Chapter Eight: Siblings Abroad

Brother and sister, estranged by time,

For just one sin, their only crime.

A sickened priest, St. Elimine's blessed,

Bearer of light, by gods caressed.

As we rode into Kathelet shortly after midday, a feeling of intense unease washed over me like a cold breeze in winter, and I shivered. Lyn looked perplexed, but I noticed that both Erk and Serra were also out of sorts. Florina was in the sky above us, so I had the dubious pleasure of Lyn's company for this ride. Erk and Serra rode just ahead of us, with Kent and Sain before them, leading the column of strangely mixed fighters. Directly behind Lyn and I were Dorcas and Wil (the latter of which was babbling his silly head off at the big warrior, and being blithely ignored). Matthew was nowhere to be found, though I suspected that he was concealed somewhere in the trees around us. He and his dapple-grey horse blended into just about anything together, despite the flamboyant crimson of his cape. I meant to ask him how he managed that someday, but he never seemed to stick around long enough for me to do anything but give commands and receive reports. Between him and the pegasus rider, though, our little band was never surprised; one of them always managed to get back to us in time to give us a head start on any enemies.

"Are you all right, Josef? You're pale, and you're giving Peaches a bit more rein than you usually do."

Lyn's voice was concerned, but I waved a hand casually, taking my horse to task gently. "I'm fine, Lyn. We've been traveling for a long time, and not all of us have your inimitable constitution."

"Inimitable?" she asked, and I chuckled. After that, we did not talk much. I suspected that she would rather have been riding with Rath, who brought up the rear of the column, and my suspicions were only reinforced by the surreptitious glances she kept throwing back. When Dorcas gave her a stony frown for her trouble, she stopped, but I noticed that her shoulders still twitched as if trying to turn. I understood why, he was her fellow plainsman in a crowd of outlanders, and she would have taken great comfort in his company. Rath, though, was not one for much conversation. At her first entreaty, he had simply shaken his head to show that he had no wish to speak, and she gave up after that.

We made it to a small town a few hours later, and we went directly to the inn. The place was a fair-sized building with plain, whitewashed walls and a simple sign that showed a platter of food and a bed. The windows looked like they could have used a cleaning, and the whitewash had turned more than a bit grey, but for the most part, it was a decent establishment. Lyn and I went inside while the others took care of the horses.

The inside of the inn matched its face for the most part. Scents of plain country food wafted in from the kitchen, and if the men drinking the ale did not savor every last drop, at least they did not grimace every time they took a sip of the stuff. The innkeeper was an unfriendly-looking man with swiftly receding brown hair and a scowl to burn stone. There was one oddity in the room, a monk with long, beautiful blonde hair that fell to his waist. He was dressed in the blue robes of an Elimine priest, and appeared to be reading a book on light magic. Of all the men in the common, he was the only one who was not trying to drown himself in bad liquor. I was paying for a room when a small boy crashed into me and knocked the coins from my hands. Thinking him a thief, I grabbed him by the dangly scarf that hung about his neck to keep him from running off.

"Oi, you, give back whatever it is you stole."

When he turned to look at me, I dropped the scarf from amazement. The boy had huge, silver eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the hostel. I snapped back to awareness when I realized that he was talking.

"I didn't take anything sir, I swear!"

He seemed agitated for some reason, and torn between saying more and silence. I could tell by the way that his lip quivered and his skinny form shook that he was in trouble, so I decided that I'd have it out of him. As I bent down to retrieve the coins, I said, "Out with it, boy. You're in some kind of trouble, aren't you?"

"Trouble?" Lyn repeated, kneeling to help me with the silvers. Her voice seemed to open the boy's floodgates, since he burst out with it all at once after that.

"It's my sister, they've taken her! I don't know what to do, the villagers were so nice to us last night, but now they're being mean, and…and…I don't know what to do! Please, you've just got to help me save Ninian!"

And that, my friends, is how it all really started.

"Your sister?"

I groaned as Sain stepped up beside me, head waving frantically back and forth, finally stopping on the boy as he identified the speaker. Kent's exasperated sigh mirrored my own as he appraised the boy with shrewd eyes.

