Chapter 9

As always, whenever someone confronted Tarrin about what he had become, it caused him to undergo a period of depression afterwards. Tarrin knew what he was, but he didn't revel in it the way some people thought he did. He had been like Azakar once, gentle and caring, but the Cat, time, betrayal, and the danger of his mission had changed him. He knew that it changed him, he knew that if the Tarrin that had been could see himself now, he would be horrified. But in the end, there was nothing he could do about it. And since it was a situation he couldn't change, he didn't dwell on it. That was forced upon him by the Cat, but in a way, he was glad of it.

He wouldn't have been able to be very depressed even if he tried, because of Kimmie. She stayed with him the entire day, using careful, gentle words and sincere affection, humor and compassion, to prevent him from falling back in that black pit of nearly psychotic self-torture. She lavished the same kind of attention on him that he had been lavishing on her, making him feel like the most important person in the world. Kimmie did indeed know him better than he knew himself, and her previous experience dealing with Mist had made her almost invincible in her battle to keep him from brooding.

Things were rather tense on the vessel after the surprisingly swift victory over the Zakkites, and Tarrin was only a part of it. Phandebrass and four of the Tellurian engineers had somehow—nobody knew how—managed to salvage some of the magical equipment from the lone Zakkite ship that had not sunk as the five Wikuni vessels prepared to get under way. It took so long because the steampship's sails hadn't been unfurled since they started out, and the sailors needed a little extra time to set the rigging to support the sails. Phandebrass and his fellow Tellurians had left in a longboat—Keritanima was furious that the sailors had helped the mage lower it—and had somehow managed to get over to the ship without any of the Zakkites in the sea challenging him or trying to climb into his boat. They then boarded the badly listing ship, which would sink at any moment, and had managed to get out just as it did sink with several enemy spellbooks and other strange things thrown into a sack. What was most surprising of all was that the mage had somehow pulled up the magical device that allowed the skyships to fly, pulled it off the deck, tied a rope to it, tied the rope to the longboat, and then let the ship sink with the device still aboard. The longboat very nearly sank when the rope kept it from falling into the deep, and Phandebrass and two of the Tellurians that were helping him had to bail frantically as the other two rowed desperately to get the longboat back to where they could tie it to a Wikuni vessel and keep it from going under.

After he got back, Keritanima let him have it. But it was just the kind of thing that Phandebrass would do, and they all knew it. Whenever Phandebrass found something that intrigued him, he would go to almost any lengths to study it or research it, even at tremendous personal risk. He was almost crazy that way. He had been curious about how the Zakkites made their ships fly, for no mage outside Zakkar had ever been aboard one of their legendary skyships. Tarrin had seen their flying device before, and had described it to the Wizard long ago, during one of their many talks. Phandebrass knew exactly what to look for, so when they boarded the sinking ship, he knew exactly what to do. He had had the Tellurians go about tearing the device out of the deck as he recovered any magical equipment he thought may be useful or interesting to study.

And so, those were the circumstances that caused a flying device from a Zakkite skyship to be lashed down onto the spare deck space on the steamship.

Phandebrass was deliriously happy about it, so happy in fact that he handed over all the spellbooks and magical knicknacks to Kimmie for her to study as he worked on the flying device. It was a large metal contraption that had a floor and two pillars, and from the pillars there were chains with manacles on the ends. Tarrin had seen that device before, when he had destroyed the Zakkites long ago when they were on the Star of Jerod, seen a Wyvern locked into those manacles just before destroying the ship with Sorcery. It was very large, so large in fact that it should have sunk the longboat like a stone as soon as the rope that tied the two together had snapped taut. How the longboat managed to stay afloat was an absolute mystery, and only enhanced Phandebrass unusual reputation among his friends. The Wizard was wild and scattered, but he seemed to have this absolutely amazing luck that allowed him to slither through any situation unscathed. That mystical luck had saved the Wizard once again.

The steam engine was repaired at about noontime the next day, as Keritanima took Tarrin down into the engine room so Donovan could show him the part that had broken. Tarrin used Druidic magic to Conjure a replacement, and once it was installed, they were under steam once again and moving at good speed towards their destination.

Those days were filled with magical uncertainty. It turned out that it wasn't the spells of the Zakkites that made them so devastating in an attack on other ships, it was their magical objects. Phandebrass had recovered nine separate little wooden sticks that Kimmie called wands, sticks that had been magically imbued with the power to invoke a magical spell upon command. It was the same spell over and over again, and each of the little wand devices could only invoke the spell so many times before its magical supply was exhausted. Tarrin could feel that magical power stored inside the little sticks. What made everyone so nervous was when Kimmie worked on unlocking the means of activating each wand. Magical balls of fire or raking blasts of lightning or pale beams of magical energy would fly across the deck at random intervals as Kimmie succeeded in discovering the method of activating each wand, then began studying them to determine their function. While she was doing that, Phandebrass was absolutely attached to his flying machine, never moving more than twenty spans from it as he measured it, studied it, experimented on it, even tried to cut the tip off one of the tapered pillars to learn what the device had been made from. His experimentations had noticeable effects on the device, and on the ship to which it had been attached. On one occasion, the entire ship suddenly lifted about two spans off the surface of the water for about three heartbeats, then dropped back down, shaking up the entire ship and everything in it. An infuriated Donovan ran out from the engine room and actually slapped Phandebrass across the face because his little stunt had broken a part in the steam engine. Tarrin was summoned to Conjure a replacement part, and after about three hours, the ship was again under way.

That had been the last straw. Keritanima threatened to throw the device over the side if Phandebrass did any more experimenting. She told him he could study it, but no more magic. Phandebrass looked indignant and terrified that his precious captured device would be thrown overboard, so he promised to behave.

The destruction of nine Zakkite ships had done much to thin out the crowds on the sea. Or more to the point, the nine Zakkite ships had done the thinning, and the Wikuni formation was reaping the rewards of that sweep. They encountered no vessels for a long ten day stretch, but on that tenth day, Allia's eagle eyes had spotted exactly what none of them wanted to see. Another Zakkite Triad had appeared on the northwestern horizon, and they were moving southwest, towards them. But Keritanima seemed unconcerned. Zakkite ships were fearsome in battle, but they didn't fly everywhere they went. And when they were on the sea, they were slower than Wikuni vessels. The common Wikuni tactic for dealing with Zakkites was to flee from them if outnumbered and send out the call, and every Wikuni ship in the vicinity would converge in a central location then turn around and attempt to chase down the Zakkites with superior numbers. The Zakkites were familiar with this tactic, so it turned into a game of cat and mouse on the high seas, as the Zakkites tried to sink lone Wikuni vessels before reinforcements could arrive.

Though Keritanima said that the Wikuni were faster, those three Zakkite ships did not disappear from the horizon for long. They would reappear at irregular intervals, looking as if they had put on every square finger of sail in an attempt to keep up with their quarry. The Zakkites' ability to keep up unnerved the Wikuni sailors on the steamship, and the lack of space and brutal heat only made them even more short-tempered. The occasional fights that been going on before became more common, and had even spread to the clippers. The famous discipline of the Wikuni Navy was starting to break down.

The morale of the men got worse and worse as each day passed. Tarrin heard them muttering constantly under their breaths about the insane mission the Queen had pushed on them, mutter about other sailors they didn't like, complain about the steamship's bad conditions, and voice their discontent. The mood got darker and darker as they moved ever southwestward, slowly turning more and more south as they kept the Diamond Crown firmly at the bow.

