"Oh Tom!" cried Lirenna, hugging him tightly and burying her happy, smiling face into his chest. "A shayen dwelling tree! To live inside a living thing! Who would have believed it, that they would actually let us live in one of their dwelling trees?"

     "Things must be serious indeed," agreed Thomas, stroking her hair. “Their numbers must have dropped quite a lot if there aren’t enough left to care for their trees. I wonder what could have caused that?”

     "The fell men,” replied Lirenna, remembering what she’d read in the shae man’s head. “A full scale war has broken out in the south. The shae here are quite worried about it and lots of them went home to join in the fight. It happens every so often, apparently. The fell men emerge from their tunnels and run amok for a couple of years, then go back when they’ve had enough. They seem to just get bored and start a war just for something to do.”

     “The shae folk should pursue them into their tunnels and teach them a lesson,” suggested Thomas.

     “Probably,” agreed the demi-shae, “but we hate going underground. Once my people drive them back into their tunnels they call it mission accomplished and go back to their flutes and poetry. The thing is, the fell men hate it on the surface. They only come up to look for a fight. What we should really do is just ignore them and hide until they go away. Deny them their entertainment, but the dwelling trees have to be defended.”

     “Yes, I can understand that,” agreed Thomas, looking around in wonder. “I can’t bear the thought of something like this coming to harm.”

     The demi shae grabbed his arm and hugged it. “Oh Tom! A shayen dwelling tree! I can't wait to tell grandfather! He'll go green with envy!"

     Thomas was forced to smile. The trees themselves were to be found all over the world, but the wasps whose larvae caused their trunks to swell up to the size of houses could not tolerate the lower temperatures that normally prevailed north of the Great Lake, which meant that most northern shae folk had never seen a dwelling tree, let alone lived in one. Dallon might well find himself feeling more than a twinge of jealousy for his half shayen granddaughter and Thomas found that the idea gave him a great deal of amused satisfaction.

     "So," said Thomas, taking Lirenna gently by the shoulders and holding her at arm's length so he could look her in the eyes. "Are you going to tell me what a Ta-la-lendron is?"

     The demi shae was instantly serious. "They're very special shae folk," she said. "So special that we don't like to talk about them to those of other races."

     "Oh," said Thomas, crestfallen. "Of course, I understand."

     Lirenna laughed gaily. "Oh you silly thing, I didn't mean you! Of course I'll tell you! Just so long as you don't go and have a good laugh about them with all your drinking buddies."

     "You know I'd never do that," said Thomas in a hurt tone of voice. "I have the highest respect for your culture, your traditions. I would never make a mockery of it with other humans."

     "I know that," said Lirenna, moving back into his arms and giving him a fond kiss. "That goes for you too, Derry. You must be very careful who you share this information with. I'm not saying you can't tell anyone, but those you do tell must be those you trust completely, with all your heart and soul. Do you understand?"

     "I understand," replied the boy, his eyes shining with anticipation.

     "Very well." Lirenna motioned them to the chairs. Thomas’s chair hugged his hips and creaked under his weight, but it supported him. He wouldn’t be able to relax in it, though. They’d have to find a larger one as soon as possible.

     Father and son sat on the edges, backs stiff and eyes fixed on the demi shae as she paced up and down, getting her thoughts in order. Then she stopped and turned to face them.

     "No-one really knows how the shayen race originated," she said. "Our myths and legends say that we were once different from the way we are now, but they don't say in what way different. Then there was a time of great hardship and suffering that lasted for many generations. A time known as the Nen Ye Nyan. The time when tears flowed like a river. When the Nen Ye Nyan finally came to an end, a small, isolated community had evolved into the form that shae folk have today, but all the other inhabitants of the land had degenerated into wild, bestial forms. They were the ancestors of the shologs and goblins we know today."

     Thomas nodded in agreement. "I've read the works of the great sages and philosophers who speculate that all the modern races are descended from a single common ancestor. It's possible that these ancestors of yours who were 'different from you' were, in fact, humans."

