The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "I won't complain, my heart," Allyn said with a bright smile. "I'll worship your body any time you ask it."

  "I'm asking it."

  "Then let's go," he offered.

  "Sorry, brother. We'll talk in the morning," Allia told him, taking Allyn's hand and leading him towards the door.

  "Man, what a time to not have Rallix around," Keritanima fumed. "I guess I'll just have to go out and look at the stars with you, Dolanna. I can lament over not having my husband here, and you can be my sympathetic ear."

  "So long as you can get me outside," the Sorceress replied. "I do not think I can get across this moving floor without help."

  Keritanima and Dolanna staggered out the door, and left Tarrin and Kimmie sitting, chess game forgotten, staring after them in absolute shock. What in the furies was going on! Keritanima and Dolanna getting drunk? Allia behaving like a Sha'Kar? what on earth caused this to happen? It was so out of character for all three of them! Keritanima would have never gotten drunk. She was too well conditioned to allow herself to lose her self-control. Neither would Dolanna have intentionally gotten drunk. And Allia! It was as if she'd completely shed her Selani reserve, ever since she'd seduced Allyn. Had the Sha'Kar male had such a powerful effect on his sister? She was like a different person! They all were!

  Tarrin looked at Kimmie in confusion, but she looked just as flabbergasted as he was. It was insanity! He was of half a mind to go after them, burn the alcohol out of them, and demand some answers. But that could wait until tomorrow. Besides, he wanted to get them when they were deep in the hangover, so he could punish them that much more.

  It disturbed him, distubed him greatly. But the thing that most disturbed him was Allia. She wasn't acting like herself, and as her best friend, that really worried him. Allia was like steel, unchanging before any force that sought to reshape it. He had never imagined her changing like she had since she met Allyn. Even if she was in love, it seemed wrong for her to speak so informally or behave as she'd been behaving. Even if she was head-over-heels, hopelessly in love with Allyn, her formidable dignity and sense of honor would not allow her to act like she was acting now, and it was a major transgression in the customs in which she'd been raised to laugh in public, or be so informal with strangers. Or even be informal with friends in the presence of strangers. Selani customs were very refined and almost ritualized, and he couldn't even count the number of customs he saw her break in that short conversation. It was almost as if she had abandoned her Selani ways, and was acting like a Sha'Kar.

  That wasn't just frightening to him, or worrisome, or even astounding. That seemed wrong. Now matter how smitten she was or drunk she was, Allia would not act that way in public. It was that simple. It went against everything she was, the very fiber of her being.

  Tarrin's eyes narrowed, the beginnings of suspicion starting to set in his mind. What was really going on around here? Allia would never act like that unless she was being influenced somehow. Had that drug had an effect on her that he hadn't noticed? There hadn't been any of the drug left in her system, though...was its effect lingering?

  Questions, questions, more and more questions. And only time would provide him with answers. He glanced at Kimmie, who looked a little worried, and frowned. Tomorrow morning, he was going to get some answers.

  One way or another.

  Tarrin didn't sleep well that night, since he was so upset and worried by what he'd seen of his friends the night before. He was up before the sun, and for the first time since coming to the island, he walked the streets of the town unaccompanied, exercising his legs and getting some fresh air while he slept. It had rained during the night, leaving the iron fences and the lush grass wet and the white stones cold and slick beneath his feet. There was virtually nobody out except human servants, who were carrying bales of material, baskets of food, or were trundling out to begin a day's work in the fields. Tarrin watched the toil of the humans around them, doing their jobs without their Sha'Kar masters watching over them, and remembered what that servant had told him. That the Sha'Kar were good masters, and they served because it pleased them to serve. But they didn't look very happy now, with resigned looks on their faces as they bent over their heavy toil with a strange sense of reluctant resolve.

  The walk cleared his head a little, and also reminded him about the plan they had. This was the third day, and that meant that today he had to confront the Elders and the Grand and give them his ultimatum. Then they'd make a show of leaving tomorrow, only to return and tell the Sha'Kar that their ship was broken and needed repair. That was the plan as they'd developed it, but now Tarrin wasn't so sure it was going to work. Allia seemed out of control, and Keritanima and Dolanna didn't seem much better. He hadn't talked to the others since the day before, but he hoped that they weren't going to be quite so bad.

