Tarakae pounded on his drum faster than any human heart could follow. He layered in alternating rhythms of syncopated beats in such a way that the tavern goers found their heads bobbing and toes tapping unconsciously to the rhythms behind the rhythms. He punctuated his performances with shouts of 'Justice' and 'Fairness' and the crowd shouted back.

He had already explained the situation in his own discursive and repetitive way. One of the wealthy merchants, Thumos, the son of a city elder who thought himself above such considerations had refused to pay his fair share. He had even gone so far as to paint a black hand on his house in an attempt to protect himself, all but a confession of his guilt.

The crowd thrust red hands into the air, shouting 'Justice' and 'Fairness'. Looks like Pronos is going to get his soreav soon, he thought as he gave the crowd its signal to go. They surged for the door and the crate of weapons nearby. The elders won't be able to ignore this.

The crowd laughed and cheered as they strolled down the street as if to a party. They came to Thumos' door and began throwing themselves against it, the crowd roaring its approval with each crash. The door burst inward and the red-hands surged inside, smashing and tearing everything in sight. They found Thumos hiding upstairs with his family and dragged them all up to the roof. His pleas for mercy, his offers of wealth, his wife's screams and the cries of his children only seemed to incite the crowd, which raged like a single mindless beast.

A group of men and women grabbed Thumos by the arms and legs and carried him to the edge of the roof. Tarakae stared into the man's terrified face as they rocked him back and forth. They were both surprised when the group actually pitched him over the edge. He fell head-first and landed with a splattering crunch on the cobblestones below. His wife soon followed him off the roof in a wailing decrescendo. Two large dock workers then competed in how high they could launch the children into the air.

Somewhere in the chaos within the house below, someone smashed a lamp, sending sprays of flaming oil against the walls. By the time the smoke made it to the roof, the room below was engulfed in flames. A few people raced back through the oven the house had become, with one or two emerging outside on the street below, blistered and smoking. Their companions screamed as they died in the flames. A few others leaped off the roof with at least one fellow breaking his leg as he landed on the corpses below. Most tried to leap to neighboring roofs with varying degrees of success.

Tarakae circled the roof, peering over the edge. He found a small single-story shed-like structure against the back corner of the house, so he climbed over the roof's edge, dangled and dropped to its roof. He crashed straight through, slowed by the collapsing wood, and bounced off the back of a frightened donkey. Tarakae rolled away to escape the braying animal kicking out in fear. He rose and checked himself. Aside from some scratches and torn clothes, he was fine. Opening the pen's gate to let himself out, the donkey bolted past him and ran away into the night.

The crowd stood in an arc around the bodies of Thumos and his family, cheering as the flames consuming his house rose up into the dark sky. The neighbors began to flee as the fire spread to the nearby houses. Alarm bells rang at nearby intersections. Soon the whole city would arrive to fight the fire. The crowd noise died down as a timber supporting the roof collapsed with a crash, sending the column of flame roaring higher.

A skinny young man wearing a fisherman's hat seemed to speak for them all. "They'll have to pay attention to us now."

<====|==|====>

People stared in wonder as Pronos strode down the street toward his house. The bright bronze plates sewn to his leather tunic flashed light back at them as he walked. It had taken him a month of running back and forth between his smith and his leather worker to get it right. He had sold his Har-Toran armor years ago for money to live on. Even so he was surprised, when he tried to reproduce it, how many details he had got wrong.

The number of people sleeping on the street outside his door had increased even as the number of paying costumers declined. These new people seemed to consist of the old, the senile, the insane and the just plain weird. They stared at him silently, their dull eyes following him as he passed by. They didn't seem to have any questions for the oracle, though some had messages for him.

"Tell him! Tell him!" a ratty-haired old woman called out.

"I'll tell him," Pronos said sarcastically.

"Tell him I know the secret of eternal life!" She choked as a sudden coughing fit seized her.

"You should use that secret yourself. You don't look like you have too long."

"It's not for me," she said between coughs. "I'll never reach it, but he might."

