Chapter Four: The Manifest of the Harikan Squall

With his keen perception, Vhezyen doesn't have much difficulty sussing out the relative location of the fire; it has to be coming from the large, walled-off estates to the northwest, some of the most expensive real estate in Hazard. But whose house? Ibetbal? Gahmez? Cron? It has to be one of the big mansions burning, they probably wouldn't even bother with the bells if it was just a servant dormitory or something -- just tear it down quick before the fire could spread to anything that mattered.

A water cart passes him as he reaches the afflicted neighborhood and makes his way toward the fire. Servants from nearby houses race ahead of him, carrying empty buckets on loan from their masters. Guards trundle by with long hooks for tearing down structures burned beyond hope. It's not long before he overhears the answer to his question: it's the Gahmez house that's burning. That takes Vhezyen a bit by surprise. What could have caused such a conflagration in that great old mansion of stone?

Once away from the plaza, the party quickly regroups and makes their way to the nearest bridge over the Ophid. Guards and hoodlums alike take note of the party as they race as fast as they can through the waterfront district towards the Gahmez estate, but with word of manses on fire and strange creatures taking flight over the city and murders before the steps of the old temples, none bother to make the pursuit of five running men their priority.

Though none of you dared doubt that it was any other house but the House of Gahmez burning, the reality doesn't hit you until you stagger to a stop, breathless and sweat-drenched, before the massive crowd gathered at the estate's main gate. Guards, servants, neighbors, gawkers stand in noisy chaos outside the walls, while inside the great house burns like an enormous stone furnace, walls glowing from the fires within as black smoke streams upward. The servant's entrance has already collapsed into a pile of ash and embers. Though there are water carts and a bucket brigade at the ready, the futility of trying to douse the inferno contained within the stone walls, evident to all, has left them standing impotently outside the walls, watching as the flames consume what they will.

Not far from the gate, in the thickest knot of bodies, you see Chorcarz and a dozen or so of his immediate family and most trusted servants surrounded by guards and two watch captains. Some of them are barely dressed, most of them are weeping. Chorcarz himself, his face scarlet and twisted in a rictus of fear and fury, is leaning into Rolon's broad chest as if he can barely keep himself standing. Rolon, you notice, has a savage gash on the side of his face; his clothes are drenched with blood.

There are guards pacing along the estate walls, on the inner and outer sides, and a few prowling the grounds, searching. Near where the party comes to a stop, a scholarly-looking fellow is gently but persistently probing a man in an embroidered silk robe -- probably a neighbor -- with questions about whether the Gahmez family was in possession of any irreplaceable artifacts or relics that might be imperiled by the fire.

Chorcarz hasn't noticed the party's arrival yet. Conspicuously absent from the gathering outside the gate are Zora, Martjan, Shamush, and Vad.

Vhezyen and the party members can hear snatches of conversation from the citizens and officials conversing nearby:

"...twenty of them, give or take. We've recovered eight. Most of them had their heads bashed in by that outlander."

"All of it, everything. And little Horcra, oh, little Horcra. It's unimaginable..."

"...not a myth at all. It's said the Emperor of Saien is one. Now, that may be only a rumor, but the point is..."

"...something about a magic orb from Sthombo, or maybe a crown..."

"...haven't found a breach, that still wouldn't explain..."

"...I know, I know, but there were many witnesses. It flew, whatever it was."

"What? No, never heard that name before. Gorham?"

"...politically motivated. But I can't fathom why."

Flying Man was a human male of roughly forty years of age, ethnically Bloader/Engolan, as far as Felor could tell.

Domarc can trace the source of that dialogue to a watch captain and a guard standing near the Gahmez family.

Chorcarz looks up and glares balefully at Domarc after he makes his presence known, but does not speak. The watch captain points to the right of the gate. "Around the corner. I'll warn you, he's in bad shape."

Around the corner of the wall surrounding the estate, kept separate from the throngs out front by a pair of guards, a watch captain, and a bald man in what looks to him like a city official's togs, Felor finds some familiar faces: Shamush, seated on the ground and leaning against the wall, covered in blood and staring vacantly ahead as if still in the grips of that fighting trance he sometimes slips into; Vad, upright but leaning on the wall beside Shamush, his clothes ripped and singed and his face bearing the telltale blistering and bruising patterns of arcane energy burns; and Zora, soot on her face and ash in her hair, looking up darkly as the city official talks at her, and holding a piece of black cloth or clothing tightly in her hands. She is the first to see Felor round the corner, and though she does not smile, you can see something like relief loosen her countenance and posture.