"What were those things, Camara? What's going on?" Dar asked fearfully.

"Hellhounds," she spat, lowering her amulet. "There's not going to be any more hunting tonight, kid. Not until we regroup."

"What are Hellhounds?"

"Demonspawn," she answered. "From the Worlds Below, what some call the Hells, the Abyss, or Hades. If they're here, that means there's a Demon somewhere in this city. Not even a Wizard can summon a Hellhound. Only a Demon can."

"A Demon? I thought Dolanna said that Wizards never summon Demons!"

"They don't unless they have a deathwish," Camara Tal said, grabbing his hand. "Let's talk about this when we get back to the circus. We're way too vulnerable out here. If those Hellhounds bring back reinforcements, we're dog food. I can repel Hellhounds, but my power is nowhere near enough to repel a Cambion or an Alu without help."

"But-"

"Shut up and run!" Camara Tal snapped. "Turnkey, come on, you scaly jackdaw! We're leaving!"

The sun was beginning to rise to the east. It had been a frustrating night for Tarrin, who sat on the corner of a roof looking down at the street below. Twenty hits on the medallion, and all of them turned up empty. Two days now he had searched, and nothing. He knew that it was going to take time, but he'd secretly been hoping that he'd get lucky right at the start. That kind of luck seemed to be as elusive as the book. Time seemed to be an enemy now, lining up in a formation to oppose him. How long had others had to look for the book before he got to Dala Yar Arak? How long had people like Kravon had to find the book before him?

Just that name made him snarl. Kravon. The man that had sent Jegojah, who had ordered Jula to capture him. Faalken was dead because of him, and he had turned feral because of him. He wanted to find that man, find him badly. And when he did, he would punish him for everything he had done. And it wouldn't be short. A lingering death with lots of screaming made Tarrin feel very warm inside for some reason. He wanted Kravon to suffer, to feel every bit of the pain and agony he'd experienced at the man's hands. But he was a faceless enemy, nothing more than a name who hid behind servants and hirelings.

Yawning, Tarrin stretched his arms languidly. He was tired. After so long on the ship, a few days of constant activity had proven to him that even Were-cats needed regular exercise. It felt good to be out and do something, but right now a quiet corner under someone's pallet was exactly what he wanted.

A young woman on the street below chanced to look up, and she met his eyes for a moment. To his surprise, she screamed hysterically and pointed at him, then turned and fled screaming "It's the monster!"

That surprised Tarrin. Certainly people would confuse him with a monster, given his appearance, but her reaction seemed to be extreme. And she called him the monster, like it was exactly him to whom she was referring. That didn't seem right. What had provoked that kind of a reaction? After all, he was way up on the roof. He wasn't threatening her, and yet she reacted as if he was about to rip her head off. And he'd never been here before. He was just crossing through the neighborhood, a neighborhood that looked to be just on the good side of poor, judging from the condition of the buildings.

Crossing to the other side of the roof, where its building faced an alley, Tarrin dropped down to the narrow street easily, avoiding a pile of broken crates stacked up beside what smelled like a butcher's shop. The alley reeked of excrement, rotted meat, and rats mixed with the smell of the wood, dirt, and stone. He absently shapeshifted into his human form, rubbing his hands absently as the nagging ache of holding the form settled into his bones. He was curious about this, and since he didn't have to perform, he had no curfew. If he had, he would have had to return to the circus hours ago. He wanted to find out what that girl was so scared about, and the best way to do that was to talk to some of the locals.

The neighborhood was a poor one, but it was obviously kept up by its inhabitants. The butcher shop was flanked by a ropemaker on one side, and a candlestick maker on the other. Across the street was what looked to be an inn or tavern. The street had some people on it, people dressed in plain, often homespun robes with poor dyes. The women wore veils to hide their lower faces, which was the custom in Yar Arak, sheer lace or very thin linen that let them breathe and allowed an opaque image of their features to show through them. They all looked at him strangely. With his long blond hair, his green eyes, and his height and strange clothing, he was obviously a stranger. And he wore no slave's collar or cuff, which made him even stranger.

The inn or tavern would be a good place to start. Such people loved to talk, and Tarrin had a few coins left to buy some conversation if needs be. He crossed the street and entered through the open door, and found himself looking into a cramped tavern with only four tables on the floor, surrounded by booths on the walls, and a plain bar against the right wall. There were still patrons in the establishment, but they were eating breakfast, not drinking ale. There were three serving women, all wearing slave's collars, bringing plates of food out from a door behind the bar to the waiting customers. A short woman wearing no veil stood behind the bar, being aided by a tall, burly man with a slave's cuff as she placed a small cask up on a rack. All the people in the tavern, slave, barkeep, and customer alike, stopped to stare at him when he stepped beyond the doorway. He realized that his outlander appearance was always going to cause that kind of a reaction, so he ignored them and went to the bar.

"What's served for breakfast, barkeeper?" he asked the woman in Arakite. She was middle aged, with graying black hair and more than a few wrinkles creased into her face, but she was still a rather handsome woman. Her age wasn't an anchor weighing her down, it was a distinguishing characteristic that made her seem wise.

"I think you're wandering around in the wrong place, stranger," the woman replied easily.

"They've already tried that, madam," he said calmly. "The survivors learned to leave me alone."

"By the looks of you, you're Ungardt. That means you can kill without weapons," she surmised.

He only smiled in reply.

"That's an impressive accent you have, stranger," she noted. "Not many can speak the true tongue like a native."

"I was taught by a native," he replied. "Now, what's for breakfast?"

"Mutton," she replied. "Three silver kangs if you're interested."

"Bring me a plate," he replied, sitting at a stool at the bar. "And a cup of water."

"Water? That's no way to wash down damned mutton!" one of the patrons said in a slightly slurred voice.

"Sounds like someone likes his mutton with something a bit stronger," Tarrin noted.

"Old Bray likes to wash everything down with something a bit stronger," the woman said with a slight smile. "What brings a stranger this deep into the city? Shouldn't you be in the trades district?"

"I'm a circus master," he replied. "I've been hearing stories of a strange monster running around this part of the city. I'm always one to find a good attraction for my troupe, so I came to see if it's just another myth."

"It ain't no myth, gold-hair," the man Bray said, standing up. "I done seen it! Tall as a Troll, it was, with wicked talons for fingers an' burning eyes that sucked a man's soul from his body!"

"That's a pretty broad description," Tarrin said. "What does it do?"

"It leaves mangled corpses laying around," the barkeep answered before Bray could respond. "Some people think it's some animal that got away from one of the circuses that came for the festival. There's been a couple of city guardsmen trying to track it down, but they haven't found it yet."