The day since finding the destroyed village hasn't been much more interesting than the preceding ones of hiking through the countryside. Canticle spent a few hours in ritual magicks, trying to isolate the new home for the Lacinus. This, as he explained to Rory, was more difficult than even tracking the hedge wizard from so many miles away had been, because the mage could be isolated by her magical "signature" – fairly easy to discern in a continent with so few casters. Lacinus, however, are abundant, and trying to locate a particular group of them without any personal effects beyond the bare ground where they used to reside proved troublesome.

The raccoon might not have succeeded at all had Rory not turned up a grass-and-twig doll in the tall grasses outside the burned circle, while hunting around for something to do as the raccoon cast. Other than that find, the area was even duller than it had been the previous afternoon – quiet and almost eerily devoid of life.

Using the doll, the Scrying mage finally managed to fix on location of its erstwhile owner, and the party of three – Canticle, Silhouette, and Rory – spent the next several hours hiking there through the gentle hills. The spot was some miles off, and near the forest visible on the horizon. As they draw close, Rory could hear the tinkling of moving water, then the raccoon stops moving. "The Lacinus should be near, now, possibly just beyond this rise," he says, his voice low, gesturing to the slope before them. "Would you scout on ahead for us, Rory? I'd like a clearer idea of what we'll be walking into before we charge into the thick of them."

The little black and white unicorn bobs his head several times, beaming widely. Despite his earlier mishap while trying to sneak, he's still convinced that if he tries really hard, he should be able to be sufficiently sneaky. He takes a moment to chant a minor spell to aid in his stealth, then, as quietly as he can manage, slinks to the crest of the rise to see if he can get a glimpse over to the other side.

The young mage's precautions pay off, and he makes it to the ridge as silently as the shadow at his side … or, two shadows at his side, as it happens. Together, they peer over the top, spying on the scene below.

It's mid-afternoon, and just a handful of the village's people appear – a stooped Lacinus woman carving slices from a smoked haunch of antelope, while a pair of cubs carefully wrap the meat between broad leaves. An adolescent Lacinus takes one of the dangling hides from its tree and starts stretching it between two, securing the edges by using a rock for a hammer, though what she uses for nails, Rory cannot tell from this distance.

Rory keeps low, scanning for anything that seems out of the ordinary from what little he knows of Lacinus villages. Such as, say, a giant fire serpent parked behind one of the huts, an inordinate number of scorch marks on their fur, evil runes identifying them as members of ancient cannibalistic cults, et cetera.

The unicorn's avid scanning of the village fails to turn up any obvious signs of dark powers at work. There is a fire burning in the hearth, though. And the pattern of wet and dry spots on one of the stretched hides does look sort of like the rune for the sphere of Chaos, only upside down, with one of the spars missing and two of the long ones truncated, and rather blobby at the end of the one long spar that's not chopped off. And disconnected.

Rory makes a mental note of that, since such an uncanny resemblance to the Rune of Chaos can't possibly be accidental. Satisfied that he has made a significant discovery, he slinks back off toward theelder scryer, trying to maintain his stealth, and hoping that the spell doesn't wear out before he gets out of earshot of the village.

The shadow mage makes it safely back to the scryer, who has not been eaten by fiery serpents or Carpenter Beetles o' Doom in Rory's absence. "What did you see?" the raccoon asks.

The little unicorn can hardly contain himself. "There's a whole village of them, and they had this big fire burning, and they had this sacrificial beast they were hacking up and wrapping up the pieces between gigantic leaves of a monstrous plant that, if it were carnivorous, would probably be big enough to gobble us both up! And they were hanging the skins of these beasts to a tree and mashing it with a hammer, and on one of the hides, I saw what looked like a variation on the Explosion, the Rune of CHAOS, only it was the wrong way, and one of the parts was missing, and the other two were too short, and it kind of had a blob at the end, and it was kind of not put together right. But the resemblance was uncanny!"

Rory quickly adds, "No fire serpents or red-haired humans, though."

The senior mage's brushy eyebrows shoot up as the unicorn speaks, and he blinks a few times, while his countenance gradually shifts from surprise to a certain wary skepticism. "I see," he says when the apprentice finishes. "Perhaps I'd best have a look for myself, hmm?"

The unicorn nods. "But be careful!" he says in a conspiratorial whisper.

Silhouette swivels around to stand in front of Rory, tapping one foot against the ground next to him and making a face at the boy unicorn as soon as he looks at her. "They did not have a bonfire burning! And it was just an antelope, not a sacrificial monster. Lacinus eat antelopes all the time. I bet that's all they were going to do with it."

