e, the females first, as if by some custom.  They were Yvenne, Uralia, and Vendelle, and the males were Jordan, Alphon, Thince, and Basel.
	Tarrin responded by introducing his friends, but he saw that they seemed only mildly interested in them, almost as if they didn't matter until Tarrin brought their presence to their attention.  He introduced Dolanna, Keritanima, Allia, and Dar as katzh-dashi, and that got something of a cordial reply from Grand Syllis.  Introducing Phandebrass and Camara Tal as a Wizard and Priestess seemed only mildly interesting to the man, and he didn't even spare a glance at Azakar, a Knight, or the Vendari bodyguards.  He gave Miranda a very strange look when Tarrin introduced her as Keritanima's friend and aide, one that made Tarrin wonder just what he could tell about his very special friend.  When he introduced Kimmie as his mate, that made the Sha'Kar smile at her and offer his hand to her, something he didn't do for anyone else.
	"I must ask what race you are, my dear," he asked Kimmie.  "I've never seen your like before."
	"We're Were-cats, Grand Syllis," she replied with a sweet smile.
	"Were-kin?  Our honored one is also a Were-kin!" Grand Syllis said with a bright smile.  "I say, that is definitely very interesting.  I didn't think any of the Were-kin had any potential as Sorcerers."
	"The introduction of humans into the Were-kin broadened the abilities of our kind," Kimmie said carefully.  "Many Were-kin are very capable Wizards and Priests as well, at least those that don't have enough Druidic aptitude to study it."
	"I can sense something about you, dear lady.  Are you perchance a Druid?"
	"Wizard," she replied with a smile.  "I'm afraid I wasn't lucky enough to have enough Druidic ability to train."
	"At least you've managed to excel in some kind of magic, dear lady," Grand Syllis said with a false smile.  His scent told Tarrin that the Sha'Kar was vastly relieved at that news.  And that was very important information.  Syllis feared Druids, and rightly so.  Druids could block Sorcery.  Syllis had just ensured that there wasn't a Druid among them to interfere with him, if it came down to it.
	Tarrin looked at this Grand Syllis, and every moment that went by, he was more and more certain that the Sha'Kar was going to ultimately end up opposing him.  He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he did.  Even now, before the first lines had been drawn in the sand, Tarrin was already sizing up this future enemy, puzzling out his motivations and preparing counters to deal with them.
	"Well, let me be the first to congratulate you on your coming blessing, dear lady," Syllis told her with a smile.
	"Thank you," she said calmly.  "You have good eyes, Grand Syllis.  I'm not even showing yet."
	Tarrin realized that it wasn't because he could see it, but because he probably probed Kimmie with his magic, the same way Arlan did to him when they first met.  He assensed Kimmie and felt a second active intelligence within her.  In a female, that was obviously a pregnancy.  "Those who revere life are sensitive to the newest ones," he said with a sweeping of his arm.  "Please, let us take you to the House of the Goddess, where we can give you rooms proper for your station.  Not in this small hovel," he said with a slightly deprecatory glance at Arlan, who bowed his head.
	"If it's all the same to you, Grand Syllis, I'm a simple man with simple tastes.  I find this house quite satisfactory.  If Master Arlan will have me, I'd prefer to stay here."
	"You can have my personal chamber, honored one," Arlan said very brightly, almost falling over himself to accept.  "You honor my humble home beyond words!"
	"Are you sure, honored one?" Syllis pressed.  "The House of the Goddess is much finer than this place.  It's a place more suited for you."
	"I'm not Sha'Kar or human, Grand," Tarrin said pointedly.  "I have customs that will seem very alien to you.  One of them is that I don't find a need to be surrounded by opulence and servants.  Trust me, this place is almost too much.  Were it any grander, I would go back into the forest and set up a camp there.  I'd feel more comfortable out there anyway."
	That seemed to scandalize all the Sha'Kar, but Syllis seemed to recover himself.  "Anything you wish, honored one," he said smoothly.  "If you would prefer to stay in this small cottage, then this is where you will stay.  I'm sure Arlan will do his best to be a proper host to you."
	"You will be well cared for, honored one!" Arlan said emphatically.
	"For the moment, we of the Council need to withdraw and consult our books.  We will search our histories for you and see if we can find what you seek.  Until then, please make yourselves comfortable with Arlan and his family."
	"I'm sure Arlan will be a proper host," Tarrin said confidently.
