The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "It's about time," Keritanima said without looking up from her book. Szath turned to stare at him, with his boxy, scaly green snout and black, soulless eyes, and shifted to get out of Tarrin's way as he approached. Tarrin didn't really like Szath, for he was a bit stiff and not too smart. He hoped that Binter and Sisska would rejoin them when they got to Wikuna. He liked those two. "I thought you were going to forget about me."

  "How could I do something like that?" he asked simply, looking around. He spotted a barrel tied against the sterncastle, an empty one that had once held water. He untied it and dragged it over to face the two Wikuni females, then seated himself atop it easily. "Where did you want to start, Kerri? My lessons, or yours?"

  "I'll go first today," she said with a toothy grin, showing off that muzzle full of sharp teeth, closing her book and setting it on the deck beside her. "I've come to discover that the person going last gives a longer lesson. I'd rather spend more time learning than teaching." Kerri didn't actually give that lesson by herself. Miranda helped out quite a bit, since she spoke Wikuni as well. She didn't look up from her knitting, pausing to brush her thick blond hair from her face, pushing it back up into the little poof that hung over her face, yet didn't droop down to touch it. She parted her hair to the side, tucking the long bangs up over the round, furry ear that poked up through her hair, giving her that poof of hair in front.

  Tarrin cast the Priest spell that enhanced his ability to learn, and then they began. Keritanima concentrated on vocabulary, expanding the number of words that Tarrin understood. Tarrin could speak Wikuni as it was, albeit slowly and not without a little prior preparation, so she was working on the more uncommon words that still managed to find their way into everyday speech. The way things were going, Tarrin was going to be fluent by the time they reached Wikuna, which would be in about twelve days, by Keritanima's estimation.

  After his lesson was over, he became the teacher. This day, he concentrated on the Weavespinner's ability to join his consciousness with the Weave and leave his mortal body. It was something that all Weavespinners could do, and it allowed one to perform some pretty clever tricks, such as weaving spells from great distances, or looking out into the physical world from the strands of the Weave. Tarrin took great pains to explain the metamagical geography and the rules of the Weave, for they were completely unlike anything Keritanima had ever experienced before. The Weave was its own world, its own domain, and it had its own set of laws. The most obvious one, and the one that caused Tarrin so much trouble, was that the geography of the Weave did not correspond to the geography of the real world. A Sorcerer may have to travel vast distances through the Weave to look on the other side of a door, for instance, and that was why using the Weave in that manner was better used for looking across a continent rather than across a city. Joining the Weave took energy, and a Sorcerer could tire himself out much more by spying through the Weave than he would by simply going and looking for himself.

  "You haven't taught me how to do this yet," Keritanima complained. "You keep talking about what I can and can't do when I do it, but when are you going to teach me how to do it?"

  "You already know how to do it," he replied calmly. "You've done it once before, when you crossed over. When you regain your powers, you'll find yourself joining the Weave even when you don't mean to, and the Weave will respond to you even when you don't think it can."

  "What do you mean?"

  "When you crossed over, you became bound to the Weave," he explained. "It's much closer to you now. It's why Weavespinner magic doesn't require drawing power. The Weave responds to your desire, not the force you exert against it. The Weave will react to you whenever you're highly emotional, because it senses your feelings. Sometimes it doesn't do anything you notice, but sometimes it does. When I get like that, sometimes I hear echoes in the Weave, memories of past events still reverberating along the strands. More than once, the knowledge of what I need, what got me so worked up in the first place, came to me through echoes when I needed it. But don't think that's going to happen all the time," he cautioned immediately.

  "Can I find these echoes?"

  "You can look for them, but more often than not, they find you," he replied. "And when you do find them, what you get is broken and incomplete. The Weave has all the knowledge any of us ever knew trapped in it, but it's not coherent. More often than not, what you hear leaves behind more questions than answers."

  "You just had to go and ruin a good idea," she muttered with a snort.

