Both of them looked at Caymus with shocked faces. “Third Circle?” Franklin finally said. “Isn’t he young to be in the Third Circle already?”
“I think,” said Rill, looking to Caymus for confirmation, “he’s the youngest to ever pass the last test, isn’t he?”
Caymus considered arguing the point. Technically, it was true that Sannet was the youngest to ever take the final test and pass it, though Caymus would have been, had it not been for that terrible night with the krealites. It was an altogether murky subject, and though he appreciated Rill's raised eyebrows offering him the opportunity to say something, he really didn't want to get into it. Why would Sannet's parents want to hear about it, anyway?
“I think so,” was all he said.
Both parents nodded with disbelieving smiles, and Margaret quietly opened the box with one hand. When the lid lifted, she gasped as the smallest hint of faint, yellow light escaped the box and reflected off the skin of her hand. The couple shared that look again, and Caymus saw a small tear escape down Margaret's check. “He did it,” said Franklin, softly, squeezing her hand. “He actually did it.”
Margaret nodded and wiped the tear away, then looked back to the box. “Oh,” she said through a voice that was flooded with emotion, “there’s a letter, too.” She reached in and pulled out a square of paper, which she unfolded and began reading, quietly, to herself.
As his wife read, Franklin reached into the box and withdrew a small stone, barely the size of his thumb, which was the source of the light. Caymus looked upon the gently glowing object in the man’s thin hands, and was astonished to think that he could have brought it all the way from the Temple and not known it was there.
Sannet’s father must have seen the look of wonder on his face. He held it up and looked at the boys with a proud smile. “You know what it is?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Did Sannet tell you?”
Caymus and Rill just shook their heads.
Franklin smiled, putting it gently on the table between them. “It belonged to my great-grandfather,” he said, “and to many of his ancestors before that.” He tilted his head toward the stone. “He was able to make it glow like that, my great-grandfather, as was his father and his father before him.” He sighed. “My father, however, never could, and neither could I. We never knew why, but it seemed that, for two generations, the Teldaars lost something.” He put a finger in the air. “But my boy,” he said, pride choking his words, “my boy did it, didn’t he?”
Caymus was delighted. Sannet had never told him anything about the stone, had never shown it to him, but he understood the significance. Not everyone was born with the ability to open conduits, to bend and manipulate the elements, but it was often passed down from parent to child. For the Aspects to have skipped two generations would have been of great concern to a family, and for them to suddenly surface after having been absent so long was quite a cause for celebration.
As he sat there, watching Franklin stare at the glowing stone, Caymus noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, sitting about halfway up the stairs, staring at the group at the table with a dark frown. He hadn’t seen the boy arrive, and wondered when he’d gotten there. Did Sannet have a brother? The boy didn't much resemble Sannet or his parents, having a rounder face, smaller eyes, and a fair amount of weight on his bones.
Franklin looked up, following Caymus’s eyes, then raised a hand and beckoned the boy over. “Roland,” he said, “come meet these two gentlemen. They’re friends of Sannet.”
With a look that Caymus could only call contempt, the boy stood, quickly descended the stairs, and ran past them, through another door in the sitting room. Caymus winced slightly as he heard one door, and then another, slam, shaking the walls of the building slightly. The silence of the next few moments was only broken by the sound of the kettle on the stove coming to a boil.
Sannet’s mother, having put the letter down, slid it over to Franklin and stood, making her way to the stove and removing the kettle. “I’m sorry about Roland,” she said. “He’s such an angry boy.”
Caymus, after checking with Rill and finding him equally confused, said, “Is he Sannet’s brother?”
Franklin, who was reading the letter now, nodded. “He is,” he said, “but you’d hardly know it, the two of them are so different.”