	"Very good then.  I know you prefer to be here and that you don't like opulence, but we must celebrate your arrival in a suitable fashion.  A feast, I believe, one for the entire city.  Would that offend you, honored one?"
	Tarrin glanced at Dolanna, who nodded imperceptibly.  "That's fine with me," he answered.
	"Very good, then!  We'll make the arrangements.  Tonight, you will meet all of us who wait to return to our place in the world."
	"I'm looking forward to it, Grand Syllis."
	The male smiled at him.  It was an oily smile, one that put Tarrin's hackles up almost immediately.  It was a chilling smile.  "We'll do our best to honor your arrival," he said.
	And then, with lengthy farewells, the Council withdrew.  Tarrin watched them leave, and all he could feel was uncertainty over Syllis.  Maybe it was just him, maybe it was just his feral nature, maybe it was hin inexperience with Sha'Kar culture, or maybe it was real, but everything about that Sha'Kar screamed at Tarrin to either kill him flee from him.  The Cat saw him as an enemy, and Tarrin had a certainty within him that he was one.  Syllis was going to be one he would have to watch carefully.  Until then, there were Sha'Kar youths and human servants to quietly grill for information.

	Arlan was true to his word, and pushed Tarrin to taking his personal chamber.  To say that it was extravagant would have been a vast understatement.  The bed itself was large enough to fit six Sha'Kar, on a raised pedestal of sorts at the far end of the room from the huge entry doors.  It was round in shape, something Tarrin had never seen before, and was both soft and firm at the same time.  The rest of the room was monstrous, fully as large as the sitting room, with paintings, a few tapestries, and more of those delicate sculptures.  Some of them were decidedly erotic, although tastefully so, a window into the mind of the Sha'Kar.  They obviously didn't have the same hang-ups about sex as the humans did.  The huge bed was only the first of a series of unusual decorations or furnishings, from two strange couch-like divans with no backs, only a raised section on one side for someone to recline upon, and there were very well carved bureaus for clothes, with large, deep drawers.  A series of balls of light hung from the ceiling, glowglobes, something he hadn't seen anywhere but in the Tower, and they served to illuminate the room.  By far the strangest feature of the room was the pool in a recessed area behind the bed, which was literally in a room of its own.  The fact that there was no door between the pool area and the rest of the room made Tarrin consider it a part of the room, the two separated by a very large, wide, elegant arch with Sha'Kar script chiselled into the white stones.  It was a short prayer of blessing to the Goddess.  The pool's water was hot to the touch, and Tarrin could sense the magic that caused it to be so, as well as several other permanent spells that kept the water clean and fresh.  The arch too was imbued with magical energy, causing the heat of the pool beyond to be contained in the pool room.
	It took Tarrin a while to get used to the idea that a room for sleeping was nearly as large as a hall in a castle keep. Kimmie too seemed a little overwhelmed by the huge chamber and its delicate art and wondrous beauty, sitting on one of the divans and spending almost ten minutes just staring this way and that.  She seemed quite impressed by the chamber, and looked longingly at the baths.
	After Tarrin and Kimmie got used to the idea of the room, they had one of the servant girls send for the others.  They all gathered in the room a few moments later, all of them looking quite shocked by what they'd found in the rooms to which they'd been taken.  "Tarrin, this mansion has twelve bedrooms!" Dar told him in a shocked tone.  "Twelve!  As big as the rooms are in this place, I didn't think they'd have much room for more than two!"
	"We're not here to talk about the rooms, Dar," Tarrin told him as they gathered around the two divans.  The room wasn't meant to entertain large numbers of people, so everyone but Kimmie, Dolanna, Keritanima, and Miranda stood around the two backless couches as the four females seated themselves.  "Has anyone managed to drag anything out of anyone yet?"
	Keritanima paused, looking around.  Then she wove a Ward that would prevent eavesdropping and placed it over them.  "The Firestaff is definitely somewhere on this island," she said.  "I can see it in their eyes when I've asked about it."
	"I agree," Dolanna nodded.  "And more, it is not something they seem willing to discuss.  I do not think the serving girls know much, but they will not talk about it."
	"They're certainly friendly," Phandebrass coughed.  "I was changing into a new robe when one of them came in.  She made some entirely inappropriate offers, she did."
	"You should feel lucky," Camara Tal teased him.  "It's not often an old coot like you gets a lady's eye."
	"It's more than that," Phandebrass said.  "I say, I get the feeling that the girls are doing it out of duty.  The young lady certainly didn't seem all that interested in me, she didn't.  It was like she was offering for my benefit, not hers, she was."
