Chapter 36: Shadows Over Onrac
"Rath, can you come out here for a minute? We have a slight problem…"
Just over a week had passed since the Light Warriors had left Gaia. The Phaëton now hovered above where Onrac lay, according to the maps Cen and Sapphire had checked. Unfortunately, neither they nor Estel could see if this was actually so due to a thick bank of fog and low clouds hanging beneath them and spreading out for miles in every direction like a smooth grey sea. So, Cen had elected to go ask Rath for assistance.
Also unfortunately, Rath did not want to assist at all.
"How regrettable," he replied without opening the door to his cabin. "You have my deepest sympathy for this predicament, I assure you. Do inform me when you have deduced a solution."
Cen sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"Come on, we need your help with this. Do you want to get rid of the Fiend of Water or don't you?"
There was silence for a moment, then the door jerked open, revealing an exasperated-looking Rath, his golden eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his hat.
"What is it?"
"We, ah, can't find Onrac. We should be right over it, but…"
Rath did not look surprised by this; he did not even offer a snide remark. Instead, his expression mellowed considerably, though his hands did clench at his sides. He brushed past Cen and swept across the common room and out onto the deck. Cen followed him without comment.
The airship hovered motionless, its propellers whirring sedately in the moisture-laden air. Estel and Sapphire stood at the starboard railing, staring down at the blank stretch of opaque grey spread out beneath them. Rath went to the opposite side of the ship and looked down as well, his hands pressed flat against the top of the railing. Cen returned to his post at the levistone and looked at Rath as though waiting for instructions.
"So where do we go?" he asked at length.
Rath did not reply. He remained intent on the fog below, though he almost seemed to be looking through it rather than at it. Cen did not press the matter, and Estel and Sapphire seemed to be ignoring the exchange as they too gazed downward. The only sound breaking the still air came from the Phaëton's engine and propellers.
"You were correct," Rath said at last, not turning away from the railing. "We are directly above the town."
"Oh. Well, good. So we just have to wait for that fog to clear, and then we can land, right?"
"Then we would be waiting for a very long time. That fog does not clear."
Cen's eyes widened in surprise. "What, never?"
"Yes." Rath remained silent for a moment, then gestured for Cen to start moving the ship. "We can land on the western shore of the river; the fog is thinner there."
Night had fallen by the time Cen navigated the Phaëton to a suitable landing place: a thin strip of bare land just west of a broad, sluggish brown river. The fog here was little more than a thin mist hovering close to the ground, but it looked much thicker on the eastern shore. The Light Warriors spent the night in the airship, resting and preparing to start the journey to Onrac itself on foot the next day.
The following morning revealed a dreary landscape to them. Westward, the sandy soil gave way to a vast expanse of white: a salt desert. Closer at hand to the north stood the foothills of the Onrac Mountains, low and rounded and covered with heath. The turbid river disappeared back into these hills. This only would have been moderately discomforting had it not been for the utter lack of sound; there were no noises of animals wholesome or unwholesome, no rustling from the sparse underbrush, no echoes thrown back by the hills. Even the river rolled by in complete silence. The air, very cool but not cold, felt deadened and heavy.
Sapphire shivered and took Estel's hand on reflex as she looked around.
"Okay," Cen said. He wore his dark dragonscale armor under his heavy hooded cloak, his sword strapped at his waist. "Lead the way, Rath."
Rath started off down a narrow track without a word. The other companions followed him in equal silence.
The thin, salty soil became thicker and more clay-like the closer they drew to the river, with the shore a thick mud that sucked at their boots, making it difficult to walk. As the other three companions struggled with this, Rath made his way to a pair of tall posts marking the presence of a little dock, the boards weatherworn and moss-coated. A massive, rusting crank stood there as well, attached to a heavy chain that disappeared into the murky water. Rath put his hands on the crank's cold, wet handle and pushed it; it gave slightly, but the motion was reluctant. Rath turned to Cen as he approached, a bit ahead of Estel and Sapphire.
"I require your assistance," he said, with little inflection.
"Sure, no problem."
Cen's greater strength allowed him to operate the device without difficulty. The grinding of the gears and the squealing of the wet, rusty chain moving through the pulleys rent the air, horribly loud after the silence. At last, a shape began to approach over the water, cutting through the mist: a ferry, drawn by the chain. The companions boarded it when it reached the dock, and, with Cen pulling it along the chain manually, they rode it across to the eastern bank.
