The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  They crept along the trail methodically, as both Were-cats occasionally went down on all fours to test the ground with their noses. There were other scents now, human ones and ones so old and degraded that it was impossible to determine what they were. All of them were old--except for the scents of the animals that used the trails--and that made Tarrin confident that they weren't going to accidentally blunder right into the middle of the humans' base, be it town or village or even a cave. It told Tarrin that they were getting closer, close enough to where their single human youth had had company on the trail. They were starting to advance into the humans' commonly patrolled territory.

  It was when Tarrin had stopped to sniff at a new track, one made by a barefoot male that was carrying something or was rather heavy, that he heard it. Tarrin lifted his head as his ears swivelled forward to lock onto the sound, a very faint sound that was almost drowned out by a breeze that was rustling the branches of the trees overhead. Kimmie paused when she reached him, then her ears were drawn towards that sound as well, and she crouched down beside him to hide her silhouette.

  It was singing.

  It was one voice. It sounded like either a female or a very young male, a high pitch, and it sounded like it was just ahead, right where Tarrin saw a faint light between the trees. It had to be a clearing or small meadow of some sort, and there was someone there. Tarrin and Kimmie looked at each other, then Kimmie nodded. They began creeping towards that clearing on all fours, staying low and making absolutely no sound, slithering through underbrush and around old growth trees, getting closer and closer to the brightening light between the trees. Both of them paused to try to scent the owner of the voice, but the wind was coming in from the side, both hiding the scent they sought and preventing their scents from reaching the mysterious stranger. They slowed to a stop as they moved around a blackberry patch, then crept up to a large fallen log and looked over it, looked into the clearing through a few trees and a mulberry bush.

  Tarrin looked on in shock and absolute amazement. The owner of that voice was in the clearing, sitting on a small stool in profile to them, looking to be tuning a small lute. It was a male, young, with dusky skin and platinum blond hair. He wore an elegant robe looked to be made of silk, and his elegant, long-fingered hands. Even from that distance, Tarrin could see his pointed ears and the fact that he only had four fingers on his hands.

  It was a Sha'Kar!

  A Sha'Kar! Tarrin was astounded! Everyone thought that the Sha'Kar were all dead! And yet there one sat, as calmly as he pleased, tuning his instrument with deft plucks on the strings. He didn't seem to notice the Were-cats, and Tarrin realized that the reason for that may have been that a female Sha'Kar, a breathtakingly lovely young female with a rounded, impish-seeming face and silver hair tied up in a tail behind her head was approching the male. She wore a strange long dress consisting of many layers of a diaphonous material, see-through by themselves but layered enough to mask what was beneath the dress. It didn't completely hide, showing her brown-skinned outline in the daylight, yet succeeding in defending her modesty while also giving any who looked on her a teasing hint of the perfection beneath. She was walking towards the male across the meadow from her, and one of those tufted-cheeked wildcats they'd seen before in the forest trotted along behind her, a banded cat of black and brown that almost looked like a raccoon. Tarrin hadn't seen one that close yet, and he was impressed. It was a big cat, larger than the average housecat, sleek and nimble-looking, with a lustrous coat of long fur and a bushy tail.

  "Is that a Sha'Kar?" Kimmie whispered in surprise.

  "I think so," he replied. Sha'Kar, the ancestors of Allia's and Keritanima's people. Still alive! Tarrin had expected inhabitants, but in his wildest dreams he hadn't considered the possibility that the remote island would harbor a long-forgotten race thought to be extinct!

  "Allyn," the female called in a sweet voice. "Uncle is looking for you." Her accent was a bit strange, but Tarrin found that he could adjust to it. Her Sha'Kar was informal in structure, using the personal forms of grammar, and her words were flowing, musical, much different from the exacting precision in which Spyder spoke.

  "Why do you think I'm here, Iselde?" the male replied, also using informal forms. The two had to be related to each other, or were very good friends to drop all the polite and formal modes of speech. "I wanted to get away from the estate for a while."

  "You know he'll be angry for you wandering the forest."

  "He can't be angry over something he doesn't know, can she?" the male replied impudently.

