Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  But all of them stared at the large table of empty seats near the table of the Council. That was where the Were-cats were to sit, as well as the core of the people close to Tarrin. Those seats were empty, and nobody had seen any of them since they had returned to the Tower.

  But they were in the Tower. The Were-cats were gathered in Triana's rooms, where she still recovered from using her magic during the battle. Jesmind and Jasana were there with the others, but Tarrin was not with them. Sarraya was attending Triana, acting as nurse and healer to the Were-cat matron and speeding her recovery along. Keritanima was recuperating in her bed, with Allia, Miranda, Azakar, Dar, Szath, and Dolanna in close attendance. Jenna was resting comfortably in the apartments claimed by his parents, who watched over her in her convalescence. Phandebrass had forgotten about the feast, and was happily scraping up the residue of the destroyed Demons that had been defeated when they penetrated the fence, fully intent to study the horrific substance to better understand how Demonic physiology functioned. Camara Tal was sitting quietly with Jula, who was still unconscious after her own part in the battle, a part that was unknown to the others yet just as important as anything else that had happened.

  Tarrin was in the courtyard, a courtyard whose hedges were mysteriously, magically restored from where the Demons had flattened them trying to reach the Goddess' icon. After everything that had happened, he realized he needed a little time alone, quiet, time to think and reflect on it all. He sat on the edge of the fountain, chin in his paw, looking down at the red bricks laid into the ground that surrounded the happily bubbling, gurgling fountain, and he fretted. So much had went on. Almost too much. And he'd only seen about half of the battle. From what he'd heard from others, the fight between Jenna's Circle and the Wizards and Priest of the ki'zadun had been spectacular, more than just invisible strokes and counterstrokes within the Weave. They had traded magical spells on more than one occasion, and some of the effects had been quite explosive. He'd pieced together the chronology of the battle from the stories that the others told him, and realized that they'd only just barely managed to eke out a victory. Had just one thing not happened when it happened, they'd probably still be fighting.

  But there was more to it than just the battle. Tarrin was a bit chagrined, in a way, and the reason for it, he was sure, would seem a bit silly to the others. But it was serious to him, because it had caused him to break an oath. He had sworn an oath not to reveal the name of the Goddess, and yet he had done so. The use of the spell of banishment required that the name of the god enacting the banishment be voiced, and Tarrin had been forced to speak the Goddess' name in the middle of an army. He was absolutely sure they'd heard it. It bothered him that he'd broken his word, bothered him a great deal, even though it seemed a trivial worry, or it had been necessary. He still felt very foolish for not thinking of that first, that his incompetence had delayed him from getting rid of the Demoness, and that men had died on her swords because of it. Had he been thinking and realized that he could do the same thing to her that he did to the others, those men would still be alive. It was even more blood on his paws, and was just as bright and glaring as all the other blood.

  But, in his own defense, he still found it hard to believe that he could use Priest magic. It seemed...alien. Sorcery came from the Weave, but partially came from within, and Druidic power from the land. Those were close things, intimate things, things that didn't seem so distant or unusual. But Priest magic came directly from the Goddess, and it required him to chant magical words just like a Wizard. That seemed so inefficient, so clumsy compared to the art of weaving spells, or the simplicity of Druidic magic.

  Magic. The Firestaff had revealed itself to the world, just as the Goddess had said it would. It was out there right now, waiting for someone to find it, to pick it up. And he was positive that the seas were already populated with a large number of ships sailing off towards the direction of the Firestaff. He had taken too long to get the Book of Ages, he had dawdled too long in the desert. He had gotten himself shot like some untrained fool in Shoran's Fork, which delayed him even more. The Goddess was disappointed that he wasn't closer to it when it revealed itself, and Tarrin took that to mean that she was disappointed in him. He had blundered three times that day, just another three in a long series of mistakes, mishaps, and downright disobedient standoffs that had put him far behind where the Goddess wanted him to be. He felt that he'd failed her, and that left him feeling humiliated and deeply ashamed.

