Chapter 11
The magic affecting the people on the ship did more to unnerve the Wikuni sailors than anything that had happened thus far. Tarrin had never seen a group of men more frightened and nervous than he saw that day, after they had brought up the longboat holding the queen. They stumbled around blindly, banging into things, and every time someone did it made everyone else even more anxious. He understood that their inability to see was the cause, that beings like Wikuni were so dependent on their sight that when it was taken away from them, it caused them to nearly panic. They couldn't see their own muzzles unless they had a lantern, and Keritanima and Dolanna told him that the light was swallowed up by the air, barely lighting anything outside of arm's reach.
Tarrin thought it slightly odd that they would be carrying around lanterns, candles, and torches in the middle of the day, but to them, it wasn't day, it was night.
Unlike the mind-affecting magic that caused the attempted mutiny, this particular magical effect got everyone but Kimmie, Binter, and Sisska. Allia was similarly affected by the magic-induced darkness, as were all the humans and Wikuni. All of them had little doubt it that Tarrin and Kimmie were immune because they were Were, but nobody seemed to understand why the Vendari were also immune to the magical effect. The drakes weren't affected by it either, but then again, they were animals, even if Sapphire had exhibited more than animal intelligence lately. It fell to the Were-cats and the Vendari to clear the deck of most of the loose objects, clearing paths for the terrified Wikuni sailors and Tellurian engineers, who had been forced out of the engine room by the total darkness below.
Then again, they weren't going to be needed. Jalis dropped the anchor, and Keritanima didn't argue with him when he told her adamantly that he wasn't going to move the ship until they figured out what was going on, and if they could find a way to fix it. Even if four people on board could see, nobody else could, and the two Were-cats and two Vendari couldn't run the ship by themselves.
After Keritanima and Jalis made rounds to try to calm everyone down, giving the men double rations for dinner and sending them below to rest and stay out from underfoot, Keritanima gathered all of them together, even the bear Wikuni that served as the ship's Priest and Jalis, and they tried to figure out what was causing the darkness. The Wikuni Priest, Orlen, and Phandebrass cast a series of magical spells to try to discern the source of the magic, but their attempts failed. Dolanna and Keritanima couldn't sense the magic, which made it on par with the magic that had caused the mutiny. Tarrin couldn't sense much of anything with the powerful background magic that permeated the entire region within the magical Ward, a background noise that drowned out anything that wasn't stronger than the background itself. That meant to him that the magic had to be very subtle, very delicate, the same way that the mind-affecting magic that had caused the mutiny had been. Tarrin suspected that that was why Dolanna and Keritanima couldn't sense it either, but since they didn't have as much experience in using the senses to probe the Weave as he did, they discounted their own abilities and felt that they failed to sense anything.
"I say, if we can't detect its source, we need to figure out how it's affecting us," Phandebrass said clinically, scratching the beginnings of a white beard. "If we can't block it from affecting us, we need to counter what it's doing, we do."
"It must be a mental effect," the Wikuni Priest, Orlen, reasoned in a deep bass voice. "If the Vendari and Master Tarrin and Mistress Kimmie can see, then it can't be a physical spell."
"Agreed," Dolanna added, "but what kind of mental effect? There are a variety of possible approaches to create this. Illusion, Phantasm, Enchantment, or even Necromancy."
"What are those last two?" Dar asked.
"Enchantment is something Sorcerers cannot easily do," Dolanna explained to him. "It is a mental magic that affects mood or personality, but in strong cases, it can affect thoughts. It is the Wizard's form of Mind weaves. If an Enchantment is making us think that it is this dark, then our minds will not believe what our eyes tell us."
"Necromancy is a forbidden form of Wizard magic, dealing with negative energy," Camara Tal explained. "It's been forbidden for centuries. Necromancy can do anything Wizardry can do, and a whole lot more."
"Then why is it forbidden?"
"Because it delves into the realms of the dead," Phandebrass answered the Arkisian. "Necromancy was the magic that raised all the dead in Suld and caused them to fight against us, it was. I say, most people don't like the idea of someone coming along and stealing the bodies of their departed loved ones to use as servants, they don't, so Necromancy is hated by almost everyone. In some kingdoms, it is death to practice it, it is."
"I don't see how it's different from Wizardry."
"Wizardry draws positive energy," Kimmie said simply. "Necromancy draws negative energy. There is no spell in Necromancy that is directly helpful or beneficial. All Necromantic spells are destructive, because negative energy can't be used for beneficial ends."
"I say, good explanation, Kimmie."
"Thank you," she said to her teacher with a smile.
"I think I understand," Dar said. "Necromancy sounds creepy."
"It's not for the faint of heart," Phandebrass told him. "I've studied Necromancy. I can even cast a few of its spells, but I won't go too far. Necromancy subverts the soul and turns the casters evil. I've gone as far as I could go without suffering those effects."
"Why in the blazes did you do something so foolish!" Camara Tal snapped at him.
"I wanted to learn about Necromancy, I did," he told her. "So I tracked down a Necromancer and apprenticed to him. He was a sinister fellow, he was, totally enslaved by his power. But he was a good teacher."
"You are crazy," Camara Tal told him bluntly.
"We digress," Dolanna reminded them. "We may be able to discern the type of magic it is if we can discover why the Were-cats and the Vendari are immune. There has to be a reason for it."
"Well then, we must ask what makes them different from us, we do," Phandebrass said.
"Well, they're both part animal," Dar said.
"So are the Wikuni," Keritanima told him immediately. "That's not the reason, or the Wikuni would be immune too."
"Were-cats are magical beings," Phandebrass reasoned aloud.
"But the Vendari are not," Orlen countered him.
"I remember something that Tarrin told me long ago," Allia injected. "That the Were-cats and the Vendari originated from magical beginnings."
Tarrin remembered telling her that, and nodded. "The Were-cats were magically evolved from common cats," he affirmed. "The Vendari are a race that was created by the Wizards of Zakkar."
"Well, that is a common denominator," Phandebrass mused. "But the magic of that creation is ancient. It couldn't be strong enough to counter this magic, it couldn't."
"You miss the point," Dolanna said. "The Vendari and Were-cats are not completely natural."
"Neither are the Wikuni," Keritanima countered. "If we really are descended from the Sha'Kar, then we should look like Allia," she said, pointing at the Selani." Then Keritanima's eyes brightened. "But we did originate from the Sha'Kar," she said quickly. "I think that's the commonality here."
"What?" several asked at once.
"The Vendari and the Were-cats aren't descended from the four original races," she explained. "They were created later. If this magic really was set down by the Ancients that hid the Firestaff some five thousand years ago, maybe it's only attacking the people it was designed to attack. Think about it, when the Ancients hid the Firestaff, the Vendari didn't exist, and if the Were-cats did, they probably would never have considered them a threat. Were-cats aren't the kinds to seek the Firestaff, because they'd have no interest in it." She winked at Tarrin. "The humans are one of the first four races. They existed back then. So did the Sha'Kar. And the Selani and the Wikuni are descended from the Sha'Kar."
"Excellent. You just explained us right back to where we began, Kerri," Dolanna smiled. "We need to determine how the magic is affecting us to counter it. I do not doubt that you are right, but it does not help us figure out how the magic works."
"Actually, it does," Keritanima said smugly. "If the Ancients laid this down, then it's Sorcery. And Sorcerers can't affect others with Mind weaves outside their own race." She looked at Tarrin. "And if it's Sorcery, then it can be blocked, by a Ward. Think you're up to challenging the Ancients, brother?"
"You assume that the magic is active, Kerri," Dolanna chided her. "The effect could have been placed on us already, and now we only suffer the weave's lingering effects. If that is so, no Ward can block what has already been laid down."
"Not a Ward to stop Sorcery, Dolanna, a Ward that totally nullifies all magic," Keritanima corrected. "I think it is an after-effect, or we'd sense the active magic. If we can eliminate the effect once, then we can see if it re-establishes itself or it just goes away."
Tarrin considered that, and he saw where she was going. The Ward they'd penetrated had been unbelievably complicated, and there was quite a good chance that crossing through it had been what had caused this magical influence. It may have had safeguards within safeguards within safeguards. The Ancients had went to all the trouble to hide the Firestaff all the way out here, it wasn't a stretch to think that they had taken exorbitant precautions to safeguard the island upon which it had been placed. Striking blind anyone who did penetrate the Ward in some way was a good tactic.
"We can try it. There would be very little chance of anything bad coming of it," Dolanna nodded. "Tarrin, do you think you can do as we ask?"
"Dolanna, you could do that," he told her.
"Yes, but I would like you to place the Ward over me, and I cannot create it from the inside," she told him. "It would block my power as soon as I wove it, and I would not have time to set it before it disrupted itself."
"Good point," he said, stepping back. "Alright, everyone get clear of Dolanna," Tarrin ordered.
They cleared away from the small Sharadite Sorceress, and Tarrin made contact with the Weave. He was astounded at how rich it was, how easily the power came to him, almost as if it were eager to please him. He had no trouble at all weaving a Ward that absolutely defeated all magic that either tried to cross it or existed within it. Such Wards were very hard to make, for instead of it affecting on things on a border, they affected everything within them as well. Such Wards could only be made with High Sorcery if they were much larger than a broom closet in volume. Tarrin didn't have to resort to High Sorcery for this task, building the Ward just large enough to affect his small mentor, and then setting it so it would only last a moment.
Dolanna gave out a slight gasp and blinked, then shielded her eyes. "It worked," she announced. "It is daylight again. Now then," she said, stepping forward, removing herself from the effect of the Ward. She looked around, and nodded. "I can still see," she announced. "The Ward removed the effect. You were right, Kerri, it was a lingering effect, not an active spell."
Tarrin took hold of the Weave again and recharged the Ward so it would last longer. "Alright, Kerri, you try," Tarrin told her.
Keritanima stepped into the Ward's boundary, then she too blinked and squinted. "It works alright," she chuckled, stepping out.
"Well, let us line up and step through," Dolanna told them.
