Weavespinner

by James Galloway

  Chapter 1

  It was a beautiful morning.

  It was pleasantly warm, but not too hot. The air was cool, and there was the gentlest of breezes blowing across the rather unusual city in which they'd been staying. The sun shined down on them with pleasant warmth as Tarrin walked along the white stone paths with the Were-cat Kimmie, enjoying the outside and marvelling at the incredible buildings and homes that had been built by the Sha'Kar. The gentle wind rustled the lush trees of the forest along the edges of the large grassy plain in which the large town had been placed, swayed the grass in waves as the wind blew across the open areas inside the forest on the large island. The wind blew over him like a gentle caress, tugging at his long bangs and threatening to blow them into his eyes again, but it was an almost pleasant sensation.

  It just felt good to be outside again. After nearly two days sitting in that bed under the watchful, almost smothering stare of the Were-cat Triana, she had finally relented to let him out. Her behavior towards him annoyed him greatly, for she treated him like some kind of helpless infant. She hadn't let him out of his room for those two days, tried to keep him in that bed the whole time as if he were dreadfully sick and would die if he set foot on the floor. He understood in a vague way why she was treating him like that, though. He wasn't what he was before, and to her, that was the same as him being ill. She had awed and thoroughly bullied him over those two days, until he finally screwed up the courage to stare her down and demand to be let out of her cage.

  They were wandering the town without course or destination, he and Kimmie, while he gawked at the fences and the buildings and the sometimes outrageously lavish decorations they had on them. The house that was hosting them had a huge stained glass window. Another had a huge sculpture over the front doors, set into the wall, so lifelike that it seemed ready to move at any moment. Another had a magical image set on the side of the wall that actually did move. Every main building in those fenced compounds had some kind of grand central decoration or magical effect that tried to outdo all the others. They passed Sha'Kar, who bowed to him or curtsied with smiles and called him "honored one," and passed humans, too, who bowed or curtsied and looked upon him like he was some kind of hero. Their gazes were absolutely adoring, and it unnerved him to no end when more than two or three crossed his path at the same time.

  From what he was told, he had done something that had made them all extremely happy, but he didn't know what it was. It was why he was out there, getting his first good look at this place that was not supposed to exist, surrounded by a race of beings the whole world thought had died a long time ago. They had come here, he'd been told, seeking an ancient magical relic called the Firestaff. They had succeeded in getting it, having to actually confront the rulers of these Sha'Kar people because they wanted it too. Tarrin had been shocked to find out that he killed them. They had gotten the artifact, but its recovery had come with a price. Tarrin had lost his memory of the last two years, and from what he was told, it had stripped out of him what had made him a Were-cat.

  Those two days had been spent listening to this odd assortment of people tell him all about what he'd done for those two years, and Triana had been right. Some of it was information he really hadn't wanted to hear. He'd been cruel there for a while, what Triana had explained as feral, like beating a dog until it turned mean. He'd done some pretty mean things. He couldn't imagine himself like that...it seemed impossible. There was that, and then there was hearing that Faalken had died. That was a shame, for though he'd only known the Knight for a few days, he seemed an amiable fellow, and Tarrin rather liked him. But all in all, the story did sound intriguing, full of danger, magic, and excitement. He had travelled all the way to Dala Yar Arak, had crossed the Desert of Swirling Sands. He had climbed high enough to touch the sky, and ridden on the backs of birds made of fire. He had been a Sorcerer and a Druid both, a warrior without equal, a single living being of such towering ability that he was virtually undefeatable. He had battled Demons, he had befriended lost races, he had become part of the Were-cat society's inner circles. He had held an ancient, priceless relic called the Book of Ages in his hands, and he had learned things lost to the world for a thousand years. He had done all of those things in search of the Firestaff, and that search had led him here, where--this was the most exciting of it all--he had fought a dragon for ownership of the relic. It was just enough excitement to give flavor and purpose to the dark things they admitted he'd done, for he was a man so utterly focused on his goal that he would often resort to any means to achieve it. His parents would not approve of that, for they'd raised him better.

