"We don't need any more of those kinds of surprises," he chuckled as his ears continued to scan the ghostly lit scrub beyond the light of the fire.
The sound trailed off, and the night passed without incident. They saw no Selani for two days as they moved south of east, but there were signs of the passing of a tribe. The vegetation was eaten down in one area, and though the wind had scoured away all traces of them, their scent was still lingering on some of the exposed stones on the desert floor. The scents were fresh, not even a day, and he realized that they had stopped here to let their animals forage.
"They're going north," Tarrin announced.
"That's not unusual," Allia replied. "There are blooms in the northern marches in the fall." A bloom was a rapid growth of vegetation, usually proceeding a rare rain shower or shifts in the ground water that brought it closer to the surface."
"How can you tell it's fall?" Sarraya complained. "There are no seasons out here. Just hot desert, hot desert, and more hot desert."
"The days are getting shorter," she told her.
"Well, that's obvious," Sarraya huffed, flitting off his head. "But it's not like this place suffers from the climate changes that everywhere else does."
That much was true. Because both spring and autumn were notoriously short, the transition from season to season was pretty swift. The late summer of just a few days ago was probably full-fledged autumn in Suld now, with frost in the mornings and less rain than normal. Winter would be marching in but a few rides behind that, and there would be snow on the ground before the last month of the year began. It wasn't because spring and autumn were actually shorter than summer and winter-all four seasons were two and a half months long by the solar calendar-it was that what people tended to call "late summer" or "early spring" was actually another season. Tarrin had been calling it "late summer" for a while now, when actually it was well into the calendar season of autumn. But Tarrin was a farmboy, and in Aldreth, they went more by weather than they did by a calendar. Tarrin didn't think his parents even bothered with them. He never had. He often had no idea what month it was. The seasons ruled them, and it was by those seasons that they reckoned all time.
Tarrin stopped and added it up. If Gods' Day, the day after New Year's Day, was a little under two months away, then by a calendar, they were in the middle of autumn. By a calendar. In Suld and Aldreth-both had similar climates, though Suld saw alot more rain-they would be having warm days and cold nights, with sudden and often wild temperature shifts. It could be hot one day, and bitingly cold the next, only to have it hot again the day after that. A day that started with frost on the ground could end too hot to wear wool without sweating to death. And when the rain came, it came hard in Aldreth. Such wild temperature changes made rain during both the summer and the fall tend to be thunderstorms, and those storms could be very, very fierce. In spring more so than fall, but the fall storms could occasionally match the savagery of their springtime cousins.
"Maybe the rest of the world should take lessons from our desert," Allia teased the Faerie.
Sarraya flew off, muttering curses.
"Is she always so obnoxious?" Allia asked him honestly after Sarraya was well out of earshot.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "But she's been especially bad here lately. Usually she's nice about as often as she's contrary, but for the last few days it's been nothing but snide comments and snippiness. Something must be bothering her. I think I need to ask about it."
"She's the kind to take her discomfort out on others," Allia surmised.
"She lets you know she's not happy, that's for sure," he agreed.
"Well, she'd best come out of it soon. She's starting to annoy me."
"Sarraya loves to fight, sister," Tarrin chuckled. "Get used to it, because she likes you, and she picks on people she likes alot more than she does on strangers. That, or just do what you've been doing."
"What is that?"
"Get the best of her. Whenever she's losing, she runs away."
Allia laughed. "I think that won't be too hard," she winked.
He was about to agree, but he felt a familiar pulse flow through the Weave. Another came, and then a third, and that third seemed to lock in on him. Tarrin could feel them clearly, and the familiar hand of Keritanima was behind those sweeps. She was searching for him, and her probes had finally found him, probably using his star as a means to find him as he used their stars to find the other Sorcerers. "Kerri's looking for us," he remarked to Allia. "I think she's going to project over here."
Before he was finished speaking the air in front of them shimmered, and then an Illusion was built out of flows that were manipulated from thousands of longspans to the west. It was an Illusion of Keritanima, exact down to the smallest detail, and a faithful representation of her at that moment. And at that moment, the image of her was dressed in a frilly little nightgown made of silk, untied at the neckline and hanging off her left shoulder in a manner that would be very appealing to a Wikuni male. The Illusion's eyes seemed to shimmer, and then it went from being a mere magical vision to seeming alive. That, Tarrin knew, meant that Keritanima had joined to her Illusion, and now it was as if a spectral version of herself was with them.
"Kerri," Tarrin smiled. "You look sleepy."
"It's dawn over here," she yawned.
"You look tired, deshaida," Allia noted.
"I've had a long day and a very short night," she complained grumpily.
"Are you in Dusgaard?" he asked.
She nodded. "A bloody cold place. I thought Wikuna was cold," she said with a shiver. "Did you know that they have to have a foot-er, span-of snow on the ground?"
"Winter comes early in Ungardt, sister. Very early," Tarrin chuckled.
"That grandfather of yours is impressive, brother," she said with a toothy grin. "He's as big as a bear."
"He's pretty mellow for an Ungardt, Kerri," he told her.
"I noticed."
"What were you doing last night, if you're in Dusgaard?" Allia asked.
"Staying up with Anrak," she frowned. "It's something of a custom for visitors to sit up and drink with their host. Thank the Goddess I'm a Weavespinner. I was neutralizing the alcohol before it could get me drunk. At least I don't have a hangover, thank the Goddess."
"I'll bet that really annoyed the Ungardt in the hall," Tarrin laughed. "To see a little slip of a Wikuni girl stone sober."
"I made quite a bit of money," she said smugly. "They decided to wager just who was going to be under the table first."
"You cheated, Kerri," Tarrin accused with a grin.
"So?"
Both Allia and Tarrin laughed loudly. "Did everything go alright?"
"Smooth as silk," she said confidently. "My clippers had to chase off about six ships that followed us out of the harbor. They lurked on the horizon until we crossed into Ungardt waters. We had a tense moment with a squadron of longships, but I managed to talk our way around them. They didn't like seeing a squadron of Wikuni clippers sailing into their waters. Not that I can't blame them," she added as an afterthought. "They escorted us to Dusgaard, and now they and my clippers are patrolling the waters off Ungardt to discourage anyone trying to sneak in."
"Sounds like our ruse worked," Allia noted.
"I think it did. Jenna said that there was a mass exodus out of Suld when we left. Everybody and his brother was in the city. Oh, that reminds me," she said. "There's been a bit of bad news out of Suld, Tarrin."
"What?"
"The Regent and the boy-king both are dead, as well as about half the Royal council and the heads of the four major noble houses," she told him. "It was an accident, before your paranoia starts getting the best of you."