Weavespinner

by James Galloway

  Allia's point of view wasn't much better. He met her after lunch and walked along with her in the halls with Allyn at her other side. She wasn't as vocal as Keritanima had been, but she was just as mad. "Kerri is being a fool," she snapped. "Doesn't she see that when you regain your memory, your honor will make you return to your former self? Your honor is great, and your obligations will demand you return to Were. For you not to live up to your obligations would be saying that the sun would not rise in the morning. It just cannot happen."

  "What if I don't want to change back?" he asked.

  "That will not matter to you, my brother," she said simply. "I will grieve with you if it turns out that comes to pass, but you would not turn your back on your duty. It carried you through your darkest times. Many times, only your devotion to the Goddess and the mission before you kept you sane. It was the one thing you could cling to, and I do not doubt that once you can see it with your old eyes, you will know what must be done. After all you have suffered through in your duty, you will not stop until you see it done. As is only right and proper. The burden is heavy, but the honor it brings you is worth twice the suffering." She looked at him. "Duty is honor, and the price of that honor is blood. Honor and Blood, my brother. It is a tenet by which you have lived for two years. It is the Selani way, and you will not dishonor yourself by not doing what is needed, even if it is against what you desire."

  The divisions didn't stop with his immediate family. Dolanna and Dar had had quite a spat with Phandebrass on one of the rare occasions when he stopped tending his work, leaving it in Kimmie's capable hands while he took a very rare but much needed break. As if that wasn't bad enough for the weary Wizard, Camara Tal had let him have it not long after that. Phandebrass consoled himself to Tarrin over it as he performed yet another magical examination to make sure that Tarrin's mental condition had not altered. He did that about every two days or so, to make sure that he could tailor the potion specifically to address the problems in Tarrin's mind. "It wasn't like I was trying to be contrary, I wasn't," he fumed. "I just mentioned that I thought that you'd probably change back after your regained your memory. I say, Dolanna almost threw her shoe at me!" he exclaimed. "She said I have no right to presume anything, then she had the gall to turn around and say that all of us would be better off if you stayed human! I say, as if that's not the pot calling the kettle black, it is!" he almost shouted. "I told her so, and then Dar accused me of wanting to change the potion to make you do what I wanted!"

  When Tarrin confronted Dar about that, he admitted it willingly. "Of course I said that," he said. "You know how unbalanced he is! He once stopped in the middle of a battle to ask the enemy questions! You have no idea what he's capable of, Tarrin. And with Kimmie in there with him, and all her chances to coax him into changing his mind about being neutral, it makes it worse. When they do give you that potion, I'd be careful, my friend. It may very well be a poisoned pill!"

  "He wouldn't do that," Tarrin said defensively. "I think you're being paranoid, Dar."

  "I wouldn't put it past him, Tarrin," he grunted.

  "I think more than one person is showing a little bias," he accused.

  "Maybe," Dar said with a snort. "I saw how hard being a Were-cat was one you, Tarrin. You seem much happier now, and I'm hoping that you'll always be this happy. You've done so much for me, for the Tower, for everyone, I think it's only fair that you get a little reward for it. It just doesn't seem fair to make you go back to being unhappy."

  Dolanna's opinion of the matter was surprisingly close to Dar's, as he coaxed an explanation out of her over a game of chess. "It is not right to force you to make a decision that you may regret later," she said adamantly. "I watched you for two years, my friend. I watched you struggle with the Cat. I saw it nearly destroy you, and I cannot bear the thought of seeing that happen again. They cannot guarantee that you will not have to go through another period of adjustment, even after you regain your memory. I do not want to see you suffer anymore. So yes, I would rather see you stay human."

  Camara Tal's view on things and her fight with Phandebrass weren't quite as black-and-white as Dolanna's view. "That crazy old Wizard is going to cause a disaster, I just know it," she accused. "He shouldn't be making that potion if he can't keep his opinions out of it. I should have broken his arms. But then again, Kimmie's not much better. Her motives for making you change back are pretty damn clear. I don't think she should be helping him."

