he heat," Allia told her with steady eyes.
	Jasana looked pointedly annoyed, but said nothing.  The stern warning Tarrin had laid down on her was probably still fresh in her mind.
	"I think he needs a better shirt than that, brother," Allia said as she gave Eron a critical eye.  "And that head cover will never do."
	"I'll take care of it, sister," he assured her.
	A few moments later, Eron was marvelling over his new clothes.  He looked like a little Selani, with a loose-fitting shirt and head covering complete with a veil.  His leather trousers were good enough without having to be replaced, so he did look a little unusual with his mismatched clothes.  He fussed a little with the visor, complaining that it felt weird how it rested on the small ridges of bone where his human ears would have been, but it didn't dampen his excitement.  Jasana had gone from annoyed to sullen as Tarrin handed her a Conjured visor, and she shoved it over her eyes aggressively.  Tarrin could tell that this trip had already not gone at all to Jasana's satisfaction.  Tarrin was sure it'd get worse for her before it was all over.  Tarrin put his own visor over his eyes, and the bright desert sun's brilliance was soothingly dulled by it, as the world was cast over in shades of violet and purple.
	"You know, I'm finally going to see how your people make these visors, Allia," Tarrin mused.
	"You'll be disappointed, brother," Allia smiled as she tucked her veil in under the neck of her shirt.  "Are you ready, little nephew?" she asked Eron in Sulasian.
	"I'm ready!" he said excitedly, mimicking Allia's action of tucking in the veil under his shirt.
	"Can they keep up, brother?" Allia asked in Selani.
	"They should," he answered.  "But are we in a hurry?"
	"No, not at all," she answered as Kedaira started nipping at Allyn, but not in an aggressive manner.
	"What's wrong with you, Kedaira?" Tarrin asked her.
	"She does that all the time," Allyn answered as he stroked the inu's mottled scales.  "Whenever she thinks we're ignoring her."
	They started out moving to the southeast at a very leisurely pace by Allia's standards, little more than a jog.  Tarrin could tell that she was going slow to see how well the children were going to be able to run, but she should have known better.  They may have been children, but they were Were-cats, and that gave them an endurance that outmatched any Selani child.  Their little legs couldn't let them go very fast, but their regenerative natures would allow them to run all day.  They ran along the wide valley that eventually fed into the city of Mala Myrr, then up and down very gentle hills that were filled with the small, tough, springy scrub bushes on which the sukk and many other desert herbivores fed.  The growth was relatively new, probably as the yearly cycle brought the ground water that was under the desert closer to the surface in this area.  There was little water in the desert unless one knew where to look.  The Selani had lived here for some five thousand years, and they knew exactly when and where the ground water was risen, high enough to where a pit dug in the ground would yield seepage.  Their migration was as much following the water as it was finding the scrub for their herds, for the scrub grew where the water table was raised.
	They moved freely and easily through the afternoon, as Jasana's face looked more and more sullen with every step she took.  Allia would point out interesting things to the cubs as they passed them, such as what looked like a big rock but was actually a kajat balled up and waiting to ambush anything that got too close to it.  She stopped once to show them an umuni, the large quadrapedal lizards that were both highly venemous and somewhat tasty to the Selani.  She showed them a seed mouse and a snapper lizard, which fed off of desert insects, and when they stopped for a short rest and to give Kedaira water, about an hour before sunset, they found a zubu sitting on a rock watching a marcher centipede, which was in turn trying to sneak up on a scrub locust that was eating a leaf from a scrub bush that had fallen to the sandy ground.
	"I didn't know there were so many animals here!" Eron said in wonder as they watched the locust jump away, but the centipede, so intent on the locust, did not see the zubu until the large spider jumped from its rock.  It tried to scramble away, but the spider landed right on it and delivered its fatal bite before the centipede could get clear.
	"Our lands are not a barren wasteland, nephew," Allia told him with a smile.  "In the desert, there are many, many things, but nothing here is obvious or apparent.  In this place, everything has a secret."
	"I thought those spiders were slow," Jasana said.
	"They move slowly most of the time, but they are capable of short bursts of speed," Allia told her.  "They also jump on prey, as you just saw."
	"Are they poisonous?"
	"My dear niece, almost everything in the desert is poisonous," Allia chuckled.  "It is a good rule to consider anything smaller than an inu to have either a poisonous bite, sting, or claws."
	"At least it's not so hot now," Eron sighed as he put his wrapped head cover back on.
