Echoes in the Dark (8 page)

Thankfully,
she began sipping her mead. She leaned against Jaquar and closed her eyes for
an instant. Like the new Exotique, Marian had shadows under her eyes. Ayes, she
was interesting with her blue eyes and red hair, but not lovely like the new
Exotique. Jikata’s delicate features, long dark brown hair with black, tilted
brown eyes and complexion close to the golden of the Lladranans appealed to
Luthan more.

Best
to begin. “There are many reasons why the Singer Summoning the last Exotique
was best. Time is of the essence and the Marshalls were not prepared to do the
Summoning, since they’d lost Partis.” Luthan lifted his hands as Marian sizzled
a glance at him. “No, I did not know the Singer was going to do so. She did not
inform me, nor did she ask me to participate. My taking her orders is at an
end, but I haven’t cut the association yet.”

Frowning,
Marian said, “I’ve been concentrating on the City Destroyer Weapon Knot and the
Songspell to untie it, training my voice with others. I knew Partis was the
lead singer of the Marshalls, and of course knew of his death, but I didn’t…”
She shook her head, and a distant expression came to her eyes, recollection of
when she was Summoned, Luthan supposed.

“He
was a strong, quiet man, a Shield to his Lady’s Sword, more important than we
all knew,” Jaquar said.

With
a watery sniff, Marian nodded. “I should have paid more attention to Alexa, or
she should have told me. The Tower community has several good teams now,
including good Singers…between all of us, the Castle and the Tower and the
Chevaliers and the Cities, we could have forged an excellent team.” She
shrugged. “Well, the Singer took advantage of our distraction and inaction.”

Jaquar
put an arm around her waist and squeezed. “It is our duty to figure out the
Weapon Knot.”

“And
you have?” Luthan asked.

“Pretty
much,” Marian said. “It’s for an ensemble of at least three and no more than
fifty, and the lead solo must have a four-octave range.”

“The
Singer would Summon no one with less,” Luthan said. “And she’s the best to
train such a range since she has it herself, and since the spellsong will be
complex and difficult—” he raised his brows in question and Marian nodded,
“—the Singer is the best to train anyone in Power made by the voice alone.”

Jaquar
shifted. “Her voice isn’t the only Power of the new Exotique, is it? All the
signs indicate that the lady will be strong in prophecy, too, like the Singer
herself. And you.”

Luthan
didn’t want to recall the visions he’d had in the caves. “The new Exotique is
Powerful, and like all the other Lladranan communities, the Singer would have
requirements for the one she Summoned.”

“Which
would include prophecy,” Jaquar pointed out.

“Which
would include prophecy, though I wasn’t with the lady long enough to gauge her
Power,” Luthan said, then told them every detail of the Summoning, his talks
with Bri and Raine and Alexa.

“Hmm,”
Marian said at last. “This Lladranan cockatoo, I’ve never heard of one.”

Another
squeeze from her husband. Jaquar said, “You all have animal companions, why
shouldn’t she?”

“If
you consider the feycoocus animals,” Marian said. “They are more beings of pure
magic.”

“Who
take various animal forms,” Jaquar added. He looked at Luthan. “Was this
cockatoo a real bird or a feycoocu?”

Luthan
hadn’t considered the matter. He went with his gut. “A real bird.”

Marian
sighed. “Looks like my feycoocu will be mostly bird in the future, along with
his mate and the baby, since Bri has the roc. I must admit I prefer mammals.”

“Birds
may be more useful during the trip,” Luthan said. “A Lladranan cockatoo comes
from the forests of the southeast, a beautiful, intelligent bird.”

“Ah.”
Marian yawned, stretched and rose.

“One
last thing,” Luthan said. “Alexa recognized the name of the new Exotique.”

Marian
tilted her head.

“The
new Exotique’s name is Jikata.”

Marian
stared at him for a long moment. “I can’t believe it,” Marian said. “What is
she
doing
here?
And why would she possibly want to stay?” She seemed
shocked.

