The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "Easy, tiger," Tarrin chided. "Going crazy is my job."

  "How dare he violate me so!" she screamed in fury. "I'll tear out his eyes!"

  "Dolanna, I can't check Kimmie with you going nuts, and I really want to check my mate," he warned sternly. "Calm down, and watch him. The spell I used to cancel Sorcery is going to end any minute now. Don't let him touch the Weave."

  Panting laboriously for a moment, Dolanna pulled herself free of his grasp, a bit more aggressively than he'd hoped, but she made no move to continue pummeling on him. "I am alright now," she said in a more composed tone, in Sulasian.

  Tarrin quickly knelt down by Kimmie and pulled her up into his arms. She had been struck by something, the blunt force knocking her out. Tarrin's Druidic intervention faded, and he wove a quick spell and sent it into her to make sure that what he'd seen was indeed the truth. His searching spell found no other signs of injury, just a concussion suffered by whatever had struck her. That kind of trauma was one of the few things that a Were-cat's regeneration couldn't heal immediately. It was going to take her body time to recover from it.

  Tarrin used a weave of Earth to break the locks holding the chains on her, then threw them aside. She'd make sure she never woke up to that horror. Kimmie was a mild, calm, sedate, very friendly Were-cat. Tarrin would make sure she never suffered with the ordeal of being feral.

  "Is she well?" Dolanna asked.

  "Concussion," he replied. "It's going to take her a while to wake up."

  "Probably," she agreed.

  "Alright, Dolanna," he said grimly, collecting his precious mate in his arms and standing up. "What just happened?"

  "A terrible risk," she answered.

  "What do you mean?"

  Dolanna sighed, and shuddered slightly. "Keritanima made the very connection Syllis taunted you about not making," she explained in Sharadi. "But it was too late to stop what was happening. She thought to check me just before we reached the party, when I guess I acted too strangely for her. When she found it, she freed me, and I was able to tell her that I'd already told the Council about the plan using a spell they taught me. At that point, me and Keritanima decided to take a very serious risk. We couldn't stop what we'd set in motion, because they had used magic to summon me to Auli's house. We knew it was too late to try to contact you by then, so Keritanima showed Dar how to make it seem that I was still under their control. We hoped that I'd be placed in a position to thwart the Council, because they had summoned me to join them. Keritanima felt that Syllis would be the kind to bring me before you and taunt you with me. She was right."

  Tarrin stared at her for a long time. What a risk to take! But Keritanima, who was so good at predicting the actions of others, had made the right decision. He was a little angry with them for putting him and his mate is such danger, but part of them thanked them for it. If they had tried to pull him out, Kimmie may have suffered at their hands, even been killed because she had already been captured. He held his precious mate close to him, just thankful that she was alright. The fact that they'd just wiped out the Council and captured Syllis meant nothing to him compared to that.

  "We gained much more than I thought we would," Dolanna said with a release of breath. "Syllis was kind for explaining what we need to do to get past the barrier. We already have the necessary people. Tarrin, we can go after the Firestaff any time we want."

  "We can," he said, finding that that thought both made his blood run cold, and filled him with a kind of grim excitement. There was still that guardian to deal with, but at least there were no other obstacles to defeat now.

  The way was clear.

  There were some loose ends, however. He wanted to make sure the Sha'Kar wouldn't attack them when they came back. He'd just killed the majority of their ruling body. That was going to cause some serious problems. But then again, they had Syllis, and they had him alive. Tarrin could free the nine strongest Sorcerers on the island from his control and bring them to him, let them see and hear the truth for themselves. They could be the new Council and Grand, and he'd show them how to release the others from their magical control. Tarrin had hated the Sha'Kar for their behavior, but now that he knew that it wasn't their fault, he found no animosity towards them. He knew what it was like to be enslaved to the will of another. He felt their pain. If anything, he felt an overpowering need to watch over them, almost as if they were children.

  Tarrin nuzzled his unconscious mate for a moment, then put a paw to the thin cut on her chest and wove a spell of healing. The cut sealed over, leaving no scar, and he collected her spilled blood carefully and Transmuted it into pure water. He would leave no chance of an accidental turning in this room.

