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More discussion—and negotiating. Calli knew horse trading when she heard it, despite the language. Finally Jaquar frowned, pulled out some big coins—they looked like real gold—and handed them to Bastien. Bastien pocketed the money and stuck out his tongue.
The tiny cork lifted with a little pop. A thread of lavender smoke puffed from the bottle. Bastien’s eyes widened, Alexa stepped closer, and Calli sidled next to Thunder, feeling better with strong, warm hors—volaran flesh at her side.
Jaquar tipped the bottle and a drop of liquid hit Bastien’s tongue. The cork popped back into the bottle. Bastien swallowed.
He slid down against the stall side onto the floor, grabbed his head and moaned.
Calli and Thunder stepped back. She was glad she hadn’t tried the stuff.
Alexa was suddenly in the stall with them, crouched over Bastien. Calli hadn’t seen her move. Had she jumped? The stall door came nearly to Alexa’s shoulders. Surely not.
Jaquar looked at Calli and Thunder. “I’m opening the door to retrieve and examine Bastien.”
Keeping a hand on Thunder, who was only slightly disturbed, Calli nodded. Her mind was with Thunder’s. She could keep him from fear.
The door opened soundlessly, and Jaquar, Alexa and Marian dragged Bastien out. He tried to move himself.
With a whoosh, a large hawk swooped into the stables. It lit on Bastien’s head.
“She says it’s his wild magic that makes him react so,” Alexa said.
She? Who?
Thunder stepped forward until he was nearly out of his stall and into the crowded corridor. Feycoocu.
“Feycoocu?” Calli asked.
“A magical shape-shifting being,” Marian said absently.
Oh. Of course.
The hawk pecked Bastien on the head. He yelped and grabbed at it. It flew away. Thunder followed it with his gaze. I would like to talk to the feycoocu.
Calli decided she wouldn’t. The day was rapidly becoming overwhelming with the huge input of information.
Bastien shook his head and stood, helped by the other three. “Gonna lie down,” he said in heavily slurred English. “Bed.”
“Let’s get you there,” Jaquar said.
Bastien rubbed his temples. “Horrible headache. When did you say this would wear off?”
“Always too reckless for your own good,” Alexa scolded.
He closed his eyes. “Oh, that’s bad. Can be nagged at in two languages. No. I don’t like this.”
Jaquar said, “I’ll get him back to your suite, Alexa. You two should brief Calli on what she needs to know about the Summoning, the Choosing and Bonding ceremony, and the Snap.”
None of that sounded good to Calli. But one thing she knew, she wasn’t drinking any potion.
We made good impression, Dark Lance said smugly.
Marrec had used the last of his energy and Power to groom every inch of his volaran, murmuring compliments with each stroke. He didn’t want Dark Lance to ever leave again. Now he leaned against his mount, breathing in musky fragrance and thanking the Song that Dark Lance was back.
All around him other Chevaliers, even Marshalls, lingered, spending more time with their volarans. Especially those who could mind-speak with their mounts, even if only a few images. Especially those who only had one volaran. Those like him.
He shuddered again at the remembrance of loss. Not just of his best companion, but of his entire future. He did well enough with horses, but didn’t own any, didn’t know if he cared to. He’d have been penniless, with no decent way to support himself, if Dark Lance hadn’t returned. He hadn’t truly faced that fact until the volaran was gone.
One of the female Chevaliers sobbed, and Marrec had to gulp hard.
Cheek stings.
“What!” Marrec straightened, went to Dark Lance’s head.
Yours.
“Oh. Yes.” He pulled out the tube Bastien had given him, opened it and dabbed healing cream on his face. He chanted one chorus of a spell and the hurt diminished. That was different, too. Usually it would have taken three verses to repair the light soul-sucker wounds. He rubbed his hand over his cheek. No bumps.
More Power.
“Yes.”
More Power means more status.
“I hope so.” He cleared his throat and asked what he’d heard whispered in many stalls around him. Will you go away again?
No. Head Stallion called. I obeyed. Back here now.
“Thank you,” Marrec repeated.
We together.
“Yes.” He wanted to ask why the volarans had left and why they’d returned, hear the answers for himself, but Dark Lance’s mind-tone had been forbidding.
Rustling came from several stalls. Some of the Chevaliers were going to sleep with their volarans. Because they were afraid the winged horses would fly away again? He was torn, he wanted to stay, for the sheer comfort of Dark Lance’s presence. But if he did, he’d show the volaran he didn’t trust him.
After one last rub, Marrec left. He had to tally up his zhiv, plan for the future. See how long it would take to accumulate enough to buy a small piece of land in the north.
The tasty dinner Calli was tucking into seemed real, too. So far the normal things her senses understood—grooming, eating, peeing, made what she was experiencing real. But the strange events outweighed them. Falling through the crystal, waking up healed, moving without pain after a nap, hearing folks speak a different language.
Flying on a winged horse.
That had been the best.
As the plates were whisked away by Alexa’s serving woman, Calli studied her fork.
“We believe there’s always been sharing between our culture and Lladrana,” Marian said.
“Yes,” Alexa said, wiping her mouth with her napkin. “There have been Exotiques Summoned before, but not for a century.”
“I’m working on a Lorebook,” Marian said. “That’s what they call their reference volumes here. Lorebook on building Towers. Lorebook of Community Rules.” She made a face. “Before I started my own work, the Lorebook of Exotiques was a short one-page list.”
