The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "I can take care of that," Keritanima said. "Let's tie a note to Sapphire and tell her to fly back to the steamship. I'll write Donovan and tell him to break the steam engine on the third day, so we have a very valid excuse for staying here past our deadline. We can fume and rant and curse at Donovan for not having it working, all the while as he drags his feet on the repairs. I doubt the Sha'Kar have ever seen a steam engine before, so they'll have no idea how long it will take Donovan to fix it. If I even let them anywhere near the steamship, that is," she finished with a sly smile.

  "That's brilliant, Kerri," Dar said appreciatively. "Sneaky and underhanded. Right up your alley."

  "We all do our part," she winked at him.

  "Since they can't see like we can, it would take them even longer to make the repairs," Azakar reasoned, then he closed his mouth and bowed his head.

  "That's true. That'll give us even more excuse to delay the repair. Maybe it won't seem suspicious if we're still here a month from now, because our blind engineers can't see what they're doing and keep messing the engine up."

  "A trifle outlandish, but it may do as a last resort," Dolanna said, then she yawned. "I am sorry, but I really need to go lie down."

  "I think just about everyone here feels the same way, Dolanna," Camara Tal grunted in agreement. "Let's go back to bed and take this up again when most of us can think straight."

  "I say, that's the best idea I've heard yet, it is," Phandebrass agreed.

  They all got up--a bit shakily--and filed towards the door like men and women on the way to their own execution. Keritanima, Miranda, and the Vendari paused long enough for the queen to write her letter to Donovan. Binter helped Keritanima along after she was done, and Sisska decided not to be quite so gentle with Miranda, picking her up like a rag doll and holding her under her arm as she walked after her mate. Miranda didn't struggle, didn't even move, hanging limply in Sisska's massive arm and accepting the rather rough assistance.

  "They must have served them different drinks than they served us," Tarrin mused as Dar, the last out, closed the door with a listless wave to them. "I didn't smell any alcohol."

  "Me either," Kimmie agreed. "Why did you cut me off?"

  "Because Kerri and Allia can understand it when we speak that way," he told her. "The amulets they wear let them hear it where nobody else can. Allia may not have told Kerri yet, and it's not our place to do it. Until I know Kerri knows, we say nothing about last night."

  "Oh. Well, I guess it's good I haven't said anything like that that may embarass us," she chuckled. "I wonder why Allia kept it a secret. She certainly wasn't shy about talking about it this morning."

  "That was because she was talking to me," she said. "Allia won't hide it, but she's not going to cry it from the rooftops either. As far as she's concerned, it's nobody else's business but mine and Kerri's, because we're her brother and sister."

  "Oh. I think I understand." She yawned and stretched. "What are we going to do today?"

  "I think I'm going to take a nap. Until Iselde wakes up, there's not much for us to do but wander around. Where's Sapphire?" Tarrin asked, looking around.

  "I saw her fly into the pool room a while ago," Kimmie said, looking in that direction.

  A little nervous, Tarrin got up and went to check on her. He wasn't sure if Sapphire knew how to swim, and if she fell into the pool, she may be in trouble. He looked in and saw that she was just fine, sitting at the edge of the shallower side of the pool, staring at the water's surface intently. Tarrin knelt down over her and looked too, and saw that she was looking at her reflection in the water. She saw him in the water and craned her neck to look up at him, chirping to him in greeting.

  "I was worried about you," he told her conversationally, patting her lightly on the head. "What are you doing in here by yourself?"

  She looked down at the water again, staring at her reflection. "That's you," he told her, scratching her between the horns. "It's your reflection, little one."

  Sapphire put on the most curious look of concentration. "Shahie," she hissed sibilantly.

  Tarrin gaped at her. She was trying to speak! He could barely make out what she was hissing, but he was certain she was trying to speak her own name. Curious if he was right, he looked down at her reflection and looked into her eyes calmly. "Sapphire," he said very slowly, pronouncing the word carefully.

  "Shashire," she repeated, Tarrin seeing that she was trying to manipulate the scaly lips that surrounded her maw. Wikuni had the same problem, but virtually all of them had a second set of inner lips that allowed them to speak with a full range of sounds. Sapphire wasn't blessed with that, and she was trying to learn how to move her lips to imitate the sounds that the humans and non-humans made, and it wasn't easy for her, for her scaly maw wasn't equipped with prehensile lips as most humanoids were.