     "I don't think so," replied Lirenna, shaking her head. "When humans first came to this continent, the shae folk they met here had no sense that they'd ever encountered anyone like them before. Humans were totally strange to them. Totally unfamiliar."

     "But remember what I told you about Arroc, the half trog who turned out to be a throwback to an ancestral form. And trogs also have legends of a time of great suffering and hardship. A time in which their surface living ancestors retreated below the surface where they gradually evolved into a form more suitable for a subterranean existence."

     Lirenna nodded. "Maybe you're right," she conceded. "Anyway, to get back to the story, the small community of shae folk was beset on all sides by the degenerates. They suffered many casualties and were faced with extinction. But then the Goddess Ramthara appeared before them and offered Her assistance in return for their devotion and worship. The shae folk gladly agreed, for Ramthara was the Goddess of Life and the shae folk revere all living things. With the assistance of the Goddess the degenerates were pushed back and held at bay, allowing the small shayen community to grow and prosper.

     "The struggle was a terrible strain on the shae folk, though. Our people value peace and tranquility above all other things, but the constant fighting, the uncertainty of existence, meant that victory was no guarantee of survival. Many shae folk simply lay down and faded away, unable to deal with the stress. At one point, while the shologs were pushing especially hard, the death toll from despair and weariness of life was greater than the losses in battle, and with no end to it in sight the entire shayen race began to slip into a terminal decline.

     "Again, though, Ramthara saw this and came to our aid. She couldn't do any more to help fight the shologs directly, but she was able to help in another way. She created a new afterlife, just for the shae folk."

     She studied her husband and son for a moment before speaking again. "The Gods have made it very clear that the struggle between good and evil goes on in the next life, with the souls of the virtuous dead in perpetual battle with evil souls. Even those who weren’t soldiers in life occasionally find themselves having to fight if their heaven is invaded by demons. The souls of the virtuous dead aren't happy with this, of course, but I've heard it said, by humans, that it might actually be a good thing. They say that the threat of danger, even in heaven, keeps it from becoming stale and boring."

     She gave a sigh. "I don't see it myself, despite being partly human, and pureblooded shae folk are even less happy with it. To them, that kind of paradise would be a Hell. Never being able to fully relax, not even when you're dead. Seeing this, Ramthara created another kind of paradise, therefore. A paradise isolated from the Eternal War. No evil of any kind was allowed there. It was a place of eternal tranquility, without any challenges or hardship of any kind. A place where the souls of dead shae folk could simply relax and slip into a kind of mindless tranquility. An existence in which no effort of any kind would be required of them."

     "For how long?" asked Thomas, frowning.

     "Forever," replied Lirenna. "For all eternity. Nothing but joy and tranquility, for ever and ever."

     "Sounds awful! I mean, it might be okay for a while. I can see people taking to that kind of existence for a while, as a holiday for instance. A brief respite from the cares of the world, but how long could you live like that before you just went crazy with boredom? That kind of existence just isn't possible!"

     "Not for humans, perhaps, but there's a fundamental difference between humans and the shae folk that few humans really understand. Even you haven't ever really seen it. The shae folk never grow bored. Never. Pureblooded shae folk don't even understand the concept. We crave simple, ordered lives. The one thing we really want, more than anything else, is for every day to be the same as every other, for nothing to ever change, and that's what Ramthara created in Ta-la-lorna, the place of blessed rest. Nothing there ever changes, you see. If you die at the age of a hundred, for instance, your soul would remain that of a hundred year old for the rest of eternity. You soul would exist there forever, but you would never gain in knowledge or life experience. You would never become more than you were when you entered. It's as if you were to become a painting by a master artist, never changing no matter how long it hangs on a wall. Time passes, but every day is the same as every other. Those small changes that do take place only last a short time, and then the world goes back to the way it was before. Forever."

     Thomas’s frown deepened. "I'm sorry, but I don't like the sound of that. To deny people the chance to grow, develop, evolve..."