The insidious nature of it hadn't been apparent to Tarrin until he began seeing discord among his friends. The sniping between Camara Tal and Phandebrass began to get ugly, and Azakar glared at Tarrin every opportunity he got. Tarrin and the Mahuut hadn't really talked or reconciled since the fight over the Zakkite survivors, and Tarrin's behavior had seemed to rankle the Knight as time went by, festering like an infection. Dar and Keritanima started fighting like siblings, arguing over the least little thing, and their arguments got longer and more vicious every time. Keritanima seemed consumed by her need to wrangle with Dar, but one fact kept Keritanima focused, kept them all focused. They had left Vendaka a month before, and the instructions said that they were supposed to travel for only forty. They were getting very close to their destination, and that knowledge kept all of them rational. They only had about ten days to go, and then they were going to be there. That helped alleviate some of the stress, and the air had even begun to cool as they moved deeper into the southern hemisphere, away from the tropical heat of the equator. It was still hot, but it wasn't as brutally hot as it had been, going from unbearable to merely uncomfortable.

So it was understandable that there was a tremendous amount of tension on the ship when they sighted their first land in more than thirty days. It was a small island, little more than a volcanic peak jutting out of the water, with smoke issuing forth lazily from the volcanic cone. The whole thing was a mass of black stone, coastlines that rose out of the sea as steeply as the side of a mountain, as waves pounded frothily against the steep black rocks. The disappointment that it wasn't an inhabitable island, that there would be no respite from the diet of hard tack and salted meat that was the staple of a sailor, made the Wikuni even more irritable.

The night after the island passed by was quite momentous. Tarrin was awakened by Sapphire biting at his ear, but there was also a scraping at the door, very faint, very muffled. Had Tarrin not had his nose buried in Kimmie's hair, he would have smelled the Wikuni outside the door. His keen eyes made out that they had stuck something very thin, like a knifeblade, through the doorframe to try to throw the latch. They were trying to get in. But why? Tarrin crept over Kimmie and slinked up to the door silently, pausing to listen. The similarity of the situation struck him, as he recalled creeping up to a door in the Tower to listen to men that tried to break into his room. Those men had been trying to kill him. What did these men want?

"Careful, ya clumsy oaf!" one of them hissed. "That beast has ears, ya know!"

"Why're we doin' this, Clem?" another asked. "Ye've seen that monster, and ye heard the stories!"

"We can't convince her Majesty to turn us around and take us home unless we got collateral, Vin," a third voice said. "I like her Majesty, but this insanity has gone on long enough. We just had the bad luck to draw these two. You got that silver knife handy?"

"Aye, but I hope we don't have to use it. Goin' home is good and all, but that big furry one saved us from the Zakkites. It ain't right to pay him back by killin' 'im."

"Ain't nobody here wants bloodshed, Vin," the one called Clem assured him. "We just want her Majesty to turn us around."

"We'll be hanged fer sure."

"Better to hang at home than die out here," the third one whose name was unknown said immediately.

Tarrin was stunned. They were going to mutiny! He knew that they were unhappy, but to mutiny, it was unbelievable! That one was right, they would be hanged. But they sounded like they'd rather hang than keep going!

It was irrational! Why would they want to go home, when certain death was waiting for them? Not only were they going to mutiny, they were going to mutiny on the ship that carried their queen. That would be as good as high treason against the Crown! And there were more than these three. they said that they got the bad luck of drawing Tarrin. That meant that other mutineers were going to try to take some of the others hostage, the ones closest to Keritanima. They'd never get anywhere near Miranda, so that left Dar, Allia, Dolanna, and Camara Tal. They'd die quickly trying to take Allia or Camara Tal, and though Dolanna wouldn't kill them, they'd fare just as badly against her. Dar was the only one they'd have a chance of taking, but the young Arkisian's Sorcery was much stronger now. He would be no easy mark either.

Weaving blindly, Tarrin sent a weave of Air across the door and released it. He felt it collapse around the three mutineers, enfold them in itself, and quite effectively paralyze them by encasing them in sheaths of solid Air that only gave enough for them to breathe. "Kimmie," Tarrin called quickly, then put his paw on his amulet. "Kerri."

"You woke me up!" came a bleary response.

"You'd better get up. Three of your men just tried to take me hostage. And from the sound of it, there are more."

"What?"

"Just get up and get Binter and Sisska out into the companionway. Allia will kill whoever comes after her, you know that, and we need these men alive to find out what's going on."

Tarrin ignored any reply, shifting his attention. "Dar."

"I'm up, Tarrin. I was about to come get you. Do you know that two of Kerri's sailors just broke into my room? They tried to tie me up!"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. All those nights sleeping in the same room with you has turned me into a light sleeper," he chuckled.

"Did you kill them?"

"No, I just tied them up with Sorcery. We need to tell Kerri about this."

"Three of them just tried to do the same to me," he informed his young friend. "I think we all need to get out there and break up this little rebellion."

Tarrin tried raising Allia, but he got no reply. The sudden sound of combat that roared up the companionway explained why. There were shouts of fury, then sudden groans of consternation, then shrieks of agony. Tarrin opened the door to hear sudden confused shouting, and when he looked out, he saw about fifteen of the Wikuni sailors in the companionway, all holding knives or cutlasses or starwheel pistols. They looked shocked and frightened, and Tarrin saw why. Allia was standing in her doorway with her two shortswords in her hands. She was nude, and there was blood spattered all over her. She looked furious. And in all the world, there was nothing worse than an infuriated Selani. The sailors in the companionway saw her, saw that she had caught the men trying to sneak into her cabin, and dealt with them in a manner that was quite final.

One fellow had enough of a mind to level his pistol at Tarrin's sister. Tarrin's protective instincts roared to the forefront, but the man fired before he could stop him. Allia seemed unphased by that act, and Tarrin saw why when the small lead ball struck something in front of Allia, ricocheted into the wall beside her. Allia has woven a shield of Air to protect her against the pistol. Wise Allia, even prepared in a moment of fury!

The man may have had the time to fire the pistol, but he didn't have time for anything else. Tarrin was on him a mere heartbeat later, his wicked claws ripping the life out of the dog Wikuni before the loud bang of the pistol had a chance to fade from the cramped passage. The attack on Allia had sent Tarrin right into a blind rage, and his rage caused him to savage his unfortunate victim in exclusion of turning on the others. That moment of fury gave the Wikuni sailors a chance to flee from the Were-cat, whose attention was focused on shredding the body of the one who had fired on his sisters into pieces as small as he could possibly make them.

It was about to turn into a very ugly slaughter, as Camara Tal came out of her room, this time in a breastplate as well as her tripa, sword drawn and ready. Binter and Sisska stepped out into the passage with Keritanima just behind, and Phandebrass and Azakar too had come out of their rooms ready to do battle. Tarrin roared in fury as he reduced the Wikuni who had attacked Allia to a mangled pile of quivering gore, then turned and moved to attack the fleeing Wikuni, who were running up the passageway towards Keritanima, Binter, and Sisska. Tarrin's room was the first one passed after coming down the stairs, and Allia's was the second. That put Tarrin between the Wikuni sailors and the only way out of the companionway. Only the three Wikuni sailors that Tarrin immobilized with his magic were on the other side of him, the only ones with a chance to survive the Were-cat's fury.

