Keepers of the Flame

by Robin D. Owens

  “That could explain some things,” Luthan said, joining them. His volaran ignored Nuare. “Like every time our Exotique Medicas try something new, the Dark wards the next Chevalier seed against such a procedure. Surely one or several of their solutions should have worked.”

  “Huh,” Sevair said. Pure glee rocked through him. “He was my assistant. I trusted him and he betrayed me. Now he’ll pay.”

  “Wait!” Luthan circled until he was face to face with Sevair. “What if we implant this ‘eye’ on him? If we send it back and keep a link with it, we may learn what’s going on.”

  Sevair grinned. “I like that. We’ll do it. More suffering than a fast death.”

  Luthan matched his smile, nodded. “And I like a man who thinks on his feet, makes quick decisions. Can you draw his attention so we can plant our own eye?”

  “Ayes,” Sevair said with harsh satisfaction. He and Mud landed, and he told her to stay. He used Power to glide over the ground, to bend branches away from him. If he’d wanted to question and kill the man, he’d have unsheathed his knife and come from behind. He rushed forward and grabbed him. “Got you!”

  The Dark’s servant was monstrous, no longer a man. But he’d been a secretary, helping with city business and architectural plans. Sevair had worked with stone and hammer for decades.

  After a brief struggle, Sevair had his ex-journeyman’s thick throat between his hands. He squeezed. Even a monster’s eyes bulged, and they flashed with fear, which was gratifying.

  “I think I owe you something for all your good service,” Sevair said and tightened his grip, wondering how much he could damage the thing. “Perhaps I should give you to the roc. You know a roc now lives in Castleton, don’t you? Likes to eat sangviles. You ever send more and we’ll bring in a fleet of rocs. This particular roc might like Master-flesh too.”

  As Nuare’s shadow fell over them, the Master shuddered.

  The huge bird dipped, rose. As easy as filleting fish, to open a small slice in his scalp. You have distracted him well, Nuare said. I put the “eye” in his scalp. He will not notice it.

  Since the man’s hair seemed crawling with vermin, Sevair didn’t think so either.

  We’ll check, he returned with relish. I’ll shake him and you can see whether it falls off. He did so.

  The eye remains, Nuare said.

  Let him go, Luthan said. You’re killing him. We want him alive so the “eye” can see. Let him escape.

  Sevair lessened his grip just slightly on the man-horror’s throat. Turning his head at thrashing bushes, Sevair said, “Luthan is that you? Does the Singer want this one? I don’t know that she’s ever interrogated a Master with one of her Songquests. Might be interesting to see what sort of shape he’s in afterwards, eh?”

  Luthan crashed through the brush. The man-thing-Master flung himself away from Sevair. Cloth ripped and he was gone, disappearing in a stench of smoke.

  “Well done. I think he soiled himself, my friend.” Luthan clapped Sevair on the shoulder, then continued quietly. “It was the right thing to do. If we killed him we would not have been able to understand the Dark, in all its alien impenetrably. He will translate the entity’s actions for us when he instructs the horrors. And a more competent Master might have arisen.” Luthan lifted his head and gazed beyond Sevair into the past or a future-that-never-was. Then Luthan looked east. “The border is very close to being complete, only a few holes. Some weak points, but we can leave and invade the Dark’s nest soon, Song willing.”

  But while they’d been handling the Master, they, too, had been distracted.

  A woman shrieked. Bri or Elizabeth. The men whipped around, plunged through broken branches of scrub, just in time to see a dreeth materializing above the medical station and plummet down, wickedly sharp beak primed to stab.

  The dreeth was diving straight toward her! Elizabeth flung herself aside, fell, scrambled. Fire flamed from the dinosaur-bird’s mouth, singeing grass, her hair. She rolled, crawled. A pair of female Marshalls stopped the dreeth. They fought, slashing at head and wings and horrible claws.

  Too close, too close, too close.

  The thing opened its mouth, fire spewed. One of the woman-volaran pair was simply incinerated. The other screamed, she and the volaran fell. She’d put her sword in the dreeth’s wing and as they plunged, it came down, too.

