Keepers of the Flame

by Robin D. Owens

  Bri studied the tower in the light. Solid and rectangular, with the small octagonal stair tower on the right, it looked like it would last for several more centuries. Now and then there was a glint of crystal in a stone. Two large, fancy iron brackets held two more roughly spherical crystals.

  “Abandoned for a decade,” Sevair said. “Such is its life-cycle. Restored, then abandoned.” He shrugged. “Sounds like it will be my turn to restore it.” He frowned at her. “I’m still not happy about you staying where the sangvile laired.” He glanced upward. Nuare was returning with a large branch. “The roc will offer some protection.” His lips thinned. “I’ve heard they like eating remnants of the horrors. Rocs like spiders. She might have found the sangvile particularly tasty.”

  “Nuare was munching on old sangvile bits when we met.”

  “Nuare,” Sevair breathed the word softly. Stepped closer to Bri, touched her shoulder. “She did not tell me her name. You should remember that names are important here in Lladrana. They can be used against you, Bri.”

  She opened her mouth, shut it. “Bri is not my real name. It is a shortening.”

  He nodded. “A nickname. And I would suppose that Elizabeth has a nickname she thinks of herself as.”

  Bri doubted that Elizabeth had thought of herself as “Beth” for a long time. Well, they both had middle names, too. She tilted her head. “What of you? Is Sevair Masif your full name?”

  “Yes, but it is not my childhood nickname. I could be Summoned by the formal name, but not coerced to do anything else since I still think of myself as my young name.” His smile was a curve of the lips and sadness in his eyes. “My family is gone. There are precious few who might recall my nickname.”

  Rustling came from above, echoed a little in the cul de sac. Sevair scanned the small street. “At least the neighborhood is good, if not filled with people of Power. What is it with Exotiques and towers?” grumbled Sevair.

  “We don’t have them,” Bri replied absently.

  “What!”

  She glanced at him, noted his clothes were already coated with dust and dirt.

  “You’re an architect.” She made a sweeping gesture encompassing the city as well as the tower. “This style of building went out of fashion centuries ago for us. Where we live we don’t have towers.”

  “You tear down the past!”

  All too often, but Bri wasn’t going to get into that. “The area where we lived belonged to a nomadic people. They didn’t build towers.” No need to get into American history, either.

  “We need the walls and towers for security against the Dark. We have always been conscious of peril.”

  Bri believed that.

  She followed him into the dim room. He studied the door, shaking his head. “It will have to be replaced.” He glanced at the pointed arch of the door opening, then the rectangular wooden door, grunted. With ease he picked up the door and set it to one side of the threshold. “We’ll get a new one today.” His look and smile at her was brief. “Everyone donated their services for the house. They’ll do so again.”

  Bri winced. “I’m sorry about the house, it, um….”

  “It just doesn’t suit you,” Sevair said mildly. “We had hoped…” He shrugged. “A house must suit its owner.”

  Bri decided not to point out that she wouldn’t be owning any property in Lladrana.

  Then he stepped into the center of the chamber and did a slow circle, eyes closed. Checking the Song? The ambience of the place? Never in a million years could Bri imagine a U.S. construction worker or straight male architect closing his eyes to feel a place. At least not with someone else around. She smiled. Fascinating.

  Sevair opened his eyes, nodded. “The roc has been here, cleaned the place up from the sangvile.” He walked around the walls, nodded at the carving on the wainscoting. “Very nice. Needs to be cleaned and oiled.” He glanced at the floor and Bri noticed that the stone had little crystals in it like the blocks in the outer wall, and there were no chips.

  “Good work by Ronteran,” Sevair said. He went to the far right back corner, and opened the door of a triangular cabinet that rose the full height of the room. “Toilet and sink,” he said, pulled the flush chain and nodded when the plumbing worked. “This might not be too tough or expensive a job,” he said and headed up the stairs.

  The city alarm bell rang. Sevair stopped, tensed.

  Elizabeth’s urgent mental voice came to Bri. Come to the Castle at once. One of the independent Chevaliers was wounded in battle last night and the medicas here have seen nothing like it.