Meanwhile, the raccoon has moved on ahead, following Rory's path to the top of the ridge.

Rory frowns. "I never said it was a bonfire. But it was a fire, and … oop!" He claps his hands over his mouth, and hushes up while the raccoon is scouting.

The little unicorn pads along after the raccoon, trying his best to keep quiet, and not to follow too closely, lest he spoil the raccoon's attempts to be stealthy.

As it happens, the boy manages to be a good deal quieter than the older raccoon, and the crunching, rustling noises of the scryer tromping through the dry grass make Rory's ears flatten involuntarily. As he nears the top of the ridge, both mages here a piercing howl from the village – a sound Rory recognizes as their "alert!" cry.

The unicorn lets out a heavy sigh … and listens out in case he catches wind of the "Kill the stranger!" cry. Not that he'd have a clue as to what it is. Fortunately, he's never run into it before. Still, he slinks on up and peeks through the grass at the crest of the hill, since it's far more interesting than just lurking on the far side.

The raccoon's ears flatten against his head, and he ducks down, out of sight of the village. "What was that?" he mutters to Rory. As he speaks, the unicorn hears the sounds of further commotion from the village – more Lacinus moving about, barking to each other in their native tongue, snorting and sniffing at the air.

The little unicorn says, in as important a tone as he can muster, "That was their 'Hey, everybody, look lively!' cry. They noticed you."

"Oh." The scryer looks sheepish. He straightens from his crouch, brushing off the hem of his "robe" – actually, more like a tunic – short and worn over trousers, a fairly practical travelling garment. "No point in hiding now, then, hmmm?" Canticle puts a hand up to shield his eyes. Three somewhat groggy-looking adult male Lacinus head their way, spears in hand. Catching sight of the raccoon, they freeze, and the center one barks something at him.

"Well," Rory says, reluctantly, "it depends on what they intend to do with the spears. Uhm … try to look friendly … only … not too friendly. And don't show your teeth when you smile. I'm not sure if they'd take that as friendly. Boy, don't you wish we knew their language right about now?"

"Rather," the scryer says, waving one hand just a little to the Lacinus, and smiling without showing his teeth. "I can fix that. If they give me a chance to." The three dog-men approach warily, spreading out to form a semi-circle before them, while the one in the center barks a few more times. "Are they suspicious of magic, do you know?"

"I don't know," Rory concedes, "but considering that the only mage in these parts toasts villages and rides a fire serpent, they might be a bit jumpy if we do any obvious hocus-pocus stuff."

"There is that." Canticle waves again and continues to give the same look of uncomprehending friendliness to the watching Lacinus. "I'll try offering them some food. That's usually seen as friendly."

Rory ponders a moment. "Well … when I came to Sunrise City, they gave us some interesting dead bugs and plant things when we did something entertaining. All I've got is some exploding beans, and I figure those would be more interesting to people like us who usually don't expect beans to explode. And it'd be bad if they didn't realize this and got surprised. They might take it the wrong way. Uhm … so, I guess I like your idea."

Nodding, Canticle unslings his pack – slowly – from his back, under the watchful eyes of the Lacinus, who have taken to growling and barking to each other. It makes Rory wonder if the Lacinus are discussing the same things he and the mage are. The raccoon opens his pack, spreading the contents wide, and takes out a fat, seasoned sausage. He starts to reach for his eating knife, and thinks better of it. Instead, he tears off a chunk with his fingers, and eats it, then offers the remainder to the canine spear bearers…

Rory decides he looks pretty stupid lying there in the grass about now, since any Lacinus with a nose worth having likely knows he's there by now, and he slowly gets off, dusting himself off. He tries to look helpful by making various "mmm, yummy!" pantomimes, such as rubbing his tummy. He does it especially slowly, since everyone knows that if there's a language barrier, just doing everything slowly helps get the point across.

The center canine studies the offering, sniffing at it, while the other two snap out words. One of them watches Rory with an especially suspicious look. Finally, the central one turns back to the village. A short barking dialogue ensues between him and several of the others, then a Lacinus emerges from one of the tents and starts up the hill towards the others. As he approaches, the unicorn recognizes him as the one the girl in the vision spoke with. And he is huge for a Lacinus, towering over his brethren. The three spearmen are all well shorter than Rory, but this one, standing on his hind legs, is easily a head taller.

Rory blinks a few times, and just in case the elder scryer didn't catch on already (maybe if he doesn't have quite as much familiarity with Lacinus as the scant experience Rory has), he stage-whispers, "That really big one looks like the one the fire-dragon-rider spoke to, you think?"