The fog became immediately thicker, and it only grew more so as they continued down the packed dirt path and into a dim forest. The large, leafless trees looked twisted and unhealthy, aside from the occasional evergreen towering over the others. These sentinals became less frequent as the group went on. The undergrowth consisted mostly of thick, sturdy bracken, the dark fronds covering nearly the entire ground and encroaching on the path. Before the fog grew too thick, lichen and moss could be seen growing thick on the tree trunks. The unnatural silence persisted, sound muffled by the fog and the heaviness in the air. The crunch of the companions' boots on the dirt fell dead, and any attempts to speak trailed off almost at once just because of the sheer insistence of the silence. It seemed to resent being broken.
Rath led the way as the group traveled. Estel and Sapphire walked behind him, Sapphire more often than not clinging to Estel's hand with visible unease. Estel, though hardly pleased by their surroundings himself, put on a brave face to encourage her. Cen brought up the rear, though the precaution seemed hardly necessary; the lack of wildlife persisted, or if there was any, it kept itself hidden. The companions camped on the path, huddled around a small, smoking fire, the best that even Rath could do in this sodden place.
After the first day, the path they followed bent northward, following a course along the base of the foothills rising up to the west. The fog continued to thicken as they went on, so that soon they could see little more than twenty feet in any direction, and heavy, low clouds closed in overhead. Slowly, the landscape began to change. The path became intermittently cobbled, the stones crooked and caked with lichen. Moss hung from the tree branches in long, greyish tendrils; more than once a long feeler would trail over someone's hand or face, causing a brief alarm. And new shapes began to emerge out of the thick greyness, rarely at first, but then more and more frequently: rusty, twisted wrought-iron gates; crumbling stone walls; the occasional looming bulk of a derelict building, half-collapsed and covered in moss and vines, its empty windows staring out at the mist-choked forest around it.
The atmosphere gained a chill that had nothing to do with the damp air.
"Rath?" Sapphire whispered. "Is…is the rest of Onrac like this too?"
Rath did not answer at once.
"…Yes. Though most of the structures are intact." His tone was cool, even detached, but there was a very slight undertone to it that the others could not identify. They refrained from asking questions after that.
They reached the inhabited portion of Onrac near evening of their seventh day of walking. Rath stopped between two pillars bordering the now fully paved path, his gloved hands clenched tight at his sides as he stared around at the broken town.
As he had said, it looked little better than the outlying ruins. The buildings still stood, but with chipped and crumbled stonework. Canals riddled the ground, feeble attempts to channel the encroaching ocean, and the bridges spanning them had the same worn stone and looked none too safe to tread on. Anything metal was rusted, anything made of wood was rotten, and mold and mildew showed on everything in dark streaks and patches. The entire place smelled musty and dank, and the heavy air stuck in the companions' throats.
"It is not a particularly healthy environment," Rath commented, answering an unspoken question from the others. He did not look at his companions, instead continuing to survey the scene in front of him. "You see why I insisted we bring along more of our own provisions than generally necessary."
Sapphire looked around in shock.
"This is awful. How could anyone live in a place like this? Just think of all the diseases that could spread in these conditions. And how—"
"I shall thank you not to lecture me on the conditions of my hometown," Rath snapped, the most emotion he had shown since the group had been in Gaia. "We live here because it is our home. We survive here because we have adapted to the conditions and are able to find resources that do the same."
Estel too looked around at the dim, foggy town, his expression almost identical to the one he had worn before when he had been forced to enter caves.
"And it's always like this here?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yes," Rath said. "Always."
"Since when?"
"Since the Shrine of Water sank into the ocean two hundred years ago."
"Where do we go now?" Cen asked. He looked as uncomfortable as the others, but he kept it in control. "It's getting late; we won't be able to get anything done today. We haven't even talked about how we're going to get down to the Shrine." He turned to Rath. "Is there somewhere that we can stay, or…?"
After a moment, Rath nodded and started onward again, the fog swirling slightly as he passed through it. Cen, Estel, and Sapphire followed him.
