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Chapter 7

The typical norm for a family about to embark on a journey would be chaos. Parents would be running around in a vain attempt to lacate everything that was intended to be taken, while the children conveniently moved the very things the parents searched for, with the youthful idea that they were "helping." The children would further complicate things by interrupting the parents during their searches for needed items with whining requests and petulant demands to take things that the child would both not need and not have room for in his or her pack. The more useless the object, the more adamant the child would become about taking it along. The family would adhere to the great ancient rules of preparation for a journey, and those were that the earlier they started preparing, the later they would manage to get going; the less they were taking, the harder it would be to find it all; and no matter how many times the packs and gear that were being taken were checked to ensure that everything was there, something important would manage to escape the packs and hide somewhere in the house, usually--and suspiciously--replaced with something totally trivial belonging to a child that had been told could not be taken with them.

Those were the normal rules, but the Kaels were not a family that really bothered to follow the rules. They really didn't even know what the rules were,and even if they did, they would arrogantly conclude that such stupid rules did not apply to them. Unlike thousands of households the world over, the day of the Kael departure was one marked with calm serenity and remarkable nonchalance. Unlike most families, the Kaels had an overwhelming advantage in Tarrin and Jasana, and that was the ability to Conjure. They didn't have to pack, simply because the father and daughter could instantly summon forth anything the family owned on demand. Because of that, there really wasn't any preparation involved at all for their trip. They didn't have to worry about packs, they didn't have to worry about horses, they didn't have to worry about the weather. It was going to be a trip of complete ease and comfort for them, for they were going to travel through the power of Tarrin's magic.

The only thing that came close to preparation was Kimmie. For the first time, Kimmie was ready to take her twin blue-eyed daughters out of the house and introduce them to some of the others in Tarrin's world that had yet to come and visit at the house. Besides, she was very good friends with Camara Tal, and had promised to bring the twins to Amazar and introduce them to the others. They were now about nine months old, and they were fully ambulatory. Both could walk, though they weren't very good at it yet, and both had started talking much the way that Tarrin had remembered Thel Dalton's young son down in the village when he was about fourteen. Thel's son, Berton, spoke in a kind of mish-mash that was hard to understand for one who had no experience with it, but if one had enough patience, one could make out the words that were being spoken. Tara had a vocabulary of about two hundred words, but Rina seemed to have a much more broad base of language skills. She couldn't say as many words as she could understand, but she could speak nearly four hundred, half in Sulasian and half in Torian. It wasn't that Tara was dumb, Kimmie supposed that Rina had inherited her father's unusual gift for languages.

More and more, the twins were defining themselves. Tara was more brooding and aggressive, kind of like Tarrin, but Rina was sweet and gentle and lovable, just like her mother. But Rina showed traits from Tarrin, like the language gift, and Tara showed traits from her mother when she was content and happy, showing peeks of the gentleness that so defined Kimmie when she seemed to have nothing to complain about, hinting that her aggressiveness was more bluster and show than it was seated personality. The fact that they could walk now meant that they had to be watched absolutely every second, because both had a penchant for getting into anything that they shouldn't be fooling with. They truly weren't infants anymore. They were toddlers now, very precocious toddlers that were a real handful. If it wasn't for Jula, poor Kimmie would probably have been driven crazy by them months ago.

The only time they ever seemed to behave was when Tarrin or Triana were in the room. Jula jokingly concluded that it was that strange aura of unshakable power that surrounded the two of them, that radiance of absolute authority that quelled the mischievious bent in the toddlers, but seemed to have little effect on Eron or Jasana. When both Kimmie and Jula were at wit's end with them, they dropped them in Tarrin's lap and went to have a cup of nerve-soothing tea and let their father deal with them.

Tara and Rina were the only Were-cat twins in the world, and seeing how Were-cat children were, Tarrin reasoned that things were that way because any more than one would drive the mother to irrational, desperate actions to control them. Were-cats were too wild to have to deal with any more than one child at any given time.

They woke up around sunrise and while Tarrin and Jesmind cooked breakfast, Jasana helped Jula and Kimmie get the twins ready for the journey. Not that it would be much of a journey. They would Teleport to Suld, pick up Allia and Allyn, Keritanima and Rallix, Miranda and the Vendari, Dar and Tiella, Phandebrass and Sarraya, Triana, and Jenna and Ianelle, along with a handful of Knights that would escort the Keeper and Ianelle, most prominent among them being Azakar. Ianelle had been to the Tower in Sharadar before, so she and Jenna would Circle, and Ianelle would transport them there. Once there, he was told, Alexis Firehair, Queen of Sharadar and Keeper of the Tower there, had some kind of mysterious surprise in store for them regarding the remaining journey to Amazar. The fact that Jenna had found out that Alexis had been in communication with Phandebrass for some month or so now made all of them more than a little nervous. Alexis Firehair was something of an unpredictable woman, he had come to learn. She was smart and cautious in politics, but she had a flair for the dramatic and a tendency to come up with some pretty unusual ideas. The fact that she consulted Phandebrass, probably the most unconventional human being on the face of the planet, did not bode well. With their luck, they'd be riding winged slugs that left a glittering trail of slime that hovered in the sky as they made their way the thousand or so leagues north-northwest between Sharadar and the islands of Amazar. Alexis would find such a thing to be wildly funny and more than appropriate.

Where Phandebrass was involved, anything was possible.

But that was nothing that a few hundred stone-weight of Conjured salt wouldn't fix.

After a hearty breakfast, Kimmie fought to get Tara into some new clothes, or more to the point, battled her daughter over wearing a dress. Kimmie had an almost instinctive need to dress her little girls in the most frilly, lacy, ridiculously overdecorated dresses she could make. Rina had taken to dresses immediately, thinking them to be quite pretty, but Tara would have absolutely nothing to do with it, tearing them off of herself whenever Kimmie managed to ram one down over her head. Tarrin had seen this played out before, and knew that Tara was going to win this fight, as she always did. She simply ripped the dress apart, and when Kimmie ran out of dresses, she would be resigned to let Tara wear her favorite buckskin breeches and a sleeveless half-shirt. Kimmie would always glare murderously at Tarrin after these battles over raiment and tersely inform him that his daughter was absolutely incorrigible.

That behavior never failed to amuse Tarrin, and make him wonder a little bit. Jula, who had been human much longer than both Tarrin and Kimmie, did not wear dresses. In fact, she avoided them whenever possible, and in a way, he knew why she did it. They were reminders of a past that was no longer hers, a poignant memory of what had been that she had to distance herself from. She would look at Kimmie's dresses with undisguised longing when she thought nobody was looking at her, but she was afraid to wear one, fearing that it would start her back down the slippery slope that led to madness. She had been forced to abandon most of what she loved and take up entirely different habits, but it was how she kept her balance, so Tarrin didn't interfere with it. It was easy to forget that Jula was still very new to her Were-cat condition, and that newness required her to be very careful in certain regards else she would threaten to destabilize her tentative mental balance. In time, however, she would mellow out, and probably would be more than comfortable in a dress once again. All she needed was a little time.

He was impressed with his bond-daughter. She had adapted, and adapted rather well. She had found something of a niche in his family, and had even found acceptance with Jesmind and Mist, which was surprising. Mist actually liked Jula, and that was saying something. But behind it all was still the same human woman he knew from the Tower, just without some of her more backbiting habits. Her human personality had managed to survive, quite strongly, in fact, and her intelligent mind and the fact that she was da'shar always gave him someone in the house to talk to that would understand many of the things he talked about. She was a very good student, having learned nearly half of what he intended to teach her, and more than that, she was a very good friend. She understood him because she saw things the same way he did--up to a point, since Tarrin was so totally grounded in his Were nature that it was like he was a natural-born Were-cat--and was a part of the world of Sorcery, which gave him both someone to teach and someone to debate with. Jula had been a very good Sorcerer in her day, before becoming Were, and now that she had Druidic talent as well, it augmented and amplified her Sorcery by an impressive amount. The fact that she had crossed over and become da'shar made her that much stronger.

