Keepers of the Flame

by Robin D. Owens

  The man nodded and came to stand near their things, careful not to touch them. His nostrils flared, he closed his eyes and shuddered, but his face remained impassive.

  Narrowing her eyes, Alexa shot Bri a speculative look. “You heard enough of his Song to choose him to watch your stuff.”

  That deduction jolted Bri, emphasized the strange things that were happening.

  “Bri,” Elizabeth called from near the big door.

  Bri turned and scanned the round room. She and Elizabeth might have to return here, recreate the setting. So she stopped to soak in details before her mind focused on other, more critical matters.

  The gong was gigantic and polished silver about nine feet in diameter. The altar had lamps made of precious gemstones containing flickering candles. A small mallet lay by the lamps. Since they were in the colors associated with the seven chakras, Bri figured they served as light and the chimes. Her stomach quivered as she recalled their effect on her.

  The room was a huge cylinder of white stone, with sections partitioned off by tall, fancily carved wooden screens like she’d seen in India. The large rectangular pool she’d skirted smelled of herbal water—acacia, lavender, something resinous—Balm of Gilead?

  Built-in stone benches circled the room, their hard lines broken with colorful pillows in all sizes.

  People had gathered in clumps, usually those dressed alike, and were studying them. The way Alexa, a small woman, strode through the chamber let Bri know that she expected most people to get out of her way, and they did. An attorney from Denver, huh? Well, she’d certainly made a name for herself here. The thin scar on her cheek, the toughness of her body and the weapons that she wore made Bri’s bad feeling return.

  One more step and she reached Elizabeth and the man, who was a lot taller than Bri expected, with big shoulders and a body that looked as if he did hard labor every day—but not with the air of a soldier that Alexa had.

  “So,” Alexa said with a measuring look. “Your name is Bry? Brianna?”

  It was Brigid. Bri shared a glance with Elizabeth. How much to say? Were names power here? Should they hide their names? When neither of them answered Marian sighed.

  The man handed the child to another guy dressed in pants and shirt. He put his fingers near his heart and bowed deeply. “Sevair Masif,” he said. Looking straight in Elizabeth’s, then Bri’s eyes, he spoke and Bri got the gist of heartfelt thanks since his words were halting and full of rich tones.

  Marian translated, “Thank you. We have lost several from this dread disease, but not one so young. He is an only child of a widow and his mother treasures him. Thank you.”

  Bri inclined her head. Elizabeth pressed her lips together. In regret that she hadn’t helped cure the boy? In denial that she could have helped with…magic?

  Marian’s mouth curved in a smile that Bri distrusted. The Sorceress held out a little bottle. “One drop of this would banish that language barrier for an hour, though you both seem to know French.”

  “A little,” Elizabeth said.

  “Some,” Bri said.

  “No,” they said together as they stared at the bottle.

  Marian’s smile faded. She tilted her head in the direction of the door. “Additional patients await you outside. It will be more efficient if you can speak well to direct us.”

  Alexa said, “We all work in healing circles, but we haven’t been able to effect any cures. More cases surface every day, more deaths every week.”

  Do we dare leave here? Elizabeth asked.

  Bri licked her lips. They sound as if they need us.

  “Why does everyone have to be bribed to take the potions?” Marian said.

  The blond woman who was dressed all in leathers, Calli, smiled at this. “Oh, just because we’re not stupid.” She glanced at the twins. “It does work.”

  Cocking her head, Bri said, “What’s the bribe?”

  “I answer every question you have for two hours,” Marian said promptly.

  “If this is really a different place, you promise to send us home,” Bri countered.

  “Can’t be done,” Marian said, with a finality that left no argument. She gestured to the groups of people drifting toward them. “It took all of us to Summon you here. Returning you is an even greater feat.”

  The big door was flung open and a hysterical woman shot in. She saw the boy and shrieked, grabbed him. Bri and Elizabeth moved instinctively, then checked as the woman began kissing his face all over, hugging him tight, tears pouring from her eyes.