	"You mean the servants here double as prostitutes," Azakar said stiffly.
	"I'd say that's a pretty fair description," Miranda said calmly.  "One thing I did notice, and that's that the human servants are terrified of the Sha'Kar.  You should see the way they jump whenever one of them is in the room.  It's almost pitiful."
	"I did notice that," Tarrin grunted.
	"I took a walk around the grounds," Keritanima said.  "There's a farm behind the house, and all the people who work it are human.  None of them would talk to me.  I asked Iselde why they wouldn't talk with me, and she said it's because they're working.  But I've never seen a farmer that wasn't willing to stop a moment and jabber with someone."
	"Let us reserve judgement, my friends," Dolanna cautioned.  "These Sha'Kar are powerful.  Their ways are not ours, and I think that we had best not alienate them.  They would be formidable enemies.  Even if they keep the humans as slaves, we should not try to interfere or voice our displeasure.  At least not until after we have what we need from them," she corrected.
	"Dolanna raises a very good point," Allia agreed.  "I can feel their power surround them like a cloak.  Even Iselde and Allyn are powerful, and they do not have the same sense about them as Keritanima and Dolanna.  I do not think they are da'shar."
	"They're not," Tarrin told her.  "I already thought about that, and you're right, Dolanna.  If they oppose us, they'll win.  It's that simple.  So we'd better be very careful about how we go about getting around their lying.  Syllis knows where the Firestaff is.  I'm sure of it.  We just have to think of a way to trick him or someone else into telling us where it is."
	"He may have it, dear one," Dolanna speculated.  "Perhaps the Sha'Kar are the final guardians."
	"No, they're not," Phandebrass said, scratching his chin.  "They came here just before the Breaking, and the Firestaff was here thousands of years before that.  Did you hear what Iselde told Tarrin?  I say, she said her people came here because of the Ward, they did.  That means that it was here long before them.  The Ward, I think it was set here to protect the Firestaff, it was, because the poem mentioned the Ward.  So, logic tells me that the poem that doesn't mention the Sha'Kar was written before they came here, and that means that there is a guardian, there is."
	"Unless the Sha'Kar destroyed it," Camara Tal grunted.  "If they're that strong, they could have ganged up on it and taken it out."
	"That is a rather unsettling possibility," Phandebrass conceded with a frown.
	"The question now is, what are we going to do?" Kimmie asked.
	They were silent a moment.  "Move very, very carefully," Keritanima answered.  "We need information, and we can't really move until we get at least a rough understanding of what we're dealing with.  So I guess for now, we spread out and learn everything we can about the Sha'Kar.  The more we know about them, the easier it'll be to manipulate them when the time comes, if we have to go that far.  I'd rather not.  They may be potential enemies, but they are Socerers.  They're our brothers and sisters.  It'd be easy if you could tell the Goddess to make them obey us, Tarrin," she told him.  "They seem to be faithful children.  If she ordered it, they'd probably obey her."
	"That's worth a try," he agreed, raising his head.  "Mother?  Can you hear me?"  There was a long silence.  Tarrin worried for a moment, then realized that the sense of distance from the Goddess was still there.  Unlike everything else that returned when they got through the Ward, that had not returned.  "I don't think she can hear me," he fretted.  "I think the Ward is interfering with me."
	"I say, that's understandable," Phandebrass said.  "There are gods after the Firestaff as well.  It's only logical that whoever set the Ward hides it from gods as well as mortals.  Since we're inside the Ward, we're on the wrong side of the line."  He looked to Camara Tal.  "I say, my dear, do you think you could cast a spell?  If you can, then my theory isn't sound."
	"My spell will work, Phandebrass, whether Neme can hear me or not," he said.  "My connection to her where my magic is concerned runs through the Weave, same as your connection to your magic.  Now, I could try to commune with her," she stated.  "If that doesn't work, then you're probably right."
	Keritanima shuddered.  "Who can make something that blocks the powers of a god?" she asked in a sober tone.  "Who made that Ward?"
	"I'd say the Goddess did," Tarrin answered her.  "I assensed that Ward when I touched it, and believe me, I don't think any mortal, not even every Ancient there was Circled together, would have been capable of doing something like that.  I could barely understand even the tiniest fraction of everything that that Ward is capable of doing.  And she may have made it so well that it even blocks her.  The other gods probably would have demanded that.  An unopenable chest isn't very useful if the maker has a key."
