It was a perfect day to do nothing but lay around.
Tarrin lounged in the highest spars of the rigging lazily, looking the hundred or so spans down to the deck with half-open eyes and little interest on the happenings beneath him. The summer sun beat down on him, making him drowsily warm, and a good breeze from the west pushed the gaudily painted ship steadily to the east, making time for Dala Yar Arak. As it was, they were just barely going to make it on time. They had lost too much time in Shoran's Fork, and Renoit had been forced to cancel performances he had booked in Arkisia. So the ship sailed out past the sight of land, heading towards the rugged peninsula that was created where the Sandshield Mountains descended into the Sea of Glass, which marked the border of Arkis and the beginning of the desert. Tarrin lay there in complete security despite the gusty winds, only occasionally shifting when the healing injury to his chest found a certain position no longer comfortable. Head on his arm, one leg and tail dangling limply from the spar, he looked down to the deck and watched with only mild interest as the dancers practiced their trade near the stern, and a pair of jugglers tossed wooden duckpins to each other near the bow.
Tarrin liked it in the rigging, mainly because it was the one place where that infernal Amazon couldn't follow. He couldn't really fault Camara Tal, for she was only doing her job. To be honest, he respected her, and liked her just a little bit. But Tarrin didn't know her, didn't entirely trust her, and he found her continuous presence to be extremely aggravating sometimes. He liked being alone, or at least with only a few people, and the unknown Amazon woman was not on his list of acceptable companions. He tolerated her because the Goddess had all but ordered him to take her along with him, but that was about it.
It was almost frightening how much like his mother she was. If she had pale skin and blond hair, he would swear that she was actually Ungardt. She had that same bluntness, that same direct way of looking at the world and that same direct way of tackling life. Camara Tal wasn't very talkative. She preferred to stand in relative silence, going about the job that was assigned to her with a cool professionalism that assured anyone watching that she knew exactly where her charge was and exactly how safe he was. In that respect, she reminded him more of Binter and Sisska than his mother. But the instant she opened her mouth, it was like hearing his mother's words in a different voice. And she wasn't afraid of him. That probably annoyed him more than anything else. Azakar had tried the same stunt, but he learned very quickly that there was a line that he didn't cross, and the big human had learned to respect that line. Camara Tal had no such reservations. She would order him around. She would boss him, she would command him, and for some mysterious reason, he wouldn't turn around and rip her arms off. He wasn't afraid of her. Impressive as she may look, she was still human, and there wasn't a human alive that he couldn't kill. It was the way she looked at him. She could order him with that gaze, overwhelming his resentment at being ordered around with one cool stare.
He knew that there would eventually be a reckoning between them. She would go one step too far, and her strange ability to dominate him would be broken, and he would turn on her and do something she wouldn't likely forget anytime soon. If she lived through it. The thought of killing her didn't really bother him that much, because he didn't really know her, but he knew that Triana would disapprove of such an act, so at least in that respect he thought about other things first.
His time with Triana had helped in some ways, but it had hurt him in others. She had taught him to understand his own nature a little better, and in that understanding there was an incredible feeling of helplessness. He was no better than Mist in the simple respect that he was too weak to overcome his own instincts. It was his instincts that made him fear and distrust the humans on the ship, the people who would look at him and do their best to not draw his attention. He knew they posed no threat to him, he knew that there was no danger, but he still just couldn't help being afraid of them. They were strangers, and just knowing he could kill them wasn't enough to make him feel safe when he was around them. After all, Jula had been a human, and she had definitely stripped him of his freedom, and had helped turn him into what he was now. No matter how much his human mind knew that he was safe on the ship, his instincts refused to allow him to feel safe and secure among them. He understood where it was coming from, but it was so strong that he was helpless against it. It was almost infuriating, knowing that nothing but his own irrational fear made him a pariah, but no matter how hard he tried, he just could not handle it.
And he had tried. Many times. He had tried talking to the performers, he tried having Renoit teach him the Shacean language, he tried helping Shelli set up a performing cat act, since he could speak to the animals and tell them exactly what they had to do. But every time, it ended quickly and it ended nervously. he nearly hurt Shelli when she put her hand on his shoulder by accident. He had to give up at that point. He was just too nervous, too frightened, too worried about what someone might do that he posed a physical threat to them.
The only person on the ship outside his personal circle he could talk to was Phandebrass. The doddering mage was wildly curious about Tarrin, had been ever since he came on the ship, and the times that he had spoken to the mage had reinforced a sense of ease around him that no one else on the ship outside his circle had managed to match. His intense curiosity had only increased with Camara Tal and Sarraya coming on board, who were also extremely exotic individuals with many interesting things to teach him. Phandebrass lived to learn, had spent many long hours talking to Dolanna about Sorcery, to Faalken about the Knights, to Dar about the Arksian upper class, and to Allia about her people and their mysterious desert, a place no human would set foot in and few humans had ever seen. Ever since they left Shoran's Fork some ten days ago, Phandebrass had been grilling Sarraya about Faeries and Fae-da'Nar. The Faerie didn't seem to mind the attention, though she did nearly kill one of Phandebrass' pet drakes, who mistook her for an appetizer. Phandebrass had dismissed that incident as the accident it was, and after all, the drake was fully healthy again. It wouldn't come within fifty spans of Sarraya, though, and that had caused an interesting relationship to form. When the drake-Tarrin could never tell them apart-left Phandebrass because of Sarraya, it would sit on Allia's shoulder and beg for attention. The drake seemed fascinated by the Selani, and Allia seemed to like the creature. It fled from her when Tarrin approached, however. To the drakes, Tarrin was a predator, and they avoided him religiously. That suited him just fine. One of the little monsters snapped at him two days before, and the fact that it could fly was the only thing that saved its life. If he could get his paws on them, he would kill them, and they knew it. So they made it their business to know where he was at all times, and stay very far out of his reach.
Sarraya was turning out to be more of a problem than the Amazon, strangely enough. In the ten days they'd been together, she's already worn Tarrin's patience thin with her mercurial personality. She was a flighty little thing, given to pursuing whatever caught her fancy at the moment, and that made her very unpredictable. Tarrin did not like unpredictable. Her pranks and jokes quickly wore at his nerves, especially when she had the nerve to put a bucket of water over the door to his cabin. Toying with him was tempting death, but that didn't seem to phase her in the slightest. She would just go on talking or laughing, fading from view if she thought she pushed the moody Were-cat too far and hiding from him until his temper cooled. She knew Were-cats, and she understood that much of their reputation came from the fact that they were very impulsive beings. Trying to kill Sarraya was more a reflexive reaction than actual hatred, and the Faerie knew that she'd be safe again after Tarrin had a chance to cool off. Where Camara Tal wore on his patience, Sarraya really pushed his temper. And Tarrin didn't have very much temper to push against.
Dolanna had promised to fix that. The Faerie's games with Tarrin kept him in a state of almost perpetual anger, and that was causing everyone around him to suffer. Everyone but Sarraya was paying for her games, and they were all getting just a little put out with her. Tarrin had no idea what wild notion Sarraya contracted to start playing pranks on him, but just knowing that Dolanna was going to put a stop to it made him feel much better.
It was such a wonderful day. Tarrin closed his eyes and soaked up the summer sunshine, letting the sound of the creaking ropes and the shifting sails meld with the subtle shifting of the wood. The smells of the sea and the ship danced inside his nose, smells of wood and hemp and canvas, salt and water with a hint of tar, and the scents of the humans in the rigging as they adjusted one of the sails to better catch the wind. There was also the scent of the lookout, one of the acrobats, who sat in the crow's nest not far from him to keep an eye out for ships and other potential hazards. The angle of the wind brought the smell of the iron in the manacles to his nose, as well as the strange smell of the black metal of his amulet.
Thinking of the amulet made him think of Keritanima. She was on the way back to Wikuna, probably with some very unpleasant plans for her father. He missed his clever little sister a great deal, missed her wit and her toothy grins, her cute little jokes and the calm presence of her. He wanted her to come back, but he knew that she had something that she had to do first. There was no telling what evil schemes she had concocted for her father, but if he knew her, they'd be very thorough ones. Keritanima hated her father with a passion that was nearly religious fervor, and his attack on her, his injuring of Tarrin and kidnapping, had absolutely enraged his intelligent sister. That much was easy to tell, with what he knew of her and how she sounded when the spoke to her some rides ago. He knew she'd deal with her father and be back as soon as she could but it didn't make her not being here any easier on him. Keritanima was a very important part of his life, and not having her there with him brought to him the most curious sense of loss. It was almost as bad as when he left Aldreth, or worried that his parents would reject him after he had been turned Were. But there was nothing he could do about it. She would come back when she would come back, and all he could do was wait for her. Just knowing that he could speak to her was a comfort, but hearing her voice without her being with him, without the scent of her reassuring him she was there, was curiously painful. Close enough to communicate yet not close enough to feel she was there, it felt like some cruel joke to him, and he actually preferred not talking to her unless it was necessary. Hearing her voice just made it that much worse.
