The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "I don't like it," Jesmind growled.

  "I don't like it either," Tarrin agreed. "It still feels like cheating."

  "There is no such thing, cub, and if you say that one more time, I'm going to come over there and educate you personally," she warned.

  "Yes, mother," Tarrin said meekly.

  "Good," she said with a snort. "Now then, this spell is starting to get a bit heavy, so I'm going to end it. I'll talk to you later, cub," she told him, looking at him. "And don't get the idea that I'm not going to check up on you. If I find out you're resisting your instincts out of some kind of loyalty to Jesmind, I'll be cross with you. Loyalty to a mate is in your head and heart, not between your legs."

  Tarrin sighed. "Yes, mother," he said.

  "Alright then. I'll talk to you in a few days."

  And then she ended the spell without another word from anyone.

  Tarrin sat there a long moment, stroking Sapphire's scales, considering the spoken and unspoken lessons Triana had given him. That it was alright to have interest in other females, that it was natural for a Were-cat. And that he could love Jesmind and be mates with Kimmie. Kimmie had said it, but he hadn't really thought it possible until Triana said it and he saw Jesmind admit that if she found a male she found interesting, she would take him for mate in his absence. Were-cat culture didn't associate sex with fidelity to a mate as human culture did, and that was probably his hardest problem to overcome. It would be virutally impossible, given the number of females to males and the power of the instincts. Cats were not pair-bonding creatures, and that heavily affected the human flavor of their makeup.

  It wouldn't be the same. Then again, it wasn't supposed to. Kimmie was not Jesmind. Kimmie was her own female, unique and different, as all Were-cats were. But perhaps, that was the lesson Triana wanted him to learn.

  Either way, he'd have to get it overwith. He wasn't ready for a relationship with Kimmie, but he doubted if she would object if he proposed a single night's encounter. If Kimmie started coming after him, waggling her tail in his face and putting even more into her scent than she had been already, he'd not be a pleasant person to know if he resisted her.

  If it had been anyone but Kimmie, he wouldn't have been surprised. But even the blue-eyed, very unusual Were-cat proved that, as she had told him a while ago, she was just as hot-blooded as any other female.

  But that could wait until tomorrow. As long as he stayed away from Kimmie, he'd be just fine. Looking down on the little ridges and spines on Sapphire's back, he dredged up the spell that Sathon had taught him, the spell for communicating with animals. It was a spell of intent more than image, for it was hard to form the spell's effect in a visual manner. When he had the series of cascading meanings and intents arranged in his mind--it was a surprisingly complicated spell--he reached within, through the Cat, and came into contact with the endless energy of the All. It saw into his mind, read his intent and looked at his image, and then responded to what it found there. It came as a sudden expansion of self, surprisingly enough to him, and his awareness of the little drake in his lap increased dramatically.

  He realized why immediately. Drakes were animals, with no concept of language that he would understand. So the entirety of their communication, with each other and themselves, came in the forms of images, emotions, memories of scents and sounds, and impulses. The spell literally opened a window into the drake's mind and allowed him to read into that multitude of various concepts that formed the core of the animal's thought, read into it and translate it into words he understood. The spell would also take his words and transform them in the drake's mind into the form that she would understand. Thus allowing them to talk with one another.

  Another surprise was the complexity of the mind that could see now. Phandebrass was so correct when he said that drakes were very smart. Sapphire was a very intelligent little animal, capable of emotions and comprehension that went beyond what most animals could understand. But despite that intelligence, she was still an animal, still governed by instinct and impulse.

  "I know you can understand this," he said aloud. That caused the drake to crane her neck, to look up at him with clear surprise showing in her eyes. "I think you know what I am, so it shouldn't be too much of a shock."

  You are an Earthbrother, came the reply. I could sense it in you.

  "That's right," he agreed. "I'm using Earth magic so we can talk, so we can come to some understandings."

  What is there to understand? You please me, and you care for me. I will stay with you.

  "I'm glad to have you, but there are some things you have to learn if you want to stay with me and not cause trouble for yourself and those around you, Sapphire."

  What does that word mean?

