The Questing Game f-2

by James Galloway

  After the meal, Tarrin lounged on the couch lazily as Dolanna and Faalken went downstairs to speak with Haley. The others said their goodnights and wandered to their own rooms, to partake of beds larger than rowcots that didn't sway with a ship. Tarrin missed the swinging of the deck, in a curious way. Such motion wasn't all that bad when one wanted to be lulled to sleep, but then again, he'd rarely slept in his bed in humanoid form. His cat form was much more comfortable for sleeping in cramped conditions. Now that he was thinking of it, he'd spent the last two months in cat form more than in his humanoid form. He found it hard to believe that there had been a time that he didn't know how to shapeshift. It was second nature to him now, something he didn't even have to think about anymore.

  He worried about Haley. The Were-wolf was in a position to do some serious damage. He could call on the others, and they could come, or at the very least try to get here before they left. Tarrin wasn't all that worried about a fight with him, he looked rather scrawny and easy to overwhelm, but that possibility wasn't lost on him either. He'd rather avoid fighting with him, if only because he was a friend of Dolanna. That gave him a little respect in Tarrin's eyes. Not much, but some.

  He wondered what it would be like to be something other than a cat. Wolves were fairly large animals, and he rather doubted that there were any wild ones on the city-islands. How did Haley stand it? Surrounded by humans all the time, unable to express the other side of himself. At least Tarrin could move about in his other form at will, being lost among the other domesticated animals. But Haley was a large predator, an animal that organized into packs that cooperated with each other. How did he translate that into living on the small island, surrounded by humans and Wikuni? For that matter, why was he here in the first place? A Were-wolf would have no business in such a place. Maybe he did change form and go out. Not to hunt people, or even animals, just to go out and walk around in his wolf form, pretending to be someone's pet. A pet that would turn heads, but a pet nonetheless. At least Tarrin didn't attract attention. He was just another cat.

  Cat. He had to find a cat to replace him on the ship. He owed Kern that much for everything the grizzled old sea captain had done for them. With everyone in bed and Dolanna downstairs, he figured it was the perfect time to go ahead and do just that. It was dark, and that meant that the cats were out, searching for their nightly meals. It wouldn't be that hard to track down a stray black cat and offer it a permanent home.

  Besides, after two months cooped up with the others, he wanted a little time by himself.

  Getting out of the inn was as easy as going downstairs and padding through the crowded common room, then out the open door. Nobody noticed him in the bustle of serving girls and raucous patrons. After slipping out, he was loose on the streets of Dayise. They were crowded streets, filled with many Wikuni and sailors of every nation on the planet, and it was still well represented by merchants and other business men. The other business of the night was prostitution, and he only had to walk a few blocks before returning to the areas where hard currency girls plied their trade. But his business that night had nothing to do with harlots or merchants. The scents of other cats weren't easy to find, and he realized that the island nation didn't have a very large population of land-based animals common to mainland cities. There were wild cats about, but they were very spread out and not easy to find.

  Tarrin spent a few hours tracking down the widely scattered wild cats, but none of them were suitable. The cat had to be black, and had to be large enough to pass for him. He found nine cats during those hours of slinking through alleys and winding streets, avoiding the humans and Wikuni, and none of them were the right coloration. He worked his way back towards the docks, finding another scent in a filthy garbage-strewn alleyway that had human scents in it as well. A relatively fresh scent. Looking up, Tarrin realized that the smell, masked by the stench of the refuse, was strong enough to put the owner of it in the alley. There was also a strong smell of blood. He hadn't seen any humans when he came in, and there wasn't a blood trail to justify the strong smell. But there was alot of blood near the alley's end, even spattered on the walls. Whatever had happened had happened here, and that there was no blood trail leaving said to him that the victim had to still be here.

