The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "She has a mouthful of very sharp little teeth, sister. You have to pay attention."

  "I noticed."

  The door opened, and Dar and Azakar looked in from the companionway. "Is Dolanna awake yet?" Azakar asked in his deep bass voice.

  "Not yet, but she's stirred a couple of times," Tarrin replied. "She should be waking up soon."

  Azakar nodded. "Do you want something from the galley? I'm on my way down there."

  "Whatever they have laying around would be alright with me," Tarrin told him. "I missed lunch."

  "I noticed," the Mahuut said. "Anything for you, Allia?"

  "No thank you, Zak," she replied with a grateful nod. "I ate before coming to sit with Dolanna."

  The pattern of Dolanna's breathing changed, a sure sign that she was either waking up or coming out of her deep, almost coma-like slumber. Tarrin's ears picked up and turned towards the bed behind him, and he turned and looked just in time to hear her sigh and see her open her dark, expressive eyes. "Well," she said in a weak voice, in Sharadi. "I should have expected to see you when I woke up."

  "That's right," Tarrin told her. "What in the world made you decide to go and do that, Dolanna? You had to know what was going to happen!"

  "That was why I did it," she replied unblinkingly. "I felt that if Keritanima could achieve a new level of power, when she doesn't have even a fraction of the training I do, I could do it as well. And I was right," she added with a tad bit of uncharacteristic smugness in her tone."

  "Could you speak in some language I understand, Dolanna?" Dar asked.

  "I am sorry, Dar," she called to him. "I only just awoke, and I tend to speak in my native language when not fully awake. As we all do."

  "That's the truth. How do you feel?"

  "Weak, tired, hungry, and very sleepy," she replied. "Could I trouble someone for a bite to eat and a glass of water?" she asked, moving to sit up.

  "I wouldn't do that unless you're ready to compromise your modesty, Dolanna," Tarrin warned. "I put you in the bed, but I didn't dress you."

  "So I feel," she said with a weary smile.

  "I'll bring something for you, Dolanna," Azakar offered. "Would you like some hot spiced wine?"

  "Please," she answered. "And a nightshirt, at the least."

  "I'm afraid I can't help you there, Dolanna," Azakar said with a slight smile, then he left for the galley.

  Dar glanced towards the Mahuut. "Uh, I'll go help him, so you have a chance to get dressed, Dolanna," Dar said.

  "Thank you, Dar," she nodded, and he scurried after the huge dark-skinned Knight. Allia dug a nightgown out of Dolanna's chest, and the petite Sorceress pulled down her covers and sat up to allow Allia to help her into it fearlessly. Tarrin and Dolanna were too close, too strongly befriended for him to think of her as a human, and as such didn't even think of averting his eyes. Dolanna, who understood Tarrin better than anyone but probably Allia and Keritanima, showed no aversion to exposing herself to the Were-cat. Allia helped her into her nightgown as Tarrin propped up some pillows on the bed so she could sit up to eat, then they put her back into the bed and drew up her covers for her. "Such attention," she smiled. "I should play sick more often."

  "You would have more if Keritanima was not using that magic mirror of hers to talk to that rabbit, Jervis," Allia said. "She has been speaking to him since before lunch, and I think she is still doing so."

  Jervis was Keritanima's head of intelligence, and she talked to him quite often, either directly using that magic mirror or through reports. The Wikuni nobles had been up to something, and Keritanima had told Jervis to find out what it was. If she was still talking to him, he must have found out, and they were planning the counterstroke to deal with it.

  "She has a large kingdom to manage, Allia," Dolanna said dismissively. "I am not disappointed that she is not here. I know she would be if she had the time."

  "Probably," Tarrin agreed. "Alright, now tell me. How did you know what to do?"

  "I did not," she admitted. "But I listened to Keritanima describe it, explain how it felt and seemed to her. I knew what to expect, and when it did begin, I realized what it was I had to do. It seemed as if I had done something I had known how to do since I was born, but had forgotten until that moment." Her eyes became distant a moment as she tapped her finger on her cheek in thought. "Perhaps Sorcerers have instincts concerning the magic, just as humans and Were-cats have instincts concerning the species," she proposed. "It is, after all, an innate ability. Something we possess from birth. Maybe a set of instincts concerning the magic comes with the power."

