Chapter 14

 

      Sapphire was in the room when Tarrin returned, having come back with three letters for Keritanima, which had already been delivered.  Kimmie was up, lounging in the bath with Sapphire sitting on the lip and talking with her.  Tarrin heard some of their conversation when he came in, and he realized that Kimmie was pumping the drake for information, trying to figure out what had made her so smart, and trying to fathom the extent of her intelligence.  She was asking questions of philosophy and logic, trying to expand the drake's mind and get an understanding of how she would act in certain situations.  Sapphire's answers didn't surprise Tarrin, for they were in line with the personality she possessed before becoming intelligent.  She was just like the Were-cats in that regard, her human-like intelligence heavily flavored by her drake's instincts.  Even with a greater understanding of things, she was still powerfully attached to Tarrin, regressing to her drake state and chirping pleasantly as she jumped up into his arms, rubbing her head against his shoulder fondly.

      "How was the errand?" he asked her, scratching her between the horns.

      "Boring," she sighed.  "I didn't want to tell them I could talk, since I think the Sha'Kar are watching them, so I had little to do.  They know I understand some commands, so they managed to keep me there until the Wikuni that rules the others--what is his name?"

      "Jalis?"

      "That's the one.  He wrote your furry sister-friend a long letter and had me bring it back to her.   So did the human that rules the others, and that big one that looks like a bear, the one that wears the robes."  She looked up at him.  "Will you teach me to read?"

      "Sure, but you wouldn't have been able to read what they wrote.  It was probably in Wikuni, another language."

      "I didn't want to read it.  It's just that there are many things to learn in those books, but I have to be able to understand them to use them."

      "What books?"

      "The one that's the friend of the two males," she answered.  I've seen him reading them all the time, him and Kimmie.  I didn't understand what they were doing until you taught me to speak.  Now I want to read them and learn what they hold."

      "You may not be able to read those books, Sapphire," he warned.  "Those are spellbooks they were reading.  But I'm sure Phandebrass has some regular books that you can read, and the Sha'Kar probably do too.  So I'll teach you to read Sulasian, and I'll also teach you to read Sha'Kar when we teach it to you."  He looked to his mate.  "You look happy," he noted.

      She smiled up at him.  "When I build my new den, you absolutely have got to make me one of these," she told him dreamily.

      "Make you a new bath?"

      "Of course.  When we get back, I know you'll go back with Jesmind, but I won't go too far.  I want our child to grow up with its father.  So I'm going to build me a den just out of sight of yours, so my presence doesn't rub Jesmind raw."

      Tarrin was happy to hear that.  He squatted down facing her, and she leaned back against the lip of the pool and put her arms up on it.  She let herself float a bit, rising up in the steaming water.  He looked at her belly, and saw that it was peeking out of the water above the rest of her torso.  "You're starting to fill out, Kimmie," he noticed with a smile.

      She grinned at him, patting her slight bulge.  "It's about time," she announced.  "I'll fill up like a thin waterskin now, and do it quickly.  In three months, I'll look like a human woman about to drop.  I'll give birth about a month later."

      "That sounds strange."

      "If I were human, it would be," she grinned.  "I'm going to break you of this habit of associating us with humans, Tarrin."  She brought her tail out from under her, a soggy mess that looked like a drowned furry snake, and waggled it for his benefit.  "As you can see, I am not human."

      "I've noticed that from time to time," he told her dryly.

      "I got spoiled with these baths when I was at Kerri's palace," she sighed, sinking back down into the water.  "The Sha'Kar do it with magic, and the Wikuni do it with technology.  Somewhere between the two of them, you can build me a bath where I get hot running water."

      "I'll look into it," he promised her.  "It does make you look like a drowned rat, though."

      "It takes forever for my fur to dry, but it's worth it," she laughed.  "Care to join me?  You could do with some cleaning up."

      "Only if I'm going to take a bath," he teased.

      "Spoilsport," she grinned.  "What about you, Sapphire?  Do you swim?"

      "Get in the water?  Me?  No thank you," she said with a shudder of her wings.  "I don't like water."

      Tarrin did decide that he could do with some cleaning, so he undressed and slipped into the bathing pool, which was larger than many ponds he'd seen in his lifetime.  Just like the bathing pool at the Tower, it was hotter at one side, and a little deeper on the hot end.  Tarrin couldn't be hurt by fire, but he could feel heat, and heat still felt nice on the muscles.  So he joined Kimmie in a rather hot part of the pool, probably as hot as Kimmie could stand, and draped his arms on the lip of the pool and put his chin on them as Kimmie washed his back.

      "Why do you do that, anyway?" Sapphire asked.  "Get into the water."

      "It's how we keep clean," Kimmie replied, splashing water on his back, then picking up a bar of soap from a tray on the pool's edge.  She lathered up her paws and started scrubbing his back vigorously.  Sapphire walked over to where Tarrin was laying against the side and sat down, looking down at him.  He opened his eyes and looked up at her calmly, marvelling once again at how amazing the little drake was.  Intelligence granted to her by the birth of the sixth sui'kun, and it had grown to the point where she could speak, where she was as intelligent as most humans.  She reached out with one of her prehensile paws, paws that had an opposable thumb, and urged him to show her the palm of his paw.  He did so for her, stretching out the fingers and extending his claws to let her look at it, to satisfy whatever curiosity she had.

      "What is it, little one?" he asked in contentment, caught up in Kimmie's attentions.

      "I have seen you crush things in this paw, and yet you touch me with such gentleness," she told him.  "I know that you and Kimmie are far stronger than any but the ones that smell similar to me.  How do you manage such gentle touches when you're so incredibly strong?"

      "We have very sensitive pads," he replied, lifting a finger and presenting the black pad on his fingertip.  "I've learned how to know how much pressure I'm exerting by how it feels on my pads.  If I didn't have them, I probably would be crushing things by accident.  I wouldn't know how much force I was putting into my grip."

      "It's something we practice, Sapphire," Kimmie told her.  "We know how dangerous we can be to humans, so we teach ourselves how to be able to work with them without hurting them.  I don't think they understand how hard we work to make sure they never notice how strong we are.  It's something we always have to be careful of.  One moment's distraction, and we might accidentally crush every bone in a man's hand if we're shaking it."

      "Some of the others you call friend are afraid of you.  Especially the big human."

      "It's something I may not like, but I understand it," he told her.  "I don't hold it against them.  You've never seen me lose my temper before, little one.  I can be very nasty.  They have seen it, so they're always cautious around me when they think I'm in a bad mood."

      "You would hurt them?"

      "Not on purpose, but it has happened," he admitted.

      "And still they trust you?"

      "Friends trust friends, Sapphire," Kimmie told her calmly, plainly, washing Tarrin's back off.  "They know he wouldn't hurt them intentionally, so when it does happen, they forgive him and move on as if it never happened."

      "I trust you," the drake told him seriously, putting both her paws on his palm pad and staring down into his eyes.

      "I'm glad to hear that, little one," he smiled gently up at her.

      "Do you love me, Tarrin?" she asked directly.

      "Of course I do," he told her.  "Ever since that first day, when you landed on my shoulder and nuzzled me.  You had me from that moment on."  He closed his paw over her little forepaws gently.  "I'll admit it's a bit different now that you can talk, but I didn't stop loving you just because you changed.  If I had, then I guess I really never loved you at all, did I?"

      "That is profound," the drake told him soberly.

      "It's truth.  Truth is always simple, but it can seem profound."

      "I think the wrong friend was teaching me philosophy," Sapphire said with a chirping sound.  A laugh!

      "You've got to stay on your toes around Tarrin, Sapphire," Kimmie giggled.  "He may not look it, but he's been very thoroughly educated by people with about five different cultural viewpoints, and he's got quite a bit of common sense.  That's always dangerous when you get into philosophical discussions."

      "The most dangerous one is always the one you think can't be a danger," she said calmly, a fallback to her instincts.  "Are you clean now?"

      "I think Kimmie's dawdling on purpose," Tarrin told her with a smile.

      "Then she needs to finish.  I want to learn Sha'Kar.  Will you teach me now?"

      "Alright, but we're not staying up all night this time."

