Brightly Burning

outbreak of little-pox in a Holderkin village, and the Elder had actually unbent enough to call in our Healers. When I last saw her, Ilea was politely, gently, and thoroughly telling off the menfolk for not helping the women with the sick. 'If they drop with exhaustion, they'll be sick next, and who will cook, clean, and tend to you when you fall ill?' she said. And by all that's holy, the Elder was bending his head like a little boy being scolded!'

Greatly relieved, Pol laughed as well; he could certainly picture Ilea doing just as described. That broke the tension, and the conversation moved on to the news the others brought with them; after all, there was nothing to be done about the Karsites at this exact moment, certainly nothing that half a dozen Heralds could do.

Pol took his leave of the others long before they finished their meal; younger appetites were heartier than his, and they hadn't eaten anything but their own cooking—or army cooking—for the last two years or so. Heralds traveling to and from their assignments stayed in inns along the way, but those on circuit camped, sheltered in waystations, and tended to their own needs. That was so that no one could play host to a Herald and then try to exert influence over him, so that no one could claim a Herald was playing favorites in judgments.

It was certainly a wise policy, even though it was a bit hard on Heralds riding circuit. However snug those waystations might be, they were still very spare of comforts, and the provisions stored in them made for simple and tediously similar meals. And if one wasn't a particularly good cook—Well, after two years, the meals at the Collegium would start to assume the character of gourmet feasts.

Pol returned to his quarters, to find one of his youngest students waiting for him, with a face so full of woe that he thought immediately that the youngster must have received bad news from home. Malken was barely nine years old, and very young to be Chosen, but he was by no means the youngest on record to have shown up at the Collegium with a Companion. Certainly the King's pages were as young or younger, and with his cherubic features and ingenuous brown eyes the Queen had threatened to steal him for her service more than once.

'Malken, what's the matter?' he exclaimed, as he closed the door to his rooms behind him, indicating that he was not to be disturbed.

Malken burst into tears and attached himself to Pol's legs like an animate burr. Pol held and comforted him; as he patted the child's back, he thought with a twinge of how often he had sat in this very fireside chair, comforting one of his own children for some childish woe....

But this was evidently much more than a quarrel with a friend, or one of the highborn children bullying him. Malken was positively hysterical; it wasn't a case of would not stop weeping, it was could not.

While Malken sobbed, he racked his brain for some idea of what could have the boy in such a state. If there had been a tragedy in the family, the Dean of the Collegium would have been notified first, so that someone Malken trusted could be with him when he heard the bad news. There hadn't been any sign of anything wrong when Malken had his Geography lesson with the first class this morning, and Malken wasn't the sort to have had a major falling- out with a friend that would leave him so brokenhearted.

Whatever it was, it was serious; the child wasn't even listening to him. Finally, when nothing Pol could do would serve to comfort him and calm the little boy, he rang for a servant and sent him for a Healer.

Not surprisingly, it was his own daughter Elenor who arrived at the door within a few moments, her pale- green cloak thrown hastily around her shoulders, little tendrils of her warm, brown hair escaping from the hood and dripping onto the floor.

'Who is this?' she asked, as she knelt beside her father to take the child in her own arms. Her heart-shaped face was full of concern, her cheeks pink from the cold, raindrops sparkling on her eyelashes.

'Malken. He's about ten,' Pol said, as she bent over the sobbing child. He took advantage of her arrival to get a handkerchief to wipe the poor thing's face and nose. Malken continued to howl, oblivious.

'Malken,' she murmured in his ear, holding him close, 'Malken, sweetling, it's all right—'

Malken clearly didn't think it was all right, but Pol felt his own faint Gift of Empathy wake in answer to his daughter's more powerful abilities, and recognized her soothing touch on the child's mind.

Slowly, carefully, she insinuated herself between Malken and his own hysteria; slowly the child's sobs began to weaken, his howls to fade. It was a mercy that people were used to children in distress seeking Pol out, otherwise someone would surely have charged into the room by now, intent on beating whoever was frightening Malken into a bloody pulp.

At last, at very long last, Malken hiccuped once, and lapsed into silence, collapsing with exhaustion into Elenor's arms.

Pol took the boy from her, picking him up to carry back to his room. Elenor stood up shakily, her face pale, pulling herself up with the aid of her father's chair. Malken was clearly in no shape to be questioned about what had set him off.

But maybe his Companion had picked out something from Malken's mind that would explain all this.

:Already noted, but you were a bit busy to talk to,: Satiran told him instantly, with none of his usual smugness at having anticipated something Pol wanted. :Hayka thinks his Gift decided to come on him all at once just after dinner. He says that Malken was reading, when something in the book triggered a vision of fire, of people burning to death by the thousands. Hayka is fairly shaken himself; all I can get out of him is that it seemed as if the entire world was going up in a storm of flame. And—:

Satiran hesitated. When Satiran hesitated, Pol worried.

:And?: he prodded, :forewarned is forearmed; and what, Satiran?:

:And somehow you were deeply in the middle of it. That was why he ran to you.:

'Let's get Malken to bed. Did you bring something to dose him with?' Pol asked his daughter, feeling more than a bit of concern for her as well. She was clearly troubled by the strength of Malken's hysteria; had she gotten an inkling of Malken's vision? He didn't want her to worry. Eventually, he would have to tell Ilea, and that would be bad enough. 'I think he ought to sleep through the night, after this.'

'No, but I can put him to sleep and make him forget what set this off all by myself,' she told him, her pallor fading and her authority as a Healer reasserting itself. She gave him a look that told him she wouldn't allow herself to be persuaded otherwise; the tendrils of curling, red-brown hair falling over one soft brown eye made her look absurdly like a stubborn little foal. 'That's much safer in a child this small.'