ia reached Allyn and had a little trouble getting the amulet off of him, having to pull his hands away from his head as he panted and huffed from the blinding pain.  Keritanima wasn't quite so gentle with Iselde, grabbing the delicate chain of her amulet and literally ripping it off of her, jerking her backwards so badly she toppled over.  The chain snapped from the stress and came free from the Sha'Kar female, and Keritanima held it high and away from herself, almost like it was a live snake.
	Tarrin ended the spell and started rushing forward with Kimmie, as Keritanima helped Iselde get back to her feet.  Allia was a little woozy on her feet, putting her hands on her knees to stable herself.  Allyn wheezed a little as he slowly stood erect again.  Dolanna came back into the room and took over for Keritanima, walking Iselde slowly and carefully over to the divans so she could sit down and try to recover.  Tarrin moved swiftly and confidently, stalking up to Allia and immediately putting his paw over her ivory amulet, assensing it.  Keritanima said that the Mind weave in Allia had been whole, probably a spell, but Tarrin wanted to make sure of that.  He assensed her amulet, and found that it had not been tampered with in any way.
	She looked up at him with those beautiful blue eyes, eyes that were a little fuzzy and uncertain.  "Deshida, what's going on?" she asked in Selani.  "I, I had the strangest nightmare.  I dreamed I rejected you."
	Tarrin looked down at her, then laughed.  "It was a nightmare, sister, for both of us," he said, pulling her into a crushing embrace, holding her tight, letting her scent wash over him.  "But it's over now."
	"The Council put a spell on you, sister," Keritanima told her bluntly.  "A Mind weave.  They made you fight with Tarrin, probably to upset him."
	"Made me?  How could they?" she asked, looking at Keritanima with a bit of a wheeze from where Tarrin was squeezing her.  "I am Selani.  They are Sha'Kar!"
	"Remember, you're cousins, sister," Tarrin told her.  "It seems your minds are similar enough for the Sha'Kar to use Mind weaves on you."
	"Is this true?" Allia asked Tarrin with horrified eyes.  "Did I really say those things to you, my brother?"
	"I realized that you didn't mean them, Allia," he told her gently, putting his paws on her shoulders.  "I realized it not long after I left your room, at least after I got over a fit of self-pity and depression.  My sister would never have said those things of her own free will.  I don't blame you, and I don't want you to punish yourself over it.  I'd rather we punish the ones that did make you say it," he said in an ugly tone.  "Together."
	"Together.  It is as it should be between us," she said with a glorious smile.  "I'm happy you didn't take my words to heart, my brother.  I would have felt miserable if I caused you pain."
	"There was some pain, but it was the pain of not having my sister with me," he told her.
	"Oh, Tarrin.  I'm so sorry!" she said with a sudden bout of tears, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.  Tarrin held her for a long moment, eyes closed, chin buried in her shoulder, just revelling in her scent, her touch, her closeness.  Allia was herself again.  She was home.
	She was his sister once more.
	Keritanima joined them, and they shared a long, silent, intimate moment of togetherness, a moment of family, a moment that was theirs and theirs alone, despite those watching on.  Tarrin, Allia, and Keritanima.  The three Non-human Sorcerers that had joined forces in the Tower to find out what was going on, but had found bonds between them more powerful than love or duty.  Unbreakable ties that had sustained them through countless ordeals and suffering.
	"Now then," Allia said with a weepy voice, pulling away to look at her brother and sister.  "Tell me who did this to me.  He is a man with no honor, and he must be punished!" she finished in a furious snarl.
	"We don't know the exact person, but we'll bet that it was the Council, Allia," Keritanima told her.  "There are quite a few very nasty little pieces of news you haven't heard yet.  The Council is a pack of heartless, ruthless monsters, no better than the ki'zadun."
	"Then tell me," she said intensely. "Tell me now."
	"Not quite yet," Keritanima told her.  "The others need to hear this too, and it's not the kind of thing I want to repeat more than once.  We freed Iselde and Allyn because they'll know things we need to know, and Auli is with us too."
	"Freed them?" Allia asked in concern.
	"You weren't the only one under the control of the Council, sister," Tarrin told her.  "They're controlling all the Sha'Kar.  Allyn and Iselde too.  That's part of what we're going to talk about as soon as the others get here."
