Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  Being blessed with an unnatural sense of when an interruption would be the most disruptive, like all children, Jasana burst through the door with a laugh and a bounce, then sailed into their bed, interrupting the moment. "It's morning!" she declared happily, her little paws shoving on her mother urgently. "Wake up, mama, papa!"

  "We were awake," Jesmind said to her daughter with an uncharacteristically threatening growl. "What did I tell you last night, Jasana?"

  "Not to come into your room until you opened the door," she replied after a hesitation.

  "And what did you do?"

  "I came into your room," she said. "But that was last night. This is tomorrow! You didn't say anything about not coming in tomorrow!"

  "What does a closed door mean to you, cub!" Jasana snapped at her.

  "That you have to open it," she said innocently.

  Tarrin burst out laughing, and Jesmind flopped her head on his shoulder in helpless defeat. "Go fetch water for breakfast, young lady, and we'll discuss your need to twist my words when you get back!" Jesmind ordered her in a harsh tone, her claws digging into Tarrin's shoulder and chest. "And don't go out without dressing first!" she called.

  "Yes, mama," she said in a subdued tone, sliding off the bed and padding out, pulling her nightshirt down over her bare bottom after it had ridden up over her tail.

  "That is definitely your daughter," Jesmind sighed, putting her forehead on his shoulder again.

  "It's the mother's curse," Tarrin said with a chuckle.

  "What curse?"

  "You know the one. 'When you grow up, I hope that you have a child as bad as you are!'"

  Jesmind looked at him, then she burst out laughing. "Now then, where were we?" she asked in a purring tone.

  "I think we were right about here," he replied, pulling her down to him.

  "I love a male with a good memory," she purred before kissing him again.

  Kissing was about as much as they could get away with, for Jasana's moving around the house, and the fact that she didn't close the door, precluded any fooling around. Though Tarrin knew that Jesmind wouldn't care about Jasana--sex was a natural thing, and as such there was no need to hide it from their daughter--there did seem to be some kind of human-based need not to directly expose her to such things. Tarrin mulled it over as they dressed, realizing that Jasana would ask questions that Jesmind may not feel she was ready to understand, even if she knew the answer. Jasana, he had found out, was an intensely curious child, and she could be very, very persistent when she wanted to know something. To save herself grief, Jesmind was almost acting like a human about it.

  While Jesmind and Jasana went about making breakfast, Tarrin wandered around the house for the first time, seeing how they had changed it. Jesmind had appropriated his parents' room, and Jasana now occupied Jenna's old room. All of Jenna's furniture was there, and he saw with some dismay that Jasana had taken liberties with Jenna's toys and her personal possessions. Curious...though she was a child, and she had tremendous strength for such a small being, more than enough to do considerable damage, all of Jenna's dolls were still in immaculate condition. Jasana was very careful with Jenna's toys, very careful not to break them. That was significant to him, for that was not a trait one often saw in children so young.

  The common room that held the kitchen and the chairs had been changed, but the parlor, the living room that his parents hadn't used that much, had been untouched. It still held the fancy upholstered furniture--at least for a frontier homestead on the edge of civilization--and the old painting of some landscape hanging on the wall, just over the bow Eron hung on the wall, the bow he had used while in the army. The storage room that had been behind the parlor was full of different things now, as Tarrin realized that it was the room where his mother had stored everything she deemed valuable, like her precious china. Those were the things she probably asked Garyth to take out of the house and store somewhere safe, for they were the things she couldn't bear to leave unattended.

  Climbing up the steep, narrow staircase in the back of the house, Tarrin went up into his old room, and he was surprised.

  It had been absolutely untouched.

  Everything was exactly where he had left it, showing his haste to prepare to get ready to leave some two years ago, though it was all rather dusty. The clothes were still flung on the floor, the chest at the foot of his bed still open, the bed still rumpled where he had stood on it to get the box out from its hiding place in the rafters. That ceiling was much closer now, so close that he had to duck under the very beams that had taken a boost for him to reach before. The gray slate roof was visible beyond those support beams, slate tiles that had carried the sound of pouring rain through the house when it rained, gray slate tiles whose shapes and lines were very familiar to him, even now.

  Tarrin sat down on the bed, a bed too small for him now, looking around. His sword and axe still rested in the corner, rusted over, and the little knife he carried around with him still hung from its sheathe on his bedpost. The nightstand held an unlit candle and a book, with a dust-filled glass sitting beside them. The washstand still held the pitcher and basin, the water long evaporated. Sitting there reminded him of his life back then, so very long ago, conjured up memories of the little things he had forgotten after so long. He stood and went to the window, having to kneel to be able to look out, looking out towards the Frontier, with the little brook that ran mere spans from the side of the house, that split the meadow into its two disparately sized parts. He folded his arms on the sill and rested his chin on them, sharing a view that had been revealed to him many times before, wondering over the fact that it all looked the same, that it hadn't changed at all.

