What came next caused Tarrin to suck in his breath. It was like a lance of Val's power, driving into him, seeking to penetrate the non-detection of the amulet. The power was staggering, a tremendous might that was necessary to penetrate a magical spell woven by another god. Whether it succeeded or not, Tarrin knew in that moment that Val had found them!
I have found thee, Were-cat, and now thy life is forfeit! came a triumphant cry floating in the very air itself, a cry charged with glee and hideously twisted longing.
The taunting quality of the voice offended him, and the fear and worry he had over his daughter added fuel to that fire. Rising up on his feet, his eyes burning with outrage and barely contained fury, Tarrin reached out and took hold of the Weave. Paws erupting into Magelight as the Were-cat quickly started pulling power in from the Weave, he shaped that raw power into a powerful barrier, something that was not quite a Ward, but not quite a spell, existing only in the magical of magical energy, the other-world in which the Weave existed. It was more of an active control of the raw force of Sorcery, working with it in its pure state. Val's power struck that barrier, a terrible blow meant to kill, but when it made contact with it, it was turned aside. Tarrin sensed the shock on the other side of that attack, felt it gather up and strike again with more power than a mortal could even comprehend, the full power and might of a god, but again it was turned aside.
Impossible! came a gasping denial.
You forget the nature of this mortal, came a surprising taunt from the Goddess, slapping Val in the face for his failure. It is not his power that defeats you, bound one, it is mine. Face it, my worthy adversary. You won't win this easily. My power protects him, and so long as his faith in me is strong, you cannot harm him in such a manner. If you try to strike him down, I will prevent it.
Seek you to unmake all in a direct confrontation, cursed witch? came his hissing retort.
If that's what you want, then bring it on, she said pugnaciously. I'm feeling rather energetic today. What about you?
There was a long silence.
I'm not as cautious as the others, Val, the Goddess taunted. My power isn't vital to the world. The world can survive without me. That's why it's my task to oppose you. So any time you want to gather up your insignificant little power and face me, just let me know. I'll come and strike you down with all the power of a true god.
Tarrin sensed the incalculable levels of insult his Goddess had just unleashed against Val, and he clearly heard the howl of fury coming from his divine adversary. But then the howling stopped, and he could actually sense Val as he regathered himself.
Thy mission will end here, Were-cat, he warned. I will send a servant for what thou carries. Relenquish the Firestaff to me now, or thy daughter suffers for thine stubbornness!
"Listen to me," Tarrin said audibly in one of the most evil voices Jesmind had ever heard come out of him, "if you so much as touch my daughter, I'll make sure you will never get the Firestaff," he hissed with all the sincerity he could muster. "I understand the secret of the amulet, you bastard. If I destroy my amulet while the Firestaff is locked within it, it will be forever destroyed. If you harm her, you will never- never!-get the Firestaff. You'll be cursed to being forever bound inside your icon, with all your mighty power, but no way to bring it to bear against anything you cannot see!"
With some satisfaction, he realized he hit a nerve. The rage that swelled up against him was almost indescribable. Rage and fury and hatred, raw, sheer, utter hatred, a hatred so intense it almost had a life of its own.
"I am coming for my daughter," he said in a cold voice. "If you want a piece of me, you'll get your chance. But if you touch my daughter, if there's so much as a hair out of place on her head, I'll give you a reason to scream!"
That sent the imprisoned god into new throes of furious raging. Val had a temper. Tarrin filed that bit of information away for future use as the god somehow managed to get control of himself. Thou art quite brave to speak so to a god, he said in a smug kind of self-inflating way, as if to remind himself that he was one.
"When my daughter is concerned, I don't care who you are," he seethed.
Tarrin's disrespect seemed to flare the god's anger, but he kept it under control If thou art so insistent on death, then come, he said hotly. Come. I will allow thee to stand in the might of my presence and understand the folly that grips thy mind and soul.