  But things weren't out the window yet. Around noon, he would go see his sisters and Dolanna and find out what happened the night before. He may have to kick Allyn out of Allia's chamber, but that was fine by him. He also needed to talk to the others, and find out what they'd discovered.

  Tarrin paused to look between the two hills that formed the valley at the north side of the large, spread-out town, looking up at the volcano. It was still smoking, if only faintly, almost like the snoring of a sleeping giant. It had erupted once since the Sha'Kar had been here, but had lain semi-dormant ever since then.

  "H-Honored one," a young, very pretty girl said with a deep curtsy. Tarrin hadn't noticed her until he was almost on top of her. She was very pretty, very pretty indeed, looking to be about sixteen or so, with a heart-shaped face and dark hair that was long and lustrous. Tarrin noted that she wore only a blue wrap-like skirt, vaguely similar to a kilt or Camara Tal's tripa which left her breasts bare. That was the first time he'd seen a display of overt nudity among the humans, but the girl didn't seem to be self-conscious about her lack of raiment. Tarrin's eyes locked for a moment on the elegant tattoo just over her left breast, the symbol of the house she served. She was very pale, telling him that she spent most of her time inside, and she was carrying a finely woven wicker basket full of what looked like cabbage leaves.

  "Forget your top?" he asked her conversationally.

  She blushed slightly. "My Master prefers me like this, honored one," she replied. "He says my beauty shouldn't be hidden behind clothes."

  "You're the first human I've met who has an employer with such forceful opinions," he remarked. "And you're wearing clothes now."

  She blushed a little deeper. "I have to take it off when I return to the manor," she told him. "My Master likes his view of me to be unimpeded."

  Either they'd been told to speak to him truthfully, or she was so conditioned to speak truth, even at personal embarassment, that it compelled her to do so.

  "Well, to each his own, I guess," Tarrin said. "What are you carrying?"

  "Lettuce, honored one," she said, holding up the basket. "For the morning salad."

  Tarrin leaned down to look at the lettuce, but what he was really doing was getting his nose closer to the girl. That close to her, he could smell Sha'Kar all over her. Her "master" obviously was one of the ones that preferred the company of human females. Actually, she had more than one scent on her, and to his surprise, one of them was female. That put him a bit aback. Tarrin's Cat instincts precluded him from even thinking about that kind of unusual situation, for concepts of same-sex intimacy didn't exist in the more primitive mindset of the Cat. They existed, and were even natural, in sentient beings, however. Such acts were considered unnatural in Ungardt, but the Sulasians were slightly more progressive, and the Arkisians and Arakites openly accepted such behavior. Tarrin had been taught to be tolerant as a boy, since his mother was much more open-minded that most Ungardt, and had he been human, he may have been able to rationalize that concept.

  One thing did stand out in his mind as he surreptitiously sniffed the girl. The Sha'Kar used her for pleasure, and the mingling and freshness of the scents to
ld him that they had all used her at the same time. They'd had turns with her, like they were marauding brigands raping a defenseless village girl. The Sha'Kar were a confusing paradox of conflicting impressions. Some of their behavior infuriated him, but they were just so likable. Iselde was a rather friendly girl that Tarrin had to admit that he liked a little bit. But this seemed...decadent. He knew that the Sha'Kar took liberties with their human servants, but this seemed a little bit too much.

  Sometimes, it was what one didn't see that revealed the true nature of things. Tarrin's chance encounter with the girl showed him exactly how the Sha'Kar felt about their human servants. They were objects to them. Playtoys, to do the work that was beneath them, and entertain them in whatever manner they chose the rest of the time.

  The girl saw his eyes narrow, and she gave him a very fearful expression, dropping her basket and staring up at him like a fawn staring into the eyes of a hungry wolf. Tarrin looked down at her felt a seething, towering fury rise up in him, something he had to crush under his will almost immediately. It didn't matter how nice the Sha'Kar were or how interesting they were or how friendly they were. Not now. He couldn't leave this alone.

  "Did they force you?" he asked in a calm, deadly quiet voice.

  "H-honored one?" she asked in fear.

  "I can smell them on you, girl. Several of them. Did they rape you?"

  She gaped at him, putting a hand to her chest in surprise. "We live to serve, honored one," she said. "The serving is all."

  "They passed you around like a dinner plate, little one," he said in a seething voice. "You say you were willing?"