"Milady, what do you intend to do?" he asked Lyn. Turmoil showed in her eyes at that moment, the little girl in her longing to fly as quickly as she could to her grandfather, while the part of her that was growing into a woman felt the urge to scoop up the child and take all of his worries away. There was a third force at work as well, the wild warrior who could not bear to let injustice remain. "Milady?" Kent insisted. "We must make all haste to Caelin, there is no time to lose."

"Surely you don't intend to abandon this poor boy's sister to the wolves!" Sain exclaimed. I examined Kent's expression at that moment, and the hard set of his mouth told me that yes, he would, and thought that was the best course of action. Lyn, however, had her own ideas.

"Kent, I want to help this boy." She said softly, and I shook my head. Kent nodded.

"You realize the consequences?" he asked.

"I do."

"I am bound not to question the order of my liege lord's daughter. I will do what you wish of me." He said solemnly. Sain nodded with some satisfaction, and the other cavalier gave him a glare fit to curdle stone. Lyn accorded Sain a quick glance.

"Sain?"

He eagerly began to open his mouth, but she shook her head and smiled a little. "Never mind, I know what you think. What about you, Josef?"

I fingered my chin, which had a bit of scruff on it for me to rub; we'd been on the road for some time after all. Weighing the benefits, which were few and small, against the obvious pitfalls, which were many and abyssal, I grinned and said, "I think it sounds like just the job for Lyn's Legions."

Lyn returned the grin, Kent just sighed again, and Sain whooped, charging out to find his horse. The boy, whose name we still did not know, reached out and grabbed Lyn's garish sleeve, looking up at her with worshipful eyes. "Thank you, miss! Thank you so much!" he gushed, and I rolled my eyes.

"We're not doing this for you, boy." I admonished him, as we left behind an inn filled with bewildered patrons and an innkeeper who'd just lost the equivalent of a whole month's worth of business; Lyn's party would have to move on and camp outdoors to make up for lost time. "We're doing it with you. What do you know about the men who kidnapped your sister? For that matter, tell us about yourself, no information is wasted."

He was remarkably calm, now that he knew that something was going to be done to rescue his sister. Gazing at me evenly, he ordered his thoughts and brightened. "I'm Nils, and I already told you all Ninian's name. We're traveling performers, trekking across the world to find new music and dances! I'm a bard."

One of my eyebrows must have risen, because he puffed up his little chest and brandished an elegant, silver flute in my direction. It was something of a surprise, since he didn't seem to have any pockets, and the thing came out of no where at all. "I am! I can help in battle, too, my songs are…special."

I hadn't thought that a child as young as Nils was could appear mysterious, but he somehow managed it in that moment. Since he obviously didn't want to part with the manner in which his songs were "special", I forged on with the questioning. Lyn frowned at me, perhaps she disapproved of the way I was interrogating Nils, but blessedly left me in peace. "All right then, what did these men look like?"

"Well, they all wore these big, black cloaks, and they were mean, and rude, and cruel, and…There! They looked like that!"

I whipped around to look at what he was pointing to, wind catching in my cloak with unnecessary drama as I did. What I saw made my blood run cold. Every tactician worth his salt knew what those black robes meant, even if these men did not get deployed against armies. Assassins, I remember thinking, with The Black Fang! directly on the heels of the first thought. I shuddered, and gathered my cloak around myself despite the fact that the sun overhead could have broiled eggs in a pan.

"Lyn, we've got trouble."

She nodded, agreeing silently with me. Dorcas jumped down from his big gelding and landed heavily on his feet. Then, he hefted his huge axe over his shoulder and peered out at the strange men gathering in the distance. "Assassins, milord?" he asked mildly. As a former mercenary, he probably had experience with that dark breed of trained killer.

"Yes, and the worst sort."

He nodded, but neither of us wanted to say anything about it to the rest of the group. There was no point in generating a panic, and it didn't really matter who the enemy was, just that they were incredibly skilled, and that they worked together like bees in a hive. As I surveyed the land ahead of us, dotted with distant, dark figures that were nearly uncountable, I realized that the warning vibe from earlier in the day had intensified enough to give me a headache. I looked over to Erk, who was massaging his temples, probably for the same reason; Serra looked like she was going to go into a panic at any moment.