  Kimmie's eyes fluttered a moment under her eyelids, then they opened to reveal her beautiful blue eyes. They were unfocused, woozy, and they regarded Tarrin for a moment as if he were a stranger. Her regenerative powers were starting to reverse the injury of her concussion. "Mmm, good morning," she said in a distant voice.

  Tarrin held her close. He'd come so close to losing her. It would have destroyed him to watch them kill her, but even she would have made the same decision, would have told him what he had to do. The whole world was not worth two lives. Had Tarrin not had others he loved, he may have chosen differently. But to protect them, he would have been forced to sacrifice his mate. She put her arms around him weakly, and she looked a little startled when she saw the tears in his eyes after she pushed him away. "What's the matter, love?" she asked. "Where are we? Why are you crying?"

  "He nearly lost you, Kimmie," Dolanna answered for him. "Had not blind luck and the Goddess been smiling down on us, we would have lost you."

  "Lost me? What happened?" she asked, her voice more focused as the effects of her concussion were swiftly healed away. "Where are we? This isn't the library."

  "Someone hit you in the back of the head," he told her.

  "The Council used you as a hostage to try to make us cooperate," Sapphire added from his shoulder.

  She looked at him, and it dawned in her eyes. "Oh, I see. Well, I hope you told them to go to hell, my love," she said sternly.

  "I didn't have to, Kimmie," he said with a loving smile. "Dolanna beat the stuffing out of Grand Syllis with her bare hands, and I killed the rest of them. Dolanna saved me from having to make that choice."

  She'd never know he had made that choice. He would never tell her how close she'd come to losing her life, and losing it because of his decision. She put her paws on his face and kissed him tenderly, lingeringly. "I think I can stand now, Tarrin," she told him.

  "Dolanna hit the leader of them in the stomach, and that surpised the rest long enough for us to attack them without them hurting you," Sapphire told her.

  He set her on her feet, but kept a paw on her as a precaution. She looked down at herself and gave a rueful chuckle. "How do I keep ending up losing my clothes?" she fretted with a smile. "And I didn't even shapeshift!"

  "They know you are a Wizard, Kimmie," Dolanna answered. "Stripping you would be the most effective means to ensure you are not hiding any spell components."

  "True," she admitted. "Would you Conjure me a dress, love? I feel a little out of place here. Nudity isn't something you practice alone when in company," she added with a darling smile.

  Tarrin Conjured one of her dresses for her, and she seemed stable enough as she pulled it over her head. "That's better," she said, patting her belly. "Though it is a bit tight in the middle now." Tarrin relaxed the wool for her, and she kissed him on the cheek in thanks. "Alright, someone tell me what happened. And we'd better clean this place up. It's a mess."

  Dolanna explained what had happened with a self-blaming tone in her voice, but Kimmie tutted her with a wave of her hand. "You can't be responsible for what you do when you're under someone else's control," she said dismissively. "Don't blame yourself for what happened. Instead, be happy that things turned out the way they did."

  "That is hard when it is you who was the cause of it,
" Dolanna sighed.

  "Talk to Tarrin. He has alot of experience with that kind of thing. He can help you get over it. I'll bet it was Phandebrass that hit me in the head," she mused. "I didn't smell anyone else in the room, and they would have put their control over all the others rather than try to wrestle with them."

  "It is a possibility."

  Sapphire nuzzled Kimmie lovingly, jumping onto her shoulder, and the Were-cat female laughed. "I'm alright, little one," she assured her. "I'm glad you were here."

  "She killed three of them herself," Tarrin said proudly.

  "Two, and I shocked a third well enough to let Tarrin finish it off," she amended.

  "Did anyone ever tell you you're a very handy drake to have around, Sapphire?" Kimmie laughed.

  "You are family. I can't just let you run around without watching over you. You bipeds get into too much trouble on your own."

  Kimmie laughed and hugged the little drake to her, and Sapphire rubbed her head against Kimmie's shoulder in reply.

