 supplies we needed to get to Dayis.  It was Roulet, or live off fish and rainwater for the next nine days."
	The Wikuni female seemed to look right at the porthole, causing Keritanima to duck back quickly.  "This is not good," she said, hiding behind the wall as Tarrin continued to look out, to look at her.  She reminded him alot of Jesmind, in her stance and her demeanor.  Powerful, confident, and dangerous.
	"They can do whatever they want," Tarrin said quietly.  "I have bigger things to worry about than a ship full of rogue Wikuni."
	"What's to stop them from just attacking us in port?" Azakar asked.
	"There's no sport in that," Tarrin said, moving away from the porthole.
	"And no bragging rights," Keritanima said.  "Besides, Zak, there are laws here in Roulet.  Those kinds of things have to happen outside the harbor."
	"Then maybe we could take the harbor with us," he mused.  "This is getting boring.  Binter, want to play a game of stones?"
	"I'm going up on deck," Tarrin said.  "I can't stand being cooped up anymore."
	"But Dolanna said that they'd recog--" Keritanima started, but when Tarrin shapeshifted into his cat form, she cut herself off.  "Oh.  Alright, just be careful.  Don't let anyone step on you."
	Tarrin gave her a flat look, then she opened the door for him.  "Well, be that way," she said with a wink.
	The ship's crew knew about Tarrin's ability, and they had already had a taste of it.  When they saw the black cat come up from below, they immediately worked around him, giving him his space.  But he didn't get in anyone's way, he simply climbed up onto the steerage deck and sat on a rope coil near the captain and his first mate, a willowy young man with red hair named Jameson.  The captain and the first mate were going over a list of supplies written on a slate board that the mate was holding.  "It's looking good, cap'n," the young redhead said in a light voice.  "We should be done loading by sunset.  We can be out with the morning's tides."
	"Any trouble with the men?"
	"Not really, sir," he replied.  "They know where they are.  There hasn't been many to leave the ship that didn't come back quickly."
	"Well, if it isn't the illustrious Captain Abraham Kern!" a feminine voice called from across the way.  Tarrin looked behind him, between two posts in the railing, towards the black clipper ship moored across the quay from the Star of Jerod.  Tarrin saw the female Wikuni, Sheba, standing at the rail of her own steerage deck, a foot on a crate against the rail and her elbow resting upon it.  "It's a small ocean, I see!  Fix that hole I put in your amidships yet?  If I remember right, it's on the other side."
	"It wasn't much more than an inconvenience," Kern replied in a calm voice that made the sneering grin melt off the panther-Wikuni's face.  "You should know better than to annoy me, girl.  How is your shoulder?"
	That made her scowl, and almost unconsciously rub her shoulder.  "I think I should pay you back for that, Kern," she called.
	"You already tried."
	That made her expression ugly.  "You know what they say.  If at first you don't succeed, try try again."
	"Any time, my dear, any time," he called.  Tarrin noticed that quite a few dock workers and what looked like sailors had gathered between the ships, to witness the challenge of words between the two very different ship captains.  "Now if you'll excuse me, I have more important things to do."
	"I'm crushed that you don't consider me important."
	"You never were," he told her in a dismissive voice, a voice that impressed Tarrin with both its understated offensive quality as well as its dry humor.  And with that, he turned his back on the female.
	Sheba snarled, showing a mouth full of very sharp teeth, and she drew a strange metallic object from her belt.  Tarrin recognized it after a moment, from Keritanima's stories and tales.  A starwheel pistol, a little device that used smoke powder to propel a small lead ball with enough force to drive it through a breastplate.  The instant she pointed it at Kern's exposed back, Tarrin's protective instincts roared up into his mind.  Kern wasn't exactly a friend, but his willingness to help had made him a man worth great respect in Tarrin's mind.  Tarrin didn't turn his back on his friends, or those who had earned respect.
	Jumping up onto the rail, Tarrin's green eyes ignited from within with a green radiance that was visible to the Wikuni on the ship across the wharf.  Sheba's attention focused from Kern's back to the black cat that had suddenly jumped up to interfere with her line of fire, and its glowing green eyes.
	He had no idea what he did, or where it came from.  He wanted her to drop that weapon, and suddenly he could sense it, what it was made of, and how to make her drop it.  Something happened to it, or something, and it suddenly turned red-hot.  Sheba cried out suddenly and dropped the smoldering weapon, shaking her furry hand vigorously as the pistol's barrel, glowing with heat, began to scorch the deck under it.  They backed away from it as the heat caused the smoke powder inside it to ignite, causing the little weapon to tear itself apart as the little ball inside the barrel struck the heat-softened walls of the barrel and jammed.  That bottled up all that explosive energy, and caused it to destroy the weapon in a loud bang, a puff of oily smoke, and flying red-hot fragments of steel.
