Chapter 18

 "This is a waste of time!" Tarrin snorted adamantly, standing up and looking down the small difference in heights between him and the Amazon.  They were sitting on the deck of the ship, near the bow, sitting under a hot summer sun.  Camara Tal had brought him up there and sat him down, then had quickly and calmly started teaching him the Amazon language.

 Right at first, Tarrin had been intrigued.  He had a natural talent to learn languages, and any language he couldn't speak was like a challenge to him, just teasing him into learning it.  But after only an hour of sitting there, the close proximity of the Amazon had begun to wear at him.  Camara Tal was not trusted, and though he could speak to her, the long concentrated exposure to her had worn away at what little patience he had.

 At least nobody blamed him over the drake.  It had been three days since that incident, since they'd finished the repairs and got under way again, and there weren't any accusing looks.  Everyone knew that the Faerie had tricked the drake into going in there and biting him, and Tarrin had reacted only within his own nature.  But where he'd come out of it more or less unscathed, Sarraya was another matter.  She had been sincerely remorseful about the whole episode, and had delivered a teary apology to him the day after.  Tarrin was still pretty angry with her, but the heartfelt feeling behind her words made him accept it immediately and without question.  She really did feel sorry for what happened.  She had never meant for the drake to bite him, only to go in there and play with him.  Camara Tal had saved the drake's life with her healing magic, and now it absolutely would not leave Phandebrass' presence.  For those three days, Sarraya had been subdued and quiet, sitting more or less by herself or with Dar, trying to fade into the background.

 The storm and the mess with the drake hadn't been good for his nerves.  He'd been edgier than usual since then, and had forced himself to keep clear of the performers rather than risk an incident.  He'd been sleeping in his cabin through most of the day, coming out only at sunset when all the chores and the practices were done.  It was when all the humans were more or less sedentary until bed, sitting together in groups and enjoying singing or the playing of instruments, where he could find a secluded part of the deck and enjoy the outside without risking someone getting hurt.

 "Sit down," Camara Tal said cooly, sitting down herself.  She looked up at him with that stare, and part of him felt nearly compelled to obey her out of hand.  She went back to what she was doing, shaping a piece of wood left over from the storm with a small, very sharp knife.  Tarrin had seen that before, because Walten used to do it all the time.  She seemed to be quite skilled at it, because already a very basic form had begun to appear in the wood.  "We're not here to yell at each other," she continued.  "We're here because you don't trust me.  We're taking some quiet time to get to know each other a little better.  I can teach you much more about me by teaching you my language.  It would be nice to hear someone speak something civilized," she muttered.

 "Why?"

 "That's a stupid question," she said calmly.  "Now sit down."

 Tarrin stared down at her for a long moment, weighing the consequences of walking away with the curiosity at learning her language.  It was more than that.  Tarrin liked Camara Tal, but he just didn't trust her.  It was the same with Phandebrass.  It was a strange feeling to like someone, yet not trust them, but that was how he felt about them.  It was why he could speak to them amiably and enjoy their company, he just wouldn't put himself in a position where they could do him harm.  Sitting alone with the Amazon near the bow, well away from any of his friends, definitely qualified in his mind as a dangerous situation.

 "Our situation requires trust, Tarrin," she said calmly.  "I can't protect you if you won't turn your back on me.  You'll be so worried about me that you won't see the real threat when it comes at you.  I had a long talk with Dolanna about you, and she explained to me what I have to do to win over your trust.  So here we are."

 "What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

 "Here we are, well away from everyone else.  All I have is this little knife, and we both know that it really won't do anything to you.  If you'll notice, I'm not even wearing my amulet.  I'm completely defenseless.  If I trust you enough to sit alone with you without protection, you can afford me the courtesy of sitting there and learning something you want to know in the first place."

 Tarrin looked her over.  She didn't have her swordbelt, and as she claimed, she wasn't wearing her amulet.  There was no silver smell anywhere on her, and that proved that she wasn't hiding it.  Then again, with as little as she wore, he couldn't fathom where she could possibly conceal anything.  She was indeed defenseless.  Her little whittling knife wouldn't do much more than make him angry, and without weapons or magic, she was simply no match against him, no matter how well trained she was.  Tarrin realized that he had a clear superiority over her, and that she could perpetrate no threat on him.  His amicable nature towards her smoothly overwhelmed his suspicions, and he sat back down while assuming a much less hostile body language.

 "That's much better," she said calmly, turning the piece of wood over in her hands.  She blew at the raven-colored bangs that drifted into her face, the short hair that couldn't reach the tail in which she kept her thick mass of long hair.  Her almond colored eyes regarded him calmly, then returned to the piece of wood in her hands.  Tarrin looked at her, and he realized that for the first time in a very long time, he saw no incipient danger in a human he didn't already know.  Camara Tal seemed to be completely at ease with him, and her act of trust had lodged itself in his mind.  He looked at her, and marvelled again at how pretty she was, how strong.  She was very intimidating, but seeing her like that removed that oppressive edge that she kept about herself.  She was much less dangerous than she seemed.  Hers was a subtle strength, owing only a small portion to her height and her physical prowess.  Her strength radiated from within her, a power of confidence and faith that gave the sensation that she was invincible to those who gazed upon her.

 "Why do Amazons still keep men enslaved?" Tarrin asked impulsively.  "Surely you realize it's not necessary."

 "Sometimes customs aren't necessary," she replied easily.  "And men aren't slaves.  They are property.  But if you look at the customs of Draconia and Tykarthia, you'll see that the women there are the property of their husbands when they marry.  What we do isn't all that much different from what societies up here do.  We're just alot more honest about it."  She turned the wood over again and started shaving at a corner.  "Men are owned by their mothers or their wives if they're noble, or whoever happens to have their paper when they're commoners.  They still have rights, though.  A woman can't just beat up her man whenever she feels like it.  It's not only dishonorable in the eyes of our goddess, it's against the law.  And since you've seen Koran Tal, I'm sure you realize that any woman brazen enough to hit a man should be ready to get back what she's giving."

 "But he's still property.  He can't do what he wants."

 "That's the way things are," she shrugged.  "I'd probably feel differently if I was born with different equipment, but that's the way we do things.  It may be right or it may be wrong, but it works for us.  And that's all that really matters."

 "Don't the men object?"

 "Not really," she replied.  "Men aren't slaves, boy.  I don't know how many times I have to tell you that.  As long as a man's well treated, why buck the system?  Women who don't treat men well tend to end up dead.  A man is more than capable of killing a woman.  You don't think Koran Tal could tan my hide if he was mad enough?  He's no weakling."

 "Then why don't they revolt and make things equal?"

 "Because there are two women for every man," she replied.  "About a thousand years ago, a plague killed almost all our men, a plague that the women couldn't contract.  It required us to make changes in the way we do things.  Well, our population still hasn't equalized yet, mainly because most of us don't like the idea of mothering children from outlanders.  They're smaller and weaker than pureblooded Amazon children.  Besides, it's been so long since then, the new society is too deeply seated.  Nobody wants to change things back to the way they were now.  It works, and that's all that really matters in the end."

 "I guess."

 "Stop worrying over the customs of a land you'll never see," she said.  "Now then.  Ayuda.  Good day."

 For the rest of that day, and every day after that for five days, Tarrin and Camara Tal sat near the bow and she taught him the Amazon language.  For the first five days, she brought no weapons and wouldn't wear her amulet.  Then, on the sixth day, she came wearing her amulet.  The repeated enforcement of the idea that Camara Tal wasn't a threat had bolstered him against seeing that silver medallion around her neck.  It was then that he realized that she was trying to tame him like a wild animal.  She started slowly and gently, and was gradually building him up to the point where special precautions weren't necessary.  The idea of that shocked him more than a little bit, but a part of him realized that no other way of going about it would work.  He was too wary and nervous.  It required someone to completely submit to his power for him to treat them without fear.  Just as Triana said, she would have to repeatedly prove to him that she wouldn't hurt him, and she wouldn't betray him.

 That idea had made him step back from her and take a walk, paw to his head.  Had he really sunk that low?  Actually, that was a question that he'd already answered.  He had really become little better than a wild animal, because no matter how intelligent he was, it simply came down the to fact that he was ruled by his instincts.  No matter how much he understood them, no matter how much trouble they caused, he could not go against them.  He had become a slave to himself, a slave of his own bestial half.  It was such a depressing thought.  Every time he thought about it, he had always neatly evaded the simple truth, but he just couldn't do that anymore.  He leaned on the rail and looked out over the sea, wind in his face, his eyes distant as he pondered what he had become.

 A hand on his shoulder made him jump.  It was a strong hand, yet the pressure it applied was gentle and reassuring.  Camara Tal's bronzed scent touched him quickly after that, and she leaned in close to him and looked at his profile.  "Are you alright?" she asked with sincerity in her voice.

 "I guess so," he sighed after a moment.  "I just wish sometimes things were different."