  Triana and Dolanna spent many hours carefully explaining that to him, and they'd done a good job. They told him about the darkest things in his past, and then patiently and methodically explaining to him why they happened and why they were sometimes not only necessary, but preferred over choosing a different path. Sometimes it wasn't easy to understand why he would do such things, but Triana told him over and over again that it was because he had went feral. She explained the condition in detail to him, then they had to backtrack a bit to go over again the situation with Jula that had brought it about. That had confused him, because they told him that Jula was his adopted daughter and lived with his family.

  That had been the most shocking thing he'd heard of it all. He had children! Two of them, and they were by different women! He felt absolutely scandalized by that revelation, and it only got worse when he found out that Kimmie was pregnant with a third. Tarrin had been in love with Triana's daughter, Jesmind. He had healed a woman named Mist with Sorcery because an old wound had made her barren, and agreed to father a child for her because she wouldn't trust any other man in her bed. But what seemed most shocking, most difficult to believe was that Tarrin also loved Kimmie, and they were having a child together. He asked how Jesmind felt about him leaving her like that, but they told him that he never dumped Jesmind, he just picked up Kimmie. He had two girlfriends at the same time, and wasn't even married to either of them. He had two children, another on the way, and he was never married! His parents were going to have an absolute fit! He didn't believe them when they told him that his parents knew about his two children. He just couldn't even fathom that they'd agree to something like that.

  That made him feel a little uncomfortable with Kimmie. He could tell that she wanted to reach out and touch him. He could understand that she loved him, but since he lost his memory, she was really like a stranger to him. A stranger he had slept with. He was trying to be nice to her, but the way she looked at him sometimes unnerved him a little bit. She was nice, he had to admit that. Alot different from Triana. Where Triana was all strength and power and intensity, Kimmie was soft and gentle and easy going. She was a very mellow woman who smiled alot, and seemed to be quite happy with the world.

  They saw that pale-haired boy Sha'Kar with the woman Allia on a path across from them, and they both waved. He waved back. From what he'd been told, Allia was his absolute closest, best friend in the world. Every time he saw her, it tickled at the back of his mind in the most peculiar way, and that inclined him to believe them. They had tried to restore his memory with a magic spell, but it failed. But it had reawakened very vague, almost dream-like flashes of memory in him, just enough that sometimes when they said something or he saw something, it caused one of those flashes that made him believe it. He got those flashes every time he saw Allia. She was, quite simply, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life. Allia was absolute perfection, with beautiful, large blue eyes, a heart-shaped face with sculpted cheekbones and chin, and elegant white brows over those expressive eyes. She had brown skin and pointed ears, her hair was the color of polished silver, and strangest of all, only had four fingers on her hand
s. She was wearing a baggy set of clothes that were brownish-tan, the color of sand, the desert garb that Selani wore in their homeland to protect themselves from the desert's heat. There was an aura about her, a feeling of control and power, a much reduced sense of what Triana had when he was close to her. She had brands too, the same brands he did, and he'd found out that she had given them to him so they could be brother and sister. That was how close they had been. She'd come into his room and sat with him several times during his forced bedrest, and though she seemed a little hesitant at first, she had opened up to him in rather startling ways. She'd told him all about Allyn, the Sha'Kar boy on her arm, and told him how much she liked him and her plans to kidnap him and take him back to her desert home. Before he lost his memory, Allia and her were "closer than a Faerie's toes," as Triana had eloquently put it. Best of friends, sharing their secrets with one another. Allia would tell him things she wouldn't tell anyone else, even now that he was no longer the person she knew. Despite him losing his memory, she treated him no differently than she had before. Despite one rather embarassing episode where she undressed in front of him to change clothes, he felt utterly comfortable with her. She seemed quiet and reserved in company, but when they were alone, she became quite outgoing and talkative. She had a rich sense of humor and a wicked eye for unleashing it on others, and he found her to be charming, engaging, and utterly likable. He had felt a little uncomfortable with her at first, but after only four hours, she had him giggling and gossiping and carrying on. She knew him very well, even with what happened to him, so she knew just what to do to show to him just how close they had been.

