t between two monarchs who sent letters and treaties back and forth couched in the most flowery and flattering language, but he had never admitted to understanding either the mind of a woman or the motives of a diplomat.  He had no real inkling of how this war worked, or how one would manage to claim victory, but he was certain that someone would explain it all to him.  Probably after it was all over.  Tarrin was certain that Shiika was really getting under his sister's fur, for she often complained about the Demoness to him when they spoke or when she visited, and more than once had tried to cajole him into using his strange influence over the Demoness to make her do what Keritanima wanted.  He only laughed and bowed out, knowing that coming between those two would only get him coccooned like an errant fly that wandered too close to a spider's web.
	What made him laugh about the whole thing was when Shiika paid him a personal visit about five months after he'd settled in, to get a look at things, meet his children, and then she tried to convince him to tell Keritanima to do a few things that Shiika wanted her to do.  It seemed that Keritanima was getting to Shiika as much as Shiika was getting to Keritanima.
	The only thing he was certain about was that the two of them were having more fun than they'd ever had in their lives.  Both were thoroughly enjoying their little war, and he had the feeling that they were dragging it out purely for the entertainment it provided.  Both had found a worthy opponent in the other, and they were now trying to decide who was the better between them.
	From a political standpoint, that was the only thing really going on.  There had been civil wars in Daltochan and Draconia after the power vacuum caused by the destruction of the ki'zadun, but those had been settled in a matter of months.  There had been a border incursion between Draconia and Ungardt, but the Ungardt marched over the border with two clans and laid waste to a few Draconian towns, convincing the Draconians that if they had any strange ideas about expanding their borders, they'd better look in some other direction.
	What had troubled Ianelle was the curious lack of civil discord in certain kingdoms in the world, like Zakkar.  Zakkar and Stygia had long been bastions of the ki'zadun, but neither had so much had suffered a single riot with the destruction of Val and the loss of virtually the entire upper echelons of the shadowy organization he controlled.  Ianelle thought that at the very least there would have been a power struggle within the kingdoms, but there had not.  The Witch-King of Zakkar and the Mage Queen of Stygia had managed to retain control of their kingdoms despite the loss of the support of the ki'zadun, or as Ianelle worried, perhaps they had simply taken over their operations.  The ki'zadun was a huge organization that stretched across the entire world, and they all agreed that not even Val's death and the loss of the network's leaders had probably destroyed the organization as a whole.  It was still out there, and Ianelle felt that it was possible that they had shifted their focus from resurrecting Val to simply gaining and holding power for themselves, reflected by a change of rulership at its highest level.  No matter who had managed to take control of the ki'zadun, most of the political leaders in the world agreed that it would be a good idea to find out who was now controlling it, and possibly doing what they could to destroy it.  That was what a good many spies in the West and on the continents of Arathorn and Valkar were doing, and Keritanima had told him that it may take them a couple of years before they found out who was now leading the ki'zadun.  That was why there had been such a lull in things.  Everyone was busy trying to ferret out the new leader of that shadow organization, who still had designs to rule the world, and had quite a few assets at their disposal.  Nobody wanted another period of chaos like the one the ki'zadun had caused in the West.  They had taken over two kingdoms and set almost the whole of the West at war against one another.  Nobody relished seeing something like that happen on Godan-Nyr, Arathorn, or Valkar, where the relations between kingdoms, nations, and empires were much more volatile.  The West, as a region, was probably one of the most stable in the world, for all the kingdoms more or less got along with one another, and wars were very rare.  When they did happen, they rarely lasted for very long, and then the combatants shook hands and returned to their own sides of the border.  There were some tensions in the West, like between the cities of the Free Duchies and between Tykarthia and Draconia, but they were very minor compared to the millenia of seething hatred between Yar Arak and Godan, or Stygia and every kingdom that abutted its borders, including Sharadar, or Shen Lung and Newan, or Zakkar and virtually every other kingdom on the planet.
