"I'll miss you," Tarrin said impulsively, and it was accompanied by a slight flash of memory, him holding her in his arms, cuddling her, and that also brought a small shock of pain.

"I'll miss you too, little friend," she said, squeezing the hand in hers gently. "I never thought I'd feel so much kinship with a biped. The world is a funny place sometimes."

"If I told my friends one of my best friends was a dragon, they'd lock me in the cellar," he said with a wry smile. "But from what they tell me, I had all sorts of very strange friends. Wikuni, Selani, Knights, Sorcerers, Wizards, Amazons, Faeries, Were-cats, even Demons and dragons. I wish I could remember it all," he fretted.

"Give that crazy Wizard a chance, Tarrin," she said sedately. "He seems a bit addled, but I heard his mutterings and carrying on when he examined me. He's an excellent Wizard. I think he's better than I am, and that's no slight complement."

"They say Phandebrass is good," Tarrin agreed. "I haven't seen him for a couple of days, though. I think he's still on the ship."

"Where is that Sha'Kar that was with you?"

"Probably being punished by her mother," Dar snickered.

"She seems the type," Sapphire agreed with a smile. "I can't help but like her, though."

"Me too," Tarrin agreed.

The rest of the Sha'Kar arrived, and then a complement of about thirty Sha'Kar and five or six human Sorcerers split from the host and headed south, towards the ship. Ianelle stood up on one of the trunks, and her voice carried all the way across the field. "Everyone gather as close to the trunks as you can," she called. "The less space we take up, the easier this is going to be. Tight together now, don't be afraid to bump into someone!"

"Well, this should be fun," Camara Tal grunted from the far side, picking up her pack and her shield.

"Let's pull in," Triana ordered the others.

The large host of people gathered closely together around the pile of trunks, as Ianelle ordered, and Tarrin felt a little jostled and just a little uncomfortable for some reason. He'd never been squashed up with people like that before, and it wasn't an entirely fun experience. Kimmie was pushed up against his back, Triana just in front of him, and Dar and Sapphire were on either side of him.

"Do you think they're waiting for us at the Tower?" Tarrin asked Dar.

"I think they are. Ianelle's been talking to your sister through the Weave. I think they already told her where to have us appear on the grounds."

"I wonder what's going to happen," Tarrin said nervously.

"Me too. Guess we're going to find out," Dar said with a grin.

After everyone was scrunched up together, Sha'Kar and some of the human Sorcerers surrounded the area around them. They all looked towards Ianelle, and when she raised both her hands, all the others did the same. Tarrin felt something very strange happen then, some kind of magic that seemed to flow between all the Sorcerers taking part in the spell. All their hands suddenly began to glow with a strange wispy light, and Tarrin felt the magic build up all around them. For a moment, he got the impression that there were a whole bunch of little strings or threads or something flying around them, bobbing and weaving around one another so fast that it was hard to keep track of them, and again he saw those strange faint white lines that seemed to be all over the place flare up. Keritanima told him that he was seeing the Weave, but he ignored it most of the time. But now all those lines seemed much clearer, much more visible, even overlaying over the real world instead of the real world overlaying them.

It was terribly anticlimatic. One moment he was watching Ianelle's hands, which were glowing more brightly than all the others, and he could see the forest behind her. Then the next second, her hands and the glow didn't change, but in a fast shimmer, the area behind her did . There was absolutely no sense of moving, no flash of light, no sign of any kind that they had just done something, mainly because the sun had jumped across the sky in dramatic fashion. Where it had been early morning a second ago, now the sun was at its zenith, marking it as noontime. But he could see behind her, and it wasn't the woods. It was a huge tower made of white stone, stretching almost impossibly high into the sky, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of spans. That huge spire was surrounded by six smaller towers, also of white stone, and some of them had slender bridges spanning from them to the main Tower so high over their heads that he couldn't see if there was anyone on top of them.

Tarrin was quite shocked by it, and the silence from the host told him that he wasn't the only one. He could do nothing but gape up at the Tower like a rabbit staring down the gullet of a wolf, awed at how impossibly high the thing was. Pristine and white, shining in the summer sun, the Tower was a gigantic monument to the lost power and majesty of the katzh-dashi. How could anyone look up at it and not feel overwhelmed?

"I never thought I'd see it again," he heard one of the Sha'Kar say in a reverent tone. "After so long, we have come home."

Home. He could see how a place like that could be home to so many. It was so big!

They weren't alone. He realized that as he looked down the Tower's wall, and saw a large complement of robed humans standing between them and the Tower. In the very center of them, flanked by Sorcerers in colored robes that seemed to mark some kind of rank, was Jenna. But this wasn't the Jenna he remembered. This was a much older, taller, and filled out Jenna. Not the pre-teen girl he'd left behind in Aldreth, but a very pretty young woman with long dark hair falling over her shoulders straight and true, curling up as it touched her shoulders. She had grown into a very pretty young lady, with dark, full lashes, dark liquid eyes that seemed to shine, and her mother's cheeks. She stood regally, as if she owned everything and everyone, wearing a simple dress made of some kind of sheer fabric, like silk or satin, but then she abandoned that austere poise when she saw Tarrin, crying out his name and running forward. Tarrin stepped up and nearly got bowled over when she slammed into him, hugging him tightly and calling out his name over and over again.

"Look at you!" Tarrin said with a smile, pushing her out to arm's length. "You're almost full grown!"

"Look at you!" she said with a teary smile. "You look just like you did when you left! Triana said you can't remember anything at all. Is that true?"

He nodded. "Phandebrass is trying to cure me," he told her. "Is he here?"

"He's coming with the ship," Triana told him from behind as she looked down at them.

"They said you're the Keeper now," Tarrin said.

She nodded with a grin. "That's me. The regal ruler of this realm," she said with a wink. "Not that I take it very seriously. The Council keeps trying to tell me what to do, but they're going to find out that I don't think this is just for show. The Goddess told me that it's my throne, and I'll run this Tower as I see fit, not how they want me to." She looked around. "Where's the First? What's her name? Ianelle?"

Ianelle stepped up to her and gave her a very deep curtsy. "Honored one, as promised, we have come home," she said with a nod, in the most formal mode of Sha'Kar speech. "Is all prepared?"

"I've got everything ready for you," she replied in semi-formal Sha'Kar, a sign to Ianelle that she preferred to do without the flowery, formal speech. "The West and Southwest towers are yours, and as you requested, the servant staff there has been given those orders you passed to me. For now, until we sort things out, your Council is going to sit with the current one, and after we adjust, we'll choose a new Council."

"Those are good choices. Small chambers, frugal. That's what we need," she said with a slight smile. "Perfect."