Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  The result was that the Elemental manifested in his world, but it was still the same creature it had been there. This particular one was a bird, and it had the intelligence and mentality of a bird. Tarrin's mind and thoughts helped guide it in his world, ensuring it wouldn't go out of control, and his magic sustained it in this harsh, hostile environment. He'd spent three days with his Elemental as it flew him over the mountains, over hordes of Trolls and Waern that had moved into the Sandshield and were occupying any possible pathway, road, valley, or passage through the mountains. They had watched him fly over them helplessly, and he'd even let his Elemental swoop down and attack those unlucky Goblinoids that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Tarrin happened to be close to the ground. He'd com to learn that the Elemental had a personality, albeit a basic one, for it was nothing more than a big bird. This one was rather playful, and had a bit of a wild streak in it. It was the same Elemental that he had Conjured when he fought Spyder; it had heeded his call twice, attracted by his magical power. Being destroyed wouldn't kill an Elemental, it simply sent it back to its home universe. That made Tarrin feel much better, knowing that the Elemental he'd Conjured against Spyder hadn't been destroyed because of his own inexperience. As if it could have harmed her in the first place.

  Three days of constant flying had taken a toll on his backside, not to mention his clothes. The clothing had been burned to nothing by the Elemental's fire, and he'd had to use Sorcery to protect the clothes he Conjured. But the protections only lasted as long as he could maintain them, and holding even a minor weave for a few hours got to be exhausting, so he'd been forced to ride nude for the last day and a half, sending his sword into the elsewhere to protect it after having to discard the scabbard due to the damage caused it by the Elemental. It was much easier on him than continually trying to protect or Conjure forth new clothing. Sitting down that long had also been hard on him, for he wasn't used to riding anything. He got down from the Elemental the last two days with a stiff back and an aching backside, which both were back to normal by morning.

  Then again, that was his own fault. He had started with the idea of going up and over, but he had the Elemental go lower and lower, until they had to fly between mountains and along passes and valleys. He had to admit guiltily that he got caught up in the wondrous sensation of flying, and instead of taking the shortest route, he'd more or less wandered around the mountains for the fun of it. At first, he rationalized it by telling himself that he was getting a good idea of the numbers of Trolls in the mountains, the Trolls that the Selani would be facing. But that excuse didn't hold up for long, and then he simply admitted that he was taking his time because he liked flying, and he'd have to send the Elemental back when he got over the Sandshield. So he was dragging it out a bit, despite the fact that he was in a hurry.

  Sometimes the impulsiveness of the Cat worked against him in more than one way.

  Flying was wonderful, but it didn't change the new feeling of loneliness he had. Sarraya was with Denai, or probably had left her by now and was making best speed for the Frontier. Denai was back with her people hunting down Var. Jegojah was off hunting Kravon, and Ariana was probably well on her way to Suld by now, if not already there. He'd spent just about his entire life in someone else's company. Even when he was separated from Dolanna in Sulasia, he'd only been alone a portion of that time. And he'd spent most of that time too busy running from Jesmind to think about the fact that he was alone. The Cat was an independent, solitary creature, but the Human was not. It was the Human that missed companionship, and missed it with surprising power. But he knew that this separation was temporary, and the ultimate reunion awaited him at the end of his road. His mother and father and Jenna, Allia and Keritanima, Triana, Dolanna and Dar and Miranda and Azakar, Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife and Janette, they all would be in Suld. They were all there, and they were all waiting for him to arrive so they could all be together. His entire family was there, and it made it a triply-motivating thing for him. Everyone he cared about was in Suld, and Suld was in danger. He had to get there to protect them. He had to get there to defend the Goddess, and he wanted to get there to be with his family once more. He had to go there to find the location of the Firestaff. Everything in his life was now focused on that distant city on the sea, its riot of mismatched architectures dwarfed by the immense Tower of Six Spires rising above it all. Everything that he was was there, and everything he wanted to protect was there. Suld was the dominating force in his life, and he had to reach it.

  It irked him a bit that he had to run there. He had toyed with the idea of disobeying the Goddess and flying to Suld, but that didn't last long. He was faithful and loyal to her, and she had told him to get there under his own power. That meant no cheating, and cheating meant flying. He wanted to get there now, but he wasn't allowed to do that. He had to cross Arkis and the Frontier, then cross Sulasia itself to get back, and that was still a formidable distance.

  Looking up at the sky, seeing that it was the middle of the night, Tarrin decided that it would be best to get a little rest and start out in the morning. The months in the desert had locked him into a daytime cycle of activity, and it would take him a while to revert to his semi-nocturnal patterns. Besides, after three days of riding, he was ready to sit down on something that didn't move. But first things first, he needed new clothes.

  That made him think. He wasn't in the desert anymore, and it was going to be noticably cooler in Arkis than it had been in the desert. He'd been there for so long, he'd gotten used to it. Besides, he was in hostile territory once again. Arkisians weren't very friendly inside their own borders. Arkisians were still Arakites, and those arrogant tendencies were still present in their cultural mindset. It was well known throughout the West that travellers weren't welcome beyond the coastal cities of Arkis. That meant that he needed to travel with at least a little bit of nondescript motivation, to at least not attract every eye to himself. His height and his race would make it impossible for him to hide, but at least he could try.

