Bringer of Light by Jaine Fenn Page B

restive. Some, it seemed, agreed. Others did not. More shouts were exchanged. The speaker tried to call for calm and was ignored. A moment later he ducked as something was thrown at him. Yellow spattered the wall behind his stand. Nearby, a scuffle broke out.
    A helmeted head ploughed through the crowd, intervening between the two men who had come to blows. They quieted at once. In the silence that followed the monitor’s intervention someone – Kerin thought it was the man who had first accused the speaker of blasphemy – called out, ‘Will you not arrest that man?’
    The monitor’s response was loud in the now-quiet square. ‘I will not. I serve the Mothers first, and the Tyr second. He has a right to speak, though if he is wise he will not say any more.’
    The speaker took the hint and climbed down from his stone. The monitor’s presence held the crowd in check. Once the focus of the commotion was gone, the crowd relaxed. A few still argued or muttered, but many started to drift away. Kerin turned to two women standing near her, and said, ‘What times we live in!’ She still cringed inside at treating strangers with easy familiarity, but such behaviour was normal in the city.
    ‘You speak the truth there, mistress,’ the older one responded.
    ‘And did I hear aright, that there have been further lights since that most unnerving sight a few nights gone? I have been so busy, and not had call to look outside at night recently . . .’
    ‘You did hear aright! My daughter has seen them for herself, have you not, Meri?’ said the woman eagerly. Kerin resisted the urge to smile; she had chosen this pair well.
    The younger woman turned her hollow-eyed gaze on the currently sleeping child in its sling and said, ‘Aye, for this little one keeps me up half the night.’
    Kerin made the expected noises of appreciation over the oblivious baby, then added, ‘Are these lights you have seen as bright as that first one?’
    ‘Oh no, they are not. But they started only after the great light appeared then faded,’ said the girl. Pleased to be seen as a source of authority by older women, she continued, ‘They are a little like the Heavenly rain at star-season, save they do not fall to the ground; they merely flash and are gone.’
    ‘They are a mystery and a worry,’ said her mother. ‘Whatever can such omens mean? We must pray that these uncertain times soon end!’
    ‘Indeed we must,’ said Kerin absently, and took her leave before they could ask her to share gossip from the Tyr.

 
CHAPTER TEN
     
    ‘Nual! Wake up! Please, you have to wake up—’ Taro knew she wasn’t dead – he’d know if she died, even if she was on the other side of the galaxy. Or in a different one entirely. But she was totally out of it; he could barely sense her in his head. He was still trying to decide whether he should shake her, hug her tighter or crawl off to the medbay when the shakes hit. He raised a hand to his face; his fingers came away crusted with dried blood. It was just a nosebleed; Nual’d had one too.
    They needed water. That’d help. He could wash off the blood, and a drink might stop him feeling like he’d sucked all the juices out of his own stomach. He managed to stand up on the third attempt, and, too dizzy to risk flying, crossed the rec-room to the galley in a drunken stagger, bouncing off the furniture. After he’d had a drink and cleaned his face he felt better, and was almost able to walk in a straight line when he returned to Nual with a wet cloth and a bulb of water. She was finally stirring.
     he thought to her.
     She didn’t open her eyes when he put the bulb to her lips, but she drained the contents. He washed her face, for she was still too weak to do it herself. He offered to help her to the couch but she assured him she was fine, adding,
    As he floated up through the hatch he heard Jarek say, ‘We’ll call back when he’s