Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 by Melissa Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

their room, Alma had proclaimed she needed a bath. Not that she didn’t, it had been a long hot layover in Las Vegas, and the dress shields she’d unpinned from her flying blouse had been nothing but damp little wads. But then there had been a late dinner, hurrying before the dining room closed, and then she’d told him to go ahead and bathe, which he also needed, and by the time he’d come to bed, she’d been curled under the sheets, apparently sound asleep. He listened for a moment longer to her breathing, soft and steady in the dark, settling himself to sleep. It would be better in the morning.
     
    H e dreamed he stood in a wood in starlight, a light wind blowing across him, touching his face like cooling breath. He stood beneath trees, but it only took a moment to walk to the edge of the forest and look out, down a long hillside to a lake that whispered opaque like a blackened mirror in the starlight. It should have been frightening, and yet it wasn’t.
    A white hound paced him, her long nose held high, looking up at him with blue eyes as bright as Alma’s. She snuffled at his hand and he bent to pet her, kneeling before her on the thick mat of pine needles, caressing her soft ears. “There, good girl,” he said. “There.” Her fur was like silk, warm beneath his hand.
    She butted his hand, then got up and walked a few paces. She stopped, looking back at him expectantly.
    “You want me to follow you?” Lewis asked bemusedly. “Ok. I can do that.”
    He followed her under the eaves of the woods, through paths cast into deep shadow. Lewis couldn’t have said how long he walked or how far, the white hound glimmering like a star ever before him.
    There was the sound of chanting, and he was in a room. It was no place he’d ever been before, but it was modern. Though candles were lit, illuminating precious little, there were electric lamps turned off, a chandelier with electric bulbs hanging dark from the ceiling. Four men and four women were there, standing in a circle around empty space, their identical white robes veiling their forms, their bare feet soundless on the thick oriental carpet.
    He heard a growl and looked down. The white hound stood beside him, fur standing up on the back of her neck, and her teeth were bared. He looked where she did, at one who drew the eye. He was fifty, perhaps, tall and handsome, with the kind of rugged physique that aged well. He had dark hair threaded with gray, a square jaw, and his movements were purposeful and sharp, gesturing to thin air and speaking words that ought to be familiar but weren’t. He almost caught the sense of them, but not quite.
    The hound butted his hand again, and her meaning was as clear as if she’d spoken. Look. Look at that one. Know him.
    Unerringly, as though Lewis’ gaze had touched him, he looked across the circle and met Lewis’ eyes, his hand moving in a gesture that was far from random. It hurt. It burned. It was like taking a sudden blow to the chest that shoved him backwards, away from the room, away from the light….
     
    L ewis jerked awake, sitting up before he was even aware what he was doing, the sound of his own breath harsh in his ears. He could still almost feel it, like a blow to the solar plexus….
    Alma rolled over and sat up. She was sleeping in her combinations, and a silk teddy in a pale pink that was probably supposed to match her skin, but the deep v at her neck was tanned a lot darker, while beneath the fragile lace trimmed edge her nipples showed through the cloth. “Lewis?”
    He didn’t trust himself to speak yet, just sat breathing, bending forward over his knees.
    Alma leaned against his back, her arm across him. “It’s just a bad dream,” she said quietly. “Just breathe and let it go.”
    “Not just a dream,” Lewis muttered, scrubbing his hands across his face. “Not this time. It’ll happen.” He was too thrown to lie. “Sometimes I dream about things that come true.”
    He felt her stiffen