Echoes in the Dark

by Robin D. Owens

  So she opened herself, let the flicker of prophecy flare and saw. Like most of her visions, it was ringed by a circle of dark, roiling thunderheads, but when she focused on the center, she saw the Abbey grounds. Zooming in, she saw herself, older, with lines on her face, standing at a window in the Singer’s Tower. The sky was sunny between a break in great clouds, the morning cold from the ruddiness of her cheeks.

  She was laughing and Jikata didn’t think she’d ever seen that expression of serenity on her own face, didn’t know if she’d ever experienced such fulfillment. She was more accustomed to dissatisfaction and ambition. Older-Jikata held a scroll and brush in her hands, one finger had ink stains. She was here and the Singer, wearing a heavy silk robe intricately embroidered with silk, her hair arranged in complex braids, dressed to do a formal Song Quest.

  Almost, she heard a man speaking to her, knew without a doubt that a lover—husband—was in the shadows.

  Then light dimmed, there and now, and her vision grayed and faded and vanished.

  In the future she’d just seen, she was the Singer. The top of the heap, the star of the show. For life.

  Never, ever worried about being the most popular singer, always working hard to maintain her career, her status, her fame. Not dissatisfied.

  How fabulous. This could be hers, she knew it in her bones.

  Jikata knew the rewards.

  The price was freeing Amee from the leech, fighting the awful Dark that had human servants and sent horrible monsters to Lladrana.

  But she still didn’t know the details of that price.

  After she was snug in her bed that night, Jikata contemplated her future—not the vision she’d seen earlier in the day that she’d tucked away in the corner of her mind. That particular skill she’d developed after her parents had died and she’d gone to live with Ishi. The technique had served her well during her climb as a pop singer.

  She considered her immediate future. She hadn’t learned nearly everything the Singer could teach her, but she’d mastered the basics, had the tool chest to teach herself voice work and songspells and prophecy. The restrictions of the Abbey and the Singer were chafing. She was used to thinking for herself, plotting her own course and career.

  This had been a wonderful break, but she had no real work here. Her unconscious was still playing with compositions not quite ready to manifest. A change of scenery would be good. She’d made the right decision.

  All she knew of outside was what she’d read and the bits she’d gleaned in the time she’d spent here.

  As her mind sank into the grayness of sleep, she thought she heard the whir of wings and smelled Chasonette’s sweet fragrance. Ayes, Jikata’s decision might be good, but she wasn’t sure she could trust her bird guide.

  And the dream came. Even as the Dark coalesced around her, Jikata’s sleeping mind knew she should have expected this.

  26

  She heard the low laugh that seemed to rumble and hiss at the same time like hot, surging lava. The Dark stifled her. Every breath she took seared her throat, her lungs.

  Yes, little Singer. The Dark snapped its jaws. I will absorb your Power. Eat you. She felt horrible pain as it bit into her and crunched its teeth on her bones.

  She screamed.

  And woke with Chasonette rubbing her face with her feathers. Jikata couldn’t breathe! She shot up straight, panting, ran a hand through her mass of hair that had tangled around her.

  Found herself trembling. Again. As usual.

  Chasonette fluttered around the bed. What? What? What?

  “Will you please perch somewhere?” Jikata reached for the tissue she kept under her pillow, patted her face free of cold sweat, let out a long and shaky sigh. “Just a bad dream.”

  Chasonette’s comb stood straight up. She turned her head so a beady bird eye gleamed at Jikata. Dream or vision? she asked.

  “Dream.” Jikata lifted her hair from the back of her neck, touched her nape. No dampness there, her body hadn’t reacted with all the terror that she’d felt in the nightmare. Perhaps she was getting used to night fears, learning to endure them. She plumped her pillows. “Threats,” she said. “From the Dark. It’s waiting for me, somewhere.”

  In its Nest.

  “Ayes.”

  Do you want to stay here? Chasonette asked.