      They didn't stay up until dawn, but they did stay up until about three hours before dawn.  It turned out to be another marathon session, as Tarrin cast the spell of learning on the drake, and Tarrin and Kimmie took turns teaching her the language.  Since they started well before sunset, it gave Sapphire almost twelve hours of continuous teaching, the equivelent of four of his normal sessions.  After four sessions, Kimmie could speak broken Sha'Kar and could understand nearly three quarters of what she was hearing in the forms of speech he'd taught her.  After that one session, Sapphire had exceeded Kimmie, showing that she was quite gifted at learning languages.  She was almost fluent in the two most commonly used forms of Sha'Kar speech, formal and semi-formal, and Tarrin estimated that if he taught her for about fifteen more hours, she would be fluent in the other forms, informal, personal, and high formal.  Kimmie had become fluent after about ten sessions.  Sapphire looked to be on pace to do it in eight equivelent sessions.  Tarrin wondered if teaching her in marathon sessions was what was making her more reticent than Kimmie had been.  Would constant, long-term exposure and repeated castings of the memory spell provide faster, more deep-seated effects?  The problem with the memory spell was that it was implanted memory, not learned the hard way.  Those implanted memories would fade if they weren't used consistently.  If Kimmie didn't speak Sha'Kar every now and then, the memory of the language would slowly fade from her mind, until she'd forget it.  It's why the katzh-dashi didn't depend on using the spell, because of that drawback.  It was always best to learn things by study and not by magic, but if what was taught by the spell was something that the recipient would use in daily life, like a language, then using the memory spell was an efficient and effective way of cutting about six months of tedious language study down to about a ride of regular learning sessions.

      Two things struck Tarrin when he woke up the next morning.  One, that nobody had been knocking on his door.  Not friends, not sisters, not servants, and not even the Sha'Kar family themselves.  And two, that Sapphire could be pushy when she wanted something.  He had to beg her off from starting right back up with the education as soon as they were up, because he wanted to know why Allia, Keritanima, Dolanna, or anyone else hadn't bothered to come see him the day before.  The entire day had gone by without him seeing any of them.  Sapphire's lessons had occupied his mind and made him lose track of that fact.  Sapphire was quite adamant about getting the rest of the learning done, so Tarrin compromised by casting the memory spell on her and leaving Kimmie to do the teaching, bringing them a large breakfast from the kitchen so they wouldn't have to interrupt their lesson.

      After he did that, he set out in search of his friends.  Their scents were all over the house, so it was a simple matter of tracking whichever scent was freshest that left the kitchen.  That happened to be Azakar's, so he tracked it to a chamber on the third floor, with a large, brass-bound door.  Tarrin knocked on it and waited, then knocked again.  When there was still no answer, he opened the door and looked inside.

      It was a huge room, but was about half the size of the one Tarrin was using.  It had a bed about the same size as the one in his room, on a raised dais at the back of the room, and with quite a few delicate-looking pieces of furniture.  It looked to be a woman's room.  Azakar was laying in the bed, sleeping from the look of him.  Tarrin decided not to bother him, closing the door and going off after the next closest scent, which was Dar's.  Tarrin tracked him to his room and knocked.  And when he got no reply, he opened that door and found himself looking into a room that was remarkably similar to Azakar's room.  Tarrin realized that both were guest bedrooms, and as such weren't quite so liberally decorated as Arlan's room.  Dar was also in his room, and he was also laying quietly in his bed.  But in Dar's case, he wasn't alone.  One of the servant girls was in the bed with him, sleeping with her arm draped over his chest.

      Tarrin had to grin.  So, Dar took Miranda's suggestion to heart.  It was good for him anyway, he needed a little physical pleasure in his life.

      Tarrin closed the door, and tracked down Dolanna's scent.  He followed it to her room, on the first floor,and opened the door after she too didn't answer his knock.  She had a bedroom somewhat larger than Zak's or Dar's, with ivy growing on one wall and a large statue of a nude Sha'Kar male standing before the living decor.  Dolanna too was in her bed, sleeping.  And to Tarrin's shock, she too wasn't alone.  He had never seen the human in bed with Dolanna, sleeping peacefully, but he was a rather handsome fellow with dark hair and tanned skin.

      That was three sleeping friends, two of which had company.  In Dar's case, it didn't seem a big deal, but he was surprised to see Dolanna doing the same thing.  Dolanna wasn't celibate or made of stone, but she didn't seem the type that would engage in a casual affair.  She was too...human.

      A bit curious, Tarrin scented and tracked down all his friends.  Except for Allia, he found them all in their bedrooms, sleeping, and all the humans were not sleeping alone.  Even Phandebrass had a pretty maid in bed with him.  Allia wasn't in her room, probably out with Allyn somewhere.  Keritanima and Miranda were also asleep, but Binter and Sisska were awake, playing chess near the door so they could move to defend it at a moment's notice.

      "Hey," Tarrin called from the open door.  "How long have they been asleep?" he asked, looking past them at the large bed on the dais, like all the other rooms, where Keritanima and Miranda were sharing the bed, sound asleep.

      "A long time," Binter replied.  "Her Majesty has been more or less sleeping since the night of the feast.  She has awakened only long enough to eat and relieve herself."

      "She's been sleeping for two days?" Tarrin asked with a gasp.

      "She has.  It was not alcohol they drank, Tarrin," Sisska told him.  "We managed to find one of the bottles of drink they consumed.  It was some kind of drug."

      "A drug?  They drugged us?" he asked in a dangerous tone.

      "It was a drug they themselves drank, Tarrin," Binter told him calmly.  "Perhaps they have a resistance to it, and that lack of resistance is why her Majesty has not recovered yet."

      "They are alright, aren't they?" Tarrin asked.  "Her and Miranda?"

      "Her Majesty is just sleeping, Tarrin," Sisska assured him.  "If you wanted, you could wake her up.  But she would be in a very surly mood if you did."

      "Probably," Tarrin grunted.  "I can't believe that they drugged us."

      "I doubt it was intentional," Binter said.  "These Sha'Kar, they seem to automatically assume that we are exactly as they are.  Perhaps they never conceived that the rest of us would be so strongly affected by their drugged wine."

      "It doesn't affect us, or you, I see," Sisska noted.

      "We'd burn it out of our systems before we'd feel it," Tarrin shrugged.  "Every one of our friends are sleeping, Sisska, except you two, me, Allia, and Kimmie.  And all the humans took a mate.  Even Dolanna," he said in disbelief.  "Do you think the drug might have induced some kind of mate-frenzy in the humans?"

      "There is no saying, but it wouldn't be impossible," the female Vendari answered.  "If even Dolanna and Phandebrass took lovers, then I would say that it would be more than possible."

      "Have either of you seen Allia?"

      "She visited last night," Binter answered.  "She did not stay long after she saw that her Majesty was still sleeping.  She was going to a party with the male Sha'Kar.  Allyn."

      "Allia went to a party?" Tarrin asked in disbelief.  "What in the world is going on around here, Binter?  Dolanna taking a mate, everyone getting drugged, and Allia goes to a party?"

      "We were wondering the same thing ourselves, Tarrin," Sisska told him with a level look, those black eyes of hers boring into his own.

      "Well, I'm going to go get some answers," he said bluntly.  "I'll be back in a little while."

      Tarrin left them, marched through the house with a grim look on his face, then reached Dolanna's bedroom door.  He did not knock.  But there was plenty of sound to alert those within to his arrival, as what was left of the door clattered to the tiled floor in a loud crash.  Dolanna sat bolt upright instantaneously, staring across the room in total surprise, as the male beside her tried to roll over and see what was causing all the racket.  Tarrin saw that both of them were nude, and the smell of their mating was still strong enough in the room to make it plain to him that Dolanna had indeed slept with the human.  Tarrin stalked into the room as Dolanna stared at him in both annoyance and worry, letting the blanket she'd been holding to her throat drop as he padded up to the steps leading to the bed.  "You," Tarrin said, pointing at the handsome male.  "Out.  Now."

      Gaping and trembling, the male did just as Tarrin ordered, scrambling out of bed, down the steps, across the room, then out the door.  He didn't bother to gather up his clothes beforehand either, rushing naked into the hall.

      "Tarrin, what are you doing?" Dolanna demanded.

      He didn't say a word.  He came up the dais and to the bed, then reached down and put his paws on either side of her head, almost completely covering it.  He sent tendrils of Mind and Divine into her, a simple weave to assess physical condition, and found that alien substance still flushing through her blood.  After two days, it was still there?  It had to be quite strong!  Changing tacks, he sent flows of Earth, Water, and Divine into her, the flows of healing, and wove them into a spell within her and released it.  The weave attacked that drug in her system and destroyed it, making Dolanna gasp and grab his wrists in her small hands as it felt to her like icewater had just been forced into her bloodstream.

      Dolanna's eyes were a bit glassy as she looked up at him after he pulled his paws away, then she put a finger delicately to her forehead.  "What did you do, Tarrin?" she asked woozily.  "I feel decidedly odd."

      "Those drinks you drank at the feast had a drug in them," Tarrin told her.  "It's something the Sha'Kar must drink all the time, so they're used to it.  But you and the others don't have the same resistance to it."

      "Indeed," she grunted, rubbing her temples.  "I feel as I did when we spoke after the feast."

      "What happened after you left?"

      "Well, I returned to bed.  I woke up in the late afternoon, and I felt very good.  Almost deleriously happy.  I wandered around the estate for a while, had a lovely chat with Master Arlan, and then I met a handsome young farm worker while Arlan and I walked the estate lawn and talked.  Arlan saw I fancied him, and sent him to my room--I do not believe I did that!" she gasped, relapsing into Sharadi.

