A gong sounded in the darkness.

It was a call to the three tribes, a sound that sent birds flying from trees and scattering into the night, a sound that rallied the three separate tribes and caused a wave of lanterns to be lit all across the city of Anhau as people were roused from their beds.

"Thank you, Elder Branche," said Elder Takala, breathless. She clutched her shawl to her as the younger Elder stepped down from the ladder that went up to the gong tower, a hammer held between his old and broken teeth. "We must prepare."

The two set out to the Pylons, holding hands and joining with other Elders that appeared out of the temples and buildings. There was a great whispering as speculations flew through the air, but Elder Takala held up her hand, and there was silence.

Presently, Durg Joa Tan arrived, two of her oldest daughters in tow; she looked drained and irritable.

"Why have you called together the tribe Elders?" she asked Takala, pulling back her heavy wool hood. The rain had begun earlier that day, and it was still drizzling that evening. Soon, going outside at night would be a much more miserable affair. "It is the middle of the night, Takala!"

"This could not wait," she said, shaking her head. "I must confer with the Elders. We have been having dreams as we perform Mans. A question has been burning in our minds, and I believe that I am not the only one to have received an unfavorable answer."

There was a mumbling of dismayed agreement among the Elders who were present. They, too, had had the dreams.

Elder Haikam was among the mumblers. She raised a shaky, sausage finger at Takala, yellow eyes wide with concern.

"I believe you and I have one and the same vision Elder Takala. It fills me with great uncertainty and worry." She reached up and pulled her blanket tight around her, looking around at the gathered party, not willing to explain further till someone else spoke up. A small way behind her, Durg Roon stood, arms crossed, wizened face pulled into a thoughtful frown, long silver moustace giving his frown and even more drawn appearance. He glanced at the others, then at Joa Tan with a meaningful pause. What was going on?

Irune Umea walked with her uncanny calm into the gathering of other more disturbed Elders. The Kohore woman seemed hardly dressed against the rain without a cloak or a shawl, short brown hair plastered against her serene, weathered face from the downpour. Her arms were folded into the full sleeves of her tunic and her sandals slipped a little in the wet, yet the petite Elder offered a nod of agreement as she entered the conversation,

"It's a strange comfort to not be alone in what we have seen." Irune's hazel eyes were full of pensive concern, "Thank you for your wisdom of waking us now. Perhaps we've waited long enough."

Lida Odara had been awake all evening by her fire, unable to sleep. When the call went out she had released a sigh of relief and took up her cane to reach the meeting place.

"A small comfort, yes," she said in her small voice, thin arm coming beneath her woolen coverings to pull her hood from her long white hair, "but what is it that we have seen? It seems from my visions that the threat of the hatchers will soon be gone, indeed, but... but will this bode well for us? I have asked this many times as I meditate, but I fear, that as Takala, and many others, the outcome does not seemed good."

A nasty cough sounded from the back of the group. Loe Han, and elder to the Ethia well past her prime, shuffled forward. Her back had been bowed from long hours spent writing and working. In her frail dotage she had become somewhat obsessed with her health, constantly suffering one ailment or another.

"This is not the same as dreams before." She said croakily. "I trust on little where Hatchers are involved."

Those around may not have remembered it but Loe had lost a brother to a Hatcher in her youth.

"If they leave there is naught but a wall to stop them returning and making worm's meat out of us." She said, sounding tired and contrary.

At the age of 78 she felt she'd earned it.

"My sisters and brothers," said Takala, holding up a weak hand. "We forget that the hatchers are our protection as well as our prison. While they remain, we cannot be harmed by the terrible forces of Bruanhald. And I have seen their world in my reverie. It is all ash and fire and discord."

There was a quick slap-slap-slap of sandals against the tile, and Cosoa Bryn hurried into the circle, holding a thick shawl. She draped it across Takala's shoulders.

"I am sorry, Elder," she said, panting heavily and bowing. "I did not see that you had left."

"You should not be here," said Elder Takala to the young priestess. She put a wizened hand on her shoulder. "We are discussing secret things. Please, return to your temple." Aganst the bright backlight of the phosphor lanterns, Bryn thought she saw the old woman's eyes twinkle.

Bowing respectfully again and again to all the Elders and Durgs, Bryn backed out of the circle of light.

"Now," said Takala, "we must be sure before we can act. Our ancestors dreaded that this day would come."

"Maybe these visions are simply a metaphor—something we should be looking for the meaning of—and not something so terrible as a reality." Irune frowned, doubting her own words and yet not entirely willing to accept that their peaceful veil was no longer something stable to rely on. She sighed and briefly searched the tired, concerned faces of those gathered only to find herself left without comfort,

"What have we all seen? If it is consistent, then there must be truth in it somewhere."

Loe sniffled loudly, having slowly given up the social graces she did not like over time.

"Even if it was a metaphor... Anything involving the hatchers augers poorly for us." She grumbled to herself for a moment. "I agree with Elder Irune, better to document what has been seen."

Loe drew herself up a little and became momentarily quiet. She felt as though everything about herself was moving slower as the years wore on. She was almost complacent about it, so long as she was allowed to complain.

"I see the mists drawing back, revealing a desolate plain and a city in the distance." Loe actually shrugged. "Usually the hatchers obscure the finer details. It may not be so for the other Elders."

Lida closed her weary eyes, her wrinkled lips trembling as she began to speak.

"Each mansi I cast shows me a vision... I see hatchers. Few at first, but then droves of them. Streaks speeding through the mist, in ever widening circles, it seems... The mist begins to dissipate, the hatchers to fade away... both are replaced by dark clouds..." she pressed her thin lips into a line as she folded her hands over her woolen clothes, picking nervously at a pill of material on the fabric, "I see lightning on the horizon, off to the South East..."