	"That's reasonable," Phandebrass nodded.
	"Well, that's one good idea wasted," Keritanima grunted.
	"It would have been too easy," Miranda said with a cheeky grin.  "So far, nothing has been very easy.  I don't think we can expect our luck to change now."
	"So, Kerri, you're the resident sneak.  What should we do?" Dar asked.
	Keritanima rubbed the side of her muzzle with the back of her hand, then slapped her hands into her lap.  "We find things out," she said.  "I think we should all go explore the house and talk to all the servants.  At least any of them that will talk.  The Sorcerers will go talk to the Sha'Kar, since they seem to ignore the rest of you," she said with a snort, "and see what we can find out from them."
	"What kind of questions should we ask?"
	"Absolutely anything you can think of, Dar," she replied seriously.  "And I mean anything.  What they eat, when the Sha'Kar like to get up in the morning, what they do for fun, what kind of jokes they tell, anything.  We need to get an understanding of how they think, and we'll get it if we can learn enough about what they do and how they act.  Even something as simple as this room can tell you alot about someone, if you stop and study it for a while."
	"I know it may assault your sensibilities, Dar, but maybe you should take that maid up on the offer she made you earlier," Miranda said delicately.  "Women love to talk, and they talk more in bed.  Maybe you can loosen her tongue a little bit."
	"Among other things," Camara Tal said with a wolfish grin.
	"And she'll say more than she would have said in another situation," Miranda finished, then she turned to the Amazon.  "That goes for you too, Camara," Miranda winked.  "Human men are just as gabby as human women in bed."
	Dar blushed furiously.  "Are you serious?" he asked.
	"Actually, Dar, she is," Keritanima told him soberly.  "I know it's something of a sacrifice, but think about it.  You may be the one that finds out what we need to know, and trust me, it's actually quite an enjoyable experience," she said with a slow smile.  "You're a very attractive young human, and you're young enough that they may not take you as seriously as they take the rest of us.  They may tell you things they won't tell anyone else."
	"Well," he hedged, blushing purple.  "I guess--I mean--oh, bloody Abyss."
	That made the more progressive people in the group chuckle.  Kimmie reached out and put a paw on the young man's arm and grinned at him.  "That's right, soldier, sacrifice for the cause," she jibed.  "I know going to bed with those very pretty young ladies is going to be a terrible burden for you."
	"You're a big help," he grunted under his voice.
	"If I wouldn't kill the men that tried to mate with me, I would," she grinned.  "You weaker races just couldn't survive a night with one of us.  We'd tear you apart in the throes of passion."
	"That's a creepy image," Dar shuddered.
	"That does remind me of something," Tarrin said.  "The Sha'Kar don't know about me and Kimmie, and what we're capable of.  That's a trump card I'd rather not lose."
	"What should we tell them?" Dolanna asked.
	"That we're Were-kin."
	"And if they ask for specifics?"
	"They read about us in their books, so stick with the generals," Kimmie answered.  "We're shapeshifters, we're contagious, and so on and so on.  Nothing about our senses.  I think that's what Tarrin wants to protect."
	Tarrin nodded towards his mate.
	"Even if they find out about you, I doubt they'll find out about me," Keritanima said.  "For a Wikuni to have the senses I have is very, very rare.  Even if they know about Wikuni, they'd never consider that."
	"Good point," Tarrin agreed.  "Remember, we don't want a fight with the Sha'Kar, people.  Kerri is right.  Even if they may oppose what we're doing, they are our brothers and sisters, and when the seventh sui'kun is born, they'll be coming back to the world.  So we'd better not make them hostile to the katzh-dashi, or we'll be dealing with a huge nest of angry hornets when that day comes."
	"This could get murky," Miranda frowned.
	"I know, but until we know enough to make some hard decisions, let's not stir them up.  Let's do what Kerri said, and go out and learn as much as we can.  If we can trick the information we need out of them, we won't have to put ourselves in a position where we may have to do something we'll regret later."
	"Aye," Camara Tal nodded.  "I know we have to plan for possibilities, but I think Tarrin hit the mark.  Let's try very hard to make these Sha'Kar friends.  Even if we don't agree with some of the things we've seen so far."
	Azakar glared at her a short moment, then caught himself and nodded solemnly.
