Echoes in the Dark (36 page)

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.

A
fter 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

S
he 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, any
thing
, 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

T
he 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 the 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.