The fluttering of wings made his ears turn towards the sound, and the woody smell of Sarraya touched his nose. He opened his eyes to see the blue-skinned sprite, with her multicolored chitinous wings, land lightly on the spar in front of him. She was so very tiny. He could never get over that, no matter how many times he saw her. She brushed her auburn hair out of her face absently and sat down on the spar, looking down. She was quiet, and that told him more or less why she was there.
"Who did you outrage this time?" he asked with only mild curiosity.
"Renoit has no sense of humor," the sprite fumed.
"No. Renoit doesn't have your sense of humor. I don't think anyone on this ship appreciates the things you do."
"I didn't come up here to be lectured," she flared.
"You came up here to get away from Renoit," he said with calm logic. "Anyway, let me show you how we feel after one of your pranks."
And with that, his tail struck over his head like a cobra, the tip smacking her squarely in the belly. She was carried forth with his tail like a leaf blowing in the wind, and it knocked her off the spar.
It took her nearly thirty spans to gain control of her fall. She stopped tumbling and managed to pull out of her freefall, then flitted between ropes and around jibs and landed back on the spar, out of the reach of his tail. She put her hands on her tiny hips and glared at him. "I have half a mind to get you for that, Tarrin!" she shouted in her high-pitched, piping voice.
"Renoit has a whole mind to get you for what you did to him, Sarraya. If you get me, then it's only fair that he gets you."
"But that wasn't funny!"
"Really? I thought it was very funny," Tarrin said in a low voice, staring at her. "Who doesn't have a sense of humor now?"
"No sense of humor at all!" Sarraya growled as her wings began beating at the air, making that peculiar rhythmic buzzing sound, and she flew over to a spar on the foremast.
Tarrin settled back down and closed his eyes, his tail swatting at something that touched his back before returning to rest.
Things were different now, different but the same. Meeting the other side of his family had shown him things about himself, but so far they were things that he couldn't change, couldn't conquer. He didn't fit in with them anyway. He was turned, not born Were, and that gave him a fundamentally different personality than them. To him, the others were strange, even a little worrisome. He saw things through eyes that had once been another species, and even now the memories of his human life influenced what he saw. The Cat was a relatively new resident inside him, and even though he'd come to terms with it, it couldn't help but still be influenced by what had always been there. He wasn't the same person that left Aldreth anymore. He wasn't even the same person that left Suld. Time and events had forced him to change to adapt, forced him to change or risk being driven insane by his own instincts. He could reconcile that, but there were times when it saddened him. Being feral was a self-imposed prison, Mist had shown him that. He was a prisoner of his own fear, and knowing it was fear made him angry and easy to set off. There was alot of life out there he was missing simply because he couldn't bring himself to associate with strangers, alot of things he could learn if only he could bring himself to talk to people. But there was no changing it. He was restricted to those few people that he trusted, and he relied on them in ways that made him feel more of a pet than a sentient being.
But it was water under the bridge. He looked down at the jugglers, two young human men from Shace who had been born and raised in this circus. There were other children in the circus, but they had been left in Dayise with some of the performers, because Renoit wouldn't risk them in the long and dangerous journey to Arak, nor would he expose them to the slavers and kidnappers that preyed on children who were notorious in the capital city. Outlanders were always at risk in Dala Yar Arak, and the younger they were, the better. The number and wide racial range of slaves one owned was a symbol of status among the Arakites, and non-human slaves were especially prized. From what Dolanna told him, there were a large number of Goblinoids serving as slaves in Arak, and the Arakites constanty sought to invade the desert and steal Selani children. This they did with the utmost caution, for fear that a single mistake would bring the entirety of the Selani race sweeping over Saranam to attack Arak once again.
They had to go to a cesspool like that and perform, entertain the people, while they looked for the Book of Ages. Just thinking about that worried him. Dala Yar Arak was the largest city in the world, and it would make the task nearly impossible. There were countless people with the resources to own a rare book like that, and that was just assuming someone knew they had it. It could be hidden behind a loose stone in a poor man's hovel, for all they knew. It would be a very dangerous place for both him and Allia, probably for Camara Tal as well, because they were all so blatantly exotic.
Camara Tal. He looked towards the stern, and there she stood. She wore that same open-fronted haltar and thigh skirt she called a tripa , her sword hanging from a belt secured loosely around her waist, dipping down onto her hip on the right side. She just stood there, waiting for him to get tired of hanging in the rigging and come down. She was tenacious, she was very patient, and sometimes she drove him crazy. She spent the time in conversation with Phandebrass, who had a book in his lap, sitting beside her, writing in it furiously as they conversed. No doubt the mage was asking her about her people and their customs, writing it all down in his book. Phandebrass was a mage, but he had a keen interest in the societies and customs of races all over the world, and he studied new ones whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had a keen interest in anything he didn't know, for that matter. Phandebrass learned so much that it made him forget little things, like what he was wearing, when he last ate, and who he was talking to. He wasn't scatterbrained, he just had so much on his mind that he lost track of the little things. Tarrin had been impressed by him. He had to be nearly as smart as Keritanima.
Tarrin was starting to get hungry. It was close to lunchtime, and thinking about some beef stew was starting to wake up his stomach. Triana told him that he still had to eat more than normal for him, to give his body the energy to complete the healing. He knew that was the case, because he got hungry much faster than usual, and he wanted to eat more. Tarrin's accelerated healing was fueled by the energy of his own body, which was in turn fueled by eating. That meant that he had to replace that energy much faster than normal. Sliding off the spar, he dropped about fifteen spans to a rope, then used it to angle him to the mast. His large claws drove into the wood, and he climbed down the mainmast as easily as a man may walk across the deck. He dropped the last ten spans, landing easily near the mast, and immediately Camara Tal was there. The bronzed smell of the Amazon touched him immediately, and he turned around to find both her and Phandebrass standing close to him.
"It's about time," she said with her light accent. "I had the cook make you some lunch. Are you hungry?"
Tarrin looked down into her eyes, but he didn't have to look far. Camara Tal was a very tall woman, taller than most men, nearly looking him in the eye. She was physically a very impressive specimen, a perfect balance of chiselled muscle and sleek feminine curves that kept men's eyes on her. The fact that she went around wearing next to nothing helped keep men looking at her. But they didn't stare. They knew better than that. Her coppery colored skin and her raven black hair glowed in the noontime sun, as did the simple silver medallion she wore around her neck. Camara Tal was more than a warrior, she was a priestess, and that medallion was the holy symbol of her goddess. Tarrin had come to discover that all priests wore medallions, even the pseudo-priest Sorcerers, the medallion identifying which god the priest served. By focusing on that medallion, Camara Tal could call upon her priestly magic. Without it, she couldn't use hardly any of her magic, only the most basic and simplest prayers. One of which, she had told him, was a prayer that conjured forth another medallion, in case she lost the one she had now.
That was a very wise precaution when travelling in a place where one's god was unknown.
Camara Tal never ceased to confuse and irritate Tarrin. He liked her-he could admit that he liked her-but her hovering protectiveness was something that he'd never experienced before, even at home. Knowing that she was always nearby sometimes made him feel safe, but sometimes it just rubbed his fur the wrong way. It wouldn't be that bad if she wasn't so pushy. There were two ways of doing things. Her way, and the wrong way. She never lectured or preached to him, but sometimes that look was enough to tell him that what he was doing displeased her. Sometimes her opinion mattered. Sometimes he did it just to annoy her. It was a relationship in flux, which had yet to root itself one way or the other. They could be talking warmly to one another one moment, then shouting at each other the next. He did like her, but he still didn't trust her, and that was probably what kept him so contrary with her.
"I am a bit hungry," he admitted to her calmly. Because he didn't entirely trust either of them, he was wary, nervous, on guard, and Camara Tal seemed to be able to sense that. As a former warrior, she wouldn't have been able to live so long if she couldn't.
"Come on, let's go down to the galley," she invited.
"I say, mistress Tal, you must tell me why your people always dress so, provocatively," Phandebrass continued as they walked. "I've met other Amazons, and that type of dress is something of a standard for your people. I know it's hot in Amazar, but I've been there, and I've seen your people wearing trousers and shirts."
"You've been to Amazar? How did you get away?" she asked curiously. On Amazar, all men were consisered property. Once captured, no man left Amazar, or managed to escape very easily. The Amazons didn't see this practice as slavery. It was a social institution more than anything else, because men did have legal rights. They just weren't permitted to leave the islands the Amazons called home. Koran Dar was the only Amazon male Tarrin had ever heard of escaping the clutches of his female overseers.
"I'm a wizard, madam," he replied with a grand smile. "I'm not quite so easy to catch."
"No doubt there," she chuckled. "Well, we dress like this because of the competition," she explained. "This isn't the only way we dress at home, but when we're going out in the world, we always show skin to keep any potential combatant off guard."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at me, Phandebrass," she said. "Imagine you're a male warrior or cutpurse. Where are you going to put your eyes first?"
Phandebrass thought about it a moment, then laughed delightedly. "I say, that's a very clever bit of subterfuge, mistress Tal. Showing off a figure like that would distract even the most professional mercenary."
"Precisely, and I appreciate the compliment," she said with a quirky smile. "We're not a race of exhibitionists. We just understand our opponents. We've found that men have a hard time fighting against us if their eyes have more than one place to look."
