The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  The wait seemed to be over when Grand Syllis stood up, then used Sorcery to create a platform of Air upon which to stand, which rose him over his chair and made him easily visible. He then augmented his voice with Sorcery so he could be easily heard by the thousand or so assorted Sha'Kar and humans, Sorcerers and servants. "Dear friends, for the first time since coming here, we find ourselves entertaining guests," he called. "And not just ordinary guests! The Goddess has blessed us today with the arrival of Tarrin, a sui'kun, a new honored one to replace those who died in the terrible tragedy of the Breaking.

  "We gather today to celebrate the arrival of him and his servants and friends, and celebrate the coming of his unborn child. We gather to lift our voices to the sky and sing our thanks to the Goddess for saving us from the Breaking, and pray that soon the Ward will fail and allow us to return to her service. We gather to celebrate our gilded cage, this wondrous place that has sustained us and protected us during our long exile. We gather to celebrate!"

  There was a long period of clapping, that seemed polite, but not overly enthusiastic. Then again, Sha'Kar didn't seem to be the type that got too emotional about those kinds of things. For them, maybe what he was seeing was enthusiastic.

  "So, I'll not keep you sitting there with your mouths watering, my friends," he called. "Let us bow our heads in prayer to the Goddess." Tarrin noticed that all of them bowed their heads, and everyone at his table did so as well, either out of faith or consideration for Sha'Kar ways. "O wondrous Goddess, we thank you for your guidance and your protection, and your actions that brought us to this place. We lament that we are beyond your voice, but hope our voices can reach you outside the Ward. We await anxiously the day when the Ward is lowered and we are again blessed by your light and love. Until that day, we abide here resolutely, still your faithful children. Please accept our humble thanks for sending your chosen one to us to give us new hope and a new sense of purpose. Please bless this feast and those who partake in it, and please continue to watch over us and provide for us."

  All the Sha'Kar lifted their heads, and Tarrin followed suit. "I won't hold you hungry any longer, dear friends," Syllis said with a grand smile. "Let us feast!"

  As feasts went, Tarrin wasn't terribly impressed. All the food was spiced, turning even bland potatos into something that could be potentially dangerous. What was worse, the only meats on the table were fish, crab, mutton, those long-tailed birds, and rabbit. Some dishes were hot, some were sugary, some were heavily spiced with tastes Tarrin had never experienced before, buttery and tangy and sweet and acidic and sour. Tarrin didn't stay with any one dish, as the two human females that were serving him kept filling his plate with small amounts of everything on the table, for him to sample and decide which pleased him. Tarrin felt a little annoyed at the two humans, since he could serve himself, but Dolanna kept giving him stern looks throughout the meal, reminding him that this was the Sha'Kar way, and he'd best not start causing a scene in front of all of them. Tarrin did, however, decide that all this picking was too irritating, and ordered the two humans to fill his plate with the peppered fish. They seemed taken aback at that, but he calmly told them that he wasn't of a race they knew, and he ate quite a bit more than the Sha'Kar or humans.

  The eating took up the better part of two hours, as the sun set and the night took over. The Council paused in their feast to use Sorcery to create an array of glowing lights that hung over the tables, lighting them as brightly as the sun had. After the meal seemed to be over, servants began clearing away the leftovers and carrying the trays of food out of the estate, towards the other estataes, and the Sha'Kar began to wander from table to table and talk among themselves. Quite a line formed before Tarrin's table, as the Sha'Kar tried to meet him and talk to him. Tarrin was assaulted by names from the many Sha'Kar, most of them fluid and musical, with alot of vowels, who bowed or curtsied and shook his paw and smiled at him and acted like he was some kind of great celebrity. Some of them were nervous speaking with him, and their hands shook as they offered them to him, but all of them spoke formally yet with warm undertones, as if they were trying to make it sound like they'd been Tarrin's best friend since the beginning of time. Tarrin realized that they wanted the other Sha'Kar to think that Tarrin had taken a liking to them, a fact that would gain them considerable prestige. He remembered that Iselde said that she and Allyn had become quite popular since Tarrin had decided to stay in their house. They didn't seem to have more than a moment to speak, as another Sha'Kar was pushing the first out of the way before they could organize their thoughts, but they did manage to ask questions. Surprisingly, they wern't about Tarrin, they were about the outside. How many Towers were still standing, how the katzh-dashi had fared in their absence, what had happened in the world after the Breaking and if the world knew they were there. More than one asked that, if the katzh-dashi had tried to find a way to get them out of their gilded cage, as Syllis put it.

