Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  It got a good look at him, got a sight of the rather gruesome process of regeneration when Tarrin lost a limb, as the leg literally grew out from the mangled stump bone first, fleshing out as it progressed, and then finally covering over with skin and fur grown from the stump down. Tarrin put his weight down on his new right leg, anger and fury overwhelming good sense. As the Cat always did, it sought out its most powerful, destructive option immediately, seeking to destroy the threat before it without considering the consequences of its actions.

  The power of the Weave suddenly rampaging into him, through him, seeking to burn him to ash within heartbeats, the Cat used raw fury to bring the maelstrom under some sense of control, ignoring the burning from within of so much power, a burning that was very real. The kajat recoiled slightly as the fire-like numbus of Magelight suddenly exploded from the Were-cat's body, limning him in gentle bluish light that wavered and pulsated as if being carried by some invisible wind. Weaving together a chaotic mixture of Air, Fire, Water, and Divine energies, with only token flows the other Spheres woven in to grant the weave the power of High Sorcery, the Cat used that Weave it had used so many times before, a weave of such power that nothing could withstand it. The Cat rose a single paw and presented it palm-out to the beast, then thrust it towards the monster as it released the Weave.

  An incandescent bolt of pure magical power, carrying the heat of a thousand bonfires, unleashed from Tarrin's upraised palm, ripping through the air as it travelled from Tarrin's palm to the terminus of its power in the blink of an eye. Its path carried it directly through the kajat's head, vaporizing everything it struck from just above that bloody maw to the top of its head in a perfect circle about a span across, then continuing on for nearly four longspans before the power of the weave reached its limit and dissipated. A cracking sound, something like thunder, proceeded the blast of magical fury, the sound of the air being instantly displaced and superheated by the power of the weave.

  The kajat stood numbly for a long moment, then toppled to the side, partially on a large rock. Tarrin found himself struggling against the unmitigated power of the Weave, as it almost instantly replaced all the energy he had expended creating the killing weave, feeling like a man drowning in a sea of fire. But then the power flowing into him began to slow, and he sensed Sarraya using her Druidic magic to restrict that flow, to get it to where Tarrin could resist or control what was coming into him. But she was a basket trying to hold an avalanche. He could feel her struggling with her Druidic magic with everything she had, reaching the limits of her power, and it had very little effect on his connection to the Weave.

  In that instant, as the Cat fled him, he understood the incredible danger he was in. If Sarraya could not reduce what was coming into him, he could not cut himself off without having the backlash kill him. If she couldn't, he would be burned alive from within, destroyed by the power of the Weave, he would be Consumed.

  It was just too much power. He could feel that Sarraya was at the limit of her ability, and the power did not slow down enough to allow him to cut himself off without killing himself. He threw himself into controlling that power, to push against what was coming into him, even going so far as to seeking to use the power within directly against the power outside, seeking to have them strike one another and cancel each other out, just as a misweaved spell fizzled if flows of the same Sphere touched.

  Fizzle! Of course!

  In a terror-induced moment of brilliant clarity, Tarrin recalled one of the most basic rules of Sorcery; a Sorcerer cannot weave spells on himself. An attempt to weave on one's self caused the weaving flows to contact the power within, and it made it drain back into the Weave through the flows. Every time he had touched the Weave with his power, he had been drawing in, rather than trying to drain off. If he attempted to weave on himself without High Sorcery, the flows would strike him, come into contact with the power inside, and then the power within would suddenly drain out of him. The power of the Weave always follows the path of least resistance, Dolanna had told him so long ago. It was why a Sorcerer couldn't use magic on himself.

  Reaching out, Tarrin accessed every strand near enough to him, and called all six Spheres from them. Flows of all six sphere reached out like tentacles, reached out to him, and then he pulled them inside of him, having them make contact with the power at the core of his being.

  The effect was not what he hoped. The power drawn within was that of all seven Spheres, where he was only attempting to drain off six. The power within was held in a combined state because all seven Spheres were present, the sphere of Confluence holding the other six together. He realized that when in contact with High Sorcery, trying to induce a fizzle to leech off power would not work.

  Unless...he fizzled a weave of High Sorcery.

  In the instantaneous spans of consideration, he realized that that was a paradox. High Sorcery could not fizzle, because its very nature would not permit it. A misweaved spell of High Sorcery could not fizzle, so logic dictated that it would always explode in a wildstrike if it went wrong. An attempt to fizzle the spell in the weaving also wouldn't work, because a fizzled weave wouldn't drain off the power inside. The spell would have to form and affect him, but that wouldn't do any good either.

  Or would it?

  Feeling his blood boil inside, feeling his organs expanding dangerously from the incredible heat, feeling the fur burn off his arms and legs and his skin begin to char, smelling his hair burning away, feeling internal tissues begin to sear from the power, Tarrin started again, weaving together a weave almost completely made up of Divine flows, with only token flows of the other Spheres to grant the weave the power of High Sorcery, to grant the weave the power to affect him. Even as he weaved it, he fully understood that if this did not work, he would die, suffering the untold agony of being burned alive from the inside out, to die in a funeral pyre of his own creation, to be Consumed by the very power that had saved his life so many times before. There would be no time to try something else, to try again.

