m, the three cubs being held firmly by the paws to keep them out of mischief, and they watched as he approached Camara and Koran Tal with a slight nervous twitch in his tail.  They didn't know that being stared at by so many strangers unsettled him in ways that weren't exactly healthy for those who beheld him.
	"Camara," he said with strange directness, totally skipping over any kind of greeting.  "You're about to pop."
	"Not soon enough for me," she said with a slight smile.  "I see Triana taught you Amazon."
	"She taught all of us."
	"Pity I never got the chance to finish."
	"That's your fault."
	She gave him a slight smile.  "Before we go too far, let me introduce my mother and father.  Sulina Tal and Ezran Tal."
	Tarrin's eyebrow rose slightly.  "Sulina Tal?  As in Karaja Sulina, High Queen of Amazar?"
	"That is a title that some use with me, yes," the woman with the slight tendrils of gray in her raven-black hair answered.  "Karaja is my Royal name, in honor of the first High Queen."
	Tarrin's eyes shifted to Camara Tal.  "You never said she was your mother."
	"What difference does it make?" she asked.
	In a way, she was right.  Though her mother was the queen--or High Queen, as every island had its own queen--Camara Tal had no claim or right to the throne.  The High Queen was a position decided by martial prowess, not bloodlines.  Any queen could challenge Sulina Tal at any time for her throne in a battle to the death.  Sulina Tal held her throne by the power of her sword arm and the wits of a grizzled veteran.  Each queen, in turn, could be challenged at any time by any citizen of her island, so long as she was at least thirty years old.  The only Amazons not permitted to challenge for the throne were men and Priestesses.  Because she was a Priestess, Camara Tal would never be a queen, even if she quit the order.
	Tarrin studied this aging woman with a critical eye.  Strong shoulders.  Light on her feet, and her forearms were corded, meaning she had a powerful grip and strong wrists.  Those were critical assets in a warrior.  Yes, this Sulina Tal would be quite a formidable opponent.
	"I see you haven't changed," Koran Tal laughed.  "Decided if she's edible yet?"
	"Koran!" Camara Tal snapped shortly, giving him a hot glare.
	"You know, some think it proper to bow in the presence of the High Queen," Sulina said with a slight, quirky kind of smile that effectively took any kind of offense out of her statement, as if she didn't take the practice very seriously.
	"Ah, but you've forgotten the Were-cat mantra, my Queen," Koran said lightly.
	"What would that be, stepson?" the man, Ezran Tal, asked.
	"Make me," he answered with a straight face.
	Sulina Tal burst out laughing, then extended her hand towards the Were-cats.  "Well, if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.  I think we can let you slide concerning certain Amazon customs, at least for now.  I'd hope that before you leave you think enough of me to actually bow."
	"I doubt that'll happen," Triana said curtly.  "But if you're anything like what Camara describes, you might almost be worth it."
	"You must be Triana," Sulina said to her.  "My daughter speaks very highly of you."
	"She will if she knows what's good for her," Triana answered in a flat kind of tone that made it clear that she was not joking.
	Koran Tal had an amused smile on his face, and Tarrin looked him in the eyes.  That look told him much.  Koran Tal seemed quite relaxed, even in the presence of Sulina Tal, almost playful and bantering.  That was very much unlike Koran Tal.  Perhaps life on the island and the impending birth of his child had changed him a little.  That unconscious defensiveness that he'd always had when Camara was around was certainly gone, and he looked happy and content.
	After all, that was all that really mattered, when one looked at the big picture.
	"Well, I must say, you're just as intimidating as Camara described," Sulina Tal told Tarrin with a smile, looking up at him.
	"Thank you," Tarrin said evenly.
	The Amazon queen only smiled.  Camara Tal stepped forward and put her hand up on his shoulder.  "We've prepared rooms for everyone," she announced.  "Being the daughter of the High Queen does has some advantages.  One of them is a house with plenty of empty space."
	"Be nice, daughter," Sulina Tal murmured.
	"So let's get all of you out of the eyes of this crowd," Camara Tal said.  "I know how you feel about crowds."
	Tarrin nodded knowingly, and then Sulina Tal swept herself up regally and led the large and diverse group up into the city of Amazar.