  It took only a moment to find the source of that smell, and the discovery filled him with a near rage. It was coming from a very young woman, barely more than a girl, who had been thrown into a pile of reeking garbage. She had been beaten so severely that he couldn't make out any facial features, and was still literally pouring blood from many savage lacerations and slash marks, saturating the garbage upon which she had been cast. Someone had literally tortured the young woman, whose clothes marked her has a prostitute, then left her for dead. Tarrin changed form and gently lifted her out of the pile, then set her on the dirty cobblestones of the alley's paved floor. She was still alive, but that would only be for a moment longer. She was nearly gone. Tarrin instinctively reached out and touched the Weave, and placed a paw on her bare, slashed belly. She had nearly been disemboweled by a knife. She was injured both inside and outside, broken bones, cuts, abrasions, bruises to her internal organs, one of her eyes punctured by the point of a knife. That someone would willingly inflict such ghastly injuries to a defenseless woman and leave her alive, letting her suffer until time took her from the world, seemed monstrous. Utterly monstrous. There was more, lower down, an anomoly in her body's chemistry-

  She was pregnant! She was with child, and many of the injuries centered around her stomach. Had the attacker known she was bearing life? If so, had the attacker specifically focused on killing the unborn?

  High Sorcery would not be held back this time, but it didn't matter. Tarrin's fury gave him an icy control that knuckled the awesome might of High Sorcery under, and without thinking about it, he managed to control that power that had always overwhelmed him before. Tarrin's paws limned over with the ghostly radiance that marked the use of High Sorcery, and he wove together those flows of water, earth, and Divine power that made up a healing spell, then released it into her. The girl's back arched severely as the intense cold sensation froze over the pain, but her slashes and lacerations stopped bleeding and began to seal over. Hidden injuries also healed over at an astonishing rate. Her eyes filled back in and repaired themselves, and her broken nose took on the shape it had originally held. Bone marrow was magically incited to produce the essential elements that made up blood, and broken bones quickly and seamlessly set themselves and fused. After the healing was done, Tarrin wove together a pure weave of Divine energy and released it into her, letting the power of the Weave itself infuse the girl to replace the vital energy she had lost in the healing. She would still feel exhausted, but it would be more of a feeling of exertion than the usual feeling that someone had sucked all her blood out through her nose that accompanied normal Healing. She was pregnant, and if he didn't replenish the energy she had lost, her unborn would suffer because of it.

  Her eyes fluttered open as Tarrin pulled his paw away. They were beautiful eyes, blue as the sea, and they were well matched to her blond, honey-colored hair. That anyone would try to kill such a pretty young girl itself was criminal. She looked a bit confused, staring up at him blearily, then she coughed a few times to clear some blood from her lungs. "Who did this?" Tarrin asked in a quiet tone full of promised vengeance.

  She looked at him, her eyes clearing. "My, my, shado," she said in a heavily accented voice. "My agent."

  "Agent?"

  "He who arranges my customers, yes."

  "Where is he?"

  "What will you do?" she asked after a moment.

  "What he did to you," he replied in a tone of utter emotionlessness.

  That made her eyes harden slightly. "Go out and turn left. Two streets down, in the Laughing Mermaid inn," she said. "Make him hurt."

  "He'll hurt," Tarrin said in an ugly tone, flexing his claws menacingly. He leaned down and sniffed delicately at her neck and shoulder.
His scent was still on her from his contact, and it sealed the man's doom. That scent was blazed into his memory, and there was nowhere in Dayise where he would be safe from Tarrin's avenging fury.

  It didn't take him long to reach the Laughing Mermaid. It was a rangy, run-down place that catered to sailors and the prostitutes that served them. The place had no door, just two shutter-like wooden panels hanging in the doorframe. He pushed them open and stepped into the inn, his sharp eyes taking in all of the patrons in the large common room in a single glance. Most were armed, and many of them had the look and bearing of men used to having the floor rock underneath them. But one stood out, because his hair was wet. It would need to be wet, because with as much blood as the girl lost, some of it had to get on her attacker. Tarrin moved directly towards the man, who was sitting at a table in the back of the inn, attended by four young women who were dressed as prostitutes. Tarrin knocked one drunken man out of his way as he moved directly towards the man, inciting a loud protest in a slurring voice. But he paid it no heed. He reached the table and stood there for a second, giving the ladies a chance to get out of the way. The man noticed him and looked up, his face serene and a smile gracing his features. "Well, you're an interesting Wikuni. Have a taste for human girls?"

