The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "Now that I've bared my soul to you, when are you planning to leave?"

  "Well, I was waiting to talk with you," she replied. "To thank you and to tell you of my debt. I guess that since that's done, I can return home. It will be a long flight, but I'll enjoy every minute of it."

  "It must be something else to fly," he said, looking up at the sky.

  "There's nothing like it in the world," she said dreamily. "I should get some rest. I'll be flying out with the dawn.

  "I think I'd better go back down to my room pretty soon too," he said ruefully. "It's starting to become work standing here."

  "I didn't realize you were ill," she said in concern.

  "Not ill, just weak," he replied. "Doing what I did really drains me."

  "Do you want help?"

  "No, I'll be alright. Besides, it looks like you wouldn't fit in the companionway with those wings."

  "Alright. If I'm not here when you wake up, I just want to say thank you, and may your gods speed you on your journey."

  "Thanks. Have a good flight home, Ariana."

  She took his paw, smiling at him warmly. "If you ever need me, just call, and I'll come," she told him seriously. "It's the least I can do for someone who saved my life."

  "I don't see when I'll need you that bad, but I'll remember it, Ariana,"he told her. "I hope we meet again."

  "We will," she said with a smile. "Trust me. We will."

  Tarrin gave her a curious look, watching her move towards the large lean-to style shelter that was made for her on the deck. For some reason, he had to agree with her.

  Absently swatting some insect that landed on his back with his tail, he turned and looked out over the calm seas, both paws on the rail. The memories of what had happened had started unveiling themselves, and they worried him. He understood why Dolanna wanted to talk to him so badly. He remembered weaving together strands. He knew how he did it, and he could do it again. The amount of energy it required had been staggering, but it was something that he could accomplish.

  He had no idea how he knew how to do it. In his rage, he was completely subjugated by his animal instincts. Perhaps they had some sort of mystical connection to the Weave that he didn't understand. Perhaps they could sense things that he couldn't when in control of himself. Maybe it had just been blind luck. Whatever it had been, it had worked, and worked too well. He had wanted more power, faster, and that was exactly what he had gotten. The fact that he used that power to destroy meant nothing to him; they had nearly killed Miranda and Sisska, so there was no mercy. Not that he was ever overly merciful in the first place. Regardless of why he had wanted it, the fact that he had managed to call it forth wouldn't leave his mind.

  The power had been incredible. Now that he could remember what had happened, he could remember things that his animal instincts hadn't noticed in their rage. About how beautiful it felt, to hold onto that much power. Even when it was burning him, there was a nearly euphoric sensation involved in wielding that much power, a feeling that was odd, and a little frightening. He was starting to fear that he was beginning to like using High Sorcery, and that would be a deadly attraction. He had been lucky so far, either using Sorcery so quickly that he didn't have the chance to build enough power to cross the threshold, or managing to break away from the power when he did. This time would have been it, if Keritanima hadn't been there to cut him off.

  It was sobering. It was more power than any single Sorcerer could manage. It was power that even a Circle had to work to contain. Yet he could use it, alone. That scared him, deeply. He didn't understand what set him apart from all the others, and he was starting to worry that having that kind of power was going to become comfortable to him. It would change him, if he allowed it to. He would become used to it, and used to the pedestal on which it placed him over others. That could lead to arrogance, conceit, maybe even belief that he was better than anyone else. So much power was an allure, almost like a drug, and he realized now that he had to be careful, or he would be seduced by its dark promises.

  It's very good for you to understand that now, my kitten, the voice of the Goddess echoed within his mind. Power is a sword with two edges. It must be respected.

  "Goddess," he said in surprise, looking around. "I thought you were gone."

  I may not speak to you, but I'm always watching you, kitten, she said whimsically. It's good to see you up. Are you feeling alright?