	As cities went, Tarrin rather liked it.  The buildings were constructed away from one another, leaving quite a bit of open space, and they didn't cut down all the trees.  There was much grassy lawn separating small compounds or single buildings that had the look of shops or a craftsman's workplace.  The overall effect was much like Aldreth, a population center that was widely scattered across a space much larger than was necessary to hold it all.  That spaciousness kept the place from building up that normal city smell, that and the fact that the Amazons seemed more intent on the concepts of hygiene and the cleanliness of their town.  Any human-generated miasma was blown away by the ever-present sea breeze, carrying the smell of the salty sea up onto the land, and the green smell of the grass and the strange, broad-leafed trees that dominated the town.  They had no leaves but at their very top, with brown trunks that often leaned to the side, with horizontal bands of a sort that ran up the trunks to that poofy canopy at the apex.  The leaves vaguely made the trees look like they were tall creatures with green hair.  Since the buildings were log or stone, it gave the place a rough feel, more like a frontier village than a town, and almost made the place seem laid back.  More like a village than a city.
	The crowd of curious Amazons followed these strange visitors all the way up to the High Queen's abode, a very large compound of about twenty small buildings, some stone, some timber, some to be woven of the leaves of those big trees, surrounding a large garden of lush and breathtakingly beautiful tropical flowers.  There was a copula at the very center, set on a tiny island in the middle of a large, Shaullow pond that was full of small orange fish.  The island had two bridges running to it, two small, arched, high-sided bridges with gracefully carved handrails set into a black glassy stone that formed the walls supporting them.  The floor of the bridges was made of a bone-white wood, at least that was how it looked to Tarrin, for he saw it over a fence between two of the buildings that formed Sulina Tal's compound.  The compound looked to only have one way in, through the largest of the stone buildings, where two haltar-clad Amazons holding pikes snapped them upright in salute as the High Queen mounted the worn, slightly mossy steps leading up to the huge, empty doorway.  It was a simple arch, old and worn from weather, and it was apparent that it did not and had never held a door within it.
	Tarrin noted this as they entered, seeing the weather-worn stones inside that entrance foyer, where rain blew into the building.  So did Phandebrass, it seemed, for he paused to kneel down and inspect the stones carefully.
	"Why isn't there a door?" Jasana asked.
	"It's a symbol of the open nature of the throne," Sulina Tal answered the little Were-cat girl.  "Any who comes to challenge for my throne will find no door blocking them from my throne room," she said, pointing ahead of them, into a large chamber where a simple, unadorned stone chair stood on a very small dais at the far end.  The throne room of Amazar.  There is nothing standing between me and any challenger but the challenger's own fear of facing me."
	"Poetic," Dar noted.
	"I say, I've noticed that Amazons can be a surprisingly poetic people," Phandebrass said as he got up.  "Much of their language and ideology is full of metaphor, it is.  Quite curious.  I say, I think I'll have to look into it, I will."
	"Are we staying here?" Jasana asked her.
	"Not in this building," she replied.  "This building holds nothing but my throne room, my office, and a few antechambers and offices for my staff.  Our private residence is out there.  We'll get to it through the garden."
	There were numerous women and not a few men in the stone building, and even more out in the garden.  Each of them wore a simple white kilt and went with their chests bare, including the women.  The ones with long hair had it tied back away from their faces in simple tails, just like the one Camara Tal wore.  To a being, they all had coppery reddish-brown skin and raven black hair that was as straight as straw.  They all bowed as the group passed, bowing to Sulina Tal, who swept past them without even seeming to register their presence.  She stopped just before the garden and clapped her hands sharply, and not seconds later a rather tall woman wearing a simple white kilt scurried up and bowed.  Just like every Amazon he'd seen so far, she was tall, muscular, but with generous curves that were not hardened in any way by her physique.  Just like Camara Tal, steel wrapped in the seductive and voluptuous blanket of femininity.  It was only natural for him to compare all Amazons to Camara Tal, the only Amazon he knew with any intimacy, but one thing was for sure.
	Compared to Camara Tal, all these other Amazon women, even her mother, were lacking.
	"Sinna Liu is my chambermistress," Sulina Tal announced.  "If you need anything or have an issue with any of the servants, this is the woman to see.  Sinna, we need to accommodate our guests."
	"I have all prepared, my Queen," she answered in a husky, seductive voice, bowing again.
	"Excellent.  Have your staff settle our guests in."
	"As you command, my Queen."
