Echoes in the Dark (58 page)

“Sign
me up,” Alexa said. With a little raise of her cup in a toast to them, Alexa
gulped the last of her tea and mead and said with a wobbly smile, “Think I’ll
go make love with Bastien. It gets us through.”

“We
guessed,” Marian said drily, finishing her straight mead. “But it works.”

Men
filtered into the room. A serious Bastien, who lifted Alexa gently into his
arms, his face so tender with desperate love that Jikata had to look away.

Jaquar
took Marian’s hand and pulled her into waltz formation and they danced from the
room, gazes locked.

Marrec
held out his hand. “Calli, beloved?” She went to him, and he gripped her
fingers, then sent her ahead of him down the short, narrow hall with a hand to
the small of her back.

Sevair
strode over to Bri, lifted her straight from her chair and put her over his
shoulder, smiling as she giggled.

Faucon
swung Raine into his hold, set his mouth on hers and walked out, obviously able
to multitask.

Jikata
sat at the table, examining every dream she’d had of Ishi, every nightmare. The
Ishi dreams had been false, the Dark ones where it had threatened her all too
true. But since embarking on the Ship, Jikata didn’t think she’d had a true
vision. So the awful dreams showing increasing death and destruction were sent
by the Dark.

Her
mind was all too clear. Reality bit and bit hard. She was petrified. She could
die.

Did
she have a philosophy of death? Of course. And it wasn’t doing a damn bit of
good now, in the middle of the night, with those visions of dead friends
painting her mind. She hadn’t anticipated dying for a long time, maybe in her
nineties when she was old, like Ishi.

Now
they were sailing to death and it was all too close.

42

S
he stepped back
from herself, looking at herself as if she were seeing a vision, and she didn’t
like what she saw.

An
infection had grown in her—from the Ishi dreams and the Dark nightmares. She’d
been well on her way to becoming a woman like the Singer, or worse…and even
more worse was that woman could have been easily manipulated by the Dark.

She’d
nearly cost them all their lives.

Closing
her eyes she sought music, the Song, and went to the very core of her to recall
her own identity.

Ruthlessly
she looked for the dark smudges of fear and arrogance and suspicion and hubris
and eradicated them. She wiped them out with ideas of how she wanted to be, her
own self-image she wanted to cultivate: understanding, supportive, confident.
Not as easy to include those qualities in herself as it was to fall into
selfishness.

She
could and did nip most of the bits that the Dark had added to herself. The
negative qualities that were innate, she’d just have to continue to work on, as
always.

She
was left with one stubborn bit of…something…from the Dark that she couldn’t
change herself. She wasn’t as complete and as competent as she thought.

Sighing,
she came back to herself, sitting at the table with a cup of cold jasmine tea.
She saw a man in the shadowy doorway and jolted, realized soon enough that he
wasn’t
her
man. Luthan had not sought her out. Too much distance between
them since the Dark had influenced her? She hoped not.

The
man walked in—Bossgond, the best Circlet Sorcerer. He took a seat opposite her,
giving her a sympathetic look. With a pass of his hand over her cup and one low
note, he heated her tea. She curved her hands around the mug and returned his
stare.

He
wasn’t the wizard of books and films, tall with long flowing white hair and
beard, lines around wise eyes. He was shorter than most Lladranan men, skinny
and boney. The knobs of shoulders and knees showed beneath his robe. His hair
was golden. But when she withdrew her hands from her cup, he took them in his
own—calloused, tough hands that matched the shrewdness, the sharp intelligence
in his eyes.

She
felt a connection to him—more than the common link they shared with Marian, his
protégée. A great portion of the low vibrations of their Songs matched. Jikata
caught her breath.

He
squeezed her fingers, comforting. “Great talent makes great demands.” He bowed
his head. “I thank you for coming to aid us, Singer.”

