"So. How did it go?"
Tarrin's response to that innocuous question was to smash his fist into the side of a boulder. The manacle on his wrist struck the rock, causing the rather large stone to crack visibly from the impact.
"Well, that's better than I expected," Sarraya chuckled, just before she wisely rose into the air and out of the Were-cat's reach.
The sandstorm that kept them pinned blew itself out by morning, and they had moved on. They had left the area of stony-floored barrens, and moved into what could only be called a sandy rock garden. There were some plants in the sandy region, but only where they were sheltered from the wind by larger rocks. But the plants meant they had returned to the living desert, where there were small mice and lizards to subsist off those sparse plants, and a few small predators like snakes that subsisted off the mice and lizards. The place was rather pretty, in a way, but the rocks strewn on the ground slowed him down. Sometimes it was no problem, but sometimes they were so thick he had to travel on top of them, and he couldn't do that at a full run. They had stopped for the evening in a sandy meadow of sorts, surrounded by several boulder-sized stones that formed an irregular circle around the patch of sand. There were some very stunted little shrubs growing on one side of the clearing, and the scents and signs were there that some mice and lizards lived in the rocks surrounding the little clearing.
True to his word, he had left Sarraya around sunset and found himself a quiet place to sit and try to regain his power. And it was a disaster. He couldn't concentrate for very long, because every time he did feel himself beginning to come into a meditative state, the eyeless face would assert itself in his mind and disrupt his concentration. He had been afraid of it when it first began to haunt him, but now it was more of an irritation than anything else. It still incited guilt and remorse in him, but now it was keeping him from finding his center again, and that was life-threatening. Without his Sorcery to protect himself from some of the desert's most formidable dangers, he was vulnerable. And he knew it. That knowledge only made his irritation worse, and it was frustrating to have his attempts to calm down and concentrate destroyed by nothing more than a shadow of a dream, something with no substance, something he should not fear in any way. After all, it was simply a face, and nothing more. It could do nothing to him, and yet he still feared it. And that made him even angrier. His pride was injured by that, the Were-cat pride that told him that the strong should not fear the weak.
The outer distractions were one thing, but the single-most overwhelming source of aggravation for him was the Weave itself. It was right there. He could sense it. He could feel it. He could even see it. But no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it. It was like fog, or smoke, looking solid from a distance but nothing more than ethereal vapors once it was within reach. The power melted away from him time after time, leaving him grasping nothing but empty air. It reminded him of his initial training, when he struggled under Dolanna's watchful eye to touch the Weave consciously. Before, the thing that had done it for him was to open his eyes, to satisfy his Were need to sense what he was trying to contact. But this time, he could sense it all. In much more detail and clarity than ever before. Yet despite knowing exactly where it was and where to reach, it simply wasn't there.
It was almost as if the Weave didn't want him to touch it.
It was so infuriating! He could see it! He knew where it was, he knew how it felt. But he couldn't come into contact with it! It was almost like he was a ghost, incapable of interacting with the Weave in the same plane. But he knew it was possible, he knew he could do it! The Sha'Kar woman could do it, why couldn't he? It made no sense!
"You knew this was going to happen, Tarrin," Sarraya said from a safe distance. "It's time to calm down and have dinner. You can work yourself into a frenzy tomorrow."
He glared at her.
"Don't give me that look, young man. I'll spank you."
"Shut up," he snapped. Then he dropped himself to the sand. Hard. Almost without thinking about it, he reached within, making contact with the All, and Conjured forth a large honeymelon. He used a single claw to cut the thick outer skin, then split it into two halves. He breathed in and out deeply while he was doing it, a stress-relieving exercise that Allia had taught him at the same time she taught him the trick to ignoring chronic pain. It helped considerably, allowing him to get over his pique, allowed him to bury the frustration and aggravation for a while. He'd stew over it again later, but that was because he needed to do it. He had to analyze his failures so he didn't make the same mistakes, to help him succeed. That was what his mother had taught him, and despite the many changes in his life, the simple lessons given to him by his mother still had more merit than almost anything else he'd learned. He scooped the seeds and core of the melon out with two fingers and claws, casting them to the ground near the rocks. It was bait for later.
"Calm now?" Sarraya asked.
"I'm not throwing this at you, am I?" he retorted.
Sarraya giggled. "No, as a matter of fact, you're not," she agreed, flitting down and landing on the sand before the melon. "Is this mine?"
"If you don't want to conjure your own," he shrugged. "After I eat this, I'm going to see how many mice I can catch."
"Eww," Sarraya said with a shudder. "Don't talk about things like that while I'm eating."
"Don't turn your nose up to it until you try it," he said, taking a bite out of the melon. "Odds are they won't be that tasty, though. They'll probably be as tough and stringy as a ten year old rooster."
"I said not while I'm eating!" Sarraya protested.
He glanced at her, and was about to say something, but another voice suddenly arose from between them. "Tarrin?" Allia's voice called. "Tarrin, are you there?"
Without hesitating, his heart soaring a bit from hearing that voice, Tarrin put a sticky paw on his amulet immediately and willed that she would hear him. "I'm here, Allia," he replied. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing is wrong, but Dolanna wanted me to contact you to make sure you were alright. There have been some… unusual fluctuations in the Weave." Allia had to struggle for words because such a concept was a hard one to phrase in Selani. "She wanted to know if you were feeling the same things."
"What is she saying?" Sarraya asked. Tarrin quickly repeated Allia's words, and Sarraya chuckled. "No wonder. I'm surprised they felt it all the way over there."
"I know what was causing it, sister," Tarrin said. "It's not something I want to say like this. Dolanna warned us that there may be unfriendly ears eavesdropping." He glanced at Sarraya. "Just tell Dolanna that it's nothing to worry about. It shouldn't happen again."
"I'll tell her. How are you, brother? I have worried for you."
"I'm alright, sister," he replied sincerely. "Alot has happened to me, but I'm still here, and I'm still on the move. I miss you."
"It's not right that I'm not there to guide you throught he desert," she said in a surly tone. "I worry about you, because all you have is that flighty Faerie." Allia had to use the Sulasian word for Faerie because no such word existed in Selani.
"What did she say about me?" Sarraya demanded.
"You don't want to know," he told her dismissively. "Where are you, Allia?"
"Right now, we're only a couple of days from Suld," she replied. "We are all well. Most of us are getting very unsettled from being on the ship for so long, but it'll be over soon." There was a pause. "Dolanna is here. She wanted to know if you've been teaching Sarraya the special tongue we use when speaking privately."
Careful, careful Allia. She didn't even want to use the word Sha'Kar, even while speaking Selani through the amulet. It made him wonder why she was speaking Selani. Probably because someone else may be able to hear her on the ship, someone that wasn't a close friend.
"Actually, I haven't," he said, a bit sheepishly. "So much has happened here, sister, that was the last thing I would have thought to do."
"Dolanna says that it is no excuse. Sarraya needs to learn. You have to teach her."
"Alright," he sighed.
"She said my name. What did she say?" Sarraya demanded. "You're getting on my nerves, Tarrin!"
"I'll tell you in a minute!" he snapped at her. "Now shut up and let me talk!" He turned his attention to the amulet again. "Is everyone else alright? Is Dar alright?"
"Dar? I haven't seen much of him. He's gotten a bit introverted since you left, probably because he doesn't really feel comfortable around us without you here. But he is alright, I can tell you that."
"Allia, he's your friend! You shouldn't allow him to feel that way."
"I know, but I haven't been one much for conversation lately either, my brother. Having you parted from me has caused me more pain that I was prepared to endure. I wish for nothing now but to have you and Kerri with me again. I want my family back."
"Allia, you have no idea how much I want that too," he said emphatically. "We should cut this short, sister. I want you to do something for me."
"What?"
"When you get to Suld, be very careful," he told her. "I mean more careful than even Camara Tal intends to be. And you have to keep an eye on Dar. Keep him safe, sister. He's going to need someone like you to protect him."
"Why do you say that?"
"It's just a feeling, but it's a very strong one," he answered. "I've come to trust those feelings here lately. So far, they haven't led me wrong."
