Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) by Kilczer Jean

Author:Kilczer, Jean [Kilczer, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Creativia
Published: 2014-01-16T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Something brushed my face. I awakened to silence and the pungent odor of burned wood. The fire had died. I sat up, my mind my own again, and touched my cheek. In the blue light of a drifting blob I saw that the cave was empty, including Lisa's mat! I threw off the blanket.

“Lisa!”

The only sound a scurrying lizard. I scrambled up, grabbed a glob light by tendrils and dragged it with me as I ran into the passageway. Dark sockets of caves there. “Lisa!” My call echoed down empty halls.

I ran through the winding shaft, past hanging wooden masks and gourds with painted faces. My breath kept catching in my tight throat.

After a sharp right turn, the passage broadened into a cavern with a maze of branching tunnels. I turned, there in the center of it, the floating lamp spotlighting me. “Lisa!”

“Wha?”

I spun. Gwis was a pale ghost in blue light, hands held behind her back, stretching her tunic over sagging breasts.

“Where's Lisa?”

She swung her arms around her frail white body and extended my jacket to me. Was she the attacker in my sleep? I stared into her silver eyes, pictured my mental shields lowering like canal locks and probed her mind for an image of my daughter. I couldn't read her expression but she casually scratched under a thick ridge of flaking skin on her cheek and scraped it off. Beneath, her flesh was transparent. Pulsing veins showed through. It distracted me, which might have been her purpose. The silver being's tel power rose up between us and lashed out to shatter my probe. I took a step back and retreated mentally as well.

He was gone. I grabbed Gwis' arm. “Where's – “

A narrow, many-legged creature wiggled around our feet, lifted the horny strip of discarded skin between pincers and raced away. “Where's Lisa?”

Gwis smiled, as though approving my anger, and handed me the jacket. “Come.”

She led me through a wide corridor with broad Kubraen footprints in soft soil. Paintings of animals, mountains, stars, and the inevitable three circles with a black dot in the center, lined clay walls as I followed her up a passage lit by hanging bowls of candles.

Ahead, pale light and the sound of deep Kubraen chanting. A sudden shriek pierced me like jagged glass. ”Lisa!” I dashed through a stone portal and out into night. “Li – “ She sat on a tree stump by a small fire, dressed in her snowsuit, and clapping her hands in time with the chanting. I felt myself go weak with relief. Gwis hissed out a chuckle behind me. I turned and threw her a harsh look. She lowered her gaze.

Five Kubraens, wearing only tunics and capes in the snow, chanted around the fire, throwing a tune to each other. A sixth played a curled wooden flute. Their ivory and buff-colored bodies rippled with red hues of firelight. Black shadows slashed their puckered skin as they swayed and clapped softly. Lisa picked up a shrill note,

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