"I'll be there, on my terms," Tarrin flung that back at Val. "So chew on that. I'll come at a time of my own choosing, and you will face me on my terms. What I have is more important to you than what you have is important to me. I know it, you know it. So wait for me, impotent godling, wait for me and know that you march to the drum of a mortal."
Val fled from him then, but it was a retreat marked by infuriated screams. Tarrin had managed to pretty thoroughly irritate and anger the god Val, and that was exactly what he wanted to do. Tarrin had learned the hard way that anger was more a weapon to one's opponent than it was to one's self. He wanted Val angry when they met face to face, because that anger would help him.
If you wanted him mad, you certainly did a good job, the Goddess said to him, her voice amused. Is that a part of your ultra-secret plan, kitten? So secret you won't even let me see it?
"I have my reasons."
I know you do. That's why I've respected your privacy, came her light response.
"I'm surprised you faced him like that."
I took a risk, she admitted. This isn't the first time me and Val have thrown rocks across the fence, kitten. You know that. He knows I'll face him if he pushes me, and that keeps him from trying. Val is just as afraid of losing as we are. When you're a god, you have a lot more to lose.
"Not as much as anyone else."
You misunderstand, kitten. Val won't be banished, he will die. His very soul is caught up in what he is. If he is destroyed, if he dies, that destruction will be utter. Where the soul of a mortal goes on to either reap the rewards or suffer the penalties for the actions they took in life, Val's soul will not do that. It will be destroyed in his death along with him, and he will face total annihilation, kitten. He fears that, as anyone would. That is the price of using the Firestaff, kitten. You become a god, but you commit your very existence to your new state of being.
He was a bit surprised at that, but it made sense, given Val's pattern of behavior. "I understand," he said. "So what's coming will be nothing more than a battle between armies."
I don't know. Val fears me, but he doesn't fear the other gods as much as he does me. He knows I'll take him on, and I won't have much fear in doing it. The other gods will be just as terrified of the idea as Val, but Val would be the one initiating it, so he'd probably feel more confident about it. After all, he'd have gotten himself ready to do it. This is why I've always been the one to deal with him, kitten. My power is the only one that can oppose him significantly enough to reign him in. I've kept him in check for five thousand years, but with the time of the Firestaff's activation so close, he's started gambling. Just as we have.
He understood that, understood it more deeply than she probably realized. Val's fear of destruction had kept him working behind the scenes for five thousand years, preparing everything for the day he got his hands on the Firestaff and could use it to become more powerful than even the Goddess could withstand. He had committed five thousand years of work, planning, sweat and toil to this, to the item Tarrin carried with him, and he had set plans in motion to move forward with his dreams of conquest. And being surprisingly forward-thinking, he had set things up so he could make his attempt to conquer and rule whether he got the Firestaff or not. Val had grown tired of working behind the scenes. He was willing to gamble on how involved the Elder Gods would get and try to conquer, maybe gain a foothold for himself and establish a kingdom in the West from which to operate as he consolidated his forces and waited another five thousand years for the chance to free himself of his prison.
And if he failed, it wouldn't matter. In
a few thousand years, after everything had returned to normal, he could begin again.
It was a win-win situation for Val. Win the world, or lose his army and simply pull back and wait to try again. And again, and again, and again, continuing to try, continuing to test, until he did finally win. Because the gods were afraid to put an end to him, he could thumb his nose at them and simply wait for another opportunity to overthrow their power in the world.
Releasing the power of Sorcery, Tarrin felt an icy resolve grip him. If that was the way it was, then so be it.
"I take it something big just happened?" Jesmind asked.
"Val tried to kill me," he said in a grim voice. "Mother stopped him. He can't kill me because I'm under Mother's protection. Now he's waiting for us, Jesmind. He's waiting for us at Gora Umadar."
"Then let's not disappoint him," she said shortly.
"We won't, but we still have to get there on Gods' Day," he told her. "That hasn't changed. But now we can move and only worry about the Demons and the patrols. Val knows he can't kill us directly, so we only have to worry about the servants he tries to put in our path."