	There had been a few unusual things, though.  The Goddess had said that it would take his mind and soul time to adust to his new body, a body the Goddess had created to house his soul after the Soultrap had saved him from utter annihilation.  And for the first month or so, he could feel that.  At first, the Weave felt distant and fuzzy, but as time passed, it grew more and more clear, until it felt as it had always felt to him.  That meant that his powers of Sorcery had been completely restored to him, just as strong as they had been before.  In fact, everything felt as it had before, and he figured that he was fully healed.  But, much to his surprise, things didn't end there.  As the next month passed, he started feeling very odd sensations, and the vast majority of the time, they happened in the kitchen, in the common room, or when he was over visiting his parents' house.  He couldn't quite pin down what the sensation was or why it seemed to be stronger at only certain times, but he didn't have much time to explore it, however.  About a month after he started noticing it, the first of the many distractions that interrupted him, prevented him from exploring the origins of these strange feelings and sensations, came along.
	As things go, it wasn't a very large distraction, but it did kind of evolve into a major one, one that would uproot him from his life of peace and comfort for a little while.  It all started during one of his almost daily talks with Allia through the amulets, and when he asked how things were going, she sighed and went on what was to him to be an almost uncharacteristic venting spree.  She was having serious trouble with her father, and it was all over her pet.  Allia had a pet inu, which was a desert reptile-looking animal that was about as tall as a man, was bipedal, had a sharply angular head filled with sharp teeth and long, wicked claws, and was one of the desert's most efficient and formidable hunters.  Inu preyed on just about anything they could catch, and they hunted in packs.  The problem was, the herd animals upon which the Selani depended were deathly afraid of Allia's little pet, which she had named Kedaira, which meant loyal in Selani.  Kedaira was very well trained, and would not attack the domesticated herds.  But the herds still had an instinctive fear of inu, and every time Allia and Kedaira moved through the camp, they caused a stampede.  Her father had had about enough, and had ordered the inu out of the camp.  Allia had thrown, what was for her, an absolute fit, which probably meant that she argued in public with her father over her pet inu. Allia was very attached to her pet, and for that matter, Kedaira absolutely adored Allia.
	Allia's request seemed a rather simple one.  She asked that Tarrin take Kedaira for a few days until she could hammer out a compromise with her father.  That didn't seem too outrageous, for he'd had experience with the inu, and knew that she was very smart and would obey him.  So he agreed.  He Teleported out to Mala Myrr two days later and met them and Allyn, who was now officially Allia's husband.  They spent all day together talking and catching up, and Tarrin saw that Allyn looked to be adjusting to life as a Selani better than he'd expected.  He was still a bit short compared to Selani males, but he'd toughened up considerably, all wiry muscle now.  He'd also been training Allia in Sorcery, and Allia's abilities in that regard were even stronger now.  She was now more skilled and had more raw power than the average Sorcerers in the Tower.  Their relationship had truly evolved into a symbiotic harmony.  They were opposites; everything Allia lacked, Allyn possessed, and everything Allyn lacked, Allia possessed.  That was the best kind of union, for they joined to become a whole greater than the sum of its two parts.
	Tarrin had thoroughly enjoyed his day with Allia and Allyn, but as the sun went down, he knew it was time to go.  So he took Kedaira with him when he Teleported back to the house.
	And that's where the trouble started.
	Kedaira never intentionally caused trouble.  That fact had need to be made clear from the onset.  She had impeccable manners inside the house--he let her inside, much to Mist's vociferous objections--and the children all became absolutely entranced by the sleek predator.  She was gentle and affectionate with Tarrin and the children, and she never broke anything.  It was when she was let outside that she became a problem.  Kedaira was an inu, a sleek, highly evolved predator, and when she was outside, she acted like one.  The problem was, almost immediately, she found the gateway that led to his parents' house, and she passed through it.  Later that night, a furious mother and father paid Tarrin a little visit and tersely told him that Allia's pet had eaten two of the sheep on their farm.  It took Tarrin nearly an hour to track her down and take her to task for that, warning her that she couldn't eat the domesticated animals here either.  Since he was a Druid, he was more than capable of talking to her.  And as in all things, she would obey the commands of a Druid. No animal would disobey a Druid when he spoke with that kind of authority.