  The wind shifted, moving to their backs, but both the Were-cats were too absorbed in seeing the two Sha'Kar to react to it. The cat accompanying the female certainly did, as the wind brought their scents to it. The cat hissed and growled, trotting in front of the woman and raising its back threateningly.

  "Whatever is the matter, Lura?" the female, Iselde, asked the cat.

  Tarrin wondered for a moment what to do, but Kimmie beat him to it quickly. "Hush!" she shouted in the manner of the Cat, an unspoken language that the animal would certainly understand in one form or another. Were-cats didn't control normal felines, but they were usually obeyed.

  The cat looked startled. Its eyes widened and it lowered its back, staring towards them in confusion.

  "We're not hunting you," Kimmie told it bluntly. "We only watch."

  That seemed to put the animal back at ease. It turned and sidled up against the female's leg affectionately, and she reached down and stroked its fur in reply.

  The reprieve was only momentary, as the sound of Azakar's clanking armor began to tickle at Tarrin's ears. He realized that the others were still advancing. He knew that they had to make contact with the Sha'Kar, but he wasn't sure them seeing an armed party was the best way to go about it. It may frighten them.

  When he looked back to the two Sha'Kar, he noticed that both of them were looking absolutely right at where he was hiding. He knew that they probably couldn't see him, but they still looked right at him. "Allyn, do you feel that?" the female asked.

  "Yes, Iselde. I don't think I've ever felt Grand Syllis like this before."

  "That's not the Grand," the female said sternly. "Whoever it is, the Weave draws as if there were a Circle."

  "You're sure?"

  "I'm positive."

  "Then who is it?"

  "I don't know, but it's nobody we know," she answered.

  Tarrin realized that they couldn't see him, but they were Sorcerers, and they could sense the effect he had on the Weave. The Weave pulled towards him, as his presence exerted its own effect on the strands. It was something very noticable to any Sorcerer. The old stories did say that almost all the Sha'Kar were Sorcerers. These two, though young, obviously had the talent, and had been trained to use it.

  "They're Sorcerers," Tarrin told Kimmie in the manner of the Cat. "They can feel me."

  "What should we do?" she asked. "Pull back and wait for Dolanna?"

  "Whoever you are, come out!" Iselde shouted in his direction, using a very formal mode of speech. "I know you are there!"

  "Well?" Kimmie asked him with a suddenly impish smile.

  "I don't want to scare them, Kimmie."

  Their lack of promptness caused the female to start walking towards them. Tarrin realized that there was no way he could hide from her, that the force he exerted on the Weave was like a beacon that would guide her right to him. He wasn't sure he wanted to make contact by revealing to them that he had been spying on them. But, on the other hand, she probably already figured that out. He couldn't hide from her, and she seemed the kind that would simply march into the forest after him if he tried to retreat.

  Tarrin didn't see much choice in the matter. With a resolute sigh, he stood up and stepped over the log, stepping out where the female could see him.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at him as he padded out to the edge of the treeline, then stopped and just stared at her, his tail swishing behind him a
imlessly. She looked surprised and amazed, but to Tarrin's pleasure, there was no look of fear on her face. She had probably never seen anything like him before.

  "Wh-Who are you?" she stuttered as he stepped into the meadow, as the seated male stood up and gawked at him in utter astonishment.

  "So much for scaring them," Kimmie teased with a light chuckle as she stepped out from behind him and regarded the two Sha'Kar youths.

  "Who are you, stranger?" the female asked, in a more collected tone than before. She was obviously taken aback that he was there, but she didn't seem afraid of him.

  "I should ask you the same question," Tarrin said in formal Sha'Kar. "I never expected to see a Sha'Kar out here."

  "How did you get here?" she demanded. "Have our defenses failed us?"

  "How I got here should be relatively obvious, little one," he told her seriously, in a tone that hinted that she already knew the answer. If she was Sha'Kar, and she was a Sorceress, then he had the feeling that she was much better educated than the katzh-dashi, having been taught the things that Spyder had taught to him and Jenna. She should be able to tell exactly who--and more importantly--what, he was. If she could, then how he breached their defenses should be a moot point.

