A chair scraped as someone stood and joined me in the circle of light. Even though he wore a hooded cloak and a steel mask, I could tell that he was large and powerfully built. “How long did you plan on questioning him? He is obviously one of the returned. You should all be able to tell that by the pallid skin and red in his eyes.”

Angry murmurs arose on all sides of us sounding for all the world like someone had just kicked a wasp’s nest. One voice cut through them all in a kind of projected shout that forced the others back into a disgruntled silence. “The problem lies not in what he is, but why he is here now?”

“How did he find us” Another voice asked from my left.

The man standing next to me responded with disdain. “Do you really think he knows the answers right now? In the state he is? Those kinds of answers will take time. For now I move to let the newcomer stay in the temple.”

“I object!” It was the same man that had shouted to be heard a moment ago.

“On what grounds?” My defender asked smoothly.