"Maybe." He tilts his head back to look up at the large one as the older Lacinus approaches them. "If the girl was of a normal size for her race, this would have to be him, given their relative size." He waves again, and the Lacinus makes a gesture – palms side by side, facing the raccoon, then spread apart – that Rory thinks he recognizes as a kind of "welcome to my home" sign.

"Is that good?" Canticle asks, sounding nervous. He holds the sausage to the Lacinus. "Should I do it back to him, do you think?"

The unicorn shakes his head. "No, no … uhm … at best, they might think you're ignorant, but at worst … Well, I think it means 'welcome to my home'. Or something like that. Village, whatever."

"Any road," Rory amends, "yes, it's good." He smiles – not showing any teeth – and tries to bow and wave in as appropriately Lamunian a fashion as he can recall from any of his observations of people in Sunrise City.

The large canine squats easily before the raccoon, who still kneels beside his unslung pack, and accepts the sausage. He takes a big bite out of it, and grins, showing many, many teeth. One of the spear-wielding Lacinus shifts his grip on his weapon, then repeats the same little waving motion that Canticle and Rory keep making.

The unicorn blinks. "I have no idea if they even think waving is friendly. Uhm. Maybe if we just smile when they wave, then they'll figure they're doing good." He does so, smiling hopefully to the waving Lacinus. "Oh, boy I wish I knew if they were afraid of magic! I bet I could do a little shadow play and tell them stories and such, and maybe get us a few neat dead bugs and exploding peas and such, and maybe even a clue as to how to find the nasty-mage. But … I'm really afraid of spooking them, that's for sure." He gulps, and tries to keep looking friendly. "Uhm … do you have any colored powders?"

"Uh … " Canticle smiles nervously back at the Lacinus, showing his own teeth. The Lacinus chews up the morsel and swallows it, then leans forward to pat the scryer on the back, before standing from his crouch. He barks out something, slowly, several times, and the speardogs put up their weapons, resting the butts on the ground and relaxing. The Lacinus gestures to them broadly, in an unmistakable "follow me" motion, then turns and walks back to his village. The others repeat the "welcome" gesture and likewise invite the newcomers to the village.

Canticle rolls his eyes in relief. "I think that if we're going to be working any more spells today, Rory," he says, getting to his feet and gathering his pack up, "it'll be my 'Tongues' spell."

"I think that means 'follow me'," Rory whispers, trying to be thorough, and he tries to help Mage Canticle get his things in order before heading on after the head Lacinus.

Once the ice is broken, the Lacinus seem as friendly and hospitable as the ones from Sunrise City, and they all settle down around the fireplace to eat and talk, offering their guests slabs from the recently-killed antelope, along with pieces of flatbread and baked tubers, still steaming from the hearth. The food is simple but nourishing, and afterwards the mages gather the confidence to attempt magic.

Canticle begins a ritual to allow himself to understand the Lacinus, and when the canines seem only curious about it, and not wary, Rory decides it would be safe enough to try entertaining them with a shadow play while they wait for the scryer to finish.

Rory finds a convenient wall against which his shadow might be cast, to serve as his own little shadow theatre. After going through spell-casting to charge up enough magic to last him a while with occasional chants to keep the magic going, he begins to present a shadow-play for the entertainment of his audience.

"Once upon a time," Rory says, in as serious a tone as he can manage, "there were three little Lacinus brothers." He holds up three fingers, and wiggles them, and as if by magic (because it is!) the shadows form the shapes of three Lacinus youths of descending size.

"The first brother was Brawn," Rory says, as the Lacinus tries to strike a "muscle man" pose, or the closest doggie equivalent, "for he was very big and strong, the biggest and strongest Lacinus there ever was or likely ever will be!"

The canines at first split their attention between watching the antics of the raccoon and the unicorn. They seem, in fact, quite entertained just by the glowing effects and chanting of the mages. When Rory completes his spell and conjures actual shadow creatures, surprised yelps ensue and most of the crowd turns to watch attentively.

The younger ones point and yelp at the muscular silhouette, and one of them imitates the motions, to the barking laughter of his peers. The great Lacinus who first welcomed them, however, only offers a slight smile, keeping most of his attention on the older mage, who is still casting.

The unicorn smiles, and continues with his tale, wiggling the second finger to get the second figure to come to prominence. "The next brother was Fleet," he says, "for he was the fastest Lacinus ever to rush through the grasses, faster than even the zilly-zooper bug that zips around and stings you when you're not looking!" He moves around his off hand to illustrate a little buzzing insect that appears as a dot on the "stage", and he makes buzzing noises as appropriate. Fleet rushes quickly about, as the insect buzzes after him, and just when it looks like it's about to poke him with a big stinger … the second Lacinus rushes past the bigger brother Brawn, who stomps on the bug, ending that little episode.