	Because she was a curious animal, he found her on the other side of the gate almost every time he took his eyes off of her.  It only took a day for her to run out of interesting things to see in the forest, and it didn't take her long to find the cart track from his parents' farm to the village itself.  Almost every day, he had to go to Aldreth and collect up Kedaira, who caused an absolute panic almost every time she showed up.  She didn't break things, she didn't kill domesticated animals, and she didn't chase the villagers.  But she was a strange-looking animal, big and intimidating, and the villagers were very afraid of her.  Time and again he had to use Sorcery to get to the village quickly after his parents appeared telling him Kedaira was loose again, and he went over there and picked her up.  No matter how many times he told the villagers that Kedaira was completely harmless and would not hurt anyone, it always seemed to fall on deaf ears.  He even went so far as to talk to Garyth the mayor and had him meet Kedaira, and he'd been impressed with how calm and almost affectionate she was.  But not even his assurances that the inu wasn't a danger was enough.  In fact, his telling the people that the inu was safe was what caused the big row the next day.
	It all started when Olin Sharpsword ignored his parents when Kedaira showed up on the Green and approached the inu.  Olin had heard the mayor tell everyone that the inu wouldn't hurt them, so he wanted to look at the animal up close.  Kedaira would never have attacked the six year old boy, but the village men didn't understand that.  By the time Tarrin got there, Kedaira had put six village men down and had put herself the boy and the villagers, defending the crying child from what she thought were attackers.  Kedaira's teeth and the claws on her forearms were formidable, but it was the scythe-like oversized middle claw on each of her feet which were her real weapons.  They rested in a vertical position, and when she snapped them down to attack, they carried the force of a sword swung by a powerful warrior, capable of slicing flesh, sinew, and even bone.  She'd used those on the village men who were attacking her with farm tools, tearing up the six she'd gotten so far pretty thoroughly.  It took Tarrin almost five minutes to calm Kedaira down, but it took him even longer to calm down the villagers to the point where they would put down their makeshift weapons.  After he managed that, he healed the village men who had been injured, then turned and berated them for acting so foolishly, reminding them time and again that the village had consistent and cordial contacts with the Woodkin, then chiding them for acting so judgemental when the village was renowned in the Frontier as one of the most open-minded and accepting villages along the Heartwood's borders.  He bored into them with example after example of how the village had accepted visits from Centaurs and Giants, Druids and Were-kin, yet they could not accept the presence of the inu, an animal he had personally vouched for as to her behavior.  They all seemed a bit defiant until he mentioned in passing that perhaps Aldreth wasn't such a good place for the Woodkin to come and trade.  The gold and pelts and other valuable forest commodities that the Woodkin brought to trade for good leathers or steel tools or good shoes or any number of other goods the villagers supplied to them was one of the reasons that the village was so prosperous, and that had been the threat that they couldn't ignore.  After that, the villagers backed off.
	Sometimes children surprised Tarrin.  After calming down a bit following the short battle in the arms of his mother, Olin again approached the inu, who was standing by herself in the spot Tarrin told her from which not to move.  Tarrin and the villagers were too engaged with shouting at each other to notice the boy, and by the time Olin's mother did notice, it was a bit too late.  Tarrin turned to see that Kedaira had hunkered down to let the boy touch the small crest on the top of her head, then he giggled as she snuffled at his shirt to learn his scent  Tarrin used Sorcery to block Olin's mother and any other villager who tried from running over there and starting another fight, making them watch as Kedaira and Olin got to know each other.  Tarrin pointed out more than once as they watched how gentle and cautious the inu was being to make sure she didn't accidentally hurt the boy.  He then reminded them yet another time that the inu would obey him utterly, and he had specifically told her not to hurt villagers or kill their livestock or pets.  Olin's mother countered with Kedaira's injuring of the men who attacked her, but then Tarrin told her that no animal would allow itself to be injured, just as no man would stand there and let another hit him with a stick.  He had to explain to them that because he was a Druid, the inu would obey him utterly.  Attitudes began to waver when he proved it, ordering Kedaira to do several tricks to prove that to them.
