"Did you contact her?"

"Not yet, but I will," he said bluntly. "I'm not stupid enough to get on Triana's bad side. That's one woman you do not upset. She won't let you forget about it. Ever. " He gazed at Tarrin with sincerity in his eyes. "After you leave my inn, I'll contact her and tell her you're in Dayise. If you're smart, you'll be gone before she gets here. I have the feeling she has a rematch in mind, boy. You don't get a second chance with Triana. If you see her, you'd better run."

Tarrin remembered their first meeting. She had kicked him all over Den Gauche, beaten him senseless and made him feel like the half-whelped cub that he really was. Only wild luck had saved his life. No, he wouldn't let himself get anywhere near that dangerous Were-cat. He feared her, and he had the feeling from Haley's talk that it was the smart thing to do.

"With luck, we will be gone by tomorrow," Dolanna told him. "I do not think it wise to tell you how we will leave, or with whom, because your friends may use that knowledge to try to find us."

"I can live with that, Dolanna. The less you tell me, the better. You better have your people pack. I still want you out of the inn after breakfast. I'm not going to delay calling Triana, because she'll grill me when she gets here. My story has to be solid, and that won't work if you're here a few days before I get around to it." He glanced at Tarrin. "It's nothing personal, boy, but I fear Triana alot more than I like you. I'm not an idiot."

"I'm not offended, Haley," Tarrin assured him. "You have a duty to perform. Sometimes duty makes us do things we don't like to do."

"Now then, let me give you a farewell feast," Haley said. "It's the least I can for having to throw you out like troublemakers."

"We are troublemakers, Haley," Dolanna said with a slight smile. "Just a different kind of troublemaker."

Haley chuckled, glancing at Tarrin. "There's no doubt about that," he agreed.

GoTo: Title EoF

Chapter 5

It was absolutely ghastly.

Tarrin wasn't the only one to stare at the circus ship of Renoit's Most Excellent Travelling Circus in utter dismay. It was hideous. In his entire life, he didn't think he had ever- ever -seen such a horridly bright and glowing hue of pink. It seemed to catch the light and shine it back in the viewer's face, bowling over any who stared at it and leaving spots in the eyes of people who stared at it too long in the sunlight. It was horrible, it was almost embarassing to look at, it was so glaringly, blatantly loud that it almost made his ears twitch to look at it.

How could a Shacean galleon be transformed into such a blaring eyesore? It was almost unbelievable that what was standing before them now was the same type of ship as the Star of Jerod. If the paint wasn't bad enough, the shiny filaments woven into the ropes of the rigging gave the ship's sails a glittering, silvery appearance. And the sails. They weren't white or canvas, they were a patchwork of a riot of conflicting colors, as if a warehouse full of blankets and quilts had been sewn together to form the eleven sails hanging from the masts and between the foremast and the spinnaker. Even the masts were painted that horrid pink color. And not to be outdone, the visible helm was lacquered and laminated in bright blues, greens, and reds, sparkling in the sunlight, with little rhinestones and other sparkly things glued to it to make it scintillate in the rocking of the sea.

"I am not getting on that thing," Keritanima declared adamantly, dropping her pack on the dock. "I should order the Wikuni here to sink it as a public service to the world."

"I never thought that I would see such a thing," Allia agreed.

"I don't know, I kind of like it," Dar said, which earned him four very ugly looks. "Hey, we always looked forward to seeing it. They used to perform in Arkisia every spring."

"The tragedy of a wasted youth," Azakar said.

"I think I'd rather swim to Dala Yar Arak," Faalken muttered.

"The ship carries a carnival, children," Dolanna told them. "It is supposed to be as festive as the troupe which it carries."

"That looks like it partied itself to death, Dolanna," Faalken grunted.

"Be that as it may, Renoit has agreed to interview us. This is our best chance, so do not do anything to ruin it for us."

"There goes my idea," Keritanima muttered to Tarrin in Sha'Kar. "I'd rather face my father's entire fleet than be seen on board that deck."

"I thought you said you knew Renoit," Miranda asked.

"I do, but you forget our ultimate objective. To pass as carnival performers and be able to move freely in Dala Yar Arak, we must be carnival performers. Renoit is going to place us within his carnival so that we may pass for real performers. Some of us already have skills and abilities that will make this easy. For others, it will not be quite so easy."

"I'm starting to like your idea, Kerri," Tarrin replied to her in Sha'Kar. "Should we sink it now, or sink it later?"

"I will have none of that," Dolanna told both of them, in almost flawless Sha'Kar. That made Tarrin gape. How had she learned so quickly?

"Magic," Keritanima told him when he gave Keritanima a curious look. "She used Sorcery."

"I didn't think we could do that."

"Well, I certainly don't know how she did it, and she won't tell me," the Wikuni said with a hostile look at Dolanna's back.

"Let us go aboard and meet Renoit's troupe," Dolanna announced.

Tarrin scratched at the skin on his wrist. The manacles were gone from his arms, locked in the elsewhere that the amulet provided. They were too loose on his human arms anyway. The itching was normal, just as common as the nagging pain that focused in those limbs and body parts that were most radically altered when he held human form. Hands and feet, ears, skull, and his spine. Actually his entire skeleton, for he was about a hand shorter when in human form than when in his normal form. The tattering of his trousers, where his claws snagged on them when he put them on, had brought the ragged end of each leg close to his ankle, so they at least didn't look too much out of place. But the shoes were another matter. Haley had conjured them using Druidic magic. One of Druidic magic's little unique tricks, the ability to summon or create objects made of natural materials, or which existed naturally. He had conjured leather shoes that fit perfectly to his human feet, a parting gift for the Were-cat. They felt wrong, after so many months walking around barefoot.

Walking up the gangplank with all their belongings, they stopped just on deck. The deck, thank all that was holy, wasn't painted. It was varnished to protect the wood from the seawater, but at least it looked normal. It was the only thing that looked normal on the ship. Moving about on it were men and women, some young, and all of them looking to be in fantastic physical condition, wearing plain, drab clothing and no shoes. Dolanna had once said that Renoit's performers doubled as the ship's crew. Judging by the ease with which two young humans moved through the rigging, walking confidently along narrow ropes and along spars, he didn't doubt it. Dolanna called to a young man with raven hair, telling him to go get Renoit, and the group stood there and waited.

Tarrin scrubbed vigorously at his scalp, where his cat ear usually would be. "Would you stop that? You look like you have fleas," Keritanima told him.

"It feels like someone glued my ears to my head," he replied, scratching harder. "And these nails just can't get the job done. I keep trying to extend my claws."

"That would be a neat trick," she said with a toothy grin.

The man that had to be Renoit arrived a moment later. He was a tall man, but the rotund roundness of his body told him that he was no performer. He was obese, but the way he moved said that he carried that weight lightly, easily, and that he was much stronger than one would think for such a large man. He was a man unfettered by his own weight. He wore a costume not too much unlike the garish uniform of the Wikuni captain, a blue waistcoat with a white vest and red shirt underneath, tan trousers tucked into black kneeboots, and a wide-brimmed with a large blue feather stuck into the brim. He carried a polished ebony cane in his left hand, a cane with an onyx pommel and brass bindings. "Ah, Dolanna," he said in a Shacean accent. "So good of you to come so quickly, yes. These are your companions?"