The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  How could he do such a thing? He had damaged an entire city's capability to function! He had hurt people, brought down buildings, caused untold suffering and destruction. But the truth was a horrible one, one that he had never appreciated more until that moment.

  The Cat didn't care about anything else. The end justified the means. So long as it survives, that is all that matters.

  Tarrin meandered around several large piles of rubble, moving in the general direction of the ship, hoping that the Star of Jerod was still there. But it was pretty far down the docks, so it had probably survived. He looked like a building fell on him; he was bleeding from numerous rakes from the female's claws, and was beaten black and blue. He was bleeding profusely from the deep wound in his stomach, and his tail had been broken, dragging the ground behind him limply. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and she had broken his nose. She had left him in sad shape, and it was through a pain-induced haze that he looked around him, seeing what he had done to Den Gauche, managing to understand how destructive he could be.

  The weight of this added itself to everything else he had done, and Tarrin found himself uncertain how he could live with himself. Not after this. It caused an instant depression in him, and he began to wobble back and forth in his stride, as if dazed, unable to come to terms with the reality of what his actions had caused.

  Binter appeared beside him, and then the Vendari's massive hands were around him. Then he found himself off his feet, being carried like a child. "Her Highness is very displeased with you, Tarrin," the Vendari said in his deep voice, but it fell on deaf ears.

  Tarrin was unconscious.

  Chapter 2

  The ship had pulled out of port during the night, moving against a stiff quartering wind that made the ship rock back and forth rhythmicly. The sky was cloudless, and the multi-colored light of the Skybands and the four moons, all full, shone down on the rolling seas. The ship was anchored near a shoal called Shipkiller Rock, named so because its very low profile made it invisible at night and in rolling seas, and most of the crew and passengers were sleeping below, out of the stiff, cool wind that made sleeping on deck uncomfortable.

  Tarrin was not one of those. He stood at the rail, the claws on his feet keeping him perfectly sturdy against the rocking of the ship. The sounds of the clanking chain of the anchor and the creaking of the ropes in the rigging disrupted the strange keening of the wind, wind whipping up the waves that were making the ship lurch to and fro. The fast moving air carried on it only the smell of the sea, purging Tarrin's nose of the foul miasma that hung on the ship, or just about anywhere that humans dwelled. He stood there looking up at the sky, a blanket held loosely around his bare shoulders and a bloodstained bandage around his middle, and his eyes seemed to glow in the light of the night that made Sennadar a place that did not know true darkness anywhere but under the ground.

  The wound would not heal. Not even Dolanna's formidable healing ability could so much as urge it to stop bleeding. Its pain throbbed dully on his stomach, through his body, but it had been lost in the turmoil of emotions that were running through his mind. It merely served as a ground to which his mind could cling to, a physical sensation that kept him from drifting too far off in his reverie. And it was not a very happy reverie.

  Tarrin felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that scared the life out of him.

  He fully knew and understood what he had done. He had laid waste to most of the docks ward of Den Gauche, and had probably killed and injured a whole bunch of people. But he felt nothing. No remorse, no sadness, not much of anything now that the shock of it had worn off. There was nothing inside him that was even a bit contrite over what he had done. Nothing. And that scared him, it scared him badly. But yet even that sensation seemed to dull within him if he thought about it for any amount of time. It turned more into an awareness of something, and it seemed to force him to accept it no matter what. The only way he could keep it fresh in his mind would be to relive it all over again, to remind himself of the wasteland through which he had limped after getting away from the female.

  And even that was starting to lose its shock value.

  Closing his eyes and bowing his head, he looked down at the boiling seas, unsure of what it meant. Why didn't he feel something? When he killed the people in Suld, he'd almost been overwhelmed with remorse, regret, even terror of himself. And now there was nothing. He had acted no different this time, but there was a different reaction. He didn't understand it. He knew that there was a great deal that he didn't know about himself or his kind, but this strange mystery seemed that it should be easy to solve. And yet it wasn't. He couldn't think of any rational--or irrational, for that matter--explanation as to why there was nothing there when he sought to explore his feelings about his actions.

  The Cat had changed him a great deal since that fateful day when he'd been bitten, but he couldn't quite come to admit to himself that it was changing him still. Was his lack of remorse from him, or from it? Was the Cat turning him cold, or was it his own reaction to it? It would certainly make things easier. If he no longer felt bad about the things he did while out of control, it would take alot of stress out of his life. But his human morals wouldn't allow him to think about something like that. Tarrin was not a heartless person, and that made his own lack of feeling about causing injury to others so much a mystery to him. By all intents and purposes, he should feel tremendous guilt and remorse about what had happened. But there was nothing.

  What did it mean? Was he changing, or was he being changed? Did he want to be like this? To walk through the world and cause destruction and chaos wherever he went, yet be unmoved by the sorrow that he left in his wake?

