," Tarrin agreed, slowing to a stop and looking at a skull laying near a bush.  It was a large, narrow skull, the skull of an inu.  It had a hole in the side of it skull, and there were deep gouges near the base of it, the signs that the skull had been raked by sharp teeth.  The bone was still slightly pinkish, a sign that it hadn't been dead very long.  "That's fresh."
	"Looks like an inu wasn't paying attention," Denai mused.  "Those teethmarks look like a kajat."
	"A small one," Tarrin agreed, looking towards the forest when a slight sound reached his ears.  Those cat ears picked up, turning towards the sound, locking in on it.  "There's something moving around over there."
	"It's not stupid enough to attack us here," Denai scoffed.  "It would have to run over a longspan just to reach us!"
	The sound was a strange rumbling, not the thudding of feet or the rustling of trees.  "It's not that, it's something else," he said, opening his senses.  It was indeed a rumbling, a low-sounded rumbling, like the rumble of thunder moving through the ground rather than through the air.  As he opened his senses, his sense of the Weave also expanded, allowing him to feel more and more of it.  Whatever it was was affecting the Weave as well, causing it to shudder and vibrate as if being shaken.
	He could feel it in the pads of his feet now, a vibration in the ground.  Tarrin knelt down and put the palm of his paw on the ground, feeling that strange rumbling.  It was coming from the ground.
	"I think it's--" Sarraya began, then everything suddenly got turned on its ear.
	The ground suddenly heaved violently.  Tarrin, who was already squatting down,  put his other paw down to stabilize himself as the ground rocked and swayed underneath him, and the sound of it became a loud crackling, the sound of breaking stone.  Denai gave out a cry and tumbled over onto her back, then rolled over on her belly and covered her head with her hands.  Tarrin turned and looked to the south, and saw the escarpment suddenly buckle, then heave and buckle again, rising up visibly as the ground shuddered horrendously.
	It was an earthquake!  And what was bad luck, it was a natural earthquake!
	"It's an earthquake!" Sarraya shouted as a cloud of dust began to rise from the quivering ground.  "Stay down, don't move!  That escarpment is a fault line!"
	Tarrin watched in a kind of nervous curiosity as the escarpment seemed to undulate wildly, growing higher and lower visibly, until the shuddering and the motion ground itself to a halt.  The ground still shook and grumbled, until that too began to die away, as a cloud of dust rose up around them.
	Denai began to laugh.  "You are bad luck, Tarrin!" she jibed at him.  "It had to be an earthquake, didn't it!  It couldn't have been something simple, like a kajat attack.  No, you just had to go and bring an earthquake with you!"
	Tarrin looked at her, hazy in the rising dust, then snorted.  "Don't blame nature on me," he told her.  "This was natural.  I had nothing to do with it."
	"Very natural," Sarraya agreed.  "The escarpment is almost a span higher now.  It's a fault."
	"What is a fault?" Denai asked as she regained her feet.
	"It's a crack in the earth," Sarraya explained as Tarrin stood up, brushing dust off of his pants.  "The earth moves, Denai, it doesn't just sit there, but it only moves a finger or two a year.  A fault is where two parts of moving earth push up against each other.  They can't move freely, because of the grinding, so they move in big jumps and heaves, and those are earthquakes."
	"I'll take your word for it, Sarraya," Denai chuckled.  "I don't know anything about any of that."
	"Well, there's something else I can add to the story," Tarrin grunted.
	"All we need now is a flood, a tornado, and a hurricane, and we'll have the complete set of natural disasters," Sarraya laughed.
	"Floods happen in the desert, when it rains," Denai told them.  "I don't know what a hurricane or a tornado is."
	"Types of storms," Tarrin told her.  "This dust is getting thick.  Let's move away from the forest."
	"Good idea, it's giving the predators cover," Denai agreed.
	They moved south, away from the forest, for about five longspans, climbing back up the now taller escarpment to do so, then continued westward.  They did so carefully and cautiously as the dust settled, making sure that nothing surprised them.  The going was as quickly as the dust would allow, but several smaller earthquakes, what Sarraya called aftershocks, kept both Tarrin and Denai a little edgy during their skirting of the forest.  They managed to get the forest behind them by sunset without any trouble, and set up for the night in a hollow niche in the side of a small rock spire.  There were several more aftershocks over the course of the night, but they did little more than shake dust from overhead, and the two landbound beings eventually became accustomed to the faint rumbling.