  "Sa-Fire," he enunciated.

  Sapphire's eyes became intense. "Sha-Feer. Sha-Fair."

  "I," Tarrin intoned slowly.

  "Sha-Fire," she said.

  "Saaa-phire," he called slowly.

  "Sha-Stha-Stha," she hissed, then she growled in her throat. "Sapphire."

  "That's it! You did it!" Tarrin said in surprise, laughing and picking her up. He twirled around in circles, holding the surpised drake out at arms length.

  "Tarrin? What's going on?" Kimmie asked.

  "Kimmie, come in here quick!" Tarrin shouted. "Sapphire just spoke!"

  "What?" she gasped, then she absolutely raced into the pool room. "She spoke?"

  "Saa-Fire," the drake said slowly, carefully, trying to learn how to make those sounds.

  "By the river's draw!" Kimmie gasped in surprise. "She did speak!" Then she laughed heartily, stopping Tarrin and patting her on the head. "That's incredible, Sapphire! We didn't think you could do it because of the shape of your mouth!"

  "Tha-rihn," she said sedately, trying to speak his name. "Kih-ngee."

  "She needs a little work," Kimmie laughed. "But still, that's amazing!"

  "We knew she was smarter, but I never imagined she'd try to learn how to talk," Tarrin mused, holding the little drake close. "But don't worry, little one. Me and Kimmie, we'll help you learn if that's what you want."

  "Rrrrearn. Sapphire rrr-rrr-rrrrr." She hissed at herself in frustration.

  "Put your tongue behind your teeth, like this," Kimmie said, showing her. "Llllllllearn."

  Sapphire's tongue couldn't cut off all the air the same way Kimmie's tongue could, so the sound she made was rather rasping and sibilant. But it was an L sound. "Rrr-rrrngll," she sounded, then hissed again.

  "She's impatient with herself," Kimmie grinned. "She's alot like you. Go gently, little one. What you're doing isn't easy, especially since your mouth doesn't have a good shape for making the sounds we do. It's going to take you a while."

  "Llllearn. Sapphire rr-rrwan-tah learn."

  "Sapphire wants to learn," Tarrin mused, stroking her side gently. "Well, if you want to learn, we'll teach you."

  Tarrin quite honestly forgot about everything else but the drake, sitting down with her and Kimmie on the bed and teaching her. They taught her all the sounds that she'd have to make using human speech, and let her practice them without piecing them together to form words. Sapphire learned incredibly fast, so fast that Tarrin wasn't sure if it was entirely natural, but then again, what had happened to her when the sixth sui'kun was born wasn't very natural either. Sapphire's mind was still growing, he could see that now, going from having enough intelligence to understand basic Sulasian to starting to become developed enough to begin to branch out on her own, trying to learn human talk. Perhaps what happened on that day had not been a bolt from the blue, but an opening in a levee that gradually allowed a dry lake bed to fill. When Tarrin thought that her intelligence had reached a plateau, it had actually continued to develop. But then again, with everything that had happened, he hadn't had time to teach her any new words, and hadn't been around her closely enough to see that her mind was co
ntinuing to expand.

  Lunch came and went. Servants knocked on the door, but they weren't answered. Dinner came and went as well, and the two Were-cats continued working with the drake until she could make all the sounds she needed to know to speak. She had a very sibilant accent, due to the shape of her mouth and tongue, but she was understandable. And she could speak all the words she knew, knowing many more words than Tarrin and Kimmie taught her, they found out. She even had a basic understanding of the structure and grammar of Sulasian. All that time she had been sitting around listening to them, to their friends, she had done more than listen. She had been learning. And Tarrin suspected that Sapphire was more intelligent now than he was.

  "Tarrin," she said confidently, mastering the word, looking up at him. "Right?"

  "Very right," he said in wonder, staring down at her proudly. "You're amazing, Sapphire. I'm lucky you're my friend."

  "Lucky," she nodded, a bit arrogantly. But he guessed she deserved a little arrogance. She was the only speaking drake he'd ever heard of. "Teach more?"