	"Why are they still so hurt?" Allia said in concern, her eyes fearful as she looked at Allyn, who was now being supported by Kimmie, who was leading him over to the divans where Dolanna sat with Iselde.  Dolanna was patting the Sha'Kar female on the back and saying reassuring things to her as she regained her composure.
	"Because the spells in their minds were alot more complicated than the one in yours," Keritanima answered.  "They had more for Tarrin to pull out, so it caused them more pain than it did you."  She patted Allia on the back.  "Don't worry, sister, answers are coming.  Everyone else is waiting in Camara Tal's room, and that's right down the hall.  Let me go get them, and we can get you up to speed in just a blink."
	"Thank you, sister," Allia said with a sincere look.  "For believing in me."
	"I knew you were being controlled, Allia," Keritanima grinned.  "If you want to know the truth, me and Tarrin were going to use you to feed misinformation to the Council.  We knew whatever we told you would somehow end up on their desks.  But we got wildly lucky, so we decided to dispense with that plan."
	Allia looked at her wildly, then laughed.  "You would use even me?  Your own sister?" she asked in insincere indignation.
	"Honey, when things get that serious, I'll use my own husband," Keritanima grinned in reply  "Now let me go get the others, so we can get going."
	"Sapphire, go with Kerri," Tarrin called.  "Remember, nobody goes alone," he reminded her.
	"Oh, right.  Sapphire, come on!" she called as she opened the door.  The drake landed on her shoulder, and they exited quickly.
	While they waited, Tarrin had Allia sit down on the divans to recover herself.  She sat beside Allyn, and held his hand and looked upon him in sincere concern.  Allia's feelings for the boy had not changed, and in a way he suspected that they had never been part of the controlling spell over her, and he was glad of that.  She deserved love and happiness.  And if chose Allyn, then Tarrin would accept that choice as freely and as happily as he had accepted Keritanima's choice of Rallix.  Now that he knew that Allyn had been controlled, Tarrin found no animosity in his heart towards the boy.  He was certain that some of his bad angles were ingrained by training and conditioning rather than control, but he could be changed, made to understand the true culture of his people and learn to accept it.  Or, Tarrin suspected, Allia would train him in the Selani way and take him home with her.  Allyn probably wouldn't be able to stand up to Allia for long, but he'd better learn.  Allia would get annoyed with him if she could control him that easily.  Allia wanted a strong mate, someone to compete with her, challenge her body and mind, make them both better in their competition.  That was the Selani way.  The boy was going to have to learn quite a bit in a very short time if he wanted to keep Allia's interest.
	Tarrin leaned down and put his paw on Allyn's shoulder, and the boy looked up at him in bleary confusion.  "Honored one?  Why do I have such a headache?"
	"It'll pass in a few moments, Allyn," Tarrin told him gently.  "I had to sweep a few skeletons out of your closet.  I'm sorry it hurt, but there was no other way."
	"What are you talking about, honored one?" Iselde asked.
	"I won't explain it yet.  You may not believe me," Tarrin answered her.  "Let's wait for Auli.  She'll be able to confirm everything I tell you.  That way we don't have to waste alot of time with stubborn bickering."
	"Why would we not believe you, honored one?" Allyn said with simplicity.  "What reason would you have to lie to us?"
	"In a moment of time, dear heart, you will find one," Allia told him with powerful eyes.  "What he will tell you is the truth.  I know it.  If you do not believe him, then believe me."
	Allyn looked at her, his eyes clearing and his expression slowly showing his recovery from his pounding headache.  "I would never doubt you, my heart," he told her calmly.
	Tarrin looked at Allia, she at him, and the unspoken declaration passed between them.  She smiled fondly at him and patted the paw on Allyn's shoulder.  Tarrin accepted her mate.  That pleased her greatly.
	"You look ridiculous in that dress, sister," he told her with a smile.
	"I feel a little ridiculous," she admitted in Selani.  "I think my desire to wear it was put in me.  I think they took my love for Allyn and twisted it into my only passion."
	"That would make sense," he told her.  "Since you're Selani, I don't think they could control you with the same weaves they used to control the Sha'Kar.  You maybe related, but you do have a different mind.  So they had to use something simpler on you, something that could be easy and simple yet dominate your thinking.  Working on an emotion like love can definitely do that."  He grimaced.  "I think if I wouldn't have taken sides against Allyn, you wouldn't have reacted the way you did when we had the fight.  If I would have been a little more diplomatic, I don't think it would have come out the way it did."