Then Kimmie was there. She rushed in front of him and put her arms out wide, looking squarely into his eyes. "He's dead, Tarrin," she said softly. "The one that tried to hurt Allia is dead. Let it go. Let it go."

The Cat looked at her, recognized her as mate and friend, and saw that she was moving to defend the enemies behind. The Cat paused to consider this. The Cat knew that mate was wise and knowing about things that the Cat did not understand, and the Cat deferred to her wisdom. So if mate protected the enemies, perhaps they were not enemies. She had her back to them, and they were not attacking her. That helped the Cat make that decision, and gain more respect for mate. Mate was strong of heart to challenge the Cat when it was angry, when mate knew fully well that she was the weaker of them and could not stop it if it decided not to listen to her. Mate was a good female, and the cub she would bear him would have her strength of heart as well as his physical power. A fine cub.

Easily and gently, the Cat receded back into Tarrin's mind, allowing his conscious to regain control over himself.

Tarrin put a paw to his forehead, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. As always, he was a little disoriented and unsure what had happened, but he did know that he'd been in a rage, and that he'd only been like that a few quick moments. He looked and saw Kimmie standing between him and the dozen or so terrified Wikuni sailors behind her, arms out and her expression resolute. She was protecting them from him! She didn't protect all of them, for he could smell the blood and flesh of a Wikuni all over him. He'd killed at least one of them.

It came back to him quickly, because he'd only been in his rage a moment. One had shot at Allia with a pistol, so he had dealt with the man in a suitable manner. He looked at the others, saw them all standing woodenly, turning around to face Keritanima. They turned and just stood there.

Tarrin sensed it after clearing his head. Keritanima was using Sorcery, a Mind weave, on them. Because Keritanima was Wikuni, she could affect other Wikuni with Mind weaves. She was using one now to control all of them, to keep them from panicking.

"Just what in the bloody blazes is going on around here!" Camara Tal snapped, brandishing her sword.

"A mutiny, it seems," Phandebrass answered her.

"I didn't ask you, you clod!" Camara Tal shouted at him, raising her sword in Phandebrass' direction.

"Now see here, I've been very nice to you up until now, but I've grown tired of your incessant picking," the mage said grimly, pulling one of the captured wands out of the belt over his nightshirt. "If you don't like me this much, I think we should do something about it, we should."

"Cease, both of you!" Dolanna said, but it fell on deaf ears. Camara Tal stalked up towards Phandebrass with her sword leveled at him, and Phandebrass pointed his captured wand at her threateningly.

Then they both simply stopped. Their eyes glazed over as Tarrin felt Dolanna do the same thing to them that Keritanima did to the Wikuni.

"What is going on around here?" Dar asked, looking at Tarrin fearfully. "Camara and Phandebrass like each other! They just argue because they enjoy it!"

Tarrin looked at Camara Tal and Phandebrass in surprise, but Dolanna closed her eyes and bade at them. They stiffly obeyed her, coming up to her and kneeling before her, so Dolanna could put her hands on each of their heads without having to strain herself to reach up so far. Dolanna's expression became searching for a long moment, then her eyes snapped open in surprise. "Goddess!" she gasped. "It is magic doing this!"

"What?" Kimmie asked, turning to face the diminutive Sorceress.

"It is very faint, very subtle," she said. "But there is a magical influence provoking this animosity."

Keritanima beckoned to one of the sailors, and he marched up to her and stood stock still. Keritanima put her hands on either side of the ram Wikuni's face, under his horns, her expression one of concentration. Then she opened her eyes. "There is something there," she agreed. "It's affecting his mind, irritating his anger and influencing him."

"We are close to our goal. Perhaps this is but the first of its defenses," Allia said sagely. "A magic that causes discord in whoever attempts to reach it, so that they turn on one another."

"I never felt a thing," Tarrin said.

"Me either," Kimmie agreed.

"Neither did I, but it must be so," Allia added. "For a while now, I have felt that the tension on the ship was uncharacteristic for the Wikuni. They are just not like this. Not normally."

"So we have magic that affects humans and Wikuni, but not Were-cats and Selani," Dolanna mused. "There must be something about your races that renders you immune."

"You haven't shown any changes, Dolanna," Tarrin told her. "Neither have Binter or Sisska."

"I have felt certain, stirrings," she admitted. "But it was nothing that I could not control."

"I guess our training makes us resistant," Keritanima said.

"It didn't make you resistant," Tarrin told her bluntly. "You and Dar have been fighting like two angry hornets for days now."

"The question is, what are we going to do about it?" Kimmie asked pointedly.

That made them all silent for a moment. "There's nothing I can do," Tarrin said simply. "If I can't even sense it or see it, then there's not much I can do to stop it."

"We'll need to discover what this magic is and exactly how it affects us," Dolanna offered to Keritanima.

"I think we could design a counterspell, but we need to do it quickly, before the sailors on the clippers start firing on one another," Keritanima agreed.

"Binter, Sisska, have you felt anything unusual lately?" Tarrin asked the Vendari.

"No," he answered. "Only an increased awareness of the hostility around us."

"What have you been feeling, Dar?" Dolanna asked.

"Homesick," he replied after a moment. "So strong that all I wanted to do was go home. I thought Tarrin and Kerri were the one keeping us from going home. I know better than to be nasty to Tarrin, so I guess I was taking it out on Kerri."

"Dar's training as a Sorcerer made him more resistant to the effects of the magic," Dolanna surmised. "Kerri?"

"Homesick," she agreed. "But I thought it was because I wanted to get home to Rallix."

"The sailors mutinied because they wanted to go home," Tarrin said. "I heard them talk. They were willing to get hanged, so long as it was done back at Wikuna."

"I think that is how the magic affects the mind," Dolanna said. "It provokes a sense of homesickness. Actually, that is quite clever. If it was a magic that made one not want to continue forward, that would be much more noticeable than a feeling of homesickness."

"What about you, Miranda?" Dolanna asked. "Have you felt anything unusual?"

"No, not really," Miranda said. "I guess I feel home is wherever Kerri is," she said with a charming grin.

Tarrin looked at her, not sure about that. Miranda wasn't entirely a Wikuni, she was an Avatar, and that extra granted to her by her gods was probably insulating her from the magic's effect. Of course, nobody knew that but Tarrin, and he wasn't about to say anything. As long as Miranda had a rational explanation for not being affected by the magic, there was no reason for him to say anything.

Dolanna and Keritanima seemed to accept that explanation. Sapphire flapped out of the room and landed on Tarrin's shoulder, rubbing her head against the side of his neck affectionately. "Well, the magic hasn't affected the drakes either," Kimmie chuckled. "Maybe it's targeted at humans and Wikuni. After all, who else would have the ships or nautical expertise to get this far? Selani and Vendari don't sail, and the Were-kin wouldn't care to do what we're doing. I don't know of any other races intelligent enough to sail ships."

"The Aeradalla, but they wouldn't bother building a ship," Tarrin said. "If they can't fly there, they don't go there."

"Well, I think we know how the magic is affecting us," Dolanna said. "Now we try to counter it."

