The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "Tarrin, no," Miranda said in a sharp voice. She was standing, the dress folded over her arm, showing no fear of the situation. Tarrin's blood boiled, the Cat raging up from the corner of his mind in a fury, and his every instinct told him to kill these dangerous enemies before they did something else to mess things up, but the calm command in Miranda's voice took hold of him at that same level that caused him to be so infatuated with her. He found himself stepping back from them almost unwillingly, eyes locked on Miranda, who showed no fear and did not blink when she stared him down. "I think the survivors will be much more, tractable, now. No doubt they'll prefer the hangman's rope over having you be the last thing they see."

  "By the Scar, Tarrin, do you always have to be so messy?" Faalken asked disapprovingly, looking at the wide pool of blood forming around the body of the Wikuni that attacked him.

  "Be a dear, Tarrin, and dispose of that," she said, pointing at the corpse.

  Without changing his stony expression, Tarrin picked up the body, by the free-moving head, carried to the rail, and then threw it over the side and sent it into the deep. He had no idea why he was obeying Miranda, but he was. Much as he had once felt about Azakar, a subtle intimidation present in her eyes that was sufficient enough to force him to obey. Almost as an afterthought, he picked up the rib and tossed it over the side

  "Now, it's your choice, honored guests," Miranda told the Wikuni bluntly. "You can behave and live to see Dayisè, or Tarrin will kill you one by one. It's your choice."

  "Here now, what foolishness is this?" Kern demanded as he scurried from the stern. "Did ye just kill a prisoner, Tarrin?"

  "He was attacked first, Master Kern," Miranda said calmly. "If he was a normal cat, it would have killed him. I heard his back break."

  "Aye, Captain," Faalken agreed. "I saw it myself. The dearly departed smashed Tarrin to the deck with his foot as he walked past. He got what was coming to him."

  Kern gave Tarrin a wary eye, then he nodded. "Alright then. Just be more careful, lad. No need to tempt them into such things. Just keep a good distance from them."

  Tarrin leveled a flat glare at Kern and growled at him, which made Kern take a quick step back. "N-Now see here, lad, on my ship you obey my orders. I tell you now to keep your distance from the prisoners."

  Still baring his fangs, Tarrin weighed the threat in that challenge. Kern was respected, and Tarrin would feel bad if he killed him. It wasn't seemly to kill respected individuals, unless there was a really good reason. Kern was right that his authority on the ship was absolute, and Tarrin had to respect that authority. It was only seemly to obey the laws of someone else's den. Lowering his lips, hiding those long, white fangs, Tarrin only nodded with a grim expression, then turned his back on the prisoners, shifted into cat form, and padded over to the bulwark and laid down in a rope coil not far away.

  If anything, that one act had utterly silenced the Wikuni. They no longer whispered among themselves, and almost every eye was pinned to where Tarrin lay, seemingly asleep.

  "Mind ye, if a one of ye gives him another reason to kill, I won't stand in his way," Kern warned them. "Ye can hang from a yardarm in Dayisè, or ye can get your sorry carcasses tossed over the side. As lady Miranda said to ye, it be your choice."

  That generally ended that. Azakar and the Vendari went back to training with Faalken observing, and the Wikuni were very quiet and very still. Kern returned to the sterncastle, but Miranda knelt by the rope coil and gave him a disapproving look. "I don't know how you keep getting yourself into trouble, you wayward child," she told him with a sudden impish grin and a wink. She reached down and picked him up, then settled him on her lap again as she sat back down to her needlepoint.

  Dolanna, however, wasn't quite so receptive to the news. After they came back on deck from their instruction, he could clearly see her eyes flash, and see the infuriated expression on her face as Kern informed her of the incident. Tarrin didn't quite understand why she was getting so angry. The Wikuni had attacked first, and Tarrin had warned them what would happen if they tried anything. There was no blame on him in the matter. In fact, he had told them that he'd kill them all. And he would have, if Miranda hadn't interceded. They weren't important, weren't even worthy of having their sorry pelts pulled out of the sea. They were pirates, predators of the shipping lanes, and they deserved to die for those crimes. And every moment they were on deck was a blaring shout in his ears that his family was in danger. He hadn't had any decent rest since they were brought on board, and he doubted he'd have any until they were gone.

