“All right, Celestia, where the hell are we, and how did you know something was happening before the rest of us?”  Rubix’s voice cut the relative silence like a razor.  The half breed turned his piercing blue eyes upon the woman and made a step in her direction.
“W-what do you mean?” she stammered and took a cautious step backward.  The look of shock in her own blue eyes was plainly evident.
“What I mean,” Rubix pressed, “is how did you know we were in danger just a minute ago.  You were the one that screamed and all I saw was just a few ducks and a bank of fog.”
“Yeah, for a second there I thought the dark ones of G’henna were upon us, woman!”  Pablo said with a wry smirk.
Celestia regarded her companions on the raft with obvious discomfort.  She did not like being the center of attention and liked Rubix’s accusing tone even less.  Pablo had diverted his attention to the murky waters under the raft.  The stout dwarf still clutched his brightly gleaming longsword in his hands.  As he peered over the edge of the raft, he skillfully slid the beautiful blade back into the dark leather sheath strapped to his back.  A second sheath with the hilt of a another longsword protruding from over his opposite shoulder was criss-crossed over the first.  Without taking his eyes from the water, he drew the second sword free.  This one was dull and the blade itself was badly scratched.  Celestia thought the blade had probably seen a lot of action.  Her gaze finally fell upon Saladrin, but the compassion usually found in his eyes was missing and Celestia only saw the same questioning look the other men had for her.
“It was the fog,” Celestia began slowly.  “Most people quit believing in those ghost tales before reaching adulthood.  You know, like the old sayings, ‘Thick and even, don’t think of leaving.  Mists that roam, go straight home.’  I don’t know if it just becomes unfashionable after a certain age to believe in such things or if people just get so caught up in their own lives that they fail to notice, but for those of us who do care, we know differently.”
“Oh, come on now!” Rubix’s shout sent a nearby flock of long-legged birds to wing.  The birds squawked as they flew low, their brilliant white wingtips just touching the water’s surface, until they came to rest again amid a patch of reeds further down the waterway.   “You don’t expect us to believe that nonsense.  You’re supposed to be a scholar.  You’re supposed to know why things happen like this.  That’s why Havenshaw hired you.  Something strange is going on here and I think you know something about it.  Quit trying to hide behind silly children’s campfire tales and tell us what you know!”
Celestia paled visibly under the verbal onslaught.  “I told you what I know.  It was the fog!” she shouted back, the courage building in her voice.  “Most of the time fog is completely benign.  Other times, the mists have been known to snatch a person up.  Witnesses to such attacks say that the fog takes on a very animated appearance before it strikes.  Sometimes tendrils form and wrap around its prey, other times it simply moves counter to the breezes in the area.  Quite simply, some fog is alive, and like everything living, it needs to feed.  There have been too many documented cases to explain the whole thing off as some kind of ‘children’s campfire tale.”
“Then why are we still alive?” Rubix asked.  “If that were all true, shouldn’t we be sitting in some big cloud-stomach somewhere being digested?”
“I don’t know,” Celestia answered.  “There have been some accounts of people being swallowed by the fog and then reappearing days, months or even years later.  Usually the survivor has undergone severe mental stresses and can’t relate what had happened to them.  A few cases tell of wandering for long periods of time in a land of mists with horrors lurking at every turn.  Then, suddenly the victim walks right out of the mist and into a land far from their home.  I have interviewed a few survivors and believe their tales.  I think the Vistani are involved.”
“The gypsies?”  Rubix asked in amazement.  “What makes you think that?”
“Groups of Vistani have been reported numerous times to have survived the mists.  Again, too numerous to be mere coincidence.  And then there is the famous poison fog of Barovia.  You must know about that.”
“Sure,” Rubix replied.  “The baron’s whole castle is surrounded by a permanent fog.  If you breathe it, you die.”  The look of smug satisfaction on the half-elf’s face was undeniable.  Rubix had based his whole career on being knowledgeable about his surroundings.  It was hard to succeed in his line of business and not be.  However, the experience of the last few minutes had completely unnerved him, and just being able to provide that simple answer made him feel a little more in control of things.
