"Then we'll leave as soon as we eat," Tarrin said. "Leave them behind."

"They'll catch up with us," she warned.

"I know, but it'll give them the sense that I'm not going to wait for them. And when we leave them at Gathering, they'll look back on this and realize that I warned them."

"Fine. What's your pleasure today?"

"I'm feeling evil. I want pancakes. And syrup."

Sarraya laughed. "One confused cook, coming up," she said grandly.

Tarrin did just as he warned, left Var and Denai behind. They loped north at a smooth pace, Tarrin continuing Sarraya's education in Sha'Kar. But that wouldn't be for much longer. Sarraya had been cheating with her magic to make sure the lessons held in her mind, and she was nearly fluent now. He was only teaching her some of the more archaic words, and some of the more obscure rules of grammar. Sarraya was competent in Sha'Kar, but Tarrin was a perfectionist. It was silly to learn a language without being able to think in that language.

Var and Denai caught up with them about lunchtime, as Tarrin and Sarraya stopped on a curious boulder that had a flat top. They were sitting atop it, as Sarraya amused herself by frying conjured eggs on its surface. Tarrin didn't even notice heat anymore, heat or cold. It took something like watching an egg fry on the surface where he was sitting to realize that it was just that hot. The flat boulder certainly was like a natural skillet, sitting out where the sun heated it like a fire.

"Tarrin, why did you leave us behind?" Denai demanded from the ground. She knew better than to try to get up there with it being so hot.

"Because I didn't feel like waiting for you two to finish playing," he said pointedly.

Denai blushed.

"How far are we from the Cloud Spire?" he asked.

"If we move fast and don't stop as often to rest, we can get to the outside edges of Gathering by sunset," Denai told him. "We could reach the spire itself just a few hours after that."

"The Gathering is that big?" Sarraya asked.

"When all the clans assemble, it takes up some space, Sarraya," Var said mildly.

Tarrin looked towards the north. The cloud was hidden in the wavering haze of the midday heat, but his sense of that object told him exactly how far they were from it. And the distance was about as Denai said it was.

"Then you two had better sit down. I'm leaving in just a little while."

And he did. Var and Denai had to scramble to their feet and rush after him as he loped away from them, towards the north. And the pace he set could be called murderous. Var and Denai could run with him, but he'd pushed them over the last few days, and their endurance was playing out. They were breathing heavily after about two hours, and they began to lag behind after three. He ran them for about another half hour, and then pulled up for a short break. Not for them; he wanted water, and it was hard to drink while running. Var and Denai caught up with him a few moments later, and both knelt down and tried to catch their breath. "What's your problem, Tarrin?" Denai panted.

He said nothing, just looking down at her with his tail swishing back and forth at a stately pace.

Then he was off again. After another half hour, they spotted a Selani tribe on the move some distance east of them, and Tarrin slowed down to study it. Selani were nomads, and they carried everything with them on their backs or on tamed chisa. Chisa were the only thing close to pack animals that could keep up with the fleet-footed Selani. They ran along in a disorganized column, with the herd animals bringing up the rear and a contingent of Scouts ranging ahead. Tarrin saw that even the children ran, though the youngest were either carried or were riding sukk. The ability to keep up with the tribe while on the move was considered to be the first step to adulthood.

"My clan," Var said, shading his eyes and peering in that direction as they ran. "Not my tribe."

" Our clan," Denai said archly. "Who leads them?"

"A tall one with his head bare. He has a scar on his cheek."

"That's the tribe of my sister's husband," Denai remarked. "Should we join them?"

"If you want, go," Tarrin said bluntly. "I'm going this way."

"Then that's the way I'm going," Var said calmly.

"Oh well," Denai sighed, and they picked up the pace again.

The cloud he'd seen in the horizon only got bigger and bigger as they approached it, and for a little while he wondered if it took up the entire sky at the spire. Sarraya took a look at it and estimated that it had to be absolutely humongous, longspans and longspans across, probably even further across than the Great Canyon was wide. His sense of the location of the object became more and more precise as he approached it, allowing him to get more accurate with his estimation of where it resided. But he was still too far away to discern if it was on the ground on on the spire.

They spotted more and more Scouts as they penetrated the area reserved for Gathering. There seemed to be a Selani watcher on every rise, on every spire, and hiding behind every scrubby bush or large rock. They didn't bother them, but their presence unnerved Tarrin just a little bit. The idea of strangers with weapons hiding in every nook and cranny didn't sit well with his suspicious nature, but he kept reminding himself over and over that they were Selani, and they wouldn't attack him so long as he was in the company of other Selani. He had no doubt that they could see his brands, so that only lent credence to the illusion that he was supposed to be there.

And still the cloud grew in the distance, and still his sense of that object sharpened more and more.

They reached the edge of the cloud about a half hour before sunset. It was circular, a flat, featureless cloud much akin to fog, and there was no raggedness to its borders. It simply began, and it looked just as thick at the edges as it did towards its center. It was apparent that the cloud was indeed a huge thing, swallowing up the entire northern sky. And his senses told him that the magic was indeed a product of some kind of magic. He could sense it, even from that distance. It felt a little strange stepping under it, almost as if he had entered someone's house.

About five longspans inside the boundary of the cloud, they reached an area where buzzards, vultures, and jackals congregated in very large numbers. It was very odd, because there didn't seem to be anything that he could see that could support them. But being who they were, they wouldn't hang around the area unless there was something there to eat. Tarrin knelt as they entered the area when something caught his eyes, and he found a grotesquely misshapen steel head of a crossbow quarrel, affixed to a shattered bolt. The sight of the thing sent a shiver of pain through his chest, as the memory of the crossbow quarrel that nearly killed him tingled through his awareness. Selani didn't use crossbows… could this be from the Aeradalla? Maybe one of them had dropped the bolt while flying, and the fall destroyed it.

There was a strange sound some distance to the right of them. Tarrin looked to see several vultures and jackals converge on the area, then immediately begin fighting among themselves for whatever it was.

"Weird," Sarraya mused.

"Very," Tarrin agreed. "Why are they here?"

"We think that the Cloudracers hunt in the clouds above us," Var said. "Things fall from the cloud from time to time, and the scavengers have learned that some of it is edible."

"That, or they dump their garbage here," Sarraya added, pointing to a fragment of pottery laying on the sandy ground.

"Either way, it's no concern of ours," Tarrin surmised. "Let's move on."

Near sunset, they crested a small rise, and found themselves looking into a very shallow yet absolutely vast valley. Tarrin pulled up at that crest and stared down in astonishment. The Cloud Spire hovered in the distance, the base of it and its pillar visible now, and from where he was he could see that it was nothing like any other spire. It was a monster, the king of all pillars, and it had to be an entire longspan wide at its base. And it didn't particularly narrow as it reached into the sky, reached into the vast cloud that hovered almost over their heads now. It was the tallest, highest thing he had ever seen in his life.