"I think I need something to disguise me."

"Why don't you just go human?"

"Because I'm very tired, and I don't feel like dealing with the pain right now," he told her bluntly. "Think you can make me something to cover me?"

"Child's play," she winked, waving her hands grandly. A large, voluminous cloak simply appeared in midair, made of soft, thin leather, almost like cloth. It had a deep hood, and it was undyed. The tan garment would blend in well with the arid plain, making it a sensible garment. Tarrin caught it before it fell to the ground. Sarraya grinned and flitted up to his face, then pointed her finger at his face-

– -and everything suddenly turned purplish. Not only that, there was a sudden weight on his face.

Recoiling, Tarrin reached up and found something sitting on his nose, wrapping around to hug his skull to keep it from falling off. He grabbed it and pulled it off his face, and found himself looking at a strange formation of what looked like purple glass. It was shaped to fit over the eyes, resting on the nose, and for a human they would rest atop the ears as well. Since he didn't have ears there, they rested on the bone ridges above where his ears used to be.

"What is this?"

"It's called a visor. The Selani make them," she replied. "They shield your eyes from the sand, and their tint protects your eyes from the brightness of the sun. In your case, they're also going to hide those cat's eyes of yours. The humans won't look funny at you if you wear it. Any serious traveller around here has one."

"Strange. Allia didn't have one, and she never mentioned it."

"It's something so common, she probably wouldn't have thought to say anything. If you didn't notice, Allia tends to leave out anything she considers common knowledge."

"I noticed."

"The problem is that her common knowledge is pretty uncommon," Sarraya grinned. "How much has she told you about the desert?"

"She told me about what it's like. She also described some of the animals that live there. I still can't believe there are lizards as big as a barn."

"Believe it," Sarraya laughed. "I've seen them. They call them krajats. There are others that aren't that big, but are no less nasty. The desert is a very dangerous place."

"What do they eat?" he demanded. "There's not much out there."

"Each other, most likely," Sarraya shrugged, then she looked him over from top to bottom. "Well, that cloak manages to hide about everything. Since those furry feet kind of look like boots if you don't look very hard, you shouldn't cause a panic."

"Thank you so very much," Tarrin grunted, sliding the visor back over his eyes. Before he put on the cloak, he realized that the hilt of the black-bladed sword under his pack was going to cause a problem. Sarraya solved that by slitting it, so the hilt could come up through it, then using her Druidic magic to seal up the excess so that the cloak hugged the scabbard, to keep blowing sand from seeping under the cloak. She even thoughtfully created a leather hood for the scabbard that tied on, to protect the delicate wire-wrapped hilt from the damage of blowing sand, should they get caught in the storm. That done, Tarrin started off towards the city at a fast walk, which was nearly a running pace for a human. His long, long legs consumed ground with every light step, carrying him towards the lone city in the vast empty wilderness.

As he neared, he got a sense of the randomness of this city. Fences and pens seemed to be erected wherever was convenient outside the walls, turning the trek to the visible gate something of a zigzagging course. Animal manure made every breath of air a riot of unpleasant smell, not to mention making him pick his steps with exceeding care. There were herd animals everywhere, in flocks and groups, staked to the ground alone, wandering aimlessly on ground long since stomped free of grass, kicking up a ceaseless cloud of dust that hung in a pall just over the ground. There were sheep, cattle, horses, goats, and even stranger animals that he'd never seen before. Long-legged animals with huge humps on their backs, which were even taller than he was. Stocky cattle-like animals that had rounded horns rather than straight ones, like a ram, yet were grayish instead of brown. There were even strange long-necked animals with wooly fur, like a sheep, yet stood as tall as a horse. Tending the animals were dark-skinned people that looked like Arakites, but these people were rather skinny, wearing simple homespun tunics or robes, all the men of which wearing a simple white turban on his head, and all of the women wearing a shawl. Many people had similar covers over their eyes as his own, looking to be made of glass or mica. Tarrin wondered idly just how they were made, since the ones on his face did not distort his vision in the slightest. They only dimmed the bright sunlight and cast everything with a slightly violet color. Most glass was wavy or cloudy when one looked through it. That these visors were perfectly polished so that they didn't distort things was remarkable.

Moving through the patchwork of pens and wandering herds, Tarrin made his way towards the city. Most of the people around him didn't pay him all that much mind, although some of them did stare when he came close to their animals. The herd animals, smelling his predator's scent, bleated or cried out in sudden fear, shying away from him, and that reaction made their tenders wonder what had spooked them. Tarrin didn't pay the animals that much attention, keeping one eye on the city, one on the storm, and turning from time to time to see where the airborne trailers were. He judged that he would make the city well before the storm arrived, for he got an idea of its size as moment after moment passed, and the storm didn't seem to get any closer. It truly had to be huge, and still some distance off.

Moving near to the humans gave him a serious lesson in how different things were for him now. They were so small. Before, the tallest humans-aside from certain exceptions-topped out at the base of his chin. Now, he hadn't passed a single human whose turban or shawl reached his collarbones. He felt like he was an adult moving through a group of children. Looking at the people around him without staring, he realized that he truly was Triana's size now. Probably eye to eye with the massive Azakar. He was used to being tall, but he felt distinctly unusual to tower over everyone else. They were children now, little children who would break in his paws if he was too rough with them. Was that how Triana felt when she dealt with humans? Did Azakar feel the same way?

Still musing over it, Tarrin finally reached the city's gates. They were open, and they were busy. The gates were very wide, and through them filed both people and herd animals, being shepharded either in or out. Beyond the gates was a large open area, probably where herds were gathered before moving or just before sale, and inside the simple wooden gates stood two disinterested men wearing a leather cross harness and a plain white kilt-like skirt, and each holding a pike. There was a crest in bronze at the crossing of the leather straps crisscrossing the men's chests, that of a sun cresting a flat horizon. The cross harnesses left most of the men bare from the waist up as the kilts left their legs bare from the knee down to their tied sandals, and their skin was deeply burnished by the sun and the wind. Each wore a small conical helmet, to which was attached a long tail of hair that wavered in the growing breeze heralding the approaching storm. Judging from the rather nonsensical outfits, these guards were purely ceremonial.

"Sarraya, are you still around?" Tarrin asked under his breath.

"Of course I am," she replied from nearby, though she was hidden from sight. "What?"

"Just checking."

As he passed by one of the guards, he noted idly that he was nearly as tall as the man's pike. The guard stared at him for a long moment, but looked away instantly as Tarrin lowered his visored gaze on the man and did not look away.