The headlines read: Anarchy And Atheism In The Streets.

The two temples of the god Le'krysh in the old side of Rhy'din has been burning for a week; it was only now that the temples fell to nothing but stone and ash. The police shuffled around the remains in half-hearted investigation; truly the strange and cultish temples were better off gone, and the fire burned away anything worth sending home to families. Occasionally a homeless man would stumble across a body tucked neatly in an alleyway, stripped clean of any organs, delicate runes carved into the few bones and scraps of unusable tissue remaining. The dead priests' tattered robes always went unnoticed.

Meanwhile, a strange girl, quiet and plainly dressed, prowled through every library that Rhy'din offered, hunting for just one topic -- one small, insignificant word whispered in ancient texts:

Fae.

And a hired messenger boy with jingling pockets wandered to all corners of the city, searching for any blacksmith or forge whose name crossed his ears. "Cold-forged iron," he tells them. "Gold for cold-forged iron."

Superman floated amongst the stars with his eyes closed. Behind him, far below him, the earth was a tumultuous sea of many varied voices. Some he heard clearly. Some he heard not at all. Some laughed and loved, and others cried out in desperate terror, begging for help from somebody. Anybody.

Salvador Delahada was not Superman. Nor was he floating amongst the stars, high above the atmosphere of the earth, immune to suffocation all thanks to the light of a yellow sun. Nor could he hear an entire planet weeping and giggling and living life as usual, but he could listen to a large portion of it. At least as large as a city. His city, or so he thought it to be. There were many residents who would argue against that philosophy. Not to mention claim that they had never heard of him. Which was fine. He preferred it that way.

He called them susurros, which translated from his native language into a word as simple as whispers. That is what he heard, what he listened to. The wind carried messages all through the city. Gentle breezes, floating air, and sometimes hurricanes. These whispers passed through many colored leaves, some that had fallen and others that still latched on strongly to the branches that wanted to drop them to the ground. Autumn was here. Winter was coming.

The susurros told him of the continued arson that plagued specific temples. Burning buildings and clouds of smoke. Desperate survivors looking for help wherever they could find it, help that never came. The fires were not his problem. The whole city could burn for all he cared. Most of the people here were not important enough for him to worry about. But there was one whisper that was his problem.

A little boy stood outside a blacksmith's shop, shaking his pockets and making the coins that filled them jingle. "Cold-forged iron," he cried. "Gold for cold-forged iron!"

The blacksmith looked up from his hammer and anvil with a frown. He shooed him away with a sooty, leather glove. "Run along, kid. I'm busy. Cold-forged iron. Pah." He spat a thick glob of mucus into the dirt next to his forge. "Ain't nobody going to mess with that crap. S'not sturdy enough for anything." He went back to hammering out the inconsistencies in the steel he was working into a sword.

From his distant vigil, Salvador frowned. He listened and he watched. His clairvoyance was just as much a curse as it was a gift. He knew better than that blacksmith did. Somewhere in this city there were people of his craft who did deal with cold-forged iron. If the boy found one...

He couldn't allow that to happen.