	That didn't seem to be enough.  Tarrin's attention focused on the brass-bound steering wheel behind the Wikuni, who was still shaking her hand and holding it with her other by the wrist.  He concentrated on that ornate fixture, and it suddenly exploded in a brilliant flash of fire and smoke, sending charred bits of wood and twisted brass in every direction.
	"Witchcraft!" Sheba said in a strangled voice as they looked back at the post where the wheel had once been affixed.
	"Magic," a Wikuni of some kind of large cat who had been near the wheel said, in a voice that was low, but still audible to Tarrin's sensitive ears.  This male wasn't dressed like the others.  He wore a simple blue shirt and trousers, and a silver amulet formed like a wave was around his neck.  A priest of Kikkali, the Wikuni goddess of sailing?  What was a priest of Kikkali doing on a pirate ship?  "That little cat can use some kind of magic that I've never experienced before.  That's very intriguing."
	"Tarrin, lad, did you do that?" Kern asked in a whisper, coming up beside him at the rail.
	Tarrin nodded grimly, keeping his eyes, still glowing, fixated on the Wikuni pirate.
	"Consorting with devil-cats, Kern?  That's not like you," Sheba called in a dangerous voice, still shaking her hand.  "It's going to pay for burning my hand.  You may as well just send it over here now."
	"Do you really want it, Sheba?" Kern asked, putting his hands under Tarrin and picking him up.  "I'll bring it right over, if you want.  I'm sure you'll find it very entertaining.  Just before it burns your ship down to its waterline."
	Sheba's angered gaze suddenly turned fearful.  "Ah, no, maybe not," she called back.
	And that generally ended that.  Kern carried Tarrin back down onto the deck, where the sailors were standing around watching.  "Sorry to pick you up, but I think it's a good idea to get you out of sight, and them out of sight of you," Kern told him calmly as he climbed down the very steep staircase that rose up to the steerage deck.
	Tarrin looked up at the aged man, his eyes still glowing, and nodded calmly.
	Kern put him down on the deck, and he immediately scampered down the steep steps that led to the cabins below.  He was confused.  What did he do?  It wasn't Sorcery.  At least it didn't feel like Sorcery.  It could have been, because he was in his cat form.  There was no telling how being in his cat form would affect his ability to use Sorcery.  He had done it once before, a very long time ago, but it had been an instinctive reaction born of fear and desperation.  What he had just done was a very calculating use of power, and he had been in full control the entire time.  Perhaps he had used Sorcery, but his cat form had altered the way it worked, or the way it felt.  A Sorcerer's body and physical health had alot to do with how effectively the Sorcerer could control the Weave.  Since his cat form was literally a different body, there was no telling how it would change the way using Sorcery felt.
	It seemed a logical explanation, mainly because he couldn't think of anything else.
	"What was that all about?" Keritanima asked as Tarrin entered the cabin in his humanoid form, a thoughtful and slightly confused look on his face.
	"I'm not sure," he replied.  "I used Sorcery in cat form.  It felt...strange."
	"I meant with Sheba," the Wikuni pressed.
	"She aimed a pistol at Kern," he shrugged.  "I took steps."
	"Dolanna said we couldn't draw attention to ourselves," Keritanima said.
	"Tarrin did not draw attention to himself," Binter said calmly, making a move on a lanceboard holding chess pieces.  Sisska sat opposite the board.  "A cat drew attention to itself.  A rare few know that they are the same."
	"That does make sense," Azakar agreed.
	"I guess it does, but you shouldn't have done that," the princess told him.  "Sheba is well known for being both vindictive and spiteful.  You burned her, and she's not going to forget that.  Now she has another reason to chase us down."
	"Let her," Tarrin said in a blunt voice.  "On the open sea, there won't be anyone to see us, and she'll have nowhere to hide."
	"What are you talking about?"
	"I...think I can do what I did again," he said hesitantly.  "I'm not sure, though.  If I can, I could easily crack her ship open like an egg.  It won't be chasing us if it's laying at the bottom of the sea."
	"Tarrin!" Keritanima gasped.  "You can't do that!  If you sank Sheba, the entire Wikuni fleet would hunt us down!"
	"If I remember right, they're already doing that, Kerri," Azakar said.  "Besides, I thought you said that Wikuna doesn't support Sheba."
