The Questing Game f-2

by James Galloway

  "Why not?"

  "Well, you're older than I was," he said absently. "You're a mature woman, so it's probably a very good bet that you're not a virgin."

  Jula blushed furiously. But the remark caused her scent to shift, shift quickly, telling him that she was probably realizing what he had been smelling the whole time. She was coming into the peak of her estress, and that was making her very interested in him.

  "I'm not going to grill you about your sexual history, like Jesmind did to me. I think she did that just to see how she could best go about seducing me, though," he said, tapping his chin absently. "Jesmind had what you'd call ulterior motives, from the very start. Anyway, all I really need to know is how connected you are with your sexuality. It's something that impacts what I have to teach you."

  Jula laughed nervously. "You are going to teach me about sex."

  "No. I'm going to teach you about the social customs of our own kind," he replied immediately. "And some of those are customs involving mating. We'll go into that later, though," he said. "I can see that talking about that with a male disturbs you. Probably because you're still feeling instinctual attraction."

  "How do you know that?" she demanded, blushing again.

  "The first thing you did when I said you're not a virgin is blush. The second thing was advertise your availability with your scent. I told you before, cub, you can't hide that. I can even tell that you're coming into your cycle of fertility, and that's part of the reason why you're feeling the way you do. You've been exuding that all night, whether you know it or not. To use a crude term, you're in heat, Jula. You'll learn all about those things when I explain how Were-cats interact socially, and you get a better understanding of your Were half."

  "Well, I feel, exposed," she said hesitantly, sitting down on the raised ledge that served as a guardrail to keep people from walking off the edge of the roof.

  "Welcome to reality, Jula," he told her. "You're not in a private world anymore. None of us are. Our scents give away a great deal of what a human would consider private. I can smell it when you're aroused. I can smell it when you're angry, or frightened, or even when you're happy. I can even smell it when you lie. Your scent gives away many things that you used to be able to hide from other humans. Because we live in a race of beings who can't hide things from each other, it makes us very open. That's probably one reason why the Were-cats seem so moody or irrational. They just don't hide their feelings, because in our own society, there's no reason to do it."

  He sat down beside her. "Another thing you're going to find out is that we don't hold things against each other," he told her. "Since we can see into the emotions of others, what they feel doesn't impact us as greatly as it would a human who had such knowledge. We all know that we're rather mercurial in that regard. Were-cats in general are pretty emotional, but we're a bit flaky, to use an easy term. What we felt before doesn't really matter. It has to do with our instincts. When they're stonger, you'll understand. The past doesn't really matter to us. What we feel one day is nothing like what we feel the next, and what we felt yesterday usually doesn't matter. So if I got angry with a Were-cat, she wouldn't immediately hate me. She knows I'll get over it. And after I do, it's like it never happened."

  "That's why you just brush off what you know," she said with a meek look at him. "You know I'm all but in heat, but it really doesn't bother you, does it?"

  "Not a bit," he said firmly. "I know it's a part of you that you can't control. It does eat a bit at my own instincts, but it's nothing I can't control. It doesn't change what I think of you in the slightest. In a few days, that'll ease, because you'll come out of season. Just be patient."

  "You know, I feel better," she said sincerely, looking into his eyes. "I guess I felt that if you knew what I was feeling, you'd take advantage of me. Not that I'd mind," she remarked unconsciously. "And right now, I feel, well… indignant. It's like I'm saying 'here I am, come take me,' and you don't even twitch."

  Tarrin chuckled. "That's your ego," he told her. "Were-cat females take rejection about as well as human women do."

  "It's embarassing."

  "It will pass," he said. "You'll feel much different tomorrow."

  "I hope so." She glanced at him. "You mean it does affect you?"

  "I'm not dead, cub," he told her. "That's why it's called instinct . Responsive females produce an instinctive reaction in the male she is trying to catch. It's basic biology."