  Like what? Elizabeth wasn’t usually so imprecise.

  I haven’t seen anything like the injury, the sickness, either, she said grimly.

  Injury or sickness? Goosebumps rose on Bri’s skin, and the hairs on the back of her neck.

  Both, Elizabeth said.

  “You’re needed at the Castle,” Sevair said, evidently understanding the pattern of the tolling bell.

  We fly! screeched Nuare, sticking her head in the door.

  Who was that? Elizabeth asked sharply.

  The twist in Bri’s gut eased a little. Wait until you see.

  Come now, Elizabeth ordered, then hesitated. It’s bad. Marian and Jaquar are on the way.

  I’m coming. Bri ran out.

  23

  Sevair followed, brow knit in concentration. “I’ll set everything up with the head of the guilds for work on your tower. See you later.”

  Mud had already landed in the cul de sac, lifted again when she saw Nuare. The volaran’s Song shrieked rage and fear.

  “Mud!” Sevair called. His brows dipped farther and Bri could feel the Power he sent toward Mud, trying to contact her mind, merge with it, control the volaran’s unruly emotions.

  Stupid volaran. I will not eat it, said Nuare. It is wild volaran, too spicy.

  “I’m sure that’s a great comfort,” Bri muttered. Nuare had hunched down, stuck out her leg for Bri to mount.

  I will not eat you, either. Unless the Dark taints you.

  Bri put her foot back on the ground. “What!”

  Nuare shook her wings. We must hurry.

  Bri saw a soothing Sevair ambling down the street toward a nervous Mud.

  Nuare screeched. Sevair flung himself on Mud and hung on as the volaran zoomed into the sky. Bri figured she no longer had a volaran.

  Now! Nuare demanded.

  Bri stepped on the outthrust leg, slid onto the roc’s back and kept slipping down. This wouldn’t work.

  Arms around my neck, human!

  Adventure was not all it was cracked up to be, didn’t match the imagination. But then, most wanted safe adventure. Bri threw her arms around Nuare and held on tight.

  The roc took off faster and at a steeper angle than Mud.

  Of course. I am made for flight, unlike those clumsy horse-things. She turned her head and Bri saw a whirling sapphire eye. Nuare’s beak clicked. Bri realized it was supposed to be reassuring. Wasn’t.

  Good that you smell nice, Nuare said. Like special Power and strange land. I will not be eating you.

  Uh, do you think you should be going to the Castle?

  I have eaten for the day. Castle volarans and Chevaliers and Marshalls who fight the Dark are safe. They must live.

  “Okay.” Bri let out a breath, inhaled. The roc smelled good, too. “We agree.”

  Then they landed in Temple Ward, Nuare making a sensation. Elizabeth waved from the cloister outside the keep.

  All the volarans in the courtyard launched into the sky, carrying surprised Chevaliers and Marshalls.

  Bri controlled her fall off Nuare.

  We must practice, said Nuare. Your grip was too tight. A small rope for you to hold would be good, perhaps a perch for you. She roughened her feathers and began preening again. I will hold court here and discuss matters with the Marshalls.

  “Ayes,” Bri said. She waved at Nuare and ran across the ward.

  For a moment she couldn’t
attract Elizabeth’s attention from the bird. “What’s that?”

  “Who? A roc.” Her name is Nuare, she added mentally.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Amazing. Beautiful.” She focused on Bri and her expression turned intense and grim. “Come on.”

  But by the time they reached the healing room, a medica with a strained expression on her face was pulling a cover over a young woman’s face.

  “No!” Elizabeth cried. “I just left her for a moment.”

  There were three medicas in the room along with Alexa and the middle-aged woman who led the Chevaliers. All the medicas shook their heads.

  “She died as soon as you crossed the threshold of the room,” a medica said.

  Elizabeth put on her doctor’s face and walked up to the corpse, removed the sheet. She glanced at Bri. “Come on, I want to examine the body.”

  Bri opened her mouth to protest. Shut it. She wasn’t used to autopsies. When she’d worked in refugee camps, she’d lost patients, but when they were gone, they were gone. Cause of death was usually pretty clear.