  Shame or not, he wasn't about to quit, however. He would find the Firestaff first, and he'd keep it. He'd protect it from being used, and he'd make the Goddess proud of him again.

  "Kitten, sometimes you amaze me in how badly you see everything you do," a voice came from behind him, an audible, physical voice. He turned to look, and saw that it emanated from the center of the fountain. But there was no marble statue of a nude woman there. This was a flesh and blood person, a real being, but her features were absolutely identical to the features of the statue that had been there when he came in. The woman was nude, as the statue had been, but a mere gesture caused a garment of iridescent, shimmering material to garb the figure, almost like stars spun into silk. It twinkled and shone every time she moved, stepping out onto the surface of the water as if it were solid ground. The physical face of the Goddess was just as beautiful as the statue, but now the alabaster granite was replaced by a young, rosy-cheeked face, her complexion light, and her hair a strange mixture of the seven colors of the Weave, hair seemingly made of a rainbow, long and thick and luxurious as it swayed with her movements and the wind. Her eyes were not real eyes, more like pools of amber energy, without whites or irises or pupils, like how Tarrin's eyes glowed green when he was angry, hers glowed with that amber radiance. She looked human, but there were features, like the eyes, that told any who looked upon her that she was much more than a mere human.

  Tarrin stared at this flesh-and-blood woman in awe for a long moment, even as she waited imperiously at the edge of the fountain, tapping her foot on the surface of the water impatiently. He finally snapped out of staring at her and offered her his paw, which she took with a smile and stepped down onto the brick. Her hand felt like human flesh, but there was a heat within it that was not normal for a human, and her skin's contact with his pads made his pads burn and throb, but not in pain. More like an awareness of great power, like a tingling he sometimes got from the Weave or Druidic magic. She was shorter than him, about Allia's height, and that seemed so intolerably wrong to him. So he knelt down before her in awe and adulation, staring up at her with both love and reluctance.

  She laughed at him. "Oh, my kitten, now you're going to start acting like that?" she teased, reaching down and putting her hands on either side of his face. "I thought you'd be pleased to see something like this. I did it just for you. Now stand up. I'm going to get a crick in my neck looking down at you like that." He obediently regained his feet, staring down at his deity with unease. "That's enough of that, kitten," she said firmly. "I may be disappointed that we're not further along, but that in no way means that I'm disappointed in you. Given everything that's happened, I feel that you've come a very long way. And we're not exactly falling behind, remember? We know where to go, when nobody else does. We have a distinct advantage, for the first time in this game we play."

  Tarrin couldn't help but take her words to heart, and he felt some of his shame bleed away. "I--thank you, Mother," he said with a heavy sigh. "Your opinion of me matters more than anything."

  "Oh, kitten, I'm always going to love you, no matter what you do," she laughed, walking away from him. She seated herself on the bench facing her fountain, and then patted the bench beside her meaningfully. He quickly obeyed her, sitting down beside her. The audacity of it struck him then, that he would be sitting beside the physical manifestation of a god, his Goddess, like she was any other person. But, he reminded himself, she preferred it when he treated her more as a friend and less as a deity. He put his paws
between his knees and looked down at them, picking at one of his fetlocks nervously. "I'm sure you're waiting for the hammer to drop," she said with a teasing tone, but he wasn't looking at her face. "Here I've went and done something like this to talk to you, and now you're wondering what could be that important."

  "It did sort of cross my mind, Mother," he admitted.

  "I just wanted to sit and talk with my kitten," she told him gently. "To me, that's more important than anything else."

  He had a guilty flush of pleasure to hear that. That she would go out of her way to

  talk to him! "I, I hope we did well. With the battle, I mean," he said hesitantly. "I'm sorry I didn't pick up on what you were trying to tell me sooner."

