FSE

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The colors embraced Todd like a blanket once more, less alien now and more familiar. He watched them, waiting for them to coalesce into an image. It was a shadowy figure, dressed in a green and yellow uniform, holding a bat over its shoulder. Todd couldn't make out its species or any specific details, but after a moment, he realized that the proportions were that of a young child, maybe five or six years old, standing in front of a tee with a white miniature baseball resting on it. The figure twitched the bat on his shoulder, swung, and smacked the ball, sending it flying down the third-base line.

"He's so fast," Lisa said as the murky figure dropped its bat and started running for first. She was sitting next to Todd in the stands, holding another small figure in her lap. This one was even less visible to Todd than the one currently rounding second.

"He loves to run," Todd said, his chest filling with pride. "Nothing can hold him in."

The figure starting running for third. That was a mistake - the third baseman had finally managed to pick up the ball hit directly to him, and was ready and waiting. The figure didn't care, though. He just wanted to run and feel the air on his face and the grass on his paws. As Todd watched, the figure changed. He became longer in body and stouter in muzzle, and he was no longer on a field. He was running down a dark sidewalk lit only by the occasional streetlamp in the stifling Florida night. The outline was recognizable now; it was unmistakably a Ferret.

The runner stopped, gasping for air, and stood in front of the plain white door in front of him. Todd knew that door, with the address picked out in black letters above the frame. It was home. The Ferret stopped, panting, and looked up and down the street. Seeing himself alone, he stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, then ran at the door and kicked it hard, right next to the handle. He wore a black military-style boot on his foot. The door creaked and bent. One more hard kick, and it cracked open, showing the unlit Corwin Hall reception room. Elyssa might have been there at that hour, if she hadn't left the warren. She often stayed up late behind the desk, working on accounts and notes on the little computer. Now, though, the desk sat empty, a screensaver on the monitor dimly illuminating the chair.

The Ferret bent to the side, and Todd heard the flinty sound of a lighter. After a few tries, the Ferret cursed, threw the lighter to the side, and took out another. After only a moment, the room was lit now by a red-orange glow from something the figure was holding. He threw it at the desk, and the room vanished in flames.

***

Todd sat up in bed, screaming. Lisa yelped next to him as he startled her awake. "What is it?!" she squeaked, grabbing the sheets around her chest. Todd tangled up in them as he tumbled out of bed, then stood up. "We have to get out of here!" He ran around to Lisa's side of the bed and began pulling her out.

"What?! Todd, calm down!"

"FIRE!" Todd shouted, and Lisa gasped. "What? Okay--"

Todd grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her out of bed. Lisa panted behind him, her arm stretched as he pulled her toward the front of the warren. "What do you mean, fire?" she asked, but a moment later her nose answered her. As they passed by the entrance of the gathering hall, she smelled wood burning, mixed with an evil, pitchy smell, like gasoline and burning plastic.

"Fire!" he shouted again as he ran past the hall, rousing the Sentients sleeping on cushions. He hurried past the open carved doors, making a straight path for the front exit, the air becoming cloudy and dark as they got closer. Lisa began to cough.

"Todd! Slow..." she panted, then doubled over and wrapped her arms around her midsection. Todd turned back and slipped one arm under her legs, lifting her up against his chest. "I've got you." He ran toward where the exit used to be. As he rounded a corner, he was stopped by a wave of heat and light. Lisa screamed in his arms.

"Shit!" He turned and ran back around the corner, coughing now himself. "Back exit?" He had no idea if there was one. Lisa just shook her head, her eyes closed tight. Todd ran back toward the entrance to the inner warren, but he turned to the side before he passed through the doors, heading down the old stone wall. Ahead, he saw light coming up from the two barred windows along the floor - the flickering light of a gas lamp. Arvetis and Geraden were awake. "Fire!" he screamed again, this time at the windows. "Fire at the entrance, we can't get out!" He began to hear shouts and moving people behind him from the gathering hall.

Todd ran back toward the hall, panting raggedly and coughing now. "Put me down..." Lisa choked out. Todd complied, and she squatted as she ran next to him, keeping her head out of the smoke. They ducked through the gathering hall doorway, fire beginning to flow along the ceiling of the corridor leading up to it. Heat rushed down the hallway at them, singing their fur even from yards away.

"Into the chapel," Todd heard someone say. It sounded like a female voice, familiar, but he couldn't put a face to it. He saw Geraden moving as quickly as he could into the hall, Arvetis behind him. The wolf's ears were pinned against his head. "Where's the- oh my God!" Geraden said as he saw the orange glow flowing down the hallway, now almost to the gathering hall doors. Arvetis gasped and ran toward the doors. "Arvy, wait!" Geraden grabbed at him, but the wolf was already past him.

"Todd, help me." Arvetis said as he took one of the large oaken doors and began to tug at it, slowly swinging it closed.

"But, the Chapel..." Who had said that?

"Help me!" Arvetis turned and snarled at the Ferret. Todd's fur stood on end, but he hurried and began pulling the other door shut.

"They're just sealing us in!" Lisa squeaked. The gathering hall's ceiling was obscured by smoke now, and people in the crowd were beginning to cough, some getting down on all fours to escape the smoke.

"This is how it started at Sandleford!" someone further back in the room said. Geraden snapped toward them. "We are not Sandleford! We'll be safe in here. This isn't the first time they've tried to burn Warkyn Warren."

It was too late, though. Alarmed shouts rang out in the hall as it filled with more people. A small Rabbit in the front made a run for the doors as Arvetis and Todd pulled them closed. He was past the rest of the crowd before Lisa tackled him, driving him to the floor. "Stop!" she shouted, her voice ringing off the stone walls. "Geraden knows what he's doing! Trust him!"

