The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "There are only two towers left," Tarrin told her. "The one in Suld, and the one in Sharadar."

  That made all the Sha'Kar elders wince, and they all looked profoundly saddened. "Such a pity," Ianelle said with a somber expression. "The symbols of our order, and only two remain. Such loss."

  "With your people back, maybe we can rebuild what was destroyed," Tarrin told her.

  "I hope so, but it will take time," she said with a brusque smile. "We have much to do, and from the sound of things, so do you. You may take the Firestaff with our blessing, honored one. After all, you are sui'kun. It's not our place to order you around."

  "And when you have it, may we return home," Riana said hopefully.

  "May the Goddess make it so," several of the Sha'Kar repeated.

  It was the last night.

  Tarrin couldn't help but feel like that over and over. Dolanna's words haunted his attempts to sleep, made him toss and turn, and filled him with worry and anxiety. There is a good chance that some of us may not return echoed over and over in his mind. He couldn't accept that. He just couldn't. He wouldn't. He vowed that no one else would die, and he was a Were-cat. He honored his promises, kept his vows. He would not allow anyone else to die. Not so long as he lived and breathed, he would not let anyone else die.

  It was hard to rest, hard to relax. Kimmie did everything she could to distract him, from blowing in his ear to threatening to brain him if he didn't lay still, but he was just too wound up. She did seem to understand his fear and worry, but this time, she couldn't talk him down. Nothing could.

  The weight of it crushed him. It was the last night where things would be as they were. He could feel that tomorrow night, everything was going to be different, one way or another. He would have the Firestaff, the focus of the last few years of his life. Some of them may not be there to celebrate that happy day. He was torn between his eagerness to fulfill his promise to the Goddess to get the Firestaff and the sorrow and pain he'd feel if someone else died in the course of trying to claim it. It was the last night where they were all there, all together, all friends, all unified in their common interest. Tomorrow, they would be done. Camara Tal would have no reason to remain, and would go home. Keritanima would have too many duties in Wikuna, and would return home. Allia would probably abduct Allyn and take him back to the desert, returning home. Tarrin...well, he would defend the Firestaff. He was sure that the Goddess already had a plan for what he should do with it. As soon as they were outside the Ward, she would tell him what she wanted to do. For him, it wouldn't be over until the day when the Firestaff activated came and went.

  Whenever that may be.

  That was all assuming they survived the final challenge. Dreams of the future could not hurdle the obstacle laying in his path, and he did not take it lightly. Whatever it was defending the Firestaff had to be incredibly powerful, or it wouldn't have been chosen for the task. It could be some mythical beast or some kind of magical creation, or maybe even someone like Spyder, a mortal of godlike power that would be summoned to defend the artifact. Or perhaps a god himself, whose sole reason to exist was to defend that ancient relic. There was no telling what it was, or even if it was still there. But no matter what, Tarrin felt that he was ready to face it. He was at the pinnacle of his power, and his friends and sisters were utterly dependable.

  But this night, this last night, it was all he had, all he was trying to concentrate on. Kimmie's concussion completely faded not long after they all went to bed, leaving her frisky and attentive, but he had been too worried and nervous to take her up on her carnal invitations. He knew she was luring him just to try to take his mind off things, and he could appreciate her for it. But he found just holding her close and taking in her scent to be just as good as losing himself in the delights she offered. She was his mate, one of the two women he loved, and inside her belly there was a new life, his child, his legacy. He was glad she was staying behind. He wouldn't be able to think straight if she was there, if she was in danger.

  The night was an eternity that didn't last nearly long enough. Tarrin got no sleep that night, but the knowledge that the day would change everything worried him as much as he looked forward to it. The time seemed to drag by, but when one of Arlan's servant girls opened the door and politely called that it was just before dawn, when Tarrin wanted to be fetched, he couldn't figure out where all the time went. Kimmie was asleep, having succumbed to her need to rest after her injury half a night ago, and he laid over her, beside her, just looking down at her while she was sleeping, marvelling at her and the new life inside her. No matter what happened to him, no matter what people remembered, the best things of him lived on in his children. He could only hope that Kimmie would go on in case he failed this last challenge. But she was a strong woman, much stronger than any of the other Were-cats imagined.