Then,
without fanfare, without any noticeable stress at all, he drew the last bit of
the evil from her, through their grip. Siphoned every smidgen of it out of her,
and
cleansed
her inner self, leaving her feeling as if she sparkled.

He
withdrew his hands, held them stiffly straight into the air. Blackness streamed
from his fingertips to hang in a greasy cloud. With a short, sharp hum, the
cloud ignited, flamed, was consumed.

The
air should have smelled sulfurous, or acrid, but only the faint scent of
jasmine tea lingered.

Bossgond
rose, inclined his torso. “Be blessed, Singer.”

He
left, straight-backed, as silently as he came, and Jikata pondered his manner.
Usually he was a grumpy, irascible old man. But she understood now that was a
mask he wore to hide sensitive feelings. No one could have been gentler, kinder
to her in this moment of crisis and doubt. She missed the potency of his Song.

She
remained at the table, not wanting to return to the cramped cabin empty of
Luthan. She thought back to when the Master had dropped his Ishi persona and
she’d seen the true nature of the being—twisted and evil—and had been repulsed,
as repulsed as Luthan had been with her that day on the beach.

Had
he seen her monstrously warped and evil?

Ttho,
never.
Now, finally, Luthan had come to her. He stroked her hair, brushed it aside so
he could trail his fingers down her face. Shaking his head, he said, “You were
different,
but never evil.” He bent down to kiss her lips, softly, softly.

Tears
welled in Jikata’s eyes. “Thank you.”

He
sat next to her, took her hand. “You are better.”

“Completely.”
She grimaced. “Back to my own self, which is not as delightful as I think.”

“Very
delightful.” He kissed her fingers.

She
asked what she wanted to know. “I haven’t had any true visions on the Ship.
Have you?”

His
breath left him on a relieved sound. Nodding, he glanced around, narrowed his
eyes, tilted his head as if listening. She followed suit, sensed everyone
except the night crew, a few volarans and Bossgond were asleep. The Circlet was
brooding quietly and she knew he wouldn’t eavesdrop.

Luthan
kept his voice low. “Lately I’ve been seeing us all survive.”

Jikata
let out a sighing breath. “I had a feeling, and one vision before we left.”

“It’s
Faucon,” Luthan said. “He is the key. I don’t know how…but…”

Jikata
nodded. “Ayes. I see a shining aura around him in the visions where we live.”

Luthan
stood, drew her up, held her and closed his eyes. “Let’s go to bed, I have a
need to sleep with you in my arms.”

Jikata
woke before dawn and waited until all the Exotiques were above deck, where she
could talk to them en masse, before she got up. Luthan still slept, and she
stroked his head, the silver at his temples wider, the lines in his face
deeper.

She
loved him and didn’t want to die.

Most
of all, she didn’t want him to die.

She
could meditate…. no, that was putting the reckoning for her bad behavior off.
Dressing carefully, she went up top.

So
she went up to the deck and found the Exotiques had gathered to watch the dawn.

“I’m
sorry I’ve been such a bitch,” she said.

Alexa
drummed her fingers on her baton sheath. “Visions?”

“Not
so much.”

“Nightmares
every night,” Calli said. “Chasonette told Blossom, who told me.”

“Yes.
Or dreams of my great-grandmother who just died, sent by the Master to turn me
back.” She looked at them all. “Can we mend the bonds between us that have
frayed?”

Bri
stepped forward and hugged her. “You only had to ask.”

After
a ritual that included Bri’s laying on of hands to check her inside and out,
some group mental activities—including untying a few spellknots with Song—and a
volaran flight, Jikata felt as if she were truly grounded and whole.

“So,
Jikata—” Alexa had calculation in her eyes “—can you finish that battle Song we
want?”

It
burst into her mind, fabulous notes, a strident melody. She scrabbled for
pencil and paper, as if there’d be any on the deck of a Ship, but Calli handed
her some and, muttering to herself, Jikata finished the Song with a flourish.
That wasn’t the only Song that came to mind, notes and chords and bars and
bridges all the way to full orchestral pieces dazzled like fireworks, as if
they’d been dampened and suppressed and now could cartwheel and be recognized.
“I want to get some new compositions down. See you.”

