Keepers of the Flame

Bri saw rooftops of red tile and gray and blue slate. Some buildings were three stories, a few four, and only one was five.

Masif pointed to it. “The Guildhall.” Again that silver bell chime from his Song.

As they circled down, Bri saw the part nearest the Castle, probably the oldest part, was jumbled on each side of a very thick gatehouse that sent out equally thick walk-ways and occasional towers along the walls. Toward the center, the city became more orderly, with houses surrounding parklike squares or circles. Commercial districts surrounded stone courtyards and pumps or fountains. A small stream threaded through the city, and the walls appeared newer and even stronger around the lower third of the city. She thought she could see where an old wall might have been.

Mud heaved a sigh Bri both heard telepathically and felt beneath her. She got the picture. Time to descend. Even the duty-bound Sevair behind her seemed reluctant; she wondered if he ever allowed himself to play.

Images came to her mind, another volaran, two, near Sevair—the winged horse’s projections.

Sevair replied with an image of roomy stalls with a feed trough full of hay and grain.

Bri realized negotiations were taking place and was amused and interested.

Mud showed Sevair dressed in Chevalier leathers with a raised sword. Flying down to a battlefield. Yellow and black and gray things Bri couldn’t quite discern but which made shivers crawl up her spine were fighting with humans and volarans.

“Ttho!” His negative rang in her mind, must have carried to others. He showed himself dressed in rich pants and shirt, with tabard, flying to other towns and cities.

Whickering in satisfaction, Mud dropped down to the courtyard, and she sent one last vision—of her throat opening and Song flowing from it to other volarans. Bri knew the image and the Song—Mud would tell others that Sevair wanted her kind, would care for them well, would not be fighting. He’d be flying for transportation to other fascinating places. The volaran added a picture of Bri at the end.

Bri laughed.

They landed in what appeared to be the town square, though it was a long, cobbled rectangle. People stood on all sides, looking at her.

Sevair dismounted and bowed.

She was reluctant to get off the winged steed, and Sevair reached up, put his big hands around her waist and lifted her down with ease. Her eyes met his and she saw he was very serious again. As always.

His fingers slid down to hers, then he lifted her hand with his in a gesture of triumph. “This is Bri Drystan who saved widow Marchand’s boy last night and healed all who were sick of the Dark disease. Our Exotique Medica!”

Cheers rose from the square. Bri was surrounded by happy faces. Tears stung. She’d known gratitude before, but it usually came from an individual, not a crowd. Awesome.

Bri’s minutes of basking in glory lasted only until she noticed Sevair conversing with other well-dressed people and watching her from the corner of his eye. She knew that look. She had purple streaks in her hair, an alternative-lifestyle fashion statement that she now regretted since it meant that she might be watched all the time.

No one came up to talk to her. When she stepped close to someone, they sidled back. So they respected Exotiques, were glad she and Elizabeth, and the others, were here, but the Exotiques were also obvious aliens in a culture with few differences.

“Let’s discuss matters inside.” Sevair stepped aside, offered his arm to Bri and took Mud’s reins, then led them both to the guildhall. The crowd parted. He planted Bri on the porch with a look that meant “stay,” and Mud went happily into a walled and grassy garden. The people in the square dispersed, except the kids who were intently eyeing the garden door.

Then Sevair was back with introductions to the other Citymasters, half of whom were women. Bri made note of them, and figured it wouldn’t be as hard remembering what guild they were master of as much as their names. The goldsmith wore an intricate gold ring, the weaver a fine rainbow-colored shawl.

But when they got into the guildhall conference room it became jaw-cracking dull. They talked about the statement that the Dark sent the plague. They spoke of funding a Chevalier team to fight against the Dark, or studies by Circlets. Bri spent the first few minutes looking at the people, then the room—rich wood panels that held a symbol of the craft guilds with ornately carved trim in the shape of fruits and flowers. There were windows, some of them stained-glass as if they were a glazier’s ongoing project, high in the wall offering light but no view.

The scent spoke of polish and understated wealth. Of tradition.

They’d seated her at the end of the room in a fancy chair that was so new-looking that it was evident it was a symbol. The back panel had a woman with raised arms and tilted-back head and open mouth, singing. Not too difficult to deduce that the chair was reserved for the Singer, and Bri wondered if she’d ever used it.