  "But unlike me, you can control it." She chuckled ruefully. "It's madness. I know you don't really like me and I don't have a prayer, but I still can't help feeling… well, sexual."

  "Welcome to the world of instincts," he told her, standing up. "Even with yours suppressed, do you see how they can affect you? Even without you knowing it."

  "Yes, I do," she replied honestly. "I feel like a slut."

  "That's a human misconception," he said dismissively. "Now you get a lesson in one thing that all Were-cats learn."

  "What?"

  "How to let an instinct affect you without letting it overwhelm you," he replied. "This was actually good timing. Letting you cope with being in heat is good practice for you."

  "I'm so glad you think this is such a good thing," she fumed, standing up. "You don't feel frustrated."

  "And if I succumbed?" he asked. "What if I did take you for mate. What do you think would happen then?"

  "I have no idea."

  "You'd feel that your instincts would have to be satisfied," he replied. "It would hurt you more in the long run, because you'd just be teaching yourself to submit to them whenever they became uncomfortable."

  She blinked, then gave him a long look. "I guess you're right," she admitted.

  "I think that's about enough on that," he said, looking down at her. "Are you ready to go?"

  "Let's go," she replied, rubbing her paws together.

  There was very little more instructional conversation for the rest of the night. Tarrin led Jula around, and together, they sought out and discovered twelve more ancient objects. He observed her during that time, watching as she practiced jumping from roof to roof, snuck about people's homes with surprising stealth, learned the joy that her body and its abilities could bring. She seemed to adapt very quickly, as he knew she would. Alot of what he could do was an instinctive understanding of himself, and though her instincts were suppressed, it still managed to show in her. She was a bit more tentative, maybe even clumsier, than an experienced Were-cat, but that too was natural. Cubs rarely had the same grace as their elders. Though he was only Were for a little under a year, his reliance on his nature for his very survival had given him an ease with himself that surpassed naturally born Were-cats five times his age. Jula seemed to sense this, and she strove greatly to match his effortless grace and elegance in movement. She failed, but he knew she would fail. It was the trying that mattered. Just like an animal's cub, she was copying what she saw in her parent, mimicking him in preparation for the day when she would be on her own.

  The games ended on a rooftop deep in the city, about an hour before dawn. Tarrin had stopped to take out the medallion and gauge their distance from the object it had discovered. Jula was behind him, paws on knees and catching her breath. She wasn't used to such activity. She had the strength of her blood, but she had burned out her endurance nearly an hour ago. She didn't exercise that much before she went mad, and it showed in her weak constitution; her strength would never wane, but her ability to apply that strength over time would weaken if it wasn't exercised regularly. Her regenerative recovery was slowing as she tired. She was also hungry, and in her delicate mindset, letting her go hungry too long would be very bad for her. He knew it was nearly time to go back, so she could eat and rest, and reflect on what she'd learned that night.

  That was when the scent reached him. It was strangely canine in texture, but there was an unnatural pall laying atop it, infusing it, a horrible smell that he likened to burning ashes and sulfur. And beneath that was that same smell
of corruption, of evil, that he had smelled once before.

  "Tarrin? I smell…"

  "Quiet!" Tarrin snapped, standing up and putting the medallion away. That canine component to the scent marked them as those Hellhounds that Camara Tal had seen. He scanned the streets below, seeking with his nose and his ears. The scent was coming in on the wind, and the wind was coming from directly ahead. The area before them was rather old houses stacked beside one another, almost like one continuously long building facing the street running left and right. They had to be on another street, and since he'd never smelled them before, he wasn't sure how far away they were.

  "What is that?" Jula asked plaintively, putting her paw over her nose. "It smells awful!"

  "Hellhound is my guess," Tarrin told her grimly, squatting down and scanning the street that ran from side to side below them. "Look behind us, Jula. They may just be diverting us. They'd never come at me from upwind unless they did it on purpose."