At the breakfast table, Jasana yawned, showing off her impressive little fangs, and watched as Kimmie continued to try to get Tara into a dress, trying to muster up all the parental authority she possessed, which Tara absolutely ignored. "Why does she bother?" Jasana asked idly, taking another bite of her venison stew. "She knows she's not going to win. She never does."

"I guess it pleases her, somehow," Tarrin shrugged. "Don't ask me why." He looked down, and saw a tick attached to the back of her ear. "Been hunting again?" he asked, reaching down and using his claws to pinch the tiny parasite and pluck it from her.

"Where do you think this came from, Papa?" she asked with a sly smile.

"Getting in the way was more like it," Jesmind said calmly as she sat down beside him with a bowl. "Kimmie, just let her dress herself and get something to eat! We have to leave in a little bit!" she called.

"Not this time!" Kimmie said combatively. "It's about time you learn who's in charge here, little miss!" she said sternly to her daughter.

"I'd say Tara," Jasana said with a little giggle.

"Cub, be nice," Tarrin chided.

As everyone at the table knew, Kimmie lost that little skirmish, but vowed that the war would be hers. She finally relented to let Tara wear whatever she wanted, then got the two of them to the breakfast table along with Jula. "Did you finish what you were studying, father?" Jula asked him. He hadn't seen her since yesterday morning, as she'd went to Suld in the morning, then had spent the afternoon over in the village doing something for Garyth, the mayor. Probably adjusting or changing the Ward that still laid over the village. Jenna had been forced to bring it down after the war, but Garyth had asked if the Ward could be restored in order for it to repel insects. That was more than possible, and Tarrin had raised a new one in its stead that repelled insects. But they had found out that some insects were vital to their gardens, and many times either Tarrin or Jula had had to go down to the village and adjust the Ward to allow this or that insect into the village, until they finally gave up on figuring out what it would let in and changed it so it blocked only those insects it was designed to repel. That worked much better, and over the months, they had had to go down and adjust it to repel this or that insect, or go help with problems with blight or irrigation, just generally doing what they could with their Sorcery to help the village along as they could without having them come to depend on magic. Whenever the villagers asked for something outrageous, the Were-cats would flatly refuse. Tarrin didn't want to see the villages become like the Sha'Kar, weak and indulgent and totally dependent on their magical power. He tremendously respected the Sha'Kar for their abilities and culture, and was very good friends with several of them, but he still had trouble with that part of their society, as it went against everything he was taught about self-reliance and everything he believed in as a Were-cat.

He nodded to her absently. "Just finished yesterday morning. What did you do yesterday?"

"I went to Suld and picked up some things for Karn, then helped Garyth with what he thought were oversized gophers."

"Gophers?"

"He thought they were gophers at first, given all the holes in the fields. Turns out they were voraxes."

Tarrin frowned. Voraxes were small quadrupedal badger-like animals that weren't indiginous to the forest. They lived in the foothills just under the Skydancers, but had been migrating south for some reason. Voraxes looked like small badgers, about the size of a small dog, and they were extremely dangerous little animals. They had finger-long claws on their paws, nearly as big as their paws themselves, and they had an exceedingly hostile disposition. Voraxes were very much feared by the Dals because they were utterly fearless, they would attack anything in their territory no matter how big it was, and once they locked their jaws on something, they absolutely would not let go. Even if they were killed, they seemed to go into instant rigormortis, locking all their muscles, requiring the jaws to literally be cut apart in order to make it let go. Though their size made them easy to deal with--they could easily be stepped on by the average human--their dangerously aggressive disposition made dealing with them a very touchy undertaking. If one missed, the vorax would attack, and if it managed to get its jaws on its victim, that was it. Only cutting it off it would make it let go.

"What did you do?" Tarrin asked.

"Relocated them," she said with a slightly dangerous smile.

"Where?"

"Oh, let's just say that Shiika got an early birthday present," she said with an impish smile.

"Jula, you didn't! The Imperial Palace?"

"Well, I thought they'd like them over there," she said girlishly. "You know, similar mentalities. Voraxes would be Shiika's kind of pet."

Tarrin tried to give her a hot look, but the image of seeing Shiika and her Alu daughters dealing with a horde of mindlessly aggressive little wolverine-related creatures, their little jaws clamped onto various portions of the Succubus' ample anatomy, was just overwhelmingly funny. He laughed helplessly, then blew out his breath and scrubbed the back of his head with his claws. "If she finds out you did it, she's going to have your hide, cub," he warned.

"She'll never catch me," she winked.

"Girl, you've been hanging around Sarraya too much," he accused.

"We all have to play sometimes," she said with a wicked little smirk. "I just play mean games, that's all."

"I knew I had a reason to like you, big sister," Jasana laughed.

"Do you think you can teach me Duthak, father?" Jula asked politely.

"I made a book of what I did," he said absently. "I'll lend it to you."

"I was hoping you'd do it the other way," she said urgingly.

He glanced up at her. "No," he told her. "If you want it, work for it, cub. No free rides. Not after what I had to go through to learn it."

"You're so cruel to your daughters," she said with total insincerity.

"Deal with it."

After the meal, Tarrin and Kimmie cleaned up the kitchen as Jula and Jesmind went around and made sure the house was ready to stand empty for a few days. Tarrin's parents were going to come over every day or so and make sure everything was alright for them, so there wasn't all that much to do. The magic of the house would repel any kind of hostile invader or vermin, as the direct hand of Niami, the Goddess of Magic, was laid protectively over the little meadow that held Tarrin's precious home. Add to that that the meadow was considered holy ground to Fae-da'Nar, as it was the chosen ground of a Druid, and that made it almost inviolate. Tarrin had to nudge a toddler out from underfoot every once in a while, but that stopped the instant Tara tried to climb up the back of his trousers. Her little claws weren't that long, but they had no trouble digging painfully into the skin on the backs of his legs. A few scolding words chased both cubs away from their parents, back out into the common room, letting them finish cleaning up.

After that was done, there really was nothing holding them back anymore, outside of the early hour. It was not long after sunrise there at the house, but the sun was just rising at the Tower, and it was the middle of the night in Wikuna. Conversely, it was approaching midday over in the desert, so organizing a schedule hadn't been that easy. It agreed that they would meet at two hours before the midday bell, which was a generally decent hour for everyone involved. It wasn't terribly late for Allia, wasn't ridiculously early for Keritanima, and was just about right for everyone in the West. That meant that they had a few hours to go, but then again, that time would easily be spent at the Tower, catching up with Dar and Azakar. Dar had returned to the Tower yesterday, so Jula told him, hopping mad and about ready to kill his mother. Azakar had never left the Tower, staying with the Knights.

"Well, everything's ready," Jesmind announced as she and Jula came downstairs.

"Fine, let's go," he said, picking up Tara absently before she could start climbing up his leg again.

Before they could leave, they all used the magical gateway arch to travel to the farm of his parents, the place where Tarrin grew up. He never failed to feel a little nostalgic any time he came to the farm, seeing the old barn and the brewhouse and the old farmhouse. He and Jenna had grown up quite happily on this secluded farmstead, and it always felt like a home to him, even now. Strange, he mused, that the likes of him and Jenna would have their beginnings here, on this most isolated of isolated holdings, outside of the most remote village in all of Sulasia, maybe even all of the West.