One by one, the magicians crossed through the Ward, and regained their ability to see. They all blinked and tried to adjust their eyes to the light, standing in a group to give themselves that moment. Tarrin called over Miranda from where she, Binter, and Sisska were nearby, and she passed through the Ward and regained her ability to see as well.
"Alright, we found the answer," Keritanima said. "Let's clear everyone up and get moving."
Keritanima was both right and wrong. The Ward cleared the vision of the magicians. It also cleared the vision of Miranda and Azakar. But it did not clear the vision of the Wikuni sailors after they left the Ward. It let them see while they were within it, but as soon as they stepped out, they were again affected. Only the Wikuni Priest, Orlen, had regained his vision. Jalis, his crew, and the Tellurian engineers all were unaffected by Keritanima's solution, and that baffled the Wikuni queen to no end. She grumbled and began to pace, muttering to herself as she tried to come up with a way to solve the problem.
"I don't get it," Dar said. "Why would the Ward restore our sight, but not anyone else's?"
"The question you should ask is what makes us different from everyone else," Camara Tal told him.
"I say, I do see one common denominator, if we exclude a couple of stray elements," Phandebrass said. "It restored our sight, and we're all magicians in one way or another. It didn't work on the sailors or the engineers, because they're not magicians. But it did work on Azakar and Miranda, and that is where my theory goes astray, it does."
"Azakar is a Knight," Camara Tal grunted. "That means he has Karas' favor. In a way, he is a magician, mage," she explained. "Knights can't cast spells, but they do have the favor of their god, and that gives then certain magical advantages."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, because I've never seen them," Camara Tal said. "I just know that they do. Back before the Breaking, Knights could cast spells. They can't do it now, but I guess that ability gives them just enough magical ability to make the spell Tarrin used work on them."
Tarrin glanced at Camara Tal. He didn't know that, and he'd never heard anything about it from Darvon or Faalken. Maybe they didn't talk about it because they were lost abilities. Maybe they didn't know themselves. Camara Tal was a student of military history, and Amazar was very close to the land of Sharadar, the one place where the lore of the ancient world hadn't been lost in the Breaking. She'd probably read more in the Cathedral of Knowledge, the legendary library in Abrodar, than Tarrin had ever known in his life. She probably read about that in Abrodar.
"But that doesn't explain Miranda, it doesn't," Phandebrass said, looking at the mink.
"I guess I'm just lucky, Phandebrass," she said with a cheeky grin. "That, or maybe Kerri's rubbed off on me a little."
Tarrin knew why it affected her, and it wasn't something he wanted the others to find out. Miranda was an Avatar, and that link to the goddess that had made her gave her whatever it was that let the Ward affect her.
"Maybe Miranda has some magical potential we didn't know about," Tarrin said carefully. "That could be it. Want to study Wizardry with Phandebrass and Kimmie, Miranda?"
She smiled at him. "I'm busy enough as it is, Tarrin," she declined with a chuckle.
"I say, I didn't consider that," Phandebrass said. "You sure you wouldn't like to try, my dear? It wouldn't be hard to test you."
Tarrin almost sighed in relief. Phandebrass' attention had been deflected. If the doddering Wizard had really gotten a stick up his craw about finding out, he would find out. He was relentless that way. Tarrin's quick thinking and focused that dangerous obsessive curiosity on another tack, and Miranda's secret was relatively safe.
"Maybe later, Phandebrass," Miranda said with a cheeky grin. "For now, let's worry about the important things."
And there were important things. Jalis and Keritanima could be heard screaming at each other a few moments later, as Keritanima tried to get the captain to move the ship forward, but the captain absolutely refused to weigh anchor, screaming that the engineers couldn't see to run the engine, and it was too dangerous for his sailors to try to use the sails. There was no easy solution, because Tarrin couldn't make a Ward to cover the entire ship. It was just too large to try a Ward like that, since it was such a demanding spell in the first place. But Phandebrass came up with a solution that pleased both sides in the altercation. Tarrin couldn't create a Ward to cover the entire ship, but he could make a Ward to cover a large area. So Phandebrass dragged him down to the engine room and had him set the Ward there. It took a lot out of Tarrin to do that, but when he was finished, he had set a Ward that made the entire engine room a place where they could see, and had set it so that it would last nearly a whole day. That would be more than enough time for the ship to reach the island.
The ship weighed anchor under steam and started towards the island, with Allia and Miranda on the lookout for any hidden dangers in the water. Keritanima, Tarrin, Dolanna, and Camara Tal grouped together at the bow and decided that they would land at the extreme southern tip of the island and sweep methodically from south to north. It was a huge island, heavily vegetated with what looked like thick forest, so it was going to take them a very long time to check the island thoroughly. Tarrin seriously doubted that he'd be able to sense the Firestaff's location until they were rather close to it, because of the powerful background magic that clouded his ability to sense magical energy. That too almost seemed designed, as if it had been set that way to prevent someone from landing on the island and quickly determining the Firestaff's location. If that were the case, then Tarrin realized that there were going to be more adversaries than the mythical guardian. The entire island may be populated with creatures placed there to make getting the Firestaff as difficult as possible.
That was not a very pleasant thought. They'd come a long way, and the last thing Tarrin wanted to endure was putting his friends in danger. But then again, they all knew, even expected, to literally have to fight their way to the Firestaff. It wasn't going to be a surprise for anyone if their initial landing on the island wasn't immediately challenged by some fell beast or monster. The Ancients had gone to some extreme measures to protect that ancient artifact, at least what they'd seen so far, so it was no stretch to assume that they had left behind something other than magical defenses. If Tarrin were hiding it and had unlimited resources, he'd seed the island with all sorts of nasty creatures, making sure to put enough there to where they could breed and keep up their numbers. If he could think of it, he was absolutely positive that the Ancients thought of it first.
It took them about four hours to reach the southern tip of the island. It was carpeted with forest, a deciduous forest that reminded him of home, trees standing almost right up the waterline, where a very narrow sand beach separated sea from tree. Tarrin was surprised that the seeping of the saltwater into the ground hadn't killed the trees so close to the shore, but they seemed quite healthy. Allia and Miranda guided them into a small, shallow cove, and the ship dropped anchor and killed the fire in the boiler to stop the smoke. They may be in hostile territory, so they had to keep a low profile. Tarrin, Allia, and Miranda scanned all the visible shoreline for denizens, creatures, monsters, enemies, or even animals, and outside of some birds and various rodents, a few wild cat-like animals about the size of a housecat, and one small deer-like mammal, they saw nothing. Certainly nothing that looked dangerous. That bolstered Tarrin just a bit; if such small animals could live and thrive on the island, then there couldn't be an overpopulation of large, highly aggressive animals or monsters preying on them. That certainly didn't mean that they weren't there, but it did mean that there wouldn't be one hiding behind every tree. Unless it was a herbivore, of course. He'd seen a herbivorous creature on the plains of Saranam that looked like a sloth, but was almost the size of a small cottage, and had claws on its paws that had to be as long as broadswords. Tarrin certainly wouldn't want to have to fight something like that.
At this point, Jalis and Keritanima had another fight. Jalis was a loyal subject, but when he heard Keritanima ordering longboats for her and her companions, Jalis exploded. He threatened to lock Keritanima in a closet, because he absolutely was not going to let his Queen wander around on hostile, alien soil without every sailor on the ship escorting her for her own safety. Keritanima countered that they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces, so they wouldn't be much more than a hindrance to her party anyway. Jalis wasn't quite so ready to admit defeat, and while the longboats were lowered and prepared, the two of them fought like children. Tarrin was of a mind that this wasn't a good time to go. It was nearly dark, and though he and Kimmie would be comfortable in the night, some of the others wouldn't. They were there, and Tarrin found that he could wait one more night before starting out. It was the safest course of action. But he decided not to tell Keritanima that until she finished her fight. Kerri got cranky when people interrupted her fun.
"It's nearly sunset, your Majesty!" Jalis bellowed at her. "Or at least I think it is! Very soon now, it's going to be dark even for you! I'm not going to let you blunder around out there in the dark!"
"So, you're conceding that I don't need an army," she said with a sudden toothy grin.
Jalis' expression grew dark and grimly contrite at his verbal blunder, then he regathered himself. "You do need an army! There's no telling what kind of monsters are roaming around out there!"
"Binter and Sisska can protect me," she said confidently. "But maybe you are right about this not being a good time to leave. We should wait until morning, so we'll have a full day to explore the possible dangers before having to worry about another night."
"Well, there went telling her," Camara Tal chuckled.
"I'm glad she realized it for herself," Tarrin told her. "Sometimes she's as bad as Phandebrass."
"Nobody can be that bad," the Amazon grunted.
The easy mood Tarrin had been in once they arrived soured over the night, as the gravity of the situation began to get to him again, and the fact that they were there but they had to wait until morning made it hard for Tarrin to sit still or think about anything other than get going. He tried to imagine what they would find on that island other than the Firestaff; if the Ancients had left things behind, his wildest imagination couldn't fathom what those things might be. There may be old relics of the past, surviving five thousand years on the island. There may be ancient ruins to explore and strange wonders to behold. There was absolutely no doubt there would be danger, and Tarrin tossed and turned as he tried to prepare himself for anything from rampaging beasts to sinister magical traps. Kimmie got aggravated with him because he didn't want to get out of bed, but he couldn't get to sleep. He tried to settle down, but it was almost impossible for him to relax. Kimmie solved the problem by putting her claws in him, putting him on his back, then wrapping him up and promptly falling asleep with her head on his shoulder. Tarrin almost instinctively stayed still once Kimmie put her comfort at risk of his fidgeting, since he wouldn't do anything willingly to disturb his pregnant mate. After Kimmie got him stationary, Tarrin did manage to calm down after that, and part of him understood that he needed to be alert for tomorrow, and he'd be much better prepared if he got some sleep.
