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This story is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License

© 2008 by Noisy Bob All Rights Reserved

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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The world this story is set in is the one of Onyx Tao's excellent story series Cold Blood (don't throw a fit, it's all open license and Tao's a great guy!) and is set into the timeline at around about chapter 3 - Green Fields - but is to be considered non-canonical, being purely a fanwork. If you enjoyed this then go check out Cold Blood, I guarantee you won't be dissapointed.

---

Cassius thought he could hear his own voice screaming, it was hard to tell among the cacophany of distorted sounds that assailed him, sounds heard too slow or too fast or rapidly changing key, a barrage of white noise that hit him like a supernova. Images flashed before his eyes, blurs of things that were, lucid flickers of things that are, ominous shadows cast by things to come, all overlaid into an incomprehensible tableu of light and colour that teared the eyes with its vividness, unwholesomely beautiful.

And the pain...by Lycail, the pain. Unseen things stuck every inch of his body as the veils crashed over him, lashing and whipping like snapped high-tension cables when the wave of something, a Tempus reaction of monsterous force, threw them into violent dissaray. He brought his hand up before his eyes in a reflexive and futile attempt to shield himself, only to see his own limb blinking in and our of reality in ripples.

Horrified, he reacted in the only way he had left; by using Tempus. Instantly the cacophany around him intensified, becoming a riot of clashing sound and colour, deafening, blinding, impossibly loud and bright, the pain of the veils slamming into him crystalising into an endless moment of perfect agony.

"St...op," came a voice, cutting through the din like a merciful knife "Ssssstooooop...beeeeeennndiiing...tiiimmme-bendingtimebendingtimebendingtime." again it came, shifting from distorted lows to high-pitched echoes.

He quietened his mind, trying to avoid the panic that had him furiously concentrating on folding himself deeper and deeper into time, a defence mechanism, something he reached for when surrounded by danger. His temporal senses were as overwhelmed as the rest, he couldn't tell whether he was extricating himself or casting himself deeper, it was impossible to tell, like navigating a maze of endlessly reflecting mirrors.

Suddenly the whole world seemed to shake itself back into rightness with a violence that nearly knocked him off his hooves before an arm closed around his waist, and all was silent.

"It's alright, I've got you now." came the voice again, undistorted, deep, familliar.

"Dio?" he said in a dazed, hoarse, whisper, blinking through the tears.

"Yes, love. You were stuck somewhere between the intervals - I don't even know how that's possible, but it's the truth - I had to throw you out of time, are you unharmed?"

He brought a hand up to his eyes and rubbed the tears and bluriness out of them, the concerned faces of Arafal and, bizarrely, Dante looked down at him along with several other minotaurs he recognised as keep guards. Looked down? But that wasn't right, he was taller than either of them, the Manticore were a stocky breed but a short one. Then the lightness on his hooves alerted him to the fact that he wasn't standing but leaning against something hard but yeilding and warm. Groggily, he tried to turn and see what it was and found himself looking into the earnest, soulful and, currently, rather worried-looking eyes of Diomedes.

"Dio, it is you," he croaked with brutalised vocal-chords.

"Of course, somebody has to save your hide." Dio replied, muzzle twisting into a relieved smirk as he helped Cassius to his hooves, locking one arm about his waist for support.

"Ah, excuse me, but could someone please explain just what in the name of creation just happened here? And perhaps you, Warlord, could elucidate on your reasons for why you felt it was acceptable to barge into my office unnanounced and in deep Tempus?" Growled Dante, at last, sounding angry and confused in equal measure.

Arafal silenced his protestation, however, when he was the first one to move, all eyes were on him as he stood to face the obelisks mirror-black surface and his signature echoed quietly through their minds, the phantasmic voices singing out in something resembling the tone of human tenors this time.

Ka Ha Ra-Na, Ka Ha Ra-Na, Ka Ha Ra-Na, Va-Rem Ahhhhhhh! Va-Rem Ahhhhhh!

"Well, whatever it was, this... reaction, perturberance, whatever it was, seems to have stopped." He said after a moment, vigorously shaking his head to drown out the dregs of his signature with his horn-bells. Cassius cast a glance in Dante's direction and saw a visible shiver of revultion run through him at being in the presence of magery, Diomedes didn't react quite so strongly but his jaw was set grimly nontheless, but by Manticore standards he was relatively accepting of magic and put little stock in superstitions.