  Tarrin put his paws on the table and leaned forward, just close enough to get a very good whiff of the man's scent. It was him. And the smell of the girl's blood was still all over him.

  "You didn't clean off all the blood," Tarrin told him in an icy tone.

  That serene smile dropped, then turned into a mask of terror when Tarrin's eyes exploded into the green radiance that clearly marked his rage. It would be the last thing the man would ever see. The girls shrieked in terror when Tarrin's paw lashed out and hit the man square in the face, palm first, the padded palm breaking his nose and his claws punching through both eyes. Tarrin's claws hooked into the sockets, and he dragged the man back across the table by that grisly clawhold, as the man shrieked in agony and grabbed his wrist with both hands. Tarrin picked him completely up off the table by that grip, then slammed him down into it with enough force to shatter the table and drive the man to the floor. Blood erupted from his mouth and sprayed on Tarrin's palm, when wood shard penetrated deeply into his body, stunning him enough for Tarrin to let go, then hold out a single finger with claw extended, a claw sharper than any knife. He slashed the man five times, in the exact places where he had slashed the girl, then backhanded him to break his left cheekbone. Claws punched into flesh as Tarrin picked him up off the broken table, then he turned and whipped him back down, letting him smash into the reed-strewn floor with enough force to break bones and split the wood beneath him.

  That was enough. He wouldn't survive from those injuries. Shaking blood from his paw absently, he stared directly at the four horrified young women, his expression blank. They were clutching onto each other. He noticed the dead silence in the inn; the fury and speed of his assault had taken them all aback, and he was done before even one tried to intervene. "Don't grieve for him," Tarrin told them in a cold tone. "What he got is what he gave to a young girl not an hour ago, something he would have done to any of you. He got what he gave. No more, no less."

  Then the turned and left the man to bleed on the floor, and wait for Death to come and claim him.

  That bit of business concluded, Tarrin walked out of the inn and into an alley, then changed form and stalked off. He was still trying to find a cat to replace him, and he wasn't going to stop until he did.

  He snuck back into the inn close to dawn, his business finished. He found a suitable cat about an hour after killing the man who had so grievously injured the young girl, and spent most of the rest of the night teaching it what it needed to know. Once he had that done, and assured the cat that Kern would feed it and care for it, he took it to the Star of Jerod and woke up Kern. He introduced the cat, explained how to instruct it to pretend to be him, then explained the cat's demands in return for this service. Kern was very receptive, for a cat's demands usually went no further than a steady supply of food and a warm place to sleep comfortably.

  The inn's common room still had people inside it, but it was nearly empty. Only a couple of patrons and a single serving girl remained in the room, the three men drinking from tankards and talking in low tones as the girl cleaned tables nearby. Haley stepped from a door near the bar and his eyes seemed to be drawn directly to where Tarrin was standing, near the stairs. He gave Tarrin a blunt look, then pointed to a table near the back, to which Haley moved and sat down. He was demanding an audience of sorts, he guessed. There was no real reason to refuse. Tarrin jumped up onto the table and gave the Were-wolf a calm look.

  "And where have you been all night?" he asked in a slightly hostile voice.

  He didn't see any reason to reply. He wouldn't understand anyway. He just stood up and walked to the edge of the table, then jumped down and started for the stairs.

  Upstairs, he settled onto the couch just as the door to Allia's room opened. She padded out on bare feet and a nightgown lent by Dolanna, looking like a dark-skinned rose in the pink garment. Her long silver hair was a bit wild, and her eyes hung heavily. The night without sleep didn't affect Tarrin at all, for he could go days, rides, without any real sleep. Allia didn't sleep long, but she always had trouble waking up.

  "Tarrin," she said sleepily. "Dolanna was looking for you. You were gone all night."

  "I had to find a replacement cat for Kern," he told her in the manner of the Cat. "It wasn't easy."

  "That Haley was also looking for you. I don't know why."

  "He probably had a good reason," he said knowingly.

  Keritanima and Miranda came from their room. Keritanima was wearing one of her dressing gowns and looked very much like herself, rather than the strict, stern Kaylin. Miranda wore a soft robe that was tied loosely, hanging off one shoulder. Miranda looked as if she wanted to go right back in there and go back to sleep. "Morning," Keritanima said.