	"You were being you, brother.  Don't kick yourself for it," she told him gently.  "Just as you told me not to blame myself for what I said, I'm telling you right now not to blame yourself for how it started.  It's over, it's in the past, and it meant nothing.  So it's not even worth our time to remember it."
	As always, she knew exactly what to say.  Tarrin leaned down and put his forehead against hers.  She giggled a little and rubbed her forehead against him.  "I love you, sister," he said sincerely.
	"And I you, my brother.  Now that we've made up, sit down and let me introduce you to my lover the right way."
 
Chapter 18

	It was a crisp, cool night.  The stars were out and shining brightly, and though only one moon, the Red Moon Vala, was high in the sky, the Skybands provided more than enough light for those on the ground to see.  They were Sha'Kar, returning home after a party held by one of the most prominent women on the island, a party that had been attended by nearly half of the island's inhabitants.  They walked along in a good mood, many of them flushed with wine and drug, talking animatedly about nothing of importance, rumors and gossip and whispered promises of the delights to be indulged once they returned to their estates.  They moved in boisterous security, assured of their safety by the nature of their island and centuries of established habits.
	They had no idea they were being watched.
	Tarrin squatted on the corner of a roof of one of the estate houses near to the central estate, the estate of the Grand, with Sapphire perched on his shoulder.  He had been stationed there for nearly two hours now, waiting for the party to break up, waiting patiently.  They could not move until the Sha'Kar were off the streets, until they had returned to either their own estates or a companion's and either went to bed or engaged in other forms of entertainment.
	Everything was planned.  They had gathered and talked about things a very long time, and after interviewing Auli, Allyn, and Iselde, a plan had been formed.  Not that it had been easy.  The first thing to overcome had been the disbelief of the two Sha'Kar siblings.  They didn't want to believe what they were told, and in a way, he empathized and understood that.  They had just learned that the very people they respected the most were responsible for using the vilest forms of mind control on them, and had murdered over three hundred of their own.  It had shocked and horrified them, and much of the long session had been devoted to nursing to two of them out of their stupor and learning from them the patterns of the Sha'Kar, and most importantly, their uncle Arlan.  Arlan was the wild card in the plan, for if he noticed all his guests were missing during the night, the Council was going to know something was going on.  Tarrin, Keritanima, and Dolanna had sat down and devised a means to prevent Sha'Kar from spying on them from the Weave, a spell that would attack lurkers from them in the form of their connection to their bodies.  It was a hastily engineered spell, but it worked.  When woven, it forced a lurker to return to his or her body.  They would cast it over and over again before anyone left the house, sweeping the house clean of spies, and then, after they gave up trying, they'd start to move.
	Most of the others weren't moving yet, but they would soon.  Tarrin had a very important task in their very delicate plan, and that was rather simple.  There were some Sha'Kar who were very old and very strong.  Tarrin would visit them during the night, while they were sleeping, and defeat the control that their amulets put over them.  He wouldn't have time to do it for all of them before sunrise, but he knew which ones to visit first.  Auli, Iselde, and Allyn had given them a complete list of the strongest Sorcerers, and Keritnaima had compiled it with Auli's help into a list in descending order of ability.  The very first woman on that list was Auli's mother, regarded as the strongest and most skilled Sorceress on the island outside the Council.  He had his list in his pocket, complete with where their estates were, who they were known to associate with, and what times they commonly went to bed.  That was the information that Keritanima wanted from the Sha'Kar, a very detailed itinerary of the patterns Tarrin's targets.  Between Auli and Iselde, there was very little that they didn't know about the habits of the other Sha'Kar.  They were prominent gossippers, and such things always ended up in gossip.  Using that information, Tarrin would find them, either in their own beds or someone else's, find them and defeat the control the amulets had over them.
	Keritanima's target number was fifty.  She wanted him to free at least fifty before sunrise.  Fifty of the strongest of the Sha'Kar.  Keritanima reasoned that that many would be more than capable of fending off the rest if it came down to a fight, especially since if it did come to a fight, the Council wouldn't be in it helping the others.  They'd have their hands full with Tarrin.