"Sometimes the heart knows what the mind is not ready to accept," she said sagely. "If the feeling is that strong, then I will honor its intent. I'll keep a special eye on Dar for you, brother. He will find no harm while I watch over him."
"Good. That makes me feel much better. I haven't felt much from Jula lately. Is she still with Triana?"
"I don't trust her, Tarrin," she said heatedly. "Better that we get rid of her, one way or another. But she's still here, still being taught by your bond-mother."
"Good. I was starting to wonder. She hasn't had any spats of anger or humiliation for a few days now. That's unusual."
"She's been behaving. Triana has had no reason to punish her."
Tarrin chuckled a bit. "I guess that explains it. Any word from Kerri?"
"She contacts me every couple of days. Right now, she's working to change around her government so they'll run smoothly while she's gone. She's gotten the cooperation of the nobles." Allia laughed brightly. "She said that they all about went up in flames when they found out that she intends to put a Vendari subject-king on her throne to run Wikuna while she's away. I think a few of them had ideas to try to rebel or take over the kingdom while Kerri was gone."
Tarrin laughed. A Vendari on the throne meant that he would follow the absolute letter of the law. And he would be totally unbribable. If Kerri left her kingdom in the care of a Vendari, she was absolutely guaranteed to still have a throne when she returned.
"Other than that, she said that the nobles are actually starting to warm a little to her new system. She sat down with some of them yesterday and showed them how their noble houses could use the new system to their advantage, and make money. That made them all more amenable to her ideas."
"It would take money to appease Wikuni," Tarrin said.
"That's no stretch of the truth, my brother. I've never seen such a greedy group. They're running this ship and escorting us, so I've had a great deal of contact with them."
"Kerri said she sent her forces to protect you."
"Seven clipper water-carriages," she reported. There was no Selani word for ship or boat, so she improvised a bit to convey her meaning . There also was no Selani word for clipper, but there was no way for her to make up a meaning for that, so she simply reverted to Sulasian. "Renoit said we couldn't be safer if were we being carried on the back of Saltemis."
Saltemis was the Elder god of water and the oceans, one of the ten Elder Gods that represented the world's natural forces. "I think you'd be a bit safer if you really were, but few ships on the seas are crazy enough to attack seven Wikuni clippers. You should have no trouble getting to Suld."
"Well?" Sarraya demanded. "I'm getting tired of waiting!"
"Sarraya is getting impatient, and we've already talked too long, my sister. I should go. I'll do what Dolanna wants. I won't like it, but I'll do it."
"I'll let her know. Be well, my brother. I'll contact you again if something important comes up. May the winds ever be at your back."
"May all the water you taste be sweet," he reciprocated in the ritual Selani farewell.
And the connection dissolved.
For such a short conversation, its effect on him was dramatic. He suddenly felt much, much better, not even a bit frustrated or annoyed. Allia's voice had always had that kind of effect on him, and hearing her after their long separation made him feel, if only for a moment, that she was still with him. That took a great weight off his heart. It reminded him of what waited for him in Suld, at the end of his journey, and it made everything he endured more than worth it. He would crawl the entire way if it meant seeing Allia again.
At least the change in the amulet didn't disrupt its abilities. He hadn't really thought of that as a possibility, and in hindsight, that was probably a good thing he didn't. The Book of Ages was kept locked within the magic of the amulet, and that was something he couldn't afford to lose. The very thought of it would have made him retrieve it, and that may have alerted unfriendly people to exactly where he was in the desert, how far along he had travelled since escaping them. They could possibly use that information as a guage, to tell them when and maybe where to station their forces to intercept him as he came out. He wasn't about to give his adversaries any help if he could avoid it.
"Well? Spill! Spill spill spill spill spill!!" Sarraya said in aniticipation, jumping up and down near the melon in time with her shouting.
"In a nutshell, they're doing alright," he told her. "Dolanna ordered me to teach you Sha'Kar, that's why we were talking about you."
"It's about time!" she said with an explosive release of breath. "I figured you forgot that we were supposed to be taught. I was going to ask you to do it, at least when you weren't in such a cranky mood."
"I thought Dolanna taught you."
"She taught me a little," Sarraya told him. "I still have a great deal to learn."
"Alright. I'll teach you as we travel. That way I have the time after we stop to work on Sorcery."
"That's fine with me. It'll fill up all those dusty, boring hours we have while we're moving. You sure you can run and talk at the same time?"
"You sure you can fly and learn at the same time?" he shot back.
"I've done it before," she said in a teasing voice. "At least out here, there are no trees to crash into."
"Sounds like you speak from experience."
"When I was learning to fly," she grinned. "No Faerie can say he or she has never crashed into a tree. Or the ground."
"Sounds like a dangerous business."
"Flying isn't easy," Sarraya told him. "It's as much an art as a skill. It took me nearly thirty years of constant practice to master it. Wow, you're suddenly in a good mood. I think you should talk to Allia every night."
"I wish I could, but Dolanna said that people may be able to listen in on us when we talk that way, so I can't do it in good conscious. She was supposed to speak Sha'Kar, but I think she was up on deck. Dolanna won't let us speak it unless nobody else can hear it."
"Seems like a silly rule."
"It's only thought of as a dead language if people believe that it's dead, Sarraya," Tarrin told her. "I understand completely why Dolanna wants us not to use it in public. It's something we need to keep back. A trump card."
"I can understand it like that, but it seems silly not to use it," she said.
"If I went around speaking in a language nobody knows, someone may get curious as to which it was. Then you have to deal with a bunch of questions, or someone that's really smart and can piece it together without asking a single question."
"I know, I know. I'm saying it seems silly because that's how I feel."
"I do alot of things I think are silly," he grunted. "I gave up on trying to understand them a long time ago."
Sarraya laughed. "That's true," she agreed with a smirk. "Now then, I have this melon here waiting for me, and if I don't eat it soon, it's going to dry out."
That began a pattern of activity over the next five days, as they moved more and more out of the rocky terrain and more and more into the verdant belt of the desert, the land in the desert that was surprisingly vegetated. Tarrin found himself picking his way through strange prickly shrubs quite often, and in one shallow valley they found the entire desert floor covered in small bushy plants that had wide, thick blades for leaves, and were lined and tipped with very sharp thorns and ridges almost like the blade of a knife. As they moved during the day, Tarrin taught Sarraya Sha'Kar, and the little Faerie proved to be quite adept at learning. At night, Tarrin continued to try to find his magical power again, but as it had been the first night, every attempt ended in failure after failure. That, paired to the return of the nightmare that had haunted him, did very little to improve his mood. He became short-tempered and downright nasty to Sarraya during the day, almost to the point where he didn't want to teach her anymore.
The return of the nightmare was expected, but its effect had changed. It still made him very afraid, but it also made him very angry now, nearly as mad as he was frightened. He was pretty sure that anger was because he feared something that couldn't hurt him, and that defied the logic of his instincts. Now that they had had time to work through his reaction to the dream, they were more outraged than they had been before.
That was only one thing weighing on his mind. It had been five days since talking to Allia, and that meant that they were now in Suld. There was no doubt of that. They were back in the Tower, most likely, and that meant that they were now in danger. The mysterious spy for whom Jula had worked in the Tower, an agent of the ki'zadun, was still there. Or at least he was pretty sure that she was still there. He had little doubt that Jula's presence was going to incite her to strike out against his friends, to eliminate them before they became a threat to her.
He thought of that as he moved along a butte of sorts, a long shelf of rock overlooking an irregular valley of sorts filled with rocky outcrops, spires, and some loose stones that were interspersed with a goodly amount of vegatation, both little shrubs, grass-like growth along the north side of the valley, and several strange trees that looked like almost all their branches pulled off. They were gnarled and stunted, with only a few branches, and those branches held tufts of large needles. The top of the butte was much easier travelling than down on the valley floor, and from there he could see a flock of sukk, the large, flightless birds the Selani herded for their livelihood. They were quite distant from him, and he couldn't see an Selani around them. It was a very small flock, which meant that it could possibly be wild. He was worrying already about Allia, and the strange feeling he had about Dar. Four days there, four days to get into trouble. That worried him, worried him a great deal. But Dolanna was there, and Triana was also there. Triana would see to the heart of things, and her presence alone was enough to make himself feel foolish for worrying so much.