	They were off again in the morning, but they had barely gone more than five longspans when Tarrin pulled up abruptly and stared at a patch of sandy ground, between two large thorny bushes.  It was a pathway of sorts, an animal trail, and there were footprints in it that Tarrin never thought he'd see in the desert.
	Trolls.
	Tarrin knelt by the tracks, even bent down to take a whiff of them.  The stench of Troll was all over the footprint, and what was more important, it was very fresh.  Not even an hour old.
	"What manner of beast made those?" Denai asked.
	"Trolls," Tarrin said, nearly spitting out the word as the instinctual hatred for the Goblinoids roared up inside him.  Were-kin and Goblinoids were bitter natural enemies, and every fiber of Tarrin's being screamed out for him to track down and kill the invading marauders.
	"Trolls?  I thought they lived in mountains."
	"Usually they do," Sarraya said.  "I have no idea how they're surviving out here in this heat.  Trolls aren't built for it.  You think it's a coincidence?"
	Tarrin snorted.  "They know where I'm going, Sarraya.  They know that there are only so many passes through the mountains.  These must be scouts, sent to find me and catch me before I can cross."
	"I'll bet the passes too are infested with Trolls," Sarraya fretted.
	"They're after you?" Denai asked.
	"They're after what I'm carrying, and they'll kill everything they can get their hands on to get it," he told her bluntly.  "Are there any Selani holdings nearby?"
	"I really don't know, but they can't be too far if they harvest the nuts from the forest," she said. "Don't worry about them, Tarrin.  Most of the warriors are at Gathering, but those remaining behind to watch things won't attack these Trolls if there are too many of them.  And they'll never find my people," she added with a grin.
	"Let's hope so," Tarrin grunted.  "Your people aren't ready to deal with Trolls."
	"They can't be that bad."
	"Not really, but a few of your people may get killed before they understand what they're fighting," Sarraya told her seriously.  "Trolls are nasty customers."
	"What is a Troll like?"
	"Taller than Tarrin, and about three times as wide," Sarraya told her.  "They look ungainly, but they can move very fast when they want to.  They're probably as strong as Tarrin, if not stronger."
	"Formidable," Denai said.  "But my people would respect their size."
	"It's not their size you have to watch, it's their speed," Tarrin told her, looking out into the desert, in the direction the tracks led, looking due south.  "Trolls use their size as a feint to make a quick lunge for the kill.  They're stupid, but they know that most people don't expect them to move as fast as they do."
	"They'd not catch my people off guard," Denai upheld.
	"In either case, let's hope they're smart enough to stay out of sight and wait for the rest of their clan to arrive before trying to chase them out."
	"Let's not overlook the real problem here," Sarraya said.  "If there are Trolls in the desert, that means that there are Trolls in the pass.  I'd rather not fight a running war with Trolls on steep mountain trails.  That's their territory, and we'd be at a serious disadvantage."
	"Are there any other passes near here?" Tarrin asked Denai.  "Anything, no matter how small?"
	"Not really," she replied after thinking a moment.  "My education of this stretch of desert is pretty old, but I do remember that there are only two passes in the north.  The other one is a hundred leagues north of here."
	"That's too far," Tarrin grunted.  "What about going straight over the mountains?"
	"The Sandshield is a narrow mountain range, but the mountains that are there are very rugged and very high, Tarrin," Sarraya said.  "Those passes are the only way through for a reason."
	"Could I get over the mountains without using the pass?"
	"Probably, but it would be a very hard passage," Sarraya told him.  "You'll be climbing up and down the mountains.  And we're talking about some formidable mountains."
	"Well what do you expect me to do, Sarraya?" Tarrin said to her in a little frustration.  "We can't go through the pass if it's being occupied, and I don't have time to make any detours.  I have to get to Suld as fast as I can."
	"Well then, stop thinking with your muscles and think with your head," Sarraya said sternly.  "You're a Sorcerer, Tarrin.  Do you know any magic that might help you get over the mountains?"
	"I--" he began, then it occurred to him that Sarraya was right.  What good was his magic if he never thought to use it?  He could think of any number of ways to use magic to get over the Sandshield, and all of them were feasible options.  "You're right, Sarraya," he admitted.  "I can think of about ten different ways to get over the mountains with magic."
	"Well then, there we go," Sarraya grinned.  "Let's just head straight for the mountains, and when we get there, you can magic yourself across."
