There runs a stream in the old canal by the slums. That runs beside old man Bomo's den, and passes through the bakery and dips down into the ocean. In the dip the children play, enjoying the little water fall and the slide. When old man Bomo died it stayed abandoned for years till the strange old lady with the raven took over. Years have passed and the children who played in the slums are no longer there, and the stream which was once clear was hued orange. Madmen now drink from the orange stream, the children forbidden by their mothers to ever go near. The stream that was once a part of childhood has become a forbidden fruit only the madmen drink.

The old women with the raven is a witch, so the mothers say, she snatches little boys and girls form their homes. And sure enough there are many children that gather around her house - that once belonged to old man Bomo. Every morning, every night, the children seem feverish and sick and they go to her house. The old house smells of burning lilacs, and every Friday, in the depth of night when the moon is hidden behind the clouds an old coach and 2 carriages pass by that old house, bringing barrels of what smells like lilacs.

On a rainy day a child arrives at night, too early, feverish and shivering, knocking on those old doors for Madam Crow. "Madam Crow! Madam Crow!" He shouts between the chatter of his teeth. "What is it Boy!" The old women's voice booms out the door. The door slams the boy to the ground. He begins to plea from the ground, crawling to his feet. "They," he shivers to tell her, "the other boys, they' kicked me out. They won't let me in. I can't go back there. They' kicked me out."

"What did you do boy?" She asks, and so the pleading boy becomes the accused and now he stammers for words to defend himself. The world had twisted, finding himself the accused and the victim he can't find any words to compel this cold women that eyes him with one glass eye that never blinks. Bored and indifferent she closes the door. The boy stands in the hush of wind and the patter of rain, and begins to sob. Silently he begins and soon he can't help himself; wails and chokes escape him, and echoes from bones. The door opens again and the boy is caught disheveled, the women stares him down, aims her old revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger. The shot echoes through the rain like thunder. The shriek of a raven fluttering its feathers comes from the house, and she turns her neck, and says "Be quite Susan." So the raven is named Susan. Then she shouts for a "Tom!" Over and over again until she hears the stumbling footsteps of a sleepy Thomas in the dark. A young man of about 20 emerges from the dark, perhaps he looks a bit older with those dark baggy eyes, those deteriorating teeth, and wrinkles of misuse.

"Take him, down." Madam Crow says to Tom, pointing at the boy's collapsed body.

"What happen?" Asks Tom clearing his eyes, taking in the sight of the boy soaked in rain sleeping along the cobblestones.

Madam Crow runs her long painted nails along Thomas' confused face, and says in a whispered tone: "Now Tom, Don't ask questions and do what I tell you."

He could see the gun in her hands, and she held his chin and gazed into his eyes.

"Sure." He said, avoiding her eyes.

He threw a smock over his head, and went out. Picked up the boy gently off the cobblestones and the rain, and looking back he saw that the door had already been closed. Madam Crow had gone back to bed. He took the boy down the ruined path, following the stream to the ocean, and from there to the end of the docks and placed him into the sea. The wind and the rain in its fashion took him.

Months passed and to the east, where the city ends, past the last church steeple, where the allies turn narrow and crocked, where the roads are broken and fading; at the entrance to the slums a carriage slows and stops. The door comes ajar, and out steps a boy of 11 or 12, named Emmanuel. A broad shouldered man, bald, and with scars running along his face, leans out to remind him of his duty, his goal, his sister, his justice, his secrets, and his future. A heavy burden for an 11 year old, but he replies "Yes, Sir!" As enthusiastic as ever.

"Good, I'm glad you understand." Said Derraacs, feeling the scar on his face, a habit he has developed having stayed in this form for months now. "Very well then." He says to the boy waiting at the door for his last words. "Be safe." It was trite but he couldn't think of anything else, and so he closed the door and told Frank, the coachman, to go.

Emmanuel, the boy, walked down the ruined pathways, broken stairs, and slopping hills down the many terraces that make up the slums. He stops his descent about four terraces above where the land dips into the sea. Using the sound of the stream as a guide he weaves through the tilted houses, and narrow pathways to the old house that smells of lilacs.

He hesitated to knock. The ocean shimmered under the moon, the moon seemed far away, ready to join the stars. Even the ocean seemed supernaturally far away, everything seemed far away except the house and the door. He took a deep breath and hit the door. He heard the falling of footsteps approach the door, and it swung open and there stood a man with dark sunken eyes.

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"What is it?" Asked Tom, Thomas had taken to opening the door quickly and first, ever since the incident some months ago.

The boy mutters, tongue tied, forgetting everything Derraacs had told him: "I was told to come."

"By who?" Asked Tom.

In a whirlwind of idiocy and pop-art faces his mind produced he realized he had made a mistake, he shuts up and refuses to speak further.

