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Chapter 16

"Brutus, I need a towel," Arvetis said as he entered the small kitchen.

"Get it yourself!" Brutus replied, and went back to his conversation with Lisa. "So he said there were other dreams-"

"Brutus!" Arvetis's body was tense. He looked like he was fighting something. "I'm going to shake! I need a towel!"

"Oh, Lord..." Brutus lunged out of his chair, heading for the small bathroom. He ducked in, grabbed a towel off the rack on the wall, and ran across the kitchen towards Arvetis. He threw the towel around him, just as the Wolf thrust his nose in the air and started to shake his body. The towel rippled as Arvetis threw off water underneath it, and Brutus winced as a few stray droplets escaped and hit him in the muzzle. Lisa repressed a laugh.

Arvetis poked his nose out through the top of the towel burrito and licked Brutus's cheek. "Thanks, handsome. Can you get me my calamine?"

Brutus grinned at the wet, old, ragged Wolf, despite himself. "Have a seat; I'll take care of it." He rolled his eyes as he reached above one of the kitchen cabinets, fetching a pink bottle. "Canines..."

Arvetis sat next to Lisa and smiled at her, pulling the towel tight around himself. "I just had a discussion with your fiancée, Lisa. Brutus, I'm afraid he fibbed to you."

"We were just discussing that, actually," Lisa said. Brutus nodded, sitting next to Arvetis with the lotion.

"Eyes closed, nose down," Brutus said, spreading some calamine on to his paw. Arvetis complied, closing his eyes tight, pinning his ears back, and pointing his nose at his lap. Brutus began to apply the lotion to the Wolf's left Contrition mark, which seemed redder than normal.

Lisa watched, curious. She'd never seen them do this before. "What's that for?"

"He's allergic to the grass," Brutus said, moving on to the other mark. "Irritates his scars. I'm pretty sure he rolls around in it when nobody's looking, but he denies it."

"What kind of behavior would that be for a dignified grey-muzzle like me?" His tail wagged a little behind his chair, though, and Lisa was pretty sure Wolves didn't do that instinctively.

"Honestly, I don't know why you go out there at all," Brutus said, capping the bottle, "let alone when it's raining."

"That's because you're a Rabbit, born to live in warrens. I'm a Wolf, born to go slowly insane in warrens. Now that I'm too old for Order business, that courtyard is just about the only sun I see."

Lisa filed this bit of information away. She hadn't realized the Contrite Order was still extant and operational; she'd have to ask about it later. She wondered what they did, now that the Predator Supremacist movement seemed to have died down.

Brutus replaced the bottle of calamine lotion and turned on the water in the sink, washing his paws. The door to the kitchen opened again, and Todd entered, dripping wet and holding his sagging diaper to his bottom with a paw. "Uh... hey guys!"

"Todd!" Lisa got up and trotted over to him. "How long were you out there?"

"Not long. The rain got worse, and I came in. Hey, do you have another towel?" he asked, looking at the one wrapped around Arvetis.

"Afraid not," Brutus replied.

"I'll go get one." Lisa patted the front of his rain-soaked diaper. "Is that just water?"

Todd put a paw behind his neck. "Mostly." Lisa nodded and quickly tore the tapes in front, letting the front flop forward, then pulled the diaper out from under him. "Hey, whoa!" Todd's fur stood on end as he tried to cover himself.

"I'll bring you a new diaper, too. You'll get sick hanging around in this soaked thing." She turned, balling up the old diaper, and left the room. Todd glanced at Arvetis and Brutus, his arms crossed in front of him.

"No peeking! And no protestations of innocence this time, Brutus. I know I am your gender!" He moved towards one of the chairs and sat down in it gingerly.

Brutus rolled his eyes. "That's a little offensive, Todd. Don't flatter yourself. I've seen better."

"And I'm too old to give a damn!" Arvetis chuckled. "Relax, Todd. You think Brutus has to dodge lecherous gazes every time he walks around here without a stitch on? We're grown-ups. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding."

