The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  The door opened, and Dolanna and Faalken entered. Their entrance cramped the small cabin somewhat, but Tarrin's eyes were locked on Dolanna. She looked very tired and wan, with dark circles under her eyes. Faalken was literally supporting her. She smiled at him warmly, and that made Tarrin feel an entire world better for some reason, as if their fight had never been. "Dolanna, you look terrible," he told her.

  "I look much better than you," she said in a weary tone, but her eyes danced and she gave him a glorious smile. "After the fight, there were many people to tend. You among them."

  "How bad was it?" he asked quietly.

  "By some gift of the Goddess, only two people were killed," she replied. "The Zakkites struck during the breakfast meal, and most of Renoit's people were in the galley filling their plates. Most of the injuries were very serious, but the conditioning of these people allowed them to live more than long enough for us to render aid."

  "It pays to be in shape, it seems," Faalken noted, as Miranda took another sip of her broth.

  "We did pick up a few survivors from the Zakkites. All of them are slaves," Dolanna told him. "One is an Aeradalla."

  "What is that?" he asked.

  "A race that is reputed to no longer exist," she said in a tired voice. "Some call them the Winged Ones, winged, human-like beings that were thought to be long dead. She has refused to leave until you recovered, even after I healed her of her injuries."

  "Refused? How long have I been asleep?"

  "Nearly two days," Allia told him.

  "They had her in their soultrap," Dolanna told him. "It was her life force that was making the ship to which she was bound fly. That is how Zakkite skyships defy gravity, by consuming the life force of flying creatures. She managed to get free of it before what was left of the vessel sank."

  Tarrin sipped up the rest of the broth, then laid his head wearily back on the pillow. Just the act of raising his head had completely exhausted him.

  "Tarrin, do you remember what happened?" Dolanna asked intently.

  "No, not really," he said. "Just seeing Miranda laying on the deck. Everything after that is a blur."

  "Let us hope that you can recall what happened," she said. "You and I absolutely must discuss what you did."

  "Why, what did I do?"

  "Tarrin, you created strands," Keritanima told him in a gentle voice. "You made them, but they're just like any other strand. It's like you reached out and put new threads into the Weave."

  "That is exactly what he did, Keritanima," Dolanna assured her. "It is something that is supposed to be completely impossible, and yet you did it." She leaned against Faalken a bit more. "If you can remember how you did it, then the possibilities may be boundless. We could repair the thinned sections of the Weave and restore it to its former state. Maybe even reclaim some of the power of the Ancients."

  She smiled and patted him on the arm. "But that can wait. Right now, you need rest, and your sisters need to sleep. Neither Keritanima nor Allia has left this room since we put you here."

  "And she made me sit here when I wasn't in my own bed," Miranda said with a caustic little look at the princess.

  "I was not about to leave him alone, Dolanna," Allia said. "He always knows when we are near, and it makes him rest better."

  "It's that nose of his," Miranda said with a cheeky grin. At that moment, there was nothing more beautiful in the world to him than that quirky little cheeky grin Miranda had.

  "Come on, children," Dolanna ordered. "Let us let him rest."

  "And you're going to bed too," Faalken told the Sorceress. "You've been up almost as long as them. You won't be any good to anyone if I have to drag your unconscous body around by the hair."

  "Right now, my friend, I am too tired to put up much of a fight."

  "That's good, because I wasn't looking forward to knocking you over the head with a belaying pin," he said adamantly. "You push yourself to hard, Dolanna. Now then, I'm going to take you to your room and put you to bed. And if I see you out of that room until tomorrow, I'm going to borrow a nice heavy blunt object from Renoit and bash it over your head."

  Miranda grinned, but she had the sense not to laugh. Faalken escorted Dolanna out of the room, forcefully. Only after the door closed did she laugh.

  "I heard that," Dolanna's voice came through the door.

  Keritanima giggled, and Allia smiled. "Bed sounds like a good thing, but I want--"

  "Go to bed, Kerri," he told her. "I'll be alright by myself for a while. You too, sister."

