ed from you an apartment, with two or three goodly sized rooms, with only one door opening out to the keep.  And with as few windows as you can manage."
	"I have something like that," he said.  "It's a guest apartment, with a bedroom, a room for a maid, and a sitting room.  It only has two windows, one in each bedroom, and a single door to the hallway."
	"That will do," she told him.  "Tarrin, go to Walten and Tiella and have them come here."
	"Yes ma'am," he said immediately, then he left the trio and walked over to the table.
	"Tarrin, you look....different," Tiella said.  "Not bad, just different."
	Tarrin's change was the last thing on his mind.  "Dolanna wants to talk to us, now," he told them.  "Come on."
	Walten looked at the food on his plate and sighed, then he stood up.
	"Tiella, Walten," Dolanna said immediately when they joined her, "I want you to go to your rooms with Tarrin and gather up your belongings.  Do not leave each other.  Visit each room in turn.  When you have everything, go to the landing of the stairwell on the fourth level and await us.  Do you understand?"
	"Yes ma'am," Walten said, and Tiella nodded.
	"Arren, please have servants take up enough food for seven people," Dolanna went on as Tarrin left with his companions.  "Include plenty of meat."
	"Tarrin, what's going on?" Tiella asked after they left the hall.  Tarrin noted that both of them stayed rather close to him, but not too close.  They were trying to be as casual about his change as they could, but Tarrin could smell the tension in both of them.  They were afraid of him.  Probably with good reason, he concluded with a slight sigh.  He was afraid of himself.
	"We saw something upstairs, called a Wraith," he told them.  "Dolanna thinks it may be watching us, so we're going to all stay in the same place tonight, so she can keep watch over us, I think."
	"Wraith?" Walten said.  "Jak told me a story about those.  They're supposed to be living shadows, and their touch is like the cold of the grave."
	"We didn't get close enough to touch it," Tarrin said as they started up the stairs.  "Dolanna thinks it may have something to do with--with the one that attacked me," he said after a second of inability to say it.  He still couldn't.
	They went to Tiella's room first, and with the help of the two young men, they were on their way to Walten's room in minutes.  Walten's room was even faster.  They went up to the same corridor where Tarrin had seen the Wraith, and he couldn't help but make sure it was gone as they rushed into his room and he collected up everything of his that he could find.  But most of his belongings were missing, especially his staff and his bow.  He didn't recall seeing them earlier, either.  They left his room quickly and went to the stair landing that Dolanna had said to go to, and there they waited for many tense moments.
	Tiella looked at Tarrin covertly after they stopped, then she blushed when he looked at her.  "I'm sorry, Tarrin, I can't help it," she said shyly.
	"I guess I can't blame you," he said gruffly.  "I'd stare too."
	"What does it feel like?" Walten asked.
	"It's hard to explain," he replied.  "More like I'd had on blinders and my ears covered and my nose pinched shut all my life.  The tail is still pretty weird to me, but I'm getting used to it."  He looked back at the member, which was swishing to and fro with a slow rhythm.  Did you go into the city?" he asked.
	"No," Tiella replied.  "After you were hurt, Dolanna wanted us to stay close.  Torrian isn't that big, anyway.  She said that we're going through Marta's Ford, Ultern, and Jerinhold.  Then we get to Suld itself," she said eagerly.
	"I thought you were still nervous about leaving Aldreth," Walten said accusingly.
	"I want to see the cities," she told him.
	"I just want to get out of Aldreth," Walten grunted.
	Dolanna and Faalken came up the stairs seconds later, with several servants behind them.  To his relief, Tarrin saw his packs and his weapons in the hands of three of them, and he could smell roasted meat under the domes of the platters that the serving women carried.  "Do you have everything?" Dolanna asked.  "If not, then it will be left behind."
	"We got everything, Dolanna," Tiella replied.
	"Good.  Follow us."
	They were led to a small apartment, with three rooms.  There was a smallish sitting room into which the door opened, and there were two bedrooms attached to it.  They put down their packs as the serving staff carried the other things into the room, and Arren appeared at the door.  "Dolanna," he called.
	"Arren," she said, "if you would, post guards at the door, but warn them that they will not, under any circumstances, open the door.  It could mean their lives."
	"I'll warn them," he said grimly.
	"Young ones, listen carefully," Dolanna said as she closed the door after the last servant.  "I want you to stand in the middle of this room with Faalken.  Do not say a word, and to not move until I tell you that it is alright."