  "It has no true meaning, but it's a word that people will associate with you. It's called a name. When someone thinks of you, they will think of that word."

  A name. What a strange concept. My scent is who I am.

  "Yes, but few of those around me can smell that, Sapphire. They're much different from you."

  Truly, it seems. How alien.

  "You should get used to it. When you hear that word, people are either trying to communicate to you, or they're speaking about you to another."

  Strange, but understandable.

  "I'm glad you agree. Now, the first thing. The furred ones, like the one you shocked the night we met. They're not enemies."

  It attacked me.

  "No, it wanted to look at you. It had no meaning to hurt you. It was a mistake. The furry ones that all smell the same, they're not all your enemies, Sapphire, but I won't tell you that all of them are friends. You should approach each one separately. Don't think all of that species are enemies, but don't assume that all of them are friends either."

  I understand. It is so among my kind as well. Some are friendly, some are not. The learning takes time.

  "Good. That goes for the hairless ones, like the dark female that's spent the last couple of mornings with me. Approach each one as neither friend or enemy, until it proves itself one way or the other."

  Her scent pleases me. She smells of spices. She is of the same kind as the dark tall one and the dark short one and the short pale one?

  "The species is very diverse," he replied. "There are many kinds within the kind. Just as you are blue, but the other two of your kind that live with us are red."

  Ah. They are cousins to one another.

  "Something like that." He stroked her side gently. "There are some things you'll need to learn, Sapphire, actions that you'll need to perform when I say certain words. They're not meant to degrade you, but you do need to know them for when I understand something you may not, things that deal with the beings around you."

  You are pack-leader. I will obey, in all things.

  "I'm glad you feel that way. If I may ask, why were the others attacking you?"

  My pack was killed by the stone-makers. I survived. The pack attacking me was claiming the territory of my former pack.

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  I am alive, I am here, and I am content. That is all that matters.

  Tarrin understood that mentality. It came from her instincts. "I can't speak to you like this all the time," he told her. "Most of the time, I'll be trying to speak to you with the words that ones like me use."

  The funny sounds?

  "Those," he affirmed. "In time, you'll come to understand that they are different, and they have certain meaning. Like the sound Sapphire meaning you."

  A strange way to communicate. Where are the scent-marks, the language of stance and set?

  "We don't use those forms," he told her. "There is some information that passes along in the language of the bodies of our kinds, but mostly we communicate using the sounds."

  If that is how it must be, then that is how it will be, she said diffidently. I will learn.

  "Good. I hope you'll be happy here."

  You are kind to me. You feed me, and you share your ter
ritory with me. Why would I not be content?

  "Why indeed?" Tarrin chuckled in reply.

  After the conversation, Tarrin felt comfortable with leaving the room with Sapphire. For as long as he could maintain the spell, he taught her the names and appearances of his sisters and his close friends, those she should not fear, explained some of the intrinsic dangers the ship may pose, things her animal mind wouldn't understand any other way, and taught her nearly as many commands as Phandebrass had taught Chopstick and Turnkey. She was very intelligent and she learned quickly, and it didn't take long to teach her everything she'd need to know to keep her safe up on deck. By the next morning, Sapphire knew where it was safe to perch and where it wasn't safe, not to get around the cannons, to avoid the Wikuni sailors and not interfere with their tasks, and who among the people on the ship she could approach without fear. If course, it had taken some convincing to prove to her that Keritanima and Miranda weren't enemies, but in the end she accepted the fact for what it was.

  Tarrin learned that she may be obedient, seeing him as the dominant, but she certainly had a stubborn mind. She was very headstrong.

  When he came up on deck with Sapphire the next morning, he could tell immediately that the sailors were nervous about her, and wouldn't take their eyes off of her. She had zapped quite a few of them the morning he had accepted her, and they weren't exactly going to be very forgiving about it. Sapphire could sense their hostility, and was hostile to them in kind. She didn't attack them, but she made sure to hiss at any Wikuni that got close to her. That made them afraid, and that seemed to satisfy the drake in a most effective manner. She was almost smug by the time he found a nice stool and sat down near the bow, waiting for Camara Tal.