	"For someone with a small head, she certainly has big ideas," Denai teased.
	"At least I use what brains I have, Denai," Sarraya shot back playfully.
	"Which way do we go to get to the mountains as fast as possible, Denai?" Tarrin asked.
	"Due west," she replied, pointing.  "If we push, we can get there in a little over two days.  Maybe two, if we really push."
	"How far will we be from the pass?" Tarrin asked.  "The majority of the Trolls will be near the pass, to intercept me."
	"A good day south of it," she replied.  "It would have taken us four days to reach the pass."
	"Then that's where we're going," Tarrin said, standing up.  "This bunch of Trolls is going south, so they shouldn't be a problem."
	"We'd better move carefully, if these Trolls are that dangerous," Denai warned.
	"We move as fast as we can," Tarrin told her bluntly.  "If we run into Trolls, then we'll kill them and keep going.  Dead Trolls can't report back and tell the others they found us, can they?"
	"I knew there was a reason I liked him," Denai said to Sarraya with a laugh as they started west.

	A strange sense of urgency welled up inside Tarrin as they ran due west, keeping the western edge of the Skybands firmly in front of them on the horizon as they raced across the increasingly stony, barren desert.  He wasn't entirely sure what was making him feel that way, but there were certainly enough reasons for it.  He had to get to Suld, and now the ki'zadun had sent their Trolls out into the desert to slow him down or catch him.  When he'd heard about the plan to attack Suld, he'd more or less thought that they'd forget about him, concentrate on taking Suld and taking the Book of Ages off his dead body.  But that obviously wasn't the case.  He was still very high up on the enemy's list of objectives, important enough for them to divert Trolls into an environment that would kill them in a matter of rides, all done to intercept him.
	If that wasn't bad enough, he also worried about his sisters, all three of them.  Jula hadn't found the spy yet, so that made the tower a dangerous place for Allia and Keritanima.  Shiika's daughters would be arriving any day now, if they weren't there already, and that meant that it was going to tip their hand to the spy that something was going on.  Six cambisi weren't going to just drop in for tea.  The spy may find out what was happening, and warn her masters and try to kill Allia and Keritanima.  It would be a very bad thing no matter what happened, because this spy had to be someone very powerful to remain hidden, despite the intense efforts that had been undertaken to ferret her out.
	And then there was Jenna.  Her ten days would be up tomorrow, and Tarrin intended to contact her and explain what had happened.  She had to be pretty nervous by now, with an expanded sense of the Weave, yet no ability to touch it.  He'd told his mother that the loss of powers was temporary, so he was sure that Jenna knew that too, but it would still be very unsettling for his younger sister.  He wanted to talk to her, explain things, tell her that it was just a matter of time until her body adjusted to the changes and allowed her to use her powers again.  He was sure that that would calm her down.  And, to be honest, he just wanted to see her again.  He missed his family, more than he realized, given that he was always so careful about not thinking about them.  He just wanted to be near them again, even in the surreal manner of projecting himself through an Illusion.  It was better than nothing.
	There was little worry for himself, but there was alot of worry for the Selani.  He really hoped that they could stay out of the way of the Trolls.  They had no idea what they'd be up against, and that was going to get some of them killed.  Tarrin no longer had any real fear of Trolls, not since he'd faced the one at the trading outpost at the border of the desert.  They had chased him and hounded him a long time ago, back in Sulasia, but that had been a younger, more inexperienced Were-cat, facing huge numbers.  Now he was older, wiser, stronger, and he'd found that a Troll wasn't as formidable as it had once seemed.  He was on par with a Troll in strength and size, but he was faster than them, and that was all the advantage he needed.  Even a smaller Were-cat was more than a match for a Troll, but it gave him great comfort to know that they'd be the ones afraid of him, and not the other way around.
	All the thoughts of Trolls seemed to draw them to him.  Around midafternoon, they pulled up when Denai spotted a small group of them at the edge of the hazy heat distortion that limited distance vision in the desert.  There had been four of them, and they were moving in the same direction as Tarrin was.  Tarrin had to resist the urge to chase them down and kill them.  Trolls were still dangerous, and four agianst one were not good odds, considering he had to keep an eye on Denai.  He'd rather catch a Troll alone and kill it, let Denai get first-hand experience with their size and strength and speed before allowing her to fight them on her own.
