"What will I do with Eron?" Mist asked in worry.
"I don't expect you to fight, Mist," he told her. "Your cub is still too young, and I want you to stay with Kimmie. She's going to push herself too far with her magic if someone doesn't stay with her and reign her in, and that may harm the baby. So you have two children again."
"I don't find that idea to be totally repugnant," she said with a slight smile. "I know Kimmie, and she won't disobey me. I'll keep her on a short leash for you."
"Is Triana here yet? How long was I out?"
"Nearly an hour," Allia answered.
Tarrin brooded about that. It certainly didn't seem like an hour. Then again, time seemed to work a little differently within the Weave. It was not as absolute there it was in reality, moving at the same pace everywhere. In some places it moved swiftly, in some places ponderously. He guessed he must have crossed a boundary into an area where time marched quickly, making a substantial chunk of time in reality seem like only a moment to him there.
"If I've been out that long, then Kerri and the others have to be back by now," he said. "And Spyder and Shiika may be here too."
"Shiika? Why would that Demon be coming here?" Jesmind asked.
"Because we're going to need her," Tarrin replied.
"Is it wise to ally with a Demon against its own kind?" Mist asked.
"Shiika is a dependable ally," Allia told her calmly.
"If there's one thing you can absolutely depend on about Shiika," Tarrin elaboratted, "it's that she'll do whatever it takes to keep her position of power and luxury, and do anything it takes from being banished from Sennadar and sent back to the Abyss. Val's army threatens her luxurious lifestyle, and his Demons are a direct threat to her status. She'll fight on our side because we represent a better lifestyle for her if we win." Tarrin snorted. "Shiika probably hates the other Demons even more than we do," he added absently. "Because she's so different from them."
"How so?"
"Shiika doesn't have the same mentality as other Demons," he answered. "If there was ever such a thing as a nice Demon, Shiika is the closest thing you'll ever find to it. She's rather nasty, and she is a Demon, but she lacks that fundamental sense of evil that infects the rest of her kind. She's not a good or kind woman, but she's not like the others either, actually unlike just about any other Demon. If they ever noticed it, they'd probably destroy her."
"So between the two extremes, she falls somewhere in the middle," Mist surmised.
"That's a pretty good way to look at it," he agreed. "She's a dangeous woman and I don't entirely trust her, but I do trust her when her interests happen to coincide with mine. As long as we're working towards the same goal, she can be a loyal and very powerful ally. It's when those goals start drifting apart that you have to start watching her, because she'll step on your head to advance her own cause."
"Tarrin, you know some of the most unusual people," Mist laughed. "A Demon, a dragon, and everything in between."
"Normal people are boring," he replied with no humor.
"I think I'd like to meet this Demon," Mist said.
"You'll get your chance," he answered, pushing Jesmind out from him a little. "I'll warn you now, though, they smell worse than anything you could ever imagine. I've built up something or a resistance to it." He looked to his mate. "I want you to stay here," he told her. "And when Jula gets here and as soon as I track down Kimmie , I'm sending them up here too. I want all of you together, so you can protect each other in case they try this again."
"I'll do it for now," she said. "But don't make me stay here too long."
"We won't be here very long, Jesmind," he told her. "As soon as I tell Jenna what I'm going to need from them, we'll be on our way."
"Where are we going?"
"North," he said. "And we'll be travelling a long time. We have to go quite a distance."
"Why not just fly us there, like you did when we came to Suld?"
He shook his head. "This time, I want to go slow," he told her. "I have to arrive at our destination on a very specific day. If I'm too early or too late, the plan will fail. It's important, Jesmind. So if I slow us down or speed us up on the road, I don't want you to argue. Alright?"
"If we have to be there on this specific day, why not wait here and just magic ourselves there?"
"I don't want to be where people can find me," he told her. "I need to be travelling, on the road. I need to be looking like I'm on the way, not lounging around here looking like I'm planning something sneaky. Do you understand?"