	It took a while, but Tarrin eventually convinced the villagers that Kedaira would do no harm.  He had healed the injuries from the brief tussle, proved that the animal was no threat, and eventually dragged a promise out of the villagers not to harass the inu when she showed up in the village, but in return he had to agree to come get her whenever someone complained about her, no matter what the reason.  All in all, Tarrin was content with the compromise.  He didn't want to banish Kedaira from the village, because he wanted her to get more and more experience operating in a civilized area with the rules that usually accompanied it, like not attacking people or domesticated animals.  This way, Kedaira would get experience wandering around a place where she had restrictions on her, just as she would have to do at the Selani camp.
	After that, Kedaira wasn't a problem anymore.  Tarrin had her for another ride and a half, until Allia finally told him that she'd struck a deal with her father.  Unfortunately, the deal required Tarrin to come to the desert and have a little talk with the flock of sukk that her tribe owned and instruct them that that particular inu was no threat to them.  Surprisingly enough, Tarrin wasn't sure about that.  He'd wanted to see Allia's tribe and meet her father, but coming under such circumstances, when father and daughter weren't on the best of terms, didn't seem like quite a good idea.  He told Allia as much, but she just laughed and told him that half the reason her father had made that stipulation was because he wanted to meet Tarrin.  There were Druids in the desert, and they could have easily tracked one of them down and asked for his assistance.  But they both wanted Tarrin to do it.  Allia wanted him to do it because she missed him and wanted to spend some real time with him, not just talk to him through the amulet or while he was projecting.  Jenna was supposed to make an item that would let Allia Teleport to Tarrin's house, but she hadn't finished it yet.  They had seen one another at least once every day because Tarrin could project out to visit with her, but Allia wanted him there in person, where they could touch.  Not just a visit from "half of him," as Allia put it.
	There was nothing he could deny to Allia.  They were too close for him to ever say no.  He agreed to do it, despite his misgivings.  That made her happy, and they agreed to meet at the ruins of Mala Myrr, the only place in the desert to which Tarrin could Teleport, in five days.
	What Tarrin hadn't counted on was the backlash he got from home.  Jesmind was not happy that he was leaving, and neither was Mist.  Jesmind shouted at him that he'd done enough, and he didn't have to go rushing off to help anyone else do anything.  Mist was angry with him because when she asked to go with him, he refused.  Mist didn't understand the complexities involved with the Selani.  He couldn't take anyone they'd consider an outsider, or he'd be violating their laws.  Being a branded member of Selani society, he simply couldn't do that.  Jesmind got even more furious when he told her no for the same reason.  The only ones he could take would be his children, because they were blood relation to him.  Not even his mate Jesmind qualified as a spouse, because they hadn't been married under the vows of Selani custom.  Until that happened, she was nothing in the eyes of Selani culture.
	Of course, when Jasana and Eron heard that, they went wild with anticipation, and they asked to go.  Tarrin refused, and then the very short war began.  They were going to go to the Desert of Swirling Sands, and they weren't about to take no for an answer.  Eron by himself was no threat, but Jasana was more than enough threat for all four children.  She was still a cunning and manipulative little schemer, despite everything that had happened, and it didn't take her long to formulate a plan to wear her father's objections away and defeat him with utter determination.  She knew that no amount of cajoling, pleading, wheedling, or screaming would ever sway her father.  When it came to him, it required relentless, endless, utterly focused and intense pestering to get anything out of him, but pestering carried out very carefully, so as not to raise their father's rather formidable temper.  Jasana knew that by herself, she didn't have the endurance to overcome her father and get her own way...but with Eron to help her, the one child in the house with boundless energy, she knew she had enough gunpowder to set off the cannon.
	What they didn't understand was that Tarrin wasn't forbidding them to go simply out of spite or a hasty decision.  The desert was a dangerous place, and he wasn't about to take two over-curious cubs to a place where curiosity could get them killed.  Selani children were thoroughly educated about the dangers of their homeland before they were so much as let outside of arm's reach of a parent.  He knew that the instant his back was turned, Eron was going to stick his paw into a zubu burrow.  He'd bet money on it.  Keeping an eye on his two cubs would keep him too preoccupied to watch for the other dangers the desert posed.  Fara'nae may like him, but she wasn't going to intercede because of his own bad judgement.  She was a caring and devoted goddess, but she didn't reward blatant stupidity.