  That got a reaction out of her. She flared up a moment, her eyes turning indignant, and then her anger broke. She began to cry uncontrollably, putting her hands over her face and turning away from him. Tarrin felt a little foolish. Here he went and made her cry. He put a paw on her shoulder, and before he realized it, she had turned and buried her face in his chest, sobbing in heaving shudders.

  What was wrong with him, he wondered? She was a human, a stranger. He shouldn't give a damn one way another about her. She was a stranger. His own bad experience with being a slave hardened him to the outside world, but it had also softened him to those who suffered the same plight. He had been too angry, too full of hate when he was in Yar Arak to feel as he did now. The time with Jesmind and Kimmie, the time to conquer some of his ferality had changed his outlook on such things. The Sha'Kar were slavers, the worst kind, for their slaves knew without any doubt that their fate was sealed. There was no escape from the island, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If they did run away, their masters would just use Sorcery to track them down, and the punishment could very well make death look more favorable than being recaptured. To the Sha'Kar, it would be no different than putting down a sick animal. That was all they saw when they looked at their servants. Objects to play with, workhorses to do the work that was beneath their dignity. And they were just humans. Sheep, Iselde had hinted some Sha'Kar regarded their servants. Sheep to slaughter when they were no longer useful.

  Dolanna preached delicacy. Tarrin couldn't forget that together, the Sha'Kar were more powerful than he was. He couldn't let his anger rule him now. He couldn't lose his temper and do something stupid. If he turned the Sha'Kar against him, they would defeat him if it came to a fight. For one of the very rare times since turning Were, the human in him managed to take control of the Cat, to conquer the outrage and the indignation that it felt at the situation, to calm it down and explain that this was not the time or the place. He had to choose his battleground carefully if he wanted to do anything about this. This was not the time for wild rampaging. This was the time for careful, cautious, delicate maneuvering. This was time to stalk, not to pounce. The pouncing would come later.

  Tarrin vowed that to himself. When he left that island, there would be no servants left behind to continue their hopeless bondage. If he had to take them all with him, then so be it. If he had to wipe the Sha'Kar off the island in an orgy of violence and bloodshed, then so be it. One way or another, things were going to change for these poor, defenseless people.

  And in this little one, Tarrin could sense that change. He had been too emotional to feel it before now, but now that he had his paws on her, it was as clear to him as the ringing of a bell by his ear.

  The girl had Druidic potential. Considerable potential.

  That was two Druids he'd come to meet in a matter of days, when he'd not come across a single untrained Druid before. Was this place making the humans Druidically apt?

  One of them was in Arlan's house, and within easy reach. But this one, this little one, she was in another house, outside of his view, where something may happen to her. He could leave the redhead where she was, but not this one. He had a duty to try to help her, because she was a sister to Fae-da'Nar, an honored Druid. The Were-cat in him wouldn't let her go back to that house where they used her for whatever depraved entertainments pleased them at the moment. No, this one, he had to bring home. They were abusing her where she was now, and he would not abide allowing a Druid to be abused. Everything that Triana taught him rebelled against that idea. This time, he had to do something. He just had to.

  It shouldn't be that hard. He was sui'kun, after all, that alone should be enough to convince her master to give her to him. And since he was already upset and outraged at how they were using her, he'd have plenty of steam behind his words to convey his displeasure to the man.

  "Gently now, little one," he soothed, patting her back with his paw. "Take me to your master. Now."

  "I-I-I don't want to," she hiccupped in a small voice.

  "I'm not asking you, little one. I'm telling you," he said in a steely voice, a voice that she could not hear and willingly disobey without wetting herself in terror over what he may do to her if she refused. He took off his vest and draped it over her shoulders gently. "Take me to your master."

  She looked up at him, touching the leather vest with her fingers before pulling it around her, and smiled up at him with such a heartbreakingly somber, wan smile that it nearly made him fly off the handle and kill every Sha'Kar he could find.

  The basket left behind, forgotten, the girl clutched the vest around her like it was a robe made of gold and led him along the white stone pathways. She took him to one of the largest estates on the island, fully three times the size of Arlan's estate, with a massive main mansion and eight buildings arrayed behind it, with a very large swath of farmland hemmed in the fence beyond them. Tarrin focused his anger into a tight, controlled fury, like the cold anger he'd felt when Jegojah had revealed Faalken's undead body the last time they fought. This was no time to lose control of himself and slaughter everyone in the estate. He was so focused he didn't even pay attention as the girl led him in through a modest entrance in the back of the house, through a kitchen staffed with handsome men and pretty women, all of which, Tarrin noticed, were wearing clothes. Up a majestic set of stairs covered with mother-of-pearl, along a passageway with beaten gold tiles paving the floor. She led him right to a door layered with gold and with gems encrusted in it, and pointed with a shaking finger. "He's inside, honored one," she quavered.