	Tarrin looked towards the setting sun, and realized that it was a little cooler.  The wind was blowing a little more strongly now, and it had a dusty smell to it.  That meant that there was a sandstorm coming.  Allia looked as well, shading her eyes and standing stone still for a moment.  "The air is cooler because there is a sandstorm coming," she told him.
	"How long?" Tarrin asked.
	"About an hour," she replied in Selani.  "It's a pretty strong one.  We'll need to find shelter."
	"We passed a notch in a spire right back there," he said, looking back the way they came, to a solitary rock spire that was visible some two or three longspans behind them.  "It might have a cave in it."
	"Or we can make a cave," Allyn added.  "I think the rock spire is our best option, love."
	"What are you saying, Papa?" Eron asked curiously.
	"There's a sandstorm coming, cub," Tarrin told him.  "We're deciding the best place to go to wait it out."
	"What are sandstorms like?"
	"In about an hour, you're going to find out for yourself," he answered his son absently.
	"What's going to happen to all the animals?" Eron asked.
	"They'll be safe, cub," Tarrin told him.  "They've been through them before.  They know what to do."
	"Don't they know it's coming?"
	"They know, but they also know they have time before they have to seek shelter," Allia answered for him.  "We should move, brother.  If we have to do any digging, it is best if we have plenty of time for it."
	They returned to the solitary rock spire, reddish-brown in color and about fifty spans tall.  It was a very narrow one, and a single paw on it told Tarrin that it would be much too brittle and delicate to attempt to dig a cave into it.  There was a depression on its southwest side, and though it wasn't enough to provide cover from a sandstorm, it would serve as an anchor point for the four Sorcerers to do something with it.  Tarrin did the honors, weaving a powerful Ward that would keep out sand and dust, and would also prevent fast-moving air from penetrating it.  Tarrin was rather proud of his creation, for it would allow air to pass through it, but only air that wasn't a powerful wind.  In that way, Wards were one of the most versatile things a Sorcerer could make, for what they could stop was sheerly up to the Sorcerer that made it.  Tarrin had set it so that it would last for nearly three days.
	Protection against the sandstorm was only half of what they needed.  Allia pulled her pack off and started digging a shallow firepit, her firebuilding materials within her pack.  If they would be held immobile by the sandstorm through the rest of the day, they would need the fire to repel the dangerous Sandmen that roamed the desert at night.  No Scout left their camp without a pack full of the dried dung and wiry branches of scrub brush that served as fuel for the fire.  The dung burned fast, usually just long enough to ignite the slow-burning, hard to ignite scrub wood.  Tarrin told the cubs to help her, and they lined the shallow pit with stones they found in the area.
	Things stopped quickly when Eron returned holding what looked like a small branch in his paw.  "Look what I found under a rock!" he announced happily, holding up his prize.  Tarrin looked at it, and his heart seized momentarily when he realized that Eron was holding a sandsnake, probably the most poisonous and lethal animal in the desert.  They had the most deadly venom of all, but they were actually rather mild-tempered creatures, not prone to biting without considerable provocation.  Eron's picking up of the snake had not been enough to irritate it, and it wrapped itself around Eron's arm quite sedately.
	"Cub, what did I tell you about putting your paw under rocks!" Tarrin snapped at him.
	"Cub, do not squeeze that snake," Allia said with deceptive calm.  "Do not let go of it either.  Give it no reason to get angry.  Brother, talk to it."
	"I'll take care of it," Tarrin said with a glare at his son.
	"What?" Eron asked innocently.
	"That is a sandsnake, cubling," Allia told him in a calm yet careful voice.  "There is nothing in the desert more lethal."
	"Really?" Eron asked, not in fear, but in curiosity.  He held up the little yellow snake, the color of sand, his eyes curious.  The snake looked back at him calmly, its tongue flicking out to taste the air.  "It didn't hiss at me or anything, and it let me pick it up.  I thought it was being friendly."
	"Sandsnakes are very mild-natured, Eron," Allia told him.  "They will not bite unless you step on them."
	Tarrin knelt by his cub and centered himself for the task of speaking to an animal.  "I'm going to take you from the small one," he told the snake.  "I'm not trying to hurt you.  Do you understand?"
	It looked at him lazily, and Tarrin knew that to be a signal of comprehension.  It uncoiled itself from Eron's arm, and Tarrin collected up the snake with careful gentleness.  Eron still showed no fear of the animal, his eyes intensely curious as Tarrin took the snake and held it in a very gentle paw.  The snake wrapped its small body around Tarrin's wrist, or at least it tried, for its body wasn't long enough to wrap itself completely around.