She opened her bluing yellow eyes and gave the group a meaningful look. Southeast... toward Bruanhald.

"I've not seen the Hatchers, only where they've been." Irune sighed listlessly, "I always hear them, moving. In the wake of their lingering mist are faces that are not our own." The petite woman frowned, finally withdrawing her hands from her sleeves to run them over the wet mess of her hair in an attempt to dispel the memories of her visions as she spoke of them, "The sun rising to the east in my visions is always casting long shadows, and they are all unfamiliar."

Haikam trembled, not from the wet cold. She hugged herself.

"I see the hatchers, moving, leaving. And I see our warriors, great and strong, staring at me with dead eyes and bleeding wounds. I see fire and sorrow. But I also see triumphs. It is most disturbing and confusing." Durg Roon looked between all the Elders as they spoke. Finally, he made a sound of acknowledgment.

"It would seem that the Gods are trying to show you something very important. Why would the hatchers leave so suddenly? It doesn't make sense." His voice was very soft, but immediately demanded attention.

"Durg Roon," said Elder Takala, bowing as low as her ancient, stiff back would let her. She was not of the Ethia tribe, but knew well enough to respect anyone who cared for a culture's secrets. "The hatchers have always been privy to information that we are not. Their connection to the gods and the mona is unlike our own. Perhaps they have seen the fires of the world before they have come to pass, peered through the layers of the universe to a time parallel to our own."

The old crone brought her cane to the center of the tiled circle, where a depiction of a hatcher, or what the artist of yesteryear had assumed a hatcher looked like, was curled around like a snake.

"But I do not believe we should give in to fear and dismay," she said, in a warbling voice that might have been endearing had the subject matter been less grave. "Change is coming to our world, but our faith is as strong as ever. The gods smile on Anhau. We will be protected."

Roon bowed back to the Elder, acknowledging her wisdom and words with respect and dignity.

"I trust your judgement, Elder Takala. We should not call for concern yet, but perhaps it is not a good idea to brush off these visions either. What should we advise the people? Already, they suspect something when their Elders and Durgs steal away in their nightclothes to stand in the rain."

Irune was not comforted. She stared at the drawings on the ground, spread out in the circle, frowning. It wasn't that she doubted the gods or the beasts or even the mona, but she wasn't sure that the cheerful acceptance that came from the lips of her peers was entirely enough.

She sighed, speaking with a quiet urgency, "We should look further. I don't feel like we've seen enough to draw conclusions as it is."

"Honored Irune, I agree," said Durg Joa Tan, whose face looked hard and concerned. She glanced around the circle. "I do not see Solexa among us tonight, nor any Roek. But it is his tribe that must go forth to see if there are any answers on the Rim of the valley. Roon, we must seek council with Solexa and ask him to protect our city."

"And we Elders must ask the mona for guidance," said Takala, a little sternly. She put little stock in waving spears and knives at problems; introspection and meditation was the better way, in her mind. Still, she had no jurisdiction over her Durg, and she did agree that something had to be done. "We Elders of the Kohore must perform a choral Mans. We must find the truth."

Roon nodded and frowned.

"I wonder what has kept him from this meeting. Surely he should have sent a person in his stead. Whatever the reason, we shall converse with him as soon as possible. The Hunters will lay aside their spears and traps, to bring out the knives and bows. The Warriors are needed now." He turned his eyes to Talaka as she spoke again.



Haikam nodded, her double chin jiggling.

"This one agree's."

"What of us others, surely we should not stand idly by while such unsurety looms on the horizon?" Loe asked, lips waggling, she did not intend to be left behind.

She too placed little value in fighting and fighters. She was an earthy woman and she had spent her time nurturing the earth and the children of her tribe. She wanted to take action, so long as it was the kind of action she approved of.

((SFSR))

Takala bowed her head in respect to Loe.

"Beata Loe," she said. "Any who is skilled in Mans, as I know you are, may join us."

The other Elders of the Kohore muttered a little, but Takala cast a sharp eye on them. "The Ethia and the Roek are our kin, same as the earth we till and the beasts we dream," she said, a little sternly. "Our temple is large enough for all Elders to participate. The protection of Anhau is not a task for only the Roek and the Kohore. We will need the wisdom of the past to meet the challenges of our future."

Joa Tan nodded. She was not opposed to tribal intermingling in times of crisis; the Ethia were always welcome on Kohore land. But she trembled with anger at the thought of Solexa purposefully ignoring this meeting; as far as she was concerned, the Roek were troublesome, not at all in harmony with the world. They would cast a martial pallor on the Mans reading.

Still, she held her tongue. Intertribal harmony was paramount to the survival of Anhau.

Irune sighed and shifted in rain-soaked discomfort at the friction that was briefly tangible in her fellow Kohore's words. Her expression may have remained blank, but her thoughts stormed briefly like the weather over her head. This was no time to be driving a wedge between them all.

"I will join in the chorus, but first it should fall on one of our shoulders to inform the Roek." While her tone of voice was not necessarily revealing whether or not she was willing to volunteer, it was obvious she was not entirely opposed, "The decisions we will be facing concern us all—whether or not Solexa and the tribe have chosen to recognize their responsibility at this hour. We must take care of each other, regardless."

"I will go," said Durg Joa Tan, in a brazen voice so full of authority and purpose that few would choose to question it. She brushed her rain-swept hair from her face and looked upwards to where the shining lights of Roekshir glowed in the darkness. "Solexa and I have much to discuss. Elders, my will is with you. Make haste. Find the answers."

((eot?))