  "Alright, my brother," Allia said in a gentle voice, "but if you should need anything, just call for us, and we will be here."

  "Go on, I'll catch up in a minute," Miranda told them as they kissed Tarrin goodbye. She stood and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, ignoring Keritanima's heated look and dismissing her with a wave of her hand. Tarrin's sisters filed out of his room, and Miranda sat down on the edge of the bed. She stroked his unbraided hair back from his face tenderly, looking down at him with serious, sober eyes and a gentle smile. "You saved my life, Tarrin," she told him calmly. "You did more than that, actually. I could feel Death coming for me, but you fought her off. You brought me back from the edge of death. I don't even know where to begin thanking you."

  "We are friends, Miranda," he told her weakly, exerting what little strength he had to reach out with a paw and take her small hand. "If you haven't noticed, I'm very protective over my friends. You're all I have, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, or any of the others either."

  She chuckled in her throat, smiling as she leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Be that as it may, I owe you a big one, Tarrin," she told him.

  "I'm not keeping score, Miranda," he replied in a voice barely more than a whisper. Her form was becoming fuzzy, and he found it a sudden chore to keep his eyes open. "I'd do...anything...for a friend...."

  And he surrendered to sleep, leaving whatever reply she had for him unheard.

  Miranda stared down at his inert form for a long time, stroking back his tangled blond hair, pulling it out of his ear gently. The door opened, and Keritanima stood there. "Regrets?" she asked simply.

  "No," Miranda replied. "I don't love him that way, Kerri. I'm just thinking about what friendship can really mean, that's all." She stroked his hair again. "I could feel it, Kerri. When he healed us, he touched us. I could look right into his soul. He healed me and Sisska, knowing that it was going to kill him. It would have killed him, if you hadn't stepped in and saved him. I feel unworthy."

  "I think you're more than worthy, Miranda," Keritanima told her gently. "And so did he. If anything, you've been a good friend to both of us, and if he's taught me anything over these months, it's how important friends really are." She was quiet a moment. "What else did you see when you looked into him, Miranda?"

  Miranda's eyes were a mystery. "A friend," she replied with a gentle smile.

  Her name was Ariana, and everything about her was exotic.

  Her wings absolutely dominated her entire appearance. They were very large, bird-like wings with white feathers, some of which were over two spans long. They folded nearly three spans over her head, and their tips brushed the wooden deck. Fully spread, those wings had to have a breadth of nearly twenty spans. She was very tall, seven spans in height, about Allia's height, thin, willowy, and maybe just a little bony. Or she would seem that way, if not for the fact that she was generously buxom and had the wide hips of a heartstopper. She was very sleek, athletic, and her visible corded muscles rippled whenever she moved. The most surprising of her musculature had to be her rock-hard, ripped abdominal muscles, but then again, powerful abdominals would be necessary for a flying being whose wings were attached so far forward. She would literally have to hold the rest of her body straight while flying, and that had developed exceptionally powerful muscles in her body.

  Her body was impressive enough, but aside from her wings, it wasn't the next thing that got one's attention. It was her hair. T
arrin had never seen such a deep shade of blue before, and had never dreamed to see it in a human-like being. But her hair was undeniably blue. A deep blue, like the skies over the sea, or maybe the water on a sunny day. In a curious reversal of normal coloring, her eyes were an amber-like yellow not too far from Keritanima's eyes.

  If her appearance was striking, her clothing was not. She was garbed in a ragged wrap that went around her neck and over her breasts, tying behind her, and a pair of loose-fitting cotton breeches given to her by one of the performers. A piece of rope served to keep the garment from sliding off her hips. She had been kept naked, Tarrin had learned from Dolanna after waking up, naked and chained to the magical device that drained her of life to make the Zakkite vessel fly. She seemed unconcerned with the amount of skin she was showing, skin that was deeply tanned. Exposure to the sea's uninhibited sun had left its mark on her.