  "I don't think he'd hurt me, Camara," he said carefully.

  "He doesn't mean to do alot of the things he does," she snorted. "The man's a walking accident, Tarrin. If there's any earthly way to mess this up, he's going to find it."

  "I don't think he's the only one with an opinion," he told her.

  "You're right," she said honestly. "I think you should do whatever makes you happiest, Tarrin. I personally think you'd be better off as a human, but it's what you think that matters. My opinion is just that, my opinion. I just don't want to see that crazy Wizard and that love-sick Were-cat making your decision for you. That's why if you decide to change back, it'll never sit right with me. I'll never know if you chose to change back yourself, or one of them didn't add a little extra to the potion to make up your mind for you."

  The only one that tried to stay out of it was Azakar. He stayed in the Academy, and it took Tarrin almost an hour to finally get him to come out on the practice field and talk to him. Tarrin and Azakar sparred very lightly as they talked, as Azakar taught him how to use the heavy broadsword and shield that the Knights commonly used. Tarrin had never used a shield before, and he found out that it could be just as effective a weapon as it was a defensive tool.

  "I knew this was going to happen, Tarrin," Azakar grunted. "Bring the shield out, Tarrin. Don't tuck it in that close to your body. You don't hide behind a shield. You present it to your attacker and his blow. If you keep it tucked in like that, he's going to knock you right off your feet, and it won't be any good to you when you're on your back. And don't forget to keep your elbow unlocked. If you lock your elbow, blocking a heavy blow will break your arm. Bending won't break. Remember that."

  "Like this?"

  "Good," he nodded. "I guess with the people in our circle, opinions weren't going to be kept forever. But they shouldn't be arguing about it. After all, what we think doesn't mean squat. It's what you think that matters, and it's the only thing that matters."

  "Camara Tal said something like that."

  "Camara Tal's alot wiser than some of the others," Azakar complemented her. "I guess that's only right, considering she's a Priestess. They're supposed to be wise."

  "I guess that means you'd be a good Priest," Tarrin told him.

  He snorted. "I'd never be a good Priest," he chided himself. "I don't have enough patience, and I enjoy bashing people too much to be a kind and caring minister of a flock."

  Tarrin laughed. "I guess that's as good a reason as any."

  "I can see it now," he said. "My only advice to my parishoners would be to take a club and hit the other guy in the head with it."

  Tarrin laughed even harder. "Well, you'd have a pretty tough congregation," he said with a big smile.

  "I'd probably preach like a general," he went on. "I'd have the only church where the congregation could build fortifications and repel attackers."

  Tarrin laughed again. "Those may be good skills nowadays," he said.

  "Like it'll ever happen," he snorted lightly. "Shield use is a game of angles, Tarrin. If you present a good angle to the attack, it glances off your shield and overextends your opponent, which lets you strike back before he can recover. A bad angle will push you out of position and give your opponent a free shot at you. So it's a good idea to learn the good angles from the bad before it becomes a life-and-death matter."

  "Using a shield is more complicated than I thought," he admitted.

  "It's like any tool of war," Azakar said brusquely. "The man better trained in its use is the one that's going
to walk off the field alive."

  After an exhausting couple of hours learning how to use a shield, Tarrin returned to his room. He had a sore arm, quite a few bruises, and a newfound towering respect for the huge Mahuut Knight. Azakar was alot smarter than he thought, alot wiser than he thought, and he knew alot more about what was going on that anyone thought he did. He was always so quiet, so inobtrusive, like the Vendari, it was easy to dismiss him. But Tarrin learned that Azakar was more than just a really big man with really big muscles. He was very intelligent and quite observant, and he was much wiser than many of the others. His quiet nature and unwillingness to bring attention to himself were matters of personal choice for him. He preferred being in the background, that was all. Even though he was more than capable of arguing logic with Keritanima and debating philosophy with Phandebrass and Camara Tal.