  Jula turned around, and gasped immediately. "There are men coming up behind us," she said quickly. "Men in black cloaks. Tarrin, look at them!"

  Tarrin turned to look, and he saw them. Four men wearing black cloaks, and they were dancing from rooftop to rooftop with a speed and a jumping ability that defied human limitations. They were about two blocks away, and they were coming up on them fast.

  Tarrin didn't like this. Four men, who may not be men, and those Hellhounds to deal with as well. If that wasn't bad enough, he had Jula with him, and he'd have to worry about her safety. Trying to go around them wasn't an option; they were too far away, and could change their direction to intercept. That only left going forward, but the owners of those unnatural scents were in front of him, and they were an unknown enemy.

  "Listen to me," he said in a quiet tone, his eyes igniting from within as he prepared to either fight or flee. "I'm going to lead them off. The first time you see an opening, run. Go back to Dolanna."

  "I'm not leaving you!" she protested, her own eyes flaring into radiance, and she extended her claws.

  "You stupid cub!" Tarrin said hotly, turning on Jula as the first of the four men hit the roof only one away from theirs. "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you!" Tarrin lunged forward as that first one crossed his roof and vaulted into the air to land on the roof Tarrin and Jula occupied. The move seemed to startle the airborne man, almost as much as when Tarrin reached the edge of the roof, turned his body sideways and put his arm straight out behind him, then whipped that arm over his body to impact the man in the shoulder just short of the edge of the roof. It was vast overhanded blow, instantly changing the man's momentum from forward to straight down, and it sent the man rocketing into the alley between the two buildings, smashing into a pile of old stones and debris with a loud crash. The other three skidded to a stop when they realized that Tarrin could prevent them from landing on the roof, looking between them. Tarrin saw that they all had exactly similar facial features; they were triplets. They had a handsome face with swarthy Arakite skin, black hair, and were tall and sleek. Their scents reached him, and they seemed human… almost. There was human in it, but there was also something else, something that seemed faintly similar to what he smelled off the Empress of Arak. A smell of wrongness, but nowhere near as strong as it was in her.

  The three of them hesitated, and that turned out to be a fatal mistake. A sizzling blast of lightning issued forth from behind him, and it struck the one in the middle squarely in the chest. He was blown off his feet by the power of the magical assault, crashing to the roof as an ear-splitting boom of thunder rocked the neighborhood. Tarrin glanced behind him, and saw Jula, lightning crackling around her paws as she wove together the flows that generated lightning attacks, Air, Water, and Divine power, turn her stance and raise her paws against the one on her left. She was about to loose on him, but the one she'd struck bounced back to his feet, seemingly unharmed by her magical attack. A shadow appeared to his side, and to Tarrin's shock, the fourth man, his features identical to his companion's, vaulted from the ground just before him, holding a sword with a black blade.

  He just barely managed to recognize the danger. He brought up an arm in time to deflect the slicing blade of that black sword, hitting his manacle as Tarrin's arm whipped up, parrying the blade high and away from him. The man's feet touched the roof, and Tarrin turned on him with shocking speed, reversing his arm and ripping his claws across the man's chest, a move that would have torn ribs out of a human. His claws sliced through the man's black doublet, but could not penetrate his skin. The physical force of the blow staggered the man back, making him tumble off the roof once again, but it did him no real harm.

  Fear crept into him as he backed up from the edge of the roof, towards Jula, who looked on in shocked confusion. They couldn't be harmed! Tarrin's claws could hurt anything because he was a magical creature, but they had been repulsed by that strange near-human's skin! And Jula's Sorcery had done little more than blacken the man's shirt! Surely, the physical impact of the blow knocked him down, but it did no injury at all!

  Tarrin stepped back in awe. They were Demons!

  Demons! Beings not of this world, who could not be hurt by anything of this world! They were defenseless against these monsters! The only thing they could do was knock them down! Tarrin got in front of Jula protectively as the three on the other roof jumped over to theirs, and the fourth joined them a second later. They stood there, smiling malevontly as the howling bays of the Hellhounds picked up, chilling his soul.