  "I understand, kitten," she said gently. "It was something very new for you, so it wasn't easy to accept. I don't blame you for not thinking about it sooner, and I don't blame you for the men who died before you though to try to banish the marilith," she said firmly. "The truth is that the fault is mine. I should have realized that as tired and distracted as you were, your mind wouldn't consider something learned so recently. I should have told you what to do. So, kitten, don't blame yourself for that."

  Though the words would have sounded empty from someone else, they came straight from the Goddess, and he found that he could accept her absolution. "I spoke your name out loud, Mother," he admitted sheepishly. "I didn't mean to do it, but when the spell was over, I realized that I'd broken my vow to you. I didn't have much choice, but I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry."

  "My name isn't a state secret, kitten," she chuckled. "Anyone with access to a library and a little patience can find it. So it's not like you revealed some great secret or anything." She put her hand on his shoulder. "And if you recall, I told you that those vows were meaningless. I gave you permission to break them any time you wished."

  "I forgot about that," he admitted. "Mother, do I have to learn Priest magic now?"

  She looked at him, then she laughed. "I'd say yes and no, kitten," she replied. "I think it would be good for you to learn about Priest magic, just so you have a better understanding of it. But you're already a Sorcerer, so I'm sure you won't be disappointed if I tell you that I won't grant you any magic that duplicates anything you can accomplish with Sorcery first. I will answer your prayers and grant you spells, but only things you can't do any other way but through Priest magic." She patted his shoulder. "So, kitten, I think you should go talk with Camara Tal. She can teach you all about Priest magic, and the spells they use."

  "But she worships a different god."

  "That doesn't matter," she replied immediately. "A long time ago, when the Younger Gods began to appear and we decided to allow them to give power to mortals, we all gathered together and debated the issue. I won't go into the details, but the result of that was a stricture stating that no god could grant any power that another god couldn't also grant, or conversely, a special power granted to a Priest could not exceed the power other gods granted to their Priests. The short of it, since it's a rather long-winded explanation and story about how we argued about the meaning of that rule, was that the ways in which a god can grant spells to a priest were standardized. That means that the spells that Camara Tal knows to seek power from her goddess are the same spells you would use to seek power from me. You just direct them to me instead of some other god, that's all."

  "I didn't know that."

  "You would have if you studied anything," she said sharply. "Priests do have one other power not related to spells, and that's that they can use our power to affect the undead and creatures of darkness."

  "Like Demons?"

  "No Demon could be affected by a power as weak as turning, kitten," she corrected him. "What you used was a spell, a very strong Priest spell."

  "Oh. Why did they make up that rule, anyway?"

  "To make sure that all Priests were equal," the Goddess told him. "Very early on, the Younger Gods realized that an effective way to reduce the power of a rival Younger God was to kill off his worshippers, so they tried to super-charge the Priests to turn them into war machines. The stricture was placed to give a Priest of one god a fighting chance against a Priest of another god. A Priest of higher rank, naturally, does gain more powers than an acolyte, but his power is equal to a Priest of comparable rank in another god's order. That keeps the Priests balanced and the gods they serve from getting any nasty ideas."

  "I never dreamed being a god was so, political," he mused.

  She laughed loudly, and for a long moment. "It's a very overrated profession, kitten," she beamed at him. "Sometimes I almost think I'd have preferred being a mortal."

  "That explains why you like me to treat you like one," he reasoned.

  "Not as a mortal, kitten. As a friend. I value your love more when it's given to me as more than just your god. Your love for me is deep and sincere, because you love me as a friend as much as you do as a god."

  There wasn't much he could say to that. He bowed his head and let the moment pass. "When do you want us to leave?"

  "As soon as possible,"she replied. "Even if you have to carry Keritanima to a ship on a stretcher. I'd like you to be on your way in two days at the most."

  "I think that's workable for us, Mother. We knew we'd have to get to Wikuna before the summer solstice, and with the battle slowing us down, we knew it was going to be close. That we may have to jump on a ship as soon as the war was over. I guess we were right," he said with a rueful chuckle.