"Warlord Diomedes, do you think you are up to doing that trick of yours again?" Said Arafal.

Wordlessly, Diomedes nodded and helped Cassius into a chair and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, Cassius was glad of it, whatever had happened to him was only dimly recalled but whatever it was it felt an awful lot like tempwear, and he had only barely reccovered from one bout of that already, he felt like all the strength had been robbed from him.

"When you are ready, Lord Chant." he said.

"You are quite sure you can throw me out of time should I become trapped too?"

"I expect so, unless your being a mage complicates matters, it is possible but ... in this situation I think unlikely." replied Diomedes, sounding not entirely sure. "In this case, whatever that effect was actually seemed to make the technique easier."

Arafal rumbled in the back of his throat, clearly not happy about the situation, but approached the obelisk anyway.

"Hold, Chant! You're not actualy going to touch that thing after the deviltry it worked on Lycaili here, are you?" called Dante, incredulously.

"I am the Witch Hunter General, this is clearly a case of dangerous supernatural phenomena, even you could not deny that it is my remit to see to the resolution of this." Replied Arafal, gruffly.

Cassius fought through the mental fog of bone-deep weariness, determined to remain lucid should something happen. Futiley, perhaps, he felt too weak to move more than a few feet on his own.

Arafal approached the Obelisk inches at a time, hand held out before him feeling the air for anything unusual. Nobody drew a breath as he finally got within contact-distance, even Dante was silent. "Ready, warlord?" he muttered, casting a sidelong glance at Diomedes who returned a barely-perceptible nod.

Gathering himself, Arafal muttered "I am getting far too old for this..."