From below came a strange sound. He slowed down to a walk, then stopped and squatted down by the edge of the shelf, looking down some forty spans to the desert floor. Coming the other way on the valley floor was a lone Selani, dressed in desert garb, with hood and veil down. It was a female, a sharp-featured woman with long blond hair, dark skin, and striking hazel eyes. She had come around a pile of loose boulders, and was running at full speed. He looked closer at her, and realized that her scabbard was empty, her clothes were torn in more than a few places, and she was bleeding under those torn patches. She had been fighting with something.
That something-or more to the point, those somethings-came around the rocky pile a few seconds later. They were medium-sized reptiles, bipedal ones that looked like miniature versions of a kajat . Smaller, but they were also built more leanly, with longer, whip-like tails, and their forelegs were much differently shaped than the massive desert predators, ending in surprisingly long, wickedly curved claws, with similar claws on their feet. They had the same generally shaped heads as a kajat, and those mouths were filled with rows and rows of sharp teeth. Their hides looked scaly from that distance, a color not far off from sand, with dark mottled patches to serve as camoflage in the desert. From the look of them, these had to be inu, the Quick Death, one of the most feared of the desert's predators. There were about ten of them, and they were chasing down the Selani female with shocking speed for such strangely-built animals. They looked ungainly, but their long tails served to counterbalance their forward-leaning bodies, giving them a center of gravity from which their powerful legs could work. They looked strange, but their bodies were very much adapted for running.
Between their speed and their natural weaponry, he had little doubt that the name Quick Death was well deserved.
"It's a Selani," Sarraya noted aloud as she landed on his shoulder. "That's a pack of inu."
"I figured that out, Sarraya," he told her gratingly. "It doesn't look like she's going to outrun them."
"Then we should do something about it," she told him.
"Why? She's no concern of mine."
"Because it's the right thing to do," she said crossly.
"She's a stranger," he said bluntly, using the one term with which Sarraya could not argue, the term that would tell her why he felt as he did.
The Selani was almost directly under them. She tripped over something and fell to the ground in a cloud of dust, but was up and with her back to the wall before she came to a complete stop. The inu slowed down and surrounded her, but they didn't simply lunge in for the kill after all the woman's escape routes were closed. They hissed and growled at her, snapping at the air in her direction, pacing back and forth as the woman kept her back to the wall. Odds were, he realized, that the inu had made the mistake of attacking Selani in the past, and they were afraid to make the first move. They had cornered a solitary Selani, but now that they had her, they were reluctant to press in for the kill.
That, or they were just toying with her. One or the other.
Something inside him shifted at seeing that. Seeing a Selani cornered like that offended his sensibilities. She was unarmed, incapable of defending herself. His Cat side told him to leave her to her folly, to make it no business of his, not to get tangled up with a stranger. But the Human inside, the Human looking for redemption for the evil that had been done in his life, couldn't abandon the Selani to fate. This was a chance to wear away at the dark stain that had infested his soul, a little act of charity to balance the darkness of his past.
This was his chance to set at least one small thing right. For all the difference it would make.
The inu surrounding the woman were getting closer and closer, working up the courage to attack, that, or tiring of the game. One of the larger ones came out from the circle of them, a really big one with a scar on its snout, the claws on its forepaws showing that it had put a few marks on the Selani. It hissed at the Selani woman, and then bunched up its legs beneath it. It suddenly sprang out, rotating so the huge claws on its feet would rend the woman to pieces-
– -and it was suddenly being driven into the ground by Tarrin's feet, feet planted firmly on the base of its neck. The forty span fall had given him terrific momentum, and that momentum crushed the aggressive reptile under him as he drove it into the rocky ground. He felt bones shatter under his feet, and the breath was crushed out of the monster's lungs by the impact, lungs that would not refill.
Kneeling on the shattered carcass, Tarrin turned to glare at the other inu, his eyes blazing from within with the unholy greenish radiance that marked his anger. He drew himself up to his full height and drew his sword in one smooth motion, then roared his challenge to the pack. All the frustration and aggravation he had endured for the last five days had suddenly found an outlet.
The inu, sensing the unique aspects of this foe, were nevertheless incensed by his bellowed challenge, an affront to their superiority in the harsh desert. They were almost compelled to attack.
In the blink of an eye, two halves of the first inu to charge him went flying behind him, to each side, cleaved in twain as it lunged at him. The Cat had control now, and it knew how to use the weapon in its paws, drawing that knowledge from the Human within. Knowledge the Human freely granted to the Cat to aid in mutual defense. Tarrin lunged forward, charging into the very center of the pack, his own shouts and roars competing with the screeching cries coming from the pack of reptiles. He slashed another in half as three jumped on top of him, claws ripping and tearing, jaws clamping around one arm and teeth sinking into the back of his neck. The pain was almost nothing to the Cat, wanting to dish out punishment more than it was ready to submit to pain. A flashing paw took out the throat of one trying to tear his arm off with its jaws, and a swipe of the sword in the other sent the front half of the muzzle of the inu on the other side of him spinning away. His free paw caught the clawed forepaw of the inu that filled the gap, crushed bones and sinew in his inhuman grip, then picked up the animal and whipped it into its fellows, with a small inu on his back the entire time, seeking to tear off his head with its jaws. Tarrin reached up over his shoulder and drove his claws into the side of the inu on his back, and then he closed his fist. Fingers sank into the flesh of the creature's side, making it shudder and recoil, then he pulled his paw away. The wound he left behind was ghastly, with two ribs showing through as he ripped a huge chunk of flesh from the monster's flank, and it screeched in pain and let go of its biting hold on him. He turned and slammed the back of his fist into the monster's head as it tried to jump off of him, driving it into the ground.
But for each he killed or wounded, two more took its place. He was again swarmed over by the surviving pack, and their claws and teeth sank into him, tore through muscle, tried to disembowel him, but the pain only made him more and more angry. Even the Cat began to lose its composure, regressing into his primal state, a state where he felt no pain, felt nothing but raw fury, and his eyes hazed over with red as he felt himself snap in the face of the assault.
Inu went flying in every direction as Tarrin exploded upwards, leaving the ground, using his inhuman strength to overwhelm the six uninjured combatants that remained. He brought his sword down as he returned to the earth, in a vicious overhanded chop that was aimed at the head of the nearest opponent. The sword swept through the monster with no effort, and drove partly into a stone beneath it, a stone partially buried in the sandy soil around them. He delivered an elbow to the jaws of one that tried to come at him from behind, shattering teeth and bone and sending it staggering back, with blood and tooth shards flying in all directions. Another lept at him, but the enraged Were-cat caught it by its foot, then turn and whipped it into the ground with enough force to split its belly. But that wasn't good enough. He picked it up and slammed it into the ground again, spilling its organs out onto the bare rock, then picked it up once more and hurled it in the direction of its packmates, sending bowels and other organs flying in an arc before it went spinning away. Another lunged at him, dodging under the carcass of its packmate, but he raised the tip of his sword to intercept it, and it had nowhere to go. It skewered itself on his weapon, and he turned and swung the sword, inu and all, at the one whose muzzle had been taken off earlier. The blade didn't kill it, but the impact with the dead inu carried along with the sword did, crushing its head and spilling both carcasses to the ground.
There were only three left, and one was wounded. They looked around and suddenly began to make shrill barking sounds, and turned to flee. But the enraged Were-cat would not accept that. It rushed forward with blazing speed, taking the head off the injured one as it turned to run with a swipe of the sword, then the sword was cast aside as it grabbed the tail of one of the remaining two. The creature barked in alarm, but that bark turned into a squeal when Tarrin yanked it into his clutches, then broke its back with an overhead smash of his other paw. He put his claws into the wounded animal and heaved it over his head, then hurled it at the last one as it started to dash away. The two collided several paces from him, and the weight of the thrown inu drove the other one to the ground.
