Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  It was so much different than humans. A human sitting at a stranger's fire would be treated with hostility at best, outright violence at worst. But these Selani were kind, something he wasn't used to seeing out of strangers. It explained a little Var's strange need to travel with them...he felt it only right and proper to help Tarrin. Not because he got something out of it, but because it was the right thing to do. It relieved him that he finally understood that, since Var's insistence of travelling with him had confused and annoyed him more than a little bit.

  He saw a fundamental truth. Out in this barren wasteland, the Selani only had each other, so they made the absolute best of it. It explained their hostility to outsiders, whom they saw as interlopers, threatening the peace and security of their lands. The Selani had made the correct assumption of the dark nature of the human being, and treated them like the natural enemies that they surely were. Most humans saw Selani as savage barbarians, because of their habit of killing all members of any invasion into their lands. If they only knew how terribly wrong that conclusion was.

  His view of the Selani changed significantly in that walk through Gathering, but it did little to calm his irrational fear of them. No matter how impressed he was with them, no matter how kindly he looked upon them, he still could not see them as anything other than strangers. That disappointed him, it made the eyeless face lurking within him to stir and threaten his peace, but he just couldn't get away from it. Though the Selani would accept him without reservation, he simply could not accept them.

  Var veered away from the Cloud Spire, and that immediately did not sit well with Tarrin. The spire was his destination, and he wasn't about to delay by letting Denai carry him all over the Gathering. He was well inside the Selani now, and he doubted that any of them knew his true nature. His cat form hid his true nature from them, and he doubted he'd have much trouble navigating his way to the spire on his own. They didn't own domesticated dogs, so there were no threats of animals threatening him; all the herd animals were being kept in a huge ring around the Selani gathered around the spire, protected from predators by Scouts and guards.

  He didn't intend to take them from the Gathering anyway. He decided that it was best to just leave them here and now.

  He was surprised at how that made him feel. He felt unwilling to do it. Because he liked Denai, he felt he was starting to understand Var. Why would he feel that way? After all, no matter how much he got to know them, they were still strangers in his mind. They weren't his friends...and yet....

  They were.

  Not as good a friend as Sarraya or Dar, but he had to admit to himself that he liked Denai, that he understood Var. He had enjoyed their company, at least after he'd built up a tolerance to them. Looking within himself, he realized that he had been protecting them, and it was because he favored them. Just as he watched over and protected his sisters, his family, his friends, just as he absolutely would not allow them to be harmed, he had started treating the two Selani the exact same way. Without ever realizing it. He acted hard towards them, but it was because he would not admit to himself what he was feeling. And despite his harsh treatment, they remained with him. Because they saw in him someone that needed their help, and their Selani nature would not allow them to turn their backs on him. Without even realizing what they were doing.

  The idea of leaving them didn't sit very well with him now, but he still had little choice. He couldn't take them away from their tribes, from their lives, to traipse across the desert and be open to whatever danger came looking for him. They couldn't be there when Jegojah arrived. The Doomwalker would try to use them to get to him, he was sure of it. For their own safety and his own, he had to leave them behind.

  Tarrin suddenly began to writhe, and it surprised Denai enough to make her loosen her grip on him. He wriggled out of her grip and dropped to the ground, then bounded a few jumps away from them and stopped. He turned around to face them, see that they had stopped where they were, both of them a bit wary of approaching him. They both knew that he was unpredictable, and were afraid of him. That stung a little bit, but it was nothing more than what he had instilled in them to begin with. "Tarrin?" Denai called hesitantly.

  "Sarraya, tell them, thank you for what they've done. Tell them that I appreciated it, and I, enjoyed our time together. Tell them that I'm grateful to have met them, but now I have my path to follow." He looked away from them. "Tell them it's a path that they can't follow, and no matter how much I may like them, if they follow me, I'll kill them."

  He didn't want to say that, but he knew those two. They'd be tracking him ten seconds after he left their sight. "Tell them to be well."

  And then he bounded off into the darkness, quickly lost behind a throng of Selani legs and feet as he scampered into the milling crowd.