  Speaking to so many of them, Tarrin had a chance to study the Sha'kar, and he wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Their postures were stiff, and their expressions were haughty when they weren't directly before him. They gave stony looks to the servants, when they noticed them at all. They came across to Tarrin as exceedingly arrogant people, putting on a good face to impress him.

  Tarrin also noticed that again, he seemed to be the sole focus of attention. Some of the Sha'Kar did meet and talk politely with Keritanima, Dolanna, Dar, and Allia as they got up and introduced themselves at many of the tables, but the Sha'Kar wouldn't even look at Camara Tal, Azakar, Phandebrass, or Miranda. They would simply turn their heads if one of them tried to address them, pretending that they didn't exist.

  One of the very youngest Sha'Kar, a boy that looked to be about eight, bowed clumsily to him at his parents' prompting and introduced himself. The boy was quite cute, with a wide-cheeked face and a sharp nose, and brilliant green eyes. He'd be a handsome adult. "My-my name is Andalan, honored one," he stammered nervously.

  Tarrin put his cheek in his paw and regarded the youngster with a bit of amusment. After about an hour of shaking hands and talking briefly with Sha'Kar who seemed bent on showing him how polite and courteous and socially important they were, Tarrin found the boy's honest anxiety to be quite refreshing. "You know," he said slowly, looking at Kimmie, "he's about the same size as Jasana."

  "He's almost as adorable as she is," Kimmie agreed with a smile.

  "Hello there, Andalan," Tarrin said with a gentle smile, reaching down and lifting the boy's chin with a finger that was nearly as thick around as the boy's wrist. "You have pretty eyes, Andalan," Tarrin told him lightly. "They remind me of my daughter."

  The boy looked stymied, but the looks on the faces of his parents were almost triumphant. "We didn't know you had other children, honored one," the mother said, a rather slim female that was tall, wearing a glittering gold dress that was seductively opaque, showing off her silhouette against the lights behind her.

  "I have two," Tarrin told her. "A daughter and a son."

  "It's unfortuante you couldn't bring them with you," the father said, wearing a plain white robe that seemed to almost glow with its snowy purity.

  "Their mothers would have been very cross with me if I had," Tarrin chuckled.

  "Your wife isn't their mother?" the woman asked, a bit shocked.

  "I'm not his wife. I'm his mate," Kimmie corrected. "It's something of an informal marriage that will last as long as both of us are comfortable with one another. Marriage isn't a custom among our kind, my Lady. We don't have the temperment to spend all our lives with just one mate. We're a bit too volatile," she grinned. "As time passes, me and Tarrin will start to wear on one another, and we'll have to split up for a while. It's how we are."

  "Oh. Well, please forgive me," the lady said with a deep curtsy. "I guess it was arrogant of me to think of you in frame with our customs."

  "It's something of a universal failing, my Lady," Tarrin told her. "To anyone, his customs seem to be
the best, so why shouldn't everyone else be the same?"

  "Well said, honored one," the father nodded.

  These two seemed to be quite a bit more aware of things than most of the other Sha'Kar. The woman was the very first to admit to her arrogance, and seemed a bit more open-minded than the other Sha'Kar. The father seemed to be much like his mate. "What are your names?" he asked.

  "I'm Trevan Andiari, honored one," the man said with a bow.

  "Tarielle Andiari," the woman said with a deep curtsy.

