The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "Circumstances have changed," Dolanna said grimly. "If Allia completely betrays us, then we do not have much time. The Council will know we suspect they are lying about the Firestaff and will know we intend to discover the truth. So we must move quickly, before they can find out what Allia knows and move against us."

  "Just the point," Tarrin sighed.

  "Then let's just shut Allia up," Camara Tal said with an ugly tone.

  "No," Tarrin said. "Leave her alone, Camara. Allia may have left us, but she can't abandon her feelings for us that quickly, no matter how much she likes Allyn. She knows that anything she says to him will end up in the Council's ears. She's no fool. She'll keep quiet, at least for now. But they'll get to her eventually. I'm counting on it," he said in a fierce voice.

  Kimmie and Keritanima looked at Tarrin strangely. Tarrin obviously had some kind of a plan, and it looked like he wasn't going to clue them in on it.

  "What matters right now is to learn as much as we can before they can get Allia to talk," he told them. "Because when they do, they're going to discover that I'm a Druid. And when that happens, there's no telling how severely they're going to react to the news. Their sense of security over the fact that they can handle me is going to disappear when they find that out. I don't think they're going to be quite so willing to let me run around when they find out."

  That made them a little quiet and sober.

  "Now listen to me," he said calmly, yet intensely. "I don't want anyone going around alone. Not now. Everyone will have someone with them all the time. And I mean all the time. You're going to have to double up in the rooms, and don't even go to the bathroom unless you're in pairs. Pick a partner, and absolutely do not let him or her out of your sight. Do you understand?"

  "Why is it so important, Tarrin?" Dar asked.

  "Because, if I'm right, these Sha'Kar play dirty," Tarrin said with a grim look. "Dolanna."

  "Yes, dear one?"

  "I want you to check the others for evidence of Mind weaves every few hours. They always leave a lingering trace behind. I want you to check for tampering."

  "I--" Dolanna said, then she gasped. "Allia!"

  Tarrin nodded grimly. "I think she's close enough to being Sha'Kar for them to get to her," he said, revealing his suspicions at last. "She can't be that much different from them, not different enough to be immune to their Mind weaves."

  "You think Allia's being controlled, Tarrin?" Dar asked in shock.

  "It fits," he grunted. "She's been acting too strangely. It can't be anything else but that. Nothing else makes sense, even if she were completely in love with Allyn. And no matter how much she loves him, she would never have said what she said to me of her own free will. Not in a million years. It took me a while to understand that, but it's very true. Allia and me are too close for what she said to have truly come from her heart. I would have seen it coming a long time ago." He snorted. "In fact, I should never have taken her words for truth. I've suspected something was very wrong with her. And after I sensed the Mind weaves they used on Zarina, I should have realized that they'd do the same thing to Allia. The Sha'Kar always resort to magic to complete any task or chore, and finding out what we're up to is no different. They need information, they need a spy, and who better could they possibly have than one of us to be their eyes and ears?"

  That made all of them whisper and sigh, and Keritanima got a sudden hopeful look. "Kerri," Tarrin said.

  "What do you need me to do, brother?" she asked.

  "Allia tried to talk to Dolanna, but Dolanna wasn't too nice to her," he said. "She'll try to talk to you. When she does, I want you to be nice to her. I want you to not abandon her, so she doesn't feel like we've completely rejected her."

  "I can do that, brother, but it won't be easy," she sighed.

  "It's important, Kerri. She's your sister. Sometimes siblings fight, and a third has to act as a go-between with the ones that are fighting. But I don't just want you to be her friend, Kerri. When she gets close enough and she's let her guard down enough, I want you to probe her for Mind weaves the same as Dolanna will for the humans."

  "But she's not a Wikuni," Keritanima objected.

  "You don't have to probe deeply, sister. Even I can sense it when someone uses a Mind weave, even if I can't understand what it does. But what you're going to be looking for will be very subtle, something only one with a similar mind could find."

  "But I'm not Selani."

