The Questing Game f-2

by James Galloway

  "I say, let's not stand and gawk at the thing," Phandebrass said from behind. "Let's go inside, where it's cool."

  "How much did this cost?" Camara Tal asked, hiding behind an Illusion that Dolanna was holding over her.

  "Only about a hundred thousand gold shars," Dar told her. "We bought it."

  "Bought? Why did you do that?"

  "So we would not be held responsible for damages, and we could change things," Dolanna answered her. "Sarraya was kind enough to conjure the gold, so the cost was not an issue."

  "I haven't tired myself out like that in a hundred years," the Faerie complained from above him. She was invisible-even the fluttering of her wings was masked by magic when she was like that-but her voice was clear and audible. "It was zapping up a chest of gold for Renoit that put me on the ground. Did you really need to give him that much?"

  "As far as I am concerned, we did not give him enough," Dolanna told the sprite. "Renoit was a gift of the Goddess, so important was his aid. He literally got us to Dala Yar Arak alive. What you conjured for him only begins to demonstrate how grateful we are to him and his circus."

  The interior of the dwelling was much like other Arakite homes he'd invaded over the days. The rooms were large, with high ceilings, and there were no hallways. The stairs ran up the side of the house's main living chamber, running from the first floor to the third, with a landing at the second floor. The first floor held that large living chamber, a kitchen, a dining room, a den with empty bookshelves, a smaller sitting parlor with old furniture, storerooms for the kitchen, and a door leading to a small, dark, surprisingly cold basement. From what Dar told him, the second and third floors were bedrooms, or whatever kind of rooms the occupants made them to be. The house was furnished in typical Arakite furniture; low, large cushioned chairs instead of couches or sofas when chairs were even there, for most Arakites preferred soft pillows and cushions laid upon a carpeted floor. The eating table was only about a span high, with cushions for the diners to sit upon instead of a traditional table and chairs. The bedrooms were more traditional, in his eyes, with beds, a washtable, and a large chest at the foot of the bed. A few bedrooms also had a vanity and armoire, rooms furnished for women, and one had a writing desk.

  Tarrin sat down in the large living chamber on the first floor calmly, still in cat form. Chopstick landed beside him, done flitting through the large house to get an idea of it, and the drake nudged and nipped at him playfully. Turnkey landed on the other side of Chopstick, and the drake turned his playful attentions away from the boring Were-cat and to an opponent more willing to engage in a little mock battle. Phandebrass stepped over the wrestling drakes absently, carrying a very large leather case in his hand. "I say, I'm going to miss all my space on the Dancer, but I have what I need here for field work, I do. I say, Jula, if you're not busy, maybe you'd like to answer some questions for me. I'm a student of many fields of study, and I never pass up the chance to expand my horizons."

  Jula glanced at Tarrin with a knowing smile, then looked at the doddering mage. "Thank you, but no," she replied tactfully. "Tarrin told me not to involve myself with the others until he has time to get me ready for it. Whatever that means."

  "I say, I understand perfectly. I saw how Triana handled him. I would be something of a distraction, I would," he chuckled.

  Tonight. He still wasn't that sure of what to do tonight. He didn't want to miss a night of searching, but if there were Demons out there hunting for him, going out would be a very bad idea. He had his staff with him, sitting in the elsewhere at the moment-he wasn't going to let that out of his sight-but he didn't want to get into a running battle with such obviously dangerous opponents. He'd slip up eventually, and they'd kill him. Fighting them was that last thing on his mind, but he didn't want to lose a day. Not a single day.

  There were other considerations. He had to take Jula with him, and she would be a liability. She just wasn't ready to face such things. She needed more time, more training, and more experience. He'd be too busy worrying about her safety to pay attention to what he was doing, and that would create a very dangerous situation for both of them.

  Dolanna solved his problem for him, as she came into the room from the kitchen. "Nobody leaves until Phandebrass completes his work," she announced. "Dar and I will go to the market for supper and breakfast for tomorrow, but nobody else will leave. Not until Phandebrass is done." She looked at Tarrin. "And that includes you, dear one. You need a day's rest, anyway. You have pushed yourself hard these last days. It is starting to show on you."

