five years of exile he had suffered after his flight from Wayford. They had taken him in, sheltered and fed him, made him one of them, and never asked a thing in return. Old Croy, who mended his shoes and clothing and told stories of his past. Melinhone, who cooked for him every day and kept him warm at night. The boy Phinn and the girl Derinda, brother and sister, who played in the yard of the home next door to his own, still children when they died.
The list went on and on, and every face on it was etched into his memory. All had died in the attack, and there had been no effort to spare them. It was understandable that the authorities would come after the raiders who had risked their lives from the moment they had chosen to prey on Federation shipping, but to make no distinction between those who were guilty and those who were innocent—those who were instigators and those who were no more than bystanders—was unforgivable. It was an affront to Arcannen and a blatant disregard of the laws of civility, and he could not abide it.
He explained all this now as he walked them through the remains of Arbrox from end to end, pointing out this and that space where a memory recalled itself, offering brief stories of those dead and gone, relating bits and pieces of the life he had enjoyed during the time he had lived here. The pain he felt in doing so was immense, but it was cleansing, as well. By telling of what hurt, he found fresh fuel for his determination to see it avenged.
“Do you not see the injustice of it?” he asked the boy as they walked on across the darkening landscape, glimpses of moon and stars now providing light for them to find their way forward. “A handful of these people broke the laws of a powerful government, but all who lived here were made to suffer for their violation. There was no effort to determine the guilty. The soldiers of the Red Slash were told that everyone was to be killed. The attack—which I witnessed—was meant to eradicate an entire people. It was an abomination against humanity.”
“But why do you still consider this your home?” the boy pressed him. “It isn’t really your home anymore.”
“Come,” Arcannen ordered, turning away.
He took them a short distance to an open doorway and then inside rooms where the ceiling was collapsed and the floor strewn with rubble. Without pausing, he continued on to an opening in the cliff wall behind and through to a darkened hallway. With a snap of his fingers, he produced a flame that danced on his fingertips. In the glow of its light, they made their way back into the darkness until he reached a shuttered door, heavy and metal-bound, the lock that secured it new.
Digging into his black robes with his free hand, Arcannen produced an iron key that released the lock. Without a word, he opened the door and stepped inside. The boy and the girl followed. Reaching out with the flame he had conjured, he lit a series of torches fixed in wall brackets until the room in which they stood was flooded with light.
“As you can see,” he said, indicating what lay within with a sweeping gesture of his hand, “it is indeed still my home.”
The room was furnished sumptuously and decorated with ornate wall tapestries and silks, colorfully woven rugs and bright paintings. Fixtures of gold and silver glittered in the torchlight, and colorful glass bowls shone from where they sat on tables and pedestals. Through other doorways and openings, the faint outlines of furnishings revealed bedrooms and a kitchen, and all the way in a long hallway that tunneled back into a deeper darkness.
“I returned when it was safe to do so and found these rooms empty and untouched. I brought in the things I required to make it comfortable, and I resolved that Arbrox would rise from the ashes. I could not save her people, my friends and protectors, but I could save their home. I could make it mine again, and l could live here as once I had intended I might. No one would come to bother me here—not in this dead and ruined place—so I did not need to worry about discovery. In its destruction, it came to serve me as the perfect hiding place while I considered what I would do to the