 "Dolanna told me about you, Tarrin.  You've had a rough time of it.  You have the right to be a little bitter.  Just don't let it poison you."

 "It's more than that.  All I ever wanted out of life after this happened to me was to be free.  But I guess I never will be.  Even if I am free, I'll never be free of myself.  I'm a prisoner, Camara Tal, just as much a prisoner as I was when there was chain between my wrists.  It's just that my prison doesn't have walls."

 "You hold your own key, Tarrin," she told him gently.  "The only one that can free you is you."

 "I wish it was that easy," he said quietly.

 "Things we value should never be easy," she said.  "Something gained easily isn't appreciated as it should be."  She leaned closer to him.  "Until then, at least you have a few good dependable people to help keep you company, until you can be free.  I've been working to be part of those people, but I can go only so far.  You have to meet me half way, Tarrin."

 He closed his eyes and bowed his head.  Why wouldn't he do that?  Mist had conquered her fear and had reached out to him, something she had never been able to do before.  Camara Tal had gone out of her way to reach him, had put herself in personal danger just to make him feel more secure.  She even had the personal approval of the Goddess, who had personally selected her to travel with him.  He trusted in the Goddess, he did what she said, so why couldn't he accept the Amazon?  He had faith in the Goddess, he should have trusted Camara Tal without question, yet he had not.  He could not.  Even now, part of him yearned to accept the Amazon, but he still couldn't bring himself to accept her trust.  He couldn't feel her warmth or sincerity.  All he could feel was the cold steel of the manacles on his wrists.

 "I'm sorry," he said abruptly, shaking her off and stepping back from her.  "I, I can't.  I trusted a human once before, and it nearly destroyed me.  Not again.  Never again."

 He retreated from her, quickly shifting into cat form and bounding away, confused and not a little frightened of what he was feeling.

 "Never is a long time, Tarrin Kael," Camara Tal said quietly in her own language, watching the cat race away.  "A very long time indeed."

 Tarrin avoided Camara Tal for nearly two days after that, and to her credit, the Amazon had backed off to give him time to come to grips with what he'd discovered inside himself.  It was a truth he'd known, something that he convinced himself was untrue, but knew in his heart that it was.  Seeing Mist, seeing the awful condition of being truly feral could bring on someone, had frightened and saddened him.  What sobered him now was that he saw the very same things he saw in Mist inside himself.  Mist was more violent than he was, but in reality they were no different.  They both had had their resistance to their instincts shattered by the actions of others, and now both of them were too weak-willed to overcome them.  Tarrin had more control than Mist, was not quite so paranoid as she was, but they were sides of the same coin.  Everything he pitied about Mist made him dejected with himself, because he felt powerless to change.

 He had tried before.  He just couldn't do that to himself again.  Trying made him short-tempered and out of sorts, heightened his feral fear to a fever pitch and made him an exceptionally unpleasant person to be around.  He wasn't trying with Camara Tal, but her attempts to win his trust were even worse, because they were making him look inside himself.  Trying to muster courage was much different than having dark truths bared for him to see.

 Sometimes it just all felt so hopeless.  He was feral.  He accepted that, understood it, because he couldn't change it.  He wouldn't if he could.  He'd lost more than his innocence to Jula and her collar, he had lost his security, his sense of personal freedom to her.  That had caused him to harden to outsiders, to turn feral, that and the destruction he had wrought beneath the Cathedral of Karas so long ago.  Triana was right.  It was so easy to lose himself in the suspicious fear of ferality, to turn his back on struggling to retain his humanity and allow his instincts to govern his actions.  It was a condition of comfortable apathy, where nobody mattered other than himself and those few people he trusted, where everyone else was conveniently grouped together into a large assortment of enemies and strangers.  Triana had said that being feral was living in a world of them and us.  In Mist's case, it was just her.  She was so right.  There was Tarrin and his small tight circle of friends, and then there was the rest of the world, which was out to get them.  Being feral protected him.  It protected both his sanity and his life, because in their dangerous quest they had no shortage of enemies and competitors.  But when a new person came into his life, a person that Tarrin actually liked, it rose up and prevented him from accepting that person as a new friend.  No matter how much he liked Phandebrass, Sarraya, and Camara Tal, they were still strangers, and he couldn't bring himself to drop his guard around them.

 The night was a surprisingly cool one for midsummer.  The ocean breeze made the ship, which was anchored near a small island for the night, rock lazily in the small chop created by the breeze.  Everyone but himself and two sentries were asleep, and Tarrin stood near the bow, staring at the small island in the light of four crescent moons and the sliver of light that was the Skybands. It was little more than a large rock jutting up from the sea, a rock with no vegetation that towered nearly a hundred spans into the air.  They called it the Spire, and it was a nautical landmark for ships travelling towards Arak.  It marked the boundary of Arkis and the desert, and it was a signpost for danger.  The seas ahead were peppered with a series of rugged islands called the Sandshield's Tears, the tops of mountains that had been submerged into the sea to form islands.  They weren't very dense, but those islands were refuges for pirates, concentrated living habitat for the deadly Sahaugin, the evil fish-men of the sea, and more than one wide ocean channel was mined with the submerged clefts and pinnacles of underwater mountains that were just below the surface, deadly reefs and obstacles that could kill an unwary ship.  Pirates were known to lay in ambush in the safe sea lanes, as were many a school of Sahaugin, because ships had very few options when navigating the Sandshield's Tears.  Most ships went around, but Dolanna had said that it was no longer an option.  They had lost too much time, and passing through the Tears was the fastest way to get to Dala Yar Arak.

 His tail swishing back and forth, Tarrin leaned against the rail and looked out on the calm ocean.  If only he could be so calm.  Camara Tal's attempts to win over his trust still had him badly agitated, and about all he could do was worry at it.  She frightened him, forced him to face himself when he'd rather not.  He liked her and wanted to get to know her, but as soon as he found himself thinking of her, part of him objected violently to getting any closer to the Amazon than what was necessary.  He wanted to be her friend, but he was afraid of her, afraid of her betraying him, afraid of letting her get too close.

 He was simply afraid.

 He'd spent all his young life learning how to deal with fear.  His mother and father had taught him how to manage it in battle, to let it balance his courage so that he'd not do something foolish and get himself killed.  A wise warrior respected fear, knew when it was good to ignore his fear, and when it was good to obey it.  A man without fear was a man already dead, his mother would say all the time.  But now he had no more control over his fear.  He was afraid of so many things now, things that seemed completely irrational to him, yet things that he couldn't deny made him very afraid.  So afraid that he couldn't overcome his fear and do things the way he wanted to do them.

 Life is a battle of wills, kitten, the voice of the Goddess echoed its power through his mind.  Just the sensation of her took hold of his soul and lifted it, allowing him to bask in the gentle warmth and power of her presence inside his mind.  He reacted to that gentle touch immediately, standing up straight and closing his eyes to more strongly come into touch with it.  Fear is but an aspect of your own will.  It's the part of you that wants to keep you alive, and if you didn't notice, your will to live is powerful.  So it makes your fear that much stronger.

 "It frightens me, Goddess," he complained.  "I never thought I'd be afraid of being afraid.  It seems silly."

 It's not silly, my kitten, she replied.  Everyone lives in fear.  Even when you were human, your mind was dominated with worries and anxieties, but they were drowned out by your chores and your training.  You don't have anything to do to take your mind off of it, and it sits there and stares at you day after day.  All you can do is reflect on it, and that makes it even worse.

 "I know.  I tried to overcome it, but I, I can't.  I'm too weak," he admitted guiltily.

 You're much stronger than you think, my dear kitten, she said lovingly.  No weakling could have shouldered the burden of being turned Were, then taken on the extra weight of dealing with an out-of- control power, then discovered that half the world wants to kill you.  You have tremendous strength, but most often the burdens carried within are heavier than any burden that can be placed on your shoulders.  You have looked in the mirror, and the reflection staring back at you frightens you.

 Tarrin bowed his head.

 You have thought the same thing many times, my kitten, and every time you have found the answers you seek.  This is no different.  The strength to overcome your fear is there.  All you have to do is call on it.

 "I've already tried, Goddess."

 There are many kinds of strength, sweet one, she told him in a cryptic manner that told him immediately she was giving him some kind of hint.  Just as there are many kinds of power.

 "What does that mean?"

 When the time comes, you will know, she answered.  You will know.

 And then the sense of her departed, feeling like it took a piece of soul with it as it left him.

 Leaving behind more questions than answers.