  Tarrin got up and dressed, maybe for the last time. His old leather breeches were starting to show their wear again, the ankles tattering from the claws on his feet. His black leather vest was much nicer looking, but was starting to get a little shiny from wear. They were simple clothes for a simple Were-cat, servicable, utilitarian garments that served him well. He put a paw over his black steel amulet, feeling its presence on his neck for the first time in over a year, it had grown to be so much a part of him. But he could feel its weight now, the weight of the duty that had been laid across his shoulders. The amulet pulled on the back of his neck, a reminder of the bond between him and the Goddess, a warning that his service to her was about to enter its most dangerous phase.

  The last night was over. Now, the changes would come.

  Tarrin debated furiously whether or not to wake up Kimmie. He didn't want to say goodbye to her. He wanted her to be there when he came back, flushed with victory over having claimed the Firestaff. But she would never forgive him if he did that, even if he did come back without a scratch.

  He put a paw on her shoulder and shook her very gently. "Kimmie," he called in barely more than a whisper.

  Her eyes snapped open almost immediately. She rolled over and looked up at him, her expression sober. "It's already time?" she asked.

  He nodded. "I had one of the serving girls come get me before dawn," he told her. "I want us to be out of the city before it gets light, so the Sha'Kar won't have as good a chance to notice us."

  "Let me get dressed," she said, sitting up.

  "No," he said, sitting down on the bed beside her. "I, I want us to say goodbye here, Kimmie. Where the others can't see us. I don't want them to see me like this," he said, looking at her with his heart in his eyes.

  Her eyes softened, and she put her arms around him and almost crushed him in a fierce embrace. He took in her scent, let it brand itself forever into his memory, felt her touch, just revelled in the closeness of her. "I love you, Tarrin," she said fiercely, in a low tone. He closed his eyes and put his cheek against hers, then she grabbed his head in her paws and kissed him with a fierce passion that curled his toes. "I put too much into trying to win your heart to lose you now!" she said with shining eyes, full of tears. "Don't do anything stupid, my love! Remember that your women are waiting for you. Don't forget about us. Come back to us. Come back to me!"

  "I'll find a way," he promised, holding her close again. "I love you, Kimmie." He held her out so he could see her again, paws on her shoulders. "And if I can't find a way," he said, his eyes somber, "tell Jesmind I love her. Tell her I'm sorry I broke my promise, but we can't always keep our word."

  "I won't have to," she said petulantly. "Because nothing is going to happen to you!"

  "I hope you're right," he said emphatically, kissing her one more time before he stood up. She took hold of his paw, her teary eyes staring up at him from a worried, anxious face, almost refusing to let him go. "Watch over the Druids for me, love," he said, gripping her fingers in his paw, then slowly, almost forcefully, pulling his paw free of her. She wouldn't let go, making him slide his paw out of her grip, and when he finally did p
ull free of her, her paw opened as her fingers sought to close over his once more.

  "I'll see you tonight, Kimmie," he said forcefully, trying to be strong. But wasn't easy.

  "Be careful!" she said with tremendous effort to make him listen to her, understand her.

  He stood there, looking down at her, imprinting her in his memory just like that. Nude, covers in her lap, staring up at him with such tremendous love that it nearly broke his heart to leave her, to put her through the inevitable worrying that would come while he was gone. But there was no other choice. He had been forced to take actions that would have killed her, and he would never let her know that had happened. But leaving her felt like it would kill him

  He only hoped she knew how much she meant to him. She knew he loved Jesmind, and that his obligations to her took precedence in things. He just hoped she knew how much he loved her.

  Forcing himself, he turned his foot, and then turned around, made the last act to separate them. He turned his back to her. He strode from the dais quickly, before he changed his mind, and padded across the room. Sapphire was still sleeping in her bed, but he didn't wake her. To delay now to say goodbye would break his resolve. He had to get out of Kimmie's presence quickly, before he turned back around. He reached the door, opened, it, then stepped through and closed it behind him.