"There is a dark enchantment laid over their men, good sir." Said a soft voice from behind me. I turned slowly, and beheld the beautiful man from the tavern. Touched by sunlight, his hair fairly glowed, though his face had the pallor of a man who does not enjoy sound health. He made a slashing motion with his left hand, and the figures in the distance suddenly materialized into just three men. "An old trick that shaman use." Said the monk. "It is easy to be fooled if you are not familiar with it."

I frowned, wondering who he was. "Thank you, but why? Why would you help us?"

He chuckled, a soft, musical sound as beautiful as his outer form. Nils, who was practically glued to Lyn's leg, pointed out the new development to his "protector", and she spared me a quick, anxious look. I nodded, and it seemed like some of the tension that set in her face drained away. The monk propped up his book of light magic in one arm and looked significantly at the young bard. "In the absence of the townspeople, I would like to aid that boy. If they will not protect their souls, then it is my duty to do so for them." His pretty mouth twitched. "Nils petitioned the innkeeper for aid before you arrived. The man was…unpleasant."

There was an impression of something a bit darker than unpleasantness in that statement, but I let it roll past. "You're skilled in light magic, then?" I asked him, and he gave me a nod of assent. "A bishop, Excellency?"

He laughed again. "Would a bishop be wandering around this country on his own? My mentor always complained to me that the church knights would insist on coming along with him every time he went out to ride, but I do not suffer as he did. No, good sir, I am but a simple monk who would lend you his services. Elimine smiles upon you, and turns her eyes from your enemy."

A man in a great, dark cloak somehow different from those that his allies, materialized before us at about a hundred paces. Purple lightning crackled all about the his form, knitting angry patterns in the air.

"If I had to take a guess, I'd say that was the man that put the befuddling spell on us." I murmured, and the beautiful monk gave a slight nod to show that he agreed. I shrugged and extended my hand to him, "Looks like we'll be needing your special skills, so how can I refuse? What's your name?"

"Lucius." He replied simply, giving my hand a gentle shake before letting go again. "I assume you have a plan, tactician?"

Interestingly, he did not ask me for my name. I wondered why, but let it go. He would not be remaining with us, so it did not really matter. "I do. It'll be touch and go for a while, especially with the dark mages, but I think we can pull it off."

A wiry man with his head covered by a dark cloth, came up from behind the shaman, who moved aside only with great reluctance. Even so, he scanned Lyn's people, searching for the spell breaker. His eyes lighted on Lucius, who smiled very slightly and nodded. Though I could not see the shaman's face, I had a feeling it was just a bit red at that moment. As his cohort tried to snatch Nils (and was subsequently repelled by Lyn, or, more precisely, Lyn's sword), I outlined my plan to Lucius, who was now a major component of them.

"I studied the maps of this area a while back on the trail. Off to the east, there is a small town, larger than this little hamlet, but not big enough to have its own militia. If these men are as bad as their reputations, we need to get to that town to warn the people, unless we want it to be toast. Burned toast." The mercenary made some rather nasty gestures at Lyn, and had another try for Nils, but Lyn returned his sally by swinging thirty inches of blessed steel up to his throat. It was a tribute to his training that he jumped back before she could draw blood with it, and he scowled beneath his coverings. Lucius motioned for me to continue, and I complied. "I'm going to send the cavaliers east to get to the town, hopefully before the looters have a chance to move in. Wil's used to riding pillion with Sain, so he'll be going along with them. He'll probably be able to take out any interlopers before they get past the gates, but if he doesn't, well, that's what Kent and Sain are for."

I pointed to the mountains that lay south of us. "There's a castle down below us, one of the more minor Lycian nobles used to live there. Now, though, it's been abandoned for about five years, so we can probably expect that they've taken it over. And if he's any indication of the enemy," I pointed at the shaman, who was still roiling with dark energies, "the leader is going to be a shaman as well. Serra hasn't learned light magic yet, and I don't dare send Erk anywhere near the man. Florina is getting pretty good with her lance, but…"

Florina and Huey came crashing down through the air to land awkwardly on the ground just as I was about to comment on her fighting prowess, solving my problem of having to criticize one of my people quite neatly. Lucius laughed good-naturedly, but then I revealed the next part of the plan. "Don't get too comfy, Brother. If you're with us, you're going to need to do it my way, and my way is the way that I think will work."

"And what way is that?" Lucius asked, amusement showing in the way his slim lips curved upward. I spread my hands sheepishly.

