There were other unsual nights. When Vala was full and alone in the sky, the red light over the land it cast gave that kind of night the name Blood Night, and it was basicly seen as an unlucky night by most. The Twin Moons often partially concealed one another, but sometimes one moon would be hidden completely behind the other. That was called Child's Night, named so because the hidden moon was said to be playing a child's game of hide and seek. And on some very rare occasions, one moon would pass behind another, and that gave them the order that most people associated with them. Domammon, the largest, was always behind the other three. Vala was in front of Domammon, but behind the Twin Moons. And the Twin Moons were always in front of the two larger ones, but traded often in which moon was in front of the other between themselves. The moons would eclipse one another, and certain eclipses were said to have certain meanings. When Vala eclipsed Domammon, it was supposedly a night for finding a husband or wife, and that was why it was called the Lovers' Clip, so named because a vast majority of the time, Vala only partially eclipsed Domammon, clipping its edge for a few hours. When Vala was eclipsed by the Twin Moons when they were both fully visible, it was said to be a night for embarking on new ideas. This was why it was called Denthar's Brood, named after the Younger god of knowledge. When only one of the Twin Moons eclipsed the edge of Domammon, it was called the Dagger Night, was it was rumored that such an eclipse incited men to acts of violence. In Aldreth, it was a custom for everyone to meet on the Green and tie all the men's hands behind their backs on Dagger Night, a social ceremony that the women always enjoyed, for it had evolved into a kind of festival of food, drink, music, and dancing. On that night the women supplanted all the normal tasks of the men, and after their hands were rebound in front of them, the men served all the food and did all the cleaning afterwards, and had to do it all with their hands bound together. Needless to say, the men of Aldreth were never too happy to see a Dagger Night come around.
In two months, those four moons were going to line up behind one another, and on that night, Tarrin would know that his task was over, and it was safe for him to finally go home. He couldn't wait.
"Do the Selani have any special names or customs when the moons eclipse one another?" Tarrin asked Allia curiously.
She smiled. "Not really," she replied. "But when all four moons are full, the Selani stay up all night and feast, and sing songs to the Holy Mother. We call it the Night of Passage. Our legends say that it was Fara'Nae's voice that led us to the desert, but she guided us home by causing the four moons to be full and form a line in the sky, lighting the way home, as the wind blew at our backs to push us in the right direction."
"Maybe it was a conjunction," Sarraya mused.
"The moons line up all the time," Tarrin shrugged. "At least in a straight line. I think if it was a conjunction, the legends would be pretty specific about how it looked. I think seeing all four moons lined up behind each other would be rather memorable."
"That must be why a Selani always walks with his back to the wind," Sarraya said.
"That, and it keeps the face from getting scoured by flying sand," Allia smiled. "We always turn our backs to the wind when we first feel it to honor the Holy Mother, a custom done in memory of how the Holy Mother guided us to her. After that, we can turn and face it as we please, but that's usually not very pleasant. Even with a veil and visor, the sand finds ways to scour off the skin, and it gathers under the veil and hood."
"Did I ever mention how glad I am that I don't live here?" Sarraya asked.
"Frequently," Tarrin drawled.
"Remind me to do it a few thousand more times," she grinned. "Fervently."
"You're about to annoy me, Sarraya," Allia told her. "I don't complain about your home."
"That's because my home is perfect," she said airily. "You can't complain about it, because everything is perfect."
"Everything here is perfect to me," she retorted.
"Well, I can't help it if you're all mixed up," Sarraya said flippantly.
"I can't help it if a small body houses a small brain," Allia said in an off-handed manner, only glancing at the Faerie. "It must be hard to go through life with such a limited ability to appreciate things."
"I am not dumb!" she snapped hotly. "And stop making fun of my height!"
"It's a pity, brother," Allia said to him casually. "She doesn't even have the awareness to know she sits in paradise. I guess it's true what they say about the size of a person's head. The larger the head, the smarter the mind."