"And speaking of behaving like grown-ups," Brutus said, smirking at Todd, "I understand you told me a fib this morning."

Todd sighed. "Can't we talk about this later? I'm cold, naked, and wet."

"Now seems like a good time to me," Brutus said. "Lisa will be back soon with a towel that will fix all three problems. In the meantime, care to explain yourself?"

"Look... it wasn't anything personal. The last dream I had was the only one I remembered at first, and it was private, like I said. And very painful." Todd tried to give Brutus a defiant look, but his droopy fur and his shivering didn't help.

"All right," Brutus said. "Don't tell me about that one. But what about the others?"

"Wait a minute, how do you even know I had dreams? What's this all about?"

Brutus looked questioningly at Arvetis, who shrugged and nodded. He looked back at Todd and fixed him with a steady gaze. "I dream too."

"No shit, everyone dreams."

"I mean I see the colors. You saw colors, didn't you, Todd?"

Todd thought about that. His recollection was hazy, but he thought that was ringing a bell. "Yeah, I think I did. I remember colors between the dreams, I think."

"And you saw something that came true?"

"Sort of." Todd pointed at one of the walls of the kitchen. "I saw a room that's visible from a corridor down there. Some kind of basement, with windows that would have been on the outside, back when this was Warkyn Warren." Brutus gave a little start at that. "Oh, yeah, I guess I sort of figured that out, too," Todd said sheepishly.

Brutus glanced over at Arvetis. "And you saw Agathos."

"Yeah. Mostly him. Also, Elyssa. I saw her fighting with someone. I thought maybe... Geraden said she had a past with an alcoholic partner. I thought maybe that was it. But then, later, I think I saw her as a prisoner or something. I don't know what that was."

Brutus raised an eyebrow, still looking at Arvetis. "I think it's time," he said. Todd couldn't tell who he was talking to.

Before he could ask, the door opened, and Lisa came in, carrying a towel. "Sorry it took me so long! The bathing room was occupied. Here ya go!" She tossed the towel over Todd's head. He took it and rubbed it over his fur, appreciating its warmth, then wrapped it around his midsection, restoring some of his dignity.

"Thanks, Lisa."

"No problem. This, too." She tapped Todd's shoulder with a dry, folded diaper.

"What, here?" Todd went wide-eyed.

"Why not?" Lisa grinned. "They've already seen you naked."

Arvetis smiled. "Yes, why not? Pad's in the pantry." Lisa stood up and retrieved a thin, rolled-up cushion from the small pantry, spreading it out on the kitchen floor. Todd groaned.

"Can't we do this in our room?" he asked, a whining note to his voice.

"Nope. I can tell you guys have been discussing something, and I feel left out. Why's everyone so grim?"

Brutus looked to Lisa, and gave her a weak smile. "You're right, Lisa. You should be kept in the loop here. You know that I'm a witness, right?" Todd saw that the attention was now off him, and his appeals would fall on deaf ears. He sighed and walked over to the pad, then sat down on it.

"Yeah," Lisa fidgeted with the diaper. Todd could tell that her expression was subtly skeptical, but she kept it out of her voice. "I mean, I don't really understand what that is. And what I do understand, I'm not sure I believe. But I know it's a traditional position here, related to some Rabbit lore." She unfolded the diaper as she talked, and Todd laid back for her, slipping the towel off his midsection. At least the others seemed occupied by their discussion, he reflected.

Brutus nodded. "That's basically right. But one thing you have to understand is that a witness isn't appointed or chosen. He's born. Or she, of course, but 'he' in this case. A witness will be a witness whether he's given the position or not."

"All right." Lisa looked down at Todd nervously, sliding the diaper under his rear and doing his tail tape.

"We think Todd might be a witness," Brutus said.

"Wait. What does that mean, exactly?" Lisa thrust her whiskers forward at Brutus.

"It means he dreams true," Arvetis interrupted. "And he can hear the Touchstone." Lisa looked from Brutus to the Wolf.

