The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  "I can't think of anything."

  "Maybe I can," she said, glancing at Auli.

  "You think they were killed because they found out about the control?"

  "It's a possibility, but I doubt it. If they're that good at Mind weaves, why wouldn't they just erase that memory? There doesn't seem to be any reason to kill them, does it? Not when they can control what they do, what they think, and what they remember."

  "You're right," he said. "So it's still a question we need to answer."

  "It's a question that doesn't seem to have any rational answer," she told him. "They were killed for some reason, but I can't think of any reason so serious that would force them to do it. Not when they can control the people so completely."

  "I think maybe the answers we're looking for are right over there," he said, looking at Auli.

  "Why would she know?"

  "Because she's friends with Iselde. She may have heard something when her parents were alive that we may be able to use."

  "Couldn't hurt," Keritanima said after a moment.

  Kimmie had her calmed down, but her hands were still trembling. Tarrin and Keritanima sat down on the bed with her, Tarrin pulling his legs in crossed and wrapping his tail around them, patting the bed before him meaningfully. Auli scooted up and seated herself before him as Kimmie and Keritanima joined them. Tarrin reached over and put his paw on her leg, a reassuring touch. "Alright, you've seen what I saw, Auli," he said. "Can you think of any reason why the Council would kill Iselde's parents? Anything? Any rumor, any story that may make sense of this?"

  "That's a bit too broad, brother," Keritanima said. "Auli, tell me about Iselde's parents."

  "Well," she said hesitantly, in a trembling voice. "Iselde told me that her parents had always been very secretive, and they were, well, a little vocal in their displeasure with some of the decisions the Council and the Grand made."

  "That's all you can remember?"

  "I didn't know them very well," she said. "I was very young when Iselde's mother died, and after I got to be friends with Iselde, I never really saw her father that much. He spent almost all his time in his study, and stopped going to parties and socializing with the others. When I did see him, he always looked awful. His hair was a mess, his robes were dirty, he was bone thin, and he always stared at me like I was some kind of boggart. He was creepy." She looked at Tarrin briefly. "Everyone said that when his wife had been chosen for the ceremony and she failed, he never recovered. Iselde told me her mother and father loved each other as much as life itself. When Iselde's mother died, he was never the same."

  "What were they like when they were both alive?" Keritanima asked.

  "My mother told me that they were both very wild when they were younger, but when they married, they settled down a great deal and started really appyling themselves to learning the Art. They took lessons from my mother and everything. That's when they started getting secretive, and they started disagreeing with some of the things the Council did. The Grand offered Aliani a seat on the Council at one point, so she could be a part of the Council and offer her opinions, but she refused. Everyone thought that the Council respected Aliani's mind. That's why they were so patient with her displeasure. She would have been a good member of the Council, my mother thought. She was certainly smart enough, and strong in the Art."

  Tarrin mulled that over. Could they have killed Aliani because she was too vocal? No. They could control her easily enough, probably allowed her to be vocal about some things to make it appear that her opinions hadn't changed. But it was pretty obvious that Theran was devastated by the death of his wife, and had spiralled down into misery as the years dragged by after her death.

  Now it was Tarrin's turn, and he'd been waiting too long to ask this question. He couldn't wait any longer. "Auli," he said calmly. "I know you get around. I know people tell you things. So I'm going to ask you right here, right now. Is the Firestaff on this island?"

  She looked at him a very long time, almost seemed unwilling to say anything. Then she bowed her head. "Yes," she told him. "I know where it is."

  "Have you ever told anyone?"

  "Only Iselde," she answered. And that answered that mystery.

  "Where is it?"

  "It's in the volcano," she told him, looking into his eyes. "But you can't go after it, honored one! Nobody can get in!"

  "Why can't anyone get in?" Keritanima asked.

  "Because the way in is protected by an old spell," she said. "You can't break it, and I've seen them try." She bit her lip, and gave them all a very worried look. "I know I'm not supposed to talk about it. I know it's wrong, but--but you're an honored one. I can't disobey you. I just can't!"