  "You should think about how you're going to handle leaving," she told him. "You know that you can't take Jesmind and Jasana."

  "I wouldn't be able to get Jesmind on the ship," he sighed. "Jenna can keep Jasana throttled, so I've already made those plans. They're staying here, in the Tower, until I get back. They have to stay near Jenna, and Jenna needs to be here."

  "What about Jula?"

  "I don't know yet," he replied. "That's going to be her decision. If she wants to come with me, she's welcome. I'll have to train Kerri in Weavespinner magic. One more pupil won't be too much of a burden."

  "I see. What about the others?"

  "Well, you said when we started that Allia, Kerri, Dolanna, Azakar, and Dar had to come, so they're going whether they want to or not," he said. "The others, well, I guess it's their decisions as to whether they come or not."

  "I'll tell you now, kitten, Sarraya won't be going with you."

  "Why not?" he asked in surprise. The idea of going without Sarraya seemed very daunting. The little bug was a pest, but she was one of his closer friends, and she was very dependable when things got serious. It was just all the other times that one had to put up with her.

  "How long has she been with you, kitten?"

  "About a year or so," he replied after thinking about it a moment.

  "And before that, she was off on her own doing work for the katzh-dashi. She's been out on her own for nearly three years, and she's starting to weaken. She's reached the point where she has to return to her colony and be with her own kind, or she'll get weaker and weaker, and eventually die."

  Tarrin remembered Sarraya telling him about that, that Faeries didn't live very long if they were separated from their colonies. Being a Druid, Sarraya was capable of living away from her colony for a very long time, but he didn't realize that she'd been out on her own for so long. If that were the case, then he wouldn't let her come with him. Sarraya's health was more important than his need for her to come along.

  "I'm going to miss her," he sighed. "And I don't believe I just said that."

  "She's annoying, but she's lovable," the Goddess chuckled. "Are you ready, kitten?"

  Despite it being cryptic, he seemed to understand her meaning. "Not really, but I don't have much choice," he sighed. "Now that I've experienced a little domestic tranquility, it's going to kill me to leave Jesmind and Jasana behind."

  "I wouldn't call a day in the Kael house very tranquil," the Goddess laughed.

  "Well, tranquil for us,"
he said with a sheepish smile. "If we didn't fight every day, I'd think that Jesmind didn't love me anymore."

  "They'll be here waiting for you when you come home, kitten," the Goddess assured him. "Think of it as motivation to come back soon."

  "I'll have enough of that," he grunted. "Did we do well, Mother?" he asked quietly.

  "Kitten, I haven't been this proud of my children since the Blood War," she said emphatically. "You were wonderful. All of you were."

  Tarrin flushed slightly at the praise, then she stood up. "It's getting late, and Jesmind is waiting for you," she told him. "She's still nervous about what happened, and Jasana hasn't quite recovered yet. They need you right now, kitten."

  "Alright, Mother," he said, standing himself. They stepped over to the fountain, and he dutifully helped her step up to again stand on the water's surface like it was solid ground. She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and the touch of her lips against his skin sent a shockwave through him, scouring away his exhaustion and leaving him feeling refreshed and well. "That was for being my savior today," she smiled down at him, then she kissed him on the other cheek. It too sent a shockwave through him, but didn't change his physical state as the first had. "And that is for being so loyal. And this is for being my friend," she added, then she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. He bowed his head humbly, feeling beyond blessed, feeling like he was the luckiest Were-cat alive. She put a finger under his chin and lifted his face up so she could look into his eyes. "And this is because I love you," she said with a gentle voice, putting her hands on his shoulders, leaning down, and then kissing him ever-so-lightly on the lips. It was a chaste kiss, but the power within her struck him when her lips touched his, and he felt his knees wobble from it. She looked down at him, then laughed lightly. "Even a goddess likes to see that a kiss from her makes a man's knees weak," she teased, then she actually winked at him. "You get yourself home, young man, and think about what I've said. I'll talk to you later, alright?"