      "It was the drug, not you," Tarrin told her, switching to Sharadi to make her more comfortable.  "All the other humans are sleeping with someone else in their beds too.  Even Phandebrass."

      "It's a pity we can't isolate the drug and take it back to the West with us," Dolanna laughed.  "They're always looking for the perfect aphrodisiac.  I think the Sha'Kar have stumbled on one."

      "How do you feel now?"

      "Like I have a hangover," she answered.  "But it's already starting to fade."

      "The spell burned out the drug, but you must be feeling some kind of after-effect of when it fades," he reasoned.

      "Most likely.  Did you really have to break down my door, Tarrin?" she asked with a slight smile.

      "Actually, yes.  I wanted your undivided attention, and I didn't want any arguments.  I knew if I used the direct approach, I'd get both."

      She chuckled ruefully.  "No doubt.  Now then, let me get dressed, and we'll give all the others the same rude awakening you gave me."

      "It couldn't have been that bad," he told her.  "And last night couldn't have been that bad either."

      "Why do you say that?"

      Tarrin touched his nose meaningfully.

      Dolanna blushed, which made her look quite lovely.  "Knowing that I was drugged makes me feel a little violated, but I won't lie, dear one.  I never met the man before, but he gave me a very enjoyable night."

      "That's all that matters, Dolanna," he told her, picking up her robe from where it was laying on the steps of the dais and handing it to her.  "You get dressed, and I'll fix your door for you."

      "Thank you," she said, accepting the robe from him.

      Though he wasn't as rough with the others, Tarrin and Dolanna visited all of their human friends one by one, and after ejecting the night's playmate, they took turns using the spell to burn out the drug that had affected them.  All of them had the same story to tell, about how they awakened feeling almost euphoric, and all of them had somehow managed to find an attractive member of the opposite sex who seemed interested.  One thing led to another, and they all ended up in bed.  Camara Tal was rather casual about it, remarking that she may ask Arlan about buying her bedmate for a new concubine, but Azakar and Dar seemed absolutely mortified that it had happened.  Phandebrass found it all to be rather interesting, and went off to the kitchens almost immediately to find a bottle of the drugged wine, so he could research its ingredients.  He very nearly forgot to put on his robe.

      After waking up all the humans, he brought them along with him as he went to Keritanima's room, and Tarrin and Dolanna used the healing weave to burn out the drug from Keritanima and Miranda.  Both of them had been asleep during the process, but they both woke up when it was complete.  Keritanima yawned and looked all of them over, all of them in morning robes, and blinked.  "What time is it?  Did I oversleep?" she asked.

      "You've been sleeping for nearly two days now, Kerri," Tarrin told her.  "That wine you drank at the feast had some kind of drug in it.  It affected you and Miranda by making you sleepy.  It had a, ah, different effect on the humans," he said delicately as both Dar and Azakar turned deep purple.

      "Oh.  Well, that explains that much at least," Miranda grunted, rubbing her head.  "I knew I couldn't have gotten that drunk off the wine."

      "Well, get a robe on or something and come to my room," he told them.  "While you two have been sleeping and the others have been, entertaining friends, I've been busy."

      Azakar continued to blush furiously, but Dar couldn't help but start laughing.

      They convened in Tarrin's room not long after that.  Kimmie came out of the bathing room with a towel wrapped around her, and Sapphire perched on her shoulder.  The first thing he did was tell them about his long talk with Iselde, relating his observations to them.  Then he told them about the book he read in great detail, relating what he'd leaned about the Sha'Kar from it.  Keritanima and Dolanna seemed absorbed in Tarrin's look inside the minds of the Sha'Kar.  "Simply put, they're a conceited bunch," he summed it up.  "But they're not nasty like some people like that are.  Actually, they seem rather nice, but only if you're their kind of people.  As Zak, Camara, Miranda and Phandebrass have found out," he added.  "They just have trouble accepting that everyone doesn't act like they do.  We didn't go into the servants, I thought that may be a bit confrontational, but that's the impression I get from them."

      "It's a good start," Keritanima told him.  "Dolanna, you and I need to go circulate at these parties and pick up their rumors.  Rumors are always a good way to get to know a society."

      "Where is Allia, anyway?" Dar asked.

      "She's with Allyn," Tarrin answered.  "She's working on things at a personal level, the same as I've been working on Iselde."

      "Someone should work on Arlan," Camara Tal noted.

      "I haven't even seen Arlan since the feast," Tarrin told her.  "I think he's been spending his every waking moment with the Elders.  Iselde said he's one of their students.  Actually, I haven't seen much of anyone since the feast.  I've been very busy with our secret weapon."

      "What secret weapon?" Keritanima asked.

      "Me."

      As one, they all whipped their heads and stared at Kimmie and the drake.  Sapphire looked very calm, very sober, regarding them with those staring amber eyes.  "Tarrin taught me how to speak," the drake announced.  "He's teaching me their language now.  When he's done, I'll go spy on the others and report anything important that I hear."

      They were all stunned into silence for a very long moment.  Then Keritanima laughed.  "That's quite a secret weapon, brother," she admitted.  "I didn't know she was capable of speaking!"

      "If you can understand, then you can speak," Tarrin said simply.  "I didn't think the shape of her mouth would permit her to speak human language, but I seem to have been mistaken."

      "This is quite an extraordinary drake," Phandebrass said in wonder.  "I say, I must--"

      "No, Phandebrass," Tarrin cut him off.  "Don't you dare even touch her.  I mean it!"

      "Well, there's no need to be rude, there isn't," he grumbled.

      "I won't let him touch me, Tarrin," Sapphire said with steely eyes.  "I remember that last time he examined me."

      "Hoisted by my own petard," Phandebrass chuckled ruefully.

      "Have you read the letters from the ship?" Tarrin asked Keritanima.

      "Not yet," she replied.  "Binter gave them to me on one of the rare episodes when I remember waking up, but they're still laying on my bedtable.  I'll get to them as soon as I get back to the room."

      "Sapphire delivered our orders to Jalis.  I didn't read the response, but I'd guess that his letter tells us he'll be ready to do his part of the plan."

      "I'd expect nothing less from him," Keritanima said proudly.

      "You have a good idea there," Dar said.  "It's too bad we don't have Sarraya, though.  She could have found out everything we need to know by now."

      "Who is this Sarraya?" Sapphire asked.

      "A Faerie.  She's even smaller than you, she can fly, and she can turn invisible.  She's the ultimate spy."

      "It sounds so," Sapphire nodded.  "I am no Sarraya, but I will do what I can."

      "Well, we've already lost a day, so let's get up and get cracking.  The order of the day is still to learn about the Sha'Kar," Keritanima said.  "I need to read those letters, and then me and Dolanna will invite ourselves to one of these nightly parties.  It's still early enough to get ready, isn't it?"

      "It's only a bit after noon, Kerri.  The parties don't happen until sunset."

      "Then we have time to do some other things.  I think I'll wander around the town and talk to the Sha'Kar on the streets."

      "Dar, you should talk to the human Sorcerers here," Dolanna told him.  "We cannot overlook them."

      "I'll do what I can, Dolanna."

      "Iselde should be at her lesson with Auli's mother right now, but when she comes back, she'll be up in the music conservatory," Tarrin said.  "Kerri, when she comes back, talk to her.  She tried to invite me to one of those parties yesterday.  I'm sure she'll bring you along with her and Auli tonight."

      "Why didn't you go?"

      "Go to a party full of pushy strangers when I'm alone?" he scoffed.  "Do you want me to hurt someone, sister?"

      "Oh.  Well, I forgot about that," she admitted.  "What are you going to do tonight?"

      "Teach Sapphire Sha'Kar," he answered.  "One more night should do it.  She's a very fast learner."

      "That is fast."

      "It may be one night, but it should take about twelve hours," Tarrin grunted.  "Sapphire seems to be very receptive to the memory spell, so she learns even faster than me or Kimmie did.  But I still have to go through the teaching."

      "Alright then.  Tarrin and Kimmie are going to teach Sapphire.  Me and Dolanna are going to crash that party.  Dar is going to talk to the human Sorcerers.  Azakar, Phandebrass, what are you going to do?"

      "I'm going to talk to the servants," Azakar said.

      "I say, I'm going to see if I can't get someone to show me how they built these buildings," the mage answered.

      "Arlan has a big library here, on the second floor.  I think I'll curl up with a few good books today," Miranda announced.

      "That sounds like a good idea.  I'll join you, Miranda," Camara Tal told her.  "It's better than trying to hold my temper with these arrogant Sha'Kar."

      "Well, it sounds like everyone has a good plan for today.  So I think we should get to it."  Her stomach growled audibly.  She grinned ruefully and put a hand over her belly.  "As soon as we eat," she amended.