	"Wow, it's just like the diamond head snakes at home.  It'll let you hold it and everything."
	"Eron, do you have any idea how dangerous it is to handle those things?" Tarrin asked waspishly as he turned and took a few steps towards the rock spire, which formed an anchoring wall for the Ward.  "I'm going to set you down, little one," Tarrin told the snake.  "Do you have any preference about where you'd like to be put?"
	Tarrin hadn't used the Druid spell to allow him to understand the snake, but he understood well enough when he put his paw down, but the snake didn't uncoil itself.  Tarrin moved his paw close to a large rock, and then the snake uncoiled itself and slithered off his paw.  It disappeared under the rock quickly, and Tarrin realized that it was within the Ward.  But that wasn't too much of a danger, for the animal was not an aggressive one.  "I'll keep the young ones from bothering you," he told the snake.
	Tarrin's glare at his son was enough to make him flinch.  "You try my patience, cub," he warned.  "I told you not to bother the animals here.  They're all very dangerous.  Do you want to go home?"
	"Actually, Papa, you told us not to get within the length of our tails to any animals or insects," Jasana said clinically.  "Since Eron didn't know it was there, it wasn't his fault."
	Tarrin fixed an ugly stare at Jasana, who averted her eyes.  "I can do without you playing the lawyer, cub," he told her in a dangerous tone.
	"Oh, Papa, it wasn't going to hurt me," Eron told his father dismissively.
	"And how do you know that?" Tarrin asked.
	"Because it didn't smell like it."
	Tarrin was aware that Eron's sense of smell was considered acute, even among Were-cats.  That meant that to a human, his sense of smell would be beyond rational concepts.  "That's no excuse, cub," Tarrin growled.  "You don't know these animals, so you can't trust your nose."
	"But--"
	"Do you want to argue with me, cub?" Tarrin asked in a dangerous tone.
	"Uh, no," Eron said submissively, averting his eyes.
	"Wise," Allyn murmured under his breath.
	"I think you should have Kedaira keep an eye on them, brother," Allia told him in Selani.  "She'd be a good nursemaid."
	"I think you're right," he answered, glancing at the inu, which was hunkered down near the firepit.  "I'll have a talk with her.  She can keep the cubs out of trouble."
	The sandstorm gathered on the western horizon as they continued setting camp,and it looked to be a big one.  It hit just at sunset, and Eron and Jasana were amazed and a little frightened by its power.  They could see the sand and dust, and even small stones, being driven before a howling wind, a wind so loud that it made all their ears hurt until Tarrin adjusted the Ward to muffle the deafening sound.  The fury of the desert awed the two children, to the point where all they could do was sit by the fire and stare at the raging sandstorm just on the other side of Tarrin's Ward.
	"Wow, these happen all the time?" Eron asked in wonder as a particularly big rock struck the Ward.
	"This is a strong one, but yes, storms like this happen frequently, cubling," Allia answered him.
	"How do the plants and animals keep from getting swept away?" Jasana asked.
	"The plants have very deep roots," she replied.  "And the animals know to take shelter.  The small ones hide under rocks.  Animals like sukk and chisa and inu and draka take shelter behind rock spires or large boulders, and some animals are so large that they can't be picked up by the wind, like kajat and kusuk."
	Tarrin had never seen a kusuk before, but he'd heard descriptions of them.  They were monstrous armored animals, the size of kajat, that looked like gigantic armadillos, with tough armored hides and knobs of heavy bone growing at the end of a surprisingly long tail, which the animal wielded like a club to defend itself.  They were indiginous to the southeastern tracts of the desert, the section of the desert Tarrin had never visited.  They also had draka down there, another animal he'd never seen, which was supposedly a large ant-like insectoid creature about the size of a pony which had been tamed by the southern clans to use as sentries.
	"How long will it last?" Jasana asked.
	"We will know when it is over, cubling," Allia replied.  "It is extremely hard to predict."  She looked to Tarrin.  "I think this is a good time to start their education.  I tire of having to speak to family using such a rude tongue."
	"You're insulting my native language, sister," Tarrin smiled.
	"Some things require insult," she said with a sly smile in reply.