  Moaning came from outside. Twin? asked Elizabeth.

  Bri squared her shoulders, tried a hard expression as she looked at Marian. “You three know English and this mangled French. You can translate.”

  “Three days,” Marian said. She drew herself up. “I’ll be at your disposal for three days.”

  “Take her up on it,” Alexa advised.

  Bri’s hand met Elizabeth’s and they linked fingers as if they were little girls again. Bri felt wonder, the willingness to heal…. “We don’t anticipate being here three days,” Bri said. “Someone will find us in the elevator.”

  “Elevator?” Alexa sounded fascinated. “You came here by elevator?”

  They left the room for a covered outdoor portico. Before them was a huge courtyard surrounded by dark shapes of buildings like a medieval Castle in excellent condition.

  The air! Elizabeth said.

  Much more humid than Denver.

  No traffic sounds.

  The smells are different, too. Rain, wet stone, even the people smelled subtly different than any other culture Bri’d visited.

  Sevair Masif turned right, toward the sound of moaning. A tide of pain swept to Bri from Elizabeth, who’d gotten hit first. Her twin doubled over. Bri bent down and hugged her, reached again for the energy flow, felt it rush as if a faucet had been turned on above her. The current washed away the echoes of pain, let her put a thin bubble of protection between her and their patients’ hurting. She helped Elizabeth erect mental shields.

  Sevair had stopped and turned to observe them.

  Bri became aware of reverberating sound—this time thready melodies that pulled at her heart with a yearning to mend. She was still considering the strange notion that she could hear tunes coming from people when Elizabeth straightened, squeezed her hand, then crossed the stone courtyard with a steady step. Her sister headed to a covered walk along what looked like a Castle keep—cloisters, with lacy stone half-walls and open “windows.”

  Elizabeth looked down the walk, her emotions amplified and easily felt by Bri. Pity. Hope. Most of all, the desire to help, to heal. She looked at Bri.

  “Are you with me?”

  They exchanged a glance. Bri could almost see the reflection of herself in Elizabeth’s eyes, knew Elizabeth thought of her as a new-age rebel exploring fringe healing. Did Elizabeth sense how Bri saw her—a buttoned-down doctor?

  Someone cried out. Elizabeth flinched. “You saved a life.” And I stood aside, she added mentally, blinking hard.

  Don’t beat yourself up. I took a familiar risk.

  Elizabeth sighed. I’m willing to risk it with you. “Can we heal fifteen?”

  “We won’t know until we try. We’ll give it our best shot.”

  Elizabeth nodded. Bri hurried over, all too aware of otherness surrounding her. She joined Elizabeth and saw cots set up all along the walkway.

  Elizabeth sent red-headed Marian a cool glance. “Take us to the worst cases, first.” Marian spoke to a man and a woman who wore red tunics with white crosses on them, and they went to the far end of the corridor. Elizabeth and Bri followed.

  Glancing down as she followed her very impressive twin, Bri saw that the people were definitely different from those who’d been in the round building. Their clothes were shabbier, seemed more lower and middle class. She clenched her jaw; she wanted to help. Elizabeth had positioned herself on one side of a pallet. Bri took the opposite side. Elizabeth had also set h
er teeth.

  Relax, she sent to Elizabeth, opening her own mouth to ease her jaw muscles.

  I am relaxed.

  Check your jaw and shoulders.

  Elizabeth stiffened, then moved a little, loosening her shoulders and her stance. She took a slow breath in and relaxed her muscles as she exhaled. When she looked at Bri, her eyes gleamed from a pale face. All this strangeness was getting to them both, but the restless shifting and the sheer hurt of the sick people around them demanded their attention.

  Other people had followed, most standing in the courtyard outside the cloister windows. The three Caucasian women—Alexa, Marian, and Calli—remained near.

  Bri stepped up to their first patient, an elderly woman. The woman had a slow, thin tune with little embellishments. Bri put her left hand on her head.