  Sarraya dutifully repeated his words to the startled pair, even going so far as to become visible again to address them. The surprise on their faces was considerable, but it was more because of the hidden feelings Tarrin carried for them rather than his threat to kill them if they would follow.

  "I never knew," Denai said in wonder. "I never knew he liked me that much."

  "Where Tarrin is concerned, if you're still alive, he likes you," Sarraya said in an offhanded manner, but she was deadly serious. "But I'm warning both of you now to take his threat seriously. He doesn't want you following him, because he's worried you'll get killed."

  "Nothing in the desert can threaten us, Sarraya," Var said calmly.

  "True, but what's coming is not of this desert," Sarraya said grimly. "It's something that's been dogging Tarrin's trail for a long time, and it's every bit as dangerous and deadly as he is. He has to face it again, and he can't do that with any distractions. And you two would definitely be a distraction. Jegojah has used his friends and family to try to get to him before, and there's little doubt that it'll do it again. So, for everyone's sake, please don't follow us."

  "Alright, I promise that we won't follow," Denai said after a moment, but the Faerie knew insincerity when she heard it. It came out of her own mouth too much for her to miss it coming from another.

  "Var," Sarraya said archly.

  "I'll make sure she won't follow him," he promised.

  "Good enough. Be well, you two. I hope we meet again."

  "The Holy Mother works in strange ways, Sarraya. I feel that we will indeed meet again," Var told her piously.

  Sarraya gave him a strange look, then turned and flitted away, even as her form dissolved from sight.

  "Are we going to do that?" Denai asked after the Faerie was gone.

  "I promised that I wouldn't let you follow him. So you can follow me instead," he said casually.

  Denai looked at him.

  "I never promised that I wouldn't follow, did I?" he asked with an innocent look.

  Denai looked wildly at him for a moment, then she laughed. "We'll get in trouble."

  "My honor won't allow me to let them go off into danger alone," he said bluntly. "We are Selani. His brands makes him one of us, and I won't abandon him."

  "Mine either," she agreed. "And if this thing is that dangerous, maybe we should go talk to the chiefs of our tribes, or the priests of the Holy Mother. They may have something to say about this invader to our lands."

  "Now I know why I was so taken with you, Var," Denai said with a winsome smile. "You're so clever."

  Navigating the Gathering had become harder than he first thought.

  It wasn't that he was harassed or attacked by children or animals. That was no problem. It wasn't that he couldn't see where he was going. The Cloud Spire was easy to see, at least for Sarraya, who was guiding him in the right direction.

  The problem was the Selani.

  Every time he passed a campfire, he was invariably picked up by some Selani stranger and carted off to the fire. He had miscalculated when he thought that he could slip through them unnoticed, because it seemed that cats like him were unknown in the desert. Because he was unique, it made
the Selani stop what they were doing and pick him up, then take a good look at him. They actually tried to spoil him, offering him cuts of roasted meat at every fire and petting him at almost all times. They were trying to lure him into staying at their fire, he realized after about the fifth time, luring him with offers of food and attention. That caught him off guard, and what was worse, it slowed him down significantly on his journey towards the spire. But he couldn't bring himself to be nasty to the Selani, who, after all, were only trying to be nice. The Cat in him liked the attention, and it very much liked the food. It wasn't above a bit of mewling to get what it wanted. It began to get distracted from the mission, and the human in him had to remind it that they were on a schedule.

  It was a simple schedule. He had to climb the spire, but he had no idea how high it was. So it was best in his eyes to start in the darkness before sunrise and be a good distance up before the light of day gave him away to the Selani. He also didn't want to be caught on the spire after dark once he got up into the cloud, because the cloud would make it dark enough for even his eyes to struggle to see. He had no idea how long it would take to get through the cloud, so he could take no chances.

  The problem was convincing the Selani to leave him alone.

  "This is starting to get annoying," Tarrin fumed to Sarraya as he was rather firmly held on an adolescent girl's lap, held down gently and petted while a child tried to feed him what was roasting over their fire. "Why all this interest?"