He was on them before they could even move, and with clawed paws, he took their throats.
He stood up slowly, taking in the situation. All the inu were dead. There was another figure, back to the wall, not far away, and in his enraged state, he could not identify the figure as friend or foe. He turned on that figure with a narrow-eyed hiss, then spread his paws and roared in challenge at it.
"No! That's enough!" a voice shouted at him, and suddenly a little blue winged thing dropped into view, hands out to stop him. In his rage, he had trouble identifying this new interloper, but a part of him, somewhere deep inside, recognized this as a friend. This was not one to kill. He blinked as the rage drained away, as his conscious mind returned to full control, and he realized that Sarraya was before him.
As always, he was a bit fuzzy after coming out of a rage. He couldn't remember exactly what happened, what he did-that would return with time, as it always did-but he did remember that he was attacking a pack of inu. He looked around, and realized that he'd killed all of them. They were laying all around him, or at least parts of them were. Some of them were more than dead. He was covered in blood, and had quite a few deep gouges in him, gouges that were already regenerating. He had one tooth sticking in his shoulder, lodged there by one of the inu, and he reached up and pulled it out absently as he realized that the figure was the Selani woman. He looked at her, and saw that she was staring at him in complete shock. And that her eyes were fixated on his shoulder. On his brands.
"You should be more careful," he told her in Selani, in a cold tone. "Next time, I won't be standing on the rock over your head."
"W-Who are you?" she demanded. "I don't know the clan-brand you carry."
"I'm nobody," he told her, feeling his distrust of her rising up already. He looked at her face, and realized that she looked a little bit like Allia. She had the same cheekbones. But her jaw was a bit broader, and her eyes were golden instead of blue. Her hair was about the same color as his, and she was shorter than Allia, shorter and if the fall of her desert garb were any indication, not as endowed as his sister with feminine curves.
"I'm Denai Shu'Dellin, of the Clan Dellinar," she introduced. "You saved my life. I have blood debt with you."
"Save it," he grunted. "Consider your debt paid by leaving me be."
"Debt is debt," she said sternly. He took a good look at her, then sifted through her scent. This one was very young, barely more than an adult. She didn't have the sense to leave things alone. She was so much shorter than him, so young, it caused him to look at her as a child, a little lost child far too away from her parents for her age, getting into more trouble than she was ready to handle.
"Listen," he said in a sudden growl, a growl that made her put her back against the wall. "I don't care what you think. If you don't put it away and count your blessings, I'll leave you right here with the rest of this vulture food."
"If that is how my debt is to be paid, then so be it," she said calmly, stepping forward. She reached down and picked up his sword, drenched in inu blood, and held it towards him hilt-first, holding it by the blade. "After what I just saw, I know better than to challenge you over your decision."
Tarrin gave her a glance. She was serious! She'd let him lop off her head in a heartbeat, if that's what she felt that honor demanded. Damned Selani and their honor!
"Just drop it," he sighed, glancing at Sarraya. But she only shrugged her shoulders. He felt a bit wary to get too close to her, so he reached out carefully and took his sword, then pulled away more quickly than he intended. The result was that he left two lines of blood on her palms, from where the lethally sharp weapon sliced into her as he recoiled. She didn't even flinch.
Now he felt foolish. Before he realized what he was doing, he was in front of her, looming over her, her slender four-fingered hands caught up between his paws. She looked like a child, a little girl, so close to her, and her small size compared to his own only reinforced that conception. She looked up at him without fear, her amber gaze unwavering as he reached within, through the Cat and into the All, and then did what Sarraya had done for him so many times. The will and intent within manifested without, and it caused the Selani's body to accelerate its healing process to such a degree that all her clawed gouges and her sliced palms healed over in mere seconds. His intimate understanding and knowledge of the Selani made it very easy for him to accomplish, and so the Druidic magic did not tire him in any way.
"You healed me!" she said in surprise, looking at her hands. "You're a shaman."
Shaman was a Selani term for magician, someone with the power to use magic.
"Among other things," he said gruffly. Where did that concern come from? Just that close to her made his fear of her return, and it was all he could do to back away quickly. It was almost as instinctual as his fear, he realized. He saw her, thought of her as a little girl, and it incited a protective response in him. Were-cat instinctual urges to protect children were powerful, even in the males. He looked at her again, and again he looked at how small she was, how young she was. That was it. Looking at her and thinking that way caused the fear in him to ease, caused other, equally strong impulses to protect to rise up. "What are you doing out here alone?" he demanded. "This is not the place for a child!"
"I'm not a child any longer," she flared. "I wear my brands as proudly as you. I was trying to catch those sukk, but the inu had the same idea. After I killed a few of them, they decided to hunt me instead."
This little slip of a girl, killing inu? It seemed ludicrous, but he'd seen Selani fight. This little slip of a girl had probably been trained in the Dance since she could walk. He had no doubt that she had done exactly what she said she did.
"I saw them bite you, but you have no wounds," she noted. "Did you heal yourself too? And what is that little winged thing?"
"That is Sarraya, my friend," he told her. "She can't understand what you say."
"How about if I use the Western tongue?" she asked in Sulasian, which served as something of a common language throughough the West. Most outside Sulasia could speak it who commonly dealt with travellers or traders. It was heavily accented, but understandable.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked in shock.
"My father taught me the human tongues of both east and west. I am training to be my tribe's obe."
An obe was the tribe diplomat, of a sort. They often advised tribal or clan chiefs in dealings with other tribes, clans, and humans. They served as translators when necessary. It was a very prestigious position, affording high honor, and only the brightest and most clever were trained for it.
"Wow, a Selani that speaks Sulasian," Sarraya said in surprise. "I thought Allia was one of the rare few."
"I knew that obe worked as translators, but I never expected that they learned Sulasian this far east," Tarrin told the Faerie. "We're still a thousand leagues from the Sandshield."
"We are trained to serve, and serve in all ways," Denai told him. "I would be of little use to my chief if I could not speak the Western tongue."
"I'll give you that one," Tarrin told her.
"Well, what are we going to do with her?" Sarraya asked.
"Send her on her way, I guess," Tarrin told her. "She can't be far from her tribe."
"I have blood debt to you. I will serve until that debt is paid."
"I won't allow it," he told her ominously. "I'm moving on, and I'll be long gone from here by tomorrow."
"Honor is honor," she said pugnaciously. "I know this region. If you are moving west, as it sounds you are, then I can help guide you around the desert's dangers."
"No," he said flatly. "I don't like strangers."
"I am not a stranger anymore," she told him calmly. Then she smiled. "I have told you my name. That makes us more than strangers, does it not?"
This little one was almost charming with that smile of hers. He looked at Sarraya, but the Faerie only laughed.
"Don't look at me. I don't have the backbone to argue with her. You do it."
"How do you know I'm moving west?" he asked curiously.
"You said you were still a thousand leagues from the Sandshield," she replied. "The sandshield is west, and it sounds to me that it's your destination."
"She's quick," Sarraya said in praise.
"She wouldn't be obe if she wasn't," Tarrin told her absently. Part of him absolutely could not believe what the rest of him was thinking. It would be good to have her show him where the Selani were in the region, as well as the more dangerous areas. It would save him time and potential danger. Part of him didn't trust her… but part of him wanted to trust her. She was Selani. That gave her a measure of trustworthiness right there. She wouldn't lie or connive. She'd say her mind and be confident in what she said. Besides, he was pretty sure that this determined young lady wasn't about to take no for an answer. She had honor to repay, and he wasn't going to be able to stop her until she felt that honor was satisfied. If he rebuffed her, she'd probably follow him. And she was so young, having her tag along behind him wouldn't sit as well as putting her where he could see her and keep her out of trouble.
Besides, travelling with her would be a challenge to the feral animal within, a decree to it that he would not be ruled by it forever. Just like the girl in that Saranam city, the one that gave him the scarf, he was receiving something of a positive feeling from this little Selani. If he was ever going to break his feral chains, he had to start somewhere, just like Mist did. Mist reached out to him. Maybe he could start by seeing how well he could tolerate this Selani. If he could conquer his fear of her, perhaps there was hope he could conquer his fear of all strangers.