	Faalken ushered them into the middle of the sitting room, standing beside a plush upholstered chair that was flanking a sofa.  When they were there, Dolanna turned around and bowed her head.  Tarrin could feel what was happening.  There was again that sensation of drawing in, into Dolanna, and for a second he could almost see something around him move.  She stayed still for several moments, until the outside walls, ceiling, and floor suddenly seemed to shimmer.  But just for a moment.  Dolanna sighed audibly and slumped a bit, then turned around and faced them.  "Do not open the door, for any reason, unless I tell you that it is alright," she warned.  "Do not get too close to the windows.  Do not even get close enough to touch the window sill."  She put a hand to her brow.  "Now then, I am going to rest a while.  There is food over there, and I have some books in the smaller pack if you would like to read."
	Tarrin and Faalken sat down at the small table in the corner and began eating dinner as Walten and Tiella used the stones board that was on it to play a game.  "What did she do?" Tarrin asked Faalken.
	"She laid a ward on these rooms," he replied.  "It's very exhausting."
	"What is a ward?"
	"It's like a barrier," he told him.  "I don't know how she made this one, but I've seen ones that stop magic, ones that keep people from crossing them, even ones that stopped stone from passing over a boundary.  They can be made lots of different ways.  You'll have to ask her for specifics, though."
	He nodded, resolving to do just that.
	After eating, Faalken stood up and looked at the three.  "We'll be getting an early start, so I suggest we go to bed now.  Tiella, go sleep in Dolanna's chamber.  Walten, you and Tarrin sleep in the other room.  I'll sleep in here."
	They separated quickly, wordlessly.  The next room was a small bedchamber, with the bed, a small armoire, and three small tables.  There was only one bed.
	"You sleep on the bed," Tarrin told him.  He knew that Walten would not want to sleep in the same bed with him.  To be honest, he didn't want to either.  Not until he trusted himself.  "I'll sleep over there.  Let me go get my bedroll."
	Tarrin recovered his bedroll, and Walten was already in bed by the time he got back.  "Go ahead and put out the light," Tarrin told him.  "I think I can manage."
	"Alright.  Night, Tarrin."
	"Night."
	As soon as the lamp was out, Tarrin got the most blatant sign of his change, for after a moment of grayed vision, the entire room bloomed into light as his eyes adapted to the darkness.  Just the light of the Skybands through the window, patchy from clouds, was enough to paint the room to his eyes in bright shades of black, white, and gray.  He realized that he couldn't see color with such little light, but the fact that he could make out every detail of the room made up for that.  He put out the bedroll in the corner, near the window, and sat down upon it, feeling his tail come to rest against the floor, and stared out at the room, wondering at how sharp and clear his vision was, musing at seeing only in black and white.  Just like a cat, he could see in just about any light except total darkness.
	In the room, alone, in the dark, Tarrin felt the Cat inside his mind, and for the first time all day, for the first time since waking up, he felt fear.  They had kept him busy most of the day, keeping his mind off of it.  But there was nothing but time now, time waiting for the dawn, time for nothing but cold reality to come down on him.  It was in there, staring back at him, and he could feel its power.  The power of a caged animal.  The song in his mind grew more powerful now that he was listening to it, and it took active concentration not to succumb to it, to do as it urged him to do.  He had no one to talk to, nothing to do in order to distract himself from it, and that made it prominent in his mind.  And that proximity to something that seemed so strange to him began to make him afraid.
	It was as if the whole room changed.  The bright black-and-white room seemed to become ominous, and he found the colorless, shaded vista before him to be suddenly frightening.  It was alien to him, and the wonder he'd felt when first beholding it drained away, replaced by trepidation and anxiety.  For some unknown reason, he backed up on the mat, backing up until his back was to the wall.  But there was no getting away from that which made him afraid.  It was inside him, part of him, staring back at him, trying to take control of him.  There was nowhere he could go to hide from it, no way to make it leave him alone.  It was there and would always be there, and that simple fact terrified Tarrin.  Because it was already so strong in his mind, and he was told, and knew in his heart, that it would only grow stronger.
	He pushed back into the corner, feeling his tail kink a bit from the pressure.  He brought it around him and wrapped it across his ankles, drew his knees up to his chest, hugged his waist with his arms, and put his head back against the corner.  With the song of the Cat disrupting his thoughts, he stayed curled up in the corner, huddled from something that could not be hidden from, trying in vain to push it out of his mind, to find enough peace to sleep.