Jaquar
stood and put an arm around his bondmate’s shoulders. “With that attitude,
perhaps it’s wise that the Singer has charge of her.” He glanced at Luthan.
“For now.”

“For
now,” Luthan agreed.

But
tears shone in Marian’s eyes, and she clutched Jaquar’s biceps with both hands.
“But we all know that the Snap to return an Exotique home doesn’t come until
after she finishes her task. If she’s a four-octave Singer who’ll lead us in
the City Destroyer spell, that means her task—”

“Is
to go with us when we invade the Dark’s Nest and kill it,” Jaquar finished.

“The
most dangerous task of any of us. Does she have any free will at all?” Marian
asked.

Singer’s Abbey

J
ikata awoke,
stretched luxuriously, smiled at the velvet canopy above her head. The Ghost
Hill Hotel was lovely and she had the Presidential Suite.

But
what was truly excellent was the music. She didn’t know what radio station the
hotel carried, but it was primo, something she thought she’d never find in
Denver, though that public station in Greeley came close.

The
piece was new-age ambient, full orchestral with rich, intricate melodies, and
the acoustics of the room were wonderful since the sound surrounded her. Better
than her home system. She’d get her sound engineer here to talk to the
management.

She
frowned, rubbed her face. She
had
ended a tour yesterday, that meant the
crew was officially on vacation and—

She
was due at her great-grandmother’s at ten! She scrambled up, shoving the
binding covers down, bad dreams again.

Weird
dreams—

Ishi
would never forgive her for being late.

Ishi
was dead.

That
came flooding back, along with all the regrets and emptiness of her life. She
fell back against fat pillows.

A
flash of scarlet and there was a beautiful red bird sitting on a perch near the
bed. It trilled a liquid melody.
We are in Lladrana, where we belong.

Jikata
blinked and blinked again. Cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon?” Her voice
was raspy. Everything seemed slightly off.

The
bird fluttered to the bed next to her. Jikata wrinkled her nose but didn’t
smell musty feathers or bird manure. She smelled lavender.

I
am Chasonette. We are here, we are home, we will triumph!

A
mind-singing bird. Not slightly off…way off.

Music
all around. Jikata concentrated and thought she could hear music coming from
the very walls of this place and that sent a little shiver down her spine.

Harp
notes rose and fell, then came the creak of a door, followed by the wonderful
smells of eggs and bacon, freshly baked bread. Saliva pooled in Jikata’s mouth.
A plump young woman walked in bearing a tray, obviously breakfast. Jikata
shouldn’t eat so heavily…but she
was
coming off a long, stressful tour.

She
noticed the food first then her gaze went from the red lacquered tray to the
woman and she stared in disbelief.
Music
streamed from the maid in
simple, repetitive notes. Jikata shook her head hard enough to dizzy herself.
But when she stopped, the woman’s music was still there.

Chasonette
fluffed her feathers. The bird, too, emanated music without one warble from her
throat, a high lovely tune that seemed to pierce Jikata’s heart.

Jikata
recalled the notion that she had a soundtrack for her life. True again this
morning. More disturbing now. Surely it had to be in her mind, but she could
live with it.

The
woman dipped a curtsy and flushed a little. Jikata scooted back, wary, but
ready to be served. She didn’t keep servants herself, but had stayed at homes
of both old wealth and nouveau riche where maids were common.

After
a tour she treated herself to resorts where she could be pampered. Perhaps this
was just one and she’d forgotten the travel, or the Philberts had arranged for
her transport. She wondered what sort of spa facilities this place had.

Speaking
in a Frenchlike patter—or perhaps patois—Jikata didn’t understand, the serving
woman set the tray on Jikata’s lap. Chasonette nipped half a slice of bacon and
after crunching a chunk, dropped the rest in a small china dish on the corner
of the tray that held a mixture of seeds.