Pronos mounted his doorsteps, pausing to step over a child either sleeping or dead, and accidentally made eye-contact with an emaciated man of indeterminate age. The man looked ancient, though his beard was mostly black. He gestured Pronos over as if wanting to share a secret.

"I saw the lights leave the stone and go into the man who swallowed it."

Pronos froze as if an ice-cold hand had clamped down on the back of his neck. "Are you talking about Ctonos? The man Amantis killed before using his stone to animate his corpse?"

The man smiled broadly. "The stone is in the boy."

"No," Pronos said. "Ctonos swallowed it," then he hesitated. Amantis' stone had served as his connection to the n'phesh... or was it the n'kroi? Some spirit beings at least. But when the stone had failed him, Andral was to have replaced it. "Are you talking about Andral?"

The man nodded. "But the other boy will go into the stone!"

"What are you saying?"

The man laughed as if it were all a funny secret.

Pronos tried questioning him further, but the man would only smile, nod and laugh. With a snort of disgust, he reminded himself that all these people were crazy. He opened the door and entered. Apaidia greeted him with her customer scowl.

"What is that you're wearing?" She eyed his armored tunic pointedly.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten the armor I once wore."

Apaidia shook her head. "I know that. I meant, where did you get it?"

"I had it made."

"With what coin?"

Pronos smiled at her impatience. She was becoming increasingly predictable. "Tarakae and I share a business arrangement."

Apaidia's scowl deepened, aging her face further than her middle-aged years already had. "I don't like him. He's a troublemaker."

"That is the idea."

"It's going to get out of hand. The mob may turn on us, or the rest of the city will—you're jeopardizing everything we have here."

"What do we have here?" Pronos wanted to shout in exasperation. "Tarakae's mob is the only thing accomplishing...anything!" He cast a glance into the room where Andral normally performed his Oracle duties. They were now lucky to get one or two clients a day. "The elders will have to act soon."

"I just don't want him around Andral."

Pronos shrugged. "Why should he be around Andral?"

"He's in the courtyard right now waiting for you. He says he has something to tell you."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" Pronos walked out the back door to a patch of dead ground behind their house. An oversight of the builders had left a small unclaimed island of land accessible only by the surrounding buildings. Tarakae sat on the back steps watching Andral playing with a gray kitten. He rose as Pronos stepped outside.

"I hear you were looking for me," Pronos said.

Tarakae handed him a bag of coins. "I have some good news."

Pronos first hefted the bag in his hand, then looked inside. He was getting better at estimating the value of coins by weight. "I take it this didn't come from Thumos?"

Tarakae chuckled. "No, but something better did."

"Oh?"

"His father flew into a rage. He's been meeting with some of the wealthier merchants who are unhappy about their forced contributions to the city's poor." Tarakae gave a nod to the bag in Pronos' hand.

"They're meeting with the rest of the elders at Sheider's tavern, tonight."

Pronos clenched the bag in his fist. "Finally!"

"Some of the merchants have already started hiring house guards, but they know they need a larger force to stop the Red Hands. You show up in that pretty coat and I'm confident they'll beg you to protect them."

A looming sense of presence fell on Pronos like the shadow of an unexpected cloud covering the sun. Tarakae seemed to sense it as well, glancing up at the neighboring buildings' shuttered windows as if fearing someone had stuck their head out and caught them in the midst of their plotting. Whichever way he looked, Pronos kept feeling like someone was standing just behind him.

A whimper drew their attention to Andral who stood holding his kitten, blood dripping from his hand. The sense of invisible presence, the pressure of its awareness increased. Andral dropped the limp form. He held a small copper knife in his other hand. Andral displayed his blood-covered hand and giggled.

"Look. Red hand."

<====|==|====>

Pronos was surprised to find the door to Sheider's tavern closed. Situated near the nicer homes of Mari, it would normally just be filling up with the wealthier merchants as dusk fell. Hearing a murmur of voices, Pronos opened the door and a cloud of tovach smoke billowed out. Sheider, sitting on a stool near the door at the back of the crowd turned as Pronos peered inside. "We're closed. This is a private meeting."