	A trickier problem had been with the humans.  The Sha'Kar couldn't control them as they had their own, so that meant that some of them were working for the Council.  Tarrin doubted that they all were, and he suspected a similar pattern.  A few humans were free and working with the Council, but the rest were under the effects of mental control.  The key was to find out which were willing and which were not, and that also hinged as one of the cornerstones of the plan.  Without the humans to help them, the Sha'Kar would be limited to seven in a circle.  So to prevent them from building up a Circle that could wipe them out, they had to eliminate the humans as an asset to the Council.
	That enviable task had fallen to Dar, Dolanna, and Keritanima, with Binter along to defend the queen.  It wasn't going to be easy, and they only had one night.  They had left first, going to a party that the humans had thrown for themselves, since they tended to not be welcome at the Sha'Kar parties.  Keritanima had gone along to help the two humans as they would try somehow to work their way into a position where they could check amulets for signs of mental control.  Tarrin had shown them specifically what to look for, and armed with that knowledge, they would be able to detect the weave that sought to keep everything else hidden, including itself.  They would attend the party, try to discern just who was under control and who was not, then move to break that control in the same manner that Tarrin was with the Sha'Kar.  Keritanima didn't need all  the Sha'Kar to be freed for the plan to work, but it was absolutely imperative that all the humans were taken out of the equation.  To the point where Keritanima told them that the humans may have to be physically removed if necessary.  Dolanna assured her that she knew a way to put all the humans out without hurting them, and Keritanima acceded to Dolanna's idea.  A simple mind weave that induced sleep was easy to cast, and it could be set to linger for hours and hours.  So long as the effect lingered, it would be virtually impossible to wake the victim up.
	There were other tasks, important ones.  Kimmie and Phandebrass were already hard at work trying to find or create a spell that would summon a Demon.  Tarrin had one specific Demon in mind, and that was Shiika.  If they could get Shiika onto the island, the Succubus could run wild all over the Sha'Kar.  They wouldn't be able to do anything to her, and she could put them down without much effort with her powerful mind-affecting magic.  Without Shiika's True Name, Phandebrass admitted to Tarrin that it was going to be very difficult.  Between the limitations of Wizardry and the Ward around the island, they may not be successful.  But it was a worthwhile gamble, and they all agreed to that.  Shiika by herself could all but guarantee victory for them.  If she did hear their summons, there was intense speculation as to whether or not she could penetrate the Ward.  The Ward was a creation of magic native to this world, and as such Shiika would be absolutely immune to it.  But it was also a creation of the gods, and that may give it the power to hinder her.  They were split as to whether or not Shiika could breach the Ward, but they all agreed that it was still worth their time to try.  As they all knew, Shiika could take the Sha'Kar and put them in the palm of her hand with very little opposition.  Shiika's powers were not flashy or destructive as they were with most Demons, but in truth, hers were the most powerful.  She was no warrior or magical powerhouse, and in a fight, she would quickly lose to one.  But she controlled those who were much stronger than she, and that gave her more power than those who thought that they were above her.  The Council had shown Tarrin the incredible power of being able to control others, and there was no being on Sennadar more effective at controlling others than Shiika.
	Azakar, Camara Tal, Sisska, and Miranda also had a task, but it was one which they were not happy to accept.  They remained behind in the estate, and in their guard was placed Zarina, Auli, Iselde, Allyn, and the redheaded girl that Tarrin had claimed earlier that night, whose name was Liza.  Liza didn't know she was being guarded, only knowing that the honored one himself had asked her to come to the room and act as a personal servant and maid to the group while they were there.  The presence of the three Sha'Kar didn't make that an unusual request.
	The planning had a specific goal.  To break enough of the Council's hold over the Sha'Kar so that tomorrow, the Sha'Kar would not cause them any serious problems once the Council was dethroned as the ruling body of Sha'Kari.  That would take place at sunrise, and that plan, another of Keritanima's, was absolutely brilliant in its elegant simplicity.  Tarrin would simply call the Council together and announce he was taking over.  Sha'Kar society and culture recognized him, a sui'kun, as a ruler.  The seven sui'kun were the seven Keepers of the towers before the Breaking.  That was why they called him honored one, and Auli had demonstrated the deep-seated impulse the Sha'Kar had to obeying those above them.  If that was one of the functions of the amulets, Keritanima saw no reason to use it against the Council.  And the Council would have no real reason to deny him his rightful place.  It would go against Sha'Kar tradition, and that was one of the traditions the Council had kept alive, so as to retain a sense of continuity among the Sha'Kar and also use as a tool to help keep the rest of their people under the Council's control.  Keritanima could think of no rational reason the Council could give to him or their own people as to why Tarrin should not replace the Grand and lead the Council.  The Council had created the tenets of the society they controlled, and Keritanima intended to use it as a weapon against them.