The
bird was going to
eat
from Jikata’s tray? That couldn’t be sanitary.
Chasonette buried her beak in the bowl.

A
word from the woman caught Jikata’s ear with the rising inflection of a
question. “Po-tat-oes?”

Jikata
stared and the servant repeated it. “Potatoes?”

Potatoes
for breakfast! Glancing at her plate, Jikata saw scrambled eggs with cheese
decorated with pepper and dill, and two strips of bacon. She shouldn’t even be
having this. An egg-white omelet with fresh vegetables and a touch of cheese,
an in-season fruit cup. Nothing like this. The thought of the cheesy eggs on
her tongue made her mouth water all over again.

“No,”
she said. “No potatoes.”

The
woman’s eyes sharpened. “
Ttho.
Ttho potatoes.”

Jikata
shifted in her bed, she’d been hoping that despite everything, this really was
Denver. Pushing down panic, she decided to go with the flow a bit until she
could discover more.

With
a steady movement, the servant pulled all the bed curtains open and tied each
section to the carved bedpost. Jikata gasped. In front of her was a wide
rectangular window. The near distance was a field of white stone towers and
spires, some embellished. Beyond that was land of a green that Colorado rarely
saw except for a couple of weeks in a very rainy spring. Nothing like
California, either. Or the tropical island she’d planned to recuperate on.

In
the far distance were hills of various shades of green, highlighted by golden
streaks of sunlight, a blue, blue sky and puffy, white castle-clouds. It all
had an exoticness that spoke nothing of the rocky hills and rockier mountains
around Denver.

Jikata’s
mouth dried and she swallowed. She needed something to drink.

As
if on cue, another woman and a man entered, both older than the first plump
maid, who was dressed in yellow. The woman wore blazing red and held a
beautiful folding table. The man wore rich blue and carried a tray loaded with
fabulous china in a wildly colored chintz pattern on the tall coffeepot and
fluted cups rimmed with gold.

The
fragrance of jasmine tea rose from the spout of the pot and Jikata’s nose
twitched.

None
of the three had a bone structure that Jikata could quite place, not northern
Chinese, or Mongolian, Korean, Thai. Definitely not Caucasian. Gorgeous all the
same. And they all had streaks at their temples, the younger one silver, the
older ones the color of spun gold. Jikata recalled that the old woman last
night—the Singer had pure gold hair. Those streaks and that hair must mean
something. Another frisson slid through her.

The
older woman in red set the table beside Jikata’s bed, stepped back and folded
her hands, but her sharp gaze scanned the room as if checking to ensure
everything was correct. Jikata had seen that professional housekeeper’s glance
before. The man poured the tea, lifted the lid of a sugar bowl as if in
question.

Jikata
shook her head, then remembered the word,
ttho.

With
exaggerated movements the younger maid shook her head and said, “Ttho.” Then
nodded vigorously, smiled and added “Ayes.”

“Ayes,”
Jikata said faintly.

Everyone
echoed her, and the sound of the word was sometimes
eyes,
or
ice
or even
ah-yes.

Deciding
that her language lesson had progressed well enough and not wanting to think or
talk about it further, Jikata fed her rumbling stomach. The first mouthful of
eggs nearly melted on her tongue, with a nice garnish of spice, and a small
bite of what might be something like paprika or even chili.

She
was famished, as if she hadn’t eaten in days—or after a major performance,
which was the truth.

“Velcome,”
said the older woman and bowed.

“Velcome
Lladrana, Exotique Singere,” said the man with a self-important incline of his
head.

Since
her mouth was full of soft buttered bread giving joy to her taste buds, Jikata
merely nodded in return. He reminded her of a thin-nosed agent who’d rejected
her and now was probably regretting it. That gave her a warm feeling, too.
Always did.

He
gestured and the younger woman came forward, took the tea and handed the thin
china cup to Jikata. She sipped it. Great tea, but she could have done with
some strong coffee. She wondered if they had coffee…not thinking about that!