  Then Bri was there. Patting her all over. “Are you okay? Elizabeth? Elizabeth!”

  “I…” Her voice was scared down to her gut.

  The Marshall! She forced her weak legs to stand, her knees and ankles to move. She was running to the dreeth, frantically looking for the woman and volaran.

  Gone. A dark depression in the ground showed where they’d hit and died. Shadowy batons rose to mark the Marshalls’ passing; the real ones lay dull. The women and volarans had sunk into the soil so soon. Or was it hours? Time passed so oddly.

  Then Bri was screaming, waving a long dagger, shooting toward the thrashing dreeth. “You tried to kill my twin!”

  Chevaliers and Marshalls around the monster moved aside for Bri. What was the matter with them? Didn’t they see she wasn’t made for this sort of life? Yelling words even Elizabeth couldn’t understand, Bri stabbed the dreeth. Its truck-sized head jerked, swiped at her.

  Sevair jumped on the horror’s neck. A horrible snap. He had a hammer and hit the skull. His knife sawed the neck, severed it. The dreeth shuddered and the blood pumping from a foot stump stopped.

  Sevair glared at Bri, blood shimmering on his knife blade and his hammer. Because of her he’d used his cherished tool to kill. Fierce triumph glinted in his eyes.

  “I will fight for you, Bri. I will always fight for you.”

  It was a promise as much as a statement. Almost a threat.

  Elizabeth shook so she could hardly walk, but heard her name called over and over again. Faucon. Broullard. She’d been looking for a net to carry Broullard. His best chance was at the Castle, where Zeres and the medicas could form a circle. Again. Must not be futile.

  The Marshalls’ circle was broken again, with the loss of another old pair. It couldn’t be mended until they dealt with their raw grief.

  To Elizabeth’s surprise, Bri was organizing the medicas—none of them had died, thank God—though a wildness showed in her eyes.

  Faucon supported Broullard. Everything had happened so quickly. Broullard’s hand tightened around Faucon’s as he made to put him aside.

  Elizabeth shook her head. Since she wanted to keep on shaking it “NO!,” fold onto the ground and cry, she straightened her spine and walked to them.

  Bri was talking to the roc, pointing to a net.

  Carry a net. Nuare snapped her beak in dislike.

  “Please! Just this once!”

  Nuare turned a baleful eye on Bri. I have helped much this day.

  “Yes, but he’s important to my sister’s mate.”

  Elizabeth wavered toward them, spoke through cold lips. “Please, lady roc.”

  Nuare snorted. Very well. You ride, your twin rides me. We will go FAST! Use Distance Magic. Be there quick.

  But Bri had already thrown her arms around Elizabeth, gave her a quick hug, gave her energy, Power. Bri’s dagger was back in its sheath and she was focused on healing.

  As Elizabeth should be. She managed a jerky bow to Nuare. “Thank you,” she said. Put a hand on Faucon’s shoulder, giving and receiving comfort.

  “Let’s go!” Bri said, and tugged on Elizabeth’s hand to an already harnessed Nuare. When had that happened? Things were happening too quickly for Elizabeth to even see. She’d have take hold of herself. She was a doctor, goddammit, trained for emergencies, clear thinking.

  But that was in the hospitals of Earth. She kept her back turned from the battlefield as she climbed onto the roc. Battlefields were not for her.

  To Bri, everything moved fast—her heart pumped quickly, her breathing was nearly panting, and Nuare zoomed. When they reached the Castle, it was ready for the
m, doors held wide and strong soldiers to take Broullard and run through the keep to the healing room.

  The bed was clean and Broullard was placed gently on it. Bri and Elizabeth set their hands on him. The tumor was already large. Gray tendrils strangled his organs. Bri and Elizabeth connected with the medica circle and Sang.

  This was their battlefield and they fought valiantly, shrank the mass from fist sized to a lima bean, snapped the threads with starfire, drowned them. Still they lost.

  “Broullard.” Bri barely recognized Faucon’s voice. “My friend, my father. Stay.”

  Broullard fought, too, like the excellent Chevalier he was. But he was slipping into death.

  “Anything!” Faucon shouted. “Spare no Power. I will give anything that he might live.”

