th Fara'Nae, and what was probably most selfish, he was feeling the wonderment of defying gravity, of flying through the air.  It wasn't by his own power, but the feeling was much the same as if it had been, a feeling of boundless freedom that incited the deepest parts of both his human and Cat halves, inspired a sensation that he had the entire world laid out before him for his enjoyment.  It was something that he would not trade in, for all the gold in the world.
	Some things were worth more than money, and to a being whose very existence hinged on being free, it was one of the most wonderful feelings in the world.
 
Chapter 16

	Down and down and down, until finally the ground was once again where it was supposed to be.
	Tarrin felt bitterly disappointed that it was over.  Ariana was on the ground, fluttering her wings slightly for some strange reason, and with a sigh of regret, Tarrin climbed out of the basket and put his paws back on the hot, sandy soil of the desert floor.
	Ariana had done a good job of it.  They were some thirty longspans to the northwest of the edge of the cloud.  She had spiralled down lazily, taking her time, but moving ever further out to the northwest with each broad circle.  It was some time in the afternoon, and they had come down in an area where those stunted desert bushes were starting to regrow after a denuding pass by Selani flocks.  The Selani themselves were well southeast of them, well beyond any area where they may be a danger to him, or pose a danger to themselves because of him.
	Sarraya flitted out of the basket as Tarrin stretched, then absently returned to his humanoid form.  Ariana blew out her breath and looked at him, then grunted softly.  "I take it that you don't have any water, do you?" she asked.  "Flying like that makes me thirsty."
	Tarrin just gave her a look, then glanced at Sarraya.  "One full waterskin, coming up," she declared.  Tarrin held out his paw as Sarraya summoned up her Druidic power, and a full waterskin appeared in his paw.
	"Magic!" Ariana breathed.
	"I'm a Faerie, girl," Sarraya said chidingly.  Tarrin handed it to the Aeradalla emotionlessly, and the woman gave it a suspicious look before opening it.
	"This is safe, isn't it?" she asked.
	Sarraya gave her a hard look, and Ariana laughed.  "Sorry, stupid question," she apologized, then took a long, deep draw from the skin.
	Tarrin crossed his arms and looked down at the much shorter Aeradalla.  The tops of her wings nearly came up to the level of his eyes, though.  "Alright, now you can tell me how you ended up as a serving wench."
	Ariana chuckled ruefully.  "Well, there's not a whole lot to it," she said.  "When I got home, I found out that my house had been annexed by the Ruling Council, as had everything I owned.  They had declared me dead.  Well, my parents are both dead and my sister is married to a noble and had disowned me--I'm not up to her standards, you see.  So I didn't have anyone to turn to for help.  I lost all my assets when I was captured by the Arakites, and the Ruling Council took what was left.   I was destitute, so I had to get a job.  I worked in warehouses and festhalls, trying to get up enough money for a crossbow, so I could at least hunt for my own food.  I nearly had enough, when the lackeys from the Palace tracked me down and said that I owed taxes on the house that they took from me while I was gone!"  She spat.  "Damned greedy bastards," she growled.  "Ever since the King was wounded, they've been running roughshod all over us commoners, and we can't do anything about it, because they have magicians and we don't.  They've been taxing us into the poorhouse!"
	"What happened to your king?" Sarraya asked.
	"He got a little too close to what he thought was a dead inu," she sighed.  "It took a big piece out of him, and what was worse, it tore off one of his wings."
	Sarraya and Tarrin exchanged glances, then Sarraya laughed brightly.  "Well, Ariana, I think that your governmental problems should be clearing up right about now," the Faerie said with a broad grin.
	"What are you talking about?"
	"We saw a one-winged Aeradalla in that obelisk at the center of the city," Tarrin told her.  "We healed him before we left."
	Ariana gaped at him.  "You did?  That's wonderful!" she said excitedly.  "He went there, hoping that Shaervan would restore him."
	"Shaervan?" Sarraya asked.
	"Our god," Ariana replied.  "That place is the holiest of places.  It's said that Shaervan rested there after he made our city, that he wrote the Book of Joy there, the holy book of our people, and he left behind an object to ensure that we would always be safe and happy.  Only the king and the High Priest can go there."  She gave him a quick look.  "You were there?  What's there?" she asked quickly.  "Everyone passes rumors about what's inside the obelisk."