No lights shone in the windows of the houses the companions passed. No sound of people speaking or moving disturbed the silence; the only sound was the distant noise of waves crashing on a rocky shore, oddly loud in the unnatural silence. The fog pressed even more heavily on the companions as the evening advanced and the air grew darker. Rath did not appear bothered by this, and Cen and Estel tried to appear unperturbed as well, with varying degrees of success, but Sapphire made no attempt to hide her unease. She stared around with wide eyes, her face slightly pale. She kept glancing over her shoulder, as though certain someone or something was about to sneak up on her.
Something small and pale scurried through the dark bracken.
With a cry that made the others jump, Sapphire latched on to Estel with such force that it nearly knocked him off his feet.
"I saw something! There's something out there!"
"Yeah, probably one of the people that lives here. Saph, c'mon…" Estel tried to loosen Sapphire's stranglehold on him. "I can't breathe with you doin' that."
Sapphire did not relent.
"I don't like this place! It's dark and cold and I feel like I'm being suffocated by this fog." She turned to Rath, who watched her indifferently. "Can't we just go down to the Shrine now and get this over with, please? I can't stay the night here, I just can't."
"I would like nothing more," Rath said. He looked like a specter himself, wrapped in the fog with his face obscured in darkness. "Unfortunately, that is not an option. We must wait for daylight before journeying to the Shrine, if only because we need time to formulate a plan to reach it."
Trembling, Sapphire remained silent, her lips pressed tightly together. Finally, however, she nodded.
"…All right. If we have to. But I know I won't be able to sleep here."
The group continued onward. At length, a dull, reddish glow appeared in the thick mist off to the right: firelight. Sapphire perked up a bit at this sign of life, but Rath slowed his pace, dropping back from the lead. Cen stepped forward to take his place. The narrow road turned toward the light, leading across a canal. After the companions had followed this a short distance, a thin, pale figure came into view suddenly ahead, facing away from them. As they drew nearer, their footsteps attracted the figure's attention, and it turned to look at them.
The companions halted. The figure, a woman perhaps in her late twenties, said something to them in Onracean. She had a thin face with prominent cheekbones, a pallid complexion, and protuberant dark eyes. Her dark hair, cropped short, hung loose around her face, and she looked almost painfully thin in her unadorned grey dress. Her strange features and paleness gave her an otherworldly appearance as she stood in the fog.
Rath made no move to respond to the woman, so Cen stepped forward.
"Hello. I'm sorry if we startled you. We weren't sure if anyone was even here."
The woman did not look placated. Her prominent eyes narrowed slightly.
"Who are you?" she asked, speaking Common with a heavy accent. "You are not with the caravan."
"Er, no. We're from down south. We're here for, um."
Cen broke off, at a bit of a loss as to how to explain their presence; Rath kept silent as well, and Estel and Sapphire looked as uncertain as Cen. Luckily, as soon as Cen mentioned 'down south', the woman's gaze became much less hostile.
"Ah! You are from the scholars, then, yes? From Unne and Venture?"
Cen blinked a few times, but then realization set in and he nodded.
"Er, yeah, that's right. Tristan Venture is my older brother."
The woman nodded. "That is good. We have wondered when someone would return. You come to collect the diving machine?" She glanced around, then looked back at Cen with a frown. "I thought there would be more. Unne's machine, it is very large; it will take many people to move it away."
"We're an advance group," Cen said, going along with the fabrication. "To make sure everything's okay here."
"I see." The woman took a step back and inclined her head to him. "Then I welcome you to Onrac. I am Diona."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Cen Venture. This is my brother Estel, and Sapphire of Cornelia. And this is…" Cen trailed off as he reached the silent mage.
"Rath," came the quiet answer, and Rath did not look up from his study of the lopsided cobbles as he gave it. "Also of Cornelia."
"You need places to sleep," Diona said. "I will show you to the shelter tonight. Later, when others arrive, we can make places there for them."
"Shelter?" Sapphire asked, as the group followed Diona down the road.
"Yes. Fog and salt eat the stone here; when houses fall, their families come to stay at the shelter until new houses are ready for them."
"Oh. I see. That's a very charitable thing to do."
Diona shrugged her thin shoulders. "It is how we are here. No one else cares for us, so we care for each other."
Sapphire shook her head. "It's awful that no one helps you. You'd think one of the countries to the south would at least try."
"Before, they try," Diona said flatly. "But always fail. No help comes as long as He is here."