  Beside her, Zeres tensed.

  No, she sent to him, but he didn’t reply. Faucon could restore Zeres’s fortune. Zeres himself was gaining respect every day. No!

  He didn’t listen.

  Zeres gathered Power, took all the excess in the circle. Sang. Flung himself into space and embraced the vision of the universe, the stars exploding around him. The gray tendrils shriveled, the bean diminished to a new pea.

  Everyone pushed Power into Zeres. Then he plucked the mass away from where it nestled near Broullard’s heart. With too much force. Broullard died. The deadly seed broke open, a hideous black wormlike thing darting out, latching onto Zeres’s energy, lodged in him, unfurled more tendrils.

  He had given his all to destroy it, had nothing within him to battle it.

  Bri focused the circle on Zeres. Threw herself into the healing starstream, opened herself to the huge force between the stars. Lost control and tumbled around in the Power she’d called as if she’d swum into a riptide. She gasped, floundered, struggled to control it so she could heal. She grabbed the healing starstream, planted her feet in the river, and fought.

  She used everything. Everything she felt instinctively about healing with her hands, every tiny drop of knowledge from alternative medicine, every smidgeon of western medicine. All she’d learned on Lladrana of chimes and chakras.

  Sought out the evil gray threads of death, broke them again and again as they created a web. They reformed.

  Once more the kernel of evil pulsed gray next to a red-beating heart, poisonous beyond what they’d seen.

  She fought and she fought. Got nowhere. The web tendrils would reform, the fatal seed send out more feelers.

  Only one thing to do, and she prayed and Sang that this would kill it. She cradled the thing in her energy. Then she withdrew from the healing circle and submerged herself in the raw Power of the healingstream. Shot out into the universe with the kernel.

  Zeres came with her. Hovered near. Seemed to look at the stars and the galaxies and the space between them. “Wondrous,” he sighed. If I’d only known to tune my own chimes to the real Song. He died.

  35

  Bri returned to Lladrana with a thump. Collapsed. Knew she’d failed.

  She’d taken the evil into herself, could feel the pealike kernel.

  She had the sickness. Now she and her twin must find a cure if she was to survive.

  Sevair’s arms lifted her and cradled her. He was wearing the impassive stone mask he used to cover desperate emotion. He loved her and she—She’d lost.

  Elizabeth’s expression also disappeared behind a cool, distant, doctor mask, though her eyes met Bri’s and begged for reassurance that all was fine.

  Bri closed her eyes.

  And saw her parents, clinging together, worried about their daughters, then laughing in relief when they got the “phone call.” How they’d grieve, and everything in her ached.

  She couldn’t go home. If the Snap happened, she couldn’t go. Nothing on Earth would heal this, would it?

  Maybe it would, maybe Mother Earth would sense the wrongness and scourge it from Bri. Yet that didn’t sound possible.

  If she stayed, would she trap Elizabeth, too? She couldn’t see Elizabeth leaving a sick twin. So Bri would have taken both children from her parents. Awful, awful, awful.

  As the darkness of exhaustion settled over her like a shroud, Bri knew she’d fight. Elizabeth would fight. Eventually, when they had to disclose the sickness to others, they would fight, too.

  Would she bring the entire Exotique team—more—down?

  The Dark would have definitely won.

  Bri felt cold. She was cold, her hands, her skin, her lips. Cold inside, too. From panic fear more than the effects of the terrible seed inside her.

  Sevair swung her up and took her outside to the Landing Field where Mud awaited. The bright summer sun didn’t warm her, nor did it abate the new shock of the Castle folk in losing two more Marshalls.

  The passage of air with sweet smells and Sevair’s arms didn’t warm her. Nor did his concern or that of her housekeeper-maid. Bri was tucked into bed. Hot tea was provided and Sevair remained, chafing her hands, ready to stay beside her all day if she wished.

  She wanted to unburden her fears to someone, but contrarily didn’t want to speak of the sickness, as if talking about it would make it true. After a swallow of tea that seemed weak and cool, she set it on the bedside table. “You should return to your work. Give a report to the city and townmasters,” she said.

  He shrugged. “They’ll already have heard the news.”