	A very young and rather short Amazon man, looking to be barely seventeen, was the one tasked to lead Tarrin and Jesmind to the room that would be theirs.  Sulina Tal had many rooms, and each person would get his or her own, if that was what they wanted.  Jasana was rather ecstatic over having her own room, in one of the small woven buildings facing one of the two bridges leading to the little island.  Tarrin regarded this young man for a long moment.  Camara Tal had never mentioned servants.  From the way she'd always talked, Amazons didn't believe in them.
	"How long have you been a servant here?" Tarrin asked the male bluntly.
	"I'm not a servant, my Lord," he answered.  "I got caught breaking plant pots.   I'm working towards my freedom price."
	"What does that mean?" Jesmind asked.
	"When we're found guilty of a crime, the judge assigns a price for it, the freedom price.  We have to pay that price to be absolved.  If we can't pay it, we have to work until we pay, our wages going towards our debt until we can meet our freedom price."
	"Sensible," Jesmind nodded.  "I'm starting to like these Amazons."
	"Unless someone refuses to work," Tarrin noted.
	"Oh, we'll work, my Lord," the man chuckled.  "Anyone who breaks the tradition of the freedom price ends up working towards his price in the obsidian mine.  After you come out of there, you'll be wishing you behaved.  If you have hands left, at any rate.  The obsidian cuts you to shreds inside five days."
	The young man showed Tarrin and Jesmind to a simple log building that had nothing but a single room within.  It was a rather large room, but there were no things like fireplaces or privies or closets, just a single room with no door and very large windows, the door and windows having large bead curtains hung within them to conceal what was within.  But not very well.  The open feeling of the place actually irritated Tarrin just a little bit, since his Were-cat instincts made him want to find a cozy place that was dark and confined where he could easily hide, and the exposure to this new place and all the strangers had brought his instincts to the forefront.  This was nowhere near that ideal.
	"Strange," Jesmind said, looking around at the very spartan room.  It had nothing in it except a single very large chest against the far wall, behind a recessed point in the floor that was filled with soft mats and pillows.  A sleeping place, but one under the floor's level instead of above it, as beds were designed.  That was indeed unusual.  There was a simple wooden rack on the wall to the right when stood in the doorway, a large one with pegs for hanging swordbelts, cloaks, or other items.  Everything else was on the floor.  There was a water jug and a washing basin, on the floor.  There was a chamber pot, on the floor.  There were several very large, deep pillows for sitting, also on the floor.  The floor itself was made of stone, despite their dwelling being made of timber logs.
	Tarrin had never seen so empty a room before.  Not even the Selani tents were this empty.  They couldn't carry around any furniture--aside from collapsible furniture that was light and easy to carry--but even their tents seemed populated.  This place was very...bare.  Perhaps the fact that it was a visitor's building had something to do with it, but Tarrin had the feeling that that was not the case.
	"Why would they do things this way?" she continued, looking around.
	"Because it's cool," Camara Tal's voice called from the doorway.  She surprised Tarrin just a little but, for he hadn't scented her, and even pregnant, she could still move on silent feet.  She walked into the room and stopped just before the sleeping area, motioning towards it with her hand.  "The sleeping pit puts you in the coolest air.  Cool air sinks, you know."
	"Why no furniture?"
	"We've never been ones to clutter things," she answered.  "My room has only a writing desk and a few cabinets for holding papers and small objects.  And I have a shelf hanging on the wall over there," she said, pointing to where the rack was, "where I have my souvenirs and keepsakes displayed.  That's just about it."
	"It's weird," Jesmind complained.
	"It's our way.  I think you have entirely too much stuff.  Rooms are for sleeping and nuzzling, not spending all your time in them."
	"I guess it's a cultural thing," Tarrin mused, looking around.  "By the way, where are all your other husbands?" he asked curiously.  "I thought we'd be meeting them."
	"They live on my other holdings," she answered.  "That's more or less why I married them.  They keep an eye on my land and farms.  And besides, Koran won't tolerate them when he's with me.  He's first husband, and he can't stand any competition over me at all.  I never knew he was quite so jealous," she said with a slight chuckle.  "He even made me sell my concubines.  And I made a tidy profit in the bargain," she boasted slightly.
	"A Priestess with lands and wealth?" Tarrin mused, raising an eyebrow when he glanced at her.
	"What's mine I got to keep when I joined the order," she answered.  "It's everything we amass after that is what we have to tithe."
	"Tithe?  What word is that?" Jesmind asked.
	"It means she has to give some of what she earns to the church, as a kind of offering," Tarrin answered absently.  "The Priests of Karas have to give up everything.  They depend on the church for their needs, and the church makes sure to keep them poor by forcing them to give up everything they own when they join the order.  They call it the vow of poverty."