The thick, heavy silence descended on the group, more oppressive than ever.
"He?" Sapphire whispered, though the companions already knew the answer.
"The Master of the Shrine. He lets no ships come here. The caravan is safe, and we travel to the desert to trade with it. But it is small, and does not bring much. This we are used to, though. Other countries, Corneria and Crescent, they try to help, but when all ships sink, they stop." Diona gave a harsh laugh. "Perhaps they think us monsters, not Him in Shrine!"
Sapphire murmured something to herself about having a few words with some people when she got back to Elfheim, regardless, but she did not press the matter with Diona. The woman said nothing further about it, and the group walked on.
Diona brought them at last to the inhabited portion of the town. A few small houses stood occupied, marked by the pale yellow of lamp light shining through gaps in the shutters. The source of the glow the companions had seen before was a large, two-story building in the center of a walled courtyard; it looked like it had once been one of the grand manors they had seen, decrepit, on their hike to the town, before it had been converted to a sanctuary for the homeless. Light, seeming unnaturally bright in the gloom, shone from all the windows. Diona led the companions across the courtyard, its flagstones cracked and thrust apart by the dark bracken, and then up the stairs of the house to the front door. She opened it and led them inside, followed by a swirl of mist.
The entry hall stood empty save for a large staircase leading up to the second floor. Pale, flickering light streamed in through the archways leading to two adjacent rooms and provided a small amount of visiblity. Voices came from the two rooms as well, in addition to sounds of movement coming from a corridor in the wall behind the stairs. Diona shut the door, and from the room to the right emerged another woman, closer to Cen's age, holding a rushlight in one hand. She had the same pallid complexion and cropped dark hair as Diona, and the same plain style of dress, but her features were more dull and heavy, her eyes a bit glassy. The hand holding the rush candle lacked a couple of fingers. She asked Diona something in thick Onracean, and Diona replied in the same language. The young woman approached and looked at the companions, curiosity flickering in her blank eyes. Diona spoke to her again, and the young woman nodded and returned to the other room.
"I told her to make beds for you," Diona informed the companions.
"Oh. Er." Cen turned away from the arch, having watched the young woman leave with a bit of puzzlement. "Thanks. I hope we won't be any bother for you."
"No bother. We are glad you come to take the diving machine." Diona's expression darkened. "He does not like this machine being here. Unne and Venture, they went in the machine to the ruins beneath the ocean, they say to look for relics of old Onrac and Lefein. We do not think they return, but they did, with their relics. This is an amazing thing; He does not let those who go near His Shrine survive. That Unne and Venture do so, this angers Him. This machine they leave reminds Him they escaped, and He takes His anger out on us."
She said this very matter-of-factly, as though the wrath of a Fiend was scarcely worth comment. Cen and Estel both winced, however, and Sapphire drew a sharp breath. Rath gave no reaction, staying silent as he slouched back in the shadows around the door.
"I'm really sorry about that," Cen said. "I'm sure Tristan would have brought the machine back with them when they left if they'd known it would cause you trouble."
Diona shrugged. "We are used to storms and fog-illness. These things happen, and we wait for them to stop. This is how you must live in Onrac."
"Yeah, guess so," Estel muttered.
"Come." Diona gestured for the companions to follow her. "I show you the house, and then you can rest. You have come a long way to get here."
Some one hundred people lived in the shelter, with, Diona said, about three hundred more outside in their own homes. Very, very few of the people appeared to be over fifty years old. Nearly everyone shared the same black hair as Diona—a few had surprisingly blue hair instead—and they all had identical blanched complexions: a side effect of living without the sun for their entire lives. More than a few bore deformities or other obvious maladies like blindness or mental defects, like the young woman from the entry hall; Diona explained this as another curse from the Fiend, just like the storms, illness, and disappearances.
"He kills our people, leaving too few here. With too few, these things happen." Her expression became curiously rigid. "My father, he studied this; he tried to help these people and the ones with the fog-illness. He was a good healer while he lived."
Cen glanced at Rath but did not comment. Sapphire's eyes filled with pity as she looked at Diona.
"I'm so sorry you lost him."
Diona said nothing, but she did nod her gratitude.
