Sha'Kar.  It put her in a position of authority over them, and allowed her to direct them and handle them without constantly having to go to Alexis.  The Sha'Kar weren't that unruly, but their natural arrogance and impatience with their human counterparts began to show quickly after they reached Abrodar, and Dolanna had to constantly keep an unofficial war from being declared between the two races.  It had taken some time, but Dolanna had managed to get both sides to come to understand the other, which led to the current period of goodwill and cooperation between human and Sha'Kar.
	Of course, the position unofficially had become the "keep a leash on Auli" position.  The Sha'Kar's wild child made sure to keep things from getting too sedate or boring in the Tower with her stunts and her outrageous activities, from figuring out some way to make the stone leaves of the Raintree Tower turn brown and wilt, as if the ancient magical construction was about to shed for the winter, to causing a riot in the area of Abrodar called Lowtown, where the river sailors and caravan guards and the shady types that preyed upon them tended to gather.  She had caused two men to get into a fight after she flirted with both of them, but both of them had a dozen or so friends with them at the time, and it went from a personal dispute between two men into a barroom brawl.  The full-scale barroom brawl spilled out into the streets, and the fighting absorbed any number of passers-by as it roiled through the crooked streets near the docks.  The denizens of Lowtown were a rather high strung lot, and it didn't take much for them to get embroiled in the private war between Auli's would-be suitors.  The open fighting touched off a riot that required Alexis to mobilize the army to quell.  Much like Sarraya, Auli had the ability to cause trouble wherever she went, even when she didn't intend to do so.
	Auli was there, of course, for she was one of Tarrin's friends, looking just as pretty and dangerous as ever, with her slightly heavy-lidded eyes and that mischievous half-smile that always seemed to grace her lips.  Jesmind had taken her presence remarkably well, as if the time since he had been human had reinforced her sense of security.  Now that Tarrin was a Were-cat again, he'd have nothing to do with Auli in that fashion, and Jesmind finally seemed to understand it.
	What had everyone just a little nervous was the fact that Auli was smiling as Sarraya talked.  They had all dreaded the idea of Auli and Sarraya getting together, for the potential for disaster that existed between the two of them was all but undeniable.  Neither had any sense of self-constraint, and the two of them would only incite the other to be more daring, more bold, and more outrageous.  But so far, they seemed to be unexplosive.  The little tiff that occurred between them from before seemed to have been either forgotten or dismissed, and they were actually starting to be nice to each other.  Whether it was genuine friendliness or only a front so Sarraya could avenge herself against Auli was the question, and unfortunately it was a question whose answer would remain a mystery until Sarraya herself answered it with her actions.
	Tarrin knew Sarraya, and he'd bet money that Sarraya was just trying to worm her way into Auli's graces, only to humiliate her in the most spectacular fashion.  Sarraya was both petty and spiteful, and considering that she was a Faerie, that was an extremely bad combination.  The only time that Sarraya could ever really formulate complicated and clever plans was when they were plans to get back at somebody for a past slight, be it real or imagined.
	Of course, what Sarraya probably didn't realize yet, and probably only Tarrin, Iselde, Ianelle, and Allyn knew, was that his Sha'Kar friend was more than a match for Sarraya.  She'd been playing games like this for hundreds of years, and Sarraya would find herself woefully unprepared.  Auli could probably read Sarraya like a book, and was just leading her by the nose so she could turn Sarraya's plot against her.  Though she was immature and more interested in fun than work, Auli had a very sharp mind and was capable of surprisingly astute observations, as well as an awareness of the subtleties hidden within words that often betrayed a speaker's true intent.
	After breakfast, as the others went up to pack what little they'd unpacked for the single night's layover, Tarrin went on ahead with Jula, and met up on a staicase with Auli and Dolanna, each of which was leading a young servant who was carrying their baggage towards the front lawn.  That was where they were all supposed to meet, so they could all marvel at Alexis' clever way to transport them to Amazar.
	"Any luck finding out what that sneaky Keeper has up her sleeve?" Tarrin asked Auli after trading kisses on the cheek, a Sha'Kar custom of greeting between friends.
	"Bah," she snorted.  "I have no idea.  Nobody will tell me, even when I offered them all sorts of things that I know they were interested in."
	"I think you overlook the simple fact that they simply might not know," Dolanna said calmly.
	"You know," Tarrin said accusingly.
