Echoes in the Dark

Jikata hesitated. The Singer lifted her brows. I promise neither will hurt you. Jikata wasn’t accustomed to being patronized in her own mind. She shrugged and got in.

The Singer Sang a scale, starting at the top of her range and descending. The elevator moved gently and silently down. This is the only moving box in Lladrana, and I am the only one who can Sing the songspell.

Then the door opened and they were in the caves. As Jikata watched, mist gathered into wraithlike shapes and solidified….

A piercing high C and the mist dispersed. Middle C and Jikata’s vision blurred and she understood the Singer had curved some sort of force field around them. Handy. From her last time in these caves, Jikata figured that the man in white, Luthan Vauxveau, didn’t know that particular spell. But Jikata had also sensed that the man didn’t know the Caverns. Thinking back, the majority of the Friends didn’t know the caves, either.

The Singer walked with a sure step through dark brown rock tunnels, following a spell light brighter than Jikata had learned to make…yet, in the two days she’d been here. “Time passes the same?” She wanted reassurance.

“Ayes.” The old woman didn’t pause, but as they turned left, Jikata saw a tiny marking on the rock wall at about her eye level. High for the Singer, lower for the rest of the Lladranans. The Lladranans, like most Earth peoples, had grown bigger and taller over generations? The sense of the caverns was ancient. Long smoke smears—from torches?—were even with Jikata’s head.

They jogged right and went through an old door. Jikata didn’t recall going through the door before, but now the Power was stronger. It slid smoothly across her skin with a touch that sent warning throughout her body. Danger, visions ahead!

Seven Mile Peninsula

Blossom dispersed the Distance Magic bubble without a sound and she and Raine spiraled slowly downward to a tall gray keep on the bluff overlooking an equally gray sand beach. This was the estate the Lladranans had offered Raine. The place itself was well-kept and looked old and weathered, but still seemed a good stronghold. It was on the southwest side of a small piece of land thrusting into the ocean called Seven Mile Peninsula.

Around it were green fields. The village that supported the castle was farther south, where the land smoothed toward the ocean and provided a good port. Part of the income for the village would come from fishing. Raine wondered if any of the folk could help her if she accepted the estate or whether they’d be as suspicious as the Seamasters themselves. As she and Blossom flew south, still within the boundaries of “her” land, Raine saw a huge building and docks with several boats, one being built the old-fashioned way.

They would owe fealty to you. Want to descend?

No! She could imagine what her father and brothers would say if some clueless guy from the government showed up. But she spotted a couple of men dressed in bright green who shaded their eyes as they watched Blossom and her fly over the open sea. The men raised their arms and waved. Raine thought she even saw a flash of teeth through bearded smiles.

She would rather figure out things on her own. A matter of pride, particularly since she’d been considered useless when she’d first arrived. Her ego and pride had been battered out of her, then, and were just reviving. A thought struck—Blossom?

Ayes?

The land where you found me…the hamlet where I worked, is it owned by anyone? At the time she’d thought the place was owned communally by the Seamasters since it was near Seamasters’ Market, where the great fisherfolk held seasonal fairs.

Blossom snorted. Owned by a great Chevalier. She now knows to keep a better eye on it, and on the Townmaster. The volaran snapped the Distance Magic around them once more. Raine relaxed into the ride, checked Blossom’s and her own energy levels, which were good, and let the flight soothe Blossom’s irritation—that Raine hadn’t committed to staying on Lladrana, hadn’t adored the castle or the estate, and at the memory of Raine’s mistreatment.

Raine went quiet, was sorry she couldn’t see their route to Faucon’s castle, but could tell when they flew over ocean or island on their trip. The feel of the water, more than the sound of surf against land, filled her.

Singer’s Abbey

Caverns of Prophecy, Caverns of Prophecy, the syllables pattered a rhythm. Jikata had a wonderful voice, an instrument, she knew that. Since arriving on Lladrana she’d felt Power. Magic outside her that ruffled, pulled at magic within her. She’d enjoyed learning magical spells.

Did she really think she had a “gift” of prophecy?

Uneasily she recalled the hunches she’d felt all her life, even before the chimes and gong the last couple of years, though her intuition had flashed more often since then. She’d known that to further her career she would have to leave Denver, disappoint Ishi, who wanted her to be a teacher. Jikata could never see herself in a classroom, only and always on stage, singing. Was she supposed to ignore the gift of a beautiful four-octave voice?

Arguments with Ishi buzzed around her head and she grew irritated with the past and herself for dwelling on it. She’d accepted being disinherited.

Ishi’s death, and now the air around her, brought it all back.

Flashes of intuition, vivid dreams that sometimes came true. She hadn’t believed she was psychic. It was easier, even here, to believe in magic outside herself.