The next morning, Kimmie woke him up before sunrise, and they quietly began to get dressed. Tarrin decided to give over on the shirt and wore his breeches and a simple leather vest that left his chest and midriff bare. Kimmie put aside her dress and wore a pair of stout undyed leather breeches and a similar vest, although hers buttoned up the front. She put her belt on over her breeches, with its several small pouches and little satchels that had her spell components within it. Without the dress on, Kimmie looked a lot leaner, a lot more dangerous, for it showed off her sleek form. Even with her pregnancy, she was still slim and supple. They both knew that she wouldn't engage an opponent hand to paw unless she had no choice, but those oversized paws with their long claws would make any opponent very wary to try to do so. One simply did not fight Were-cats at close quarters. Their speed and inhuman strength made it suicide for anyone not similarly blessed.
Sapphire watched the two of them from her bed, not seeming to be very interested, and then put her head down and went back to sleep.
Tarrin wrapped a paw around his much smaller mate from behind and put the flat of the pad on his palm squarely on her belly. "I want you to be careful," he told her gently, yet sternly. "If I see you get within paw's reach of anything, I'll kill it, then I'll kill you."
"I appreciate the concern, but I'll be just fine, Tarrin," she said with a chuckle, turning and looking up at him and patting his paw fondly. "Trust me, my instincts to protect the cub are a lot stronger than yours. Besides, I know there's a big, strong, handsome Were-cat male nearby to protect me if something endangers me," she said with a winsome smile.
"Right," he drawled. "You'd scream like a human girl, then turn around and shred it like paper."
"Probably, but you know I wouldn't choose to get that close to something."
That made clear, the two Were-cats went up on deck, only to find that they were the last ones to come up. The sailors had set up a table on the deck, and Keritanima, Miranda, Dar, Phandebrass, Allia, and Dolanna were seated at it as the others stood near to it; the table could only seat six, and some, like Binter, Sisska, and Azakar, were too large. All of them were dressed for the situation. Keritanima was wearing a utilitarian dress, one of the ones Miranda made for her, one of simple brown with long sleeves. Miranda too was in a dress, one made very much like her queen's, but hers was a dark blue, nearly black. Dar wasn't wearing his robe, for the first time since Tarrin had seen him, opting instead for a pair of black leather trousers and a dark linen shirt. With his brown skin, it would allow him to hide in the dark better. Dolanna wore her favorite blue dress, but then again, she wouldn't look like Dolanna if she wore any other kind of clothing. Phandebrass had on his oldest gray robe, a very plain unadorned one with a frayed hem, but still insisted on wearing that ridiculous conical hat. Allia had cast aside the western tunic and trousers she'd been wearing and was again in her sand-colored, loose-fitting desert garb, even going so far as to put her hair up under her loose-fitting turban-like head covering, with her veil hanging from the side of her head. Tarrin hadn't seen her wear that head covering since he met her in the Tower years ago. Camara Tal was seated on a small barrel near the table, a plate on her lap and wearing her tripa skirt and her breastplate, as Binter, and Sisska sat on the deck close to the table and ate from their own plates. They wore their kilts and leather bandoliers, their massive weapons laying beside them. Azakar, decked out in his full plate armor, stood by the table with his plate in one hand as he ate with the other. Armor wasn't designed to let someone sit on the ground easily, so to save himself quite a bit of pinching in rather sensitive areas, the massive Mahuut youth had wisely decided to stand.
"Did you lose a draw, Camara?" Tarrin asked as he looked them over, Sapphire flying out from the stairs leading below and landing in the rigging, beside Chopstick and Turnkey.
"I got here last," she grunted, thumping her breastplate a few times. "I broke a strap."
Tarrin fully understood why that would make her late. The leather straps and buckles that held a breastplate together were very carefully measured to fit the wearer. Camara Tal would have to find a replacement strap that matched the broken one, and then fit it onto the armor. That wasn't something one did in a slapdash manner, for the fit of the armor was critical to minimize collateral injury should the Amazon have to rely on the armor to protect her from a weapon's blow. The armor may stop a sword, but if it wasn't fitted correctly, the impact could break her ribs, or do something worse, like injure a vital organ. The steel protected from edges and points, but it was the careful fit that allowed the armor to absorb the shock without transferring it to the soft flesh and bone beneath it.
"Did you get it fixed?" he asked. "Need me to Conjure you one?"
"I got it, thanks. I keep spares, for just such emergencies," she declined.
"Wise," Tarrin nodded.
"I'm glad you finally decided to join us," Keritanima told him. "Ten more minutes, and I was going to send someone after you."
"It's not even dawn yet, Kerri."
"I know, but I want to be on that beach before the sun's all the way up."
"Jalis isn't going to like that."
"Jalis can't tell if it's sunrise or not," she winked. "I'm going to tell him it is and leave in the pre-dawn."
"That's underhanded, sister," Tarrin chuckled.
"I'm a queen, Tarrin. We call it political savvy. Underhanded is a very crude term for it."
"Correct, though," Dar murmured.
"I hope you saved me some," Kimmie said brightly. "I'm starving."
"You're eating for two," Keritanima told her with a grin. "That can't help but make you hungry."
"Sometimes, I feel like an absolute pig," she said with a laugh as Allia handed her a plate with ham steaks on it. "I've never eaten this much in my whole life. And it's not even showing on me! I can't figure out where all the food is going!"
"You Were-cats already eat enough for four people, and that's without being pregnant," Keritanima told her. "I don't know where it all goes on Tarrin either, but it must go somewhere."
Tarrin reached down over Dar and picked up a plate for himself, then used his claws to slice up one of the ham steaks. "When are we leaving?" he asked.
"As soon as we finish," Dolanna answered. "The longboats are already in the water. I am sorry, dear one, but we will have to row them ourselves."
"You mean I'll have to row," he said with a slight smile.
"Blame me for that," Keritanima told him. "I can't put you and Zak and Binter and Sisska in the same boat. You'd sink it. So Binter and Sisska go in mine, and you and Zak go in the other. Since you four take up the most room, you should row."
"I love it when she decides all these things without talking about it with us first," Tarrin noted to Azakar.
"She literally ran my life when I was with her in Wikuna," Azakar shrugged. "I'm used to it."
"I guess I can endure it this time," Tarrin told her.
"Notice that Kerri put Tarrin in the other boat," Kimmie laughed in Dar's direction. "Knowing him, he'd capsize it just to get her back for making him row."
"I can do that without having to be in the boat to do it," Tarrin told her. "But it would get everyone else wet too. I'll just have to find a way to knock her out of the boat by herself, that's all."
"You wouldn't dare!" Keritanima flared.
"Try me," he countered in a cool voice.
The breakfast was consumed quickly and without much more conversation. After it was done, Kimmie and Phandebrass returned to their cabins to get small packs that held their traveling spellbooks, and Azakar, Binter, and Sisska shouldered larger packs with some equipment they may need for a trek through the forest. Food, water, tools, two large tents in case they had need to pitch them, large enough to hold everyone in them, flint and tinder for fires, a small hand axe for chopping firewood, and a compass. Tarrin didn't see the need for it, for he could Conjure anything they needed, but on the other hand, it wasn't a good thing to depend entirely on one person.
While they were checking their gear, Jalis came from below decks and had one last fight with Keritanima. Actually, it was more like a lecture. He argued with her about taking sailors as guards one more time, but she refused, so he lectured her for nearly ten minutes about how Wikuna had finally gotten a capable monarch after centuries, and she'd be doing the kingdom a grave disservice if she got herself killed. Then he blamed her for the black marks all over his record when he went home and they found out that he'd gotten their queen killed on his watch, and how she didn't care about him or his service, lamenting the dishonor he'd suffer in the eyes of the Royal Navy and the kingdom as a whole, the loss of his pension when he retired, and his becoming a social pariah whose end would be met at the hands of a lynch mob. All in all, Tarrin was rather impressed. Jalis could moan and complain as good as any woman, hitting all the important subjects and overdramatizing things rather well. Jalis wrapped up his horrible end with about ten warnings for her to be careful, and he assured her that even though nobody on the ship could see much past their own faces, he'd keep the sailors ready to move in a moment's notice and keep the cannons loaded. Just in case she needed them.
After everyone had everything they thought was needed and Jalis concluded his masterful tirade, they climbed down rope ladders and into the boats. Tarrin stepped down into his boat last, the boat holding Kimmie, Phandebrass, Camara Tal, Azakar, and Dolanna. Miranda, Binter, Sisska, Dar, and Allia had already gotten into their boat with Keritanima and had pushed away from the steamship. Tarrin sat down in the boat and grabbed the oars as Dar took the rudder, pausing to look towards the island in the dim pre-dawn light, with only the stain on the eastern horizon and the Skybands illuminating them. They were here, and in a few short moments, they would be landing on that beach and begin their search.
It was time to get things done.
The trip to the shoreline took longer than any of them expected, mainly because the two rowers and the steersman had never done it before. Both Azakar and Tarrin foundered around a little until they got the hang of the rhythm involved in rowing a boat, and it took Dar nearly five minutes to comprehend that if he moved the rudder right, the boat would move left. Keritanima shouted at them from her position at the stern of her boat, steering it, shouting and cursing at Dar while telling him over and over again that the boat would turn in the opposite direction from how he moved the rudder. The physics of that mystified the Arkisian for some reason, until Dar was fired from his brief stint as pilot and Dolanna took over. She showed him that he was doing it backwards, and he was forced to watch in defeat as Dolanna correctly steered them towards the shoreline, moving at a fair clip once Tarrin and Azakar managed to get themselves organized.
It was an almost comical beginning to a very serious mission. Powerful strokes from the oars pushed their boat well up onto the beach, so far that Allia could step out without getting her soft boots wet. Tarrin helped Dar and Dolanna out, helped Kimmie and Phandebrass, then set his first foot down in the sand of this large, mysterious island. They had landed at the mouth of the very small, shallow cove in which the steamship had taken refuge, which was on the extreme southern tip of the island. The forest was deciduous, looking a lot like the forest at home, even with trees he could recognize. There were oaks and maples interspersed with beeches, birches, ash trees, and an occasional pine. There were also rarer trees mixed in with them, blueleaf and redbark trees, and even a few sugarsap trees, trees that didn't appear as commonly back in Aldreth as they apparently did here. It was a forest like the forest of his home, and it had all the sounds and smells of a forest. They could hear birds deep in the forest singing and chirping, and Tarrin could hear a woodpecker beating at a trunk somewhere out of sight. He could scent squirrels even from the beach, probably because the adventurous rodents had probably come out to search for nuts. Squirrels were curious creatures.