	That was the plan, and it seemed to Tarrin to be a good one.  It wasn't exhaustively complicated, addressing the main obstacles to taking down the Council and allowing them to do so with a minimum of bloodshed.  That was very important to all of them, because as far as they were concerned, the only guilty parties on the island were the Council, the Grand, and the humans that were willingly working with them.  They didn't want to have to be forced to fight people who were fighting them because they were being magically controlled.  That could very well happen if the Council got wind of what they were doing before they finished, or they moved to protect themselves when Tarrin came to pay them a call.  If things worked as they all hoped they would, Tarrin would simply walk in, take over the rulership of the Council, and then dissolve it.  Then he'd turn around and kill them all.
	After all, there was no way he was going to allow them to live, after what he'd seen what they were capable of.  He hadn't told Keritanima that yet, but she'd find out once he started slaughtering them.
	Another advantage of the plan was that all of it didn't have to succeed in order for the plan itself to be successful.  Tarrin could fail to get fifty, Dar, Keritanima, and Dolanna could fail to discover who was controlling the humans, and Phandebrass and Kimmie could fail to Summon Shiika.  The main core of the plan was Tarrin's hostile takeover of the Council.  The freeing of the Sha'Kar and the containment of the humans were conditional actions they needed to take in case the Council refused and attempted to turn all the Sha'Kar against them.  And that wasn't even an absolute, because even Keritanima wasn't sure what the Sha'Kar would do if the Council ordered them to attack the honored one.  That may take things too far even for them, control or no control.  But being wise, none of them were going to assume that the Sha'Kar would not turn hostile if they were commanded to do so.
	"They're thinning out," Sapphire said in a low whisper from his shoulder.  " How much longer?"
	"As soon as they're all off the streets," he answered in a quiet tone, surveying things.  There were only a few scattered pockets of slowly ambling Sha'Kar, probably the most drunken ones.
	"Where do we go first?" she asked.
	Tarrin pointed to an estate on the southwest edge of the town.  "That one," he answered.
	"Do you want me to go scout it for you?"
	"No, let's both stay out of sight," he told her.  "Thanks for the offer."
	"I'd rather check things out before you go.  I don't want to see you get hurt," she told him.
	"I love you too, little one," he said absently yet sincerely, reaching up and patting her forepaws fondly.  "But I'll be fine.  These Sha'Kar aren't very alert, especially now that half of them are drunk and the other half either asleep or very distracted.  They don't post guards.  Goddess, they don't even lock their doors.  They'll never see us."
	"I hope so."
	"Me too."
	They waited in silence for about ten more minutes, until the last pack of Sha'Kar, a large family, finally piled into their estate.  Tarrin silently climbed down the wall of the manor home on which he was perched, then ran across the lawn and jumped the fence in utter silence, his black fur and clothing blending in with the dark shadows, making him all but invisible.  His instinctual understanding of stalking and moving without detection made him little more than a ghost, and he could have literally ran right in front of a Sha'Kar, and they would not have noticed him, so silently and stealthily he moved.  He covered the ground to Auli's estate in a tenth of the time it took the Sha'Kar, moving with speed of purpose along the winding white stone pathways.  He vaulted the fence without breaking his stride, and covered the considerable distance between the fence and the main manor house very quickly.  Auli had described her home to him fully, and he knew that a servant's entrance on the east side of the house would give him the fastest and most direct route from the outside to her mother's bedchamber.  That was where he moved, skirting around the house and skulking up to the door, which was remarkably plain.  Tarrin put his ear to the door and listened, for the kitchen was on the far side and Auli warned him that one of the servants may be in the kitchen that time of night, for one of her sisters and one of her uncles both liked meals just before bed.  And of course, the servants prepared and delivered them.  But there was no sound coming from inside, meaning that the coast was clear.