	"They're not moving very fast," Denai said.  "We'll catch up to them quickly."
	"There are four of them, Denai," Tarrin grunted.  "That's bad odds right now."
	"You don't have to protect me," Denai flared, as if she could see right to the matter.  "I'm an adult.  I can fight one of these Trolls.  And since there are only four of them, I say we kill them so they don't pose a threat to my brothers and sisters here."
	"She's got a point," Sarraya said to him.  "There are only four.  We can kill at least two of them before they realize they're under attack, and then you can show Denai how to kill a Troll with the survivors."
	Tarrin couldn't argue with her logic, and his hatred of Trolls, of all Goblinoids, was screaming for the blood.  "Alright, but no glory seeking, Denai.  This is a flat ambush, plain and simple.  I want to kill them before they can become a threat."
	"The Selani know how to ambush," she said with a grin.  "There's no dishonor in a good surprise attack.  The dishonor is the victim's, for not paying attention."
	And so, they picked up the pace and set themselves in a roundabout course that would take them around the Trolls and allow them to get in front of them without being seen.  The Trolls were moving at a very sluggish pace, probably because of the heat, and it only took them about half an hour to circle around the Trolls and set up in a nice spot where two large boulders were pushed against each other, providing the perfect cover. The heat had also made them less observant, for they came right over the rise and down the little hill without bothering to check for danger or keep watch on their surroundings.  When they apporached, Tarrin got a nose full of their stench, and he also smelled blood all over them.  Troll blood.  As they came closer, he saw that all four of them had arrows broken off in them, or had dirty bandages wrapped around arms or legs.  They'd been attacked by archers, and that intrigued Tarrin.  The Selani disdained missle weapons other than what could be thrown, they didn't use bows.  Who was out here in the desert shooting arrows into Trolls?
	"They're wounded," Tarrin whispered in a very low tone.  "This should go quickly, but don't get overconfident."
	"I'll be careful," Denai whispered back.
	They waited for them to reach their position, then simply came over the boulder and attacked.  And it was very effective.  The Trolls were totally taken by surprise, and their weakened condition made their reaction that much more sluggish.  Tarrin didn't even bother with a weapon, coming over the boulder with claws extended and murder all over his face, slashing the throat out of the nearest Troll before his feet even hit the ground.  Denai came after him with an undulating cry, her sword seeking out Troll flesh and biting into the belly of the fellow beside the one Tarrin had just killed.  Sarraya distracted the other two with a blinding flash of light generated by her Druidic magic, and that set them off balance enough for Tarrin to engage them as Denai stabbed her Troll right in the groin, making it squeal in a voice too high pitched for its great size.
	With his inhuman power, Tarrin slammed his shoulder into the nearest of the pair, bowling it off its feet, but his companion raised a very large, ugly-looking battle axe and took a swing at Tarrin's head.  The Were-cat swatted the weapon aside almost contemptuously, then his paw closed around the wrist of the hand holding the axe and drove claws right into the bones.  The Troll cried out, which turned into a whoomph when Tarrin's padded foot slammed into its belly and folding it over his foot.  Tarrin grabbed the back of its head, getting a paw full of greasy, stringy green hair, then yanked it down as his other paw picked up the dropped axe.  He held it up and pulled the Troll forward, getting it off balance, then planted the axe in the back of its neck.  The Troll's thick bones prevented a decapitation, but the blow was still invariably fatal.
	Tarrin glanced back to see that Denai had killed off her opponent, and that left only one.  The Troll he had bulled to the ground looked at him with terrified eyes, scrambling to its feet and grasping a crude club.  This one was relatively uninjured, and that was the reason that Tarrin had chosen to make it the last one.  Tarrin stalked in on it slowly, carefully, letting it realize that it had to fight in order to survive.  When that revelation dawned in its small, piggish eyes, a snarl of fury twisted its ugly features and it raised its club to attack.