  "No, but you are related to her. The Wikuni gods may have changed your bodies, but they didn't change your minds that much. I've noticed enough similarities between the Wikuni and Sha'Kar to understand that. Just get close to her, and check her."

  "What do I do if I find something?"

  "Leave it alone," he told her intently. "If they have tampered with her, I don't want them to know we know it. In fact, I'm counting on their hold over Allia. Do you understand?"

  Keritanima looked at him, then realization dawned in her eyes. "Ohhhh!" she breathed, then she smiled broadly and even laughed, clapping her hands happily. "I understand! That's so clever, Tarrin! I'm so proud of you I could kiss you!"

  "What?" Dar asked intently.

  "Tarrin's going to use Allia to lead the Council around by the nose," Camara Tal told him calmly. "If they take whatever she says as the truth, then they'll believe whatever Kerri tells her."

  "Exactly right," Keritanima nodded. "I know just how to play it, brother. I can have them eating out of my hand." She grimaced. "It's not going to be easy dealing with her like that, but I think I can handle it."

  "We can spoon-feed them so much misdirection we'll have them running into each other trying to keep up with it all," Tarrin grunted. "Remember that you'll be watched at all times when you leave this room. So, a little word here and there to substantiate what Kerri tells Allia, and we've got them hooked on our bait."

  "And off chasing a red herring," Miranda giggled.

  "That's what all this activity is all about," Phandebraass realized. "You're not that serious about me breaking into the library, are you?"

  "Of course he is," Miranda said. "Because it is what they would expect of us. And why not take the chance while we can? After they start getting information from Allia, they'll relax when they think we're not getting anywhere. She'll tell them that our adventure into their books turned up nothing of any value."

  "Ah, I see," Phandebrass nodded. "But why should we move now?"

  "For the same reason," Tarrin told him. "They have to know that me and Allia split, so they'll expect a flurry of activity. Kerri's going to tell Allia about Phandebrass and Dar boffing answers out of the servant," he said with a quick grin at his young friend, "and that's going to help make the Council think that Kerri's connection to Allia is too strong for her to break it off. They'll think they still have a window into our secrets, and they'll back off, content to hear what we're doing and arrange things to stop us from learning what we want to know. Sha'Kar don't like direct confrontation, and they don't want to tip us off that they know what we're up to. They'd be happier letting us mill around in seeming frustration. It's alot easier to handle us that way."

  "Tarrin, when did you get so politically savvy?" Keritanima laughed. "That's brilliant!"

  "It is indeed," Dolanna said with an appreciative smile.

  "Actually, I didn't intend to tell you that," he said ruefully. "Only Kerri, so she could pump information to Allia. I wanted all your reactions to be genuine. But then I realized that if all the work I sent you on kept either coming up empty or getting interrupted, you'd suspect a spy among us. Now we know exactly who the spy is," he said, pointing at Keritanima. "There won't be any unforseen complications. All of you just have to learn how to be good actors."

  "Better feigned anger than real anger," Camara Tal grunted.

  "So, the plan is to use Keritanima to feed false leads to the Sha'Kar, who will move to block our attempts to learn what we want to know. What will our real move be?" Dolanna asked.

>   "Our real move is the same as it was when we started this talk, Dolanna. Find out what happened to the missing Sha'Kar. Somehow, I'm sure that that's the missing piece. If we can find out what happened to them, we'll have everything we need to deal with the Sha'Kar. When we do, I'm going to get my paws on Grand Syllis, and when I'm done with him I'll know what his mother called him in the cradle," he said with a seething voice, clenching a paw before him. "And repay him for what he did to Allia!"

  "So, it comes down to that," Phandebrass nodded. "A mystery. I say, I love mysteries."

  "So do I," Keritanima told him. "I think you and I are going to have a busy few days, Phandebrass."

  "I do believe so, dear girl," he agreed. "I do believe so."

  Tarrin's idea had a great deal of merit, but like most of his plans, it was heavy in guts but short in organization. Tarrin knew that he didn't make extensive plans well, tending to go by the seat of his pants and roll with the punches rather than create a detailed plan of attack. Keritanima, who was the plotter among them, holed up with Tarrin after their meeting and discussed exactly how to go about finding what they needed to know, where it might be hidden, who might know what they were looking for, and how to get at it without getting discovered.