      It was a plan, and a relatively good one.  They broke up and raided the kitchen en masse, then split up to pursue their individual objectives for the day.  Tarrin and Kimmie took Sapphire back to their room and started teaching her again, mainly because it was very important, and until Iselde came back and Allia turned up, there wasn't much else to do.  He finished teaching her the forms of semi-formal and formal Sha'Kar, and went on to start teaching her the informal forms.  There was a better chance she'd hear that if she was listening in on someone talking to himself than high formal Sha'Kar.  As she had the two previous sessions, Sapphire, aided by the spell, soaked everything up like a sponge, not forgetting anything that the two of them taught to her.  As was usual for Sha'Kar, Tarrin expanded her vocabulary as he moved into the new form, teaching her more and more obscure words as they progressed.

      Allia turned up about three hours after they started with Sapphire.  She walked into the room wearing a Sha'Kar robe while Tarrin and Kimmie were sitting on the divans while giving Sapphire a break to relieve herself, a scillinting silver robe that matched her hair, and looking rather lovely in it as well.  She had her wild hair combed out to where it was almost straight, and had a strangely content look on her face.  "You've gone native, sister," Tarrin told her with an appraising eye.  "You look like a Sha'Kar now."

      "I know," she admitted, looking down at herself.  "Allyn gave me this.  Isn't it nice?"

      "It's very nice," he replied.

      "Would you mind?" Kimmie asked.  "It really bothers me when you two do that."

      Tarrin looked at her, and realized they were speaking Selani.  "Forgive us, Kimmie.  It is a very old habit," Allia apologized.  "Tarrin was making note of my dress.  Is it not lovely?"

      "It's very pretty," Kimmie agreed.  "Did you have fun yesterday?"

      "Oh yes," she smiled.  "I wore Allyn out.  After he recovered, he took me on a tour of the island.  He showed me all the estates and told me the names and reputations of the families that live in them.  Then he showed me the forest surrounding the town, where some Sha'Kar walk for seclusion, and a sand beach on the northwest side of the island, on the other side from where we landed.  It was black sand.  I have never seen that before."

      "Volcanic sand," Kimmie said.  "The black lava rock, worn down to sand.  It must look pretty weird."

      "Then he showed me a carving that a Sha'Kar who died carved into a cliff face on the west face of the volcano," she continued.  "It is of two Sha'Kar standing in beckon to any who see it.  It almost looks alive, and the carvings have to be a hundred spans high.  It was quite impressive."

      "I guess it would be.  I've never seen any statue that big before," Tarrin agreed.

      "I learned much of the Sha'Kar's daily habits, as well," she said.  "They use magic almost as often as a Selani uses her feet," she complained.  "They will cast a spell to open a door when it is easily within their reach.  They are completely dependent on their magic.  I do not approve of that."

      "I noticed that at the feast," Kimmie said.  "There were plates of food flying all over the place by themselves."

      "I have already started breaking Allyn of that," she told them.  "He is taking me to a party tonight.  Would you like to come?  He asked me to invite you."

      "No, but you'll see Kerri and Dolanna there," Tarrin told her.  "They're trying to break into Sha'Kar society as well, but they don't have your inside edge."

      "This is not about breaking in," she said.  "This is about Allyn."

      Tarrin looked at her, a bit strangely.  She seemed almost...glowing.  Had just two days with the Sha'Kar boy had such an impact on her?  He knew she liked him, but she was talking like she was making long-term plans.  Didn't she realize that they were just too different?  Of course she didn't.  Allia, if she wanted Allyn, would take him.  And if she didn't like some of the things he did, she'd force him at swordpoint to change.  In that way, Allia was nearly as arrogant as the Sha'Kar.  It was her way or no way.  Everyone else thought that Tarrin was the dominant in their relationship, but they had no idea how wrong they were.  Allia ruled him as effectively as Keritanima ruled Wikuna.  He had been the one that had to conform to her, throughout their entire relationship.  But he really hadn't minded, because he loved her, and was willing to do it.  Allyn would have to feel the same way if he wanted any kind of long-term relationship with Allia.

      Allia would turn that boy into a Selani, when he was already trying to turn Allia into a Sha'Kar.

      "Oh, we do need to tell you about one thing," Kimmie said.  "Sapphire!" she called.  Sapphire was in the pool room, using the privy.  At least she started doing that after Tarrin explained the concept to her.  The Sha'Kar privy, just off the pool room, was alot like Keritanima's running water toilets.  They used magic to flush the waste out of the bowl with water, but Tarrin had no idea where it went after that.

      Sapphire flew into the room a moment later and landed on Tarrin's lap.  "Allia," Tarrin said with a smile.  "Meet Sapphire."

      "I know your drake, my brother," she said, looking down at the drake with a gentle smile.  "How are you today, little one?"

      "Doing well," Sapphire said conversationally.  Allia gaped at the drake, then she burst out into surprised laughter.

      "Clever!" she said.  "You taught her to speak!"

      "She started, and we decided to finish for her," Tarrin told his sister.

      "You said she was intelligent.  I did not think she had become that intelligent!"

      "She's agreed to help us," Tarrin told her.  "Since we don't have Sarraya, she'll go try to listen in on the Sha'Kar.  We've been teaching her Sha'Kar to get her ready.  We think they'll say things around her that they wouldn't say to us.  She just has to get in where she can eavesdrop, that's all."

      "The memory spell works on her?"

      Tarrin nodded.  "We were going to have Dolanna and Kerri help at first, but she learns so fast that we don't need them.  We weren't going to say anything to the others about it yet, but when Sapphire offered to help us, we decided they'd better know."  Tarrin scratched Sapphire between the horns with his claw, and the drake pushed up against his paw happily.  "Even Sapphire's helping out as she can.  With luck, we'll have what we need in a few days."

      "Have the others made any progress?" Allia asked.

      "Not really," Tarrin replied.  "The drinks they served at that feast were drugged.  It's some kind of drug that the Sha'Kar drink all the time, like alcohol for humans, so it didn't affect them much.  It didn't affect the Vendari or us either.  But it pretty effectively kicked the Wikuni and the humans in the backside.  The Wikuni didn't really even get up until about noon today, and it had a pretty interesting effect on the humans."

      "What kind?"

      "It must be some kind of aphrodesiac to humans," Kimmie said.  "Even Dolanna and Phandebrass ended up sleeping with strangers last night.  We wondered if it had any kind of effect on you."

      "Not that I noticed," she answered.  "I doubt my interest in Allyn was spurred by this drug.  I was starting to feel interest in him before the feast."

      "That soon?"

      "As soon as I saw him," she answered.  "He is a very handsome boy."

      "You're alot closer physically to the Sha'Kar than the Wikuni are," Tarrin speculated.  "Maybe you're similar enough to where this drug really is no more than alcohol to you."

      "That does seem reasonable," Allia agreed, adjusting the hem of her robe.  "I feel uncomfortable in this.  I am not used to feeling such a draft on my legs."

      "Take it off," Tarrin told her.

      "I want to look presentable for Allyn at his party," she said quickly.  "He asked me to wear this, so I will wear it."

      Tarrin reached up and put his paw on Allia's arm, and sent probing flows into her.  Maybe the drug had affected her, because she wasn't behaving normally.  His searching spell sought out the presence of the drug, but found none.  Perhaps she was acting strangely without being affected by an outside source that wasn't Allyn.  Perhaps it was love.  Love made people do strange things.  Tarrin himself was living proof of that.

      Allia, falling in love?  It wasn't absolutely outlandish.  She was a very loving and emotional person.  And she was certainly deserving of some happiness.

      Tarrin let go of her, smiling up at her.  "Well, if it makes you happy, then I'm all for it," he told her.  She seemed to understand what he really meant, and smiled down at him, then kissed him on the cheek.  "When will you be finished learning, little one?" Allia asked the drake.

      "Tarrin tells me tonight," Sapphire answered her.

      "Have  Chopstick and Turnkey shown signs of this?"

      "No, and that's driving Phandebrass crazy," Kimmie replied.  "He's kept them locked up in his room since they got here.  He said that the Sha'Kar keep wanting to take them home with them, and they don't know how to care for drakes properly.  He's afraid the Sha'Kar may hurt them by accident."

      "So far, our little friend here is the only one to show us how smart she is," Tarrin said, patting Sapphire on the flank, right under the wing.  "Maybe Chopstick and Turnkey will show the same intelligence, but it'll just take them longer."

      "I, don't think so," Sapphire said slowly.  "They seem...different.  I don't know how to explain it.  But they're different from me."

      "They're another species of drake," Tarrin reasoned.           

      "It's more than that.  They're not like me.  I don't know how I know that, but I do."

      "Well, we'll take your word for it, little one," Tarrin told her.

      "How are they different?" Kimmie asked intently, staring at Sapphire.

      "I'm not sure.  But I feel that they're different somehow.  They don't have the same sense that the drakes in my pack had.  That's as well as I can explain it, I'm sorry."