	"Foolishness," Camara Tal snorted.
	"It works for them.  I guess we can't really complain since it doesn't really affect us," Tarrin told her.  "What did you want?"
	"To tell you not to make any plans for tonight.  You're going to be there."
	"Be there?" Jesmind asked.
	Tarrin guessed at her meaning almost immediately.  "You know when you're going to give birth?" he asked with mild surprise.
	"Of course I do," she said in a condescending manner.  "I've known for almost a month.  I should be going into labor in about five hours."
	"You cheated."
	"It's not cheating when it's allowed," she said with a light look.  "Since you're going to be the child's godfather, you have to be there.  You have to be the first person who touches the baby.  It's tradition."
	"What about the midwife?" Jesmind asked.
	"Midwife?" she snorted in reply.  "We don't bother with conventions like that.  I'll deliver the baby onto a reed mat.  Tarrin has to be the first one to touch it."
	"Then you're sensible humans," Jesmind said.  "Were-cat females don't need any help either.  It's just that most humans have this need to complicate a natural process."
	"That's human nature, Jesmind.  They complicate everything," Tarrin said dryly.
	"Except this room," Jesmind grunted, looking around.
	"We're not like most humans you've dealt with, Jesmind," Camara Tal told her bluntly.  "The islands and the climate and our isolation from the mainland means we do things a little different than most others."
	"I noticed," Jesmind said, looking around.  "But that doesn't seem like a bad thing."
	"I'll have a servant come get you when you need to be there," Camara Tal told him.  "Feel free to look around and visit the town, but wander back to where we can find you in about five or six hours.  I know when I'm going into labor, but I don't know exactly when I'll deliver."
	After Camara Tal left, Jesmind continued to look around.  "No wonder they don't spend any time in their rooms," she mused.  "There's nothing in them."
	"I guess they pass their time outside, or in the garden," Tarrin surmised.
	"Unless they enjoy counting the logs in the wall," Jesmind added.
	"Well, want to wander around?"
	"Naw, I'm going to keep an eye on Jasana," she said.  "You know she's going to do something.  I want to be there to head it off."
	"I think I'll go wander around.  I want to see that forest over there," he said, pointing in the general direction of the volcano.  "It doesn't look like any forest I've ever been in."
	"Well, don't forget about the time," she cautioned.  "And maybe taking along someone wouldn't be a bad idea.  So you don't lose track of time."
	"I think I can keep track of time," he flared.
	"Right," she drawled.  "This from the male who disappeared down into his dungeon and came out three days later, thinking it was tomorrow morning."
	"I was busy," he said defensively.  "I was running out of time to finish my studies."
	"I was starting to think Phandebrass had infected you," she grunted as they turned towards the door.
	Tarrin left Jesmind to her observance of Jasana, who was laying on the bridge with Tara and Rina, watching the fish with quiet intent, when Tarrin passed by the garden on his way towards the building that would let them back out into the town.  Tarrin asked Dar to come along with him, but Azakar, Haley, Ulger, and Koran Tal overheard Tarrin's intent and decided to come along.  Tarrin didn't much mind their joining, since he was rather fond of Ulger, if he wasn't an intimate friend, and it would be a chance to catch up on things with Azakar without so many other people around.  Haley had been a bit wary about the four of them, all males, wandering around out in the town unescorted until Koran Tal joined their group.
	Koran Tal was a good guide.  He showed them some of the more interesting buildings in the town, like the chapel to Neme on the highest point in the town.  It was a surprisingly small and modest stone building with a gong hanging from rough timbers outside its front door.  Tarrin had heard of gongs, but had never seen one before.  He pointed out the compounds of some of the richer or more prominent families, and showed them the very long fields that flanked the town, taking advantage of the narrow and fertile strip of land between the forest and the sea.  The farms extended almost four longspans to either side of the town, with the individual compounds that stood in the middle of family lands, and the stone piles that marked the boundaries between them.