“Wait,
the battle Song—” Alexa said.

Jikata
shoved the paper at her and Alexa scowled down at it. “I can’t read music.”

With
a sigh, Marian took it from her, scanned it and began to Sing, a strong alto.
Chasonette joined in.
Welcome back, Singer,
she said mentally, thoughts
loving.

Jikata
smiled as she went down the hatch, all the women had good voices, but she’d
trained them. She didn’t think that Marian would have read music or tried a new
song in public before they’d met.

She
was making a difference.

That’s
why the Dark feared her.

T
hat afternoon,
spellknot unbinding and Singing practice went extremely well. Another subject
was added to the training: mind shields. Taught by several Circlets, including
Bossgond.

By
the time the Ship sailed into night, Jikata knew the Dark could not penetrate her
dreams.

T
he Ship was
sailing fast, and so was time…sailing by with nothing Raine could do to prevent
it. She was pleased with the crew’s response to the threat to Lladrana, and the
new speed. They might match last year’s expedition’s time of three weeks. As if
it were a race and not sailing to death.

But
every second of speed she could squeeze from
The Echo
would lead to more
surprise on behalf of the Master and the Dark.

Raine
left Faucon sleeping in the tiny cabin and went up on the deck, too restless to
stay stifled down below. She nodded to Jean, who Captained
The Echo
at
night, but didn’t disturb the quiet or insult him by asking how the shift went.
They were making good time by the wind against her face.

She
was on a Tall Ship—oh, not quite, they were mostly schooners, and this was
definitely more like a galleon—but a big ship with masts, the deck vibrating
under her feet and creak of rigging and swish of air filling the sails. Going
starboard, she looked toward the east and the land.

The
sea and the wind and the rolling of the waves beneath the Ship itself soothed
her until she felt sleepy. But like other times, she didn’t want to go back to
the cabin. Despite the porthole, the cabin was too confining. So she gestured
to Jean that she’d be bedding down on a mattress kept for sailors who wanted to
crash on deck instead of below in their hammocks and settled down.

She
drifted, the scent of the sea and the pretty night, and the rocking of the Ship
sending her into a doze she didn’t want to give up for sleep.

They’d
timed this night of sailing to reach the narrow passage between continents at
dawn. Everyone seemed to think that she should be the one to Captain
The
Echo
as they traversed it. That her special rapport with the oceans of Amee
wouldn’t lead them aground. Since no one else had sailed the curving strait,
she’d agreed.

Once
they were through that passage they’d be in the northern waters commanded by
the Dark.

A
shadow loomed over her, the hair on her nape rose.
Danger!

A
flash of a blade and she rolled, hearing the thud of the knife into the
mattress. Adrenaline surged through her, she kicked out, yelled.

A
heavy fetid-breathed man crashed down on her. She struggled, freed a hand to
rake his cheek. He flinched, but made no sound, his hands went to the sides of
her head.

To
twist, snap her neck and kill her.

Waves
of
wrongness,
of fury, of madness, rolled over her from him. She
struggled for breath to scream. Set her nails in his bleeding cheek to claw
again.

Then
she was free. More than one set of hands clamped around him and flung him away
from her.

“Mutant,”
he screamed. “Alien
thing!
You deserve to die. You
all
must—”

Solid
sounds of flesh meeting flesh and quiet.

Bri
was at Raine’s side, crooning, expert medica hands checking her. Raine sucked in
a hard breath as pain speared when Bri pressed a rib too hard. Finally, Raine
could breathe again, short, choppy breaths, but air. She tried a smile, found
that her cheek hurt and her lip was split. Wetness that wasn’t sea spray
dribbled down her chin. “Haven’t we done this already?”