      "Well, they don't have magical powers like you do," Kimmie said.  "Could that be it?"

      "Maybe," the drake said, her amber eyes narrowing.

      "Well, I am going to go, my brother.  Allyn is going to treat me to some Sha'Kar desserts that were not served at the feast."

      "You know, he is shorter than you, Allia," Kimmie said with a grin.  "That doesn't bother you?"

      "He is not short where it counts, Kimmie," Allia said with a wicked little smile, and that made Kimmie explode into gales of girlish laughter.  "I will see you after the party?" she asked Tarrin.

      "We'll be here.  Drop by with Allyn before you drag him to bed and torture him some more."

      "We will come see you," she promised.  She kissed him on the cheek one more time, then sauntered out of the room.

      "She's so bad!" Kimmie said, trying to recover her composure.  "She's evil!  I like her alot better like this than I do with what she shows everyone else!"

      "You're lucky.  I haven't seen her be so open with anyone other than me and Kerri.  She must really like you, Kimmie."

      "I feel honored," she said, then she broke down into fits of giggling again.

      Tarrin and Kimmie got back to the business of teaching Sapphire Sha'Kar after Allia left, breaking briefly to get some food.  Afterwards, Tarrin refreshed the spell of learning and let Kimmie take over for a while, and he went to go look for Iselde.  It was just before sunset, meaning that she would be getting ready for her party tonight.  He wanted to make sure that Keritanima and Dolanna had talked to her and arranged to have her escort them.

      He found her in her room.  He knocked politely to gain entry, and after he announced who he was, Iselde called for him quickly to come in.  Iselde's room was about half the size of Arlan's chamber, but was much more cluttered.  Iselde had a love for furniture, it seemed.  She had three divans, two plush chairs, and two couches arranged in a loose circle near the door, and one of her walls also had ivy growing on it.  The soft light that emanated from the walls seemed brighter in her room than in any other.  She too had a bed on a dais near the back of the room, and had a bathing room just off from the bed, the arch on the far wall.  She had several bureaus and dresser chests with drawers, and also several conventional chests stacked in corners.  She had four bookcases, all of them holding an impressive amount of books, as well as little crystal figurings, tiny sculptures, little paintings, and other various types of small art.  Iselde seemed to like minitature things.  Iselde's room had a crystal chandelier, the first such decoration he'd seen, but it was not meant to hold candles.  It was a piece of crystalline art, with carefully cut pieces of crystal hanging from the polished brass tines by fine golden wire.  The chandelier caught the light from the walls and reflected it and refracted it, resulting in a dazzling display of multicolored light whenever the viewer moved his head to regard the thing.  It was quite lovely, and the light it gave off was almost hypnotic.  Iselde wasn't very neat either.  There were dresses and slippers and frilly little things that had to be underclothes scattered all over the furniture, looking like a human girl's room.   She also wasn't alone.  Auli was with her, and to his surprise, Iselde had asked him in while the two of them were in the act of changing clothes.  Auli was completely nude, her back to him as she held up a shimmering blue robe that caught the light of the chandelier in a very appealing manner.  Iselde's hair was wet, and she was wearing a bath robe.

      "I didn't realize you were dressing," he said apologetically.  "I'll let you finish."

      "There's no need for that, honored one," Auli said, giving him a naughty smile while looking over her shoulder.  "We Sha'Kar aren't quite as stuffy as the humans are."

      "If it doesn't bother you, it doesn't bother me," Tarrin shrugged, sitting on one of the divans.  "Did Keritanima and Dolanna come talk to you today, Iselde?"

      "They did, honored one.  They asked if I would take them to the party tonight.  I told them I would."

      "I like the furry one," Auli announced.  "What was her name?  Keratimina?"

      "Keritanima," Tarrin corrected.

      "She's got a wicked sense of humor," Auli giggled.

      "That sounds like her," Tarrin agreed smoothly.

      "Are you coming to the party, honored one?" Iselde asked hopefully.

      "Not tonight," he replied.  "I'm helping my mate with something, and we can't be bothered."

      "What are you helping her with?"

      "It's something that has to do with being Were and her being pregnant," he lied.  "You wouldn't understand, even if I told you."

      "Oh.  Alright then," she shrugged, holding the dress up again.  "I think this one will do tonight," she told Iselde.  "It's Thaline's party, and you know how stuffy she is.  She'd throw me out if I wore something more fun."

      "There's only the one party tonight?" Tarrin asked.

      "There's only one party on any night," Iselde answered him as Auli pulled the dress over her head.

      "That's alot of people."

      "Not everyone attends a party every night, honored one," Auli said.  "Us youngers tend to do it because we're bored and don't have anything else to do.  Some Sha'Kar don't bother circulating.  The social outcasts and the oldest, who don't have to worry about it the way we do.  So there are some faces at a party every night, and others come when the mood hits them, or the host of the party is someone they're friends with."

      "Ah.  I understand."

      Iselde shrugged out of her robe and held up a green shimmering dress.  "I like this one," she told Auli.  Tarrin admired her lithe form; it reminded him of Allia.  Iselde wasn't nearly so generously endowed in the bosom as Allia was, but she had a similarly beautiful figure.  Just thinner.  And she lacked Allia's muscular appearance.  She pulled the dress over her head and fussed with her hair after getting it on.  "Do you think I should wear a chain in my hair?" she asked her friend.

      "Well, I found out what I needed to know, so I'll let you two get ready," he announced, standing up.

      "My mother asked me to invite you to our house tomorrow, honored one," Auli said to him.  "So has about everyone else we know, but my mother threatened to do something nasty to me if I didn't deliver her invitation."

      Tarrin chuckled.  He remembered Iselde tell him that everyone she knew wanted her to invite him to their homes for them.  Obviously Auli's mother had the same idea.  "What's your mother's name?" he asked.

      "Lienne," she replied.

      "Do you know--what's their names--oh, Trevan and Tarielle Andiari?"

      "Not really, honored one.  They're a little too old to be in our circles.  But they have a good reputation and they're good Sorcerers.  Why do you ask about them?"

      "Of all the Sha'Kar I met at the feast, those two are the only ones that stuck out," he replied.  "I don't remember your mother introducing herself to me, Auli.  But those two, they stuck in my mind.  I'm not quite sure exactly why, but they did."

      "Tarielle's come to buy art from my mother, and she seems nice enough," Auli told him, tying a sash around her waist.

      "I was curious about something.  Why don't Sha'Kar wear more jewelry?"

      "Why would we want to do that?" Auli asked.  "Jewelry is supposed to accessorize the woman, not the woman accessorize the jewelry.  Aren't I beautiful enough without gaudy baubles to distract the eye from me?"

      "It's an old custom that dates back before we came here," Iselde told him sedately, ignoring her friend.  "Too much jewelry is seen as tacky among us, so we don't wear more than a ring or two, or earrings."  She touched her golden amulet.  "Except this, of course.  But it's a symbol of our devotion to the Goddess, not something we wear to highlight ourselves."

      "I think it's a silly old custom," Auli sniffed.  "It's not like the Goddess can hear us or anything.  I think the Elders make us wear them just to go through the motions."  She got a sly look.  "Actually, I think they make us wear them because they think it will impress the Goddess that we were so faithful even when we were separated."

      "Why don't you take it off then?"

      "And become a social pariah?  I don't think so," she snorted.  "That's the biggest blunder a girl can make.  Lamidrelle Velsanse showed up in the city without her amulet two years ago, and they still gossip about it today.  It didn't matter that the chain broke and she had it in her pocket, all that mattered was that she wasn't wearing it."

      Tarrin reached behind him and scratched at the fur at the base of his tail absently.  "Well, I think I'll leave you two to finish getting ready.  I found out what I came her to find out."

      "I've noticed that you always say you're leaving more than once," Auli winked at him.

      "That's because certain talkative young girls keep trying to keep me from going," he told her with a slight smile.  "I'll see you two tomorrow.  Iselde will bring me over to your house, Auli."

      "I'm not talkative.  You just can't resist my beauty.  That's why you don't want to leave," she teased flippantly.

      Tarrin snorted in the way that Were-cats did, glancing at her.  "It takes more that what you've got to keep my attention, Auli," he told her, then he started walking away.

      Tarrin heard her give a huff and stamp her foot, almost drowned out by Iselde's sudden laughter.  "I was wrong!  I really don't like you!" Auli shouted at him as he left.

      "That'll change in a few hours," he said absently, waving a paw noncommitally over his shoulder.

      Tarrin returned to his borrowed room and continued with the task of educating Sapphire.  He saw that Kimmie had a couple of her books in Sha'Kar open on the floor, sitting on a rug with Sapphire looking down at it, teaching her how to read as she taught her more words.  He gave Kimmie a break to go stretch her legs after she told him how far they'd progressed, and took over Sapphire's education.  She seemed to be having trouble making out the different systems the Sha'Kar used to write.  He found that the spell was wearing off, so he renewed it and continued on.