  What he got instead was Kimmie. He scented her long before he saw her, and her scent was almost intoxicating in its allure. Kimmie had been true to word, somehow being able to put her attraction for him into her scent, then broadcasting it to him in a way that almost no male could resist. She plopped down on a rope coil against the bulwark, wearing one of her usual peasant dresses, a dress that wasn't laced up quite as tightly in front as usual. The result was that quite a bit of Kimmie's rather impressive cleavage was peeking out from that neckline, a calculated effort to remind him that Kimmie was very much a woman.

  "Well, I'm glad to see you come out of hiding," she said with a smile. "Did you talk to Jesmind?"

  "I did," he replied evenly, looking down at her.

  "And what did she say?"

  "What could she say?" he challenged.

  "Knowing Jesmind, she probably had quite a bit to say," she said mildly, but her eyes were dancing with mirth. "But let's skip over all the cursing and the ranting and the raging and get down to the part of her tirade that matters. Did she tell you yes or no?"

  "It was something like a yes under protest," he replied blanly. "Triana was there, so she couldn't say as much as she wanted."

  "Triana? Why was she there?"

  "Following up on what she started," he replied, giving her a slightly accusing look. "Triana sent you with me specifically hoping we'd get together."

  "She did? That's surprising, considering you're her daughter's mate."

  "I think Triana wants me to learn some things I can't learn with Jesmind," he told her. "I think I've already learned some of them."

  "Like what?"

  "Like not confusing love for attraction, I think," he replied.

  "I went through the same thing. I was all but ready to marry the first mate I had after turning Were. I was devastated when he rejected me," she said with a little sigh. "Maybe Triana doesn't want to see you go through the same thing."

  "Maybe. I can't say I feel very comfortable with it, Kimmie," he admitted. "I mean, yes, I find you attractive, but I can't help feeling like I'm betraying Jesmind."

  "Tarrin," she sighed in exasperation. "I'm not asking you to turn your back on Jesmind. I told you that! I don't want anything from you other than a good time and a little fun. You and I are friends, Tarrin. Good friends. I told you a while ago that we could be good friends and mates at the same time. The mating won't interfere with our friendship unless you let it." She reached up and put her paw on his knee. "What you have with Jesmind, I respect that, Tarrin. I'm not asking for that. I just want your attention and your companionship. That's why Were-cats usually mate. For attention and companionship. Not for love."

  Tarrin was silent a moment, then looked down at her. She smiled. "Now, can you give me attention?"

  "I'd be hard pressed not to right now."

  She grinned. "Can you give me companionship?"

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Can you be my friend, Tarrin?"

  "I'm already your friend."

  "Then we'll be a good match," she assured him. "You can go right on loving Jesmind, so long as you don't let her interfere with what we'll have."

  "I'll try."

  "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't shout out her name while we're making love," she told him boldly. "That really annoys a girl, you know."

  Tarrin looked at her, then laughed helplessly. He'd always thought he understood what it meant to be mates with a female. At that moment, he realized how wrong he'd been.

  Chapter 3

  Tarrin had two new females in his life, and both changed his daily routines dramatically.

  That wasn't to say that it was a bad thing. After abandoning certain misgivings and surrendering to the instincts of it, Tarrin found that he could enjoy time together with Kimmie. She was actually quite an affectionate female, comfortable with him in ways he didn't think a female would be comfortable with a male after such a short time. There was no love there, not like with Jesmind, but Kimmie had been so right when she explained things to him. That they could be good friends and mates at the same time. Tarrin liked Kimmie, and Kimmie liked Tarrin. He was attracted to her, she was attracted to him. It allowed them to share a physical relationship, and to his surprise, it really didn't interfere with their friendship, nor did it change how he felt about Jesmind. He had been born human, and had been a very naive and young boy when he was turned, long before he could gain any kind of carnal experience. That sheltered background and its teachings were scrambled by the instincts, warping many of his concepts by jumbling human-taught morality with the pragmatic, nonchalant approach of the Cat. Jesmind had done absolutely nothing to untangle his conceptions, since it suited her designs to keep him as he was. Triana had done much to try to show him, but really hadn't broken through to him. Tarrin knew that to a Were-cat, sex was a casual affair, but he had never really managed to drive that point home in his own mind. The one woman outside of Jesmind at that time had been Mist, and he'd been very uncomfortable with the idea of a casual mating even then. He'd only done it for her, not for himself. In a single day, Kimmie had completely rewritten the book of the complicated levels of relationships between Were-cats. Kimmie was his friend, first and foremost, just as clever and funny and wickedly smart as ever, and she acted in no way different towards him. At least in public. When she got him alone and she was in the mood, however, it was like she transformed into a completely different woman. But even during those times, she was still Kimmie, just a Kimmie showing a side of herself to him he had not experienced before. And after their ardor was satisfied, she went right back to being Kimmie again.