"Where are the drakes?" Phandebrass asked, looking around. "Weren't they flying around over us?"
"They'll come find us when they get bored," Kimmie told him. "They're probably off exploring somewhere."
"I say, you're probably right."
Tarrin and Azakar pulled their longboat well up the beach, up to the treeline, then turned it over so it wouldn't fill up with rainwater while they were gone. Binter and Sisska were doing the same, and that gave Tarrin a chance to look beyond the treeline, into the dark interior, and feel just a little bit excited. Tarrin loved the forest. He grew up in one, had had a father who loved it and taught his son to appreciate it, and the Cat in him felt at home in it. He was anxious and a little nervous about what they were doing, but he was happy that it would be happening with trees around them. A forest, any forest, was the best place in the world. He could smell the trees and the brush, smell the squirrels, and rabbits, and the small cat-like creatures that preyed upon them. He could smell the birds flying in the branches, and smelled a variety of other animals that he couldn't immediately identify, animals probably only indigenous to this place. That worried him a little, because a scent didn't tell him how big the animal was. It would only let him discern if it was reptile or mammal or amphibian or bird, and some scents gave away if the animal was herbivore or carnivore in their textures. Not all, and usually only mammal scents did so, but every little bit would help.
Binter and Sisska finished their task, turning their boat over beside the first, and they all gathered near the edge of the forest. They were all quiet a moment as they looked into it, as the first rays of the sun came up over the horizon, casting dim, eerie light into the wooded land before them. Somewhere, in there, the object of two years of searching was waiting for them. It was what men were killing for, what men were dying for, what entire kingdoms and nations were going to war over. It was what Faalken had died for, and what had nearly killed Tarrin more times than he could count. Everything that had happened for the last two years and more had culminated in that one moment, as friends and companions, siblings and mates, warriors and magicians, humans and Non-humans, all looked ahead of them and breathed a collective sigh of relief, as well as opening their senses and getting ready for the dangers to come. They all knew it wouldn't be easy. Getting there had only been half of the task. Now the final step of their long journey had arrived, the step that would put the Firestaff in Tarrin's large paws.
The only step that mattered.
"Are we ready?" Dolanna asked in a quiet, sober voice, heavy with the gravity of the situation. It was more than a question of the moment, it was a question that made each of them look inside themselves, look within and ask that same question in the vaults of each's deepmost self. Am I ready? Tarrin asked himself, looking forward. Was he? Was he truly prepared for what was to come? Was he ready to face whatever untold dangers lay in wait for them on this large, mysterious island? Was he ready to face the formidable final guardian? Was he ready to take what the Goddess had asked, pleaded, ordered him to take? Was he ready? It was a deep question, whose answer was one of soul and will more than one of mental consideration. Deep inside himself, he did feel ready. He was ready to complete this mad quest, he was ready to take the Firestaff and either hide it away or keep it in the elsewhere, safe from any seeking hand, until its day of activation came and went. He was ready to finish what he started, to honor Faalken's memory by completing the quest that had cost his dear friend his life. Faalken had come back in Suld to save Tarrin, so he knew that his cherubic friend was out there somewhere, looking down on them and urging them forward. He was ready to get his life back, to disappear into the forests west of Aldreth with Jesmind and Kimmie and Mist very close to him, the mothers of three cubs, and raise his children in peace. That all by itself was the most powerful of motivators for him to finish the quest, to come back to Aldreth alive, to see things through to their ultimate conclusion. He had started this quest by seeing it through the eyes of a single child, his little mother, Janette. Now he saw it through the eyes of his own children, children whose lives depended on him to do what the Goddess had bade him to do. He wouldn't let them down. He would protect the world in which they lived, he would give them that world for their own by preventing its destructions at the hands of war between gods.
Come what may, he was ready. Because now, he had more to live for than he did to die for.
"Let's go," Tarrin called in a quiet, almost growling tone, lifting a foot and setting it down, crossing the boundary between sandy beach and moss-covered forest loam.
The forest told Tarrin much as they penetrated it, moving steadily north as he kept his senses open for a hopeful detection of the magic of the Firestaff. He led the group along thick forest with plenty of undergrowth, vines and brambles and blackberry patches with their long thorns, following wide, well-traveled game trails. It was those game trails and the game that used them that told Tarrin things, things that only Kimmie understood as well as he did, because she was also a creature of the forest, bound to it and receptive to the subtleties of its whispering language. They had been moving north for about an hour or so, moving steadily and surprisingly quietly, with only Azakar's armor making any discernable noise. Tarrin and Kimmie had separated from the others for moments during that hour to scout ahead, moving with a sureness and stealth that made them perfect for the role. They were forest-born predators in their natural environment, and even Allia could appreciate that that made them perfect to move about in the woods unseen. The two Were-cats didn't separate far from the others, keeping them in sight, but the separation allowed them to make some very important, very critical observations.
The forest game feared the party.
That was significant. That was beyond significant. Animals that had never had contact with a specific type of animal may show wariness about the newcomer if it was much larger, but the game and the small cats and the birds actively avoided the party, as its scent was carried before them by a southerly breeze. The animals knew the scents of one race in their party, and they scattered as it approached. The only way the animals could react in that fashion was if they had prior experience with that particular scent, and knew it to be an enemy.
That meant that there were either humans, Selani, Vendari, or Wikuni somewhere on the island. And they hunted the animals in the forest.
In a way, that wasn't a very big surprise to Tarrin. He was positive that the Ancients must have put additional protections on the island aside from the guardian, and setting a group of people on the island and telling them to defend it from all invasion would be logical. It would have been a huge sacrifice on the part of those left behind, as they literally abandoned the entire outside world, but some men would be willing to do that to protect the entire world. Tarrin would do it if it was asked of him, as would almost anyone in their group. There could very well be descendents of those initial defenders on the island, carrying out the task that their ancient ancestors began, even to this very day.
It made the two Were-cats much more cautious. Without talking about it, both of them pulled back closer to the others, close enough to respond to any threat almost immediately. Tarrin and Kimmie took the protection of the others seriously, so much so that Tarrin almost forgot that Kimmie was pregnant as she ghosted on the forest floor or went up into the trees to dance from branch to branch, moving through the trees with all the agility and grace of an Aeradalla. Kimmie may be pregnant, but nothing was going to sneak up on her in the forest, and Tarrin knew it. She was much safer out in the woods by herself than she was almost anywhere else. But Tarrin did keep relatively close to his mate, ready to head off any surprises that may come her way.
Tarrin and Kimmie rejoined the others as they stopped briefly to drink some water. Tarrin kept his eyes on the forest as he handed the waterskin from which he'd just drank to Kimmie, watching two squirrels playing in the trees ahead of them.
"There are people here," Kimmie announced bluntly.
"You saw them?" Dolanna asked.
"No, but I know they're here," she said calmly, capping the skin and handing it back to Azakar. The Mahuut marked the skin and hung it off the side of his pack, marking it so nobody else would drink from it. The many months of being together made the others rather casual about their Were-cat companions, but they still always kept the intrinsic dangers they represented firmly in mind at all times. They all knew that one mistake could cause them to become turned, and they all saw the horror that Jula went through. None of the humans among them really cared to go through that. "The animals in this forest know at least one of the scents in our group, and they're running from it. That means they've had contact with at least one race here."
"Which one?" Dar asked.
"There's no way to be sure about that," Tarrin said. "Unless you separated into groups by race and got far enough away from each other so that your scents didn't mingle. But that would be a lot of time wasted, and be dangerous. We don't know what's out there, so we shouldn't split up."
"You're off by yourselves," Keritanima said with a teasing grin.
"We know what we're doing," Tarrin told her bluntly. "Besides, we're close enough to kill anything that may sneak up on you from behind."
"Just because you don't see us, it doesn't mean we're not there," Kimmie told her with a wink.
"The next time I take a bath, I'll be sure to check under the soap dish for you, Kimmie," Keritanima said with a toothy grin.
"How far have we come?" Camara Tal asked, holding a hand-drawn map in her hands. Dar had been making it, and so far he'd done a fairly good job of it.
"About three or four miles," Keritanima said. "About a league," she corrected. "Probably a little less."
"This island isn't much more than forty longspans across," the Amazon noted, looking at the map. "Ten leagues," she corrected with a slightly amused look at Keritanima.
"I thought it was more like thirty," Tarrin said. "Allia?"
"I would put it in the middle," she said. "It is more than thirty, but I do not think it is more than forty."
"Either way, we've gone about a tenth of the way in, and nothing so far," Camara Tal said. "If there are humans here, there wasn't any sign of them coming in. No villages on the coast—at least not the coast we saw—and no smoke from fires. Did you see any breaks in the forest, Allia?"
"No," she answered. "But that does not mean that there are none. These wooded lands are deceptive. They can be but paces wide, but appear to be much thicker if there is something behind them that covers the gaps with darkness. Distances are beguiling within them and looking into them, even for one blessed with my eyesight."
"We have a forest on Amazar," she nodded. "I know what it's like to travel in them." She looked at the map again. "We know that the volcano takes up the north side of the island, so we're not looking at too much wooded ground to cover. I say we march across the island right up the middle, and if we haven't found anything by the time we get there, we cover the halves one at a time."
"That seems a plausible idea," Dolanna agreed. "It will be more efficient if we search by sections rather than attempt to cover the entire island in one sweep."