	Tarrin toyed with the Troll for a long time, letting it attack him, letting Denai see how fast a Troll could move when it wanted to do so.  And the Troll was indeed fast, but nowhere near as fast or as nimble as its Were-cat foe.  Tarrin simply snaked around its club, or blocked it by hitting the wrist or arm wielding it, or swatted it aside with his paws.  The Troll got more and more desperate when it realized that it was fighting a foe much better at fighting than itself, and its attacks became more frenzied, faster, and more and more powerful.  Tarrin still avoided the club with an eerie ease, as if he were dodging blows from a small child in a game.  He kept doing that until he felt that Denai had seen enough, then he turned on his opponent with a suddenness that completely took the Troll by surprise.  With one blow, he knocked the Troll's club wide, raking the inside of its arm with his long, deadly claws, sending blood and skin and bits of torn flesh flying in an arc as his claws slashed through tissue and muscle.  The Troll howled in pain, but that turned into a faint gurgle as two of Tarrin's claws punctured its throat with surgical precision, driving them into the windpipe and the jugular.  The Troll grabbed its neck with both hands as it sank to its knees, its lifeblood pouring out of its neck with shocking speed, even as that blood flowed into its windpipe and began drowning it in its own blood.  But it bled to death long before it died of drowning, slumping to the side and then falling limply to the ground.
	"And that," Tarrin told her, wiping a spatter of that horrid-smelling blood from his face, "is how you kill a Troll."
	Denai laughed.  "It certainly did put up a fight."
	"Trolls aren't cowards," Sarraya told her.  "But they're stupid.  That balances out."
	"I noticed.  They don't even try to defend themselves, do they?"
	"No.  They rely on strength and speed to kill their foe quickly.  When facing someone that they can't kill with the first or second blow, they find themselves outclassed."  He wrinkled his nose.  "Let's get out of here.  Trolls smell terrible, and their insides are worse than their outsides."
	"I don't smell anything."
	"You're not a Were-cat," Tarrin told her bluntly.  "I need to wash this blood off of me.  The smell is driving me crazy."
	After cleaning up, they found a secure place to camp for the night, in a relatively deep cave in the side of a rocks spire.  Tarrin Conjured a leather sheet to hang over the entrance to block the light of the fire, and they spent the night taking turns watching.  There were several fires visible to the north, several more to the south, and even a few to the east, which was the direction the cave mouth faced.  They were probably fires for the Trolls to ward off the Sandmen, for he doubted there were that many Selani about with all of them at Gathering.  He'd seen a few of them near the rock spire, or perhaps it was the same one two or three times, a ghostly bundle of drifting sand, sand that was whirling around inside some kind of invisible boundary.  That was all a Sandman was, a blowing quantity of sand, and that was what made them dangerous.  They attacked by enveloping and asphyxiating their victims, and since all there was to them was that sand, there was nothing to attack to fend them off.  They only feared bright light, and retreated from it when it was presented to them.
	The night passed without incident, and they began again that morning, moving quickly yet carefully in a straight line to the west.   They crossed over three separate trails left behind by Trolls that morning alone, as the huge brutes patrolled the desert during the cooler period of the morning.  But they saw none of the Trolls that morning, nor during their brief stop to rest during the full midday heat.
	They did see Trolls during the afternoon, but they were already dead.  Tarrin and Denai moved through a small battlefield carefully, a place littered with twelve dead Troll corpses.  All of them had arrow sticking out of them, but they also showed signs of being killed with swords and spears.  There were footprints that didn't belong to the Trolls on the battlefield, and Denai grinned at Tarrin knowingly when he realized that they were the soft-soled boots of the Selani.
	"Selani, using bows?" Tarrin asked curiously.  "I didn't think they'd do that."
	"It's not dishonorable to use bows," Denai told him.  "My people adapt to the situation.  These big monsters require wearing them down from a distance before closing in for the kill.  A bow and arrow can do that."
	"I'm surprised they'd think of it.  I'm surprised they had bows available."
	"We're close to the humans," Denai shrugged.  "Maybe this clan trades with them, and has bows.  Maybe they use bows often."
	"There's a hint of Druidic magic here," Sarraya announced.  "I think a Druid is helping the Selani kill the Trolls."
	Tarrin opened his senses, and then he too felt it.  A faint trace of what had been Druidic magic, clinging to one of the Troll corpses.  It had been killed with that magic.  "I'll bet that Druid Conjured the bows for the Selani," Tarrin agreed.
	"Our people honor the Watchers," Denai said.  "If the Watcher told them to use bows, they would use bows."
	"That's a smart thing to do," Sarraya laughed.  "If anyone knows how to kill a Troll, it's a Druid.  Druids hate Goblinoids nearly as much as the Were-kin do."
	"It looks like my people are doing their best to make the Trolls feel as unwelcome as possible," Denai chuckled, standing up from her inspection of one of the corpses.