"I, no, but I'll trust you," she said uncertainly, then she gave him a wan smile.
"I trust you, but I would like to know why it's so important," Mist said.
He looked at her. "Val wants the Firestaff, that much you should know," he told her. "But the Firestaff can only be used at a particular time on a particular day every five thousand years. We absolutely have to be there on that day, not a day sooner or a day later, because the immediacy of the situation will make Val desperate enough to give me the chance to get Jasana and get her out of there alive. You know that he'll have no intention of letting any of us leave him alive. I have to have a powerful bargaining chip when I do come for her, or else he won't do what we need him to do to get Jasana back alive. That chip is going to be the fact that if he doesn't do as I demand, he'll have to wait another five thousand years before he'll be freed. He knows that not even he can take the Firestaff away from me, Mist. It's locked in the elsewhere in my amulet, and any attempt to take it by force will cause it to be sealed up there forever, out of reach of everyone and everything. I have to give it to him, and that will give us the opportunity we need to get Jasana back."
Mist turned it over in her mind, and then nodded. "That's clever," she complemented.
"It's just luck that circumstances fell as they did," he snorted. "If Mother had never given me this amulet, and the amulet's magic wouldn't actively defend itself from attempts to defeat it or get the amulet away from me, I'd have no way to get Jasana back."
"Perhaps what you call luck someone else calls a plan," Mist told him, which made him start. She had a point, but to hear Mist talking like that was very odd. He'd never thought that she had much of a mind. Then again, he made the same mistake about her that so many others made about him. They saw nothing but his outwardly violent personality, thinking that someone who acted so brutish could not possibly also be rather intelligent.
"Maybe," he admitted.
"Did I ever tell you about when your Goddess visited us?" she asked, reaching under her shirt and pulling out a black shaeram. "She gave me and Eron these amulets."
Tarrin was a bit surprised. "No, she never told me, and neither did anyone else," he said honestly. He suddenly felt a little foolish. He'd seen the one Eron wore many times, but it had never crossed his mind as to where and how he got it. He'd been human then and had no memory, and it didn't seem odd to him at the time that Eron had one. Everyone seemed to have one, even him. But he had no excuse for not sensing the amulets after he regained his memory and his Were stature. In all the confusion and worry about what happened to him and his need to get out of the Tower quickly, he guessed he had never had the mind to realize what he was feeling from Eron's amulet. Then again, with all the background magic in the Tower, sometimes it was hard to sense things unless he was actively concentrating on it, or it was very, very close to him.
Accepting it as merely one of the many things that went on without his knowledge, Tarrin recalled his pack from the elsewhere, taking it off and setting it on the ground, then kneeling before it and rooting through it absently. He'd almost forgotten about what was inside it, and he had the feeling that it would be vitally useful. If Val was going to summon Demons, magical juggernauts and powerhouses of destruction, then it was only fair that their side call up similarly dreadful assets to challenge them.
Val had his Demons. Tarrin had dragons.
He pulled a small crystal bell, plain and unadorned, but the
crystalline object almost pulsed with magic under his fingers. It was an object that Sapphire had made to allow him to contact her if he had an emergency. Well, this was an emergency.
Holding it by its top, he used a claw to sound the bell. It made a sweet, clear ring, a ring that reverberated in the air and seemed to increase in both its volume and the choral harmonics it emanated steadily. Then it suddenly stopped.
"What is that, Papa?" Eron asked, slinking forward to look at the small object.
"A means to call a friend," he answered, feeling the Wizard magic in the bell flare into life, feel it reaching across a vast distance, searching for something...searching...and then it found it.
"What is it, my little one?" Sapphire's voice called through the bell, replacing its crystal chime.
"Sapphire, I need your help," he said immediately. "In fact, we may need the help of every dragon you can find."
"What is so serious as to need that?" she asked.
"Val has raised an army of Goblinoids and Demons, my friend," he told her. "An army large enough to conquer everything on this side of the Desert of Swirling Sands." He blew out his breath. "And they've kidnapped Jasana."
