The four days hadn't been spent completely in work, though. Tarrin and Jesmind had taken the time to talk to each other, to get some things out in the open, and the time had reconciled them. His anger for her disappeared when he understood how hurt she'd been when she found out that he'd fallen in love with Kimmie, but she understood after he talked to her that his love for Kimmie did not in any way change how he felt about her. There was no competition in his eyes. When Jesmind and Kimmie were together, Jesmind had precedence. Not because he loved her more, but because she was first. She had been his mate first, he had been with her longer, and because he had an obligation to her that superseded his duties to Kimmie. Kimmie understood that, probably much better than Jesmind did, and it was a testament to her mild nature and her understanding that she was willing to accept the situation. He loved them both, but when his duties and feelings for them came into conflict with one another, he would choose Jesmind over Kimmie nearly every time. Jesmind finally understood that, and it had smoothed over the most glaring wound of their relationship. Her hurt and her fear of losing him forever was why she had acted so poorly towards him when he was a human, and though he had hated it, he did understand her motives. When he wasn't working on his problem, he was spending time with Jesmind, renewing the powerful bonds that existed between them, restoring the intimacy and openness that had been missing from their relationship since he'd come back from Sha'Kari. When he wasn't deep in contemplation about their problem, he was lounging in hot baths with Jesmind, or talking with her, or making passionate love with her, or just enjoying her company.
But the marching of time had reminded him that they were on a tight schedule. Finally growing tired of not having a way to keep track of the passing of time, Tarrin broke down and did something that he rather regretted doing. He remembered the gold pocketwatch that the rabbit Wikuni Jervis owned, a marvel of Tellurian design that made it keep accurate time despite its tiny size. Tarrin Summoned that watch, and then used Druidic magic to send back to the place where he'd stolen it a note explaining to Jervis how sorry he was for taking it, and a large, uncut, Created ruby that was worth about five times what he'd paid for the watch. Tarrin didn't mind Conjuring away from people things that they could easily replace, but taking something as treasured and priceless as Jervis' beloved watch was quite another matter. Unfortunately, since the watch was a manufactured thing, Tarrin couldn't Create one of his own; such a technological contraption was beyond the bounds of nature, and as such he wasn't about to experiment to see if he could indeed Create something like that. Stealing someone else's was much safer and easier, and at least Jervis would understand his desperate need for it.
Jervis' watch turned out to be the one thing he needed, because it not only told time, it also had a little dial on it that showed the White Moon, Domammon, travelling through its phases. It had little marks on the dial to denote days, and with that he could count how many days until Domammon was again full, which was when the conjunction would occur. By looking at the watch, he could see how many days he had left, and that was critical down in the tunnel, where he had no way to mark the passing of the days.
Now that he had a way to tell time, Tarrin fretted and grew more unsettled as the days passed. He was still no closer to solving his problem, and there were only twenty-eight days left. It would still take them about eighteen days to get out of the mountains, and he estimated five days to cross the tundra, so he only had five days of working time to come up with a solution. And he did not want to use up all that time. If they had an emergency, they may need an extra day or two to get everything settled and back on track. He did not relish the idea of burning up all his time here and now and end up being behind after something happened to delay them.
Being late was not an option.
Jesmind shared his impatience. The time alone had allowed them to become close again, but they both shared the desperation of needing to recover their daughter. He was just as impatient as she was, but he understood that this was not the time to rush off without being prepared and without a plan. They had spent several hours talking about Jasana, and though the speaking of her hurt both of them and made them both want to fly over to the pyramid on the back of an Elemental and tear the place apart until they found her, he constantly reminded her just who had their daughter. But it was still hard. Every time he was with her, all either of them could think about was the fact that their daughter was not there with them. Even in the intense throes of passion, the emptiness that their daughter had once filled was like a hole in each of them, taking much of the joy and pleasure out of it. It was hard to find joy or happiness without Jasana, but they both tried, intentionally tried to distract themselves from the fact that their daughter had been stolen from them. They knew that they couldn't succumb to depression, or what was worse, couldn't surrender to their anger. So they went through the motions of being mates, even engaged in lovemaking, trying to keep their grief and fury from overwhelming them, and in that overwhelming commit a grievous error that would lose their daughter to them forever.
It was hard for Were-cats to keep such control of themselves, but both of them somehow found a way. Tarrin was utterly focused on their little problem, and spent every waking moment not engaged with his mate searching for a solution. Jesmind had little to do in the hot spring, but she tried to keep busy. Tarrin had Conjured her a great deal of material, and she passed her time fashioning large white cloaks for both of them to wear, cloaks that would blend in with the color of the snow and make them very hard to spot. Jesmind had a surprising number of hidden talents and skills, and her ability to sew was probably one of the most surprising. She had to take on human hands to do it, but Jesmind's knack for holding the human shape-or parts of it-for extended periods of time was still a matter of pride for her. Not even Tarrin and Triana could match Jesmind in her endurance for withstanding the discomfort for taking on the human form. She had learned it because she wanted to learn how to play the lute, but it served her well in many hobbies and skills that she had learned from the humans that necessitated the smaller, more agile human hands. Because she could tolerate it so well, her fingers remained supple and agile long after the pain stiffened the fingers of other Were-cats, so she could enjoy her hobbies for much longer than any other Were-cat could practice them. Because of that, Jesmind was much better at such things than any other Were-cat, and she had often been asked to sew garments or make things for others.