  "As soon as we eat something. Aren't you hungry?"

  "Hungry. Yes. Want beef."

  "I can't Conjure anything for us right now, Sapphire," he said. "These Sha'Kar don't know I'm a Druid, and I don't want them to find out. So I can't use my Druidic abilities."

  "Enemies?"

  "No, they're not exactly enemies, but rememeber when I used magic to speak with you? How I said that you had to be careful around new people until you were sure of them?"

  Sapphire nodded.

  "Well, I'm not sure of the Sha'Kar yet, so I'm not ready to trust them."

  "Understand. Keep silent."

  "That may be a good idea," he said. "The Sha'Kar don't know that you understand human speech. They don't know how smart you are, and I don't think I want them to know."

  "No understand them."

  "They speak a different language than what I'm teaching you."

  "Teach. Use magic." Tarrin stared at her in surprise. "Use magic Tarrin use on Kimmie. Use on me."

  Tarrin was stunned. Even he hadn't thought of that! Kimmie gaped at the drake, then laughed ruefully. "Damn, but that's brilliant!" she said. "I never thought of doing that!"

  "Sapphire go with Sha'Kar and listen. Can hear what Tarrin needs to know."

  Tarrin gaped at his pet in awe. That was very very clever. He should have thought of that!

  "Outsmarted by our pet!" Kimmie laughed, flopping back on the bed. "But a pet no longer," she added. "Sapphire stopped being a pet the minute she was smart enough to understand us." She sat up. "Will the spell work on her, Tarrin?"

  "Actually, it will," he said. "It's Priest magic, Kimmie. The only thing it requires is that the recipient of the spell be intelligent enough to understand, and Sapphire obviously is." He looked down at her. "It's going to take time."

  "Dow-Dolanna say have time," she said calmly. "Camara say all time in world. Teach. Teach now, take less time. Teach later, take more time."

  "She's got you there," Kimmie grinned.

  "I don't have to do it alone," he told his mate. "All I have to do is cast the spell, and anyone can teach her."

  "And the more people we tell, the better chance it has of getting discovered by the Sha'Kar," she said pointedly.

  "That's a good point. Let's only bring in Allia, Kerri, and Dolanna. They know how to keep a secret."

  "And Dolanna and Kerri can cast the same spell."

  "They can," he nodded in agreement. "So can Allia, for that matter, once we teach it to her."

  "Teach," Sapphire said impatiently.

  "Let's eat first," he told her. "I'm hungry."

  "Teach after."

  "I'll start teaching you as soon as we finish eating, I promise," he said, scratching her between the horns in the manner she so favored.

  "I just thought of something," Kimmie laughed. "We spent all day teaching her the hard way when we could have used magic in the first place."

  "That wouldn't have helped her," Tarrin said. "The spell only aids in learning knowledge. Sapphire had to learn the skill of making human sound. There's a big difference. The spell can't teach things that depend on acting them out, like learning how to dance or speak. You can only learn things that don't depend on it, like languages or history or things like that."

  "I didn't know that," Kimmie said, crawling out of bed. "Well, let's go raid their kitchen, and get back to work. I wonder if the others are up by now."

  "As bad as they looked? I doubt it," Tarrin chuckled. "I'll bet my tail they'll all stay in bed until tomorrow morning."

  "In Allia's case, she may have company," Kimmie sniggered.

  "After two years without a lover, she may make up for lost time," Tarrin said absently, hoisting Sapphire up onto his shoulder.

  After raiding the kitchen, Tarrin locked himself away with Kimmie and Sapphire and began. The Priest spell of learning still worked, and he cast it on Sapphire and started teaching her not Sha'Kar, but Sulasian. He and Kimmie took turns working with her, expanding her vocabulary to make her more fluent. Sapphire understood the need for it, the need to use the common language that all Tarrin's group used when speaking among themselves, and since she was already so far along, it would only take a couple of sessions to make her fully fluent. Late into the night they worked, far beyond when Tarrin and Kimmie both wanted to stop and go to bed, but the drake pestered them and demanded that they keep going until she was too tired to continue. So Tarrin and Kimmie took turns napping while the other continued to teach, Tarrin having to recast the spell every few hours as it started losing its potency.