	The war started the day they decided they were going to the desert with him, and Jasana started it.  She asked to go, and he said no.  Then she kept asking, and kept asking, and kept asking.  Tarrin's mood and his patience with his daughter deteriorated rapidly over the course of the day, and when Jasana sensed that she was about to get heavily punished for her refusal to obey her father, she backed off.  Then Eron started in on his father.  Eron was a much more effective pest than Jasana, because he talked fast when he was excited and couldn't stand still, which forced Tarrin to constantly shift his gaze to keep his eyes on his son and forced him to pay more attention in order to make out what Eron was saying.  He couldn't simply tune Eron out as he could Jasana.  Over and over, again and again, Eron asked to go to the desert, and Tarrin was forced to stop what he was doing--currently putting a new string on the bow he'd had since he was a kid, a bow he'd treated with magic to be able to use in his Were-cat form--and tell him no again and again.  After nearly an hour of constant badgering, Tarrin fixed a baleful gaze on Jasana, who was trying to act innocent over at the table with her mother as Jesmind taught her how to sew leather into clothing.  It didn't take him long to figure out that Jasana had enlisted Eron in her mission to get to go to the desert.  Tarrin stood up and flatly told both of them that they weren't going, and if either of them asked again, he'd cut off their tails and hang them from the ceiling by the ears until he came back.  Both of them had the sense not to press any further after that.  That final salvo ended the war, with Tarrin the victor.
	Realizing that she overplayed her hand and erred in giving Eron instructions on how to pester their father, Jasana changed tactics.  Tarrin had absolutely no idea how she did it, but the next day, when Tarrin talked to Allia, she asked him if he'd bring the children.  He knew that Jasana had somehow gotten word to Allia that she wanted to go to the desert, but he couldn't figure out how in the world she managed it.  He asked Allia the next day, and she told him that Jasana projected out to see her and ask her personally if she could come, conveniently leaving out the fact that her father had already told her no.
	Though he was furious with Jasana that she would do something like that, try to go over his head as it were and seek permission from Allia personally, he was silently thrilled at how she had done it.  Jasana was terrified of joining to the Weave and projecting.  It was a phobia for her, and he'd been trying to break her of it for months.  Obviously, she was so intent on going to the desert that she was willing to overcome her fear of joining the Weave and project out to see Allia.  It proved to him that, if she was properly motivated, Jasana was capable of overcoming her phobia.
	This bit of news was welcome, but Tarrin's resistance to taking Jasana to the desert began to wane as he realized that this would be a perfect opportunity to refresh his scheming little cub about the dangers of getting her own way.  If she wanted to go to the desert, that was fine with him.  He would make sure that it would be quite an educational experience.  So, the next day, Tarrin proposed to her a challenge.  He was going to Teleport somewhere and wait ten minutes.  If she could find him and project out to him, he would let her and Eron go to the desert with him.  He saw the fear creep into her eyes almost immediately, but he saw an equal determination appear in them as well.  He Teleported to Dala Yar Arak on a whim, in the same grass field where the circus had put their tents, and waited.
	And as surely as clockwork, Jasana's projected image appeared about five minutes later.  She was trembling and looked decidedly uncomfortable, but she was doing exactly what she was afraid to do.  Again, she had overcome her fear in pursuit of something she wanted.  It showed how determined Jasana could be to get what she wanted.  For the first time, he had used that trait in her for her own good.
	His elation at this breakthrough was muted a bit when he realized just to where he had Teleported.  He was literally in Shiika's front yard, and his presence invoked a response from the Demoness, in the form of one of her Alu children, Anayi.  Tarrin's relationship with the Demoness and her five daughters were both complicated and not very good, but Anayi had helped him in the past, and in a way she was the only one of them he would even come close to calling a friend.  That was probably why Shiika had sent her.  Anayi was there to find out what Tarrin wanted, but after he told her he was just there for a few minutes, they glossed over the complex niceties that were usually exchanged between Tarrin and any of the Demons of Yar Arak that prevented misunderstandings and graphic violence, and they had a rather nice little chat.