 The ship started through the dangerous passages through the Tears the next day.  Everyone was tense and alert, and Renoit had posted double sentries in the crow's nest and through the rigging and deck, watching in ever direction.  The islands of the Tears weren't packed together, but Tarrin could look in any direction and see a brownish protrusion rising up from the water.  Renoit went slowly and carefully, for Dolanna had told him that he didn't usually go through the dangerous passages.  He usually went south and around, which was considered the safest way to avoid the dangers.  But they had to be in Dala Yar Arak in just a little over a month, when it would take them nearly twenty days to get there.  It would have taken an extra ten to fifteen days to go around the Tears, so Renoit was left with no choice.  If they were late, the Arakites would turn them away, and that would leave Tarrin and his group exposed in the city.

 Tarrin stood with Allia near the bow, searching the waters ahead of them cautiously.  Camara Tal was standing on the steering deck, he could feel her eyes on his back.  He made it his business to know where she was at all times.  Because he was confused and out of sorts, that put him in the hands of his sister.  She could soothe him in ways nobody else on the ship could, not even Dolanna, and it was her gentle, reassuring presence that helped him keep a focus on things.  Her calming effect was nothing like the total sense of peace he felt when he was around Janette, but it was enough for him.

 They watched an island slide by to their right in relative silence.  The stone of the island was brownish and very rugged, as if the rock was subjected to powerful surf that stopped any vegetation from growing.  Sea birds flocked around the islands, circling them and using them for nests, occasionally filling the sky with wings as the birds flocked around a school of fish in the water.  Tarrin shielded his eyes from the bright sun, feeling the heat that blew in from the north, a heat that carried a sandy dry quality that told him it came off the desert.  The wind was hotter than the sun, but Tarrin didn't much mind heat.  It was an extension of his cat half, for cats were well built to tolerate heat.  Not even his black fur made him feel very uncomfortable in the summer sun.

 "What about that right there?" Tarrin asked, pointing out a white blotch past the island.  They were looking for sails, and most sails were light colored.  Because canvas and sailcloth were too expensive to dye.

 "It's not a wind-cloth," she replied in Selani.  Since there was no Selani word for sail, she had to dance a bit with the language to come up with a good description.  "It's a white patch of stone in the side of an island.  There is a ship over there, but it's got its back to us, and its wind-cloths are rolled up," she noted, pointing a little left of the white stone Tarrin saw.

 "Ship ho!" the lookout above cried.  "Ship five points off the port bow!"

 Both of them turned and moved to the port side, and Allia shaded her eyes and peered towards another island. "It's got a hole in its side," she reported.  "It's wrecked.  The wind-cloths are intact.  It couldn't have happened very long ago."

 "What do you see, desert flower?" Renoit's voice boomed over the deck.

 "It is a wreck, Renoit.  The ship has a hole in its side, and it rests against a rock wall," Allia shouted back.  "It still has sails.  It could not have been wrecked very long."

 "Can you see a flag?"

 "A hawk in front of a sun," she answered after a moment.

 "A Torian ship," Tarrin identified it.

 "Any movement?"

 "No, it is derelict," she shouted back.  "And we should leave it be!"

 "Why is that, desert flower?"

 "A common trick of a hunter is to distract the prey," she told him.  "If that ship were truly abandoned, someone would have come and stripped it by now.  There are barrels and other things still lashed to the deck."

 "Wise, my desert flower, yes!  In these dangerous waters, we must look after ourselves, yes!  We will give the ship a wide berth!"

 Renoit ordered the sails furled, and they sat dead in the water for nearly an hour as Renoit pored over the charts he had of the Tears to find a path around the potential danger.  Dolanna joined them at the bow, taking Tarrin's hand and looking out over the water with them.  "You should be in lesson, Allia," she chided, "but I can understand your need to be on deck."

 "How long will it take us to get through here?" Tarrin asked.

 "Two or three days," she replied.  "You know, Tarrin, Camara Tal is getting irritated with you."

 "Let her," he grunted.

 "She wishes to continue your instruction in Amazon."

 "She can wait."

 "I should feel slighted, dear one," she said with a slight smile.  "You never asked to learn my language."

 "I've never heard you even use it before, Dolanna.  I don't think I even know what language it is."

 She chuckled wryly.  "Then I guess the fault is my own.  I am from Sharadar, and we speak Sharadi.  Because of the size and importance of Sharadar on the southern continent, it is a common language among all the southern kingdoms.  If you can speak Sharadi, you can communicate with nearly anyone south of the equator."

 "Are you offering?" he asked.

 "I will do nearly anything to get you into lessons, my dear one," she said with a light smile.

 "Don't you know enough languages, brother?" Allia asked in Selani.

 "Not until there are none left to learn," he replied in Sulasian.  "How long do you think it will take?"

 "I have seen you learn language, dear one," Dolanna smiled.  "It will not take you very long.  I do not understand how you can forget things you learn, yet when it involves a language, you show the same mental faculties as Keritanima.  Probably even more so."

 "I guess it's a knack," he shrugged.

 "It is quite a knack," she smiled.  "You are the only person I have ever seen to learn two languages in a matter of months rather than years."

 "It wasn't that hard," he replied.  "I learned Selani, then we found out that the other language was very similar to it.  That made it easier for all of us."

 "Keritanima will kill you if you do not tell her how you taught yourself the other language with magic, Dolanna," Allia told her.  "We all thought that it was impossible."

 "I did not teach myself the language," she smiled.  "I merely used magic to ensure I did not forget the meaning of the words."

 "But Sorcerers cannot use magic on themselves."

 "A Sorcerer cannot.  A katzh-dashi can, because we can use minor abilities granted to us by the Goddess.  What I used was a priest spell, not a weave.  A very simple spell of retention that any neonate katzh-dashi is taught after the Initiate."

 Tarrin gaped at her. "I thought katzh-dashi could only use ceremonial priest magic!"

 "That is what you were told.  In truth, a katzh-dashi can utilize any priest prayer that a priest can perform without a medallion.  That is the limit of our access.  Because of the sensitive position of the katzh-dashi, we do not advertise the fact that we can use priest magic.  It would raise certain uncomfortable questions from the more learned.  Lest you forget, young one, katzh- dashi are the priests of the Goddess.  She cannot grant us true priest powers, but she can bestow on us the same basic minor powers that any starting acolyte receives from his god.  If you would come to the lessons, dear one, you would know that already."

 Tarrin stared at her a very long time.  "Then what's the difference between a Sorcerer and a katzh- dashi?"

 "The Oath," she replied simply.  "The oath of obedience to the Goddess, something that an Initiate does not undertake.  It seals the Sorcerer to the Goddess, and in that oath of obedience, he gains the right to call on the Goddess' power directly.  Any Sorcerer can use Sorcery, but only those who take the Oath can call on the Goddess for additional aid."

 It was a profound realignment in his concept of the katzh-dashi, but it fit perfectly with what he already knew.  The Goddess herself had told him that the katzh-dashi had minor priest abilities.  She didn't say what they could do, but she did say that they did have some abilities.  The agelessness of the katzh-dashi was the reason that they had access to priest magic, for it was a law set forth by Ayise Herself that no mortal could wield more than one order of magic.  The Goddess cheated a bit by making her children a little bit more than mortal, yet not truly immortal.  It was enough for the katzh-dashi to be raised out of the definition of mortal and gain access to another order of magic.  That was probably why they didn't want the sages to know that they could use minor priest magic, for sages knew of that stricture, and would investigate as to why the katzh-dashi could seemingly defy that basic rule.

 Tarrin licked his lips.  "Could I learn this priest magic?" he asked.

 She shook her head.  "I cannot administer the Oath.  Only the Keeper can do that.  And without the Oath, the priest aspect of a katzh-dashi's power is denied to you."

 Tarrin silently mulled through what he felt were contradictory statements.  The Goddess had once told him that the katzh- dashi were granted priest powers, but she specifically said that she didn't grant them priest's spells.  Now Dolanna comes along and claims that she used priest magic to help her learn the Sha'Kar language.  He had no reason to doubt the Goddess, but on the other hand, he had no reason to doubt Dolanna either.

 "Do not worry at it, dear one," she smiled.  "I have thought of taking you to Sharadar, so the Keeper of the other Tower could bond you to the Goddess and give you access to magic you can use safely.  But it is simply too far out of the way.  The opportunity to take the Oath will come in time.  Just be patient."

 "Just what can you do with this magic?" he asked.

 "Nothing earth-shattering, believe me," she smiled.  "The minor spells of a neonate are not as useful as Sorcery, but there are a few spells that allow us to work very minor magic upon ourselves, something Sorcery will not permit.  The spell I used to enhance my ability to remember is just such an example.  But in general, any priestly prayer that has a Sorcery conterpart is denied to us.  We can only use those minor spells of which no comparative weave exists.  It is another limit to our power."

 "But High Sorcery would allow--"

 "And no single katzh-dashi can perform High Sorcery," she interrupted.  "Since the katzh-dashi cannot create the weave, it falls outside this rule."

 "So, a katzh-dashi weak in healing flows could use priestly healing instead of Sorcery?"

 "No.  The katzh-dashi could perform the weave.  The weakness exists within the Sorcerer, not within the Weave.  Even a Sorcerer with no access at all to a sphere vital to healing cannot use a priest spell to make up for it."