The heavy doors finally slammed shut just as Todd began to faintly hear sirens outside the warren. "Get to the Chapel," Todd heard, from two voices at the same time. One that odd female voice, and the other Geraden. The Rabbit's voice seemed to calm the crowd, and they moved out down the hall. A few people ran down the hallways, banging on bedroom doors and waking the ones who had slept through the commotion. Even as they moved, smoke began to collect against the ceiling. "Get down if you have to," Geraden called, "but keep moving!"

Arvetis stalked next to Todd, staring straight ahead, his eyes fierce and glinting in the gas light, his lips raised to show sharp ivory teeth. That was an expression Todd never wanted to see again - he looked forward at the rows of heads and backs bobbing in the corridor ahead of him. There were maybe thirty-five people now, as many as he had ever seen in the feast room. Geraden led them into the Chapel, the muted rainbow light making Todd wince and look away. There were hushed murmurs and whispers as those who had never been there saw the Touchstone wall for the first time.

Geraden descended the stairway behind the pulpit, clicking on a flashlight as he did so. "This way, two at a time. Careful, please." The crowd seemed strangely peaceful despite the growing smell of smoke, even this far into the stone keep. Brutus had a light too, as did Arvetis. Lisa and Todd stuck close to the front of the group, holding paws. The air seemed to become clearer as they descended the cool stone stairs.

"What is going on? Did something... I don't know, short-circuit?" Lisa asked Todd. She trailed off, her knowledge of fire origins limited to after-school specials from a decade and a half ago.

"I don't know. It looked intentional. I dreamed--"

"You dreamed about the fire? Someone did it on purpose?"

"I guess. I don't know. I wish they would tell us more about what the dreams mean." He glanced up at Arvetis and Geraden ahead of them.

After descending through the stone maze of the underwarren for several minutes, the group came to a place where the passage expanded into a wide hall. The flashlights ahead of them illuminated the large open space - almost as large as the gathering hall above them, and supported by tall pillars just like the upstairs hall, too. Brutus flipped a switch on his flashlight, and it became an electric lantern, bright but diffuse. It barely lit the far walls of the subterranean hall, but at least it provided a space for people to gather and see each other.

"You know how to get them to tell you more..." Lisa said, pointing her nose up and looking around the huge, cavernous room.

"What, join their Order? Get marked? I thought that freaked you out. It freaks me out," Todd whispered. Their words echoed through the chamber, but the sounds of the crowd blurred out their meaning from more than a few feet away.

"It kind of does," Lisa said. "But... well, if there are people willing to burn this place, I guess their secrecy makes sense, yeah?"

Todd sighed, looking up at the front of the group as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Brutus was climbing a metal ladder on the side of the wall, carefully testing each rung before putting his weight on it. It stretched far up above him, disappearing into darkness.

"I guess. But we know what those marks mean now. What they really mean. I don't want to be disfigured like..." his eyes flicked toward Arvetis, who had placed his back against the wall far from anyone else and was slowly sliding down onto his padded bottom.

Lisa frowned. "Like hundreds of people have been in the past century? People dedicated to unity and peace?"

"Yeah, and how would those people have felt if they'd known who their role model really was?"

Lisa crossed her arms and pointed her stubby nose downward, that little wrinkle forming at the bridge of her nose. She was silent for a few moments. "I think a lot of them probably did."

"What?"

"Or at least guessed. Most philanthropists don't wear masks, you know. And it doesn't really cover much; you've seen it yourself. Arvy and Gerry clearly told some people, too. There have always been rumors that he survived the Day of Fire."

"Conspiracy theories."

"Correct ones, as it turns out."

She had him there. He sighed and rubbed his face with his paws. In the darkness, the pressure caused rainbow patterns to appear in front of his eyes. "Look, I don't hate him. Whatever he was, he's at least partly a very nice old man now, I get that. I just... I don't want his marks on me, you know?"

Above them, at the top of the ladder, Brutus was shining a light on some kind of round metal hatch in the ceiling. He put one paw up gingerly, holding it near the hatch like a man testing the heat of a skillet on a burner. He withdrew it quickly and looked down, shaking his head, and began the slow climb back down.

Geraden passed by Lisa and Todd. Todd heard him counting under his breath - they were numbers thirty-six and thirty-seven. The Rabbit sighed and looked relieved. "We have everybody. Thank God." Then he blinked, a worried look crossing his face. "Unless..." He shook his head, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, clearly finding an emotional center and preparing to lead. He stepped over next to the lantern and raised his paws.

"Everyone, please listen." His clear voice, only a little shaky with age, echoed in the stone hall. "I won't understate things - this is a disaster and an attack on our way of life. But it has failed to hurt anything of consequence. I don't know what the situation is above-ground, but we will be safe down here. From the fire, at least - please do not lean on any pillars. You're standing in the gathering hall of ancient Warkyn Warren, and nobody has been down here in decades. In the meantime, as soon as it is safe above, we have an escape hatch. It may be several hours before we can go through, however; the fire is preventing us from opening it. If you are continent and your diaper is dry, I ask you to remove it so we'll have changes for those who can't hold it. We will sit with each other, talk, and enjoy the company of those our enemies tried to take from us tonight."

Todd reached down and squeezed Lisa's paw, then untaped his diaper, setting it aside. "Are you dry, hon?" Lisa just squeaked and gave a little nod. They would both be naked without their diapers, but the vast hall was dim enough that Todd didn't think it would be a problem, even with the crowd. He helped Lisa lie down on the floor and began untaping her. She gave another squeak, and then a sniffle, looking to one side. "Are you all right, sweetie?"

Lisa shut her eyes, and Todd could see tears on her cheeks in the lantern light. "Everything's burning up," she said softly. "My crib is burning up." Todd sat down and pulled her into his lap, rubbing her belly. There was nothing he could say.