	"I've been wondering something, Tarrin," Allyn mused as Tarrin beckoned for his children to come to hi with a paw.  "Allia said you're good at languages.  Just how many do you speak?"
	Tarrin sat down by the fire.  "I dunno," he replied, starting to count them on his fingers.  "Seven," he said.
	"Seven?" Allyn asked in surprise.  "And you're only twenty?"
	"It's a knack," he shrugged.  "Besides, I used magic to learn two of them, so they really don't count."
	"Which ones?" he asked curiously.
	"Wikuni and Sharadi," he replied.
	"How did you learn the others?"
	"Why are you so curious?"
	"I don't mean to pry," Allyn said quickly.  "It's just that it's not exactly normal for someone so young to have such a broad array of language skills."
	"Well," he said, mollified a bit by Allyn's explanation, "I learned Sulasian and Ungardt while I was growing up.  Karn taught me Arakite when I filled in at his forge when his apprentice broke his arm.  Allia taught me Selani while I was at the Tower, and we all learned Sha'Kar together while we were there.  Dolanna taught me Sharadi, and Keritanima and Miranda taught me Wikuni."
	"You learned a language while working in a blacksmith's forge?" Allyn asked.  "How long did it take?"
	"A few months," he shrugged.
	"A few months?  It took me a year to learn Sulasian!"
	"My brother has something of a gift concerning language, my heart," Allia told him.  "It is proof that he is not as dumb as he looks."
	"I love you too, Allia," Tarrin drawled dryly, which made her laugh.
	It didn't take long to handle the language barrier with the cubs.  Tarrin had several options available to him, since they were both Were-cats and that meant that he could use Mind weaves on them, but Triana's Druidic spell was much more appropriate in this situation.  They wouldn't like its effects very much, but the Druidic approach was to transplant the entirety of the language in one shot and very quickly, where it would take time with Sorcery.  And it would be much more seated in their minds if he used the Druidic approach.  Tarrin could only implant a language he knew and they would have the same command of the language as he did, but luckily for them, Tarrin's grasp of Selani was as profound as it was for Allia, who had taught him.  But while he had the opportunity, he realized that this would be a good opportunity to teach them another language that they may need to function around some of his friends and acquaintances, Sha'Kar.  He wasn't worried about teaching them more than one language at once, for he knew that the spell would allow it.  It would just make the dizziness which was a side effect of the spell last longer.  He performed it on Eron first, warning him that the spell would leave him dizzy for a while afterward, then having his son lay down by the fire while he repeated it with Jasana.
	While the cubs were recovering, Tarrin Conjured something for them all to eat, a large rack of venison, which was cut into strips and set to roasting over the small fire in short order.  "How many languages do your children speak?" Allyn asked.
	"Three now," he answered.  "I just taught them Selani and Sha'Kar.  Nobody in our house speaks anything other than Sulasian most of the time, though Kimmie is going out of her way to teach her daughters Torian."
	"Are you learning it?"
	"Not officially," he answered.  "I've overheard most of her instruction, though.  It's not all that different from Sulasian.  I've been working on Dwarven lately, so I haven't really had time to have Kimmie teach me.  Besides, if I really wanted to learn it, I'd learn it from her the same way I taught Selani and Sha'Kar to the cubs."
	"You're learning Dwarven?" Allyn asked curiously.  "It's a dead language.  Who can possibly teach it to you?"
	"I haven't been really learning it," he replied.  "I've been trying to learn it.  I haven't had much luck finding the right books.  But I forgot about the Book of Ages," he admitted.  "When I get back home, I'll ask Jenna if I can borrow it.  It'll have the Dwarven language in it, the same as it had Sha'Kar."
	"Why Dwarven?  Why not a language you may need, like Amazon?"
	Tarrin smiled slightly.  They all kept that particular appointment firmly in mind.  "I'm curious about the Dwarves, Allyn," he answered.  "The best way to learn more about them is to learn their language, so I can read what they left behind.  It also gives me something of a window into the way the Dwarves think, because language isn't much more than an organized way of thinking."
	"My parents had a book about Dwarves in our library somewhere," Allyn mused.  "And I think Ianelle knows some of it.  She used to study ancient history."
	"Ianelle is ancient history," Tarrin chuckled.  "She's, what, fifteen hundred years old?"
	"About that," Allyn agreed.  "If you count the thousand years she was trapped on Sha'Kari."
	Jasana tried to sit up, but she swayed dangerously before flopping back down.  "Why won't the gound stop spinning around?" she complained.