"Since Florina can't take on the leader by herself, I'm sending you along with her."

The monk's eyes narrowed a bit at that. "What do you mean?"

"I mean for you to ride pillion with her over the mountains." Lucius opened his mouth, but I continued, trying to finish before he made any objections. "Once the cavaliers are finished, they'll come around with the main body from the east, hopefully drawing the bulk of the enemy away from the castle. You and Florina shouldn't have any trouble dealing with the remaining shaman, but if you do, throw up a signal, and Lyn will lead a detachment from the main body in to rescue you."

He frowned. "A signal?"

"You're a light mage, Brother, what sort of signal do you think I'd ask you to use?"

Color that did not normally paint the man's cheeks suffused his face as he blushed. "Pardon, I do not have much experience with battle."

"That's all right." I told him. "You're about to get plenty. Now get moving, we don't have much time before they figure out what we're up to. The leader's probably got half of his mages spying for him. Florina, did you hear what I said to the good brother?"

She nodded, and motioned for Lucius to climb up behind her on that winged terror she called a mount. Huey made a pass at my mare, but she just whuffed a little and ignored him. Securing Lucius on Huey's pillion pad was not an easy task, especially since Florina was somewhat smaller than her passenger. The pillion for a pegasus was a complex contraption composed of myriad leather straps with a pad that was attached to the saddle itself. Normal pillion pads were separate, but in the air, a passenger needed the extra security.

"Are you sure Huey can do this?" I asked Florina. She smiled confidently.

"Huey's very strong, milord. No need to worry about us while we're in the air."

"All right then. The rendezvous point is the river just east of the castle. We'll be waiting on the eastern bank. Now, get moving. Best of luck to you both."

"Not luck, tactician." Lucius said quietly, looking at me with his large, blue eyes. Whatever he said next was lost in the wind as Huey galloped away down the green and took off into the sky. I watched them for a few moments as they disappeared into the harsh sunlight, flying over the hump of the small mountain range that ran through this part of Kathelet. Then I gently kneed Peaches forward to join Lyn, who still fended off the Black Fang who was trying to get hold of Nils.

"Go back to the hole you crawled out from." I told the man, and he scowled at me from behind a mask of black cloth.

"And who are you to tell me what to do, boy?" He turned his attention to me, and I shivered. "Don't even carry a weapon, do you?" He was by my horse in moments; he was fast. Peaches shied away from him and whinnied. The mercenary raised a sword to run me through, and I fingered my sleeves nervously. Fortunately for me, though, the man conveniently went up in flames before he could attack me. I whirled, reining in Peaches to turn with me, and saw Erk, an aura of magic still hovering around him. The rune he had used to cast the fire spell dissipated and I exhaled, relieved.

"Thank you, Erk." I breathed, and he nodded, understanding.

"Oh Erky, you're so cool!"

Serra had apparently fully recovered from her earlier discomfort. I let my eyes roll, and chuckled as I saw the action mimicked on Erk's face. If the chuckle had a small not of hysteria in it, none of the others made any note.

"Let's go. The others may need backup. , but we won't cross unless the good brother and Florina send up a flare."

Kent rode up beside me, remarkably light in his saddle for that we had been riding the better part of the day before arriving at the inn. "Milord?"

I cursed silently. "Don't call me that, Kent. You and Wil know what to do. Rath, please go with them as well."

He nodded, bowing slightly in the saddle, and motioned for Sain, who bore Wil (still not a competent rider, and we despaired of him ever becoming so) on the pillion pad behind him, to move out. Sain waved at me and grinned broadly as they sped away at a canter, while Wil's lips were pressed tight together and he hung onto the horse for dear life. I tried to make my smile encouraging, but I don't know how much it helped. Rath, of course, followed the order, but ignored me otherwise. Once the two horsemen were gone, Lyn, the two magic users, Dorcas, the child bard, and I remained.

"Lyn?" I asked softly, and she rode up beside me.

"What is it, Josef?" she inquired, green eyebrows rising to meet her bangs.

"Your knights are going the long way around; I sent them that way because they fight on horseback, and horses will be useless to us in the hills on the way to the river by our route. We're going to have to dismount and lead the horses; the hills around here are practically mountains, and none of you can fight on your horses anyway."