And touched the surface of the obelisk.

~~~~#@#~~~~

Claudius recoiled in shock, his heart racing, adrenalin making his whole body shiver.

He'd just been studying those strange non-markings, they had been so engrossing, it took him only a short while to realise that the closer he got to the surface of that black pillar the clearer and more defined they seemed to become. What's more he was sure he was able to understand them, those strange symbols, though that was patently impossible, he didn't recognise the language and the symbols were utterly unfamilliar. Still, they seemed to stir something almost instinctual, like something in the back of his mind that he'd always understood but never had reason to express before.

The symbolism was intentionally subjective, he realised, the syntax structure provided the real context, and it was designed to be read...in many directions. Different lines of meaning? No, that didn't make sense, nobody could unravel more than the tiniest hints of information trying to read in that fashion, it would be more efficient to write in poetry than that. Perhaps...all directions at once? Yes, that made sense...points of crossover...relational context...a way of encoding information with exponential efficiency. It was brilliant, with a single paragraph, glyph-net, whatever, it would be possible to encode and convey vast quantities of data. What would you call that? A language designed to be read in three - now he could see the symbols actually extended inside the obelisk - dimensions? Holographic script? Yes, that sounded right.

No, wait, they were changing, the symbols shifting positions or morphing into new forms as he watched. That made it a ... what? A four-dimensional language? No, that's impossible, that would be even more mind-bogglingly complicated to read than a holographic language. He realised that they must be reacting to something, something in the columns surroundings, it was ... reading something. Monitoring. Regulating, perhaps?

Intrigue growing by the second he reached out and touched his fingertips to the obelisks surface, reasoning that if his proximity made the symbols clearer then contact would make them clearer still. Instantly a sensation of what he could only describe as recognition filled him, as though the obelisk knew who he was - foolish as that sounded in his head - and was welcoming him somehow.

But something else had happened; the language, that strange, impossibly complex, holographic language that he had never seen in a lifetime of perusing old books, was starting to make sense. Intersecting lines of logic suddenly coming together to form a coherent whole in his mind. It was like watching someone do that trick with a length of twine, a "cat's cradle" they called it; one second there was just an unrecogniable tangle of knotted string and the next they would pull their hands appart and ... a perfect, geometric, shape materialised before your eyes.

'Entered/unlocked/accessed resonant contours/lines/pathways, carve/manipulate/reshape?' he read, or rather had read to him by the obelisk, not understanding a word of it, except he more felt it than read it.

He smiled in wonderment, this was incredible, there was so much information here and he could read it all, it all made sense now. It was like standing at the foot of a vast mountain, being overawed by its scale and majesty, except this was so much greater than a mere mountain. A sudden feeling of panic broke his reverie;

'Danger/risk/error! Stop/cease/deny all temporal distortion/warping/intercession. Danger/risk/error!'

And then a jolt of searing pain lanced up his arm and he snatched his hand away with a gasp of pain.

That was when he heard it, the sound that sent cold, deathly, fingers running down his spine. A scream, a cry, a roar, the sound was weirdly distorted, shifting without rhyme or reason from ear-splittingly high to stomach-churningly low but he knew what it sounded like, it sounded like agony.

Without warning, the doors to the office that Cassius had passed through with Great Lord Chant were blown open as if by a gale. But there was no wind, just the brief, half-seen, blur of minotaurs in Tempus. For the briefest second he could have sworn, like a flash of deja-vu, that he had met the gaze of one of them, a great black bull, his masters mate.

He had no time to ponder the thought before he heard the gasp of indrawn breath from behind him. Wheeling around, he saw the human clerk with the strange framed lenses on his face that had met them earlier was standing there, his face a mask of shock and horror, a small pile of papers that had apparently spilled from his hand lying on the floor at his feet, forgotten.

They locked eyes for a long minute without saying a word, the other man was clearly terrified and Claudius was slowly realising that the source of his fear had to be him. The man backpeddaled a few steps and raised an arm, a shaking index-finger pointing accusingly at him as he began to mouth soundless words.

"Wh...wii..." he stuttered, still slowly retreating.

"What? What's the matter?" Claudius said, placatingly, advancing a step on the man.

No sooner had he done so than the Clerk finally found his voice. "Witch!" he forcefully whispered in a terrified tone, then louder, his voice growing in alarm, "Witch! Witch! Hel-"

He was suddenly cut short when Claudius lept on him and pinned him to the wall, clamping a palm across his mouth, muffling the cries. Dimly, Claudius prayed that the commotion coming from the next room had covered the sounds of the man's cries. He could guess what being a 'witch' meant, it meant that they sent the witch hunter after you, Lord Chant. He didn't know what happened after that but he doubted it was good, and at best it would probably mean being seperated from Cassius and he'd be damned before he was going to let that happen.

"Shut up!" he snarled quietly into the man's ear, mustering as much menace as he could. It wasn't much, in the Empire it would have just got him laughed at for trying to act tough, but it seemed to be enough to cow this man into rigidity.

"Look, I'm not a ... a witch, alright?" he hissed, keeping his voice low.

The man murmered something beneath his palm and Claudius decided to chance it by letting his hand slip.

"I saw it! I saw what you did to the lith, you're a witch!" he whispered back, voice cracking.