  Yes, said Elizabeth, you take her head. I don’t trust myself to send the proper amount of energy to her head. A shiver rippled through her.

  It was cooler here, especially in the stone cloister walk, than in Denver. Or maybe it was just later in the night.

  Elizabeth spread the fingers of her right hand over the woman’s heart, Bri extended her own right-hand fingers, with one finger touching Elizabeth’s over the woman’s abdomen, felt loose flesh, the laboring of lungs. Milky eyes stared up at her. Bri swallowed hard. The woman was as tall as the rest of these people. Elizabeth set her other hand, spread to touch Bri’s, over the woman’s crotch.

  Bri and Elizabeth matched gazes, breaths.

  “Ready?” asked Bri.

  Elizabeth nodded. You handle it.

  Fear puddled in Bri’s stomach, but she shut it away, hoping her sister couldn’t sense it. She opened herself to the energy. She pulled, gently, gently. It rushed through her like a river. She felt the briskness of the night, an effervescence that twinkled like stars in the sky outside the walk. She swayed.

  A woman clasped her shoulders, helped ground and steady her, though she didn’t seem able to grip or work the healingstream. Marian.

  Incredible, echoed in Bri’s mind from the sorceress, went to Elizabeth. I’ve never sensed Power like this.

  Elizabeth, mind sharper than Bri’s, monitored their patient, cut the healingstream when they were done. Bri wriggled her shoulders and Marian stepped back.

  “She’s still very dehydrated and undernourished,” Elizabeth said, looking to Sevair Masif who stood near, and Marian translated. “You’ll ensure that she gets additional treatment?”

  “Of course,” said a female dressed in a red robe with a white cross. A medical person.

  “Good,” Bri said. The one word was harder to form than she expected.

  “Next?” Elizabeth said in a too-brusque voice as if squelching fear. The healingstream was new to her. Elizabeth might have used a surge of healing energy from herself, or touched on the stream, but had never opened herself to it.

  Bri had been the one kicking around the world, finding herself in villages or refugee camps with people who needed help while she only had her hands and the healingstream to depend upon. Many times that had not been enough. Then she grasped a wispy thought of Elizabeth’s. She was thinking how she’d shut herself and her talent off and had depended only on her medical training, not her gift, except in rare instances. Many times all her knowledge and training had not been enough.

  Once again Bri followed Elizabeth, and they began to establish a balance to handle the cycling energy. Elizabeth learned to open herself, Bri learned to limit and direct the healingstream. Marian stood behind Bri with her hands on her shoulders, steadying, supporting, but unable to join them.

  By the time they’d helped six, Bri began to feel the whole jet-lagged incredible event-packed day wearing upon her and moved by rote, summoning the healingstream, sending it into sick bodies. She felt the shadow of Elizabeth’s thoughts as she studied and dismissed different diagnoses. Nothing was familiar about this sickness.

  Somewhere between two hours and infinity they were finished and Bri was swaying on her feet. Elizabeth stood with the straightness of a woman refusing to give in to exhaustion then swung an arm around Bri’s shoulders and they were drawn to a moonlit opening to the courtyard. The cloister had been dark, too dark to work in, why had they?

  “Light hurts the sick’s eyes,” Marian said, and Bri realized she and the other woman had shared enough of a bond for the Sorceress to pick up on her thoughts, even if they weren’t linked anymore. Dangerous.

  “No,” said Marian. She bowed deeply, keeping her gaze on them. “I promise I will never hurt you. Either of you.”

  “Huh,” said Bri. She started to lean on the edge of the stone door opening and missed. Was falling. Something oddly shaped set against her and pushed her upward. In the brief contact, she felt a different sort of energy wash through her, tingling from top to toe, clearing her mind, giving her own energy—and Elizabeth’s—a boost.

  “Thank you—” She turned to her savior and gawked. A horse stood there, eyes huge and liquid and gleaming with…with…with magic? It whinnied and stepped back. Others like it stood in the courtyard. The smell of resinous amber crumbling into perfume wafted to Bri.