  "That's just one of the things you can find when you're inside the Weave," he told her. "There are also currents of magical power that flow through the strands. Some of them are strong, and a few times I almost got pulled away by them. Every once in a while, you'll find yourself in a nexus, a point where some magical device draws energy from the Weave to power itself. Those try to drag you into them, so avoid them."

  "What would happen if you did get pulled in?"

  "I have no idea. Odds are, your consciousness would become part of the magical item you'd just been pulled into. You'd be a living magic item."

  Keritanima shuddered. "I think I'd like to keep the body I have right now, thank you," she said.

  "That's about it as far as danger is concerned. The Weave is actually a pretty safe place. It's easy to get lost, but you can always return to your body any time you want just by willing it. It's also easy to find the Heart. All you do is sense which way the magic flows, and follow it. All magic flows back to the Heart."

  "I, I remember that place," the Wikuni said with reverence. "I could feel the Goddess there, like really there. And there were glowing threads in the blackness, as well as thousands of glittering stars. Those stars seemed so close I could touch them."

  "You could," he replied. "The stars represent every Sorcerer alive, and each of us has one there. When you see a star go out, that means the Sorcerer it represented died. When one appears, a new Sorcerer has been born. You can use a Sorcerer's star to find the Sorcerer in the real world. Remember the first time I used a projection to talk to you?" he asked, and she nodded in reply. "Well, I couldn't find you physically through the Weave, so I used your star to locate you. It guided me to you."

  "Then why did you tell me to touch the Weave?"

  "So I could find you more easily," he replied. "It was the second time I'd ever done it, if you recall."

  "Oh yeah," she mused. "I tell you, brother, I just can't wait until I get my powers back and I can practice all this. It sounds so much more exciting than boring old Sorcery."

  "It's just an aspect of Sorcery, Kerri," he replied. "And don't worry, it's been a while since you lost your powers. You should be getting them back any time now. You been practicing?"

  "Every night," she assured him. "I can feel the Weave now, but I still can't weave spells."

  "Then you're close," he told her. "Just remember that the Weave is going to seem slippery at first. The flows will resist you until you get the hang of it. When you have that down, I'll show you how to weave spells without that resistance."

  "Why not show me how first?"

  "Because you have to know the basics before I can teach you the advanced concepts, Kerri," he chided her.

  "I hate it when you get smug," she snorted.

  "I could say the same thing about you," he teased. Chopstick, one of Phandebrass' pet drakes, flapped over and dropped itself in Tarrin's lap. He stroked the creature's iridescent reddish scales gently, and it nuzzled its scaly head against his stomach in contentment. It was a very clever little animal, and looked just like the pictures of dragons he'd seen in so many books. Only it was the size of a small dog, when a dragon was supposed to be the size of a large house. It even had small black horns that swept back over its head, jutting out over each little yellow, reptillian eye. Its muzzle was narrow, and filled with a mouthful of needle-like teeth. Tarrin rather liked the two drakes, because they were affectionate and didn't make too much of a nuisance of themselves. Turnkey was more misc
hievious than Chopstick, given to playing games of hide and seek with Phandebrass at the most inopportune times. Chopstick was a spoiled little drake, always wanting someone to pay attention to it. Usually it bothered Allia for attention, for both drakes seemed to really like his Selani sister, but when she or Phandebrass were too busy for it, it came to Tarrin. Tarrin didn't mind at all. The little drakes were companions for Phandebrass, and now for the entire group, but they had proven that they could be very useful in fights. Both of them were very small, but they were utterly fearless, and they were fast and agile enough to distract enemies and give their human and non-human friends an easy shot against the distracted foe.

  A bell rang on the sterncastle, signifying that dinner would be ready within the hour, and Keritanima clapped her hands. "It's about time!" she announced. "I wonder what they're cooking tonight."

  "I hope it's not fish," Miranda said, making a face. "I'm getting tired of fish."