When both Dolanna and Camara Tal agreed on something, it was virtually set in stone that that was the way things were going to be. The others didn't see anything wrong with Camara Tal's logic, so they agreed that that was what they would do. Tarrin and Kimmie led them out again, adjusting their path slightly so they would stay more or less in the middle of the island. It grew thicker as they moved into it, but the island was definitely longer than it was wide. At one point, Tarrin climbed up into the trees and looked out over the canopy, and saw that the island was about seven or eight longspans wide at that point. From the looks of it, it grew just a little wider as they would approach the center of the island, and there were some low hills on the northern side rising over the canopy's edge. Low hills that looked to be also covered in trees. The island had a good deal of area, but it wasn't so large that thoroughly searching it would be impossible.
They encountered no dangers, no enemies, and no wandering monsters or nasties all morning, a fact that puzzled Tarrin slightly. He'd been sure that they would have run into something unpleasant by now, so much so that he felt slightly cheated and disappointed. He'd gotten himself worked up and prepared to battle foes to reach his goal, and he'd had no enemies to face so far. That was a good thing, but the competitor in him was distressed that it had been prepared to face opponents that hadn't bothered to show up. Part of Tarrin, quite honestly, loved a good fight. It was his mother in him, he knew that, but truth was truth. Ungardt thought fighting was both a serious matter and also a casual sport. Ungardt fought one another at the drop of a hat, and that same blood flowed through him as well.
Despite his disappointment that their enemies hadn't shown up yet, he was rather pleased with their progress. They'd gone not quite halfway, covering about eleven or twelve longspans from sunrise to noon, and had run into no traps, no enemies, no obstacles of any sort. They'd had a very easy time of it so far, truth be told. The worst thing that had happened so far was that Miranda had been pricked by a thorn when she got a little too zealous about reaching a particularly juicy-looking blackberry. Tarrin had had no change in his sense of the magic around them, meaning to him that they weren't close enough to their prize yet for him to feel its presence.
They stopped for lunch, and Tarrin found it to be quite enjoyable. The forest eliminated almost all of his bad feelings, and had relaxed and calmed him in ways he didn't fully appreciate until he had a moment to stop and think about them. It was almost like coming home. Things seemed familiar to him, even if they were half a world away from his home… it just had that same feeling as Aldreth did. A place of quiet peace. That sense didn't seem to affect the others as much as it did him, for they were all still a little edgy and anxious. Everyone but Tarrin and Kimmie, and of course the Vendari, who never showed anxiety.
"Where are those drakes?" Phandebrass complained as he accepted a piece of bread from Dar. "I know they know where we are."
"They are probably out playing, Phandebrass," Allia told him calmly. "It is a large island, and they can find us whenever they wish to."
"Whenever they get hungry," Tarrin added.
"I should have left them on the ship," the addled Wizard grumbled. "Out having fun when we're on serious business, we are!"
"Give them a break," Tarrin defended them. "They've been cooped up on ships for over a month! They need a little exercise, and they'll get it flying around the island. Besides, if Sapphire sees anything interesting, she'll probably come and get me. She knows we're out here looking for something."
"How does she know that?"
"I told her," he said simply. "I taught her some Sulasian, remember?"
"I didn't think you taught her that much, I didn't," he mused.
"She's not fluent, but she certainly learned enough to comprehend most simple things, and 'I'm looking for something' is a relatively simple concept."
"Point taken," Phandebrass acceded.
They finished their meal, and then set out again. But they didn't get too far, not even five minutes after starting, when Kimmie called to him from a bit further ahead. Tarrin caught up with her and found her kneeling on the ground, her paws flanking an obvious footprint. It was about the size of a human foot and had the same shape, but it rather narrow. Its depth told Tarrin that the maker wasn't very heavy, and its size and shape lent credence to the theory that its maker was a youngster. Adolescent, wearing shoes of some kind that had no hard soles. Maybe slippers. Tarrin was too far away to scent the print, but he was pretty sure that Kimmie already did that. The print was pointing in the direction in which they were going.
"Well, here's our first sign of inhabitants," Kimmie told him. "It goes that way, and judging from the print, the maker wasn't in much of a hurry."
"Is there a scent?"
She nodded. "Human," she answered. "Male. It's about a day old."
"You can almost walk across the entire island in a day, if you're serious about it," Tarrin mused, scratching his cheek with a massive claw.
"Well, this person wasn't very serious about it," she told him, looking down at it again. "What do you think?"
"It's the first sign, so this must be far out from their base," he reasoned. "It's a small print, so it's probably a wandering adventurous youth. It's pointing ahead, so he must have come out this far then turned around and went home."
"Kind of like another wandering adventurous youth I remember," Kimmie told him, looking up at him with a grin. "You were almost a celebrity on our side of the Frontier, Tarrin."
"I know," he grunted, squatting down beside her. "Triana told me all about that."
"The only human brave enough to wander the forest alone," she continued. "You're lucky the Druid that controls that region told everyone to leave you alone. You almost wandered into a Were-boar's den once. He would have killed you if he hadn't been told otherwise."
"Human youths are always too full of themselves to have much sense," he said in a self-deprecating tone.
"Be glad of it," she said seriously. "I think who you were was more than half the reason Fae-da'Nar accepted you. If the Druids would have ordered you killed, many of the Woodkin who knew Aldreth would have revolted. They all liked you."
"I guess it's good to have friends," he said mildly, patting her on the shoulder. "Did you ever come to Aldreth, Kimmie?"
"Once, but it was before you were born," she told him. "Mist took me there once right after she found me, to drive home the point that I could never go back. It was a rather brutal lesson," she sighed.
Tarrin often forgot that Kimmie was so much older then he was. She looked like a woman in her twenties. But then again, Tarrin was only nineteen, despite the fact that he looked like he was middle-aged. With Were-cats, appearances did nothing to reveal age. Not even height was an indicator. Rahnee was one of the taller females, but she was only three hundred. Mist was five hundred, but was shorter than most of the ones that weren't even thirty. Then again, nobody could look at Mist and mistake her for a youth. Her body was all muscle, and her face was not the face of a child.
He wondered briefly how Jesmind and Kimmie felt about having a virtual child as a mate. And Mist, for that matter.
They waited for the others to catch up with them, then showed them the print. Tarrin told them his impression of it, and Dolanna nodded in agreement. "That does seem a reasonable explanation," she said. "I think we should be more alert. We need to find these inhabitants and talk to them, but I do not think we should tell them why we are here just yet."
"Why not?" Dar asked.
"Because they are probably the descendents of those who remained here to defend the Firestaff," she told him. "If we tell them we are here to claim it, they may attack us. So let us be cautious until we feel these strangers out and learn more about them."
"You've got the right idea, Dolanna, but you're not going far enough," Camara Tal told her. "They're going to know that we came for something important, given what we had to go through to get here. If they ask, we'll be honest and tell them that we're looking for the Firestaff, but we won't say we know for sure it's on this island. We'll say that we're exploring the island because it's along the path to where we think the Firestaff is. We'll say we're here just to make sure that it's not here, and then we'll move on once we find out it's not."
"A lie salted with the truth. That's the best kind of lie," Miranda said with a nod.
"I say, that's quite clever, Camara," Phandebrass said appreciatively. "Deception isn't something you often see in Priests, it's not."
"Neme doesn't restrict us from lying," Camara Tal said with a wolfish grin. "Sometimes deception is a critical element of a battle. If we couldn't sell the deception, we wouldn't be much good on the battlefield."
"I'm surprised Kerri or Miranda didn't think of it first," Dar chuckled. "They're our resident sneaks."
"They would have thought of it, eventually," Tarrin said mildly, giving Keritanima a good-natured poke with a finger.
"Who says we didn't think of it right off?" she said primly. "I was just being polite and letting Camara talk."
"Liar," Dar teased. "The last time I saw you being polite was when Rallix was with you."
"Children," Dolanna chided them. "Let us keep our minds on the task at hand. How far away do you think they are, Tarrin?"
"There's no way to be certain," he admitted, rubbing his chin. "Until we see more tracks or find more scents, all I can tell you is that the maker of the print was walking when he made it, he's a male human, he's young, and the scent is about a day old."
"We should slow down and go more cautiously," Binter said, breaking his long silence. He must have felt it to be very important. Neither of the Vendari would talk when they weren't in comfortable surroundings. "Until we understand the nature of our opponents, caution is only wise."
"You're right, Binter," Keritanima agreed. "Let's keep closer together and move slower, but let's not fly off the handle and attack the first person we see. They may not be enemies."
"Yes, your Majesty," Binter and Sisska said in unison, obviously thinking it to be a personal command.
They started out again on the game trail, but now they were moving more slowly, and all of them were alert and observant, watching the forest around them carefully for signs of movement or life. Tarrin and Kimmie ranged ahead just inside their sight, pulling back enough to be able to respond immediately to any sudden threat on the group. They moved thusly for almost an hour, as Kimmie and Tarrin spotted more tracks on the trail. The human must have stepped onto the trail back where they found the print, and had been following it at a very stately, leisurely pace. Tarrin didn't feel very nervous over their discovery, mainly because he'd suspected that there had been people here all along. Or at least something not native to the island in any case. Dolanna's remark that they may be there to defend the Firestaff did worry him; he didn't want to have to fight people over it at this point, but he would if he had no other choice. They had no idea what kind of humans they were going to find, either. They could be stone-age barbarians, or as technologically advanced as the Wikuni. They could have magicians or Sorcerers, or may have Priests. Until they got a look at them, there was just no telling. The only thing he could tell from what he'd seen so far was that the humans wore shoes. That was the extent of his knowledge.
They crept along the trail methodically, as both Were-cats occasionally went down on all fours to test the ground with their noses. There were other scents now, human ones and ones so old and degraded that it was impossible to determine what they were. All of them were old—except for the scents of the animals that used the trails—and that made Tarrin confident that they weren't going to accidentally blunder right into the middle of the humans' base, be it town or village or even a cave. It told Tarrin that they were getting closer, close enough to where their single human youth had had company on the trail. They were starting to advance into the humans' commonly patrolled territory.