  It was almost a melancholy feeling, looking over the artifacts of his former life, seeing them dusty and rusted and deteriorated with the passage of time. It made him feel old. It made him feel like it had been a thousand years since the last time he had set foot in his old room, when it had only been a few rides short of two years. Had so much happened in that short time? Of course it had. The life of the young always went by so fast, but Tarrin existed now in a kind of realm of paradox, a young man's mind trapped inside the body of an extremely aged Were-cat. That age crept into his mind now and again, or maybe it was just the fact that everything that had happened had had such an impact on him.

  He saw Jasana dash into view, a bucket in her paw, and it made him smile. She was such an energetic child, skipping to do her chore, her tail waggling along behind her happily. She seemed so happy, all the time, and she was so affectionate. It was impossible not to fall in love with her. He felt a burst of almost overwhelming pride when he saw her, knowing that she would be the most powerful Sorcerer alive in just a few short years, knowing that his daughter would exceed him. It posed a problem right at the moment, but he'd figure out something. He always did.

  "Remembering?" Jesmind asked as she came up the stairs.

  "I guess," he admitted, not looking back at her, continuing to watch their daughter delaying in her chore to try to scoop up little fish with the bucket. They confounded her, but even from that distance, he could see the look of serious determination on her little face. "I little of both, actually."

  "Both of what?"

  "Remembering the past and looking towards the future," he replied as she came up behind, leaned over him and looked out the window.

  Jesmind chuckled. "It'll take her about ten minutes to stop playing and bring in the water. Usually I have to take the minnows out of it. She does this all the time."

  "Children are supposed to play," Tarrin said gently, watching her.

  "I know. But I get a little tired of throwing the minnows back into the stream."

  "Why not eat them?"

  "Because if I did, there wouldn't be as many minnows for Jasana to chase," she replied with a chuckle, putting her paws on his shoulders.

  "Sophistry," Tarrin laughed.

  "About what?"

  "Complaining that she catches minnow
s in the water, then putting them back in the stream so she has more targets."

  "Well, all mothers endure some things they don't like for their children," she admitted with a wry chuckle. "What do you want for breakfast?"

  "Surprise me," he replied.

  "I will. You can do me a favor."

  "What?"

  "I have to hunt today, and it's alot easier when I don't have a loud little pest scaring away the deer. Take Jasana with you when you go into the village."

  "She can't quite learn to be quiet, eh?"

  "Not even." Jesmind laughed. "She keeps wondering why we come home without a kill. She just won't comprehend that she's scaring them away."

  Tarrin chuckled. "Just tell her she won't eat if she's not quiet."

  "I do. It doesn't help."

  "She'll calm down when she's not quite so young."

  "I know."

  "I'll take her off your hands for a while," he told her. "I won't mind."

  "I know you won't," she assured him. "Just keep an eye on her when you take her to the village. She doesn't go there often, and you've seen how energetic she can be."

  "I'll keep an eye on her," he promised.

  She bent down and gave him a quick kiss on the side of his neck, then patted his shoulders and left him to watch their daughter playing.

  After a meal of ham and porridge, Tarrin was off for Aldreth. Jasana skipped along happily, but when it became apparent that her towering father could outpace her at a walk even if she ran, she ended up riding on his shoulders. Tarrin held onto her feet as she played with his hair and braid, talking up a storm as they walked along the overgrown cart track that Tarrin could travel in his sleep, he knew it so well. Her chatter was inane and without direction for most of the trip, at least until she went quiet for a long moment and started again.

  "What was it like to be a human, papa?" she asked curiously.

  Tarrin was quite startled by that question, and it forced him to really think hard about the answer. In the end, even after a long moment of intense introspection, he honestly couldn't come up with one that would answer her satisfactorily. "I'm afraid that's a question I can't answer, kitten," he said directly.

  "But you were a human once."

  "Yes, I was a human once. But that was a long time ago, and what I am now made me forget all about it. I really can't remember what it was like to be human."

  "Mama says that they're funny people, the humans. With strange ideas and things, but she also says that I should always respect them."

  "That's good advice," he agreed. "They're our neighbors, and they can also be our friends. You'll find the humans here in Aldreth to be rather nice and friendly, at least after they get used to you."

  "I like the funny old man," Jasana giggled. "He always brings me presents."

  "Garyth," he named with a chuckle. "Garyth is a very good man. If he brings you presents, then he must like you."

  She was quiet a moment longer. "Do you think I could be a human some day?"

  "I'm afraid not, kitten," Tarrin said with a slight smile. "You'll be able to change the way you look so you can look like a human when you're older, so you'll at least be able to pretend that you're a human."

  "We can do that? Mama said that when I'm older, I can change into a cat."

  "You can," he affirmed. "It's what makes us what we are."

  "Mama never said anything about turning into a human."

  "That's because it's something that you won't be able to do for a very long time," he told her. "It's something that you'll only be able to do when you're much older. Even your mother has trouble doing it, so don't think that it's only a problem you'll have."

  "Can you do it?"

  "Yes, I can do it. But I have trouble doing it too."

  "Do you remember what it was like to be a real human when you're pretending to be one?"

  Jasana's insight surprised him, and it reminded him that his daughter did not have the mind of a girl her age. She was very intelligent. "Not really," he replied.

