"It's true. It's all true." Pastel thought, restraining himself from running. It was important not to attract attention.

  "Watch out, dammit!" shouted a feline atop a dinosaur that nearly crushed him on the corner of a busy street. The hood Pastel was careful to keep over his head had prevented him from seeing the beast. The street was bustling with activity. It was market day, but Pastel noticed an extra energy. More carts, more doudous, more street cleaners and, above all, more guards everywhere. "Everyone looks nervous, so at the very least, I'm not going to look too different."

  He was a few blocks from the warehouse that the foxes infiltrating the city used as a gathering place. This was where they'd made their rendezvous, after his visit to the temple. And what a visit it was! Adrenalin continued to flow through Pastel's veins. "It's all true." he thought again, stunned.

  "50 pieces for a bag! Are you interested?" harangued a female tiger. Pastel ignored her and continued walking rapidly. At the end of the crowded, noisy street, he noticed a gathering. They were guards who seemed to be questioning passers-by. Pastel hurried into a perpendicular alleyway, taking a detour. The city was still a stranger to him, but he was beginning to get his bearings.

  Bypassing the guards on the shopping avenue, he ran a few yards down an empty alley, turned onto another street, passed through an inner courtyard where clothes were drying in a tangle of clotheslines, and finally entered the warehouse through a small, thick wooden door. His footsteps echoed in the dark corridor leading to the inner courtyard of the ochre-colored mud-brick building.

  Monkeys and foxes were playing cards on a crate in one corner, while others were unloading bags from a cart. Pastel's gaze jumped from one person to another.

  "Pastel!"

  He spun around and looked up at a window on the second floor. It was his sister. "So, the temple? Are you cured now? Fresh as a baby buffalo?"

  "Manawan, you'll never believe it! It was incredible!"

  One lemur, a bag over his shoulder, stifled a laugh and whispered to another, shaking his head, "Another obnoxious Syra follower!"

  Pastel didn't wait for her reply and headed for the narrow staircases that lined the courtyard and ascended to the second level. He entered a dark room that served as a rest area. Tamo and Manawan had just risen from their cushions on the floor.

  Pastel was getting ready to talk about his meeting with Paleato, but he noticed Tamo's sparkling gaze and remembered that he had to meet an arms dealer. "Oh and, how was your... meeting."

  "Fascinating." Manawan replied. Pastel felt taken aback.

  "Did you go too?" He glanced at Tamo. He, who hadn't wanted Pastel to accompany him.

  "Your sister's been in Ternoulie longer than I have, so she's had time to familiarize herself with the locals, their codes and the subtleties of life here."

  "I'm a city fox now, Pastel." Manawan winked. Noticing her brother's forced smile, she added, tapping him on the shoulder: "You too, soon, will be able to take the pulse of the people here. Gossip, what's going on, etc."

  "I might be more useful than you think." Pastel muttered.

  "Come and sit down! Would you like some tea? We'll tell you all about it! It's really good news. We've got a plan now, Pastel. We're going to build an army." Tamo said, taking Pastel's hand.

  "Oh, an army, eh? "My honors, Great General Tamo of the Firefly Regiment." Pleased Pastel.

  "The arms dealer, a fat brown dog with floppy ears full of jewels, he..."

  "Wait, but you didn't tell us about your visit to the temple!" said Tamo interrupting Manawan, placing a hand on her thigh to apologize for interrupting.

  "You look all wrapped up like a baby fox on a trip." Manawan remarked, touching the bandages on her brother's forearms.

  "It's pretty incredible, I..." Pastel didn't know where to start. Memories of the day were racing through his head.

  ***

  "What is this? How dare you mock me, in the temple of Syra! The raven walked briskly towards the opening of the doorless room, looking left and right. In his fury was mingled fear, Pastel noticed, bewildered.

  "I don't understand, Paleato..."

  "You're a Guild spy, aren't you? Always happy to humiliate us and desecrate our temples in the most pathetic of ways!" Paleato, his plumage still spiked, walked slowly across the room, his gaze riveted on the fox.

  "I swear I have no idea what you're talking about! Everything I've told you is true!"

  "And how do I know you're telling the truth? How can I trust you? With those powers you could rig a sincerity detector!"

  "Paleato!" Pastel raged, approaching the raven despite his fury and enhanced stature. "Am I no longer transparent? Can't you see in my eyes how exhausted I am with these games of _ah, does he want to kill me, is he among those who want to exterminate my people? Is he a friend? When is he going to stab me in the back?_ I swear I'm telling you the truth! But you, are you hiding me?"