  "Tarrin, come here," Dolanna ordered in a hostile voice, pointing to the deck in front of her.

  Tarrin looked up at Miranda, who calmly moved the dress and her arm so he could jump down from her lap. He did so, approaching his mentor with not a little trepidation, sitting calmly in front of her and waiting.

  "What you have done is reprehensible," she told him. "You specifically promised me that you would not do such things, and it took you all of a day to break your word. You are coming close to forcing me to punish you, and that is something that neither of us will enjoy."

  "It wasn't my fault," Tarrin replied to her in the manner of the Cat.

  "Do not meow at me, student," she snapped in a commanding tone. "Present yourself to me this instant."

  Tarrin forgot that she couldn't understand him like that. He shapeshifted to his humanoid form, going from having her tower over him to towering over her, looking down at her with a curiously neutral expression. "It wasn't my fault," he repeated. "They attacked me first. They knew the punishment for disobedience."

  "That is not your decision to make!" she raged at him. "It is not your place to determine who lives and who does not! This vessel is under the flag of Kern, and those matters are for him and him alone to determine!" She crossed her arms and glared up at him, which took Tarrin aback. This kind of vehemence was so totally unlike Dolanna that he wasn't sure if she was as well as she led him to believe. "You are acting little better than them, Tarrin!" she said, pointing savagely at the captive Wikuni. "You disappoint me."

  Tarrin lowered his head. There wasn't very much he could say to that. He had no regrets over what he did, only that Dolanna seemed to disagree with them. Her opinion of him, and her friendship, were very important to him. He stared at the deck in front of her plain brown dress, noticing that she was wearing new slippers.

  "Look at me, Tarrin," she ordered, and he met her gaze involuntarily. "No more of this. Do you understand me? No more. From now on, you adhere to the rightful law, rather than your own."

  "Yes ma'am," he said guiltily.

  "Now go below. You are to spend the day in your room. You may come out at dinner."

  He glared at her suddenly, more than a little irritated that she would dare to punish him, but the steel in her eyes caused his indignance to fade to an expression of suppliance. "Yes ma'am," he sighed, shuffling past her, shifting back into cat form, then walking slowly towards the stairs.

  In the tiny cabin he shared with Dar, Tarrin silently fumed. The idea of being sent to him room was infuriating enough, but to be punished for something that was the right thing to do annoyed him to no end. He wouldn't dare cross Dolanna, he had too much respect and love for her, and he admitted to himself that she was the dominant in their relationship. She was like a mother-figure to him, and that alone was the only thing that made him obey her. He would do almost anything for her out of love and respect, but that authority was enough to make him do the rest of it against his will.

  That he would show throat to someone he could break over his knee made him snort slightly, but that was the way things were.

  He paced back and forth on the floor, his mind racing, but then he began to calm down as the instincts of the Cat, so strong in him when in cat form, began to defuse his anger. It saw no reason to be angry. He was there because he agreed to it. He could have refused. And after all, the room wasn't that bad. It had a nice bed with soft covers that were perfect f
or snuggling down and sleeping out a boring day. He jumped up onto the bed and did just that, laying down on top of the goosefeather pillow, letting the scents of the wool and cotton and feathers mingle with the salt air and the tar and wood of the ship, and the lingering scents of Dar and his sisters, who visited the room quite often. Those scents were the important ones, the smells of family. It made him miss his natural parents and Jenna, dearly loved people whose faces and scents were still sharp and clear in his mind. Those thoughts conjured up the vision of Janette, his little mother, and that immediately brought a blanket of content security and warmth over him. Thinking of Janette never failed to make him feel like purring. They were few, but they were his family, the people that he loved, and the only reason he was on the ship, heading out into unknown dangers against his own instincts, was because of them.