"Tarrin," she called, nudging his shoulder.
He opened his eyes, and found himself looking at her thighs, right where her white fur ended and her skin began. She didn't have any pants on, and that fact caused his eyes to immediately drift up to certain parts of her that most human women struggled mightily to conceal.
"Ogle me later, love," she said seriously. "It's back, and it wants in."
It was proof that the caves were not devoid of animal life. It was a strange, curious thing, looking like some kind of gigantic lobster. It was about ten spans long, its armored shell grayish brown, and had wicked, powerful claws like a lobster, as well as ten armored legs and long, whip-like antennae. The animal had no eyes, or at least none that Tarrin and Jesmind could find. It had shown up the day after Tarrin raised the Ward blocking the entrance, but Tarrin had lowered the Ward for the animal after talking to it and finding out that it came here to both get water and feed on the moss-like plants that grew on the walls and cast the reddish light in the chamber. Tarrin would not deny the animal its right to graze, and it promised not to bother the Were-cats or disturb their things in exchange for right of passage in the hot spring. It told Tarrin that there were carnivores in the cave system, so Tarrin didn't lower his Wards. He would let the lobster animal in, let it graze and water, then let it out again once it was ready to go.
"Alright," he said, looking towards the opening that led to the passage beyond. It was there, alright, a huge armored monstrosity waiting patiently for Tarrin to permit it entry. Though it was ugly, Tarrin rather li
ked the big brute. It was surprisingly intelligent, and had exquisite manners. Jesmind kept wanting to throw it in one of the boiling springs and cook it-she adored seafood-but he had to remind her again and again that a Druid just didn't do such a thing. As Triana had said about talking to animals, it was very bad form to talk to an animal, then turn around and eat it. As soon as he opened communications with the animal, it was his word and bond that he would do it no harm. The fact that the big lobster-creature was an armored juggernaut and had no fear of predators was why it was so polite and willing to engage the obvious carnivore in conversation. This beast was on the top of the food chain, too large for any normal cave predator to kill without seriously risking its own life. Those huge pincers could tear through solid rock; in fact, it used them to burrow into the rock to make dens and widen constricting chokepoints to gain entry to the tunnels beyond them. It too engaged in the occasional hunt, being omnivorous, but tended to prefer the blind cave fish found in some of the larger underground lakes over hunting down other landwalkers.
It took only a thought to lower the Ward. "It's clear," he called in a strong voice, and the huge beast scrabbled in, its legs making a tik-tik-tik sound on the rock as it passed. Tarrin raised the Ward again after it cleared its boudary. It ambled along the edge of the wall, its antennae flicking out to touch the bare stone it had stripped of the luminescent moss two days before. It moved along until the antennae struck the glowing plant, and then stopped and immediately began to feed. Jesmind turned to watch it, her eyes intent. Her tail twitched peculiarly as she regarded the animal, and he could tell that she was thinking of trying to cook it again.
"Leave it alone," he warned her. "Even if it didn't have passage, I wouldn't want to try to catch it."
"I'll bet it tastes like lobster," she said musingly, her tail slashing back and forth, slapping him in the side of the head a couple of times.
"Get your tail out of my face, woman," he told her irritably, slapping at the offending appendage, then finally grabbing it and pulling it to the side. Jesmind was forced to back up to keep the tail attached to her backside. She glared at him for a moment, then slid down to sit on her feet beside him.
"Any luck?" she asked.
He snorted shortly, giving her all the answer she needed. "No matter what I think of, it uses too much magic," he told her. "Hiding us from the air won't be easy, because I can't think of anything easy to do that will hide our tracks. Using Illusion to hide will be easy enough, they don't use much magical energy, but the tracks we leave behind have me stumped. Trying to hide a trail like that or wipe it out by any means other than magic will take too much magic for us to avoid being noticed."
"It'd be nice if we didn't leave tracks," she grunted. "Like those white-furred foxes I saw before we got here. They walked on top of the snow."
It was like a light appeared in his mind. "Jesmind!" he said suddenly. "That's brilliant!"
"What is?" she asked.
"That solves the big problem!" he said enthusiastically, "and I think it won't leave too much of a mark!"
"What?" she demanded irritably.
"Walking on top of the snow!" he told her excitedly. "And it'll make travelling up there alot easier to boot!" He considered it. It was possible, a weave or Air, Earth, and Water, that would make the snow like solid ground, like firm soil to them. There was a weave for walking on water like it was a solid surface, and it would be easy to alter that weave to suit his purposes. It couldn't just be a weave, though; he'd have to, for the first time, create a permanent magical object. Two of them, actually.