 "That contradicts what you just said."

 "Sorcery is full of contradictions, young one," she smiled.  "It obeys its own laws, and many of them are illogical to us.  We can only obey them, without necessarily understanding why they exist."

 "I guess so," he sighed.  "And I was getting interested in it, too."

 "I am pleased you are showing interest in Sorcery again," she said.  "You should come to our lessons, dear one.  We miss your company."

 "I may start coming now," he said.  "I seem to be missing out on a whole lot."

 "And we will welcome you," she smiled.  "Reniot is beckoning to me.  I will talk with you later, dear one, Allia."

 She walked away, leaving a huge riddle in Tarrin's mind.  He knew that the katzh-dashi had priestly abilities, because the Goddess had told him so.  But she told him that they weren't given priest's spells.  She had specifically stated that.  But Dolanna said that they could.  So who was lying?  Dolanna seemed to have proof that she could use a little priest magic.

 Why would the Goddess lie to him?  She had never outright lied to him before, and the realization that that seemed to be the case stung deeply.  He knew that he didn't need to know everything, but to find out that she had misled him hurt a little bit.

 I never lied to you, Tarrin, the Goddess' voice echoed in his mind.  The katzh-dashi are not granted priest spells.

 "But--" he started, causing Allia to look at him, but the Goddess cut him off.

 I said the katzh-dashi are not granted priest spells.  The magic they use is the type of priest magic that doesn't require my favor to use.  I have to personally approve any spell I grant.  The priest magic they use is the kind that doesn't require my direct blessing.  It's the magic that they gain just by being in my service, the magic that any priest gains in service to a god.  So, to answer your question, we both told the truth.

 "You're splitting hairs."

 True.  Because if I told you the truth, you'd start experimenting.  I don't think my heart can take it if you start doing that, so I kept the temptation away from you.  Even now you're considering ways to get around the Oath.

 Tarrin blushed guiltily.

 Exactly.  I'm too old to have my constitution tested by an upstart young Were-cat, she said lightly.  So, to protect your faith in me, no, I did not lie to you.  Are you happy now?

 "I guess."

 Kitten, sometimes you are so high maintenance, she chuckled, and then the sense of her was gone.

 "I take it you were talking to someone?" Allia asked curiously.

 "The Goddess decided to argue a point of view," Tarrin replied, touching his amulet reverently.  "She told me once that she doesn't grant priest spells.  Dolanna comes along and tells me that she can use some priest magic, and that made me wonder who was right.  I don't think the Goddess likes it when I start doubting her, so she's always quick to step on those kinds of thoughts."

 "It must be nice to be so loved."

 "Knowing that someone can hear what I'm thinking all the time sometimes feels more like I'm being babysat."

 "You are," she teased lightly, giving him a dazzling smile.

 "Well thanks alot," he grunted, flicking her lightly on the backside with his tail.

 Tarrin mulled over what he'd learned for a while after Allia went to go get something to eat, laying in cat form on a rope coil near the bow.  But as usual, he could find no answers, and abandoned the idea in favor of taking a nap.  The summer sun casting its warmth down on him had destroyed any chance he had of thinking seriously, its welcome heat lulling him into a quick nap.

 He was shaken out of that nap when the ship under him shook violently, nearly spilling him off the rope bundle.  Tarrin got to his feet and jumped down, and saw that everyone was running around crazily.  Had they hit one of those underwater rocks that they said were liberally spread through the area?  That's what he thought happened until the lookout boomed from the crow's nest, "Ship dead astern!  It's hooked us!"

 Shifting into his humanoid form, he saw what happened.  A sheer rock face was only about thirty spans off the port side, and the ship behind them was still only partially visible behind it.  They must have passed right by it as it hid inside a hidden cove, and like a ambushing hunter, it surged from its hiding place to pounce on the unwary prey.  He could see a chain trailing from the bow of the ship, and after he jumped up onto the steering deck, he saw that a ballista bolt was lodged in the stern of the ship with a chain secured to it.

 The angler brought along its own fishing line.

 The ship shuddered when a huge winch on the other ship, a caravel, began reeling them in.

 "Do you want me to throw off that harpoon?" Tarrin asked the steersman quickly.

 "Leave it," Camara Tal said as she and Dolanna came up on the steering deck.  The Amazon was holding a large wooden shield in her hand.  "Get under cover, fool!" she snapped at the steersman.  "They'll be raking us with arrows any second!"

 "Just let them reel us in," Dolanna told him.  "When we are close enough, they will abandon their bows and board.  We will deal with them then."

 "Why?  We can get them now."

 "We cannot risk any damage to the ship," she said.  "A single day's delay could spell disaster.  It is best for them to board, where we can deal with them man to man without damaging the ship."

 "Won't they damage the ship?"

 "Not until after they board us and see what we're carrying," Camara Tal grunted.  "You don't risk sinking a ship if you don't know what it's carrying."  She grabbed Tarrin by the arm.  "Let's get under cover.  We don't want them to get a good look at our secret weapons until it's too late."

 "We're going to fight them man to man?  They outnumber us!" Tarrin protested.

 "We have you, me, the Selani, the Knight, a Wizard, a Druid, and two Sorcerers.  That evens the odds," Camara Tal told him with a bright smile.

 "Good point," Tarrin acceded as they rushed off the steering deck behind the steersman.

 Allia and Faalken were at the base of the sterncastle.  Faalken was still adjusting his hastily donned breastplate-- he hadn't had time to put on any more armor--and had his sword and shield near him.  Allia was carrying those two slender short swords she favored, and she silently handed him his staff.  "Where is the bug?" Camara Tal demanded shortly.

 "I'm here!" she called from above, landing lightly on Tarrin's shoulder.  "What do you need me to do?"

 "Don't do anything until about half of them are on our ship," Camara Tal told her as the first wave of arrows peppered along the empty deck.  All the performers were under cover, and Tarrin could see Dar near the bow, hiding under a hatch.  "And don't do anything that'll screw up the ship.  We're letting them board to avoid damaging the ship, so don't blow it by burning us down to the waterline."

 Phandebrass came up from below, a drake on each shoulder.  He was wearing a series of pouches and satchels all over his person, and a wild cacophony of scents were issuing forth from those bundles.  "I say, I'm ready, Dolanna," he said seriously, all hint of the lilting, befuddled quality gone from his voice.  "What do you want me to do?"

 "Nothing until they are engaged with boarding," Dolanna told him.  "And avoid damaging our ship."

 "I have just the spell," he said confidently, taking what looked like a steel rod out of one of his satchels.

 "Let's get out of sight.  They'll pull alongside in a minute, and I'd rather not be here for them to shoot at us."

 They crowded onto the staircase leading below, with Faalken at the top with his shield strapped to his arm to protect Dolanna, who stood just behind him.  Tarrin was behind the Amazon, and Allia was just behind him, holding onto the end of his tail.  Phandebrass and his drakes were at the end of the line, nearly at the base of the stairs.  "I say, Knight, what's going on up there?"

 "They're coming alongside," Faalken reported.  "They're starting to throw out grappling hooks."

 "How many?"

 "Looks to be about thirty," he replied as Tarrin heard the first metallic clanging as the metal hooks landed on the wooden deck.

 "Are all of Renoit's people out of the way?" Dolanna asked.

 "He's got some that are going to be fighting, but everyone else is below," Camara Tal replied.  "I think we can handle thirty.  Especially when they'll be busy with boarding us."

 "Allia, I want you to get to Dar as soon as we move," Dolanna ordered the Selani.  "He does not know the plan, and I will feel better if he is not out there by himself."

 "Right about now I really miss Zak and the Vendari," Faalken grunted as he drew his sword.  "They're pulling the ships together.  Any second now.  Get ready."

 "I'll go with you, Allia," Sarraya piped.  "You'll need someone to watch your back."

 "Just be careful, tiny one."

 "I can handle a pack of unruly pirates," Sarraya giggled.

 "I wish I had that much confidence," Camara Tal snorted under her breath.

 Tarrin could hear the feet hit the deck, the wild shouts from the bandits as they rushed onto the ship and immediately began searching for their hidden opponents.  He saw one, a thin tattooed man with bad teeth, appear at the top of the stairs, but Faalken struck like a viper, impaling him on the end of his sword.  "I think that's about it!" he shouted as the man gave out an agonized scream.  "Go!"

 The pirates at first didn't seem startled that their opponents had been hiding, but Tarrin could clearly see the shock and dismay on their faces by the time he rushed out from behind the Amazon.  Dar, seeing Faalken and some of the troupe's men-at-arms jump from concealment and move to engage, had himself come up from the hatch and began weaving together a spell. Fire orbited around his upraised hands, and he pointed both of them at a group of five enemies that were moving towards him.  They screamed horrifically as the fire washed over them, winking out nearly as fast as it appeared, leaving the burning men rolling on the deck in agony, tongues of flame eating away at them.