"Well!" Sarraya huffed, flitting up into the air. "I'm going to bed. Good night!" she added in a vociferious manner, then buzzed angrily into one of the three tents arrayed around the large fire.
They watched her fly off, and Sarraya got an earful of their laughter to follow her into her tent.
"That was well played, sister," Tarrin said with an appreicative smile. "Var and Denai used to drive her crazy like that too."
"I really want to meet your Var and Denai," she told him, looking out into the plain after a very faint noise ghosted to them, too faint to be made out.
"They were quite a pair," Tarrin chuckled warmly. "Var was serious and sober, but Denai was very young and very impulsive, and not a little reckless. They turned everything into a competition, and when they weren't competing, they were usually fighting. I miss them sometimes. They never made a campsite dull, that's for sure."
"They're lovers now, aren't they?"
"They're married, actually," he corrected. "And Denai's pregnant with their first child. I'm not sure which tribe they're with now. Denai is training to be obe, and that probably means Var ended up in her tribe."
"Obe don't change tribes without exchanging with another obe from that tribe," Allia affirmed with a nod.
"Well, she's only an apprentice, so she might have gone to Var's tribe. You know, just apprenticed under the obe in Var's tribe. Either way, the territory of their clan is way southwest of here, so I doubt we'll run into them," he sighed.
"Which clan are they?"
"Clan Dellinar," he answered.
"An honorable clan," Allia nodded. "Our clan has never had blood issue with them. They're a very respected clan."
Tarrin chuckled. "Denai couldn't identify my clan brand when we first met," he told her. "There are only thirteen clans. How could she not know?"
"You said she was young, brother. She must have just forgotten. That does happen, you know," she smiled lightly. "Sometimes that memory of yours makes me sick, deshida. You never seem to forget anything!" She laughed. "I struggle and work and tear out my hair to remember something you pick up in a matter of seconds, and never forget! It's one of the rare times I ever feel anything negative towards you!"
"Well, I'm sorry," he told her. "I can't help it. I've always had a good memory, and I just seem to have a knack for learning spells and languages. Believe me, sister, I have a hard enough time remembering just about anything else."
"Don't bury yourself in the sand, brother," she said with a quirky half-smile, using a Selani term that meant don't sell yourself short. "That mind of yours seems to soak up everything. You can always remember the little details that the rest of us forget. That must be why you're so good at learning spells and languages. You have amazing attention to detail, and both things are nothing but a stack of details piled one on top of the other."
"I'll take your word for it, sister," he shrugged, his ears picking up when that faint sound reached them again. He stared off into the eerily lit plain, his tail slashing a few times in irritation. "What is that sound?" he asked shortly.
"I think it's a Sandman," she answered. "It'll need to get closer for me to be sure."
"I don't want it to get any closer," he grunted. "That moaning always makes my teeth grind."
"I don't want it approaching either, but if we can hear it, at least we can keep track of it. It won't sneak up on us."
"We don't need any more of those kinds of surprises," he chuckled as his ears continued
to scan the ghostly lit scrub beyond the light of the fire.
The sound trailed off, and the night passed without incident. They saw no Selani for two days as they moved south of east, but there were signs of the passing of a tribe. The vegetation was eaten down in one area, and though the wind had scoured away all traces of them, their scent was still lingering on some of the exposed stones on the desert floor. The scents were fresh, not even a day, and he realized that they had stopped here to let their animals forage.
"They're going north," Tarrin announced.
"That's not unusual," Allia replied. "There are blooms in the northern marches in the fall." A bloom was a rapid growth of vegetation, usually proceeding a rare rain shower or shifts in the ground water that brought it closer to the surface."
"How can you tell it's fall?" Sarraya complained. "There are no seasons out here. Just hot desert, hot desert, and more hot desert."
"The days are getting shorter," she told her.
"Well, that's obvious," Sarraya huffed, flitting off his head. "But it's not like this place suffers from the climate changes that everywhere else does."