  "Who? Who was trying to get in?" Kimmie asked.

  "I, I can't tell you," she said in a slightly strangled tone. "I'm not allowed to say."

  "Auli, who tried to get in?" Tarrin asked bluntly.

  It hung there for a moment, and she could see the conflict in her eyes. "T-The Grand," she finally stuttered. "And the Council."

  "Why were they trying to get in, Auli?" he demanded in an intense tone. "Tell me what happened."

  "T-they were on the volcano," she said. "I was wandering around the foothills and saw them go by, so I followed them. They went up a steep path, one of the paths the artist used when he carved the figures on the side, and it led to a little cave just under the figures, a cave that the artist must have uncovered when he excavated the rock to form the relief for the sculpture. It had a magical spell blocking the way in. I hid behind a rock at the edge of the landing and I watched them Circle and try to break the spell. But they couldn't do it. They tried a long time, and then they finally gave up and went back down the path. I waited a long time for them to get back to the city, and then I went home." She looked at her legs. "I heard them talking. The Grand was really mad. I've never seen him like that before. He kept saying over and over that the Firestaff was just beyond his fingers. A couple of the Council members said that it wasn't any use, that if they couldn't do it after centuries of studying it, that nobody could break the spell. I heard the Grand say that they had no choice but to try to find the keys."

  Everything seemed to be starting to fit now. If the Grand was after the Firestaff, and he was willing to go to nearly any length to obtain it, it very well may lead him to controlling his people and killing them. maybe they found out about the Firestaff, and instead of just editing their memory, he decided to finish them off. Dead men tell no tales.

  The allure of godhood could drive a man to extremes.

  If this was as simple as the Firestaff, then alot of the things that seemed be irrational suddenly weren't. Kingdoms were fighting wars over the artifact, groups were throwing all their chips into the pot in an all-or-nothing gamble to claim it, where failure would mean extermination. Why wouldn't the Grand and the Council be doing the same things?

  But there was another feeling in him. Cold, deliberate resolve. He now knew where the Firestaff was. He knew where it was. There was no more waiting, no more searching, no more suffering. At that moment, he could walk up that volcano to that cave, and try to get it. If he could, then he could finally, finally, do what the Goddess had charged him two years ago to do.

  Recover the Firestaff.

  But there was a problem. If that spell blocked the Grand and the Council, then he probably would fare no better. Auli had mentioned keys, though.

  "Auli," he said in a quiet tone. "What are the keys that the Grand mentioned?"

  "I don't know," she said. "But there was an old set of symbols on the side of the cave, just inside the entrance. A star, a staff, a flower, and pair of hands clasped together. Those have to be the keys, but I don't think they have them. From the way they sounded, they didn't have the keys. They were too disappointed for them to have them."

  "But they probably know what they are," Kimmie mused, scratching her chin.

  "I think they do," Auli agreed.

  "Well, that's it, brother
," Keritanima told him soberly. "That's what we needed to find out. The Council doesn't really matter now."

  "Yes they do," Tarrin said. "If we try to get to the Firestaff, they'll try to stop us. And they know what these keys are, and we don't. So we still need to go pay them a little visit."

  Kimmie, however, didn't seem satisfied. "Auli, you said you knew it was wrong to tell us," she said. "Why did you say that?"

  "I'm not allowed to talk about it," she said woodenly.

  "You told Tarrin."

  "He's an honored one. I can't disobey him. I know I shouldn't have said something, but I can't disobey." She put a hand to her head, her eyes a little scattered. "I feel a little strange."

  Keritanima moved before Tarrin could say anything. She put her hands to either side of Auli's head, and Tarrin felt her send probing tendrils of Mind into the girl. She looked at Tarrin quickly, her expression both sober and a little excited. "There are traces of a Mind weave in her, but they're lingering effects. They're not active. They're trying to stop her from talking, but they're not strong enough. Her conditioning to obey those over her is overriding the compulsion. It's why she wouldn't answer anyone but you, brother."

  Tarrin looked at Auli. Why wouldn't they be active? She was Sha'Kar, just like the others, bound under the Council's control.