The entire house, though well-lit, felt damp and dim, and the heavy feeling in the air persisted just as it did outside. The people did not seem to notice, however, instead just going about their activities looking merely somber rather than downtrodden. It was in this that some amount of normalcy, almost pleasantness, could be found in spite of the melancholy surroundings. Women worked in the kitchen, preparing food for everyone and working over a machine that, Diona explained, cleaned the water so it could be safely drunk. A few young men scrubbed the walls, cleaning away the dark mold and mildew that grew on the stone. The older children minded the younger ones, and from the upstairs room Diona pointed out as the nursery, quiet, happy giggling could be heard as the children played.
"This is amazing," Sapphire murmured, glancing through the doorway at a pair of pale little girls sitting together on a cot and playing a game of cat's-cradle. She had finally released her death-grip on Estel. "When we first got here…I mean, I never would have thought…"
"You think we give up?" Diona asked, raising an eyebrow. "Life is not perfect here like in your Corneria, so we should not try to live it?"
Sapphire looked slightly taken aback. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
Diona waved her off.
"Onrac is our home. Some leave, yes. But we do not abandon our home so easily. This is old country, as old as Lefein. We survive, while they do not, because we do not leave."
"We just mean that we're impressed," Cen said. "A lot of people wouldn't be able to live with a…a Master like yours."
Diona lifted her head, a glint of pride in her protruding eyes.
"We are strong. Lefein falls to her Master, but not us to ours. He does not destroy us. The Master, He punishes when there is disobedience and His messages are ignored, but still He lets us live here and does not drive all away. He shows He can destroy, and then lets us still live. This is a mercy to us. We do not reject His mercy."
"What if…" Cen hesitated. He glanced at Rath, who was staring determinedly at the floor, then turned back to Diona and went on. "Do you think your Master is always going to be here? Maybe someday, he'll get…"
Diona's expression darkened, and her thin shoulders tensed. Cen trailed off as he saw this, and Estel and Sapphire exchanged looks.
"This will not happen," Diona said coldly. "Not in my life."
Cen started to ask about this, but Diona's expression had grown so dire that he shut his mouth immediately. Diona turned away and started toward the stairs.
"Come. Ehena will have your beds ready."
The companions followed Diona back to the main floor, Rath remaining unusually silent at the rear of the group. She led them through the archway from which the young woman, Ehena, had come before; this opened onto a good-sized room that appeared to have once been a parlor. A small fire burned in a large fireplace at the opposite wall, and rushlights flickered in holders on tables at either end of the chamber. Cots arranged in neat rows took up most of the space, however. Many were occupied: a few small families, many single men and women, and a handful of older people. In a corner near the fireplace stood four open cots, newly made up. Diona took the companions to these. Rath sat down on the cot farthest in the corner at once.
"Close to the fire," Diona pointed out. "We are used to chill, but you from warmer places are maybe not used to this air."
"Thank you very much," Sapphire said. "We'll do anything we can to repay you for your hospitality."
"That you take away the diving machine is enough repayment," Diona said. "Perhaps things will be some better once it is gone."
"…We hope so."
"When do the others come?" Diona turned to Cen. "Soon?"
"It, er." Cen hesitated for a moment in thought. "It shouldn't be too long. We'll go down and check on the machine tomorrow, though."
Diona nodded.
"I send someone to lead you. My cousin, Kope. He spends much time at the shore." Her tone implied that she thought he spent too much time there, but then she smiled slightly. "He is a very curious boy. Very intelligent. You do not mind questions about your home, I hope?"
Cen smiled back. "We don't mind."
"Good. He will be glad to have new people to ask. He says he gets tired of talking only to the mermaids."
"Well, we'll try to keep him entertained."
Diona smiled a bit more broadly, then looked around at the companions. Estel had sat down on a cot as well and stuck his pack underneath it, and Sapphire had set her pack down on the cot beside his. Rath continued his intense scrutiny of the floor.
"You are tired," Diona said. "You rest tonight. In the morning—"
She broke off abruptly as Sapphire's pack tipped over and her crystal tumbled from one of the pockets. It lay on the dull grey blanket, beaming warm golden light into the room. A surprised murmur ran through the Onraceans, and Diona stared at the fallen crystal, her eyes wide. Rath's hands clenched into fists, and Sapphire's hand flew to her mouth.
"Oh. Oh, no—"
She reached to snatch the crystal out of sight, but Diona moved more quickly, seizing the crystal and holding it up before her.