  Elizabeth had already set her hands on the body and was frowning in concentration. She, of course, had had a lot of experience with dying, death and autopsies. Bri wasn’t going to let her sister down.

  Since life had flown from the Chevalier, Bri didn’t bother to place her hands where they’d do the most good, but set them beside Elizabeth’s.

  “Look inside her,” Elizabeth said.

  Bri looked.

  “See that wisp of gray?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Like the frink sickness.” A spider web covered the inside of the body, diminishing as they watched, and seemed more spiritual than physical.

  “I believe so,” Elizabeth said. “But more virulent.”

  “Something she picked up on the battlefield,” Alexa said. “I’ve spoken to her friends. She was healthy before the battle, has been in the Castle all year so wasn’t exposed to the frink sickness. We have no frinkweed here. She took only a minor wound, a small lash of soul-sucker tentacle.” Alexa pointed to a suckered welt along the woman’s neck. “I’ve had plenty like this myself. But once she came back from the battle, she went to sleep, she fell ill and feverish and never awoke.”

  “Check out the wound from the inside,” Elizabeth said.

  Bri sent her vision to the slight wound, saw a gray slime and a small nodule like a kidney bean.

  Elizabeth said, “I would extrapolate that this is a modification of the frink sickness in a more toxic form.”

  “Sounds right,” Bri said. As Elizabeth once more covered the body, Bri stepped away from the table. As experiences went, this hadn’t been too bad, though the young Chevalier’s pretty face touched her and she grieved for the loss of life.

  “The conclusion is that we have an additional danger on the battlefield now,” the Chevalier leader said. “A fatal disease. How and why she got it, we don’t know.” Her lips compressed. “No one else seems to be ill, but I want the medicas to examine everyone who was in that battle.” She stumped out.

  “A good idea,” Bri said. She stared at Alexa.

  The smaller woman huffed. “Oh, all right.”

  It took only a hand on Alexa’s forehead for Bri to know the woman was at the peak of health.

  Alexa sighed. “That’s the examination?”

  “What, you want more?” Bri asked.

  “No. But now I know what’s involved, I’ll let you check Bastien.”

  Bri glanced at Elizabeth, managed a smile. “Elizabeth will give Faucon an in-depth examination.”

  Elizabeth’s smile was slight. “He’s healthy.”

  Marian knocked on the wooden doorjamb, then her bright blue gaze went past Bri and Elizabeth to the still form on the table and the auburn-haired Circlet’s face folded into sad lines. Her face softened. “I have news of your parents. It’s better if I tell you in the Circlets’ Suite.”

  Bri nearly shot from the room, headed toward Marian and Jaquar’s suite. She walked backward a little until Marian turned down the corridor and Elizabeth left the room, too, moving with an efficient, determined stride, a doctor’s stride.

  Marian wouldn’t say a word until Bri and Elizabeth were seated with drinks in their hands. Tea, for both of them. It was quickest and easiest, though neither of them took more than a sip. Bri would rather have been pacing the room.

  “Tell us,” they said in unison, as Jaquar served himself and settled onto a couch with his wife.

  “We found your parents exactly where your itinerary noted they would be, at the Buddhist temple.” A smile lit Marian’s face. “Your father enjoyed the bell. He was easy to pinpoint. Your mother was close by.”

  A load of worry released and Bri let it out with a long breath, relaxing in the love seat. Elizabeth, next to her, sighed at the same time.

  “They’re well,” Bri said.

  Marian glanced at them, away. “From what I could see, they’re better than well. They’re wonderful.”

  “Yes, they are,” Elizabeth said crisply. “But they won’t be once they discover their beloved daughters have disappeared.”

  Tension infused Bri again. “Can we get back home before they return?”

  “How are you progressing on discovering the cure for the frink sickness?” asked Jaquar, taking the role of bad guy.

  Elizabeth held herself stiff and answered. “A third of the Marshalls and Chevaliers have gone to destroy the plants.”

  “—which may eventually stop the original infection,” Jaquar said. “And the Circlets are also working on ways to kill the plants, but that doesn’t help those who have already contracted the disease and are dying.”

