The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "Easy. You sleep in the bed, I sleep at the foot of it. Just don't kick me."

  "How--oh, nevermind. I forgot about that. Is it that comfortable?"

  "I prefer it," he replied. "Besides, as tall as we are, our feet usually hang off the end of the bed."

  "True, you are too tall for this bed," she agreed, looking at it. "Maybe I'll try it."

  "Suit yourself," he shrugged.

  The door opened, and Dolanna peeked in. "Are you going to eat?" she asked. "It has been waiting for you for hours."

  "Oh, yes," Sarraya said, flitting into the air and zipping past Dolanna's head.

  "I am getting a little hungry," Jula admitted. "The mice don't go very far in this shape."

  He nodded. "We're about to go to bed. Is everyone settled in?"

  "More or less," she replied. "Your pack is down in the living room. You have your staff?" He pointed to it, where it stood in the corner. "Jula is going to need some new clothes, Tarrin."

  "I know. As soon as Phandebrass finishes, I'm going to take her to a tanner."

  "Tanner? Sarraya can conjure the clothing, dear one. Just ask her."

  "She could," he admitted. "I didn't think about that."

  "Sounds like I need to find out about Druidic magic," Jula said. "I never studied it."

  "It can be useful," Tarrin said, standing up.

  After eating a stew Dolanna had kept on a smoldering fire in the kitchen, Tarrin and Jula padded through the dark, empty house. She told him that she had placed a Ward around the outer fence that would keep out everyone not mystical in nature, and Phandebrass had cast some magical spells to protect the house for the night against those mystical beings, so everyone could sleep without having to post a watch. Tarrin trusted in the magic of his friends, but they weren't dealing with an enemy that was easily deterred. That made him a bit nervous. When he got back in the room, he picked up his staff and shapeshifted with it, making it disappear into the elsewhere. That way it would be right in his paw, if he had to deal with any kind of supernatural visitor in the night. He kept the door open as well.

  Jula took off her clothes without much hesitation, then shapeshifted into a cat and jumped up on the bed. Tarrin joined her, and they were soon joined afterward by Chopstick and Turnkey. Jula didn't quite know what to make of the two small drakes, until they settled down on the bed with the Were-cats and went to sleep. Tarrin didn't mind. The drakes liked sleeping with him, and there was plenty of room. He laid down and put his head on his paws, and closed his eyes. He would sleep, but it would be a very light sleep. Nobody was going to sneak up on him during the night.

  "Tarrin!" a voice called, from far away. "Come on, suta, it's time to get up!"

  Suta? That was what his mother called him, Ungardt for son. Tarrin opened his eyes and found himself back in his old room, back on the farm in Aldreth. Everything was where it was supposed to be. His bed and the large chest at the foot of it, the washstand with the chipped basin, the small table in the corner by the room's only window, that had the sooty lantern atop it. He sat up, looking around in confusion. How did he get back here? A look down told him that he was still a Were-cat. How did he wind up in Aldreth?

  A dream. This had to be a dream. But how could it be? He was wide awake. He could smell everything around him, from the spiderwebs high up in the rafters, cobwebs his mother never ceased to complain about, all the way to the strong soap she made him use to scrub the floorboards. Drawing a single claw, he poked it into his arm, and felt very real pain. They always said that you couldn't feel pain in a dream. Well, if that were true, then he really was in Aldreth. It was just impossible.

  "Tarrin! Get up!" his mother, Elke, boomed in the kitchen below. A sudden bang on the floor told him that she picked up the broom, and was smacking it against the ceiling again. She always did that when he didn't move fast enough for her. "You're going to be late!"

  Late? Late for what? He swung his feet over the bed and stood up, banging his head on a low rafter. He cursed, holding his flattened ear and looking up. The ceiling was where it was supposed to be, it was him who was taller.

  "Are you ever going to stop hitting your head on that beam?" Elke shouted at him. "By Dallstad, boy, I think it's softened your brains!"

