"I was just kidding, Var," Morin said seriously. "I know you'd never do such a thing. You are an honorable man."
"Then there is nothing for me to challenge in your words," Var grinned at Morin.
Woah. Var had just told Morin that he just avoided a fight to the death with Var. Honor was a very serious matter among the Selani.
Done rolling up his sleeves, leaving everything bare to the elbows, Tarrin widened his feet and settled into his slouching stance, then laid his ears back and fixed Var with an unholy stare.
"He's serious all right!" Morin laughed loudly.
It was the same, yet it was different. Var came after him again with that same fast fury, moving with a swiftness that was impossible for a human, and Tarrin could pause long enough to appreciate his ability. Var was an outstanding pupil of the Dance. His forms were flawless, perfect, and he had the strength and dexterity to make them look like pure art. Var was a poet of motion, a whirlwind of steely death that held a terrible beauty. Tarrin ignored several opportunities to take Var down to test him, push him, to see how skilled he really was. He was impressed by the Selani, very impressed, though the Selani's expression was one of intense concentration. Seconds dragged into moments as the chiming ring of manacle and sword filled the air, as Tarrin allowed Var to dance and weave and flow before him and play out his full knowledge of the Dance. Var's sword didn't so much as get inside his manacles again, despite several very clever tricks and feints to lure Tarrin out of position. Now that he knew Var was a trickster, he was giving the fight all of his attention, and Tarrin was much better trained than Var. Var seemed to sense that Tarrin was holding back, wasn't fighting with the same intensity, and it worried him. He was trying to take Tarrin down quickly, before he did start fighting back. Tarrin could feel it in the blows against his bracers, could see it in the narrow-footed stances Var used when moving through his forms.
He wouldn't disappoint.
In a heartbeat, things changed completely. Tarrin stopped parrying, stopped evading, and was all over the smaller Selani. The wicked sword was deflected by his manacles or simply slapped aside contemptuously by an open paw as Tarrin turned on Var, claws slashing the air as he sought to strip the Selani bare. The Selani retreated furiously to avoid those flashing claws, claws that shredded plant-fiber clothing with every swipe, drew blood without doing true harm. The more he tried to stop those claws, the more they found him, slapping the sword away, slicing cloth and skin with every stroke, coming at him from every direction in rapid succession in a flurry that confused the smaller Selani. Trying to slash the arms holding those clawed paws seemed to elude the Selani as he simply tried to get away from him. Hooded head covering flying to the side, Var dove away from the Were-cat when an overhanded swipe threatened, to the Selani at least, to rip out his ribs. He managed to get away, but not before losing his shirt to Tarrin's snagging claws.
When he stood up, he was a sight. Brown skin striped here and there by Tarrin's claws, some of them bleeding enough for it to ooze down his chest and back slowly. He still had his sword, but a disbelieving look was stamped onto his face.
"Ande no adu bai," Tarrin said in perfect mimicry of Var's own voice, then he crooked a clawed finger at him. "Now, little man, let's dance," he said in Arakite. He bent down more, spreading his stance and then drew his great sword in a slow, deliberate motion. The sound of steel sliding over leather and iron was a grating, rasping sound, and he could see from there that it made the hair on Var's arms stand up.
"He's playing with you, Var!" Morin called urgently. "Be careful! I don't want to tell Suji you lost a challenge of honor!"
In seconds, it was all over. The Selani came in bravely, refusing to back down, and that was his biggest mistake. The first stroke of his sword sheared the majority of the Selani's blade off, blasting his arm to the side and knocking him out of position. The second stroke, with the flat, caught the Selani just under the sword arm, hitting chest, and sent him flying to the side. The Selani soared through the air and landed in a heap about ten spans from where he started, right in the mud, wheezing for breath and trying to rise up onto his hands and knees.
"Mother's blood!" Morin called in shock.
Rising up, Tarrin sheathed his sword with a practiced familiarity that made it look natural. He crossed his arms patiently, tail slashing side to side as the Selani Var tried to find his breath. Morin gawked at him for a moment, then rushed over to Var and knelt beside him. "Var! Are you injured?"
