s shout hurt her ears. All her brothers and her two sisters-in-law were there, looking stunned.
Through her tears, Raine said, “Okay, so I was dying, it was rough. But I’m better now. Best, really.” She wrapped her arms around Faucon. “This is my husband, Faucon. He’s a nobleman here, so he’ll keep me richly.” She laughed and the sound rang with contentment throughout the theater.
Her father and brothers ceased their restless shifting. Her father crossed his arms over his chest. “He doesn’t look Swedish.”
She snorted a laugh. “Here in Lladrana we have no engines. So I’ll start a golden age of sailing vessels. I love you all…” Her voice broke. “Be well, and those mirrors you put in your houses? We can see and talk to each other through them, if you want. Holidays maybe.”
She sniffled. Faucon whipped out an orange-and-red handkerchief and she blew her nose, glared at her brothers. “I am not a weenie.”
“Never said you were.” Her father stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, studied Faucon. “So the nobleman deal was true.”
“Ayes. Yes.” She grimaced a smile. “So was the stuff about designing a ship. You were right. I captained it.”
Her father stilled. “That mirror. You did see us.”
“Yes.”
“I love you and am proud of you.”
Bri and Sevair had moved close to her family, and she gestured to them to join Raine’s shell-shocked men. “I’m Bri, and these are my parents and sister. You might want to talk to them about all this. We’ve been communicating for a couple of months or so with mirrors.” She turned back to her delighted twin, her parents, her face showing she yearned to touch them. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she sniffled.
“Oh, Bri!” Elizabeth twined all her fingers in her husband’s, as if holding onto him would keep her from reaching out to Bri.
“So you whupped the Dark, eh?” asked their father.
Bri stood tall. “Ayes, yes, we did. I love you, Daddy and Mommy and twin.”
“We love you, too,” her mother said. “It’s a blessing that we can see you one last time.” She shook her salt-and-pepper head. “Though you’re looking the worse for wear.”
Bri grinned. “Life can only get better.”
Jikata watched the emotional reunions of Bri and Raine. Was glad for them, but tired, wanted to go home. Back to Lladrana and wherever home was for Luthan.
He’d heard her thoughts, of course. “We’ll visit the family estate, then go to the Abbey.
” He’d made peace with his father somehow, she saw that in his mind. She squeezed his arms around her waist. “Good.”
Calli and Marrec walked tentatively over to the ranchfolk. The father, his new wife and her son that Calli’d written about in her Lorebook.
The young man smiled at her.
“How’s the ranch?” Calli asked.
Her father looked relieved at her question. Marrec’s arm came around her and she leaned into it.
“Ranch is goin’ well. We’re followin’ some new practices. Still a cattle ranch.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Calli said.
They stood in silence that was all the more quiet for the babble of Bri’s and Raine’s loving families.
It would have been like that for Ishi and Jikata if Ishi had been alive, had come here.
But she wouldn’t have. Jikata took Luthan’s hand and went over to Alexa and Marian and Koz.
Alexa looked at her and Luthan, smirked as she touched her red hair. “You know, Jikata, both you and Luthan are totally silver-headed.”
A shock rippled through Jikata as she looked at Luthan. It was true and she hadn’t noticed.
He squeezed her hand. “More important things on our minds. You are beautiful.”
Judge Philbert cleared his throat. “Time’s up, folks.” He took a heavy envelope from his breast pocket and slid it across the stage to Calli’s feet. “Your investments, Calli, liquidated.”
“Thanks.” She bent down and picked it up.
“How do you come into this, Philbert?” Alexa demanded.
Trenton smiled at his wife. “I married into it.”
Juliet Philbert’s gaze was serene. “I was disabled in Lladrana, couldn’t hear Songs well, saw auras instead. The old Singer gave me a chance to come to a place where my kind of Power worked better.” She shivered. “A strange, frightening place, but the Singer put me in Trent’s path and he found me.” She glanced up at him and shook her head. “It took me a while to trust him, and for him to believe me, but we married and took on the Singer’s work here. I am the equivalent of Earth’s Singer, but I deal better with light.”
She looked at Calli. “I was the one who tuned the crystal in the mountain for you to use it as a portal, and I helped destroy it. I worked with the Singer to provide mirrors in the Abbey and here at Ghost Hill.” She sent her gaze across them all. “I love it here, and I love Trent. I let my Power here change my appearance to become Terran. Give them my Lorebooks, Trent.”
The man went to a podium and pulled out two hefty leather-bound books, zoomed them across the stage and into their space. Jikata wondered how that might work and thought she should ask Bossgond…and grief caught at her again.
She looked down at the books—one was in Lladranan and one in English. The title was The Lorebook of the Lladranan Aura Mistress Giselle Reneau Philbert.
All the Lladranans stared down at the books, then Marian and Jaquar picked them up. After a moment, Alexa said, “Huh.”
It seemed the right word.
Juliet continued, “Now is the time the Dimensional Corridor shifts, Sing the portal between our worlds shut with me, Jikata. You can cross over to this side or stay in Lladrana.”
Jikata could have all she’d ever wanted if she stayed here on Earth, the validation, the fame and success. Everything that had meant so much to her. She’d unblocked her composing talent and could create soul-satisfying albums that would be wildly popular.
But she stepped back, into the group of ragged people who’d had the determination and honor to save a world. “I’ll stay.”
Juliet nodded and began the first note, low in the register, accompanied it with throbbing midnight blue light emanating from her hands. Jikata realized the spell would be a simple scale from the lowest note to the highest. She sang the next.
Raine shivered as the notes rippled from the throats of the two Singers, one of Earth and one of Lladrana, women who’d switched worlds. Strange colors pulsed around and from Juliet.