  "Tell her I wasn't really set on going out anyway, Allia," he told Allia in the manner of the Cat. When he did so, Jula's ears picked up noticably, and she stared at him in surprise. "I can't take Jula until she recovers, and I won't leave her alone."

  "What is that, Tarrin?" Jula asked. "I can't hear a thing, but… it's like I can hear what you want to say."

  "It's how cats communicate," he replied to her. "You hear what I want to say, without me actually having to say it. We can understand any kind of cat, from a housecat to a lion, and they'll usually obey us when we ask them to do something. Cats have respect for Were-cats." He looked at her. "And just so you know right now, Allia can understand us," he warned Jula.

  "I don't see a problem with that," she said. "Could you teach me how to do that?"

  "Well, it's something you probably can't make yourself do," he said dubiously. "It would be easiest if you were in cat form, because it's an instinctive knowledge. Then you wouldn't have to try to force yourself."

  "You need to teach me how to do that anyway," she pressed.

  "I think you're old enough," he said after looking at her a moment. "I could do it, and I'm younger than you." He shapeshifted back into his humanoid form, looking down at her. "We may as well start now," he said. "Come with me."

  "Where are we going?" she asked as she followed him to the stairs.

  "A bedroom," he replied. "You don't need any distractions. You'll have enough of them as it is."

  He chose the first bedroom he reached on the second floor, one of the smaller ones with only a bed, chest, and washstand. He closed the door behind her, and immediately started unlacing his shirt. "What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

  "Take your clothes off," he told her. "They won't change with you."

  "I understand that, but why are you taking off your clothes?"

  "Because we're going to kill two birds," he replied. "This is something you'd eventually have to face. I may have my amulet, but I'm not going to cheat in your training. I'll do it the same way it was done to me."

  Jula turned her back for a moment and pulled her shirt over her head, as Tarrin removed his pants and shirt and placed them on the bed. She kept her back to him as she took off her pants, and she stood there for a long moment.

  "Turn around," he ordered. "You can't avoid it forever, Jula. The best way to get you over this is to make you meet it head on."

  She turned around, but she kept her eyes locked on his. He sighed and shook his head, then raised his paws from his sides. "Look at me, Jula. Look at all of me. You're going to see it all eventually anyway, and it doesn't offend me for you to look."

  She hesitantly did as she was commanded, blushing furiously as soon as her eyes dropped. Tarrin even turned around for her, so she could see everything. "Just one word of warning. Looking is one thing. Touching is another. It doesn't bother me to have you look at me, but putting your paws on any of my more sensitive parts is not recommended."

  "I wasn't considering it, Tarrin," she replied, turning beet red. "It's strange. I don't really feel embarassed standing here naked. What embarasses me is having you standing here naked. Isn't that strange?"

  "It's your instincts," he told her. "It took me all of about four days to shed my human modesty. I was exactly the same way you are now. My own nudity didn't make me bat an eye, but someone else's bothered me. You'll get over it." He stepped back from her slightly. "Alright, shapeshifting is
alot easier than you think it is. You already know how to do it. It's in your blood. The trick of it is the first time. If you do it consciously just once, you can do it again like it was the easiest thing in the world. To shapechange, you have to imagine yourself as a cat, then will yourself to change. That's all there is to it."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it," he affirmed. "It's a natural part of you. Here, watch me." He shapeshifted for her. He could shapeshift without even thinking about what he was doing, he had become so accustomed to it. Because his clothes did change with him, he probably shapeshifted much more than other Were-cats. "Now you," he told her in the unspoken manner of the Cat.

  Jula closed her eyes and balled her paws up into fists. "Squat down," he warned. "If you shapeshift like that, you'll end up standing on your hind paws. You'll topple over."

