“I am busy now, Kyrotin,” Thal'rin said to the air as they rode, “eh...yes, but my plans may have changed, but they still keep me busy. And what did I tell you about listening in on our conversations?”

At first Vincent was baffled at Thal’rin’s disconnected conversation. But then he remembered Kyrotin. Thal'rin was speaking to one of those things, the zerok.

“No, I seem to remember you were the one always dragging me into trouble,” the High Channeler scoffed, “we are both old, but I am the one with the acuity of intellect...I think. 'I am the brain and you are the claw,' was that not how it worked when we were younger? Silverbeak be cursed. I agree. I am the worst Diac in Meldohv's history. If you wish to take my place, so be it. I would love to fly away right now without a care in the world, then I would see what it means to be one of the zerok. If you must speak, I'd rather do it in person. We can meet on the roof on your usual perch. By the way, you still do owe me some grey pitch for those marks you left. Well, put some bags over your feet. Otherwise Bayont will hunt you down.”

“You must be wondering if my brains have been addled.” Thal'rin said to Vincent after a few moments of silence.

“No, I met Kyrotin.”

“Oh? The zerok, though they may look intimidating, are a fascinating people. Those who don't live alongside them find this method of communication to be too alien to appreciate how fully cultured they are. They have a perception that is both unique and profound. They can feel each other's loss, sorrow, joys, more acutely than either of us tend to do for each other. But one would never know this because they don’t tend to openly express themselves as we do. He wanted to talk to me about something yet would not say what. Would you be able to meet with Luin while I go speak with him?”

“Yeah.” Vincent wanted to know what had been discovered.

He found Orth standing in his room, looking exactly as Vincent remembered him at the hearing. He was tall and stocky, with dark green skin. Red-orange tufts of hair lined the sides of an otherwise bald snout. Scars from battle lined his heavy-set jaw and he stood tall with both hands folded over his torso. The wings were folded neatly against his back. Vincent could see one of them had once been mangled beyond repair.

“Vincent Cordell,” Orth said, “or are you going by 'Saedharu' these days? Where is High Channeler Thal'rin?”

“Vincent...or even 'Vince' is fine,” Vincent said, hesitating at the threshold. “Thal'rin is upstairs talking to Kyrotin.”

“Very well,” Orth said, “I am Luin Orth, one of The Thirteen. Do you remember me?”

“Yeah, I remember you.” As if he could forget this clown. “You interrogated me.”

Luin Orth gave him a stern, but considerate look. “Please come in and kindly shut the door.”

What? No apology? Vincent thought, as he took a hesitant step across the threshold and shut the door behind him.

Orth nodded, then turned around to face the balcony, hands behind his back. Vincent sat down at the only table in the room. “I am in charge of both the relos and the kiolai,” Orth said, “I work in conjunction with Saleed and the Seikh's Guard and see to it that the Meldohn region is free of dangers that would pose a threat to our people.”

“So you're the one that sent Slade after me?” Vincent asked, tapping his claws against the table.

“I am the one who gave the order for your apprehension, yes,” Orth said, “I extend my apologies for the misunderstanding, but if you are to resent me for my decision, know that I still stand behind it. Whether you willed it or not, you demonstrated a dangerous power we still do not understand and it has brought irreparable harm to a family that now stands broken.”

“Teresis...” Vincent mouthed, “look, I was told you found something at Lorix's Eye, but if you are going to stand here and try to judge me–”

“–That is not my purpose.” Orth tried to cut him off, but Vincent would not have it.

“Hold on and let me speak for a damn second!” he snapped, “if I can accept that you people have bridges that defy gravity, then I can accept that I have the power to kill people while I am sleeping...despite how stupid that sounds. However, you invaded my mind.” Venom poured into his lungs at the memory of the violation, and he had to take a second to calm himself. “You practically possessed me. Do I really need to get into the damn ethics about why such a thing is wrong?”

“Calm yourself. I am neither here as your adjudicator nor interrogator,” Orth said, “I am not here as your enemy or your foe. I am here because the relos found items at Lorix's Eye and I wish to ask you for confirmation and explanations as to what these items are. Furthermore, Thal'rin wishes, eventually, for you to be able to roam our city. You will be passing through our jurisdictions when you do. So I need to speak to you about that.”