  "I'm still a little weak," he replied, looking down into the sea, at the wavering reflection of the greatest moon, Domammon. Soon the twin moons, Duva and Kava, would rise, and just behind them, the red moon Vala would rise. Behind the large white disc shimmered the colored pools of light on the water which reflected the Skybands. They were much narrower now than he remembered them in Aldreth. Keritanima told him that when someone was on the equator, they were nothing but a knife-edge in the sky, and only visible at night. In the frozen expanses of the north, they took up the entire southern section of the sky, brilliant and scillinting in the night, and dulling the light of the sun a little during the day as it shined through them. They seemed to be in front of the sun and moons, yet behind the clouds. "But you already knew that."

  Of course I did, she said with a choral giggle. But it seems to make you feel better if I pretend to ask about things I already know, rather than bowl you over with them.

  "Thanks," he said dryly. "Goddess--that sounds so impersonal," he grunted. "But maybe I should be more formal. You are a goddess, after all."

  Let's not start that again, she warned in a dangerous voice. You know how I feel about frivilous platitudes. It's how you feel in your heart that concerns me, not how silly you can make yourself look for my benefit.

  He looked into the sea, quiet and brooding.

  I know, she said gently. You should have expected it, my kitten. You're a being of the wild, trapped on a seagoing ship. It's only natural that you'd start wondering why you're here, and doubting what you're doing. I don't blame you for it, because I know your heart. You won't abandon me. I count on that.

  "It's more than that," he sighed. "I'm just not the same person anymore. I've turned into everything I feared I become. Even more."

  It's necessary, she said gently. It's a process of discovery. You've only been Were for about six months, kitten. You haven't discovered what that means to yourself yet, and being on these ships isn't helping you. But there's nothing I can do about that. All I can tell you is that no matter how much you feel that you've lost yourself, you will always have the power to decide what you want to be. It may not be an easy road to travel, but there's nothing stopping you from trying.

  "I know. It's just so hard sometimes. Sometimes, I feel like I should go back to Suld and gut the Keeper for doing this to me. I should have killed her."

  No, she said sternly. The Keeper had no choice. She was acting on my orders.

  "Your orders? You made them do this to me?" he asked in shock, his entire moral and religious foundations beginning to buckle dangerously.

  Yes, I did, she replied calmly, almost challengingly. And the reason you are so weak is the very reason why.

  "What do you mean?"

  Kitten, you are a Weavespinner. Maybe now you appreciate more fully what that title means.

  Tarrin blinked. She was right. The title wasn't some archaic, ambiguous term, it was a literal description.

  That's right. You have the power to create and destroy strands of the Weave. It's a very rare gift, something that even the Ancients didn't see very often. My children may remember the title, but they had no inkling of what to do with you. They trained you like a normal Sorcerer, because they didn't know any better. They didn't realize that when they did that, they would have signed your death warrant.

  "What do you mean?" he asked in confusion.

  Weavespinners are so strong in the Weave that they can't survive being in direct contact with it, the way that Sorcerers contact it to draw power. Had you remained mortal, were you still human, the instan
t that Jegojah pushed you into the Heart, it would have incinerated you. Your Were body, with its inhuman endurance and ability to regenerate, was the only reason you survived. And if it wouldn't have been him, it would have been something else. The first time you would have touched High Sorcery, it would have Consumed you. Being what you are is the only reason you can survive it.

  So, my kitten, I had you changed. It was a simple matter of keeping you alive. You may hate it, and you'll probably hate me for it, but there are some things that we all must do that we don't like.

  Tarrin turned that over in his mind several times. That the being he looked upon as his patron deity had been at the center of his life's greatest turmoil shocked him to the core, but the logical part of his mind couldn't refute her explanation. Pragmatism seemed to be a universal compulsion. To save his life, she had ordered him turned Were. And he had survived. He was still struggling with those consequences, but as his mother would say, life was an opponent, to be challenged and battled. There was a little sense of betrayal, but it came from the childish part of him that still believed in happily ever after.