  Then he leaned against it, wiping a tear from his eyes. Leaving Jesmind hadn't been half as hard as that. But then again, when he left Jesmind, the possibility of his death hadn't been so tangible in the air. If it had been, then he was sure it would have been even more emotional, with him having to physical pull himself free of her as she refused to allow him to go off into danger.

  They were to meet in the entrance hall. Tarrin was first there, taking a pastry from a tray that the serving girls had set out for them, a light meal to prepare them for the ordeal to come. He was there only a moment before Keritanima, Allia, Binter, and Sisska arrived. Keritanima was wearing a red dress that blended well with her fur, a very simple one with no frills or accessories. A travelling dress for a woman about to exert herself. Keritanima looked somber, but very determined. Allia was dressed in her desert garb, the color of sand, its baggy volume concealing her form. The turban-like headgear was atop her head, the veil hanging loosely from the side of her face. She looked very intense, very focused, very ready. Binter and Sisska looked as they always looked, wearing the same kilts and bandoliers, carrying their huge weapons, hovering just behind their queen and ready to defend her life at a second's notice.

  Dolanna, and Azakar arrived just behind Keritanima. Dolanna wore her favorite blue silk dress, the very one she'd worn the day he met her. She looked calm, but with Dolanna, one could never really tell how calm she actually was. Azakar was wearing his full plate armor, which had been laboriously cleaned, polished, and readied for the day's activities, with his shield strapped to his back and his huge sword hanging from his wide belt loosely. Just behind him was Camara Tal, wearing her red tripa and her breastplate that had the hawk etched into its front, stretching its wings across her breasts. Her sword, the magical sword that Tarrin had given her, the one that had belonged to Faalken, rested comfortably at her side. Tarrin couldn't look at that sword without a pang of guilt and pain over the loss that it represented, the loss of a good friend, the one that was no longer with them.

  Nothing was said. They were all reserved, somber. They all knew the importance of their task, and they all seemed afraid to break the silence. Tarrin thought that they had been pondering Dolanna's warning the night before as well, fully aware that they all may not live to see the sunset. Tarrin put Allia's hand in one paw and Keritanima's in the other, but that was the only act any of them took in greeting.

  Phandebrass prattled in, wearing the same gray robe he'd been wearing since they arrived on the island, though he had magically cleaned and pressed it the night before. His belt with its many pouches and little cases was around his waist, and he still wore that ridiculous conical hat. The mage seemed completely unaffected by the importance of the day, lively and talkative, greeting them all in an excited voice. "Morning, morning, morning!" he said breathlessly. "Busy day, busy day today! I say, I can't wait to see the Firestaff, I can't! I really must study it!"

  That seemed to break the ice. "You would," Camara Tal accused.

  "I say, who's missing?" he asked, looking around. "We have to go, we do! We can't dawdle around here, not today of all days!"

  Tarrin looked around, slowly, deliberately, looking at them one by one and taking in how they looked one final time. Allia. Keritanima. Dolanna. Camara Tal. Phandebrass. Binter. Sisska. Azakar. Kimmie, Dar, Miranda, and Sapphire were left behind to watch over the two Druid girls, Zarina and Liza.

  "We're all here," Camara Tal told him. "We just need to know where we're going."

  "Allyn showed me that carving," Allia told her. "I can find it. It should not be hard for us to find the path leading to the cave entrance."

  "Then we have nothing holding us behind. Is everyone ready?" Dolanna asked.

  Nobody said a word.

  "Then let us go. The sooner we begin, the sooner we finish."

  Phandebrass wolfed down a few of the pastries. "Yes, I say, let's!" he said excitedly. "Imagine all the wondrous and amazing things we may see today! Why, I'm all aflutter with anticipation, I am!"

  "You'd be excited to go to your own funeral," Camara Tal said sourly, her hand drifting to her sword reflexively, as if to make sure it was still there.

  "Let us not fight now," Dolanna said. "If no one has anything to do or say, then we should begin."

  "Let's go," Keritanima said.

  "Before I change my mind," Azakar admitted.

  "Fear is a good thing, as long as it does not control you," Binter told him in a calm voice. "I find the prospect of battle exciting, but the unknown nature of the foe concerns me."