 
Chapter 4

	It had been the longest night Tarrin had ever had.
	It was an eternity there, alone, in the dark, with nothing between him and the Cat but his willpower.  Time had seemed to stop, and he had felt every second go by.  He spent the night jumping at every little noise, huddled in that corner like a trapped mouse, so desperately wanting to talk to someone that he very nearly went to wake them up.  But that would be giving in, and he knew that he had to learn how to fight it now, quickly, before it had the chance to overwhelm him.  There wouldn't always be someone to talk to.
	He'd finally managed to fall asleep sometime during the night, but it was no relief.  As soon as he fell into slumber, he would have dreams.  Terrifying dreams, vivid dreams, conveying a message and a set of sensations so base, so raw, so animalistic that even the surrealistic touch of the dream was enough to make him sit bolt upright and start a cold sweat.  And the instant he awoke, the song of the Cat would be there, trying to lull him into complacency.  He was glad of such an uncomfortable position, since it made it so easy for him to be awakened out of the dreams.  The song of the Cat was much preferable to facing the dreams.  He could fight the song, but the dreams, he had no defense against them.  They touched him on a level that the song could not, and he could do nothing but wake up once they started.  He was amazed that Walten had slept through it.
	He'd been having one of those dreams, then was shocked awake by a combination of the dream and a sound in the next room.  He'd never been so glad to hear a sound in his life.  When he joined Faalken in the other room, neither of them said much of anything.  Faalken could see just by looking at Tarrin's haggard face that it had been an easy night.  The burly knight simply offered him a cup of water and let him sit quietly at the table.  Faalken gently rapped at Dolanna's door, then sat down at the table with him.
	Dolanna opened the door a few minutes later, stepping out wearing a simple brown silk dress.  With one look, she seemed to take in the entire situation.  She sat down in the chair to his right and put a cool hand to his forehead.  "I can understand what it was like," she told him.  "But it was necessary."
	"What do you mean?"
	"You had to be alone," she told him with compassion in her voice.  "It may seem cruel to you, but you will end up alone at some point in your life.  It was best for it to be now, while my spell holds the animal inside you in check."
	He could understand her reasoning.  Although it did seem a bit cold-blooded.  She'd left him to face his fear alone, and while the logical part of his mind understood her reasoning, part of him was rather slighted by the callous treatment.  He'd respected her before, but in a strange way, he realized that he absolutely depended on Dolanna now.  Her calm demeanor and seemingly intuitive understanding of what he was going through gave him a source of strength from which to draw support.
	"How do you know so much about what happened to me?" he asked impulsively.
	"I, have studied this condition before.  There are other Were-kin out there," she told him.  "Were-wolves, Were-boars, Were-lions, Were-foxes, Were-bears, and many others that are more rare.  Like Were-wolverines, Were-dogs, Were-rats, and your own kin, the Were-cats.  I once studied the progression of the condition, which is called Lycanthropy, in an infected man who had been bitten by a Were-wolf.  It was much different in his case, but I have seen enough parallels to understand in a general way what is happening to you."
	"What causes it?" Tarrin asked.  "Is it a disease?"
	"No, young one, it is not," she told him gently.  "The Were-kin are creatures of magic, Tarrin.  There is a natural magic inside of you now that is linked to the cat.  While it may not seem like much, it is this magical nature that gives you many of your powers, and it is also what makes you immune to the wounds of non-magical weapons, or ones not made of silver.  The only non-magical things that can harm you are falls from  heights, fire, and acid."
	"Powers?" Tarrin asked.
	"Were-kin can change their shape," she told him.  "They can assume the form of the animal to which they are bonded.  But I do recall hearing or reading that the Were-cats are different than the other Were-kin in that respect.  There is something limited to you or makes you different than other Were-kin, so I will not even attempt to try to teach you to shapeshift until I am certain of what that difference is.  The fact that your base, natural form, the one into which you transformed at the onset of the bite, was not a fully human form lends me to believe that it is a limitation more than a difference."
	Tarrin swallowed that.  Shapeshifting?