"The two brothers were great heroes," Rory narrates, "but they had one little problem. They had a little brother, whose name was Little Brother, because he hadn't done anything interesting yet to earn himself a name." He wiggles his finger, and the third and very little Lacinus waves at the audience, then goes back to sucking his paw.

One of the younger Lacinus, who had watched the shadow insect most intently, crept while it buzzed about, getting closer and closer. When Brawn stomps it, he sits back on his tail with a surprised yelp, blinking. After a moment, he waves back at the Little Brother.

The unicorn says, "Well, they couldn't go on great adventures without taking Little Brother along. They were orphans, you see, so there was no Mama Lacinus or Papa Lacinus to look after Little Brother. So that was left to them. They were kind of grumpy about it sometimes." The two big brothers march importantly off, and then the little one bounds along after them, being generally cub-like. The two stop, look at the little cub, exchange head-shakes, then march along, cub in tow.

The story continues. "One day, Brawn, Fleet and Little Brother came to a very nice valley, which was ruled by a very wise Lacinus." He cups his hands, forming a valley, and sticks up his fingers to transform the valley into a collection of stylized, cartoony flowers and happy little creatures populating it, along with very happy and prosperous Lacinus.

"It turns out that this wise king had a daughter – a princess – and he wanted to marry her off, but only to a noble hero." Rory makes the shadows show proud Brawn marching up. "Brawn showed how strong he was, and the king was very impressed. He set Brawn out to defeat a terrible monster, the Smashalot Beast, who had been terrorizing – and thoroughly flattening – the whole countryside!"

"Brawn grabbed the monster by the tail, and gave him a good whipping," and at this, Rory reenacts his very popular scene of a Lacinus swinging a ridiculously large monster around by its tail and flinging it off the "stage" … "and the king was very impressed! Sadly, though, the princess wasn't. 'What need have I,' she said, 'to marry a big dumb brute?'" The silhouette of the princess yawns, and Brawn looks very sad and dejected, tail and ears drooping, as he slinks off.

"Well, the king wasn't happy about this, as he was determined that his daughter was going to marry a hero. So, along came Fleet, showing off how fast he was, and the king was determined to give him a test that would show off his best traits to the princess, so he told him, 'Go out and capture the Tinkawink Bird, which is the most beautiful creature in these places. Only someone as fast as the wind could catch the Tinkawink, and surely an impressive feat that would be!'" Rory puts his hands together and flaps them like wings to make a shadow of the Tinkawink bird fluttering quickly to and fro.

"Sure enough, Fleet was fast enough, and though it took him a great amount of rushing over the countryside, he at last caught the Tinkawink, and presented it to the king and his daughter. But was the princess impressed?" Rory asks of his audience. "No, sadly not," he says, as the princess shadow yawns again, "for she said, 'What need have I, to marry someone who picks on helpless Tinkawink birds?' And poor Fleet was dejected, for he had done his very best, and he hadn't impressed the king's daughter either." And poor Fleet slinks away, just like Brawn, only smaller, and more quickly.

The scene of the Brawn swinging Smashalot around by the tail proves as popular with this crowd as it did with the one in Sunrise City. They look rather puzzled by the princess's rejection of Brawn, and seem to have some trouble following the next part with Fleet. One of the Lacinus goes up to the shadows and starts barking at where the Princess used to be, doing his "muscleman" imitation even as the story moves forward.

Rory nods sympathetically with his audience, and in the play, the poor king Lacinus shakes his head, as his daughter is impossible to impress with feats of derring-do. "Well, that just left one brother. Little Brother. And he decided he would try to impress the princess! Well, Brawn and Fleet laughed and laughed," and here the older brothers do just that, "but they couldn't talk Little Brother out of it." Little Brother waddles off, and up to the princess. "Little Brother tried his best tricks." The little dog juggles a few bones, then drops them, one of them landing on top of his head, and bouncing off. Then, he dances about randomly as he tries to balance a bug shell on his head. He tries standing on his head, falls over, and repeats various other attempts at tricks. The princess pantomimes laughing. "The princess was very amused, which got Little Brother's hopes up, but it wasn't quite what she was looking for." The princess pats Little Brother on the head.