Tarrin thought about that a moment, and he had to admit that it was a rather intelligent practice. Human men being what they were, they wouldn't be able to resist looking at Camara Tal's admittedly fine body. That left her open to use her sword in the manner in which it was intended. It gave the Amazons an edge in battle against male opponents, which he'd learned were in no short supply. The Amazons fought a continual war of raids against Stygia, for the evil kingdom was trying to conquer Amazar. The Amazons were well suited to defending their home, for their islands were surrounded by deadly reefs and riptides, and only they knew the paths to get through them. It ensured that no sizable army could land on their islands, and those survivors that did make it found themselves facing formidably trained opponents. Amazons were warriors, and they were dangerous ones.
"This is why you disdain armor then, mistress Tal?"
Camara Tal snorted. "Armor is for people who expect to be hit," she replied. "A well trained warrior doesn't need armor. A good sword is all a warrior needs to keep herself protected."
"I say, you can't discout the fact that it is useful."
"It has advantages, but it also has disadvantages," she said. "Take that Knight. He wears that suit of armor, and it makes him harder to hurt. But it slows him down, restricts his ability to move, and that helmet limits his field of vision and his hearing. That's what you give away for that extra protection. He's sacrificing speed and mobility for a layer of protection, when the speed and mobility would protect him just as well as the armor if he knew how to use them."
"He's not all that slow, Camara Tal," Tarrin defended his friend. "He can move like a cat in that armor."
"Camara," she corrected. "You're a personal friend, so you can call me Camara. And I agree, he's very quick in that armor, but imagine how much faster he'd be if he didn't have it on."
Her calling him friend didn't impact him much. "The Knights have learned how to take that armor and use it like a weapon," he replied. "Their using it makes them just as effective as an Amazon, because it gives them some options you don't have."
"I never said that they weren't good, Tarrin. I'm just saying that it's not absolutely necessary to wear armor and be a good warrior. The Knights have taken armor and learned to use it, and it helps give them their deserved reputation. But it's not absolutely necessary for them to wear it, because they could be just as good without it. That's all I'm saying."
Tarrin turned that over in his mind, and found no insult in it. Tarrin was also a Knight, so he had a duty to defend the honor of the order. She had acceded that the Knights were a formidable order, so it satisfied him. And, after all, she was telling the truth. Armor didn't make a warrior. The Ungardt rarely wore anything more than a mail shirt, something to stop those annoying little nicks and cuts, because the Ungardt style relied on training over armor for protection.
The cook handed Tarrin a huge bowl of stew when they reached the galley, and they turned around and went back up on deck. Tarrin sat on a rope coil and enjoyed the meal, stew with hardbread, as Camara Tal leaned against the rail beside him and Phandebrass wrote something down in his book quietly. "Where's the bug?" Camara Tal asked. "She's not hiding on your head today."
"She's up in the rigging sulking," Tarrin replied between bites of stew. "She did something to Renoit, so she's hiding."
"She's going to get her wings ripped off if she doesn't stop," Camara Tal snorted. "I found a snake in my footlocker this morning."
"I say, where did she find a snake?" Phandebrass asked.
"From the sea, wizard," Camara Tal snorted. "There are sea snakes. She'd better be lucky I saw it in time. The snake she put in my locker happens to be the deadliest snake in the world. If it would have bitten me, I'd have been dead inside two minutes."
"I say, I hope she didn't know that. I'd have a different opinion of her if I knew she was being malicious."
"She's a Faerie. She probably has no idea about the animals in the sea. I doubt she knew it was poisonous, but it wouldn't take a genius to figure it out."
"Why?" Tarrin asked.
"Simple, my boy," Phandebrass said. "Snakes are well known to be venemous, and snakes kill prey either by venom or by constriction. A sea snake would find constriction to be a very difficult means of killing prey, so they must therefore be venemous."
"Why would a snake have trouble constricting in the sea?"
"Constriction doesn't crush the victim, it simply squeezes them to the point where the victim can no longer breathe," he answered. "A fish doesn't have lungs, my boy, so constriction wouldn't work very well on one unless the snake was strong enough to crush it."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense," Tarrin agreed.
"I say, where did you learn about sea snakes, mistress Tal?"
"I live on an island, wizard," she smiled. "An island surrounded by coral reefs."
"Good answer," he chuckled.
By the time Tarrin was done eating, Allia, Dar, and Dolanna came up from below decks. They had been having another learning session. The little green-scaled drake on Allia's shoulder flapped away when she approached Tarrin, who stood and took her hand gently when she approached. " Deshida," she greeted. "You should have been with us. Dolanna taught us about healing."
"How did it go?"
"I'm strong enough in the necessary Spheres," she said in Selani. "Dar, on the other hand, doesn't have enough affinity with Earth to heal much more than a scratch."
"His talent seems to be Illusions," Tarrin speculated in Selani. Usually, when they spoke to each other, they both tended to speak Selani, for it was Allia's native language, and she was much more expressive and comfortable with it. Tarrin's natural aptitude for languages made him just as comfortable with it as she was. "Earth isn't an Illusion Sphere."
"I seem to have trouble with Air," Allia frowned. "I think that's why I find Illusions so difficult. I've gotten spoiled by you and Keritanima. You make it look so easy, when I go to practice, I get discouraged."
"It's never easy for me, deshaida," he grunted as they walked away from Camara Tal and Phandebrass, without so much as a goodbye. Allia didn't really know either of them, and Tarrin didn't care enough either way to be courteous. "Kerri just makes it look easy because she can duplicate spells. She still has to practice when the spells have to be altered."
"Brother, she does make it look easy," she pressed.
Tarrin chuckled. "Alright, I guess she does," he admitted. "How much did you learn?"
"Healing is hard," she frowned. "Dolanna said that we have to go slow and be careful, because there isn't room for mistakes when you heal."
"There's not. If you mess it up, you can kill your patient."
Allia nodded as they stopped by the rail and looked out over the wavy sea. The tension in her eyes arose immediately at the sight of all that water, and she unconsciously put her hand on his forearm and held on. Allia was afraid of great expanses of water-an understandable phobia for someone who was raised in a desert-but she was very good about conquering her fear. She wouldn't hide from the water or refuse to look at it, she would stand at the rail and stare at it every day, in an attempt to acclimate herself to its presence and eliminate her fear. Allia wasn't the kind to hide from anything. "All she taught us today was the basics of how it's done," she continued. "I learned how to use it for small things, things that aren't dangerous. I healed a cut on Faalken's arm," she said proudly.
"That's a good start," he replied. "Everything about healing works on that one basic function. Mending cuts. It's all mending cuts."
Allia nodded. "Where is the little winged one?" There was no Selani word for Faerie, so Allia made do as best she could.
"Hiding," he replied. "She pulled a stunt on Renoit, and she's hiding from him."
"Someone should teach her that doing things to people that they don't like is unhealthy."
"I'll teach her the next time she tries something on me," he promised with an ominous growl.
"I've never seen such a frivilous person," Allia said seriously.
"Triana described them to me, and so far, she's a perfect example of her race. Triana said they all have almost no self control."
"That's a good description," Allia grunted. "If not for that, I'd probably like her."
"She's not so bad," he said in defense of her. "She's pretty intelligent, and she's sincere. I can understand her actions, even if I don't like them, because it's a part of who she is. We just have to get her to calm down, that's all, and I think people won't mind her as much."
"You? Defending her?" Allia said with a wry smile and a little giggle.
"I guess someone has to," he returned. "Outside of her pranks, she's not that bad. A little too unstable, but everyone has faults."
"True, true," Allia agreed. "It looks like it's time to earn my way," she sighed, looking at the acrobats that had come up from below and down from the rigging. It was time for then to practice. Allia had been teaching them new maneuvers and helping them create a new act, an act more breathtaking and impressive than their old act. They had acclimated well to Allia, at least everyone but Henri, who was still a little resentful of the graceful Selani's towering superiority over her human pupils, and had learned much from her.
Henri was one of only about five names he knew among the performers. He knew Henri from their last encounter, an encounter that had the willowy man evade him like a leper. He knew Renoit, and he knew Shelli, who was one of the dancers. She was from the Stormhaven Islands, and spoke with the most unusual brogue that never failed to capture him when he heard it. That brogue had been why he had tried to overcome his fear and make friends with her, and to her credit, she had tried hard to urge him out of his shell. Shelli was a wonderfully sweet and compassionate girl, with a big heart and a kind word for everyone. But despite her exceptional compassion and sweetness, Tarrin was just too nervous around her. It had failed, like every other attempt he had made. He knew only one other name, and that was a juggler that doubled as the ship's head cook. He was a tall, rather portly man named Deward, a man who loved to laugh, could cook like nobody's business, and could juggle six knives with a blindfold over his eyes. The human's manual dexterity had awed Tarrin, who would be hard pressed to duplicate his feat, even with his cat-enhanced reflexes and agility. The man absolutely could not be beaten darts or knifethrowing. He could throw his dart or knife exactly where he wanted them to go. Deward had once been a knifethrower, casting knives at a living target to amaze the audience, but he had suffered some kind of seizure during an act and had put a knife through the leg of his assistant. Tarrin learned that Deward still suffered from those seizures occasionally, and that made it too dangerous for him to continue with a live target. Intending never to put another assistant in danger again, Deward had moved into juggling instead, where the only person at risk was himself. He still did a small portion of his throwing act, but threw at small corks thrown into the air instead of a scantily clad girl standing in front of a wooden slab.