It was when Tarrin had stopped to sniff at a new track, one made by a barefoot male that was carrying something or was rather heavy, that he heard it. Tarrin lifted his head as his ears swiveled forward to lock onto the sound, a very faint sound that was almost drowned out by a breeze that was rustling the branches of the trees overhead. Kimmie paused when she reached him, then her ears were drawn towards that sound as well, and she crouched down beside him to hide her silhouette.
It was singing.
It was one voice. It sounded like either a female or a very young male, a high pitch, and it sounded like it was just ahead, right where Tarrin saw a faint light between the trees. It had to be a clearing or small meadow of some sort, and there was someone there. Tarrin and Kimmie looked at each other, then Kimmie nodded. They began creeping towards that clearing on all fours, staying low and making absolutely no sound, slithering through underbrush and around old growth trees, getting closer and closer to the brightening light between the trees. Both of them paused to try to scent the owner of the voice, but the wind was coming in from the side, both hiding the scent they sought and preventing their scents from reaching the mysterious stranger. They slowed to a stop as they moved around a blackberry patch, then crept up to a large fallen log and looked over it, looked into the clearing through a few trees and a mulberry bush.
Tarrin looked on in shock and absolute amazement. The owner of that voice was in the clearing, sitting on a small stool in profile to them, looking to be tuning a small lute. It was a male, young, with dusky skin and platinum blond hair. He wore an elegant robe looked to be made of silk, and his elegant, long-fingered hands. Even from that distance, Tarrin could see his pointed ears and the fact that he only had four fingers on his hands.
It was a Sha'Kar!
A Sha'Kar! Tarrin was astounded! Everyone thought that the Sha'Kar were all dead! And yet there one sat, as calmly as he pleased, tuning his instrument with deft plucks on the strings. He didn't seem to notice the Were-cats, and Tarrin realized that the reason for that may have been that a female Sha'Kar, a breathtakingly lovely young female with a rounded, impish-seeming face and silver hair tied up in a tail behind her head was approaching the male. She wore a strange long dress consisting of many layers of a diaphanous material, see-through by themselves but layered enough to mask what was beneath the dress. It didn't completely hide, showing her brown-skinned outline in the daylight, yet succeeding in defending her modesty while also giving any who looked on her a teasing hint of the perfection beneath. She was walking towards the male across the meadow from her, and one of those tufted-cheeked wildcats they'd seen before in the forest trotted along behind her, a banded cat of black and brown that almost looked like a raccoon. Tarrin hadn't seen one that close yet, and he was impressed. It was a big cat, larger than the average housecat, sleek and nimble-looking, with a lustrous coat of long fur and a bushy tail.
"Is that a Sha'Kar?" Kimmie whispered in surprise.
"I think so," he replied. Sha'Kar, the ancestors of Allia's and Keritanima's people. Still alive! Tarrin had expected inhabitants, but in his wildest dreams he hadn't considered the possibility that the remote island would harbor a long-forgotten race thought to be extinct!
"Allyn," the female called in a sweet voice. "Uncle is looking for you." Her accent was a bit strange, but Tarrin found that he could adjust to it. Her Sha'Kar was informal in structure, using the personal forms of grammar, and her words were flowing, musical, much different from the exacting precision in which Spyder spoke.
"Why do you think I'm here, Iselde?" the male replied, also using informal forms. The two had to be related to each other, or were very good friends to drop all the polite and formal modes of speech. "I wanted to get away from the estate for a while."
"You know he'll be angry for you wandering the forest."
"He can't be angry over something he doesn't know, can she?" the male replied impudently.
The wind shifted, moving to their backs, but both the Were-cats were too absorbed in seeing the two Sha'Kar to react to it. The cat accompanying the female certainly did, as the wind brought their scents to it. The cat hissed and growled, trotting in front of the woman and raising its back threateningly.
"Whatever is the matter, Lura?" the female, Iselde, asked the cat.
Tarrin wondered for a moment what to do, but Kimmie beat him to it quickly. "Hush!" she shouted in the manner of the Cat, an unspoken language that the animal would certainly understand in one form or another. Were-cats didn't control normal felines, but they were usually obeyed.
The cat looked startled. Its eyes widened and it lowered its back, staring towards them in confusion.
"We're not hunting you," Kimmie told it bluntly. "We only watch."
That seemed to put the animal back at ease. It turned and sidled up against the female's leg affectionately, and she reached down and stroked its fur in reply.
The reprieve was only momentary, as the sound of Azakar's clanking armor began to tickle at Tarrin's ears. He realized that the others were still advancing. He knew that they had to make contact with the Sha'Kar, but he wasn't sure them seeing an armed party was the best way to go about it. It may frighten them.
When he looked back to the two Sha'Kar, he noticed that both of them were looking absolutely right at where he was hiding. He knew that they probably couldn't see him, but they still looked right at him. "Allyn, do you feel that?" the female asked.
"Yes, Iselde. I don't think I've ever felt Grand Syllis like this before."
"That's not the Grand," the female said sternly. "Whoever it is, the Weave draws as if there were a Circle."
"You're sure?"
"I'm positive."
"Then who is it?"
"I don't know, but it's nobody we know," she answered.
Tarrin realized that they couldn't see him, but they were Sorcerers, and they could sense the effect he had on the Weave. The Weave pulled towards him, as his presence exerted its own effect on the strands. It was something very noticeable to any Sorcerer. The old stories did say that almost all the Sha'Kar were Sorcerers. These two, though young, obviously had the talent, and had been trained to use it.
"They're Sorcerers," Tarrin told Kimmie in the manner of the Cat. "They can feel me."
"What should we do?" she asked. "Pull back and wait for Dolanna?"
"Whoever you are, come out!" Iselde shouted in his direction, using a very formal mode of speech. "I know you are there!"
"Well?" Kimmie asked him with a suddenly impish smile.
"I don't want to scare them, Kimmie."
Their lack of promptness caused the female to start walking towards them. Tarrin realized that there was no way he could hide from her, that the force he exerted on the Weave was like a beacon that would guide her right to him. He wasn't sure he wanted to make contact by revealing to them that he had been spying on them. But, on the other hand, she probably already figured that out. He couldn't hide from her, and she seemed the kind that would simply march into the forest after him if he tried to retreat.
Tarrin didn't see much choice in the matter. With a resolute sigh, he stood up and stepped over the log, stepping out where the female could see him.
She stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at him as he padded out to the edge of the treeline, then stopped and just stared at her, his tail swishing behind him aimlessly. She looked surprised and amazed, but to Tarrin's pleasure, there was no look of fear on her face. She had probably never seen anything like him before.
"Wh-Who are you?" she stuttered as he stepped into the meadow, as the seated male stood up and gawked at him in utter astonishment.
"So much for scaring them," Kimmie teased with a light chuckle as she stepped out from behind him and regarded the two Sha'Kar youths.
"Who are you, stranger?" the female asked, in a more collected tone than before. She was obviously taken aback that he was there, but she didn't seem afraid of him.
"I should ask you the same question," Tarrin said in formal Sha'Kar. "I never expected to see a Sha'Kar out here."
"How did you get here?" she demanded. "Have our defenses failed us?"
"How I got here should be relatively obvious, little one," he told her seriously, in a tone that hinted that she already knew the answer. If she was Sha'Kar, and she was a Sorceress, then he had the feeling that she was much better educated than the katzh-dashi, having been taught the things that Spyder had taught to him and Jenna. She should be able to tell exactly who—and more importantly—what, he was. If she could, then how he breached their defenses should be a moot point.
She looked at him, then she stared wildly. And then she laughed. "You are sui'kun!" she announced in an excited tone. "Oh, the Elders are wrong! The Goddess has finally answered our prayers!"
Tarrin gave her a slightly confused look, his ears twitching.
"Please, please!" she said in an excited tone, reaching for him with her slender hand. "You must come back with us, please! The others need to see you. I can't believe it! The Goddess hasn't abandoned us after all!"
"Abandoned you?" Tarrin said in confusion as she reached out and took his paw. He resisted her tugging, looking down at her. "Hold on, small one, you're moving too fast for me. Besides, the others have to arrive first."
"Others? There are other children of the Goddess with you?"
"A few, as well as some important friends," he answered. "You're Iselde, right?"
She nodded. "Iselde Ai'shar," she said with a formal curtsy. "This is my brother, Allyn. Say hello!" she hissed at the dumbstruck young male from the corner of her mouth.
"Uh, greetings, revered Elder," he said with a formal bow, using the most stringently formal and polite mode of Sha'Kar speech.
"My name is Tarrin," he answered. "This is my mate, Kimmie."
"Mate? Such a strange term. Don't you mean wife?" Iselde asked.
"Mate," Kimmie said firmly, putting a paw on Tarrin's shoulder fondly. "We're not from a society you'd immediately understand, so our customs aren't what you're familiar with, little one."
"Yes, well, um, if you don't mind me asking, what manner of being are you?" she asked. "I've never even heard of anything like you."
"We're Were-kin, girl," Kimmie told her. "Both of us are. We're Were-cats."
"Were?" the girl asked curiously. "I've never heard any stories of your kind, though our books do mention you."
"If you don't mind my asking, how did you come to be here?" Tarrin asked. "I expected that we might find humans here, but not Sha'Kar."
"There are humans here," she assured them. "This is Sha'Kari, honored sui'kun." Sha'Kari. In Sha'Kar, it meant home of the Sha'Kar. But this couldn't be the homeland of the Sha'Kar… it was too small, and the Sha'Kar were descended from the Urzani, who were themselves descended from the nameless ones, one of the First Races. Tarrin realized he'd translated it correctly, but he was thinking too strictly. They called it Sha'Kari because it was their home now. The last home left for the long-forgotten Sha'Kar. "And we have always been here."
"I think he wants to know when your people came here," Kimmie told her.
"Oh. Well, my grandfather told me that we came here to escape the Breaking."
