The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  And then it was there. A floating echo of memory touched him, in the form of a weave formula. It was a suprisingly complicated spell, and even more surprisingly, it required High Sorcery to cast. Tarrin felt it ghost past him, but his memory allowed him to hold it in his mind, locking its image into his mind long enough for him to draw in the power of High Sorcery and duplicate what he had seen. It was a very complex formula that was built primarily of the flows Air, Mind, Divine, and the difficult to draw Sphere of Confluence, with token flows of the other Spheres to grant the spell the power of High Sorcery. It was woven with a strange looping knot in its heart that locked the flows together, a knot of sorts within its center that he realized would create a semi-permanent spell. Tarrin marvelled at it a long moment, wondering why he had never thought of that before. When a Sorcerer stopped maintaining a spell, the flows unravelled, and the spell ended. But this strange looping knot in the weaving would make all the flows of the spell pull against one another when they tried to draw back into the Weave, pulling in opposite directions, using one another to lock themselves into place. It could only be achieved with High Sorcery, he realized, but its effect was very impressive. That spell would have the same kind of duration as a Ward, which meant that its duration would depend on how well he wove that looping knot in the center of it. If he wove it loosely, it would unravel in a matter of minutes or hours. But if he built a very tight reduntant knot, it could last for rides, maybe even months.

  Tarrin stopped admiring the ingenuity of the Ancients and snapped down the spell, paying special attention not to overly shift the weaving that formed the knot, then he released it.

  The amulet in his paws shimmered with magical energy for a moment, and then it returned to normal.

  Tarrin put his paw on it, knowing that he had to concentrate on the amulet to make it work, just like any other. He was rewarded almost immediately by a jumbled cacophony of many voices all speaking through the amulet at the same time. That startled him so badly he nearly dropped the amulet. But he patiently started picking through them, knowing from weaving the spell that he could suppress some voices and bring others to the top, where they could be heard clearly. He only knew nine voices, the voices of the Council, but there was much more to learn by listening to everyone, so he practiced by bringing only certain voices up to where he could understand what was being said.

  He learned quite a few dirty little secrets during those couple of hours. The Sha'Kar used their amulets to talk to each other all the time, and they felt that they were secure enough to say very nasty things about one another using them. They loved to gossip, and the fastest way to spread gossip was to use amulets to talk to one another without having to bother with walking to someone else's estate. There were quite a few wild rumors about Auli, and the speakers, mostly girls, were very vulgar in their descriptions of them, how she would go to bed with more than one male, humans and Sha'Kar at the same time, even rumors whispered in the lowest voices that she had a fondness for young human girls. He didn't believe a fraction of what he heard, and in a way, he thought Auli probably revelled in so dark and colorful a reputation. She probably started half the rumors he was hearing.

  For two hours he practiced working with the amulet, until he had down how to listen to the many voices and listen for a word or voice that interested him, then instantly suppressing all the others and listening to that conversation. He learned how to couple up both sides of a communication so he could follow their chatting, since each voice travelled through the Weave on its own. And he learned that Sha'Kar loved to gossip and chat, and the more lurid and debauched the talk, the better. Even the most austere, distinguished members of the Sha'Kar were quite nasty once they got behind closed doors.

  That surprised him. Being such an old, established culture, he thought that they'd be talking about something other than sex. That seemed too common for such a cerebral, introspective race. There was almost no talk of Sorcery, just gossip, gossip, and more gossip. Who was going to bed with who, and how kinky they were.

  That was nothing like the Sha'Kar he'd read about in the histories in the Tower. Those Sha'Kar were very reserved, but not stuffy. They were wise and not showy, but they did enjoy humor and dancing and song. They were a very outgoing, progressive race, and even celebrated physical pleasure in several obscure ceremonies, they weren't half as utterly obsessed with sex as these Sha'Kar seemed to be.