“Yes, but that’s not the whole of it,” Celestia continued.  She was so caught up in her explanation she failed to see the grim look of disappointment suddenly cloud the half-elf’s face.  “There is a village within that killer ring of fog and a sizeable amount of commerce travels in and out.  It seems the Vistani in the area have the antidote - and they sell it to travelers for a price.”
“You can’t possibly think the gypsies are behind all of this?” Rubix finally asked.
“Aye, lad,” Pablo suddenly added.  “There is some truth to what the lady says.  I’ve seen some strange things in my days on border patrol — blizzards on hot summer days and well-known forest trails that on most days lead into Lamordia and beyond while other days lead back to where they started.  But on more than one occasion I’ve seen a blinding fog bank roll in then disappear just as fast, and more often than not, a family of those damn gypsies show up just after the fog leaves.”
“Well, those are some great stories, but it doesn’t tell me where we are,” Rubix said while looking at the curtains of air moss and vines hanging all around.  “Pablo, drop the pig sticker and help me move this thing.  Let’s see if we can find some land somewhere.”
Pablo was smiling, he replied with a slight nod in Saladrin’s direction in the back of the raft.  “Shhhhh,” Pablo quietly hushed Rubix with one grubby finger to his lips, “The father has got a sixth sense about these sorts of things.  Watch what he does, he’s still in meditation.”
The priest had picked up Pablo’s discarded long pole and had one end nestled in the crook of his arm while the other end of the pole he let drag through the water.  In the palm of one hand, the priest held what looked to be a tiny white shield shaped like a kite.  Rubix thought it looked to be made of bone.  The shield was glowing softly with a shimmering white light, but the light faded and winked out very quickly.  Saladrin then looked up the waterway, first one way, then down the other.  Nodding in satisfaction, the priest put the small shield back into his pocket, then set the pole deeper into the water and pushed off.  The raft started moving and Celestia stumbled a bit at the sudden movement.
“Wait!  There he goes, he’s picking up the pole, he is.”  Pablo grinned in Rubix’s direction with a look of utter amusement about him.  “Watch him go now.  Bet you never thought a man of the cloth could row like that, did you?”
Rubix wasn’t nearly as amused.  “Come on, Pablo.  You’re the hired muscle.  Don’t make the priest do all the work.”
“Aw, you can’t spoil the thing he’s got going now.  Okay, he’s got his senses now and he’s rowing to the left, and if I’m not mistaken . . . .”  Pablo licked his finger and held it up in the air, “. . . yes!  He’s rowing in a westward direction, the shortest distance to land!  Now, ah...what were you saying?”
“Pablo, you are absolutely incorrigible! ” Rubix admonished the stocky dwarf.
“Don’t worry.  I don’t mind a bit,” Saladrin cut in.  “It appears we have been sent to a very unpleasant place and I would feel much better if we could find ourselves on some solid ground.  Besides, if that bloody fog comes back, I’d rather not be just sitting here waiting for it.”
Pablo gave the half-elf a good-natured wink and Rubix, shrugging his shoulders, finally accepted the arrangement. Then a thought occurred to him.  “Hey! Wait a minute!  You’re not going to tell me you figured our which way was west just by putting your finger in the air, are you?”
“Nope.  I put my finger in the air to dry it off after I licked it.  I figured out which way was west because now it is after noon and the sun is setting over there.”  Pablo used his now-dried finger to point in the direction they were heading.  The sun was, indeed, past its zenith and was now beginning its slow arc toward the horizon.
“Ha!”  Rubix snorted out a quick laugh, “But you still . . .”  The howl of some strange beast suddenly came from somewhere off to the right of the raft.  Rubix cut off mid sentence, tensed, then searched the vegetation wildly in the direction of the sound.
“Mountain lion,” Pablo said calmly.  “Nothing to worry about as long as we’re out here on this raft.  Them cats don’t care much for water.”
Rubix dropped his long pole into the water and began moving the raft quickly in the direction Saladrin had started them.
