Henri was one of only about five names he knew among the performers. He knew Henri from their last encounter, an encounter that had the willowy man evade him like a leper. He knew Renoit, and he knew Shelli, who was one of the dancers. She was from the Stormhaven Islands, and spoke with the most unusual brogue that never failed to capture him when he heard it. That brogue had been why he had tried to overcome his fear and make friends with her, and to her credit, she had tried hard to urge him out of his shell. Shelli was a wonderfully sweet and compassionate girl, with a big heart and a kind word for everyone. But despite her exceptional compassion and sweetness, Tarrin was just too nervous around her. It had failed, like every other attempt he had made. He knew only one other name, and that was a juggler that doubled as the ship's head cook. He was a tall, rather portly man named Deward, a man who loved to laugh, could cook like nobody's business, and could juggle six knives with a blindfold over his eyes. The human's manual dexterity had awed Tarrin, who would be hard pressed to duplicate his feat, even with his cat-enhanced reflexes and agility. The man absolutely could not be beaten darts or knifethrowing. He could throw his dart or knife exactly where he wanted them to go. Deward had once been a knifethrower, casting knives at a living target to amaze the audience, but he had suffered some kind of seizure during an act and had put a knife through the leg of his assistant. Tarrin learned that Deward still suffered from those seizures occasionally, and that made it too dangerous for him to continue with a live target. Intending never to put another assistant in danger again, Deward had moved into juggling instead, where the only person at risk was himself. He still did a small portion of his throwing act, but threw at small corks thrown into the air instead of a scantily clad girl standing in front of a wooden slab.

All the other performers were nameless faces to him, and he wanted it to stay that way. Dolanna didn't restrict him to his cabin anymore, but they all knew to give him all the space they could manage when he did come up on deck. Because they made him so nervous, he usually either stayed in his cabin during the day or stayed up in the rigging, because Camara Tal would stay either in his cabin or just outside his cabin when he was there. So long as he had his friends, he was content with the situation. They were busy sometimes, but they were there enough to keep him from getting lonely.

Tarrin took Allia's hand for a moment, then she kissed him on the cheek and went to the acrobats. He watched her go with only a slight sigh, then turned and looked out over the sea for a moment.

It was about a month to Dala Yar Arak, and once they got there, the hardest task they'd ever have to attempt would begin. Just thinking about it made his mind shudder with the staggering difficulty of the task. To find a single book in a city whose population was numbered in the millions, a city that was so large that it took more than a day to walk from one side to the other. And they weren't the only ones that would be looking for it. People had to know where he was going by now, and because he was who he was, they would follow. They had to know that he was looking for the book, so they would look too. It would come down to the simple fact that someone had to eventually find it, and it was imperative that that someone was him. The thought that he may have to fight to either retain or acquire the book had crossed his mind many times, just in case someone found him with it, or he found it with someone else. But there was no second place in this race, there were no second chances. The winner would take all, and that meant that there would be no quarter, no mercy.

The details about the search were still murky. Dolanna was the one planning for that, and she'd yet to put anything out on the table for them to consider. But if there was one thing he could say about Dolanna, it was that she would have a plan by the time they got there, and it would be a good plan. Dolanna was a very intelligent and crafty woman, and she had a penchant for putting together plans. They weren't the occasionally overly complicated schemes that Keritanima thought up, but they worked. looked up to the steering deck and saw her up there, talking to Renoit. Faalken stood beside her, wearing a simple gray doublet and breeches, his curly hair blowing in the breeze as the Sorceress conversed with the Shacean. Dolanna garnered a great deal of respect on the ship, one of the reasons being that she was one of the few people that could control him outright.

The sound of fluttering wings heralded the arrival of Sarraya, who faded into view on the rail by his paw, sitting on it sedately and looking down into the water. Tarrin glanced at her, marvelling yet again at how incredibly small she was, small and delicate. He could squash her with his paw if he wanted to do so. Her multicolored, prismatic wings shivered slightly as she looked straight down, a reflexive action most likely created when she looked down and saw nothing but air between her and the ocean.

"Got tired of hiding?" Tarrin asked quietly. Sarraya's presence had still not been reconciled by the humans. They were intrigued by her, amazed by her, for they had never seen anything like her before. They didn't know whether to be friendly to her or just keep quiet and stay out of her way. She tended to ignore the performers, however, except as victims for her many pranks, treating them as nothing more than an inconvenient presence.

"Too much silence," Sarraya said sourly. "I hate quiet. I like things interesting."

"Then you're talking to the wrong person," he said pointedly. "Why don't you go talk to Phandebrass?"

"He's trying to get under the Amazon's skirt," Sarraya said with a wicked tilt to her voice. Tarrin glanced back to them, and saw them talking animatedly over something, Phandebrass waving his arms emphatically as he spoke and Camara Tal's body language stating that she was a little irritated with the wizard.

"Hardly," Tarrin scoffed. "Phandebrass is too old for her, and she's married."

"Amazons aren't that married, Tarrin," Sarraya giggled. "She has more than one husband, after all."

"You could go ask her just how married she is," Tarrin urged. "I think she'd tell you. Camara Tal doesn't seem to be the shy type."

"With clothes like that, I'd agree with you."

"You're not wearing much more."

"I'm a Faerie," she said dismissively. "I could go around naked, and nobody would care. Camara Tal is more human sized than me."

"Whatever," Tarrin said, looking down into the water.

"What are those fish down there?" Sarraya asked.

"Someone said they're called dolphins," Tarrin replied. "They like to follow ships."

"They're not really fish," Sarraya said, mainly to herself. "They breathe air."

"Then what are they?"

"I have no idea, I just know they're not real fish. Their tails are different too. See? Their tailfins are horizontal. Real fish have vertical tails."

"I never noticed that," Tarrin told her honestly. "Strange that someone who spends so much time flying around aimlessly can see things like that."

"I'm not an airhead," she fumed.

"No, you're just easily distracted," he replied calmly.

"I didn't come down here to be insulted!" she said indignantly.

"No, you probably came down here to insult me," he said in a mild tone, noticing that it made her blush slightly. "I thought so."

"Well, you're the only one I can really talk to," she grunted. "Phandebrass just wants me to answer questions, and all the humans but Dolanna and the Amazon are too nervous around me. Camara's way too unfriendly, and Dolanna's no fun. She's all work work work, she never talks about anything fun."

"That's because she's worried, Sarraya. You know what we have to do, so you have to understand that it's not going to be easy."