	"I think it would be a dishonor to your god to pass around his secrets, Ariana," Tarrin said calmly.  "Let's just say that there is something there, and it does what your people say it does.  That's all I'm going to say about it, so leave it be."
	She gave him a slightly disappointed look.
	Sarraya laughed.  "I hope your king has some backbone, girl," she told Ariana.  "From the sound of it, his Ruling Council won't be very happy that he's coming back.  He may have to step on some necks."
	"King Andos is a strong king," Ariana told her calmly.  "He's loved by the people, and he's very shrewd.  All he'll have to do is hold one of his courts where anyone can state a grievance, and that'll be the end of the Ruling Council."  She gave them a sudden anxious look.  "I can get my house back!" she declared.  "I just have to tell the king what happened!"
	"You can just see the king whenever you want?" Sarraya asked.
	"I can," she said with a little smile.  "My father was one of the king's advisors before he retired, and he remembers our name.  If I go to the Palace and make it clear it's something very important, he'll see me."
	"He didn't look quite that old," Sarraya told Tarrin.  "At least not under all that waste."
	"What are you talking about?" Ariana asked.
	"He didn't look old enough to be friends with your father," Tarrin told her.
	"Well, he was only a boy when he took the throne," she replied.  "Men like my father helped guide him while he got used to the throne.  I like to think that my father had a hand in making him the king he is today.  But I guess that's a little arrogant."
	"Truth isn't arrogance," Tarrin said dismissively.
	"Well, in any event, I really have to get back," she said quickly.  "If I hurry, I can be sleeping under my old roof by tonight.  I was thinking I'd take you wherever you're going, but I hope you don't mind if I take care of this."
	Tarrin looked away from her.  "I wouldn't let you take me anywhere, Ariana," he said grimly.  "There's something I need to do yet, and until that's done, I can't leave.  You'd be waiting a long time to take me anywhere, so it's best if you just go home."
	Ariana stared at him.  "Is there anything I can do to help?  First you save me, now you've healed my king.  You should be rewarded for that.  Can we do anything for you?  Anything at all?"
	"I don't need anything," Tarrin told her.
	Give her a shaeram, the voice of the Goddess came to him.  It was not a gentle voice.  It was a commanding voice.  Give her a shaeram, and tell her that if she ever needs you, that she can contact you.
	Why, Mother? he thought to himself.  Why would I ever need to talk to her?  I don't understand.
	That was not a suggestion, kitten, she said sharply.  You are one of my children, and that gives me the right to tell you to do things you don't understand from time to time.
	As you command, Mother, he said with immediate submission.  He would not disobey his goddess.  How do I get a shaeram?
	How do you get anything? came her reply, and then he felt her presence retreat back away from him.
	That was that.  The Goddess didn't often order him to do anything, and when she did, that meant that it was important enough not to question.  Obviously, the Goddess knew something that he didn't, and he would yield to her superior wisdom.
	Getting a shaeram was a very simple affair.  Reaching within, Tarrin came into contact with his own Druidic ability, and formed the image of it in his mind.  Then he simply willed it to appear.  And it did.  A shaeram appeared in his paw, one made of quartz crystal, with a sturdy silver chain.  Quartz?  He wasn't thinking of quartz when he formed the image.  Maybe the Goddess was tampering a bit there?  It was quite lovely, he had to admit, catching the light and giving off rainbow sparkles and scillinting flashes of light.  He wasn't sure how she was going to use it to talk to him, but again, he had the feeling that the Goddess was going to take care of that.  He knew that, when necessary, the Goddess could weave her own spells.  He had seen them, in his amulet, so he knew that she could do it.  He had little doubt that she'd weave whatever spells she thought necessary into the amulet...but probably when he wasn't looking.  No doubt he'd see what she'd do, and try to do it hismelf.  Considering the vast differences between their abilities, that would probably be a very bad idea on his part.
	At least one part he did understand.  She had a shaeram, and he knew her name.  That meant that he could use his amulet to talk to her any time he wished.  It didn't require any talent in Sorcery to be the receiver of one of those spells.  All they needed was the shaeram.
	"Here," he said gruffly, holding out the shaeram.  "Take this."
	"It's lovely," she said, holding it up and admiring it.  "It's like yours, isn't it?  Well, not exactly."