All the other performers were nameless faces to him, and he wanted it to stay that way. Dolanna didn't restrict him to his cabin anymore, but they all knew to give him all the space they could manage when he did come up on deck. Because they made him so nervous, he usually either stayed in his cabin during the day or stayed up in the rigging, because Camara Tal would stay either in his cabin or just outside his cabin when he was there. So long as he had his friends, he was content with the situation. They were busy sometimes, but they were there enough to keep him from getting lonely.
Tarrin took Allia's hand for a moment, then she kissed him on the cheek and went to the acrobats. He watched her go with only a slight sigh, then turned and looked out over the sea for a moment.
It was about a month to Dala Yar Arak, and once they got there, the hardest task they'd ever have to attempt would begin. Just thinking about it made his mind shudder with the staggering difficulty of the task. To find a single book in a city whose population was numbered in the millions, a city that was so large that it took more than a day to walk from one side to the other. And they weren't the only ones that would be looking for it. People had to know where he was going by now, and because he was who he was, they would follow. They had to know that he was looking for the book, so they would look too. It would come down to the simple fact that someone had to eventually find it, and it was imperative that that someone was him. The thought that he may have to fight to either retain or acquire the book had crossed his mind many times, just in case someone found him with it, or he found it with someone else. But there was no second place in this race, there were no second chances. The winner would take all, and that meant that there would be no quarter, no mercy.
The details about the search were still murky. Dolanna was the one planning for that, and she'd yet to put anything out on the table for them to consider. But if there was one thing he could say about Dolanna, it was that she would have a plan by the time they got there, and it would be a good plan. Dolanna was a very intelligent and crafty woman, and she had a penchant for putting together plans. They weren't the occasionally overly complicated schemes that Keritanima thought up, but they worked. looked up to the steering deck and saw her up there, talking to Renoit. Faalken stood beside her, wearing a simple gray doublet and breeches, his curly hair blowing in the breeze as the Sorceress conversed with the Shacean. Dolanna garnered a great deal of respect on the ship, one of the reasons being that she was one of the few people that could control him outright.
The sound of fluttering wings heralded the arrival of Sarraya, who faded into view on the rail by his paw, sitting on it sedately and looking down into the water. Tarrin glanced at her, marvelling yet again at how incredibly small she was, small and delicate. He could squash her with his paw if he wanted to do so. Her multicolored, prismatic wings shivered slightly as she looked straight down, a reflexive action most likely created when she looked down and saw nothing but air between her and the ocean.
"Got tired of hiding?" Tarrin asked quietly. Sarraya's presence had still not been reconciled by the humans. They were intrigued by her, amazed by her, for they had never seen anything like her before. They didn't know whether to be friendly to her or just keep quiet and stay out of her way. She tended to ignore the performers, however, except as victims for her many pranks, treating them as nothing more than an inconvenient presence.
"Too much silence," Sarraya said sourly. "I hate quiet. I like things interesting."
"Then you're talking to the wrong person," he said pointedly. "Why don't you go talk to Phandebrass?"
"He's trying to get under the Amazon's skirt," Sarraya said with a wicked tilt to her voice. Tarrin glanced back to them, and saw them talking animatedly over something, Phandebrass waving his arms emphatically as he spoke and Camara Tal's body language stating that she was a little irritated with the wizard.
"Hardly," Tarrin scoffed. "Phandebrass is too old for her, and she's married."
"Amazons aren't that married, Tarrin," Sarraya giggled. "She has more than one husband, after all."
"You could go ask her just how married she is," Tarrin urged. "I think she'd tell you. Camara Tal doesn't seem to be the shy type."
"With clothes like that, I'd agree with you."
"You're not wearing much more."
"I'm a Faerie," she said dismissively. "I could go around naked, and nobody would care. Camara Tal is more human sized than me."
"Whatever," Tarrin said, looking down into the water.
"What are those fish down there?" Sarraya asked.
"Someone said they're called dolphins," Tarrin replied. "They like to follow ships."
"They're not really fish," Sarraya said, mainly to herself. "They breathe air."
"Then what are they?"
"I have no idea, I just know they're not real fish. Their tails are different too. See? Their tailfins are horizontal. Real fish have vertical tails."
"I never noticed that," Tarrin told her honestly. "Strange that someone who spends so much time flying around aimlessly can see things like that."
"I'm not an airhead," she fumed.
"No, you're just easily distracted," he replied calmly.
"I didn't come down here to be insulted!" she said indignantly.
"No, you probably came down here to insult me," he said in a mild tone, noticing that it made her blush slightly. "I thought so."
"Well, you're the only one I can really talk to," she grunted. "Phandebrass just wants me to answer questions, and all the humans but Dolanna and the Amazon are too nervous around me. Camara's way too unfriendly, and Dolanna's no fun. She's all work work work, she never talks about anything fun."
"That's because she's worried, Sarraya. You know what we have to do, so you have to understand that it's not going to be easy."
"I think you're putting too much worry in it," she snorted. "If you just sit back and relax, things often fix themselves. You people plan too much."
"I've seen what happens when you don't have a plan, Sarraya. I have scars to prove it. If I have a choice between Dolanna's plan and your luck, I'll take Dolanna's plan."
"You have no faith."
"I have plenty of faith. It's just not in you."
Sarraya glared at him a moment, but he was unmoved by her pique. "You were alot more fun when you were still in awe of me," she growled.
"The reality doesn't live up to the first impression," he said seriously, trying not to smile in her face and ruin it.
"Were-cats!" Sarraya snapped, flitting off the rail and flying towards the stern.
Tarrin smiled to himself as he watched her flutter off, then leaned down on his elbows and watched the dolphins swimming alongside the ship.
Tarrin wasn't alone long. After about half an hour of letting his mind wonder, feeling Camara Tal's eyes on him the entire time, Dar rushed up to him holding a small construction made of sailcloth and small shanks of wood. It was a kite, something that Dar had never played with before. Phandebrass had been describing the kite festival held every spring in Telluria, and he had drawn out how a kite was made for Dar, who had never seen one before. He had been spending all his free time making his kite, and it looked like he was finally finished. "Tarrin, want to help me with this?" he asked brightly. Dar was fifteen, but a youth spent studying numbers and learning about how to act in proper Arkisian society had left the young man with a gaping hole in his childhood. He tried hard to be sober and mature, like everyone around him-except Sarraya, anyway-but he was still just a young man who still had daydreams and youthful visions of the world. Some young men still had a streak of their childlike infatuation with the world, and Dar was one of them. It was one of the things that drove girls crazy when they were around him. Dar was probably the most sought after young man on the ship by the dancers and the acrobats, and the funny thing to Tarrin was that he had no idea they were after him. He could smell it all over them every time Dar passed by. To his credit, Dar was a very handsome young man, dark, black hair, thin and graceful, with a clever mind and a way about him that made absolutely everyone take an instant liking to him. Though it wouldn't matter in Tarrin's eyes, Dolanna would probably disapprove if Dar began playing games with the girls, but it was a moot point. Dar wouldn't take advantage of the situation, even if he knew about it. He was a young man very solidly based in the upbringing he was given by his parents, who were moral pillars in Arkisian society. Arkisian morals were a bit different from the more western kingdoms, but he was always the soul of courtesy and knew where the line was between propriety and impropriety.
"Why not?" Tarrin said. "Where do you want to try?"
"Let's take it over to the port side. I think we can get it into the air without fouling it in the rigging."
It turned out to be almost ridiculously easy. They took the kite to the port side, close to the bow, in a hole where rope nets and ladders weren't attached to the bulwarks, and Dar threw the kite up into the stiff breeze pushing the ship east. The kite caught the wind immediately and reeled out to the end of Dar's thin rope, where it danced in the air erratically just outside the ship's side and a good twenty spans in the air. By watching the kite, Tarrin saw that the wind was slowly beginning to shift, leaving dead astern and quartering more to the south, and a look up showed him that Renoit had already ordered those on ship duty to adjust the sails to take it into account.
"Look at it go, Tarrin!" Dar laughed, but Tarrin's attention was not on the kite. The wind was shifting, and it was still very stiff. That wasn't a good combination. At that speed, the wind shouldn't be changing unless something large was forcing it to change. For that matter, it shouldn't be blowing that hard unless something was forcing it to do so. Both of those conditions could be created by a good sized storm.
"What's the matter, Tarrin?" Dar asked curiously. A gust of wind came up, yanking on the rope in Dar's hand, nearly pulling the kite free of his grip.
"That's the matter," he replied. "The wind is shifting."
"A storm?"
Tarrin nodded. "I think so. We can find out pretty easily, though. Allia!" he called loudly.
"Help me reel this in, Tarrin. It doesn't want to come down."