  "I thought all Wikuni loved fish," Tarrin mused.

  "There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, Tarrin," she told him with a wink. "I saw them bring some sides of beef on board when we laid over at the Stormhavens. I hope we're having that tonight. They'll have to cook it soon, or it'll go bad."

  "They already did, Miranda," Keritanima told her. "It's been gone for a week now."

  "You had to go and ruin a good idea, didn't you?" she accused. Then she batted her eyelashes at Tarrin and gave him that quirky grin that warned him she was about to try to sweet-talk something out of him. "You love me, don't you, Tarrin?" she asked in a little-girl voice. "Do you love me enough to make me some steak?"

  Tarrin looked at her, watched her wink one more time, then he chuckled ruefully. "You could ask, Miranda. If you keep flirting with me, I may take you up on it. Then you'd be in real trouble."

  "Bah. A girl shouldn't flirt if she wasn't ready for the consequences," she said dismissively. Tarrin often forgot that Miranda was actually a very bad girl, nothing like the rather straight-laced Keritanima. She had often had to seduce information out of targets, and it was something she did not entirely object to doing. She had even confided that she enjoyed it, given that her mark was handsome. "It's an empty threat, anyway. I know you wouldn't be serious about me," she grinned.

  "Well, you never know, Miranda. You are cute, even to a Were-cat."

  "And you'd break me in half if we tried," she teased. "Entirely accidental, of course, but you know how wild things can get when--"

  "I think we get the idea," Keritanima cut her off, the fur on her cheeks ruffling slightly, her form of a blush. Keritanima was bold, but Miranda often seemed to get the best of her friend and employer. Talking about such things wouldn't bother Keritanima if they were talking about strangers. To Keritanima, it would be the same as her brother sleeping with her best friend, something not entirely pleasant to think about.

  "Well, will you, Tarrin? I've been dying for steak all week."

  Tarin had to think about that a minute. The Wikuni used some different standards for measuring things, like distances, or time. A Wikuni week was a period of seven days, when the West used the terms ride or tenday to describe a period of ten days. They also used weird terms called feet and miles for expressing distances, where the West used span and longspan. The length of a foot was different than the length of a span; a foot was longer than a span by a small amount, but those small amounts added up when talking of large lengths. Tarrin was nine and a quarter spans tall, but Keritanima had told him that in her measurements, he was seven and three-quarters feet in height. Azakar was ten spans tall, but Keritanima said in her measurements, he was just a shade over eight feet in height. The monstrous Szath was well over twelve spans tall, nearly thirteen, but Keritanima told him that he was ten feet in height.

  Tarrin wondered how those terms came to be used, and how their distances were set. It was something he'd have to study one of these days.

  "Well, I guess so, but let's not make it common knowledge," he told her. One of Tarrin's abilities was called Conjuring, and it was an aspect of his Druidic magic. It was what Miranda was asking of him. It was a catch-all term for three forms of conjuration magic, Conjuring, Creating, and Summoning. They were simple tricks, something any Druid could do. Conjuring was bringing to a place an object that existed elsewhere, but not a specific one. The magic tended to grab the closest object that fit the Druid's parameters when the spell was used, regardless of who owned it beforehand. Creating was just that, creating something from nothingness, often used when Conjuring an item would deprive someone of something valuable or when something with specific dimensions or qualities was desired, and Summoning was causing a specific object to appear. Druids used the tricks to conjure food and drink, conjure gold and other valuable items, and generally to conjure anything they needed. Druids never went hungry and were rarely left without something they needed. Tarrin preferred Creating rather than Conjuring, for he never was very comfortable with the idea that the food he was Conjuring was being stolen off the plates of innocent people. It required more energy than Conjuring, but he was willing to make that sacrifice knowing he didn't just steal the food out of a child's mouth. "I'll have people asking me for menus."

  Keritanima chuckled, and Miranda grinned at him. "You're such a good friend," she told him. "What did we do without him, Kerri?"

