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  It was almost like being home, but there were differences in this forest that reminded them of where he was. It had been getting progressively warmer since the Ward had been brought down, as the Ward and the magical wind's effects on the local weather were slowly being reversed, and the trees were showing it. Alot of them were breeds that were hardy in both heat and cold, and he knew that they'd be just fine after they adjusted to the change. After all, those same breeds had to have been there when the Ward was created, so their species had lived on the island. Tarrin led Dar through the woods at a leisurely pace as they talked about nothing of any great importance, laughing over their escape and worrying at how long it was going to take them to find them.

  "It'll be over when Triana comes back," Tarrin admitted. "She'll find me in a blink. But I don't think she's on the island. I think she went back to Suld or something. I haven't seen her since we came back from the steamship. So let's enjoy it while we can," he grinned.

  They wandered aimlessly through the forest as Tarrin listened to Dar tell him all about their time in the Tower, when they were sharing a room, and the suspicious things that went on. Then they talked about the others, Tarrin listening to Dar's impressions of the others. Dar was a good judge of character, and he had a surprisingly keen understanding of the others. He told Tarrin about Camara Tal's aggravation being because of her love for her husband, Koran Dar, who was resisting her every attempt to get him to go home with her. "Master Koran Dar loves her, but he thinks she'll make him sit in their house all day. He ran away to experience life, and now that he has, he's afraid to go back. He doesn't want to lose it."

  "I don't blame him," Tarrin agreed completely. "There's got to be some way to make them patch things up," he mused. "If they love each other, it's a shame for them to be apart."

  "Not anytime this century," Dar chuckled. "Camara Tal's been out of Amazar for a while, but her attitude hasn't changed at all. I think she would confine him to the house if she got him back. She may even chain him in his room to keep him from getting away. She loves him, but she wants to control him. Master Koran Dar is too strong to be controlled that way, and he's the kind that would wilt in those conditions, like a flower blocked off from the sun. She doesn't understand that if she did that to him, she'd be destroying most of the things in him that she loves the most. She wants to break him, but when she does, she'll realize how bad of a mistake it was. But by then, it'd be too late," he sighed. "I feel sorry for them. Camara Tal is too stubborn to change, and Master Koran Dar is too good of a man to survive what she'll do to him."

  "That is sad," he agreed.

  "Well well, look what I found," a voice called. They both jumped a little as a Sha'Kar came around a large tree. He'd seen her before. She was a very pretty girl with platinum blond hair and blue eyes that were always dancing with mischief. Her name was Auli, and she was one of Iselde's friends. He'd met her after losing his memory, and she had given him the most chilling smile...it was predatory. She stood there with her back against the tree, hands behind her back, staring at the two of them with a similar wolfish grin on her face. Tarrin couldn't help but admire her tall, curvy frame, being accented in a most appealing manner by the clingy nature of her shimmery blue dress, the same color as her eyes. She had that ethereal Sha'Kar beauty and had a very attractive body, and though Dar may be used to it, Tarrin wasn't. She gave him a very inviting smile when she realized that he was staring at her. "You realize that this area is forbidden, don't you?" she said. "We're not allowed here."

  It took Tarrin a little bit to get used to that. Triana had used some kind of very powerful spell to teach both herself and Tarrin their native language in about three seconds. It had left him dizzy for nearly an hour, but it had been very effective. He could speak the Sha'Kar language like a native now, literally because Triana had borrowed Auli's mother's knowledge of the language as the model to implant into both herself an Tarrin. Ianelle was two thousand years old--inconceivable!--and her grasp of the Sha'Kar language was beyond profound. Tarrin knew many words and phrases that younger Sha'Kar like Auli didn't know, because he had borrowed the knowledge of someone much more learned than she.

  "Then why are you here?" Dar asked her in flawless Sha'Kar. All Tarrin's friends spoke the language.