  "You're right, I hate it. But I can understand it," he said after a long moment, in an emotionless tone. "But couldn't you have found something a little less...traumatizing? I may not feel so alienated if I was a Were-wolf instead."

  There was nothing else, she replied. Were-cats are the only breed of Were-kin that would have suited.

  "Why?"

  It goes back to the Breaking, kitten. Were-cats are much different than other Were-kin, and it's much more than skin deep. It happened to them in the Breaking. The next time you see Triana, ask her about it. She was born just after it happened, and she can explain some of it to you. Anyway, after the Were-cats were changed, they were like you are now. But what most outside of Fae-da'Nar don't know is that it gave the Were-cats some enhanced abilities compared to other Were-kin. Were-cats retain their inhuman strength, speed, agility, senses, and their power of regeneration in any form, where in other Were-kin they only receive those gifts in their hybrid form. It's the gift they receive in exchange for losing the ability to hold the human shape without pain. It's also one of the reasons the other Were-kin resent Were-cats. Only a Were-cat's body is suited to resist High Sorcery. Using any other Were body would have still killed you.

  Tarrin considered that. It was a bit surprising. Jesmind had said that Were-cats were different, but it seemed that even she didn't understand the truth about their condition. He wondered why that would make the other Were-kin resentful.

  Because they're a little jealous, the Goddess answered.

  "But they can take the human shape."

  So can you, if you're willing to endure the discomfort. The only thing the Were-cats really lost was the ability to stay human for extended periods of time.

  "What caused them to change?" he asked curiously.

  The Breaking did more than kill mages and Sorcerers, and make magical objects explode, she replied. It also affected some species with ties to magic, like Were-cats. The Were-cat condition is something of a side-effect of the Breaking, an alteration brought about by the shift in magical power. A mutation, in a word.

  "What does that word mean?" he asked.

  It's a rather technical term for when a child born of parents doesn't look like the parents, she explained. I'm not talking about just facial features or hair color either. Imagine if all human babies born after this moment had four arms instead of two. That's a mutation. That's what happened with the Were-cats. All children born after the Breaking were like you and Jesmind and Triana.

  "If they were born changed, what happened to the parents?"

  They're all dead, she replied, a bit sadly. They tried to raise their children, but they were very different from their parents. The original Were-cats were very benign and domestic, where their changeling offspring were wild and grounded very much in their instincts. That made the parents afraid of them, so they branded the Were-cat offspring to be Mal-de'Kii, or Children of Darkness. The same title given to vampires, lamias, and other exotic creatures that prey on humans. The parent Were-cats then tried to kill their children, deciding to reproduce by biting humans, to infect them with the same type of lycanthropy that they had. Humans bitten by these elder Were-cats became the same type of non-mutated Were-cat. By then, these changeling children were old enough to defend themselves, and there was a merciless war between the changelings and the original Were-cats. It ended when the changelings wiped out their elders, replacing them in Fae-da'Nar as the new Were-cat society.

  "That's horrible!" Tarrin gasped.

  Yes, but it was a matter of survival, she replied gently. As a Were-cat, I think you understand how savagely a Were-cat will fight to protect its life. Tarrin was forced to nod in agreement there. There was no other way. I don't think that the changelings wanted to take it that far, but even one elder Were-cat had the power to bite humans to increase their numbers, then come after them again. So they decided to exterminate them all. It may be sad, but not everything in life or history is all light and sunshine.

  "I guess not," he sighed. "Triana was involved in that?"

  She's the oldest of your kind, kitten, born just after the Breaking. She was part of it.

  "It must have been awful, knowing you had to kill your own parents," he said compassionately.

  Hold on to that feeling, she told him. There will come a time when what you say to Triana will decide whether you live or die. Look at her before you answer.

  "What does that mean?"

  What you want it to mean, she answered cryptically. Just remember what I told you, kitten, about Triana, and about the path you decide to take. It's time for me to go. Be well, and know always that I love you.