She had only shifted in the chair twice—okay, three times—before Sevair caught her eye. A ripple of a melody came from him. He was as impatient as she with this talk, but he showed no restlessness, continued to make his points as steadily as he’d probably made them several times before. Some would consider that a virtue.

She was just about ready to stand and make a circuit of the room, scrutinize the woodwork, when the door burst open and a woman staggered in holding a sick child.

Adrenaline poured through Bri. Her hands tingled.

10

By midmorning, Elizabeth’s mind was spinning…no, that was a trite and wrong image. Her mind was so saturated with new ideas and experiences it was like a sodden sponge. Her brain might have sunk to the bottom of her skull unable to hold one more new thing.

She’d been shown the healing rooms, and had watched when the medicas followed up on the injuries from the battle the night before. The claw-slices and puncture wounds on heavily scarred bodies had horrified her, empirical evidence that these people fought somethings that tried their best to kill them. She was told again that the Marshalls formed a healing circle after the battle and handled most of the injuries. She garnered that though the “incursion” had been large, only two people had died. Alexa and Bastien had saved the day.

Her whole body tensed at the images forming in her mind, but she asked no questions. Then a Chevalier woman limped in with strained muscles and a broken arm from a too tough practice and Elizabeth helped heal her. That was—strange. Nothing like linking with Bri, but Elizabeth couldn’t pinpoint why.

The female knight and her partner in the skirmish had been charged a large sum for the healing for being careless in a time of war, when the medicas needed to be fresh for any battle aftermath the Marshalls couldn’t handle. Individuals and pairs were patrolling and fighting in the north and might appear at any moment.

Then they’d all trooped to the inside training hall in the lower courtyard of the Castle to reiterate the policy to the rest of the fighters.

Alexa Fitzwalter rescued her, shooing off the medicas surrounding Elizabeth with flapping motions as if they were a flock of birds. “Give the woman a break!”

Elizabeth shook her head. Had Alexa actually said that? She reran the words in her mind. No. Something equally colloquial, but not those exact words.

Jerking her head toward the security gate between the lower courtyard and Temple ward, Alexa said, “Let’s get rid of the extra bed and wardrobe in your room. You don’t object to living in my tower, do you?” She started off across the grassy middle of the yard.

Elizabeth kept pace. “Would my objection be listened to?”

Alexa smiled. “Sure. You get to choose where to stay.”

“I’d rather go.”

Face losing expression, Alexa said, “Got that.”

“This is not our fight. Our parents—”

“I’m sorry,” Alexa said brusquely in English. “We understand, and we cut Marian some slack, but since then the war against the Dark has heated up. It wants something here in Lladrana and won’t hesitate to make this country a wasteland to get it.”

“Could you give—” Elizabeth started, but Alexa was shaking her head.

“I think anything a big evil entity wanted badly enough to create monsters and kill whatever got in its way is not something we should give that entity. Like Hitler and the atomic bomb. What we have here in Lladrana starts with genocide, since it’s only Lladrana being invaded now. But I reckon it will move to the eradication of the human species.” Her smile was grim. “I’d rather not be an individual in an endangered species. Not to mention that we can all hear the planet, Amee, weep. This planet is much weaker than Earth, in energy—Song.”

Elizabeth remained silent and nodded to the guards who held open the heavy gate door. She stepped over the threshold curb. “I’ve never been a proponent in the sacrifice of the individual for the greater good. Especially when the individuals don’t want to be sacrificed. I would have thought as an attorney that you would have agreed. You don’t seem to be the type to defend major corporations, but individuals.”

“I took any case I could get,” Alexa said, heading toward the keep. Sadness passed over her face. “I had a partner, as close as a sister, who died just before I came.” She sighed. “I was grieving. We’d just set up business and were scrambling for work.” They entered the keep and strode down corridors.

“That reminds me,” Elizabeth said. “Our godfather is a judge in Denver.”

Alexa’s expression changed to wariness as she stopped outside the door to the twins’ suite. “Let me guess, the honorable Trenton Philbert the Third.” She fingered her baton sheath.

“You know him.”

“Yeah. Open the door.”

Elizabeth set her hand on the knob, heard and felt a little “pop.” They went down the narrow security passage to the dining room entrance. She pushed open the door. Things looked slightly disarrayed. Of course, someone had come to get Bri’s gear.