	"Wikuna doesn't, but her family would demand revenge for her loss.  And her family is very powerful."
	"So, in other words, Wikuna does sanction piracy against other kingdoms."
	"Of course not!"
	"Then why would Wikuna retaliate if a known pirate gets sunk?" he asked in a very calm tone.
	"You don't understand the situation," she protested.
	"I don't see why it would be so hard to understand," he replied.  "Wikuna doesn't support free--free--freebooters, you said.  Sheba is a pirate, and Wikuna knows it.  So if she gets sunk, they should be happy another pirate is sent to the bottom."
	"A pirate whose father happens to have influence over most of the noble houses of Wikuna," Keritanima said.  "If Arthas Zalan got his hackles up, he could easily convince the nobles to mobilize their personal ships to hunt down whoever sank Sheba."
	"So?  The Royal Fleet would have to stop them."
	"That would be civil war!" Keritanima said in outrage.
	"So?  The law would be on the crown's side.  Anyone mobilizing to sink us out of revenge would be revolting against the crown in the first place, since the crown doesn't condone piracy."
	Keritanima gave the Mahuut a hot look, then she laughed ruefully.  "You're right," she said sheepishly.  "But it wouldn't happen.  Letting them sink one ship is a much better option than having all of Wikuna descend into civil war."
	"That's not right."
	"Alot of things in politics aren't right, Zak, but sometimes a ruler has to decide between the good of many over the good of a few.  It's part of what makes a king a king."
	"Or a queen," Sisska added.
	"I'll leave that up to Jenawalani," Keritanima snorted, sitting down in a chair.  She stared at Allia, who was looking at her calmly.  "What?"
	"Just listening to a queen, that's all," Allia replied in Selani.  She had a very slight smile on her lips.
	"Don't even think that, sister," Keritanima grunted.  "That's exactly what I'm here to avoid."  She looked at Tarrin.  "You need to talk to Dolanna about that, Tarrin," she told him.  "Whatever it was you did, I didn't feel it at all."
	"I know, but it'll have to wait for her to get back," he replied.
	Kern came into the room.  "Are you alright, lad?" he asked in his gravelly voice.
	"I'm fine, captain," he said.
	"I wanted to, apologize, for picking you up like that," he said.
	"It was a good idea, captain," Tarrin replied.  "I don't mind being held by people when they have a good reason.  Don't worry about it."
	"Alright.  I just wanted to make sure you understood things.  By the way, thanks for watching my back.  Jameson said Sheba pointed a gun at me."
	"Any time."
	Kern nodded, then quickly and quietly left the small cabin, which was filled with several very large people.
	"I see you are feeling better, brother," Allia said, stepping up to him as Tarrin moved away from the door.
	"Aside from being stuck in here, more or less," he replied.  "I want to get moving again."
	"I do not like being stuck in here either," Allia said.  "Every time I take a step, I have to make sure there is not a tail in my path."
	"Well excuse us for being more blessed than you," Keritanima said with a wink.
	"You do not weigh much, Allia," Binter said dismissively.  "It would not bother me to have you step on my tail.  Azakar is another matter."
	"I only did it once," the large man protested.
	"And I will only pay you back for it once," Binter replied calmly.
	Azakar winced.
	Dolanna and the others returned just at sunset, and the Sorceress did not look happy.  There was a tightness about her eyes, and she kept glaring at Miranda.  The mink Wikuni seemed completely oblivious to the hot looks, removing a full cloak that she had used to hide her appearance to other eyes.  Miranda was nondescript as a Wikuni, but her blond hair, her insufferable cuteness, and her mink lineage made her very identifiable as Keritanima's maid.  "What did she do?" Keritanima asked with a sigh.
	"She left us not long after we left the ship," Dolanna said tightly.  "I dared not send anyone to look for her."
	"Miranda!" Keritanima barked.  "I ordered you to stay with Dolanna!"
	"And you expected me to obey you?" Miranda asked innocently.  "My goodness, your Highness, you've been associating with these humans too long."
	"Miranda!"
	"I had a good reason," she said in a dismissive tone.  "I'll explain later.  After we set sail."
	"It's too late and too dark--"
	"No, your Highness, now," Miranda said in a very steady tone, staring directly into Keritanima's eyes.
	"Now?"  Miranda nodded.  "Alright, but if you're wrong--"
	"Posh," Miranda sniffed.
	"I take it that I should go speak with Kern?" Dolanna said in a curious voice, all hostility gone from it.