“It’s our fault, really,” said Margaret, pouring hot water and straining tea leaves. “We gave so much to Sannet. When he was born, we saved for a long time, worked for many hours so that he could be educated properly and go to the Temple. We found him tutors, bought him books, gave him every possible chance.” She smiled, wistfully, and brought the four cups over. “He’s done so well, and we’re so proud of him, but when Roland came along…” She set the cups down on the table. “There wasn’t much left in the cupboard for him, I'm afraid, and I think he understands that.”
“We make certain he doesn't want for anything,” said Franklin, a frown on his face as he continued reading. “We even started serving drinks and sandwiches out front, becoming a small restaurant as well as a butcher’s shop, to meet the extra need.”
Margaret nodded. “I think he just feels that Sannet got more of our love than he does.”
“Nonsense,” said Franklin, putting the letter down. He looked up at Caymus and Rill, seriousness in his eyes, “Those beasts,” he said, “those insect-things, they were at the Temple, too?”
Caymus nodded. “It…wasn’t a good night.”
Rill groaned, not looking at anybody. “Worst I ever had. I could go my whole life without seeing another krealite and die happy.”
Sannet’s father looked at Rill questioningly. “Krealite?”
Caymus and Rill spent some time telling them about the past two weeks, about the night the creatures attacked, about how Be’Var had told them that they were intruders into their world from the realm of an alien element, and how they only seemed to attack places where people worshiped. They told them, too, about the time they’d spent at Otvia and how they’d learned there that the element in question was called “kreal”, making the creatures themselves “krealites”.
They didn’t go into any detail about the Knight of the Flame or mark upon Caymus’s left hand. Caymus saw it as being personal and Rill didn’t seem to want to explain any more than necessary.
“I saw them in the street that night,” said Sannet’s father as he gazed off at a spot on the wall. “They were terrible things to behold.”
“How many of them were there?” asked Caymus, taking a sip of his tea and noting, with delight, that it tasted of oranges.
“I saw three of them, dashing through the streets, killing everybody they came across.” Franklin gave a small shudder as he recalled the night. “They didn’t seem to want anything, just to kill people.” He turned to his wife. “Who was that man with thick eyebrows, the one who sold the candles?”
“Wiclef,” said Margaret, not looking up from her cup.
“Wiclef, yes. He was braver than most," he said. "He ran out with a torch to try to scare them away, as though they were common animals that feared a simple bit of fire on a stick.” He made a quick, side-to-side motion with his hand. “They cut him in half, like he was just an annoyance.” He pointed to a shelf off to the side of the stove. Caymus turned and saw it was covered with dishes, but also with a black candle in the shape of three towers on rock, a wick for each tower. “He made the most interesting candles,” he continued. “His son runs the store now,” he waved his hand dismissively, “but he doesn’t have the talent. I’m going to miss that man.”
“It was good,” said Margaret, finally looking up, “that the soldiers came when they did.”
“Ah,” said Franklin, tapping a finger on the table, “the prince!” He leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially. “I saw Prince Garrin himself fighting them,” he pointed toward the front room, “just outside there.” He made hacking and slashing motions with his
hands as he continued. “At first, they couldn’t do anything, just wailed on the armor. It did nothing! At last, though, the bigger men managed to grab onto a leg, here and there, and one of them, an earth-changer, got a leg caught in iron.” He smiled, triumphantly. “The prince took the Black Sword and put it through one of them, drove it straight through the middle!”
Caymus frowned. “He got a sword through the armor, with a strike?”
Franklin waggled a finger. “Not just a sword," he said. "The Black Sword of the Prince!” He made a stabbing motion in the air. “I don’t know what power is in the Black Sword, but it pierced the monster through the heart.” He leaned back and took a sip of his tea. “When the first died, the other two just seemed to sink right through the ground, like it was water. The prince and his men stayed for a while longer, waiting to see if they would come back.” He shrugged, “But they never did.”
Caymus was amazed. Merkan had told him of his success in slowly forcing a blade through the armor of a krealite, but this was the first time he’d heard of anybody actually managing to pierce through with an actual strike of a sword. He’d never heard of this prince before today, or of his sword, but he was beginning to develop a great deal of respect for both. Anyone who had stood face-to-face with a krealite and had lived to talk about it was someone Caymus held in high regard.