  His eyes caught the glint of the manacles that were still on his wrists, and he sighed. He had alot of burden to bear already. Maybe another stone or two in his burden wasn't making much of a difference. He was a solitary, untaught Were-cat cast into the human world, a world that, should they understand his true nature, would try to destroy him. He was on a mission that he didn't want to be on in the first place, obeying the will of the Goddess, whom he called patroness. It was a mission he had volunteered to do, and that seemed to sting at him now. He didn't want to do what he was doing. He wasn't even sure what he was doing. About all he really knew and understood about it was that he had to recover the Firestaff, because it could be used to make a mortal a god. He was out to find it to prevent that from happening, to keep it out of the hands of people who would use it to raise themselves to divinity, and set off a war between gods that would ravage the world.

  He didn't know anymore. Nothing seemed to really make any sense. Not him, not his mission, not the world, not anything.

  None of the others would really understand. Besides, he doubted that he could look any of them in the eye, even Allia, and admit to them that he was almost militantly indifferent to the suffering he had left strewn behind him. They'd probably never look at him the same way again. And he wasn't sure if their rejection of him would impact him. If killing a few hundred people and laying waste to a portion of a city didn't incite any remorse in him, he couldn't see how being rejected by his friends and sisters would.

  There are many kinds of pain, my kitten, the powerful, choral mental voice of the Goddess sang into his mind, overwhelming him with her presence and her power, subjugating his soul by the mere contact she made to speak with him. She was the reason he was going against his instincts, his own desires. She was the driving force behind his current position, and there was no way that he could deny the fact that he loved her, both as a goddess and as a friend. That in itself never ceased to confuse him, but it seemed to be the way that his mysterious, capricious deity preferred it.

  He felt a sudden wave of intense shame. Nobody but her could look inside him, to see the ugly truth within. She knew his turmoil, so she knew its cause. To think that she saw his soul bare caused a powerful pang of both pain and embarassment.

  Stop that, she said harshly. When I accepted yo
u, I fully understood what I was taking. I know you're not perfect, my kitten. And we all do things that we would prefer nobody knew. But I think you know that everything I see in you never goes any further. To break your trust like that would be a horrible transgression.

  "Transgression? Against me?" he asked with a derisive snort.

  Of course, she said. You may not understand it yet, my kitten, but the relationship between a god and a mortal devoted to that god works both ways in many respects. Just as I preclude you from speaking my name aloud, I'm expected to keep the inner thoughts and dreams of the mortals under my care in the strictest confidence. If you really studied it, I think you'd find that for every single thing that you give to a god, by devotion, sacrement, vows, or devotions, you receive it back in the form of a favor or gift. It's not a one-sided relationship. Because of that, even us gods have some rules to follow, or we'll lose our mortal followers, and in a way, our own power. But what's worst, we'd lose the respect of other gods. Not even Berrok, the god of corruption and strife, would dare divulge the secrets of one of his followers.

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  Nothing, she replied with a light chuckle. But I like to give my followers a more enlightened understanding of things than other gods. Most like to keep their followers in the dark, to maintain that mystique surrounding them and their power. Keep a mortal in awe, they think, and he'll be a bit more devout. I happen to think that when a mortal makes a conscious choice after all the cards are laid out on the table, his devotion is twice as powerful as the awed mortal's would be. There was a short silence. I guess what I really want you to know is that I'll love you no matter what, kitten, she said. I accepted you for what you are, and despite what you think, I knew that your actions would occasionally go left of center.

  "Thanks," he said quietly, but with utter sincerity. The powerful shame he felt lifted somewhat; it was still there, he doubted that it would ever go away, but her kind words had lifted it partially away. "But what does it mean, goddess? Why don't I feel anything?"

  That's something that I can't answer, my kitten, she said seriously. For me to simply explain it away wouldn't do you any good. I told you once before that there were some things that you had to discover for yourself. Well, this is one of those things. It won't have any meaning for you unless you're the one who discovers it first.

  "Sometimes I think you say that just because you don't want me to know."

  Time will tell, she replied calmly. When you have the answer, you can look back to this moment and make that conclusion for yourself.

  "It doesn't make it any easier."

  It was never supposed to make it easy, she replied. Anything gained easily isn't valued as much as that gained through hardship. There are some lessons that can only be learned in pain, Tarrin. I don't like seeing you in pain, but it makes you stronger, and it teaches you to learn how to make the pain go away for good. If I were to soothe that pain, it would make you feel better now, but then the pain would never go away. If you learn to conquer it yourself, then it will be gone forever. Now, which would you prefer?

  "I hate logic," he growled after a moment.

  There was a sound not too much unlike a girlish giggle. Just keep your chin up, my kitten, she told him. I have to go now. Be well, and I love you.

  And then the sensation of her was gone, leaving him feeling peculiarly empty inside. And it left him even more confused than he'd been in the first place.

  She wouldn't help him. That stung a little bit, but part of him could understand why. Just like letting a child stick his hand in the fire to teach him not to do it, she was leaving him to sort things through for himself, so that experience would be more help to him in the long run.