"What do you think, Sarraya?"
"She'll be better conversation than you," Sarraya shot back with a grin. "Besides, a little guiding through this region may not be a bad thing. She'll keep us from going into any box canyons."
"I only did that once," he protested as he started to clean the blood off of him. His clothes were pretty well torn, but that would have to wait. He didn't want to linger near so many dead carcasses. They would probably attract scavengers, scavengers not afraid to add a Selani and a Were-cat to the menu.
"Once was all I'm going to give you," Sarraya winked. "But the choice is yours. She'll cause you more problems than me."
"Cause problems? How will I do that?" the Selani demanded.
"By being here," Sarraya told her. "My large friend here isn't too comfortable around people he doesn't know. Your presence may upset him."
"I see the truth of it," Denai said. "He turned on me after killing the inu as if I were his next foe."
"He's like that, but don't let it confuse you. He's really a little pussycat, once you get to know him."
"Sarraya!"
"Well, it's true," she grinned. "You may be better off walking away, Selani. Travelling with the likes of us won't be a very fun experience, and honor will be satisfied because you'll do it with his blessing."
"Honor does not come to us without sacrifice," she said, quoting an old Selani saying. "It is paid for in sweat and blood."
"You'll earn it, girl," Sarraya said soberly. "Believe me, you'll earn it."
"I don't run away from my responsibilities."
"Give it a few days, and then say that again," Sarraya said with a grin, then she laughed. "I take it you're willing to give this a try?" she asked Tarrin.
"May as well. She may cut some time off our journey. I'll risk a little anxiety for that."
"Well, then," Sarraya said, then she laughed. "This should be fun."
"Only for you," Tarrin said, cleaning his sword. Then he sheathed it. His tail was slashing back and forth, and like almost everyone who first met him, her eyes were drawn to it almost immediately the first time he looked away from her.
"I need to tell my chief and my tribe what I do," Denai said. "They're only a short run to the north, and we should go that way to avoid the Great Canyon. So it's not out of our way."
" Great Canyon?" Tarrin asked.
"A canyon so vast and so deep that nobody can cross it," she replied. "We have to go around it. If you're going to the Sandshield, you'll need to go northwest anyway. You can't cross in the south during this time of year."
"Does every Selani know that?" Sarraya asked, just a bit tersely. "Var said the exact same thing! How do Selani living on this side of the desert know about how to travel on that side of the desert?"
"Common knowledge," Denai shrugged. "It pays to know the paths of the desert, even the parts of the desert you rarely visit."
"Makes sense, on what I know of the Selani," Tarrin told Sarraya absently. "If we're going to go, let's go. But one word, Denai. I don't slow down. If you get left behind, then go back home. I won't wait for you."
"That sounds like a challenge," Denai said with a smile.
"It's a warning," he told her. "Nothing more, nothing less. You should also know that I'm not human. I'm nothing like you've ever encountered before. I have impulses you don't understand, and I'll do things that make no sense to you. Don't let your guard down around me, girl. I tell you right now that if you surprise me or come to me when I'm not ready to deal with you, or if I'm very angry for some reason, I might attack you without warning."
"That's no concern for me."
"Just so you know. Consider yourself warned."
"Fine, I understand your warning. If I'm to travel with you, may I know your name?"
"Tarrin," he answered as he started at a strong pace towards the north.
"Better move, girl," Sarraya said as he left them. "He wasn't joking. He'll leave you where you stand."
"Nobody in my tribe runs faster or further than me," Denai called. "I'll show you. I'll be stride for stride with you once I find my sword."
"Whatever," he said noncommitaly.
It was insanity. He knew it was. Taking on this Selani was a bad mistake. She was a stranger, and being around her made him anxious. But another part of him wanted to feel that way, wanted to face his feral fear and conquer it. The only way to do that was to have someone there to fear. Besides, she reminded him of a child in many ways, and something in him wanted to protect her. She could help them, if she was as well versed in the region as she led him to believe. All he had to do was tolerate her presence long enough to take advantage of it. He was both drawn to her and repelled by her at the same time. He hoped it stayed that way. And he hoped fervently that she kept up her guard around him. She'd been warned.
Denai proved to be a woman of her word. She could not only keep up with him, she could outpace him on flat ground. She ran with him for most of the rest of the day, leading him to the north, towards her tribe. Ran in silence while Tarrin continued to teach Sarraya the Sha'Kar language. The thought of entering a Selani group didn't sit well with him, did not sit well at all. He understood the Selani, but such a group invited disaster. There could be one or more within the tribe that didn't care for him, and may challenge him over his presence in the desert. Among the Selani, that meant a fight. Since he wasn't Selani, that made it a fight to the death. He didn't much relish the idea of killing any headstrong Selani in duels of honor, because that would incite the others to side against him, and could provoke even more challenges. He would take this Selani girl back to her tribe, but his intent was to hold back, let her go and get what she wanted, then move on after a little while. She was a strong runner, she could catch up to him.
They reached the encampment of the tribe just before sunset, and they had to come through a large flock of sukk and a small herd of goats to reach it. The animals, sensing Tarrin's predatory nature, bleated and gave shrieking cries and shied away from him as Denai led him through their groups, clearing a wide path around the two as they moved towards an encampment of about fifty large tan tents. Denai's tribe was very large, maybe the tribe that carried the Clan-chief within it. A tribe was part of its clan, but the Clan-chief was known to stay with the tribe from which he came after winning the position. He saw the first of them as he moved through the flocks, young boys and girls with long staves, herding and minding the animals. Tarrin's presence sent most of them scurrying towards the camp quickly, and those that did not leave the flocks stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. He was already anxious over Denai, but now he was going to be absolutely surrounded by strangers if he didn't come up short of the camp. It was what he intended to do in the first place.
Now that he was closer, he could see the goings on within the camp. He could see well over two hundred Selani in the camp, and they all had their hoods and veils off in the waning heat of the late afternoon. They were bent to a variety of tasks, from making pottery jars to weaving ropes to tanning leather, to practicing their fighting forms and training with weapons. A small group of Selani youths were on the near side of the camp, casting javelins at a gnarled stump protruding from the sandy soil. The Selani disdained projectile weapons like bows or crossbows, favoring hand-thrown objects like javelins, axes, and daggers or knives. The superior Selani foot speed and agility meant that they could easily get within that range when it was necessary. But their preferred method of fighting was hand to hand, and it was here where they earned their reputation as some of the finest fighters in the entire world.
Tarrin pulled up about a hundred paces from the outer tents. Denai took a few more steps, then stopped and turned towards him with a curious look on her face. "You should meet my tribe, Tarrin," she told him. "They would welcome you. You showed honor by helping me."
"I told you, I don't like strangers," he said gruffly. "I'm going to circle around to the north side of the camp and wait for you. I'll give you until sunset, and then I'm moving again."
"You mean to move at night? Tarrin, that is not safe."
"I can handle myself, girl," he said in a warning tone.
"The Sandmen move at night. It's not safe to move at night."
"Sandmen? Allia never described them. What are they?"
"Restless spirits of those who died from the desert's hardship," she replied. "They are spirits of sand. They can't be hurt, but they can suffocate with their sand. They stay away from the lights of fires, so you are safe so long as you stay within the light."
"Sarraya?"
"I've never heard of them either," she told him. "I could take one, though. If it's made of sand, I can deal with it on that level."
"Good enough for me," he said calmly. "You have until sunset. If you stay here tonight, don't bother trying to catch up."
"You are foolish to challenge the Sandmen," she warned.
"I don't fear ghosts, girl," he replied with a level look. "The ghosts had better fear me. I'm much worse than they are."
She gave him a sidelong look, then dazzled him what that charming smile. "I think I've found someone who will fill the nights of my grandchildren with wonderful songs," she told him, then she started towards the Selani encampment.