	Dolanna only smiled slightly.
	"I should have known!" Auli said in disgust, glaring at Dolanna.  "Of course you would know, Dolanna!  You're only halfway in Ally's dress with her!"
	"I thought you had the wisdom not to use that term about the Keeper, Aulienne," Dolanna said in that infuriatingly calm, unruffled manner of hers.  In all the time he'd known her, he could count on one paw the times he'd seen her upset or at a loss for either words or actions.  Dolanna all but had icewater in her veins when it came to her ability to handle surprises.  "You know she despises it."
	"So what?" she said flippantly.
	"Maybe the fact that Alexis could set you to scrubbing pots for the next ten years is a good reminder," Jula offered with a chuckle.
	"Telling me to do something and making me do it are two different things, Jula," Auli told her with a roguish grin.
	"So, what is Alexis' big secret, Dolanna?" Tarrin asked directly.
	"I cannot tell you, dear one," she said sternly, but then she smiled.  "But I can assure you that it is not dangerous, and that you in particular are going to like it."
	Tarrin felt all his reservations about this secret vanish instantly with that statement.  "If you say it's not dangerous, that's good enough for me," he said confidently.
	"And you're going to trust her?" Auli demanded, motioning at Dolanna.
	"I trust her alot more than I trust you," he told her sharply in reply.
	"And I thought you were my friend," she said in an overly melodramatic, totally insincere whimpering voice.
	"I hope you can act better than that," Jula chided her, which caused the Sha'Kar to laugh richly.
	"So, when are you going to crush Sarraya?" Tarrin asked absently.
	Auli gave him a malicious grin.  "Not for a bit.  I want to build up her hopes first.  I'll let her get right to where she thinks she's got me and starts gloating, then I'll step on her."
	"And I thought Were-cats were ruthless," Jula chuckled.
	They reached their designated meeting area just as the sun managed to fully climb over the buildings to the east, but they were not the first to arrive.  Phandebrass and his drakes, Sarraya, and Azakar were already there, talking in low tones with Darvon, Ulger, and Kargon, resplendent in their polished armor and now wearing white surcoats, their ultra-formal attire.  "You're early," Tarrin noted to them as they arrived.
	"We had to check out the meeting area and make sure it's safe," Kargon said seriously, pushing his dark hair out of his face absently, then putting his hand back on the hilt of his sword.
	"We're inside the Tower grounds," Jula scoffed.  "It defines safe."
	"It's not as safe as it once was," Darvon grunted.  "If this Tower had the same trouble we had in Suld, then we're more than justified in making sure everything is safe."
	"Those were extreme circumstances, my Lord General," Dolanna told him in a measured tone.
	Chopstick and Turnkey jumped off Phandebrass' shoulders and flew over to Tarrin, landing on his.  Tarrin picked Chopstick off his shoulder and cuddled him for a moment as he reached back and scratched Turnkey between the horns fondly.  "Well good morning to you two too," he said gently.  "They're getting fat, Phandebrass."
	"I say, I know, I know," he admitted.  "Ever since their powers manifested, they've been eating twice what they usually do, they have.  I've been trying to find out why.  I know they're not about to molt, they did that last month, they did."
	"Molt?" Kargon asked.
	"I say, they may look like reptiles, but they're not," he told him.  "But though they're not, they do share some reptillian traits, they do.  Dragons and drakes both shed their skins about twice a year, they do.  I say, it's how they grow."
	"They eat more when they molt?" Tarrin asked curiously.
	"I say, they do, but not enough to make them fat," he answered.  "Mostly they drink excess liquids and eat fruits with alot of water in them, they do.  I say, the water helps soften the skin and makes it easier to shed."
	"They get cranky when they molt," Sarraya piped in, her eyes nervously glancing over at Auli quite a bit.
	"I say, the loose skin is itchy and irritating, it is," Phandebrass said.
	"But now they can breathe fire," Tarrin mused.  "That must make the molting a little more dangerous."
	Phandebrass grinned.  "I say, I had to put them in a bare stone room for a day or so," he agreed.  "Turnkey almost burned off my hair, he did, because I shooed him off my desk."
	"If they weren't exciting pets, what fun would they be?" Auli said with a sly smile.
	"Drakes do keep one occupied, they do," Phandebrass agreed with a chuckle.