Tarrin helped Dar pull in his kite as Allia left the acrobats and made her way over to them. "What is it, brother?" Allia asked in the common tongue. Mainly for Dar's benefit. Though they had started out rocky, Dar and Allia had become good friends. It had mainly been because the Arkisians were not well liked by the Selani, but Allia had thrown over the Arkisian stereotype she'd hung on Dar's neck and found out he was actually a very friendly, engaging young man.
"I need your eyes, sister. Let's all go up into the crow's nest and have a look aft," he proposed. "I think there's a storm coming up behind us."
"I felt the wind shift," Allia replied seriously. "It is possible."
Dar followed the two non-humans to the mainmast, and he watched with trepidation as Allia grabbed hold of it and started climbing up it quickly and effortlessly. Tarrin extended the claws on his paws and feet and waited for her to get a good ways up the mast. "Just give me a little while, Tarrin," Dar said. "I can't climb that fast."
"You're not going to climb," he replied, grabbing Dar by the waist and dragging him into a secure grip at his side, then putting his claws into the mast and starting up.
"Tarrin, this is a bad idea!" Dar protested, grabbing hold of his forearm worriedly as the deck moved farther and farther away with shocking speed.
"Quit squirming," Tarrin chided absently as he climbed up the length of the mast.
The current lookout was climbing down by the time Tarrin reached the crow's nest, planting Dar in it securely before climbing in himself. Allia was already there, and the three of them made it a tight fit, since it was made more for one person. Allia shaded her eyes from the sun and peered intently to the stern while Tarrin and Dar did the same. Allia's eyesight was inhumanly keen. She could read an open book from five hundred paces away, and she could identify people by their face from over a longspan distant. From that high up, she could easily make out distinct features of objects close to the horizon. Her gift wasn't common among the Selani, but it did occur frequently enough among them for to understand it and make use of it. It made her a scout for her people, using her exceptional eyesight to help her clan locate hidden dangers.
"There is a storm," she announced finally. "A very large storm. It goes from one side of the horizon to the other. I think it is one of those, what did Kerri call it. Hurokeen?"
"Hurricane," Tarrin corrected absently. "I remember Dolanna telling me about the weather out here. Hurricanes are very rare in the Sea of Glass this time of year. The rough weather usually doesn't hit until late summer."
"Rare or not, there is a very large storm behind us," she said. "I do not know which way it is moving, though. I must watch it a while to find out."
"Maybe we'll get lucky," Dar said hopefully.
"Luck is not our ally, friend Dar," Allia grunted. "It always seems to favor our enemies."
"Better safe than sorry," Tarrin reasoned. "I'll carry Dar back down and tell Dolanna. Do you mind staying up here and seeing which way the storm's going?"
"Not at all, deshida. This is something we need to know."
"Alright, let's go, Dar. And don't squirm," he said, picking up the young Arkisian again.
After getting back to the deck, Tarrin and Dar climbed up onto the steering deck, where Dolanna, Faalken, Renoit, and a tall, swarthy Arkisian stood. The Arkisian was steering the ship, and Dolanna and Renoit were talking about tents, for some reason. "Tarrin," Faalken greeted with a smile. The cherubic Knight was wearing as simple gray doublet and breeches, which did nothing to hide his massively developed frame. Years of wearing heavy armor had built up the man's body to an impressive level.
" Andevouz, Tarrin and Dar. What brings you two up here?" Renoit asked jovially.
"There's a pretty big storm behind us, Master Renoit," Dar said politely. "Allia's up in the crow's nest seeing which way it's moving."
"The storm, she should not be a danger, no," he said reassuringly. "This time of year, such storms commonly move from the south to the north, and from the east to the west. We are behind it, yes."
"Large storms often control their own direction, Renoit," Dolanna said quietly. "Perhaps having Allia determine its direction is a wise precaution."
"Its direction, I would have the desert flower find, yes. I said they commonly travel such ways this time of year. I have seen storms move in one direction, stop, then move backwards across their own paths before, yes. The sea causes storms to move with a mind of their own."
"Regardless, there is nothing we can do until we know more," Dolanna said in her calm voice. "You can return to your kite, if you wish."
"Maybe later," Dar said after a moment, after looking at Tarrin. "I think Tarrin's not done carrying me around."
Tarrin gave Dar a quick look, then reached down and grabbed him by the waist. "Tar-RIN!" Dar screamed when the Were-cat jumped up to the rail, and then vaulted the large gulf between the rail of the steering deck and the aftmast. Such inhuman feats were easy for him; he could have jumped across ten more spans of empty air. One of the gifts of his Were nature. Dar just closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as Tarrin scampered through the rigging at a speed that would have made a human tumble to the deck, quickly getting back to the mainmast and up to the crow's nest. The Arkisian was breathing a bit heavily by the time Tarrin set him on his feet in the tightly packed lookout. "By the sandshield, Tarrin, did you have to scare me to death?"
"I'm not going to drop you, Dar," Tarrin said calmly. "You should know better."
"Still, that's something I don't do every day."
"I have not had enough time to determine direction, brother," Allia informed him calmly, her eyes locked on the horizon."
"That's alright. We're here just to keep you company," he replied.
"Your company is always welcome," she said sweetly to him, but she still didn't take her eyes from the storm.
"What is this, a convention?" Sarraya's voice preceded the buzzing of her wings. She flew up into view to their side and landed on the rail of the crow's nest by Dar. The Arkisian stared at her in wonder for a moment, then purposefully looked away from her.
"There's a storm behind us," Tarrin told her. "Allia's trying to figure out which way it's moving."
"Please. Let a professional do this. Nature is a Druid's specialty," she said.
As always, Tarrin felt a strange sensation that always seemed to be tied up with Druidic magic. It was a fleeting feeling, a strange feeling of reaching out, and then of communion. In that instant of communion, he could sense the power flowing through the little sprite, and he knew she was putting together a Druidic spell of some sort. She pointed to the stern, towards the storm, and her tiny brows furrowed in concentration for a long moment. All three of them stared at her while she did her magic, until she shivered her wings and looked up at them.
"It's a doozy," she said. "Not a hurricane, but not far from it. The good news is that it's weakening. The bad news is that it's moving in our direction. It'll overtake us by dawn."
"Is it dangerous?" Dar asked impulsively.
"We'll be tossed around, but this seems to be a pretty rugged ship," Sarraya replied. "It looks silly, but that Shacean keeps her in good trim. We'll be alright. We may just have some cases of seasickness, that's all."
"Could you go down and tell that to Dolanna?" Tarrin asked.
"Are you trying to get rid of me, Tarrin?" she teased.
He snorted. "If I wanted to get rid of you, I'd swat you."
Sarraya laughed. "True enough. Sure, I'll go tell her high-and-mightiness. Be back in a flash." With that, the capricious sprite buzzed her wings and lifted her feet off the rail, then circled down towards the stern, where Dolanna, Faalken, and Renoit stood with the steersman.
"That is one strange creature," Allia said bluntly.
"You have to take people as they come," Dar said sagely.
"You actually talked to her," Tarrin said with a slight smile.
"I guess I did," he chuckled. "For a moment there, I forgot who she was."
"I think she'd prefer it if you did forget who she is," Tarrin replied.
"I guess we're in for some shaking," Dar said. "I've been on a ship in a good storm before, when I was sailing to the Tower. It's nothing you quickly forget."
"We should be alright," Allia replied. "I do not favor the idea of being in a storm, but I do trust the sprite's judgement. It is merely something we must endure."
"Another one of those sharp corners," Tarrin said mainly to himself, referring to the Goddess' description of his path.
Shaking was not a good enough description of it.
Tarrin was in Allia's cabin, claws anchored into the floor, holding onto his sister as the storm howled around the garishly painted ship. It would rise, and it would fall. It would list from side to side so severely that Tarrin feared that the ship would capsize more than once. He could hear things bounce around, broken loose from their lashings and rumbling about with the movement of the ship. Water poured into the cabin sporadically, probably as waves crashed over the rail and flooded onto the deck, seeping through the boards to drizzle down on the people taking refuge below.
They had spent most of the night getting ready for the storm. Renoit had all the sails furled, then they were turned sideways and heavily tied down to the masts. All the rigging that couldn't be taken down was pulled taut to make the masts more secure, and all the hatches were tightly secured. There were only three men on deck, literally tied to the helm so they could move the ship among the waves to minimize their impact on the ship's hull.
And the ship rocked, and it rocked, and it rocked. It would swing from side to side, until Tarrin could stand on the walls. It would climb up waves, making it lean way back, then it would suddenly pitch forward as the ship crested and went down the other side. The sound of the water slamming into the ship was loud, nearly deafening, as the steady sound of heavy rain hammered on the ceiling of the cabin, which was the deck of the ship. The ship's wood creaked and groaned and protested the rough treatment, sometimes nearly as loud as the cracking peals of thunder that raced through the ship.
Above it all was the sound of the wind. He could hear it distinctly, a monotonous roar that whistled through the sparse rigging and along the masts, pulled at the ship, pulled the water up from the sea and created the large waves assaulting the vessel. It howled with a fury that made it nearly seem alive, as if the wind had taken offense to the small vessel on the sea and had decided to torture it for some unknown reason.