“This is the first I've heard of it.” Vincent said. At this, Orth cocked a brow.

“Thal'rin said this was explained to you, last we spoke,” he said.

“Maybe, he probably did, but I don't remember it. I've been spacing out a lot.” Vincent sighed when he saw the confusion on Orth’s face. “It means I wasn’t paying attention. You have to understand, this whole experience is surreal. It’s hard to focus on what you people are saying when all I can think is ‘Holy crap! I can’t believe this creature is talking to me! What kind of drugs did I take?!’”

“We are 'creatures' are we?” Orth raised a brow.

“You want the honest answer or the flattering one?” Vincent asked. Was he supposed to be afraid of Orth? The creature locked eyes for a moment as if expecting such a thing, but then sighed, and shook his head.

“My advice is this: when Thal'rin speaks,” he said, “you listen. Close your eyes if our appearance unsettles you and pretend we are ‘human’.” He walked over to the corner, picked up a large burlap sack and set it on the table between them. “Thal'rin honored your request. We sent a team to Lorix’s Eye with orders to investigate its depths. They took a grave risk when they penetrated those waters using the wards that they used. We are not Rydicians. We do not have conduits that are crafted to hold back an entire lake. Only the skylights of Rydic Syredel could possibly do such a thing. Should their wards have failed, which they nearly did, the men using them could have drowned. These are what they could find when they scoured the bottom.”

He loosened the drawstring and the object he pulled out made Vincent go numb. It was stiff and covered with small mineral deposits, but he instantly recognized the jeans he had been wearing on the day of the car crash. His transformation had pushed the back off until the seams running down the sides of the legs split. The backside was left to hang like a large flap.

“I assume this is a garment. Am I correct?” Orth asked.

“Yes.” Vincent said. His tone was flat.

“And these trails, what are they?”

“Trails?” Vincent repeated, staring at the blue fabric. He couldn’t feel anything, nor could he concentrate on Orth’s words.

“The garment appears to be blue.” Orth traced a claw along the red streaks. “But where did these trails come from?”

“It's...blood. My blood. When it changed me....it...” A lump rose in Vincent’s throat, but he chewed at his lip and forced it down. “Human blood is red. It has hemoglobin.” He could feel his chest pounding at the sight. He needed to calm down, just calm the fuck down...

Orth grunted, considering him for a moment before setting the tattered jeans onto the table. Vincent could not look away from the mutilated garment even though he wanted to. The blood seemed to paint the jeans with echoes of his screams. It was a mercy that he couldn’t remember the pain, rather, he could only remember that there had been pain. But now, it felt strangely distant from him, disconnected, as if he were looking at evidence taken from a murder scene, not garments that had once been his. Why did he feel dizzy all of a sudden?

“And what is this?” Orth pulled out a second object, “it was found in your pocket.”

“Cell phone,” Vincent said numbly, “it's...for talking to people over long distances.”

“A false conduit?” Orth turned the phone over.

Vincent couldn’t answer. As he looked at the phone held in the creature's hands, he wanted nothing more than to grab it and run. Perhaps there was a very minute chance that it had not short-circuited. Maybe the water had stayed out of its circuitry and there was still a charge left in the battery. He could call home and establish a connection back to Earth. It was an irrational idea, yet it was one that appealed to him very much.

“Vincent Cordell,” Orth repeated, “what lore enables you to communicate through this conduit?”

“I...don’t remember. It's a computer. It-it’s harmless.” Vincent continued to stare at the rectangular artifact from Earth. He could not think clearly. He reached out for it, but Orth held it back.

“It’s harmless,” he insisted, “it’s not a conduit. It’s a computer. Everybody has them. It was submerged. Water got into its circuitry and...and it’s broken now.”

Orth stared him down before setting the phone on the table. As he bent down to take the third item from the sack, Vincent reached for it, but Orth used a wing to block him.

“Are you kidding me?” Vincent whispered.

“And this” Orth said, ignoring him as he held up a leather wallet.

“It’s a wallet,” Vincent said, “I keep cash and credit ca...I keep our currency in it. Here, I’ll show you.”