"Use your sense!" Claudius snarled, fisting his hands in the collar of the man's tunic and lifting him up the wall, he'd had it done to him enough times by ruffians and legionairres to know how intimidating it was and the clerk seemed even more easily cowed than he was, so he figured it was worth a try even if he didn't have enough strength to do more than make him stand tip-toe. "You saw the minotaurs I came in with, didn't you?"

The man nodded his head frantically, those wire-framed lenses bouncing on his nose as he did.

"And who were they?" Claudius pressed.

"Uh, um..." the man paused to swallow, "A-ambassador Cassius of Lycaili and,"

"And?"

"And Great Lord Chant, the-"

"The witch hunter." Claudius finished, impatiently. "If I was a witch then don't you think he would have noticed?"

"I...I don't know, it's not right to try and guess the mind of a minotaur." he said, visibly retreating into something concrete.

"And is it right to assume you know better than they do?" Claudius hissed, hoping he was pressing the right questions, as far as he knew there might be some obscure point of etiquette that said it was just fine for a human slave to assume superior knowledge, but somehow he doubted it.

"No...not usually..." Said the man, cautiously.

"Then you agree with Great Lord Chants decision that I am not a witch, then?" he said, phrasing the question carefully in such a way that the man couldn't really give any other answer than that which he wanted, at least not without saying he knew better than a minotaur.

"But I saw...!"

"You saw what, exactly? A few strange markings appear on an old pillar, that's all, that doesn't mean I did it." The man seemed calmer now, Claudius released his grip and let him free. "Besides, if I had magic then I'd have a signature, wouldn't I? Do you see a signature?"

"I don't know, I don't want anything to do with such things!" The man whined. "But all witch-kin humans have to be reported, it's the law!"

"I thought we agreed I wasn't a witch?" said Claudius, effecting another intimidating scowl that probably wan't much good but did the job nonetheless.

"Well...Great Lord Chant would know better than I." The man conceded, reluctantly.

"So why don't you leave the decision on whether I'm a witch or not up to him?" said Claudius, encouragingly.

"But..." The man began.

"Alright, let me put this another way, either you shut the hell up about this or I'll smash your face in, clear?" Claudius growled, shaking a fist in front of his eyes. It was a corny line, but this was his first time ever being the scariest person in the room, so he supposed it could be excused on those grounds.

"You wouldn't!" The man squeaked, bringing his hands up to shield his face, "You'd be sent to the breakers!"

"Oh yeah?" sneered Claudius, a thought ocurring to him. "I'm a feral."

"A feral?" The man gulped, eyes going a little wider still.

"That's right, me and forty thousand men marched into Lycaili lands only a few days ago, armed, mad-eyed, bloodthirsty, ferals every one." Continued Claudius, looming over the man, coming uncomfortably close. He borrowed his tone, a lilting, sinister, sing-song, from someone who had frightened him more than almost anything he could remember; the mad fighter, Redmaw. "So you see," he continued, putting on Redmaw's serpentine smile "I'm not really all that worried about being punished, I don't even know what it would be, but neither do I want any disturbances."

He backed off and started pacing tight circles around the man, staying in his blindspot as the man tried to keep him in his line of vision, the same way Redmaw had done to him.

"So if you say a word...little bird...I'll snap your fragile little neck," without warning he snapped his fingers in front of the mans face, making him yelp and flinch away, "Just like that, it'd be so easy."

At that moment the clerk seemed to have pass through the point of fear, he became still, his breathing strangely even and fluid, his eyes going glassy and unfocussed as he regarded Claudius as though from a great distance away, like he had left his body.

"So, you're going to be a quiet little bird aren't you? Not going to sing any songs in any ears?"

"Yes, sir." The man replied, automatically, in a weak voice.

Inwardly, claudius gave a sigh of relief. "Good then. See, that was easy, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir." Came the reply again.

"You should probably pick those up," Claudius said with a dismissive sneer, indicating the pile of scattered papers.

Immediately, the man seemed to snap back to awareness, rushing over to the discarded sheaves, gathering them up and trying to get them back in order while muttering apologies and self-denigration to nobody in particular for being so careless. He seemed back to normal but any indication that he was still concerned about Claudius being a witch was gone, like the whole idea had just been edited out of his mind.

Good, Claudius thought, and leaned back against the wall. His head was swimming, his heart beating like a wasps wing, and he felt the old, familliar, sensation of wooziness and vertigo that happened to him whenever he had over-excited himself. Pressing his fingers to his throbbing temples and rubbing small circles over them he slid slowly to the floor, focusing on the rituals he had invented as a child to calm his system. Breathing deeply and steadily, doing long-division in his head, concentrating on his heartbeat and imagining it growing slower and slower and slower until it was back to its normal pace.

Now that the initial danger was over he had time to think about what had actually happened. He didn't think he was a witch - a mage, he corrected - but then how would he know? Still, it seemed ulikely, for the very same reason he had used in his defence; if Lord Chant was supposed to be and expert in finding mages, as he guessed, then it stood to reason that he would have some way of detecting them, wouldn't it? In that case, he couldn't have possibly been in close proximity with the minotaur mage for so long without him noticing if he had become a mage himself. But, of course, this was nothing but blind speculation, he didn't have the slightest clue what a mage could or couldn't do, he'd always just assumed that they could do just about anything, within reason. He doubted that Lord Chant conducted all his work through nothing more than logical deduction though, he must have some magical way to detect mages, and that meant that he couldn't be one.

Which begged the question; if he really wasn't a mage, then what exactly had just happened?

