Robin Owens - Echoes in the Dark

“Not…not…Alyeka.”

That first Exotique was considered to be the most unpredictably dangerous. Alexa, pronounced correctly, had no fondness for the Singer and her Friends.

“Wait, you must stay and explain to them!” Jongler said.

“I know nothing to explain.” That nettled him so much he wanted to hit the man. His fingers itched. But he was not his father. After a couple of years of rebellion, Luthan had built his reputation as the most honest man in Lladrana. He would not betray that for an angry impulse, not for the Singer herself.

Shrugging, Luthan said, “You’ll be the one explaining.”

Jongler backed rapidly, by his own feet, bowing repeatedly. “Ah, Hauteur Vauxveau.” That was Luthan’s title and surname.

“I’ve been beyond courtesies for months.” He didn’t slow down, but bared his teeth. “I’ll speak to the Singer in person.”

A quick darting of eyes by Jongler. They’d reached a wider space that curved around a circular building with paths to the left and right between it and others. Luthan swung left.

Jongler coughed. The closest door to the caverns is to your right. Luthan heard mentally, privately. Now when had he become sufficiently connected to Jongler that they could speak mind to mind? Didn’t matter.

Luthan pivoted and stared to his right. A small octagonal tower stood with dark arches below, leading to what he’d thought was the Friends’ meeting room. The arch was matched by the second-story windows, the whole was capped with a conical roof and weather vane. Though the blackness beyond the arches was deep, he didn’t hesitate, moved swiftly and found two doors. One would probably lead to the meeting room.

He glanced back at Jongler, who now smiled with an edge, hands folded at his waist.

“Which?” Luthan asked.

Jongler lifted his nose. “If you have the bond with the Singer that you think you do, you will know how to find her in the maze of the tunnels, won’t you?”

Nodding shortly, Luthan settled into his balance, grounded himself, banished anger and probed. Behind the left door he sensed the dampness of rock walls, the slope downward into the heaviness of earth, the secrecy of the Caverns of Prophecy. The atmosphere behind the right door Sang of laughter and petty quarrels and the range of human concerns.

He set his hand on the left doorknob. Shock! Gritting his teeth he absorbed it, knew the knob was brass that now had left a fancy pattern on his skin…and told the Singer he was coming. Wrenching open the door he stepped inside. The door slammed behind him as if on tight springs. Another security measure. The dark in here pressed on him, whispering, whispering…

He found himself swaying…falling into a trance that would trigger his own gift of prophecy, and by the great, evil Dark, he didn’t want more visions!

“Light!” He snapped the word and the resulting brightness shocked him, coming from a great chandelier dripping with crystals, each one emitting sparkling light.

This anteroom was pretty with a stone mosaic floor and smooth walls of gold-patterned white silk. Three doors were set in it. He knew exactly which one led to the Caverns of Prophecy; dread filled him when he looked at it. Another led to the chapter house, the third resonated strongly of the Singer, probably went to one of her personal suites. The beauty of the room masked the threat of the caverns.

For a moment he considered his options. Going down into the bowels of the planet, subjecting himself to whispers and vapors and misty visions of the future…many futures. He didn’t have to endure this. But he didn’t like giving in to fear. And he didn’t like being used as he had been used for the past year.

He could avoid confronting the Singer in her place of Power, abandon trying to rescue the new Exotique, who was meant for the Singer and her Friends. Might even be the next Singer. He could wait for the other Exotiques to arrive and they could all speak to the Singer herself. He shook his head.

The Singer would be a stone wall to the others, and the more they pushed, the more adamant she’d be.

So he squared his shoulders, opened the door and Sang himself a light spell for illuminating underground chambers—usually hot springs or bathing pools rather than caverns or dungeons. Light flickered along the top of the smoothly worked dark brown stone tunnel twisting downward.

Luthan headed into the depths of the caves, ignoring the susurration of the whispers around him, the vague mists that floated near, sparkling with images if he cared to see.

Hair prickled along his body, and he quashed apprehension.

As he descended and breathed the vapors of the cavern that triggered prophecy, it became impossible to block visions of the future. The first bad one was his brother’s nearly unrecognizable burnt body, skin black and bone white. Luthan fell to his knees, gasped. A broken-fingered dead hand was clasped in Bastien’s, Alexa’s. Luthan’s pain rose as he saw his brother holding what was left of his mate. Beyond them were a pile of dead; he saw the staring blue eyes of Jaquar, and Marian’s red hair. He forced nausea away, his gorge down.

Since they were all planning to invade the Dark’s Nest, ready to die to stop the evil alien being, this wasn’t an unexpected vision, but it hurt his mind, his body, his heart to contemplate such a future.

After a few breaths, the image faded. The cave was dark and echoing with a faint swirl of mist near the top. Shuddering, he rose to his feet, felt clamminess on his face and didn’t know if it was vapor or tears or sweat.

When he came to a three-way fork in the tunnel he closed his eyes and listened. He could hear the Singer, the echo of her words or Song, and the sound told him how to go. More, it seemed like the bond they’d established between them was true, because he could see a link also, a deep blue and occasionally glittering silver thread. She was in the direction of the middle path before him, but it was not the way to her. It was the left-hand path, again, that reverberated with Song, and showed the cord winding between them. So he took the left.

Descending deeper, the scent of weeping rock and incense came to his nostrils, the mists of prophecies became full, iridescent wraiths, tempting him to look and study. The Songs of them increased from whispers to a steady hum. His skin itched. How did the Singer stand it? How had she stood it for over a hundred years? Did it diminish or grow stronger or was it her own strength and control that grew? If so, he was a fool to set himself against such a being.

Concentrating on her, he held off most of the visions.

But not all.

Dark encroached. His mouth dried. The light dimmed, his field of vision narrowed. He set his jaw. The Dark had encroached into Lladrana for centuries, particularly in his lifetime, especially in the past decade.

He drew his gauntlets from where they were folded over his belt and put them on so he could trail his hand against the cavern wall.

Four steps down the corridor his solid steps wavered, the mist pushed around him as if it knew he had the Power of Sight. Wisps curled in his nostrils and he couldn’t help breathing them.

Six steps and the heat was vicious—like that of an active volcano. The Dark’s Nest.

Seven steps and a horrendous explosion occurred, the heat searing his eyes, but not before he saw a mountain island explode flinging bodies into the sky—volaran and human.

One of the bodies wore white leathers like his.

Again his legs gave way and he gasped, fell to the floor, knees bruising.

Endured the horrendous noise of a dying Dark, the screams of volarans and the Exotiques echoing in his brain as they died, too.

Then nothingness.

For a long moment he lay and ached…body, mind, soul.