"These belts seem to take care of hiding us from them rather well."
"From a distance. We may have to fight our way across the tundra if the patrols are heavy enough."
"I don't see anything wrong with that at all," she said in a dreadfully eager tone.
"Me either," he agreed with a single nod.
Moving at a slow walk, they continued down the mountain valleys. They camped early that night in a small cave, then set out again well after sunrise. Peeks of the tundra appeared between mountains and hills as they continued a zig-zagging descent down the valleys. About noon that day, they reached the pass that split the mountains in two, and the tundra opened beneath them as they stood at the pinnacle of the pass and looked down. A featureless white plain, unbroken snow, as far as the eye could see. Almost unconsciously, Tarin looked northeast, to where the pyramid of Gora Umadar stood beyond the horizon, their ultimate destination.
They moved about halfway down the pass, and then Tarrin stopped them when he saw a rather large cave mouth yawning just along the edge of the pass wall, a perfect place to stop and rest and prepare for the trek across the featureless tundra.
"You know, the snow's thinning out," Jesmind noticed as she pointed to a snowbank by the cave entrance. "It can't be more than a span or so deep."
"The mountains block the weather," he said distantly. "All the snow is forced to fall on the other side and in the mountains. That means the snowstorms that make it over here don't have much left. I doubt there's more than a span of snow on the tundra."
"How long will we camp here?"
"A day," he answered. "We have five days to get there, and I'm giving us four to cross the tundra. We can come down onto the tundra tomorrow and run to make up the time to get down, and then from there we'll just have to see how fast we go."
"I hate this," she growled as they stepped into the cave. "I hate having to go slow."
"I do too, but it's necessary," he said. "Let's set things up and get some dinner started. I'm hungy."
It was a tense layover for both of them. Jesmind was nearly in a fever pitch, but Tarrin was too distracted to notice. Things were nearly over and done with. In just a few days, it would all be over. Jasana would be safe in just a few days. She just had to hang on for five more days. He still had no sense of her inside the void, but he still just knew that she was alive and well. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. Val had not harmed her, at least not yet, because he knew of the terrible retribution the Were-cat would exact against him if he did so. He wouldn't be free to harm Jasana until after he got the Firestaff. Tarrin held in his paws a means to forever deny Val the chance to free himself of his prison, and they both knew it. That gave Tarrin a power over Val that not even the bound god could deny. Val was indeed marching to Tarrin's drum, and the Were-cat knew he had to keep playing as long as he possibly could.
Jesmind stormed around, muttering, cursing, throwing rocks at the walls, and venting on him for her own impatience. Tarrin simply sat there and endured it with a look of disengaged concentration on his face, as he struggled to master his own impatience, tried not to act the same way as his mate. She got worse and worse as the sun set and the moonless night took hold over the land, as the light of their small fire cast warm yellow and red hues across the red-tinged walls of the cave.
"Jesmind," he finally said, opening his eyes after something whizzed by his face so closely that he felt the air it displaced flutter against him. "Sit."
"Don't you dare order me around!" she raged at him. "Doesn't it bother you in the slightest? How can you just sit there!?"
"I sit here to keep from acting like you," he told her, looking up at her with hooded eyes. "If you want a distraction, I'll be happy to give you one."
She looked at him, then her eyebrows rose in surprise when she caught the change in his scent. "How can you think about that at a time like this?" she demanded.
"Because this will be the last chance we have," he answered calmly. "I want one more night with you before we both march off into the face of insanity. And if anything, it will calm you down. I'll get you in bed just to make you stop pacing."
Jesmind snorted loudly, but the invitation was there, and he knew his mate. Even if she knew she was being manipulated, she couldn't pass it up.
"That's low, my mate," she growled, but she had already grabbed the tail of her thick fur-lined shirt.