  It was all or nothing. Everything that he had done, everything that he was, everything that depended on him, it all focused down into that instant in time, when Tarrin used his last desperate ploy in order to cheat death one more time, risking everything on a simple rule of High Sorcery, a rule he had never really bothered to study, never really seemed important, until that moment.

  A Sorcerer using High Sorcery could weave spells that affected himself.

  Tarrin released it, and then he felt it pierce into him, pierce the core of him where his magic was building, was burning him, threatened to destroy him. It infused into him, and then it started doing what it was intended to do, what it was woven to do.

  Drain off magical power.

  Where his attempt to fizzle failed, this did not. The power within suddenly found an outlet through which to flow, siphoned away by the power of his own weave. The sudden bottomless nature of his being seemed to strike back at the Weave, at his connection to it, making it shudder and recoil from him. His powerful connection to the Weave faltered as the totality of the power within drained out, and in that unstable instant, Sarraya struck. She attacked his connection to the Weave with every fiber of her Druidic power, and where she failed before, she succeeded now.

  Tarrin could feel his connection to the Weave break, and it did not cause a backlash. The weave he wove on himself, no longer having anything to sustain it, unravelled harmlessly.

  Tarrin collapsed onto the rock, sucking in air like a man just pulled from the sea, feeling the intense burning ache from inside like an agony, like he'd been spitted on a red-hot steel spear. Close, it was too close! The Weave had done damage to his body inside, and he'd come a mouse's tail from being Consumed. All because of a single moment of irrational anger. His body was utterly, completely drained of everything he had, and it was an effort simply to breathe.

  "Tarrin! Tarrin, are you alright?" Sarraya asked in a fearful voice, landing beside his head and putting her tiny hand on h
is forehead gently. Her touch suddenly became warm, gentle, and he could feel her using her Druidic magic on him. The burning and painful injury done to him by High Sorcery began to ease, covered over by a feeling of blissful warm softness, as she used her power to accelerate his own healing and numb the pain. "Tarrin!" she called in a frightened voice. "Answer me!"

  He was totally exhausted. It was an effort to think, to move, to form coherent will in order to speak. "Too close," he said in a weak voice. "Sarraya."

  "I'm here, I'm here," she said assuringly. "Does it still hurt?"

  "I'm tired," he said in a listless voice. "So tired."

  "Then go to sleep, Tarrin," she said in a cooing voice. "I'll be here to watch over you. I won't let anyone hurt you."

  If she said anything after that, he would never know. He almost immediately fell unconscious, a deep, dreamless sleep from which he could not be awakened.

  It was morning. Tarrin opened his eyes to find himself looking into the large reddish disc of the sun as it rose from the eastern horizon. The sun shone on him with the gentle warmth of the start of the day, warm rather than brutal, pleasant rather than oppressive. The air was still cool from the night, but something was draped over him to protect him from the biting night air. The smell of dried blood and the first stages of decaying flesh greeted him in that cool air.

  He was stiff, sore. Weak. He remembered what happened all too clearly, from the pain to the fear of it. The Cat had used Sorcery, and Sarraya had not been able to contain him. Had he not did some very fast thinking and done some creative experimentating with his power, he would be dead. He had escaped by a whisker that time.

  Pushing himself up onto his arms, feeling the rock bite into him under his hip, he looked down at himself. He was covered by a leather blanket, which had that strange uncorrupted scent to it that told him that it was conjured. His sword was laying beside him, with a broken thong and some dried blood on the scabbard. Sarraya was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean that she wasn't around somewhere. The sky above him was cloudless, which was normal, but a great many vultures circled slowly over him, probably because of the kajat, but something kept them from landing to feast.

  He shifted into a sitting position, rising up to get his tail out from under him, then rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. That was something that he never wanted to go through again. He'd overextended himself before, but never had he felt so close to death than he did that time. Always before, Sarraya or Triana or someone had intervened, had saved him, but that time he felt the stark reality that there was nobody that could protect him now. He had saved himself, literally before jumping into the abyss, with a desperate gamble that literally came down to life or death.

  Once again, he managed to cheat Death. He had the feeling that She was starting to get frustrated.

  The wind changed, and on it came the smell of Selani. Very close Selani.

  Turning his head, he found himself staring at a Selani warrior sitting on a rock not far from him, covered from head to foot in the baggy clothing which they wore, head wrapped by sand-colored cloth and with a veil covering its face. Brown eyes peered between the veil and the turban-like head covering. He simply sat there, patiently, calmly, watching Tarrin with those unblinking eyes. That he had evaded Tarrin's notice before the wind changed said something for the Selani's ability to remain still, like he was a part of the desert.

  It took him a moment to realize that the Selani had not attacked during the night, while he was unconscious. Then again, no Selani would do such a thing. Odds were, he was waiting for Tarrin to wake up, so he had the chance to defend himself. It wasn't dishonorable to attack an unsuspecting foe, but it was dishonorable to attack one that was incapable of defending himself. Ambushing Tarrin was perfectly fine, but attacking him in his sleep was not.