  So much of everything centered on them. They were everything to him, and there wasn't anything that he wouldn't do, no depth to which he wouldn't go, to defend and protect them. His sanity almost orbited his tight-knit group of friends and siblings. Without them, there just didn't seem to be any reason to be here. Every day he would look out over the sea, and the vision of his home would appear, the cool forests at the edge of the Frontier. The place he grew up, the familiar paths and game trails, the little village with the hardy people who lived on the fringe of civilization and accepted life as it came to them. He had no reason to be here aside from his oath to the Goddess and his friends. But the word he gave to the Goddess was an intangible thing, and because of that, the Cat in him had trouble rationalizing his devotion to it. But his friends were an immediate, tactile foundation to which to attach his life and his focus. He had been withdrawn from them lately, not very talkative, existing at the edge of their circles, but they had become the totality of his life. Without them, he would leave the ship, leave the quest, and return to Aldreth.

  At least he thought so. It wasn't something that he thought of for very long, when he allowed himself to think about it at all.

  He had had enough of thinking for a while. Curling his tail around himself, he settled in and, in an exercise that was no longer more than an idle thought, lured himself to sleep.

  That sleep was disturbed by the smells of pork stew. Opening his eyes, he saw Dar entering the cabin carrying a thick bowl of it. Dar was sweating, and the acrid scent of it marred his usually pleasant spice-like scent that all Arkisians seemed to have. It wasn't all that warm, so he must have been laboring on the deck.

  "Tarrin," he said with a smile, holding up the bowl. "I brought you some lunch."

  Jumping down off the bed, Tarrin shifted back into his humanoid form and looked down at the youth. Dar's brown eyes were as compassionate and expressive as ever, eyes that could never hide the young man's true feelings. Anyone with a mind to do so could read Dar's every emotion in those brown eyes. Those eyes looked at him with friendship, even a little fraternal love, and he smiled as he offered the bowl. Dar had always been a good friend, a true friend. He didn't speak that much, intimidated by the august presences that surrounded him, and it was very easy to overlook him when he stood among the giants and rarities that made up Dolanna's rather unique travelling retinue. He wasn't Were or non-human. He wasn't powerful or massive. He wasn't commanding and regal. He was just Dar, and Tarrin wouldn't want him any other way. A sincere young man with a large, good heart and the amazing ability to make friends with anyone.

  "Thanks, Dar, I was getting a little hungry," he said, taking the bowl. "I'm surprised Dolanna let you bring it."

  "She didn't," he said with a cherubic smile. "I didn't exactly tell her."

  "You'll get in trouble."

  "So?"

  Tarrin smiled in spite of himself. "Is she still mad?"

  "Not exactly mad," he replied, sitting down on his narrow bunk as Tarrin did the same at his bunk and began to eat. "I think annoyed would be a better term. She was rather irritated that you did what you did."

  "He had it coming," Tarrin said immediately, enjoying the cacophony of various tastes in the stew. Kern's cook was a skilled man, capable of doing wonders with salted sea rations, and Kern both cursed him for his eccentricities and praised him for the morale he brought to the crew. He was a Shacèan, and they were well known for the many fine chefs that their kingdom produced. Shacè was a kingdom of indulgent diners, so they demanded fine cuisine prepared by highly trained cooks to satisfy that desire.

  "That may be, but I think you'd better avoid Allia for a while."

  "Why?"

  "Because she is mad at you," he told him. "She wasn't happy at all over what you did. You know how Selani are. She said what you did was dishonorable."

  "She'll get over it."

  "She will, but until she does, we have to suffer. Have you ever seen her when she's angry?"

  Tarrin chuckled. "I have," he said. "Maybe you should send her in here."

  "I guess. Maybe Kern will let me ride behind the ship in a rowboat until it's over."

  Tarrin gave him a slight smile as he got up and left, and he took that opportunity to finish his stew before Allia arrived. When she did, he very prudently put the bowl under the bunk, out of her immediate reach. She looked very hostile, and her scent was sharp and almost emanated her displeasure. She glared at him a moment. "Dar said you wanted to see me?" she said in a stiff voice, in common. That was a certain signal that she was very unhappy.

