Robin Owens - Echoes in the Dark

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.”

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