  Jikata’s heart gave one hard thump, echoed through her blood to her temples. Yes, she did want to stay here in the Abbey. Which was why she couldn’t. She would not let anyone, anything, manipulate her. “We leave tomorrow….” She listened to the sounds around her, knew it was deep night, early morning. “Today.” She punched her pillow. “So it’s waiting for me. For us. We’ll see how tasty it really finds us.”

  Waiting for us? Chasonette launched from her perch again. Will eat us!

  But weariness was weighing Jikata’s mind down again as the herbal scent rose from her pillow. In that instant, she knew her pillows, perhaps even her room, had been bespelled somehow to cause sleep. The reason she hadn’t read very much of the Lorebooks in bed.

  If she were staying, she’d confront the Singer and her Friends on this issue, and win. Right now her anger couldn’t even get started, and tonight she’d be gone. No use bitching about it. Live and learn. “We leave today,” she mumbled and let the fragrance waft her into sleep.

  Creusse Landing

  The next morning, after a late and lively breakfast with Corbeau and his family, Raine decided to survey the area. The brief tour she’d gotten from Corbeau had been interrupted every other step by people wanting to meet her or needing his input on preparations.

  She’d been shown three places where Corbeau and tagalongs had figured a ship could be raised and none of them had settled well with her, though the others had stood around a nice meadow not too far from the shore and decided that was best. She’d just stared at them. Apparently they all figured there would be huge Power in the ritual to move the ship to the Sea. Power from the Exotiques, and Raine, and the Chevaliers, and Raine, and the Marshalls, and Raine, and the Circlets, and Raine…Her insides jittered as she heard the big plans. She wondered if she could pull it off. Designing, yes; supervising, sure; building with her own hands, that she could do. Designing and building with only her brain and Power? Holding a ritual circle together? That she wasn’t so sure of.

  So she walked off her nerves while Enerin played as a miniature greyhound puppy alongside her.

  She let her feet take her to the wide spot on the beach that had given her a tingle the evening before. It was just long enough to accommodate her ship…at low tide and with sandbars rising out of the shallow water. At dinner Raine had asked about building a ship in the water and was told that it couldn’t be done. She figured it could.

  Again she mulled over the map of Lladrana. This was the best place for the ship to depart from. She shivered in the cool morning breeze and at the touch of fate that the estate had been in Faucon’s family for ages, just for this time…?

  The beach was large and sandy, the promontory rising gently to higher ground, not the cliffs and bay at his southern estate, but Raine liked that panorama better. An image of the land she’d been offered formed in her mind and she felt a warmth at the notion of her own castle by the sea, the ship-yards…she recalled how the men had waved at her. She should send word for the best to come…or have her design sent to them to vet….

  Ayes, I can do that! This very morning, Enerin said. She’d been puppy prancing and Raine realized she’d been thinking aloud, probably muttering.

  She glanced down but saw no dog…a funny, pinkish sandpiper hopped up and down in the edge of the tide before her.

  I can take a model, too. So they would see how it should be built! A sharp whistle of excitement came after that.

  Raine eyed her. “I don’t think you’re big enough to carry a model.” She’d been making them much larger than Enerin. She heard hawk cries, saw two shapes in the sky—Enerin’s parents, the mature feycoocus. One veered off toward th
e manor, the other came straight toward them. There were no trees, so the hawk lit on the railing of the boardwalk to the manor a few feet away.

  Salutations, Seamistress Exotique, Sinafinal said.

  Raine inclined her head.

  Sinafinal turned her beak to scratch above her wing.

  We can fly, fly, fly! Enerin said. Take a model to the shipbuilders of Seven Mile Peninsula, have one or two or three come back here!

  Ayes, we can, Sinafinal said, then turned an unblinking stare on Raine. It is good you are progressing with the Ship.

  “Thank you.”

  At that moment, a three-foot square of thick paper swirled down to lie at Raine’s feet.

  It was Raine’s turn to stare. She looked at the design she’d modified the night before, working instead of thinking of Faucon at the Castle where the last of the trials would have ended and the huge celebratory party would be going on.

  Plink. Plink. Tuckerinal spit out four Power stones in the forecastle of the ship, gems appeared, then he joined his mate on the railing.

  “You want me to make the model here?” Raine asked.