Time passed and the little company slowly made their way through the swampy waterway in a direction, in which they hoped, would lead them somewhere safe and dry.  As the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky, a vaporous mist arose from the swamp.  This mist was light and airy and didn’t appear anything like the fogbank that had attacked them earlier in the day.  Furthermore, the mist didn’t behave like the dangerous ones Celestia had described to them.  However, all eyes on the tiny craft looked about warily.
As it turned out, the eyes of the companions were not the only ones present and watching that afternoon.  Rubix noticed a number of dark places within the vegetation of the waterway, in which shining sets of eyes often looked back.  He was never able to determine what animals lived along the banks of the tiny islets, but he was able to confirm that there were definitely a lot of them!
Pablo finally broke the silence, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place, laddies,” he said softly.  “Why do I feel like we’re being watched?”  The question hung in the air, unanswered, for all could see the tiny eyes in the undergrowth.
Rubix decided to change the subject, “Saladrin, do you think our being sent here had anything to do with the desecration of the shrine?”
“Our Lady does as she wills,” Saladrin replied.  “Who is to say what she might do when one of her sacred places is compromised.  She may have sent us here to find the one responsible, however, if she did send us here I would imagine it would be to help someone in great need.  Ezra is a spirit of pure compassion and I believe she would place the needs of others above the value of material things.”
“Ezra didn’t send us here,” Celestia said.  “I have told you all before, it was the mists and I very much doubt we have been sent here on any sort of mercy mission.  I have been thinking about all that has gone on today, and I am troubled by what I suspect.”
“All things are willed by the Lady, Ma’am,” Saladrin countered in a calm voice.
“Let the las speak her mind,” Pablo said gruffly while trying to scan both sides of the waterway at the same time.  “I don’t understand half the things she says all the time but it makes more sense than that Ezra hooey.”
“All right, Celestia, my apologies.  Please continue.”  Saladrin conceded.
Celestia stood still for a moment.  Her eyes, unfocused, stared off into the green canopy above.  Another giant green and red dragonfly flew overhead then dipped toward the water just in front of the raft, its wings droning with a deep buzz.  “The mad ones have often experienced things that no mortal mind was meant to cope with,” Celestia began.  “Sometimes their insanity opens them up to knowledge that is forbidden to the rest of us.  They often see and hear things that others cannot.  That woman this morning, Maggie, she kept talking about the signs and she was pointing at us.”
“Those crazies say weird things like that all the time,” Pablo said.  “Why do you think ol’ Maggie’s rant was any different.”
“There may be some truth in all of the mad ones,” Celestia replied.  “But I think Maggie is different.  Did you see the townspeople?  They were going to kill us.  That was simply not normal.  If it weren’t for Saladrin’s Lady and her divine intervention, I’m not sure what might have happened to us.
“And then there was that strange man down at the park.  I don’t know what it was about him, but I didn’t trust him.  Do you remember the tune he whistled when he walked away?”  Saladrin and Pablo looked at one another then shook their heads.
“No, I didn’t think so.  And Rubix was no where near him.  Rubix, could you play us the song you played back on the steps of the park?”
“Sure,” the half-elf handed the long pole over to Pablo and fished his flute out of his pockets.  Just as he put the instrument to his lips, Pablo interrupted.
“Looks like we’ve got to make a decision here,” the little dwarf was pointing up the waterway in the direction they were heading.  Besides the initial choice of direction Saladrin had made earlier in the day, the waterway didn’t offer any alternative avenues to follow.  In the past few hours, the party had passed hundreds of shallow dead-end depressions and several tiny streams that were much too small for the raft to traverse.  Now, however, the waterway split in two.  To their right, the swamp-river branched into a wide flowing river.  The trees and vegetation were just as thick in that direction as their current course had been.  An immense jam of slick black logs choked the branches’ entery, leaving only a small fifteen foot passage of clear water between the logs and the shore.  To their left, the river branch was just as wide but the trees in that direction looked darker and more ominous.  There were a few black logs piled up near the mouth of this branch, as well, but not near as many as the other side.