  And she wasn't wearing an amulet.

  It clicked. That was why it was such taboo to be seen without an amulet. The amulets were the instruments of control the Council used on their subjects! When Auli lost her amulet, the Mind weaves that affected her were removed, and now she was just suffering from the lingering effects, which were themselves fading.

  Tarrin snatched Aliani's amulet out of her hand, which she was still holding, and assensed it carefully. He'd sensed weaves in it before, but hadn't bothered to inspect it.

  Clever. Damn clever! They were in there, the other half of the Mind weaves Keritanima mentioned, clear as a bell and still active after fifteen years of laying in the forest. There was much more, however. There was a powerful spell covering those Mind weaves that prevented any other weaves from interfering with the spells it protected, a defensive spell that prevented anyone from accidentally tampering with the Mind weaves below. There was also a very clever little weave over that that concealed the spells in the amulet, only showing the latent weaves that allowed the amulet to be used for distant communication, or whatever weaves the Sha'Kar had placed in it himself. The defenses were so cunning, so subtle, that it would take a very strong da'shar to discover them, someone with the power to see past that clever little weave that hid what was underneath it, and only if they were holding the amulet and had their full attention on it.

  And the truth of what had happened to Aliani rested in the amulet. Beneath it all, under the Mind weaves, behind the defensive spell, concealed itself by yet another weave that hid it from probing Sorcerers, Tarrin found a little weave, a small little thing, that effectively blocked all the mental control the amulet attempted to instill in the wearer by tricking the Mind weaves into thinking they were working properly while they actually did nothing at all. They looked active and functional, and they did indeed work, but Tarrin saw that Aliani's counter made them forget to communicate with the host, with the other half of the weave that the amulet would place in the mind of the wearer, sending their commands and instructions nowhere. And since Aliani didn't do anything to the weaves, only added a little bit to misdirect their effects, she managed to circumvent the very powerful spell that wouldn't allow the weaves it protected to be altered. Aliani had discovered the true nature of the amulet, and had cleverly defeated its power without making it apparent that she had done so. It was why the amulet's Mind weaves didn't affect Auli while she was holding it.

  Damn clever! Aliani had defused her amulet so cunningly, so carefully, that only someone with Tarrin's keen sense of magic would have detected it. Not even the strongest da'shar would have detected that tiny little weave in all the other weaving, so cunningly was it concealed. Aliani had broken the Council's control!

  And that was why they killed her!

  "Now it all makes sense," Tarrin said, tossing the amulet to Keritaima. "There's the other half of your Mind weave, Kerri. It's in the amulet."

  "I don't sense anything," she said, holding onto it.

  "It's hidden by a very powerful spell," he told her. "And there's another spell under it that Aliani put in it, a spell the defeats the amulet's Mind weave without making it apparent that it was. That was why they had her killed. Because she'd managed to break free of their control, and they didn't want to take the chance that she'd do it again."

  "And if Aliani did it, then other Sha'Kar had to have done it too," Kimmie reasoned. "That's why they're dead."

  Auli stared at them in horror. "There are Mind weaves in the amulets?" she asked in disbelief. "They're controlling us?"

  "I'm sorry, Auli, but yes, they are," Tarrin told her. "The Mind weaves affect your more primitive emotions. They make you want to seek pleasure, even over other activities. It's a very subtle and very effective technique. People who think only of singing, dancing, eating, drinking, gossipping, and having sex are very easy to lead around."

  "But why would they want to do that to us?" she asked with a trembling lip, her eyes sheening over with tears. "They are our own people!"

  "We'll have to ask them," Tarrin said, flexing his claws in an ominous manner.

  "We can't just go marching up the Council and start making accusations," Keritanima warned. "Remember, they control the Sha'Kar. I'm sure there are lots of weaves about loyalty and obeying their commands. They'll order the Sha'Kar to attack us, and we won't stand a chance. They may be controlled, but they're still very powerful Sorcerers."

  Tarrin frowned. She was right.