	Pair by pair or small group by small group, the others gathered on the lawn, joining those who got there beforehand.  Haley walked down with Alexis, Ianelle, Iselde, and a male Sha'Kar who seemed to be going, and Allia and Allyn came down with Keritanima and the rest of the Wikuni, with Binter and Sisska standing vigilant guard.  The other Were-cats came down at the same time, as Jasana herded Tara and Rina quite imperiously under the watchful eye of their mothers and grandmother.  Standing on the edges of the group were about thirty servants carrying their baggage, waiting patiently for instructions, and beyond them, between the group and the outer gate, was a large complement of Tower guards, formed up and ready to accompany the group wherever it was that they were going to go.  Alexis looked around and nodded to herself, then got their attention by using Sorcery to create a loud noise.
	"Alright then, everyone is here!" she called.  "If you would all follow me, then!"
	Knowing that it wasn't going to be dangerous, Tarrin felt his curiosity pique as Alexis led them not towards the Tower, but off the grounds and into the city proper, with her soldiers going first to both clear the way for them and cause the citizens of Abrodar to stop and gather and watch them go by.  He debated what idea she could have possibly had as the others whispered or traded wild rumors, from a house with legs that would run at blazing speeds to being carried on the backs of dragons.
	But when Alexis steered them towards the river, Tarrin suddenly thought that he figured it out.  He kept it to himself, privately wondering if he was going to be right or not, as the Tower's soldiers continued to march them towards the large, slow-flowing, muddy river that connected Abrodar with the sea, a river wide and deep enough for ocean-going vessels to dock there, despite being some three hundred leagues from the nearest salt water.  Seeing Wikuni tradesmen and clippers along those docks was the surest sign that the river was navigable all the way to the sea.
	"We're moving towards the docks," Jula noted.  "Some kind of ship?"
	"You will see," Dolanna said simply, and then would not speak again, no matter how much the others asked, begged, cajoled, pleaded, or downright threatened her to talk.
	When they got to the docks, he found that he was right, but he was also wrong.  They were indeed going by ship, a large galleon that had been painted a blazing silver-white and even had bleached white ropes woven between and around the three masts of the impressive ship.  He looked at the ship, and saw that he was right in how Alexis was going to do it.
	Sitting squarely on the main deck, just before the sterncastle, was one of the Zakkite magical devices that made their ships fly.  Tarrin knew what it was, because he had seen one before, at very close proximity, as Phandebrass had captured one of them and spent a great deal of time studying it.  It made sense that Alexis would need Phandebrass' help in setting this one up, and Dolanna's remark that he would like Alexis' plan hinted that it involved flight.  Tarrin loved the sensation of flying, and Dolanna knew that.
	He suspected that that was how it was going  to be done, but he figured they would be going on a captured Zakkite ship.  But he was glad that it wasn't.  Zakkite Triad ships were low-drafting, ugly ships that had little elegance or art to their design.  They were functional ships built by a functional kingdom to serve a functional end.  At least Alexis' galleon was a sleek, majestic vessel, whose paint and glittering sails and ropes gave it a sense of the fantastic.  Tarrin could just imagine what it might look like to people on the ground to see the ship pass overhead.
	"A Zakkite flying device!" Kimmie gasped, then she laughed richly.  "No wonder she needed your help, my teacher!"
	"Actually, her questions had more to do with other things, they did," he admitted.  "I say, I just helped her iron out a few wrinkles, that's all."
	They boarded the grand vessel, and the first thing that Keritanima did was start giving the ship a thorough inspection as porters and servants loaded their baggage and personal gear on the ship, dropping it off in rooms that had obviously been pre-determined were theirs.  But Tarrin, Jula, and Jenna had Alexis cornered near the menacing metallic device the Zakkites used, as Jenna assaulted her with rather blunt criticism.  "You know that thing will kill anything you put inside it!" she said sharply, in obvious disapproval.  "We can't go using this thing!  I won't be party to it, Alexis!"
	"I solved that problem," she said quickly.  "The device consumes energy from flying creatures.  With Phandebrass' help, we discovered that if a Sorcerer weaves a shell for an Air Elemental without actually summoning the spirit, and puts it in the device, it will operate it.  It just consumes the magic, and it doesn't hurt anything, because we never actually summon the Elemental."