"N-No," he wheezed. "The man-cat was counting coup! I think if he wished me dead, I would be dead!"
"Truly, there is no dishonor in losing to such a warrior," Morin consoled him. "You fought well."
Snorting, Tarrin turned and started walking away from the pair. He'd sampled a taste of what he could expect from the Selani. Var had been a very worthy foe, but his unfamiliarity with Tarrin's nature had been his downfall. He had lost himself when Tarrin turned on him with his claws, when he could have used his sword to make the Were-cat back off. He had forgotten Tarrin's strength, and when he came at him, Tarrin used it against him.
Even a Selani could be intimidated.
"Hold, stranger!" the one Morin called in Arakite. "To venture into our lands is death! Your victory has earned you a day of protection, but no more! I say to you now, as a warrior of honor, return to Saranam! It would be a great loss to have to kill you!"
Tarrin stopped, turning just enough to look back over his shoulder at the two of them. "I spared him out of respect for the Selani," he bluffed. "I won't be so gentle next time. Remember that before you decide to chase me down."
He looked down, and saw the Selani's spear laying by his foot. Impulsively, he snaked his tail around the shaft, and pulled it up into his paw. He hefted it once, then turned enough to lob it harmlessly in their direction. Both of them stared at it for a long moment, then looked to him again.
"Answer me one thing, stranger," Morin called. "Where did you learn the Dance? I saw its roots in your movements."
"From the best," he answered honestly. He wouldn't dishonor Allia, no matter what. He looked right into their eyes. "From the best."
Tarrin turned and started walking away, but Morin called again. "Show me the brands!"
That stopped him in his tracks. He turned and regarded Morin and Var calmly. "What makes you think I have brands?"
"You know the Dance. No Selani would teach you the Dance unless you were deshida. Which clan calls you brother?"
"No clan," he replied bluntly. He wouldn't dishonor Allia, but he wasn't about to get her in trouble either. Allia's clan didn't know about Tarrin. "My brands were for the sake of one, not for the sake of a clan. Hers is the only honor I carry. As far as you or any other Selani are concerned, I am kaiji, an invader."
That seemed to intrigue both of them, wildly, but they said no more. He left them where they were, moving off towards the west, muddy and a little bloody and a bit tired. He had dealt with a kajat and he had made his first contact with the Selani, a meeting that had turned out more or less as he expected.
But at least he wasn't thirsty anymore.
The face wouldn't go away.
He stood on one of the rock spires that dotted the desert that sunset, climbing up to look at the beautiful spectacle from a higher vantage point. He had run the rest of the day, without water, to distance himself from the Selani behind him. He was thirsty, very thirsty, but there would be time enough to drink later on.
The day had been eventful. He had seen a desert reptile up close, and had his first meeting with the Selani. Both had bolstered him a bit. Both had been exhilerating encounters, but had proved to be not too dangerous. With some luck and patience, he had a good feeling that he'd get across the desert in one piece.
At least physically. The face of the girl was still there, behind his eyes, and he was tired. He would have to sleep soon, and he was certain that she would be in his dreams, waiting for him. That terrified him more than any kajat or Selani horde ever
could. From the girl with no eyes, there could be no escape, no quarter, no mercy. The dead had no compassion.
Sleep was something he did not want to face, but he had to sleep. The desert really took it out of him, and he had to rest, to do more than just sit. He had to sleep. And he knew that she was going to be there. The very thought of facing the dream again was almost enough to send him flying into a panic, but that wouldn't do him any good. He would take the time before having to sleep and try not to think about it, enjoy his calm before the storm to come. When it was time to sleep, then he would face the dream, face his punishment for his evil, stand before their accusing gazes and know that he had become what he had always feared. It was unavoidable, inescapable, and the only solace in it was that he would eventually wake up, and it would be over.
Again, it seemed that he had little choice in things. But then again, the choice that would have avoided it had been made long ago. And he had made the wrong choice. Now it was time to pay for that mistake.