	There wasn't much more to say at that point, so they broke up and scattered through the huge place.  Tarrin wandered its passage aimlessly, gaping at the stunning works of art and sculptures, each more dazzling and breathtaking than the last, until he finally managed to bump into a Sha'Kar.  It was Iselde, who was carrying a large book with her.  "Oh, honored one!" she said with a curtsy.  "I was looking for you, but you weren't in your room."
	"Why did you need me, Iselde?" he asked.
	"I wanted to give you this," she said, holding out the book to him.  "It's a book of our history on the island.  I thought you might like to learn what we've done while we've been here waiting."
	Iselde handed him the book, and Tarrin was sure she had just put a gold mine of information in his paws.  He tucked it under his arm, trying hard to feign only mild interest.  "I'm sure I'll find it interesting, Iselde," he nodded to her.  "Could you show me where the kitchen is?  I'm a little hungry, and truth be told, I'm lost.  This place is too big for me."
	"Our house?  Big?" she said, then she laughed.  "You tease me, honored one!"
	"To me, this place isn't just big, it's damn big," he told her bluntly as she started leading him along the passages.  "I live in a cottage, Iselde.  My entire cottage can fit in your uncle's bedchamber.  In fact, I think you could get two of them in there," he amended after a moment.
	She gaped at him.  "How do you stand it?  You'd have no room for anything at all!"
	"I don't have much need for things, young one," he told her.  "I can carry everything I own in a backpack, and I rather like it that way.  Don't forget, girl, I'm not Sha'Kar, or even human.  Were-kin don't need much space to be happy, and we don't need things to fill what space we need."
	"I'll try to not judge you by our standards, honored one," she promised.  "I can already see that you're nothing like what I imagined a sui'kun to be."
	"What did you expect?  And be honest.  I won't be insulted or embarassed, no matter what you say."
	She flushed slightly.  "Well, I expected a handsome human to ride in on a magic chariot, or on the back of an Elemental, and sweep us away," she said in a slightly distant tone.  Tarrin smiled slightly.  The girl was a daydreamer.  "And we'd go back to the towers and do what we did before the Breaking."
	"What was that?"
	"Serve the Goddess," she said simply.  "Most of the adults were alive before the Breaking, and they tell us stories of how things were then.  About the seven towers, and how we served the will of the Goddess.  I think it would be a great thing to be able to do that again," she sighed.  "I'd like to see her, just once, the way the da'shar have.  But until the Ward fails, we're stuck here.  Not even the da'shar can breach the Ward with Travelling and reach the Heart, except for Lady Delande."
	They had trained her rather well, even if she wasn't da'shar.  "You said you're stuck here.  You can't get out?"
	She shook her head.  "The Ward destroys a Circle if it comes into contact with it, so only a sui'kun would have enough raw power to breach the Ward with Sorcery.  Isn't that how you got in, honored one?"
	He was impressed.  This girl had seemed a little scattered at first, but she was proving her intelligence to him now.  "A sui'kun came with you?" he asked curiously.  She said only a sui'kun could breach the Ward.  If they got in, then someone had to open it for them.
	She shook her head.  "Actually, it's still quite a mystery how we managed to get inside.  Several tried to breach the Ward with Sorcery, but all of them died trying.  Then a woman nobody knew tried, and she managed to succeed.  Nobody's seen her since then, and what happened to her is still a topic of debate.  She was on the ship with the others, they say.  One moment she was there, and then the next moment, as soon as they came through the Ward, she was gone.  Some say the magic of the Ward absorbed her and trapped her within itself, some say the Ward disintegrated her, and some say the Ward wouldn't allow her to pass through.  The ones that say that think she died on the outside, and that her ghost is still out there, haunting the seas surrounding the Ward.  It's in the book, honored one.  The very first chapter."
	A woman opening the Ward?  Only sui'kun could do it...could it have been Spyder?  She was Urzani, and she'd be virtually indistinguishable from a Sha'Kar.  That was probably why Iselde called her a woman instead of a human.
	"Was this woman Sha'Kar?" he asked curiously.
	Iselde nodded.
	Tarrin chuckled in spite of himself.  "You sneaky girl," he mused in Sulasian, reverting back to his native tongue.  That had to have been Spyder.  She'd never told him about this.  Then again, she hadn't told him about just about anything.  She was a woman of endless secrets, it seemed.  He had a sneaking suspicion that Spyder knew absolutely everything about this place, and had chosen not to tell him for some reason.  Whatever that may be.  But whatever it was, from what little he knew of the Urzani, he trusted her.  If she didn't tell him, she had to have had a good reason to do so.  After all, it was in her best interest to keep him, a fellow sui'kun, alive.