  It was most definitely the strangest relationship in which Tarrin had ever found himself, and he found himself completely mystified by Kimmie after they agreed to become mates and she led him back down to his cabin. Even though both of them were turned, Kimmie showed that she had adjusted to the peculiarities of Were-cat culture much more easily than he had. Or, more to the point, she had been taught better than him. He was shocked that Kimmie could literally see him as two different people; as Tarrin, her friend, and as Tarrin, her lover. She seemed perfectly capable of separating the two sides of their relationship in her mind, something that Tarrin found a little more difficult.

  Sapphire
certainly didn't help. The little drake had completely taken over his life, it seemed, and her promise to be obedient went only as far as when he was watching her. It was almost like she was testing him, seeing how far she could push his authority, seeing how much power she held in their relationship. She wasn't vicious or destructive, just stubborn, often resisting his commands or intentionally pestering him when he was busy with something else. But despite the trouble she caused him at first, he found her presence to be very comforting, and was more than happy they'd found each other.

  Tarrin settled into his two new relationships over the days as they got closer and closer to the mysterious continent of Wikuna, a continent that his sister Keritanima ruled. That idea still hadn't quite sunk in, even after all that time. To think that his sister Kerri actually ruled an entire continent! He couldn't even imagine having that much power. Even if he could imagine it, he was absolutely positive that he didn't want it. He saw the long hours that Keritanima worked, even out in the middle of the ocean, constantly going over reports or making decisions, decisions that affected the lives of everyone under her rule. That was a dreadful responsibility, and it was not something that Tarrin wanted. It reminded him of the vision he'd had of her, standing on a mound of skulls, crying. Maybe that was what the vision meant. That the duties of her station had changed her, saddened her somehow. They had certainly taken over her life. She was just as talkative and irreverent as ever, but he could sense the change in her. She wasn't the carefree, spontaneous girl he'd known in the Tower. She was different now, more methodical, maybe a little more ruthless. She was more mature.

  In the five days since consenting to take Kimmie for mate, his routine had changed. Kimmie slept in his cabin now, but hadn't officially moved in. She came to him after he finished his time with Allia, then left before breakfast. She didn't hide the fact that they were lovers, but it was almost as if she wouldn't allow herself to take up residence with him, like it was some kind of violation of the strange rules females had concerning males and other females. After breakfast, he spent his time with Camara Tal, then with Keritanima and Miranda after lunch, but this was where Sapphire had usurped his schedule. She interrupted them constantly with demands for attention, demands for food, torturing the Wikuni sailors by chasing them around the deck, and being a general nuisance to the ship. She had integrated herself with Chopstick and Turnkey, taking over the social hierarchy by winning a pretty nasty little fight with Chopstick, who was the dominate between the two males. This didn't surprise Tarrin, because Sapphire had been a wild drake, where the males had not. She was smaller than them--if not by more than a shade--but she was faster, stronger, and more experienced in fighting other drakes than they were. She ruled the other drakes, and she and the two males would often tear around the ship in endless games of chase, or harass the sailors whenever Sapphire felt bored. The rest of Tarrin's schedule was generally unchanged, though he did spend slightly less time with Allia at night. He found it hard to concentrate on Allia when he knew that Kimmie was waiting for her to leave. Allia, the blessedly understanding woman she was, took it all in stride. Allia was his most intimate friend, and she better than anyone understood the power the instincts had over a Were-cat.