Tarrin snorted, then turned to circumnavigate the camp. Sarraya floated along beside his head, looking around him at the Selani who gathered with weapons in their hands to observe them. "They're a pretty paranoid bunch," she noted. "The Selani I met when I was in the desert weren't so mean looking."
"Sounds like this is a pretty rough stretch of desert," he replied. "Allia never talked about these Sandmen, so they must only be native to this area. Sounds like these Selani get lots of exercise."
"That girl certainly seems adventurous. I get the feeling she's so set on going with us just for the excitement of it."
"Possible. If she wants excitement, I'm sure she'll find lots of it. Considering the way trouble always seems to follow us around."
Sarraya laughed. "That's for certain," she agreed with a continuing chuckle. "You sure you're ready to deal with a stranger?"
"No," he answered honestly. "But something inside me wants to try anyway. Maybe the part of me that's so tired of being what I am."
"Nothing wrong with trying," she assured him. "She seems pretty self-sufficient. If we send her away, I don't doubt she'll make it back to her tribe."
"She's just a girl," he snorted. "She shouldn't be off her mother's leash."
"The desert raises them young, Tarrin," Sarraya replied. "Besides, Selani age slower than humans. She looks eighteen, but I'll bet she's probably around twenty-five. She's cute."
"You're noticing the wrong things about the wrong gender, Sarraya."
"Women can appreciate the beauty of another woman, Tarrin," she said curtly. "And besides, she's not half as pretty as I am."
"You certainly have a high opinion of yourself."
"She's the wrong color. All wrong. How can she be truly beautiful unless she has blue skin?"
"I think some racial prejudice is showing through."
"Posh," Sarraya snorted. "She's cute, I'll give her that, but nowhere near me."
"Why all this sudden interest in how cute a Selani woman is, Sarraya?"
"Just comparing, Tarrin. Women like to do that. It's not like I want to date her or anything."
"I'm so glad to hear that. I'm sure she would be too."
"What a thing to say!"
"It's true. You're way too short for her."
Sarraya glared at him, then she burst out into helpless laughter.
Tarrin managed to skirt the camp, getting around on the north side, without too much trouble. He displaced a smaller flock of sukk as he came around, the large birds wanting nothing to do with the Were-cat, and he found a nice rock upon which to sit while he waited for Denai, while Sarraya flitted off to go look at something. He had no idea why he was waiting for Denai. He should have just moved on, and let her decide whether it was worth the trouble to catch up with him. Part of him wanted nothing to do with her. But another part of him did want something to do with her, and for the first time in a very long while, that part of him was shouting louder than his fear. It could have been because he saw her as a child, it could have been because she was Selani, and he trusted Selani up to a point, or it could have been that he was simply ready to see if he could tolerate strangers.
He wasn't quite sure why he was afraid to go into the camp. He'd gone into human cities alone, without his sisters and friends around him to give him some support and some familiarity to keep him calm. He'd managed to go into that Saranam city easily, and though he'd felt anxiety and fear, it had been managable. But these Selani… it seemed different somehow. He trusted their behavior, up to a point, because of Allia and his understanding of them. Yet he was afraid to surround himself with Selani. Perhaps it was because, unlike humans, Selani did pose a danger to him. Allia was more than capable of killing him, and he knew it. That caused him to afford much more respect to a Selani opponent than a human. And that was probably why he was afraid of them. Respect caused him to fear them, fear them more than humans, simply because they could hurt him. With humans, it was different. The average human had almost no chance of doing him any harm, so he wasn't very worried about going out among them. It took an extraordinary human, or one with knowledge that was not commonplace, to do him harm.
Strange. If that were the case, then maybe he was more tolerant than he thought he was. If he was able to differentiate between those that could harm him and those that could not, and give each group a different level of caution, then perhaps he wasn't quite so feral as he believed.
He watched the Selani as they watched him, gathered on that side of the camp, many of them holding weapons and watching to see if he did anything hostile. He knew the sharpness of Selani eyes, so he knew that they had seen the brands. That was probably the only reason they weren't attacking him as an outlander. He was a mystery, an unknown, carrying the brands that would give him safe passage through the desert, but of a species they had never seen before. The combination of those meant that they would simply not pester him.
Well, at least most of them thought that way. One rather tall Selani broke away from the group, holding a longspear in his hand. He marched towards Tarrin calmly and steadily, but Tarrin gave no outward reaction to the man. He simply watched him, with only his tail moving back and forth. A surge of irrational fear rose up in him, but he rose up along with it and stomped on it. He would not be a slave to his own fear. He would not! It was hard to scent the man through the dried blood that still stuck to him, from the fight with the inu, but once he got close enough, the coppery-flavored scent of the Selani reached him. There was nothing in that scent to hint to him what the man intended to do. Usually, a scent gave away fear, anger, even murderous intent. But he couldn't find any of those things in this man's scent.
The man didn't attack. He stopped, about ten paces from Tarrin's rock, and grounded the butt of his spear in the dusty soil. "You claim blood debt on my daughter?"
"She claims it against me," he said evenly in reply. "I already absolved her of any need to satisfy her debt. What she does is by her own choice."
"You carry the brands, so you must know of our custom. You know she would not simply walk away."
"I certainly tried to convince her. I don't have time to shephard a child."
"Speak carefully about my daughter, stranger," the man said with a bit of steel in his voice. "Her brands give her the same rights as any of us."
"Truth is truth," Tarrin said, rising up onto his feet, rising up over the Selani man. To his credit, the Selani didn't flinch away from Tarrin's unnatural height. "All of you are like children to me."
"Seeing you like this, I see the truth of that," the man acceded with a hint of a smile. "What my daughter does is her choice. I have no right to force her. Those rights were surrendered when she took the brands. But I will not allow my daughter to travel into danger without understanding that danger."
"I intend to let her guide me for a few days, then I'll send her back," he told the man. "I'm not the kind that goes looking for danger. I agreed to let her guide me so I could avoid dangerous areas."
"She says you intend to move in the night. That is seeking danger."
"These Sandmen don't concern me, shih," he said, using the Selani term for honored stranger. "I don't fear ghosts."
"You don't understand the danger."
"I understand the danger. They are ghosts made of sand. There are ways to stop sand."
"My daughter said you are shaman. Is this true?"
"It is," he replied honestly. "I also have an companion who is shaman."
The man looked him up and down. "My daughter is an adult, so I can't stop her. But if something should happen to her, there will be blood between us, stranger."
That was a Selani term for a feud. "Whatever happens to your daughter is by her choice, not yours," he replied, looking down at the man. "First she is old enough to make her own choices, now you seek to dishonor the choices she makes."
"That is a father's right," he said evenly. "Why do you seek to travel at night?"
"To get away from you," he replied bluntly. There was no reason to lie to Selani. "I don't like strangers. I can't find peace with them close to me. So I will move away from you before I rest."
"My daughter is a stranger."
"Your daughter is one stranger. One, I can tolerate. A group is another matter."
"A strange reasoning."
"I'm not human, shih. Don't try to judge me by any standard you're used to."
"I've taken it," he said, using a Selani slang phrase for understood. The Selani language had a kind of thing for the word take . It appeared in many phrases and expressions, even when it made little sense for it to be there. "If I may be so bold, what exactly are you?"
"There's no word for me in your language," he replied. "You can call me a man-cat. That's the closest I can get."
"It seems fitting," he agreed. Denai appeared on the edge of the camp, with a pack on her back and trotting towards them easily. She came up behind her father, who turned to look at her, and then she put her hand to his face in ritual farewell as he did the same with her. "Go with caution, daughter," he warned. "Don't let need for honor cloud your judgement. A wise woman knows when a debt is repaid, and when the greed for honor has taken over."
"I'll be alright, father," she replied easily. "If that one can kill a pack of inu, I don't see much need to worry."
"Be careful all the same," he warned. "We'll sing for you each night until you come home."
"I appreciate that, father," she said with that charming smile. "I'll be home as soon as the debt is repaid."
Tarrin settled his sword a bit on his back, then turned away from them and started off towards the northwest. He'd give them a moment in private, and besides, seeing them like that made him miss his sisters, and his parents, and Triana. It wasn't something he wanted to dwell upon.