  He moved a little aside and looked at everything, still confused. It was his room. A look out the window showed the forest in its riot of fall colors, and there was a cool bite in the air. It was his room. How did he end up back here? It made no sense. He picked his pants up from where they were slung over the chest and pulled them on, then took a shirt off a peg by the steps leading down to the ground floor, pulling it over his head as he came out his door. The door opened into the kitchen. Jenna's room was just down the hall, and his parents lived in the room on the other side of the attic. Jenna. Where was she? And where was his father? If this was indeed some kind of strange dream, it would be weird if they weren't here too.

  His mother looked just like she was supposed to look. Tall, narrow-waisted and buxom, she was Ungardt to the roots of her blond hair. She had a no-nonsense way about her that had always intrigued him, and was probably why he liked Camara Tal, Jesmind and Triana so much. They had similar personalities as his mother, so they were women he could understand. She wore a torn shirt and a pair of worn leather breeches tucked into her calf boots, and she was standing in front of a Tellurian wood stove. That wasn't supposed to be here. It had been placed in front of where the kitchen's fireplace was, an iron pipe running to the chimney to vent the smoke from the fire. He could smell the fire, as well as the ham steaks she was frying in a pan atop the new-smelling contraption. When did they get that stove? When did they come back to Aldreth, for that matter?

  "Where is father and Jenna?" he asked, sitting at the table, feeling it. It was the same table. The very feel of it was so familiar, so home, that he couldn't deny it. However it happened, he was home.

  "Eron took Jenna into the village," she replied. "She's going to magic out a few treestumps for Thendle Barston's new farm field. I think she's also going to make eyes at Lukan Longbranch," she chuckled. "That girl will be married by spring. I'll bet money on it."

  "Lukan? He's a boor. Jenna hates him."

  "He's done some serious growing," she told him. "You'd better eat. You'll be late. You know what happens when you're late."

  "Late for what?" he asked.

  Elke turned and gave him a flat look. "Did that beam knock your mind out, boy?" she demanded. "You'll be late for the same thing you do every day. And you know how much that annoys me," she glared.

  "What?" he asked nervously. Getting Elke Kael mad was never a good idea.

  "It's not right," she bristled, turning around. "You should marry her, Tarrin! I don't approve of this, this relationship." She growled. "Then again, it's her fault," she snorted. "I don't see why she makes you live here while she lives not five minutes away. It's crazy."

  Who? "What?" he asked, completely confused.

  There was a knock at the door. "Tarrin!" a voice called. "If you're in bed, I'm going to come up there and get you!"

  Tarrin nearly fell out of his chair. Jesmind! That was Jesmind! What was she doing in Aldreth? It was madness! And what was going on? Things had happened, things he had no idea about. Was this a dream? Was this real, and he really had knocked his head on the beam one time too many? He put his head in his paw and tried desperately to figure out what was going on. The last he remembered, he was in Dala Yar Arak, sleeping. This had to be a dream! But if it was, why did it feel so completely real?

  She appeared in the doorway to the living room, and she was as lovely as he remembered. Tall and lean, with the defined body of a Were-cat, Jesmind looked at him with those penetrating eyes of hers. She was wearing a simple buckskin vest that left her arms and midriff bare, and showed quite a bit of her ample cleavage, and undyed leather breeches that were ragged around her ankles. Her white fur was gleaming clean, and her red hair was tied back from her face with a simple thong that reste
d on her forehead. Jesmind looked absolutely radiant, and the sight of her was enough to make his mouth go dry.

  "He's up," Elke said gruffly to her. "I'm getting tired of you stringing my son along, Jesmind. Either marry him or let him go. Don't keep doing this."

  "We don't marry, Elke," she said casually, padding in and sitting at the table. He couldn't stop looking at her. Her face was like a blazing awakening of the past, and it conjured memories of their brief, stormy relationship. "I do as much as I can to get around that, though," she said with a sweet smile at him. "Mother forbade me from living with him. She says it restricts him, and it really angers the other females. So I built a cottage just up the path from him. She can't say anything about that," she chuckled wickedly. "You ready to go?" she asked him.

  He was still speechless from seeing her, from having his mind go crazy at the sight of her. Jesmind. This just had to be a dream. The Jesmind he knew would never be so...agreeable. But it was so real, it just couldn't be a dream. He could only nod dumbly to her. He couldn't think of anything to say.