      It took until nearly midnight, but when they were done, after nearly seventeen marathon hours of education, Tarrin proclaimed Sapphire to be fluent in Sha'Kar.  She possessed the same language skills in it that he did, him teaching her everything he knew about the language and its many nuances and subtle variations.  Sapphire seemed very pleased with herself.  She took him by surprise when, as soon as he said they were done, she asked him if he would teach her Wikuni next.  He laughed and promised he would, but only after they were done what they were doing there.  When they had the Firestaff, he promised, he would teach it to her on the way back to Suld.  He told her he'd make sure she was fluent before they got back to Wikuna, so she would be able to understand what was going on.

      About ten minutes after Sapphire laid down on her bed and got some much needed and well deserved rest, Allia barged in without knocking.  She wasn't alone, either.  Keritanima, Dolanna, Allyn, Iselde, and a male Sha'Kar that Tarrin didn't know were with them, the male letting Isele hang off his arm.  The unknown male was tall and narrow-featured, with unusually long fingers, and dull blond hair held back from his face by a gold circlet.  Kimmie and Tarrin had just started playing chess, and they paused to look up at them as the filed into the room.  Iselde was laughing happily and pulling on the male's arm, who looked a little nervous.  Allia was smiling broadly, showing more emotion in public than he'd ever seen out of her, and Keritanima was wobbling very slightly.  Dolanna looked a bit flushed.  Were they drugged again?  The smell of them reached him, and he couldn't mistake the heavy wine-smell that emanated from all of them.  It wasn't a drug...it was good old fashioned wine.

      "Brother," Allia said vibrantly.  "It's too beautiful a night for you and Kimmie to be sitting in here.  Come outside with us!"  She was speaking in informal Sha'Kar, a clear indication she felt comfortable with the unknown male Iselde was using a prop.  "The stars are out, all four moons are full, and the Skybands look very bright and beautiful tonight."

      "Yeah, come on, Tarrin," Keritanima slurred slightly.  "Stop being so stuck up and come out and have fun!"

      "Stuck up?" Tarrin asked mildly, trying to cover his shock.  He'd never heard Allia talk like that unless they were alone.  "If anyone understands why I don't mingle, I thought you would, Kerri."

      "Oh, bugger that," she told him.  "Come on!"

      "Are you drunk, Kerri?" he asked bluntly.

      "I don't know.  Dolanna, am I drunk?"

      "I think so, Kerri," she replied.  "I think I am too.  How curious," she said, looking down.  The floor...it keeps moving."  She grabbed hold of Kerri to keep from falling over.  "How does it do that?"

      Tarrin was stunned.  They were all roaring, blind drunk!  He thought that only one or two of them was so drunk, but it was all of them!

      "I think I may be drunk too.  Isn't it marvelous?" Allia asked with a brilliant smile, then she laughed lightly.  "Come on.  We can look up at the stars and just watch."

      "I think the only stars you ladies are seeing are the spots in front of your eyes," Tarrin told them.

      "Don't be a prude, honored one.  You'll start sounding like an Elder again," Iselde giggled.  "And here I went and told Oran here how relaxed you are.  Don't prove me a liar."

      "Relaxed and blind drunk are two different things, Iselde," Tarrin told her.

      "Now you are being a prude, brother," Keritanima accused.

      "Our dignity wouldn't allow us to get drunk," Kimmie said.  "It's against our instincts.  So is losing control of ourselves.  Would any of you really like to see what a Were-cat is like when she's drunk?  When she's not in control of herself?" Kimmie asked pointedly.

      Kerri winced, and Allia looked a little concerned.  Dolanna just kept staring at the floor.  "Ah, not really, Kimmie," Keritanima said.  "I don't think I'd want to clean up that mess.  It would be monumental."

      "Why would it be a mess?" the male asked.

      "Were-cats are very strong, Oran," Iselde told him.  "If the honored one got drunk, he'd be ripping doors off their hinges and shattering tables without meaning it."

      Tarrin wasn't sure how Iselde knew that.  Did Allia or Keritanima tell her?  "Did you have fun at the party, outside of getting drunk?" Tarrin asked, trying to organize his thoughts.  Seeing them all like this had shocked him so deeply that he couldn't even think of where to begin to try to figure out what happened that got them like this.

      "It was a blast," Keritanima grinned.  "We drank and talked and talked some more, then we danced half the night.  Then we listened to Auli's mother sing, then we listened to a few Sha'Kar playing some old songs.  Then they caught Auli in Thaline's parents' bedroom with Julian Orialis, and she got thrown out," she laughed.  "I hope they managed to finish before that."

      "Julian left the party afterwards," Iselde giggled.  "I think he went to go find Auli so they could."

      "Don't talk about that," Allia said, patting Allyn on the backside.  "You may make us go to bed early."

      "I won't complain, Allia," Allyn said with a worshipful smile as he looked up at her.

      "What do you think Oran?" Iselde asked.  "Uncle Arlan is at the Grand's house tonight.  Want to go play?"

      Oran groped her in a most obvious manner, grinning.  "Well, sorry all, but me and Oran are going to go and take pleasure from each other," Iselde announced like she was going to run to the kitchens for a snack.  "Have fun without us!  Come on, Oran!" she giggled, pulling him out of the room.

      "I think a night in bed with you is better than staring at the stars, Allyn," Allia told him.

      "I won't complain, my heart," Allyn said with a bright smile.  "I'll worship your body any time you ask it."

      "I'm asking it."

      "Then let's go," he offered.

      "Sorry, brother.  We'll talk in the morning," Allia told him, taking Allyn's hand and leading him towards the door.

      "Man, what a time to not have Rallix around," Keritanima fumed.  "I guess I'll just have to go out and look at the stars with you, Dolanna.  I can lament over not having my husband here, and you can be my sympathetic ear."

      "So long as you can get me outside," the Sorceress replied.  "I do not think I can get across this moving floor without help."

      Keritanima and Dolanna staggered out the door, and left Tarrin and Kimmie sitting, chess game forgotten, staring after them in absolute shock.  What in the furies was going on!  Keritanima and Dolanna getting drunk?  Allia behaving like a Sha'Kar?  what on earth caused this to happen?  It was so out of character for all three of them!  Keritanima would have never gotten drunk.  She was too well conditioned to allow herself to lose her self-control.  Neither would Dolanna have intentionally gotten drunk.  And Allia!  It was as if she'd completely shed her Selani reserve, ever since she'd seduced Allyn.  Had the Sha'Kar male had such a powerful effect on his sister?  She was like a different person!  They all were!

      Tarrin looked at Kimmie in confusion, but she looked just as flabbergasted as he was.  It was insanity!  He was of half a mind to go after them, burn the alcohol out of them, and demand some answers.  But that could wait until tomorrow.  Besides, he wanted to get them when they were deep in the hangover, so he could punish them that much more.

      It disturbed him, distubed him greatly.  But the thing that most disturbed him was Allia.  She wasn't acting like herself, and as her best friend, that really worried him.  Allia was like steel, unchanging before any force that sought to reshape it.  He had never imagined her changing like she had since she met Allyn.  Even if she was in love, it seemed wrong for her to speak so informally or behave as she'd been behaving.  Even if she was head-over-heels, hopelessly in love with Allyn, her formidable dignity and sense of honor would not allow her to act like she was acting now, and it was a major transgression in the customs in which she'd been raised to laugh in public, or be so informal with strangers.  Or even be informal with friends in the presence of strangers.  Selani customs were very refined and almost ritualized, and he couldn't even count the number of customs he saw her break in that short conversation.  It was almost as if she had abandoned her Selani ways, and was acting like a Sha'Kar.

      That wasn't just frightening to him, or worrisome, or even astounding.  That seemed wrong.  Now matter how smitten she was or drunk she was, Allia would not act that way in public.  It was that simple.  It went against everything she was, the very fiber of her being.

      Tarrin's eyes narrowed, the beginnings of suspicion starting to set in his mind.  What was really going on around here?  Allia would never act like that unless she was being influenced somehow.  Had that drug had an effect on her that he hadn't noticed?  There hadn't been any of the drug left in her system, though...was its effect lingering?

      Questions, questions, more and more questions.  And only time would provide him with answers.  He glanced at Kimmie, who looked a little worried, and frowned.  Tomorrow morning, he was going to get some answers.

      One way or another.

 

      Tarrin didn't sleep well that night, since he was so upset and worried by what he'd seen of his friends the night before.  He was up before the sun, and for the first time since coming to the island, he walked the streets of the town unaccompanied, exercising his legs and getting some fresh air while he slept.  It had rained during the night, leaving the iron fences and the lush grass wet and the white stones cold and slick beneath his feet.  There was virtually nobody out except human servants, who were carrying bales of material, baskets of food, or were trundling out to begin a day's work in the fields.  Tarrin watched the toil of the humans around them, doing their jobs without their Sha'Kar masters watching over them, and remembered what that servant had told him.  That the Sha'Kar were good masters, and they served because it pleased them to serve.  But they didn't look very happy now, with resigned looks on their faces as they bent over their heavy toil with a strange sense of reluctant resolve.