	He nodded.  "It's the holy symbol of my goddess," he told her.  "It also has some extra abilities.  If you need me--and only if you really need me--you can use this to talk to me.  No matter where I am."
	"Really?  Magic again?"
	He nodded.  "But don't play with it," he warned in a strong voice.  He decided that a bit of artful deception was required here, and Shiika's own little device gave him a good idea.  "It will only work once, and then I'll have to recharge it.  So make sure you don't use it unless absolutely necessary."
	"Really?  Alright, then.  I'll only use it if it's really important.  I hope Shaevan won't mind that I'm wearing the symbol of another god," she said worryingly as she slid the chain over her head and settled the amulet in place.
	"It's the only way," Tarrin told her.  "It won't work unless it's a shaeram."
	"That's what it's called, isn't it?"  He nodded, then she chuckled ruefully.  "You just keep helping," she smiled.  "I'm going to be in such a big hole of debt to you that I'll never get out of it."
	"No matter," Tarrin shrugged.  "I doubt we'll ever see each other again."
	"We will," she promised.  "And maybe next time, you won't be coming to my rescue.  I owe you a big debt, Tarrin.  I'll find some way to repay you for everything you've done for me.  For me, and for my people."
	"It's no matter to me, Ariana," he told her calmly.
	"Well, it is to me," she said stubbornly.  "I have to go, or I'll miss the afternoon thermals and have to claw my way all the way up to the city."
	"Hold on," Sarraya called.  "Can't let you be sleeping in an alley, in case you can't get in to see the king tonight."  She flitted up and held out her hands, and he felt her use her Druidic magic.  The basket around her waist suddenly dipped slightly as something appeared within it.  Ariana opened the flap and looked inside, and her eyes went wide and wild as she drove her hand inside and pulled something out.
	Gems!
	Sarraya had literally filled the basket with all sorts of gems!  Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, topaz, onyx, many kinds of jewels.  Some were no larger than grains of sand, but a few of them were as big as a child's fist.  There was an absolute fortune in that basket!
	"Shaervan's feathers!" Ariana gasped, staring in disbelief at the handful of gems in her hand.  "This is a king's ransom!"
	"It very well may be," Sarraya said seriously.  "Those Ruling Council bullies may not go out without a fight.  This way, someone has the money to fight them on even ground."
	Ariana looked at both of them, tears starting to well up in her eyes.  "I can never repay this," she said chokingly.
	"It's nothing but a bunch of little rocks," Sarraya shrugged with a twinkle in her tiny eyes.  "No bother."
	Ariana looked at her, then laughed.  "I really have to go, before I'm flying up there on the back of a dragon," she said with a mischievious grin.
	"Hold on, let me seal that up so nothing spills," Sarraya said, touching the basket with a finger.  "There.  The top is lined with soft wax.  Nothing's going to spill out, and all you have to do is give it a good tug to open it."
	"I can't ever thank you enough for everything you've done for me," she said with a beautifully grateful look.  Tarrin forgot how pretty Ariana was until that moment.
	"You can thank us by getting home and putting everything right," Tarrin told her gruffly.  "Now go."
	"I'll see you again, I promise," she said, stepping boldly up to him.  She reached up and put her hand on the back of his neck, and it startled him enough to where he didn't resist when she pulled him down.  She kissed him on the cheek, then stepped back, gave them one more look, then turned and vaulted into the air.
	Tarrin and Sarraya watched her go, Sarraya sitting on his shoulder, for a few moments.  "What was with the amulet?"
	"Orders, from someone that I'm not about to argue with," he replied.  "Where did you get those gems?  Someone's going to be very angry."
	"I don't steal money from people, Tarrin," she chided.  "I created those."
	"I never thought of using it that way before."
	"You're not greedy," Sarraya chuckled.  "Maybe now you understand why there's such intensive training for Druids.  It protects the global economy."
	"I guess so."
	"So," Sarraya said with a lilting little chuckle.  "Where to now?"
	"The same as before," he replied, turning and looking away from Ariana, towards the northwest.  "That way."
	"It's going to be boring without Var and Denai.  You're not much of a conversationalist, and you can't say anything I haven't heard before."
	"Live with it," he said bluntly, starting to walk just left of the waning sun.
	"I've heard that before," she teased in an accusing tone.