  So he decided that a change in clothing was in order. He Conjured forth first a pair of leather breeches--some things would never change--and a linen shirt much like the one he used to wear while travelling to Dala Yar Arak. He'd gotten so used to wearing a vest that he Conjured a new one of those too, putting it on over the shirt. He remembered the cloak that had served him well in Yar Arak and Saranam, so he Conjured a new black cloak, voluminous and hooded to hide his race from the Arkisians. Then he Conjured a new scabbard and harness for his sword, then brought it out of the elsewhere and settled it onto his back, under the cloak, with the hilt protruding through a slit in the cloak. It would not do to go around without being visibly armed. It would just be begging for someone to challenge him. His sheer size and the sight of that hilt should frighten off all but the most rabid antagonists.

  He wove together a simple spell of Fire and Air, forming a magical mirror in which he inspected himself. The cloak did what it was supposed to do, hid him from prying eyes. Pulling it closed in front of him made him look like a walking curtain, but it also caused his black fur and sun-darkened skin to become lost in the dark shadows inside the cloak. There was nothing he could do about his feet, but the black fur on them made them look something like boots to a casual glance, and that was usually enough to cause them to escape notice. He put on the sun visor he used in the desert, and nodded when he saw that it hid his eyes behind their violet coloring. With the hood pulled over his ears, he looked like nothing more than a rather striking, mysterious stranger. Not a non-human.

  It would do.

  He removed the cloak and scabbard, setting the scabbard on the ground and rolling up the cloak to serve as a pillow, then he laid down in the small meadow in which he had landed and stared up into the sky. He had passed through the desert. He was surprised that he managed to get so far, and do it so quickly. Laying there, counting back the months, he realized that they'd left Suld over a year ago, nearly
a year and a half. They'd left in the early winter, arrived in Dala Yar Arak before the misdummer festival, then he'd spent the summer and early fall crossing into the desert. He'd spent the remainder of fall and the winter there, and it was now early spring in the West again. Early spring. It had been nearly a year and a half. It had almost been two years since leaving Aldreth. So much had happened in those two years.

  Two years. He was nineteen now, though he felt like he was more like ten thousand. His life was so drastically altered from what he'd thought it would be when he left Aldreth. He wouldn't have even been able to imagine things turning out the way they had. Tarrin Kael, a simple villager with dreams of being a Knight, carrying the most second most sought-after artifact in the world. Tarrin Kael, the rather naive young man determined to chase a dream, turning out to be a Were-cat, a Sorcerer, a Knight, and so many other things. He'd live an entire lifetime in those two years, and if he died right there on that very hillside, in that small meadow, he could go to the Realms Beyond knowing he'd experienced more in those two years than many men did in their entire lives. It seemed nearly surreal, thinking back over the many things that had happened to him in those two years. Jesmind and the spat they'd had, the intrigue in the Tower, and Jula's betrayal. His turning feral from it, and the long ship voyage. Nearly getting killed and losing Keritanima to her father, then gaining the trust and love of Triana. The short yet momentous events that had taken place in Dala Yar Arak. Then the furious chase from the city, as Tarrin led away the seekers of the Book of Ages, and his nearly madness-causing melancholy trapped in cat form with emotions the Cat could not sort out. Then there was the desert, and all the crazy wildness that had happened there. Var and Denai, the rather invigorating weather and animal life, and the mysteries of the Cloud Spire and the ancient ruins of the Dwarven city. The final battle with Jegojah, and the revelations he brought that sent him rushing like a madman back to Suld.

  Two years. Had it really been so long? Had so much happened in that short time? It had to have been. Tarrin's mind often had trouble noticing the passage of time, but in this case, he could feel every day of it gone by. It felt more like fifty years than two, but the Human in him easily rationalized that it truly had only been two years.

  Hopefully, it wouldn't be another two years. That was his new dream. He would get the book to Suld, beat back the attackers, then hopefully the Firestaff would be discovered somewhere close to Suld. He hoped it would be a simple matter of riding out from Suld, picking it up, then sending it into the elsewhere and disappearing until after this supposed pre-ordained time went by. Then it would be harmless for another five thousand years, and by then it would be somebody else's problem.

  And what about afterwards? After he completed this unwanted task for the Goddess and was released, free to go on with his own life? What then? Tarrin looked up into the stars and considered it. It was something he usually didn't allow himself, because for so long he thought he wouldn't live to the end of it. But now, now that he felt he was coming close to the end of things, it looked hopeful that he might actually survive to carry out his mission. There wasn't much left to do, and to be honest with himself, he was a totally different person now. He was no easy mark now, not by a longshot. It would take something truly significant to kill him now, but that didn't make him in any way complacent or secure in his power or his suvivability. That gave him hope that whatever truly significant things that were out there wouldn't take him by surprise. A child with a dagger could kill him if it caught him off guard, and that was the main thing he had to do now, keep alert and ready for such things.

