Keepers of the Flame

She is doing that turning red thing, Sinafinal said.

“Out! All of you! How could you? That was my camera phone. It had pictures.” She whirled to Alexa. “Photos of our father’s birthday party. Of our parents! Get out. Now. I don’t want to see any of you.”

Tuckerinal sat up. He wasn’t happy and grinning now. I can show them. All. I can repeat voice mail. He opened his mouth.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Cassidy’s deep tones rolled out. “Can’t tell you how much I want you, how I’m lookin’ forward to after shift. Later.”

Elizabeth moaned and curled onto the bed.

Alexa was there. “I’m sorry. So sorry. You didn’t say you’d left a…a lover, too.”

“The…the…bas…tard…broke…off…our…engagement…two weeks ago,” Elizabeth said between shuddering sobs.

“Oh, gawd,” Alexa said in English. The bed dipped as she crawled closer. She sat by Elizabeth and stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“I love him. Loved him.” She cried more, couldn’t seem to stop. Hadn’t she cried enough over the man? “He…saw. Me trying to…use my…my…gift.” It was all so horrible. She could remember her despair that a young girl was dying, her desperate hope that she could call down a miracle. Her failure.

“He…was…appalled…A…doctor, rational person…” He hadn’t loved her enough.

Two small forms settled on either side of her. One purred near her abdomen. She reached out and tangled her fingers in long, soft fur. Sinafinal, as the cat. A long nose nuzzled the back of her knee.

I made Elizabeth cry. I am very sorry. I will make it up somehow. A doggy sigh. I could not resist the nuts. A little one comes. We both need energy and Power and Song for it.

That made no sense to Elizabeth.

Alexa said. “You will take care of all the photos for Elizabeth. Not one must be lost. We’ll see what we can do about having them, um, hard-copied.”

The absurdity of that—hard-copied from a dog’s stomach?—just made Elizabeth cry harder.

The sick child was a girl of about seven or eight, sturdy. Probably too heavy for the mother to carry, but she held her child with desperate strength.

With a careful sweep of his arm, Sevair shoved the stacks of papers aside, then took the child, carried her to the conference table.

“Sevair, this is not the place…” said one hefty man shrinking back to the side of the room. Sevair and the woman—now twisting her hands in her apron—were between the citymaster and the door, otherwise Bri thought he might have bolted.

“This is exactly the place. Exactly our priority. Exactly our duty.” Sevair bit the words off. He gently laid the girl on the table, grabbed his overtunic, stuffed it under her head.

“Medica?” His look was a demand.

Bri found herself rubbing her hands. She stopped, shifted her shoulders, drew in a deep breath and went to the child. The girl was unconscious, so no talking to her about where it hurt. Opening her mouth, Bri caught sweet, labored breathing. No coating of white on her tongue. She checked under her eyes. Nothing there, either.

No use. She’d just have to trust in the healingstream, in the magic and Power of this dimension. That everyone was right and her hands would be enough. Sure weren’t any antibiotics around. She stroked the child from head to toe, heat radiated from her throat and her abdomen.

Keeping in mind what the medica had said, Bri strained to hear the chakra centers, the chimes. Cacophony clashed in her mind, in her ears, rocking her back and making her shake her head to get rid of the sound, like cars crashing. Terrible sound.

One more lung-filling breath. Ease it out and reach. Again Power slammed into her. Her body jerked. Strong hands grasped her shoulders, excess energy went through that link.

Heal her, said Sevair.

She looked for the chakras, couldn’t make out the jumble of colors. So Bri shut her eyes and prayed. Found the Song again. The Song of the child. The Song of herself. The throbbing Song of the Power flowing through her.

But it needed to be controlled, focused, sent to the right organs in the correct order, so the most important systems were strengthened first to support the healing of the rest. Power flowed through her. Had she reached for it? She didn’t know, but knew there was plenty here.

The Songs drowned out all thought. She touched young flesh. She healed. Without thought and without plan and without reason.

Later she found herself shivering, lifted and folded into a chair, Sevair’s tunic now draping her. Her vision cleared, and she saw a bunch of people near the table, the citymasters, the woman holding and rocking her girl, tears and snot streaming down her face, a big man in rough clothes.

If Bri could have spared the breath for a sigh of relief, she would have. She’d done it. She was so much stronger here to be able to heal a strange, debilitating sickness in one session.

There was no sign of the hefty citymaster.

Songs washed through Bri, pulsed around her. Still fearful strident notes from the father and mother, the girls’ sweet tune, the intricate pattern of the citymasters.

Sevair was tapping a map with his index finger, looking at the man. “You live here?”

“Ayes.” The man nodded.

With a brusque nod of his own, Sevair placed another red dot on the map.

“Outlying farm area, again,” a woman said.

“Yes,” Sevair said.

“I don’t see any kind of pattern we can work with.” An older man crossed his arms. “Hard to stop such a sickness if we don’t know where it will strike next.”

“Let alone why,” said the woman.

“Who all have you been with today?” asked a different woman of the farm wife.

The farm woman dragged a rag from her pocket, wiped her face and nose. “Ella collapsed in Noix Market Square.”

“Wonderful.” Deep sarcasm came from the older man.

“We must send people to the farm and the square,” Sevair said. “I’ll have an assistant accompany these folk home.”

Bri stirred, tried to stand, couldn’t, she felt like an aged grandmother. After licking her lips, she forced words from a dry throat. “Bring the girl to me.” With her quavery voice she even sounded like an old grandmother. At least the typical stereotype. Her own were professional women. And her brain was nattering.

The man in farmer’s clothes lifted his daughter and carried her to Bri, setting her across Bri’s lap, supporting her.

The girl looked fine. Good color. Bri tested her forehead, temperature seemed all right, checked her tongue and eyes again, all good.

She slipped her hand through the gaping shirt. Again warm skin, her patient’s heart thumped with a regular beat, her lungs filled and emptied. After a couple of sips of breath, Bri opened herself to the sound of the chakras. They hummed with what she was beginning to understand was healthful normality.

Incredible.

“She’s good,” she said to the man watching intently.

He smiled and she saw even, white teeth, then he took his daughter. “Yes, medica, she is good. A good girl, good daughter. We would have been sad without her.” His commonplace words were backed by Song, and Bri first heard the tones of a loving family: father, mother, two sons, two daughters. All experiencing euphoria at the saving of Ella. All sending Bri their utmost gratitude.