The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "I, I didn't know it hurt you," she slurred, getting a little more control back. "I'm sorry."

  "I accept the apology, but don't come in here and boss me around, sister. I'm not one of your servants, and I'm not one of your subjects."

  "I'm used to bossing people around," she said in a clearer voice, managing to sit up.

  "Get over it," Tarrin said flatly. "You may be a queen, but that doesn't put you over me. If you want to order me around, then roll up your sleeves and make me obey you. It's the only way it's going to happen."

  Keritanima looked at him, then laughed. "Dolanna warned me, but I didn't want to listen," she admitted. "I was so used to bossing you around back in the Tower, I guess it became second nature."

  "It was only practical to do what you wanted then, since I knew you understood what was going on alot better than I did, and you were better suited for dealing with it. Things aren't like that anymore, deshaida."

  "So I see. Well, I won't force you to wear the doublet, but you absolutely will not come to the ball wearing those rags. You look like a homeless vagabond!"

  "Would a new linen shirt and a pair of new leather trousers offend your sense of style?"

  "Yes, but I think it's as far as I'm going to move you, so I'll live with it."

  "You're right."

  "And you need to take a bath!" she ordered. "You still smell like a ship!"

  "The salt smell permeated the clothes," he realized, sniffing at his shirt. "I'd gotten used to it. Actually, I kinda like it."

  "So do I, but you need to smell as neatly as you appear. So, take a bath, wash your hair, get some new clothes, and I'll have a servant come get you in about an hour. Alright?"

  "That's fine with me," he agreed.

  "Alright then. Imagine, Keritanima-Chan Eram, Queen of Wikuna, having to fight with someone in her own Palace!" she sighed. "If the nobles found out, I'd never live it down!"

  "If they tease you over it, just point them out to me, and I'll kill them," he offered.

  Keritanima laughed. "Sometimes I wish it was that easy," she told him, heading towards the inner parlor. She'd left her Royal Guard outside the entrance to the apartments. "I'll see you in a while. I have to get ready myself."

  Tarrin let her go, still a little annoyed with her, then chided Sapphire softly as she hissed towards the open doorway. He set her down and Conjured new, clean, undamaged clothing, trousers that weren't shredded around the ankles from the claws on his feet, a shirt that didn't have holes in it from the claws on his paws, and then joined the adventure of figuring out how the bathtub worked. It still mystified him that they had managed to put running water in an upper-floor room of a large building situated on a hill. How did they keep the water pressure going to make the water flow out of the spigot? There had to be something pushing the water, but how could they do it without using horses, or men, or a water wheel of gigantic proportions? He took off his clothes and put a paw in the flow of the water, still amazed that there was hot water flowing out of it. How did they heat the water without magic? Or did they use magic? There were a few Priest spells that would cause a heating effect, one in particular jumped to mind, a spell that heated metal. There was another spell, much more advanced, that caused a lesser spell's effect to be rendered permanent. Was that how they did it? Did they use magic that heated the water, then make it permanent? If so, they must be able to control the temperature. The water flowing over his paw was hot, but it wasn't boiling. Not that it would have bothered him if it was boiling. He just couldn't imagine how they were doing it. But then again, Tarrin had never learned much about mechanics and physics and science. Most of his learning had been warfare and hunting and swordplay.

  He watched the tub fill up with water, then he stopped the water's flow. Then he let some of it out for good measure, recalling that his body would displace the water and raise the water level. He didn't want to have to clean up a small pool of water off the bathroom floor. It steamed lazily in the contained air of the bathroom, raising the temperature of the room, and Tarrin found it to his liking. He tentatively put a foot in the bath, feeling the strange sensation of hot water soaking into the fur on his toes. Tarrin didn't like getting his fur wet, but this was a special occasion. He did need a bath. He stepped into it then slowly sank down into the water, watching the fetlocks on his ankles floating and drifting in the comfortably hot water, feeling its heat work into him and relax muscles that he didn't realize were tensed. The bathtub was monstrously oversized, almost large enough for a small human to swim in it, but for Tarrin it was almost perfect. They'd probably made it so large to amaze the royal guest housed in the room, to overwhelm him with the grandeur of the place.