That much was true. Because both spring and autumn were notoriously short, the transition from season to season was pretty swift. The late summer of just a few days ago was probably full-fledged autumn in Suld now, with frost in the mornings and less rain than normal. Winter would be marching in but a few rides behind that, and there would be snow on the ground before the last month of the year began. It wasn't because spring and autumn were actually shorter than summer and winter--all four seasons were two and a half months long by the solar calendar--it was that what people tended to call "late summer" or "early spring" was actually another season. Tarrin had been calling it "late summer" for a while now, when actually it was well into the calendar season of autumn. But Tarrin was a farmboy, and in Aldreth, they went more by weather than they did by a calendar. Tarrin didn't think his parents even bothered with them. He never had. He often had no idea what month it was. The seasons ruled them, and it was by those seasons that they reckoned all time.
Tarrin stopped and added it up. If Gods' Day, the day after New Year's Day, was a little under two months away, then by a calendar, they were in the middle of autumn. By a calendar. In Suld and Aldreth--both had similar climates, though Suld saw alot more rain--they would be having warm days and cold nights, with sudden and often wild temperature shifts. It could be hot one day, and bitingly cold the next, only to have it hot again the day after that. A day that started with frost on the ground could end too hot to wear wool without sweating to death. And when the rain came, it came hard in Aldreth. Such wild temperature changes made rain during both the summer and the fall tend to be thunderstorms, and those storms could be very, very fierce. In spring more so than fall, but the fall storms could occasionally match the savagery of their springtime cousins.
"Maybe the rest of the world should take lessons from our desert," Allia teased the Faerie.
Sarraya flew off, muttering curses.
"Is she always so obnoxious?" Allia asked him honestly after Sarraya was well out of earshot.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "But she's been especially bad here lately. Usually she's nice about as often as she's contrary, but for the last few days it's been nothing but snide comments and snippiness. Something must be bothering her. I think I need to ask about it."
"She's the kind to take her discomfort out on others," Allia surmised.
"She lets you know she's not happy, that's for sure," he agreed.
"Well, she'd best come out of it soon. She's starting to annoy me."
"Sarraya loves to fight, sister," Tarrin chuckled. "Get used to it, because she likes you, and she picks on people she likes alot more than she does on strangers. That, or just do what you've been doing."
"What is that?"
"Get the best of her. Whenever she's losing, she runs away."
Allia laughed. "I think that won't be too hard," she winked.
He was about to agree, but he felt a familiar pulse flow through the Weave. Another came, and then a third, and that third seemed to lock in on him. Tarrin could feel them clearly, and the familiar hand of Keritanima was behind those sweeps. She was searching for him, and her probes had finally found him, probably using his star as a means to find him as he used their stars to find the other Sorcerers. "Kerri's looking for us," he remarked to Allia. "I think she's going to project over here."
Before he was finished speaking the air in front of them shimmered, and then an Illusion was built out of flows that were manipulated from thousands of longspans to the west. It was an Illusion of Keritanima, exact down to the smallest detail, and a faithful representation of her at that moment. And at that moment, the image of her was dressed in a frilly little nightgown made of silk, untied at the neckline and hanging off her left shoulder in a manner that would be very appealing to a Wikuni male. The Illusion's eyes seemed to shimmer, and then it went from being a mere magical vision to seeming alive. That, Tarrin knew, meant that Keritanima had joined to her Illusion, and now it was as if a spectral version of herself was with them.
"Kerri," Tarrin smiled. "You look sleepy."
"It's dawn over here," she yawned.
"You look tired, deshaida," Allia noted.
"I've had a long day and a very short night," she complained grumpily.
"Are you in Dusgaard?" he asked.
She nodded. "A bloody cold place. I thought Wikuna was cold," she said with a shiver. "Did you know that they have to have a foot--er, span--of snow on the ground?"
"Winter comes early in Ungardt, sister. Very early," Tarrin chuckled.
