It was some time before the ancient arcanist and young bear found a suitable stream. The first they crossed didn't have a good place for Charlot to scry. The second stream they found had a deep pool, and after the bear had drunk his fill, Charlot slipped from his back. At the water's edge, he took a small vial no bigger than a tooth from his robe and tapped purple dust from it into the pool.

With a frown, he saw he'd used slightly too much, there was just barely enough left in the tiny vial for another scrying. Charlot felt a little foolish for using the expensive powder to spy on the bumpkins of Fraughten, but he was dying to know what had become of them. It wasn't as if he could scry for the boy. Charlot had no part of him to hunt with, not even a name.

The purple powder sat on the surface of the pool, and he spoke the magic words. At once, the pool deepened to violet, then to darkest indigo, and, finally, it became black as polished obsidian. Sitting on the bank, the bear peered at the pool and made a huffing sound.

"Let's see what became of our friends in Fraughten. Those men you ate surely have changed the balance of power. Likely, the villagers have done away with the shants. You may be a revolutionary, Korak."

The bear sniffed uncertainly at the pool, and Charlot shooed him with a wave of his hand to keep him from disturbing the spell. Scrying powder was dear, indeed. As the arcanist and his bear watched, the reflection on the water appeared to drop away, falling to the depths of the stream, and the pool grew deeper and deeper until it had no bottom. The black water took on a silvery sheen.

"Fraughten," Charlot invoked, fixing the village firmly in his mind. At once, they were peering into the home of the Widow Ytrette, the comfortable little cottage where he'd enjoyed a wonderful meal. All the details of the place he hadn’t seen before leapt out at him, for the scrying saw perfectly, and the flat surface of the pool was only a few feet away.

Charlot was stung by how little he could see on his own. He hadn’t noticed the dried bundles of herbs nestled in the rafters, nor the tapestries hung on the wall around the loom. They were quite good, and he could have complimented Ytrette on them if only he’d seen. Nor had he seen the little altar to Audera. Small wonder she’d treated him so kindly if she was a devotee of the Wanderstar! Yet, all the same, a little disappointing to learn she would have likely treated any stranger that way.

Charlot shook his head. He had no business looking here. It was a common thing when scrying, the mind forever bounding to the places where it had been happiest, shying away from the places it had known pain.

He could not help but glance about the cabin for a sight of her, his heart beating a step faster as he imagined her lying in bed, her hair fanned across her pillow, her face angelic in sleep. But the bed was empty and the hearth was cold. Charlot's disappointment surprised him with his intensity.

He had a moment to feel like a rotten old voyeur before he focused his will to the town square, and the scene sank into the scrying pool. The town square resolved, and he could see the rain had not washed the bloodstains from the stone, the whipping post had been ripped from the ground, and the hole was full of rainwater. No one was there.

Oh, no. Charlot took care not to lose focus as the dread built in his stomach. He had not been to the top of the hill where the shants lived, so he had to guide the scrying eye up the rising path with his will. Atop the hill, he found the fortified gate had been thrown wide.

He looked for signs of a struggle and found none, and then, at the top of the hill, the arcane eye was surrounded by a haze of smoke. In the center of the square, a fire burned and a huge wooden idol was alight.

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Though it was fully ablaze, the idol was still recognizable as Cymmerin, Herald of the Sun. Charlot snorted, and a ripple shot through the scrying orb until he regained his focus.

"Sun cult fools," he muttered, and men came out of the church, carrying axes. Others brought planks of wood that had been painted a gaudy yellow, graven with nonsensical sigils that had no power. They had chopped up an altar to the so-called Truestar.

"Burn it all!" an angry voice demanded, and Charlot recognized Millian, the village healer, and no doubt the architect of this uprising. He willed his eye around the upper rise, looking for bodies or blood, but he saw none.

The shants had made a clean break of it. Carefully, he peered at the faces of the villagers, trying to read how they felt. There was adulation, fear, excitement. A woman stood beside her husband, both of them looking as if they were nearly about to cry as the men cast the painted bits of dais onto the bonfire. These were the true believers.

Fools.

Charlot paid special attention to the way they looked at Millian. He scrutinized their posture as they stood by her, how long it had taken the men to do what she'd ordered, how their faces looked afterward. There was control, but there was hesitation and some degree of fear. She would rule the hamlet, but it was no certain thing. He suspected she would have to get rid of a few people to cement her grip.

Charlot relaxed his mind and let the vision sink to the bottom of the stream, the scrying through. The information he’d gleaned was well worth the precious scrying powder.

The former masters of Fraughten would not simply vanish. He suspected their easiest course of action was to follow the Cormorbo south until they found some other self-proclaimed nobility. If word of a peasant revolt spread, it would jeopardize their own tenuous holds on their so-called estates. They would leap at the chance to make an example of the weakly defended hamlet.

Or perhaps vengeance was their game? If whispers found their way to the Wyrth Legion that the town was undefended, they would be obliterated. A single cohort would be the death of every man woman and babe in that town, whether they hid in that meager fortress at the top of the hill or not. Charlot had seen the result far too often, the awful stench of razing, smoldering homes and blackened bodies, blood-soaked dirt festering in the heat of day. He spat into the brush at the thought, wishing he could expel those memories as easily.

Perhaps the shants would simply give up, accept their loss and move on.

Charlot snorted at the thought. What wealthy man was ever so sanguine? Certainly, if someone had forced him from the Crimson Citadel, he would stop at nothing to destroy them.

The bear grunted and reached out a paw, tapping the pool with the very tip of his claw, and then looking to Charlot. Charlot shrugged and showed him a pair of empty hands.

No more.

The bear rumbled with disappointment, Charlot judged he’d ruminated enough. The master arcanist and his ursine companion climbed up the riverbank and made their way back to the road. Charlot glanced one more back at the way they’d come. Still, there was no sign of pursuit.

Were they even headed the right way? Charlot wondered if perhaps Millian had pointed him in the wrong direction to be rid of him. The woman was brave enough to lie, but not stupid enough to tempt a wizard’s wrath without a good reason. What was her angle in all of this?

For a moment, Charlot was caught in indecision. It was just one boy he hoped to save ahead of him. If the shants returned in force, there would be carnage, yet his involvement would not necessarily lessen it. Charlot could not shake the thought that had he not left his tower, the four men Korak had slain and eaten would still be alive. The revolt would have never happened.

And, of course, the child he’d saved in the village would have died, as would Korak. Four for two. There was no use in counting, he was already so far behind on the scales he could not catch up if he lived another century. Yet still, the balance weighed on him. He shrugged and climbed back atop the bear. When all was said and done, he wanted to find the boy.

"Forward, noble Korak!" Charlot said, his voice a touch louder than necessary. The bear seemed happy to get going.