     "The shae folk don't want to evolve. Evolution can only make them other than the way they are now, which is just the way they want to be. What Ramthara promised them was what they consider to be a true paradise. A release from the troubles of the world, and they thanked her joyfully. With the unchanging bliss of Ta-la-lorna to look forward to, they were able to cope with the struggle for existence. They were able to endure it, knowing that it would come to an end when they died." She saw the look on her husband's face and laughed. "Just accept it," she said. "The shae folk aren't like humans. Just try to accept it." Thomas nodded unhappily.

     "What about half shae folk?" asked Derrin anxiously. "Do we go to Ta-la-lorna?"

     "If you want to. That's one of the things that would have been revealed to you during the Virgalta, the wake in which we mourn the passing of childhood, but there's no harm in your learning early. Half shae folk can choose which afterlife to go to. They can change their minds as well, even after death.”

     "I'll choose the shayen afterlife," said Derrin, a serious look on his elfin face. "Just as you did."

     “I’m not going to Ta-la-lorna,” said Lirenna, though. “I might have chosen to go there, if things had gone differently, but I couldn't be parted from your father now, not even by death. I’ll be going to the human afterlife, to be with him, and we’ll face whatever trials and hardships we encounter together.” Husband and wife turned to look at each other, smiling, and their hands met across the space between them.

     "Okay," said Thomas. "The shae folk go to this, this land of living death when they die, but that doesn't explain these Ta-la-lesti. What are they?”

     “They are Those who have Returned,” replied Lirenna. "That's the other way Ta-la-lorna differs all the other afterlives. The shae folk can come back, although very few actually do. You said that you don't like the idea of eternal, unchanging bliss. Well, occasionally, a shae finds that he doesn't like it either, that he misses the dangerous, treacherous, eternally changing world in which he grew up. Occasionally, a shae begs the Goddess to be allowed to return to Tharia, and the Goddess always grants such a request, for to have an unhappy shae in Ta-la-lorna reduces the bliss for all the others. Others might return because their knowledge and skills are needed back in the world of the living. If there’s some kind of danger looming, something that threatens to cause massive change or loss of life, a great leader who helped them survive a similar danger centuries ago might return to help them deal with it again.”

     “How would he know?” asked Thomas. “Necromancy? Do southern shae folk practice the Dark Art?”

     “They don’t need to,” replied the demi shae. “Ramthara informs the dead soul of the need, and he or she can either volunteer to return or decline and remain in Ta-la-lorna. There are two kinds of Ta-la-lesti, you see. The harrendri, which means the dissatisfied, and the horronrim, the needed. Both are held in great awe and respect by younger shae folk because their knowledge and wisdom are immense and they have been granted the privilege of having met the Goddess Ramthara Herself face to face."

     Thomas was confused. "But you said that those who entered Ta-la-lorna could never become more than they were when they entered, so how can they be greater in knowledge and wisdom than shae folk who've never been there?"

     “Apparently it happens during the return journey. It’s not like teleporting. It’s quite a journey by all accounts, and they’re in the company of Ramthara all the way. Something rubs off. Some of Her knowledge and wisdom. Things unknown to we lesser beings. They are revered by shae folk wherever they go, and any insult done to them is punished harshly. Wars have been started that way."

     Thomas took the hint. If he ever saw the noble shae again, he would be on his very best behaviour. Not that that was likely, Lirenna told him. Then other shae folk would be very protective of him and would try to persuade him to remain with them, at the heart of the shaewoods. They probably hadn't been happy with him being seen by a human, let alone one they knew nothing about. Thomas was determined to win their trust, though, and if that meant not taking one step further into the woods than they allowed, then that was what he would do.

     He had more questions, but Lirenna had told everything that the northern shae folk knew on the subject and so the three of them fetched their luggage and settled down to the task of unpacking. They hadn't brought much in the way of belongings, since they hadn't expected to be away for long when they left Haven, and it didn't take them long to find a home for everything in the drawers and cupboards of the living room and bedroom. Then, since it was still only the early afternoon, they decided to return to the University for a couple of hours.