Caymus thought about the number of krealites that had attacked the Temple, wondered if there would have been more or less here, in the city. “Do you know how many there were?” he asked. “Aside from the three you saw, I mean.”
Sannet’s parents looked at each other. Margaret shrugged, stood up, and began collecting empty cups while her husband answered. “From what I heard,” he said, “they just showed up in all the districts at once. I’d say,” he winced in thought, “more than twenty, less than fifty.”
Caymus nearly gasped, thinking of what fifty of those things, fifty sets of ravaging claws and teeth, could do to a city. “Incredible,” was all he could say.
Franklin smiled at him. “Well boys,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing. “It is time for me to clean up my shop and go and find my brat of a son. If you hope to be back to the mission before nightfall, you had better get yourselves moving.”
Caymus and Rill stood also, intending to thank Franklin and Margaret for their hospitality. Before they knew it, however, offered handshakes turned into hugs and they found themselves hurrying out the door with fond wishes and five thick cuts of steak.
The aging couple had been right: night was falling quickly and lamplighters were already making their rounds, providing illumination for the streets and alleys. As Caymus looked around at the city of Kepren, marveling again at this amazing new place, his eyes were drawn to small figure, standing atop one of the roofs.
He recognized the figure as Roland. He wondered why it was that Sannet’s little brother would be watching them, and was about to say something about it, but Rill interrupted his train of thought: “Race you back!”
By the time they had made their way back through the Grass District and found their way to Flamehearth, jogging or running all the way, Caymus and Rill were both hot with sweat. Sannet's parents had lent the boys a satchel—fairly large, but simply made—in which to carry the cuts of meat back to the mission, and Caymus had it slung over his neck and shoulder. It wore a bit uncomfortably. The thing was meant for someone of a more average size than Caymus, and it rode a bit too high on his hip, bouncing and jostling with each step.
By the time the pair reached Flamehearth again, the sun had disappeared beneath the high western wall of the city. The dry twilight, however, wasn't yet dark enough for the street lamps to offer any real light to passersby. Rill had asked Caymus, between pants, how he thought they kept the lamps burning, as each device was little more than a box lantern held aloft by an iron pole, none of which appeared to contain any significant reservoir of oil. Caymus hadn't known, but he'd suspected that it had something to do with the oil itself, suggesting that perhaps Kepren did some significant trade with Otvia.
The two slowed to a walk once Flamehearth was in sight, allowing themselves to catch their breaths a bit before actually reaching the front entrance to the mission. Rill opened the door and held it, genuflecting as Caymus walked through, as though making way for the lord of the manor.
Caymus's laughter at his friend's antics was cut short when he noticed that several faces had turned to look at him. As Rill stepped up beside him, equally surprised to discover that they had walked in on some kind of gathering, Caymus decided that, in the future, they should use the side door when entering the building.
The front room of Flamehearth, which they had just intruded upon, was large enough that the missionaries could have meetings among themselves or even entertain guests who might have some business there. A handful of padded chairs sat against the walls, and a large, circular conference table, complete with hard-looking chairs, took up a full quadrant of the floorspace. Standing about the table, the chairs pushed off to one side, were Be'Var and Matron Elia, as well as two other people, a man and a woman, whom Caymus didn't know.
The man had the look of a soldier. When Caymus and Rill had made their rather awkward entrance, he'd had his foot up on one of the chairs, his elbow leaning against his raised knee, but he smiled and stood up straight when he saw them. He seemed several years older than Caymus, perhaps thirty or so years of age, and had brown hair, which was trimmed just short enough to stay out of his eyes. He wore light armor of leather and padding, covered here and there with small plates of circular metal. A sword in a leather scabbard hung from a sash around his waist.