Or perhaps, he thought seriously, where better a place to hide them from potential enemies than the absolute fringe of civilization, a place so remote that those few that actually knew it was here wouldn't be able to find it even if they were given directions?

After a brief farewell with his parents, and a promise to bring back some interesting recipes from Amazar for his mother to try out (and a promise to procure an Amazon's haltar for his father, a promise that earned both of them a slap on the back of the head from his mother), they gathered by the sheep pen, and Tarrin Teleported them to Suld.

As he always did, Tarrin chose to appear in the courtyard. That had nothing to do with a need to visit the place or gaze lovingly at the icon of the Goddess, it was grounded in good old fashioned caution. If there was a person or a thing occupying the space into which Tarrin tried to Teleport, it would kill them both, so Tarrin made sure to Teleport to the one place on the Tower grounds he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt was not occupied. That rule didn't seem to make much sense to Tarrin, as he knew that Teleportation wasn't moving into that space over there, it was an exchange of spaces between the origin and the destination. Logic declared, at least to him, that the poor bugger in the destination space should be picked up and moved to the origin, literally changing positions with him when the spaces were exchanged. But despite that bout of logic, it didn't work that way. Tarrin had never asked the Goddess just why that was so, mainly because he doubted that he'd understand her explanation. He remembered rather ruefully back to his initial training, when Dolanna had told him that magic adhered to its own rules, and those rules weren't entirely logical.

Given that the deity controlling magic was female, the fact that it wasn't a logical force was in its own manner a logical observation.

Oh, you're going to get it for that, kitten, the Goddess warned playfully in the recesses of his mind.

After a moment to adjust to the fact that the sun was much closer to the horizon over here, still hidden behind the shrub walls of the maze, Tarrin looked around and saw that everything was exactly where it should be. "I hope Jenna's up," Tarrin mused as they started towards the exit.

"Come on, my mate," Jesmind scoffed. "You think she'd oversleep today? She's been looking forward to this for months."

"She's not the only one," Jasana said eagerly. "I just wish Eron could come."

"When Mist says no, she means no," Kimmie grunted. "I just wish she hadn't thrown that meat cleaver. It put a new part in my hair."

"If there's one thing about Mist, it's that life is never boring with her around," Jula noted sagely.

"Too right," Jesmind growled.

Jenna was indeed up, taking breakfast in the parlor of her apartment with Dar and Tiella. Dar looked a little taller, Tiella looked absolutely radiant, and Jenna looked a little sleepy. Tarrin could tell from one look and one whiff of Dar's scent that the young man was seething over something that had happened, and though he greeted Tarrin with sincere affection and exuberance, taking Tarrin's paw and shaking it with a big smile on his face, but that festering anger did not disappear. "Good grief, are these the same babies I saw just a few months ago?" Dar asked in surprise after hugging Jasana, looking at Tara and Rina, the blue-eyed twins who were holding onto each of Kimmie's paws. "What are you feeding them, Kimmie?"

Kimmie laughed and swatted him lightly with her tail, since both paws were full. "Do you remember Dar, cubs?" Kimmie asked them. "He's one of your uncles."

Tara gave Dar a somewhat flat look that made the young man a bit nervous to approach, but Rina giggled and held out her paw palm up, then pivoted it back and forth like a pendulum.

"She remembers!" Dar said in surprise, then he laughed. "Uh, which one is she again?"

"This is Tara, and this is Rina," Kimmie said, holding up a paw slightly with the recitation with each name.

"You must be losing your touch, Dar," Jasana told him with a wicked grin. "You could tell them apart when they were babies."

"That was before Kimmie fed them fertilizer," Dar said off-handedly.

Tarrin hugged his sister fondly, and saw the beaming grin on her face. "What's got you so ecstatic, sis?" he asked.

"I finished the book," she told him with a dazzling smile.

"Well, it's about time," he teased. "You've been at it for what, a year now?"

"You know how much I had to write down, you ingrate?" she flared, then she laughed. "So, you want to read it now, or later?"

"I'll just steal it when you're not looking," he said with a sly half-smile. "That makes it more fun."

"You!" she said, slapping him on the arm. "Are you hungry? There's room at the table for more."

"We already ate, Jenna," Tarrin told her. "Tiella, how are you?" he asked, reaching past Jenna and taking his friend's hand. He knew that Tiella was a little intimidated by Jesmind and the other Were-cats. Though she had been inducted into the inner circle by virtue of marriage to Dar, she hadn't gotten used to it yet. It was quite a change in someone's life, given the kind of people who shared that inner circle with her.

"I've been doing alright, Tarrin," she answered, a bit shyly. "How have things been in Aldreth?"

"That never changes," he chuckled. "Has Dar killed his mother yet?"

Tiella laughed, showing some of her usual personality for a brief moment. "Not yet, but he's not the one that's been out for her head. He's had to hold me back a few times."

"I can imagine," Tarrin chuckled, turning a chair around and sitting on it so the back of it was in front of him. He put his forearms on the back of it and leaned against them. "What did she do this time? I can smell some serious anger on Dar."

"Dar's father is very distantly related to the Emperor," she answered. "She used those family contacts to get a letter of request in front of him, asking that I be exiled from Arkis and declared an outlaw."

"An outlaw? What law did you break?" he asked with a smile.

"I guess taking her little baby away from her," she said with a sour frown. "Dar's mother is a total shrew, Tarrin. She's been after him since we went to Arkis to give up the katzh-dashi, dump me, and marry this horse-ugly woman from a family across town. I swear, old friend, the woman looks like a crossbreed between a horse and a Dargu. Dar hates her and his mother knows it, but she's decided that that's what's best for him, so she won't listen to reason."

"Where's his father in all this?"

"Staying neutral," she replied. "Remember, he has to live with that spiteful old hag, so he's being careful not to stir the pot."

"Hmph," Jesmind snorted. "Dar should just kill her."

"He's getting close to it, Mistress Jesmind," Tiella said carefully, and not a little nervously, given that Jesmind had directly addressed her. "This business with trying to bring the Emperor into it was the last straw for him. He disowned his parents just before we came back to Suld."

"I didn't think a child could disown parents," Tarrin chuckled.

"Well, Dar did," she said proudly to him. "Then we got married in this nice little chapel in a small village by the sea, a place called Calm Waters. It was a lovely little place."

"I thought the Priests of Mikaras wouldn't marry you."

"When Dar disowned his parents, they couldn't raise any legal objections," she answered. "That parental consent had been what was standing in the way."

"But Dar's a grown man!" Tarrin said in surprise.

"Things work differently in Arkis, my friend," she reminded him. "There, anyone of nobility has to have official parental consent to marry, no matter how old they are. Dar's father is only a baronet, the lowest rung of the ladder, but Dar still had to have his parents' approval."

"Well, I'm happy to hear that you got everything sorted out, but why is Dar still angry?" he asked.

"Now his mother is trying to have Dar's disowning invalidated," she answered. "She had an absolute tizzy fit when she found out we got married. She's not going to give up until either I leave him or she's dead, and I'm not about to leave my husband anytime soon," she flared with sudden heat.

"Don't worry about that, Tiella," Jenna said absently as she poured more tea. "I'll take care of it."

"But Keeper, it's not right that--"

"Stuff it, Tiella," she cut her off. "You're from my home village and a good friend, Dar is like a brother to me, and that makes you my sister. I don't ignore family. When I'm done with Dar's mother, she's going to wish she never turned her back on you."

Tiella looked at her, then giggled. "Well, if it's going to cause that old bat to have another tizzy, then I'm not going to say a word."

"She'll be clawing the walls and chewing on the furniture. I guarantee it."

"You have to watch Jenna, Tiella. She can be a spiteful witch when she wants to be," Tarrin told her.

"How are things back at the farm?" Dar asked curiously.