  It wasn't an obsession with sex, not quite. The race had become decadent, hedonistic, seeking only pleasure and entertainment. They had become slaves to their own desires, wanting nothing more than good food, good drink, gossip, fun parties, and physical pleasures. Their study of Sorcery had even taken a subservient role to their need for fun. Iselde and Auli proved that. Out of their day, they only studied Sorcery a couple hours at the most. The rest of it was devoted to gossiping, practicing singing or dancing or playing instruments, and going to parties. No true study of Sorcery, no practicing the old ways, no doing anything other than self-gratifying activities.

  It seemed....wrong.

  It wasn't the first time he had noticed such strangeness. The Sha'Kar male torturing that girl was just as wrong, just as unbelievable as what he was hearing now, but it didn't outrage him quite so much. How had the Sha'Kar changed so much in only a thousand years? What had caused such a radical change in them, for them to be so different from what they were when they came? When did they change, and how did it come about?

  Unbelievable.

  Getting a bit of a headache from the concentration, Tarrin tucked the enchanted amulet in an inside pocket of his vest and sat down to clear his head and ponder the things he'd learned.

  Dolanna and Dar returned not long after that. Dar looked a bit sheepish, but Dolanna had a beaming smile on her face. "It worked," she told him. "The girl was very talkative."

  "She was listening to us," Dar hissed in indignation, glaring at her.

  "I could have been watching you, dear one," she told him with a penetrating stare. "Be lucky I respected your privacy as much as I did, but I did not want to take the chance that you missed something important."

  Dar blushed furiously.

  "After I removed the interdiction from her, I, ah, hinted to her that Dar had been depressed and needed some companionship," she said delicately. "Camara Tal was right about the girl's interest in him. She took the bait immediately, and Dar did his part. After he took her to bed, he drew out the rumors and secrets she knew."

  "What did you find out?"

  "Iselde's father died in the ceremony some ten years ago," she told him. "Their mother also died in the ceremonly, five years before that. The girl was not alive then, but her mother was, and her mother had imparted the tale on her."

  "She said that the Council showed up at the estate and took the woman into a room for a long time," Dar said. "She said that when they came out, Iselde's mother looked pale and out of sorts. She didn't talk to anyone or do anything. She said that the woman just stood there a moment with blank eyes, then walked out the door. They never saw her again. Renina said that that's what happened to their father too. The Council showed up, took him into a room, and then he came out all blank and then walked out the door. She was just a little girl when that happened, but she saw him walk across the lawn, out the front gate, and towards the center of town."

  "That is not half of it," Dolanna said. "Renina's mother was a house servant before she became too old to work inside, and she said that Iselde's parents would talk long into the night about strange things, and acted very secretive, even among the servants. That is very odd, for a Sha'Kar will make love to a spouse in the presence of a servant without thinking twice about it. It is as if they do not exist to them unless they need something done."

  Tarrin nodded, pondering on their tale. "So it sounds like the Council is behind these disappearances," he grunted. "That seemed obvious before, now that I think of it."

  "It is something," Dolanna told him. "Maybe the Council uses this obscure cer
emonly to eliminate potential threats to their power."

  "That doesn't make much sense, Dolanna," Tarrin scoffed. "I've been listening in on the Sha'Kar, and from the way it sounds, they don't have any ambition. All they care about is the next party, the next meal, the next round of gossip, or who they can lure into their bed tonight. They're a very shallow people, I've come to discover."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I've been eavesdropping on them using their amulets to talk to each other," he told her. "It's all been a bunch of trivial nonsense."

  "Tarrin, the amulets are not secure. Think. They would not say anything important while using them. That is why you hear nothing but trivial nonsense."

  He frowned. "I guess you have a point there," he admitted. "They must use the amulets as some kind of magical gossip rumormill.

  Phandebrass staggered into the doorway with Sapphire flapping in behind him. His arms were loaded with books. "I'm back!" he called, as Sapphire landed in Tarrins arms and rubbed her head against his chest in greeting. "You won't believe what happened, you won't!"

  "Well, what did happen?" Tarrin asked as Phandebrass set them on the table near the door.

