"That's not easy," she giggled. "But I'll do my best. I'll talk to you tomorrow, alright?"

"Alright. Good luck."

"I think I'm going to need it," she fretted. "Bye Tarrin. Talk to you tomorrow."

"Have fun."

She gave him a slightly hostile look, and then her image vanished as he felt her consciousness retreat back into the Weave at the unimaginably fast speed of thought itself. She was returning to her body, where it sat, physically connected to a strand of the Weave, and probably under guard.

Things sounded a bit dicey in Suld, but if there was one thing he'd learned about Jenna during his amnesia, it was that she was a very capable young lady. She may think she made alot of mistakes, but the truth was, Keritanima and Alexis had trained up a young but gifted Keeper. He had no doubt that she would handle things, and she would do it smoothly and efficiently. Between what she had learned from Keritanima and Alexis, and the maturing information that Spyder had put in her head, Jenna was a remarkably detail-oriented and organized ruler, with a maturity and intelligence to handle these kinds of problems, and the cool, level-headed training she received from her parents only helped those things along. She would make good decisions, because she wouldn't rush into them, she would look at a problem from several sides before deciding on the most practical and efficient solution, and she knew when to ask for help from advisors. She had the perfect balance of confidence and a willingness to accept aid that made her an excellent ruler.

He felt confident that before Gods' Day, Arren was going to be sitting on the Lion Throne of Sulasia. And he didn't once doubt that they couldn't have chosen a better man.

They had no trouble at all as they continued to move, shifting to a more southeasterly direction the day after he talked to Jenna. The plain made it easy to see the more dangerous predators well before they got close enough to be a threat, and they moved through a strange void of Selani. They saw a few Scouts from a distance, but that was all. The Scouts were ranging out to find the best grazing for the animals, and their presence meant that tribes would be moving in to take advantage of the scrub bloom around them within a matter of days, if that. They saw several signal fires built atop rock spires during the nights, beacons to guide the tribes to good grazing.

Tarrin relaxed more and more as they moved towards the Cloud Spire, as any signs of a possible pursuit didn't materialize. Jenna had everything under control in Suld, Keritanima had everything under control in Dusgaard, and they had everything under control here. Things seemed to be going even better than he hoped they would, and he couldn't find any reason within himself not to relax just a little and enjoy the advantage of it while he could.

His little talk with Sarraya seemed to have had a major impact. She reverted to the Sarraya he remembered very quickly after that, full of witty remarks and sly comments, and she seemed to completely relax around Allia. Allia, to his surprise, warmed to the Faerie alot faster than he thought she would, and they began trading stories of the desert and Sarraya's colony. Allia, he knew, was trying to understand the Faerie, and she'd do that best by learning about her past. Sarraya was a very complicated little female, as Allia was finding out, alot more complicated than her shallow demeanor presented to the world. Her Faerie flightiness and impulsiveness waged a constant war against the intense discipline instilled in her by her Druidic training, and those two diametrically opposed traits gave her an unusual personality. She seemed flighty and scattered, but she was as sharp as a tack, possessed of a great intelligence and also having had a very thorough education. Sarraya knew things that people would never expect a Faerie to know, like the intricacies of human politics and a great deal of human history. Tarrin was very fond of her, for she was also a good, solid companion and she never made things boring. She was always full of surprises, be it a new dig on him or a new way to entertain herself in the monotony of travel across the scrub plain.

Such an example happened three days after he talked to Jenna. She had moved ahead of them as they stopped so Allia could get the sand out of her boots, and when they caught up with her, they were rather shocked to see her aggravating a lone juvenile inu. The reptillian raptor, only coming up to Tarrin's waist, snapped in frustration at the darting Faerie, trying to catch her as she weaved and buzzed around its head. Tarrin noticed that the animal had a rather long, half-healed gash on its flank, and it looked thin and a little bony. It was a rather handsome specimen, with sand-colored scales and a darker stripe on each flank and along its spine, starting at the end of its snout and ending at the tip of its tail. It also had small irregular stripes on its powerful back legs, running from hip to ankle. The coloration would break up its profile out in the scrub, making it harder to see.

"What are you doing?" Tarrin demanded in surprise as they stopped and looked around. That inu 's pack couldn't be far away, and the last thing they needed right now to was to be ambushed.

"Hold on," Sarraya said breathlessly, slipping aside as the inu again snapped shut its jaws, just barely missing her. "Would you hold still?" she demanded sharply at the animal, "you're ticking me off!" And to everyone's surprise, probably even the inu 's, it did just that. It recoiled from her in surprise, then stopped trying to eat her, standing there in its hunched posture, wickedly clawed forepaws tucked in under its chest.

"How did you do that?" Allia asked in surprise.

"I'm a Druid, you silly girl!" she told her with a grin. "Druids can command animals when it's needful. Hasn't Tarrin ever showed you that?"

Allia looked at Tarrin speculatively. "Don't look at me," he shrugged. "Nobody ever taught me that."

"You are so dense," she said scornfully. "It's not a spell, you dope! Animals can sense who we are. If you speak in a commanding voice, they'll obey you!"

Tarrin gave her a very hard, flat look. "You mean to tell me that all this time, you could have just ordered anything that may attack us to leave us alone?"

She grinned wickedly. "I didn't want to interrupt your fun," she teased.

"Even after that kajat bit off my leg?" he demanded hotly.

"It was too intent on eating us," she answered. "When they're like that, it's alot harder to get through to them. That's why this one didn't just stop the first time I told it to. Besides, I'm so tiny and it was so big, I think it had trouble hearing me. They have to hear us."

"What about the pack of inu?"

"They were trying to eat Denai, remember?" she said pointedly. "And I think she really ticked them off by killing a few members of their pack. I just said that when they're like that, it's hard to get through to them. Their predatory instincts have taken over." She looked at him. "And yes, we did tell you that, Tarrin. When we were in Shoran's Fork, remember?"

Tarrin looked back through his expanded memory, and found what she was talking about. When they were telling him about Druids, they remarked that no animal would attack a Druid. Now he understood why.

"Why didn't you teach me that?" he demanded.

"Because I'm really not sure if it will work for you," she answered honestly. "You're a Were-cat, Tarrin. You're a predator, and some animals won't trust a predator no matter how sweet you talk to them. That may have been a little dangerous, especially if you'd have tried to talk down a hungry kajat. Knowing you, that's the first thing you'd do," she snorted.

"Does it work for Triana?"

"Triana never does it," she answered. "She said she never tries to talk to a potential meal. It's bad manners, and it's not very sportsmanlike. That's also why she won't Conjure anything that isn't already dead."