  "Same as you. Hiding from my elders," she said with a laugh and a wink. "My mother's really getting on my nerves." She strode forward boldly then, to both his and Dar's surprise, went around them and draped her arms over both their shoulders and laughed. "It's about time I had company. All the other youngers are too cowardly to come out here. So, let's go get in trouble," she said with a conspiratorial wink at Tarrin.

  Auli virtually invited herself along, but neither of them were very mad about it after a few minutes. Auli had a truly wicked sense of humor and she was alot of fun, laughing and telling them embrassing secrets about other Sha'Kar youngers and flirting with Dar so shamelessly that his Arakite friend looked like he was continuously blushing. She was impossible to dislike, urging them deeper and deeper into the woods, playing on their pride as adventurous rulebreakers to goad them into taking her up on the dare. Tarrin found that he liked Auli alot, for she was very brave and was very funny, as quick to laugh at a joke she made about herself as she was about someone else. She was completely comfortable with being with the two of them, a trio of youngsters looking for a little time away from the cloying presence of their elders.

  They found themselves in the foothills not far from the volcano after a while, as Auli was goading Dar and Tarrin into scaring sheep and making them scatter on their bewildered keepers, then watching the hapless humans trying to round up the animals. "Watch this," she winked, and Tarrin felt something weird, like he always did when Sorcerers used their magic. The sheep that the tall human man was dragging back to the flock shuddered, then all its fleece turned a bright shade of pink. Tarrin and Dar had to clamp their mouths shut to keep from laughing and giving themselves away as the human staggered back at this amazing change in color, then he turned and shook his fist towards the trees. "I know that's you, Mistress Auli!" the man shouted. "I'm going to inform your mother about this, mark me!"

  "Come on," she whispered with a wink at them, then they snuck away as the human tried to calm the terrified animal, that had probably just noticed its new fleece.

  They did laugh when they got far enough away, and Tarrin was a little surprised. Auli was almost incorrigible, and he'd never seen a girl like that before. There were several chronic troublemakers back in Aldreth, like Walten, but Auli seemed even more fearless than they were. Girls just didn't act the way Auli acted in Aldreth. It was shocking, but in a way, it was quite appealing. Girls always seemed so stuffy and stuck up--alot of that was because their mothers didn't want their daughters getting interested in the handsome son of that witch Elke Kael--but Auli was outgoing, fearless, and utterly likable. Tiella had been the only girl that had been his friend back in Aldreth, and that was only because her parents, the village innkeepers, were friends of the Kael family.

  "Come, I have a great idea," she said with bright eyes. "Let's go up to the volcano!"

  "But Kerri and the others are up there," Dar said. "They may catch us!"

  "So? What's the fun in going where we can't be caught? I want to go see that dragon! Come on, Tarrin! She's your friend, she won't eat us if you're with me!"

  Tarrin wanted to see Sapphire in her dragon form too. "You think you can get us up there without getting caught?" he asked her.

  "I know five ways everywhere," she affirmed with a grin and a nod, reaching out and taking Tarrin's hand boldly. "Come on, let's go!"

  And so Tarrin, Dar, and Auli started up the many steep, winding trails on the sides of the volcano. Dar kept muttering to himself that they were going to get in trouble, but neither Tarrin nor Auli really cared very much. They were having too much fun. The paths got dangerous, and they had to shuffle along with a wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other, but Tarrin didn't feel in any danger.
It was all some kind of grand adventure to him, even when he nearly slipped off the path once when a loose stone gave out under his foot. They worked their way around the side of the volcano to the north side, and a small peninsula of relatively flat land that was on that side, where they said the dragon was staying. As they came around the volcano, Sapphire did finally come into view, and Tarrin ran into Auli's back as she stopped to gawk at the beast. Dar looked around them and saw it as well. It was definitely Sapphire, with her midnight blue scales and the fact that she completely took up a rocky clearing between the base of the cone of the volcano and the trees just past it. She seemed to be reading from a book laying on the ground in front of her, a book that had to be thirty spans wide. Tarrin marvelled at how she looked just like the tiny little Sapphire that sat in his lap, but she was some kind of titanic replica of that little drake. She snuffled a bit and lifted her head, and then her gaze locked right on them.