  The division among his friends was very unusual. He'd never seen them acting like this before, and he wasn't quite sure what to do about it. It wasn't that odd for Camara Tal and Phandebrass to toss barbs at one another, but it was very odd to see Keritanima bickering with Allia and Miranda. That seemed almost unnatural. It even tickled at his lost memory, because it was something that just did not happen. But now it was, and Tarrin found himself stuck in the middle of it all.

  He hoped that his fight with Jesmind would fade from everyone's memory over time, but as the days passed, he found that it was only festering. The arguments between Keritanima and Allia were getting more and more heated. Dolanna and Dar talked to Allia, Miranda, Kimmie, and Phandebrass less and less during the meals and times when they were all together. Miranda got into a very loud argument with Keritanima right in the middle of the hallway four days after the fight, and their shouting was about Tarrin and what was best for him.

  For them, it was a hotly contested issue. For Tarrin, it was embarassing, humiliating, saddening, and infuriating that they would act like they were acting. It became less and less about him and more and more about what they thought was best. Tarrin avoided them whenever he realized that they were either arguing or about to argue or had just come from an argument, which was pretty much well all the time after about five days. The only ones that wouldn't argue were Camara and Koran Tal, Jula, Azakar, and Mist, so they were the ones that he started spending time with after it became very difficult for him to spend time with his other friends. The only time he could spend time with Dar was when Auli was with them, when her irreverence and her presence made Dar forget about his feuds with Miranda, Allia, Phandebrass, and Kimmie, when having fun or talking or just relaxing was all that really mattered. He hated seeing his friends fighting with each other, he was embarassed that he was the reason they were fighting, and he was angry that they couldn't just drop it. None of them seemed to remember that the wait for the potion was the only thing that mattered right now. And they also forgot that the choice was his, not theirs.

  It got worse and worse as the days passed, and Tarrin had a very hard time trying to avoid the issue. It also became very hard for him to try to enjoy himself. All his spare time seemed consumed with the problem, as he tried to think of ways to solve things without making everyone furious with one another and without making them angry with him, but there seemed to be no real way to do it. The only time he found that he could really forget and be happy was when he was with Auli. She didn't care about all that, she didn't care about the arguments. She could see that they were depressing him, so she did her best to keep him cheerful, oftentimes coming to get him in the middle of the day and having the two of them sneak off to get into mischief. He welcomed her diversions, many of them calculated, and she never once tried to even touch him the wrong way.

  That, of course, only inflamed the core of the argument between his friends in the first place, and that was Jesmind. True to his word, he did not talk to her after the fight, and she did not talk to him. She didn't just disappear, however. Many times during the day or evening, he saw her, or could feel her presence close by. She was still following him, still hovering near him, and he knew that every time she saw him with Auli, it only made her more furious. But truth be told, he really didn't care about that anymore. If it made her mad, then that was just fine by him. Maybe after seeing him with her enough, she'd finally realize that Auli was nothing more than a friend to him. Nothing more, nothing less. And Goddess only knew that at that time, she was probably the best friend he had. She was the only one that tried to make him feel better, the only one that really seemed to care about him, and not his predicament or his impending choice. She accepted him for what he was, something that nobody else could seem to do anymore, and it drew him to her like a moth to a flame. With Jesmind all wrapped up in her stubborn tizzy, most of his friends fighting with one another over what was best for him, and each day becoming more unbearable than the last, it was only natural for him to want to spend time with the one person that did her best to make him forget about all that and just have fun.

  Tarrin found himself counting the days with a strange kind of dreadful eagerness, counting to the day when Phandebrass said that the potion would finally be ready. He was afraid of what the potion would do to him, its importance to him and his future, afraid to find out just who and what he had once been. But, on the other hand, it would finally stop all this stupid silly arguing among his friends and family, because once and for all, there would be a decision, and all of them would have to live with it for good or ill. Including him. He was worried and anxious about regaining his memory, which was probably only natural, but it would be a relief to finally have it back and be able to put all this senseless bickering behind them all.