Alexa grunted. When Calli met her eyes, the Marshall held her gaze and said, “Lorebook on Summoning. Lorebook on Monsters.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Calli said. “To fight monsters.”
“That’s why we’re all here,” Marian said. “We were Summoned here by the Marshalls, and you by the Marshalls and Chevaliers, because the Song said we could vanquish the invading Dark. The dimensional corridor that links Earth and Lladrana is close. We deduce that there will be six of us Summoned.”
“So that’s the Summoning. Understand?” Alexa asked.
“Why me?” Calli asked.
Marian answered, “The Chevaliers had specifications of the qualities that they wanted in their Exotique, particularly after the volarans left. The Summoning would only be heard by a person who matched their needs—you.”
Alexa said, “During the Summoning ceremony, the Song is sent back in time on Earth to find and prepare a person to come to Lladrana.” She waved a hand. “Don’t suppose you heard chants and chimes and a gong over the last month, did you?”
Calli fell back against the plush dining-room chair.
“Thought so.” Alexa smiled.
“So you have all the qualities the Chevaliers wanted—someone the volarans would love, courage, determination.” Marian waved a hand. “You’re flexible in mind to accept the Summoning, probably don’t have deep emotional ties to Earth—” Calli kept her mouth shut “—or would consider staying permanently in Lladrana.”
“Fighting monsters, I don’t think so.” Calli crossed her arms. “Assuming I’m not in a coma from banging my head against that crystal.”
“What crystal?” Marian started.
“Stay on topic,” Alexa said.
Alexa stood. Her deliberate movements kept Calli watching her. She walked to the far corner of the room, where the wall separating the bathroom met the curving outer wall of the tower. Slowly she pulled her baton from her sheath. Green jade glowed above and below her fingers. The top of the wand had sculpted bronze flames. Nerves jittered under Calli’s skin.
“Calli, call it to you.”
Her breath stuck in her chest. “What?”
“Want the baton in your hand. Feel it in your hand. Reach out and say, ‘Baton!’”
“I don’t think—”
Coward. It came in her mind. In stereo. Alexa and Marian.
“You can do it,” Marian said.
“Why would I want to?” But she rose slowly and faced Alexa.
“Why not?” Alexa’s smile dared her. “Especially if it’s only a coma-dream.”
Marian frowned. “I’m not sure people in comas dre—”
“On topic, Marian.”
The atmosphere of the room became heavy and charged. It wasn’t only Alexa’s and Marian’s minds brushing hers, but Thunder’s and other volarans’, some people’s linked to them, too. All added to the anticipatory pressure around her.
“Fine. Baton, come!” Calli ordered.
It flew across the room and slapped into her open hand, stinging. And everything took on a solid reality that she couldn’t deny, as if her mind, her body, completely focused. The baton belonged to Alexa, vibrated like Alexa, but was real and solid in Calli’s hands. And magical. There was a force within it that compelled her to believe, to face the fact that she was no longer in Colorado, on Earth, like a door slamming shut behind her.
New place, new rules.
Before her eyes the metal flames atop the stick bloomed into real fire. She dropped it. Instead of hitting the ground, it shot back to Alexa, who sheathed it at her left hip. “There, you see? You have great magic. That’s another reason you’re here. We all have great magic. Cool, huh?”
“Magic,” Calli repeated.
Marian joined her. “Look.” She pulled a finger-length wand from her sleeve. Flicked it, it became larger, flipped it in her hand and flicked it again and the wand elongated into a walking staff. Calli’s mouth fell open.
“We all have magic here,” Marian repeated. “We have magic on Earth, too, it’s just very hard to access it. Earth is also a more visual culture. The Songs can’t be heard or Sung as easily.”
Alexa went to a love seat, sat and crossed her ankles. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t return to Earth when the Snap came.”
Calli’s knees went weak and she crumpled into her chair. There was another one of those strange phrases.
At that moment a white, long-haired cat strolled in from the bathroom. Calli stared. She could have sworn the door was shut.
“A cat from my past. Actually, my magical shape-shifting feycoocu companion.” Alexa grimaced. “A cat. I hate when this happens. You get nothing out of a cat.”
Marian sighed.
The cat went up to Alexa, stropped her ankles and began a purr that only increased as it leaped onto Calli’s lap. It turned around a few times and settled. Calli found herself petting it. Its fur was as soft as volaran feathers, and she felt oddly comforted. “The Snap?” She managed a squeak.
Drawing up a chair next to Calli, Marian said, “At some point in time, Mother Earth will call to you, strongly enough to pull you back home. You’ll have a choice to stay or go.”
“When?”
“No one knows,” Marian said. “There isn’t enough data for a hypothesis. Perhaps after you experience it…”
Alexa said, “We do know that time passes the same here as on Earth. If you’re here for, say, three months, the same amount of time has transpired in Colorado.”
“The ranch!” She’d lose the ranch. Her dad would think she’d just walked away. Her fingers tightened in the cat fur. The feline grumbled.
“Sorry.”
The cat jumped down and went to sit in the middle of the floor and groom.
Calli wouldn’t walk away from the ranch, but her dad would think her cowardly enough to do so, dammit.
Both the women appeared sympathetic.
“The shortest amount of time before the Snap came was two weeks, the longest was seven years and three months, the average is about two months,” Marian said.
Two months.