  "Why are you so much taller than mama?" she asked. "Aunt Mist and Kimmie were shorter than her."

  "Now that, kitten, is a very complicated subject," Tarrin chuckled. "The easy answer is that I'm just supposed to be."

  "What's the real answer?"

  "I don't think you'd understand."

  "If you tell me, we'll find out if I can."

  Tarrin was surprised again by the subtle logic of that response, and it reminded him that he was dealing with a cunning little girl easily as sneaky as Keritanima. Jasana's intelligence, coupled to her immature, self-centered world, made her formidably sneaky and devious.

  "Alright, I will," he laughed. "Remember when you asked me about the winged woman?"

  "Umm."

  "Well, she has a magical power, and she attacked me with it. When she did, it made me grow, it made me grow old in the blink of an eye, and I'm sure that your mother told you that we keep growing as we age, even after we're adults."

  "Umm."

  "Alright then, there's your answer. I used to be your mother's height, but after the winged lady attacked me with her magic power, it made me grow to be as tall as your grandmother. If you count my age in years, the humans wouldn't even consider me to be a full adult, but because of the winged woman, now my body is older than anyone but your grandmother."

  "I hope you got her back for hurting you, papa," she said with a sudden eagerly sadistic tone in her voice.

  Jasana was definitely a Were-cat.

  "I got her back for it, ten times over, kitten," Tarrin assured her with a wicked little chuckle.

  "Mama said you have to leave tomorrow. I don't want you to go."

  "I don't want to go either, kitten," he assured her. "But bad people are loose in our homeland, and it's my duty to make them go away. As soon as I'm done kicking them out and taking care of some other things, I'll come home."

  "What other things?"

  "Well," he hedged, but he realized that Jasana would dog him ceaselessly until she got an answer. "I'm doing something very important for someone," he answered carefully. "I'm looking for an old magical object, because it's a very, very powerful thing, and we don't want any bad people to find it and use it. That's what I've been doing since before you were born, and hopefully I'm almost finished. After I kick the bad people out of our homeland, I'll go get that magic object and hide it again so nobody can find it. Then I'll come home."

  "If you don't know where it is, why do you have to find it just to hide it again?"

  "Because it wasn't hidden well enough the first time, kitten," he explained patiently. "People will be able to find it, and we can't let that happen. It has to be hidden so well that nobody can find it."

  "Well, I think that's the fault of the people who hid it the first time," she said accusingly. "They should be the ones to find it and hide it again."

  Tarrin laughed. "The object was hidden thousands of years ago, kitten. The people that hid it died a very long time ago. It really wasn't their fault, if you think about it. It took this long for people to realize where it was, so you have to admit that they really did a pretty good job."

  "Well, I guess, but it's their fault you're going away," she said defiantly, daring him to refute her logic.

  "Maybe, but there's nothing we can do about it, kitten. We just have to deal with life as it comes. We can't be blaming everything and everyone that makes our lives something other than what we want them to be. We just have to make the best of it, that's all." He bounced her a bit. "Live a full life every day, so Phandebrass would say."

  "Who is that?"

  "Phandebrass? He's a wizard, kitten, a rather strange little man with alot of weird ideas. But he's a good friend, and when things are serious, he's a very dependable little man to have around. I like him alot. He makes me laugh sometimes, and that's not easy for humans to do."

  "He's a human?" she asked brightly.

  "Yup," he answered.

  "Can I meet him so
meday?"

  "Someday," he promised. "I'm sure that when I find that magic object and hide it again, he'd be happy to swing by Aldreth and visit with us if I asked him to do it."

  "Gramma talked about some of the people waiting for you in Sul."

  "Suld," he corrected. "There are several of them."

  "Who?"

  "Well, there's Allia and Keritanima," he began. "They're my blood-sisters."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that I consider them to be my sisters, even though they weren't born my sisters," he answered. "I love them just as much as I do my real sister, your aunt Jenna. She's in Suld too, along with my parents, your grandparents, Eron and Elke. I'm sure they'd love to meet you, kitten," he told her.

  "I want to meet them too. Mama says very good things about Gramma Elke and Grampa Eron."

  "Let's see. There's Dolanna, a Sorceress who's been a very good friend of mine for a very long time. She's very wise and very nice, and I love her very much. There's Dar, a young apprentice Sorcerer who's been a very good friend to me. There's Phandebrass, like I told you, and there's a priestess woman named Camara Tal. She's alot like your mother," Tarrin chuckled. "There's Azakar, a human even bigger than I am who's a Knight, and there's Miranda, one of your aunt Keritanima's friends and helpers. And there's Sarraya, a Faerie that travelled with me over the desert, who's a real good friend."

  "You know alot of people, papa."

  "I know," he agreed with a little bob of his head. "I've met alot of interesting people while trying to find that magic object."

  "It's not fair," Jasana complained. "I don't want you to go."

  "I won't be gone long, kitten, you'll see," he said gently.

  "I still don't want you to go."

  "I'm afraid that that's life, kitten," he sighed. "Just make the best of it you can."

  "What if I find the magic thing. Could you stay home then?"