Tarrin told him about Mist's departure, and their trip to the desert, as well as his mission to learn Duthak. "I just finished it up yesterday," he concluded. "I made of a book of it, just in case someone wanted to learn it."

"Don't tell Phandebrass," Dar grinned.

"That reminds me, exactly what has he been telling Alexis?" Tarrin asked Jenna.

"I don't know, he won't tell me," she said, cringing a bit. "And that worries me."

Dar laughed. "It's sure to be exciting, whatever it is."

"I think I can live without that kind of excitement," Tarrin said wearily.

"I guess the first thing Camara'll do when we get to Amazar is start in on Phandebrass," Dar said with a grin. "I think she misses it."

"He probably does too," Tarrin grunted. "Have either of you talked to her lately?"

Jenna nodded. "I keep in touch with Koran, to make sure Camara doesn't brainwash him into not coming back. He says that she says she'll be due in about six days."

"How does she know?" Dar protested.

"She's a Priestess, Dar," Jenna answered. "I'm sure she cheated."

"I hope we get there before she delivers," Dar said with a smile. "I want to see her fat and ungainly."

"I wouldn't say that to her, Dar," Jenna warned. "Because when she's not fat and ungainly anymore, she may come looking for some payback."

There was a knock at the door, and then it opened immediately afterward. The first thing Tarrin saw were two little red blurs that seemed to whirl around and around the room, and then both of them landed on his shoulders. They were Chopstick and Turnkey, Phandebrass' pet drakes. Tarrin's relationship with them started off hostile, but over time they grew on him to the point where he considered them good friends. But wherever the drakes were, their master wouldn't be far away, and his scent, permeated with the materials and spices and compounds that he had to use in his magic, wafted to Tarrin's nose. He looked up to see him, still wearing that same frayed gray robe with stains here and there on it, caused by only the Goddess knew what, and that same utterly ridiculous brimless conical hat that slendered to a sharp point well over a span over his head. The man within the garment was a thin, bony man with pale skin and white hair, but his face and manner deceived one as to his real age. Phandebrass looked old at first glance, but as one studied his narrow face, with its high, prominent cheekbones and narrow, slightly long and pointed nose, one realized that he was actually much younger than his skinny body and white hair let on. Tarrin didn't know exactly how old the doddering Wizard was, and it was hard to tell from his personality as much as his appearance. Phandebrass was utterly obsessed with learning. It was all he did, it was all he wanted to do, and it was what he had devoted his life to pursuing. Phandebrass was well suited for his self-appointed mission, for he was very intelligent and was also quite quick to remember, but he didn't seem to have a single lick of common sense, and sometimes it seemed that he was too smart for his own good. Most often, his mind was so lost in the vast stores of knowledge it had accumulated over the years that he had a very dim idea of what was going on around him. He would often repeat himself or ask the same question over and over, and look for things that were either right in front of his face or literally in his hand. It wasn't that he was senile or slow, it wasn't that he was dumb or addled or mad, it was just that his mind was so cluttered with everything that was in it that he seemed to have trouble sometimes looking through it all to focus on what was going on around him. He also had a slightly skewed idea of the world, behaving in manners that seemed outrageous or unbelievable to those that didn't know him. During the battle at Suld, the Wizard had the unmitigated nerve--or perhaps the utter lack of sense--to stop right in the middle of the battle and start asking one of the enemy Demons questions. Phandebrass' concept of reality seemed to be just a little bit different from everyone else's, for he saw nothing at all wrong with what he had done. He had wanted to know, and in his mind, that made it more than proper to ask someone he thought had the answer. The fact that it was an enemy that just seconds before had been trying to kill him didn't really factor into the equation that summed up the Wizard's view of the world.

That was occasionally the problem. Phandebrass had this very unnerving habit of ignoring the possible dangers of what he was working on, or the dangers things he was studying may pose. A perfect example was what was now known in the Tower as the Carnivorous Clock Incident. Phandebrass had received permission from Jenna to go through the lower cellars, where all manner of junk accumulated over five thousand or more years of the Tower's existence had been stored. There were storerooms and passages--and even floors--that most of the modern katzh-dashi had no idea were even there. Some had simply been forgotten over the years, and some had been actively sealed off and covered over to hide the fact that there had once been a door or stairwell there. Phandebrass found just one such storeroom about two months after Tarrin left for Aldreth, and very happily emptied it and brought up several crates of dusty, moldy stuff into the library, where the Wizard did most of his work that didn't involve the occasional explosions his chemicals and other alchemy materials randomly produced. The fact that he was moving things that the Ancients not only didn't use, but actively hid, never occurred to him. The idea that some of it may be dangerous also never dawned on him. He took it all up to the library and set it on the main tables without a care in the world, then just opened the crates and started rummaging through them.

Then, Phandebrass being Phandebrass, he got distracted. Sevren had come in and asked him for help finding a very obscure book on the ancient Sha'Kar, and they got involved in a debate about ancient history. Phandebrass turned a blind eye to those crates, at least until the screaming began. One Initiate, who had just arrived to study, got curious about what was in the crates sitting on the table where he usually studied, and had started going through them himself. His howling brought Phandebrass back to the real world, when the young man jerked his hand out of a crate with a small pendulum clock clamped onto his forearm using jaws that had been hidden behind the clock face, and two angry little eyes, complete with wooden brows, over them to complete the face of the clock. Instead of immediately trying to get the clock off the Initiate, Phandebrass instead asked the boy if it hurt, and if his arm felt icy or numb, which were indications of possible venom. He even pulled out a book and wrote down the Initiate's frenzied screams for help as if they were the answers to his questions! When the clock let go of the boy's arm, leaving a rather serious bite wound, its pendulum divided into four little legs and it dropped to the floor, then proceeded to chase Initiates and katzh-dashi around the library with shocking speed, biting anyone it could chase down. The thing was strangely resistant to Sorcery, and it seemed to ignore Phandebrass completely, only trying to chase down and bite Sorcerers. Phandebrass decided that it was more interesting to study the thing instead of using his Wizard magic to contain or subdue the ancient magical device. As it ran around the library, chasing any Sorcerer that moved, Phandebrass ran behind it with his book in one hand and a quill in the other, scribbling hastily and trying to get the clock's attention to see if it was intelligent. Only after most of the library had been cleared, as the clock jumped around and pawed at a bookshelf, upon whose top were perched four terrified Initiates, a Novice, and even two startled katzh-dashi, did Phandebrass finally conceive of the idea of capturing the device with magic. Not to keep it from climbing up the bookshelf to bite those atop it, but to get a better look at it when it wasn't running away from him.

It wasn't entirely Phandebrass' fault. The Initiate should have known better than to stick his hand in the chest, but Phandebrass had several opportunities to trap the clock while it ran around biting people. Instead of that, he tried to study it instead, totally oblivious to the simple idea of what might have happened if that clock had turned around and attacked him.

Jenna had had a conniption, of course, and ordered the boxes back into the cellar, to be sealed up once again where their contents couldn't cause any more trouble. However, the clock disappeared during the journey to the cellars, and Initiates now spread rumors that it was stalking the halls of the Tower, seeking to catch a Novice or Initiate off guard and eat them. In actuality, it was hanging on the wall in Phandebrass' laboratory, one reason why no Sorcerer really wanted to go visit the Wizard in his laboratory. Every time a Sorcerer came close to it, its eyes opened, it opened its mouth and showed off its impressive rows of sharp triangular teeth, and then struggled mightily to free itself from the peg to which it had been securely affixed. Phandebrass fed it dead mice or scraps from the kitchens from time to time, which kept its clockworks running smoothly as if it were an animal who needed food to survive, and it seemed perfectly content with its meals and its official job as timepiece for a Wizard who often forgot what month it was. Phandebrass dubbed it the Carnivorous Clock, but for some odd reason, he named it Percy. It seemed to like the name, and would even answer to it. Phandebrass was quite proud to own it, as well as quite happy to study it from time to time to figure out who had made it and how it was done.