Lyn frowned as if to say that I should not be so sure, but let it go, leaping down from Windancer and patting him on his withers. Dorcas followed suit, and Erk. Serra fidgeted a bit in her saddle.

"Serra." I said, getting down myself from Peaches' saddle. "Come down from there, we may need your healing arts."

The priestess promptly stuck her nose up into the air and pouted. Her emulation of a noblewoman really was quite remarkable, but she could never capture the true arrogance that came with the territory. "Serra, get off that horse, now. That's an order."

"You want a Sister to walk all the way to that dank old castle? I think not, Josef. You will do well enough without me, I'm sure."

"Serra, if you don't get down, I'll pull you down. Either that, or we will leave you behind, and I honestly don't think you'll be able to survive on your own."

"Erky will protect me!" she claimed obstinately, and the mage winced.

"You're right." I told her. "He will." I turned away. "But all that means is that you'll both die. Lyn, shall we?"

I walked, very slowly, a few steps forward, grasping Peaches' reins casually, and mentally counted to three. One…two…

"Wait! Josef, don't leave me!"

Three. Inwardly, I both sighed and grinned. She may be annoying, but she can use that staff of hers, and it's looking more and more like we're going to need it.

The foray through the "hills" was uneventful. We came across two armed, hostile men, but they were obviously not Black Fang, and also obviously not as well trained. Still, I was more than a little unnerved, though I thought I had an explanation worked out. As we made our way down the last of the not-mountains, Dorcas walked up to me and peered about. Like me, he seemed to have more than a few doubts about the situation.

"I have a bad feeling about this, milord." He commented softly.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that, Dorcas, there's no reason for it." I complained. He, of course, ignored me. I sighed. "Your feeling may be right, though. It looks like whoever's in charge of the Black Fang sent only a few of his men, and filled in the gaps with ordinary mercenaries."

"But." Dorcas did not ask questions. I liked that; it meant he was competent.

"But if those kids are important enough to send anyone at all after them…" I looked over to Nils, who was looking up at Lyn with shining eyes, and maybe more than a little hero-worship. Dorcas exhaled roughly, and we walked in silence down to the bottom of the hill. Once there, we were able to mount up once again, and I took advantage, since my feet were starting to cramp up from the long walk. Interestingly, Lyn and Dorcas remained on foot, though both mages followed my example. The walk down to the river from the hills was as boring as the climb had been, but something worked in the back of my head that bothered me, though apparently nothing had gone wrong.

An hour passed as we waited by the river; Lyn played with Nils (though I noted that she kept her hand on the Mani Katti's sheath at all times), and Erk read in the shade of a nearby tree. Serra soaked her feet in the river's cool water, singing with an incongruously beautiful soprano. At the end of the hour, Kent's contingent arrived, riding fast, and I squinted in the afternoon sun, trying to make out details. Rath appeared unmarked, but Sain carried a prone form over his saddle, one that wore blue, and Kent wore a bandage over his forehead that looked like it already needed to be changed. Riding behind Kent was the missing member of our party,

"Matthew!" I shouted as Kent rode up, guiding his horse to a slow stop. "Where the hell have you been?"

Sliding down from the saddle lithely, the thief absorbed the shock of landing with a bend of his knees and bowed with a flourish. "Doing milord's good work, milord." He quipped, and I resisted the urge to backhand him. Instead, I looked up at Kent.

"What does he mean, Kent?" I asked. The eternally unruffled cavalier, astonishingly, looked abashed, his brown eyes shifting slightly from side to side.

"We rode to the village as you ordered, and we made it in time to warn the villagers to bar their gates and set men with bows on the walls, but we did not pay enough attention to what was behind us on our way here." He turned motioned toward Sain, who was currently lowering the nearly unconscious form of Wil to Dorcas' grasp. "Looking for mercenaries, we failed to account for a group of bandits that came around from behind. Sain and I took care of most of them, but in their initial push, they got Wil. He'd be dead if it weren't for Matthew; the man just appeared suddenly just as the bandit knocked Wil off of Sain's horse, then slit the bastard's throat."

I blinked; it was unusual for Kent to curse, but then, I supposed the situation merited a bit of cursing. Matthew continued to grin at me infuriatingly as I thanked him for his services, and bowed again with that ridiculous red cape fluttering dramatically in the wind. Once that was done with, I went over to Wil, who was currently bearing up under the "tender" ministrations of our priestess.