  And then the sense of her presence was gone, leaving him feeling like there was an emptiness inside. And leaving him with more questions than answers.

  A path to take. Maybe she was right. Maybe, if he worked very hard, he could reclaim some part of himself that he'd lost to the Cat.

  Two days in bed had done wonders for Tarrin's health, but little for his ire. And the main reason for that was standing at the doorway, in the form of Phandebrass the Unusual.

  The doddering mage had discovered that Tarrin's bedridden condition left him incapable of defending himself from the man's endless ranting. He had a captive audience, he and his two little teacup dragons, and he had taken advantage of it. Phandebrass had quite effectively bullied his way past Keritanima and Allia, and then he went to work on Tarrin. The mage was fascinated with the Were-cat condition, asking endless repetitive questions about every facet of Tarrin's life, even the most intimate and private things, without so much as batting an eyelash. He would write endlessly in his little book, with a drake on each shoulder looking down. Even Sevren and some of the other Sorcerers hadn't hounded him as severely as Phandebrass did. It was an ordeal for Tarrin, who had come close many times to breaking the man's arm just to make him shut up. But the words of the Goddess always drifted back to him, about how the path he travelled was up to him. Phandrebrass was aggravating, but he represented a rather grim challenge to the Were-cat, to keep from killing him as an exercise in self control.

  But as two days went by, something strange happened. Tarrin started to like Phandebrass. He was a bit scatterbrained, but he was very smart, and his questions were inciteful and searching. He loved to talk, and he knew many stories. When he wasn't grilling Tarrin about being a Were-cat, he would tell the most wonderful stories about faraway lands and times long gone, about dead legendary heroes and sinister villains. Tarrin quickly became completely infatuated with the mage's ability to tell a tale, how his voice would reach out and grab hold of him, and not let go until the tale was complete. It turned out that that was one of the things Phandebrass did for the carnival. He was a storyteller who used his arcane magic to enhance the story, bring it to life, supplying visual and audial effects to add weight to the story's plot. But even without magic, Phandebrass was
exceptionally gifted in bringing a story to life with his voice alone. But it was more than the stories. Phandebrass was a bit addled, but he had a good heart, and his sincerity was worn on his sleeve. Tarrin couldn't help but like him because he didn't feel in any way threatened by him, and the man was alot like Dar, having a nearly infectious personality that people couldn't help but like. After he'd overcome his irritation with the human over his endless questions, Tarrin started liking the man.

  But where Tarrin was starting to warm to Phandebrass, he was not so friendly with the drakes. Chopstick and Turnkey were small dragon-like creatures, but they were still animals. Tarrin's scent was one of a predator, and his size made the Were-cat a perceived threat to the two little dragons. They didn't like Tarrin, hissing and snapping at him whenever Phandebrass approached him, and that quickly rubbed Tarrin's fur the wrong way. He'd already decided that the first one that bit him was going to lose all its teeth. Maybe even the head in which they were rooted as well.

  It was a very unusual position for Tarrin. He liked Phandebrass, despite his irritating personality, and it was obvious that Phandebrass was working very hard to befriend the Were-cat. And what was the most confusing was that he still didn't entirely trust Phandebrass. It was just like Kern. Tarrin respected Kern, would even fight for him, but didn't completely trust him. He had the feeling that it was because he was human. Tarrin was very distrustful of humans, mainly because they had proven themselves to be untrustworthy in the past. Phandebrass hadn't conquered his mistrust yet, and until he did, Tarrin wouldn't let the man get too close to him. He did like him, but only from a distance. When Phandebrass started trying to get close, Tarrin would stiffen his back and push the man away, forcing the mage to start all over again.

  He may be a bit more open, but Tarrin was still feral, and he understood that. He doubted he would be anything but feral for the rest of his life. He had simply been betrayed one time too many. But what he was hoping was that he could dull that intense distrust of everything not known to the point where he could operate in a human society without killing someone. That was his only realistic goal.