	"I'm glad they're doing that.  Knowing the Selani, they're luring the Trolls into ambushes.  They may not be quite so willing to chase us down if they spot us, fearing it to just be another trap."
	"We can hope," Sarraya said.  "But if they see you, they're going to chase us down anyway," she told him.
	"That can't be helped," he told her with a slash of his arm.  "I can't move as fast in human form, and I'm not going to sacrifice any time.  It takes alot less time to kill Trolls than it does for me to move in human form."
	"I was just giving you options," Sarraya said.
	They left the scene of the Troll massacre behind, continuing west.  The Selani had been doing such a good job of annoying the Trolls that they saw no more of them that day.  Denai speculated that her cousins here had all gathered together with the Druid and were finding and killing the Troll patrols, and most likely driving crazy whoever was sent to command the dull-witted brutes when entire patrols didn't return to report.  Tarrin had to admire the bravery of the Selani, willing to take on vastly superior numbers of physically superior opponents.  But living in an environment with such beasts as inu and kajat had made the Selani fearless when challenging much larger, stronger foes.  Odds were that the Selani had engaged the Trolls, had learned their lessons--probably at a cost of several lives--then had adjusted their tactics to most efficiently kill off the invaders.  He had no doubt that they'd sent word back to Gathering about the invasion, and the clan that lived in this territory was coming to eject the invaders.  Until then, the sentries left behind were amusing themselves by torturing the invading force.
	Sometimes he counted every lucky star there was that he'd been befriended by such a unique, formidable race.
	That evening, as they made camp in a shallow dell surrounded by irregular boulders, Tarrin took the precaution of Warding the camp.  It was too dangerous now, too close to the Trolls, and they had no concealment.  So he raised a Ward to keep out the Sandmen, then covered the outside of it with an Illusion that made the interior of the Ward look empty.  He set the Illusion so it would be sustained by the Ward--not an easy feat--then wove the Ward so tightly that it would take it two days to unravel.  After that was done, he sat down by a faint light that Sarraya had created with her magic, joining his two female companions in a dreary meal of Conjured fruits and berries.  There would be no fire that night, nothing to draw the Trolls to them.
	But the night revealed to him the outline of the Sandshield, sitting on the western horizon.  The end of the desert was now within sight, and it made him reflect on what had happened to him while within its boundaries.  He had sank to the very depths of his own self-loathing out here in the desert, but had also risen to the very pinnacle of his magical power.  He had climbed the unclimbable Cloud Spire and discovered the wonders that existed there, and had seen the incredible cost that power could exact in the shape of a wasted Aeradalla, enthralled by the power of a magical artifact.  He had faced his own personal demons, and allowed the blowing sands of the desert to scour his shame and guilt away, leaving behind the trapped soul imprisoned within the dungeon of its own fear.  A soul that had found its way to freedom.
	If anything else, the realization that his fear did not rule him was the most important thing he would be taking from the Desert of Swirling Sands, ten times more important, more precious, than any amount of magical power.  To know that he was not a prisoner of himself meant more to him than being the king of the world.  The manacles on his wrists were a constant reminder of the cost of trust, but they had also imprisoned him within his own fear, a fear that fed off itself and grew stronger and stronger over time.  He had become so afraid of losing his freedom that he did indeed lose it.  But he didn't lose it to a stranger or a betrayer, he lost it to his own fear.  And that had been worse than being collared, because they were chains that he almost could not break.  Just as it had been done to Mist, Tarrin very nearly found himself being imprisoned by his own fear for centuries, but he thanked the Goddess that he had found the strength to save himself before his fear had come to completely dominate him.  As it had done to Mist.
	Triana was right.  Meeting Mist was probably the best thing that could have happened to him.  It showed him what lay at the end of the road he'd been travelling, and it had given him the ability to turn himself around.
	Tarrin held up his arms, looking at the manacles.  Realizing what they had done to him made him see them in a new light.  They weren't only the reminders of the price he'd paid for trusting someone, they came to also represent the chains in which he had wrapped himself, chains every bit as powerful as the collar that had once controlled him, chains imprisoning him from within instead of without.  It was only fitting that the manacles were just that, manacles, symbols of enslavement to the will of another.
	But reflection wasn't the only thing heavy on his mind that night.  It was time to talk to Jenna.  He just hoped that she would be ready.  Sarraya took the first watch, and as Denai slept and the Faerie kept an eye on things, Tarrin sat