  Bri couldn’t sit still. She put down her tea with a little clinking of china, stood and circled the room. “So far only we and Zeres can cure the sickness. I know there’s a way to do this, but I haven’t been able to figure it out enough to teach others.”

  Elizabeth said, “The medicas and I have been studying the disease. It seems to be more of a…non-physical illness. The sickness is not vulnerable to anything any of us have continued to try—vitamins, herbal remedies, regular healings. Medicine. I doubt even antibiotics would help.”

  “It’s a disease caused by the Dark,” Jaquar said softly. “Preying upon the light of the Song within us all, using the darkness we all have inside us to spread and kill.”

  Elizabeth made an unintelligible noise as if she wanted to dispute his words and couldn’t. She placed her cup and saucer carefully and quietly on a side table and stood, joining Bri.

  Bri stopped her circuit of the room, glared at Jaquar, then Marian. “You won’t send us back.”

  Jaquar raised a hand. “We simply don’t have the energy to do so. The Power.”

  Bri narrowed her eyes. She didn’t know if she believed him.

  “Perhaps we do,” Marian looked at Bri steadily, then to Elizabeth. “We might be able to find the Power, Marshalls and Chevaliers and Citymasters and volarans and all, to return you home. If we bankrupted our sources and left ourselves completely vulnerable to the Dark. Don’t think for a minute that the Dark wouldn’t sense what was happening and be ready to pounce.”

  Bri shared a look with Elizabeth, saw the torment she felt reflected in her twin’s eyes.

  Elizabeth lifted her chin. “Then we must send a message to our parents, for when they return home.”

  But Marian was shaking her head.

  “I’ve read your book,” Bri burst out, heard Elizabeth’s same words echo with her own, let her twin go on.

  “Marian, the Circlet Bossgond retrieved your PDA. Surely he can send a note.”

  “Bringing something here, something of a person you have a bloodbond with and who is standing next to you, is completely different from sending an object.”

  Bri felt a scream well inside her. Horror at the agony they’d put their parents through. Anticipated anguish.

  “Then you’ll have two very distracted healers,” Elizabeth said.
<
br />   “Surely, you of all people, Marian, should remember how anxious a person can be for someone at home,” Bri pleaded.

  Marian sighed, leaned against her husband. He took her hands in his. “I knew this conversation would be like this. Bossgond is working on sending objects through the Dimensional Corridor.” Her mouth compressed, then she said, “But he will need a secure location.”

  “My condo!” Elizabeth said.

  “Ayes. So you will need to come to Alf island with us to show us the location.”

  “Then we will,” Bri said.

  Marian stood. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we are trying our best. We will inform you when the time is right for you to take part in our experiment.”

  Elizabeth and Bri stood, too.

  They ARE trying their best, Elizabeth sent Bri, unhappily.

  And it might not be enough, Bri admitted. Neither of them liked failure, both of them had experienced it. Bri usually walked away, but Elizabeth had been stuck. How courageous her sister was.

  We need to give them an incentive, Bri said.

  The idea came to them both at once, Bri saw it in her sister’s mind.

  Bossgond likes good food, Elizabeth said.

  Yes, give them the chocolate cake. Bri didn’t think she could look at her father’s birthday cake again, let alone eat it. And it’s time to check on the taters.

  Elizabeth turned to Marian and Jaquar, a not quite amused smile on her lips. “You take the cake.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Marian straightened. Jaquar looked confused.

  “We’re giving you the chocolate cake.”

  Marian’s eyes widened. She licked her lips and swallowed, gripped Jaquar’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “For Bossgond, too,” Bri said.

  “Thank you.”

  Bri forced the next words out of her mouth, at the same time as Elizabeth. “Please help us.”

  During the next three days Elizabeth established a schedule for herself and Bri that Bri was content to follow. They’d discussed contacting their parents for hours with Marian and Jaquar and the other Exotiques, then they both tried to put it out of their minds. All that could be done was being done, and the sooner they finished their own jobs, the Snap would come and all this might be moot.