Orth hesitated for a moment, but then he relinquished the wallet. The leather was as stiff as cardboard from exposure and blackened with mold. The zipper remained stuck in place and did not seem like it would budge. However, with some effort, he managed to move it a couple of inches before the tab broke off.

“Look...” he said as he dumped a bunch of coins on the table. “It’s just money,” He tucked a claw through the gap and hooked a dollar bill, took it out and pushed it toward Orth. “See...this man? That’s George Washington, our first president. That’s what a human being looks like. And somewhere...there's a picture of me.”

As Orth inspected the dollar bill, Vincent froze. “I had it...right here.” he said, frantically checking all the pockets.

“Had ‘what?’” Orth asked.

“Where is my driver’s license?!”

“Where is your ‘wha–”

“–My driver’s license!” Vincent snapped, “my identification! It’s missing. It’s...” He grabbed a credit card. “It looks like one of these, except it’s white and it has a picture in the top right corner of a human being! I had it right here in this pouch with the...with the 'window' on it.”

“There was no such object there when it was found,” Orth said, “perhaps it fell out.”

“No...no, no, no!” Vincent laughed, even though there was nothing funny about the situation. “It barely fit into this,” he tapped the pouch, “it was a pain in the ass to put in there and it was a pain in the ass to take back out. I don’t care if my wallet was shaken, smacked, or thrown against a wall. The laws of physics would have prohibited it from simply ‘falling out’. It was too damn tight!”

“Is it possible your memory is wrong?” Orth asked, “are you certain this object of yours was with you when you came into our world?”

“I go nowhere without it!” Vincent swore, “every human being in a developed country has one. It’s proof of who we are! Without it we can’t drive a car, travel to other countries, apply for social security, drink alcohol. It says Vincent M. Cordell on the front, followed by my age, height, skin color, eye color, sex, and it has a picture of my face. I always keep it in my wallet because it is literal proof of my identity!” He took a moment to breathe. “The only way that thing came out is if somebody figured out they had to gently squeeze the sides of the pouch it was in, and really tug on it. One of your people must have it!”

“I will question the men who retrieved your belongings,” Orth said, massaging the bridge on his snout. “Perhaps they got curious and began to inspect these items of yours without remembering to put back what they took out.”

“Yeah!” Vincent tried his best to calm down. “Please do! That card is the only thing that will remind me what I actually look like. Did your guys find anything else?”

“No. This is all they found.”

“What about the gate?” Vincent asked, “did they find the gate? Or portal, whatever you want to call it. The thing that spat me into this world, did they find it?

“Gate?” Orth repeated, “no. There is nothing at the bottom of Lorix’s Eye except a chamber whose floor is covered in stones and the cave which feeds the lake.”

“The cave then!” Vincent pushed, “did they inspect the cave?”

“The cave I speak of is far too small for even a child to fit through and it comes from the side of the cavern, not from the bottom as was described in your story,” Orth said, “I do not know by what means you came into our world, but Lorix’s Eye is a spring, nothing more. There is nothing at the bottom of that lake except stones and fish.”

It was not possible. Though his memory of his passage into Falius was fractured, the parts he did remember were vivid to him as if his translation had happened the day before. He got up and began to pace the room. There was no way Orth was telling the truth. Either his men were daft or there was something more to this story. He grabbed clumps of the green mane in his hands as if he meant to pull it out. He could feel delirium creeping in, pressing in on all sides compressing him until he finally broke.

“Do you have blind people working for you?!” he snarled before he could get a hold of himself, “I know it must be dark when it’s that deep, but you have to be blind to miss whatever the hell is down there!”

“They were equipped with luminescence spheres, colloquially known as 'sparks',” Orth said, “they had plenty of light to illuminate the cavern.”

“No!” Vincent shot back, “either their eyeballs are broken, or your guys are lying to you! They saw something! They had to! After t-that thing kidnapped me and did this to me,” he gestured his face, “I woke up at the edge of this basin! Then the water inside it started rising and it just sucked me right in!” He stared at the objects on his table, recalling the vivid memory. “I started sinking toward this bright light. But I could look around and-and I saw a whole bunch of identical lights, repeating in every direction, like I was inside a fucking kaleidoscope. I just happened to be sinking toward the brightest one. And as soon as I reached it, suddenly I was floating ‘up’ toward the surface of Lorix’s Eye, and nearly drowned! How in the hell could you miss something like that?!”