  Tarrin put a paw on the door and pushed, but it was locked. Bound by some kind of spell. Not feeling like bothering with the pleasantries, Tarrin took a step back, extended the claws on his paws, and then drove them into the door. He gritted his teeth and growled savagely as his inhuman strength assaulted the door, until the magic holding it closed simply could not resist the raw power he exerted against it. In a horrific squeal or tearing metal, Tarrin ripped the door off its hinges, pulling it right out of the wall. He tossed it aside almost negligently, its loud bang echoing down the silent corridors of the huge mansion.

  Inside the room, twice as large as Arlan's chamber, a Sha'Kar male and female sat up in their immense bed and stared in shocked horror as the Were-cat ducked his head and stepped through the gaping wound in the wall, his face cold and his eyes flat and dang
erous. The male was one of the old ones, an Ancient, but the Sha'Kar female with him looked to be one of the youngers. The male was handsome, the female beautiful, and they gaped at him like he was a Gorgon rampaging through their bedroom.

  "H-Honored one?" the male asked in surprise and dismay. "What is wrong?"

  Tarrin beckoned at the serving girl in the hallway imperiously. She looked hesitant, but the look in his eyes made her obey him against her own will. She shuffled into the room slowly, and did nothing but clutch at the vest like it was some kind of magical armor and stare at the floor.

  "She is yours?" Tarrin asked in a deadly voice.

  "Did she insult you, honored one?" the man asked with sudden cold fury in his voice. "I assure you, I'll punish her in the most severe manner."

  The girl gasped and broke into tears, taking a few steps backwards, trying to reach the door--

  the Sha'Kar male narrowed his eyes, and Tarrin felt clearly him weaving a spell. "Pain," he said in a soft tone.

  The girl suddenly screamed like someone put a branding iron to her. She dropped to the ground and writhed convulsively, shrieking as if the man was standing over her with that branding iron, shoving it in her belly. She writhed and clutched at her chest, beating her feet against the carpeted floor, froth bubbling up from her mouth as shrieks of agony were torn from her. "Stop!" Tarrin shouted as the girl continued to scream, the screaming getting into his ears, echoing in his mind, striking him in his aroused anger and triggering his protective instincts. She was a Druid, a sister of the Were-kin, and he had to protect her. "Stop it!" Tarrin shouted forcefully at him, clenching his paws into fists as his eyes erupted into the greenish aura of his fury, and then turned white as he started making his connection to the Weave. His vision hazed over with red as the blood pounded behind his eyes, as the fury, the rage boiled up in him and threatened to spill over and send him out of control.

  "I--said--STOP IT!!!" he shouted in a voice that suddenly took on the power of his magic. Tarrin's paws limned over in Magelight as he gripped High Sorcery in a crushing grasp, then turned and assaulted the Sha'Kar with the terrible might of his full power. He had never attacked another Sorcerer before, but he instinctively knew what to do. He smothered over the Sha'Kar with his power, finding his link to the Weave, and began to squeeze it like a boa constrictor would squeeze a meal. Tarrin's power quickly and thoroughly overwhelmed the weaker Sorcerer, severing his connection to the Weave. Tarrin kept his power over the man like a shielding blanket, preventing him from reestablishing his connection to the Weave as the girl stopped writhing, coughing and sputtering between sobs, curling up on the floor in a fetal position. He wasn't sure when or how he did it, but he had the man out of his bed, his naked body pressed up against the wall behind his bed, like an invisible, giant hand were crushing him into the stone. In that moment of fury, when he had the man under his control, Tarrin felt the powerful urge, compulsion, desire, need, to kill the man, to vent his fury and make him feel what he had just put that poor girl through, to slowly tear him apart and let his screams echo like sweet music in his ears. But that knowledge in the back of his mind stayed him, reminded him that individually, he was more than a match for any Sha'Kar, but together, they could defeat him. This was not the time for mindless retaliation.