The Breaking! So that was what happened! The Sha'Kar all disappeared during the Breaking. Everyone thought they were all dead. Maybe most of them had died, but at least some of them had managed to escape death by coming to this place, a place with a powerful Weave that was also isolated by the void. Could the local Weave have escaped the violent Weavequake that caused the Breaking? Could the void that surrounded this place have acted as a buffer to protect this area, and therefore make it safe for the powerful Ancients whose lives were in jeopardy from the tearing of the Weave? All of the Ancients were killed in the Breaking, as the powerful forces of magic went wild as the Weave tore, infusing anything with magical potential with more power than they could contain. It was why there were so rare few magical objects left from before the Breaking. The magical objects were infused and destroyed, and the Sorcerers were infused and killed. Only the weaker Sorcerers, probably those who had not yet become da'shar, had survived the Breaking. And those few that were left became the targets of lynch mobs when the katzh-dashi were blamed for the magical cataclysm. That was why such little knowledge of before the Breaking had managed to survive.
Questions, so many questions! But there wasn't time right now to get all the answers he wanted. He looked down at the slender female Sha'Kar, her scent hitting him in that moment. It was slightly like Allia's, slightly like Spyder's, a clear indication that she was related to both of their races. But the Sha'Kar's scent was too different for it to be called Selani. The Selani had obviously become a separate race after thousands of years of evolution in the desert.
"Please, come with us back to our estate," she told him in a pleading tone. "You must meet the Elders, and Grand Syllis! All the island needs to know that you're here!"
"We'll come with you, as soon as the others get here," he told her. "They should be here any moment. I can hear them."
"Are they sui'kun like you?" she asked with wide eyes.
"No," he replied gently.
"Are they your servants?"
"I don't have any servants," he scoffed. "I can do for myself, cub."
"A sui'kun with no servants? That's unheard of!" she gasped. "The Elders said that the sui'kun always had servants!"
"I'm not a sui'kun like they've seen before," he told her. "I'm not human or Sha'Kar, remember that. I have different customs than your people do. My kind don't like servants, and don't need them. So I don't have any."
"I'll remember that, honored one," she said with a curtsy.
Allyn, who had remained absolutely mute through the whole exchange, gaped and blurted out to his sister as the others arrived at the meadow. He had no doubt that they knew Tarrin was talking to someone, for they could hear the voices. That was why they were moving slowly, carefully, and non-threateningly. Dolanna was leading them. "Dolanna," Tarrin told her in Sulasian. "I think we need to rewrite our history books."
"Sha'Kar!" Dar gasped. "I don't believe it!"
"Dar, it is unseemly to speak without them understanding us," Dolanna chided him in Sha'Kar. "It's not polite."
Dolanna and the others took seeing the Sha'Kar a lot better than the Sha'Kar took seeing them. Allyn gaped and gawked at them all, especially at the Vendari and Azakar. The girl Iselde greeted Dolanna with a kind word and a curtsy, but the small Sorceress only smiled at her in reply. "I am very glad that we found you here, young one," Dolanna told her. "We thought that the Sha'Kar had died out in the Breaking."
"No, honored da'shar, she said, which made Dolanna's eyebrow raise in curiosity. "There are nearly five hundred of us, as well as a few hundred humans and some servants. My grandfather told me once that we fled here to escape the Breaking, and we've been waiting here ever since."
"Waiting for what?" Keritanima asked.
"Are you a Were-kin too?" Iselde asked her curiously.
"I'm a Wikuni, girl," she replied. "Haven't you ever heard of the Wikuni?"
"Yes, but I thought they looked different."
"We all look different from one another," Miranda said with an impish smile. "It's how you know who we are."
Iselde looked at her strangely, then actually giggled at the mink's clever wordplay.
"What have you been waiting for, Iselde?" Keritanima pressed.
"For things outside to return to what they once were," she replied. "That's what Grand Syllis tells us, anyway. When the Weave is restored, we'll return to the towers and rejoin our brothers and sisters in service to the Goddess. Until then, we wait." She looked at Tarrin. "Has the time come?" she asked. "Has the Goddess sent you to bring us home, honored sui'kun?"
"I'm sorry, but no," he answered. "I've come for a different purpose. We'll talk about it with your elders, and this Grand Syllis."
That seemed to put Iselde back a bit, but she smiled and recovered herself. "Well, whatever the reason, it's good to have a visitor as esteemed as you, honored one. You and your servants will be welcome at my home. Please, follow us," she announced. "Come, Allyn. Let's take our honored guests home. Allyn!"
Tarrin looked at the male, and saw that he was staring at Allia. The Selani was staring back at him calmly. Tarrin figured that Allyn had seen her hands, and probably mistook her for a Sha'Kar. "Uh, yes, sister," he said with a nod.
"This way, please," she motioned in the direction that they had been traveling before the chance encounter had caused Tarrin and Kimmie to detour.
Tarrin walked along behind the Sha'Kar female, his mind whirling. He still couldn't believe that they were here, and from what little he'd heard, the Sha'Kar weren't the only ones. There were also humans here, probably either Ancients themselves or descendents of the Ancients that had fled here either before or during the Breaking, seeking sanctuary. And they'd been here for over a thousand years, waiting for the day they could return. Didn't they realize that they could have returned at any time after the Breaking was over? It was the Weavequake that killed the Ancients, not any lingering effects. If they survived the Weavequake, then there was nothing more for them to fear.
Tarrin was distracted when Allyn spoke up. "Pardon my forwardness, maiden, but what family are you from?" he asked. "I've never met you before. I thought I knew everyone on the island."
"I am not from here," she told him. "I come from the mainland."
"You mean other Sha'Kar survived?" Allyn said brightly.
"I am not Sha'Kar," Allia told him bluntly. "I am Selani."
Allyn looked at her in shock, then he gasped. "You're one of the Lost!" he said in amazement. "They survived the Breaking?"
"Obviously," she answered him indifferently. Tarrin could tell that she was getting a little annoyed with the male, but she was trying to be polite.
"But, but, you're a Sorceress! I thought the Lost abandoned the Goddess and couldn't use Sorcery anymore!"
"Allyn!" Iselde snapped. "You're being insulting!"
"I meant no offense," the male said immediately and sincerely.
"I took none," she assured him.
Iselde and Allyn led them onto a large, well-traveled path at the far end of the meadow that was paved with brilliant white stones, a road that meandered through the forest almost aimlessly. The path screamed of magic to Tarrin; he could feel its residual energy in the pads on his feet. It had been either created or paved using magical means. The feeling of the forest changed dramatically to his senses. Before, it seemed like a forest. Wild, grown, natural. Now it seemed more like the garden at the Tower, a pretty manicured place with no inherent dangers. The texture of the woods also changed, as all the underbrush disappeared, leaving open space between large trees, extending the distance at which they could see. Iselde continued to talk as she led them forward, repeating how happy she was to see them, and how they'd be so well received by the Elders and this person named Grand Syllis.
After about ten minutes, the path showed them a break in the forest. They stepped out onto a grassy plain that ran all the way up between the forested foothills at the base of the volcano, a huge place that was about five longspans wide, taking up the entire central portion of the island. It was surrounded by forest on all sides, which was why nobody saw any signs of habitation on the way in. The ground wasn't flat, rising and falling in very gentle hills. But it wasn't the grassy plain that had their attention. The place was filled with buildings, all of them made in a sloping, elegant, almost impossibly rounded architecture. Large buildings had domes atop them, and there were elegant spires and minarets rising from the corners. Almost all the buildings were white or brown, with those domes serving as rooftops. There were white-stone pathways between the buildings, and fences contained clusters of buildings here and there. Everything was very widely spread out, and those ornate fences hemmed in vast tracts of land. Each fence held land in it that could at least hold the entire village of Aldreth within them. And those were the smallest of the fenced areas. Looking around, he saw that even the smallest building was at least the size of the inn back in Aldreth, huge constructions that looked grand and magnificent. Tarrin could see the denizens of this town walking along the paths, not noticing their visitors quite yet, Sha'Kar and humans alike wearing shimmering robes of every color.
Tarrin looked around, and realized that he'd seen this place before. Long ago, just after crossing over, he'd had a dream about this place. About a town in a valley with no roads, were men and women in robes walked sedately, seeming to be ghosts to him. He'd seen it from the other side, looking down at the town from the foothills facing them, where it looked like a valley when it actually was a shallow depression at the base of the foothills. He looked up and saw the clear sky, remembering that in the dream, the sky had been black.
"Tarrin?" Kimmie asked. He didn't realize that he'd stopped, and that the others paused to wait for him.
"This is the place the Book of Ages is going to lead us to," Tarrin said, a memory of a memory tickling at him. Then he blinked. "I've seen this place before, a long time ago," Tarrin told them. "In a dream."
Tarrin paused to rationalize that. And it made him remember the other dreams. The one of Keritanima standing on the mountain of jibbering skulls one whose meaning he wasn't absolutely sure about. The one about Jenna and the iron door had been about her crossing over. The one about Jesmind holding the blazing light was an obvious warning to him about Jasana and her incredible power. The one about Faalken and Jegojah was a flat warning about the last time they fought, when Faalken's corpse was used against him in an attempt to kill him. But what about the dream about Dar? About the shadow that was over him, meaning he was in danger? Had he countered that danger by having Allia watch over him, or was that too something yet to be? He looked at his young Arkisian friend and decided to pay careful attention to him, to make sure nothing bad happened to him. The dream seemed to hint that the bad thing would happen in Suld, but there was no telling what its true meaning was. There was no reason to take chances with Dar's life.
"You told me about your dreams, but never about this one," Dolanna told him.
"I'd forgotten about it until now," he told her, picking up the pace again when Iselde and Allyn paused to wait for them.
Surprisingly, they didn't attract much attention outside of a few startled looks from Sha'Kar and robed humans coming out of gates along the stone pathway, as Iselde and Allyn brought them to a fenced complex on the fringes of the town's buildings, literally on the edge of town. She opened to gate with a spell of Sorcery, a surprisingly complicated weave of Air, Divine, and Mind, some kind of trigger weave that caused an old sustained spell on the gate to activate, making it swing open of its own volition. "Please excuse the rough appearance of our estate, honored ones," Iselde said, her face slightly reddening. "But we're a poor family."