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“Yell at me all you wish, Cordell,” Luin Orth said, keeping his voice calm. “You may call my men liars, you may even call me a liar. Maybe someday we may be able to take you back to Lorix’s Eye so you can see for yourself that it is just as I said: a spring, nothing more. You may even curse me for sending Kiolai Reashos to apprehend you. But my men risked their lives to retrieve these objects of yours.”

Vincent steadied his hand on the wall for support, trying and failing to temper his panic. He could feel their world clamping down on him and he had nowhere to run. He was trapped against a cliff on a shoreline, trying to find a place to hide from the incoming tsunami.

“I don’t care if you think I’m crazy,” he quivered, “maybe I am. If that’s the case, then you people, your world...are as real as fairies. You’re nothing more than symptoms of my insanity.” He picked up a vase in his hand and trembled with the desire to smash it against the wall. “But if any of this is actually happening,” he continued, “if you are really flesh and blood instead of some misfired synapses in my brain, then there is something...there is something at the bottom of that damn lake that your guys, who apparently can’t keep their paws out of a man’s wallet, missed.”

He turned back to Orth. “If you really cared about figuring out how in the hell I killed that girl, you need to go back to Lorix’s Eye and look again! Because that thing, that ‘Stalker’? It has the answers! It brought me here and it gave me those powers. And you know what? That thing is fucking with you. It doesn’t want to be found so easily, so it’s hiding and it’s fucking with all of you just as it fucked with me when it kidnapped me from my world and turned me into Sparkles the Gay Dragon!”

“How would you know this entity’s intent?” Orth asked, “Did it communicate with you before–”

“JUST LOOK AT ME!” It was not Vincent’s intent to shout, but hysteria caused the words to erupt from his mouth before he could stop them. He was quaking. He took a few deep breaths to summon some modicum of control as phosphenes danced at the edge of his periphery. When he continued, there were tremors in his voice. “Just...look at me. No...it didn’t communicate with me. I don’t know its ‘intent’. I just know you...you don’t do this to a person unless you really want to fuck with their head. Dammit! Fuck! Holy...crap! Why the hell don’t you people get it?!”

“Calm yourself,” Orth said, “I already have plans to send more people to Lorix’s Eye. I agree with you, your passage into our world requires more investigation. If there is something to be found there, we will find it. But whatever creature did this to you, it has a lore we have never heard of. We may not be able to fight it, nor send you back to your world. But give us time, and that may change.”

Vincent threw his hands into the air. “Your people have magic bridges that defy gravity. Fucking figure it out.”

“You have a temper.” Orth said, after a brief silence.

“Oh, nothing gets past you, does it?” Vincent scoffed at this astute observation.

“I will not pretend to give you hope, but to prepare you for disappointment. The High Channeler will keep his promise to do everything in his power to send you home. But until then, you are one of us and perhaps you may become something more.” At these words, he took an amulet from his pocket and held it out to Vincent. Not knowing why, Vincent accepted it and at its touch, he began to transform. The blue flesh darkened to twilight and the glowing celestials ran up his arms. Orth seemed to be satisfied at the interaction, as if proving a hunch. Had he guessed it was triggered by contact with liacyte? “To many, the Saedharu is a creature of prophecy. I do not know if that is what you are, and I remain skeptical. But strange things are happening across Admoran, things that coincided with your discovery. I do not know what life on 'Earth' is like, but the quicker you come to accept that there are things beyond your control, the quicker you can find peace with this tragedy.”

“That’s...very profound.” Vincent set the amulet back down. “No seriously, I think that could make it onto one of those cheap pieces of paper they stuff into fortune cookies.”

“I do not know what a ‘fortune cookie’ is, but I know the tone of derision.” Orth growled, “I have brought you your belongings–”

“–Most of them.” Vincent corrected.

“–could show some gratitude.”

“I'm indebted. When I wake up from my coma, I'll commission a bobblehead that looks like you.”

Orth clenched his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was constricted, “One more thing: Kiolai Reashos will be your escort and guard when you travel into the city. She already knows you and she will not draw att–”

“–Slade again? It just keeps getting better and better.”