  Her eyes reminded him of Kimmie's eyes. Her eyes were blue too, but they had vertically slitted pupils, like a cat, and they almost attracted his eyes right to them every time he looked at her. She was just a shade shorter than him, a tall woman actually, who was very slender, very lithe, but had very generous curves. She seemed to prefer plain dresses of brown or blue, dresses that didn't seem to clash very much with the ruddy orange tabby-cat fur that was on her arms. Her hair was dark, as dark as Dolanna's, long and very thick, but a pair of orange ears poked out from the hair in the front of her head. It creeped him a little to see that smooth skin where human ears would have been. Kimmie's ears were on top of her head, not on the sides, just behind the hairline. They weren't too large, poking just over the mass of her thick hair, but they did seem cute. And they moved alot, swivelling towards sound. She had a tail too, banded with orange and darker orange fur, like the rings on a raccoon's tail. Her tail was quite a bit longer than her leg, he had noticed, and she had to move it around alot to keep it from dragging on the ground. She was a very graceful woman, he noticed, her strange half foot, half paw feet making no sound as they padded along the white stone pathway, where his own sturdy boots--still not quite broken in--thudded into the stones loudly. The only sound she made was the swishing of her wool peasant dress, a dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on a village woman in Aldreth, the kind of sturdy, functional garment that a woman who worked alot would wear. Her dress was a peasant dress, but she did keep it clean and well maintained, and it looked good on her.

  Kimmie and Allia weren't even the beginning of the strangeness of the people he'd been travelling with. If Tarrin ever wanted to define diverse, he felt that it had been justified in the group that had sought the Firestaff. Keritanima was a Wikuni, and from what Allia told him, she was also like a sister to him. She even had the same brands he and Allia did. She was a fox Wikuni, a bipedal version of a fox, complete with the fur and the tail and the head. Her arms and legs looked human in shape but covered in fur, and her head was a fox head set on a humanoid body. But the face was humanized in a strange way, giving her a way to display complex emtion. She had a sharp, slightly boxy muzzle with white under her chin, white fur that went down her neck and disappeared under the expensive silk dresses that she wore. She had yellow eyes, a burnished amber that seemed to glow in low light, and she could somehow speak through that muzzle with its array of very fox-like teeth. She had fox ears poking up out of a mane of hair the same color as her reddish fur, complete with little black tips at the tufts. She also had a tail, just like Were-cats, bushy and furry with the red-white-black coloring at the tip that marked fox tails. Keritanima was a very animated girl, talkative and blustery. She was an honest to goodness queen, the queen of Wikuna, and she was used to people obeying her. But she was very friendly and had a wicked sense of humor that Tarrin rather liked. She was all smiles with him from the moment they met, talking up a storm and quite effectively subduing him into liking her. He could tell that she was very smart from the way she talked, and Dolanna seemed rather impressed by her sometimes.

  Wherever Keritanima--she told him to call her Kerri, he had to remember that--went, there were those frightening Vendari. If Tarrin thought that Triana was big, these two Vendari made her look like a little girl who still played with dolls. They were absolutely monstrous, twelve spans tall at least, and they were heavily corded with thick muscle. They looked like big two-legged lizards, complete with scaly green skin that had white on their chests, and they had huge, powerful, muscled tails. Very much unlike the dainty tails of the Were-cats and Keritanima. They had boxy snouts complete with wicked teeth, long, sharp claws on the ends of fingers that were nearly as thick around as his wrists, but what chilled him the most were those cold, emotionless black eyes, soulless eyes that peered down at him like he was a bug about to be squashed. They wore simple kilts of undyed wool and leather harnesses of some kind that attached to wide belts. One of them carried the biggest hammer he'd ever seen in his life, and the other carried an axe he doubted he could even pick up. Tarrin had heard tales of the Vendari, and after meeting them, he found out that they were true. They were an unemotional race who prized honor above absolutely anything else. They were a race of warriors, and they spoke to him in a very polite, dignified manner. They seemed to have respected him before he got changed, and that respect had not diminished now that he wasn't what he was before.

  The last of Keritanima's little private clique was Miranda. She was a mink Wikuni, and she had to be the cutest thing he'd ever seen in his life. She was cheeky, with big eyes and a short, soft, slightly narrow muzzle complete with a black button nose, and her narrow little snout seemed capable of such cute smiles that he couldn't help but like her. She had silky white fur all over her and a head of very thick blond hair, through which two circular little ears popped free. She had a tail too, an almost luxuriously thick, bushy blond tail--very unusual for Wikuni, he'd been told, having a tail the same color as one's hair--whose fur was so incredibly soft if felt like whispers over the skin. She had playfully wrapped that tail around him yesterday, teasing him with that cheeky grin. She seemed a very outgoing woman, friendly and chatty, but he could see a calculating nature behind those luminous green eyes of hers. She was alot smarter than she let people think she was. Miranda was sometimes Keritanima's maid, sometimes her advisor, and sometimes, she admitted freely, Keritanima's spy. The political world of Wikuna was very murky and very dangerous, full of intrigue and deception, and Miranda had served Keritanima ever since they were both little girls in whatever capacity was needed of her. He could tell that Miranda loved Keritanima very much, was probably her best friend, and that only seemed proper.