  "Let us get the others and free them of the control," Dolanna prompted. "And work out what we are going to do now. We cannot leave this issue as it is, the Sha'Kar may very well turn on us."

  "Just don't show them this room," Kimmie said, looking at the bodies. "At least it's alot neater than what I would have expected. No guts hanging off the walls or anything."

  "I didn't have time to deal with him the way they needed dealt with," Tarrin said calmly. "I was a bit pressed for time."

  "Hey, at least we don't need a chisel this time," she said with a wink, looking back towards the door. "Woops, I spoke too soon. You did dismember one of them, I see. What is it with you and heads, Tarrin? Do you always have to pull them off that way?"

  "It was an accident. If she had sturdier neck, she wouldn't have lost her head."

  Kimmie laughed, but Dolanna shuddered a little at the graphic exchange. "Let us pick up the pieces, dear ones," she prompted. "We need to be ready to move before the Sha'Kar wake tomorrow. So we have some planning to do."

  The demise of the Council didn't surprise the others very much, at least after they'd been gathered. But things weren't quite as bad as Grand Syllis had led Tarrin to believe. They had taken control of Phandebrass, but it turned out that he was the only one they had managed to get. Keritanima defended Dar at the party, for as long as they were there before they scrambled back to their hosts' estate, where they found four dead human Sorcerers piled up just inside a barricaded door. Sisska, who had been watching over the rest of the humans, turned out to be the heroine in that little scuffle. The Sorcerers came in and attempted to cast Mind weaves on the humans, but the one that had been assigned to incapacitate the female Vendari with Sorcery had not been educated as to the nature of the Vendari race. They were a creation of magic, and in that creation they had gained a powerful resistance to magical forces and influences. The same resistance that allowed them to rebel against the Zakkites allowed Sisska to come right through the binding magic that the Sorcerer had tried to use against her. She slaughtered the attackers so quickly that the ones trying to take control of the humans with Sorcery nearly didn't realize she was there. They never dreamed something so massive could move with such blazing speed. Sisska killed the Sorcerers, then they barricaded themselves in Tarrin's room, safe behind the Ward he had erected to prevent anyone from finding out what happened to the Sorcerers that came to take them until someone noticed that they hadn't completed their task. They had been noticed, and Sorcerers sent by the Council had tried three times to get into the room and take them, even resorting to Illusions and magically-generated fake voices to try to trick Sisska into letting them in. But the Vendari, highly trained and very protective, would not back down, not for anyone or anything.

  It took some pretty serious negotiations to get Sisska to take down the barricade. Tarrin tried, Keritanima tried, even Allia tried, but it was Binter who finally convinced her that they weren't another trick, hissing at her in the Vendari's native tongue and probably telling her things that only the two of them would know. After they proved their identities, Sisska cleared the obstacles blocking the door and allowed them inside.

  After they got Sisska calmed down and the furniture more or less righted but not bothering to put it back where it belonged, they sat down on chairs and couches that Tarrin Conjured for everyone, and Tarrin told them what happened in detail. He left out the part where he was forced to decide between Kimmie and his mission. That dark secret would never leave his lips. "We sealed off the room and left the bodies where they were," Tarrin said, pointing at an unconscious Grand Syllis, who was trussed up and laying on the floor with Binter and Sisska watching him very carefully. "Dolanna managed to take down Syllis, with a punch to the stomach. I think her attacking him with physical violence was the last thing he ever expected."

  Phandebrass laughed. "I say, I think your Goddess as watching over her children today," he said.

  "I'm just so glad it worked," Keritanima said with an explosive sigh. "They knew what was going on, and it was too late to try to stop it. It was the only thing we could think of on such short notice. We were a bit harried at that point."

  "It worked. That's all that matters," Camara Tal told her.

  "I am sorry I brought us to this," Dolanna said glumly.

  "You are not the only one to blame, Dolanna," Allia said in a steady voice. "I have my own shame in it."

  "How do you think we feel?" Iselde asked miserably. "They've been doing that to us since we were born! They killed our parents! How could they?"