“ENOUGH!” Luin Orth roared so loud he actually caused Vincent to flinch. It was the second time he had seen a Falian lose its temper. Such a thing should have been horrifying to witness and for a few splitting moments, it was. The veins in Orth’s pointed features throbbed with virulence and his eyes became like those of a shark’s. But when the initial scare passed, Vincent had to quell the sudden urge to laugh. He wasn’t completely successful and though he tried to disguise the snickering by pretending to cough, Orth still noticed.

“Is this all a jest to you?!” he snarled.

“N-no...” Vincent stuttered amid a desperate attempt to control himself.

“Then tell me, why are you laughing like a little wing-flapper?!” Orth barked, spraying the table with his spit.

“I-I’m seriously trying not to,” Vincent insisted. “But a dragon...an actual dragon, is standing here shouting at me. Right now, that’s the funniest shit in the world.”

Vincent expected Orth to shout at him some more. Instead, the creature grabbed him by the arm, pulled him from the chair, and thrust him against the wall with such strength and such speed, he had no time to react. One moment he was laughing at the absurdity of a cringy, mythical creature losing its shit at him and the very next, he found the breath knocked from his chest. He automatically tried to throw a swing at Orth, but the creature caught his fist and pinned it against his own chest.

“Attempt to strike me again and you will spend the night in one of our prisons,” he growled, leaning close. “Are all humans like you? Are all of them such petulant little wing-flappers?! I told you I did not come here as your adjudicator but perhaps saying that was a mistake you insolent brat! Your rack is uncapped, you have death on your hands and poison in your mouth. I should drag you from this place and throw you into the darkest cell we have.”

With every word Orth spoke, white canines flashed behind pointed lips. Vincent could smell the creature’s foul breath and feel its hand trembling against his chest with a desire to strike him. He had no idea what in the hell had gotten into the creature as he had been calm moments before, but it was all right, whatever rage Orth felt, it was nothing compared to his own.

“You do that. You just go ahead and do that,” Vincent said, his words trembling, driven by the caustic venom that coursed behind his ribs. “Let me tell you something: I enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed snuffing out her life. It was satisfying, like scratching an itch that I’ve been trying to scratch for years.”

Disgust crept into Orth’s eyes as he gazed upon the spiteful creature he held. But Vincent returned his glare and continued. “You bastards never let me have a normal life,” he hissed, “not even a normal childhood. You couldn’t even let me be a fucking kid. I was always...always at your fuckers’ mercy. You all made me an outcast to everyone, even my damn family. You turned me into fodder for everybody's fucking gossip. Parents wouldn't even want their kids going near me. All I could do was pop a couple of pills and go see some useless shrinks. It was so damn satisfying that for once, after all these wasted fucking years, I could finally make one of you pay for all the life you stole from me, that I could actually grab one of you by the neck and squeeze...squeeze until I felt the bones break beneath my hands.”

Orth fixed him in a glare of rage, disgust, and disbelief, his eyes darting in their sockets at Vincent's accusations. He could see confusion flirting with horror, both dancing across the creature's pointed countenance. He looked diminished.

“You...” Orth whispered, sounding both disgusted and baffled. “You truly do believe we are nothing more than symptoms of your madness.”

“It finally understands,” Vincent scoffed, placing a hand on Orth’s and dared to pry it off. The creature tightened its grip. “Want to prove you're more than a symptom? Go ahead and break my neck. Kill me. Let's see if Ayrlon's light vanishes. Hell, they might even build you a statue and–”

At that moment, there came quick footsteps down the hallway. The door slammed open and bounced against the wall.

“Luin, I do not know what is transpiring here,” Thal'rin's voice growled, “but you will put him down immediately.”

At first it did not seem like Orth would obey the High Channeler's command. But then an “awareness” came into his eyes, and he seemed to realize that he had been pinning Vincent to the wall. He released his grip as though his hands had been burnt and took a step back, looking horrified.

“I do not know why I...” Orth sounded confused, shocked even. Then he cleanly resumed a pose of calm dignity, until only his eyes betrayed his mortification. “I...owe you an apology Vincent Cordell. This was not...who I am.”

“No need to apologize,” Vincent said, massaging the hand that Orth had pinned to his chest. “Thanks for my stuff. Get the fuck out.”