The flutter of wings heralded the return of Sarraya. He couldn't see her, but he could smell her as the wind picked up. She was coming up from behind. He heard her wings right beside him, and then a blur in the corner of his eye told him that she was visible again.
"You're a mess," she said conversationally. "What happened to you?"
"I was dancing," he told her quietly, staring at the lovely sunset. The sun was almost all the way down, and it painted the sky with breathtaking reds, yellows, and even some oranges and greens. The Skybands were just beginning to flare into their colored brilliance, bisecting the sunset in a most breathtaking manner. The desert was a land of extremes, both extreme dangers and extreme beauty.
It was a land that mirrored his own soul. A barren landscape of desolation, but with certain beauty, if one cared to take the time to look for it.
"I'd hate to see your partner," Sarraya chuckled. "I'm, I'm sorry I left you alone all day, but you made me really mad. I left you out here all alone, with just one waterskin. You must be parched."
"I've had enough water today to last me a month, Sarraya," Tarrin said quietly, somberly. "I'll tell you about it over dinner. Come on, I found a nice little cave where we can spend the night."
Tarrin began climbing down the rock spire, the stark beauty of the desert sunset forgotten in the moment. But it was still there, waiting for someone to look up and take it in, to look beyond the harshness immediately before them and appreciate the beauty in the distance ahead.
Chapter 7
Gasping, sitting bolt upright, Tarrin recoiled from the dream in the cold night air, feeling the cold air all but freezing the sweat slicking his body. His heart was racing, and that nameless terror had again swept over him. He panted like he'd ran fifty longspans, his heart pounding in his chest and his paws trembling visibly.
No rest. For ten straight nights the dreams had haunted him, and he'd managed to get very little sleep. Not even shapeshifting into cat form helped, which usually did when it came to dreams. The lack of sleep had been getting to him, but not nearly as much as the dreams themselves.
Ten days. It seemed like an eternity of torture. Ten days since he'd skirmished with the Selani, ten days since fighting with the kajat. Since then, he'd only seen a few small desert dogs and a few oversized lizards, what Allia called umuni. He knew to stay away from those, for they had the most potent poison in the world. Umuni literally meant "killing lizard." The lack of sleep and that eyeless face dogged him now, made him short-tempered--even for him--but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. The only thing he could do was wait for the dreams to fade, or make them stop somehow. Ten days had not tempered the abject terror they spawned in him, a nameless dread that couldn't be denied. This dream seemed just as frightening as the first, and it was the same dream, over and over and over again.
He was sleeping in a boulder field, in a tent Sarraya had conjured which was attached to the flat side of one large boulder and staked to the ground everywhere else. The sand between the great rocks was soft and strangely warm, even now, as if there were hot springs beneath the sand to keep the sand comfortable. The irregular outline of the boulders would hide him from the Selani, he knew, and keep the larger reptillian predators from reaching him without giving him enough warning that they were on his scent. It had been ten days since seeing anything large enough to threaten him, but that didn't meant that they weren't out there. If something that weighed more than a riverboat could sneak up on him, he wouldn't assume much of anything about anything.
Laying back down in the warm sand, he put a paw over his face and tried to recover his breath, slow his heart. Why? Why the same dream over and over and over? It just didn't make any sense! And why was he still afraid of it? When it began, he knew absolutely everything that was going to happen next. Why should it still frighten him? And yet it did. Just as strongly now as it had the very first time.
It just didn't make any sense.
Closing his eyes, he tried to think of something else. He remembered Sarraya's lessons from the night before, lessons on how to conjure large things, how to conjure many of one thing. Ten days of lessons also occupied his mind, and they all centered around conjuring. It seemed to be the beginning for Druids, but then again, Sarraya said that she didn't intend to teach him anything else. It certainly seemed to be useful. And it was easy. Like she said, maybe it was too easy. His biggest problem was focusing through the ever-present face, the hauntingly beautiful young girl who had no eyes, whose empty gaze burned him with the searing purity of its accusation. When he could push that memory out of his mind long enough, he could conjure.