  Dolanna's door opened, and she stood in the doorway. She gave Tarrin a blunt look, obviously she wasn't happy about something. "Tarrin, come in here, now," she said in an authoritative voice.

  Getting up, he padded into her room calmly. There really wasn't much she could say. After all, she didn't tell him that he couldn't go out. He sat on his haunches and looked up at her expectantly.

  "Change," she ordered, and he did so, going from looking up her great height to looking down at her. She grabbed him by the paw and turned it over, looking down at the dried blood clinging to the pads. "Really, Tarrin, can you not go out by yourself without killing someone?" she said in exasperation.

  "He had it coming," he said flatly. "He nearly killed a young girl."

  "And when were you elected judge and executioner?" she demanded. "They are not your fights, young one. You should have turned him into the watch."

  "Some things can't be forgiven," he said in a ruthless tone, looking directly into Dolanna's eyes to challenge her position.

  "Word of it reached us," she told him. "That an exotic Wikuni killed a man in the middle of an inn's common room. The method of killing immediately told me who it was. Right now, the Watch is hunting for you, so I do not suggest you go out in your natural form."

  "That's not a problem," he told her. "Nobody's seen me change, so nobody knows where I am."

  "I do," Haley said from Dolanna's door. Tarrin hadn't heard him open it. That said a great deal for the Were-wolf's stealth. "Dolanna, you lost all the ground you gained last night. I'm not going to let him run through the streets and kill people whenever he feels like it."

  "Perhaps it would be best to hear his reasons before you pass judgement, Haley," Dolanna told him. "Well, young one? Exactly what did provoke this?"

  Without emotion, staring directly at Haley the entire time after he entered the room and closed the door, Tarrin recanted the story of how he found the young girl, then what he did to the man who put her there. "I don't know where you grew up, but wh
ere I was raised we believe in an eye for an eye," Tarrin told the Were-wolf in a neutral tone. "I did to him what he did to her."

  "And why didn't you turn him into the watch?" he asked.

  "Because they wouldn't have done what needed to be done," he replied calmly.

  "Why bother?" Haley asked. "What was the girl to you?"

  "She was in need," he said, glaring at the Were-wolf.

  Sighing, Haley sat down. "Boy, you just have no idea what you're getting yourself into," he said. " Fae-da'Nar forbids us to act outside the laws where we are unless they jeopardize our own lives or livelihood. I may not like what the man did, but I can't go around and dish out my own version of justice to whoever I feel deserves it."

  "I'm not part of your order," Tarrin told him.

  "You better be, boy," he replied bluntly. "If you're not, then they'll kill you."

  "They can certainly try," Tarrin seethed.

  "I think we can dispense with the threats," Dolanna interrupted. "Tarrin does not kill indiscriminately, Haley. He usually has a good reason."

  "Boy, I'm not calling you down," he said. "I'd probably have done the same thing myself. I'm not heartless. But I understand that the well being of the Forest Kin depends on us being able to function within the human society. When among humans, it's important that we don't upset them, and we act more human. If we mess that up, many of the things that we need will be out of our reach, because the humans won't trust us anymore."

  "So, what would you have done?" Tarrin asked, giving Haley a slightly cross look.

  "I don't really know. But the point is, I would have weighed the consequences before just charging off. That's something that you can't seem to be able to do, and that makes you dangerous." He gave Tarrin a direct look. "You're feral, boy. You think you know what that means, but you're not even halfway close. If you keep doing what you're doing, dishing out justice, killing anyone you deem in need of it, you're going to get harder and harder. Killing will be easier and easier, and you'll find it to be the quickest and easiest way to solving your problems. Dolanna told me you feared becoming a monster. If you keep up the way you're going now, you're going to be that monster. It won't be the savage mindlessness you fear, it will be a cold and calculating sadism that will make people fear you ten times more than if you were insane. Were-cats are all half feral, that's one of the reasons the rest of the Were-kin don't like them. But Were-cats like you and Mist define everything the rest of us don't like about your kind."