	"There are other powers," she told him.  "Inhuman strength like yours is a gift of your magical nature.  And if I remember, you can regenerate wounds received from magic, falls, acid, and fire at an accelerated rate, and that you can even regenerate lost limbs.  Only the injuries made from silver counter the magic that gives you power.
	"But I digress.  It is this inherent magic that causes the condition, Tarrin.  The only thing missing from a human is that magical touch, that essense of magical energy and animal instincts.  That is what is passed on through contact with body fluids.  Once it is introduced into a human, he becomes a Were-creature of the same type that passed it to him.  He gains all of the powers and vulnerabilities of the Were-kin, and he is Were in every aspect.  He is as much Were as the one who bit him; there is no difference between a Were-kin who was born into it and one who was bitten."
	"What would happen if that magic was taken away?" he asked.
	"Nothing could take it away," she told him.  "It is infused into every fiber of your being, and it is now as integral and necessary as your blood, or heart, or bones.  If it truly was removed from you, you would die."
	"I've heard stories about Were-wolves," Tarrin said thoughtfully.  "They all say that they change into beasts at the full moon, but father always scoffed at them.  He said he'd met one or two in his life, and they were nothing like that."
	"He is correct.  Were-wolves are urbane, polite fellows with a highly defined sense of propriety.  Being part animal, Tarrin, Were-creatures tend to act much as their animal counterparts act, just in a human way.  Were-rats are rapacious, greedy, and unreliable.  Were-bears are methodical and careful, and Were-wolves are very organized and structured."
	"What about, the Were-cats?" he forced himself to say the word.
	"There is very little written or known about them," she said, pursing her lips.  "They are the rarest of all the Were-kin, and I have never heard of a Sorcerer or scholar finding one to learn about them.  The other Were-kin hold a rather low opinion of them, for some reason," she said, giving him a curious look.  "Those that know of them at all, that is."
	"It seems like the hand of Karas was at work when you were chosen for this assignment," Faalken noted to Dolanna.  "Blind luck put the boy in the hands of someone that could help him."
	"Yes, it does seem fortunate that I was sent," she mused.  "To think that I nearly rejected the request.  I am glad that I did not."
	"I am too," Tarrin said sincerely and fervently.
	Dolanna smiled and put a hand on the back of his.  "With luck and hope, tonight will not be as bad," she told him.  "You must still spend it alone, but as we travel, I will teach you ways to center your thinking so that you can put the instincts aside in your mind enough to rest.  They are the same techniques we teach our novices in order to wield the power of Sorcery," she told him.  "As you become accustomed to the cat inside your mind and as you become skilled with the centering and concentration skills I will teach you, let us hope that it solves your problem.  And it will give you a head start in your studies at the Tower."
	"Dolanna, I've been meaning to ask," Faalken said, "what are we going to do about travelling?  Tarrin kind of stands out now."
	"I have already taken that into account," she said.  "I cannot create an illusion that will last all day, so I instructed Arren to have a robe made for Tarrin that will cover him.  It will have a hood on it and oversized sleeves, so that he may hide his most striking features.  I also had him alter Tarrin's saddle so that his feet will fit in the stirrups."
	"I'll get the young pups out of bed," Faalken said.  "We have a long way to go today."
	Tarrin looked at his hand, more like a hand-paw than a hand, wondering at Dolanna's words.  He could only really be hurt by fire, acid, magic, silver, or falling from a height. But that didn't make much sense.  "Why can I be hurt from falling?" he asked.
	"There is a simple concept behind it, Tarrin, one that I should explain.  Now that I think of it, it is something of which you should definitely be aware.  To put it more specifically, you can only be harmed by magic, silver, or weapons of nature."
	"Weapons of nature?"
	"Is fire not a part of nature?" she asked.
	"Yes, but--"
	"Does it not injure?"
	"Yes."
	"Acid may be made by man, but it is still a natural compound, existing in nature.  Does it not also burn when touched?"
	He started to understand.  "So falling off a cliff results in a very natural impact with the ground," he concluded.
	"Exactly.  You should also be wary of true weapons of nature.  A falling tree will hurt you just as quickly as it would me, and if someone hit you with a rock picked up off the ground, then it would result in a real injury.  But of these lesser forms, none can kill you.  You regenerate too quickly for that to happen.  The only weapons of nature that can kill you are fire, acid, falling...or maybe getting impaled on a tree branch., or getting caught in an avalanche or rockslide."
	"I'll remember that," he told her.  "You said that I have magic inside me," he said, his mind starting to explore the possibilities.