  They both realized that there was very little chance to discover what they needed to know from a book. If this information was damaging, it wasn't going to be lying around in a library. It may be in a personal journal, but that journal would be very hard to get hold of. They both agreed that hteir best chance lay with the Sha'Kar themselves. Many of them had been alive since before the Breaking, and they had to ahve seen what was going on. One of them had to know what they needed to know. The only question was how to get at it.

  They sat down and puzzled it out. If it was damning information, it wouldn't be common knowledge. Tarrin and Keritanima had to agree that a member of the Council was their best bet, or one of the older and more eccentric Sha'Kar. But reaching ones like that wouldn't be easy.

  Before they tried something like that, however, both of them agreed that getting more background information, learning as much as they could about the missing Sha'Kar and this so-called ceremony of Ascension would be a good idea. They needed a base of information upon which to build, and that was going to require some research.

  And few were better at research than political spies or Wizards. Miranda and Kimmie were pressed into service as the primary researchers, since Phandebrass would be too busy misleading the Sha'Kar to help them. Phandebrass, Dar, Tarrin, Dolanna, and Keritanima would serve to act as the misleaders of the Sha'Kar, the ones they had to pay most attention to in order to stop. That meant that their secret weapons in this were the ones that the Sha'Kar really didn't notice. Azakar, Camara Tal, Kimmie, Miranda, and Sapphire. Sapphire especially, since Allia didn't know the extent of the drake's capabilities.

  And so they began. It was about midafternoon when Phandebrass took Sapphire out to raid the library at the Grand's estate, and Dar and Dolanna left so Dar could perform his rather unwanted bit of sexually flavored interrogation. Kimmie and Miranda visited Arlan's library to search for books that may have information they could use. Azakar was accompanied by Camara Tal as they went out to talk to the servants on the other estates, to try to discover some rumors from them. Binter and Sisska did as they always did, did what they could not be stopped from doing. Protect Keritanima and Miranda. Binter was with Keritanima in Tarrin's chamber, and Sisska was with Miranda in the library. For the moment, Zarina, who had not said a word all day, sat in his room with him, waiting for Dolanna to come back.

  The pain of what had happened between Tarrin and Allia was still raw inside him, and it was something that he and Keritanima shared. Knowing that she may not have acted of her own free will didn't soften the pain as much as the thought it would. The words had still been said, and if he didn't feel pain at her rejection of him, he felt pain of compassion on how she would torture herself if she was indeed being controlled. But if she wasn't being controlled, as he suspected, if she had spoken truly from her heart, it would be devastating to him all over again. He couldn't believe that she had. He just couldn't. He'd known her too long, they'd been through too much together. She knew his heart, she knew he wouldn't be jealous of Allyn. She knew that he did what he did with only the greatest reluctance. He could only wait for Allia to come looking for Keritanima, so she could get in there and check Allia for tampering.

  Keritanima, for her own part, felt nearly as bad as he did. They were a family, she and Tarrin and Allia. It hurt her incredibly that Allia seemed to have turned her back on what they shared, and she did more than a little crying into Tarrin's vest, now that the others couldn't see her in such a state. It was going to be hard for her to pretend in front of Allia, pretend to accept what Allia had done so long as she didn't break away from Keritanima as well. She too seemed bolstered by the idea that Allia had not acted willingly. She too had to believe that it had to be some kind of outside force that had caused her to turn against her own family.

  She just had to have been tampered with. He was sure of it. It couldn't be anything else! All the strange behavior, the abandoning of her Selani custom, she'd never have done that just to please a boy. If anything, she would have made him wear desert garb to please her. She should have taken control of their relationship from the start, not conform herself to his whim and will as she had. Allia was alot like Jesmind like that. She would fight with her male, make him prove his strength to her over and over again. It was a Selani custom, just the way Var and Denai constantly fought with one another and competed with one another. It was how they kept themselves sharp, kept their ability and worth as a strong mate high in the minds of their mates. Allia wouldn't just knuckle under the way she had. It was completely against her very being.