  "I didn't think of that," she admitted, squatting down and putting her paws on the ground just inside of and between her feet. In the very pose he had used to show her why she couldn't wear a dress. She didn't change for a moment, and he could feel her trying through the bond. She was telling herself to change, but there wasn't enough willpower behind it to cause it to happen. "You have to want it," he told her. "Make it happen. Will it to happen. Use that Sorcery-trained willpower, Jula."

  That did it. He felt her will it without reservations, and it triggered the shapeshift. She flowed down into her cat form, a bit smaller than his own. She looked down at herself with curious eyes, standing up and looking to her side. "The instincts are very loud now," she told him in the unspoken manner of the Cat, without even thinking about what she was doing. Her instincts were taking root. "But they're not fighting with me. It's like it's totally natural."

  "Exactly," he told her, sitting down. "Every little thing a cat does will make perfect sense to you, and you'll find that your instincts are much stronger in cat form. You'll do the very same things cats do, and it will seem completely right and proper. Grooming yourself is a good example. Eating what you catch is another."

  "You're, you're right," she said. "I do have the impulse to groom. And it doesn't seem wrong."

  "The longer you stay in cat form, the stronger the instincts become," he told her. "Over time, you'll even start thinking like a cat, but the cat will never completely overwhelm your rational mind. You may have trouble remembering things, or keep track of time, or have a little problem shapeshifting back, but that's only if you've been in cat form for a very long time. Months."

  "How do I change back? Just do the same thing?"

  He nodded. "Just will it, and you'll change back. Go ahead. Then change back and forth a few times until you get the hang of it." He sat on the bed sedately while she practiced, changing form many times. Each time, he felt that it required less effort for her. Just like him, she adapted quickly to the natural ability, mainly because it was something she instinctively knew how to do.

  "I wondered why you leaned down before you shapechanged," she told him after returning to her humanoid form. "You make it look natural, falling down into your cat form. There's quite an art to the transition, isn't there?"

  "The body changes. The position doesn't," he told her. "You'll get the hang of it. Moving from a vertical base to a horizontal one isn't that hard. You just have to set yourself up for it."

  "I noticed," she agreed.

  "Come with me," he said, opening the door before going back to cat form. "Just feeling yourself in that body isn't enough. You need to get a feel for how it works. So we're going to go hunting."

  "What is there to hunt here?"

  "You'd be surprised where mice and rats can hide," he told her. "I'd rather get some squirrel, but there aren't any around here. Squirrel is my favorite."

  "You eat them?" she protested.

  "Change back, and you'll understand completely," he told her as he sat down.

  She hunkered down and flowed into her cat form, and she sat sedately. "You're… right.," she said slowly. "Why was I objecting to it in the first place?"

  "Precisely," he told her. "Assigning human ideals to your new life isn't going to work, Jula. To beat the madness, you have to embrace the change. You're not a human anymore."

  "It's not easy."

  "That's why there are only three Changelings," he said succinctly. "You, me, and Kimmie. Nobody else managed to conquer the madness."

  "You know how to fill a girl with confidence."

  "I never said it would be easy. I just said you could do it," he told her, standing up. "Nothing easy is worthwhile. Now come on. I'll teach you how to hunt. It's time to earn our keep by chasing off the mice. And get a meal in the bargain."

  "I wonder how mouse tastes," Jula mused as the pair of them bounded out the door, heading for the kitchen.

  The afternoon and a good deal of the evening was spent educating Jula on the arts of hunting, cat style. She picked it up quickly, and he had to admit, she had a knack for it. She caught her first mouse quickly after learning the basics of it from watching Tarrin. She was very good at driving the mouse in the direction she wanted it to go, trapping it in a dead end, where it was an easy target. After retrieving their clothes, the rest of the night was spent teaching Jula about the laws of Fae-da'Nar. The laws were easy. The customs weren't. Sarraya sat in on them while he taught her, saying nothing, observing things. He had a feeling she wanted to see how well he remembered what was taught to him, or how well he could teach her. Jula was every bit as smart as he remembered, and she listened intently to his every word. Again, he realized that she was being very serious about her instruction. She didn't want to go mad again, and it showed in the determination she showed in her lessons, and it explained why she was so fanatically loyal to him. She knew that he was her only chance, so she clung to it, clung to him, like a sailor clinging to a rope in a storm.