That was one of the few absolute ultimatums under which Phandebrass had to operate in the Tower. He was absolutely forbidden from making another one of those contraptions, or even trying.

Sometimes Phandebrass' scattered nature was as much a danger to them as it was to the enemy, but Tarrin had always respected the addled Wizard's mind for one simple reason. When he was focused, when his curiosity was piqued and something had his full attention, there was no solution that could hide from him. When he was serious about something, he could unravel almost any mystery, research almost any solution, and find the answer to almost any question. During those times, the repeating, absent-minded, slightly befuddled Wizard seemed to evaporate, leaving a clear-minded, concise, driven, energetic, and very, very intelligent fellow in his stead. Tarrin had often thought that Keritanima had to be the smartest person he had ever known, but when Phandebrass was focused on finding the solution to a problem, he could give his Wikuni sister a serious run for her money.

Clearly, Phandebrass was in one of his more scattered phases, for he stood in the doorway for almost a full minute before thinking to come in. But when he did come in, he moved like a large animal was pushing at him from behind, charging into the room and almost jumping into one of the chairs, slapping a book down onto the table with a loud smack of leather meeting wood. His movements made Tiella flinch a little, but Tarrin and Dar didn't pay this much mind, as they'd seen it before. "Phandebrass," Tarrin said in greeting, waiting for the delayed response.

It came about ten seconds later. "Tarrin!" he said brightly. "I didn't see you there, I didn't! I say, how have things been?"

"Things have been just fine," he answered, stroking Chopstick on the head fondly. Jasana had lured Turnkey off his other shoulder, and was holding the drake with a practiced gentleness that told of her education about the natures of the little animals. Tarrin had owned a drake--at least what he thought was a drake--and had enjoyed it tremendously. Drakes were smart, affectionate, very sociable animals, easy to train and always happy to be whatever was needed of them at the moment. They took a little maintenance and had some rather peculiar habits, but all in all they were wonderful pets. Chopstick nuzzled his fingers happily, then hiccupped.

Smoke came out of his mouth.

Tarrin gave the drake a steady look, then looked to Phandebrass. "Has Chopstick been drinking out of the beakers in your lab?" he asked curiously.

"I say, the smoke? No, lad, no. Didn't I tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"I must not have. How thoughtless of me," he said absently, starting to pad the pockets of his robe and the little pouches in his belt over and over. "I say, I put it here somewhere."

"Tell me what?" he pressed.

"Oh, didn't I tell you?"

Tarrin snorted slightly. "What did you need to tell me, Phandebrass?"

Jasana started giggling, but Jesmind inobtrusively swatted the cub on the back of her head to remind her of her manners.

"Oh, yes, the drakes! It's quite a development, it is! Chopstick and Turnkey have started breathing fire!"

Tarrin gave him a long look, then blinked, remembering Sapphire. Back when they all thought Sapphire was a drake, including Sapphire, she had the ability to generate electrical attacks. Chopstick and Turnkey were true drakes, not shapeshifted dragons, and he didn't think they'd have any special magical powers like that. Some drakes did have magical powers, like the blue drakes, but these two had never showed even a hint of such things.

"Breathing fire? Isn't that a little hard on your clothes?" Dar asked in surprise.

"I didn't know they could do that, I didn't," he admitted. "I had to do some research on drakes, and it took a little while, it did. It turns out that some drakes, like the reds, don't manifest any magical capability until they reach a certain age, they do. I say, Chopstick and Turnkey are just reaching full adulthood, they are, and it turns out that that's when the powers of red drakes mature."

"I thought Sapphire said they didn't have any powers," Dar said to Tarrin.

"She did," he frowned. "Maybe she only meant at that time."

"Maybe Phandebrass did experiments on them," Jasana proposed.

"I found out that not all drakes of a species have powers, I did," the Wizard continued, either having not heard or actively ignoring the Were-cat cub. "The fire-breathing of red drakes is somewhat rare, it is. I say, it's rather unusual that both of them have manifested the ability. Perhaps exposure to my magic over the years triggered it in them. I say, what an idea!" he said suddenly, raising a single finger towards the ceiling. "I must write that down for further study, I must! Now then, where is my book?" he asked himself, starting to pat his pockets and pouches once again. Tarrin pointed before him, at the book, and the Wizard gave him a grateful thanks. "I say, now where did I put my quill and ink pot?" he asked after tapping the book with a finger, as if to make sure it was real, then returned to checking his pockets.

"Have you eaten yet?" Jenna asked the Wizard.

"Me? Let's see now," he said, pursing his lips. "I think I did. I say, I distinctly remember going into the kitchens. Was that today, or last ride?" he asked himself.

The door opened once more, and before Tarrin even looked up, the very faint scents of Keritanima and her company reached him. He looked up quickly to see his sister in the doorway, with Miranda to one side and Rallix to the other, and two massive, hulking forms hovering behind them, the huge bodies of Binter and Sisska. Tarrin stood up and hugged his sister when she came into the room, then hugged Miranda in a similar fashion. When he got that close to her, he could scent something disquieting about his rambunctious friend, a somberness of some sort that had stained the fringes of her scent, something she was quite admirably hiding behind a mask of happiness. Miranda was a good actor; in her line of work, being able to lie believably was of utmost importance, and that was little more than acting. Somehow, he had the feeling that it was something he'd need to broach with her in private. Were it a problem she'd feel comfortable taking to Keritanima, his sister would have fixed it already. He kept an arm around the mink as he shook paws with Rallix, then struck his forearm against the forearm of Binter, and then Sisska, the ritual Vendari greeting.

"You're here early," Jenna said as she hugged Keritanima. "I thought you'd be here last."

"I figured everyone would be here by now," she yawned in reply. "Where is Allia?"

"Not here yet," Tarrin answered.

"You mean I dragged my tail out of bed in the middle of the night and she's not here yet?" she fumed, putting a hand to her amulet. "Allia! We're all waiting on you! Get over here now!"

"My, she's in a good mood," Jenna remarked to Rallix.

"My wife has been having a little trouble at home," Rallix said without much amusement. "The nobles are causing trouble again."

"We'll be there in a little bit," Allia's voice emanated from Keritanima's amulet. "We've been delayed."

"What did she say?" Jenna asked. Allia had spoken in Selani.

"She said she's been delayed," Tarrin told her. "What did the nobles do this time?"

"We just found out two days ago that some of the larger houses have been very quietly and very slowly stockpiling gunpowder," Rallix told him soberly. "That is not a good sign. It means that they think they'll be going to war soon."

"Neither Jervis nor Miranda have had a whiff about this," Keritanima said sourly. "Whatever they're planning, they're doing a damn good job of keeping it under wraps."

"Well, I'm sure that Jervis will find out," Rallix said confidently. "He's quite good."

"He should be. He cut his teeth playing against me," Keritanima said shortly.

"What about Jenawalani?" Tarrin asked.

"None of the nobles really trust her, because they know she's my horse," Keritanima answered. "They know that anything they say to her gets back to me."

"That's obvious. Have you mended fences with her?"

"We're cordial, but that's about it," she answered. "I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her for some of the things she did to me when we were younger. I can trust her to keep me informed, but only because her noble house survives at my pleasure."

"Have you eaten yet?" Jenna asked.

"Before we left," Keritanima said, brushing past Jenna to hug Jasana. "There's my little spoiled brat!" she said happily, squeezing her as she picked her up. "How have you been?"

"I've been okay," she answered. "Do you have any presents for me?"