  "I think they've never seen anything like you before," Sarraya told him, but he already knew that. She didn't realize that he was asking a rhetorical question. "I've seen some pretty big cats out in the desert, but nothing as small and cute-looking as you."

  "Well, I'm getting tired of it," he grunted. "I mean, all the attention is a bit flattering, but this is too much of a good thing. And if I eat one more bite, I'm going to explode."

  "They don't realize you came from another fire," Sarraya said in reply, stifling making any audible noise.

  Tarrin was about to reply, but the Selani girl managed to find his submission spot, scratching him just behind the ears. That was his favorite place to be scratched, and he became very compliant very quickly, closing his eyes and pushing his head up against her fingers.

  "Looks like she has your number," Sarraya teased.

  "Shut up."

  He lingered there a little longer than he should have, but eventually managed to get free of the girl with the pleasing fingers and get back on the path.

  After that, he was much more careful. Sarraya led him around the fringes of each Selani fire where they had staked their tents, letting him move at a zigzagging route that kept him outside the grasp of most of the Selani. Many tried to pick him up, but in the generally unpopulated areas between the fires, he had too much room to maneuver, too many tents to hide behind, and he could see them coming. But fortunately for him, the night was moving on, and more and more of the Selani were taking to their tents. With fewer Selani to avoid, he was able to move more and more straightly.

  The Cloud Spire had seemed rather close when he had first seen it from the ridge, but that was scaled to his humanoid form. For his cat form, it was like trying to travel twenty longspans. More than within his ability, but a distance that would take time to traverse. He moved on through the night with the sounds of the hauntingly beautiful Selani singing and the crackling of fires to keep him company as he made his way to his objective.

  He stopped to rest near a rather large tent, made of a curious material that smelled like plants, laying down on his belly by the edge of it and keeping his senses open as he took a break.

  "What troubles you, my heart?" a voice from inside the tent asked. A male voice.

  "He is close," a female voice replied. "I can sense it."

  "That dream again?"

  "It hasn't gone away, my husband. The Holy Mother sings to me in my dreams. Have you told our people to show him kindness?"

  "Of course I have, my heart," he replied. "If he appears, he will be shown kindness." There was a pause. "Before we took to our tent, a runner from another clan told me that a tailed stranger was seen south of Gathering at sunset. Could he be related to him?"

  "Has anyone else seen this stranger?"

  "Not that I was told."

  Tarrin was a bit startled. Were they talking about him? How did they know about him?

  The Holy Mother. Of course. She knew he was in the desert. It seemed that she was taking steps on his behalf. From the sound of it, the woman was shaman, one of Fara'Nae's priests. It seemed a bit weird that she would be telling her children to be nice to him, but it made sense. She probably didn't want any friction between him and them. The best way to go about that was to make themselves as inoffensive as possible.

  Tarrin moved on before anything else came to light. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more.

  It took him half the night to reach the Cloud Spire. He found that the area immediately around it was devoid of Selani occupation, almost as if they were giving the rock pinnacle a wide berth. But this close to it, it seemed less a rock spire and more a solid wall that stretched into the heavens. It was rough-hewn by the wind, with many ridges and irregularities, but unlike the rock of the desert, this rock was black, like obsidian. He shifted into his humanoid form and sniffed at the rock, and he realized that it was basalt, where most of the desert was soft sandstone. This was volcanic rock, a rarity out here in the desert.

  That meant that the climb wasn't going to be easy. His claws could dig into sandstone. Basalt would only grind them down.

  "Oh well," he grunted. He shifted back into cat form and skulked around the base, until he found a large rock pushed up against the pillar, forming a small hollow. He entered it and killed the rock snake that had been taking up residence, which was sleeping through the cold night, then settled down for a little nap. It was too early yet to try the climb, and he wanted to be fully rested before making the attempt.

  Fueled by a breakfast of rock snake, Tarrin was on his way.