	"Yes."
	"Doesn't that make me a magical weapon?" he asked, holding up his hand-paw and extending his claws.  "I do have these, you know, and they are weapons."
	She smiled broadly at him.  "You are most clever, Tarrin.  Yes, it does.  Being a magical creature, you have the power to injure those creatures like yourself that can only be harmed by magic.  But, there is a drawback to that," she warned.  "You are a magical creature, and that lends itself to certain...vulnerabilities concerning magic.  The largest is that a ward set up to repel magic will not allow you to cross it," she told him.  "You cannot very well just leave your magic on the other side."
	"That makes sense," he reasoned.
	"Well, we must be getting ready to leave," she told him.  "We can continue our discussion on the road.  Let me lower the ward protecting the room.  You should go get your things together, and make sure that nothing was left behind."
	"Alright," Tarrin said.
	Walten was getting dressed when Tarrin came back into the room.  He was sandy-eyed and bleary; Walten was not a morning person.  Tarrin checked his packs, and realized that all of his trousers had been altered already, and also that his boots were not here.  Just as well, he reasoned.  He couldn't wear them now anyway.  He took that opportunity to put on clean clothes and wash up a bit, fighting a bit with the trousers to get his fingers on that little button in the back that sealed his tail into that little hole made for it.  This was the second time he'd done it, and it took less than half the time the second time around.  He pulled a clean shirt over his head and laced it up, then packed all his things away as he made sure that he had it all.  His bow and staff were in the corner.  He picked up the bow, then looked at his hands.  There was no way he could shoot it like this.  The tips of his claws were right there, and they could hit and cut the bowstring.  "Walten, I...I can't use this anymore," he said, holding up the bow.  "Would you like to have it?"
	"I, guess," he said slowly.  "I'll just keep it for you, in case you want it back, alright?"
	"Alright," Tarrin said.
	Tiella was sitting at the table when they left the room, and the door outside was open.  Tarrin could see one guard standing at the door, but he could smell three others.  Faalken's scent was still strong in the room, but it was obvious that he'd left. Dolanna was in the other room; he could hear her moving around.  Not long after Walten came out of the room, three servents brought in large platters with breakfast, and that lured Dolanna and Tiella out of the bedroom.  Tarrin had learned from yesterday how careful he had to be, else he would bite his tongue while he ate.  And with teeth like his, that was not a pleasant experience.  He managed to work through breakfast, then was handed a plain brown robe by Dolanna when he pushed his plate away.  Although if fit, it was not comfortable.  The hood pressed down on his ears in an irritating manner, and he had to keep his tail tucked in to keep it from bulging out the back of the robe.
	"It won't look half as bad when you're on the horse," Faalken assured him.
	"I hope not.  I look deformed like this."
	"Tuck your hands in," Dolanna told him, and he pushed his hands into the sleeves.  They totally concealed them.  "The only problem is your feet, but they will be partially in the stirrups.  With the black fur on them, they will appear as boots.  It will do."  She sat back down at the desk, writing something on a piece of parchment.  "I doubt that Duke Arren is awake, so I will write him a letter of gratitude, and when I am done, we will depart.  I wish to reach Skeleton Rock by sunset, so we have a day of hard travel ahead of us."
	Outside for the first time since the change, Tarrin was assaulted on all sides by sounds and smells that almost overwhelmed him.  What was merely unpleasant before was a powerful stench now, the smell of man, his waste, and his sweat assaulting Tarrin's nose like a hammer.  He realized that it was the background from inside the castle magnified a thousand fold.  He choked briefly after stepping out the door of the keep, then went into a fit of coughing and sneezing.
	"What's the matter?" Walten asked in sincere concern.
	"Do all cities smell like this?" he demanded indignantly.  "I think I'm going to vomit!"
	"It should lessen after a while," Dolanna told him.
	"I hope so," he said, putting the back of his hand over his nose and letting the smell of his fur cover the stink of the city.
	Hands brought the horses around, and Tarrin realized that they may have a problem.  Horses could smell too, and he wasn't sure if they'd take him as a predator or not.  His scent was not the same as a human.