 "Get that magi--" one pirate shouted, but he was cut short when Allia's sword slashed across the back of his neck.  Before he could even fall, she was moving swiftly right through the pirates, her light swords flicking and slashing as she moved, moving like a ghost through the slower moving men and leaving a trail of pained cries in her wake.  Only one man had the presence of mind to try to stab her with his cutlass, but Allia moved like lightning, evading the man's clumsy thrust and slicing her sword about halfway through his neck as she glided past.  Tarrin had learned from Allia, but not even he could match her blazing, inhuman speed and the delicate grace she exhibited when fighting.  She looked and moved like the frailest dancer, but any opponent quickly discovered that trying to hit her was like trying to swat a mosquito using a club.  She was simply everywhere but in the weapon's path.  She was at Dar's side in a scant moment, swords readied to deal with anyone who attempted to kill the young Sorcerer.

 "Face the light of vengeance!" Camara Tal shouted in a commanding voice, making him look at her.  He was still behind her, and her challenge had drawn most of the eyes of the pirates to her.  And when they looked at her, Tarrin felt the explosion of magic emanate from her upraised palm, sending a blasting flash of light rushing through the onlooking men.  It only struck those in front of her; though everyone behind her could see the flash, it seemed to be dim compared to what people on the other side of her saw.  They all clawed at their eyes and hunched over, blinded by that brilliant flash of light, throwing the opponents into confusion as more of them swung or jumped onto the deck of Dancer from the enemy ship.  After she finished with her magic, Camara Tal drew her sword and faced up against a tall, burly man wearing only a loincloth and carrying a nicked broadsword.  She had the man out of balance with only two strokes of her blade, held in both her hands, then she turned his weapon wide and stabbed him through the middle.  That proved to him that Camara Tal knew how to use that sword.

 "Chopstick, Turnkey, attack!" Phandebrass ordered his little drakes, then he held up the steel rod and began chanting in the strangest language.  It was like a discordant throbbing of sound, and he could sense the power within it as those words triggered a building of magical energy.  It became focused through the steel rod in his hands, and then it flooded back into his body.  Phandebrass' body flared in magical light, and when it abated, Phandebrass was turned into steel!  His skin and clothing looked to be solid metal, and the doddering mage wandered confidently into the host of blinded adversaries and smashed them with his metal hands, sending them to the deck instantly, where they moved no more.  He then turned and chanted in magic again, holding both hands up while making a few strange gestures with his fingers.  When he was finished, a ball of crackling electrical energy appeared in front of him, and it floated lazily towards the pirate ship, expanding in size as it moved.  That made the men still on the pirate ship stop in the middle of trying to board, then scramble for safety on their own ship as the little ball of lightning floated over the rails of the ships.  At first, Tarrin thought it was simply a means to pin them down, until a blast of lightning left the ball and hit one pirate that was trying to dive into a hatch.  The man's body shuddered violently as the electrical arc tore into him, then he fell limply to the deck short of his goal.

 Tarrin shook off his amazement at the powers of his companions and moved into the fray with Camara Tal and some of the fighting men from Renoit's troupe, as the blinded men began recovering their sight.  When they did, they found themselves facing an unnaturally tall cat-like man, who simply killed anyone within reach.  His incredible strength made trying to fence with him moot, for he would simply smash aside any weapon brandished at him then crush the offendor with his staff, or rip out huge chunks of flesh with his wicked claws.  Tarrin created an instant panic among the pirates, who scrambled away from him and usually found themselves facing someone that looked less intimidating, but in fact was just as dangerous as him.  Renoit's fighters were skilled and efficient, forming up into pairs or trios and engaging the wildly disorganized pirates with the cool confidence that came with having so much firepower on their side.  They were strongmen and acrobats, and their professions only reinforced their ability to fight.  Some men, like Deward, had a profession that was battle useful.  The tall veteran performer stood behind two of his burly fellows, a veritable handful of throwing daggers in his free hand, and he tossed them about with a nonchalance that understated his lethal accuracy.  Knives blossomed in the faces, necks, and vital areas of the pirates around him, thrown with a deadly precision that could only be exhibited by a true master of the craft.  Deward alone killed a man for every knife he threw, and when he was out, he drew out a heavy wooden cudgel and started smiting the invaders.

 He paused just in time to see Allia fell another foe trying to get at Dar.  She kept five men at bay with her slashing, thrusting shortswords and her quick feet, just as apt to wound as her swords.  The men trying to get her looked like children trying to catch fireflies, always seeming to be one step behind.  The fluid speed of the Selani overwhelmed her attackers, letting her slide among and between them like water, striking with her swords like a snake striking with fangs.  Allia was no less lethal than any cobra, causing men to fall around her with every lightning fast, blurring thrust or light flick of her swords.  The attackers had never seen anything like her before, and they became so afraid of her that the survivors backed away with no more thoughts at getting at the young magician she was protecting.  Dar set two more men on fire as they backed away, and he saw Sarraya's tiny body flitting around them as they flailed wildly, getting in line with one of the survivors.  She pointed at a man rushing away from them, and the deck under the man suddenly lurched and bucked.  The man was spilled to the deck, and he screamed only once when several lances of wood erupted from the deck and impaled him, lifting him about four spans off the deck as his blood poured down from him.  A man with an axe took a swing at the Faerie, who easily flowed to the side, then reached out and touched the man on the forehead with a surprisingly gentle touch.  The man looked at her curiously, then he began to scream horribly.

 Tarrin watched with revulsion as the man literally decayed right in front of him, his body melting away as if he were dead, and the march of days passed by in mere seconds.  The flesh wilted and melted from his bones, until those bones stood stock-still, and then they too disintegrated into dust.  When it was over, a pile of dust and a few wisps of hair were all that were left.

 A bolt of powerful lightning blasted through the fray, hitting only pirates, and Tarrin glanced at its source and smiled.  Dolanna stood confidently behind Faalken, fire limning one hand as her Knight used his sword and shield and years of training to fend off four opponents, confidently keeping them back, killing one with a quick slash of his broadsword, until Dolanna was ready to strike again.  The flame around her hand compressed into a small ball of blazing orange light, and she stepped around the Knight and hurled it back over the rail and into the opposing ship.  It hit the mast and exploded violently, billowing out into a huge ball of angry, hellish fire, blackening the mast and the deck and setting fire to the ropes and rigging.

 Surrounded by magicians, the remaining pirates began to attempt to retreat, but they found themselves cut off by Tarrin and Camara Tal.  Not defending anyone, the pair moved freely through the battleground at will, striking and killing whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Tarrin's superior strength and speed felled his opponents quickly and efficiently, but the Amazon proved that she was more than a match for any two-copper pirate, wielding her bastard sword in her hands with a confidence that unnerved her opponents, then killing them when their eyes wandered over her body.  When she took one hand off that sword, however, the real fireworks went off, because that heralded another spell.  Camara Tal wielded her priest magic in conjunction with her sword, and it made her devastating.  Her spells were quick and they weren't destructive, usually aimed at only one man, but they never failed to cause him to either go down or be distracted until she got around to killing him.

 Tarrin smacked a sword aside and almost casually drove his claws through the man's throat, making him stagger back as his lifeblood poured onto the deck, but he was smashed down as the metallic Phandebrass clubbed him from behind.  "I say, lad, quite an experience!" he said with a strange excitement in his voice, turning and letting a man hit him with his sword.  It made a steely clang when it hit him, and the mage simply waggled his finger at the man and raised his arms, shouting "Booga booga booga!"  The man's eyes widened in horror, and he turned and tried to flee back to his own burning ship, but Camara Tal swung her sword into his belly as he tried to rush past Tarrin in terror of the mage.  He was literally picked up off his feet by the Amazon's power, flying to the deck some spans away, where his bowels spilled out onto the deck in a gory spray.

 "Stop playing, Wizard!" Camara Tal snapped.

 "Yes ma'am," Phandebrass said in a teasing voice, turning and sweeping the back of his fist into the face of a man that was rushing him from the side.  The man's head was stopped by the blow, but his body kept coming forward, sliding under the mage's arm and putting his flat on his back on the deck, out cold.  Tarrin stabbed a man in the chest with his staff as he approached, impaling him, the drug the body with him as he turned his weapon and crushed the skull of another man trying to flee from the battle around them.  One man ran in circles screaming as the two drakes harassed him, biting at his head and tearing out his hair.  They had put out the man's eyes, and were harrying him until he went down.  But the man got a lucky strike in with his sword, hitting one of the drakes with the flat of his blade and knocking it to the deck.  Without thinking, Tarrin charged through the melee, knocking terrified pirates out of his way as the man's boots kept coming closer and closer to the drake's stunned form.  The little reptile was shaking its head to clear away the aftereffects of landing on its head.  No matter how much he didn't like them, at that moment, they were on the same side, and wasn't about to let it get hurt.