Behind him, the Selani camp arose in song. The sound of it was haunting, as a multitude of gentle, soft voices joined together in what sounded to him was a benediction, and a plea for the safe return of their daughter. The sound of it was haunting, complicated, as the many voices joined together to form a choral whole that was stronger than the sum of its parts. It reminded him in a strange way of the Goddess, and the curious choral effect of her voice when she spoke to him, as if no one voice could contain all the power within it. This wasn't the powerful choral quality ofthe Goddess, but the voices carried a strange power of their own. It incited several memories of Allia and her lovely voice, how she would sing for him whenever he was feeling unwell or out of sorts. Her voice was nothing like what he heard behind him, but the sound of it only made his longing for Allia's company that much worse. He closed his ears to that sound, looking down at the ground as he left, picking up his pace to get out of earshot of their lovely song, a song that reminded him of the family he had left behind.
And he was missing them more and more with every passing day.
Denai was going to be a problem.
He realized that while sitting around a campfire with her and Sarraya about midnight. They had moved through half the night to get some distance from the other Selani, and had seen none of these mysterious Sandmen that the Selani warned him about. They found a nice place in a shallow hollow in the side of a rocks spire, a hollow that caught the fire's heat and warmed the area much more than if they were out in the open. Denai had brained a large lizard, nearly five spans long, with a slender throwing dagger, and that had been dinner.
Denai was… energetic. That was a kind term. In actuality, she was hyperactive, overflowing with youthful energy and exuberance. Her eyes were shining with that energy as they sat around the campfire, and she had trouble sitting still as she and Sarraya talked aimlessly about this or that. She was a far cry from the dignified Allia, who moved so much less so than this girl. Even Var, in the short time he'd observed him, didn't act quite like this young Selani girl. Var was more lively than Allia, but nowhere near this. That wasn't to say that Allia was unusual, but his sister had an aire of dignity and honor about her that made her seem different than those two, and she wasn't prone to fidgeting and waggling about as Denai was. Denai was a talker, and that too seemed strange for a Selani. She loved to talk, nearly as much as Phandebrass, but unlike him she would be silent and let those around her speak back. She had an intense interest about him and Sarraya, and went on and on and on and on with her questions. So many that she'd had to retreat to the far side of the fire when Tarrin fixed her with an ugly stare and laid his ears back at her. Sarraya knew him and knew Were-cats, so she knew that it was time to separate the exuberant girl from the brooding Were-cat which was the focus of her curiosity.
The follies of youth.
Tarrin didn't consider the fact that Denai was probably older than he was. He was only eighteen, but he'd seen so much in his short life that he felt much, much older than that. Denai had that same fire, that spirit that he had had when he left home with Dolanna and Faalken, which was what seemed a lifetime ago. She saw their trip as an adventure, something exciting and fun, something to look back upon and remember fondly. For him, it was yet another chore, yet another obstacle to overcome as he hurtled towards his own fate.
In a way, he envied Denai. She was young, and didn't know any better. Everything for her was new and exciting, and her outlook on life was along the lines of "take no prisoners." He could appreciate that. He'd felt that way once, a very long time ago. Too long ago.
Tarrin listened to her drone on and on, absently looking down at the ground, and that was when he noticed it. Gold. A large nugget of it, just laying on the desert floor like a pebble. He reached down and picked it up, and saw that it was indeed pure gold. It wasn't as shiny as jewelry was, twisted a little into an irregular shape that resembled a peanut, but a clawtip showed him that it was indeed real gold. Allia had said that the desert was littered with it, that it was holy to Fara'Nae. That was the main thrust of the current frictions between Arkis and the Selani, that Arkisian gold hunters were invading the desert to get the gold that was literally strewn across the landscape. There was a time when he would have wondered at finding such a thing, when gold meant something to him. Now, it was just another pretty metal. Gold, and the greed it incited, were primarily human wants. His Were-cat mentality didn't see much use for gold. He could provide for all his own needs, so money wasn't something that interested him. Gold had no value other than what others were willing to give in trade for it. And out here, where there was no one to trade with, it made it just as valuable as any other pebble laying on the desert floor.
Well, if it was holy to Fara'Nae, he figured that it probably wasn't a good idea to disturb it. He put it back where he found it, and turned his ears back to Sarraya and Denai.
"I don't see why you'd need to learn all those languages if nobody ever comes into the desert," Sarraya said to the Selani.
"Merchants come into the desert," Denai told her. "They speak the four common trade languages, so the obe must know all four."
"Four? I thought there were two."
"Four. The common tongue of the west, the common tongue of the east, the language of the beast-men, and the language of the south."
"Beastmen? You mean the Wikuni?" Sarraya asked curiously, and Denai nodded. "And which is the south?"
"Sharadi," Tarrin said calmly, interrupting them. "Dolanna told me that the common trade language of the southern continents is Sharadi."
"That's it," Denai agreed. "The obe serves as the translator for the chief, and also as an advisor. It's a hard job, because obe aren't permitted to fight unless the chief is in danger. We sacrifice much for the honor of the position."
"I didn't know a Selani would agree to not fight," Sarraya teased. "But to learn four languages at once, wow. That's hard."
"It's very hard. I'm still learning. We have to know the languages as well as those who learned it from infancy. Sometimes I get confused, and start speaking in another language when I'm trying to use one of them. I was taught all four at once. Sometimes they get jumbled together."
"Tarrin suffers from that too," Sarraya grinned. "He's like an encyclopedia of languages. I don't know anyone who can speak as many languages as he can. But you know two that he doesn't," she told the Selani.
"I do? Which?"
"Wikuni and Sharadi," she replied.
"Keritanima and Dolanna were teaching them to me, but things kept them from finishing," he told the Faerie, gnawing a bit more on one of the bones left over from the lizard.
"Then perhaps I can help settle my blood debt by finishing," Denai offered. "It will help me get better by teaching you. I can't teach you as well as those others could, but I'm sure you can learn something from me that you didn't know."
"Maybe," he said indifferently.
"How many kinds of jobs are there in the Selani camps, Denai?" Sarraya asked.
"Jobs? You mean positions of honor, like an obe?"
"Yeah. Tarrin knows all about it, but he won't tell me anything."
"Well, there are the obe. There are si'swan, the Scouts-"
"Allia is a Scout," Tarrin told Sarraya.
"Scouts are gifted with the Eyes of the Holy Mother. That gift makes them perfect watchers. There are the oribu'oni, the Weapons Makers. They are a society of high honor, and it is great honor to be accepted into them. We have shaman, the Voices of the Holy Mother, our healers and magicians. They are the greatest of honorable societies. Even a chief bows to the words of a shaman, because they speak with the voice of the Holy Mother. We are all dutiful children, and we obey her words. There are other societies-"
"Societies?" Sarraya asked.
"Think of them as guilds, or groups," Tarrin interjected. "Members of a society can belong to different tribes or clans, but the bond of society makes them a group to themselves. There is a society for every job or skill, from potters to warriors. A Selani can belong to more than one society, if he has more than one skill. Just to keep Denai from spending hours describing them."
"You know much of our people, Tarrin," Denai said, her voice telling him that she was impressed. "The shaman serve as the arbiters between clans or tribes when they have blood issues. The Holy Mother does not permit us to fight among ourselves, so our societies allow us to reach across clan lines when the need is there."
"I've been to the desert before, but we never really talked to the Selani," Sarraya told Denai. "I was visiting another Druid-"
"Druid? You mean the Watchers?"
"That's what he said you called him," Sarraya replied.
"Watchers are men and women of honor," Denai said. "They have always been helpful to our people when we've needed it. The Holy Mother has decreed that Watchers are to be treated with courtesy and respect. If you are a Watcher, then you're worthy of honor."
"Well, it's nice to be appreciated," Sarraya said, giving Tarrin a teasing look. "At least someone around here does."
"Don't worry, Denai. Sarraya will give you plenty of reasons not to think so highly of her in just a few days."