	"It would be a very good idea, Dolanna," Miranda said calmly.  "Kern does not want to be in Roulet right now.  It would be very unhealthy."
	"There is little wind, and no tide," Dolanna said.  "To move the ship will require our assistance.  Dar, Allia, come with me.  Allia, wear the cloak that Miranda was using to hide herself, that will protect you from straying eyes.  Tarrin, you and her Highness remain below.  There is little we can do to conceal the two of you."
	"Tarrin's already been out, Dolanna," Keritanima told her.  "We need to talk to you about that after we get out to sea."
	"Alright, Miranda, talk," Keritanima said immediately after Dolanna led Dar and Allia out, Faalken fell in behind them silently, and the door was closed.
	"I know a few names of people willing to sell information in Roulet," she said simply.  "I asked around, spread some coins about, and learned quite a bit."
	"What?"
	"Where do you want me to start?" she asked, sitting sedately on the bed.
	"Just pick a place," Keritanima said in a voice near exasperation.
	"Well, now it's official," she began.  "Damon Eram has sent the entire fleet out to look for you.  He doesn't know which ship you're on, but Wikuni ships are scouring the Sea of Storms looking for us.  They're stopping and searching every ship they cross on the high seas."
	"Well, I more or less expected that," Keritanima grunted.  "What else did you learn?"
	"Tarrin isn't exactly a nobody anymore," Miranda said, looking right at him.  "I heard of a man hiring thugs, mercenaries, and cutthroats to look for him.  He described you very accurately, my friend," she told him.  "He wants you dead.  He even passed out silver-gilded daggers and swords to his hires, so it's apparent that he knows what you are."
	"Did you find him?" Keritanima asked.
	She shook her head.  "I didn't have the time.  Oh, yes, there's a good chance that there's a war in Sulasia."
	"What?" Keritanima, Tarrin, and Azakar gasped in unison.
	Miranda nodded.  "It was just rumor, but many of them say the same thing.  That the army of Daltochan came down out of the mountains and invaded eastern Sulasia.  That's about all I managed to find out about that.  I also heard that three Ungardt clans have invaded Draconia, probably over some kind of border atrocity.  You know how the Draconians are.  I also heard that the seas are absolutely crawling with Zakkite triads.  Every ship captain and sailor I talked to grumbled about having to run from triads, but for some reason, the triads didn't pursue anyone.  That's not like them.  It seems like they're looking for something specific."
	"But it's winter," Azakar protested.  "Why would armies move in the winter?  It's crazy."
	"You forget the prize, Zak," Miranda said.  "It's a good bet that we're not the only ones that know about the Firestaff.  The chaos surrounding it seems to have already started.  There are probably a few kings that would be willing to throw away half their armies for the chance to be a god."
	"Their whole armies," Keritanima agreed.  "What else did you hear?"
	"Not a whole lot," she replied.  "I talked to a Wikuni priestess, who told me that things at home are getting tense.  It seems that the nobility isn't too thrilled that your father is wasting so many resources in trying to track you down.  Most of them feel that your running away was something that shouldn't be stopped."
	"Why can't my father ever listen to other people?" Keritanima sighed.
	Tarrin moved away from the others, their voices fading away as he thought about what she said.  Why would people look for him?  That was an obvious question.  Kravon knew who he was, it seemed, and the man had already proved that he had considerable resources.  He probably knew Tarrin was looking for the Firestaff, but did he know that Tarrin was on a boat?  Were there agents of the ki'zadun in every city, or just the port cities?  He didn't know, and he wondered if there had been such men in Den Gauche.  If so, then the Were-cat female, Triana, may have saved his life by heading him off before one of them managed to get close enough to find him.
	That was ironic enough to make him chuckle ruefully.
	Another thought, and another worry, was this talk of war.  If Daltochan did invade, they would have moved through Aldreth.  The lives of those he knew in his home village were not guaranteed if something like that happened.  That worried him.  Though he'd never been popular in the village, he had many friends there.  What would become of them if Daltochan sent troops to occupy the northeastern marches of Sulasia?  Was Torrian a besieged city, the friendly, compassionate Duke Arren now walled up inside his famed fortress, facing off against Dal attackers?  Had they marched down the very roads that Tarrin and the others had travelled, claiming the land of his home for their own?  Sulasia probably had not been prepared for war.  Sulasia was not a very militant nation, depending on the Knights, the Sorcerers, and the famed Rangers to curb any aggression.  And they probably had never expected Daltochan to be the aggressor.  Sulasia and Daltochan had been very close trading partners for many years.  Most of the metal and stone the famed Sulasian craftsmen used came from Daltochan.