	Tarrin analzyed her idea, and found it had merit.  The Zakkite device didn't care what was inside it, so long as it was an avian creature.  If they did weave together the first stage of the spell used to summon an Air Elemental, the magical construct that the spirit of the Elemental would occupy when it was summoned, and then put it in the device, the device would sense it as energy from an aerial creature.  It wouldn't really be anything more than a mass of flows of Air and Divine, however.  But if the device could take that energy of Sorcery and transform it into Wizard magic and it would'nt do anything any harm, then there was nothing wrong with it.
	In actuality, now that he thought about it, Alexis had stumbled across a rather important little idea there.  If Keritanima had her Wikuni take those devices from every Zakkite ship they battled, then they could stick them on ships with Sorcerers on them and turn them into ships that could fly more or less all the time.  A Sorcerer could easily recharge the magic that the device was consuming, and the ship could remain airborne for virtually unlimited amounts of time.  The Zakkite advantage had always been their ability to pull their ships into the air and attack enemy ships from above.  Alexis' idea would strip that advantage away from them, and the ironic justice of it was that they'd do it using their own magical devices.
	Jenna's brows furrowed for a moment, then she suddenly smiled.  "That's rather clever, Alexis," she said appreciatively.  "You have any more of those devices laying around?"
	"A few," she grinned. "I think Keritanima probably has a few hundred stored somewhere, though.  You may want to ask her if she has a few to spare."
	"She'll make me buy them," Jenna frowned.
	Alexis laughed.  "Who says I'm not going to make you pay for them?" she challenged with a wink.
	"I'll give you a copper bit for them," she said immediately, which made Tarrin chuckle.  He remembered Jenna's laments about Shiika, and the idea to pay her a copper bit over the outrageous demands for reparation that Shiika sent to her concerning mobilizing her troops for the Battle of Suld.
	Word of how they were going to be going to Amazar spread quickly through the ship, and was looked upon with both excitement and trepidation.  Miranda and Azakar in particular looked a little green around the cheeks at the idea of flying all the way to Amazar, but Jasana was wildly excited about the idea, and Auli looked about ready to get out and push if they didn't start right now.  Tarrin, Keritanima, Allia, and Jesmind stood at the bow as the servants disembarked and the ship's sailors, all wearing gleaming white waistcoats and white slacks, with little round caps on their heads that had a blue ribbon hanging from the left side, moved quickly through the ship, throwing off hawsers, securing rigging, and preparing the ship for departure.  A large fellow with dark skin and black hair, a Mahuut, took up a place at the wheel on the steering deck, who wore a blue waistcoat instead of white, and had a strange boat-like hat on his head.  An officer of some kind, Tarrin reasoned.
	"Think this thing'll fly?" Keritanima asked in Selani, the language of choice when the three of them were together.
	"It probably will," Jesmind said absently, making Tarrin's sisters give her a surprised look.  "Tarrin taught me Selani a long time ago," she told them with a slight smile.
	"I'm glad I know now," Keritanima laughed.
	"I'm sure you are," Jesmind said bluntly.
	"Alexis' idea is sound, and I'd bet that she's already tested it," Tarrin said.  "I just wonder if she's taken the wind into account."
	"Wind?" Allia asked.  "Like the wind in your face when you run fast?"
	Tarrin nodded.  "If this thing is going to go fast enough to get us to Amazar in three days, it's going to be like a gale on deck."
	"But then again, if she's already tested this ship, then she knows about that," Keritanima countered.
	"Good point," Tarrin agreed with a nod.
	They watched as the last of the preparations were made, and then the male Sha'Kar which Tarrin didn't know stepped up and cast his spell into the metal device.  Tarrin could sense it clearly, the housing energy a Sorcerer created for the spirit of an Air Elemental, and a rather strong one at that.  But instead of completing the spell and summoning that spirit, the male instead put the coherent shell of Air and Divine into the diabolical Zakkite device, which caused its base to immediately start to glow.  Tarrin knew from Phandebrass' many studies of those devices that it was what the Wizard called mechano-magical, the fusion of magic and mechanical technology.  That meant that the control of the device was accomplished by four levers that were mounted on the steering deck.  One lever controlled altitude, one controlled attitude, one controlled yaw, and one determined the ship's speed.  The first three were set with springs to be center-resting, so it could be pushed up or down, but returned to its center, or neutral, position.  Pushing up or down made the ship go one way or the other, depending on which control was pushed.  The fourth, which determined speed, was a lever that was mounted to the deck, and moved back or forth over little marks that determined speed either backwards or forwards, and the lever stayed where it was put.  Those four levers were magically connected to the device itself, so that manipulating them caused the device to alter its magical production of the energy that made the ship fly.