"Not this time, cub," she said with a smile. "You know I can't give you anything with your parents here. You know how stuffy they are," she said with a wink in Tarrin's direction.

"I don't object to presents, but you go too far," Jesmind told her. "That china doll with the solid gold mesh gown was a bit much."

"I thought it was lovely," Keritanima protested.

"Oh, it was, but she broke it about two minutes after she took it out of the box. Tarrin had to put it in our room after he used magic to put it back together."

"How did you break that doll, Jasana?" Keritanima asked.

"She tore off its head to see what was stuffed inside it," Tarrin said bluntly.

"Jasana!" Keritanima said in surprise.

"She's too young for things she can't play with, Kerri," Jesmind told her. "If you want to give her gifts, give her toys. Cheap, expendable toys."

"That doll was a toy."

"A toy for a Were-cat cub, not a human girl," Jesmind clarified. "She won't appreciate the doll until she's more mature. Until then, it stays out of her reach."

"I still think it's not fair," Jasana huffed. "How about a pet?" she asked brightly. "Eron has a pet. Why can't I have one?"

"Because you'd kill it," Jesmind told her straight out. "Eron loves Sandy, and he's always very, very careful with her. You're nowhere near that gentle."

"I can be careful," she flared.

"Until you lose interest in it, then you get careless," Jesmind said, staring into Jasana's eyes. "As I recall, you said you'd be careful with the doll. And I don't think it would do much good if Tarrin put the head back onto a pet we got for you."

"It's not fair," she complained.

"You're already pretty deep in the hole for your past exploits, cub," Jesmind said flintily. "I'm not stupid enough to trust you until you prove beyond any doubt that you're trustworthy."

Keritanima had drifted away from the argument to marvel over Kimmie's twins, lauding praise on Kimmie over how big they'd gotten, and how pretty they were. She acted like she hadn't seen them in months, when in reality she'd seen them just five days ago, the last time she came to visit. Kimmie looked quite radiant sitting there with someone lavishing attention on her and her babies.

By the time she finished, Allia and Allyn opened the door and entered the room. Allia had a fresh bloodstain on her shirt, inu blood, but she didn't look like she'd been fighting at all. Allyn had a slightly wild look in his eyes, and his hands were trembling a little. "What happened to you?" Keritanima asked acidly.

"We had a short dispute with a pack of inu before coming here," she answered lightly, taking Tarrin's paw and then giving him a warm hug. "They saw things my way quickly."

"You bloodthirsty savage," Keritanima laughed, then hugged her. "What started it?"

"They tried to kill us!" Allyn said, his voice a bit hysterical.

"I take it it was his first time?" Tarrin asked Allia.

She nodded. "He didn't do that badly," she said, giving him a critical eye. "But he threw aside the Dance and used Sorcery when they marked him. I'll have to break him of that."

"I'd like to see you try!" Allyn said hotly. "I've seen Kedaira play, but I never dreamed they could move that fast!"

"Inu are pretty rough customers, Allyn," Tarrin told him. "If the Selani respect them, you know they have to be dangerous."

There was a short, briefly flat look that exchanged between Allia and Jula. They didn't exactly get along, because Allia had been hostile to Jula before she won the trust of the rest of them, and though Allia had forgiven her, Jula hadn't forgotten it. Allia had wanted to kill Jula, and in a way, Allia had never forgotten that it was Jula who had been responsible for Tarrin's ferality and all the grief he suffered because of it. Neither could forget, though both had forgiven. Whenever Jula and Allia were in the same room, the tension became palpable between them. But that look passed quickly, as Allia's face and eyes softened as she hugged Jenna and then greeted Tarrin's children fondly.

"I say, I think that's all of us," Phandebrass announced.

"Ianelle isn't back yet," Jenna told him. "She went to go get Iselde a while ago."

"Iselde's coming?" Allyn said brightly.

"She's going to Abrodar with us, if only to visit Auli and you before you leave," Jenna told him.

"I have to fetch Darvon," Jenna said. "He and Azakar are coming. Darvon's decided that he's my personal Knight. He won't let me leave the Tower without him."

"It's the Lord General's personal duty to see to the safety of the Keeper, Jenna," Tarrin told her. "That means that if he's not busy or if he feels he's not personally up to the task, he goes with you."

"What happens when he is busy?" Rallix asked.

"He sends the best Knight he has," Tarrin answered. "Probably Azakar, or maybe Ulger."

"Kargon is very good," Allia noted. "He would be up to that honor."

"Triana's not here either," Tarrin fretted. "She said she'd be here."

"Triana's going? Why?" Allyn asked.

"I say, she and Camara Tal are very good friends," Phandebrass answered. "She wouldn't miss this event for the world, she wouldn't."

"She went to go get Sarraya," Jesmind announced.

"The bug's coming? This should be interesting, then," Dar chuckled. "I've always wondered what it would be like if Auli met Sarraya."

"Let's all hope we can get Sarraya out of there before that happens," Tarrin said fervently.

"It's getting a little crowded in here," Jenna noted, seeing that they were all packed around her dining table. "Has anyone not eaten yet?" she called.

Everyone was silent.

"Alright then, let's all move down to the lawn outside the main door," she ordered. "I'm afraid to move in here. I might step on someone's tail."

"For those of us who have them," Dar said with a smile.

"It's your loss," Keritanima said airily, then she gave him a wicked smile. "Do you want one, Dar? I think I could manage that. How about a nice bushy tail? Or maybe a rat's whip-like tail, or even a pig's curly tail! Oh, I know, I'll give you a peacock's tail, so you can display your plumage and impress Tiella!"

"I like my butt unadorned, Kerri. Thanks all the same," he said dryly, which produced several chuckles.

The group of them--quite a large group, Tarrin had to admit--moved down to the lawn outside the Tower proper, which was neat and highly groomed by the army of gardeners that maintained the massive grounds surrounding and between the seven towers that made up the compound. They stood and socialized warmly with one another, catching up on things and getting more familiar with the in-laws of the inner circle, Rallix, Allyn, and Tiella. Tarrin had to hang back a moment and look them over, and he revelled a bit in just how right it felt that they were all together like they were. Though not all of them had travelled with him the whole time, or even travelled with him at all, every one of them was a part of his family, even Allyn and Rallix. They were sisters, brothers, dear friends and close confidantes. From the boundless love that existed between him, Allia, and Keritanima to the calm confidence and utter trust he had in Binter and Sisska, from the warm friendship he had with Allyn and Rallix to the closeness he shared with Dar and Miranda, there was not a face there that he did not love in one way or another. Though he was a Were-cat, fiercely independent and occasionally very demanding of his personal space, he couldn't deny the simple happiness, almost joy, he felt at them all being together in physical person once again. Not all of them were there yet, as Dolanna, Azakar, Sarraya, and Camara Tal weren't with him quite yet, but their absences were only a temporary thing, and would soon be rectified.

It was rather remarkable how such a widely, vastly different group of sentient beings had come together to form tight bonds of kinship. Even Binter and Sisska, the most radically different of them all in terms of appearance and cultural personality, were tightly knitted into their inner circle, and they were as easily accepted as the two Vendari accepted the quirks of all the little races around them. They were such a disparate group. A mercurial Faerie, a pair of cunning Wikuni, a wise, regal Selani, a virtual pack of dangerous, unpredictable Were-cats, several formidable humans with their widely ranging personalities, and two powerful and honor-bound Vendari. There were others as well, even more exotic, if not so tightly knitted into the core group. An Aeradalla, a few Demons, a couple of Sha'Kar, and a dragon. All of them so greatly different from one another, so different from their own kind in many ways, yet all of them had come together to form a tight bond that transcended race and culture.