  The raven remained motionless. His face in shadow, Pastel couldn't detect his facial expression. He seemed to hesitate. But before he could reply, footsteps were heard in the corridor. Paleato straightened up immediately. A panther dressed in a black robe entered the room, and the raven gently bowed his head, gazing down at the floor.

  "Your Excellency" he said softly.

  Three other creatures entered the room after the panther: a second panther, a capibara and a grey-coated dog. "This is the first dog I've seen since I arrived in Ternoulie", Pastel thought.

  The female panther, with her blond coat spotted with black eye-spots, was massive and muscular. She turned her head towards Pastel quizzically.

  "It's... it's a poor soul, come to seek Syra's blessing and our care to heal terrible wounds." Paleato said, suddenly nervous.

  The panther smiled at Pastel. The warmth of her gaze contrasted with the raven's nervousness.

  "Welcome to the temple of Syra, my little one. May Syra lend you their tears."

  "I... ehhh, thank you."

  "I am Third Mage of the temple. I'm glad to hear that a servant of Syra is taking care of you. All lives, in this jungle, are important."

  The wildcat cleared his throat and spoke up. "His Excellency and I were on our way to the library when we felt a surge of energy and His Excellency was curious to find its source."

  A strange silence followed. Paleato finally broke it. "Your Excellency, I too was surprised by this wave of thaumaturgic energy and am at a loss to explain it. I was just finishing binding my patient's wounds when it happened."

  "Hmmm, how curious" murmured the panther, looking around. Her curious gaze fell on Pastel as she concluded, "Good. We'll leave you to your devotion, then. Syra is full of mystery."

  "Syra is full of mystery." The others muttered as the black-clad quartet exited the corridor one after the other, disappearing further into the temple's maze.

  The fox and raven remained motionless and silent for a moment, exchanging glances. The footsteps in the distance dissipated.

  "Follow me." Said Paleato at last, who left the room quickly. Pastel hurried after him. At every intersection, the raven took care to check that no one was around before continuing.

  "Where are you taking me?" Pastel whispered close to Paleato as they peered through an open door.

  "Hmmm.... I must check... test with other objects."

  They set off again, their footsteps echoing in the dark corridor. They entered a large room. Where a group of draped capibaras passed by.

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  "Syra be with you Minor Mage Paleato. A new disciple?"

  "Syra be with you Minor Mage Belabock. The poor soul had an infection that needed Syra's caress."

  "Good, good. Syra be with him."

  Paleato and Pastel continued on their way to a narrower corridor lit by small oil lamps.

  "What kind of objects?" Pastel murmured, as worried as he was eager to go further and discover these magical objects.

  "We have a sacred chapel where several sacred objects are kept... they have various powers." Paleato replied laconically. Pastel remembered the white cube that had shone for him and his brother. "Could it be something like the jade statuette that detects the potential for... resonance with thaumaturgic energy?" Pastel thought.

  "Can an object react without us wanting it to? I mean to detect something in someone else?" asked Pastel as they stopped in front of a door.

  "Yes... there are sincerity detectors, mood detectors and then it's possible to imbue objects with a certain person's signature, to identify people, for example."

  "Could an object identify several people? A family, for instance?"

  "A bloodline, yes. Blood. But why are you asking me this question? Have you encountered such an object?"

  "I'm just trying to understand... I don't know anything about magic." Pastel replied.

  They stopped at a door without a handle. Pastel stood at a distance as Paleato placed his hand on the door. He stood still for a second, then there was a metallic click and the door opened.

  "Wait here" said Paleato as he stepped into the opening. Pastel waited. The sound of objects being handled came from the room, of which the fox could only see the half-light. He didn't hear any vibrations or screeching, nor did he see any opaline light.

  Paleato came out with a small cassette, a light-colored, elaborate wooden box. "Come on."

  After another maze of corridors and rooms, where they occasionally came across a few devotees or mages, the raven led Pastel into a small, dark room. There was a hammock, cushions and a small table laden with scrolls and drawings.

  "I find it hard to believe what you're telling me, Pastel." Paleato said, turning back to the fox after closing the wooden door. He added: "I've been practicing with other aspiring magicians for years. I've seen children spend their days working on their resonance, fainting from exhaustion. I've always had an easy time with thaumaturgy, relative to my peers. But I've never seen anything like what I saw earlier. That resonance was... incredible."