"Little Brother was very sad," Rory says, as the little dog sits and starts bawling large cartoony tears. "He had tried his very best, for he wanted very much for him and his brothers to have a home, but it wasn't good enough. Brawn and Fleet came and tried to make him not cry, but he wouldn't. They sang him his favorite song, they tried to do a little jig for him, they told him stories, they even fetched his favorite berries for him." He pantomimes the dogs whipping about in a flurry of motion, trying various things to cheer up the little pup, to no avail.

"They tried and tried and tried so many things," Rory says, "until they finally realized that he'd stopped crying. Then they gave Little Brother a big hug and told him that it was all right, and he'd done a very nice job, and they were certainly impressed, and were glad to have a little brother just like him."

The Lacinus seem a lot more impressed by the brothers' "cheer him" up antics than Little Brother was, judging by their barks and howls of laughter.

"At this," Rory says, "the Princess was impressed that these big strong and fleet-footed Lacinus would take the time to console their little brother. Plus, she thought that Brawn was awfully cute. So … " Rory takes a deep breath, then rushes through the rest of it, because his fingers are getting tired, "she married Brawn, her twin sister married Fleet, and Little Brother stayed around and got all the berries he wanted, because there were lots of those in the valley there, and they all lived happily ever after!" Rory lets out a long breath. "The end!"

Rory runs through the little shadow movements, including the twin sister that pops up out of nowhere, and then has the words "THE END" drop out of the sky, where a couple of clouds part and a smiling sun (with a Lacinus face on it) radiates gleefully on the screen, depicted as if drawn with black crayon.

The canines howl and stomp their feet gleefully on the ground, in the Lamu fashion of applause. Some stomp with their hands, too, and there's quite a bit of howling going on. Of course, it is getting awfully late for Lacinus, with the sun dipping low on the horizon …

Rory gulps, not having realized that it's gotten quite so late. While the Lacinus are still having fun at the end of the story, he checks to see how far Mage Canticle's ritual has gotten … if, that is, he has any way of even guessing at it.

Mage Canticle and a ring of three elder Lacinus sit a little ways off from the fire, all barking, growling, and snapping at each other – including the raccoon – though it doesn't sound that unfriendly. After watching them for a few moments, the unicorn gets the idea that Canticle is doing most of the talking. The massive Lacinus will often say something in response – a short bark here, a long reply there – and even more rarely, one of the other two will chime in.

The unicorn tries to keep a watchful eye on the sun's position. He's not seen exactly what happens to the Lacinus at night-time, but he's learned enough to entertain fantasies that they turn from mild-mannered, civilized people by day, to ravenous, bloodthirsty werecritters by night. Or something like that. In any case, he's none too fond of the notion of being around when the whole town goes four-legged and does whatever it is they do then.

As the sun dips almost to the horizon, Canticle and the large Lacinus complete their discussion, though the mage doesn't seem entirely happy about the way it's gone. The raccoon nods to the elders, making a gesture with his palms against his wrists, then retreats to Rory's side. He starts to bark at the unicorn, then shakes his head and thumps the side of it with his palm. "The Lacinus hunters will be going off to soon for their nights' work – most of them sleep during the day, that why we saw so few about when we first got here." A quick bark-snap-howl sound emerges from the mage, then, " – says that we're welcome to stay in the village if we like."

"S-s-stay in the v-v-village?" Rory stammers, and gulps. "Uhm … well … whatever you think is best, but … uh … I don't know if it's all that good of an idea to be around after nightfall."

"Why is that?" The sky takes on an indigo hue as the sun sinks, its reddish glow sending long shadows streaking across the landscape.

Rory says, "Well … I think they turn into ravenous four-legged beasties at night, and I don't know if I'd want to be around for that."

"Uh … " Sounds erupt all around them, a snapping, crackling noise like a thousand knuckles being cracked at once. The raccoon flinches. " … really?"

As one, the Lacinus howl, the sound full-bodied and deep. They drop to all fours, backs arched, bones lengthening and disjointing.

The unicorn's eyes go wide. "Yiiii!" He leaps over to the raccoon, clinging to the elder mage.

Reflexively, the older man hugs Rory to him, looking rather wide-eyed himself at the transforming canines all around them. At least, however, the now four-legged Lacinus don't seem to be especially interested in their visitors. One of them does sniff at Rory's hand, though.

Rory looks down at the curiously sniffing Lacinus, and silently, inside his own head, he recites a magical chant: "Pleasedon'teatme, Pleasedon'teatme, Pleasedon'teatme, Pleasedon'teatme!"

The Lacinus snuffles along his hand, then its eyes turn up to meet Rory's. A huge, toothy grin seems to form on its face, as it opens its mouth wide …

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Rory runs away.