	It was concerning, but there was nothing that he could do about it.  If all this mess was over the Firestaff, then Tarrin did feel a little bit better about being stuck in this mission to find it.  If kings would destroy good relationships with other kings over it, send men to their deaths and cause untold destruction and chaos, then perhaps something like the Firestaff wasn't meant for them.
	"What's the matter, Tarrin?" Keritanima asked, putting her hand on his shoulder.
	"Just thinking about Aldreth," he sighed.  "If Daltochan did invade Sulasia, then it's probably being occupied.  I hope everyone's alright."
	"I wouldn't worry about it too much," she assured him.  "If your villagers are anything like you described them, they're all probably hiding in the Frontier.  I don't even think the Dals would dare to go in there after them."
	"I hope so," he said.
	The ship suddenly lurched slightly to the side, and Tarrin felt someone--three someones--using Sorcery above decks.  They had joined in a circle, and Dolanna was using weaves of air to move the ship.  "Sometimes Sorcery can come in handy," Keritanima chuckled.  "I wish I could be helping."
	"They can handle it, Kerri," he told her.
	"It's still not the same."
	"You just want an excuse to use your power."
	"Well, you didn't have to put it that way," she said, slapping him lightly on the shoulder.  "You make me sound like a braggart."
	"I'm so sorry that you can't handle the truth," he said absently.
	Keritanima stuck her tongue out at him.
	"Brat," he said to her.
	"Count on it," she replied.
	With the help of Dolanna and her pupils, the Star of Jerod slid out into the narrow harbor and through the inlet, and out into the open sea.  The ship's departure was very much noticed by Roulet, both in that a ship was somehow sailing out to the sea directly into a headwind, and that it was the Star of Jerod that was doing it.  The ship turned southward as soon as it cleared the shallows around the head of the inlet fortresses, angling on a southerly track that would take it out to the horizon.  As soon as the ship passed sight of the fortresses of Roulet, the non-humans and Azakar were allowed to come back up on deck, come back up to a rather dark night.  A cloud bank had moved in, and was concealing the light of the Skybands and the moons.  Yet Kern continued on his southerly course confidently, using a device called a compass, that pointed towards magnetic north all the time.  Tarrin was rather intrigued by the device, and Kern explained how it was done to him after he followed the captain into the navigation room.
	"It's easy, Tarrin," the captain said in his raspy voice.  "As long as we know what direction we go in and how long we go that way, we can figure out where we are on this map.  Then we can change our heading so we can travel to specific spots."
	Tarrin nodded.  "My mother taught me all about that, but the Ungardt don't use that little compass device.  They use the stars."
	"Any navigator worth his salt can navigate by the stars, but the compass makes it much more precise," Kern told him.
	"I don't know, Kern.  Some Ungardt navigators can put you within spans of where you want to go."
	"That's because they're experienced," Kern said.  "You can say that about anyone, if he has enough time doing it."
	"I guess.  How does this thing work?" he asked, pointing to a second compass that was mounted beside the map table.
	"Well, near as I can figure, that little needle was exposed to lodestone," he said.  "Lodestone sticks to metal, I'm sure you've heard, but it also always points to the north if you hang it from something.  Metal that's been stuck to a lodestone for a while can make other metal stick to it, just like a lodestone.  Well, it passes on that point to north trick too."
	"So, they make a needle, then stick it onto a lodestone, then when it's absorbed the lodestone's magic, they put it on that axle," Tarrin said.
	"Just about," Kern said.  "I ain't never seen them make a compass before, but that sounds like the way someone would go about it."
	Tarrin touched the compass' protective glass with the tip of a claw, tapping on the glass gently to see if the needle would react.  But it didn't.  "Be careful," Kern warned.  "That compass cost me five hundred gold."
	Tarrin watched the navigator, a slim man with gray hair named Luke, make some notes on a chart.  The map was a map of the coastline of Shac, from Den Gauche to the town of Roulet, all the way down to the southwestern tip of the western continent, where the large island just off the Cape of the Horn held the island-city of Dayis, one of the largest and best known port cities in the world.  Dayis was utterly devoted to ships, trade, and cargo, from shipping companies to the famed shipbuilders on the north side of the island to the independent captains that called Dayis their home port.  No ship that sailed the Sea of Storms of the Sea of Glass, to the south of the continent, had missed docking in Dayis.  It was said that all roads led to Suld, which sat at the hub of an ancient road system built long before any of the modern kingdoms were forged, but it could also be said that all ships sailed to Dayis.  The coastline of Shac, it seemed, was rather irregular and jagged, with a multitude of tiny inlets and bays and coves, as well as innumerable small barrier and shore-hugging islands.  Those islands were the reason that the Star of Jerod was sailing so far out to sea.  That, and those islands were reputed to be the haunting places of some of the smaller bandit and pirate operations in Shac.  Only the small ones.  The Pirate Isles, some two hundred leagues southwest of Dayis, were infamous as the home base of many a famous pirate.