  "Syllis wanted the Firestaff," Tarrin told her. "He was mad for power, and men like that do monstrous things."

  "They made all of us monsters," Allyn said soberly. "They made us reduce our human friends to nothing better than sheep," he said, looking at Zarina and Liza, who sat off to one side, almost clutching one another. They were both still quite afraid of everything that was going on. "They twisted our desires in the worst possible way."

  "How do you think I feel, Allyn?" Auli asked tartly. "I've slept with just about every man on the island! Not that it wasn't fun, but I feel...violated," she amended.

  Tarrin had to chuckle. Control or no control, Auli was Auli.

  "The question is, what do we do now?" Dolanna said, still looking quite abashed at how she had betrayed them.

  "That's easy," Auli said. "We find my mother. Then we free her of their control and let her hear it from his lips personally," she continued, pointing at the unconscious Syllis. "My mother's very respected. If she says it's truth, then she'll be believed."

  "That's a start," Keritanima said. "Can she talk down the rest of the Sha'Kar?"

  "If there's no Council here and no Grand to give us orders, who do you think they'll listen to?"

  "She has a point," Dolanna agreed.

  "It's a start," Keritanima said again. "Allyn? Iselde? Any ideas?"

  "Actually, I think Auli's right, but we'll need more than her mother," Allyn said. "If we get the ten most respected Sha'Kar and bring them here and explain what they did to us, they can take care of things. With the Council dead, we'll need a new one, and they'd be its members anyway."

  "Did you have to kill them, honored one?" Iselde asked.

  "Yes," he said flatly. "After what they did to you and to the humans, they deserved nothing less. What happened to Zarina was more than enough reason. Because of what happened to her, I nearly decided to kill all of you."

  They paled a little at that, but they could see that he wasn't joking. Zarina flushed furiously and sat a little closer to Liza, who had had a doe-like, thunderstruck look about her ever since they'd dragged her out of her daily life.

  "I'm not like your people, Iselde," he reminded her. "In many ways, I'm probably just as ruthless as the Council was. But at least you know where I stand. I don't hide things the way they did."

  "Small favors," Miranda grinned at him.

  "This is second hand to the more important issue," Dolanna told them. "Th
anks to Syllis' talkative bent, he has told us everything we need to know. We can get the Firestaff now, any time we so wish."

  "You mean we can try," Allia warned. "Remember, there is still one more obstacle. The Guardian the legends speak of."

  "I'm not sure it's there anymore," Camara Tal said. "It's been sealed in a cave for five thousand years! If it was a living thing, how could it go that long without food?"

  "Don't put anything past magic, Camara," Keritanima said. "Until we see otherwise, let's assume that there's a nasty monster or something guarding the Firestaff. Since the Council never got into the volcano, we know that they didn't conveniently kill it for us."

  "We know where it is and how to get to it. The only question now is when," Dolanna said calmly.

  "We go tomorrow," Tarrin said. "As soon as we can. We'll let Iselde, Allyn, and Auli work things out with Auli's mother and the other Sha'Kar. They know the truth, and they can tell them what happened. As for me, I'm not waiting another day. We've spent too long searching for that damned thing to just let it sit out there for anyone to get. I won't be happy until I have it in my paws."

  "Why not go now?" Dar asked.

  "Because some of us are tired," Dolanna replied. "And I think Tarrin would like a little time to prepare."

  "I'm ready now, Dolanna," he snorted. "If anything, my exercise with the Council warmed me up. I feel ready to fight with something. But Kimmie's recovering from an injury, and I won't leave her until I'm sure she's completely well."

  "Leave me? Who said you were leaving me behind?" she scoffed.

  "I did," he said, giving her a flat look. "I will not risk you and the cub, Kimmie. Not under any circumstances. If you want to fight about it, that's fine. I'll leave here with you chained to the bed and Sisska standing guard over you."

  "That's dirty pool, love," Kimmie frowned.

  "I may not think you're an invalid, but I'm not going to let you risk both your life and our baby's like that," he told her. "Not when we have no idea what we'll be facing."