	"It's going to last a while, cub," Tarrin told her patiently.  "You're dizzy because your mind is trying to organize all the information I put in it.  It's going to be a couple of hours."
	"Maybe we should have fed them before you did that," Allia noted.
	"It won't make them sick to their stomachs," he told her calmly.  "We'll have to bring the food to them, but they'll be alright."
	"Can they understand Selani now?" Allia asked.
	"They should."
	"Good," she said in Selani.  "I don't understand how your people ever manage to communicate with each other, Tarrin.  Sulasian is such an ugly and restricting language."
	"You don't understand the soul of it, sister," Tarrin smiled.  "Languages are the mindset of the races that created them.  If you understand the people, you understand their language a little better, because to be truly fluent in a language, you have to be able to think in it, and that means you're thinking like the people who speak it."
	"I never thought of it that way," Allyn said with respect in his eyes.
	"Allia has trouble with Sulasian because she doesn't like to think like anything other than a Selani," Tarrin said with a smile.  "You can't really do that if you want to express yourself in another language."
	"I am what the Holy Mother made of me, brother," Allia laughed.  "To be anything other than Selani would be impossible for me."
	"Dolanna has similar trouble," Tarrin told Allyn.  "She's so wrapped up in her Sharadi mindset that she has trouble expressing herself in Sulasian."
	"She speaks Sha'Kar easily enough."
	"She speaks formal Sha'Kar easily enough," Tarrin pointed out.  "Think about it, Allyn.  Have you ever heard her speak in informal or low Sha'Kar?"
	Allyn's eyes raised as he thought about it.  "Now that you mention it, no," he admitted.  "I've heard her speak semi-formal Sha'Kar, but even in the house back in Sha'Kari, she always spoke in one of the formal forms."
	"Sharadi is an extremely rigid language," Tarrin told him.  "It's an ancient language, but unlike most others, it has very few shortcuts or contractions, so even when used in the most informal way, it still sounds very formal.  She has no trouble speaking formally in other languages, but she can't easily express herself informally.  That's why she always sounds so stiff when she speaks any language.  The concept of formality in language is too deeply ingrained in her."
	"It almost feels like we're gossiping about our friends," Allia laughed.  "Maybe we should stop."
	"I need to feed the cubs, or they're going to be a little surly," Tarrin said, looking towards his children.  "You're awfully quiet over there, Eron," he called.  "You alright?"
	"I'm just waiting for the world to slow down, Papa," he answered.  "I feel like I'm sitting on a top."
	"That's a pretty fair description of it," Tarrin chuckled as he got up.
	After feeding the cubs, they both decided to simply sleep out the night.  Tarrin, Allia, and Allyn sat around the fire and simply talked, as he heard about their journey to Mala Myrr, then he told them about what happened while he was taking care of Kedaira.  The inu raised her head and looked at them every time one of them spoke her name, but she eventually settled down and got some sleep, hunkered down between the two Were-cat children.
	After that, Tarrin listened as Allia told him all about her family for about the fiftienth time.  Her father was named Kallan, and he was tall as a walking cactus, thin as brambleweed stems, and as tough as stone.  He was the paramount Selani and the ultimate clan chief, chief of the entire clan rather than just the tribe, stern, unbending, and authoratative, yet also fair and benevolent in his rule.  Her mother, Kaila, was a very tall and graceful woman, a Scout like Allia, but a bad run-in with a pack of inu had left her with one eye, a missing left hand, and a stiff right leg.  Despite that, she was still a vibrant, active woman, and though she couldn't Scout anymore, she more than made up for that by becoming a weaver, weaving the tough plant fiber the Selani used into the rugged cloth that made their clothes.  She had no brothers or sisters, but her aunt lived with them, a woman named Dulai, who was very young and already widowed.  She had a son, who was now nine years old, a tall boy named Zakra who showed considerable promise at being a blacksmith or craftsman.  Allia told him that next Gathering, they were going to look into having the boy apprenticed to a smith.  Allia's clan had two smiths, but neither were experienced enough yet to be good teachers.  They were good smiths, but Selani only apprenticed to masters, and neither had achieved that status as of yet.  Zakra was just at the age where apprenticing was done, if the child was going to enter into a trade.