  "Well let's go," she said with a smile and a wink. "And don't forget your staff this time. I'll meet you outside."

  She got up and left, and he stayed at the table for a moment longer, his mind racing. Jesmind! He just couldn't get over it. After so long, he finally got to see Jesmind again. And she was so nice! From the way they talked, he and Jesmind were something of an item. How could that be?

  "Well, go on, suta," Elke urged. "She'll just get cranky if you make her wait."

  Without much thought, Tarrin stood up and started for the door. He walked through the plainly furnished living room, picking his staff up from the wall just beside the door, beside a wall rack holding a bow, an axe, and a sword. The family weapons, ready and waiting in case they needed to be used in a hurry. he opened the door and found himself looking at the front yard of the Kael homestead. Over there was the small barn, and his father's brewing shed was just to the side of the woodshed over there. A small fence in front of the barn penned in two pigs, and a small flock of chickens wandered aimlessly around the front yard. The field was to the right of him, a field of brown stalks cut low to the ground. Jesmind stood by the fence, leaning against it and looking at the pigs, who were very unsettled by her presence. Her tail lashed back and forth in a manner that told him she was entertaining thoughts of irritating the animals, just for the fun of it. She looked up when he approached her mutely, marvelling at how beautiful she was. She just smiled at him and reached out, and grabbed his paw. "Are you ready?" she asked.

  "Ready for what?" he managed to reply.

  "Tarrin," she growled playfully, "what do we do every day?"

  "I...I don't know."

  "Are you feeling alright?" she asked with sudden concern, putting her paw to his forehead.

  "I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know how I got here. I, I don't remember anything."

  Jesmind laughed. "Now I know you're playing with me," she said with a teasing grin. "Tarrin, love, we've been seeing each other for five years. Every day I come and get you, and we spend the day at my place. We do all sorts of things, and some of them are very naughty," she said with a wicked little smile. "Then you go home at sunset. And it's going to stay that way until I can convince my mother to leave us alone. She's really getting me mad."

  "What is she doing?" he asked as they started walking towards a path on the far side of the field, a path he didn't remember from before.

  "She's either riding me for holding onto your attention, or riding me because I'm not pregnant. By the trees, what does she think I'm trying to do!" she growled. "If I can't hold your attention, how does she expect me to get pregnant?"

  "Uh, well, maybe she wants you to see other males," he offered weakly.

  She glared at him, and that was enough to make him take a step back. "There are no other males in my eyes, Tarrin," she said adamantly. "You are mine."

  Now that sounded like Jesmind. He relaxed significantly, though he still felt completely baffled by what was going on. "This may sound weird, but tell me how we got here," he told her. "How we ended up back home."

  "It's where you went, not me," she replied. "After you stole the Firestaff from the Witch-King of Stygia, just before the day, you came back home. I still want to know what you did with it," she said coyly. "They say you could hear him shouting all the way in Valkar."

  "If it's past that time, then it's useless," he said clinically. "At least for another five thousand years."

  "Here, let me carry that," Jesmind said, reaching over him and grabbing his staff. She pulled it out of his paw and looked down at it. "I'm surprised you still have this," she said. "After that Demon woman stole it from you. It was pretty amazing, how you got it back. Unless you were just embellishing to make it sound better," she winked.

  "Demon woman?" Tarrin said uneasily. That sent a twinge through him, a memory of what he was so worried about that last night that he could remember.

  "What was her name? Shiika? The one that was the Empress?"

  Shiika? He didn't know that name. It wasn't the name of the Empress, anyway.

  "Oh, nevermind," she said, stopping. "Do me a favor, Tarrin."

  "What?"

  "Kiss me," she said with a seductive smile.

  Tarrin gave Jesmind a long look. Why would she ask? Jesmind would never ask. She would just kiss him, and to the hells with whether he wanted to kiss her or not. That was the way she was. Jesmind never played around when it came to what she wanted. She wasn't coy or seductive, unless she was feeling playful. And she didn't look to be in that kind of a mood.

  "What's the matter?" Jesmind asked, a bit annoyed with him. "It's not like we've never kissed before, Tarrin."