  Tarrin thought he could understand how that would feel. He had never felt so drained before. He felt almost feeble, even after spending the entire day sleeping, but he couldn't tolerate laying in that bed any longer. After having a nasty fight with Keritanima over going for a walk, he did so. But it only took climbing the stairs to the deck to convince him that it may have been better to let Kerri win the fight. But coming up had brought her into view, and then curiosity got the better of him. He'd forgotten that she was still here, even after Dolanna had told him about her.

  Memories of the attack had started unravelling in his mind, and it scared him. Not that he had lost control, but at the raw power which he had displayed. It even frightened him. Never had he performed such Sorcery before, and he doubted he could ever match that feat again. It had taken losing a dear friend to bring that out in him, and he desperately hoped that it wouldn't ever show again. He had no doubt that the carnival performers had to be absolutely terrified of him now. He couldn't blame them. He was a little frightened of himself. That she had survived the onslaught was a miracle. She had been on the first ship he'd attacked, the one he'd sheared in half. Blind luck had separated the chains, and she had flown free of the wreck before it sank.

  She was one of six. Five men and women, wearing wraps and borrowed robes, rested below under Dolanna's care. They were traumatized and horribly scarred by their enslavement, both physically and emotionally. Tarrin remembered the wicked, horrible scars Azakar had on his back, the visible reminders of life under an Arakite's whip, and he wondered if the other survivors were similarly marked. That people could be so cruel to each other completely mystified him, but if there was one thing that life in the world had taught him, it was that human beings had no limit to the evil and cruelty they could inflict on others of their own kind. They were the only race Tarrin could think of outside of goblinoids that were so self-destructive.

  The Aeradalla regarded him for a long moment. standing at the rail, then she beckoned to him with a long-fingered hand. He approached her quietly, coming close enough to thoroughly analyze and memorize her scent. It was light, metallic, curiously similar to Allia's. But where Allia's scent was coppery, hers was more like bronze, but not unpleasant at all. His tail swished back and forth rhythmically as he looked at her, waiting for her to say or do something.

  "You are the one?" she asked in a richly timbred voice, a contralto that would sound heavenly when put to song.

  "In what way?" he asked calmly.

  "You saved us," she said after a second. "Your powers of magic are unparalleled, furry one. Seeing it from the receiving end was very eye-catching."

  "Well, it's not something I do on purpose," he told her after a slight pause.

  "Yes, the Sorceress told me," she agreed. "I am Ariana Ak'Kalani. I am in your debt."

  "I think we can forget about debts," he told her immediately. "To be honest, I had no idea you were on that ship. Saving you was purely accidental."

  "I know, but credit goes where it is due," she said adamantly. "I'd never have gotten away if not for your intervention. That places a debt of life to repay to you."

  "Don't worry about it," he told her with a dismissive wave of his paw.

  "I'll not worry about it, but it will always be there," she told him. "I'll leave it up to you when and how you wish it repaid."

  "Thanks," he said in a grunt. That was as good as forgiven, as far as he was concerned. "Dolanna said she thought your race was extinct."

  "It's a belief we encourage, because of the Zakkites," she replied calmly. "They have hunted us for thousands of years to power their ships. Those of us who remain live as far from their reach as possible."

  "How did they catch you?"

  "We can't survive without contact with the other races forever," she said. "We usually trade with the Selani for what we need, but sometimes we have to go further. I was caught in a Pelan border town by Arakite merchants, who sold me to the Zakkites."

  Tarrin thought about that. Pelan was the small kingdom created after the Selani war with Yar Arak, placed between them as a buffer between the two bitter enemies. The Aeradalla certainly didn't live in either Pelan or Arak, because of Arakite custom of enslaving non-humans. That meant that they had to be coming from the other direction, from the desert. "Pelan? It would be safer going to Arkis."

  "True, but we don't trust Arkisians. And Pelan is closer, and distance is serious when you have to fly back with what you've bought," she pointed out.

  "That would put your home somewhere in the Desert of Swirling Sands," he realized.