	Tarrin opened the door quickly and slipped inside, then closed it behind him.  He was indeed in a kitchen, a huge chamber of a kitchen with two firepits, three stoves, and four ovens dispersed between countertop after countertop and pantry after pantry.  It looked like a barracks kitchen responsible for feeding hundreds of men, not a kitchen to prepare meals for sixteen Sha'Kar.  That was Auli's extended family, the population of the estate.  Tarrin took stock of his surroundings, pausing to sniff at a few stoves, and could tell that it had been a while since the last meal had been prepared.  He must have gotten there before those late eaters ordered their nightly dinners from the servants.  There had been a couple of female servants in the kitchen not long ago, but their scents had them leaving towards the two rooms that the eight human female maids were allotted in the main house, down a small side passage off the kitchen.
	With a nudge at Sapphire to get her off his shoulder, Tarrin shapeshifted into his cat form, the kitchen blurring and then taking on another perspective, as he looked up at everything rather than down.  His cat form was alot less conspicuous, and there was always a chance someone was going to come out a door while he was walking past.  With sixteen Sha'Kar and the Goddess knows how many guests they had tonight, the chances were quite good.  Sapphire landed on the ground beside him and nodded, folding up her wings.  She'd seen him shapeshift before, but since he'd had mates in his beds lately, he saw little reason to shapeshift anymore.  But this was one of those times when it was very useful.  After a quick moment of negotiation as the Cat came more fully into the forefront of his mind, he padded towards the passageway that Auli had described.  Her mother's chamber was at the end of that passage, a huge double door set at the end of the hall, and Auli warned him that the passageway traversed almost the entirety of the manor.  Auli's mother preferred living on the ground floor, so she wouldn't have to climb any steps.  It was very unlike Arlan's room, which was on the third floor of his estate.
	Tarrin and Sapphire padded into the hallway, and moved both quickly and carefully.  Tarrin put his nose to the floor and checked for recent scents, and found none.  None at all, except for a few servants.  That struck him as odd.  There were eight bedrooms along that passage.  None of them had returned to them yet?  As often as the Sha'Kar slept over at another estate, that was a possibility.  Auli admitted that she slept in her own room about one night in six, and even then she usually wasn't alone.
	They encountered no one along the long walk to the end of the passage, where a huge set of double doors with massive crystal handles rested, the house name chased in silver on doors that looked to be sheathed in beaten gold.  There were little clear crystals also embedded in the gold, making the whole thing shimmer as the light that radiated steadily from the walls caught in the crystals and was refracted.  It was, by far, the gaudiest display he'd seen from the Sha'Kar so far.  Most Sha'Kar decorations weren't half as loud as this one.  Auli said her mother was a little eccentric.  These doors tended to agree with that observation.
	It was the place, however.  With a quick look around, Tarrin shapeshifted back into his humanoid form, and then put his ear and his paw against the door.  There was no sound from within, a good sign.  Auli said her mother was an early sleeper, and tended to wake up earlier than most other Sha'Kar.  Tarrin grabbed the pull ring and opened the door, doing it slowly, so its weight didn't make the door squeak on the hinges.
	The room beyond was absolutely palatial.  It was much larger than Arlan's chamber, and was almost spartanly decorated.  There was only one sculpture, on the far side of the room, near the raised dais upon which the bed sat.  There were five paintings and two tapestries, and there was also an ancient shield hanging from the wall, that had a coat of arms of some sort on it.  It looked to be thousands of years old, from the archaic design of the shield.  There were a couple of bookshelves near a trio of bureaus near the bed as well, and there was a whole lot of empty space between the chamber door and the nearest chair.  There were about five chairs and a divan sitting on the far side of the room, probably where the woman received visitors, and there was a very large, ornate desk with a padded chair before it against the back wall.  There were strange little cabinets to each side of that desk, probably for holding papers.  Each had several small drawers.  Arlan did his family paperwork in a study down the hall from his bedchamber.  It looked like Auli's mother preferred to do it from her room.  On the far wall were three other doors set closely together, probably closets, and an archway in the corner that opened into a bathing room that held a pool that, from that distance, looked to be the size of a large pond.
	In the bed, Tarrin could see a single figure, laying still.  The blankets were pulled up around