"That grandfather of yours is impressive, brother," she said with a toothy grin. "He's as big as a bear."
"He's pretty mellow for an Ungardt, Kerri," he told her.
"I noticed."
"What were you doing last night, if you're in Dusgaard?" Allia asked.
"Staying up with Anrak," she frowned. "It's something of a custom for visitors to sit up and drink with their host. Thank the Goddess I'm a Weavespinner. I was neutralizing the alcohol before it could get me drunk. At least I don't have a hangover, thank the Goddess."
"I'll bet that really annoyed the Ungardt in the hall," Tarrin laughed. "To see a little slip of a Wikuni girl stone sober."
"I made quite a bit of money," she said smugly. "They decided to wager just who was going to be under the table first."
"You cheated, Kerri," Tarrin accused with a grin.
"So?"
Both Allia and Tarrin laughed loudly. "Did everything go alright?"
"Smooth as silk," she said confidently. "My clippers had to chase off about six ships that followed us out of the harbor. They lurked on the horizon until we crossed into Ungardt waters. We had a tense moment with a squadron of longships, but I managed to talk our way around them. They didn't like seeing a squadron of Wikuni clippers sailing into their waters. Not that I can't blame them," she added as an afterthought. "They escorted us to Dusgaard, and now they and my clippers are patrolling the waters off Ungardt to discourage anyone trying to sneak in."
"Sounds like our ruse worked," Allia noted.
"I think it did. Jenna said that there was a mass exodus out of Suld when we left. Everybody and his brother was in the city. Oh, that reminds me," she said. "There's been a bit of bad news out of Suld, Tarrin."
"What?"
"The Regent and the boy-king both are dead, as well as about half the Royal council and the heads of the four major noble houses," she told him. "It was an accident, before your paranoia starts getting the best of you."
"What happened?"
"A fire at the palace," she replied. "It gutted the wing that held the Royal apartments. It was started by a kitchen cookfire, and got out of control. It's very bad timing that alot of the heads of the higher noble houses happened to be at the palace at the same time. It's left a serious vacuum in the city and kingdom both."
"Who's in charge?"
&
nbsp; "Right now? Jenna," she answered. "It's part of the treaty between the Tower and the Crown. If the throne vacates due to accident or treachery and there's no heir, the Keeper acts as Regent until a new king is chosen by the nobility. Jenna's fairly ticked off about it," Keritanima laughed. "She had enough work just being Keeper. Now the courtiers of the Lion Throne are banging down Duncan's door to get audiences with her. She's been howling at me for two days now, asking me how I do it."
"Do what?" Allia asked.
"Run a kingdom," she answered. "It's really not that hard. If Jenna can run the Tower, she can run Sulasia. It's just a little more paperwork, that's all."
"Poor Jenna," Tarrin chuckled.
"Why would a treaty be set up that way?" Allia asked.
"Simple, sister. The Keeper's neutrality is never in question," Keritanima answered. "If a king dies because of treachery, then someone had to kill him, and you never know who that may have been. They added accidents because you never know if an accident is as accidental as it seems. Either way, it puts someone with absolute neutrality in power who can punish the killer or determine that it truly was an accident. It also frees the nobility to get down to the business of getting a new king immediately, without all that messy disorder that tends to follow the death of a monarch. You know, some noble deciding that he's going to run things himself, and all that."
"That's rather practical," Allia said appreciatively.
"You know Sulasians, sister. Practical, pragmatic, and as much fun as a box of wet sand," she said with a teasing look at Tarrin.
"Joke all you want, but it works," Tarrin shrugged absently.
"Where's Sarraya?" Keritanima asked curiously, looking around.
"Off in a tizzy," Allia answered.
"I was not!" Sarraya's voice called as she flew back to them. "Hullo, Kerri. You're looking a bit frumpled."
"I feel frumpled," the Wikuni chuckled.
"Well, that explains why Jenna hasn't talked to me," Tarrin mused. "She must be up to her ears in paperwork."
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