  "I always want to see you, Allia," he told her. "Now just get it off your chest."

  That was done with no reservations. Tarrin's head snapped to the side when her open palm struck him in the cheek. Allia was slender and had a very feminine form, but her wiry arms held deceptive, considerable power. Arms used to swinging weapons put enough behind the blow to jar a tooth partially loose. "You dishonor the clan, brother!" she snapped at him in Selani. "You killed a defeated opponent, then you killed a prisoner, someone who could not fight back! That is cowardice! If the Holy Mother were to witness such dishonor, she would burn your brands from your shoulders!"

  Tarrin rubbed his cheek, looking at her calmly. "Be that as it may, sometimes we have to do things that seem dishonorable to survive, Allia," he told her. "Keritanima would agree with me."

  "There is no life in dishonor!" she raged. "You have shamed the clan, and our family!"

  "Why? Because I saved us alot of grief, or because I retaliated against someone who tried to kill me?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Didn't they tell you? That prisoner stomped on me. He broke my back, and if I had been a normal cat, it would have killed me. I may have killed a chained prisoner, but he tried to murder a defenseless animal."

  She looked a bit taken aback. "No, they didn't tell me that," she admitted. "In that situation, I guess it would be sanctioned to strike back. He did hit you first, and so he was prepared to accept the consequences. But that doesn't absolve you for the priest," she said sternly. "Honor demands showing mercy to the defeated. Killing him like that was dishonorable!"

  "He wasn't helpless, and he was far from defeated, sister," he told her. "If he'd recovered, he would have used his powers to call the entire Wikuni fleet down on our heads. I did that to protect us, and no other reason. I wasn't about to let him call in more ships to try to sink us."

  "That doesn't matter, my brother," she said sternly. "You can't judge people by what they might do."

  "I wasn't. I was judging him by what he already did," he told her. "They attacked us, Allia. That made them enemies! You told me yourself that you show no mercy to an opponent."

  "Unless the opponent surrenders!" she snapped.

  "He never surrendered."

  "He wasn't capable of surrendering!" she said, with a bit of exasperation in her voice. "Stop trying to dance around the matter, Tarrin. It's not going to work!"

  "Honor may not like what I did, but the situation justified it," he said bluntly. "He was in a position to bring harm to us, and I won't let anyone hurt you, Allia. I'll kill a thousand men to keep
one from laying a finger on you."

  "I don't need your protection, my brother," she said in a cool voice. "I am an adult, a branded member of society, and if you don't recall, I taught you how to fight. I don't need you standing behind me with your arms around my waist."

  "It's not just you," he said, turning around. "It's Kerri and Dar and Faalken and Zak and everyone. You're all I have, and just the thought that something may happen--" he bowed his head and crossed his arms before him. "I feel myself slipping more and more every day, sister," he said quietly. "I'm changing. I'm turning, hard. And I don't care. If someone were to hurt one of you, I don't know what I would do. I'd probably destroy myself and everyone around me."

  "Tarrin," Allia said gently, putting a slender, four-fingered hand on his shoulder. "You shouldn't worry about such things like that. We are your friends, but we are not your children. We can take care of ourselves."

  "I know that, sister, but I still can't help worrying," he said gruffly. "I've heard Dolanna talking. I know what's happening to me. She says I'm turning feral. Well, I guess she's right. She keeps saying that you are the only things keeping me from slipping away from the civilized world. I think she's right again. If you were--" he stopped, then collected himself. "If you and the others died, there wouldn't be anything left for me. I don't think the Goddess herself could keep me out here. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't yearn for the forest, for home, but my oath to the Goddess keeps me out here, on this damned ship, away from where I want to be."

  "Home is in your heart, not at a fire," she told him, embracing him from behind. "I think you're wrong about things, my brother. You're much stronger than you'll admit to yourself. You don't have to cling to me, to cling to us. You can stand on your own feet."