  It was a double-edged sword. Her determination may hurt her when it came time for her to surrender some ground to her instincts. He worried a bit as he taught her that she may try to resist them, and if she did, she would simply be starting down the path to madness again.

  Sarraya yawned. Tarrin had brought Jula to one of the larger bedrooms, one with a vanity and armoire, and Sarraya was sitting on the edge of the vanity as Tarrin and Jula sat on the bed facing one another. It was going to be their room. He was serious about not letting her out of his sight. They were going to sleep in that room, Jula in the bed, Tarrin in cat form at the foot of it. He was usually more comfortable sleeping in cat form anyway. He often went to sleep in humanoid form, only to find himself in cat form when he awoke. It wasn't supposed to be possible to shapeshift in one's sleep, but either he was doing it, or he was waking up, shapeshifting, and then forgetting in the dull state of mind that came with being half-awake. "I think we can wrap this up, Tarrin," she told him, flitting into the air and landing on the bed between them. "It's nearly midnight. Everyone else is in bed."

  "We're not everyone else," he told her calmly.

  "Well, I'm getting sleepy," she protested.

  "Then go to sleep."

  "I can't," she snorted. " Fae-da'Nar won't accept her if you teach her. When it comes to it, I'll tell them that I was observing. That, they'll accept. So I have to be here whenever you teach her."

  "You weren't here before."

  "You were teaching her basics before," she countered. "You don't need me to teach instinctual knowledge, Tarrin. Now you're getting into those things that I do need to be here to observe."

  "Just who are you in this organization?" Jula asked her.

  "I'm a Druid," she replied. "Consider me to be management. Your life hinges on whether or not I think you're fit to be part of our society, cub, so you'd better be nice to me."

  "Sarraya!" Tarrin snapped. "That's uncalled for."

  "He was never nice to me," she sniffed, pointing at Tarrin. "I wonder why I even bothered to accept him."

  "Well, like father, like daughter," Jula said with a flinty look, then she graced Sarraya with a glorious smile and la
ughed. "Almost. I can't quite get the hang of that looming trick."

  "You're not tall enough," he said dryly. "I hate to say this, Jula, but you're short."

  "I've always been short," she said dismissively. "At least now I'm short only in comparison to my own kind. It's strangely satisfying to be taller than most human men."

  "You'll grow as you age," Tarrin told her. "We never stop growing, but it's very slow. Triana, my bond-mother, is a head taller than me."

  "Let's stop talking about height," Sarraya said. "As you can see, I'm not equipped to talk about that."

  Tarrin stared calmly at her, but Jula laughed. "Well, you could always loom over a grasshopper," she teased.

  "Maybe I'll shrink you down to my size," Sarraya threatened, wiggling her tiny fingers at Jula.

  "Children," Tarrin said calmly. "If you're tired, we'll stop. I guess you are, Sarraya's getting cranky."

  Sarraya stomped her foot on the bed and glared at him.

  "I take it this is my room?" Jula asked.

  "Our room," he corrected. "I told you before, you don't get out of my sight, cub."

  "How are we going to share the bed?"

  "Easy. You sleep in the bed, I sleep at the foot of it. Just don't kick me."

  "How-oh, nevermind. I forgot about that. Is it that comfortable?"

  "I prefer it," he replied. "Besides, as tall as we are, our feet usually hang off the end of the bed."

  "True, you are too tall for this bed," she agreed, looking at it. "Maybe I'll try it."

  "Suit yourself," he shrugged.

  The door opened, and Dolanna peeked in. "Are you going to eat?" she asked. "It has been waiting for you for hours."

  "Oh, yes," Sarraya said, flitting into the air and zipping past Dolanna's head.

  "I am getting a little hungry," Jula admitted. "The mice don't go very far in this shape."