	From there, it was a very short jaunt up into the forest, and it truly was something very unknown to Tarrin.  The trees were large, at least a hundred spans tall each, with huge canopies that totally blocked all sunlight to the floor below.  That dark gloom wasn't devoid of undergrowth; in fact, the underbrush, vines, and plants were so thick on the forest floor that they couldn't see more than two spans ahead, and they had to cut their way through with their swords--or claws, whichever was most convenient.  There were no smells that were familiar to him, no trees or plants he could identify, and the few animals they saw were all creatures he had never seen before.  It was all wonderfully new, and he found himself quite excited about being there.  He startled the others when he scampered up a tree faster than any of them could run and popped his head out over the canopy, surveying the sights above the branches.  It was quite interesting; it was a carpet of green that bobbed and ebbed and almost seemed to flow as the wind blew, as the limbs swayed in the breeze, like a vast green cloud or green fog that hugged the land.
	He climbed down as quickly as he went up, dropping the last twenty spans to the forest floor.  "Well, what did you see?" Dar asked.
	Tarrin turned and wove an Illusion in the empty air beside them, showing them the sight he had seen.  Haley whistled, and Dar was quite taken with the image.  "It's like the sea was, but green.  And with leaves," Ulger noted.  "The wind waved the branches like waves in the sea."
	"The wind makes the waves in the sea, so it's not an outrageous idea," Koran Tal told him.
	"I didn't know that," Ulger mused.  "Well, are you going to go all light-headed on us again, Tarrin?  Or were you not high enough?"
	Tarrin said nothing, mentally making a note to himself to get Ulger.  And though he said nothing, Dar's sudden explosion of laughter told him that at least one of his friends was familiar enough with the very subtle shifts in his body language that broadcasted his sudden irritation.
	"Uh, should I run now?" the scarred Knight asked Azakar, his voice only half amused.  Ulger, it seemed, wasn't quite so dense as Tarrin first believed.
	"No.  When his tail stops moving, then you run," Azakar replied in total seriousness.
	"Oh.  I guess I'm alright then," he said with a sudden grin at the Were-cat just before he turned around and started hacking at thick vines with his sword.  He missed the narrow-eyed, vengeful expression from the Were-cat, which made Dar grin wickedly and even made Azakar smile a little.  But then again, Azakar wasn't a total prude.  He did enjoy the occasional prank or joke, such as the war of pranks he got involed in with Faalken, so very long ago.
	Then again, Faalken could always bring that out in people.  He made everyone laugh, even when he ended up the butt of the joke.
	Ulger, he remembered, had been one of Faalken's best friends, and had often been his partner in crime.  Much as Tarrin, Auli, and Dar had terrorized the Tower when Tarrin was human, Faalken and Ulger had been the kings of misdeeds back when they were Cadets.  It wasn't a stretch to think that Ulger may be cut form the same cloth as Tarrin's dear friend Faalken.
	Oh, Ulger was going to pay.  And he knew exactly how to go about getting him.  All he needed was a little favor from Koran Tal.
	They didn't get much further before a sudden weight alighted on Tarrin's shoulder.  He was startled only a short instant before the scent of Chopstick reached him, and he realized that the drakes had either followed them out into the forest, or had been exploring and crossed paths with them.  Tarrin patted his little drake friend in greeting.  "Where's Turnkey?" he asked aloud.
	Chopstick snorted and looked a little offended.
	"I think the two of them are having a fight," Dar warned him.  "They were hissing at each other this morning."
	"Oh.  Sorry, then.  Didn't mean to upset you," he apologized, scratching him between the horns.
	"It may be the rut," Azakar said.  "Phandebrass told me that when their mating season starts, the two of them fight and get cross with each other, even though there aren't any females to impress."
	"Instinct," Tarrin said absently.
	Koran Tal led them deeper into the undergrowth, for almost an hour, until they finally breached it and found themselves standing on an uneven scar of evil black rock, a large field of undulating chaos, like water frozen to ice as it gushed down the hillside and was covered over in black ash.  It smelled sulfurous, and all it took was touching the rock to know that it was hardened lava, from a previous eruption.  It didn't look to be more than a year old, at most, and the stone was noticably warm under his pads.  Even after a year, the cooled lava was probably still very hot deep inside, maybe even liquid, insulated from the cool air by its sheathing layer of surface crust.
	"It's a lava flow," Koran Tal told the others as Tarrin knelt down to touch the rock.  "The volcano erupted a couple of years ago, and this flow burned down all the forest as it came down the mountain."  He pointed up the mountainside, and they could see the black scars cutting into the lush green forest on both sides, the green extending like fingers up towards the mountain's peak, the areas which hadn't been burned by the lava flows.
	"It's not very far from town," Haley noted critically, looking back towards the town, about a league away.