  In that instant, he realized one important truth. The Empress of Arak was a Demon. And since she was in such a position of power, these had to be under her control.

  There was nothing he could do. They were invulnerable. There was no way to fight them. Flight was the only option, but they were very close, too close. And he couldn't get all four engaged at once. One of them would surely split off and chase Jula, who was tired from the long night. His own safety wasn't all that important, but Jula's safety was entirely another matter. She was his responsibility, his child, and he had to protect her.

  The other three drew their black-bladed swords, and they slowly started walking towards them. They took their time, and the evil smiles on their faces told him they were enjoying the shock and fear of their quarry.

  Physical impact. The Demon had been knocked down by impact, even if it did him no harm. Physical impact!

  His green eyes changing to white, Tarrin opened himself to the Weave. Its power flooded into him, engulfed him, sought to devour him. Magelight appeared around his paws as he raised them, the power blinding him to the danger as he struggled to contain it, to focus it. He narrowed down his focus, found his way in that moment. It was not the mindless fury of rage that gave him the power to stand in the face of that tidal wave and control it, it was the very rational need to protect, to defend Jula, his child, against these deadly opponents. His protective nature exploded within him, granting him the power to control the raging torrent of power that infused him. With a primal scream, Tarrin wove together a weave of pure Air, a weave of monstrous proportions. And with a backhanded whip of his arm, he released it against the four Demons, a white arc of Sorcery that suddenly exploded outward, away from the Were-cats.

  The result was a hammer's blow of solid Air, an arc of magical power that raced away from him at supersonic speeds, slashing across his assailants and catching them up with its power. The wave of Air grew as it moved away from him, travelling hundreds of spans in the blink of an eye, and behind it cracked an ear-shattering boom as the air was literally ripped asunder by the power of his magic. The buildings in front of him shuddered when the shockwave hit them, then simply disintegrated against the might of the spell. The debris and the Demons were picked up by the wave of air and sent flying forwards as the weave dissipated, showering the buildings beyond the terminus of the spell with huge chunks of masonry. The roof beneath them suddenly cracked from the extreme force applied against it as the weave expanded as it moved outward, and the en
tire building began to sway and crack, readying to collapse.

  Unable to comprehend that, Tarrin wilted to the cracking rooftop, struggling to find a way to let go of the Weave. It built up inside him out of control, raging into him and through him, trying to burn him away as the entirety of the Weave attempted to flow into him. It was too much to even try to break free, the flow was too great to curtail. He was not truly in a rage, he didn't have that self-destructive, burning need to use the power, which was what gave him the power to control his magic. Almost without emotion, he realized that this time, he had gone too far. He couldn't let go of the Weave, and it had already filled him to a point where he felt his insides begin to burn. He couldn't form the concentration needed to use the power drowning him. And without being able to expend it, it would destroy him.

  And then Sarraya was there. Her tiny body rising over him, she spread her arms out and used her Druidic powers. A scythe cut through the connection that existed between Tarrin and the Weave, severing the link through which the power flowed into him. The energy within him shuddered at that attack, and then it dissipated quickly, evaporating like smoke, generating a backlash that all but put him on his back. Tarrin panted heavily as the pain surged through him, knees and paws on the unstable roof, but then the searing throb began to ease as his regenerative powers healed him of the damage the Weave had done.

  "Jula, get him off of there before it goes!" he heard Sarraya bark in an authoratative voice.

  He felt an arm wrap around his stomach, and he was being physically hauled into the air. He heard the roof on which they had just been standing collapse as Jula fled from it. She landed on another roof and put him back down, but Tarrin felt well enough to stand. The pain had eased inside him, and though he felt a bit weak-kneed, he felt ready enough to move. They weren't safe yet. That attack didn't harm those Demons. It would only slow them down, and those Hellhounds were still out there.