  Again, the wrongness of it all touched him. No matter how real it felt, no matter how real it seemed, it just couldn't be real. How could he go from Arak to Aldreth in one night? He had no memory of anything else. But things did seem so very real. Time seemed to have passed during his memory lapse, maybe even years. Jesmind seemed to know his mother, and she certainly felt real when he touched her. Her scent was even real, and the smells of the forest were very real. Tarrin was a being grounded in his senses, and his senses told him that everything he was seeing, hearing, smelling, it all was real. It all fit in with what he expected to see and hear and smell. He found it very hard to accept that what his senses was telling him was real actually was not. The very idea of it shocked his sensibilities.

  He shook his head as if to clear it, putting a palm to his head gently. His head hurt. What was going on? Was this real, or wasn't it? If it was, what happened to him to make him forget? If it wasn't, how could a dream feel so real? It just didn't make sense!

  "Are you feeling alright?" Jesmind asked directly.

  "I, I don't know," he told her. "I just don't remember anything."

  "Well, I'm sure things will make sense in a moment," she smiled. It was a cold smile, something he had never seen on Jesmind's face before. "Actually, I think they should make sense right now."

  Jesmind took one step back from him, and then absolutely everything he saw, everything he heard, everything he smelled, it all just vanished. There was a fleeting moment of absolute nothingness, where he could see nor hear nor smell, a moment of utter isolation that nearly sent him into a panic. But it ended quickly, and he found himself standing in the cool air of Dala Yar Arak, on a dark, deserted side street. He stood in front of a bizarre female, a tall woman whose face and body could only be described as the absolute paragon of feminine perfection. There was absolutely nothing about the blond beauty that was wrong, or even not quite right. She was just gorgeous. The only things that made it apparent to anyone looking at her that she wasn't human was the small horns that protruded from her head, just in front of where his ears were on his own head, growing straight up and then turning sharply forward, towards her eyes. The other feature were the large, leathery wings that rested on her back, large and tall and proud in their display. She was
tall for a woman, but much shorter than he. She wore a halter very much like the one that Camara Tal wore, a halter that showed off a great deal of her perfectly ample breasts and her sleek belly. A garment that wouldn't foul her wings. She wore a simple white sash around her waist, over a pair of black trousers that were tucked into black leather boots that ended just beneath her knees.

  And in her left hand, this strange woman was holding his staff.

  "Does it make sense to you now, Tarrin?" she asked in a mocking tone. "I didn't appreciate you killing one of my cambisi. I had to carry that fool around inside me for nine months. I spent alot of money training him. Well, I can't very well have you running around with this," she said, motioning with his staff, "seeing as how inconvenient it made things, so I came over here to take it from you."

  It took his mind a moment to adjust, to comprehend what was going on, and for that moment he was slack-jawed and dazed. But then he realized what had happened. It had been a lie! A game, a mental trick she used on him to make him believe he was back home! It was all so twistedly sickening! She had used his most treasured memories, his deepest emotions, against him in the most despicable manner! She had created a sense of trust in him, walked beside him, had pretended to be someone who cared about him, and it was all just so she could steal his staff!

  Outrage erupted in him, and it sent him flying immediately into one of the deepest rages he had ever felt. He had never felt so violated in his life! The witch had used his own memories against him, she had looked inside him and played with his dreams for her own ends! Outrage fueled an immediate, undeniable need to rip the woman into pieces. Very small, bloody pieces. His eyes exploded with that unholy greenish radiance that marked his anger, and he lashed out at her with a speed that would have amazed a human looking on.

  But the woman seemed to be one step ahead. With a single thrust of her wings, she vaulted herself into the air, holding his staff in her hands. "Temper, temper!" she called down to him mockingly as he rushed through the empty space she had just been occupying an instant before. He turned and looked up at her, rage blinding him of everything but the need to make that bitch suffer for what she did to him. He would make her pay! Reaching out, Tarrin grabbed the Weave in a stranglehold, demanded all the power it could give to him and more. It nearly ripped as Tarrin sucked the power out of the Weave faster than it could give it to him, causing his rage to share the feeling of intense pain that came with holding so much power. But there was very little cause to fear the pain in his mental state. He welcomed it, felt it inside him. The air around him began to shimmer from the heat of his building power, even as his body literally exploded into Magelight.