Keepers of the Flame

by Robin D. Owens

  “I don’t know.”

  They stared at each other.

  “We’ll have to keep them for emergencies.”

  “How can you think of using—”

  “If it came down to cat antibiotics or death, what would you chose?” Bri said brutally.

  “You have a point.” Too anxious to sit still, Elizabeth stood and paced along the lined-up furniture, looking at the night-dark windows facing…what? She’d lost her sense of direction.

  But the rooms of the Castle didn’t bother her as much as the people, the suffering people, she’d found here. “Do you really think we can turn this epidemic around?” Elizabeth asked, not at all sure, frightened of failure.

  But Bri was asleep. She slumped against the back of the love seat, listing toward where Elizabeth had been sitting.

  Elizabeth swallowed hard. Even exhausted, Bri had handled this whole thing so much better than she. Of course Bri was used to new people and places, learning to fit into a new culture.

  Elizabeth went back to the couch and sat, studying her twin. Bri had really meant to settle down in Denver. How ironic that now her itchy feet had finally stopped, they were somewhere else. Elizabeth glanced at their pitiful cache of drugs. Aspirin, vitamins.

  And healing hands. That thought tightened her throat. She’d denied her gift for so long. Suppressed it.

  All she’d ever wanted was to be a good doctor.

  Cassidy had discovered her secret. It had been the inciting incident of their last fight which had led to the end of their engagement.

  If she let herself, she could hear murmuring around her—like a film soundtrack. And she was sure her retinas still held images of the auras she had actually seen. Automatically, she repacked her bag and Bri’s backpack. Then she changed herself and Bri into nightclothes and persuaded her sleepy sister to bed. Maybe this would all be a dream.

  5

  Bri woke and savored the coziness of sheets and warmth, definitely not the tiny, chilly apartment in Stockholm. Elizabeth certainly did herself proud. Did the family proud, including Bri herself. During college she’d had no doubt that Elizabeth would sail through medical school and become a brilliant physician like their mother. Now if Bri could only buckle down and master nursing school.

  She yawned, stretched. The day before had been hard, the worry that she’d get home to Denver all right on standby. Those incredible dreams. She snorted. Imagine that, flying horses. She hadn’t dreamt of them before.

  Opening her eyes to a canopy overhead showing an embroidered huge winged horse, she got the nasty feeling that she still hadn’t dreamt of them. She jackknifed up and the covers slid down, and the room was warm. She was covered in a large shirt, obviously not her own. There were buttons on the shoulders. A soft whuffling moan caught her attention and she looked over to see Elizabeth in the huge bed with her. Beyond the posts of the bed were windows set in a circular wall showing gray sky.

  Tears had her eyes stinging. She wanted to be home, and not just Denver, but her old room with her old waterbed. A room that had been redecorated years ago. But at least she was supposed to be home in Denver. The yearning for it had gotten bigger and bigger in the past year and developed into a horrible homesickness. She wriggled her feet, not just to get her circulation, but to test. No signs of itchy feet.

  She glanced at Elizabeth, who was wearing a pristine nightgown. Slipping from the bed, she went over to the large freestanding wardrobe that featured two doors with a couple of drawers beneath them. Opening the left door she saw only a smaller shirt and a larger shirt. Brought by Faucon? Or in case a man was Summoned? Opening a drawer, she found handkerchiefs, took one and blew her nose.

  “Bri?” Elizabeth mumbled.

  Bri froze. If she was feeling this bad, how would Elizabeth the homebody feel? How was she going to comfort her sister when she had little emotional strength herself?

  But Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, looking around, eyes bright. She smiled at Bri, rolled her shoulders, linked her fingers and stretched. “Not in Colorado anymore.”

  It occurred to Bri that to Elizabeth, leaving Colorado and her grief and problems might be a relief. Bri blew her nose louder, saw a large wicker basket with a linen sack that she figured was a laundry hamper, and tossed the used hankie inside. “Lladrana.” She remembered that much.

  Recalled also that she had some power bars in her back-pack. Padding on thick carpets to the love seat, she grabbed her pack.