      The walk cleared his head a little, and also reminded him about the plan they had.  This was the third day, and that meant that today he had to confront the Elders and the Grand and give them his ultimatum.  Then they'd make a show of leaving tomorrow, only to return and tell the Sha'Kar that their ship was broken and needed repair.  That was the plan as they'd developed it, but now Tarrin wasn't so sure it was going to work.  Allia seemed out of control, and Keritanima and Dolanna didn't seem much better.  He hadn't talked to the others since the day before, but he hoped that they weren't going to be quite so bad.

      But things weren't out the window yet.  Around noon, he would go see his sisters and Dolanna and find out what happened the night before.  He may have to kick Allyn out of Allia's chamber, but that was fine by him.  He also needed to talk to the others, and find out what they'd discovered.

      Tarrin paused to look between the two hills that formed the valley at the north side of the large, spread-out town, looking up at the volcano.  It was still smoking, if only faintly, almost like the snoring of a sleeping giant.  It had erupted once since the Sha'Kar had been here, but had lain semi-dormant ever since then.

      "H-Honored one," a young, very pretty girl said with a deep curtsy.  Tarrin hadn't noticed her until he was almost on top of her.  She was very pretty, very pretty indeed, looking to be about sixteen or so, with a heart-shaped face and dark hair that was long and lustrous.  Tarrin noted that she wore only a blue wrap-like skirt, vaguely similar to a kilt or Camara Tal's tripa which left her breasts bare.  That was the first time he'd seen a display of overt nudity among the humans, but the girl didn't seem to be self-conscious about her lack of raiment.  Tarrin's eyes locked for a moment on the elegant tattoo just over her left breast, the symbol of the house she served.  She was very pale, telling him that she spent most of her time inside, and she was carrying a finely woven wicker basket full of what looked like cabbage leaves.

      "Forget your top?" he asked her conversationally.

      She blushed slightly.  "My Master prefers me like this, honored one," she replied.  "He says my beauty shouldn't be hidden behind clothes."

      "You're the first human I've met who has an employer with such forceful opinions," he remarked.  "And you're wearing clothes now."

      She blushed a little deeper.  "I have to take it off when I return to the manor," she told him.  "My Master likes his view of me to be unimpeded."

      Either they'd been told to speak to him truthfully, or she was so conditioned to speak truth, even at personal embarassment, that it compelled her to do so.

      "Well, to each his own, I guess," Tarrin said.  "What are you carrying?"

      "Lettuce, honored one," she said, holding up the basket.  "For the morning salad."

      Tarrin leaned down to look at the lettuce, but what he was really doing was getting his nose closer to the girl.  That close to her, he could smell Sha'Kar all over her.  Her "master" obviously was one of the ones that preferred the company of human females.  Actually, she had more than one scent on her, and to his surprise, one of them was female.  That put him a bit aback.  Tarrin's Cat instincts precluded him from even thinking about that kind of unusual situation, for concepts of same-sex intimacy didn't exist in the more primitive mindset of the Cat.  They existed, and were even natural, in sentient beings, however.  Such acts were considered unnatural in Ungardt, but the Sulasians were slightly more progressive, and the Arkisians and Arakites openly accepted such behavior.  Tarrin had been taught to be tolerant as a boy, since his mother was much more open-minded that most Ungardt, and had he been human, he may have been able to rationalize that concept.

      One thing did stand out in his mind as he surreptitiously sniffed the girl.  The Sha'Kar used her for pleasure, and the mingling and freshness of the scents told him that they had all used her at the same time.  They'd had turns with her, like they were marauding brigands raping a defenseless village girl.  The Sha'Kar were a confusing paradox of conflicting impressions.  Some of their behavior infuriated him, but they were just so likable.  Iselde was a rather friendly girl that Tarrin had to admit that he liked a little bit.  But this seemed...decadent.  He knew that the Sha'Kar took liberties with their human servants, but this seemed a little bit too much.

      Sometimes, it was what one didn't see that revealed the true nature of things.  Tarrin's chance encounter with the girl showed him exactly how the Sha'Kar felt about their human servants.  They were objects to them.  Playtoys, to do the work that was beneath them, and entertain them in whatever manner they chose the rest of the time.

      The girl saw his eyes narrow, and she gave him a very fearful expression, dropping her basket and staring up at him like a fawn staring into the eyes of a hungry wolf.  Tarrin looked down at her felt a seething, towering fury rise up in him, something he had to crush under his will almost immediately.  It didn't matter how nice the Sha'Kar were or how interesting they were or how friendly they were.  Not now.  He couldn't leave this alone.

      "Did they force you?" he asked in a calm, deadly quiet voice.

      "H-honored one?" she asked in fear.

      "I can smell them on you, girl.  Several of them.  Did they rape you?"

      She gaped at him, putting a hand to her chest in surprise.  "We live to serve, honored one," she said.  "The serving is all."

      "They passed you around like a dinner plate, little one," he said in a seething voice.  "You say you were willing?"

      That got a reaction out of her.  She flared up a moment, her eyes turning indignant, and then her anger broke.  She began to cry uncontrollably, putting her hands over her face and turning away from him.  Tarrin felt a little foolish.  Here he went and made her cry.  He put a paw on her shoulder, and before he realized it, she had turned and buried her face in his chest, sobbing in heaving shudders.

      What was wrong with him, he wondered?  She was a human, a stranger.  He shouldn't give a damn one way another about her.  She was a stranger.  His own bad experience with being a slave hardened him to the outside world, but it had also softened him to those who suffered the same plight.  He had been too angry, too full of hate when he was in Yar Arak to feel as he did now. The time with Jesmind and Kimmie, the time to conquer some of his ferality had changed his outlook on such things.  The Sha'Kar were slavers, the worst kind, for their slaves knew without any doubt that their fate was sealed.  There was no escape from the island, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.  If they did run away, their masters would just use Sorcery to track them down, and the punishment could very well make death look more favorable than being recaptured.  To the Sha'Kar, it would be no different than putting down a sick animal.  That was all they saw when they looked at their servants.  Objects to play with, workhorses to do the work that was beneath their dignity.  And they were just humans.  Sheep, Iselde had hinted some Sha'Kar regarded their servants.  Sheep to slaughter when they were no longer useful.

      Dolanna preached delicacy.  Tarrin couldn't forget that together, the Sha'Kar were more powerful than he was.  He couldn't let his anger rule him now.  He couldn't lose his temper and do something stupid.  If he turned the Sha'Kar against him, they would defeat him if it came to a fight.  For one of the very rare times since turning Were, the human in him managed to take control of the Cat, to conquer the outrage and the indignation that it felt at the situation, to calm it down and explain that this was not the time or the place.  He had to choose his battleground carefully if he wanted to do anything about this.  This was not the time for wild rampaging.  This was the time for careful, cautious, delicate maneuvering.  This was time to stalk, not to pounce.  The pouncing would come later.

      Tarrin vowed that to himself.  When he left that island, there would be no servants left behind to continue their hopeless bondage.  If he had to take them all with him, then so be it.  If he had to wipe the Sha'Kar off the island in an orgy of violence and bloodshed, then so be it.  One way or another, things were going to change for these poor, defenseless people.

      And in this little one, Tarrin could sense that change.  He had been too emotional to feel it before now, but now that he had his paws on her, it was as clear to him as the ringing of a bell by his ear.

      The girl had Druidic potential.  Considerable potential.

      That was two Druids he'd come to meet in a matter of days, when he'd not come across a single untrained Druid before.  Was this place making the humans Druidically apt?

      One of them was in Arlan's house, and within easy reach.  But this one, this little one, she was in another house, outside of his view, where something may happen to her.  He could leave the redhead where she was, but not this one.  He had a duty to try to help her, because she was a sister to Fae-da'Nar, an honored Druid.  The Were-cat in him wouldn't let her go back to that house where they used her for whatever depraved entertainments pleased them at the moment.  No, this one, he had to bring home.  They were abusing her where she was now, and he would not abide allowing a Druid to be abused.  Everything that Triana taught him rebelled against that idea.  This time, he had to do something.  He just had to.

      It shouldn't be that hard.  He was sui'kun, after all, that alone should be enough to convince her master to give her to him.  And since he was already upset and outraged at how they were using her, he'd have plenty of steam behind his words to convey his displeasure to the man.

      "Gently now, little one," he soothed, patting her back with his paw.  "Take me to your master.  Now."

      "I-I-I don't want to," she hiccupped in a small voice.

      "I'm not asking you, little one.  I'm telling you," he said in a steely voice, a voice that she could not hear and willingly disobey without wetting herself in terror over what he may do to her if she refused.  He took off his vest and draped it over her shoulders gently.  "Take me to your master."