"WHAT?" she demanded hotly.
"Demons working for Val attacked the Tower and took Jasana," he told her. "They've done it to force me to give them the Firestaff."
"We will see about that!" her voice was hot, almost infuriated. There was a long pause. "It is an attack on clan, Cyrus! Clan comes first! Tarrin, where are you now?"
"We're in the Tower. Our Goddess is organizing a massing of forces to face Val's army, but I'll be leaving soon to recover my daughter before the fighting makes it impossible for me to get to her."
"Where in the Tower?"
That question took him a little aback. "We're in a guest apartment," he replied. "Jesmind's was destroyed in the attack."
"What level? Which side?"
A little confused, he looked at the others. He honestly didn't know the answers to those questions. "Where are we?" he asked them.
"Ninth level, north side," Allia answered.
He repeated that to Sapphire dutifully. "Alright. Put the bell down, my little one, and back away from it. I'm coming right now."
Not sure what was going to happen, Tarrin put the bell on the floor and backed away from it. Mist grabbed Eron by the tail and dragged the curious cub away as they did the same, giving the little crystal bell a very wide berth. Jesmind looked at him in confusion, but he could only shrug and look at the bell. He had no idea what was going to happen either.
There was no sense of magical buildup, no hint or sign that it was coming. One second, she wasn't there, the next she was, standing over the little bell in her human form in a lovely violet brocade gown, a look of tightly controlled fury burning on her face. She looked around, then her eyes locked on the Were-cats. Eron scrambled behind Mist, seeking protection behind her legs, looking up at the angry dragon in fear and curiosity both.
"I thought you said you never felt a need to go faster than your wings could carry you," Tarrin noted.
"This is not the time for play!" she said in a brusque manner. "Where are Jenna and Triana? They swore to me that this place was safe! I will take them to task about their failure in a very severe manner!"
"This isn't the time to be throwing accusations, Sapphire," he said grimly. "They used Demons, and they had a very good plan. Even if Jenna knew that they were coming, I doubt she could have stopped them."
"Demons do not plan," she said in a frosty tone.
"Marilith do," he countered. "A marilith led the attack."
That brought Sapphire up short. "Perhaps," she admitted.
"Me and this particular marlith have something of a history," Tarrin said grimly, flexing his claws, the image of that six-armed Demoness cutting Eron's throat forever burned into his mind. "A history I mean to end at my earliest convenience."
"Where is Triana?"
"She was in Ungardt," he told her. "She's making her way back here as we speak. She was checking on Kerri and the others to make sure they were safe. The Demons made sure to attack when Triana was gone, but that turned out to be a good thing. Another group of Demons attacked them in Ungardt, trying to kidnap Jula. But Triana was there to help drive them off before they could get her."
Sapphire frowned, and then she looked at Mist and Eron. "I see you are safe," she told them. "Is Kimmie safe?"
"She's safe," Mist replied calmly. "She was with Phandebrass when the attack happened, and they had went out to do battle with the Demons on the grounds. They joined up with Allia out there, so I was told. Her and this strange new pet of hers," she said, looking at the inu standing beside Allia, seemingly unconcerned about this strange new visitor.
"Those Demons were but a diversion," Allia growled. "The six-armed one had snuck into the Tower using magic to disguise herself and assaulted Jasana in their apartment."
"She had Jegojah's sword," he told Allia in an emotionless tone. "I thought they buried it with him.":
"They did, but everyone knew where he was put to rest," Allia answered. "I do not think the Priests of Karas could have stopped the Demon from taking it from his crypt, even if they knew she was there."
"Where was he buried?" Sapphire asked.
"In the Cathedral of Karas," Allia answered. "They did not know who his patron god was, so the Priests decided to bury him on the hallowed ground of Karas. It was the least they could do for him. Jegojah has already become something of a legend in Suld, because of what he did during the battle. Someone told someone that leaked it out to the world that Jegojah was a Revenant, and quite a story has developed around him. He has become a hero."