"Serra, you're supposed to heal him, not kill him." I heard Erk comment.

"Erky, don't interrupt a sister when she's working!"

"He's got a bruise where you're grabbing his arm, I think you should let go."

"He's a man, he'll deal with it!"

As I drew closer, I saw that Serra held a long, slender rod in her left hand, grasping Wil's wrist with the other. The tip of the staff glowed brightly with white light, and the halo grew brighter as it drew in more holy power from its surroundings. After a few more moments, the light leaped from the staff and into Wil's body, and he heaved once, coughed, and opened his eyes. Serra let go, and Erk helped the archer to a sitting position. I knelt beside him.

"Are you all right, Wil?" I asked, and he chuckled wearily.

"I think so, just a bit tired."

"Not regretting joining our little band, are you?"

"Not a whit, tactician." He retorted, and got to his feet with only marginal help from the mage. "I can still fight today, if you need me."

"Josef!" Lyn shouted suddenly. I whirled about just in time to see a bright flare of blue light erupt above the castle that lurked on the other side of the river, and spared Wil a last glance before running to Peaches and mounting.

As we rode up to the castle's gates, I noticed the supreme lack of humanity all around. Seeing Lucius' signal had made me think that he and Florina had encountered an army here, but there was no evidence of men anywhere.

"Do you think they're in the castle?" Nils asked Lyn loudly, and she looked at me in askance. I shrugged.

"It's possible, but if they are, they were taken by the enemy. Maybe they're hiding in the woods…"

Abruptly, a whirlwind of feathers and horseflesh screeched out of the sky and to the ground just in front of me, and I nearly fell out of Peaches' saddle. Lucius, looking tightlipped and nauseous, climbed gingerly down from Huey's back and to the ground. He staggered, and Erk steadied him. The holy man favored the mage with a grateful glance before promptly vomiting up the contents of his stomach. I respectfully averted my eyes until he was finished dry heaving, then steeled myself. Florina sat ramrod straight in her saddle, lips locked close; and there was a hollow quality to her eyes that told me she wasn't going to be talking. That meant it would have to be Lucius.

"Brother?" I asked, handing him my handkerchief to clean his face as best he could.

"I never want to do that again." He replied, accepting the cloth gratefully. "Do you need me to tell you what we saw?"

I nodded. "The reason why you sent up the flare."

"We made it over the mountains easily enough, though I think that flying takes some getting acclimated to. Once here, we found that only a few followers remained, and those outside of the castle. They had only a minimal guard with them, easily dispatched. I believe that there is some force inside that is preventing them from entering." He finished wiping his face, and the cloth evaporated in a plume of white flame. "The followers themselves were not so easy."

Something about the way he said it and how he looked made me decline to ask what killing them had entailed. The same something told me that it had probably had been very, very messy. "I'm sorry." I told him, but he demurred, spreading his pale hands wide.

"No need, I understood what pledging my service to your lady meant. However, I find that I am not up to the task of defeating the dark mage who guards the entrance." He gestured to the castle's gate, which fairly roiled with a vertical whirlpool of dark energies. "Needless to say, he swatted me away as a man swats a fly."

I nodded grimly, and guilt pressed in on me as a plan formulated in my mind. "Brother, I am very sorry, but do you think that you can confront this man again?"

The monk's eyes widened and his lips pressed together wanly, but he nodded, and I outlined the burgeoning plan.

"Scion of evil, stand forth and face the terror of the light!"

Sometimes having a thief about was very useful. Matthew had a peculiar ability to throw his voice to any position within his general vicinity, and to assume an astounding range of characters on the spot. He was using that talent now to make Lucius appear more commanding, while the monk himself merely moved his lips in unison.

"Foolish boy!" screeched a high, thin voice from an indiscernible point that came generally from the castle's entrance. "Do you think you fight for good? Feh! It is all an illusion!"

A man materialized on the gate's steps, and with his hood down, I could see that the dark mage was not pleasant to look upon. He and Lucius made a strange pair, facing off on the green just before the gates, one evidence of the grotesque torment of the dark arts, the other a perfect image of light's beauty. I watched from a small copse some thirty paces away as Lucius and Matthew (the latter somehow concealed in grass shorter than shin-height) distracted the dark mage while Lyn made her way around from the eastern side.