  She looked at him, then she stared wildly. And then she laughed. "You are sui'kun!" she announced in an excited tone. "Oh, the Elders are wrong! The Goddess has finally answered our prayers!"

  Tarrin gave her a slightly confused look, his ears twitching.

  "Please, please!" she said in an excited tone, reaching for him with her slender hand. "You must come back with us, please! The others need to see you. I can't believe it! The Goddess hasn't abandoned us after all!"

  "Abandoned you?" Tarrin said in confusion as she reached out and took his paw. He resisted her tugging, looking down at her. "Hold on, small one, you're moving too fast for me. Besides, the others have to arrive first."

  "Others? There are other children of the Goddess with you?"

  "A few, as well as some important friends," he answered. "You're Iselde, right?"

  She nodded. "Iselde Ai'shar," she said with a formal curtsy. "This is my brother, Allyn. Say hello!" she hissed at the dumbstruck young male from the corner of her mouth.

  "Uh, greetings, revered Elder," he said with a formal bow, using the most stringently formal and polite mode of Sha'Kar speech.

  "My name is Tarrin," he answered. "This is my mate, Kimmie."

  "Mate? Such a strange term. Don't you mean wife?" Iselde asked.

  "Mate," Kimmie said firmly, putting a paw on Tarrin's shoulder fondly. "We're not from a society you'd immmediately understand, so our customs aren't what you're familiar with, little one."

  "Yes, well, um, if you don't mind me asking, what manner of being are you?" she asked. "I've never even heard of anything like you."

  "We're Were-kin, girl," Kimmie told her. "Both of us are. We're Were-cats."

  "Were?" the girl asked curiously. "I've never heard any stories of your kind, though our books do mention you."

  "If you don't mind my asking, how did you come to be here?" Tarrin asked. "I expected that we might find humans here, but not Sha'Kar."

  "There are humans here," she assured them. "This is Sha'Kari, honored sui'kun." Sha'Kari. In Sha'Kar, it meant home of the Sha'Kar. But this couldn't be the homeland of the Sha'Kar...it was too small, and the Sha'Kar were descended from the Urzani, who were themselves descended from the namless ones, one of the First Races. Tarrin realized he'd translated it correctly, but he was thinking too strictly. They called it Sha'Kari because it was their home now. The last home left for the long-forgotten Sha'Kar. "And we have always been here."

  "I think he wants to know when your people came here," Kimmie told her.

  "Oh. Well, my grandfather told me that we came here to escape the Breaking."

  The Breaking! So that was what happened! The Sha'Kar all disappeared during the Breaking. Everyone thought they were all dead. Maybe most of them had died, but at least some of them had managed to escape death by coming to this place, a place with a powerful Weave that was also isolated by the void. Could the local Weave have escaped the violent Weavequake that caused the Breaking? Could the void that surrounded this place have acted as a buffer to protect this area, and therefore make it safe for the powerful Ancients whose lives were in jeopardy from the tearing of the Weave? All of the Ancients were killed in the Breaking, as the powerful forces of magic went wild as the Weave tore, infusing anything with magical potential with more power than they could contain. It was why there were so rare few magical objects left from before the Breaking. The magical objects were infused and destroyed, and the Sorcerers were infused and killed. Only the weaker Sorcerers, probably those who had not yet become da'shar, had survived the Breaking. And those few that were left became the targets of lynch mobs when the katzh-dashi were blamed for the magical cataclysm. That was why such little knowledge of before the Breaking had managed to survive.

  Questions, so many questions! But there wasn't time right now to get all the answers he wanted. He looked down at the slender female Sha'Kar, her scent hitting him in that moment. It was slightly like Allia's, slightly like Spyder's, a clear indication that she was related to both of their races. But the Sha'Kar's scent was too different for it to be called Selani. The Selani had obiviously become a separate race after thousands of years of evolution in the desert.

  "Please, come with us back to our estate," she told him in a pleading tone. "You must meet the Elders, and Grand Syllis! All the island needs to know that you're here!"

  "We'll come with you, as soon as the others get here," he told her. "They should be here any moment. I can hear them."