It was useless. He was up now, and there would be no going back to sleep. There never was, after the dream. He sat up and sighed, looking over to Sarraya, who slept on a conjured cloth laying on the sand in the corner of the tent. She would be alright for a while. He crawled out of the tent and climbed up onto one of the boulders, looking up into the sky soberly, at the bright stars, the Skybands, at Duva and Kava as they began to set, and Vala as it began to rise. Dommammon had risen before sunset and set about midnight, and by the look of the night sky, it was a few hours until dawn. The gentle wind, carrying its icy bite, was almost devoid of any smell but sand and rock, but there was a hint of salt in the smells reaching him. This wasn't a very populated area. Probably because of a lack of water. The Weave in this region was a bit thicker than it had been in the border of the desert. The strands were larger, more charged, and a minor Conduit existed not far from where he was.
His sense of the Weave had only increased in the ten days since meeting the Selani. Now he could sense it all the time, as if here touching the Weave all the time, sense the strands, sense their power and size, sense their arrangement even beyond his sight. It was an expansion of his former ability, and he had already become accustomed to it. He could literally see the strands now, see them as if they were just beyond his sight yet were not, but he more or less ignored them. They had become part of the background now, just like how he looked over the boulder field and saw rocks, but no specific rock caught his eye. The Weave was there, but there was nothing to make him pay attention to it.
Maybe now was the time. He'd been in the desert for fifteen days now, and he'd yet to try to make contact with the Selani goddess. A part of him was afraid to do it. A part of him didn't want to do it while the dreams haunted him. Another part of him shuddered at the idea of begging aid from a god other than his own. That smacked of heresy to him. The Goddess hadn't said if she would mind if he did that, but he didn't really want to take that step into blasphemy just yet. He was hoping that Fara'Nae, the Holy Mother, would be the one to initiate contact with him. He had hoped that the Goddess had spoken to her, asked her to teach him about ancient magic, but that hadn't happened. None of it had happened. He had come into the desert hoping to be taught old secrets, but the only thing that had really happened was the resurrection of old demons inside him, demons he thought he'd conquered long ago.
&
nbsp; He didn't know what to do. He wanted to try to contact Fara'Nae, but a part of him rejected that idea. He wanted to learn about the ancient magic, but he was afraid to take the first step. In his mental condition, maybe trying to learn new magic wasn't a good idea. The Druidic lessons had showed him that. He had enough trouble concentrating as it was.
In any event, the primary mission had not changed. To get the book to Suld. Everything else that happened would have to fit around that mission. If it happened, it happened. If it didn't, it didn't.
Sometimes it felt so silly. Here he was, Tarrin Kael. The Tarrin Kael, the Were-cat who had stories, rumors, and now even legends being made about him out in the rest of the world. The most notorious man alive, probably the most feared, and he was afraid. Afraid of himself, afraid of the future, afraid of something as simple as trying to make contact with a Goddess when he spoke to a different one all the time.
He just didn't feel quite as towering as others probably made him out to be. Those were stories. This was his reality. And in reality, despite his size, despite his appearance, despite his history, he was still that innocent, slightly naive farmboy that had left Aldreth so long ago. His outlook and personality may have changed, but it still rested deep inside him. He could deny it, even to himself, but part of him knew that it was true.
Tarrin Kael. He forgot all about Tarrin Kael. A tall, strapping young man who had dreams of being a Knight, of travelling the world and seeing exciting things. A young man with an overprotective mother and a father so mellow that a rampaging Troll really couldn't put him out of sorts. A young man with a cute little sister.
Now he was just Tarrin, son of Triana. Were-cat, Sorcerer, Druid, scourge, murderer, and all-around ruthless monster. He was a Were-cat with a mission, and the Gods help anyone who got in his way. Life had lost its luster, its shine for that Tarrin. Everything was a chore, everything led to nothing but more bleakness. There was no light in that person's life anymore, where Tarrin Kael always found the light in anything.
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