They did that for the rest of the day. Keritanima didn't punish anyone for the mutiny attempt, but she did order everyone, even the Wikuni on the other ships, to go to their quarters and rest. She explained that there was a magical force affecting them all, and that it was imperative for everyone to rest and remain calm until the magicians among them could come up with a way to counter the magic. Keritanima and Dolanna didn't restrict their efforts to themselves, they summoned the Priests of the other four ships and the Priest on the steamship, they released Camara Tal and Phandebrass and had them join them, they even brought in Dar, Allia, Kimmie, and Tarrin, and then they all put their heads together and discussed the matter, and tried to find a way for those among them to find a way to counter the magical influence.

By nightfall, they had a solution, but they also had a serious problem. Keritanima had engineered a Mind weave to protect from the magic, but it was not something that a Priest could duplicate. Any Sorcerer could cast the spell, but the fact that it was a Mind weave meant that only Dolanna and Keritanima could use it on the humans and Wikuni on the ship. For Dolanna, this wasn't a daunting proposition, for there were only fifteen humans for her to protect. But Keritanima would be responsible for protecting over two hundred Wikuni, and she would have to cast the spell at least three times a day. Mind weaves weren't permanent, but their effects did linger beyond the expiration of the spell, how long they lasted depending entirely on the mental toughness and willpower of the mind being affected. Keritanima wouldn't be able to protect every Wikuni on all five ships, and Dolanna and Keritanima both reasoned that the closer they came to the source of that magic, the stronger its effects would become. The better conditions and higher level of discipline on the military clippers hadn't caused any dangerous problems on the clippers, but as they got closer to the source of the magic, they too would be affected. And the other four ships were carrying cannons. If the crews on board those ships began to get affected by the magic, they could start firing on one another, or even the steamship.

Keritanima and Dolanna cast the counterspell on the men on the steamship, one after another, as the men waited in line to receive their magical protection from the ship's magicians. The Wikuni sailors looked very sheepish and quite nervous that the Queen herself would be personally using magic on them, an act that made them very proud and very ashamed. Proud that the Queen would do such a thing for them, and ashamed that they had not resisted the magic better and had actually attempted to mutiny against her.

The captains of the four clippers were outraged by Keritanima's solution. "Absolutely not!" Captain Jalis shouted, a burly bobcat Wikuni with a scar marring the fur on the right side of his face. "Your Majesty, your ship is unarmed! If you send us back, you'll have no protection!"

"Captain, you fail to see the point," Keritanima said coolly. "This magic affects Wikuni and humans. If we continue on alone, I seriously doubt that we're going to run into any opposition. We got in this far because of the discipline of our navy. Do you think these rag-tag vessels carrying these mages will have the same discipline to breach this magic this far? Their crews would have turned on one another long before now. Think about it. Why haven't we seen any more ships since the Zakkites? It's because this magical effect is making them avoid this area."

"I will not gamble her Majesty's life on maybes!" he said adamantly.

"Are you a loyal servant of the Crown?" Keritanima asked calmly.

"Of course!" he said proudly.

"Then accept my orders," she told him. "I want your ships to turn around and see if you can't sink those Zakkites tailing us. Once you do, anchor somewhere outside the magical effect and wait for us. I'll have our Priest contact yours at regular intervals, so you'll be constantly appraised of our progress and situation. If you feel that we're getting in over our head, then you can come in after us. But only one ship, and manned by only your most disciplined veteran sailors. A strong will resists the effect of the magic."

"I will obey her Majesty, but I refuse to allow you to go in there without some kind of protection. You must at least take on a few cannon, so your ship can fight if needs be."

"I'll talk to Donovan," she promised him. "If he says it's safe to carry the gunpowder, then I'll agree to that."

"You also need a capable ship captain, not that human engineer," he said doggedly. "So, I request transfer to your ship, so a real Wikuni captain can establish some better discipline and leadership to the crew."

Keritanima blinked, then smiled. "I don't think that's an unreasonable request," she agreed. "Very well, permission granted. Welcome aboard, Captain."

Jalis nodded with a satisfied look, then sat back down.

The other ship captains looked more than pleased by Jalis' requests and Keritanima's assent, and were much less resistant to Keritanima's orders thereafter. They still grumbled and protested, but Keritanima was the queen, and they had to obey her. They felt much better that a very capable captain like Jalis, one of the fleet's best, would be taking command of the queen's ship, and were willing to agree to Keritanima's commands.

The next morning, things were readied. Donovan did agree to taking on some gunpowder, so five cannons were brought over and set on the deck, and enough powder and shot to use them were also brought on. Jalis transferred to the steamship with his personal effects, and immediately took control of the vessel. Wisely, the first thing he did was talk to the Tellurian engineers and come to an understanding about the revolutionary new steam engine, learning about its limits and its abilities, learning as much about his ship as he could. That was a smart thing for a captain to do. The next thing he did was transfer out almost the entirety of the Wikuni crew, breaking them up and sending them to other ships. Jalis didn't want a group that had mutinied once to stay on the vessel, so he asked the other ships to send their very best sailors to man the ship that would be carrying the queen alone into untold dangers. The other four ships responded in tremendous fashion, sending Jalis a group of very experienced-looking Wikuni to man the ship and operate the cannons. The men that replaced the old crew looked confident and very professional, and even Donovan looked relieved to see them aboard. Jalis didn't waste any time taking full control of the vessel, but he didn't alienate the engineers in the process, showing that he had good leadership qualities. Donovan took the new crew with Jalis that morning and explained the differences of the steamship over a clipper, and trained them in the unique duties they would be expected to perform. The men learned quickly and devoted themselves to their tasks, and that was why both Jalis and Donovan announced to the queen that the ship would be ready to steam ahead the next morning.

The next morning, they left their four escorts behind and steamed south-southwest alone, sailing into a bank of dark clouds that threatened rain. The ship's attitude problems were gone, as the new sailors went about their duties with quiet efficiency. They didn't grumble and complain as the last crew had. They did their jobs and did them well, doing their duty for Queen and country, with the Queen herself watching on in approval. This crew was probably the best of the best on those four clippers, and they showed it as they kept the steamship running in proper order as they moved towards their ultimate destination.

There was a little excessive quiet. Now that the business of finding a solution was done, both Camara Tal and Phandebrass looked a little embarrassed that they had been affected by the magic. Camara Tal especially looked rather contrite, for her warrior's pride was stung that she had been so easily influenced. They both avoided talking to everyone for most of the day, until Camara Tal and Phandebrass met at the starboard rail and had a long, quiet talk. Camara Tal wasn't the only one that was apologetic. Azakar approached Tarrin as he and Allia were playing chess, and took Tarrin aside and quietly and earnestly apologized to him for his behavior. Tarrin understood that it was the magic that had caused it, so he made sure to tell Azakar that he had nothing to apologize for, that Tarrin understood that it wasn't Azakar doing it.

Keritanima seemed to have been right about one thing, and that was how alone they were. The four clippers keeping the Zakkites off their stern had left them virtually alone on the ocean. They saw nothing the first day nor the second, but there was little time to look for anything on that second day.