"I thought you said the storm was weakening!" Allia accused Sarraya, who was secured to the top of Tarrin's head with two handfuls of hair.
"So sue me!" she shot back. "It must have reorganized itself during the night! I didn't check before it got here!"
The ship lurched forward, making Tarrin shoot a paw up and drive his claws into the low beam over his head, stabilizing him against the motion. He held Allia by the waist, who had both hands wrapped around his chest tightly, using him as an anchor to keep from sliding towards the wall.
"Can this ship take this?" Tarrin asked her.
"This isn't bad at all!" Sarraya assured him. "It's not as bad as it feels! The ship just feels like it's flying around, it's really just riding on waves that crest just about at the deck! I haven't heard a single board split yet!"
As if that was an omen, the unmistakable sound of ripping wood reached them. Almost at the same time, Tarrin felt something big hit the deck right over them, making the heavy beam shudder and sink dramatically before rebounding against the force of the blow. He felt it slide along the deck, then stop and bounce back. Whatever it was, it was loose, but it was still tied to ropes that made it bounce around on the deck.
"You had to say something!" Tarrin accused the Faerie.
"What?"
"Something just tore off the mast and hit the deck! It's rolling around up there!"
"Tarrin, we need to secure that! It could slam into the masts and split them!" Sarraya told him.
"I'd better do it. I don't know if the humans can handle something that big in this storm," he grunted. "Allia, stay in here. You too, Sarraya. I'll go up and see if they need me."
"Be careful, my brother!" Allia said emphatically.
"I'm always careful," he said as Sarraya flitted off his head and landed on Sarraya's shoulder. He saw her tying a rope to her bunk as he left the room.
Walking on the ship while it lurched around was entertaining. He had to put a paw on each side of the companionway and stabilize himself against the wild rocking. By the time he reached the stairs, he was greeted by a wall of water that splashed down from the deck above, soaking him to the skin in salty water and driving him back nearly a span. Deep gouges from his claws were left behind in the wood as he started working his way up the steep staircase, hearing the door to the deck above flapping wildly in the raging wind, banging into the bulkhead with frightening rapidity.
The scene on deck was something he could never have imagined. The sky was an angry murky gray, and stinging rain was driven before howling winds with enough force to make it painful. The sea was raging, with huge waves and swells that easily rose as high as the deck itself, and it was the movement along those waves that made the ship lurch and roll so severely. The rigging that was up was all shredded, the ropes flapping fiercely in the heavy wind, and the heavy object that had hit the deck was the crow's nest and about ten spans of mast. Ropes tangled it to the mainmast, and it rolled about on the deck wildly as the wind and the waves pushed it around. He saw one of those waves approaching the starboard rail, and he just managed to get his claws into the wood before it broke over the deck, sending a huge torrent of water slamming against him, trying to suck him back down the staircase. Tarrin shook the water out of his face and out of his ears as the force receded, hoping that the three men tied to the helm were still there. They were behind and above him, and he'd have to move out on deck to get to where he could see the steering deck.
Sarraya was right. With that heavy an object rolling around on the deck, it could do some damage to the ship before the storm was over. He realized that he could either cut the ropes and let it be carried away by the sea, or try to tie it down and save it, hopefully to be reattached to the mast somehow.
Staggering to the stairs leading to the steering deck, Tarrin managed to climb nearly all the way up before bracing himself against another crashing breaker, then got up far enough to see the steering deck. All three men were still there, all of them desperately turning the wheel to try to turn the ship's bow into the next approaching swell. One of them was Deward. They looked at him in surprise, halting their turn for just an instant before continuing the maneuver, moving with a quick efficiency that showed they knew what they were doing. Tarrin scrambled onto the deck just as the wave was split by the bow, sending a raging mass of water flying over the lower deck, to slam into the sterncastle.
"Tarrin, are you crazy?" Deward demanded in a fierce shout over the howling wind. "Get back under cover!"
"The crow's nest is tangled to the mast!" he shouted back. "It's banging all over the deck, and we don't do something, it'll break something else! What do you want me to do with it?"
"Try to tie it down!" he shouted in reply. "If you can't, then cut it loose! And for the sake of the gods, be careful!"
"I'm always careful!" Tarrin shouted back, then made his way back to the staircase.
He struggled out onto the open deck, holding onto the aft mast while another wave broke over the ship, then moving towards the flapping half-ton piece of debris. He saw another wave about to break over the port side, and realized that he was out in the open. Cursing, he dropped down and drove all twenty claws into the deck below him, flexing his claw muscles with everything he had to keep them secured as a powerful surge of water slammed into his prone form. He felt his claws tear the wood as the water sought to uproot him from his spot, and lost his purchase with his left paw as a sizable chunk of the deck came up with his paw. But the other three appendages held firm, leaving gaping holes in the deck as the Were-cat quickly sized up the bouncing crow's nest, and grabbed hold of it as it swung past him. Claws dug furrows into the deck as he wrestled the huge chunk of wood to a halt, then pushed it towards the mainmast. The wind caught at it and picked it up off the deck, and Tarrin had to fight with every mote of his strength to keep it from bowling him over. The wind changed direction before it overwhelmed him, letting him literally throw the chunk of mast up against the mainmast. He scrambled for the mainmast himself as another wave crashed over the bow, claws holding him to it as a leg kept the piece of mast from rolling away with the water. He grabbed at some dangling rope tied to the broken mast and lashed it quickly around the broken end of the crow's nest, then ducked down between the mast and the nest as another wave came over the bow. He pulled at a rope tied to the crow's nest and looped it around the mast, then tied it quickly and securely. That gave the crow's nest three separate moorings, and as a wave crashed over the starbord beam, he saw that it was somewhat secure. There was no way he could immobilize it, but it was good enough to keep it from breaking through the deck.
Soaked to the skin, his ears burning from the salt water accumulated in them, and feeling the exertion in his chest in a slightly uncomfortable manner, Tarrin scampered back to the staircase below as the ship dropped into a trough between waves, giving him a good few seconds of flat deck to cover the distance. Once there, he grabbed the rickety door of the companionway and pulled it shut, then secured it from the inside with its bolt which had been thrown in the tossing of the ship. He nearly slipped on the wet stairs as the ship lurched to the side as he went down them, but caught himself before making an embarassing tumble down the steps.
He returned to Allia's cabin a little worse for wear. Sarraya took one look at him and laughed. "You look like a drowned rat!" she told him with a grin.
"That is something I'd rather not do again," he said fervently as he anchored himself against another lurch with one paw, and put a ginger paw to his chest with the other.
"What happened?" Allia asked, grabbing hold of him again.
"I tied the crow's nest to the mast," he replied as the ship rolled. "I nearly got swept off the deck twice. Those waves are powerful."
"Never mess with nature," Sarraya chuckled. "She's tougher than you."
"So now we just ride it out," Allia surmised.
"Not much else we can do, deshaida," Tarrin agreed.
"What, a, mess," Camara Tal said slowly as she, Tarrin, Sarraya, Allia, and Dar surveyed the damage.
The waves had scoured the paint off the hull. It had snapped most of the ropes they left up, but had not pulled the sails off the masts. It had broken the mainmast about six spans under the crow's nest, the mast and small platform sitting on the deck where Tarrin had hastily tied them. Some of the deck planking around the masts had buckled in the storm, as the masts swayed in the wind, pulled up like uprooted sod in a horse pasture, and some parts of the railing had been broken away here and there around the deck's perimeter. The mainmast had a long, very visible crack running from about ten spans over the deck to nearly halfway up its length. It was a span wide at its widest point, and deep enough for Allia to put her entire forearm inside. Renoit's performers moved to clean up the debris that littered the deck, from broken ropes and smaller boards ripped free to dead fish and some seaweed. There was a dead eel hanging from the lashed sail on the aftmast.
"Definitely a mess," Dar agreed. "Where do we start?"
"Looks like we'll start by limping into port," the Amazon said. "That split in the mast is fatal. We can't use it like that. Renoit's going to have to put in and get a new mast."
"Posh," Sarraya sniffed. "I can fix that, easy."
"How? I don't think you can sew that up."
"I'm a Druid, woman," Sarraya said bluntly. "I can urge the wood to fix itself. I can even put the top of the mast back on, if someone can hold it still long enough."
"Sounds like it'll be alot faster than finding a port," Dar said. "The only port of any size near us is Arkisia, and that's a few days out."
"If I can get some help, I can get the top of the mast back up there," Tarrin offered. "But we'll have to put the rigging back up first, because that split's causing the mast to bow. Sarraya can't fix the mast until it's been pulled back up straight, and I don't think all of us are strong enough to pull that thing back up."
"Let's go talk to Renoit," Camara Tal said. "He'll tell us what we need to do."
"We?" Sarraya said pointedly.
"We. Unless you want to swim back to shore," the Amazon said bluntly.
"Why swim when I can fly?"
"You won't be flying far after I get done with you, sprite," Camara Tal warned. "Now let's go. We need to get back under sail. We're sitting ducks like this."