  "Maybe," Tarrin agreed.

  "It was, indescribable," she said in wonder. "That other place, we can return there again and again, can we not?"

  "It's called the Heart," he told her. "And it's part of what I'll teach you about the change in your powers."

  "I am starting to feel very left out," Allia said with a half-smile. "First my brother, then my sister, and now my mentor. You have done something I feel I will not do for many years."

  "If you practiced more often, you would not be so far behind," Dolanna said accusingly.

  "I can use my power, but I often do not see the need for it," she said dismissively. "Selani do not do what is not needful. When I need to use my power, I will use it. When I do not need to use my power, I will not."

  "Practicing is a needful thing," Dolanna told her firmly. "With practice and study, Allia, you could become a very strong Sorceress. It is a crime to ignore your talent."

  "I will not become dependent on my magic," Allia asserted.

  "I am not asking you to do so. I am only asking that you live up to your full potential," Dolanna countered. "You have much potential, Allia. You are easily as strong as most katzh-dashi in the Tower."

  "Let's save the arguing for another time," Tarrin interrupted.

  "We are not arguing," Dolanna and Allia said in unison.

  "Yes you are," he said bluntly. "It's the same argument you had with me, Dolanna, and it's the same argument you two have been having for the last two years. The only reason you're arguing out loud with Allia now is because you can't use it on me anymore. I think you two can go at least the rest of the day without fighting about it, can't you?"

  "I will try, though seeing a great talent wasted burns at me," Dolanna said.

  "I will not speak of the matter again today," Allia assured him.

  "Good. Where is that food at?" he asked irritably.

  After making sure that Dolanna ate a good hearty meal and he put her back to bed, Tarrin left her to sleep comfortably on her own and wandered back up on deck with Allia and Dar. Azakar still seemed uncomfortable around Tarrin, and he was starting to get a little annoyed at that. He needed to take Azakar aside and explain some things to him...this silly habit of trying to avoid him was getting old. It seemed worse that the Knight seemed capable of treating him courteously when necessary, but he wouldn't willingly spend time around the Were-cat. They waited a considerable amount of time for Keritanima to come out from her cabin, and when she finally did near sunset, she looked livid. Miranda and Szath trailed behind her a a modest distance, a clear sign that Keritanima was furious. If even Miranda didn't want to get close to Keritanima, it had to be bad.

  "What troubles you, sister?" Allia asked.

  "I--You--They--Oooohhhhhhhh!!!" she growled in Selani, stamping a foot on the ground. "I'm going to kill all of them! I mean it this time!!!"

  "What's wrong?" Tarrin asked.

  "My father escaped from his insane asylum two weeks ago, and Jervis found out someone from one of the noble houses helped him!" she snapped hotly. "Now they're going to try to return him to the throne!"

  "You should have killed him," Allia said in a calm tone.

  "I wanted him to suffer for everything he did to me and our homeland," she growled in reply. "I can't believe that they did that! I made it a crime punishable by death with no trial if anyone aided my father!"

  "Then punishing
them will be a simple affair," Allia reasoned.

  "I don't know which house did it!" she raged. "I know at least one house was involved, but even Jervis can't find out which one! And they can't find my father!"

  "Someone has to have seen him," Tarrin said.

  "Not yet," Keritanima grunted. "But the worse news is that I just can't leave Wikuna until I get this under control. If my father regains the throne while we're away, the ships that may be escorting us in the steamship may turn around and fire on us! It just won't be safe to do anything until I find my father and put him back in his cell."

  "Kerri, we have a schedule," Tarrin reminded her.

  "I know that!" she snapped at him in a very nasty tone.

  "How can your father get back the throne if the Vendari support you?" Tarrin asked curiously.

  "By force," she replied. "But the navy will be split over it, Tarrin, and we may end up with escorting ships loyal to my father. The last thing we need right now is a civil war in Wikuna."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "The simplest thing possible," she replied. "It starts and ends with my father. If I can get him, I can stop anything from happening before it goes too far. That's what it's going to take. I already have Jervis and his men taking the city apart looking for him, and they have orders to bring him in dead or alive."