  Concern in a Vendari was about as close to fear as one would ever get.

  "Whatever it is, we'll find out, we will," Phandebrass said happily, patting his many pouches. "I say, I think I forgot my powdered manticore tail spikes. That will never do, it won't. I say, how will I cast Azak-Kazim's Flying Spike Barrage? Oh, nevermind, here it is!" he said, patting a pouch.

  "Well then, let us go before Phandebrass forgets something else he has with him," Dolanna said with a light smile.

  "Or we'll be here all day as he takes inventory," Camara Tal snorted.

  "I say, inventory. What a good idea," he prattled. "Now, where did I put that checklist of components?" he asked himself, starting to pat his pouches and satchels again.

  Camara Tal grabbed him by the upper arm and started dragging him towards the door.

  Phandebrass' humorous nature did more than break the ice. They were all talking, albeit in very hushed tones, as Allia led them through the strange Sha'Kar city. The talk was focused on possible guardians, as Phandebrass rattled off a long list of creatures Tarrin had never heard of. And considering he was Fae-da'Nar and had been educated in various kinds of exotic creatures, that was no mean feat. "I say, I hope it's a Catoblepas," Phandebrass said expectantly. "I've always wanted to see one."

  "What kind of creature is that?" Allia asked him.

  "It's an ugly brute that looks like a big fat lizard with a warthog's head on a long neck. It's said that any who meets its gaze dies instantly."

  "If it can kill you on sight, why would you want to look at one?" Azakar asked with elegant simplicity.

  "Well, it would be one way to find out of the myth is true, isn't it?" he asked with a smile.

  "A very short way," Camara Tal snorted. "And it wouldn't be like you could tell anyone after you found out."

  "I say, you have a point there," Phandebrass said with a thoughtful frown. "Hmm, how would I get around that?"

  "Well, your dead body would certainly let the rest of us know it's not a myth," Keritanima told him with a glance. "So we'll let you go first."

  "I say, that would work," he said in
all seriousness.

  They quieted again as Allia led them into the forest in the foothills, closer and closer to the volcano. Tarrin concentrated on listening to Phandebrass, Camara Tal, and Keritanima banter back and forth, the two females ganging up on the mage to shoot down all his wild, hair-brained ideas and schemes about what they'd do when they found out what they were facing. He got so caught up in it that he barely noticed it when Allia led them out of the woods and started up the slope of the volcano on a very steep path that had sheer rock on one side and a cliff on the other. "I saw this when Allyn brought me out here," Allia told him in Selani. "I didn't see the cave entrance, but I think it's because my eyes were filled with the carving. This trail will lead to the base of it. We'll circle around the edge of the volcano and come up under it in a little while."

  "Not a very friendly path," Dolanna noted, stepping carefully in one rather narrow section of it. She looked down the hundred span sheer incline, virtually a cliff, to the trees below them, which grew up to the edge of the very steep cone of the volcano. "And an even less friendly result should one misstep."

  "They just want to keep us on our toes, Dolanna," Keritanima told her lightly.

  "Literally," Azakar grunted.

  The light mood evaporated when they reached the landing that Auli describribed. A massive bulge that resembled the bottom of a foot jutted out over them in the dawn's light, and they stood on the inside edge of the rock cleared away to form the relief which contrasted the sculpture over their heads At the center of the relief, where a bit of volcanic rock jutted out to form a very wide ledge with a few boulders resting upon it, was the dark shape of a cave entrance. As they approached, they saw that it was the entrance, a black hole in the side of the dark stone, about fifteen spans wide and ten spans high. There was no evidence of a magical barrier protecting it, at least to mundane eyes, but Tarrin could see the powerful barrier stretched across the entrance of the tunnel about ten spans into it, on the far side of the four symbols etched into the wall, just inside the tunnel entrance. A star that remarkably resembled the star in the center of a shaeram, resting a span from a staff. On the other side there was engraved a pair of hands clasped together, and beyond it an image of a three-petalled flower. Representations of the four orders of magic. Sorcery, Wizardry, Priest magic, and Druidic magic. They all glowed in the darkness of the tunnel mouth, shining white against the dark stone from the glow of their magical power.