Sarraya glared at him, but Denai laughed.
"Well at least I don't snore!" she flared.
"Says you," he replied mildly.
She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to a smiling Denai. "What is this Gathering I heard about?"
"We gather together every year," she replied. "We trade goods and stories. We compete among ourselves in contest of skill, and the societies have a chance to gather and share knowledge and renew kinships. It's also a time to find husbands or wives, because it's not good for the people as a whole if too many marriages are made within the same tribe. We gather at the Cloud Spire, so its shade makes the long days less taxing on us."
"Sounds like a huge fair," Sarraya mused.
"Fair?"
"A fair is a good comparison. A fair is much like a Gathering," he told Denai.
"I meant to ask you something, Tarrin."
"What?"
"Your brands. Are you truly of the clan chief's blood?"
Tarrin gave her a curious look, then he rememebered that the little line through the clan brand on his shoulder denoted "royal blood," and was something only the blood of a Clan Chief wore. "My deshaida is the daughter of a clan chief," he told her. "I've never met her clan. She was the one who gave me the brands."
"Strange for her to do it without her clan's permission."
"She made it rather clear that it was unusual," he agreed. "But the circumstances were unusual too."
"What circumstances?"
"None that concern you," he told her rather shortly, crushing the bone with his sharp teeth and drawing out the marrow.
"Ignore him, Denai. Until he gets to know you, he'll be about as warm as an angry hornet."
"I meant no offense," Denai said contritely.
"Don't worry about it," Sarraya told her. "Old badger-butt over there doesn't like anyone at first. Just give him time, and he'll grow on you."
Tarrin fixed Sarraya with a flat stare, his tail stopping in mid-swish.
"See? Only someone who loved him would put up with that day after day," she said flippantly.
Despite herself, Denai laughed. "Why are you crossing the desert? Why not use those water-carriages that the beast-people use?"
"Ship. They're called ships," Sarraya told her. "We're travelling overland because it's a bit unsafe on the ocean right now. Tarrin's brands give him safe passage through the desert, and none of our enemies will follow us here."
"Enemies? It sounds like you have quite a story to tell," she said, her eyes taking on a dreamy quality.
"We do, but it'll have to wait for later. Tell me about that singing I was hearing as we left your people."
"They were singing for me," she replied. "Singing a prayer of good passage, so that the Holy Mother may watch over and protect me on my journey."
"Interesting. Tarrin told me that the Selani love to sing."
"Singing is the way the Holy Mother wishes us to say our prayers aloud," she told the Faerie. "Because we sing our prayers, we've found singing to be soothing to us, or voice our contentment. If you hear a Selani singing, then the Selani must be either feeling very good, or is a little upset."
"What happens when you want to pray for something that you don't have a song for?"
"The song is the prayer," she said pointedly. "We build the melody as we go. The better the song, the better the chance that the Holy Mother will answer the prayer. From the time we can speak, we learn the concepts of music and melody and harmony, all so we can be heard above other Selani when we pray."
"It sounds like a competition."
"I guess it is," Denai admitted. "Singing is one of the most serious competitions during the Gathering. The greatest singer in the desert is afforded much honor."
"What other competitions are there?"
"There are alot of them. One of the most honorable is the contest of the Dance," she said. "There are all sorts of contests of skill with weapons and feats of strength or agility. There are races and contests to see who can climb the highest up the Cloud Spire. The societies compete among themselves to see who can make the greatest object, or perform their craft with the greatest skill. The items that win those competitions stay with the winning Selani's clan until the next Gathering. It's a matter of honor to own an object that won a society's contest at the Gathering."
"What happens to them at the next Gathering?"
"They are given to the most promising apprentices of the societies, so they can study them and learn the secrets of their crafts," she replied.
"So, let me guess. The apprentices compete to see who gets to keep last year's winners?"
Denai nodded, reaching to her waist and pulling out a slender dagger. "This was one of those objects, made for the competition between oribu'oni. It was given to my brother when he won the right to own it, and he gave it to me. It's the best dagger I've ever owned. Its balance is perfect for throwing."
"You call it a dagger, I'd call it a sword," Sarraya grinned.
"Are all your people your size, Sarraya?"
"Of course," she smiled. "I'm actually a bit tall among my people."
"I've never seen a race so small. No offense," she said quickly.
"None taken, Denai. We know we're short. We don't have complexes about it, you know."
Tarrin snorted in derision. "You stay out of it!" Sarraya barked at him, then turned back to Denai. "Sometimes being so small has advantages. You just have to look for the good in it, that's all."
"Are all Tarrin's kind so, so tall?"
"No," Sarraya replied. "He's out of the ordinary for his kind, but as a whole, his kind are much taller than humans, or Selani."
"It only goes to show that it's as the Holy Mother teaches. That the world is full of great differences, and that those differences make the world richer for their presence."
"That's very profound," Sarraya said with no hint of teasing or amusement in her voice.
Denai gave Sarraya that charming smile, then took a sip of water from a waterskin. "We'll continue this way for a day or two more," she said. "But then we'll have to turn due north to avoid the Great Canyon."
"How far away is this Cloud Spire?" Sarraya asked curiously.
"It's in almost the exact center of the desert," Denai replied. "Nearly a month of travel, north and west of here."
"Really? I didn't realize that the desert was so big."
"It's nearly as large as the West," Tarrin told her absently.
"It'll take longer for my people to get there because they'll have to avoid certain dangerous areas," Denai said. "They'll spend almost as much time travelling south and east as they do north and west."
"What kind of areas?"
"The Great Canyon," she said, looking up as she thought. "The Maze of Passages, the Great Salt Flat, and the Boiling Lake."
"Boiling Lake? What is that?"
"A large lake, but the water is so hot it boils," she replied. "My mother says it's because of heat that comes from underground. The water boils as it comes out of the ground, and it has a bad smell. The very air around the Boiling Lake is unhealthy, so we avoid it. The whole region is empty, because the fumes from the lake and the water itself kill off any plants or animals that try to live there."
"What is the Maze of Passages?"
"It's an area of badlands," she replied. "Raised rock crisscrossed with countless deep crevasses that serve as passages through the region. The passages are infested with inu and kajat, preying off the animals and Selani foolish enough to enter the maze. We'll pass by there in about ten days. It's just past the Great Canyon's northern edge."
"It's a good thing you're here, then," Sarraya said. "Tarrin would lead us right into it, and get us immediately lost."
"You can fly. Why do you care?" Tarrin shot back in reply.
"I don't, but then I'd have to save you again and again, and you know old and boring that gets after about the fiftieth time," she teased.
"Whatever." He yawned. "I'm getting tired. I'm going to bed. You two had better remember that we have a long way to go tomorrow."
With that, he hunkered down and shifted into cat form. Denai's startled gasp as she rose to her feet quickly made him realize that he hadn't warned her or said anything, but in reality, he really didn't care all that much. He curled up near the fire and closed his eyes, allowing the care-free nature of the Cat soothe him and prepare him to sleep. The dreams and the eyeless face had trouble finding him when he was in cat form, and so it had become his preferred way to sleep. In reality, he preferred sleeping in cat form over his humanoid form most of the time anyway.
"Magic!" Denai breathed.
"Not magic, nature," Sarraya told her. "He's a Were-cat."
"What is that?"
"Well, sit back down, and I'll explain everything. I'll even explain a few things to you so you don't make a mistake around him. He may look all cute and cuddly, but he can be as savage as an inu. Well, actually, alot worse than that," she added as an afterthought.
"He's that dangerous?"
"He can be, if you're not careful around him. But like many kinds of animals, he's only dangerous if you trigger a hostile response from him. If you're careful around him, he can be as sweet and gentle as a newborn babe. Just listen, and I'll tell you everything you need to know about Were-cats, and Tarrin, Denai. When I'm done, you'll be an expert."
Tarrin drifted off to sleep as Sarraya's voice droned on, explaining the nature of his kind to the young Selani. Tarrin didn't mind. Sarraya would teach Denai what she needed to know not to get herself accidentally killed around him. That was always a good thing.
To: Title EoF