	"Excuse me, honored one?"
	"Nothing, Iselde.  Nothing.  Lead on."
	She continued to prattle on as they walked, but her chatting became more and more relaxed with him, and started making more sense.  She had been almost awestruck by him earlier, and now that she was getting to know him, to find out that he happened to be an intelligent being as well as a sui'kun, she was starting to calm down a little.  And he started to learn about the Sha'Kar from her ramblings.  She talked on and on about how everyone was so excited about his arrival, how the entire island was on its toes, waiting feverishly for the feast, for their chance to meet him.  It was going to be held outside, she told him, the tables already being made and set up in the center of their loose community, on the fenced grounds of the House of the Goddess, the estate home of Syllis and meeting place for the Council of Elders.  She talked about how all her young friends had all but begged to be invited into the house to meet him privately, but her uncle Arlan had forbade visitors without his personal approval beforehand. She admitted that her being lucky enough to meet him first had made her very popular in the talking circles of the youngest Sha'Kar females, of which she was part.  She also admitted that it was a new experience for her, for she was from a poor family that lived on the edge of the community, and that made her not very popular.
	It seemed strangely like the Arakites and the Wikuni...they attached social standing to how close their houses were to the center of their town.  Those who lived on the outside edges were seen as socially inferior to those who lived in the center.  Strange that three races would exhibit a similar social trait.
	That statement also told him much about the concept of social standing among the Sha'Kar.  Social standing was something of a universal custom among most civilized societies, but the Sha'Kar sounded strangely like the Selani on that point.  To a Selani, standing was honor, and honor was everything.  To the Sha'Kar, he guessed, it dealt with more than that, probably family history, wealth, and probably ability with the Weave.  In the social circles of the katzh-dashi, the ones with highest social standing were the ones with the most power.  He knew that the modern katzh-dashi did have some traits of their Ancient forefathers, and that was probably one of them.  Tarrin suspected that Arlan's house was poor and his family not very socially connected because their powers in Sorcery were weaker than everyone else's.  The fact that there were only three of them in the house may also have an impact of some sort.
	The way the Sha'Kar treated him certainly backed up that assumption.  They were all absolutely fawning all over him, even the Council of Elders.  It was strangely annoying, though he felt that a human may have enjoyed that kind of attention.  He suspected that right now, he had higher social standing than anyone else on the island, even Grand Syllis.  Because he was sui'kun.
	From what little he heard so far, he guessed that in this place, where they were cut off from the outside world and had little to do, the matter of social standing had become a cornerstone of their society.  And if that were so, then the methods by which one improved social standing were the most commonly pursued goals.  If they prized Sorcery, then much of their time was probably spent improving their powers.  If it was a question of wealth or prestige, then he figured that they'd be as deep into political games as the Wikuni noble houses.
	She led him into a huge kitchen, which had no less than four strange metal plates on counters that radiated heat of varying degrees.  Tarrin could sense the magic of them, yet another way the Sha'Kar had adapted Sorcery to serve them in everyday life.  They had five large ovens, also magically heated.  They also had a large room that was magically chilled.  That reminded him of his own home, with the small cellar that had that strange magical object that radiated that constant intense cold.  It was almost unheard of for such a rare magical object to be in the possession of a frontier family.  His father had found it a long time ago, before he met his mother, and had kept it as a curiosity.  After he got married, it served them well as a means to store food for very long periods without it spoiling. The Sha'Kar had obviously thought the same thing, so they used their magic to create a room for storing perishables, preserving the food by freezing it.  There were about ten humans in the kitchens working hard to make Sha'Kar dishes, which were almost exclusively vegetarian.  The only meat he saw them working on were strange birds with long-feathered tails, some of them already cooked.
	Tarrin noticed something about them.  All the humans were attractive.  Not quite as pretty as the five maids, but they weren't ugly.
	He also got his first view of the tattoo.  It was on their chests, over their hearts, a small black tattoo that was the glyph of the family name.  He saw it on a slender male who wore nothing but a pair of breeches, working to cook strange tube-like vegetables in a pan over one of the heated plates.  Curiosity getting the better of him, he reached out and put two fingers on the back of the man's neck, assensing him.  The man jumped slightly, and Tarrin had to suppress a sudden impulse to strike at the movement, to drive his fingers into the man's neck and kill him to prevent an attack.  He still had a long w