  "What are you three doing?" she demanded. "Oh, Tarrin! Come down, come down!" she invited, sitting up on her haunches. They were nearly a hundred spans over the clearing, but when she did that and craned her neck up, her head was suddenly level with them. Tarrin stared long and hard at that immense head, and he realized that she could swallow him whole without even having to chew!

  "H-Honored dragon!" Auli said in awe, looking at her.

  "I thought Kimmie would be with you," Sapphire said critically to him, her powerful voice vibrating inside him in the weirdest way.

  "Uh, she's reading a book, Sapphire," he answered her. "I was bored, so we came out to look around a little bit."

  "I'm reading as well," she said, pointing with a clawed finger nearly as long as Tarrin down at the ground. "I'm just starting to get my powers back. I'm surprised my gear all survived so long."

  "Gear?" he asked.

  "All dragons have magical powers, little friend," she said, rising up on her hind legs and holding out that huge forepaw at the edge of the steep incline. Tarrin realized that she wanted them to get into her paw. The three of them would fit, but only just. Auli daringly clambered out onto her paw and sat down, and Tarrin and Dar crawled out with her a moment later, Dar praying hastily under his breath. It was a tight fit with the three of them, one of Tarrin's feet dangling some hundred spans off the ground below, but the dragon was very careful with them. Tarrin's stomach rose as the dragon lowered them carefully to the ground, by the book. Tarrin helped Dar and Auli out of her paw, and they stared up at her massive head as she lowered herself enough to be about fifteen spans over them. "All dragons have Druidic magic, because we are creatures of the land. But since we are not bipeds, we are free to study other kinds of magic. Most dragons learn Wizard magic as well, because we are good at it. As my mind has cleared with the return to my true form, my powers are coming back to me. I hid this spellbook over a thousand years ago in a safe place, and I was surprised that it was still there."

  "That's a spellbook?" Tarrin asked.

  She nodded. "I used a spell to check on my other things, and they're all still there as well. Untouched after a millenia. It's amazing," she said with a raspy chuckle that blew hot, strangely charged air down on them. "As soon as I'm sure you're going to recover from this strange malady, I'll be returning to my lair."

  "Where is that, great dragon?" Auli asked curiously.

  "My kind prefer dry places," she answered, "where the static builds and the rain that does fall always comes with lightning. We prefer sandy caves. My lair is on the border of the desert and the dry steppes of Saranam, far to the northeast of here. The Sha'Kar agreed to transport me back to Suld, and from there I can fly back to my lair with little trouble."

  Tarrin tried to imagine a cave big enough to hold her immense form. It wasn't easy. "Are all dragons as big as you, Sapphire?"

  She shook her head. "I was very old, even before the Breaking," she answered. "Dragons grow larger as they age. A good indication of the age of a dragon is how big it is. Most dragons will be about half my size. The age we gained during the Breaking didn't affect us. I guess it was because the aging didn't happen while we were in our true forms," she mused.

  Tarrin looked up at her. Even half her size was still absolutey gigantic. Sapphire could swat down a Giant with little difficulty.

  "I was ruler of my clan," she said proudly. "Mother of all, and shazil of the eastern desert and the western steppes."

  "What is shazil?" Dar asked curiously.

  "Overlord," she answered. "We blues are much more organized and social than most other dragons. We cooperate with each other, and we live by rules. As shazil, enforcing the rule of law was my responsibility, and I oversaw a region that held about ten other clans."

  Tarrin had absolutely no doubt about that. Tarrin couldn't imagine anything being even bigger than Sapphire. "What happened to your children?" Tarrin asked impulsively.