  But what then? When it was over, what then? What one thing did he want to do with his life after it became his and his alone?

  It didn't take long for him to find an answer to that. Go home.

  Home. There was only one place he thought of when someone said that word, and that was Aldreth. He'd be passing through Aldreth on the way to Suld, and in a way, he wanted it that way. He wanted to go through Aldreth and see it, to know what was waiting for him at the end of his journey, the carrot danging before his nose to motivate him to bring his task to a successful conclusion. He would go home. He would build himself his own place just across the boundary, in the Frontier, a place that would signify the changes that had taken place in his life. But he would be no more than a stone's throw from the old farm, always within a shout of parents and siblings and friends, the family he had left behind and so desperately wanted around him now. That was all he wanted out of life. A home in a place that felt like home to him, near his family, near what was familiar to him. And since he'd be in one place, Triana and Mist could visit him any time they wanted. Mist could bring their son with her, and he could at least pretend that a family of his own would be raised in that small farmstead.

  It would be the closest he would ever get to having a family of his own. Were-cat females didn't marry, and they didn't allow the males to interfere with their raising of the children. Were-cat males accepted this, probably felt relieved by it, but Tarrin wasn't born Were. The Human instinct to nurture and protect children was strong in him, stronger than it would be in other males because of his unique origins. Of all the males, Tarrin was probably alone in his desire to be active in the lives of the children, especially his own. Mist's son was his son as well, and he wanted to be involved in the child's life. He wanted to hear his son call him father. He wanted small arms stretching out to him as small legs drove a small body into his embrace.

  In time, maybe. Mist's son may not be the one to fulfill that dream, because of Mist herself, and the fact that he had no idea how long it would be until he would go home. But there would be other children. Were-cat females being what they were, and the fact that he'd be staying in one place and easy to find, they would guarantee it. If not Mist, then Rahnee, or Kimmie, or Singer, or Shirazi, or some female he'd never met. One of them would stumble into his life some day, one thing would lead to another, and he'd have a child in his home.

  But those were misty dreams of a time not yet even certain to be. They would have to wait. He had crossed the desert, but he wasn't there yet. There were still a large number of Goblinoids roaming around, probably all rushing west now that he'd crossed the mountains, so he had to get into the Frontier as quickly as he could. He wouldn't be safe until he was where no Goblinoid would dare set foot. Once he was in the Frontier, he could relax. At least as much as he would allow himself, given what serious things were happening in Suld. After he got into the Frontier, the Goblinoids and the ki'zadun would no longer have a certain path to cover to catch him. He could come out north, in Aldreth, or in the central or southern reaches. He could even go to Shacè and approach Suld from the south. They wouldn't be able to predict his movements, so he wouldn't have to worry about an army of Trolls waiting for him once he stepped out of the ancient forest.

  And even that was going to wait until tomorrow. Absently weaving together a Ward that would stop everything but air, then setting it so it would last until morning, Tarrin closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  There were things that he needed to know.

  It was the only reason he was doing this. Walking down the first of the streets of the nameless Arkisian town not far from where he landed wasn't something that he would have done willingly. Tarrin's change in his attitude towards strangers had softened, but it still hadn't been changed very much. He still wanted nothing to do with these people, these strangers, but necessity sometimes overrode personal desire. He wouldn't have entered a human city, full of untrustworthy strangers, otherwise. Unfortunately, there were things he needed to know about the surrounding area, and in particular about any possible Goblinoids standing in his way to the west. The maps he Conjured could show him where to go, but they didn't show any possible dangers on the path that he had selected for himself.

  For that kind of information, he needed some outside assistance. And that meant talking to people. He could only do that in relative safety in the city, for h
e doubted that any Arkisians would stop and talk to him in the countryside, where his size and his obvious outlander appearance would put them off.

  That was all they were going to see. Tarrin didn't feel like starting a riot, nor did he particularly want to have to run from or fight endless waves of militia, Watch, or army men, so he strode into town in his human form. The Arkisians probably weren't ready to see a Were-cat walking down their main street. They'd get enough exercise seeing a foreigner human. It had been quite a while since he had taken human form, and surprisingly for him, it didn't hurt nearly as much as he remembered. The itching was still there, though, and he knew that that itching would become pain after any length of time confining himself to a form that was no longer natural for him. The shift into human form dulled the wary ferality of the Cat inside him, but it also unsettled him slightly more because of the loss of his acute senses, making him feel more vulnerable. Those two cancelled one another out.

  He'd had to make new clothes for himself for human form. His human form was a little more than a span shorter than his natural form, and that made the clothes he wore in his natural form too large. So he Conjured up clothes that would fit him--finding out in the process that he could access his Druidic magic while in human form--sent his Were-cat clothes into the elsewhere, put them on, and was ready to go. He opted not to get fancy, Conjuring the same clothes he usually wore, but he did give up the boots that he'd had before and go with a new pair of soft black leather boots. Though he was much shorter in human form, he was still very, very tall, much taller than the usually short Arkisians, but there was nothing he could do about that. He'd just have to live with it.