The bank of clouds was a storm, and a very violent one. The rain was very heavy and driving, blowing straight from the bow and slashing into everyone, propelled by the powerful wind. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, the lightning raking the two masts of the steamship with multiple hits, even striking the two smokestacks several times. It was more than the average sea squall, it was an impressive storm that made the seas high, forced the steamship to batton down its hatches and wallow in the high, strong waves for nearly a full day. Everyone inside was thrown about like rag dolls for most of the day, Tarrin thanking the Goddess that the Wikuni had experience enough to nail all the furniture to the decks. The thrashing of the ship on the waves would have sent the furniture flying in every direction. The ship managed to breach the far side of the storm at nearly sunset that day, and everyone came out of their hiding places to discover that almost everything that had been lashed onto the deck was gone, washed overboard, and the foremast had been split by the power of the wind. The only thing left was Phandebrass' flying device, a fact that made the Wizard almost religiously thankful, and the heavy cannons that had literally been bolted down to the deck. The supplies they'd lost on deck had mainly been parts and supplies for the steam engine, but Tarrin promised to Conjure whatever Donovan needed to keep the engine going. So the supplies had not been a critical loss. If anything, they gave everyone a lot more room, and the sailors, engineers, and passengers actually seemed happier with the increased amount of living space afterward. In more than one way, it was more of a blessing than a curse.

The morning of the third day the ship found itself steaming into clear sailing, the skies ahead clear and a brilliant blue, except for the narrow white line that was the Skybands that was almost directly overhead, pointing out east and west to the men and women on the ship below. The rain was over, but the wind was still quite brisk, a constant strong gust that blew from the bow, making the Wikuni flag on the mast snap and stand almost straight out in the breeze. What got Tarrin's attention was that the air was dry and much, much cooler than the air they'd passed through just a few days before. This air was pleasant during the day, and would probably be pleasantly cool at night, since there was no humidity in it to trap the day's heating. Tarrin was standing on the deck with Allia and Dar after breakfast, as Tarrin had let Kimmie go on to her studies as she continued to study the spellbooks Phandebrass had recovered from the Zakkites, and Phandebrass continued to study the flying device. He had his drakes with him, happily studying every square finger of the device with a piece of glass that magnified what one saw when looking through it.

"Strong wind," Dar said, pulling his robe a little. He, Tarrin, and Allia were standing at the bow, staring straight ahead as the steamship made good time even against the wind.

"I think this is the wind the poem spoke of," Allia said calmly, her white hair whipping in the wind. "It said that the Firestaff is behind the wind. The wind has been blowing in from ahead for two straight days now. I would say that we are getting very close."

"Well, if we're going to go on what that poem says, it's almost your turn, Allia," Tarrin told her. "Kerri got us here, now you have to find behind the wind. Whatever that means."

"If you need my eyes, they should be where I can see the most," she said, pointing to the crow's nest above and behind them.

"I guess," Dar said. "Just make sure you tell Captain Jalis."

"Who better to serve as lookout than a Selani?" Allia asked with calm assurance, then she patted them both on the shoulder in farewell and walked towards the sterncastle.

"You think this really is the wind the poem talked about, Tarrin?" Dar asked.

"I think it's a good bet," Tarrin said in agreement with Allia. "The wind has been blowing from the same direction for two days now, like she said. And since it's been coming from straight ahead, no ship moving with sails could keep moving forward in it."

Tarrin put his paws on the rail and looked over the bow, considering. And feeling just a little anxious. If this was the wind that the poem spoke about, then that meant that they were very close to their destination now. If they had indeed reached the wind, as soon as the got behind it, they would be there. It felt strange to think that, for things to be so close to being over. He'd been at it for so long, the very thought that it may soon be ending seemed very strange to him. It was almost as if he'd been doing it his entire life, and now that part of his life was about to come to an end. There was a poignant sadness to it in a way, but that didn't last long when he considered the idea that he'd soon have his life to himself. No more running around and doing the bidding of the Goddess. He'd still obey her, but she'd promised him that there would be no more after this. All they had to do was find the Firestaff and wrest it away from this fabled guardian, then hide the damned thing until after that special day came and went.

The only part of it he'd regret would be the breakup that was sure to come. They were a very diverse group, and they lived in places scattered all over the world. Tarrin would return to Aldreth, and Allia would return to the desert. Keritanima, Miranda, Binter, and Sisska would return to Wikuna. Dar would probably go back to the Tower with Dolanna, and Azakar would return to the Knights. Phandebrass would go who knew where, and Camara Tal would return to the Isles of Amazar, her home. Whether or not she went back with Koran Dar was the hot question among them at the moment. Kimmie would come back with him to Alrdreth, whether she wanted to or not, and he'd make sure that she set up her new territory within easy walking distance of the secluded meadow in which he intended to build his homestead. They were all his friends, his dear friends, and he didn't want them to leave, to break up. But that was going to happen sooner or later. Tarrin would be happy to take control of his own life, but he'd regret leaving all of his friends behind to do so.

"The poem said twenty stone of coal and wood would get us behind the wind," Dar mused, breaking him out of his reverie. "If this is the wind, then it certainly seems to fit."

"It also makes it sound like the wind won't last forever," Tarrin added. "Then again, as strong as it is, it wouldn't have to last very long to push almost any sailing ship away."

"Does it feel like magic to you, Tarrin?" Dar asked curiously.

Tarrin paused to assess the area around him. "No, not at all," he replied in a curious tone. "That means it's either natural, or it's another kind of magic that I can't sense, like the magic that affected everyone."

Sapphire landed on his shoulder suddenly. Had Tarrin not gotten used to her surprise landings, he would have been startled by it. He reached up and scratched between her horns affectionately, and she replied by rubbing her head against the side of his neck.

"It's kind of hard to imagine Sorcerers making a spell that can do something like this," Dar said, shielding his eyes from the wind.

"Jenna would know," Tarrin said. "Since Spyder gave her all that knowledge, she should know if the Sorcerers ever made something like this."

"I wonder what it would be like to know all that," Dar sighed.

"Jenna's writing it all down. When she's done, we'll be able to read it."

"That's good. Sometimes I think—"

Dar cut himself short as Tarrin felt a sudden violent realignment of the Weave. It was a Weavequake, and a powerful one. The magic of the Weave was disrupted by the shift, the strands trembling and quivering as the flow of magic within them began to stop flowing, to cease and stand absolutely still. Then the magic flared, roared from the Heart like a dam, flooding into the strands and expanding them all, making very strand in the Weave just a little stronger, just a little richer. Tarrin's sense of the Weave expanded and contracted with the Weave, and its tremors flowed through him, causing him not a little discomfort. Even Dar, who was not a Weavespinner, felt it, gasped and winced as the Weave's strands shifted and reset themselves.

The wind, which had been blowing strongly from the bow, just stopped. Then it picked back up as strongly as it did before.

Tarrin and Dar weren't the only ones affected by the Weavequake. Sapphire squealed in pain, her claws sinking into Tarrin's shoulder as she endured the pain of it. Sapphire was a magical creature, and she too was subject to the effects of a Weavequake.

Then it was over. Tarrin took Sapphire off his shoulder and held her closely, tightly, stroking her scales and calming her as she trembled in his grasp. "Tarrin, what was that!" Dar asked breathlessly, rubbing his temples.

Tarrin knew exactly what it was. "That, Dar, was the next sui'kun," he said quietly. "The sixth Weavespinner was just born. What you felt was the Weave reorganizing itself to take that into account."

"Really?" Dar asked with wide eyes. "That's incredible! But why did we feel it when we didn't feel it when Jasana was born?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's because the Weave is a lot stronger now than it was when Jasana's birth affected it," he answered. "When the seventh is born, it should cause another Weavequake, and it will be even stronger."