"I'm sure you'll enjoy the indignity," he said dryly as she shrugged out of her shirt, then sidled onto his lap and started kissing him.
It had been their last night spent together before all was said and done.
Tarrin lay with her in his arms as the light of the morning spilled into the opening of the cave, the fire long died away and the cave cold and unpleasant, but the thick fur under which they lay kept them both comfortably warm. Jesmind was sleeping, and it was times like that, when sleep softened her features, that she was at her loveliest. He could stare down at her for hours, never growing tired of the sight of her. He couldn't see her face now, but he knew exactly how it would look, with her cheek resting against his shoulder, her arms tucked in around him, embracing him even in her slumber, that heart-stealing expression of peaceful contentment that made her so incredibly beautiful. He knew he wouldn't see that expression again until after it was all over, if he ever saw it again, but the memory of it was enough to make him content.
Four days. Four days until they got back their daughter. Four days until the armies of the gods fell on the armies of Val and destroyed his hopes to conquer and rule. He was nearly sick with anxiety over the idea of having to wait another four days, but there was no help for it. And there would be no secure snuggling out on the tundra. Their every waking moment would be spent in wary alertness, ensuring no enemies snuck up on them. They would not sleep together again, as one of them would always be awake from that point onward. So this was truly their last chance to be together, and Tarrin was not going to let it be squandered. It meant too much to him for him to waste it.
But they couldn't lounge around all day. They had a schedule to keep. It was going to take them half a day to get down onto the tundra, and then they would have to run to make up some time. After that, it would be an exercise in careful pacing to try to reach the pyramid at the exact moment he wanted to be there.
But that didn't mean that they had to leave right now. He was content to enjoy it as long as he could, the feel and smell and nearness of his beloved mate, revelling in the love he had for her. Any time they lost now they could make up on the flat board of the tundra below, where their speed would become unhindered by having to ascend or descend.
He did just that for quite a while, as the sun's angle changed in the sky, though it barely managed to clear the horizon. They would only have about five hours of what could be called daylight, and alot of that was when the sun was below the horizon. The wi
nter solstice had come come and gone, and every day now would have just a little more light. Though it really made no difference now.
Jesmind finally stirred, making an adorably cute growling sound in her throat as her claws unconsciously hooked lightly into him. "Morning," she said, raising her head to look at him. "What time is it?"
"Daytime," he said absently, then he smiled when he saw the look in her eyes. "Still indignant?"
She giggled almost girlishly. "A little, but I can't for the life of me say I'm unhappy with the reason for it," she told him, leaning up and kissing him intimately. "You play dirty, my mate."
"Always have," he affirmed with a slight nod, which made her laugh. "I don't really want to get up, but we do need to get moving. It's going to be very, very tense from now on."
"I know. We'll have to take turns guarding the camp when we rest."
"Yah. And we're bound to have company on the way."
"Good. I need something to come along and give me a little release. Val's minions will be nice and convenient for me to work out my peevishness."
"Better them than me."
They packed up and started out after that, and Tarrin was strangely lamentful for leaving the little cave behind. Not because of where it was or where they were going, but for what it represented.
They got down onto the tundra by about sunset, finding the pass surprisingly easy to navigate. They moved out from steep decline to flat plain so suddenly that it seemed like some deranged god had dropped the mountains on top of a vast table. There were no foothills, no rugged terrain leading up to the mountains as there was on the west side. The mountains simply stopped, and the plain of the tundra began. As he expected, there was little more than a span to a span and a half of snow on the tundra, and in some places its smoth surface was marred by the tracks of wolves, caribou, foxes, and any manner of small rodents that burrowed out of the snow. He could hear them under it, in tunnels dug out under the frozen crust of the snow, and pits in the snow showed him that the foxes and wolves also could hear the little rodents, punching through the snow to try to grab the little bite-sized morsels. They passed large herds of caribou, shuffling the snow aside with their noses to graze on frozen mosses and lichens and even some snow-bound grass that grew from the cold ground.
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