  But what if he messed it up? Tarrin's control had evaporated over the months. The short term, the now, that always hung so heavily in front of him that he often forgot to look at things from more than one side. Had he simply stepped back a moment and thought things through, he could have easily led the female away safely, rather than get into a fight with her. But he hadn't. He had looked at right now and had acted on it with little regard as to what his actions would incite in the future. What if the answers to his questions were found in the long view, and he passed it over to take the shorter, more immediate path?

  Doubt, worry, they had become such unwelcome friends lately. He doubted himself, his mission. He worried over what he would do next, how badly things would turn out. There seemed to be no escape from it. It surrounded him like the walls of his tiny cabin below, hemming him in and making him feel like he was trapped.

  The wind kicked up a loud whistling keen through the jags in Shipkiller Rock, and Tarrin pulled the blanket a bit more around his shoulders.

  There just didn't seem to be answers to anything this night.

  The ship plied the surging waves ever southward, and everyone was on edge. There were a various number of reasons for it. The ship was on half rations until they reached the port of Roulet, because they hadn't loaded up all the supplies before the explosion. The reduced food made most of the men on the ship cranky, and numerous lines were cast out by sailors not on duty, to try to supplement what salted meat and hard tack remained with fresh fish. The explosion itself had put many of the men on edge. Such a thing had never happened before, at least not that any of them had seen, and it was all the men talked about between grumblings of a light breakfast. Tarrin's solid position near the bow itself had unnerved many of the men, for he stood at the rail and gazed out to sea for hours on end, unmoving, only the swishing of his tail reminding all who stared at him that he wasn't some kind of elaborately decorated statue.

  But it was the birds that unnerved everyone the most. Hundreds of them, gulls, albatross, darts and even land birds like swallows and pidgeons, they peppered the sky like a moving cloud. They seemed to follow no specific pattern, yet they seemed to be moving in a general direction, circling and gliding on the brisk sea breeze blowing in from the west. None of the sailors had ever seen so many birds concentrated into a small region before, and it seemed unnatural. Sea eagles, hawks, and other raptors shared space peacefully with the birds which would usually be their prey, as if they had put aside their natural rivalry for some other purpose. The ship was travelling southerly, but the birds seemed to be drifting to the north, and they had already passed underneath the majority of them. The deck showed that passing in the many splatters from the birds above, which caused the captain to grumble and spit irritably. The captain was a compulsively neat man, and such a mess certainly got on his nerves.

  Though it was certainly unusual, the birds themselves had demonstrated that they posed no threat, so they were only a curiosity to all but the most superstitious of the sailors, who saw them as a bad omen. It was the ship sitting on the horizon behind them that had the captain and many others worried. It was a Wikuni clipper, one of the fastest ships on the sea, and it was moving right towards them at full sail. The extreme distance made little detail clear, but the Star of Jerod's rather unusual cargo made any Wikuni ship's appearance cause enough for Captain Kern to fret. Anything that could make the legendary Abraham Kern fret was enough to send his junior officers and crew into a panic. But only the captain and the first and second mates knew who her little Wikuni Highness really was, so those were the men that showed the most concern. They knew what would happen if they were caught ferrying a fugitive royal princess. It would not be pretty.

  Dolanna was on the steering deck, trying to soothe Kern, trying to explain in calm words that she had no idea what was going on, either with the birds or with the Wikuni ship. Faalken and Azakar were on deck, stripped to the waist, stepping lightly around birdstains as they practiced with their swords. Miranda and Keritanima had their heads together near the wall of the steering deck with Binter and Sisska standing very close guard over them, and Allia and Dar were playing a game of stones near the mainmast, sitting on a deck hatch.

  One by one, his friends had tried to talk t
o him, to gently try to find out what had happened. Only Dolanna, who had bandaged his wounds, knew the full story, and Tarrin doubted that she had fully told the others yet. But Tarrin was in no mood to talk. Even Allia walked away shaking her head, telling him that she would be there when he was ready to talk to her. But he wasn't quite ready to do that yet. Things felt different now, and he wasn't sure how he could talk to his friends without having to explain what happened. And if he did that, he wouldn't be able to tell them anything more.

  Tarrin looked down into the water, where those fish were. One man had called them dolphins, and they commonly followed ships to either eat the scraps thrown overboard or simply ride in the ship's wake. They were very common in the southern reaches of the Sea of Storms. They were very sleek animals, fish that breathed air instead of water, and they moved in a sinuous, graceful harmony.

  "You are very quiet today," Dolanna said casually, coming up to the rail beside him. She looked up at him when he glanced at her, her eyes steady and her demeanor calm.

  "I don't have much to say, Dolanna," he replied quietly. "What did the captain have to say about that Wikuni ship?"

  "That it could possibly catch up to us before we reach Roulet," she replied. "If they know who we carry, they may try."