Centoriel

[Graybeard]

"ARKIE! BUDDY! LIZ!" the rider was shouting, over and over, as he approached the ruins.

Brother Miguel and Argus exchanged a quick glance. "I've heard that voice somewhere," Miguel said. He didn't have time to think about where, though; this felt like a situation where he'd better have a Barrier spell at hand and ready to erect. The rider probably wasn't coming to slay the three Farrelites (or, in their stead, the three explorers), seeing that he was on the wrong road (they thought), but the encounter still felt very, very wrong. Miguel assumed a ready stance, with hands free to gesture and the words of the spell all but in his mouth.

The man was close now, and his speech became simultaneously clearer and more agitated as he reined the horse to a stop, its flanks heaving. "Arkie! Buddy! Liz! Thank the gods I found you! Get your asses out of here, right now! They're gonna kill you! I picked up a rumble on the ball, they're sendin' a --"

Suddenly, it dawned on the man that the two males and one female standing at the horses weren't who he had presumed them to be. At the same time, Miguel and Argus were able to put a voice and a face together, but before they could do anything, the man spoke again.

"Just who the hell are you?" Wilbur Hamael demanded.

[Sareth]

Carefully making sure her hair was covering the tips of her ears, Lillith stepped away from one of the horses she was comforting. After dealing with giant gollums, crazy women, explosions in the night and wasted, burnt bodies, a single flustered man on a horse seemed tame, and she felt the first glimmers of her old confidence come back. She smiled gently to the man. "My name's Lillith. We were passing by when we heard these horses. They sounded very upset. Do they belong to someone you know?"

[Graybeard]

Wilbur Hamael did a good impersonation of a very large fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing rhythmically while his eyes bugged. That was good; it gave Brother Miguel time to quickly whisper in Argus' ear. "Fade back toward the trees and conceal your face. He might recognize us, but he won't recognize Lillith." Caution in dealing with someone who'd taught his son how to kill with a word seemed prudent...

"I ... you ... the horses ... Arkie ..." Hamael stammered. After what seemed like a very long time, he shook himself, then said, "'Bliged to ye, missy. I'm lookin' for some mates o'mine what's in big trouble. Yup, these could be their hosses. Lemme take a look-see." He dismounted and walked over to the still-hobbled horses.

Did he ever hear me talk? Miguel asked himself. Yes, he did. I'm going to have to play this carefully. Pitching his voice up into the nasal register used in the speech of his homeland, and waiting until Hamael's back was turned as he inspected the horses, he said, "Something had 'em badly spooked when we got here. They're calmer now." That should do it; everything he said was true, yet it gave nothing away that Lillith hadn't already said or implied. Miguel didn't like giving the false appearance that he was helping, but better to have Sister Rose hear his confession later than provoke this man now.

Hamael shook his head. "Cain't see nothin' wrong with 'em. They's skeered o' sumthin', for damn sure -- 'scuse me, missy, I work the mines and we talk like thet up thar. But yeah, they's my pals' hosses. Cain't see Arkie and Buddy and Liz, though. Wonder where --"

And a vagrant breeze picked that moment to once again bear the odor of scorched man-flesh into the clearing.

[Sareth]

The blood drained from Lillith's face as the smell registered. "Oh, oh gods..." She clapped her hand to her mouth as the horses immediately grew agitated. They, and she, both knew that smell too well, and very fresh memories welled up. She could be heard audibly gagging, though she managed to keep her bile from rising beyond her throat. She fought it down, and turned her pale, trembling face to Wilber. "That smell..."

[Drannin]

Argus kept to the tree-line, his hood pulled up high. He studiously remained silent, and in shadow. Argus' thoughts were something along the lines of: ohshitdeathgazenotgood. It wasn't quite fear. It WAS grim awareness that this man was very, very dangerous, and if worst came to worst... Argus wasn't convinced that he could take Hamael out before the eyes of doom came into play.

Well, at least Harker had had the sense to disappear. Small silver lining.

[Graybeard]

Well played, Lillith, Brother Miguel thought, but then he decided she wasn't acting; she was still mortified at the ghastly death that had overtaken the two men. It probably doesn't speak well for me that I'm getting used to it by now. He pulled out a handkerchief, held it to his nose; not only would it maintain the pretense of avoiding the smell, it would also disguise his voice, which continued to seem like a good thing. "It's coming from over there," he wheezed, pointing toward the large ruin.

It was only moments later that the four found the youth's body. "Buddy, all right," Hamael said, his face grim. "Looks like they done him. I don't figger how they done it so fast, but they did."

"What -- done him?" Miguel ventured, not sure he wanted to know.