      She looked up at him, touching the leather vest with her fingers before pulling it around her, and smiled up at him with such a heartbreakingly somber, wan smile that it nearly made him fly off the handle and kill every Sha'Kar he could find.

      The basket left behind, forgotten, the girl clutched the vest around her like it was a robe made of gold and led him along the white stone pathways.  She took him to one of the largest estates on the island, fully three times the size of Arlan's estate, with a massive main mansion and eight buildings arrayed behind it, with a very large swath of farmland hemmed in the fence beyond them.  Tarrin focused his anger into a tight, controlled fury, like the cold anger he'd felt when Jegojah had revealed Faalken's undead body the last time they fought.  This was no time to lose control of himself and slaughter everyone in the estate.  He was so focused he didn't even pay attention as the girl led him in through a modest entrance in the back of the house, through a kitchen staffed with handsome men and pretty women, all of which, Tarrin noticed, were wearing clothes.  Up a majestic set of stairs covered with mother-of-pearl, along a passageway with beaten gold tiles paving the floor.  She led him right to a door layered with gold and with gems encrusted in it, and pointed with a shaking finger.  "He's inside, honored one," she quavered.

      Tarrin put a paw on the door and pushed, but it was locked.  Bound by some kind of spell.  Not feeling like bothering with the pleasantries, Tarrin took a step back, extended the claws on his paws, and then drove them into the door.  He gritted his teeth and growled savagely as his inhuman strength assaulted the door, until the magic holding it closed simply could not resist the raw power he exerted against it.  In a horrific squeal or tearing metal, Tarrin ripped the door off its hinges, pulling it right out of the wall.  He tossed it aside almost negligently, its loud bang echoing down the silent corridors of the huge mansion.

      Inside the room, twice as large as Arlan's chamber, a Sha'Kar male and female sat up in their immense bed and stared in shocked horror as the Were-cat ducked his head and stepped through the gaping wound in the wall, his face cold and his eyes flat and dangerous.  The male was one of the old ones, an Ancient, but the Sha'Kar female with him looked to be one of the youngers.  The male was handsome, the female beautiful, and they gaped at him like he was a Gorgon rampaging through their bedroom.

      "H-Honored one?" the male asked in surprise and dismay.  "What is wrong?"

      Tarrin beckoned at the serving girl in the hallway imperiously.  She looked hesitant, but the look in his eyes made her obey him against her own will.  She shuffled into the room slowly, and did nothing but clutch at the vest like it was some kind of magical armor and stare at the floor.

      "She is yours?" Tarrin asked in a deadly voice.

      "Did she insult you, honored one?" the man asked with sudden cold fury in his voice.  "I assure you, I'll punish her in the most severe manner."

      The girl gasped and broke into tears, taking a few steps backwards, trying to reach the door--

      the Sha'Kar male narrowed his eyes, and Tarrin felt clearly him weaving a spell.  "Pain," he said in a soft tone.

      The girl suddenly screamed like someone put a branding iron to her.  She dropped to the ground and writhed convulsively, shrieking as if the man was standing over her with that branding iron, shoving it in her belly.  She writhed and clutched at her chest, beating her feet against the carpeted floor, froth bubbling up from her mouth as shrieks of agony were torn from her.  "Stop!" Tarrin shouted as the girl continued to scream, the screaming getting into his ears, echoing in his mind, striking him in his aroused anger and triggering his protective instincts.  She was a Druid, a sister of the Were-kin, and he had to protect her.  "Stop it!" Tarrin shouted forcefully at him, clenching his paws into fists as his eyes erupted into the greenish aura of his fury, and then turned white as he started making his connection to the Weave.  His vision hazed over with red as the blood pounded behind his eyes, as the fury, the rage boiled up in him and threatened to spill over and send him out of control.

      "I--said--STOP IT!!!" he shouted in a voice that suddenly took on the power of his magic.  Tarrin's paws limned over in Magelight as he gripped High Sorcery in a crushing grasp, then turned and assaulted the Sha'Kar with the terrible might of his full power.  He had never attacked another Sorcerer before, but he instinctively knew what to do.  He smothered over the Sha'Kar with his power, finding his link to the Weave, and began to squeeze it like a boa constrictor would squeeze a meal.  Tarrin's power quickly and thoroughly overwhelmed the weaker Sorcerer, severing his connection to the Weave.  Tarrin kept his power over the man like a shielding blanket, preventing him from reestablishing his connection to the Weave as the girl stopped writhing, coughing and sputtering between sobs, curling up on the floor in a fetal position.  He wasn't sure when or how he did it, but he had the man out of his bed, his naked body pressed up against the wall behind his bed, like an invisible, giant hand were crushing him into the stone.  In that moment of fury, when he had the man under his control, Tarrin felt the powerful urge, compulsion, desire, need, to kill the man, to vent his fury and make him feel what he had just put that poor girl through, to slowly tear him apart and let his screams echo like sweet music in his ears.  But that knowledge in the back of his mind stayed him, reminded him that individually, he was more than a match for any Sha'Kar, but together, they could defeat him.  This was not the time for mindless retaliation.

      It hung there for a long moment, as the infuriated sui'kun held the Sha'Kar's life in his paws.  And then, with slow, determined, reluctant deliberation, he relaxed his hold on the Weave, his grip on the Sha'Kar.  The aura of Magelight dissipated from his paws, and the incandscence of his eyes reverted back to the glowing, ominous green aura that marked his anger.  Breathing deeply, Tarrin tried to let go of his anger, tried to regain his composure, but it wasn't easy.  Every time the girl on the floor whimpered, it threatened to send him flying into a rage.

      The male dropped to the floor and took in a deep, ragged breath, as the female in the bed scrambled out  of it and rushed to him.

      "If you ever do that to anyone again, I'll come back here and personally rip out your throat," he said in a seething hiss, showing the man his long, curved, deadly claws.  "The gift of the Goddess was never meant to be used to torture people!  I can't believe you!  Have you completely forgotten what it means to be katzh-dashi!?" he said with a sudden, infurated scream, which made both of them cringe and shrink back from him.  "Has a thousand years on this island turned you into something no better than the Demons you swore to oppose?  I know murderers with more decency than what I just witnessed!" he raged at them.

      They stared at him in terror, clinging to one another.

      "If I ever see you again," Tarrin said, pointing a clawed finger at the male, "you won't live to see me walk past you!  You may claim to be pacifists, but I'm not.  I'll do everything to you that you just did to her, and more than you could ever imagine besides," he said in a truly hideous voice, clasping his paws back into a fist without retracting his claws.  The result was that a rivulet of blood boiled up around his fingers and poured onto the floor.  The eyes of the two Sha'Kar seemed locked onto that blood as it flowed onto the floor in a steady stream, forming a wider and wider stain in their plush rug.  They seemed absolutely horrified by the sight of it.  More than anything else, the sight of that blood seemed to terrify the two Sha'kar into almost gibbering senselessness.

      Tarrin snorted several times, getting his breathing back under control, then opened his fist.  His regeneration sealed the deep puncture wounds quickly, and he wove a quick spell that stripped the blood off his paw, then sucked the water out of the blood on the floor, leaving it as a fine, powdery red dust.  That dust he carefully pulled up from the carpet and contained, compressing it down into a rust-colored solid mass about the size of a child's fist.  There were humans in this place, and they may get turned trying to clean up his blood.  Even in his intense fury, he had presence of mind to prevent that from happening.  Tarrin palmed the ball of solidified, dehydrated blood so it would be safely contained.

      "This one is mine now," Tarrin said in a seething, hissing voice, his fury clearly obvious in his tone as he pointed at the panting girl.  "If you argue about it, I'll kill you.  If you take this to the Grand or the Elders, I'll kill you.  If I hear anyone talking about what happened here today, I'll kill you.  If I hear that you torture one more human servant, I'll come back and do the same thing to you, then I'll kill you.  And if I ever see you again, I'll do worse than kill you.  You had best not put one toe out of this house until I'm long gone from here," he said viciously.

      He picked up the girl, who was still trembling, and regarded the two with a cold look.  "If this is what the Sha'Kar have come to, then I pray to the Goddess that you never get off this island," he said emphatically, in that same brutal, cold tone.  "Evil like yours deserves to be imprisoned.  And may you choke on it," he said with vicious finality, carrying the semi-conscious girl towards the door, where other Sha'Kar of varying ages and their human servants watched on with horrified expressions.  They all melted out of his path quickly when he reached them, and then he walked through them, looking an adult among children, without a word or even a sidelong glance.

      Whatever they had to do, whatever they needed to discover, Tarrin prayed with all his heart that it came soon.  After seeing what he had seen, learning what he had learned, he knew that his outrage wouldn't be contained for very long.  This atrocity had nearly caused him to lose control and lash out.  If he stayed among the Sha'Kar for much longer, it would come down to a war.

      And it was a war that he knew he could not win.