Echoes in the Dark. Robin D. Owens

went to the red-orange fiery wall that had drawn her from the first. As she came near, flames ignited and danced in a brass brazier.

      She sat and was enveloped in warmth. Amee stepped from the fire, wearing a red gown, hand again at her side. She nodded to Jikata. Jikata, you are here, at last. The sweet, terrible smile. You must know that should you wish, you can become the thousandth Singer. All you have seen here could be yours. The comforts and the Power and the joys of living a life full of music, of listening to your gift of prophecy and thereby helping others. Composing. That can be yours.

      One corner of her beautiful lips twisted. Along with the temptation of Power, the burden of foreseen knowledge, the duties and responsibilities of the Singer.

      “I’m just becoming accustomed to here,” Jikata said.

      Amee’s smile saddened, her star-spark pupils shone behind tears. I brought you to help me, to fight with me and for me. But you are not alone in this endeavor. Finally she removed her hand from her side. A black, hideous swollen sluglike leech gnawed on the woman, and the red of her dress was nothing compared to the red of her blood. Help save me.

      Jikata stared in horror at the evil thing, then skin on its head rolled back and she saw shiny, depthless, black eyes that sucked the light from the room as it sucked the energy from Amee. It smiled. First her, then you. It cackled in her mind.

      Everything went dark.

      Creusse Crest

      Faucon’s yacht was two-masted with red and orange sails furled and tied down. A gorgeous Tall Ship. Soon Raine would make her own ship. Joy blossomed in her. Who knew after all those bitter wars with her family that she’d wanted to build a Tall Ship…? There must be more of her family in her than she expected.

      The future of ships on Lladrana was what she, Raine Lindley, would make it. That sent a shiver down her spine. It would be more like a galleon than a schooner or pleasure yacht. Good thing she’d designed hundreds of hulls and sails, and now if she remembered her doodlings in middle school, a Tall Ship or two….

      Her ship would be as beautiful as this yacht, grander than anything her family had made. As for yachts…she could build something for Faucon, or other rich Lladranans, faster, sleeker than this pretty lady.

      But her Tall Ship was one thing only—a troop transport. She set her mouth. No reason it couldn’t be lovely, and they’d want fast.

      She just didn’t know how fast the thing would go without real power or Power—magic. She walked along the upper deck, all tidy. No doubt Faucon had a top-notch crew. No indication here of any other propellant source than the sails ready for the kiss of the wind. There was a polished stick where a wheel would be on Earth and she was sure it connected to a rudder, but nothing more.

      She went down a level, found the crew’s quarters, hammocks hanging, and grimaced. That was the most efficient way for people to sleep on a ship. She wondered about the fighters. She thought of their tired and grim faces and realized that they wouldn’t care much as long as they had a chance to destroy the Dark and its Nest and the monsters it kept sending to Lladrana.

      Raine only hoped that her last task was building the ship, not fighting the Dark itself.

      The galley, sitting area and cabins were all gleaming wood. The crew quarters had been in the stern of the ship, and Raine’s eye had told her that there was no “engine” compartment between that room and the ocean.

      Now she stood in Faucon’s large and luxurious cabin and studied the wall behind the big bed. There was something beyond that wall, snugged in the forecastle, the front of the bow.

      “Your reason for being here is?” Faucon asked.

      Singer’s Abbey

      Jikata awoke on a fainting couch and jolted upward, but as her mind spun she realized she wasn’t in Ghost Hill Theater but in Lladrana.

      “The first true vision can be intense,” the Singer said. “Especially if you touch the Song, or if you see your future.”

      Without saying a word, Jikata took a few deep breaths, looked around. “How did I get here?”

      The Singer smiled. “I used Power.”

      Which could have meant she dragged Jikata through the caverns or teleported her or something altogether different. Jikata decided she didn’t need to know. “We’re in your suite above the crystal room?”

      “Ayes. Only Singers are allowed in that room. It is where the Singer experiences the Song. Others—Chevaliers testing to become Marshalls, those who wish a Song Quest—are given drugs to open their minds to our innate Power and we link with them here. Now go to your own rooms and rest and eat, perhaps meditate.” The autocrat was back in full force. “I have had a blank journal placed on the desk in your suite. You should record today’s vision.” The Singer grimaced. “In English since you have not begun to learn written Lladranan.”