  Tarrin noticed that peculiarity with the Sha'Kar. Female names always seemed to end with a vowel, either e, a, or i, and male names with n. Tarrin guessed that his own name seemed proper to them, since it also ended with n, and probably felt the same about the names of Keritanima, Dolanna, and Allia. Dar's name probably seemed unusual to them, and he wasn't sure if they realized that the rest of his group had names. All of them who spoke called everyone else the party his servants, and he'd gotten tired of correcting them.

  "It's good to meet you," Tarrin told them.

  "The honor is ours, honored one," Trevan bowed.

  He wanted to talk with them some more, but they were effectively bulled out of his presence by the Sha'Kar who had yet to meet him. He did mark their names in his mind as Sha'Kar he intended to get to know, then returned to idle boredom accepting flowery greetings, shaking hands, and enduring attempts for the Sha'Kar to impress him into showing them more than just idle politeness. The tactic that the Andiaris had employed to garner his interest had to have been circulated among those who had yet to greet him, for most of them immediately congratulated Kimmie on her coming child, and tried to work around to asking Tarrin if he had other children.

  After an almost insufferably long time, Tarrin finally ran out of hands to shake and greetings to accept. After all the Sha'Kar had greeted him, the fifty or so human Sorcerers finally shook his paw and bowed to him, and he got a chance to speak to them. They were very polite and lively, alot like the Sha'Kar, but they lacked that haughty expression and the stiff frame. The humans were much more relaxed, more animated, and weren't quite so worshipful of him. They did show him respect, but their smiles weren't forced. He responded by being a bit more open with them than he had been with the Sha'Kar.

  While Tarrin was greeting the human Sorcerers, servants cleared the tables away from the middle of the lawn, and Sha'Kar stood on tables to one side with instruments and began playing a light, delicately complicated song. It was strange music, with a complicated harmony, but it was quite lovely. Sha'Kar moved out into the clearing and began to dance, as those not dancing broke into large groups and talked among themselves. Sha'Kar would wander from group to group engaging in the many different conversations, and a group would often change all its membership over time as the originals left and new Sha'Kar joined to take their places. The dancing they did was very stately, very dignified, a kind of ritualized dance with a male and a female that was very structured. Everyone was moving in exactly the same manner, with exceptional grace and ability, a perfectly synchronized spectacle that moved in time with the music.

  To his surprise, the music and the dancing and the food were starting to have an effect on Tarrin, and he began to relax a little. So far, nothing had happened that had outraged him, and the Sha'Kar had proven that though they seemed arrogant, they were very polite and didn't clamor around him harassing him with endless questions. Almost as if they were told that once they greeted him, to leave him alone. Tarrin found himself with only Kimmie for company, as all the others were out mingling with the Sha'Kar and the humans, trying to get to know them, as Keritanima told them to do. Camara Tal, Phandebrass, and Azakar were talking with the servants, Dar with the human Sorcerers, and Keritanima and Dolanna were circulating in the groups of Sha'Kar who were talking. Miranda was with Binter and Sisska at the fringes of things, and to his surprise, Allia was dancing with Allyn out in the lawn. She performed their dance flawlessly, and was actually smiling. She looked to be having a good time.

  The music and dancing and talking went on well into the night, as Tarrin stayed at his table, not quite willing to go out there and get mugged by well-wishing Sha'Kar. His nerves probably wouldn't be able to take so many strangers surrounding him, reaching out to him, it would probably be a bit too much. So he and Kimmie sat at the table watching things go on, and Tarrin noticed that the Grand and his Council were staying well away from the Were-cats. They were down in the throng, talking to the others, and it was something not lost on Tarrin. The Grand didn't want to get anywhere near him just now. Tarrin knew that his presence seemed to unsettle the Grand, probably because of the Firestaff. The Grand hadn't so much as talked to him during the feast,and neither did any of the Council. He knew he wasn't finding anything out, but everyone else was down there, and they'd probably have a better chance at it than him anyway. The Sha'Kar were too overwhelmed by his presence to make much sense when he did try to talk to them, too busy trying to make themselves look important to say anything that Tarrin wanted to hear. He realized that if he wanted to find anything out from the Sha'Kar, he'd have to talk to them privately, where the rest of their society wasn't there watching on and making the person he was talking to concentrate more on impressing them than answering his questions.