  Tarrin blinked. Maybe the bathtub wasn't oversized. He took the fact that everything was usually too small for him for granted, but he realized right then that the furniture was a little larger than normal, the chairs were a little sturdier than normal, despite being garishly over-decorated, the bed was absolutely huge, even the pedestal upon which the sink rested was very high for a Wikuni-sized person. The Wikuni were allied to the Vendari that lived on the continent...did they furnish these rooms with an eye on making an oversized Vendari feel comfortable? If they did that, they would have made all the furniture much larger. Or maybe they'd reinforced things for a Vendari but still made it usable by smaller beings. That was a possibility. After all, they'd only have to make the bed and the bathtub truly large to accommodate a Vendari, since they, like him, were probably used to the undersized furniture they encountered when dealing with the smaller folk.

  Either way, the bathtub was large enough for him, and that was all that mattered. He laid all the way back until only his head and neck were out of the water, enjoying the sensation of being surrounded by hot water. Sapphire flapped over and landed on the lip of the tub, sniffing at the water curiously. She looked at him with those blue-blue eyes, and the question was obvious within them. What was he doing? "It's a bath, Sapphire," he told her. "I'm cleaning up."

  She tilted her head quizzically at him.

  "Nevermind," he said absently, reaching behind him and unbinding his braid. He combed it out and then washed his hair, rinsing out quite a bit of sea salt and travel dust. He felt the heavy weight of it, all that hair soaking up the water and tugging at his head, and he paused to remember how Mist looked with short hair. Then he remembered what Triana said, as well as Kimmie, that a Were-cat could actively control how long they wanted their hair to be. He'd never really given it much thought up until that point, when he felt the great weight of his hair and he wondered how it would feel to not have it pulling the back of his head down all the time.

  What would it hurt? If he failed, it would just grow back. Tarrin rose up and sat on the lip of the tub, then twisted his hair together to gather it up and squeeze the majority of the water out of it. Then he Conjured two mirrors and hung them in midair with Sorcery so he could see what he was doing. Once he had the mirrors set where he could see clearly, he used a slight weave of cutting Air to slice the gathered hair in twain, just below the base of the hairline on the back of his head. He could feel his scalp immediately start to itch, the signal that the hair was about to beging to grow at that astronomical rate that would return it to its former length within moments. He closed his eyes and willed his hair not to grow, forming an image of himself with a hairstyle something like his father's, with just the small tail of hair at the back of the head, just reaching the shoulders, and the short hair on the sides and in front. He felt his scalp continue to itch, but he felt no hair growing yet. He realized that it was still itching because his self-image had always been with the long hair, with the braid, and seeing himself with short hair seemed almost unnatural. It wasn't how he currently appeared or how he wanted to appear, the Were-flavored body wanted to mold itself into the self-image maintained by the mind. As a shapeshifter, that self-image was critical for returning to the natural form, so it was branded into his deep subconscious.

  Tarrin
opened his eyes, and was surprised to see his hair short. It had grown just a little, to match the image of self he had pictured in his mind, and in that moment he could see his father in him. His hair looked like his father's hair, almost perfectly, right down to the shaggy, uneven bangs and the shoulder-length tail of hair on the back of his head. Father kept it because his neck easily sunburned. His head felt weird, too light, and he looked very funny. Father's hairstyle didn't suit him. He willed his hair to grow out just a little more, to where the bangs were even and just over his eyes, and longer on the sides to conceal the smooth skin where human ears would have been. Those patches of bare skin upset some humans, for some reason, so he was in a habit of keeping them hidden. It felt quite right to have the bangs there, since he kept short bangs, but it still felt funny in the back. He looked at himself in the mirrors, and wasn't entirely displeased with the slightly longer hair. His black-furred ears looked a little strange popping up over the freed hair, since the braid kept his hair more or less flat, and his hair began to try to poof up as it began to dry out. Like all Were-cats, Tarrin's hair was incredibly thick, so thick that it had a tendency to stand up on the top of his head.

  "What do you think, Sapphire?" he asked absently, turning his head this way and that to look at his hair. "Is it me?"

  The drake looked at him and gave a noncommital chirp.