  "If we want to take out the Council, we have to cut their legs out from under them," Keritanima told him. "Can you cancel that spell they use to control the Sha'Kar?"

  "I can, but it'll take High Sorcery," he told her. "And I have to do it one at a time."

  "Is there an easier way to do it, at least temporarily?"

  "Several," he answered. "But I can't get all of them at once, Kerri. There's just too many. They'd have to literally be standing shoulder to shoulder. I can't think of any way we could trick them into gathering into one place like that. Not without the Council getting suspicious."

  "Hold on," she said suddenly. "You said that Aliani defeated the Mind weaves in her amulet without altering them. Can you do that?"

  Tarrin looked at her, and it was like a light flickering behind his eyes. "That's genius!" he told her. "It's an easy spell, and it won't take High Sorcery! I'll still have to do it one at a time, but I could weave that one without anyone knowing it."

  "Good. I think we need to get everyone in here. Including Allia, as well as Auli, Iselde, and Allyn," she added. "I think it's time for a war council, and we can't have one without Allia. We'll just break the control they have on her. And you three are going to know things we need to know," she said to Auli.

  "What about finding out everything we can?" Kimmie asked.

  "We already know everything we need to know, Kimmie," she replied. "And it took a hell of alot shorter than I thought it would. Now we know what happened to the missing Sha'Kar, and why things around here have been happening the way they have. If I were a gambling woman, I'd say Aliani dropped her amulet in the forest for you to find, brother. If you hadn't have found it, and if Auli hadn't lost her own, we'd still be stumbling around. A moment of luck has changed everything."

  "Maybe the Goddess did it," Auli said in a small voice, obviously still shocked over what she'd learned.

  "If so, I'm going to kiss her the next time I visit the Heart," Keritanima said gruffly. "Now then, go track down that drake of yours, Tarrin, and I'll send out the call. It's time we all had a little early supper, and I'm just dying for some company. Don't you agree?"

  "I thought you'd never ask," he said.

  It wa
sn't an early supper that had been planned, but a late one. Tarrin and Keritanima realized that before they could make plans, they were going to have to break the control that the Council had over Allia, Allyn, and Iselde. Breaking the Mind weaves would be a simple matter, but he'd have to get them close to him. He wanted to do it all at once, and they'd have to be in proximity to him for his Sorcery to affect them. For Allyn and Iselde, this wasn't a big deal, but Allia was another matter entirely. For him to break the Council's control, he'd have to nullify magic in the area, destroying the Mind weaves quickly, before the disruption of them could do permanent harm to their subjects.

  That was going to be the sticking point. Allia would sense his magic, and her suspicious nature would cause her to strike at him almost immediately. Tarrin was going to be very careful, because nobody else could use magic to subdue Allia, and no one else had the physical ability to stop her if she sought to kill him.

  About an hour after he and Keritanima had decided to call council, Tarrin was ready for the ordeal. It was going to be painful to attack Allia with magic, but a part of him was anxious to do it, almost eager. It meant that he would get his sister back, back where she belonged. Tarrin could look into her eyes, hold her in his arms, and forgive her for what she said, and everything would be alright again. After all, it hadn't been her talking.

  Tarrin chose his ground carefully. He was sitting on the bed, and Kimmie and Sapphire were with him. Everyone else was out of the room. Tarrin would make his attempt as soon as the three of them came into the room, and Keritanima and Dolanna had been stationed in the house to make sure that they got to the door at the same time. Kimmie and Sapphire both would be there to delay Allia if she managed to evade Tarrin's attempt to destroy the Mind weave controlling her, giving him enough time to get her before she could reach him and force him to abandon Sorcery in favor of trying to keep his head on his shoulders. Tarrin heartily respected, even feared, Allia's incredible prowess with her shortswords, and no matter what she was wearing, she'd have them with her. Allia knew his weaknesses, and she was one of the few living things that Tarrin respected enough to take those kinds of precautions. She could kill him if she got close enough, if his mind was still involved with his magical attempts. He didn't want to hurt her, but on the other hand, he didn't want to get his head chopped off either.