	"Try shut up or die."
	"Heard that too.  Really, Tarrin, you have to work harder if you're going to keep me entertained."
	With his tail, he swatted the Faerie off his shoulder.  He didn't hit her hard enough to hurt her, but it definitely startled her.  So badly that she almost didn't get her wings going before hitting the ground.  She began to splutter and stammer after him, obviously at a loss for words.
	"Now you're entertained," he told her as he picked up into a loping run.  Leaving the Cloud Spire and the city hidden atop it behind, letting them pass on into his memory.  He had done and seen many things there, but now the path ahead beckoned, as did the promised reckoning with the treacherous Doomwalker, Jegojah.  That was all that could find its way into his mind now.

	The days blurred together after that, day after day of endless sameness.  It was a quiet time of reflection, a time to practice with newly regained powers, a time to prepare for what he knew was coming.
	They travelled northwest over desert terrain that grew steadily more hilly, and the vegetation that had occupied swaths of favorable ground became more common.  In some places, the floor of the desert was as green as a manor's lawn, overrun with those tough, wiry bushes that were the fare of the plant-eating desert denizens.  The going was relatively smooth, however, for Tarrin was tall enough to treat the bushes as little more than high grass, and his pads and fur were tough enough to resist the little thorns that armored those stringy plants.  He moved in a virtual straight line over that terrain, rarely detouring from his northwest course, stopping only for a respite during the hottest part of the day, for the night and the hidden dangers it possessed, and to eat, rest, and practice.
	That wasn't to say that there weren't a few problems.  On six separate occasions, he had spats with some of the more adventurous wildlife common in the desert.  Those spats were invariably fatal for the hapless inu and kajat that didn't have the sense to back off, that didn't comprehend that they were dealing with something even worse than they were.  They had ruled the desert for such a long time that their superiority had been bred into them, as well as the sense that they had no reason to fear anything in their domain.  They had never encountered anything like an implacable Were-cat before, and the few who survived marked Tarrin's passing and his scent as that of an enemy to fear.  Tarrin had become utterly focused on his impending visitor, to such a point that he became short with animals that he usually would have allowed to get away.
	Those encounters gave him something of a taste for inu and kajat.  Enough to hunt them down for a meal when the situation presented itself.
	Each day had become an established pattern.  He would wake up and eat breakfast with Sarraya, usually eating whatever was left of the unfortunate victim from the previous night's hunting.  Then they would travel until the hottest part of the day, when they would shelter again to give Sarraya relief from the blistering heat.  While she rested, Tarrin practiced with his magic.  After the hottest part of the day was over, they travelled again until about an hour before sunset.  Then they would find a good campsite that would offer shelter from the Sandmen, Tarrin would track down whatever unlucky animal was nearby for dinner, and they would eat again.  Then Tarrin would practice with his magic again until he felt ready to sleep.  And the new day would start the cycle over again.
	Time was something of of a fluid thing for Tarrin.  In cat form, he was utterly unable to keep a sense of time outside of the time of day.  If he held the form for more than a few days, he became incapable of remembering what day it was.  It was a function of his Cat side, a side that didn't care about the past or the future, a side that only lived in the moment.  In his humanoid form, he could keep track of time, but only if that time didn't fall into an established pattern.   As soon as it did, it all blurred together in a kind of cloud of sameness, and he had trouble counting back the days to determine how much time had passed.  Sarraya had become his timekeeper, telling him that the days were marching on, that the winter in the West was beginning to yield to spring.
	Tarrin did have one sense of continuity during their travels.  His practice of his magic had given him a gauge of sorts to determine how far they had come.  At first, it required a supreme act of will and intense concentration to use his Weavespinner magic, but as he practiced more and more, that level of force and concentration became less and less.  He went from having to focus his entire attention on his magic to being able to exercise his magical ability with only a modicum of effort.  Much as it had been for him before he lost his power, he became intimately familiar with the process, and that familiarity and the practice he had done had elevated his powers to make them quite nearly as reliable as they had been before the accident.  He could again summon up his magic whenever he needed it, and it generally did what he wanted it to do.  The practice did what it was intended to do, and that was give him the ability to use Sorcery.
	But now he could use it safely and efficiently, something he had not had before.  It felt strange to him every time he gathered himself to use his power, that he had no reason to fear it now.  But it also felt as if he had been healed of some long injury, and had become what he was meant to be from the beginning.