Four Knights quietly stood just to the edge of the group, all of them easily recognizable. The most obvious was Azakar, whose trememdous size--he was a bit taller than Tarrin--easily set him apart from the other three. The white moustaches of Darvon and his elegant, ornate armor barely contained the sense of authority that hovered around the man. Scarred Ulger stood to Darvon's left, and beside him was the Knight that Allia had mentioned, a tall, rather burly fellow with a drawn, deceptively youthful face and curly red hair named Kargon. Tarrin had sparred against Kargon a few times when he and Allia had been training on the Knights' practice grounds, and knew that the man was a solidly trained warrior, but it was Kargon's mind that Tarrin had respected. Kargon was a wily, cunning opponent, and he was Tower-educated in the Noviate, a solid base to expand the young man's intelligent mind. Kargon also happened to be Darvon's nephew, but he had never been given any preferential treatment because of his relationship to the Lord General, and didn't want any. He was surprisingly young to be in the rather elite ranks in which he stood, but then again, Azakar was even younger than him. Azakar and Kargon were what Darvon would call the future of the order, their best and brightest, being trained and groomed to assume command positions after the elders of the order either died or retired. Giving orders wasn't something that Tarrin would associate with Azakar, however. The young man's past made him quiet and unassuming, trying to avoid the eyes of the men holding the whips, as the virtual carpet of scars criss-crossing his back would attest. Those kinds of habits would take half his lifetime to break.

Before Tarrin had a chance to go over and talk to them, Triana arrived on the field, and she wasn't alone. A blue blur zipped from her and almost struck Tarrin in the chest, and the tiny, piping voice of Sarray could be heard laughing happily. She hugged him around the neck, perching on his collarbones to do so, and her earthy smell established itself in his nose. Despite the fact that she occasionally drove him nuts, Sarraya was among one of Tarrin's closest friends. He and the Faerie had crossed the Desert of Swirling Sands together, and that had brought the dissimilar pair of them very close together. Tarrin was grim in his manner towards those who didn't know him--and many who did--who came across as a humorless, unpleasantly blunt male whose chilling stare could freeze boiling water and who demanded all around him to utterly obey any order he issued. Those who knew him well found him to be a rather sober man with little patience and a surprisingly dry sense of humor. Sarraya was the absolute opposite of him. She was capricious, impulsive, fun-loving, and very easily distracted. She loved playing pranks on people--everyone but Tarrin, that is, for she had not forgotten that rather poignant lesson--and could be unbelievably abrasive to others. She thought it was great fun to harass, insult, and irritate people. Despite the fact that they were diametrically opposite of one another in personality, theirs was a friendship that had not only endured, but had flourished.

"Tarrin! How are you, you big sourpuss?" Sarraya said in her tiny voice. Everything about her was tiny. She was barely a span tall, with blue skin and auburn hair and chitinous, multicolored dragonfly-like wings on her back which she used to fly.

"I've been well, Sarraya," he replied fondly, holding out his paw for her. She landed in it and sat down, dangling her legs over his palm and leaning back on her tiny little hands. "Why haven't you contacted me lately?"

"Triana said you were really busy with something, so I didn't want to bother you."

"You, listening to someone? Are you getting old or something, Sarraya?"

She laughed. "I guess I am. You're a bad influence on me," she winked.

Triana reached him, and to his surprise, she wasn't alone. Along with her was a rather tall, sleekly thin fellow with dark hair and a well-formed face, slightly narrow with light bones. Quite handsome. Tarrin was surprised to see this man, for he hadn't seen him for years, and had only been his guest for two days, back in Dayisè. But this man actually wasn't a man. His name was Haley, and he was a Were-wolf. Something of a black sheep among Were-wolf society, for he preferred human culture and human luxuries over the forest. Tarrin had distrusted Haley at first, for back then he'd been a Rogue and at odds with Fae-da'Nar, but after talking with him a while, he had actually found Haley to be intelligent and understanding, not judgemental as he first feared. Haley had been the first outside of Jesmind to really teach him something about the Woodkin, and had been the first Were-kin Tarrin had encountered that hadn't either immediately attacked him or tried to kill him. Tarrin remembered that Haley was a refined man, educated and witty, well-spoken and urbane, with a penchant for flattering ladies and a sharp mind that served him well in the cesspool of intrigue that was Dayisè.

"Triana said you got tall, boy, but I didn't expect another Triana!" he said with a light laugh.

"Haley!" Tarrin said in surprised recognition.

"You remember me," he said, somewhat pleased.

"What are you doing here?"

"The Circle of Hierarchs summoned me, and Triana was nice enough to come and get me and take me," he answered. "That saved me a month of travel. We got delayed, and I kind of got stuck along with her when she went to fetch that obnoxious Faerie. I guess I'm along with you, wherever you're going."

"You could always take a ship back to Dayisè," Triana told him bluntly.

"Well, I could, but I think I'd rather go with you," he answered. "I get the feeling you're about to embark on a very interesting journey. I think I'd like to get in on it, if that's alright with you."

Tarrin shrugged. "There's room for one more, given how many there are already," he answered. "I doubt we'd even notice you tagging along."

"Quite an interesting group. Who are they all?"

"I'll introduce you," he promised.

"Is everyone here?" Triana asked.

"I hope so, I'm not going to sit around here all day!" Sarraya announced.

"We're only waiting for Ianelle, I think," he answered. "She's the one that's actually going to get us to Abrodar."

"Abrodar?" Haley asked in surprise. "As in the capital of Sharadar?"

Tarrin nodded. "From there, we go on to Amazar."

"Amazar?" he asked, then he laughed suddenly. "You're going to Amazar, are you? Has anyone thought to look around?"

"What do you mean?" Sarraya asked.

Haley swept his arm across their rather large host. "Have you though about what's going to happen to all these men?"

"Oh, that," Tarrin said, then he shrugged. "I'm not too worried about it. It's not like they can stop us from leaving."

"No, but they can scatter the group's men all over the islands."

"Maybe a little scattering would do you a little good, burr-butt," Sarraya teased.

"Camara Tal made arrangements," Triana said brusquely. "While we're there, all the unmarried human males will be considered her property. The married ones belong to their wives."

"I'm glad someone thought to make sure of things," Haley chuckled. "As astute as ever, Triana."

"Who is this, Tarrin?" Jesmind asked as she and Jasana disengaged from Allia and Allyn and came over. "Mother."

"This is Haley, daughter, the Were-wolf of Dayisè," she said, giving him a flinty look.

Haley cleared his throat and looked distinctly uncomfortable for a second. Tarrin had an idea that Haley had done something wrong, hence his summons from the Circle of Hierarchs. But he didn't think it would be a good idea to ask out here in the open; such things tended to be rather sensitive.

Jasana, however, had no such sense of etiquette. "Was he bad, Gramma?" she asked.

"You could say that, and it's not something we discuss in front of the humans, cub," she said shortly, cutting off any further questions.

Ianelle and Iselde arrived with three other Sha'Kar, in their shimmering robes, which were about the only vanity they had not abandoned since leaving Sha'Kari. Those robes were something of a material display of loyalty to the Goddess, trying to imitate the shimmering aura she sometimes had around her in the Heart and during certain rare physical manifestations, when she meant to impress the mortals. The fact that they were gorgeous and quite soft probably were only added bonuses. All five Sha'Kar immediately curtsied to Jenna, who looked a bit annoyed but said nothing.

"Ah, so that must be the child Keeper of the Tower," Haley said, looking at her. "She's definitely your sister, Tarrin."

"How did you know that?"

"Tarrin, everyone knows that," he said with a chuckle, giving him a smile. "They're singing songs about you now, didn't you know that?" Tarrin shook his head. "They're all the rage down in Shacè and especially in Dayisè, mainly because they're all sulky that they got left out of the battle. Shacèans love to fight, but only for the challenge of it, not to kill."