  She hopped onto the high bed and under the covers and opened her satchel. Elizabeth probably would have put the food—yup, she unzipped the pocket, dipped her hand in and tossed a bar to her sister, while ripping the wrapping off one herself. “Thanks for sleeping with me. If I’d been alone, I mighta freaked.”

  “I didn’t want to be by myself last night, either.” Elizabeth studied the wrapper. “What’s in this?”

  Bri spoke around a mouthful of granola, raisins and yogurt bits. “Only healthy stuff, I swear, sweetened with rice syrup.”

  Hastily Elizabeth peeled off the wrapper, dropped it over the side of the bed, took the shreds of Bri’s wrapper and did the same. Must be a wastebasket there. Elizabeth chomped down, made a humming noise. Chewed. Swallowed. Turned to Bri with crumbs on her lips. “This is really good.”

  “Yeah.” Bri had already gobbled hers and wasn’t going to eat another one of what now must be rationed. She slipped from the bed and went to the windows.

  “What do you see?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Green fields and hills.” A movement caught her eye and she craned her head to the left. “Castle wall, garden, big dirt field. Pretty bustling down there. Soldiers. Those knights, Chevaliers, a couple of…of volarans. That city guy, Sevair Masif, all neat and tidy and pressed, watching this tower.”

  “Any sign of The Three?”

  Snorting with laughter, Bri withdrew from the window. As kids they’d always had nicknames for those in their lives, twin shorthand. “Nope.”

  “How late is it?” Elizabeth was frowning, staring at the window.

  “Hard to say. No sun, though I think the windows face west. A gray day.”

  “How long do you think they’ll give us alone this morning?” Elizabeth asked.

  “If they can sense resting versus waking energy patterns—”

  A strumming came at the sitting-room door, then the rapping of a knuckle. Bri finished, “—I’d say not long at all.”

  Hopping from bed, Elizabeth said, “Gotta pee,” and headed to the bathroom.

  Bri never drank much on a travel day, but now that Elizabeth mentioned it…

  More harplike notes.

  She recalled the polished rosewood door to the suite had something like a Swedish door harp affixed to the door, without the little wooden balls, and with vertical strings.

  She went to the outer door. “Give us a break, folks, we’re sharing a bathroom. And we don’t want you in our bedroom.”

  There was some mumbling. There seemed to be a lot of life signatures beyond the door, and Bri was able to sense them easily. Scary.

  “May we come in?” a voice asked in English.

  Definitely at least The Three.

  “Who all’s there?” Bri asked.

  “Bri?” came Alexa’s voice.

  Good ear. This being an aural society, they probably all had good ears, or like Bri had guessed before, they sensed energy patterns, too. Though Bri’s and Elizabeth’s energy patterns might be very similar, they wouldn’t be identical.

  “Who all’s there?” she repeated, heard a flush and thanked God that there appeared to be modern plumbing. Water ran as Elizabeth washed her hands.

  “Marian, Alexa, Calli, and our husbands,” Marian said. Bri had a good ear, too, and the voluptuous redhead’s voice was deeper, throatier than the others.

  Bri backed up a couple of paces as Elizabeth walked into the room, dressed in her clothes from yesterday and not seeming too pleased about it. She’d have washed out their underwear, of cou
rse, before they fell into bed. “‘The Three’ have turned into ‘The Six.’”

  “They brought their men? Why?”

  Shrugging, Bri went to the bathroom. “Don’t know. At a guess, to show us a benefit of the place? Hunky husbands?”

  Elizabeth snorted. “The last thing I need is a man in my life. Let me go through the bathroom to the dining room where there’s another door to the hallway.” She hustled past Bri, closing the door behind her, then faced the outer door. Her panties were still damp and she resented wearing them. If the women had been perspicacious enough to have nightgowns made, why couldn’t they have provided some decent underwear? All Elizabeth had seen were long-underwear type leggings and tops and she’d had enough of those all the last miserable winter long.

  The Six. Huh.

  “Elizabeth? This is your morning briefing. By now you would have realized that you’re here for a while. And we thought we’d help you get on,” Alexa said.