"Arvy... I know Brutus can be a little wacky, but you too?" Lisa sounded scared. She was holding the front of Todd's diaper between his legs.

"Hey!" Todd interrupted. He was reluctant to call attention to himself at that particular moment, but he didn't like where the discussion was headed. "I'm right here. We can talk about this with me, too." Everyone turned to Todd, much to his embarrassment, and Lisa put her paw on his belly. "Look, something strange happened last night. I don't know what, but I'm willing to go along with whatever you guys think it was, if it'll help me understand. All right?" He reached up and rubbed Lisa's arm. "I know it's weird, but you saw me last night..."

Lisa sighed heavily. "Yeah, I guess. It just seems like you had a bad dream, is all, and they're making a big deal out of it." She pulled the front of the diaper up snugly and taped it.

"It was more than that. It was a whole night of truly weird shit, and somehow they knew about it before I told anyone. Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt for now."

Lisa nodded. "All right. So what are you going to do about it? Induct him or something?"

"Not yet," Brutus said. "We need to be sure, first. We have to... test him." Todd raised an eyebrow at that. "Don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds. You don't really have to do anything. It'll just tell us whether your visions are true or not."

Arvetis stood up. "They're still here from this morning, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are," Brutus replied. "We can do it right now. Go ahead and get everything ready, Arvetis." The Wolf nodded, stood, and left the kitchen.

"Wait," Todd interrupted. He felt like this was all going a little fast for him. "Who are 'they?'"

"There are... a few people who have to be here for this," Brutus said. "We had a meeting about this topic earlier this morning, and they should still be here. Arvetis will tell them we're ready. Come on."

Todd stood up. Lisa reached out and took his paw. "I'm coming too."

"Lisa..." Brutus sighed. "I'm afraid you can't. Please, I promise he'll be fine. There's no danger, and you can wait outside the Chapel for him."

Lisa looked very displeased about that, and squeezed Todd's paw. "This is crazy. I don't like it."

"You know," Todd said, squeezing Lisa back. "That's how I felt when I first came here. But everything worked out, yeah?"

Lisa only looked at the floor, a wrinkle of worry forming on the bridge of her snout.

***

Brutus walked to the stone stairs carved into the marble floor of the Chapel. Todd followed behind him. "Gonna show me the insect spray, huh?"

Brutus smiled sheepishly, unclipping a silk cord stretching across the entrance to the stairwell. "Yeah. We were going to do this later, after you got more settled here. Recent events have forced us to speed things up, though."

Todd sighed, shaking his head. He thought he was in deep before, but now things were just getting strange. He followed Brutus into the stairwell.

The stone on either side of the stairs was natural, dripping with condensation, and the air was cold and humid. The stairs opened on a rocky passageway, lit by an occasional flickering gas lamp on the walls. As Todd followed the Rabbit through the twisting passage, he saw evidence of the tunnel's excavation - piles of debris, and the occasional digging implement. They looked old and long-untouched.

The passage was not very long, and it soon opened into a wide, tall cavern. Todd realized they must have been moving down more than he'd perceived - the cavern was at least seventy feet tall. That was impossible, though; they had gone barely a hundred feet from the staircase. Puzzled, Todd turned around, and immediately shielded his eyes.

One entire side of the cavern was dominated by a smooth wall, huge and glowing with numinous light. It was tessellated with shards of color, and bowed outwards into the cavern in a smooth arc. The smooth sheet of crystal stretched from rocky floor to ceiling. There were no gas lamps in the chamber; the flickering wall illuminated everything.

Todd took in a sharp breath as he grasped what he was looking at. He was on the other side of the Chapel wall. No wonder the chamber was so tall; it stretched forty feet above the ground. The warren must have been constructed around a hollow rock prominence, and he was inside it. He realized that his initial impression of the wall had also been mistaken; it wasn't lit from behind. The material itself was glowing, lighting up both the inside of the Chapel and the outer cavern. Todd took an awed step backwards.