Then he noticed the look on Thal'rin's face and felt ice drop into his chest. There was nothing cartoonish or laughable about the fury and appalment in the creature's eyes. The electricity in his unblinking irises looked ready to pierce the soul. Vincent knew he was looking at the being that was so feared in all of Mid-Admoran. Orth had fucked up.

“High Channeler,” Orth said, turning to Thal'rin, “I will explain what...transpired.”

“I am certain you will!” Thal'rin snapped, “come.”

After they both left, Vincent remained frozen to the spot as if his feet had been nailed to the floor. What in the hell just happened? What in the actual hell? He was left stunned for a few moments, then he began to recall their conversation. There was no gate in Lorix's Eye. That couldn’t be true. He remembered what he saw. He may have forgotten the details, but he remembered the transition, the sensation of drowning as well as the moment when up became down and he floated toward the surface. There was no gate...he was trapped, trapped in this world, in this body. His blood-covered garments testified to his alternation, permanent and complete. Thal'rin's face...the fury in his eyes...why, why couldn't he laugh at the sight? He needed to. This world was just a fantasy.

Vincent didn’t know what he was doing when he threw on the hoodie, grabbed his old prescription bottle and wallet, then headed out into the hallway. He needed to get outside. He could hear hints of Thal'rin's anger and he headed in the opposite direction. He retread the path the High Channeler took when he led Vincent up to the garden. He stepped out to a vista of crystal and jade, an alien city housed within a snowless, fractured globe.

The foundations seemed to teeter beneath him as he aimed for the tree growing from the mound of dirt in the reflection pool, carefully walking on the steppingstones to get to it. He tried to sit down and lean his back against it, but no, only a human could do that. Humans did not have tails that got in their way. For once he yearned for psychosis to steal away his awareness, so he didn’t have to feel his prison of flesh clinging to his mind like some parasite.

He sat on a low-growing branch big enough to support his weight, and awkwardly held himself up with one hand. With the other, he dug through his pocket and withdrew the prescription bottle. There was something sickly poetic about the image. The hand he used, blue with ridged, iridescent flesh, held the orange vessel between its claws, the label in tatters.

***

“I will not make any excuses for my actions, High Channeler,” Orth said, strutting around the chamber. “I simply do not know what geas came over me. He was petulant, disrespectful, and had no regard for the danger my relos put themselves in. However, I’ve dealt with all of those traits in people before. Why this time I lost myself...the cause eludes me.”

Thal'rin sat in the middle of the chamber with his legs crossed, fingers folded across the bridge of his snout. Normally, he came to this chamber to find peace and to meditate, not to scold city officials. But what he had witnessed left him absolutely stunned. Orth paced back and forth, his words filled with shock. It was one of the first times Thal’rin had seen the man this distraught. Angry? Always. But this...Orth sounded just as stunned at his own actions as Thal’rin felt.

How long had it been since Thal’rin had lost his own temper? An entala at least? Perhaps more? It was a sign that he was taking on more than he could bear, perhaps. More and more he found himself thinking of the eel that earned him his legacy. Back then, he never thought anything could come close to matching such terror. But now he was considering a more frightening possibility: perhaps the eel was a lesson to prepare him for whatever was coming. The thought deprived him of much-needed sleep.

Luin stopped for a moment and considered himself in the mirror as if he did not recognize the figure it reflected.

“Do I want him dead?” he whispered.

Thal’rin’s ear twitched.

“Dead?” he repeated more harshly than he had intended.

“Yes. Does some part of me want him dead because of what he might do?” Luin asked the figure in the mirror. “Am I afraid that he is the reason for Ayrlon's weeping? Or am I angry because of what he did to that young woman, and because I am disgusted by his confession? Or perhaps his charisma...”

“Confession?” Thal'rin asked, “where he admitted to 'enjoying' it?”

Luin nodded. “You had to see him, Thal'rin. He was telling the truth when he spoke those words. He was not saying them from mere spite.”

“Luin...he is terrified. Anybody can see that.” Thal'rin closed his eyes and massaged his cheeks. “I will not claim to know him well, but I recognize it when one hides their fear behind a mask of hostility. His alleged role as the Saedharu should not be the first thing that comes to our minds when we consider who he is or who he may become. In our dealings with him, we should remember that he is a victim. We should remember that he did not come to our world by choice.”