	As the days passed, he came to fully appreciate his power, and how much it had changed.  Weavespinner magic worked without the initial stage of building power to weave spells, and that was a significant difference.  When he had seen the Sha'Kar woman use her magic, he had been stunned by the unbelievable speed in which she could control her magic.  Now that he had begun to use the same kind of magic, he discovered it to be dramatically faster.  Weavespinner magic literally moved at the speed of thought, though he still had to concentrate to use his power where the Sha'kar seemed to be able to use it instantly.  He understood that a Weavespinner could out-weave any regular Sorcerer so effectively it would nearly be ridiculous.  By the time the Sorcerer was ready to use magic, the Weavespinner already had total control of the surrounding Weave.  Anything the Sorcerer did could be controlled by the Weavespinner.  The only time the Weavespinner was reduced to the same rules was when he or she resorted to High Sorcery, and that gave advantages all its own.  Speed was the margin of victory in Weavespinner magic, but raw power prevailed when moving up the rungs of the progression of magical power.
	One pitfall he had already identified was the ease of Weavespinner magic.  It was almost too easy, and he could already see dangers in becoming too close to the power.  He would begin using Sorcery without even realizing it, having his will and wish start to affect the Weave in ways he didn't intend.  When he did reach the same level of competency as the Sha'Kar, he would have to keep a tight control on his thoughts, on his desires, else he unconsciously start using Sorcery to try to bring them about.  That could be disastrous, especially considering his aggressive indifference to the continued life of the people around him he didn't know, or particularly care about.  Stray impulses to have them go away could result in killing magic, and that was something that he knew he had to prevent before it happened, else he could get himself into serious trouble, both mentally and socially.
	His sense of the Weave had also increased day by day, becoming more and more acute as time passed.  His practice had intensified it even more, until absolutely nothing about the Weave could escape him when he actively concentrated on it.  He could feel everything within it, every miniscule shift in its pattern of energy, every pulse of the communal heart that powered the flow of magic through the Weave.  He could read the Weave like a book, could sense magic moving through it and determine what kind of magic it was, where it had come from, where it was going, and usually who had summoned it.  Even Sarraya's Druidic magic became more clear to him.  Not because it went through the Weave, because it didn't, but because when she used it, she created something of an echo on the Weave.  And with a little practice, he began to be able to sense what she was going to do before it happened, because of the volume, pitch, and harmonics carried within that echo.
	During that time of practice and progression, they had not been bothered much by the Selani.  Almost all of the clans were at Gathering, but there were a few Selani left here and there, left behind to guard water supplies and verdant belts, to ensure the flocks had something when they returned.  Those sentries didn't interfere with Tarrin, but a few of them had taken up following him, most likely as an entertaining diversion in the monotonous task of guarding plants that don't really try to get up and run away.  He could see them sometimes in the morning or after dark, when there was no heat-haze to hide them in the distance.  He didn't really care that they followed him, as long as they stayed back there.
	All of it had a purpose, and that purpose was Jegojah.  The Doomwalker was coming, he could even sense its approach now, and it would be there soon.  Days, perhaps, but no more than a ride.  Tarrin's hatred and fury over the Doomwalker had not eased over those uncountable days of preparation--in fact, they had become worse.  Tarrin would never forgive the Doomwalker for killing Faalken, for trying to kill his sister and his parents, and the thought that it just kept coming back again and again had offended him at the deepest level possible.  He was tired of looking over his shoulder for Jegojah, and he was absolutely determined to deal with the Doomwalker for the last time.  There would be no quarter, no mercy, in this battle, and it would not end until one of them was destroyed.  He wasn't quite sure how he was going to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, but he wasn't all that concerned.  His impulsive nature gave him a bent of creativity, and he was fairly confident that when the time came, he'd think of something, confident that the Goddess would tell him what to do.  It was faith, faith in his goddess to protect and watch over him.  It was all he had, because days and days and days of endless thought and planning had not yielded a real plan for ridding himself of Jegojah once and for all.  Faith was about the only thing he had left, but it was something that he was willing to depend upon.  His goddess had yet to fail him, and with a record like that, he was more than willing to put blind trust in her.