  "I only did what you told me to do: concentrate on the heat in my chest, then in my hands... I don't know what happened."

  "Haven't you ever practiced thaumaturgy?" Paleato asked, shaking his head. He seemed as fascinated as he was annoyed.

  "No, I... I'd never heard of it before I came to the jungle! I've spent my life on the plains listening to the wind and hunting and praying to the cloud spirits!"

  "You said your grandmother was a priestess? Magical affinities are often hereditary, like temperament, sensibilities and intelligence."

  "Yes. There have been several priests and priestesses in my family... but the clan chooses priests according to their wisdom and the signs of the spirits."

  "Wisdom and thaumaturgical sensitivity are often intertwined, like vines on an acacia tree." Paleato quickly added: "Is that on both sides of your family?"

  "That's my maternal line."

  "And the other?"

  "I... I don't know the other one. There's only my father." Pastel cast his gaze over the hammock. Paleato leaned toward him.

  "You don't know your father's family?"

  "He was a foreigner. His family was over the mountains."

  "A dog? Your father's a dog, isn't he? I was suspected that your face was hiding something. Your cheekbones... your jaw... your expressive eyebrows. But definitely a fox all the same." Paleato remarked, leaning forward to observe Pastel.

  The fox smiled, embarrassed. "That's what my father always told me. That I was just like my mother."

  "hmmm" said the raven for a moment before putting the little box on his lap and opening it.

  "So... you may have guessed, but it's normally absolutely forbidden to invite strangers into our quarters, let alone borrow sacred objects, but..." His eyes sparkled with excitement.

  "I can't let you go until I've tested a few items... and I'd be curious to understand what your magic item can do."

  "It's so weird. Until this morning, I sometimes wondered if I was crazy... I've been told that magic is just childish frivolity or even that it doesn't exist. And it's especially true now that members of my clan seem to doubt my grandmother's prophecies and the stone... But with what you're telling me, I understand that I'm not _that_ crazy."

  Paleato nodded, then seemed to search for his words. Finally he said, "Well, very few people really understand what magic really is and... there's a lot of superstition, falsehoods and naivety, even among magic users."

  "Did he just insult Mamalou?" Pastel wondered, unable to contain a frown.

  Paleato pulled himself together and said quickly, in one breath: "But nobody really understands... we're limited to materiality and can never, in this life, really see what's hidden in the other energy realms! But anyway, as I was saying, I've got some objects to show you."

  He pulled out three small statuettes representing various animals. "They're called elemental stones, because they allow you to control the elements... or at least interact with the elements." He placed a small black stone bird in Pastel's hand, who took a deep breath.

  "Okay. This stone interacts with air and atmosphere. You can just play with the breeze, but you can also create areas of low or high pressure to boil liquids, lift objects, for example. The great masters are able to make the air vibrate to imitate voices or musical instruments and even create air lenses that play with light to see very far or concentrate the sun's rays, for example." Pastel's eyes widened and he stared at the little stone.

  "But don't worry, this stone isn't powerful enough to be very dangerous. Come on, do as you did with the other statuette and concentrate on your hand. This time, imagine you have a third hand moving through the air. Think of the resistance of the air."

  They remained motionless for a moment. Nothing happened. Pastel adjusted his position on the bench and looked concentrated.

  "No, no, you're too tense. Look." Paleato took the stone from Pastel's hands. He looked at Pastel with a smile as a breeze suddenly tickled Pastel's whiskers. He shivered and asked: "I don't understand, how did you do it?"

  "Like I told you. Just imagine your body extending beyond matter and moving through the air... like another arm."

  Pastel tried again, the stone in his palm. He remained motionless until, suddenly, his right ear twitched. He got goose bumps, felt something in his sinuses as the raven suddenly snatched the stone from the fox's hand.

  "Enough! You... you changed the air pressure, you felt it, didn't you? We could have been hurt."

  "I'm sorry! I was trying to imagine that third arm and..."

  "It's okay, it doesn't matter. Never mind."

  The raven looked at the other objects, let out a sigh and quickly put them back in the little box, shaking his head. "I don't know what I was thinking I... it's stupid and dangerous to do it like that here. You're very lucky, Pastel. I've never seen anything like it. I don't understand."

  Paleato stood up and headed for the door.