Swallowing hard herself, Raine cast a last glance at her father and brothers, her sisters-in-law, and stepped back to join her new family.
They lined up, holding hands. Raine’s was gripped tightly by Bri’s and Faucon’s. The connection among them was roiling with emotions, spikes and dips of personal Songs. She and Bri stared at their families. Raine’s gaze locked on her father. He raised a hand to her, smiled, said, “I love you.” Then the air between them rippled and wavered and the sight of the stage and the people upon it faded.
There came a last flurry of sensation from Earth, each unique to the person, but shared—wind chimes; the scent of the water at her home dock; the sight of a skyline she’d never seen but flashed in multi-images and views and reverberated in the minds around her as “Denver.”
Then, of course, the Songs of Mother Earth: castanets, rock and roll, Beethoven’s Fifth, Irish jigs, gamelan chimes, bagpipes, chants in multiple languages, a swirl of sound that seemed to sweep around them, blessing them. Matched by the Songs of Amee: the rush of volaran feathers, the bells of the Singer’s Abbey, the ring of a stonemason’s hammer.
And with the last echo of the lost gong, the Dimensional Corridor shifted and the link between Earth and Lladrana was gone.
They had the final blessing a month later outside Castleton, after all the lingering horrors who’d invaded Lladrana were defeated. The invasion was already celebrated in Song and story, the three quarters of the force who’d lost their lives to be forever remembered.
Jikata and Luthan had carried the dry husk of the Singer’s body from the Caverns of Prophecy. Sevair and Koz had fashioned a glass coffin for her and laid her inside. Marian and Jaquar had filled the coffin with Power to preserve the lady. All of them had transported the old woman’s body to Glass Island, where the Circlets had melded her coffin to the land, showing forever that she’d helped save Lladrana and should be honored and remembered and revered.
They’d spent a little time on the island, once again saying goodbye to lost friends, easing their grief, then had returned to plan a great ritual.
People came from northern villages—some being resettled—and southern Krache city.
All gathered in a huge spiral, with Alexa and Bastien on one end, circling round with all the Exotiques. Marshalls and Chevaliers and Circlets and City-and-Townmasters and Seamasters and Singer’s Friends of the whole country were interspersed throughout the spiral.
The population of Castleton was there, as were those who lived and worked on Exotiques’, Marshalls’ and Chevaliers’ estates. Old folks and toddlers, children and teens. As long as they could link hands with each other, they were accepted in the spiral.
And they did link hands, with Luthan and Jikata in the very center. Then, finally, Alexa slipped her arm around Raine and Faucon’s clasped hands and the circuit was closed.
They lifted their voices and Sang in a free Lladrana.
AUTHOR NOTE
The Summoning series came from stories I told myself before I went to sleep when I was a teen. I’m extremely proud that I had a chance to refine the ideas and write them. I enjoyed climbing the mountain and the wild ride down it. It’s been an adventure.
When I first started the project, I thought of doing different female archetypes…Alexa the warrior, Marian the academic, Calli the nurturer, Bri and Elizabeth the healers, Raine the girl next door, Jikata the sophisticate. Some of these archetypes I used, some I bent.
As for settings, authors are using their hometowns these days, so I used Denver. Cheesman Park exists (and has a fascinating history of being a cemetery), so does LoDo (lower downtown), but the Ghost Hill Theater and its attached hotel was actually fashioned on a rehabbed Canadian theater that had plans available on the Internet. I chose Best Haven, Connecticut, because I knew Mystic is a shipyard, as well as the fact that my college roommate—who first encouraged me to write—came from Westport.
There’s a lot in my head that couldn’t make it into the books: some b
ackground of Lladrana when the Guardian Marshalls first set the fence posts; the extended lives of secondary characters Thealia and Partis, Koz; ideas about the feycoocus. I also have research materials for the books, everything from a small model of Windsor Castle upon which the Marshalls’ Castle was loosely based, to a multitude of yacht designs, books on knots and wooden ships, and maps…so Lladrana will stay with me for a long time.
I do include some extras on my Web site, robindowens.com under the Worlds page, and all excerpts from my work are on my site under Reads.
I hope you enjoyed Lladrana and visit there more than once.
May the Song take you where you need to be.
Robin
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Echoes in the Dark
Raine Lindley, of Best Haven, Connecticut, is part of a shipbuilding family and was Summoned on the cheap by the Seamasters, unknown to everyone else. She spent the first six months of her time on Lladrana sick and working at taverns, particularly the Open Mouthed Fish.
Faucon Creusse, a wealthy nobleman, leads one team of Chevaliers in battle, and fields another, innately drawn to Exotiques. He is a merchant prince with seaside estates.
Enerin, a baby magical being (feycoocu), shape-shifter.
Jikata, once of Denver, Colorado, now of Los Angeles, California, is a half-Japanese popular singer on the cusp of becoming a superstar.
Luthan Vauxveau, older brother to Bastien. Luthan is the representative to the Singer, the oracle of Lladrana and a nobleman and Chevalier. He has a touch of prophecy and wears white.
Chasonette, a Lladranan cockatoo.
The Exotiques, their men, their companions (in order of Summoning)
Alexa Fitzwalter, Guardian of Honor, an attorney from Denver, Colorado. Alexa became a Swordmarshall in the elite noble warrior class, fighting the Dark.
Bastien Vauxveau is a black-and-white, a person with striped hair and wild magic, a Shieldmarshall, a rogue.
Sinafinal, a magical shape-shifting being (feycoocu), native to Lladrana.
Echoes in the Dark Page 45