  The only question Tarrin really had was, how much did Allyn know? Had he enchanted Allia? Was he responsible for that? He doubted it. It would have taken a truly powerful and very experienced Sorcerer to tamper with Allia, because the simple fact of the matter was that she was not Sha'Kar. It would have taken someone able to deal with the differences between a Selani mind and a Sha'Kar mind, someone that could draw on the commonalities between them enough to perform delicate mental alteration.

  Spyder had managed to perform a Mind weave on Jenna, and she said she could because of her extensive experience with the human mind. If they had a Sha'Kar among them with that kind of extensive experience with other Sha'Kar, he very well may be able to bridge the gap and affect a Selani, a descendant of their race.

  Tarrin didn't have long to wait for things to start happening. About two hours after the others left, a servant came to the room looking for Keritanima. The Wikuni was about to dismiss her, but when she said that Allia had sent her, she jumped up from the divan where she had been talking with Tarrin and ran towards the door, telling him she'd talk to him soon. Binter had to lumber along behind her to keep her from getting too far away from him.

  After she left, Tarrin found himself alone. Alone in a huge, quiet chamber, alone with his pain and uncertainty over what happened to Allia. He decided that now would be a good time to try to listen in on the messages of the Sha'Kar when they used their amulets. He took hold of his own out of reflex and pondered how it worked. It caught the words and sent them into the Weave, where they would arrive in the other amulet and emanate from it as if the speaker were inside the amulet. The trick of it, he reasoned, would be to intercept those voices as they moved through the Weave, be in a position where they had to pass by him. The best place to do that would be in a Conduit, but he couldn't sense one with such strong background magic fouling up his ability to sense magic. The strands were so thick inside the Ward, it was like trying to look through a league of forest to see a boulder on the other side of a hill. His sense of magic was simply overwhelmed.

  Tarrin pondered some more. Maybe he didn't have to join the Weave and seek them out. Maybe...he could bring them to him. They were magical spells,
and they travelled through the Weave. There was Sorcery that could affect the Weave itself. Maybe....

  It seemed possible. The concept of it was sound. It would be a pretty unusual thing to try, but he thought it was possible. After all, he had his own amulet to help guide him, help him sort through things and find what he wanted.

  It wouldn't hurt to try, but not with his amulet. Doing something he probably should not do, Tarrin Created another amulet, being very careful to make sure it wasn't Conjured instead, and then set to work.

  He knew what he wanted to do. He was going to empower this new amulet with a weave that would attract all voices in the Weave and make them come to it. Then it would touch them, read them, and then allow them to pass through to continue on to their intended target. The speed of magic in the Weave was beyond rational explanation, so there would be no lag time to tip off the sender and receiver that their communication had been intercepted. The amulet would literally be linked to every other amulet on the island, even his own, and every amulet communication made would also be heard by him using that amulet.

  Knowing what he wanted was easy. Doing it was not. Tarrin puzzled and puzzled, built several experimental weaves to test the theory, all of which failed. For over an hour he labored on it, continuing to design weaves that failed, one of which very nearly detonating in a Wildstrike, had he not been paying careful attention to it and moved to stop it from happening. He knew it could be done, he just had to stumble on the right combination--

  No. This had to be something that someone else had thought to try at some time in the past. That meant that an echo of it may be in the Weave.

  The Goddess said that he was strong with the Weave, that the echoes of the Weave would be drawn to him when he needed them. And right now, he needed them. Blowing out his breath, clearing his mind, Tarrin partially bridged into the Weave, opening his consciousness up to its power without leaving his physical body. He remained calm, using the techniques of meditation and concentration that Allia had taught to him--he had to struggle to retain his calm after thinking of her--and tried to draw the echo that he needed to him, the echo of the memory of how to eavesdrop on amulets. He felt the magic touch him, flow through him, calling out to the magic and beseeching it to come to his aid.