Tarrin hadn't considered that.

"So, let's go up there now, and then, after we've seen what we wanted to see, we can find your Aeradalla and get a ride down. That way we don't have to tell her why we're up here."

"That's clever, Sarraya."

"Of course it is. I thought of it, didn't I?" she said imperiously.

"Save it," he told her cooly. "I was hoping that Ariana would fly us up there, but you're right. If she won't agree, I'll go anyway, and that may cost us a ride down. Better to do this now, when she can't say anything about it, then find her when we're done."

"Alright then. Saved again by my superior intellect. You're such a lucky Were-cat," she said grandly.

"Cursed is more like it," he said in a grumbling tone, turning from the tier and moving back between the two buildings, starting the long, highly vertical journey to the center of the city.

It was not easy going. The buildings on the tier-and the ones above, he was certain-were spaced widely apart, and that meant a considerable amount of distance to traverse with no cover. That meant going in cat form, which slowed down his progress significantly. In a matter of moments, Tarrin adopted a strategy of moving through such open areas in cat form, often in direct view of the Aeradalla who were out, and then shifting back to his humanoid form and eating up any distance he could from covered or concealed alleys. Using that tactic, he was able to travel the half a span or so that made up the tier in a matter of several moments, until he reached the tier wall.

This was where it would be the most dangerous, but at least at the smaller tiers, it wasn't a great danger. He'd have to expose himself in humanoid form to the supposedly sharp eyes of the Aeradalla, so it was a matter of being lucky enough that nobody was looking in his direction when he ascended the tier walls. The smaller tiers were easy-they were within the limits of his jumping ability. A little running start was enough to vault him up to the tops of those tiers. He sailed up into the air, almost looking like he was flying against the black stone backdrop of the tier before him, and then he crested the ledge and landed lightly on the top. He found himself facing a large open area with even larger buildings than the ones on the tier below, and was forced to shapeshift immediately and dart across that large expanse of paved stone to reach the shelter of a low, whitewashed wall that surrounded one of those buildings. These were large houses, with courtyards and gardens, houses of the rich or important.

Why they built a wall around it, when everyone in the city could fly, was quite beyond him. Maybe the Aeradalla were descended from landbound beings, and certain landbound peculiarities bred true in them. Or then again, maybe the wall was merely a physical demonstration of ownership of the land upon which the manor house rested.

"That was easy," Sarraya said from her invisible position.

"The little ones will be," he told her in the manner of the Cat. "It's the big ones I'm worried about. I can't jump those."

"It's dark, and so are you," she said with a chuckle. "You look like an Arakite now."

"Blame the sun," he shrugged. "At least for the skin."

"No doubt. That rope hanging off your head is almost white now. You've been sun-dyed."

"When my fur starts turning white, I'll start to worry," he said mildly.

Moving among the buildings on that tier was unexpectedly easy. They all had walls surrounding them, and those formed shadowed passageways that ran for considerable distances. He could move a long way in humanoid form before being forced to shapeshift into cat form to traverse the open areas between the walls. What made it even easier was that there were many voices on that tier, but they all emanated from within the walls themselves. There was almost no one walking outside the walled manors, giving him free reign of those dark, paved streets that seemed slightly like a maze, were it not for the fact that all the walls were straight, and he had a direct line of sight to the tier wall ahead. He managed to navigate the tier in a matter or moments rather than the near hour it took for the tier below, thanks to those long walls enclosing large manors. A running vault brought him up to the next level, and from the short look he got before darting against the safety of a wall, it was much the same as the tier below him.

"This is easy," Sarraya said lightly as he made the wall.

"Then let's trade places," he said quietly. "I'll fly and be invisible, and you skulk in the shadows."

This tier was much the same as the one below, except for the large fountain he encountered about halfway along to the next wall. It was a very large fountain, filled with clear water, with water gurgling lightly from a statue in the center of it. It was a nude humanoid female holding a pitcher, from which water poured into the pool below. The statue did not have wings, he noticed, and the image of the female looked more Selani than human. The hands were four-fingered, the figure too slender, and the ears had those distinctive points. The face held that same ethereal quality of loveliness as a Selani, but the face was much softer and inviting than a Selani female.

Selani? No. That was a Sha'Kar. The figure was too soft, too human to be a desert-raised Selani. This was a female that looked more like a human woman than a Selani woman. She was thin and shapely, very curvaceous, but lacked that corded definition that would have denoted a Selani. Allia was both voluptuous and muscularly defined. This figure was not.

"Selani?" Sarraya asked in curiosity.

"Sha'Kar," Tarrin replied. He stood in the shadow of a wall, staring at the fountain in its large courtyard. It inspired a memory of the fountain in the center of the hedge maze, back in the Tower. The figure there, however, absolutely put this figure to shame. The Sha'Kar figure was but a statue. It lacked that awesome detail and exacting perfection that made the statue at the Tower so striking. This statue looked like a statue. The statue in Suld looked alive. And, he had to admit, the face and body of the statue in the Tower were much lovelier than this one. "So we know who lived here at one time."

"Maybe. Or perhaps the Sha'Kar were used to make alot of statues," Sarraya noted. "If all Sha'Kar women looked like her, no wonder men would want statues of them everywhere."

"Feeling a little jealous, Sarraya?" Tarrin noted.

"Of course not," she snorted. "For my size, I'm very well proportioned."

"For a doll, yes," he agreed mildly.

"Dolls don't fill out their dresses like me," she challenged.

"Unless the dollmaker was perverted," he said quietly, which earned him a smack on the back of the neck from his invisible companion.

" Men!" she hissed.

"I'm sure the sculptor enjoyed his work," Tarrin added as an afterthought.

"What do you mean?"

"He had to have a model."

She smacked him again. "Perhaps you should ask her out?" she said venemously.

"I don't get excited at the thought of masonry, Sarraya," he replied calmly. "Sight isn't half as exciting as scent."

"Let's not go any further," she said quickly.

"You asked," he shrugged, then shifted into cat form. "And you are jealous, aren't you?" he added in the manner of the Cat as he padded towards the fountain.

"Grrrohh!" Sarraya growled in furious embarassment, then flitted after him.

He paused to take a drink of the water, and found it to be very, very cold. That was strange. The air was brisk, but the water was much colder, when it should have retained at least a little heat from the day. It was so cold that little wisps of fog had formed on its surface, condensing what little moisture there was in the air. It poured from the pitcher at a steady pace, meaning that there was no interruption in the water supply that fed it. The water smelled of rock and minerals, and he realized that the water came from underground.