  It was certainly less of a burden like that. Lighter, and it would be easier to wash. And, if he didn't like it, he could just make it grow back out any time he wanted. He did make it grow out a little more, not liking how it felt when it moved around free with every turn of his head. He gathered it up at the back of his head and Conjured a thong to tie it. It wasn't a braid, it was a tail, and it made him go right back to looking much as he did before he cut off the braid. He looked at it in the mirror and decided he liked it. Maybe not as much as having the braid, but he'd try it and see.

  That left a five-span long mass of hair left over. Tarrin picked it up where he tied it to cut it off, looking at it. All that hair had been connected to the back of his head not a few moments ago. He remembered Phandebrass' warning for him not to leave such things laying around, that they could be used against him in magical spells, so he incinerated the mass of hair with a quick weave, reducing it to fine, powdery ash. He picked up the ash with a weave of Air and deposited it in the sink, then washed it down the drain.

  Feeling clean and relaxed, Tarrin climbed out of the tub and dried off, then dressed in the new clothing he would wear to the feast. They felt very nice against his skin and fur, and they smelled much better than the old clothes, though they lacked that sea smell that Tarrin did rather like. Sapphire jumped up onto his shoulder and flipped the new tail of hair with her snout a couple of times as he was lacing the front of the new shirt. Then she bit it.

  "Sapphire!" Tarrin chided as she clamped onto the tail of hair and pulled at it. "Do you mind?"

  Obviously, she didn't mind at all. She kept biting at it, sawing her teeth back and forth, and then he felt his hair come free of its bindings. Sapphire pulled away, and he looked down and saw that she had the leather thong he'd used between a single clawed forepaw and her maw, pulling at it with a clawed finger as her teeth tried to sever it again. He forgot that he gave Sapphire leather rawhide to chew on, and she had smelled the leather thong and thought it to be a new chew toy.

  Grumbling, Tarrin Conjured a silk cord and used that to tie his hair. Sapphire sniffed at it curiously, but this one, she decided, wasn't worth biting. "If you chew up my new pants, we're going to fight, little girl," he warned as he left the bathroom.

  Tarrin passed the time between getting ready and the knock on the door in tedium. When it finally did come, Tarirn was both relieved and a little anxious. Tarrin didn't like strangers, and he was about to go into a huge crowd of them. Some of them weren't going to be friendly, either. He decided the best thing to do would be go to the ball, eat, hang around long enough to satisfy Kerri, then quietly leave.

  The servant sent to fetch him was a wolf Wikuni female that looked surprisingly like Audrey, the Were-wolf female that he'd come to meet on the march to Suld. Almost exactly the same. She had the same narrow snout and gray-white coloring, wearing a white gown with the Royal Crest emblazoned on the front in red, and her black hair done in a multitude of little curls than hung over her amber eyes. Audrey was a little taller than this female, which made this female taller than the average Wikuni female, and Audrey was a Were-wolf, who were a very sleek and powerful breed. This female was slender, but she had the same softness that human females exhibited. This one probably did not do any real work. "Um, Master Tarrin?" she asked hesitantly. He could smell her fear, and that caused his predatory nature to rise up, staring down at the smaller female.

  "Let's go," he said bluntly, stepping out into the hallway and forcing her to back up, eyes widening.

  "Um, are you bringing the drake?"

  "Is it here? Am I carrying it out into the hall?" he asked.

  "Um, yes, but, um, you may want to leave it in your rooms, sir," she said meekly.

  "If she bites anyone, they obviously deserved it," Tarrin told the little servant with a stare that made her flinch away from him.

  "I, um, yes, Master Tarrin," she acquiesced, then started down the hallway.

  Tarrin fell into step behind her, having to go slow. "What's got you so nervous?" he asked her directly.

  "Um, well, um, we were warned to be polite to you, that you were, um, well, sort of not very nice," she answered honestly. Tarrin admired that honesty, even if her words did seem rather cowardly. "They said to always tell you the truth," she added quickly, obviously fearing that she insulted him. She was visibly trembling, and the fear-smell emanated from her as if she'd doused a bucket of it over herself. She was terrified of him! Tarrin wondered why they would send her, when Kerri knew that if the servant she sent showed fear, it would irritate him?