~~~~#@#~~~~

Arafal breathed a cautious sigh of relief when his hand finaly found the surface of the obelisk and nothing happened. It had gone back to being the same inert black rock it had always been.

"Seems safe, I'm not sensing anything that shouldn't be there." he said, turning to the others in the room.

"So what happened then?" Growled Dante. "I've worked around that thing for decades and its never done anything like that before."

"Nor in any of the records, to my knowledge." Arafal replied, stroking his beard in contemplation. "Even the writings of Lhazar never mentioned any dangers or inherant magic in the lith keep, I assumed that it was partially constructed with magic but never has there been any suggestion that spells were worked into the structure of it."

"Of course, he was mad," Cassius pointed out with as much tact as his tempwear-addled mind could manage.

"True enough." Arafal said with a shrug. "Still, I wonder whether there might be something more to it than that."

Dante made a furious snort. "I'll tell you what it is, more mages toying with the unnatural, that's what!" He barked sitting down hard. "Can I not even be safe from it in my own office?" Crisis apparently averted, he waved away the guards who had rushed in, Diomedes stayed nonetheless.

"The world was created by magery, Govenor, I suppose that means that nothing is truly natural." Arafal pointed out, offhandedly, still studying the pillar.

"You know what I mean." Dante growled.

"I do, I just recognise it has no ontological merit." Arafal rebuked.

Dante's brow furrowed with repressed rage. "More to the point, my Lord Chant, is it safe?"

Arafal paused a few seconds. "No. In my professional oppinion the whole keep should be evacuated, temporary offices set up in adjacent council buildings, all documents of import moved out and Lords Gild and Ravel brought in to assess the situation."

"Mika and Tancred? Why them, isn't this your speciality?"

"Containing supernatural threats is my speciality, yet I feel their assistance would be beneficial in that regard; Mika Lord Gild is also a noted historian and Tancred Lord Ravel has been studying the creator ruins for a long time now." Replied Arafal.

Dante blinked in confusion. "I can understand bringing in Mika for aid with the keeps construction but what do the ruins have to do with this?"

"I think that this monolith may, and I would stress the word 'may', be a creator artifact." replied Arafal, turning his head to look Dante squarely in the eye.

"Chant, I've been to the creator ruins, they are weathered and crumbling and have been since long before we came to Kurga, the lith could have come out of the quarry at Vargelt not a century ago, they have a quarry that produces fine black marble there, vast blocks of it, don't you think it more likely that Lhazar simply got it from there?"

"As I said, Governor, it is only a supposition, but one I would like to investigate nonetheless. You have asked my oppinion and as witch hunter general and mage-lord of our clan and I have given it." Arafal replied with a shrug.

Dante tapped his fingernail sharply against the surface of his desk a few times before sighing, pouring himself another measure of whisky and swiftly downing it.

"Fine," he finally said, relenting "I'll have the appropriate measures carried out immediately."

"Good, and see to it that official missals of summons sent to Lords Gild and Ravel. Oh, and post a guard around the building once evacuated."

"To guard from whom?" pressed Dante.

"I don't know, but I don't want to take any risks."

"Very well, anything else?"

"No, that should cover everything for now, I'll notify you if things become otherwise." Replied Arafal, curtly.

"Governor, if it's allright I think it best if I explain my actions formally at a later date." said Diomedes, seeing a point to enter the conversation, as he put a hand on Cassius's shoulder.

Dante gave a dismissive overhand wave. "Don't bother, I understand. Just get out of my office."

After the doors had clicked shut behind them Dante leaned back in his chair and poured himself another glass of whisky. He picked it up and walked over to the balcony window.

"Here's to you, Kurga." he said, holding the glass aloft and toasting the city.

Mad humans, monsters, murder, suicide...now even his own damn office wasn't safe. He thought back to when he had just been given the post of regional governor, the chaos of it all had had deplored him. He'd tried everything to restore order to the region; doubling the Justicars, then tripling them, streamlining legislation, resolving disputes ... only to realise that there hadn't been eny order there in the first place to restore. Things had just kept on getting worse, no matter how hard he tried. These days he just settled on trying to keep the general level of anarchy at a simmer instead of bursting into flame.