 The other drake gave out a startled hiss when Tarrin's staff impacted its victim dead in the side, sweeping the human away like so much mown wheat, and the Were-cat reached down and picked up the woozy drake with his other paw.  He kicked a human in the back as he backed towards him, his attention on Faalken, breaking his spine and sending him down to the deck in agony.  One pirate had gotten around Faalken and was threatening Dolanna, who faced off against the larger man with her hands coated in fire.  But the man had a wild look in his eye, the look of a man desperate enough to attack even though he may die.  Tarrin reared back and threw his staff like a spear, whizzing it by Faalken and hitting the man high in the side.  It went right through him and drove into the sterncastle, skewering the man like a kabobed fish.  The sword fell from nerveless fingers, and he drooped on his impaling brace.  Another pirate rushed him desperately after he threw the staff, but Tarrin grabbed him by the neck before he could get close enough to use his axe and picked him up off the ground, then smashed him into the deck while still holding onto the drake with his other arm.

 A man fell just to the side of him, sword clattering to the deck, and Camara Tal came up beside him.  "Watch your back, boy," she said curtly, raising her sword against another pirate, a pirate who quickly turned and fled.  With Camara Tal, Tarrin, and Renoit's men in the middle of them, only Phandebrass stood between them and escape, and he couldn't get all of them.  They were harried from two sides, though, as Dolanna and Dar stepped up and used their Sorcery to begin throwing sheets of fire into the enemy ship, setting it on fire and making sure that the pirates returned to a doomed vessel.  "Cut the grapples!" Camara Tal boomed.  "Tarrin, get that harpoon out of the stern!"

 Tarrin nodded and darted away, running up the sterncastle and to the steering deck.  The other drake followed him intently, and when he got to the stern rail, he realized that he was still carrying the drake.  "Here," he said, setting the injured reptile on the deck.  "Go find a safe place to hide."  Then he went over the rail and used his claws to climb down to the large ballista bolt, which still had the chain running from it to the other ship.  Tarrin dug his claws into the wood and grabbed the bolt, then pulled on it with all his might.  But it wouldn't budge.  The head of the bolt was wedged into to the wood of the stern, penetrating to the cabin behind it.  Tarrin let go with both paws and grabbed the shaft, pushing with his legs.  He knew it would send him into the water when it gave way, but there wasn't much choice in the matter.  He pulled at it, straining against it as his legs pushed against the stern, and he heard the wood begin to crack.  A split second later, the bolt tore free, sending Tarrin catapulting away from the ship as he carried the bolt with him.

 The water was surprisingly warm.  He swam up to the surface and to the stern, then hooked his claws into it and climbed out of the sea.  The smell of the salt water clung to him as he ascended the stern, looking to see the burning pirate ship fall behind Dancer, those men remaining fighting to put out the fires.  When he got back to the sterncastle, Renoit was there again with a pilot, who was turning the ship away from the burning freebooter.  The two drakes sat near the rail calmly, one hovering protectively over the other, who still seemed to be a little dazed.  "Tarrin, lad, not a good time for a swim, no?" Renoit said with a broad grin.

 "It washed off the blood if nothing else," he replied.  "I got that harpoon out of the ship.  Are we clear?"

 "Clear, yes," he replied as his performers flooded into the rigging and quickly set the sails to get them away from the pirate.  "Your friends sent the pirates running away like rabbits.  Those that live are being put over on an old longboat we can afford to lose.  Quite a show, that was, yes.  I should carry more magic-users with me."

 "They do make things different," Tarrin agreed, shaking some of the water off of himself and throwing his braid back over his shoulder.  "Is everyone alright?"

 "I haven't had time to check, but by looking, I say yes," he replied.  "I see no friends laying on the deck.  I do see some bandages, though."

 Tarrin felt something up against his leg.  He looked down and saw the dazed drake huddled up against his leg as the other stayed close to it.  That surprised him, for he didn't like the drakes, and they weren't that fond of him either.  The poor thing was shaking; it must have been hurt more than Tarrin first thought.  He was silently impressed at the two little reptiles, who would so brazenly attack a human being, who would fight such huge opponents to help defend the ship.  Impulsively, he reached down and picked it up, cradling it in his arm, putting a paw over its winged back protectively to calm it.  The other one beat its wings against the air to take off, then landed lightly on his shoulder and looked down at its injured companion.

 "The war must be over," Renoit said with a chuckle, looking at the small reptile in his arms.

 "At least until it feels better," Tarrin grunted.

 "Funny.  You nearly killed it a few days ago, and now it clings to you."

 "I can't tell them apart," he said shortly.

 "The one you hold is Turnkey.  The one on your shoulder is Chopstick, yes."

 Tarrin and Renoit watched the burning pirate ship as their own vessel put some distance between them.  A rickety longboat holding the survivors was launched a short while later, and Tarrin watched as they rowed not towards the burning ship, but towards the southeast, probably towards some kind of base.  "That smoke will attract attention, Renoit," Dolanna told him as she, Faalken, and Camara Tal climbed up onto the steering deck.  "We should make all speed away from it."

 "We already are, Dolanna," the circus master replied calmly.

 "You're wet, boy," Camara Tal noted.

 "The ocean tends to be wet, Camara Tal," he replied cooly.  "Could someone go get Phandebrass?  I think this one needs him."

 "Let me see," Camara Tal said, coming over.  She grabbed her amulet with one hand and muttered under her breath, then placed her hand on the drake's small horned head.  Tarrin felt it shiver in his paws, and then it looked up at them with calm eyes, its shaking eased.  "All better now," Camara Tal said with surprising gentleness, considering that her deep bronze-colored body was spattered with blood.

 As if coming to its aid had broken the fear that they had for him, the drakes didn't immediately turn around and attack him.  The one in his arms was content to stay there, at least for the moment, and its companion sat easily on his shoulder.  Tarrin's hostility towards the drakes was centered mainly on the fact that they were hostile to him, so any animosity he felt for them drained away.

 Allia and Dar came up on the steering deck.  Dar looked a bit wild-eyed, but Allia's eyes were gloriously bright and energetic.  She hadn't had a chance to really exercise for a long time, and seeing her fight was like watching a master artisan sculpting a masterpiece.  The drake on his shoulder jumped off and flew over to her, landing in her hands and nearly cooing in delight when she began to pet it.

 "What happened, brother?" she asked curiously.

 "I had to pull that spear out of the ship," he replied.  "It was too deep to just pull out."

 "Ah.  Everyone is well, Renoit.  Only cuts and bruises."

 "Good," the portly circus master nodded.  "Now, let us run very fast."

 "That's a good idea," Camara Tal grunted.

 The battle with the pirates had opened Tarrin's eyes in two important ways.

 Firstly, he realized that all it would take was one act of faith.  The drakes taught him that.  Just once, he had to overcome his fear and reach out to those he wanted to call friend, just once he'd have to convince himself that his instincts were wrong.  The drakes had feared him because he was a predator, but his one act to protect them had convinced both of them that he wasn't an enemy.  They still weren't completely comfortable around him, but they no longer hissed at him or tried to bite him as they did before.  But knowing that was little comfort when he still had no way to overcome himself.  He still couldn't struggle with the fear, still had to retreat from it, every time he had it in his head to try to make that one success with Camara Tal, or with Phandebrass.  He was still too weak, but just knowing that it was only going to take one expression of faith bolstered him.  Trying to live through that kind of terror constantly would have driven him crazy.

 Secondly, he realized just how powerful magic really was.  Not just his own magic, any magic.  The five spellcasters on the ship had let a group of ten fighters overwhelm a force three times their number without a single fatality.  Granted, the inhuman abilities of Tarrin and Allia and the exceptional skill of Faalken and Camara Tal would have allowed them to win without magic, but some of the performers defending the ship would have been killed during the battle, if not one of them themselves.  Their magical power had overwhelmed the pirates from the beginning, had forced them to fight at a major disadvantage, if not culling down their numbers immediately to something the present warriors could manage.  Phandebrass pinning about half the pirates on their own ship had been critical to keep the defenders from being too seriously overwhelmed.  And the shock factor of the unusual magic both he and Camara Tal employed had confused and demoralized the opposition, throwing them into disarray and making it easier for them to be defeated.  The perfect example of the power of magic had been Dar, striking the first magical blow and immediately altering the flow of the battle in such a way that allowed Camara Tal to strike in the most devastating manner with her own magic.  Because of them, the battle had been won literally just as it began.