  Elizabeth crossed her arms. “Bri is in the bathroom.” She heard sputtering water. “Showering. Come back later. With breakfast. I’ll take an egg white omelette and a piece of dry toast. Bri will have eggs scrambled with cheese. If this benighted land has coffee, bring two cups, hot and black.”

  A male chuckle came as if in approval. “I don’t think they’re as disturbed as you expected them to be. You go get the food. We will stay here,” the man said. In English. One of the men knew English. Elizabeth couldn’t figure out whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

  Marian said, “They have each other for support, so of course they are less affected than we were—being stranded in a strange dimension all alone.”

  That’s what she thought. Elizabeth allowed herself an irritated sniff.

  “But a discussion over food will be fine. I will, indeed, go, Jaquar.”

  Who was Jaquar? Calli’s husband or Marian’s?

  Alexa said, “I’ll hang here with the guys. A coupla croissants and butter and an omelette sounds good to me, too, with that cheese. And mushrooms!” Alexa called. “Too bad we don’t have hash browns.”

  “I’ll go with Marian,” said Calli.

  “Much running around,” said another male voice in English, very heavily accented.

  Shifting from foot to foot, Elizabeth stared at the door, wondering if it would be beneficial to let the others in, four instead of six. Would it throw off their rhythm?

  “It might,” Bri said next to her ear and Elizabeth jumped.

  “Sorry,” Bri said. “You were thinking really loud.”

  “Alexa and the men are out there.”

  “Ah. Well I have the feeling that Alexa would be a handful by her very self.”

  “True.” Elizabeth looked at Bri. She was wearing the leggings and the smaller shirt, with her bra underneath. Both Lladranan garments were made of cream-colored silk. “You look good.”

  Bri shrugged. “The outfit works for the moment.” She smiled. “I didn’t want to put on damp panties.”

  Elizabeth grumbled, “More humid here than in Colorado. Our underwear would have been dry if we were home.”

  “Yeah.” Bri’s smile became a wicked grin. “Bet at least one of them is leaning against the door?”

  “I don’t know.” Elizabeth frowned. “These are warriors. Would they do that?”

  “One way to see.” Bri strode forward.

  Bri yanked open the door.

  6

  No one fell into the room. Instead, with twinkling eyes and a smile as wide as Bri’s, Alexa strolled in. “Good morning. The greeting here in Lladrana is most often ‘Salutations.’” She waved to the men following her. “I don’t know if you remember the guys. Bastien, the one with the black-and-white streaked hair and the baton at his hip is a Shieldmarshall and mine. The taller one with blue eyes—ancient Exotique blood mixed with Lladranan—is Marian’s soulmate, Jaquar, a Sorcerer-Circlet, as you can see from his gold headband.”

  Jaquar walked in, and like Bastien, gave the room and the open doors a quick scan. Neither of them would miss anything. Then Jaquar bowed, first to Bri who still held the door, then to Elizabeth. “Salutations,” he said. He spoke English well.

  The last man was equally tall and had an easy amble that Elizabeth recognized was similar to a cowboy’s walk. He carried six books.

  Deceiving, that last one, Calli’s man. He’s even more aware than the others, Bri said to Elizabeth.

  Hands on her hips, Alexa studied them. “You’re talking to each other telepathically, again. Rude.”

  “We think we should have all the advantages we can get,” Elizabeth replied. “And you will no doubt be speaking Lladranan before us.” She gestured. “Make yourselves at home.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Alexa said, heading for the angle between walls where the chest sat with the leftovers from their father’s birthday dinner.

  Bri jumped in front of it at the last minute. “Ours!”

  The third man holding the books gently closed the door. He made a short bow. “I am Marrec. I am with Calli.” His expression turned considering. “You will read in Calli’s book that I was in Co-lo-ra-do with her.”

  With an effort, Elizabeth kept her mouth from falling open. Possibilities spun in her mind. “If you were in Colorado, then there’s some way to get back and forth. We can go home.” To her surprise, her heart didn’t leap in her chest in delight. She blinked and took a few instants to probe her own feelings. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go home right now.