"This… This thing." She said a word in Onracean, almost more of a hiss. She looked past the crystal to Sapphire. "Where do you get this?"
Sapphire, flustered, could not answer. Diona spun to face Cen instead.
"You have one also?"
Cen remained silent. The others in the room began to approach, drawn by the glow of Sapphire's crystal and Diona's reaction. Many of the adults echoed this once they saw the source of the glow, murmuring rapidly to one another in Onracean, and the parents drew their children back a few steps.
Diona's hand tightened around the golden crystal.
"You lie to me," she said flatly, looking from Cen to the other companions and back. "You do not come from Unne. You are this." She shook the crystal at his face. "The Hands of the Gods."
She repeated this last in Onracean, and noises of surprise came from the watching group. A pair of youths hurried from the room to spread the word. Cen started to reply, to offer an explanation, but Diona turned away from him as soon as she had made her denouncement, instead rounding on Rath. After his first flinch, he had made no reaction to the scene playing out around him.
"You," Diona said. "Rath. Stand."
At first, Rath remained motionless. Then, to the companions' surprise, he rose to his feet without protest and finally looked Diona in the face. He said nothing, just stared at her with forced blankness. Diona threw the crystal down by Sapphire's pack and approached him. Her voice brimmed with barely suppressed fury.
"Show your face."
"I would rather not," Rath said quietly.
"Show it!"
He did not cringe at her sudden shout, though the other companions did. Again, he remained silent and motionless for a moment. Then, he lifted his hands to his collar. He undid the silver clasps holding it closed, then folded it down. He took off his hat and dropped it onto the cot beside him.
A flattened, uneven mess of black hair hung above his thin, chalky pale face. His almost fragile appearance sharply contrasted his often harsh, commanding manner: hollow cheeks, thin nose and mouth, hooded eyes underscored with dark circles from lack of sleep. The only real color on his face came from his golden-brown eyes, and though he still kept them forcibly blank, the companions could now see how much work it took him to do so, his slight jaw clenched and the tendons in his neck taut.
Sapphire drew a quick breath, and Cen frowned, watching this exchange with confusion. Estel stared at Rath's face, squinting, and then his eyes widened and he jumped to his feet. Diona, however, did not look surprised, just furious.
"Raolin," she said through clenched teeth.
Rath inclined his head to her.
"Hello, sister."
Diona slapped him, the sharp crack ringing through the room. Rath did not even try to prevent this.
"You dare to come back here! You dare! After what you do to us!"
Again she slapped him, and again he did nothing to stop her or defend himself.
"I had no choice," he said quietly. "This is my duty."
"Your duty! This duty you throw away the day you leave Onrac! The day you ruin hope for this city!"
Her rant descended into rapid Onracean, growing more and more vociferous, her face flushing with anger. Rath did not attempt to interrupt her, just listening with his head slightly bowed, his gaze downward once more. Diona drew back her hand to slap him again, but then Estel vaulted over a cot and seized her thin wrist.
"I don't usually hit girls," he said, his expression unusually severe. "But if you smack him again, you and me are gonna have some problems."
Diona wrenched her hand free, glaring.
"Do not interfere! He deserves worse than what I do to him!"
"Yeah, he's got some nerve showing up to save all your sorry asses from that Fiend parked next door. What a bastard."
"You think him a hero?" Diona gave a harsh, flat laugh with no humor in it. "No! You three, yes, you are the Hands of the Gods, and destroy the Chaoses who devour the Crystals. But my brother, he is no holy warrior." She spun back to Rath. "You do not tell them, Raolin? You do not tell your friends why you run from home, and leave me to care for our brothers and sister? You let them believe instead you are a great and good hero like they are?"
Rath gave no reply.
Diona turned back to Estel and the others. The watching crowd had grown silent, and those with children had bustled them out of the room. Another crowd had gathered in the adjoining entry hall.
"He left us," Diona said coldly. "Years ago, he left us. After he murdered our parents as they lie in their beds."
Sapphire gasped and recoiled. Cen and Estel stared at Diona with both astonishment and disbelief. Rath himself gave a compulsive flinch, shutting his eyes and clenching his hands. He seemed to be holding his breath.
"No," Cen said at last. "He didn't do that. He wouldn't."