  "Are they sui'kun like you?" she asked with wide eyes.

  "No," he replied gently.

  "Are they your servants?"

  "I don't have any servants," he scoffed. "I can do for myself, cub."

  "A sui'kun with no servants? That's unheard of!" she gasped. "The Elders said that the sui'kun always had servants!"

  "I'm not a sui'kun like they've seen before," he told her. "I'm not human or Sha'Kar, remember that. I have different customs than your people do. My kind don't like servants, and don't need them. So I don't have any."

  "I'll remember that, honored one," she said with a curtsy.

  Allyn, who had remained absolutely mute through the whole exchange, gaped and blurted out to his sister as the others arrived at the meadow. He had no doubt that they knew Tarrin was talking to someone, for they could hear the voices. That was why they were moving slowly, carefully, and non-threateningly. Dolanna was leading them. "Dolanna," Tarrin told her in Sulasian. "I think we need to rewrite our history books."

  "Sha'Kar!" Dar gasped. "I don't believe it!"

  "Dar, it is unseemly to speak without them understanding us," Dolanna chided him in Sha'Kar. "It's not polite."

  Dolanna and the others took seeing the Sha'Kar alot better than the Sha'Kar took seeing them. Allyn gaped and gawked at them all, especially at the Vendari and Azakar. The girl Iselde greeted Dolanna with a kind word and a curtsy, but the small Sorceress only smiled at her in reply. "I am very glad that we found you here, young one," Dolanna told her. "We thought that the Sha'Kar had died out in the Breaking."

  "No, honored da'shar, she said, which made Dolanna's eyebrow raise in curiosity. "There are nearly five hundred of us, as well as a few hundred humans and some servants. My grandfather told me once that we fled here to escape the Breaking, and we've been waiting here ever since."

  "Waiting for what?" Keritanima asked.

  "Are you a Were-kin too?" Iselde asked her curiously.

  "I'm a Wikuni, girl," she replied. "Haven't you ever heard of the Wikuni?"

  "Yes, but I thought they looked different."

  "We all look different from one another," Miranda said with an impish smile. "It's how you know who we are."

  Iselde looked at her strangely, then actually giggled at the mink's clever wordplay.

/>   "What have you been waiting for, Iselde?" Keritanima pressed.

  "For things outside to return to what they once were," she replied. "That's what Grand Syllis tells us, anyway. When the Weave is restored, we'll return to the towers and rejoin our brothers and sisters in service to the Goddess. Until then, we wait." She looked at Tarrin. "Has the time come?" she asked. "Has the Goddess sent you to bring us home, honored sui'kun?"

  "I'm sorry, but no," he answered. "I've come for a different purpose. We'll talk about it with your elders, and this Grand Syllis."

  That seemed to put Iselde back a bit, but she smiled and recovered herself. "Well, whatever the reason, it's good to have a visitor as esteemed as you, honored one. You and your servants will be welcome at my home. Please, follow us," she announced. "Come, Allyn. Let's take our honored guests home. Allyn!"

  Tarrin looked at the male, and saw that he was staring at Allia. The Selani was staring back at him calmly. Tarrin figured that Allyn had seen her hands, and probably mistook her for a Sha'Kar. "Uh, yes, sister," he said with a nod.

  "This way, please," she motioned in the direction that they had been travelling before the chance encounter had caused Tarrin and Kimmie to detour.

  Tarrin walked along behind the Sha'Kar female, his mind whirling. He still couldn't believe that they were here, and from what little he'd heard, the Sha'Kar weren't the only ones. There were also humans here, probably either Ancients themselves or descendents of the Ancients that had fled here either before or during the Breaking, seeking sanctuary. And they'd been here for over a thousand years, waiting for the day they could return. Didn't they realize that they could have returned at any time after the Breaking was over? It was the Weavequake that killed the Ancients, not any lingering effects. If they survived the Weavequake, then there was nothing more for them to fear.

  Tarrin was distracted when Allyn spoke up. "Pardon my forwardness, maiden, but what family are you from?" he asked. "I've never met you before. I thought I knew everyone on the island."

  "I am not from here," she told him. "I come from the mainland."