  "I say, they let me in, Tarrin," he announced. "Isn't that remarkable? They saw me coming at the fence, asked me what I wanted, and I told them, I did. They just let me in and told me I could take any book I pleased, so long as I bring them back in three days. I say, wasn't that nice of them?" He grinned brightly. "You should have seen their library! It was fantastic, it was! Three times bigger than this room!" he said grandly, waving his arms. "Shelves and shelves of books, in every language you could imagine! Sha'Kar books, human books in Sulasian, Sharadi, Mahuut, Arakite, Shou, and every regional language there is! I say, they even had Dwarven and Gnomish books!" he said in excitement. "But no Wikuni books," he amended. "But it was amazing! They wouldn't let me stay and read, of course, but they did say I could take home any books I wanted, so long as I bring them back in three days."

  "You already said that, Phandebrass," Dar told him.

  "I did? Sorry, I guess I'm a little excited, I am," he said with a beaming smile. "Where to start, where to start?" he wondered, looking hungrily at the pile of books.

  "Why don't you take them up to the family library, so you, Miranda, and Kimmie can go through them?" he offered.

  "Capital idea!" he agreed with a clap of his hands. "Now then, I say, let's get these books gathered up and get along!"

  "Dar, help him carry them up," Tarrin said. "Remember, nobody goes out alone. Sapphire's staying, so you need to go with him. You can stay up in the library and help them until one of them is ready to come back down."

  "Alright, Tarrin," Dar nodded. "I'd like to look at some of the books myself. Hold on, Phandebrass, you're going to throw your back out!"

  Tarrin and Dolanna watched as Dar and Phandebrass split the burden between them and left. "I wonder how he managed to carry them all the way over here," Dolanna mused.

  "He used a magical spell," Sapphire answered. "He remembered that you enchanted the room to block magic, so he cancelled it before opening the door and carried the books in."

  "Was there any trouble, little one?" he asked her.

  "It went as the crazy one said, my friend," she answered calmly. "They saw us coming, and when they asked what we wanted, the Wizard told them. It was that simple. I thought he would at least try to use deception, but he is woefully inept at it."

  Tarrin chuckled. "They just let you in?"

  "They did," she affirmed. "One of the ones in yellow robes that Kimmie told me to watch for met us in a grand entrance hall, and then guided us to the library herself. She told us we could take any book we wished, so long as it was returned in three days' time."

  "Perhaps they have nothing to hide," Dolanna speculated.

  "Or perhaps they know there's nothing damaging in the library," Tarrin grunted in response.

  "Perhaps. But sometimes the greatest clues can come from the most innocent-seeming sources. Perhaps what we need is waiting in one of those books for us to find."

  "I hope so, Dolanna," Tarrin sighed, scratching Sapphire between the horns with a claw. "I really hope so."

  "What do we do now, Tarrin?" Sapphire asked.

  "I think today's been a bit too busy for something else, Sapphire," he answered. "Let's give Camara and Zak a chance to return with new information, and give Phandebrass and the others a little time. Tomorrow we're going to lead the Council around by the nose for a while. I don't want to start anything else until we have them on the defensive."

  "And when we have them confused?" Dolanna asked.

  "Then we find our answers, Dolanna," he said calmly, yet there was intensity behind his calm veneer. He looked down at her. "You said the greatest clues can come from the most unexpected places," he told her. "I have a sneaking suspicion that the answers we're looking for are all around us. We just have to talk to the right Sha'Kar."

  "You sound as if you know where to start."

  "I know exactly where to start," he nodded. "And if I play my cards right, I may get a chance to talk to them as early as tomorrow. I should be able to talk to them without it looking too unusual."

  He knew exactly who he needed to speak to first. A pair of adventurous children. Tarrin had suspected from the start that Iselde knew something about the Firestaff. And Auli...dear Auli, always getting into trouble, always going where she wasn't supposed to go, doing things she wasn't supposed to do. Tarrin knew from experience that kids like that learned secrets. Dark secrets, terrible secrets, things nobody else was supposed to know. Secrets a girl like Auli was smart enough to keep a secret.