  "Ande no adu bai," the Selani said with amusement, pulling down his veil.

  It was Var!

  "Var!" Tarrin said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" he demanded in Selani, forgetting himself.

  "You do speak the True Tongue," he said with a smile. "I knew it!"

  "What are you doing here?" Tarrin demanded, trying to sound strong, even though he was as weak as a kitten.

  "Following you," he replied. "I would not challenge you now, so don't worry. I'll not challenge you after you're well either."

  "Isn't that against your custom?"

  "Custom is one thing, a debt repaid is another," he said calmly. "You spared my life. I have sat vigil over you so the little blue one could scout for kajat, so honor has been repaid."

  "And why are you here after ten days?"

  "I came to challenge you again, but found you like this," he replied with a calm expression. "With a dead kajat not ten paces away from you. I think I'll bow to your sword now, rather than lose to you again," he said with a light smile. "There is no honor in foolishness. I'll not challenge one capable of killing a kajat single-handedly. My mother did not raise a fool."

  "I appreciate that, I'm not really feeling up to a fight right now," he said wearily. "Believe me, the kajat gave back as good as it got."

  "The little blue one told me. Bit your leg right off, she said, but I think she was making the tale more colorful."

  "No, it bit my leg off," he affirmed. "It just grew back."

  "Truly?"

  "I'm a Lycanthrope, Var. A Were-cat. I can regrow lost limbs."

  "Ah. That answers my next question," he said. "If I may ask, why are you here? Seeking to honor the one who taught you?"

  "Actually, I'm just passing through," he replied. "I'm travelling from Saranam to Arkis, and I can't take a ship. This is the only way to go, so here I am."

  "If you seek Arkis, you're going the wrong way," he replied. "The Sandshield is impassible along its southern reaches. If you intend to cross the mountains, you must cross over in the north."

  "I didn't know that," he said honestly. "I thought there were some passes in the south."

  "There are, but they're impassible at this time of year," he replied. "The storms coming out of the southern passes would kill you. The storms you've seen here started there, and they're no less powerful for travelling so far."

  "I remember someone saying that the storms start at the Sandshield, but I guess I didn't think they'd be that bad," he fretted. "But the passes along the northern reaches are safe?"

  "As safe as any pass in the Sandshield," he answered. "If you seek Arkis, you should turn northwest. It will save you time."

  "That's true, but it's a longer journey."

  "Much shorter than travelling west, then going north until you find a pass that's safe enough to use."

  "True," he said with a rueful snort. "Guess I'm not thinking."

  "You're new to our lands, so there's no reason to feel foolish," he replied. "I'd feel just as lost in the forests of Arkis."

  "So would I," he said absently as he pulled off the blanket and struggled to his feet. His knees felt shaky, and the wind ruffled the fur on his right leg. His new right leg. The pant leg that had once covered his leg was gone, somewhere in the gullet of that dead monster, and what was left of his pants were covered in dried, hard blood. His shirt was also spattered with dried blood, and the smell of it was enough to make him want to get rid of them. He grabbed the shirt by the front and pulled it over his head, pulling his braid out with it, then cast it aside. His torso showed his normal pale skin, where his face and neck, subjected to days in the sun, were as brown as a Selani.

  "Siswani," Var noted. "I don't know that clan."

  "What?"

  "Your brands. That's the clan brand of Faedellin. We call that brand Siswani, the Brand of Clan. I know the brand, but not the clan."

  "I don't either," he grunted. "The brands were given to me by my deshaida, and she's not in the desert right now. Her clan doesn't know about me."

  "So that's why you come as an invader instead of a brother," he said calmly. "You have the mark of the Holy Mother?"

  Tarrin
turned enough for him to see the sword-brand symbol of Fara'Nae on his other shoulder, and Var nodded. "You took a good brand," he complimented. "A much better brand than I expected to see on an outlander."

  "I'm not human, Var," he said calmly. "My kind have a very high tolerance for pain."

  "A good trait."

  "That's a subjective point of view. It can cut both ways."

  Var raised an eyebrow. "Truly, you are fluent in the True Tongue. I hear words from you I don't hear from scholars among my people."

  "My sister doesn't believe in doing anything half way," he grunted, slashing his tail a few times as the motion, the activity, returned strength to him. As usual, his body was recovering very quickly, probably just finding itself after the long sleep. He clenched his paw into a fist until his knuckles cracked, then he spread out his arms and stretched to get some blood flowing into them.

  "Are all your kind as tall as you?"

  "No," he replied. "I'm tall for my kind, but almost all of my kind are taller than you."

  The buzzing of wings preceded Sarraya, who flew straight at him with a joyful cry. She clamped onto his neck, hugging him exuberantly, giggling like a girl. "I see you feel better!" she exclaimed. "How do you feel, Tarrin?"

  "I'm alright, Sarraya," he replied gently. He reached up and offered his paw to her, and she climbed into it and sat down in his palm. He held her up before him so he could see her as they spoke. "Are you alright?"

  "It never touched me," she replied. "By the time I picked myself up off the ground, it was already dead. Don't scare me like that!"