The woman nearly took his breath away. He wasn't sure of her age, but she couldn't have been more than a year or two his senior. Her light skin was accentuated by brown eyes and dark brows. Her features were sharp, almost as though they had actually been sculpted from her face. Black hair, wavy and full, fell to the middle of her back and obscured her shoulders. The dress she wore seemed, at the same time, both simple and radiant. The fabric was light blue, the color of the afternoon sky, and was gathered with white stitching and lace as it cascaded down the length of her to the floor. She wasn't smiling. Her eyes were hard, as though they had seen more than her age should have allowed, but they also moved over the two boys standing in the doorway with curiosity, as though she was searching for something.
Caymus thought she might be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
"Have a good run, boys?" Be'Var was arching an eyebrow at the two of them. Caymus was keenly aware of the sweat dripping from his chin and was certain the front of his tunic was drenched.
"Sorry," Caymus said. He found himself making a small bow. "We didn't mean to interrupt." He grabbed Rill by the shoulder and started leading him off. "We'll just get out of your way."
"No, no, no," Be'Var said. "Come here, both of you. Our guests have been waiting for you to turn up. It's about time you made an appearance..." He cast a disapproving eye over both of them, "...presentable or no."
The man, an easy smile on his face, walked toward the two of them, his hand extended. "Master Be'Var here said I wouldn't have trouble figuring out which was which." He took each of their hands in turn, shaking them firmly. Caymus felt awkward with the satchel full of meat still hanging around him; he wondered if he should take it off.
"Caymus," Be'Var continued, "Rill, meet Prince Garrin, heir to the throne and Champion Protector of Kepren." He said the last with a slight chuckle and a shake of his head, as though he thought the title absurd.
Caymus was stunned. He didn't know what do. He'd already tried bowing, but found himself doing it again. "Your...Highness?"
The Prince gave a short laugh and slapped him on the shoulder. "Please," he said, "please, no bowing. I get enough of it in the Keep. I make Be'Var call me by my proper name and that demand extends to his friends." He gave the two of them a meaningful look. "Any more of this 'your highness' business, and I'll have you hung."
Caymus was frozen for a moment, but he noticed Rill chuckling quietly out of the corner of his eye, and decided the prince was probably joking. The prince's—Garrin's—broad smirk lent credence to the conclusion.
"Let them be, Garrin," said the girl in the blue dress, shaking her head at him and frowning. In those few words, Caymus detected the hint of an accent, though it was one he didn't recognize.
"Yes," said Be'Var, shifting one of the chairs over and sitting down at the table. "However much I like a good hanging, these two have had an eventful couple of weeks and probably don't need you threatening them, too."
Prince Garrin, still looking at Caymus and Rill, nodded in acquiescence. "He's right, of course." He nodded to them. "My apologies. It's very good to meet you both." Then, to Caymus, he said with a wink, "Be'Var speaks very highly of his new flame-shaper."
Caymus felt like he was finally getting the hang of this conversation. He'd been caught off-guard, but he decided he liked the prince's easy-going attitude. He was, however, finding it hard to reconcile with the story he'd just heard of the man's bravery during the attack on Kepren. "It's good to meet you, also." He pointed back and forth between Be'Var and the prince. "The two of you know each other, I take it?"
Garrin waved them over to the table, pulling over a couple of the displaced chairs, and indicated that they should sit down. As he spoke, he also pulled out a chair for his companion. "Indeed. Ol' Master Be'Var saved my life once, a very long time ago."
Be'Var waved off the comment. "Not that long ago," he said, "and I stitched up a wound was all."
"You saved my life," Garrin said, enunciating every word. He turned to Caymus and Rill, who were, by now, seated. "It was during one of my father's campaigns—must have been at least a dozen years ago. We were holding back a small Mael'vekian raid into our camp." He paused, and seemed to gaze into the memory. "Never did figure out where they all came from, or how they got so far into our lines." He shrugged, looking back at the faces around the table. "Anyway, my men and I held them back in the end, but I wound up with a sword in my gut for my troubles."
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