  "Dead would be the wiser choice," Tarrin told her.

  "Oh, he's going to die now," she hissed. "Whether it's at the end of a musket or the end of a rope is the question. I spared his life once. I won't do it again." Keritanima was almost shivering with fury. "Excuse me, I think I'll go back to my cabin and throw things for a while," she said in a tightly controlled voice.

  "Have fun," Tarrin told her, and the fox Wikuni stalked off in a tizzy.

  They watched her leave. "Are you worried?" Allia asked curiously.

  "Not really," Tarrin replied absently. "I have confidence in Kerri. She'll fix everything."

  "Truly."

  Dolanna was well enough to move by that evening, but she didn't reappear on deck until the next day. She looked as weak as he knew she felt. She sat down in a chair that Keritanima had brought up for her, and spent most of the day in it, watching the coastline of Wikuna drift in and out of sight on a cloudless, glorious summer day, or reading a book, or listening carefully and intently as Tarrin taught Keritanima more of the spells he'd learned from Spyder. Camara Tal drifted by occasionally to check on the Sorceress, and there was a stretch where the small Sorceress played hostess to all three drakes.

  That day was full of mystery. Keritanima had some kind of plan, he realized when he looked her in the eyes, but she hadn't told him what it was yet. Phandebrass and Kimmie had disappeared again, and nobody on the ship could find them. Admiral Torm had even had the ship searched from crow's nest to the bilges, for his memory of what happened the last time those two had vanished for a long period of time was fresh in his mind. The last thing he wanted was for the white-haired Wizard to wander into the powder magazine and accidentally blow the ship sky high. But there was no sign of them. It created quite a stir on board, among the sailors as well as the passengers, and Tarrin pondered for quite a while about what happened to them, long enough to get curious about it himself. So around sunset, as the others went to dinner, Tarrin decided to track them down, or at least find where they had been last. He started at Phandebrass' cabin and then tracked the man's scent, which wasn't easy given its age and the number of scents both under and over it. But there was enough there to follow, even if he had to move very slowly to make sure he wasn't following an old trail, or lose the scent completely. Step by careful step, Tarrin crept along the companionway, up the stairs, out onto the deck, down the other set of stairs leading to the sailor's portion of the below deck area, and into the galley. Tarrin had to work around the cooks, who stared at him like he had lost his mind as he literally crawled along on all fours on the deck, following the scent trail carefully as it meandered around the galley. Kimmie's scent joined his at that point, and he gave up following Phandebrass' scent for following Kimmie's, for hers was a much different scent, and was much easier to follow. He followed the trail of both of them along a passageway and into one of the small holds near the bow of the ship, not far from the door marked with the large red letters that he knew was the powder magazine. Just knowing that Phandebrass was that close to the magazine made Tarrin's fur stand on end. The hold was one of the cargo holds, with four rows of stacked crates lashed to pinions nailed into the deck at regular intervals. There was no light in the hold, but the light coming in from the companionway was more than enough for Tarrin's light-sensitive eyes as he entered the hold in pursuit of Phandebrass and Kimmie.

  This was where the mystery deepened. Their scents entered the hold, but they did not leave. Tarrin triple checked this fact, thinking that they may have tracked directly back over their own scents, but they had not. Tarrin followed their scents between two stacks of boxes, and then it simply stopped. He checked the boxes for their scent, then the walls, and even the low-beamed ceiling, thinking that maybe Phandebrass taught Kimmie some kind of spell that caused them to defy gravity. But there was no trace of their scents anywhere.

  Tarrin realized that he'd done all that creeping about for nothing. Standing erect and muttering to himself, the wove together the Mind weave that would sweep out and locate any mind similar to his own, responding to the spell and revealing its location to him. Kimmie was a Were-cat, just like him, and he would get a response from her mind. And then the mystery deepened even more.