"Good, evil, your petty sentiments cannot affect me!" continued the mage, taking a step closer. I held my breath, if he looked to the side, our plan could easily be ruined. "There is only power!" He took another step, then jerked around to his side suddenly. I gasped; he must have seen light flash off of Lyn's open blade, and watched as he gathered dark magicks to strike my friend down.

"No!" I shouted, and time slowed. Lyn drove her blade up toward the dark mage, but it seemed that she would not make it in time to slay him before he destroyed her with his spell. Sound disappeared into the void, and I watched, horrified, as violet light arced from the mage's hands, lancing for the plainswoman's heart.

Then, somehow, a beam of pure, white light, smacked aside the dark mage's attack, sending it astray. The Mani Katti slid easily through the mage's breast, ending his life, and time resumed its normal course. I dropped Peaches' reins and raced up to Lyn to see if she was all right. Dimly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the monk collapse, but he was not my concern.

Evidently, my concern was not needed. When I reached her, Lyn was calmly wiping her blade on the dead man's robes. She looked up as I came over, and her lips quirked a little, but she otherwise seemed unaffected.

"Lyn, are you all right?" I asked, and she laughed nervously.

"I think so, Josef."

"But are you sure? He was using strange magic; he may have harmed you without your knowing."

She stared at me for a few moments, then shook her head, smiling. "I'm fine, Joe." She finished wiping away the grime that marred her holy sword, sheathed it, and turned toward the dilapidated castle. "Shall we go in?"

Nils came bounding up from behind me, raced past Lyn and into the castle. I blinked, then closed my eyes and sighed. "Did you have to ask? Catch him; there might still be some left. I think we're finished with them, but best to expect the worst."

She nodded, and we entered together.

"Ninian!" Nils called out in a shrill voice. "Ninian, where are you?"

"Is she here?" Lyn wondered, then looked over at me. I shrugged.

"It's possible that they already took her away. I don't think that's so, but it is possible."

Nils shot me a venomous glance and increased his volume to unholy pitch. After several moments of fruitless searching and taxing falsetto, a hand tapped my shoulder, and I turned to look at its owner. Kent stood there with a dejected Sain lurking behind him.

"Yes?" I queried.

"We saw a small body of men riding southward a few minutes ago." Kent said, and Nils' cacophony abruptly ceased. "They were wearing dark cloaks."

"Many people wear black clothing, Kent. Are you sure it was the Black Fang?" I replied.

"Well, we can't be certain…" he trailed off hesitantly. Sain stepped forward, looking uncharacteristically sour. Instead of focusing on me, the green-clad cavalier homed in on Lyn.

"My lady, we must give pursuit! The boy's sister may even now be drawing further from her brother. How she must weep at the separation!"

Someone's weeping, that's for sure. I rolled my eyes. "Sain, did you see a girl among these men?"

"A girl? Is it possible that you mean this good lady?"

I whirled, and the others followed suit. From out of a nearby doorway, a tall youth with blazingly red hair stepped forth, and he bore a young woman with long, silvered hair. Swiftly, I appraised him; the circlet around his forehead marked him the heir to one of the noble houses of Lycia, and his blue clothing showed him to be from Caelin. He wore a slender rapier at his hip and went lightly armored. He appeared to be slightly built, but the ease with which he bore the girl implied greater strength. Two pikemen stood behind him, hands wrapped tightly about their man-height spears.

"Ninian!" Nils cried out, and dashed over to the red-haired lordling. I reached out to stop him, but something about the Lycian seemed familiar to me, and I stayed my hand. Even so, I checked behind me, and was reassured by the sight of Lyn and her two retainers with swords at hand. When I turned back, Nils was busying himself with trying to take his sister, though he was obviously far too small to bear the weight. Then, watching Nils, the Lycian smiled, and recognition flooded my mind.

"Eliwood…" I breathed, and Lyn looked at me sharply. I shook my head hurriedly. "Sir, may we ask who you are?"

He nodded, settling the girl called Ninian delicately to the ground, in her brother's lap. "Of course. I am called Eliwood."

Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry that it's been so long since I updated, but for some reason, I haven't been very inspired to write any fanfiction for a while now. Hopefully, Sealed Stones will change that, so I'm going to do my best to see this fic through!