  As midnight came and went, the feast died down, until the Grand announced that it was over. To his surprise, Tarrin had actually had a decent time. It had been a little boring sitting at his table all night, but the music had been interesting and new, and Kimmie's witty conversation kept him engaged through the night. He thought it was going to be a chore, and the part about meeting everyone had been, but the rest of the time actually wasn't that bad at all. He left the feast with his friends and his host family in good spirits, a little tired though, and ready to go back and get some rest.

  Tarrin and Kimmie talked about what they noticed and what they saw during the feast until they went to sleep, but they found that they'd seen more or less the same things. They were awakened in the morning when Allia came into their chamber, singing lightly to herself and looking very content, wearing nothing but a very loosely tied silk robe that threatened to fall off of her at any moment. Tarrin knew that Allia only sang when she was very happy, almost like when a cat only purred when it was content, for singing was a form of worship to Fara'Nae. It was not done when the Selani's heart wasn't in it.

  "You're in a good mood this morning, sister," Tarrin told her as he sat up in the bed, dislodging his mate. Kimmie grumbled in her sleep, then rolled over and wrapped her tail around his waist.

  "I had a wonderful time last night," she told him with bright eyes, covering the considerable distance between the door and the bed as she spoke.

  "I saw. You and Allyn danced all night."

  "He is a good dancer," she said with a smile.

  Tarrin looked closely at her. The way her posture softened when she spoke of him told him more than he was ready to accept. He gaped at her. "You like Allyn?" he asked her.

  She gave him a flash of irritation. "He is a sweet boy," she said. "He's very kind and attentive to me. I've never been courted before. I find the custom very pleasant," she added with a warm, slow smile. "I rewarded him for his attentions last night," she announced with a slightly satisfied look about her.

  "You slept with him?"

  "Yes," she admitted. "And he may be young, but he knows how to pleasure a woman," she sighed lustily.

  Tarrin laughed, making Kimmie grumble more. "I didn't think you'd be taken with him that much," he told her.

  "It's been nearly two years since I've had a lover, brother," she told him. "Humans are too unattractive and boorish to be a good lover. But Allyn is handsome and kind, he's very intelligent and engaging, he gives me all his attention, and he's an exceptionally good bedmate. I'm quite taken with him."

  "You may find his attention wane a bit now that he's gotten what he's after," Tarrin chuckled.

  "Posh," she sniffed. "I know how to keep him interested
in me, brother. I've got him firmly in hand."

  "If you two are going to keep me awake, at least speak in a language I can understand so I don't miss anything!" Kimmie growled from the bed.

  "Forgive me, Kimmie," Allia said in Sulasian. "I was telling Tarrin about last night."

  "Allia got tired of Allyn following her around, so she slept with him to make him go away," Tarrin teased, grinning at his sister.

  "Posh. I slept with him to keep him from losing interest in me," she corrected lightly.

  "He's just a kid, Allia."

  "Young males are more energetic in bed, so long as they have enough experience," Allia said with a wicked little smile. "Besides, he's only two years younger than me."

  "He looks alot younger," Kimmie mused.

  "The harshness of the desert does not show on him as it does on me," she said simply. "Had I been raised here, I would be a soft and fat as these Sha'Kar." She laughed. "Allyn was shocked once he had me out of my clothes. He has never seen muscle on one that looks as we before. He found it very sexy."

  "So, Allyn has himself a buff studette," Kimmie grinned with a wink, rolling over on the bed so she was on her belly, facing Allia with her chin on her paws.

  "A what?" Allia asked in confusion.

  "A muscled playmate in bed," Tarrin translated into Selani.

  "Oh. Yes, he does," she admitted shamelessly. "I have never shared a bed with someone so soft before. I thought I may be repelled by his weakness, but actually, I found it rather exciting."