  According to the spell, Kimmie could not be more than six or seven spans from where he stood. She was literally right on top of him, so close he should have heard her heart beating. How could this be? She was in the room, but she was nowhere to be found! There was no scent, no sight of her, but the spell wasn't woven wrong, and it couldn't lie. Kimmie was in the room. Somewhere.

  Tarrin kept the spell going, moving towards it slowly, cautiously now as his suspicious mind began to consider the possibility of foul play. But he smelled no blood, and no Wikuni on the ship could hurt Kimmie. He stepped in the direction of the spell, having to climb over a stack of boxes and into another small pathway between where they were lashed to the deck, sensing the spell's information. According to the spell, he should be able to reach out and touch Kimmie. She was that close to him. But still, there was no sign of her.

  Wait...not quite. He wasn't reading the spell correctly. Figuratively speaking, he was within reach of her, but his confusion over what he was sensing was keeping him from reading its outcome properly. In a figurative sense, he was within reach of Kimmie, but the spell said that she was below him. She wasn't right on top of him, he was on top of her!

  He looked down at the deck. It was a standard stretch of deck, wooden boards, and he tried to remember if there was another deck below that one, or if it was the bilges.

  That was when he saw it. It was a tiny speck of motion against the deck, up against one of the wooden crates lashed to the deck in the hold. It was a slight motion, like the movement of a small insect, but Tarrin's very sensitive eyes, which were extrememely keyed to detecting motion, picked it up in the gloom. It was a strange motion, a rhythmic kind of swaying, and it was not a way that your standard insect moved. Tarrin split his attention to weave together a spell to create a small, softly glowing ball of light over this paw, and then he knelt and lowered it towards the motion.

  He was almost bowled over. That tiny motion was Phandebrass!

  He had shrunk himself! He was the size of a large bug, not even two fingers tall! And as soon as he lowered the light down, the indescribably minute form of Kimmie darted out from between two crates on the other side, jumping up and down and waving her arms frantically. She too was exceptionally tiny, so small that he couldn't even hear the sounds coming out of her mouth. Given that her lungs and her vocal chords were just as tiny as she was, it was no surprise he couldn't hear any sounds she made.

  "Wha
t in the nine hells happened to you two?" he asked in a quiet tone, unsure whether a loud voice would hurt them.

  Tarrin couldn't understand the response, but the sudden ugly look that Kimmie shot in Phandebrass' direction explained everything. He suppressed the urge to chuckle. "I take it you can't get back to normal?" he asked. Kimmie shook her head vigorously, pointing at Phandebrass with the claws on her paws out. That was not a good sign. Kimmie was livid, and he realized that he'd better do something to fix this before Kimmie lost her composure and decided to take her frustration out on her mentor. "Calm down," he told her, looking at her as he raised his awareness into the Weave, then stared down at her with eyes more attuned to magic than to light. He could see the spell, a Wizard spell, infusing the both of them, causing them to be the size they were. He could tell that, like most Wizard spells, it was operational only as long as it was intact. If he broke the spell, the magic that changed their sizes would be disrupted, and they would return to normal. Wizard magic was like that; where Transmutation was permanent--one of the very few forms of permanent magic a Sorcerer could employ--some transformation spells that were used in Wizardry were permanent only so long as the magic that fueled them was uninterrupted. This was probably one of them.

  "I can break the spell," he told them. "Both of you, move out into the middle of the aisle." It took them a few moments to trek out into the center of the aisle, quite a walk for the two of them, and then Tarrin stood up and backed up step. He looked down at them, not looking at them, but at the magical spell that was causing them to be that size. He couldn't attack the spell directly--it was a different form of magic, after all--but he could attack the link that connected the spell to the source of its power, that other place from which Wizard magic flowed. Spyder had specifically taught him how to do it, how to defeat Wizard spells already cast as well as how to prevent them from casting any spells in the first place. He rose a little higher into the Weave, and once he felt comfortable, he exerted his will against it, causing the Weave itself to pull away from the Wizard spell causing the two of them to be so small. The spell seemed to shudder, resisting the removal of its power, and it actively tried to seek to reestablish that contact. But when the Weave was pulled away from it, the spell could not reach far enough to regain its power. It shuddered as the link it had with that other place was broken, and then the spell dissolved.