Tarrin remembered the Musketeers of Shacè, who would duel one another for the flimsiest of reasons. Not to kill each other, but to test their abilities against others. They enjoyed the fight, not the slaughter. To them, it was a sport.

"The most popular one right now is the song about the Battle of Suld," he continued. "In the song, you and Jenna are twenty spans tall and smite complete divisions of Demon troops with waves of your hands. They did get some of it right, though."

Tarrin was a bit startled. They had made up songs about the battle? That seemed silly to him. But then again, he remembered how the citizens of Suld had treated Jenna when she took him into the city, way back when the curse over the Firestaff had made him human again. They adored her, almost worshipped her, and she was probably even more popular than King Arren, even now. Jenna was the first Keeper in a very long time that enjoyed the popular support of the common citizens of Suld.

"What other songs are there?" Jesmind asked curiously.

"Quite a few," he answered her. "Most of them are about what they now call the Seekers of the Staff. That's your group," he said, pointing at Tarrin. "I don't know how dangerous that mission was, but the songs and stories say that you fought Demons every ten seconds and sank fleets of ships. You also single-handedly depopulated the Goblinoids, tamed Shiika, brought Fae-da'Nar under your heel, purged the Tower of the darkness that infested it--which has put the katzh-dashi under new light and made people more curious about them than afraid of them, I might add--unearthed the ki'zadun and wiped them out, and destroyed a god."

Tarrin chuckled. "Just about everything you said is so far from the truth it's funny," he responded.

"Songs and stories are always embellished with a bit of spice to make them more interesting. If they were boring stories, the bards wouldn't have audiences, would they?" Haley smiled. "Besides, it gives you quite a reputation." He looked around again. "I'd think that Dolanna would be here."

"She's in Abrodar," Tarrin answered. "She decided to go home for a while."

"Well, I'm going for certain now, if only to see her again."

"You like Aunt Dolanna," Jasana deduced.

Haley smiled. "Everyone that knows your Aunt Dolanna likes her, cubling," he told her. "She's one of the most interesting women in this whole world."

Tarrin considered Haley for a moment. There was something very delicate in his voice, in his scent, that hinted that his regard for Dolanna extended a little past what might be considered proper. But then again, he was a Were-wolf, and Dolanna was a human, so there really wasn't anywhere that it could go. Haley wouldn't dare bite Dolanna against her will, and he wouldn't even think in his wildest dreams that Dolanna would agree to be bitten, not with how much she knew about Were-kin. If any human intimately understood the dark curse that came with the gifts of Lycanthropy, it was Dolanna.

If that was even what it was. It was so faint, he wasn't that sure.

"Alright, as soon as the porters finish carting out the luggage, we'll be going!" Jenna called over the conversations. "It's a couple hours before sunset in Abrodar, just to warn everyone!"

"I'll never get used to that," Jesmind complained.

"What?" Triana asked.

"The idea that the sun isn't shining everywhere at the same time," she replied. "I know the world is round, but it just seems...unnatural."

"Get used to it."

Jesmind sniffed, crossing her arms beneath her breasts absently.

"I've never Teleported before," Haley said. "What's it like?"

"You never feel anything," Jasana told him as Tara and Rina meandered over with Kimmie just behind. "All you see is a little blur, like two things laying over top of one another, and then you're wherever you were going."

"Nice. It sounds much better than whatever it was Triana does," he said, giving her a sly glance. "I thought I was going to be sick."

"That's because you're a lightweight, Haley," Sarraya teased.

"Then I'm a lightweight," he shrugged. "I think you know that it's common knowledge I prefer the more convenient things in life. That's why I don't run with my pack anymore."

Porters and servants were bustling about, bringing the luggage that was going to be taken to Abrodar, and Tarrin saw that there were quite a few chests, crates, and bags mixed in with it. Probably things that were going to be transferred to the other Tower. Everyone more or less settled down as they finished their task, and then the five Sha'Kar and Jenna Circled and had everyone bunch together around the pile of cargo going along with them. Tarrin could clearly sense the Circle, and felt that Jenna had relinquished the lead to Ianelle, who would be doing the actual Teleportation.

"Here we go," Sarraya said brightly, then she grinned at Haley. "If you're going to be sick, do me a favor and face the other way. I don't need a vomit bath."

"I'll make sure to specifically aim right at you, Sarraya," he drawled in an urbane manner.

"Not when she's sitting on my shoulder, you're not," Tarrin warned in a slightly dangerous tone.

Before Kimmie could interject herself into the conversation, Ianelle began. Tarrin distinctly felt her reach way out, half the world away, and then find the place for which she was looking. The tendrils of the spell reached all the way to Abrodar and laced themselves around her intended target of appearance, and when they were done, she completed the spell. In a burst of energy, the affected space in Suld was exchanged with the affected space in Abrodar, and they were moved along with it. Just as Jasana had described, there was a very brief blurring of the background, everything not actively being Teleported, and then it was replaced with the scenery of the landing area.

Tarrin immediately noticed that it was a bit cool, and a little damp. It was much later in the evening, and they were standing in a large flat grassy lawn that stood before what had to be the most awe-inspiring thing he had ever seen in his life, when the personal meetings with gods were excluded.

It was the Tower.

It was the Tower, he was sure of that, but it was nothing like the Tower of Six Spires, in Suld. This was not a tower, didn't even look like a building. It was a tree. It looked exactly like the wide-canopied raintrees he had seen on the dusty plains of Saranam, with a straight trunk that went three hundred spans into the air, then exploded into a canopy of green leaves that had to shade an area across the widest point that just had to be at least a quarter of a longspan. It had brown bark, and green leaves, and many branches that disappeared into the green of the leaf canopy, and looked like a raintree, a monstrous raintree that made everyone that had never seen it before gape up at it in open-mouthed astonishment. But that barked exterior held windows and balconies, and Tarrin could see a massive pair of bronze-inlaid doors at its base. It looked like a tree, but it was most definitely an artificial construction, and now that the wind had shifted, he could smell that it was made of stone, not of wood. It was a work of art, a sculpture on a gigantic scale that happened to serve a practical purpose.

Tarrin was stunned. It perfectly resembled a tree, but a tree with stone for wood and stone for leaves, completely hollow within its trunk, housing the complement of the Sorcerers of Sharadar. Never in his entire life had he seen anything like it. Even the Tower in Suld seemed to pale in comparison to this delicate work of gigantic art, for the katzh-dashi of Sharadar had turned their Tower into a work of art, an exquisite work of art that so dominated his sight and his mind that he hadn't even noticed any other building in the ancient city of Abrodar yet. The raintree Tower absolutely dominated all his attention.

He wasn't the only one. The only ones who didn't gape at this amazing Tower were Jenna, Ianelle, and one of the other Sha'Kar who had come with them. Everyone else could only stare up into that huge canopy and marvel in awe.

"Welcome," a voice called, making Tarrin blink and look towards the Tower again. There were three people standing there just ahead of a large formation of men and women in robes, and he recognized two of them. One was Dolanna, petite Dolanna dressed in a lustrous blue silk robe, and Auli, wearing a rather plain brown robe made of some kind of fine cloth. The one in the middle was a remarkably tall woman with flaming red hair and luminous green eyes, wearing a robe exactly the shade of her hair, a fiery red. She was a very attractive woman, in a human way, and wore a rather simple and elegant little tiara on her head.

This was Alexis Firehair, the Keeper of the Tower of Abrodar, and Queen of Sharadar.

She smiled, a glorious smile, and opened her arms. "Welcome, my friends, to the Raintree Tower of Abrodar."