  Jaquar, wearing an ankle-length midnight blue velvet robe and looking every inch a very masculine man, took a seat on a long leather couch. Bastien hitched a hip onto the arm nearest the confrontation of Bri and Alexa opposite him. Marrec sat on the other end of the couch, as if leaving space for Calli and Marian. Still, Elizabeth could almost feel that these men trusted each other, more, were bound together through their wives. And their love for their wives?

  Bri and she had grown up with parents who deeply loved each other and their children.

  “We can go home!” Bri’s choked exclamation echoed in mind and words.

  “It’s not that easy,” Marian said from the hall. Calli held a plate with one hand and the door knob with the other. Marian carried a large tray.

  “You’d think with all the magic you have here, you could just beam that over,” Bri said.

  “It’s not that easy,” Marian repeated.

  The smell of eggs and coffee and ham made Elizabeth’s mouth water.

  “Alexa, your omelette. With cheese and mushrooms,” Marian said.

  “But you haven’t been gone very long, and the food looks fresh, so magic was used,” Elizabeth said.

  “That’s right. Magic, which is called Power here, and more like the extension of psi powers—”

  “Power can heat the food, but it’s harder to translocate things,” Calli said. “Especially more than one item at a time. And there’s an energy cost. You always have to figure what energy you might need for something else later.” She handed Elizabeth the plate. “Sit. We can talk over breakfast.”

  “We often have breakfast discussions with our parents,” Elizabeth said.

  Everyone looked at her then Bri.

  “You have parents.”

  “Of course,” Bri said impatiently. “Will one of you pass me my plate, please?”

  Calli had gone directly to a gate-legged table against a wall. Marrec joined her in setting up the table and soon there was a crowded table for eight. Opening lower drawers of a cabinet, Calli set a cork hot plate down for the tray, then brought out dishes, mugs and silverware. Marrec took chairs set around the room and placed them. Everything looked familiar.

  “There’ve been Exotiques from Earth here in Lladrana before,” Marian said. She’d found thick glasses that looked handmade and poured water into them.

  “And Marrec went to Colorado,” Elizabeth said.

  “It’s part of the Snap,” Alexa grinned. She still stood near Bri and the cooler. “That’s
Marian’s topic.”

  “Let’s eat,” Bastien said in the French-sounding Lladranan that Elizabeth barely understood.

  Jaquar frowned at Bastien. “I told you we refined your language potion.” Since Jaquar still spoke English, Elizabeth deduced that Bastien had been following the conversation.

  Bastien grunted, moved to a chair that had its back to the foam chest and held out his hand to Alexa.

  She looked at the cooler. At Elizabeth. At Bastien. At Bri. After tapping her foot, she sighed and walked to Bastien, took his hand and stood tip-toe to brush a kiss over his mouth. But she moved to a chair where she could still see the chest.

  Bastien rolled his eyes, shook his head and sat next to her. “I have eaten, but my belly can always accommodate one of these.” He unfolded the napkin on a large basket. Letting out steam from flaky croissants, he took one, set it on his plate, then ripped it into large pieces.

  Alexa cut a third of her omelette and put it on Bastien’s plate, then she dug in.

  Doesn’t look like they’re going to poison us, Bri sent mentally to Elizabeth.

  Not since we survived the first night, but I’m sure they have plans for us. Images of the people they’d healed came to her mind, were matched by Bri’s memories. The flow of emotion between them was stronger than Elizabeth had ever experienced. Of course they’d had “hunches,” intuitive feelings about each other, but nothing like this connection that seemed to have thought sharing and definitely included telepathy.

  Elizabeth shifted in her seat, picked up a fork, cut into the omelette and ate. Fabulous—and delicately flavored with spices she didn’t quite recognize.

  “So,” Alexa said between bites, “welcome to Lladrana. You are now known far and wide as the Medica Exotiques Summoned for the Cities and Towns.”

  “Already?” asked Bri, brows lowering.

  “Already. The Sorcerers and Sorceresses, Circlets they’re called, had a contingent here for the Summoning. Some have flown back to their islands. All of them have crystal balls for communication.”

  “Interesting,” said Bri.