  By sunrise, Sapphire finally declared that it was time to stop. Then again, after nearly fifteen hours of constant teaching, much more than the two or three hour sessions that Tarrin usually employed, Sapphire was completely fluent in Sulasian. She had the same grasp of the language that Tarrin, being the native speaker, had, and the full day of practice had cleaned up her sibilant accent somewhat. She was still obviously going to have that accent, she always would, but it wasn't quite so bad. It didn't make her words unintelligible as it had when she first began.

  "I am tired," Sapphire said. Tarrin looked at her. Even though he and Kimmie had taught her, it still felt a little wild that she could speak now. "We can go to bed now?"

  "If you want," Tarrin told her.

  "I haven't stayed up so long before," she hissed, backsliding a bit into her bad accent. "I didn't know it would make me feel so lethargic." Then she yawned, showing off her mouth full of pointy teeth. "Is there anything else you need to teach me about Sulasian?"

  "Not that I can think of," Tarrin told her.

  "Then we can go to bed." She looked at them. "And keep it down, will you? You two are worse than a pair of rabbits."

  Kimmie blushed furiously. "Well, we thought you were a pet," she shot back.

  "You're already going to lay eggs, Kimmie. Why keep at him? He's served his purpose."

  "Our species enjoys the act," she told her.

  "Obviously," she sniffed, unfurling her wings. "Please enjoy it a bit more quietly today, for the sake of a good sleep, at least," she said, then she flapped across the room to her small bed, and then curled up atop it. "Good night."

  "Good night, Sapphire," they told her in unison as she closed her eyes.

  "It's going to take me a while to get used to that," Kimmie said in the unspoken manner of the Cat, then she too yawned, showing off her impressive fangs. "What time is it?"

  "Sunrise, or some time past it," he answered in the same way. "I should start calling her the little general. She certainly is bossy."

  "She's not usually like that," Kimmie said. "I think she's just so hungry to learn, it's making her act like this."

  "Well, let's get some sleep. I have the feeling that today's going to be a long day."

  In a way, it was a long day for Tarrin. Waking up only after about four hours, he got up and took care of something that had honestly slipped his mind in S
apphire's revelation, and that was send her off to the ship with the letter to Donovan. Luckily for him she was already awake when he woke up, gnawing at some leftover roasted bird that Tarrin had brought from the kitchen and set on the table. It was much easier to explain to her what he needed her to do now that she could understand what he was saying so clearly, and agreed to do it for him without complaint or argument. "You are my friend, Tarrin," she told him simply. "Don't friends help one another?"

  Sapphire was quite an individual, Tarrin mused after he took her outside and let her go, told her to come back whenever she felt ready, then started wandering the massive palace, looking for Iselde. He found her in a room on the fourth floor, a music conservatory, one of the few rooms that lacked the subtly overwhelming art and decoration prevalant in all the other rooms. She was practing playing a stringed instrument that looked vaguely like a lute, but with nine strings instead of the usual four or five, depending on the type of lute. The room was very plain, with only two padded chairs with no arms and a stand that held parchments of what Iselde called sheet music, as the music was written on the paper as a series of dots on a quintet of horizontal lines.

  Tarrin sat down in the other chair and listened to her play her instrument, and he was impressed. It had a rich timbre, something he wasn't used to hearing, and he realized that the lute's hollow construction gave it that musical quality. Iselde was very good with the instrument, playing a complicated song with alot of counterpoint. He just sat there and listened intently for almost an hour, enjoying her practice, and then when she seemed to be done, she put aside her instrument and they talked.

  Keritanima said they needed to know what the Sha'Kar were like, so Tarrin started with something very basic. He asked her what a day in the life of Iselde was like. She was only too happy to oblige his curiosity, and painted a typical day for him with her words, a day that gave him some insight into the minds of the Sha'Kar. The typical Sha'Kar didn't wake up until about noon. It wasn't that they were lazy, it was that they were descended from a nocturnal race, the Urzani, and still had instinctive tendencies to stay up at night. Humans were diurnal, sleeping at night, so the Sha'Kar split the difference. They rose around noon, and commonly went to bed somewhere between midnight and the false dawn. What some of Tarrin's friends thought was a late night at the feast actually hadn't been for the Sha'Kar.