"What happens when all seven are born?" Dar asked.

"The Weave will be restored," Tarrin told him. "Completely. We'll have the same magical power in the Weave that the Ancients did back in the Age of Power."

"Wow," Dar said breathlessly.

"Are you alright, Sapphire?" Tarrin asked her gently, stroking her scales.

The drake looked up at him and chirped, then laid her head against his chest.

"My poor little baby," he said compassionately, putting his huge paw over her protectively. "Let's get you back in the cabin and in your bed, alright? You need to rest."

Tarrin Conjured his drake a large meal, then put Sapphire in her bed and let her rest after she ate. He found out after coming back up that Chopstick and Turnkey were also affected, and Phandebrass had to pause in his research on the flying device to tend to his two drakes, making sure they were alright, comforting them through their period of fear, then giving them a good meal and setting them down to rest and recover from their ordeal. After that, Tarrin gathered with Allia, Dolanna, Dar, and Keritanima and explained what had happened, and they were visited by Jenna and Jula in their projected Illusions while he was explaining what happened to them. "Tarrin, Tarrin, did you feel that!" Jenna said in excitement even as her Illusion solidified.

"Of course we did," Tarrin told her. "Did the Goddess tell you where the baby is?"

"No, should we ask?" she replied.

"You'd better," Tarrin told her. "If someone kills that baby, its effect on the Weave will be removed. Protecting the new sui'kun is the most important thing you can do right now."

"Good point," Jula agreed. "Maybe you should ask, father. The Goddess always seems to talk to you."

"This is important, Jula. Right now, she'd probably tell any Sorcerer who asked where the baby is."

There is no need for worry, my children, the voice of the Goddess touched Tarrin. From the sudden surprised expressions on the faces of Dar, Dolanna, Allia, and Keritanima, it was not a personal contact. The Goddess was speaking to all of them. The baby was born to a Sorceress at the Tower in Sharadar. They understand what the baby is, and they will protect him very carefully. The baby is quite safe.

"That's a relief," Jenna sighed as the sense of the Goddess retreated from them.

"What changes can we expect from this?" Dolanna asked.

"Every time another sui'kun is born, it increases our power a little," Jenna answered her. "What it does for the other orders is returns an aspect of their magic that they lost after the Breaking. You'll have to have Master Phandebrass and Mistress Camara Tal to research it and find out what they regained. But as for us, you'll all find that your powers are stronger than they were before."

"Our limits cannot change," Allia said uncertainly. "That was taught to us in the Initiate."

"In this respect, they can," Jenna told her. "I'm not telling you to go out and try to move mountains, but you should see an increase in the amount of magic you can handle. That means you can work with some stronger spells than you could before."

"We will explore your new limits," Dolanna told Allia and Dar. "As Tarrin will help Keritanima and myself explore ours."

"You mean Tarrin's even stronger now too?" Dar asked.

"No," Jenna told him. "Sui'kun are a little different. The reason Tarrin could do things none of you thought was possible two years ago is because he exists outside of those restrictions, just like I do. We're not affected as much by the change in the magic as you will be. We will have a little bit more strength, but it won't really be enough to make it matter."

Jula looked at Tarrin. "Where are you now, father?"

"Allia thinks we've reached the edge of the wind," Tarrin answered her. "For two days now we've had a strong headwind, and yesterday we came through a pretty strong storm."

"Well, be careful, father," Jula said. "Jesmind is just starting to calm down now. I don't want her getting all worked up again."

"How has she been?" he asked. "She always tries to put on a good face when we talk."

"She's actually been in a pretty good mood," she answered. "Triana told her about Kimmie, and surprisingly enough, she was happy about it. Strange, seeing as how Jesmind has been planning how to kill her when you two come back," she chuckled.

"Even Jesmind has to feel happy about a baby," Tarrin chuckled, a little surprised. Tarrin hadn't told Jesmind about Kimmie being pregnant yet. If Jesmind already knew, why didn't she say anything? He had to ask her about that.

"Jasana?"

"Fine," she smiled. "She's looking forward to seeing this new baby. She seems to think that Kimmie already had it."

"You'd better break her of that notion."

"I'll try, but Jasana can be very stubborn about things," Jula said with a slashing gesture of her paw. "When she makes up her mind about something, she's decided that she's right, and everyone else has to be wrong. Even if you tell her straight that she's wrong, she won't believe it unless you can prove it to her."

"That sounds about like her," Tarrin chuckled.

"Is it a boy or a girl? Jesmind wants to know."

"I don't know, and Kimmie won't let me find out," Tarrin told her. "She wants it to be a surprise."

"She's a strange woman," Jula mused.

"Well, we'd better get back," Jenna said. "Me and Jula are sitting at a dinner table with your parents, Triana, Jesmind, Jasana, Thean, and Sevren. Odds are, they're looking at us funny right about now."

"Be careful, you two," Tarrin said.

"And please do not tell people where we are," Dolanna warned them. "The ki'zadun may still have eyes and ears in the Tower. Do not make it easy for them to discover where we are."

"We'll be discreet, Dolanna," Jenna nodded. "See you later, brother, everyone."

"Good luck, father, and be careful," Jula added, and then their Illusions wavered and vanished.

"Well, that's good news," Dar said. "At least the new sui'kun is safe."

"Sharadar is the one place where the baby would be completely safe," Dolanna nodded in agreement. "The katzh-dashi have run the nation for thousands of years."

"I have always meant to ask how that works," Allia said to her. "Do they help the king?"

"The Keeper of the Tower in Abrodar is the king," Dolanna told her calmly. "Or queen, in this case. The current Keeper and queen of Sharadar is Alexis Firehair, a very powerful Sorceress. She is an example of how hard work and devotion can raise one from the lowest gutter to the highest pinnacle of the mountain."

"Why is that?" Dar asked curiously.

"Alexis Firehair was once a street urchin in Darrigon," she answered. "A kingdom south of Sharadar. She was a beggar and a thief before the Tower found her and discovered that she was a potentially powerful Sorcerer. She rose through the ranks at the Tower in Abrodar more quickly than anyone has ever done so before. She went from a mischievous Initiate that got in trouble about three times a day to the Queen of Sharadar in fifty-three years. That is positively meteoric in the way that katzh-dashi reckon time."

"A living rags to riches story," Dar said with a grin. "I thought those were just bedtime tales."

"Alexis is not one you would want to tell stories about to your children," Dolanna smiled. "She never lost her rough edges. She is a very beautiful woman with a tongue sharper than a razor, and a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush. She is quite a unique person."

"You know her personally?" Allia asked.

Dolanna nodded. "We went through the Initiate together. Alexis got me in trouble almost every day," she said with a wistful, distant smile.

"Dolanna? You got in trouble when you were younger?" Dar said in shock, then he laughed.

"I was once as precocious as any youth, Dar," she said mildly. "Alexis always managed to provoke me. She and I were the scourge of the Tower of Abrodar," she said with twinkling eyes. "Of course, that was seventy years ago. I have mellowed much since then."

"It is hard to imagine you as a troublemaker, Dolanna," Allia said with a smile.

"We all change, dear one," Dolanna said with a mysterious smile. "Time cannot help but change us."