Sapphire blew out her breath. "We waste time here," she said. "Take me to Jenna, little one. I mean to scold her, then we will see about destroying this army and getting your daughter back."
For some reason, hearing her say that made him feel immensely better. Sapphire was a dragon, and she had immense, awesome power. Dragons were the most powerful beings on Sennadar. Just one of them was enough to give an army of humans nightmares. If Sapphire brought her clan and they fought against Val, then Val's army was going to have a very formidable enemy to face. "I can't tell you how relieved I am that you're going to help us, my friend," he told her sincerely.
"You may have more than me and my brood. I have called for Kriss'thass," she said.
That made Tarrin rock back on his heels. Sapphire had taught him some of the dragon language, and that was a word he understood. That was a term that meant Council of Wisdom, and it meant that Sapphire had summoned the dragons that represented the ruling body of their race to come and debate an issue of dire importance.
"If Val is raising an army of Demons, then it is an issue that concerns us all," she said simply, seeing Tarrin's horrified expression. "I was not alive for it, but I was told that during the Blood War, the dragons held themselves aloof from the troubles of the little races, wrapped in an aire of their own superiority. The devastation the Demons wrought before they finally came to their senses and fought with the little races caused famine among our kind and taught us a harsh lesson," she told him bluntly. "When we ignore the plight of the weaker races, when we believe our own power makes us as gods ourselves, inviolate and omnipotent, we doom ourselves to a fool's end. The Blood War taught us that the happenings and problems of the little races can affect us. This time, the dragons will not sit on their haunches and believe that the fate of the little races is not our concern. If Val is fielding an army of Demons, he will find dragons facing him across the line."
Mist laughed nervously. "I'm pretty sure that'd be a sight enough to make even a Demon wet his pants," she said, looking at Sapphire.
"We can harm Demons," Sapphire said with a terrible kind of eagerness. "Our power may be of the land, but not even a Demon's invulnerability can withstand it. We know how to get around that."
"Triana must have figured it out as well," Tarrin said. "Jenna told me that Tria
na's magic was what drove the Demons away when they attacked Jula in Ungardt."
"It can be done," she nodded confidently. "It speaks much of Triana's power if she is capable of it. To do it, one must take native Druidic magic and make it unnatural, and you know that the demands on the Druid rise exponentially when he reaches outside of the bounds of the natural order." Tarrin nodded emphatically, remembering the many lessons Sarraya and Triana had taught him about that. Druidic magic could do anything, but as soon as one tried to use it in a way that wasn't natural or existed beyond the bounds of nature's workings, the toll it took on the Druid raised drastically. If Triana could twist it into an unnatural form of magic, then she had to possess awesome power. "When this is over, she and I must meet and teach one another," she said. "I have the feeling she can teach me things even I do not know, and I have much to teach to her. I think she is capable of much of what dragons can do with Druidic magic."
She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, looking up at him. "Now, time is wasting, little friend. Take me to Jenna. Let us get her scolding out of the way, so we can move on to the important matter. Getting my little one's daughter back."
He gave her a sincere, honest, and emotionally charged look of utter relief and hope. If Sapphire was going to help, then his chances to recover Jasana alive just went up significantly.
"Wait here," Tarrin told the females. "When Triana gets here, send her to Jenna's office."
"We'll be here," Jesmind nodded.
Tarrin led Sapphire through the halls of the Tower, and the dark looks on the two of them caused every other person that happened across them to get very far out of the way. Tarrin had no patience for anoyone who got in his way, and Sapphire's expression was as dark and ominous as a thundercloud. Everyone in the Tower, from the lowest servant to the Keeper herself, knew that the dark-haired woman with the chilling eyes was actually a dragon, and they all gave her a very wide berth. That cushion of safe area increased greatly when they saw how angry she was.
Tarrin Kael Firestaff Collection Book 5 - Weavespinner by Fel © Page 65