  "Oh, just deposed my father and took the throne of Wikuna," she teased, winking at him.

  "And you didn't want the throne," Tarrin chided.

  "I still don't, but I'm safer on it than off it," she replied honestly.

  "How is the new system working?"

  "I'm not entirely sure yet," she answered. "The nobles seem to be accepting it, but on the other hand, Jervis told me that they've been real secretive lately. I have the feeling that they're up to something, so I had Jervis find out what it is."

  Keritanima was the queen of Wikuna, having taken the throne from her father, Damon Eram, with deceit, chicanery, and political cunning. In other words, like any Wikuni monarch would gain the throne. But since Keritanima didn't really want the throne, she had changed the system of government into something she called a republic, where the people generally governed themselves. Keritanima was still the head of the government and had tremendous power, but not the absolute power she had had as the sole ruler. The nobles, secure in their dominion over the commoners, had had a fit when Keritanima had effectively stripped them of all their power and made them little more than rich commoners. But when Keritanima threatened to turn them into poor commoners, they all bit their tongues and decided to cooperate. But Keritanima had said that the Wikuni nobles were hard to repress for very long, and this secrecy probably collaberated her worries. No doubt they were up to something, taking advantage of Keritanima's absence to deal with the crisis at Suld. She had left the subject king of the Vendari that lived in Wikuna in charge in her place, and it struck Tarrin as odd that the nobles would be insane enough to try anything against him. Sashka was a Vendari, and they had very, very strict and regimented laws and customs, and though he was governing the Wikuni in Keritanima's stead, he would still act with the same severity of action. If the Wikuni nobles tried anything, it was entirely possible the Sashka would summon the Vendari army and crush the nobles in a massive war of absolute destruction. That was the Vendari way. And it was not something that any Wikuni--human, Aeradalla, Fae-da'Nar or just about anything with intelligence--would want to have happen to them. The Vendari were the most feared and respected race on Sennadar, because their size and power made them almost invincible warriors.

  Chopstick gave a little growling hiss, demanding more attention, and Tarrin dutifully began to pet the little drake again. "You are getting so spoiled, Chopstick," Tarrin chuckled, using a claw to scratch delicately under his little horns, something he really liked.

  "You should get your own drake, Tarrin," Keritanima told him. "You have a way with them."

  "I don't need my own drake when I have Chopstick and Turnkey,"
he replied easily. "Besides, they'd get jealous."

  Chopstick chirped in agreement. The drakes were very smart, and understood quite a bit of Sulasian. They were much more intelligent than a common housepet.

  "Well, Phandebrass has been trying to breed drakes," Miranda said.

  "Both of them are males," Tarrin said in confusion.

  "I know, but we have drakes in Wikuna," she told him. "They're unbelievably expensive, but you can buy one in Wikuna. I think Phandebrass is thinking of buying a female."

  "He'd better be careful," Keritanima snorted. "Drakes have very aggressive mating habits. Chopstick and Turnkey would fight one another for the rights to her, and the fact that they're brothers wouldn't matter. Drakes sometimes get killed in duels over females."

  "Then he should get two," Miranda said calmly, biting apart the yarn and then holding up what she'd been knitting. It was a tasselled shawl, and it looked to be finished. "Ah, there we are," she said with a smile. "That looks nice."

  "Who's that for?" Keritanima asked curiously.

  "Oh, nobody," she replied. Miranda knitted just for the sake of knitting. "I'm sure somebody will want it."

  "It'll go nice with my new party gown, as soon as I change the color," she hinted.

  "You'd change the color of your gown for my shawl?" Miranda asked with a slightly mischevious smile.

  "You," Keritanima laughed. "The shawl!"

  Miranda handed it to her friend without a word, then dropped her knitting gear into the leather satchel she carried with her everywhere she went. "I've had about enough of knitting for a while," she announced. "I think I'll start doing needlepoint again. Or maybe crochet."