The new sui'kun had changed the Weave, had restored magic to the Priests and Wizards, had increased the power of the katzh-dashi, and Tarrin discovered to his surprise that it had much greater far-reaching effects. And those effects were personified in Sapphire.

The change in the Weave, Tarrin realized after noticing Sapphire, affected almost any creature with magical abilities. Sapphire's electrical powers almost tripled in power, so much so that the little drake had a hard time controlling her magical powers. Lightning would crackle and dance around her whenever she built up too great of a charge, and Tarrin could tell that the little drake was trying her hardest to keep her magic under control. Not only did Sapphire's magical abilities increase, Tarrin could tell that something fundamental had changed inside of her. Her eyes seemed much more lucid, almost sentient, and she seemed to pay a great deal more attention to him and Kimmie when they talked at night, or whenever she was with him. It was almost like she could understand them, or was trying to do so.

Sapphire's alteration kept Tarrin's attention the rest of that day and all the next, as the ship continued to sail directly into the headwind, a wind that got stronger and stronger as the ship moved ever closer to its goal. He tended his little drake carefully as she recovered her strength, then tried to figure out how to help her get her powers back under control when it became apparent to him that her magical abilities had grown tremendously as a result of the birth of the new sui'kun. Her magical abilities were worrisome, but it was her change in personality that worried Tarrin more than anything else. Whatever had happened to Sapphire had had a distinct effect on her mind, almost as if the increase in magical power had expanded her consciousness. Tarrin considered using the Druidic spell to speak to her directly, but that didn't seem to be necessary, or needed quite yet. Though she was acting different, she was still Sapphire, and she still seemed more than content to be near him. She just seemed more attentive to what was going on around her, much less like an animal and much more like a sentient being.

The dawn of the third day convinced Tarrin beyond any doubt that they had been penetrating the wind of the poem, for the ship moved into an area with a vastly, radically depopulated concentration of strands. The number of strands dropped as if they had crossed a line, as if they had walked out of a forest and onto a grassy plain with only a few trees breaking up the landscape. The effect on Tarrin was quite noticeable, as the power that surrounded him dropped dramatically, and that actually made him feel listless and tired. The few strands that penetrated into the empty area dropped more and more as the ship moved during the morning, until Tarrin, standing at the bow, looked ahead of them and saw nothing. It was a massive region with absolutely no strands at all, a void of sorts, a place that Dolanna had speculated may exist but had never seen. Within that void, as soon as they got some distance from the last of the strands, no Sorcery and no Wizard or Priest magic would function. Only Druidic magic would function within the area, because it did not depend on the Weave.

The magic influencing the minds of the humans and Wikuni had been the first defense. The wind was the second defense, a defense still actively pushing against the bow, and this, this magical void, it had to be the third line of defense. It had to be here to prevent any ship that used magic to get this far against the wind would have to continue without that help. And go a very long way, for Tarrin could see nothing ahead of them, nothing but empty sea all the way to the horizon. It told Tarrin that if the wind was indeed not natural, the magic that had created it had to be on the other side of the void. Weather magic was as temporary as any other Sorcery, but its effects were not so temporary. Wind created by Sorcery would continue to move after the spell was ended, for magic could not completely overwhelm or nullify basic natural laws. One of those laws was that when you moved something, if it was large enough, its momentum would make it continue to move. The spell that could create such a powerful wind may not be permanent, but the air it was moving got everything it needed from the spell when the spell pushed it. The wind continued of its own volition, being helped along by the air pushing at it from behind, until the resistance o the air around it that was not moving finally broke the wind up and nullified it. That storm they'd encountered a few days ago had to be the boundary where the cooler, drier wind finally died out and impacted the hot, muggy air blocking its progress, and those two colliding airmasses were generating storms. That storm they'd passed through was probably stationary, and had probably been in that same spot, raining away, as long as the wind had been blowing. A stationary, perpetual thunderstorm, and a pretty rough one at that. That may not have been one of the designed obstacles to cross, but it surely served as a damn effective one. More than once, Tarrin thought that the steamship was going to founder.

Tarrin was standing on the deck, feeling tired, as the ship moved into that magical void, an emptiness that only Tarrin, Keritanima, and Dolanna could see, an emptiness that unnerved the Were-cat. He had never felt anything like it, and the emptiness around him felt like an emptiness within him as well. He was sui'kun, he was attached to the Weave in a myriad of ways, only some of them he understood or was even aware existed. Now he was moving into an area where his connection to the Weave would be stretched, maybe even severed temporarily, and that made him feel both curiously defenseless and almost yearning. He was being pulled away from the gentle presence of the Goddess, and that scared him more than the though of not being able to use Sorcery until they got to the other side. The Goddess' presence in his soul had been a constant thing since he'd accepted her, and now he felt that connection to her fading as the steamship moved deeper and deeper into the void.

Tarrin got more and more unsettled as the ship moved deeper into the void, and he realized that he was getting short-tempered and a little paranoid as well. The loss of his magic was nothing compared to the loss of the sense of the Goddess, and without that he felt alone and vulnerable. Alone was something that the Cat could handle, but vulnerability was not a healthy emotion in one such as he. Everyone around him suddenly began to seem much more threatening, more dangerous, and his feral fears began to rise up in him with each ominous human or Wikuni face he viewed. His feral nature hadn't been any kind of problem for a long time because Keritanima had carefully told her crew and the engineers about Tarrin, and exactly how to act around him to keep him calm. They all obeyed Keritanima's rules, even the new crew, never talking to him unless he spoke to them first, never being impolite or untruthful in response if he did speak to them, never approaching him, giving him a cushion of personal space that they could not enter, and if they had to pass him on deck or enter his personal space because of the confines of the surrounding environment, to make very sure that Tarrin knew that they were there, by clearing their throats or whistling or speaking as if talking to themselves or another. They did a good job of keeping out of Tarrin's hair and preventing his feral distrust of strangers to become an issue that put their lives at risk. But with the change in the Weave before and the entering of the void now, Tarrin felt his ferality begin to claw its way into the forefront of his mind, and he realized that the best thing, the safest thing, for him to do right then was go to his cabin and wait things out.

He did just that, joining Sapphire in the small, cramped cabin to try to regain his composure. He ended up taking a nap with her in cat form, curling up with her in the bed as the drake continued to rest comfortably after her ordeal. The time had done well for her so far, as she had managed to regain control of her power any time except when she was almost at a full magical charge. Sapphire alleviated the problem by burning off the excess charge when it got too much for her to control, which was happening about once every two hours or so. But every time she did so, she went longer and longer every time as the charge rebuilt in her. She would have full control of her magical powers very soon.

That was why the sailors had been periodically seeing a bolt of lightning flash out from the port side.

It took them nearly a full day to breach the void. Tarrin had spent the entire time in his cabin, sleeping, but he felt it as the sense of the Goddess began to get stronger, and that awakened him. He opened his eyes and jumped off the bed, shifting back to his natural form, and feeling the proximity of a few strands. They were pretty far away, but they were ahead of them. That meant that they were coming out of the void.

The return of that feeling reduced his anxiety by a great amount, and he felt composed enough to go back up on deck and look around. He was greeted by a brilliant sunset to the west, painting the sky red as the sun began to sink below the horizon, and looked ahead though the stiff wind, a wind that was even stronger now, whistling through the ropes in the rigging and threatening to tear the flag off the mast. His eyes watered from the strong wind, but his layered vision could make out several strands, and he had a sense that there were many more behind them, beyond his perception.