  The idea of what he was doing still seemed just a little bit insane, but he couldn't see any other way to go about it. He absolutely had to find that object, to identify it as either the Firestaff or not, and since it was very high above him, he had to climb. He wasn't afraid of heights, and he was confident in his abilities as a climber. Cats were natural climbers, and those instincts would serve him well as he scaled the dizzying expanse of the rock spire, trying to get to the top before the next sunset.

  Tarrin saw the sunrise well before the Selani, because he was at least half a longspan up the rock face by the time the sun reached him. He had started about three hours before dawn, and the going had been relatively easy. He had begun his ascent on the east face of the spire, so the sun would shine on his back and never have the chance to get in his eyes until after it ascended past the cloud. The rock was riddled with creases, holes, pits, lines, and vertical gulleys, and that gave him an abundance of handholds. That meant that he moved very quickly up the rock face, nearly as fast as a human could walk on flat ground, but his progress was slowed significantly because he stopped every so often to check his claws for damage, survey the rock above, and look down to gauge his progress to that point. He spent as much time moving laterally as he did verically, lining himself up to take advantage of features in the rock that would make his ascent easier. Speed wasn't his concern, his main concern was making this as easy as possible. He had no fear of heights, but he fully understood that he was so high up that a mistake could kill him. So he made very sure that his planned path was generally seeded with suitable paw and footholds. Fortunately, he realized, the spire was made of basalt, for soft sandstone had a frightening tendancy to break off when too much weight was placed on a spur or hold. The rugged basalt was much stronger, and a tiny spur of rock could support his entire weight if necessary. Sarraya rode on his head, burrowed into his hair so his moving head didn't dislodge her, and she remained quiet while he climbed. She di
dn't want to distract him in any way, because of the great danger in which they were now placed.

  Tarrin stopped for a moment to rest inside one of those vertical gullies, so wide that he was climbing up the inside of it. It opened and shallowed about a hundred spans above him, and from there he would decide which path to take after he could get a good look at the rock. He turned and looked at the sunrise absently, and felt the sudden warmth of it against his back. "I wonder if the Selani have noticed by now," Tarrin mused as he looked down. The ground wasn't nearly so far away as it had been when he looked down into the Great Canyon, but it was still such a formidable height that it gave even him just a bit of pause.

  "Maybe. Want me to scout up ahead and see if there's an easy way up?" Sarraya offered.

  Tarrin pulled his waterskin from the cord tied around his waist, then took a deep drink. "I'll settle for you refilling this," he told her.

  "No problem. How are your claws holding up?"

  "So far, so good," he replied. "My pads are starting to wear down a little, though. It's a good thing I regenerate, or my paws would be a bloody mess about now. This stone is coarse, and some of its edges are like knife blades."

  "At least it gives traction," Sarraya said.

  Tarrin held out the skin, and Sarraya filled it with water using her Druidic magic. He stoppered it and lowered it, then let it go so it could hang from his waist. "Thank the Goddess for that," Tarrin grunted. "If we can find a good ledge somewhere around here, I think we'll stop for some lunch."

  "It's a date," Sarraya chuckled, and he reached up for the next handhold.

  That ledge was an elusive prey, but he finally managed to find one about an hour before noon, well after the sun had risen above the massive cloud that hung over their heads. The heat from the sun hadn't diminished, but he had noticed a definite cooling of the air as he climbed, as if the cloud above were absorbing the heat. The rock too at first was noticably hot--black stone with that sun shining on it would doubtless be hot--but it too cooled as he climbed higher and higher, either protected by the cloud or having its heat drained off by the cooler air, one or the other. That cloud had been getting closer and closer, and when Tarrin pulled himself up onto the narrow ledge of rock, about three spans wide, he guessed that he'd reach the lower edge of it in about an hour. He looked down, and the astounding height separating him from the ground reached out and grabbed him by the throat. He was now even higher up than they'd been when they stood at the edge of the Great Canyon. The air at that altitude was cool, curiously cool, and the first damp smells of the cloud were beginning to reach his nose. That wasn't all, the air seemed...thinner. That was the only way he could describe it. It didn't have its usual sense of weight about him, and his ears had popped more than once as he climbed upwards. He found himself breathing faster than normal, even though he wasn't winded.