  “They’re curious.” Calli walked past them into the stone courtyard and rubbed the horse’s nose. “They say you’re using Power they only dimly sensed and didn’t know how to access. One has gone to report to the alpha pair in Volaran Valley.” She pointed. Bri followed her finger to see a white horse. With wings. Soaring over the buildings on the opposite side of the courtyard and off into a night sky that held too many stars.

  Impossible.

  Elizabeth stiffened into rigidity. Impossible.

  Another whicker came and Bri looked to the horse that had propped her up. Slowly it opened wings at its sides, spread them—huge feathery things.

  Ohmygod, Bri said.

  Ohmygod, Elizabeth said.

  “Ohmygod,” she and Elizabeth said together.

  “You’re not in Colorado anymore,” Alexa said.

  4

  Elizabeth was holding onto sanity as if it was the unraveling edge of a ratty blanket. Too much strangeness. Everything—the people, the humid air, the sky showing too many stars, and most especially the winged horses.

  One was still rubbing against Bri in mutual admiration.

  Sevair Masif, the man who’d come from Castleton, was ensuring the care and comfort of his people with efficient orders to soldiers and servants. The knot of the more ostentatiously dressed people—including two of the three Coloradan women—attracted his attention. He gave one last order and joined them, crossing his arms and raising his chin.

  “We agreed that should the Summoning of the medica be successful and if she fulfilled our great and desperate need, she would stay here at the Castle tonight. The ladies are tired. Why are they not being led to their quarters?” The soft translation came to Elizabeth’s ear and she turned her head to see Calli smiling at her.

  Calli lifted a shoulder, sighed. “They argue. Sevair’s a good man, just obsessed with frinks.”

  “Frinks?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Metallic worms that come with the rain. The dark sends them, too.”

  Elizabeth wished she hadn’t asked.

  “One of your tasks will be to smooth the way between the City and Town segment of society and the rest.”

  Elizabeth shook her head, looked at Calli, then at Bri who was examining one of the horse’s wings. She seemed familiar with the animals, at least was probably familiar with wingless ones. Another change. Somewhere, sometime Bri had learned about horses. No doubt she’d traveled where a horse was still considered a necessity. Elizabeth gestured to the horse and Bri. “Why aren’t you supervising?”

  “You’re sharp,” said Calli. “Remembered that I’m the one who was Summoned for the volarans and Chevaliers.” She followed Elizabeth’s gaze. “I can see auras, you know.”

  “No.” If she denied all this it might go away

  “Yes. Most folks here depend upon th
eir ears and their Power to hear Songs. I hear the Songs, but auras are easier for me. Thunder is a curious volaran, and it’s difficult to ignore the fact that the horses have wings. Not something you’d see on Earth. Thunder is giving your twin sister some energy.” Calli narrowed her eyes. “Some of that is passing into you.” Nibbling on her lip, Calli continued. “It takes a while to become used to Lladrana. We, the other Exotiques and I, hoped to make your transition easier. It didn’t seem to work.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “With sixteen people in the throes of sickness needing medical help?”

  Calli winced. “I suppose that would have been the equivalent of me riding most of the Castle volarans.” She met Elizabeth’s gaze steadily. “I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry. The townspeople are desperate. None of the medicas in Lladrana have found a cure for this new disease and people are dying.” Calli squinted at Bri, then back at Elizabeth. “You and your twin had a basic similar layer of green in your auras when you came but different upper layers. That’s interesting. But the bond between you two when you arrived wasn’t nearly as strong as it is now.”

  Elizabeth didn’t want to hear any of this.

  A man dressed in such an understated and tailored style of leathers that proclaimed him wealthy joined them. He bowed, then looked expectantly at Calli.

  “This is Faucon Creusse, a nobleman and Chevalier.”

  “Chevalier?”

  “Knight, like I said.”

  Faucon said something, and Calli translated. “An impressive display of Power by the new Exotiques, as usual.”