They had crossed the void. That was one more barrier successfully breached, and one step closer to their ultimate goal. They hadn't quite got there yet, because the wind was still pushing at them. They had not passed behind that wind yet, and he wouldn't feel that they were very close until they did. The poem said that they had to get behind the wind before the next thing happened, the thing that Allia needed to do. Whatever that was. The poem said that Allia would find behind the wind. That seemed a little odd, but they were all convinced that it was a metaphor, or a generalization. Now that they had experienced some of the defenses set in their path to protect the Firestaff, Tarrin felt that the passage meant just what it said. After they got past whatever was causing the wind, Allia would be able to see their destination. Then it would be up to Tarrin to get them there, according to the poem.

Tarrin was joined at the bow by Allia and Dolanna, as they shielded their eyes and looked ahead. "Do you see something, dear one?" Dolanna asked.

"I see a few strands ahead," Tarrin replied. "We're coming out of this magical void."

"Good. I have felt decidedly uncomfortable since entering it."

I never realized how much the magic is a part of me until it was taken away," Allia said quietly. "I should pay more attention to my studies."

"You should," Dolanna agreed emphatically.

"Phandebrass has been trying to study the void, but since his magical spells will not function, he is not having much luck," Allia told Tarrin with a smile. "How is Sapphire?"

"She's doing alright," Tarrin replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Chopstick and Turnkey have been very listless since we entered the void. I think it affected them."

That seemed strange. The birth of the new sui'kun had had very little effect on the two red drakes. They didn't seem to have any magical abilities either. So why would entering a magical void cause them distress? It didn't seem to affect Sapphire very much… but then again, she'd slept almost through the entire thing. Tarrin wasn't even sure if the void affected her lightning magic, since he'd slept through it right along with her. "Strange," he gave voice to his musings. "I wouldn't think that it would affect them."

"All drakes are magical creatures, dear one," Dolanna told him. "Even though Chopstick and Turnkey do not exhibit their magical natures as dramatically as Sapphire does, magic is still in their blood. The void could not help but affect them in the same manner it affected us."

"True, but like you said, it's hard to imagine those two as being magical beings," Tarrin said. "Sapphire's personality changed with the new sui'kun's birth, where Chopstick and Turnkey are still Chopstick and Turnkey."

"Sapphire's magic is stronger than theirs, so it is not a stretch of logic to assume that such a thing would have a stronger effect on her than it did on them," Dolanna told him.

"Good point. I wonder if—"

Tarrin stopped dead and flinched as the wind suddenly seemed to double in power, howling over the ship and threatening to drag Dolanna's robe right off of her. Tarrin put a paw around his mentor's wrist to keep her from blowing away, then turned his back on the wind and sheltered the diminutive Sorceress from it as Allia huddled beside her. The steamship seemed to struggle to continue forward for a long moment, as the sound of the engine screaming became audible over the wind, as the engine battled the wind for mastery of the ship's direction of movement. The engine raced, pushing the ship inexorably forward finger by finger, span by span, as Tarrin, Allia, and Dolanna staggered carefully to the closest shelter, huddling behind the foremast as the patched mast creaked and groaned very loudly and very alarmingly as the wind assaulted it.

"I think we have just discovered the wind in the poem!" Dolanna shouted over the howling gale.

"If the wind is blowing so hard, why are there not large waves to go with it?" Allia asked keenly, looking over the rail. "The sea is still as choppy as it was before we entered this!"

"It may not be very wide," Tarrin shouted in reply. "There has to be a lot of wind to create high seas!"

"No, Tarrin, Allia, the wind is blowing down!" Dolanna shouted, pointing. "Look at the water!"

Tarrin looked, and saw immediately what she meant. The water around them was flat, more than that, it was depressed, at a lower level than the water around it. The steamship had slipped down into the bottom of that very shallow, very wide depression, and had just started trying to climb up the other side. The wind changed direction, from blowing in their faces to blowing over the bow at an angle, and then it was blowing from directly above, threatening to push the ship under the waves. The ship slid down alarmingly as the wind drove it downward, but the powerful steam engine was keeping the ship moving, climbing it up the shallow embankment of pure water on the far side of the strange phenomenon. Tarrin put his claws into the mast and his two friends hung onto him as the wind suddenly lost its direction, seeming to swirl wildly and randomly around them, trying to pick them up or slide them laterally or push them down, often all at the same time.

The steamship, her engine driving as hard as it could, finally pulled the ship up out of the depression on the far side. And as soon as the keel tilted level with the water at the top, the wind simply stopped. Not stopped, Tarrin realized, looking behind them, over the sterncastle. The wind was stationary, what had happened was the ship passed through it!

They had done it! The steamship had managed to penetrate the wind! The air was breezy, but it wasn't the powerful wind they'd faced the last few days, and what was most important, it was blowing gently from the stern. The focus of that weather phenomenon made the wind blow outwards, leaving the air inside it relatively calm by comparison.

"All stop! All stop, before the boiler explodes!" Donovan screamed as he came from the bridge, rushing towards the stairs leading to the engine room. The Tellurian disappeared below decks, and scant seconds later, they all heard the whining, overworked engine begin to quiet down quickly but not explosively, as the engineers below did whatever it was that they did to bring the engine to a halt. After that kind of a stress, Tarrin thought it only smart that they shut the engine down and check it out before running it any more.

"Crew on deck!" Captain Jalis shouted from the bridge. "Prepare to drop sea anchor and secure for inspection!"

"I think we have just passed the first test," Dolanna said quietly, looking towards the bow. "We have passed behind the wind, just as the poem required. Now we must find behind the wind," she said, looking at Allia. "The poem says that it is your task, dear one."

"Maybe not," Tarrin said, frowning. "Something doesn't fit here."

"What?"

"The poem said that the steamship would let us reach behind the wind. Well, not only did we reach it, we just passed through it. It said that it would take the champion to pass behind the wind. Did I miss something here?"

"Maybe, but maybe not," Dolanna said. "The poem references behind the wind with every line. I think it is a unifying phrase, like the use of twenty, a means to keep the poem sounding like a poem. And I get the feeling that this is a large area, Tarrin. We are behind the wind, but we still have a great deal of sea in front of us," she said sagely. "I think that the poem stated that the steamship would let us reach behind the wind. If you think about it, dear one, we have reached behind the wind. There the wind is, and we have reached the sea behind it. So, we have fulfilled the first part of the poem's instructions."

"So, you think the place where the Firestaff is out there somewhere, and we'll have to look for it," Tarrin reasoned, looking out over the bow. "But the poem calls everything on this side of the wind behind the wind, so we still have to find our goal and get there."

"Precisely," she nodded.

"That still doesn't explain why we need to pass behind the wind when we're already here."

"I think the part about the champion means that we will need you to overcome some obstacle that will stand between us and our destination," she told him. "Often, when one speaks of overcoming a challenge, they are said to pass the test. Perhaps that is the context the poem uses."

"That does make sense, deshida," Allia agreed.

"Either way, whether we misread the poem or it is right or wrong, it does not change the fact that now we must find our destination," she told them. "We have reached an important landmark, my dear ones. But we still have far to go."

"Very far," Tarrin said quietly, looking out over the ocean. "Very far indeed."

Chapter 10