	He learned alot in that little chat.  All was not well in the house of Shiika.  Anayi was the wild one among the cambisi, possessed of more will and independence than the others.  She was also a great deal smarter than her sisters.  That made her good for Shiika to use in independent missions where she couldn't be there to watch over her, but lately it had become a raw point between them.  Anayi wanted to learn Wizard magic.  She was smart enough for it, and Shiika herself was a very accomplished Wizard.  But her mother had absolutely refused to teach Anayi any Wizard magic.  This infuriated Anayi, who had always done everything she was told to do, done it well, and had never failed her mother in any way or in any mission.  She felt it was her right to reap the rewards of her faithful service, and she wanted that reward to be instruction in Wizard magic.  Tarrin himself couldn't quite fathom why Shiika wouldn't train her, but she obviously had to have some kind of reason. Odds were, it was a very abstract one, given that she was a Demon and Demons didn't think in a manner that was understandable to most mortals.  Either way, it was nothing in which he was about to stick his nose.  He knew better than that.  Getting between Shiika and Anayi would be about the same as strapping slabs of meat to himself and marching into a den of ravenous wolverines.
	That meant that it was about time to go.  He bid his farewells to Anayi and returned home, fully intent to hold fast to his promise.  He would take Jasana and Eron with him when he went to the Desert of Swirling Sands to return Kedaira to Allia.  And he would make sure that Jasana would have a holiday she would never forget.
 
Chapter 2

	When Tarrin and his children appeared in the center of the destroyed arena at Mala Myrr, not far from the marble tomb of Faalken, he fully expected to feel the desert's heat, maybe be in the middle of a storm, and he expected to see Allia waiting for him somewhere very close by.  Much to his surprise, she had yet to arrive.  That was unlike his Selani sister; when she said she would be somewhere at a certain time, she was there.
	"Stop!" Tarrin said sharply almost immediately, without even having to look.  Eron froze in his tracks almost in mid-run, starting to dash off towards something that got his attention.  "This isn't home, cub.  Everything here has a hidden danger, and you never go rushing off into things you don't understand," he told him in a measured, almost stately pace.  "If you don't behave, I'll send you home.  Remember that."
	"Yes, Papa," Eron said quickly.  Both of his children had been thoroughly warned that if they didn't behave, if they caused absolutely any trouble whatsoever, and the very first time either of them disobeyed him, he would send them home.  It wasn't an easy thing to make them appreciate the danger of the desert, because children never saw danger in much of anything, but he finally drilled it into them by giving them that ultimatum.  Eron padded back over to his father and grabbed the end of his tail, a gesture of obedience.
	Tarrin looked around as Kedaira hunkered down patiently, then he put his paw on his amulet.  "Allia, where are you?" he asked.
	"I'm about an hour from the outskirts of the city," she replied immediately.  "We were delayed by a sandstorm, brother.  Do you want to meet me halfway, or shall one of us wait for the other?"
	"I'll meet you halfway, deshaida," he answered.  "Who's with you?"
	"Only Allyn," she answered.
	Tarrin chuckled.  "No wonder you're so late," he teased.
	"He heard that, brother," Allia laughed.  "He said he's going to get you for that."
	"He can certainly try."
	"Who are you talking to, Papa?" Eron asked.
	"He's talking to Aunt Allia, you nit!  Who else would he be talking to?" Jasana chided sharply, smacking him on the shoulder.  Eron smacked her back, and they were suddenly wrestling around on the ground.
	"Cubs!" Tarrin said sharply, causing both of them to freeze, then he sent pulses of his awareness out into the Weave.  They quickly locked onto Allia's power, and he knew which direction to go and how far away she was.  Given that it would take them nearly an hour to get free of the ruins, they'd meet right on the outskirts.
	"I have you, brother.  We're on the way."
	"Alright, looks like we'll meet in about an hour."
	"See you then."
	Tarrin broke the connection and looked towards the southeast, the direction in which Allia was.  He'd never really gone that way before.  He'd come through the western and eastern parts of the city, but hadn't really fanned out into the northern and southern sections of it before.  Mala Myrr was a huge ruin, probably one of the largest of the ancient cities of the Dwarves, and there was quite a bit of it that he hadn't seen.  Certainly not for wanting to see it.  The Dwarves were a favorite topic of his, for he had a great deal of respect for a race so willing to stand in the face of evil, even when it meant their total destruction.  In the six months since the destruc