  Curving her lips, she said, “I’m fine. Just in shock.”

  “The battlefield is no place for you.” He squeezed her hands until she squeaked, apologized and did a circuit of the room. Not looking at her, he said, “Promise me you won’t insist on fighting again.”

  “I promise I won’t fly onto a battlefield to fight horrors again. I should be up at the Castle debriefing and working with the medica team.”

  “You are exactly where you should be.” He sat beside her again, took her hands. She didn’t know how long she could mask her complete and utter fear from him, control herself, so she lifted his hands to her lips, kissed them and saw surprise bloom in his eyes, and let them go. “Go to work, Sevair.”

  He scowled, studied her face, then nodded. “Very well.”

  She thought he sounded relieved. How much did he really care for her? What of those dramatic words he’d said to her after he’d killed the dreeth? “Go,” she said, and lowered her eyelashes. She kept them open the merest crack because she didn’t want to be in the dark.

  He kissed her brow. “I’ll go.” He hesitated, spoke very gently. “We carried Zeres back here and placed him in the square, where Amee blessed him by taking him.”

  How selfish of her, to think of herself and not the old, funny man who’d helped her so. And now that she did she was overwhelmed by feeling—grief, fear, desperation. She scrambled around for the handkerchief she kept under her pillow, mopped at her face, kept her head averted. “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll carve a plaque for him.” A brief touch on her hair and Sevair walked to the door. “Tonight we’ll have soup and freshly baked bread.”

  “Yum,” Bri said with only a little waver in her voice. Soup wouldn’t cure this mess. “Can you send the housekeeper away? Tell her to go visit friends? I want some privacy.”

  She felt his gaze on her, heard the little spikes in his Song. How much was the kernel affecting her Song already? Was he sensitive enough to hear any changes? Of course he was. “I’m not used to servants. I like being alone.” Some rare times, but this was one of them. If she wasn’t alone she would spew fear and desperation all over someone.

  The floorboards creaked as he returned, another soothing stroke of her head, another kiss on her temple.

  “I’ll tell your servant to go,” he said. Then he was gone and she was tired and very scared and alone. How much time did she have? She was an Exotique, and Powerful, and a medica, so that might slow the disease down. Who knew? If she took a nap, would she ever wake up?

  Her eyelids grew heavy. The last image she had was of Sevair
and how he’d looked when he said he’d fight for her. Knew he would. But this was something she’d have to beat alone. Healer, heal thyself. If she had the time. If she had the chance. If she had the strength.

  When she awoke, Nuare was looking at her with a tough and considering eye. You have the evil sickness inside you.

  Bri felt all the blood drain from her head. She pushed herself from bed and onto her feet, ignoring the sweep of dizziness. “You’re in my bedroom.” She saw the floor-to-ceiling window open.

  A click of the beak.

  Of course that was obvious, but Bri was trying to come to grasp with her fate. She straightened. “You said once you’d kill me if I had the taint of evil. Are you going to kill me?”

  Nuare’s eyes widened. She blinked, tilted her head. No.

  Breath whooshed from Bri. She was still facing very hard facts, but having a friend kill her didn’t seem to be in her immediate future.

  Watching her slyly, Nuare picked up a claw and cleaned it with her sharp beak. Now you will have to pay attention to that which is around you and learn.

  You can’t cure me, then? Bri’s throat was too closed to speak, and the quick leap of hope plunged.

  No. Blinking again, Nuare said. I could rid you of the nut and the web from it, rip it from you, but it would kill you.

  Bri coughed. “That’s the general result.”

  You did well today. All of your fighting. Continue to fight. Nuare walked over to the long, open casement window. Without another word, the roc shot into the sky and away.

  Bri staggered back to bed and curled onto it. This fear was horrible, but she didn’t know how to make it go away. She had to face the facts, though, and she had to have help if she was going to destroy this thing.

  Much as she hated to, it was time to tell Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth!

  Hmm? Her sister’s answer was absent. I would have thought you’d be up here at the Castle, Elizabeth said. The Assayer and his journeymen and I are dissecting the mutant soul-sucker. From the looks of it, this may be a very complicated construct of a monster, not easily duplicated.