	"The Priestesses would have intervened if it got that far," Koran Tal said dismissively.  "They don't often use their magic, but don't ever think that they don't have much power.  I think because Neme won't let them use it wastefully, it makes it that much stronger when they do use it."
	"That has nothing to do with it," Tarrin told him absently as he patted the rock, feeling a strange tingle in his fingers from the touch.  "It just means that the Priestesses of Neme are very strong."
	"Camara Tal--"
	"Your wife is the most powerful Priest I've ever seen, Koran," Tarrin cut him off.  "She could put the High Priest of Karas in a dress and make him serve drunken sellswords in a tavern like a common barmaid."
	Koran Tal laughed at that image, as did the others.
	"Trust me.  Any mortal who can banish a Demon like that marilith is not a Priest you want to cross.  That takes the kind of power that only one Priest in a thousand ever manages to touch.  Those kinds of Priests are the ones that their gods watch over personally."
	"Well, she is the High Priestess of Neme," Koran Tal said, a little proudly.
	"She is at that," Dar agreed.
	"I think we'd better turn back," Koran Tal said, looking up at the sun.  "If I lead us too far out, Camara will kill me."
	"Then let's turn around.  She may not be able to catch us now, but I don't think I want her to stew on it until she can," Dar said with a chuckle.
	"Especially not when we're her guests," Ulger added.  "All it would take would be one command, and we'd be stuck on this island until she caught us.  I don't think I want to hide in a cave for the next few rides, only to be dragged out by my hair for my trouble."
	"What hair?" Dar ribbed him, pointing to the Knight's extremely close-shaved hair, so short that Tarrin wouldn't be able to pinch it together between his fingers.
	"I need to shave again," Ulger noted, running a hand over his fuzzy head.  "I like to keep it bald.  It keeps my helmet from itching," he explained.
	"I don't have that problem," Azakar told him.
	"My helmet doesn't weigh as much as a breastplate like yours," he shot back.  "That monstrosity probably smashes all your hair flat against your scalp."
	"You couldn't pick up my helmet, Ulger," Azakar said with a straight face, hinting at the humor that Tarrin remembered back on the Star of Jerod.
	"Maybe.  But an Ogre couldn't put his head in mine," he shot back.
	"An Ogre can put his head in anything if he pushes hard enough," Azakar countered, which made Dar burst into laughter.
	"Yeah, well, my mother can beat up your mother," Ulger said with a mischievious grin.
	Azakar's eyes darkened slightly, and he drew himself up to his full height.  "I'm sure she could.  My mother is dead," he said flatly, then he stalked past the startled Knight and started towards the town.  Chopstick took off from Tarrin's shoulder and flew over to Azakar, landing on his wide shoulder as if to comfort the Knight as he trudged away from them with surprising speed.
	"Touchy subject there, Ulger," Dar said quietly as they watched him stalk off.  "Zak doesn't like to talk about his past, and he really doesn't like it when people bring up his family.  I think the Arakites did something awful to his family, but he never talks about it."
	"They did some very awful things to him to boot," Ulger said with a grimace of chagrin.  "I should have known better to say that, even in jest.  I'll apologize later.  At least after he calms down a little," he added.
	Tarrin was about to suggest they start after Azakar, if only to keep close in case one of the jungle cats that Koran Tal had described as they walked up crossed paths with him--to protect the cat from Azakar, not to protect him from the cat--when a thin, distant, strange keening cry caught Tarrin's ear.  His ears turned back towards the volcano and he turned to see what had made the sound.  It was a bird, he saw, what looked to be a respectably sized bird, about the size of a large hawk or small eagle, with a long tail of feathers.  It was plumed in shades of white, red and orange, with a white belly and chest with red feathers bordering it, covering its head and tail and the base of its wings, and the orange covering the remainder of its wings.  Its tail feathers started out red, but flared into various shades of red, white, orange, almost brownish, and even what looked like blue, a riot of mismatched colors as each feather was its own color, and they were scattered randomly through its fan of tail feathers.  It also had much longer tail feathers that ended with little fan-like decorations, and all of those were white on the outside with a red center, in the shapes of eyes.  Tarrin had never seen a bird like it before--he'd never seen just about any of the animals on the island before--but this one seemed...majestic.  Proud, like an eagle.
	"Koran, what kind of bird is that?" he asked, pointing into the sky.
	Koran Tal turned and looked, then he took in his breath.  "I've never seen one flying around this time of day!" he exclaimed.  "They usually only come out in the 