Luin chuffed a bit at that but said nothing more. Thal'rin sighed before continuing. “In regard to his 'confession' about Teresis, perhaps you were indeed, seeing his anger, not the truth. We do not know what it is like to live with the Bane. We have never even considered it. Even before he came here, it must have been torment, living life while having madness as a constant companion. Can you imagine the rage you would feel if your faculties were never under your own control, that you were constantly hounded by mouthless voices? He has explicitly told me, when I asked, that he does not want to talk about it. Could you truly fault him for taking all that anger out on Teresis, especially since he thought she was another...manifestation of the Bane's lies?”

“Nevertheless, we can’t ignore the fact that he has demonstrated powers we have no knowledge about,” Luin said, “his arrival coincides with the strange storms that ravage our lands. We can’t ignore that. Furthermore, he has demonstrated overt hostility toward us.”

“We sent bounty hunters after him,” Thal’rin said.

“He believes we are a fiction,” Orth said, “if he poses a threat to us, then this 'belief' of his may nullify any moral qualms he has about bringing harm upon our people.”

“I think we should exercise more prudence before assuming he’s a threat. Hijacking liacyte-based conduits and repelling telen are worrying abilities, yes, but you speak as if you believe he is the paradox.”

“I speak as somebody who has fought against the scarheads.” Orth massaged his mangled wing. “I don’t believe in fables. But I’ve learned not to underestimate anybody or anything, Thal’rin. He is an unknown.”

“Then we should go after the entity that did this to him,” Thal'rin said, “what Vincent experienced was an act of pure malice. That will be our priority. Also, do not ever utter that phrase in my presence again.”

“Scarhead” was a common slur used to refer to Jalharens, named after their airdancers’ practice of scorching their scalps. Luin chuffed at the rebuke, but nodded.

Thal'rin summoned Sincalindre to his hands and rested the conduit across his lap. “I do not know what is coming, but that light in the Runite Vault...am I allowed to be frightened? Many think I’m not, but I am. I’m just not allowed to show my dread to the public. This conduit that I hold was not earned by prowess, but by sheer mortal terror, by a realization that I am insignificant in the scope of the world. It was given as a reminder, not as a weapon.”

Sincalindre did not look like a tangible object. The conduit was a thin sliver of bright white radiance that was as long as Thal'rin was tall. It looked as if somebody had sliced the air, cutting an opening in reality. Blinding white light poured through from the other side. He considered the evasive bar of light in his hands for a few moments before he dismissed it.

“I am rambling,” he said, “but everything I said is true. I need your aid, the aid of The Thirteen, the aid of the Culluinar, and the aid of the other syredels. That being upstairs could be a threat to us, yes. Or he could also aid us, we simply don’t know. Weaverfire! He is from another world! Do you know how significant that is? Whether or not his form or his abilities were given to him by a malefic entity is irrelevant. What is relevant is that for now, he is one of us: a creature of reason. He is far from his home and he has suffered profoundly for it. The last thing he needs is our hostility. You are a city official. I expect you to maintain your composure no matter how much 'venom' he gives you. So whatever it is about him that caused you to erupt, it will not happen again. That display was beyond shameful and you will find a way to apologize to him.”

After Orth left, Thal'rin closed his eyes to listen to the tap in the wall trickle for a short while. Then he got up and went to look for Vincent. He expected to find him in the guest room, but the door was open, and nobody was in it. Instead, his various belongings had been scattered across the floor, probably thrown by the scuffle that transpired. Sighing, Thal'rin entered the room and picked them up, handling them with care. He placed them on the table. He hoped Vincent would not mind his intervention. Sylax had a habit of dragging away and hoarding items that were left on the floor.

The blue garment was just as Luin had described, stiff and stained with streaks of red. Vincent had never said what the substance was when Thal’rin found streaks of it on his other garments but now that he knew it was blood, his gut wrenched at the sight. Involuntarily, he imagined one of his own sons being ripped apart piece by piece. How could that creature still be walking around and speaking after everything he had endured? What goes through the mind of somebody who survives such a thing?