	Tarrin sensed an envelope of Wizard magic suddenly bloomed forth from the Zakkite device and surround the ship.  Alexis, who was standing on the steering deck, gleefully rang the large bell hanging from a post behind the steering wheel, and then Tarrin distinctly felt it when the ship lifted straight up and out of the water.  Jasana, Tara, and Rina ran to where they were and looked over the rail, gasping in awe and delight as the ship rose up and over the buildings, and continued to rise higher and higher.  Everyone eventually joined them, including Azakar and Miranda, who looked down with wild eyes as the ship rose hundreds of spans over the river, then the bow slowly rotated until it faced north-notheast.
	All over again, Tarrin was caught up in the sensation of flying.  It never got old, from that first time he had experienced it from the back of his Fire Elemental.  Looking down on the world, seeing it so very far away, and revelling in a sense of freedom that made him feel like he was the absolute master of himself, the master of everything around him, the master of everything below.  The total and utter sense of freedom that came with the ability to defy one of nature's most unbending and inbreakable laws, the law of gravity, and be capable of soaring through the air with the ease of the birds.  To be unfettered and unrestricted by nature, by the land, by everything, to rise above all and look down upon it and know that he had escaped their clutches.
	To know that he was free.
	The ship began propelling itself forward, as Tarrin sensed another Sorcerer--dressed in the garb of the sailors--weave a Ward of Air over the deck to deflect the wind that would soon become a raging gale.  Tarrin, his sisters, his mate, his friends, and his children all stood at the rails and looked down on the land of Sharadar, and they all marvelled and gawked and feared and gasped and pointed, but they were too caught up in the surprise and marvel of it to feel what Tarrin felt at that moment, a feeling that gave him the strangest sensation right over his shoulder blades as he looked down on the golden land of the fabled kingdom of Sharadar.
	The feeling of total and unhindred freedom.
 
Chapter 9

	It was something that he would never tire of.
	Tarrin stood amidships on the port side of the amazing ship that Alexis had provided for their trip to Abrodar and looked down upon the golden desert of Kypernius, with its green and gold band of life where the river Kyper flowed through the barren desert and turned it into a lush and fertile paradise.  It was a secretive and culturally isolated kingdom northwest of Sharadar, which sat on the northwestern edge of the Inner Sea that very nearly cut the continent of Arathorn in half.
	Amusing that both groups called the other's continent after the first kingdom with which they had made contact.
	He'd never get tired of the feeling of it.  Even though gravity kept his furry feet squarely on the deck, he still felt weightless.  It was the perspective of it, being able to look down upon the world from high above and know that though he could feel gravity pulling on him, it could not control him.  It was a sense of utter freedom and liberty, as if gravity was just a symbol of everything that those on the ship had managed to escape.  As much as it had for him when he rode his Fire Elemental over the Sandshield, riding the clever galleon through the skies filled Tarrin with a strange nameless joy, very nearly a giddiness, and put him in quite a mellow and amiable mood.  For Tarrin, that was quite a rare event.
	Two days had not diminished it either.  They were right on the coast now, ready to fly out over what Keritanima would call the Sea of Gold, whose name was changed to the Sea of Glass once one got past the isles of Amazar moving north.  They were only half a day from Amazar, the maps Keritanima and Alexis had shown him revealed.  The isles of Amazar were about two hundred leagues off the west coast of Arathorn, a chain of about fifty islands of varying sizes that stretched from the middle of Arathorn to the southern edge of Telluria.  Arathon was located at the edge of the isthmus that marked the border between the continents of Arathorn and Nyr, the northernmost kingdom of the continent which, in the West, bore its name.  The peoples of Arathorn called it Sharadar, for the ancient kingdom of Sharadar was the very first civilized kingdom to establish itself on the continent, who were themselves remnants of the True Ancients, those humans who had fled from the conquering Urzani so many thousands of years ago.