They moved into smoothed rock hallways. These floors had thick carpets and their footsteps were lost in fine wool. Jikata still sensed the layers of sediment of the ages above her. Below her was the throbbing heartbeat of the planet. The dim sound seemed to ignite a glow of light in her chest and expand it.

A few minutes later they came to a door of black wood with a rounded top and strap work and hinges that seemed like iron, but were tarnished silver. Beyond the door was a hum of great Power.

The Singer looked at her and for the first time dissatisfaction was gone from the back of her eyes, leaving them serene. Whatever Jikata dimly sensed beyond the door, the Singer felt a hundredfold more strongly.

“You have trained enough to open the door. Listen closely.” She inhaled from her diaphragm, Sang crystalline notes from four octaves in a pattern that stirred Jikata’s blood.

The doorknob glowed, an intricate design of gleaming silver. The Singer touched the knob, said “Lock,” and the knob turned black-on-black again. Then she waited, gaze fixed on Jikata.

Jikata ran a couple of scales to warm her vocal cords. Had she known the Singer would make another of her impatient demands, Jikata would have limbered up her voice as she walked. Then she replicated the Song and the doorknob glowed once more.

“Good.” The Singer nodded shortly. She touched the knob and they both stepped back as the door swung outward.

The Singer went in first. “This is the true Chamber of Prophecy, where Power gathers. This is the room where every Singer for time out of mind has listened to the Song—of Amee, of the universe, of the great creative being we name the Song. It can be many tunes or one or even pure silence.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper.

Jikata stepped into the room and onto layers of thick, colorful rugs and gaped. In the middle the rugs became a pyramid, smaller and smaller until one just long enough to cradle the Singer was on top. There was a down mattress atop it.

The glitter of the walls took her breath. She was in a massive geode, a domed chamber with walls of protruding crystals all colors of the rainbow. Every color of quartz. Or were they tourmaline, precious gems, colored diamonds? She didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine the number or the color variations, the sizes of all the crystals, all of which would resonate with a different note.

They seemed to emit sound beyond her hearing. She quivered like a tuning fork.

“It’s the Power,” the Singer said with relish. “Some of the crystals store it, some project it, some even dampen it. The Song is endless and various.”

Jikata couldn’t speak. She blinked and blinked again, then narrowed her eyes to slits and shaded them with her hand. Even the filters she’d been building didn’t stop the unheard melodies affecting her so she rocked on heels and toes.

The Singer breathed deeply and Jikata understood the Power here supported and refreshed the Singer, probably led to her great age. But one thing Jikata had agreed with Ishi on was that living to a great age was not a goal to be sought at all costs, not even if the quality of life was acceptable.

For everything there is a season. She’d recorded that song because she’d agreed with it.

The Singer went to the pile of rugs and sat on an edge. She gestured. “I do not need the tools in the four directions of the room, but you may. We must explore which divination tool is best for you. Look around.”

The room wasn’t big, perhaps twenty feet in circumference, enough space for the rugs in the middle and the largest rug—surely commissioned for this chamber. As Jikata turned in place, she saw four different…thrones, and noticed that where they sat there was a shading streak of the same color. Deep blues spearing down to the palest shade of blue that seemed almost clear; the same with reds through orange to citrine with only a hint of yellow; dark purple amethyst to the lightest of lavender; great milky crystals that became more and more translucent until only the reflections on their facets showed they were there.

Each streak of color was equidistant from the others. The chairs were of silver, of gold, of polished wood, of slick obsidian. All had fat pillows near them in bright contrasting colors for seat and back. All had a pedestal she could barely see between the back of the chair and the wall.

She walked to the clear stones. On the pedestal was a harp that appeared to be fashioned from thick glass, shaped like an ancient lyre.

“Ah, my own element, air,” the Singer said approvingly.

Jikata yearned to touch the instrument. “I don’t know how to play it.”

The Singer’s laugh was sincerely amused, her face crinkled with humor, and Jikata saw the vibrant woman she’d been before age and sickness and something else—worry…the burdens of being a great oracle?—had taken their toll.

“It is meant to be strummed, a tool to vibrate the air around you so the visions come. Sit, try it.”

Jikata hesitated.

“We will not be leaving this room until we have found your best tool,” the Singer said calmly. “I was first here when I was nine. Two days after I arrived at the Abbey.”

But she was a Lladranan. The small woman’s hand was on Jikata’s shoulder, urging her down. Jikata sat on the silver chair and took the glass harp in her hands. It wasn’t large—about a foot and a half and fit easily in her lap. She didn’t know how to hold it, so she put her arm behind the glass top and set the bottom at an angle on her opposite thigh.