"Do you know where you are?" Brutus asked in a hushed tone.

"Yes, I do. Brutus... this is amazing." Todd wished, absurdly, that he had a laptop. For the first time since he'd left Lisa, he had the urge to write. He wanted to describe this place, to chronicle its existence. He wondered how such a marvel could inhabit this nondescript block of squat Rabbit buildings without anyone knowing.

"Hello, Todd," another voice said. Todd turned. He'd been distracted by the wall, and hadn't noticed that there were other people in the cavern. Geraden stood next to Brutus, wearing the same formal, blue silk robe Brutus was in. Behind him stood three Tigers, tall and proud, wearing neat, tailored-looking white robes. "Are you ready?"

Todd swallowed. "I don't really know, Geraden. What's going on?"

"Be at ease, Ferret," one of the Tigers said. She was the tallest of the three, with deep green eyes, and a serene, unreadable expression. "This will not take long. Arvetis?" Arvetis approached from a corner of the cavern, walking past the group and towards the shimmering wall. Geraden, Brutus, and the tigers followed him. Todd hesitated for a moment, and walked with the group.

"We are here to subject Todd Parks to trial for the position of witness at Corwin Hall," the female Tiger said. Todd flattened his ears, eyes widening, but Geraden put a comforting paw on his shoulder.

The Tigress continued. "Witnessing for the trial... Brutus Zenthray." Brutus stepped forward, standing a foot from the base of the towering wall.

"Witnessing for the trial... Lord Iwate." One of the male Tigers stepped to the wall. His face was old and wrinkled, and his expression grim. He stood tall, despite his ancient frame.

"Witnessing for the trial... Lord Tsugaru." The other Tiger stepped forward. His face was youthful - in his early twenties, perhaps. He smiled, despite the austere proceedings, and gave Todd a wink.

"Witnessing for the trial... Lady Akita." The Tigress herself stepped forward, turning her deep green eyes to the wall for a moment, then facing the others.

"Attending as Naylte-Rah of Corwin Hall... Geraden Corwin." Geraden joined the others.

Todd blinked. He hadn't realized Geraden's last name was Corwin. But if "Corwin" was only a phonetic transposition of "Warkyn..." he didn't have time to finish thinking through the implications, though.

"Attending as Nalna-Zorn of Geraden Corwin... Arvetis Agathos."

"What?" Todd whipped his head towards the Wolf as he approached the wall. Arvetis did not look at him.

"If the subject will please remain quiet through the trial," Lady Akita said calmly.

Todd groaned softly. Of course. Arvetis had said he was named after his grandfather. No wonder the Wolf didn't want to listen to the old stories. He felt a pang of sympathy for the kind old Wolf, but wondered why he hadn't changed his name; there was no reason for him to burden himself with the legacy of his grandfather. Todd remembered Brutus's ire towards Arvetis after the story night, and resented the Rabbit a little.

"Mister parks," Lady Akita said to him, "Please approach the Touchstone and place your paw on it."

Todd looked around, confused. Touchstone? He gave the Tigress a bewildered shrug. She gestured to the massive, prismatic wall in front of them.

"Oh... oh!" Todd stepped forward, facing the wall. He held his paw out nervously, and opened it. He glanced over at Brutus, who moved behind Todd and put his paw on Todd's back.

"Go ahead," Brutus said. "You'll be fine."

Todd took a breath, set his shoulders, and put his paw on the Touchstone.

It was cool and soothing on his fingerpads. It felt like any other crystalline stone, really - smooth, with faint ridges where the colors met. After a moment, though, it began to feel strange. It seemed to vibrate under his paw, throbbing in time with the light, although he couldn't see it moving. After a few moments, the entire wall went black, and the cave was plunged into darkness. The vibration became so intense that Todd couldn't hold his paw still - it skittered off to one side, leaving a glowing maroon trail on the stone behind it. The red light intensified, filling Todd's vision, and his legs went limp. He fell backwards, and the last thing he felt before the dreams took him was Brutus catching him softly.