	Every three months, they journeyed to the permanent settlement the clan possessed--every clan had one permanent village--which was a very small place of about twenty buildings nestled inside a narrow gorge along the eastern edge of the Sandshield.  The village was where all the things were done that the clan needed to do but could not while moving, such as growing what scant vegetables they ate or the fiber for their clothes, and where their smiths, fletchers, and craftsmen plied their trades.  While there, Kallan dealt with the business of the clan, settling disputes, surveying herds of sukk, chisa, goats, and draka, and addressing any needs that individual tribes may have.  During those small clan gatherings, tribes exchanged needed goods, marriages were performed, the ceremony of branding was performed, apprentices were taken, and information was passed through the clan.  They also discussed events dealing with other clans.  Clans never openly fought one another, but there were some pretty strong rivalries between the clans, and border raids where livestock and other goods were stolen were not uncommon.  Stealing was an accepted thing among the Selani under certain circumstances, so long as one wasn't caught.  If a raiding party was discovered or captured, the initiating clan lost honor.  Like in all things, the Selani competed among themselves in almost all things.  The border raids were little more than yet another way the clans competed between themselves.  If such a raid was successful, but it left the victim tribe in dire straits, the clan that perpetrated the theft would often return what was taken.  The object wasn't keeping the goods, it was the act of theft itself.  The goods were merely a convenient way to keep score.
	Tarrin listened to Allia go on and on about her tribe and her friends, most of them about her age, his eyes lost in the flickering flames of the fire.  Again he felt that strange sensation, that little twinge, and it seemed to rise and fall with the flames themselves, as if the sensation was tied to the movement of the flames.  He was too distracted listening to Allia describe her best friend in the tribe to pay it much attention, another female Scout named Suilla, whom she had met only since returning to the clan from their journeys.  Suilla was from another clan, having married into it, and she and Allia had taken an immediate liking to one another.
	Once again, something distracted him away from that sensation, and by the time Allia was done, he forgot completely about it.
 
Chapter 3

	Though it was furious and powerful, it was also brief.  The sandstorm blew itself out just before dawn, leaving a pall of light dust hanging in the frosty morning air like a haze, causing the very air itself to almost glow as the red rays of the rising sun reflected off the tiny motes.  It was a glorious morning, as far as Tarrin was concerned, for it was a day filled to overflowing with possibilities.  He'd forgotten what that had felt like, waking up in the morning and having an entire world full of things laid out before him, not knowing where he was going or what was going to happen, a day ripe with chances for discovery and excitement.  Perhaps that strange feeling was why Were-cats were so nomadic, rarely staying in their chosen territory for very long, always out and about and wandering the land.  He hadn't felt this way since he was out hunting the Firestaff, waking up every day uncertain what was to come, but in a very strange way, enjoying it for its diversity and excitement.  Back home, he woke up and did the same thing more or less, just about every day.  But today...today was new, it was unknown, it was different.  And he found himself almost pacing waiting for the others to get ready to move.  He wanted to go see what would cross his path this day, what new challenges and new discoveries were waiting for him just over the horizon.
	Despite everything that had happened, Tarrin still had something of an adventurous spirit, a throwback to his youth, before he was turned Were.  A youth spent aimlessly wandering in places he wasn't supposed to be, doing things he wasn't supposed to do, and living a life of exploration and discovery.  Perhaps that part of him would never disappear...and Tarrin hoped fervently that it never would.
	The cubs were up and finishing breakfast, something that Allia had ventured out and killed as the sandstorm died off.  Eron had found the idea of eating something he couldn't even name to be quite fun, but Jasana didn't seem to have her brother's enthusiasm.  Tarrin could tell by looking at her that she was already feeling like this trip wasn't going as she envisioned it, and he knew why.  Tarrin forbidding her from using magic had already begun to wear on her.  Back home, Jasana went out of her way to use magic to do almost everything, from her daily chores to fetching a cup from a counter.  She almost relied on it the same way the Sha'Kar did, and already he could feel her fingers itching to use Sorcery to perform the most mundane tasks.  Jasana had always been fascinated by Sorcery, almost obsessed with it, ever since Jenna had started training her.  Tarrin didn't mind her learning--he wanted her to learn--but he shared Jesmind's reservations that perhaps she used Sorcery maybe a little too much.  Bringing her out here, where she was forbidden to use magic, was a very dramatic and blunt manner of showing her that.  Several times since she'd awakened, he felt her very nearly use Sorcery, but a withering stare from her father reminded her that doing so would bring swift and unwanted punishment.  He knew his daughter, and he knew that as soon as she felt that coming to the desert had exhausted all possibilities for her,