"And you were there to know this, yes?" Diona snapped, her tone caustic in a way that suddenly reminded the others very much of Rath. Tears began to gather in her eyes. "You wake up the next morning to find him gone, and Father and Mother in their beds in pools of blood? You do not know this!"
"Rath," Sapphire whispered, her face blanching. "Please tell us this isn't true. Tell us you didn't…didn't…" She could not finish the plea.
Rath swallowed and unclenched his fists.
"…I did not murder them," he said, working to keep his voice steady.
"You lie!" Diona screamed. "You do this, you steal the crystal—!"
"I did what I did only to protect you and the others…"
"Protect? Protect? You—!"
The front door opened, then slammed closed, and the sound of voices, frantic cries, and scuffling drifted over the watching crowd. Diona looked toward the disturbance, then rounded back on Rath, her expression venomous.
"I show you how you protect us."
She seized Rath's arm and dragged him through the onlookers, who hurriedly parted before them while giving Rath wary looks. Cen, Estel, and Sapphire followed, Sapphire snatching up her crystal as she went. They went out to the entrance hall, where the new arrivals stood by the foot of the stairs.
Two boys, about fifteen and twelve years old, held a struggling little girl by the arms. She could not have been older than nine, her black hair a shaggy, snarled mess, yet she fought so hard that the boys had to use all their strength to keep her from escaping. She kicked and bit and screeched, her brown eyes blank and glassy but her expression wild. Her captors only looked resigned at this. The elder of the pair spotted Diona as she approached and began to say something to her, but he broke off as he saw Rath at her side. His eyes widened.
"…Raolin?"
Rath did not reply. He halted as soon as he saw the three children, his gaze fixed on the feral little girl. His face, already so pale in the dim light, began to grow ashen.
The boy began talking rapidly in Onracean, and the younger joined in once he too identified Rath. The girl just continued screeching like a trapped animal. A sharp word from Diona cut through the chatter, and the boys fell silent. Diona stepped forward and knelt down in front of the little group and started trying to calm the girl; at first, the girl just continued to wail and thrash, but slowly Diona's soothing took effect, and the girl fell silent. Her face became so blank that, had she not been audibly breathing, she could have been mistaken for dead.
Rath just continued to stare. Behind him, the other companions watched the scene with distress and confusion. After swallowing hard, he finally managed to speak.
"Diona. What…?"
Diona shot an acidic glare at him over her shoulder.
"Oh, you are not happy to see your baby sister after what you do to her?"
She turned back to the children and began speaking to the elder boy in Onracean. As the pair talked, the younger boy looked up at Rath and asked him something, his expression confused and hurt.
Rath did not answer, his face going more and more grey. His hands began to tremble. Once or twice he opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped, the words catching in his throat.
Sapphire took a hesitant step toward him.
"…Rath…"
She reached out a hand, but he jerked away, his breath quickening. His eyes darted across his family, then, with a strangled cry, he bolted for the door. He yanked it open and disappeared outside into the smothering fog.
Cen, Estel, and Sapphire stared after him, bewildered and aghast.
Diona finished what she was saying to her brothers, and the two boys started to guide their catatonic little sister up the stairs. After watching to make certain the little girl remained quiet for this transition, Diona rose and turned to face the companions.
"I apologize for this," she said, sounding unpleasantly calm and detached. "You know I do not color you with my brother's crime; that he does not tell you what he did does not make you also guilty. You still are welcome to stay here in the shelter."
"…Thank you," Sapphire said faintly on reflex.
Diona gestured back toward the parlor containing the cots. "Go, sit. Maybe you want to know more about this 'friend' of yours. I tell you what happened."
"Yeah," Cen said. His expression had grown hard. "We do want to know. But I think we'd rather hear it from him, not you."
He strode toward the door, which stood ajar and let mist spill into the entry hall. Estel started to follow, and Sapphire caught his hand and fell into step with him. Just as they reached the doorway, however, Cen stopped and looked back at Diona, who watched them with astonishment.
"And if we're staying here, so is Rath."
He turned away and marched out into the fog, his cloak rippling behind him. Estel and Sapphire hurried after him, only Sapphire glancing back into the shelter at Diona and the other Onraceans as they left.
The click of Diona shutting the door behind them fell dead in the heavy, wet air.