  "Kerri knows me to well," Tarrin chuckled to himself. "What's your name?"

  "Amber, my Lord," she replied.

  Fitting name, he reasoned, given her eyes. "Calm down, girl. I won't hurt you unless I have a reason to. Do you plan to give me a reason?"

  "No!" she squeaked.

  "Then you have nothing to worry about," he told her calmly. "Why did Kerri send you?"

  "Her Majesty didn't, Master Tarrin. I was sent by the Master of Servants."

  In other words, the servant that was supposed to come and get him was too afraid after Kerri warned him about Tarrin's peculiarities, so he sent her, someone he could bully into doing it for him. At least she had the courage to do her duty, even if she was afraid of him. Tarrin could respect that. "From now on, if anyone ever has to come and get me or bring anything to me, you're going to do it, Amber," he told her. "At least you have the courage to face me. That's more than can be said for some of the spineless cowards Kerri has working for her."

  "Um, yes, Master Tarrin," she said in a slightly quavering voice. Amber, it seemed, wasn't quite so enthusiastic about her new appointment.

  Amber led him down hallways, up and down stairs, and down more hallways, each more gaudily decorated than the last, until he again stood in the throne room. It had festive buntings hanging on the walls between the numerous decorations designed to impress the onlooker with the splendor of the Wikuni kingdom, and the grand open space was filled with so many Wikuni that the floor was very crowded. Almost all of them were very richly dressed in expensive gowns or extravagant doublets, and jewels dripped from them all like water. Each of them did his or her very best to impress everyone else, and exhibit his grandeur, wealth, and importance. They talked in groups, large and small, and a veritable army of servants scurried between them holding trays carrying food or drink. The dais on the far end of the throne room was empty at the moment, and since there were no tables within the hall, the meal would be taken in another chamber. It had to be a pretty huge one, to hold tables for what looked to be nearly three hundred guests.


  Amber led him through the throng, and each group stopped talking when Tarrin passed them, only to fire up into heated whispers after he went by. His ears could pick up some of the whispering, which was all wild rumor. Some said he was Keritanima's lover, some said he was a wild monster from the West she had tamed as another formidable bodyguard, some even said he was some kind of missing link between Wikuni and other races, since he was half animal. The most annoying rumor, however, was the scornful tone used when they called him a Sorcerer. Tarrin often forgot that Sorcery was not a very welcome profession outside of Sulasia. Most other kingdoms feared or hated Sorcerers, blaming them for the Breaking and just about any other misfortune they may have befell in the thousand years since then.

  It wasn't hard to make out Keritanima's group. Three Vendari and Azakar made them stand out on the floor, near the dais. Keritanima was there, wearing her Royal robes and crown in a formal sense, and Binter and Sisska stood at each side of her, as they always did. Azakar stood by Binter, wearing his armor. Miranda stood beside Sisska, wearing an off-white, nearly cream colored gown that cleverly matched the color of her fur and made it hard to tell where neckline ended and fur-clad cleavage began. All the others were there, and they were all wearing finery. Allia wore a white robe, of all things, that did make her look good, since it was belted around her very sleek waist. Dolanna wore her best gown, a deep blue gown that accented her dark hair, and Phandebrass was wearing a silk robe that didn't have any burn marks or stains on it, as well as that same ridiculous pointed hat of which he was so fond. For Phandebrass, that was pretty remarkable. Camara Tal still wore a tripa skirt, but it was new and black, a new color for her, and she wore a breastplate with an eagle etched into its front and a new swordbelt with the magical sword that she had inherited from Faalken on it. Dar wore a new silk robe that was dark brown, and he looked very comfortable in the social situation. Dar was from a wealthy family in Arkis, so he was probably used to things like this. Kimmie was also wearing a gown, altered for her tail, and Tarrin was quite taken by how pretty she looked in it. It was lavender, a strange color that did go well with her hair but also made her striped orange tabby fur stand out on her paws. It wasn't quite clashing, but it was close. Then again, few colors were going to go well with orange and yellow, so Kimmie had chosen a color that went with her hair and put long sleeves on to hide as much of her fur as she could.