  Secrets. Yes, Auli was a keeper of many secrets, whispered to her in the beds of the males, discovered in her foribben wanderings. What secrets did she keep? And how would they help him?

  He would find out soon. Very soon, he hoped. Maybe even tomorrow. Soon, he would have Auli's darkest secrets, when he was able to talk to her without the Council getting scent of it.

  He only prayed they were enough.

  Chapter 17

  It was a tense night for Tarrin, but in its own way, it had a gentle beauty that he would not soon forget.

  With all the insanity going on, with the pressure he'd felt over what happened with Allia and the Council, Tarrin had not had the chance to explore his feelings for Kimmie with her as he should. He did that that night, after finding out from Camara Tal and Azakar that they had nothing worthwhile to report, after Phandebrass, Dar, Miranda, and Kimmie had gone through the books and found nothing of worth for them. He sat her down on the bed, held her paws, and told her what he'd felt in his heart when she tried to comfort him after he returned from his traumatic fight with Allia.

  To say that she was ecstatic was a woeful understatement. In their entire time together, through everything that had happened, with all of her confessions of love and loyalty and support for him, all she had ever wanted from him was his attention. She knew he loved Jesmind, she knew that Jesmind had a claim over him with which she couldn't compete. That he had told her that he loved her was far beyond anything she had ever dreamed. She knew already, of course--it was hard to hide anything from Kimmie--but to hear him say it to her, to hear it for herself, it was what she had hoped beyond hope to hear, a dream not dreamed except in her happiest meanderings. She laughed and cried and kissed him, then looked into his eyes and assured him that when they got back to Suld, she'd still be happy to step aside for Jesmind. After all, Tarrin promised her he would come back to her, and a promise among Were-cats was as serious a thing as one could give.

  She was such a wonderfully understanding person. Tarrin felt so lucky to have her with him, so lucky Triana had the wisdom to see what he could not.

  And after all, she couldn't hold onto him forever, just as Jesmind couldn't. She and Jesmind and Mist would have to wait by turns, so there was no jealousy in her heart. She had taken him for mate knowing that she would have to give him up. But she knew that
in time, the wheel would come full circle, and he would once again be standing on her doorstep. That knowledge, that sweet knowledge, was all that she needed.

  Tarrin laid in bed after a very passionate night with Kimmie and pondered the change in his life. Kimmie had made him forget all about Allia, if only for a little while. She had indeed taken away the pain, a pain he still felt when he thought about it. But it wasn't the pain of losing Allia now, it was the pain of uncertainty over what had motivated her to do as she did, the pain of knowing that she may be under the power of the Sha'Kar, the pain of knowing that maybe, somewhere inside her mind, there was the Allia that was his sister screaming and raging and struggling to break free, just as he had screamed and raged and struggled against the collar that had been put around his neck. Screaming in rage yet unable to overcome the powerful magic that controlled her, aware of everything she did yet unable to do anything more than watch in helpless futility. Tarrin knew that feeling well, still shuddered every time he remembered it. Was Allia suffering as he had? Did she know what she said to him, and how it had crushed his spirit? Or was she blissfully unaware of what she was doing under the control of another? He fervently hoped so. It would be so much easier on her if she had no idea what she was doing, and wouldn't remember it when she was free.

  If she was under their control. Keritanima was taking her damn sweet time finding out. But then again, after the fight with Tarrin, Allia had to be very tightly wound, very defensive. It was going to take Keritanima time to talk her down, relax her, get her into a position where Allia wouldn't feel it when Keritanima checked her mind. Allia was a deceptive woman in many ways, and her power was the most deceptive aspect of them all. She was actually a very strong and well-trained Sorceress, and she would feel it if Keritanima went poking around in her mind unless she'd been specifically set up to be probed without her knowing. Only Tarrin and Keritanima could get her that relaxed, get her to lower her defenses that far. And since Tarrin was now her enemy, that left only Keritanima.