Renoit did indeed know exactly what to do. The four of them found themselves divided up into work details with the other performers. Dar and Camara Tal helped clean up the deck and bring the rigging up out of storage, and Tarrin, Allia, and Sarraya were up the masts with the more nimble members of the troupe, accepting ropes from the people on deck and slowly knitting the rigging back into place under Renoit's careful eyes. He directed them from the deck, using a hollow cone to amplify his voice and make his commands easier to hear. Tarrin and Allia proved quickly that not only were they well suited for the task, but their ease at heights made it very simple for them to restring the rigging. Tarrin could easily jump from one mast to the other, so long as he was willing to sacrifice about twenty spans of altitude, and he could do it holding onto the ropes that had to be strung across them. Tarrin and Allia mainly worked to set the ropes, as others came in behind them and tightened them or adjusted them, and unlashed the sails and returned them to their normal places. Over the course of the morning and afternoon, the ship's rigging slowly reappeared, until the last rope was tied into place about an hour before sunset.
The work felt good. The time on the ship was nothing but an endless cycle of boredom and anxiety for Tarrin, and to be able to do something, to put his inhuman gifts to good use for the benefit of the others was strangely satisfying. He didn't even mind taking instructions from Renoit. Just to be doing something, to see their labor slowly take shape as the rigging was reattached, brought a simple pleasure to him that showed on his face. By the time they were done with the rigging, he felt nearly disappointed. He wasn't winded in the slightest, though the exertion had begun to gnaw a bit at his chest. That was a good thing, for Sarraya had been repairing the damage to the mast even as they finished raising the rigging, and she was nearly ready for them to bring up the broken section.
"Faalken!" Tarrin shouted from near the top of the mainmast. He had a coil of rope on his shoulder, and he took it off and began unlooping it as the curly-haired Knight scurried over from where he'd been helping them nail deck planking back down. He had his shirt off in the summer heat, and he was just a little sunburned.
"What is it, lad?" he shouted back.
"Tie this onto the top of the broken part of the mast," he shouted down. "Make it good and tight. When you're done, climb up here! I'm going to need you!"
"Me, climb up there?" he said in surprise.
"I can't do it alone!" Tarrin replied. "You can tie yourself to the mast when you get up here!"
"I'm more worried about getting up there, lad!" he shouted. "I'm not built for climbing!"
Faalken had a point. He was very agile and quick-footed, but climbing a mast was another thing. "Nevermind, I'll come get you!" Tarrin said, tying his end of the rope to the topsail's jib and climbing down the mast quickly and easily. Faalken had the rope tightly secured to the broken mast section by the time Tarrin got down, and picked up a good length of rope and tied it around his waist, then looped the remaining length around his waist and tied it to itself. Tarrin looked up to Sarraya, who was at the top of where the split had been. The split was completely gone where she had already passed by, the split wood rejoined by her Druidic magic. "Sarraya, you ready for this?" Tarrin shouted up to her.
"I need about ten minutes!" she called down. "Take a break, Tarrin, you've been going nonstop since the storm ended!"
"I need a break," Faalken grunted, sitting on the cleaned deck immediately. "It's been so long since I swung a hammer, I forgot how hard it can be."
"I didn't realize you were a carpenter."
"I never was. My father was a blacksmith. I swung a different kind of hammer before I petitioned the Knights."
"I should have guessed. You have the build of a smith."
"At least it got me in shape for the Academy," Faalken laughed. "I didn't have half as much trouble as some of the others."
"I can see where that could be an advantage," Tarrin agreed. "Where are you from originally?"
"Arrigon," he replied. Arrigon was a Sulasian city south of Torrian, the city at the end of the road leading from Suld through Jerinhold and Ultern. "Not much of a place, alot like Torrian."
"It was home."
"When I was young. My father said I was too much man for one city to hold."
Tarrin smiled slightly. "I'm sure he did."
"He would have," Faalken grinned. "What are we going to do with that?" he asked, pointing at the mast.
"I'm going to pull it up, and when I get it there, you're going to help me hold it while Sarraya puts it back on. There's only room for two, and you're the strongest man on the ship."
"I think we can do it," he agreed. "That looks heavy, but nothing we can't handle together."
Tarrin and Faalken waited quietly until Sarraya shouted that she was ready, and they got to work. Tarrin carried Faalken up the mast easily, holding him while he tied himself to the mast and secured himself. Then Tarrin grabbed the rope and dug his claws deeply into the mast, and pulled the slack out of it. Breathing a few times to get ready, Tarrin leaned down, and then pulled up and started lifting the wooden pole and its crow's nest. His chest began to burn angrily as he pulled it off the deck, and its weight made him reconsider his boast that he could lift it. He could lift it, but it was much heavier than the thought it was. He just wasn't sure if he could haul it up. He set it back down and blew out his breath explosively. "What's wrong, lad?" Faalken asked.
"It's heavier than I expected," he panted. "I need to set myself better."
"Just throw the rope over the top of the broken mast, and I'll hold it in place so you don't have to bear the whole weight. We just have to be careful that the jagged end there doesn't cut the rope."
"That's a good idea," Tarrin agreed. He untied the rope and threw the end over the ragged end of the broken mast. The mast didn't split along a long line, it was broken off relatively flatly, and that let Faalken sink the rope down into a jagged crevasse in the wood, which would secure the piece in place when Tarrin wasn't pulling on it. "You got it?"
Faalken wrapped the rope around a wrist and set himself. "Alright, let's get started," he said.
It worked surprisingly well. Tarrin would haul the large piece up by main strength, and Faalken would use his leverage to hold the piece in place while Tarrin collected himself for another pull. Pulling the section up made his chest bite at him every time he took its weight, and it left him panting and throbbing every time Faalken took up the weight so he could rest. The section of mast bobbed in the calm wind as the pair manhandled it up, as most of the people on the ship watched them in curiosity. Sarraya flitted up and landed on the broken mast top, by the rope, and watched the two males work to haul up the section. "I've almost got a paw on it, Faalken," Tarrin told him. "When I get it, you pull while I drag it up. Then I'll wrestle it into place."
"You know," Sarraya said conversationally, "all this sweating and grunting wasn't necessary. I could have brought it up here with magic."
"By Karas', hammer, why didn't you say so?" Faalken demanded loudly.
"You didn't ask," Sarraya said teasingly, grinning broadly at the Knight. She just smiled at Faalken's flat stare, but she missed the ominous glare Tarrin levelled on her back. "Want me to take it from here?"
"No," Tarrin said bluntly.
"No? Why not?"
"We got it this far without you. We can do the rest."
"Aye," Faalken said fiercely, taking it as a personal challenge. "Just shut up and stay out of the way til you're needed."
"Huf-fee," Sarraya snorted, crossing her arms. But her snort turned into a surprised "Eep!" when Tarrin's paw smacked her from behind, sweeping her off the stump of the mast forcefully. She fell about ten spans before she regained control of herself, coming up and getting right in Tarrin's face with an angry expression. "What did you hit me for?" she demanded hotly in her piping voice.
"Faalken told you to move," he said with a very ominous, low voice, glaring at the sprite through slitted eyes.
"Why didn't you just tell me to get out of the way?" she shouted.
"You didn't ask," Tarrin hissed dangerously.
The angry expression melted off of her face quickly. She seemed to finally realize that she made Tarrin very angry, and she couldn't just run away and hide this time. "Sorry," she said insincerely. "Let me help you with that, so we can finish up."
"No. We don't need your help," Tarrin said adamantly. "Just get out of the way and let us finish."
With that, Sarraya flitted to the side and hovered there in silence while the two men finished. Anger giving both of them strength, they grabbed hold of the ten span section of mast and physically manhandled it into position, an impressive display of both power and control of that power. Tarrin and Faalken twisted it carefully to line the jagged ends up, and then they pulled it down into the jagged stump until it meshed into place. Then they both kept strong hold of it against the light wind and the swaying of the ship. "Alright, bug, do your part," Faalken ordered.
"I am not a bug!" Sarraya said hotly, but she went about her task. They watched her flatly as she put her tiny hands to the wood and worked her magic, watching the cracks in the two pieces of wood fade away, leaving a whole piece in its wake. She moved inexorably around the outside of the mast, making the break seal back into one piece. "Alright, it'll hold without you two," Sarraya said huffily. "I have to do more work on it, so I'll finish it from here. You two can get down."
Faalken untied himself and Tarrin grabbed hold of him, then he looked up at the hovering sprite. "You better stay up here for a long time, Sarraya," he hissed at her. "If I see you down below, I'll kill you."
Sarraya put her hands on her hips, but said nothing.
Tarrin carried Faalken back to the deck, where he left him with Camara Tal and Dolanna and stalked away, very angry. How dare she let them struggle with that beam, when she could have easily brought it up for them! She didn't seem to realize that it hurt him to haul that mast section up. The angry biting in his chest told him that he probably overexerted himself, and would have to mend some over again. Yet she stood there and watched them struggle to haul that mast section up, enjoying her twisted little game, enjoying his pain.
"I think Tarrin is angry," Dolanna said under her breath to the others as Tarrin reached the door that led below decks. The bolt, which had been twisted by the force of the storm, was stuck in the eye, and it wouldn't open. In a fit of pique, Tarrin drove his claws into the sides of the door and ripped it off the hinges, then threw it aside absently, nearly sending it crashing into a startled dancer.