  "Where else is it safer from sea-going enemies than in a desert?" she pointed out with a smile and a wink.

  "Do the Selani know about you?"

  "Of course they do," she replied. "We trade with them, remember?"

  "Allia's never mentioned the Aeradalla."

  "The Selani? I think she's from a clan very far removed from our home. We don't go that far to trade, and as you may have noticed, Selani clans don't communicate with each other very often."

  "I guess so," he agreed finally. "Her clan territory borders Arkis." The fact that Selani don't talk is relatively well known in the world. Those who knew the Selani knew that the thirteen clans were generally rivals with one another. Though their Goddess forbade warfare between clans, there nevertheless existed real aggression and hostility between rival clans. Raiding and abductions were a common occurance along borders between clans, and though there is no killing, there was nevertheless a state of bloodless war that raged between Selani clans. It tended to be a war of prestige and honor, where the objective was to gain honor over other clans. It was the one aspect of Selani culture that Tarrin could never quite understand. Selani clans would battle each other in wars of intrigue and one-upsmanship, steal each other's food, water, and livestock, even occasionally battle each other in the Dance in a form of non-lethal combat, yet turn around and give food, water, or aid freely to the very same clan who had suffered a crisis or emergency. That the Selani seemed to hate each other, yet maintained an exceptionally powerful racial unity, seemed illogical. Allia explained that it was one way that the Selani kept in shape and fighting trim. The Holy Mother, Allia told him once, put her children against one another to make them stronger against those from the outside. Selani were clannish and very territorial, but would quickly dissolve those boundaries when an event occurred that threatened Selani lives. Even the lives of the most bitterly rival clan. "My brother the enemy," Allia had called it one time. Odd.

  "There you are," she said with a chuckle. "We never go that way, because we don't trust the exiled Arakites. I doubt her clan has ever seen us."

  "Probably not."

  "You are unusual. Dolanna called you Were-cat. Is this so?" Tarrin nodded. "We have long debated whether to return to Fae-da'Nar. I doubt that they remember us anymore."

  "I wouldn't know," he told her in a quiet voice. "I'm not Fae-da'Nar."

  She gave him a startled look. "A Rogue? You are very brave, Tarrin of the Were-cats. Few challenge Fae-da'Nar and live. Their power is formidable."

  "I've never se
en that power," he told her, leaning against the rail. "They've tried to kill me, but they haven't been able to do it yet."

  "You are lucky, then. A single Druid is usually all it takes."

  "I can deal with Druids," he told her. "Not that I want to, but they don't really leave me much choice."

  She leaned against the rail with him. "It's not my place to speak for you, but if you have any way to reach an agreement with Fae-da'Nar, I suggest you find it," she advised.

  "It's gone too far for that, Ariana," he sighed. "I wanted to at one time, but it's too late now. My bond-mother put her own needs over mine when mine were much more important, and it made me Rogue. Then I damned myself in Fae-da'Nar's eyes when I killed innocents protecting myself from another one of them. I didn't ask for them to be an enemy. I've tried to resolve it without killing any of them. But it's too late for that. The next time Fae-da'Nar crosses my path, one of us is going to die."

  "Sad words," Ariana consoled. "Sounds like a twist of fate."

  "There's nothing but twists in my fate anymore," he grunted. "I think about it sometimes, standing up on a deck and looking into the stars. I've lost my way, Ariana. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be anymore, or where I'm supposed to be, or what people expect out of me. I feel like a stranger. And I have no idea why I'm talking about this to a complete stranger. I shouldn't really be talking to you."

  "Why not?"

  "Dolanna calls me feral," he told her.

  "Ah, say no more," she said lightly. "I guess I should feel honored that you'd deem me worthy enough to confide in."

  "I guess you're just a non-human face," he sighed. "I guess I just don't trust humans anymore. Not after everything they've done to me. And to think that I used to be one." He shivered slightly. "I've never met one of you before, so I guess I haven't decided yet if you're a friend or foe."

  "Well, that's a gentle way to put it," she said with a slight smile.