Tom, taking on a more delicate air, that didn't quite suit his figure, or the house, he asked gently in a calming voice: "Who told you come here?"

There was silence once again, the crow began to croak at him from within, and he could hear his heart beat throbbing. Choking on the words he said: "I don't know."

The man's brows were wrinkled, his eyes darted back and forth. "She'll wake her up." Thomas was nerves, his palms sweaty, and the dull ache along his temple was pinching him. "You better go." He said to the boy, "I know why you're here." Those words made Emmanuel's heart jump. "You're homeless, you have nothing, they probably told you, you could find 'work' here." With each creaking, croaking, shrill tick of the damned bird his voice grew faster, and they could feel the beating of time. "Find it somewhere else, this is no place for you."

Emmanuel couldn't simply leave, couldn't simply return. What of his sister, what of his duty... "But- but-" He said, grasping at the only word that would lend its aid, all others stood at the back of his mind refusing to come out.

"But," Tom continued, "if you still wish to throw away your life, come back here at high noon, never at night. Come back here and wait, don't knock, I'll open the door, I'll introduce you to her, do as I tell you and you won't die. Now go away before she wakes up." And he closed the door.

He ran away, as fast as he could, he was only glad to get away from that house that smelled of lilacs. He climbed the little hills, the levels of this arena of doom. Somewhere far up, in a crooked street without a name, far from the house of lilacs, but still somewhere in the middle of the slums he grew tired, slowed, and began to think. Where was he running to? Could he go back? Tell Derraacs he couldn't do it? That he was scared? What of his sister? And his duty and whatever else Derraacs had spoken in that long carriage ride here. Couldn't he work in the shop with Derraacs, he could be useful in other ways than here… back here in the slums. Derraacs wouldn't throw him out, certainly not... Would he? The thought tormented him, he stared singularly at a indistinguishable spot on the ruined cobblestones; his sister, his duties, thrown out! So the record played over and over behind his eyes.

He watched the sunrise, rise higher and higher, and then there he was when the sun had reached its peak, in front of that same house that smelled so ominously of lilacs. Perhaps scared of being thrown out, not to disappoint Derraacs, for his sister or whatever else Derraacs was talking about on that carriage ride, he was here waiting for the man with the dark sagging eyes to open the door.

He waited till the sun had begun to set when Thomas opened the door and waved him in. He had seen many boys and girls his age go by, pass him into the house while he waited. Every time the door opened and his eyes met Tom's, he gave a grimace, as if to tell him to go away. That this was no place for him. Why the man thought so, Emmanuel couldn't understand, did he change so much in the last few months, was there something about him that told him he didn't belong in the slums. It was true during his stay at Derraacs' he had eaten well, bathed every day, and found some joy in his training. He was a level 5 Summoner now, and that did bring about a few changes that he can't deny, but what did this man see?

The moment he stepped into the house a poignant fume of burning sweet and spicy smells assaulted his nostrils. But it was not lilacs, he could see the orange powder, the chemistry sets and the children working. He was led past them into the back rooms, where there was more of them working. He was led upstairs, in a corner sat a child curled up, her face on her knees, weeping with lacerations on her legs, and he thought of his sister, of Tom's warning: the slum. And it all came back to him, as if he had forgotten, though he never had. His thoughts swam in undulating waters; him afloat a boat with a hole as big as a grape. Ah, so you noticed, the water seemed to say, glooping up through the hole. He was standing in front of an old women before he noticed. Madam Crow, Thomas introduced, and Emmanuel didn't have to speak much, thankfully, Thomas did most of the talking for him.

"I expect good things from you boy." The old women said at the end Tom's introductory speech.

"Yes!" Said Emmanuel, instinctively.

Thomas showed him around, and gave him more advice. Advice Emmanuel listened attentively. I must stay alive, he told himself, and chanted repeatedly to ward of some foreboding future he couldn't help sense.

As the sun set and as the last orange glow of the flame submitted to the night he was led to his new home. A decadent row of houses with open roofs and cracking walls, he was given a bed to call his own in a room with 4 other beds and 4 other beings around his age or maybe a bit older. He was introduced, and they were introduced, and Thomas said goodbye for the night.

His roommates weren't bad people, they were friendly enough and willing to help, but he could tell they would never be friends. He had simply joined the group too late, they had their own jokes, their own games, and their own modes of speech. They had lived similar lives, been together since the beginning and their lives had taken the same turns. He was not so far off, but certain events had made his course a diverging one from theirs.

As he laid there and soaked into the long day he's had, and as the knotted and confusing thoughts faded he pictured of a day far in the future, of a day when he would learn new summons, and wondered how strong he will become. Derraacs had told him not to use his summons unless of an emergency. He had never used any of them, other than in training, this power was still a bit alien to him, as if it wasn't a part of him... And all these thoughts faded as he fell asleep.