He rifled through his store of magical knowlege, granted in his turning, and found what he was looking for. He'd need items of exceptional craftsmanship, but the creation of those objects was not a demanding issue. He only needed items of exceptional quality. If he Created suitable items with Druidic magic, they would serve his purposes, so long as they were items of exceptional quality. He had to prepare the items, infuse them with magic of the Weave that would then turn and cause any subsequent spells cast into them to become permanent. That required High Sorcery. That worried him a bit, since that would be serious magic, but it was worth the risk. He'd also have to figure out and program in the triggers, the variables that would give them the ability to control the magical operation of the items. That was going to be the tricky part, he saw as he studied the problem. That meant he'd have to adjust the weaves he placed in the objects by the feel of them. If he got it wrong, the spells would fizzle, the fizzling would destroy his preparing weave, and they would stain the objects with an magical residue that would make them unusable until he purged them of it and prepared them again.
The more complicated he made things, the harder it was going to be to make it work. He pondered what he needed the items to do, and then pondered how he would want to control that operation. The items would need to do two things. Firstly, it would need to hide them in some fashion. An Illusion would work best, a very special kind of Illusion that picked up the background and projected it forward, that curious trick that Dar had thought up that was as good as being invisible. The Illusion would have to be form-fitting, with only their eyes not covered by the Illusion so they could see. The non-detection aspect of their amulets would subsequently cover over the magic of the Illusion, providing even more protection by hiding the magic of the spell itself. The only control he'd need over that Illusion would be the ability to activate it and deactivate it.
The second thing he needed was Jesmind's clever idea to walk on top of the snow. That wouldn't be a completely internal weave, but the field of its effect would be limited only to whatever it was that had contact with their feet, or whatever parts of them were in active contact with the surface. To make the weave simpler to use, and subsequently simpler to alter, he'd have to restrict its operation to only working against water or water-based substances, like water, thin ice, snow, and mud. The weave would function in such a way that their weight did not change, but their weight over the watery substance would barely register to the substance upon which they stood. It was very easy to do, and the magical imprint it left would be greatly subdued by the amulets. What little that would be left over would probably be hidden by the background power of the Weave. The only control he'd need over that was the same as the Illusion, the ability to activate it or deactivate it as necessary.
No, he'd need it to do three things. The non-detection aspect of his amulet was a spell, and he could cast that into the items he created, interlacing it with the other weaves. He could tailor it specifically to masking the magical imprint that the Illusion and the water-walking power would make when they were being used. Restricting it like that, making it function in a very specific manner, would make it much easier to weave into the device without it causing the device's magical matrix to collapse or malfunction. The more targeted a spell was, the easier it was to implant into a permanent device. That spell needed no triggers or alteration, but it too would be rather tricky because it had to interlace very tightly with the other magic, covering it over and hiding it behind a mask of nondescript background energy, much the same as the weaves in the amulets that Grand Syllis made, weaves that cleverly hid what they protected by making them appear to be something else. That was how the non-detection worked. Syllis had used the weaves in the amulets. Tarrin could make them appear to be nothing more than just strands in the Weave.
It was possible. It would take two days of constant activity, and he wouldn't be able to sleep. He couldn't leave his device, couldn't so much as let them out of contact with him. The preparation weave would hold his work for brief amounts of time without him having to actively maintain it, but it wouldn't last long enough for him to get any sleep. He'd have to weave carefully and delicately, a flow at a time, carefully interlacing it into the material of the object itself and into the binding weave that he would place on it first, the High Sorcery that would envelop his work and make it permanent once it was complete.
Yes, it would work. He saw
that clearly as he considered, as he worked out what had to be done. It would take him about two days to make each one, and that would cut his margin for error down to one day. But on the other hand, the ability to walk on top of the snow would make the journey drastically easier, and would allow them to go much faster. So he could gain that time back during the trip over the mountains. There'd be no plowing through snowbanks if they had those devices. They could move effortlessly over them like they were solid ground, and it would make the movement through the tundra even easier. That would be flat terrain, and the snow would be like the ground to them, allowing them to outrun anything that didn't have wings or wasn't fifteen spans tall. The Illusions would hide them from prying eyes, and the non-detection of their amulets and the new devices would hide them from magical probes. The only thing he'd have to worry about was his impact on the Weave. But then again, Spyder didn't seem to have that effect, so there had to be a trick to not having such an impact that he could be sensed from great distances.
And the worry that his work on the objects would be strong enough for Val to find him.
"Hello!" Jesmind said imaptiently, waving her paw in his face. He blinked and looked at her. "What's the matter with you?"
"I was thinking," he told her. "What did you say?"
"I asked if you were serious," she repeated.
"Very serious," he replied. "I can make something that will let us walk on top of the snow, and I can also fix it so it casts an Illusion over us that will make virtually impossible to find."
"Virtually?"
"It won't hide our eyes," he told her. "So unless they look directly at us and they have very good eyesight, they won't see anything."
"That will make the going alot faster," she said after a moment. "No more slogging through snow."
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