	Shac was something of a lawless place, his father had told him once.  Because of the weakness of the king, the local Marquis, what Tarrin would call a Baron, actually ran the kingdom.  Because of that decentralized government, bandit gangs and organized crime were rampant all over the kingdom.  That lawlessness occasionally spilled over into other kingdoms, which was why Sulasia maintained the Line of the Hawk, a series of forts along the border of Shac that discouraged armed parties from trying to slip into Sulasia.  Shac also had trouble with the Free Duchies to the east, the remnants of what was once the kingdom of Tor, as well as a few desmenses of former Shacan Marquis.  That was one of the most dangerous areas in the west, which was nothing more than a series of independent city-states, which controlled only the land around them.  The land between the city-states was often a no-man's land ruled by whatever warlord had the upper hand at the time.  More than once, a warlord had tried to reunite the Free Duchies, but the intense enmity between the city-states made that almost impossible.  The Free Duchies had been embroiled in a series of wars over the centuries that would have done Tykarthia and Draconia proud.  	The only reason that the place didn't explode into all-out war was because that region of the Western Kingdoms was the richest, most fertile farmland to be found.  The Free Duchies were often called the bread basket of the west.  There was war and struggle, to be sure, but it always happened to occur after a harvest.  Not even the most maniacal ruler of a free city would march his army over the food that ran his city.  That huge production of food also tended to keep the citizens of the city-states content, and content citizenry rarely found the energy to support a war with some other city.
	"What is this place?" Tarrin asked, pointing to a strange triangular symbol on the map.  It was on the coastline, probably about twenty leagues from Roulet.
	"That?  Oh, that's Bajra Myrr," Luke replied, looking at the map.  "One of the Seven Cities of the Ancients."
	That was a name that he recognized, because they had talked about it in the Novitiate classes.  The Seven Cities were cities built and abandoned long before Suld was built.  Nobody knew who built them, why, or what happened to them, they just knew their names.  They were so ancient that even those that Tarrin referred to as the Ancients had no idea who they had been.  Though the old katzh-dashi were considered the Ancients, the peoples who built those seven cities were also called the Ancients.  But the two peoples shared nothing in common more than that term, because the true Ancients disappeared long before the katzh-dashi Ancients had settled in Suld.  To a Sorcerer it may seem confusing, but when one considered that only the katzh-dashi and those who had studied them called the old Sorcerers the Ancients, it made more sense.  Sorcerers called their ancestors the Ancients, but often called the denizens of those forgotten cities the Old Ones to separate them.
	According to those lessons, there was very little left of those seven cities.  Just piles of mossy stone, a few foundations, and a sense that there had once been something built upon those spots.  That was why it was so hard for scholars to even discover who had once been there.  There just wasn't anything left to use to learn more about them.
	"I didn't realize that it was on the coast."
	"Yeah, but nobody goes there.  It's said to be haunted, and sailors are too superstitious a lot to risk it."
	"Hmm," he sounded absently, but by then his attention span had dissolved.  He stalked out of the navigation room quietly, going back out onto the deck.
	It was later that day, nearly at sunset, when Dolanna sat Tarrin down near the bow.  From her scent, Tarrin could tell that she was a little agitated, but as usual, her appearance gave no clue as to her inner feelings.  "Keritanima tells me that you had something happen yesterday," she began.
	"Something, but I don't know what."  With slow attention to detail, Tarrin told Dolanna about what had happened with Sheba the Pirate.  He was careful to explain the way it felt.  When he was done, Dolanna was pursing her lips, her brows knitting together.  "I do not know if it was Sorcery or not," she finally concluded.  "You are right about that, dear one.  Since your cat form is so radically different than your humanoid one, perhaps the way Sorcery works while in that form is also different."
	"I don't know," he said.
	"Do you think you could do it again?"
	"I think so," he replied.  "It was something like a reflex, but I remember the way it felt.  It may take a while, but I should be able to do it again."
	"Well, we will 