	Since he had regained a goodly portion of his power, the focus of his travels had drifted away from magical study and had reached a point where he felt it was time to get ready for Jegojah.  That meant that he needed to find an ideal battleground, a place that would suit his needs while eliminating the largest of Jegojah's advantages.  It needed to be a broken place, with lots of irregular ground.  That favored Tarrin, who was more mobile and agile, who could use that broken land to better advantage than his slower, armored foe.  It also had to be bare rock, to deny the Doomwalker its power to draw energy from the land.  It needed to be a lot of rock, to keep the Doomwalker from fleeing to a place where it could draw energy when the battle turned against it.
	One place seemed perfect to him, a place that both Denai and Allia had mentioned.  Some place called the Broken Lands, a place where a flat sheet of rock, hundreds of square longspans in area, had been pierced by innumerable gulleys, canyons, and crevasses.  But that place was many days behind them, to hear Denai talk about it.  He wasn't about to go all the way back there and travel the distance to where he was again.  Since that place wasn't available, maybe something smaller, something a bit closer, would do.  But without Denai and Var to guide him, he'd have to just wander around until he found something suitable.
	So it was with an eye on the horizon that Tarrin ran that day, absently correcting Sarraya on her Sha'Kar as she practiced by speaking in that language.  The corrections were mainly cosmetic, for the Faerie was now more or less fluent in the language, but she had a bad habit of using words of other languages when she felt another word more perfectly mirrored her thoughts.  That was something that irritated the perfectionist in Tarrin when it came to languages, so he strove to break her of it now, before it became too ingrained to easily shed.  The terrain of that region of the desert was noticably hilly, but lacked the rock spires and mesas more common in the southern reaches of the desert.  He had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to be easy to find a good battleground in that section of the desert, but he had to keep looking.  There were many more wild animals there than in the southern reaches of the desert, but that made sense in that there seemed to be more plant life to support the food chain.
	"Can we stop?" Sarraya asked in Sha'Kar.  "I'm starting to get hot."
	Tarrin pulled in and looked up at the sky.  The sun was pretty close to its noontime zenith, and it did feel a little warm.  Ever since he had become a Weavespinner, he didn't notice warmth much anymore.  Or cold, for that matter.  He could feel heat, but it was as if it had no meaning for him anymore, because it never really felt hot.
	"Alright.  Let's go to that little hillock over there," he said, pointing at a small tor that rose up from the surrounding low hills.  "It's higher up, so we can see anything coming at us."
	They moved up to the top of the little tor, which had steep drops on two sides, and Sarraya conjured up a little lean-to to serve as shade against the brutal sun.  She also conjured some lunch, and a little ice from some glacier somewhere to put in a tiny conjured cup of wine.  Tarrin sat just inside the lean-to, the shade yielding to the sun about halfway up his legs as he sat there with his legs out and ankles crossed, leaning against a large rock that was under the lean-to's protection.  He watched in mild interest as a scorpion braved the heat of the sun to climb up his ragged pant leg and perch atop his knee, probably trying to figure out what it was it had just ascended.  The little tail sting flexed back and forth rhythmically as it tried to decide just what to do next.  Then, probably deciding that there was no food there, it climbed across his legs and down the other side, then scuttled behind the safety of a pile of loose rocks nearby.
	"Ah, much better," Sarraya sighed, flitting over and sitting on his thigh.  "You know, the desert is actually kind of pretty.  Nothing like the forest of course, but it does have its own unique charm."
	"You only just noticed?"
	"Don't be nasty," she chided, looking up at him.  "What do you think Var and Denai are doing right now?"
	"Probably something that would make you giggle," he replied absently.
	"I'd put money that if they're not married by now, then they're betrothed."
	"You'd lose that bet," Tarrin told her.  "Selani don't associate trysts with marriage.  Why spoil a perfectly fine physical relationship with marriage?"
	"I guess I'm a prig," she laughed.  "My husband kept trying to get me to go to bed with him for five years while we were betrothed, but I wouldn't hear of it.  I liked him keeping his every attention on me, and to be honest, I didn't want to do badly in bed and have him decide that I wasn't worth marrying," she admitted.  "After we were married, it didn't much matter.  Not that he was disappointed about it.  Five years of fun we could have had, down the drain.  Ah, well."
	"You know, you've never talked about this mysterious husband of yours.  Does he mind you being out here