 Tarrin had been trying to ignore the power of magic because of his own unique situation.  His magic was incredibly powerful.  In fact, it was so powerful that he couldn't control it.  It was just as dangerous to him as it was to everyone around him, and that simple fact kept him as far away from it was possible.  It was literally the reason Sarraya was with them, to keep his power from overwhelming him and killing him.  His position made him want to stay away from magic, to stay away from the temptation to use it.  It was why he skipped the lessons that Dolanna taught to Allia and Dar.  He was a creature of impulse, and he knew that.  To put himself in an environment where he was constantly exposed to magic, his impulsive nature would overwhelm his common sense, and then he would die in a very painful manner.  Probably kill everyone within a longspan of him to boot.  Because he had some very dear friends and his sister closer than that to him, he would not take that risk.

 The battle with the pirates had intrigued him about magic once again, and not just his own.  He had never studied the other orders of magic as thoroughly as he should have, and that left a large void of understanding as to how they worked.  He may even be able to call on their magic in some minor way.  Tarrin knew that because he wasn't mortal, he could use more than just Sorcery, he just figured that his access to those other types of magic would be as restricted as the Priest magic granted to the katzh-dashi.  But he couldn't use Druidic magic, because that was an innate ability, just like Sorcery.  He couldn't use Priest magic, because his Goddess already told him she wouldn't give it to him.  That left Wizard magic, and so his attention had been affixed to Phandebrass.

 Phandebrass was an unusual person.  He had white hair and was very thin, making him look very old, but just one look at his face told the person that he was actually a man just going into middle age.  He was actually a rather attractive man, in Tarrin's opinion.  His doddering personality and infamous absent-mindedness reinforced the concept that he was old, maybe even senile, when it was just a simple matter of having too much on his mind to pay much attention to the real world.  Because the drakes no longer feared him, it allowed him to visit Phandebrass in his lab in the hold of the ship, a large room with tables bolted to the floor, and strange metal rails lining them and forming little areas where glass beakers and even stranger things stood on the tables, the rails keeping them from moving when the ship swayed.  Shelves had been built into the walls of the room for his many, many books, shelves with leather straps over the open areas to keep the books firmly secured.  Phandebrass had adapted well to the hold and the unique challenges working on a ship could pose.  He was working when Tarrin knocked and was bid to enter, carefully mixing a strange green liquid with what looked like water in a large glass beaker.  His two drakes were on a smaller table in the corner, eating from a pair of bowls.  "I say, come in, Tarrin," he said in his meandering voice, but his eyes were intent on the two beakers before him.  "Just be quiet a moment, if you please, and don't stomp around.  This is delicate."

 Tarrin stood in place and watched as the mage carefully mixed the two liquids, nearly drop by drop, until the liquid in the beaker on the table suddenly began to bubble and turn dark.  "There we are," Phandebrass said, mainly to himself, watching the bubbling reaction carefully.  The solution frothed violently, then seemed to stop with a suddenness that surprised him.  "Very good.  What did you want, my boy?" he asked, then he picked up the strange foamed mixture, and to Tarrin's shock, began to drink it.

 Whatever he was doing, he must know what he was doing, Tarrin decided after watching him imbibe the entire contents of the beaker.  "I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your magic."

 "Oh?  And what did you want to know?" he asked, setting the beaker down.

 "Just how it works, I guess.  I've never seen wizard magic in use before until the battle, and I didn't realize it was so--"

 "Versatile?  Yes, that's the power of Wizardry, my boy.  Our spells are very wide-ranging.  There's a spell for nearly anything you can think of."

 "How does it work?"

 Phandebrass laughed.  "That, my boy, is something that takes years to learn," he replied.  "There's more to it than jabbering strange words and making pretzels of your fingers.  You have to have the concentration to control the power you create, or it will blow up in your face."

 "I learned a little about Wizard magic in the Tower.  That rod of steel you used, that was a material con- component?"

 Phandebrass nodded.  "Some spells need the presence of an item or material to act as a catalyst for the magic.  Most components are consumed in the casting of the spell."

 "Why?"

 Phandebrass stared at him, and then he laughed.  "You can't have something for nothing, my boy.  A mage sometimes has to give to receive his magic.  Every spell a mage casts requires that the mage give a little something, if only his breath and a little bit of his energy.  Most of the stronger spells demand something a bit more than that, though.  That means that for some spells, we have to find the right materials to make it work right.  Some of them can be very expensive."

 "Huh," Tarrin mused, looking at the beakers on the table.  "Dolanna told me that wizards receive their magic from an elsewhere, a place not of our world.  Is that what you learned?"

 "I know where my magic comes from, my boy," Phandebrass smiled.  "Wizards tap the energies of the Energy Realms for their magic.  All our power comes from those two dimensions.  There's the Realm of Light, which is positive energy, and the Realm of Darkness, which is negative energy.  A spell is just that raw energy shaped into a specific effect.  A great deal how your Sorcery works.  You take the raw energy of your spheres and shape it into a specific effect.  We do the same, just with one type of energy rather than several."

 "One?  You said you tapped two powers."

 "There are two powers, I say, but no spell taps them both at the same time.  They would cancel each other out, my boy.  A spell is made up of either positive energy or negative energy, depending on what the spell does."

 "What would a negative energy spell be?"

 "Well, let's see," he pondered.  "A spell of darkness is negative energy.  There's a spell to conjure the voices of the dead--any spell dealing with Necromancy is negative energy--and a spell to suck the energy right out of someone.  I say, generally any spell that takes away, drains, or reduces something is negative energy.  Battlemagic like fire and explosions, spells that grant the recepient of the spell limited magical abilities, things like that, that's positive energy.  You're not draining, you're adding.  The spell where I turned myself to steel is a positive energy spell.  It's a spell of Transmutation."

 "Trans-what?"

 "You have your spheres, my boy," Phandebrass chuckled.  "We mages divide up our spells into categories that define what they do.  There's Transmutation, changing one thing to another, there's Abjuration, spells of protection, there's Evocation, spells that summon energy in one form or another, which is the majority of wizard battlemagic, there's Charming, using spells to affect the mind or emotions of a subject, there's Enchantment, that imbues magical energy on mundane objects, and there's Necromancy, using magic to interact with the dead."

 "I heard about Necromancy.  It gives your group a bad reputation."

 "Some use it in ways I don't approve, my boy, but all power is as good or as bad as the reasons behind using it.  There are Necromancy spells that are very beneficial, but I must admit that even I know some that most people would consider ghastly."

 "Like what?"

 "Like a spell that imbues animate force in dead bodies, making them zombies," he replied.  "I say, I don't much like Necromancy, but I'll learn the spells even if I have no intent to use them.  It's knowledge, and a man can  never know enough."  He set his beaker down.  "That Doomwalker is the result of a Necromancy spell."

 Tarrin's ears picked up, and he regarded Phandebrass intently.  "How much do you know about that?"

 "Enough to know to stay out of its way, my boy," the mage replied.  "Doomwalkers are not to be tested."

 "Can I make it just die?"

 "I say, I'm afraid not, my boy," he replied.  "The wizard who summoned it has hold of the Doomwalker's soul, and it's doing what the summoner impels it to do, because its very soul hangs in the balance.  Destroy it, and the Doomwalker's bound soul can make it animate the nearest available suitable corpse.  If you totally destroy the current host body, it is forced back into its prison vessel, and has to be conjured again."

 "So that's why it took so long to come back," Tarrin mused.  "I totally destroyed it the first time with magic, but the last time, Triana just killed it.  That means that it's close to me again, right?"

 Phandebrass nodded.  "It probably took it about a tenday to find a new body suitable for its needs and re- animate.  Then it had to find suitable weapons to deal with you.  It can't just create magical weapons, it had to go find one.  You know how rare those are.  That explains why we didn't see it in Shoran's Fork.  It wasn't ready to tackle you again."

 "Do you know any spells to get rid of it?"

 Phandebrass shook his head.  "Doomwalkers are a creation of Wizard magic, so they can't be affected by Wizard magic.  Other orders of magic can affect them, but a Doomwalker's magical nature makes it very hard to affect with any type of magic.  The only way to permanently kill it is to take or destroy the soul prison the conjuring mage uses to trap its soul.  When you face it again, I highly suggest you destroy it, my boy.  Send it back to its creator.  That will give you more time before you have to face it again."

 "It's good, Phandebrass.  I usually don't have many options when I face it."

 "Then don't face it alone, my boy," the mage said calmly.  "You have a good many people around you that will help you deal with it, deal with anything.  Why you don't accept their aid boggles me sometimes."

 The simple effectiveness of his statement struck Tarrin hard, but it was something that he had faced himself long ago.  He wouldn't involve others in his personal battles because he wouldn't risk their lives.  Miranda had proved to him that if he lost someone close to him, he wouldn't survive the rage that would result.  Keeping his friends and sisters out of harm's way was as much an act of self- preservation as it was keeping them safe.

 "It's an act of preservation, Phandebrass," he replied quietly.  "Mine as well as theirs.  Remember what happened when Miranda and Sisska were hurt?"

 Phandebrass looked at him, then nodded in understanding.  "I say, I guess I should have just asked," he said with a wry smile.

 "That does work," Tarrin agreed.