Now, apparently, even that was a luxury he was going to be denied.

"Anything else you'd like to throw at me? Perhaps you ought to just be done with it and send the end of the world." he said with a laugh, and immediately wished he hadn't.

Kurga, it was a hell of a city.

~~~~#@#~~~~

"Dio, where have you been? All this time, I thought something had happened to you?" Cassius asked, weakly.

"I'll explain later, love, first I think you need rest."

Cassius nodded, it was true enough. "Lock arms with me and take a little of my weight."

"It would be easier if I just put put my arm around your shoulders, I could take more weight like that..."

"No, It's not far, I'll be fine. This way it will just look like we are walking together, I won't show weakness, not here." Replied Cassius.

Diomedes gave an understanding nod and locked his arm beneath Cassius's own. For all the ache and fugue and crushing tempwear that forced him to fight with pure willpower alone to make every step, he once again felt a modicum of peace to know that strong, dependable, understanding, Dio was back at his side.

Scribe followed wordlessly after them, that struck him as peculiar, he would have expected another torrent of questions. He reasoned that perhaps Scribe was a little more reticent of such behavior in the presence of Diomedes, who could be rather imposing from a human perspective. Or perhaps he was just shedding his old feral habits, who could say? Either way the silence was soothing right now.

Cassius dozed fitfully during the ride back, resting his head on Dio's shoulder. Thoughtfully, Dio had shut the carriage curtains, he was glad of that, if only to spare his dignity. In between snatches of sleep he tried to piece together what he had learned. Arafal, sitting across from him, was up to something, something that he was willing to lie about to hide, something that he trusted neither friend nor fellow clansman with. That surprised him more than he had expected; Arafal, in hindsight, had been one of the more transparent and open mages he'd ever met, certainly an aberration when it came to Air-mages, who were often obscurantic and diversionary even when they didn't need to be, in his experience. To his knowledge, and he was fairly sure he was correct, Arafal had never lied or occluded anything in any of their encounters together, which made the situation all the more troubling.

He pondered whether he should just forget about the whole matter, pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary and simply return to the old routine that would inevitably reassert itself once Arafal was off again, it was tempting, he had to admit. But still the question nagged him; what could possibly be so important, or so dangerous, to make Arafal change his behavior so much? That old, troublesome, part of him that his father had half-jokingly called his 'human condition' was beginning to make itself known again, that gnawing curiosity that wouldn't let him leave well enough alone when something began to interest him.

He soon lost the mental fortitude to ponder such complexities and forgot them for a time, slipping in and out of unconsciousness as Dio absent-mindedly stroked the nape of his neck.

The moment they were back to the manor, however, Dio wasted no time in getting him to his bed, murmering instructions to his slaves in a hushed that Cassius didn't hear as he drifted int true, dreamless, sleep at last. He woke a little later when Dio propped him up to help him drink something from a shallow hand-bowl that smelled and tasted of quinine and strong herbs.

"What-?"

"Shhh, it's a restorative tonic, my own recipe, it will speed your recovery." Dio whispered, gently, cradling his head in the crook of one arm and dribbling a little of the potent, bitter-tasting, stuff into his mouth until the bowl was empty.

"Dio-"

"Quiet, conserve your strength. Arafal told me everything, It's not healthy to become tempworn twice in such quick succession, you have to rest or you may do yourself permanent harm. I'll answer everything tommorow, for now, my love, rest."

Cassius found nothing to argue with in that and contented himself with curling up against Dio's powerful frame. In truth, he'd been dreaming about doing nothing but that for some time now, he despised sleeping alone, whenever he had done so he had always awoken groping for the warmth of another that wasn't there. It was a bad way to start a day and he long ago resolved to never again sleep in an empty bed, and while it was pleasant enough to wake to a human lover beside him what he truly craved was Dio.

Human lover...oh, yes, Scribe.

"Dio, where's my Scribe?" he slured, ignoring Dio's 'tut'.

"Hmmm? Oh, that feral runt of yours? I sent him back to his work."

"Good." Cassius said with a yawn.

Diomedes chuckled quietly and pulled himself a little closer. "You seem quite taken with the little thing. I swear, love, you do have the strangest fancies."

"Clearly. With you, aren't I?" Cassius replied, grinning sleepily, beginning to doze off again.

Just before he finally fell asleep again he heard Dio whisper, in an anguished voice. "Aye, love, a damn strange thing that, damn strange indeed."

He didn't wake again until it was dark outside the windows and the manor was silent. Diomedes was still there beside him but had stripped off his clothes and was now asleep himself, breathing deeply and evenly with a rhythmic rumble from the back of his throat. He studied the lines of Dio's face by the pale moonlight for a minute or more, as if to just confirm that he was real and truly back.

Sighing happily at what he found he let his head return to the pillow, content now to sleep without waking for a long, long while.

He barely noticed the words Dio whispered in his sleep and paid them no heed anyway, only dimly remembering something he had heard about talking in sleep, it hadn't been something important.

"The small silver spider, it weaves in my dreams, it screams in my dreams, it weaves in my dreams... The small silver spider, it screams in my dreams, it weaves in my dreams, it screams in my dreams..."