	For two days, his friends didn't quite know how to take their usually brooding and ominous friend.  Tarrin was talkative, outgoing, almost downright playful from time to time, and reacted with amusement or dismissiveness to situations where he would usually have sent the one antagonizing him running screaming for whatever cover he could find.  He didn't even seem to have too much mistrust and wariness of the strangers that were crewing the ship and the Sorcerers that had come along to supply the magical power to make it fly and deflect the wind.  It was quite a shock for those closest to him, his sisters and his mate, but Triana and Jasana didn't seem to be very surprised at all in this sudden change of temperament in him.  Then again, both of them had rather special insight into the more intimate workings of Tarrin's personality.  Triana had shared his mind with him, and his daughter had been Circled with him, as well as being remarkably observant and keenly aware of the more esoteric elements of her father's complex personality.  They knew that it was Tarrin simply expressing a side of himself that only came out when he felt utterly and completely safe and unfettered, something that Jesmind saw quite a bit when they were alone together, but not quite as exaggerated as it was now.  Sarraya had asked Alexis more than once how she had managed to trick Tarrin into eating the catnip she must have snuck on board, a joke that lost its humor after about the tenth time that she repeated it.
	After two days, even Tarrin was getting a bit sick of how he was acting.  He felt foolish and undignified, but he still couldn't help himself, like a precocious kitten who knew better than to climb up the curtains.  It was all but irresistable.  He was certain that he was going to be absolutely mortified with himself for the way he was acting when they landed, something that he was sure was going to cause him grief with the others.  He had already vowed to himself that the first one that made fun of his behavior when he got back on the ground was going to pay, and pay dearly.  He figured that it was only going to take one object lesson to make everyone absolutely convince themselves else that what they had seen for the last three or so days actually had never happened, and even if it did, then they were obviously mistaken.
	Strange that it would make him feel so completely silly.  But then again, there was a strange sensation in it that he had never noticed before, a more intimate feeling deep in himself that he'd never noticed before.  He'd felt it a couple of times before, the times he could remember, however, he had been staring into a fire.  This was something like the same feeling, but something else was triggering it inside of him.  It really didn't make any sense, and usually Tarrin dismissed things that illogical as things that he'd never understand...so there was no real reason to worry about them.
	That Were-cat mentality, combined with his magical abilities,  were why he hadn't really thought of flying anywhere until now.  Oh, he'd taken a joy-flight or two with his Air Elemental a few times, usually in the guise of teaching Jula how to summon Elementals with Sorcery, but most of the time it didn't cross his mind, despite the fact that he loved to fly so much.  The Cat couldn't fly, flight was a totally alien concept to it, and as such it tended to rule out those alien concepts most of the time, quietly guiding his mind away from thoughts of it.  It wasn't that the Cat hated flying, or that it felt it unnatural.  It was that the Cat's instincts didn't include flight as a mode of travel, and as such he'd always consider modes of travel which were familiar to it first.  On foot was usually the very first thing Tarrin considered when he thought about travelling.  But his human mind overcame that quickly and considered the use of magic as the second option.  Since he could Teleport anywhere important that he wanted to go, he never really considered flying as a viable alternative to travelling...mainly because this was the first time he'd really needed to go somewhere where he couldn't either Teleport or reach on foot, or both.
	But Alexis' wonderful ship showed him that when a Weavespinner needed to go somewhere to which he could not Teleport, then flying was the most appealing alternative.  It was speedy as well as highly enjoyable.
	Jenna had already engaged Keritanima in a bid to get some of the Zakkite flying devices from her, but as she predicted, Keritanima saw the sudden value of the captured magical devices, and demanding a ridiculous amount of money for them.  Despite the fact that they were sisters, Keritanima's hawkish Wikuni merchant mentality had taken control of her.  A Wikuni wouldn't give anything to her own mother for free, and Keritanima wasn't about to budge on the idea of making Jenna pay for them.  But Jenna was desperate, and Keritanima, sensing this, managed to wrangle Jenna into a contract that was ridiculously in her favor.
	Poor Keritanima.  Tarrin had to chuckle about that.  Little did she know that Jenna knew a spell that created temporary gold.  It was a rather pointless spell, since Sorcerers strong enough in the Spheres of Earth and Divine could Transmute real gold, but the fake gold spell had been a viable alternative for a Sorcerer without that kind of power and in desperate straits, at least before the Breaking, when the spell had been lost when the Ancients disappeared.  It was such a pointless spell that Tarrin and Jenna had never thought to teach it to anyone else, if only to prevent a sudden glut of fake gold 