 "I say, my boy, I need to do some mixing, and it's something of a delicate nature.  If you're willing to keep quiet, you're welcome to stay, but I can't afford any distractions.  A moment's distraction could cause it to explode."

 "That's alright.  If you're going to do something that serious, it'd be best if I leave."

 "I say, take Turnkey and Chopstick with you," he said.  "They sometimes don't understand that bothering me while I work is dangerous."

 "Alright, I guess," he said.  "Where did you find them?"

 "Drakes inhabit the southern areas of Nyr and northern Sharadar.  I found them as babies while I was searching for certain rare mosses that only grow in the forested regions of Telluria, after their mother was killed by an eagle.  I raised them myself," he said proudly.  "Chopstick, Turnkey, go out and play," the mage ordered the two green scaly reptiles.  "Go on now," he shooed at them.  "I'll be out in a while."

 "They understand you?"

 "Sometimes, they seem to," he replied.  "Drakes are very intelligent.  Some say as smart as people, but I haven't gotten around to studying them yet.  They're relatives of dragons, you know."

 "Dragons?  I thought they were just fairy tales."

 "They were very real, my boy," he replied.  "Legend says they died in the Breaking, since they were so magical.  I've seen some skeletons of dragons.  They have one on display in the Cathedral of Knowledge in Sharadar, and I stumbled on another in a cave some ten years ago."

 "Huh," Tarrin mused.  "I'd love to see that."

 "It was most impressive.  Its legbone is taller than a man.  It was hundreds of longspans long, with a wingspan longer than this ship.  A truly magnificent creature."

 "That's big," Tarrin agreed.  "It must have preyed on Rocs."

 "Probably," Phandebrass agreed.  "See you later, my boy.  I have to do this today, and I can't stand around and jabber anymore.  We'll talk again later."

 The talk with Phandebrass had been productive.  The doddering mage was very intelligent, and if anything, having a better understanding about Jegojah made it worth his while.  So, the Doomwalker was being forced to do what it was doing.  That only made sense, going on what he knew of it.  It spoke of honor and fought bravely, and that didn't seem right for someone who was enjoying what it was doing.  It was doing what it was being forced to do, and that was something that Tarrin with which could identify.  He actually felt a little sorry for it.  Having one's soul dragged from the Final Rest and being forced to do the bidding of another, that was slavery at its ultimate and most vile level.  It made it no less dangerous, but Tarrin could sympathize with it.  By now, Jegojah was probably taking his defeats personally.

 He sheparded the drakes outside, where they began to fly around the rigging, and found himself staring at Camara Tal.  The Amazon had her back to him, and a bare back told him that she had her haltar off on the middle of the deck.  The men around her were having a hard time not staring as she seemed to be fixing the garment, then shrugged it back on.  Tarrin himself was rather indifferent about nudity because of who and what he was, and it seemed that the Amazons were much the same.  She was lacing up the front of it as she turned and nodded to him.  "It's about time, boy," she told him.  "I'm ready to start the lessons again."

 "Begging your pardon, Mistress Tal, but I need to talk to the lad, yes," Renoit broke in as he came down off the steering deck.

 "What about, Renoit?" Tarrin asked.

 "Tarrin, I hoped to sneak you through without making you perform with the troupe, yes, but I think that maybe you should have a skill, just in case," he explained.  "I talked with Faalken about you, and he said that your marksmanship with a bow is exceptional.  I have seen you take the human shape, yes, so you could handle a bow.  Do you think you could turn this skill into an act?  I assure you, I will not use it unless we are forced to," he said quickly.  "But if demands to see you perform are made, you must be ready to carry out, yes."

 "I'm no sharpshooter, Renoit, and it's been nearly a year since I've so much as picked up a bow," Tarrin protested.

 "Give yourself some credit, Tarrin," Faalken said as he came over from the other strongmen.  "I've seen you shoot.  Any man that can peg a bull's-eye from two hundred paces is a sharpshooter."

 "But I can't do it every time," he protested anew.  "If you make me shoot, I'll have to do tricks, and I was never taught anything like that."

 "You have seen my dancers, lad, yes," Renoit soothed.  "They are demonstrators, nothing more.  I have my strongmen who also demonstrate fighting styles of the world.  You will demonstrate the use of the bow.  As long as you are consistent, then it is all I need, yes."

 "The lad's competent in the Ungardt Ways, Renoit," Faalken mentioned.  "Could he do that instead?"

 "Uh, no," Tarrin said.  "I'd have to work with someone else, and I'd rather not risked getting punched in the mouth and losing my temper."

 "Good point," Faalken grunted.

 "Well, lad, can you hit a target from long distances?" Renoit asked.

 "Yes, I can."

 "Can you hit a moving target from short or medium range?"

 "I used the bow to hunt, Renoit, I'd better be able to hit a moving target."

 "Then that's all I need, yes.  Just humor me and practice with the bow while we travel.  I will not use you unless we have no choice in the matter, but this way we will be ready, yes.  Best safe than sorry."

 Tarrin couldn't really refute the man's logic.  Just in case, it was a good idea for Tarrin to have a skill to fall back on.  The bow would let him work alone, removing the risk of him losing control of himself, and he was a pretty good shot with a bow.  He doubted that he had the skill to be a circus performer, but if all Renoit wanted was someone that could shoot straight, that was something that he could do.  He was fairly certain that Renoit would see his practice and realize that he wouldn't be a good performer, and after all, if he wanted to avoid performing, all he had to do was change into a cat and not be seen in his humanoid form.  That was a solution that Renoit hadn't considered, most likely.

 "It's going to be tricky practicing on the deck of a ship," Tarrin said dubiously.  "The ship moves, there's people in the way, and I'll lose too many arrows.  I don't have a good bow, either."

 "Where is your bow?" Faalken asked.

 "Walten still has it," Tarrin replied.  "After this happened, I didn't see much need to keep it."

 "That's not a problem," Sarraya piped in, flitting up and landing lightly on Tarrin's shoulder.  "How long did you have the bow, Tarrin?"

 "Years," he replied.  "My father made it for me."

 "Easy enough.  Hold out your hands."

 "What?"

 "Just do it, Tarrin," Sarraya said winsomely.  "Trust me."

 Tarrin wasn't sure what Sarraya wanted, so he held his paws out.  The Faerie left his shoulder and hovered just in front of his paws, and he felt her reach out with her power in a peculiar way.  She held her arms out to the sides of her body, and she actually began to glow with a very faint light.  Then she pointed at him, and to his surprise, his bow simply appeared in his hands.  It was his bow; its every curve and faint scratch were still intimately known to him.

 "Impressive," Faalken said appreciatively.  "How'd you do that, Sarraya?"

 "Magic, Faalken," the sprite teased with a grin.  "Druidic magic lets us conjure things.  We can also use it to summon an object intimately connected with someone, so long as it's not that large.  Tarrin's father made his bow, he owned it for a long time, and it's small enough to fit in his hands.  That connected it to him, and let me summon it to him."

 "Neat trick," he commended.

 "I've learned a few useful little tricks here and there," she said grandly.  "Here's another trick for you.  Hold it still, Tarrin," she commanded.  Tarrin did so, and the Faerie reached out and touched the bowstring.  His bow shimmered for just a second, then faded.  "There.  Now the bow and the bowstring can't break or be cut.  Just in case you want to use it with your paws," she told him with a smile.

 "That could be useful," Faalken chuckled.

 "Just trying to be more than a paperweight, Faalken," Sarraya told him.  Tarrin could sense the underlying need to make amends in her voice, one of her ways for atoning for what she did.  Tarrin could accept that.  Sarraya had started off on the wrong foot, but she was steadily working herself back into the good graces of those around her.  Just like Camara Tal and Phandebrass, Tarrin rather liked the little sprite.  She had gotten on his nerves, but he'd felt that way about nearly all his friends here and there.  It was part of his nature.  He still didn't trust her, though.  He pulled on the bowstring tentatively, feeling its familiar pull, a pull that felt much weaker now that he was so much stronger.  He extended a claw and put its cutting edges right on the bowstring and tried to sever it, but true to her word, the bowstring would not cut.

 "Thanks," Tarrin said, nearly involuntarily.  "It'd feel weird using some other bow."

 "You're welcome, Tarrin," she replied.

 "Well, I guess you can practice the bow while I teach you," Camara Tal said after a moment.

 "I'll conjure you some arrows, Tarrin," Sarraya promised.  "They won't have steel heads, but I can weight the front of them to simulate that.  That way you'll have an unlimited supply."

 "I guess that would work," Tarrin said, but he privately worried that being exposed to both Camara Tal and Sarraya may be too much for his nerves.  Especially since they didn't seem to get along with each other.  Well, scratching them up a bit would convince them to be civil in his presence, and he wasn't going to give up on learning how to accept them.

 He'd have to wait and see.

©2000, James Galloway. All Rights Reserved.