"Don't know 'xactly," Hamael said. "Ole Arkie, he kept some bad company. Mebbe a fire-demon? 'Cause they could do that. A dragon, even? But I thought they was sending a --" He broke off as he saw what remained of Arkie's body. "Exitialis a-mighty... urk ..."

The contents of yet another stomach sought egress, as Miguel struggled valiantly to keep his own under control. Hamael was still heaving when Miguel puffed, "Arkie, right? But you said there was a 'Liz' with them?" Although every instinct he had told him to do otherwise, he moved closer to the charred body; Hamael wasn't going to be looking in that direction voluntarily.

"'Fraid so," Hamael choked. "Liz is Buddy's sister -- thet's the boy over thar. An' I bet I know where I'm gonna find her..." He started into the hallway in the ruin, the one with the Malletarian emblem at the end...

"NO!" Miguel, Argus, Lillith and even Harker screamed in chorus, but it was too late. As the man reached the end of the hallway, brilliant magic flared from the insignia, just as it had done once before, when Kureji had ventured too close to a similar emblem on the other side of the ruins. The wall pivoted, as Kureji's door had, and even brighter magic flared...

When their eyes -- and minds -- could function again, they could see that the hallway stood empty, leaving only Wilbur Hamael's hat lying on the floor at the foot of the now-emblemless wall.

------------

Sister Rose had just finished launching a classified parrot, and was thinking of sending another one -- there was a lot to say here -- when she caught the flash of magic, from across the pit and ruins, out of the corner of her eye. She barely had time to draw in her breath when there was a low double boom, not nearly as loud as the night's thunderclap but still nothing that should come from a clear sky.

"Oh, no..." Without waiting to see whether Sasha would follow, she took off at a dead run back toward the ruins.

[Sareth]

Without a word, Lillith turned away from the once again dark entry. Soundlessly, she moved back to the very panicked horses. She crooned to them soothingly, reaching out to calm them, letting a touch of her spirit brush against theirs. Their heaving chests calmed, their nostrils ceased their flaring.

Quietly she reached out and untethered all three animals (the one the probably soon to be late Hamael had ridden up on, being unsecured, had quite wisely run for it at the first flash.) She tied the reigns of one onto the saddle of the second, the second to the third, then began leading the trail towards the wagon.

Still having said no word, she glanced back at Brother Miguel and Argus. The look on her face was speech enough. I won't stay here a moment longer, it said.

[Graybeard]

"Where are Miguel and Argus?" Sister Rose asked Lillith as they met on the incipient trail. "Please don't tell me they're ... Oh. Whew. Had me worried there for a minute," she added as the men came into sight behind the horses.

Minutes later, they were back at the wagon, and packing up. "We're getting out of here," Brother Miguel insisted. He filled Rose and Sasha in on what had happened. "Hamael never knew what hit him, and the scary part is, whatever he was coming to rescue those three from, it hadn't even shown up by the time all this stuff happened."

Rose nodded. "Fire demon, dragon, time ninja, whatever it is, we don't want to be here when it does show up. I don't think there's any choice now but to go the long way around." Miguel shot her a look at the "time ninja" reference, but she continued, "The good news is that Departure should be ending today, unless it's an unusually long one. The townspeople should be on their best behavior for a day or two. We can probably stay in Homontel tonight, if we hurry."

"Then let's hurry." They hitched up the horses and started back the way they'd come.

[Drannin]

Argus was silent. His thoughts were churning. "What's going on?" he asked out loud. The others looked at him questioningly. "After all that we've seen, it's clear that there is some strangeness afoot. The question is, what? What does it all mean? All this powerful magic, and... and everything!" Argus suddenly looked very old. "There's something going on, and I just don't know what it is. It's starting to irritate me."

There was silence for a time as the cart wound its way through Centoriel. No one really knew what to say.

"You sure you ain't bein' paranoid, Boss?" asked Harker.

"You saw those bodies. Something did it to them. Some one. It's not paranoia when there really is something dangerous out there."

Silence met this pronouncement. Harker wrinkled his nose. "You're a really pick-me-up, ya know that, right?"

"Shut up, Harker," Argus said without malice.

[Sareth]

Sitting on the back of the curt, watching the horses they'd tied to the back plod along, Lillith remained quiet. The people she'd fallen in with clearly had some sort of agenda or mission. She'd known that. But what that was...

They'd spoken of looking for someone. The people they'd just found (she shuddered at the memory) had also been looking for this same person. And look where that had gotten them. Whatever was going on was clearly dangerous. The man they were looking for was, apparently, involved in something deadly.

Argus' question resonated with her deeply. He knew more than she did, clearly. And even he was questioning what was going on. Were the Veracians holding something back? Something that would get her killed like those others?

Maybe she should go a different direction once they reached Homontel.