"At least not now," Dolanna agreed. "I suggest each of us take up some book or scroll from the cache and start looking. Since we now have very little time, there is no more time for study."

"We didn't need any more time to study," Dar told his mentor. "There wasn't anything else to learn."

"There is always something else to learn, young one," Dolanna told him calmly. "Let us get moving, young ones. Now, there is little time to waste."

"I hate this," Allia growled as they entered the tent, opened chests, and Dolanna handed a book to each of them in turn. "I would much rather be on the walls, looking for the enemy."

"They're coming, sister," Tarrin told her. "No need to go look for them. They can't be very far away."

"True, but it would feel more satsifying than sitting here reading through ancient books," she told him.

"I can't argue with that," he chuckled.

Tarrin sat down with his back to the fountain, using the sound of its running water as pleasant background noise to allow his mind to concentrate on the old leather-bound book in his paws. It turned out to be something of an informal history of the Tower of Zabar, a place he'd never heard of, from two thousand years ago. The book was a personal diary of sorts of a Sha'Kar Sorcerer named Alion, who, Tarrin found out, had a very dry, sardonic wit and a keen understanding of human peculiarities that was very amusing. He found the bustlings of the human katzh-dashi to be endlessly amusing, writing about the idiosyncracies of the humans every day in his journal. His particular favorite human to observe wasn't a Sorcerer, it was one of the servants of the tower, a gardener that was about seventy years old, crotchety, bad-tempered, and set in his ways, with a wizened view of the world that was both disturbingly correct and lightly self-effacing. This gardener, Vilo, seemed to be both the epitomy of human discourtesy and an example of the wisdom the race could display. As Alion wrote, "he is the best and worst I have witnessed in humans, the perfect example of everything that is both best and worst in that very peculiar, unpredictable species. A perfect paradox in a people that seem to contradict themselves on a daily basis." Dolanna and Dar may have found Alion's writings slightly offensive, but Tarrin could appreciate a non-human's view of the human race. He had once been human, so he could see both why the non-humans found certain things humans did to be funny or strange, while at the same time understanding some of the reasons why humans did the things they did.

On another tack, he realized why the Ancients wrote in Sha'Kar. Since it was a glyphic language, it allowed the writer to pack an amazing amount of information into a single book. A single page written in Sha'Kar held the same amount of information as five pages in a book written in nearly any other language. Since books were expensive-at least they were now-it was only economical for them to make the maximum amount of use out of each and every one of them.

He sat there, getting somewhat engaged in the surprisingly entertaining book, until a rustling got his attention. He looked up curiously, seeing the branches covering the choked opening of the courtyard begin to part. What stepped out from the opening surprised him, snapping the book shut and moving to get back on his feet.

It was Jasana.

Jesmind slid out of the opening just behind her daughter, pausing to look around as Jasana called out to him and trotted over in his direction. Tarrin realized that Jesmind had been serious when she said she was going to come after him if she felt he wasn't spending enough time with her, for there she was, and she had a flinty look on her face.

"I knew I'd find you eventually, papa," Jasana giggled as she plopped down in his lap. "Mother couldn't find you cause your scent went away in the maze, so she told me to find you. I kept looking for you, but I couldn't feel you anywhere. Today, I could."

Today, he realized, he wasn't hidden within the dome of altered time. Jesmind had used Jasana's ability to sense him to find him. That was rather clever. "Well, I see you did," he agreed mildly as the others looked in his direction. "Now, what did you want to do about it?"

"Do about it? Nothing," Jesmind scoffed as she came over to him. "Do I need a reason to want to spend time with my mate?"

"I told you I'd be busy, love."

"That was five days ago. I'm tired of I'm busy. If I can't spend time with you when you're not busy, I'll do it when you are. Besides, it doesn't look like you're all that busy to me," she said accusingly. "You're just sitting around reading. All of you are."

"You missed what we did before this," he said dryly. "Well, if you're coming in, come on. Have a seat over here with me, and please try to keep it down. This takes some attention."

"What does?" Jesmind asked.

"Come here, and I'll show you."

Jesmind got a curious look on her face, and did as he asked. She sat down beside him, and he showed her the book, explaining that they'd spent the last four days learning how to read the language so they could do what they were doing now, going through the books to find some specific information. "That looks boring," Jasana complained. "This is all you've been doing?"

"Just about, cub. If you're bored, go play. Just keep quiet."

Jasana looked around. "I would," she said in a quiet, conspiratorial voice, "but the shining lady is here. I think this is her garden, and I don't want to break anything. She might get mad at me."

Tarrin looked at her, realizing that she meant the statue. Then he laughed. "I don't think she'd get mad at you, cub. I don't think you can break anything in here, outside of what's in the tent."

"Really? Good!" Jasana said brightly, then she got up and started running across the grass.

"Keep it down, cub!" Tarrin called after her.

"So, what are you looking for?" Jesmind asked curiously, leaning up against his side as he put the book back in his lap.

Tarrin quietly explained what they were doing as Jasana basicly careened around the courtyard, running to and fro, examining the flowers, the benches, getting wet in the fountain, and pestering all the others with about a million questions, no matter how many times he told her to keep quiet. Despite being in the presence of five strangers, she acted like they were all family, behaving before and to them as she did towards her other family members, acting like her usual exuberant, energetic self. Tarrin had a feeling that it was the courtyard that was doing it to her, affecting her with its sense of peace and security to overwhelm her usual shyness towards strangers. Jesmind took the book from him, puzzling over it, then turned it over upside-down and looked at it again. "How do you know which side is up?" she asked, handing the book back to him.

Tarrin chuckled. "It starts in this corner and goes from left to right, top to bottom," he explained, pointing to the first word on the page. "If it was in columns rather than rows, it would go from top to bottom, right to left. This language can be written either horizontally or vertically."

"Why?"

"I have no idea," he shrugged. "Now then, love, let me get back to this."

Of course, it wasn't easy to concentrate on the book with Jesmind right there, but he found some way to ignore the proximity of his mate, whose scent told him clearly that she was not happy with being ignored. He managed to deflect her by Conjuring a book on military history for her to read, so she could better understand why Darvon and the soldiers were doing what they were doing out in the city in preparation for the coming siege. Jesmind was intelligent, but she didn't actively go out of her way to study things she didn't deem to be important.

By sunset, Jasana had managed to wear on every nerve in the courtyard, even her own mother's. Each of them had finished at least one book-Keritanima and Dolanna had finished three-and none of them had read anything that related to the Firestaff or its location. So they left the courtyard after Tarrin picked up the Book of Ages, which had been kept safely within the dome, and returned it to the elsewhere . They had all felt safe to leave it in the dome, but now that the dome was gone, Tarrin had a feeling that it would be best to keep it safely with him. Despite not finding anything, they were all still in a relatively good mood about the whole thing. After all, it had been the first day, and they'd barely made a dent in the first of the four chests of books and scrolls. None of them had really expected to get so lucky as to find what they wanted so quickly.