  Dolanna's new Knight--or so he was told--was himself rather remarkable. His name was Azakar, and he had to be, beyond any doubt, the largest human being on the face of the planet. He was even taller than Triana, if only just, and was as wide and powerfully built as a bear. He was a Mahuut, a race of dark-skinned humans from the distant southern continent of Valkar, with broad features, thick lips, and a mane of tightly cropped curly black hair in the front that had grown down in wavy bundles over the back of his neck. Azakar seemed very quiet and guarded, and though he was nice to him, Tarrin felt that there had been some kind of bad blood between him and this big Knight in the past. He seemed rather contrite and not willing to
talk to him. Tarrin hadn't had much time to talk to him much to see what it was, but they had time.

  Azakar's friend and Dolanna's pupil was a young man of medium height named Dar. He was Arkisian, from the kingdom across the Frontier from Sulasia, and Tarrin knew the Arakite language, which was what they spoke in Arkis. Karn Rocksplitter had taught him Arakite when he filled in for his apprentice one summer, working the forge while his regular apprentice recovered from a broken arm. Dar was only a year younger than him, and had a roguishly handsome face. His skin was swarthy, not as dark as Azakar's, but he had a very slender build and soft, sensitive hands. His hair was black too, but it wasn't curly, and he wore it combed straight back away from his face. He had hazel eyes that were very expressive, and looking at him, Tarrin could understand why all the human servants--and even some of the Sha'Kar girls--turned their heads to look at him as he went past. He was a rather handsome fellow. He had a quiet nature about him, but it didn't seem to suit him. Almost as if he felt overwhelmed by those around him. He seemed rather smart, but Tarrin hadn't talked with him long enough to get a good feel for him.

  By far the two strangest members of the group were the other two humans. One of them was an Amazon woman--a real live Amazon!--by the name of Camara Tal. She was very exotic in appearance, with coppery skin and very long black hair that was perfectly straight. She kept it tied in a tail behind her head. She was an exceedingly handsome woman with exotic features to match her exotic skin, but she had a noticable scar along the left side of her face. She had a very narrow nose, pouting, full lips, and large brown eyes under thin, delicate black brows that were both inviting and intimidating at the same time. She was the most voluptuous woman he'd ever seen, and much to his shock, she was not afraid to show it off. She wore this kind of vest-like garment that went across her very generous breasts and tied in the front, absolutely straining to contain her formidable feminine amplitude, leaving the inside slopes of her breasts bare. She wore a battered swordbelt and a sword that hung there like it was part of her, and also wore a kind of red cloth skirt that Kimmie told him was called a tripa, barely managing to come down over her mid-thigh, and to his horror he had found out the wrong way that she didn't wear anything underneath it. That had nearly given him a heart attack. There was an intense sensuality about the woman that seemed to enslave his eyes, and whenever she was near, he could not help but look at her. She was like the forbidden fruit, seeming to have absolutely no modesty at all, but daring a man to look where he really wanted to look. Everything about her radiated that unusual strength. This was a woman so comfortable with herself that she would wear a garment that revealed her most intimate charms with the slightest breeze, and it did not bother her in the slightest. Kimmie and Keritanima explained to him that the Amazon culture was radically different from the culture of the West, and her dress and behavior was a reflection of that. Nudity was not nudity in Amazar. Or, that was, it didn't have the same impact it did in the West. The Amazon was blunt, gruff, almost rude, and was very dominating. She also had something of a volatile temper as well, but he was used to that from his own mother. In many ways, she reminded him of Elke Kael, his mother, for she had many of the same qualities. Of course, his mother wouldn't be caught dead wearing what she was wearing, but many of their other idiosyncracies were similiar.