Holding his spear before him, Pronos pushed his way inside. "I know. They're going to want to hear from me." He shouldered aside several well-dressed merchants who muttered angrily as they listened to comments from an old man commanding the room's center.

"And then, not even sparing the child, those monsters threw my grandson off the roof where he died next to the broken bodies of my son and his wife!" The old man dissolved into tears and a shocked silence filled the smoky tavern.

Pronos pushed his way into the middle of the room, stopped and thumped his spear down, its point biting into the floor's timbers. He paused, staring into their stunned faces and tried not to smirk at their helplessness. "I hear you're having trouble with the mob." He gave them another long moment of thoughtful silence and savored their gape-mouthed expressions. "Fortunately, you have me. I am probably the only one who can help you right now." He let the statement dangle through another long moment of silence until one hesitant merchant asked, "Who are you?"

"My name is Pronos. I am a reaver from Nur. You may have heard that Nur once faced a similar problem. Well, I trained and commanded their force of spears, their soreav, and I can help you defend yourselves against this mob."

"I have heard of them," one merchant said.

"So have I," the man next to him added with an expression of distaste, "But I heard they were defeated by the oracle of the north and Nur's oracle was killed."

Pronos pulled his spear from the floor, stepped over to the man who'd spoken, and thunked it down with a splintery crunch. "He fed an entire city and its surrounding villages in the midst of famine." Pronos let some of his anger into his voice. "With his help our soreavs held off waves of beastmen and bandits and, for a time, the oracle of the north's forces. He was only defeated, in the end, by the wiles of a woman who stole his power."

Some of the men chuckled and nodded their heads.

Pronos hefted his spear and walked in a slow circle, eyeing each of the elder merchants. "Fortunately the oracle of Mari is young enough that women have no hold on him."

"Mari has an oracle?" one of the merchants asked.

"Yes."

"Do you mean that boy on the south-west side of town, near the docks, who tells people how to find lost treasures and repeats gossip?"

"We have been warning you for nearly four years this day would come but you would not listen!"

"Wait a minute," one of the men said, "I know you. You're that fellow who shouts in the market place."

"Yes!" another interjected, "but don't you work with that drummer who keeps taking our money?"

An angry rumbling murmur rose up.

"He's one of them." Voices in the crowd began to shout.

"He works with the mob! They both do!"

"Hear me!" Pronos pounded the floor with his spear until the talking died down. "I am in league with the oracle and no one else! It is true that Tarakae the drummer has tried to negotiate a peaceful solution between the mob and the merchants, but I believe he is mistaken in thinking this is anything but a temporary solution!"

Pronos thrust his spear out, it razor-sharp tip stopped inches from one merchant's nose. He turned a slow circle, pointing at each man who flinched as he singled them out. "Once the mob realizes that you cannot stop them from taking your goods, they will not stop until they have seized it all. They will no longer listen to words or respect gifts. If you wish to retain your positions of wealth and privilege, you will need my knowledge and the oracle's wisdom."

The crowd stood in thoughtful silence. As the moment grew awkward, a man named Raeos cleared his throat. "What, then, would you suggest we do?"

Pronos smiled. "Pool your resources, hire some men and equip them with spears and armor. Allow me to train them and I promise you nothing will happen in this city without your approval."

Some of the elders nodded and murmured in agreement. Others began to voice objections which grew louder and more heated as they continued. Raeos walked over to Pronos with another merchant at his shoulder. "You've given us much to think about. I doubt anything will be decided tonight, though I think most will come to agree with your suggestion."

"I hope so," Pronos said, "for everyone's sake. If the mob continues to spread unchecked, the whole city may well go up in flames."

"Perhaps you should go home and rest while they argue this out. I can let you know their decision tomorrow—if they reach one."

Pronos nodded. "And I think you should choose a few men you trust from among your number to be tacarchs, who can make these sorts of decisions in the future, men with foresight such as yourselves. Otherwise, these merchants will argue and haggle over every suggestion and nothing will get done."

Raeos acknowledged his words with a slight bow.