"I'd spent a lot of time in the area during the time that I was with the Missuccis and I could feel something that told me that Robert was the right person to perform the pilgrimage."

"The Missuccis as in the mobsters? What were you doing hanging around with mobsters?"

"Come to think of it you never told me why you were with those people," Robert said.

"I infiltrated a number of shady organizations in my search for answers about what the raven was up to, you see I believe that the raven together with the rat were behind the grain crisis in this country and that they got one of these organizations to help them do it."

"Were you able to find out if your suspicion was correct?" Anne asked.

"No, they covered their tracks too well, but it was them, I know it, just like I know that they were behind that missile strike on Riyadh that was blamed on Iran that set off the worst conflict in the middle east in history."

The scale of the forces at work in all of this were incredible, and it terrified Anne that Robert was expected to somehow confront all of them on his own.

"How is Robert supposed to deal with all of this on his own? He doesn't have the kind of power or influence to be able to stand up against world leaders and whole armies."

"He won't be alone, there are other guardians that would have found their way to people that have the kind of power and influence that we need to mount a campaign against the raven."

"How many of them have you found?"

"So far none, but we have some leads that we're running down and when the time is appropriate we'll make contact."

"What leads have you got?"

"A couple; there's a civilian in Russia, a CEO, who the lion appears to have chosen, the raven no doubt knows about her and will have plans for making contact with her, if he hasn't made contact with her already. Right now though our focus is on finding the owl, the guardian of knowledge, who Jessie believes might be connected in some way to a blogger who goes by the handle Solomon, and once we've located and awakened the owl it won't be long before we're able to ascertain the whereabouts of the rooster."

"You've never told me about the rooster before," Robert said.

"It's the guardian of light, that some have believed to be the guardian of enlightenment, which is mostly accurate but guardian of light is it's given name."

"How are you going to find this Solomon? Governments have been after him for years," Anne asked.

"He'll make himself visible soon enough, with all of the high profile players that the Raven is assembling and elevating he'll want to reveal as much information about them as possible and that will increase the chances that he slips up and reveals himself in the process."

"What makes you so sure that it's going to play out that way?"

"I've known his kind, he won't be content to remain in the shadows, sooner or later he's going to want credit for what he's done, and if the information is of immense magnitude then he's not going to be able to help himself, he's going to have to make sure that people know it was him who was responsible for enlightening them, and that's where the rooster comes into the picture."

"Comes into the picture how?" Robert asked.

"Information is malleable, with the right counter-messaging even the most damning information can be completely nullified, and with the help of the snake and the bull this is something that the raven will be more than capable of accomplishing that, but if we have the owl and the rooster then we can render their counter-measures irrelevant."

"I've never heard about this bull before either! Why have you been keeping all of this from me?" Robert asked.

"I didn't want you feeling overwhelmed, it's best if you learn about all of this along the way."

"How much do I still not know?"

"Very little, and it's mostly stuff that you'll never know because I have strict instructions to make sure that mortals never come into contact with that knowledge."

"You've got strict instructions from who?"

"That's one of the things you're not allowed to know."

It had been a while since Robert and the goose had gone to the forest to awaken the goat and Robert was growing concerned and frustrated by the lack of progress since. He couldn't see how they were ever going to get ahead of the raven whose plan was well advanced and yet it was still moving full steam ahead, while the goose's strategy was to just keep on waiting for revelation. They needed to get more aggressive, the goose needed to be made to see that.