~~~~#@#~~~~

Miles away, Silk let his mind drift free of his sleeping body to walk among the network. Intangible threads of Air-magic linking all the minds connected to his spell with him at its nexus. He pored over the day's memories of his sleepers, little of it was particularly interesting though on occasion he would find some snippet of something that was worth noting;

There, a slave cleaning a fireplace overhears their master in the next room discussing a possible looming war with another voice they do not recognise.

There, a slave grooming their masters fur catches sight of a report he's reading over his shoulder, the slave neither understood nor cared for its meaning, but Silk did.

There, a Manticore General recieves a sudden visitor in the night, arriving without warning. The slave who brought the visitor food and drink snatches a piece of their hushed conversation. "It's confirmed, sir, there are ninja abroad in Lyacili."

One by one he sifts through the dross of daily thought, gathering the day's choicest catches and sequesters them away, in the world of the physical his still-sleeping body makes notes with paper and pencil. Shifting from mind to mind, walking on gossamer webs of thought and magic, webs thinner than hairs and stronger than steel, stronger by far.

Then there was but one left, one last crossroads of his web that he had yet to pry into. He had been dreading this, being inside a minotaurs mind and seeing with its eyes, remembering with its mind, the thought made his skin crawl for more reasons than he had names for. But it had to be done, he had put in too much work weaving his webs around that mind, a mind so inimical to his inavsion and control that it burned his fragile threads like something caustic, that he had to smother and overwhelm and anneal with his magic just to make the threads stick. He couldn't shirk away from it now, not after having gone through all that.

What he found suprised him, most of it seemed relatively normal though also curiously alien. Entering the minds of the slaves, forced into certain fixed patterns of thought though they were, had been like dipping his hand into quiet, brackish water; murky and still but still fluid in a way. By contrast, the minotaurs mind was like like set gelatin; clear and bright but unchanging and resistant, as though fearing it might break and never again be whole.

Putting that thought aside for the moment, he sifted through the minotaurs memories at the speed of thought. Grief, doubt and shame made up most of it until it was replaced by a sudden flash of panic. He got the strange, synesthetic, sensation of feeling temporal currents shifting around him like ripples on the surface of a lake then bending to his command, one part of his mind occupied with keeping it under control, he'd had no idea that Tempus required so much concentration, it was nearly as involved as magic-working, perhaps even moreso in some ways.

But that wasn't what interested him the most. What did was a small, simple thing, the minotaur had barely paid it a moments heed, not recognising the significane that Silk saw. A flash, an image saw in passing lasting no more than a second.

A human, one the minotaur recognised and Silk did too, he realised, seen briefly through the network. A skinny, copper-haired man with pale skin and ink-stains on his hands. One of those hands was clutched in the other as though burned and a grimace of mixed shock and pain was on his face. Before him a black pillar danced with symbols that Silk recognised all too well.

His eyes snapped open as he returned to his body, this would not wait for morning. he extended his senses, reaching out for the familiar pulse of Mallear's mind.

'Master,' he sent across the link 'I think I may have something that warrants your attention.'