Though it was certainly unusual, the birds themselves had demonstrated that they posed no threat, so they were only a curiosity to all but the most superstitious of the sailors, who saw them as a bad omen. It was the ship sitting on the horizon behind them that had the captain and many others worried. It was a Wikuni clipper, one of the fastest ships on the sea, and it was moving right towards them at full sail. The extreme distance made little detail clear, but the Star of Jerod's rather unusual cargo made any Wikuni ship's appearance cause enough for Captain Kern to fret. Anything that could make the legendary Abraham Kern fret was enough to send his junior officers and crew into a panic. But only the captain and the first and second mates knew who her little Wikuni Highness really was, so those were the men that showed the most concern. They knew what would happen if they were caught ferrying a fugitive royal princess. It would not be pretty.

Dolanna was on the steering deck, trying to soothe Kern, trying to explain in calm words that she had no idea what was going on, either with the birds or with the Wikuni ship. Faalken and Azakar were on deck, stripped to the waist, stepping lightly around birdstains as they practiced with their swords. Miranda and Keritanima had their heads together near the wall of the steering deck with Binter and Sisska standing very close guard over them, and Allia and Dar were playing a game of stones near the mainmast, sitting on a deck hatch.

One by one, his friends had tried to talk to him, to gently try to find out what had happened. Only Dolanna, who had bandaged his wounds, knew the full story, and Tarrin doubted that she had fully told the others yet. But Tarrin was in no mood to talk. Even Allia walked away shaking her head, telling him that she would be there when he was ready to talk to her. But he wasn't quite ready to do that yet. Things felt different now, and he wasn't sure how he could talk to his friends without having to explain what happened. And if he did that, he wouldn't be able to tell them anything more.

Tarrin looked down into the water, where those fish were. One man had called them dolphins, and they commonly followed ships to either eat the scraps thrown overboard or simply ride in the ship's wake. They were very common in the southern reaches of the Sea of Storms. They were very sleek animals, fish that breathed air instead of water, and they moved in a sinuous, graceful harmony.

"You are very quiet today," Dolanna said casually, coming up to the rail beside him. She looked up at him when he glanced at her, her eyes steady and her demeanor calm.

"I don't have much to say, Dolanna," he replied quietly. "What did the captain have to say about that Wikuni ship?"

"That it could possibly catch up to us before we reach Roulet," she replied. "If they know who we carry, they may try."

"I doubt that," he said soberly, looking out to sea.

"Perhaps," she said. "It is almost time for the lesson. As always, you are welcome to join."

"No," he said, lowering his head. "It won't do me any good, Dolanna. If I even try to touch the Weave, you know what will happen."

"Yes, but there is never a reason good enough not to keep growing," she replied in a steady voice. "Even though you cannot use what I teach, would it not be a good thing to know it? For that day when you can wield Sorcery without danger."

"I already know what I need to know," he told her. "I'll wait until the teaching does me good before learning anything more."

"But it will do you good. Can you not see that?"

"No, I can't," he said, turning to stare at her with his penetrating green eyes. She didn't flinch away, though his gaze would have made almost anyone on the ship shrink back from him. She knew him too well to be afraid of him.

"Very well," she said after staring up into his eyes for a moment. "Remember, dear one, I will always be here when you need to talk. I will always be here for you." She said that with a light touch on his arm, then she reached up and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. That she would do that, knowing what he was and what danger he posed to humankind, impressed him.

Dolanna. What a friend she had been. He smiled slightly as she walked away, marvelling at her small, compact, shapely frame. It was easy to forget that she happened to be a very pretty woman when he always thought of her as a mother figure. She had always been there, even at risk to herself. No human would take the risks around him that she would, and she had no fear of him. In its own way, that was more comforting than many things he could think about. Through all the turmoil of his turning Were, and alot of what happened in the Tower, Dolanna had always been there for him. He owed her a great deal, and a part of him felt bad about snubbing her that way. But she didn't understand what he was feeling, and he had to make sure she understood that he wasn't quite ready to go back to some other life, to forget about what happened or pretend that everything was alright.

The Wikuni ship stayed on their stern, just at the horizon, for most of the day, and was there again in the morning as they moved closer and closer to Roulet. Roulet was a small city, little more than a town, but it sported two large quays sturdy enough and with a deep enough draw in the harbor to accomodate ships the size of the Star of Jerod. Roulet was well known as a seedy place, a place where known pirates would dock for repairs, carousing, or to fence off the booty taken on the high seas. The city's rulers were notorious for being for sale, and the bribes from the pirate clans allowed them to sail in and out of the narrow harbor, defended by fiercely armed coastal fortresses on either side of the very narrow inlet that opened the tiny bay to the sea. Those fortresses had actual cannon in them, for Shace was the only kingdom to whom the Wikuni would sell their smoke powder. The cannons kept the lawful ships of other nations out of the harbor, protecting the pirates to whom the little town owed its livelihood. That was reason enough for most honest ship captains to stay well away from it, but the Star of Jerod needed supplies badly enough to risk docking in the place.

"I wonder how something like that manages to stay alive," Dar was musing to Keritanima as they approached the narrow inlet and its twin fortresses.

"Simple logic, if you think about it, Dar," the Wikuni princess replied calmly. "By allowing the pirates to dock here, it keeps them out of more respectable cities."

"But why don't they just come over here and do something about it? Or why doesn't the king of Shace do something?"

"King Louis is a very weak king," Keritanima sniffed. "He rules in title only. In reality, it's the local Marquis that have control of Shace. It's a very fragmented kingdom. The Shacean custom of not spilling the blood of a countrymen keeps the kingdom from degenerating into something like the Free Duchies." She plucked at her plain cream-colored dress absently. "Louis doesn't do anything about it because he can't. Marquis Phillipe of Roulet makes a pretty penny off the bribes paid to him by the pirates, so it's very doubtful he'd stop if Louis demanded it."

"Then why don't the Wikuni do something about it?"

She snorted. "Because no Sennadite ship can catch one of our Merchantmen," she said derisively. "Why should our navy protect the ships of our competitors?"

"That's a pretty heartless way of looking at it, Kerri."

"There's no room for petty compassion in politics, Dar," she said in a ruthless tone. "You can't get rid of the pirates. For every pirate you sink, another will take its place. And let's not even talk about the commissioned freebooters."

"What's a freebooter?"

"A freebooter is a pirate that works for a certain kingdom," she replied. "His job is to attack the ships of rival kingdoms, and leave the ships of his own kingdom alone. It disrupts trade and supplies to rivals."