"I'd say that that's a good hunch," Camara Tal said dryly as Tarrin stalked below decks.
It took him most of the night to get his temper under control The callousness of the Faerie had been what did it. She either didn't realize or didn't care that it took more than Tarrin had to pull that mast section up. She had the ability to do it herself the entire time, yet she did not, only because she thought it was fun to watch Tarrin struggle. But it had to be done, and Tarrin knew that he and Faalken were the only ones that could do it, so he had clamped his teeth together and toughed out the pain.
He spent most of the night pacing back and forth in his cabin with Allia dozing on the bed. She was there to calm him down if he got too worked up, but he wasn't enraged, he was simply irritated. Nearly humiliated, for some strange reason, though he had no idea why the event would embarass him. He had brought up the mast section, with Faalken's help. He had done everything he could do to help get the ship seaworthy again, even more, so there was no rightly reason for him to feel humiliated, even at what Sarraya did to them. And yet it was there. And he had no idea why. That irritated him more than anything else about the whole episode. It was probably that the Faerie had known she could lift the mast, and had let them do it themselves. It was humiliating to think that she could do something easily which he could not. Without his Sorcery and with his injury, he was weakened, less than whole, and the Cat in him was very sensitive to that dangerous situation. In the wild, the injured were often singled out and killed by the uninjured, and the instinct of self-preservation kept him very aware of that. It was probably why he seemed even more nervous around the humans than normal, knowing that he was injured and weak, easier prey for any lurking hunter or enemy.
But there was only so much time that Tarrin could stay angry when Allia's scent was filling his nose. Just the smell of her had a soothing effect on him, reminding him of the powerful bond that they shared. He looked to her, to her sleeping form, and marvelled yet again at how exquisitely lovely the Selani was. Sometimes it was easy for him to forget that, since he saw her every day. Always quiet, yet knowing exactly what to say when she did speak, she was the foundation upon which Tarrin based his life, his very sanity. He loved her effortlessly, easily, an unbounded affection that transcended even his understanding sometimes. Even if they were married, he could not love her any more, and yet thoughts of Allia like that were alien to him. It was a different kind of love, a platonic bond between Selani and Were-cat that brought them together over their many differences in outlook and culture. Seeing her sleeping there was enough to break his temper, and he gave up on being angry, changed form, and curled up beside her and went to sleep.
That contentful doze was shattered by a savage searing pain in his tail. Tarrin was startled awake, yowling and hissing even as he became aware that something was seriously hurting his tail. He tried to pull away, but found himself being shaken by his tail, until he felt the flesh and bone of it give and pull away. Tarrin scrambled forward with blood spurting from the end of his severed tail, and turned to see one of the drakes with about four fingers of his tail in its mouth!
Tarrin slid unceremoniously off the bed and twisted to land on his feet, pain and shock giving way to a sudden unmitigated fury. Allia was scrambling in the other direction, also startled awake by Tarrin's howling, and she looked at him just in time to see him change form. His tail grew back in that transformation, and two green pools of unholy fury settled firmly on the small body of the little green-scaled drake. "Why you little-" he began, but he lost his ability to think rationally as the instincts of the Cat roared over his awareness.
The drake seemed to understand that it had gone too far. It turned and flew out the door in a panic, but Tarrin wasn't about to simply let it get away. He shattered the door as he raced after it, charging down the companionway as it flew back towards the hold. It flew through the open doorway and went up, and Tarrin followed in time to see it fly through a small hatch at the top, that led to the deck.
People on deck dove and fell in shock when Tarrin's body exploded through the deck itself seconds after one of Phandebrass' drakes flew from the opening, sending wooden shards flying in every direction. His eyes were lit from within with his anger, and a mask of rage was twisting his features as he continued to ascend after the flying reptile, claws on his paw reaching for it.
It almost got away. Tarrin's paw closed over the end of its tail, and its body sagged as the Were-cat yanked it out of the air as he fell back to the deck. It made no sound when Tarrin's feet hit the wood, and he carried the drake over his head and slammed it into the deck with enough force to send blood flying out of its maw and split its scaly hide in several places. It did not move, laying limply on the deck when he let go if it and stared viciously down at the little monster.
Sarraya got there first. She stared down at the dead drake and then gaped at him. "Tarrin, you killed him!" she gasped. "Why, for the forest's sake!"
"It bit off my tail!" Tarrin raged at the little Faerie, turning and padding away resolutely. "Now it knows better," he added with an ominous hiss, as the performers rushed over to look.
"Oh, poor little thing," one of the dancers, Deidre, said sadly. "Phandebrass is going to be heartbroken."
"Move," a strong voice called, and Camara Tal broke through the ring of performers. She looked down at the drake and said nothing, but the look in her eyes said it all.
"Can you heal it, Camara Tal?" Sarraya asked meekly.
"If you can peel it off the deck," Camara Tal snorted.
"Oh, please, you have to try!" Sarraya said with sincere concern. "It may not be dead yet!"
"Why do you care, bug?" Camara Tal asked directly as she knelt by the limp form. She put a hand on her amulet and then reached down and put her fingers on the reptile. "I heard about what you did to Tarrin and Faalken. Caring about others isn't exactly your strong suit."
Sarraya only gave the Amazon a stricken look. Camara Tal glanced into her small face, then looked down at the drake. "Consider yourself lucky, bug," she grunted. "This is a tough little rat." Camara Tal's amulet began to glow with a golden radiance, and that golden touch transfered to her hand. It limned over the body of the drake, and where its golden glow touched it, its injuries faded. The drake's eyes fluttered open, and it tried to struggle to its feet. "Someone take it back to Phandebrass, and tell him to put a leash on it," the Amazon ordered of the performers. She turned on Sarraya and poked a finger into the chest of the hovering Faerie, sending her back a span. "I know you had something to do with this, bug," she accused. "That look you gave me told me everything I need to know. Your games nearly got that rat killed, and that would have made Phandebrass very unhappy. If you don't stop these stupid games, someone alot more important than a living leather belt is going to die. Would you like to have some real blood on your hands, bug? Well?!"
The Faerie stared at her a moment, then burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands.
"I thought not. Now get out of my sight before I do something nasty to you," she grated, sweeping past the Faerie and stomping off.
The Faerie retreated from the accusing looks of the performers, who had heard it all, and spent a long time sitting on a rail looking out into the sea. She stayed there, in full view of everyone, until Dar approached her near sunset. "You can't just stay here forever," he said gently.
"I never meant to get Turnkey hurt," she sniffled. "I told him that the cat would play with him. He got too rough. Now everyone hates me, Tarrin probably wants to kill me, and I made a fool of myself. I want to go home," she sniffled petulantly.
"Tarrin's mad at you, but you know how he is. Just give him time, and he'll get over it. But I hope this tells you that a little fun is a good thing, but too much is a bad thing."
Sarraya nodded solemnly before sniffling again. "I just found out that being bored is better than feeling guilty," she admitted.
"Just remember that," Dar told her calmly.
Sarraya was quiet a moment. "Thank you for being nice to me," she said sheepishly.
"We all make mistakes, Sarraya," he said sagely. "Just don't do it again."
"I won't. I promise."
"That's good enough for me. Do you happen to play chess? I'm trying to find someone more my skill level. Allia, Faalken, and Tarrin destroy me every time."
"You'll have to teach me," Sarraya said with a sniffle, looking up at Dar with bright, apologetic eyes. "At least you'll have someone you can beat."
"With my luck, probably only for a few days," Dar grunted as Sarraya flitted off the rail and flew alongside the young Arkisian.
"Looks like Dar got through to her," Camara Tal grunted to Dolanna. The two were on the steering deck, watching on as Dar did what they told him to do. Of all of them, Dar was the most compassionate, and that strange way about him that made everyone like him made him perfect to help Sarraya get over her humiliation and try to get along with everyone else. Dar's unconscious charisma had worked its magic on Sarraya, getting her to open up to him and make agreements that she wouldn't have made with anyone else. "It's weird how he can say exactly what we'd say, but she reacts completely differently to him than she would to us."
"Dar has a special gift, Camara Tal," Dolanna replied calmly, watching the young man walk towards the bow. "His compassion shines from him like a gentle light, beckoning all who look upon it. His is a pure heart."
Camara Tal nodded in agreement, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and leaning against the rail, putting her back to the Arkisian. "Let's just hope the bug keeps her word," she grunted. "Phandebrass about had a conniption when he found out what she did to his pet. Let's not even talk about Allia and Tarrin, and Faalken's starting to look at her with a fly swatter in his eyes."
"We can always hope, Camara Tal," Dolanna replied seriously, looking to the west, to the setting sun. "We are starting to run out of time. We cannot afford petty squabbles among ourselves."
"We can't afford much of anything now," she grunted in assent. "Renoit told me we have to be there before midsummer. We're going to cut a very fine line as it is. The storm didn't help."
"No, it did not," Dolanna agreed. "With the favor of both our goddesses, may we get there on time. So much depends upon it."
"Everything depends on it, Dolanna," Camara Tal said seriously, looking at her. "Everything."
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