This was poor? Tarrin stared at the massive central building. It was almost as big as some of the manor houses he'd seen in Wikuna! It was surrounded by four other buildings, all of them smaller, one of them looking like a barn or very large storage building. All the buildings were immaculately clean, and the central building had a stained glass window over the front door that had to be thirty spans tall and twenty spans wide, an image of a Sha'Kar female garbed in a flowing yellow gown, her arms open in warm greeting. There were humans milling around on the grounds, and Tarrin realized that they had a farm behind the cluster of buildings, taking up a considerable amount of land. From that distance it was hard to see, but Tarrin could tell that all the humans looked thin, and they wore old, dirty clothing. Farmers?
"If this is poor, I don't think I want to see where the rich Sha'Kar live," Dar said fervently. "This place is almost as big as a village!"
"Now I understand how a thousand people can take up the entirety of this plain," Allia announced.
As they got closer, they attracted attention from the humans. They looked like peasants from the West, wearing rough homespun clothes and looked to work hard every day to make their living. They had been working on the farm behind the buildings, looking to have stopped for lunch, and were now going back to their toil. They all stopped and stared at the strange group, and Tarrin realized that they were looking hardest at Azakar and Camara Tal. What made them so interesting?
Iselde led them up a flight of marble stairs, to the huge set of double doors that served as the primary entrance, which was made of bronze or brass and had silver and gold etched into its surface. It was elegantly designed in a flowing, fluid pattern of lines, an abstract relief that surrounded a Sha'Kar glyph in pure gold that denoted a family name. Ai'shar. The door screamed of magic, and Tarrin could sense a Ward laid into the space which the door occupied, a Ward whose design was unknown to him. Allyn put a hand on the door and used a similar spell that got them past the gate, and the doors swung open by themselves, revealing an absolutely cavernous entrance hall that went all the way up to the domed roof above, as colored light from the stained glass window shone into the huge entrance chamber with its tiled floor and its grand staircase that led up to a huge balcony.
Tarrin followed Iselde and Allyn into the chamber, and felt himself pass through the Ward. He felt it seek out something within him, and once it found what it was looking for, it retreated from him. Dolanna's eyes widened slightly when she stepped across the Ward, as did Keritanima's, but nobody else seemed to sense the presence of the Ward as they all filed into the massive chamber. Iselde sent Allyn to find their parents with hasty, harsh words, and then folded her arms before her and waited patiently, that same bright, excited look on her young, pretty face. "Would you like some refreshment while we wait?" she asked. "Anything at all?"
"We're fine," Tarrin told her as he looked around. The huge chamber reminded him of the Royal Palace in Wikuna, but it was much, much more elegant. There were fewer works of art here, but the ones that were there were stunning in their detail or their complexity. Paintings seemed to ensnare the eye and make one's mind fall into the unusual abstract patterns, sculptures of nude Sha'Kar in beautiful poses seemed almost alive. One in particular of a male and female in some kind of dancing pose, the male holding the female over his head as the female arched her back and held her arms out, seemed particularly life-like, mainly because feathery, delicate stone strands of hair billowed out from the female's head. How did the sculptor manage to carve out individual hairs? There was a large open passage between the flanking staircases, and that was where Allyn went scurrying towards when Iselde sent him off. There was another similar passageway at the top of the staircase, as well as two doors on each side of the passageway along the balcony. The doors were made of a dark wood and gilded with gold and silver. Even the walls seemed unusual, the same white as the outside with a strange, warm light issuing forth from them as well as from the stained glass window above. The entire interior of the building screamed magic at him, from everywhere. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all the works of art, even the doors. Everything either was permeated with magical energy, or the rich magical presence of the place had somehow seeped into the most mundane objects over the centuries.
"Um, if you don't mind my asking, honored one, but what are those?" she asked, pointing at his shoulders.
"They're brands, Iselde," he told her. It's a rite of passage among the Selani. I'm brother to them, so I had to accept the brands to be accepted by them."
"You mean you let them mark you like a servant?" she gasped.
"These are marks of my friendship to the Selani," he told her in a careful tone.
"Why do you say that, Iselde?" Dolanna asked. "Is this how servants are marked among your people?"
"Not with brands," she said quickly, turning to face the Sorceress. "But with a tattoo. The tattoo says who the servants serves."
That seemed to get Azakar's attention. He stood up stiffly, and glared down at the small Sha'Kar in a dangerous manner. Azakar had once been a slave, and that made him very sensitive to such things. Marking a servant sounded to Tarrin a lot like ownership. He couldn't say that he much liked what he heard either.
Tarrin put a paw on Azakar's armored shoulder and exerted just enough pressure to make him pull back a little. The Knight looked at him hotly for a moment, but the calm expression on Tarrin's face made him regain his composure somewhat. Iselde, who had had her back to them, didn't notice the exchange.
"Excuse me, I'm going to see what's taking Allyn so long," she said with a curtsy, then she picked up her layered skirts and almost ran off down the huge passage. They all watched her go, and when she turned a corner and disappeared, Dar sighed.
"Is it just me, or is this place completely overwhelming?" he asked, looking up at the stained glass window.
"The Sha'Kar were said to love beauty," Dolanna said, looking over one of the sculptures. "In this place, they have brought that love to life, it seems."
"It's almost too much," Camara Tal grunted. "It seems like decadence to me. That, and that girl's attitude. I don't like it."
"I think we found something we can agree on, my dear," Phandebrass said seriously. "Notice that she didn't even so much as look at anyone but Tarrin, Keritanima, and Dolanna? It was almost as if the rest of us don't exist, we don't."
"She called us Tarrin's servants," Miranda recalled, putting a finger to her short muzzle and looking down the grand passageway. "It could be her excitement, but I'm not sure."
"Excitement about what?" Azakar asked.
"About Tarrin. Remember, Zak, he's something of royalty among Sorcerers. There are supposedly only seven sui'kun, and they were very, very important back in the Age of Power. If they've kept their customs from back then, it may explain why she seems to fixated on him."
"What do you think, Kerri, Allia?" Tarrin asked.
"I think you're rushing to judge," Keritanima told them. "Let's learn more about them before we start with the blanket accusations."
"Our sister is right," Allia agreed. "Let us give them a chance. Their ways are not ours, and we may have as much trouble understanding them as they will have understanding us."
"Well said, dear one," Dolanna nodded. "Given the diversity of this group, I am surprised that some of you are so willing to see the Sha'Kar in a darker light."
"Maybe it is cultural," Camara Tal said. "There's just something about them that gnaws at me."
They quieted when Allyn and Iselde reappeared in the hall, each of them holding the hand of a taller, more slender Sha'Kar male. He was rather tall, taller than Allia, but was very, very thin. Everything about him was thin, from his skinny arms to his long-fingered hands to his narrow face. He had white hair that flowed from his head in waves. He wore a white robe that almost radiated light, it was so pristine and clean, and the two youths were dragging him forward excitedly. He stopped dead when he saw the visitors, gaping at them, and then Tarrin sensed something magical ghost over him. He could feel the pull the man had on the Weave; he was a very strong Sorcerer. He must have probed them with his senses in some way. Once Tarrin felt the wave pass him over, the man almost made his children—if they were his children, for neither looked anything like him—fall down as he surged forward with surprising speed.
"Goddess preserve me, you are sui'kun!" the Sha'Kar said in a lilting, surprisingly feminine voice. "Dear me, dear me! Please, allow me to welcome you to my humble home! I am Arlan Ai'shar, the patron of this humble estate," he introduced with a deep, sweeping bow. "You honor my home with your presence, honored one!"
Tarrin was starting to get a little irritated with how all these Sha'Kar seemed to fawn over him. First Iselde, now this one Allyn seemed too dumbstruck to do much more than stare at them all. "You are Iselde's father?"
"I'm her uncle, honored one," he said with another bow. "Unfortunately, her father died during the ceremony of ascendance." All three Sha'kar made a little gesture, tapping their fingers over their hearts. "May the Goddess bless his soul," he added. "Please, come in! My home is yours, honored one! Please, come in and be comfortable, and I'll send for the Council of Elders and Grand Syllis!"
"Iselde mentioned this Grand Syllis. He is your leader?"
"He leads the Council," Arlan replied. "He is the one named Keeper without a tower, but we felt uncomfortable with that title, so he decided to use the title of Grand."
That made Tarrin mull it over. Just like Sulasian, Sha'Kar was a language where a word could have more than one meaning. Tarrin had been thinking of the word as grand, for it was the most common use of the term, but they were dealing with Sha'Kar who probably thought differently. That word also meant top, above in a social sense, and also, rather archaically, Prince. But only if one was using the most extreme forms of formal speech.
"Please, come in. I'll have your servants bordered in my servant house, and—"
"I have no servants," he said immediately. "These are my family and friends. They will be treated as you treat me," he said deliberately and with great weight.
"I—well, yes, yes of course, honored one," he said with a bow. "Your friends will be treated with all my hospitality. Please, come in, come to my sitting room and make yourselves comfortable. I'll have my staff bring you refreshments, and you can tell me what miracle brings you to us while we wait for the Council and the Grand to summon you."
"That's fine with me, Arlan," Tarrin agreed with a nod. "Lead on."
The three Sha'Kar started into the great passageway, looking back to make sure the twelve visitors followed them. Tarrin led his friends and sisters deeper into the house, a sneaking suspicion growing in his mind. He had the feeling that Camara Tal was right. There was indeed something about these Sha'Kar he wasn't quite sure he liked. But then again, he wasn't used to being gaped at and fawned over as they were doing to him, and he figured that that had to be what it was.
At least he hoped so. Aggravating the Sha'Kar, who probably had all the information they needed, would not be a good idea. He needed their help right now, and if that meant that he had to endure their almost worshipful attention to him, then so be it. The only thing that mattered was that he left the island with the Firestaff.
It was all that mattered.