Anxiety welled in Arron as he made his way home. There was the most unnerving sensation that he was being watched, but every time he turned all he would see was Furrae going about their everyday business. And he never saw the same one twice. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he slid through an alleyway between two rock-shaped dens and into the lightly forested area that was Evergreen Apartments.
"Hey Arron," someone hailed him and he saw two children playing hop-skip on the flat between the trees.
"Lucy, Jake," he greeted them warmly, as they ran up to him. "What's up?"
"What happened to your eye," Jake asked. Eight years old and with the stocky build typical of his skunk-kin, he was as forthright as they came. His younger sister, Lucy, was rather more timid. "You been fighting?" He added.
"Fighting?" Arron forced himself to snort in laughter, "have you ever known me to get in a fight? Nah, 'twas only that I misjudged a low hanging branch."
"Where ya been?" Lucy added, shyly.
"I've been staying with some friends. Why, did you miss me?"
She nodded, positioning her thumb into her mouth. Six years old and still sucking her thumb, Arron would have to have a word or two to her parents. "A bit," her voice was muffled, "did you catch up with your friend?"
"My friend?" He frowned, suddenly feeling nervous although without reason to. It could merely be a friend he hadn't seen in a while. So why did the words tweak at the fear-strings of his soul? "Did he give you a name?"
She shook her head. "He was real tall, taller then you, and his fur was real thick and black."
Jake piped in here, unwilling to let his sister steal the limelight. "An' he had a picture of that lady what lives…"
"That lives, Jake, that lady that lives," Arron corrected him automatically. Dario - it had to be Dario, and he had come looking for Aranaya and he. Why? Surely the Black Lemur knew they had left?
"That lady what lives in number twelve. Only I ain't see her in days either. Ya didn't 'lope with her or nutthink?"
"I haven't eloped with anyone, Jake, we've just been staying with some friends. What did you tell him?"
"Only what we hadn't seen ya and we didn't know where ya was. Don't ya know him?" Jake was beginning to catch on to Arron's growing nervousness, "only he seemed to know all sortsa stuff 'bout you and that weird lady at number twelve."
"What sort of stuff, Jake?"
Jake backed down at that, Arron had allowed too much emotion into his voice and the young Skunk was suddenly panicky. "Only, ya know, stuff…"
"It's okay Jake, I'm not going to be mad at you. I just need to know. This fellow, he isn't a very nice person and he doesn't like Aranaya or me very much at all."
"Oh," his hand flew to his mouth. "I'm sorry Arron. I didn't know. He seemed to know stuff 'bout ya so I thought he must be ya friend. He was like talkin' 'bout your party an' ev'rything." He faltered. "Then he started askin' me questions 'bout you, like what you do every Elysiadae. I told him ya spent it in celebration like the rest of us. He didn't seem to like that much. He grunted and then asked me what I did. I told him I ate at the feast with e'ryone and watched the fireworks. An' he asked me if I knew I should be faminaning on those days and spendin' them on me knees in prayer. An' I said, no I weren't and his eyes started to look real nasty." He paused. "Then my papa came out an' asked him what he wanted and why he was talkin' to me like that and he got all polite like an' I was sent away."
"So the black fellow talked with your father for a time?"
Jake nodded. "I dunno what they was talkin' about."
"Were," Arron corrected, "what they were talking about."
"Well, I don't. He wasn't right was he?"
"No," Arron replied, "Elysia decrees that none shalt ever need to kneel in submission before another. Dario is a very, very sick man. If you ever see him again, I want you to call the City Guard immediately, and then - if you can, call me, okay?"
His voice was so cold that young Jake only nodded and shivered in response.
"Do you think he'll come back?" Lucy ventured, removing her thumb from her mouth for a moment. "He was scary."
"I don't know," was all Arron could say, "but I hope he found what he was looking for and won't need to." He sent Lucy and Jake on their way and approached his house. His tree felt wrong. Usually when returning home, he felt a welcoming feeling of home-coming, but not this time. Something was wrong.
His front door was not locked - but he could not remember if it had been so in the first case. He had left in rather a hurry, after all. As he entered the short, sloping entry chamber he knew someone else had been here before him. Even with nothing out of place, there was a taint upon the treehouse.
There was actual sign that someone had broken into the house, but Arron knew as soon as he saw his study that there had been an invasion. Unusually for one of creative mind, Arron was impeccably tidy. In his quarters there was rarely anything gout of place - he worked best when not surrounded by clutter. Thus the scattering of books across his desktop spoke volumes. He had not left them there, and some were sitting open, spines upright, something Arron would never do in a thousand years. Books were too valuable to vandalise in such a fashion. He gasped in horror as he realised which of his books had been thus mistreated.
It was an ancient tome - or to be precise, a copy of a multitude of ancient writings, written before, and shortly after, the Great White had begun to sweep all trace of the Furless Ones from the land. Various scribings had been found by the Ancestors and copied word for word, translated as best the scholars knew how. Arron had acquired, at great expense, this copy some years ago when researching a pre-Apocalyptic novel. What had Dario wanted with it? The Nocturne were interested in Pre-history? He picked up the book, sliding his finger into the pages that had been pressed open. They were crinkled now, having been left too long, and Arron felt slight revulsion that such an artefact could be shown such little respect.
It was discussing those terrible days after the Death Machines had begun their deadly reaping and had been copied from a collection of diaries kept by the Furless Ones. They all spoke of the terror, of entire cities reduced to ash in one brilliant white flare (seen, it should be noted, from a long, long way away) and the white powder that fell like snow but brought only death with it.
These facts, this spine-chilling eyewitness account, had killed Arron's desire to write such a story. It was too gruesome, too macabre. He had no wish to write a horror story. A horrifying thought crossed his mind - what if Dario wanted to relive it? His religious fanaticism, skewed as it was, made a fine weapon, and had not the followers of Valliklaw always spoken of a great Clensing?
He flicked back a few pages and found that one of the pages had the corner folded down. Suppressing a shudder of revulsion, he opened that page and carefully unfolded the crease. It was terrible, the ancient yellowing parchment would hold the mark forever. The pages themselves held a two-page spread of a map, drawn by the Ancestors. It was spotted through with asterisks and there were some names printed on it, the names of places Arron had never heard of. Much to his horror, one of these asterisks had been circled in red ink and, in impeccably neat writing, a word had been printed.
Dancing Rains
Burrr-ring-burrr-ring.
Kataryna was rudely awoken from her slumber and almost tumbled off the couch. How she had managed to fall asleep at all was a mystery, unless Arron had slipped something into her drink. The magivision flickered through the spectrum of colours, signifying an incoming call, and a moment later Aranaya's face appeared inside it. She looked worried and more haggard then usual.
"Arron, Kat," she said and there was a desperate tiredness in her voice, "I hope you get this message. There's been an accident and Titus has been taken into custody for behaving suspiciously. I'm currently at the hospital waiting with one of the victims until her Aunt comes to sit with her. Be careful." She paused, "Dario's at large and they're in league with a fidgety little Tarsier who calls himself 'Gidget'. He seems to be good with explosives. Anyhow, stay in the House and well, I'll be back soon. I just hope Titus doesn't get into too much trouble…" Her voice faltered and the screen flickered and returned to some sort of romantic drama. She sighed and fumbled about on the small table for some sort of writing implement, eventually unearthing a quill pen from the rubble. She might as well make herself marginly useful, after all, she felt pretty darn useless about right now.
Titus arrested, Aranaya in hospital, her as weak as a newborn Kit… How were they supposed to save the world?
They couldn't even save themselves.