	He approached his horse slowly and gently, letting it get his scent a little at a time.  The horse began to whinny slightly and started to fidget.  Reaching out one hand, Tarrin placed it on the bridge of the horse's nose, stroking it reassuringly.  The horse looked at him curiously, realizing that he was the one that had the strange smell, but Tarrin's careful gentle touch had eased the horse's primary fear.  "Yes, it's me," he told the horse with a smile as it suddenly nuzzled him.
	"I see that that will not be a problem," Dolanna said.
	"Not with this horse," he corrected.  "They don't know my smell, so how they see me depends on how I act when I come up to them."  Tarrin packed his saddle with his gear, sliding his staff into the saddleskirt, then carefully mounted the horse.  The horse was still a bit nervous, and the other horses were beginning to get skittish, but a gentle pat on the neck and a few soothing words calmed the horse down again.
	"Put up your hood, Tarrin," Dolanna ordered as she climbed into the saddle.  Walten was ordered to take the pack horses, and Tiella pulled herself up with Faalken's assistance.
	"Have a safe journey, milady," one of the hands said, letting go of her horse's bridle.
	"May the Goddess make it so," she said quietly.
	Torrian didn't seem any different when they had arrived, when Tarrin was human, but it smelled differently.  The powerful smell of the city was indeed starting to dull, and Tarrin could begin to make out other scents, those of horses and wood and metal, out on the streets.  The streets were sparsely populated, mainly merchants and shopkeepers and their servants beginning the ritual of opening their businesses for the day's custom.  He could also catch faint odors drifting out of open doors, those of leather, spices, and the smell of baking bread of roasting meat.  He looked around actively, trying to put a name or sight to a particular smell, for there were many that he couldn't readily identify.  The ones that he knew were simply the smells he'd known when he was human, only sharper, but there were a myriad of other smells out there that he'd never smelled before.
	They crossed the White River at the Old Bridge, and then left Torrian through the eastern gate, on what was known as Skeleton Road, because of the natural formation called Skeleton Rock that was visible from the road.  Once they were outside the walls, the powerful smell of the city ebbed with every step, until there was nothing left but the smells of the forest.
	It was just as powerful, but for different reasons.  The Cat seemed to roar up in his mind at the smells and sounds and sights of the wilderness, reacting to the scents of the forest.  His ears began to search and seek out every little sound, his nose testing the air for every possible scent.  The smells of man and horses were still strong along the road, but the smell of trees and earth and animals washed away that unnatural intrusion.  Tarrin pulled down his hood and breathed deeply as the smells of the forest, letting them clear his nose of the city-smell and clear his mind of his worries.
	There was one other smell, faint, but he could just barely make it out.  A familiar smell, though he'd never smelled it before.  Familiar because it was close to his own.  "The other one was here," he told Dolanna.  "The one that bit me.  I can still smell her."
	"How long ago?"
	"Probably yesterday," he told her.  "I'm not sure, though.  I'm still getting used to this."  He pointed to the woods.  "Her smell goes that way.  I think she went for the trees almost right after she cleared the hill that hid her from the city wall."
	"Just let her go, Tarrin," Dolanna warned.  "You will not find her."
	"I don't want to," he grunted.  "I know that this wasn't her fault, but she's still the one that did it to me."
	"I understand," she said.  "Let us pick up the pace.  Skeleton Rock is quite a distance from here."
	They rode hard throughout the entire morning, stopping only to rest the horses.  The morning was warm and sunny, and the weather pleasant enough to make the ride almost enjoyable, as Tarrin experienced such a sensation of freedom and pleasure that it made him wonder at himself.  He knew it was coming from the Cat, but that didn't change how he felt.  The Cat considered the trackless winderness to be home, but he could also sense that it didn't mind the cities, either.  It was a creature of adaptability, capable of making it almost anywhere its paws were touching the ground.
	They did not stop for lunch, they ate in the saddle during a walking period to rest the horses, a meal consisting of dried fruit, cheese, and bread, then they were off again at a brisk canter.  The shape of the land was slowly changing, becoming less hilly but just as forested, and there were more and more small streams and brooks to traverse as they continued in the south-of-east direction in which they were moving.  There were no villages or settlements in the region, which Tarrin considered to be curious.  "Why aren't there any villages?" he called to Dolanna as they rode.
	"Because this region is considered to be bad luck," she replied.  "Skeleton Rock breeds such tales.  You will understand when you see it."
	Tarrin considered that, then decided to wait until he saw this Skeleton Rock before he made any judgements.
	About an hour after eating, they slowed to a walk to rest the 