  "I've managed to make contact with three of them," she answered. "I've yet to find the other two, but I've yet to give up hope. The youngest are taking a very long time to come out of the shock returning to our true forms induced. The oldest of us were starting to regain ourselves before we even returned to our true forms. That was why I got smarter and learned to speak, little friend," she told him. "The younger ones are still like that, just beginning to remember their pasts. In a few days, even the hatchlings should have regained their memories, and we'll be moving back to where we belong."

  "If you started out in Saranam, how did you end up on that little island out in the middle of nowhere?" Tarrin asked.

  "I have no idea," she replied with a smile. A very chilling smile. "I can't remember what happened after I enacted the magic to confine me into the drake form."

  Auli strode forward a few paces. "Honored dragon, may I ask a favor?" she asked.

  "What is it, small one?"

  "Could you come down here and let me see you up close?"

  Sapphire said nothing, but lowered her head to where she was just in front of and above Auli. The Sha'Kar reached out with a trembling hand and put it on Sapphire's snout, over the lips but under the nose, touching her small diamond scales tentatively. "Her scares are very smooth," Auli told them. "And they're warm. They feel nice." She traced her finger along the seam between two scales, and that made Sapphire snort and flinch away slightly. That act made Auli stagger back in sudden fright, into Tarrin, who grabbed her and steadied her so she wouldn't fall down. The Sha'Kar finally showed fear.

  "Sorry, but that tickled," the dragon told her with an amused look. "I didn't mean to startle you."

  Auli laughed ruefully. "Well, I almost wet myself, but it was worth it!" she told her with another infectious laugh.

  "This is Wizard magic, Sapphire?" Dar asked, who was literally climbing up onto the book to look at what was in it.

  "It is," she answered. "Your Wizards would be able to read these pages, young human. It is written in the same language as theirs. Even though we dragons use it a slightly different way, Wizard magic is still Wizard magic. If you weren't a Sorcerer, you may even be able to learn it yourself."

  Tarrin and Auli climbed up onto the cover of the book and peered over huge pages that looked to be made of stiff leather and looked over the page. The pages were written in glyphs that were two spans long, large glyphs that the dragon could read easily. Tarrin realized that as big as Sapphire was, if she could even manipulate a human-sized book, the writing in it would be so incredibly tiny to her that she probably wouldn't be able to make it out. The humans and Sha'Kar were like small dolls to her, easily fitting in her forepaw, and anything smaller than them would be very hard for her to scrutinize. It was like sand. Tarrin could see a grain of sand, but Sapphire probably would not be able to do so. Sand seemed grainy to him, but to someone like Sapphire, it would be as fine as the most powdered dust, almost as fluid as water. Even now the dragon's massive bulk loomed over them. From nose to tail, Tarrin realized that the dragon was about five hundred spans long. Over half of it was tail, and about another sixty or
seventy was head and neck, but that still left about a hundred and fifty spans or so worth of body. Her legs had to be at least thirty spans long each. Probably closer to forty. Everything about her was massive.

  Tarrin, Auli, and Dar climbed down off the book, and the dragon entertained them with a story about her five dragon children and her home back at the border between the desert and Saranam. She told them all about how they studied magic and enjoyed their existence, about her duties as shazil to watch over the clans in her territory and keep them from fighting too much with the copper dragons that shared their preferred territories, and how they would watch the Selani when the nomadic peoples filed through their range. The dragons knew that the Selani knew that they were there, but they were very good neighbors. They respected the dragon's territory, moving through it quickly, and never trying to find their lairs or bother them when they did see them up on the mesas sunning themselves. Because of their amiable nature, Sapphire and her clan discouraged humans from Saranam from trying to invade the desert, as they had a penchant for doing.

  "Where is your male dragon?" Auli asked. "You know, the father of the babies?"

  "Males live more or less alone, Sha'Kar. Female blues don't take permanent mates. When we are ready to mate, we make it known, and allow the males to compete for our favor. The one that proves himself strongest, most intelligent, and most magically experienced earns the right to sire my clutch."

  "That sounds fun," Auli said with bright eyes. "At least your kind's advanced enough not to limit yourself to the same old male all the time."