When Arin finally met up with Siel again, it became clear to him that the younger tower magician had also been conducting some inquiries of his own.
'Miss Lana is gone,' he said. 'I never learned the identities of the others, so I do not know where they lie. But I believe that they are also -'
'Gone,' Arin nodded.
The younger tower magician peered up at him. 'Brother Rin, I could... I might yet be able to track down the -'
'Don't,' Arin interrupted. 'There is no need to do such a thing. After all, things are now out of our hands. There's nothing more left for us to do here.'
Siel was quiet for a moment.
'How had you already guessed this outcome?' he asked at last.
Arin smiled somewhat wryly. Even putting aside the boy's supposedly 'exceptionally powerful' talent, it was quite clear to see that he was a rather clever, quick-thinking, and sensible kid.
...But that's the thing;
He was a kid.
And although he knew nothing of the boy's life prior to the roughly one week's time that he'd known him for, he believed that there were some things that sometimes became easier to pick up with age.
'No one knows of what a distortion is,' he said abruptly.
'Well, no.' The younger tower magician, without skipping a beat, immediately followed up on the sudden change of topic. 'That's another thing I find quite intriguing; from what you told me, the headman seems to have seen it - and communicated with it! - as if it were an entirely independent entity. Even one that might possess a kind of consciousness of its own, and -'
'Yes, Siel,' Arin interjected gently. 'But no one knows anything about it for certain. Not even something as basic as what causes, or creates, a distortion.'
'...They don't, no.'
'But if something so destructive can also be so unpredictable - if one can even be born in a simple village, from the talent of an ordinary child, does that not make it all the more frightening?'
'How would order be maintained if the populace were to live in constant fear of such a thing suddenly appearing, and tearing through their own lives? Imagine people falling over themselves to report every instance of an individual acting unusual. Imagine people rallying to kill every person who becomes withdrawn, or otherwise strange in some similar way.'
'There would be chaos. And so, isn't it easier for the authorities to keep the people believing that distortions are rare, to the point of impossibility?'
Siel had been listening to him with a small frown.
'But, brother Rin, does keeping an uninformed populace not also mean that people would always be underprepared?' he asked. 'If one is indeed faced with a greater chance of encountering such danger, doesn't one deserve to know the truth?'
'Mm-hmm. They probably think it's fair enough that the law dictates immediate reporting. If people aren't stupid from panicking, it is more likely that reported cases will be incredibly rare. There is then a greater chance that the ones that do come to light, are indeed distortions.'
'And in those cases, they ensure that everyone involved is silenced forever,' the boy snorted.
Arin took in the flash of displeasure on Siel's face, and it struck him that even though death and loss were more commonplace in this world, and even though it all seemed to be normalized by even the law of the land, that didn't have to necessarily mean that everyone was fine with it.
After all, even if one acknowledges something as part of their reality, that doesn't always mean they can just accept it.
'...Yeah.' He suddenly jolted at the realization of how it sounded - like he was speaking in defense of the weird, tyrannical policies of this stupid Empire.
That hadn't been his intention! He came from a normal, relatively peaceful society, thank you very much!
He was just trying to explain his train of thought to the kid!
'It isn't right,' he added quickly. 'We needn't agree with it. But, knowing that helps to understand why they might see it as a necessity, yes? To answer your question, that's how I'd already known that we shan't be publicly hailed for being the first to minimize a distortion's death count. Well, we probably aren't even the first to ever do so.'
'We were just never told about the others...'