  Sinafinal cocked her head. The real Ship will be raised here, ayes?

  She had a point.

  Tuckerinal chuckled.

  Enerin flew up next to him, a small hawk, now. We will fly, fly, fly!

  His gaze, much warmer than a hawk’s should be, was indulgent on his child. We will, as soon as Raine builds the model. He glanced to the sky. We will be there by noon. The sun was well up, and the way was very long, but the magical beings moved much faster than anything else in Lladrana.

  Raine picked up the paper. As she straightened she drew in a deep breath, loving the sound of the surf and the scent of the sea—brine and fish and seaweed and the depths. Then she turned in place and listened, curled her bare toes in the sand to connect with the ground and the planet. Where was the exact spot she’d thought would be perfect? She’d noticed the buzz, but had also been dreaming of Faucon.

  All the feycoocus watched her, Sinafinal consideringly, Tuckerinal with complete assurance that she’d do what she needed to, Enerin expectantly.

  Another breath and the breeze caressed her face, lifted her hair. She walked the yard and a half to the ocean into the shallow water. It was cold, but not so much that would numb her feet. Again she closed her eyes and now she felt the ebb and flow of the tide, sensed the confines of the Brisay Sea, the land nearly circling it, the lap of wave against the rock of islands jutting from the water. And Power.

  Natural power of wind and tide and the tug of the moon, of currents and the slow spin of the planet.

  The power of the pure life energy of beings who lived in the sea, small schools of fish, gently waving coral, crusty creatures deep in rifts.

  Power that was magic.

  She thought the seas and oceans of Amee were a greater source of it than any place on land where humans had smudged it or used and reused it, or, in countries other than Lladrana, had ignored and denied it.

  Her body swayed with the rhythm of ocean Power and she took that in to feel the flow of it in her own blood.

  She turned slightly south and walked until her feet throbbed and Power washed through her from land and sea. When she looked toward the ocean, she saw this was the shallowest part of the inlet, with several sandbars just under the water. Perfect for building a boat. Human Power would hold the planks in place.

  As she stood in this place, she thought that nothing was beyond Lladranans and the Power of Amee.

  Not even destroying the Dark and surviving.

  Shutting her eyes again, Raine felt the paper with her hands, her mind, visualized the two-dimensional plans she’d worked on for weeks, the other models she’d raised. She set the paper on the sand and Sang. The ship on paper bent and bowed and became a ship, tiny details of walls and rooms and decks separated and folded into place. The excess of the paper was whisked away in the breeze and all three feycoocus launched themselves from a nearby dune to play in the wind and catch bits, making a game of it, piling scraps where the wind didn’t reach.

  Done.

  Raine glanced down at the model and received a little shock. The model was colorful, painted somehow, as perfect floating in the shallow water as it had been in her mind. The hull was a dark blue and painted near the prow were curling waves of turquoise. The masts were dark brown like wood and the sails also turquoise. She stared. She hadn’t ever seen a Tall Ship with turquoise sails, but it worked.

  It is beau-ti-ful! screeched Enerin in a sea bird’s call. She lifted her wings and rose on the wind, a small bird. No, a small magical creature in the form of a bird, surely a bird would have more weight than Enerin.

  It is a good ship built in a good place, a blessed place, Sinafinal approved.

  Raine shrugged away the thought and touched her mouth. She was grinning, like she hadn’t for a long time…certainly before she’d arrived on Lladrana, even longer, before her arguments with her father and brothers.

  Maybe since the last time she’d built a boat by herself.

  Before she could say anything, the three feycoocus had swooped down and snatched the model, carrying it among them. All of them looked more gull than hawk. In an instant they were nearly out of sight, only one last cry from Sinafinal.

  Go to the village now. They await you.

  Raine stared after the birds. Go to the village. A coastal village where fisherfolk lived.

  She’d fulfilled one of her tasks for Lladrana and Amee, she’d figured out why the Dark invaded, what it wanted. She was well on the way to fulfilling the next task, raising a ship for an invasion force to sail to the Dark’s Nest.

