Tarrin gave her a light smile, then shifted into cat form. She laid down on the bed without a word, and Tarrin curled up beside her. His head nestled under her chin, he could hear the beating of her heart within the vessels of her neck. He listened to it for quite a while, listening to it slow, become stable and calmed as Allia drifted off into sleep. The sound of that, the coppery scent of her, the very feel of her closeness was usually more than enough for him to enter a state of utter security and contentment. Much as he felt with Janette, Allia's presence made him feel totally safe and secure, knowing that she wouldn't allow anything to happen to him.
Closing his eyes, he began to purr. To him, there were few things better in life than peace.
GoTo: Title EoF
Chapter 7
The city of Tor was alot like home.
Tarrin and the others stood at the rail, looking at the port city as they approached. The city's architecture was dominated by wood, cut from the thick forests surrounding the city's stone walls and farms. Wood houses with thatch or tiled roofs covered the visible city skyline, with the occasional stone house, tower, or turret breaking up the wooden monotony. Very few of the houses were painted, the vast majority of them either whitewashed or covered with wattle and daub to protect the wood against the corrosive salt air. The result was a city of white and brown, the white of the walls with the brown of the thatch or the slaty grayish color of those houses with either tiled or flat roofs. Tor was a very large city, sitting in a very wide basin, almost like a teacup saucer, a depression in the land around the mouth of the River Tor, which bisected the city. The buildings they could see on the waterfront were all warehouses. Tor was a merchant city, dealing exclusively with the food grown in the breadbasket lands of the Free Duchies and sent down the river by barge. It was the sole reason the city thrived.
That wasn't the only thing to look at. There were many ships in the city's wide, undefended harbor, and most of them were military in nature. Tor maintained a decently sized navy to protect ships in its waters, but Keritanima remarked that they were rarely concentrated as they were now. Cargo ships, fishing boats, and flat-bottomed barges being ferried out to a wide sand bar to the left of the city had to carefully wind their way through anchored naval vessels.
"I wonder what's got Tor all stirred up," Faalken asked absently as they looked out at the city.
"What do you mean?" Dar asked.
"They have an army camped just outside their walls," he replied, pointing to the where the wall of the city descended right into the water. "They're flying Torian banners. It's a friendly army."
"And they've called in their entire navy," Keritanima added. "They're definitely worked up about something."
"We are certain to find out soon enough," Dolanna said dismissively. "Renoit said we would be here for nearly ten days."
The performers were somewhat puzzled, and not a little worried, as the ship slid into port, its ropes being caught by dock workers. Tarrin was in his human shape, using the meditative techniques that Allia had taught him to shunt the pain away to the side, to make it something not worth holding his attention. Because he looked that way, the other performers had forgotten who he was, or perhaps didn't consider him to be dangerous, and had gathered around his group of friends. "What's the matter?" Dar asked one of the gymnasts, a small, lithe young girl whose name Tarrin did not know.
"There's nobody here to greet us," she said pensively. "Usually the Dancer attracts a crowd at the dock, and we greet them. But there's nobody here."
"Maybe they have something else to worry about," Faalken predicted. "An army, a navy, and I don't see a whole lot of people moving around. Something's definitely going on."
Keritanima blew out her breath, then immediately looked at Miranda. "Don't start," the mink Wikuni said immediately.
"I'm certainly going to start," she said threateningly. "You still haven't recovered from your injury yet. You're going to take it easy, do you hear me?"
"I'm not a china doll, Kerri," she said dismissively. "If I've been well enough to dance, I'm well enough to do some of my real duties."
"Come come, my friends, just because there is no crowd to meet us does not mean we are going to just sail away!" Renoit's voice boomed over the deck. "We have a tent to raise! Let us begin making ready!"
Tarrin's position in the troupe had been redifined after the incident with the other gymnasts. Now he was nothing more than a deckhand, hired help to aid the circus in setting up and breaking down their carnival. He was confined to his human form when working in the public eye. He moved with the others towards the hold, but Miranda took him by the arm and pulled him aside. "I'm going to need someone to go with me," she said. "Sisska will be busy with the carnival, and you're the only one she'll trust to take her place. What do you say, Tarrin, want to be my escort?"
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm going to visit the Wikuni mission here in Tor," she replied. "I happen to know the current lead diplomat personally. We're old adversaries. I'm sure he'd tell us what's going on."
"What about Keritanima's little situation? Won't he turn us in?"
"No, not this Wikuni," she grinned. "He owes me a favor. I'll just call it on him."
"That must be some favor."
"Let's say that he owes me his ability to father children. I don't know about Were-cats, but Wikuni men treasure that particular part of their anatomy more than life itself."
"That must be quite a tale."
"Not really. I'm the one that was about to deprive him of it."
"Then it must really be quite a tale."
She laughed. "So, interested?"
"I guess. It beats dragging canvas around, but we'd better get permission first."
"Permission? If I asked permission for half the things I did, I'd never get anything done," she said with a cheeky grin. "The only permission I need is from Sisska. We'll leave Kerri a note."
"We'll hear her screaming in town."
"So?"
Tarrin gave her a look, at the mischievious glint in her eyes, and he had to laugh. "Alright. There's no fun in getting in trouble unless you have company."
"That's the spirit," she said with a wink and a light poke in his ribs.
After getting permission from Sisska and leaving the others a note, Tarrin and Miranda walked along the streets of Tor. Very quiet streets. For a city its size, the streets should have been absolutely packed with pedestrians. But the number of people on the streets looked more like it was midnight than daytime. Every few blocks, a large party of armed men marched by, wearing the axe and crescent moons standard of Tor and looking very wary and grim. Tarrin saw that the other pedestrians gave the soldiers a wide berth, but did not shrink away from them as if they were occupiers. It seemed that the army's presence had at least some approval from the citizens. But the soldiers didn't impede anyone or interrogate anyone. They were merely asserting their presence within the city. For what reason evaded Tarrin, but then again, they were on their way to find out.
The Wikuni mission in Tor was a large stone building overlooking the city's main market square. It was staffed exclusively by Wikuni, few of which paid Miranda much attention. Tarrin, however, attracted more than a few glances, looks, and more than a couple of scornful glares. They spoke to each other in Wikuna, and they were probably unaware that Tarrin could understand parts of it. Keritanima had been teaching it to him, and he was a very fast learner when languages were concerned. What he could understand wasn't very flattering, and he had to resist the urge to change form and smack some people around for their unflattering remarks. They didn't challenge Miranda, however, nor did they challenge him, who was obviously in her company. They moved along dark hallways lit by candles, with old wood panelling put there to give the stone structure some feeling of more than stone. Miranda approached a desk on the second floor confidently, behind which sat a rather ugly-looking warthog Wikuni with a huge snout and tusks. He lacked the humanization of his facial features common in most other Wikuni. "What business you got here, missy?" he asked in a grating voice.