  "Normally this kind of thaumaturgical sensitivity is the attribute of very rare bloodlines. Who'd have thought the nomads of the plains carried such secrets." Paleato said, looking at Pastel, who was joining him at the door.

  The fox felt a chill run down his spine. He thought of his people in the trees. A pain gripped his chest. What if he was guilty of having lured that army to the plains? What if they had come to ravage the plains to find Batto, his father?

  He suddenly remembered Paleato's words. He then asked: "You talked about the Guild. You thought I was a spy. Are you talking about the Thaumaturgists' Guild?"

  "No, the Hatters' Guild." Paleato replied, slipping the small wooden box into a bag, without looking at Pastel.

  "Huh? The hatters?"

  "But of course I'm talking about the thaumaturgists! Who else? We're seeing them more and more in and around the city. They're poking their noses everywhere... as if we didn't have enough of them with the Syranean merchants, diplomats and priests. Can you believe it, they've built a temple three blocks from here and are robbing Syra's followers with their absurd cult!" The tone of his voice had just risen. "He is so different from before," Pastel thought.

  Paleato continued his diatribe: "And magic, thaumaturgical resonance is a sacred connection with the gods, it's an infinite privilege to enter into a spiritual relationship of resonance with them! But they, those dogs... oh sorry, not all dogs are like that, but... those damn dogs come along and seduce the rabble with their vulgar magic games, while stealing our sacred objects in the process. That's what I suspected earlier... That you'd come to see if the temple had any magic items of interest to the Guild. And then they're everywhere now, with one of those _important_ thaumaturgists visiting the city."

  "A thaumaturgist from Syranopolis is in Ternoulie now?"

  "He's arriving this week. He's a member of the King's court. I don't quite understand what brings him and his minions here, but all of Ternoulie seems ready to bow to him to curry his favor... even some mages from Syra."

  "But why?"

  "Why not? Influence, power, donations for the temple or better: a temple in Syranopolis. It's the great dream of many mages who don't understand that... but hey. I'm just a minor-mage. Who am I to criticize my superiors I..."

  Paleato sighed. "It's a shame! I should never have lost my temper in front of you. I still have so much to learn." He lifted his head, which he had gradually lowered while speaking. He seemed to regain his composure. "I think you'd better go now. Your clothes are certainly dry."

  "Speaking of learning. Paleato, could we meet again? Could you teach me how to better control thaumaturgic energy? Please, I believe it could be useful for my kind."

  Paleato put his hand on the door handle. His silhouette was perfectly black. "We can't technically really control thaumaturgic energy, only resonate and interact...but hey, those are formalities. Yes. I can guide you a little in your learning, but not here. I'll try to find a way, outside the temple."

  "Ah, you can get out of the temple?"

  "What do you think I am? I'm not cloistered here." Paleato looked at Pastel. A smile returned to his face, mocking this time. "I'm just a creature too, Pastel. Like you."

  By the time Pastel emerged from the temple in his clean clothes, the bustling market and colorful stalls that filled the square in front of the pyramid had emptied. Dogs in armor hung flags from building facades. "the thaumaturgist." Pastel thought.

  ***

  "Wow," Manawan finally said, after a moment's silence. Tamo looked at Pastel with a strange gaze. He sketched a smile.

  "'Thaumaturgist eh?" He gave a short, muffled chuckle, then looked at Pastel with tender eyes. "It's no wonder. You always understood prayer better than most of us... you were Mamalou's favorite. Thaumaturgist is just another name for priest, isn't it?"

  Pastel smiled and let out a laugh of his own before taking a deep breath. He'd been afraid. Afraid of another reaction. "I guess you could say that, even though the raven might have said otherwise..."

  They heard a scream. It came from the street.

  "What is it?" Pastel worried.

  "The guards again! The dogs! Fuck them! Worse than mosquitoes." Tamo exclaimed, rising to look out through the wooden shutters onto the street. Pastel and Manawan joined him. The noise was getting louder outside.

  Pastel slid his gaze through the carved wooden latticework to see, below, five armored guards talking aggressively to some teenage panthers. A guard pushed open a door on the other side of the street and stepped through, to the protesting cries of the panthers. The guards pushed them to the ground, beating them with the handles of their spears.

  Pastel's hands began to tremble, his breath coming in short gasps. He looked away. Tamo curled up his muzzle, revealing his canines from which came a subtle growl.