  But she hadn’t done anything to complete her last task, that of integrating the fisherfolk, the Seamasters, with the rest of Lladranan society, so it was less a culture of segments and more of a whole that respected its parts.

  She’d thought she’d been ready to do this, but she’d been fooling herself.

  Go alone to the village with people like those with whom she’d spent the first terrible months of her life in Lladrana. Perhaps face doubt and suspicion and people who had a revulsion to her kind—Earth women, Exotiques.

  Breathing in a lungful of good sea air, she set her shoulders. The birds wanted her to overcome her fears. If worse came to worse she could fight and scream. She’d saved herself before. She could do this.

  She repeated that as she took step after deliberate step to the docks a couple of miles down the beach. There were three docks with the middle one being a main pier.

  That brought back memories. She’d been Summoned in December and lived most of the winter in a tavern on a pier. Swallowing hard, she kept her breath even. These docks and the clean streets with tidy houses radiating out from them were not the creaking and cracking pier she’d loathed, the huddle of miserable houses in a hamlet she still didn’t know the name of.

  She looked at the prosperous town, noted an inn sign moving in the wind. The tavern was called the Orange Shield and looked nothing like the Open Mouthed Fish. Not much like the Chevalier place, either, the Nom de Nom in Castleton.

  From the title of the inn, it was owned by Faucon, and she wondered if the whole town was. It was certainly well cared for. The people who stared at her smiled. She marched up a short dune and found some women gathered in the sun, mending fishing nets.

  A tall, strong-shouldered young woman jumped to her feet as soon as Raine appeared, setting aside her portion of the net less carefully than it deserved. She smiled widely, showing line crinkles beginning at the edge of her eyes. Her temples showed a few strands of silver Power. Raine noted her clothing and decided she was from a prosperous fishing family. Eight and a half months ago Raine would have wept to have such good sturdy clothes with a tight weave. The young woman moved with enthusiasm toward Raine.

  The feycoocus had been right, these women had been waiting for her.

  “I’m Ella and I’ve been asked to speak to ya, Seamistress Ex
otique.” She offered her hand.

  Raine met her palm to palm and shook. A little sigh came from the folks—Raine noticed a withered old man or two—and Ella nodded toward the tavern. “Come on into the Shield and we’ll talk, I’ll treat you to a honeyed rum.”

  Running the sentence through her mind a couple of times to make sure she’d heard it right, Raine said, “Thanks, but it’s a little early for rum. I’ll take some ale, though.” Coffee or tea would be out of the question in a small town like this. She swept the group with a glance, saw listeners at the end of the street. “And we all know that though I’ve designed a boat and sailed some with Faucon Creusse and by myself, I am no mistress of the Lladranan seas, certainly not like you people are.” She sucked in another deep breath and added, “The Seamasters haven’t accepted me.”

  “Pigheaded men,” Ella said, then turned on her heel and led the way at a brisk pace toward the tavern halfway up the street. “We’ll talk’a that.”

  The Orange Shield was dim even with large front windows that were clean, as was the whole place. Well, the Open Mouthed Fish had been as clean as Raine and the owner and other tavern girl could make it with inferior soap.

  A couple of minutes after they walked in, a man rose from a bar seat in the shadows and shuddered with revulsion. He didn’t meet Raine’s eyes, but looked beyond her to one of the windows and walked stiff-legged out the door, never acknowledging her. Raine sighed. Would there be more of those who had an instinctive dislike of Exotiques among these northern fisherfolk? More than the southern or the towns and cities she’d been in? About one in ten that felt that.

  Raine and Ella received their ales from the rotund barman, who sat down with them with a mug himself.

  After her first sip, Ella leaned over the table of the booth toward Raine and got down to business. “The Seamasters….” She shook her head. “They’d grown haughty.” She tapped her finger on the table. “And all of them men. That started happenin’ a coupla generations ago. Mind you, life on the water isn’t easy for a woman and not many of us feel the callin’, but my foremothers never shoulda let us be squeezed outta the higher spots of the Seamasters’ council.” She snorted. “Not that I think it’s much of a council, either.”