  It all came to a head about ten days later, when Phandebrass came out again for another of his rest breaks and a check of Tarrin. He submitted to the examination, a Wizard spell cast that was designed not to detect mental state, but only a change in that state. It was a very specific spell that had been written down with the formula for the potion, to be used to help make the potion more effective for the recipient. "I say, Tarrin, your mental state is agitated," he said in concern. "It's enough to show to the spell. Whatever is the matter?"

  "Nothing you can fix, Phandebrass," he said with a sigh. "Will it mess up the potion?"

  "I say, not at all, lad, not at all," he assured him.

  It was probably bad timing that Dolanna and Dar chose that moment to enter his room, but Tarrin suspected that it was more by design than coincidence. "The potion's going to be ready in about five days, it will," Phandebrass told him. "The brewing time is set, but its sitting time depends on the season and the room temperature. If it stays as warm as it has, I say, it'll shave a day or two off that, it will."

  "Assuming the potion works as intended," Dolanna said in a dangerous voice.

  "I say, I stand by my work, Dolanna," he said confidently.

  "It is not your work I find unsettling, Phandebrass," she said. "It is Kimmie's. Has she had any hand at all in the preparation of the potion?"

  "Of course she has," he said immediately. "I say, what better way to teach her the art of potion making than to have her assist on a big one?"

  "That is what concerns me," she said with dark eyes. "Kimmie's neutrality in this matter is suspect." Phandebrass looked at her a minute, then he put on an indignant expression. "I say, now see here!" he said with impressive authority, sticking his chest out. "Kimmie's position may be apparent, but you go far in thinking she would use magic to enforce her own desires! And with this!" he said in outrage. "Do you know, madam, that if we don't prepare the base formula of this potion exactly as the formula states, it could permanently erase Tarrin's memory? I say, neither of us would even dare trying to alter the potion in such a manner! Why, to even suggest it is outrageous!"

  "It is only outrageous to you, Phandebrass," Dar said. "We've seen how insane Jesmind's gotten over this. It's not a stretch to think that Kimmie may act the same way. Just not as obviously as Jesmind has."

  Things degenerated quickly from there. Phandebrass
had an absolutely apoplexy, livid that they would accuse Kimmie of doing such a thing, and accuse him of allowing it. Phandebrass started shouting in a language that Tarrin didn't know, but one that Dolanna obviously did, for her grim expression turned into a mask of outrage after about two sentences. Dolanna's demeanor of a calm, measured woman evaporated when she started shouting back at him, shaking her finger up into his face, then balling her fist and threatening him with it. Dar had to physically restrain Dolanna when Phandebrass retorted something, and Tarrin had a flash of memory, of little Dolanna clasping her hands together and striking a tall Sha'Kar man in the belly with them as hard as she possibly could.

  They were angry, but Tarrin was absolutely mortified by the outburst. "That's enough!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. The three of them stopped shouting and threatening each other and looked at him in surprise. "I can't take this anymore!" he screamed, jumping to his feet. "I'm sick and tired of all of you fighting over this! Get out of my room! And I don't want to see any of you, talk to any of you, or even think about any of you until after I get my memory back! Do you hear me? Get OUT!!!"

  There wasn't much they could say to that. Silently, a little shocked and dismayed over what had happened, the three of them filed silently out of his room. Tarrin walked in circles a few minutes to calm down, humiliated by their actions and furious that they just wouldn't let it go. Even though he didn't feel very calm, he opened his door and asked a Knight to find Sapphire, then told the other that he didn't want to see anyone unless he asked for them. He even went so far as to tell them to club anyone senseless who tried. They could tell that he was furious, and they'd heard the shouting from before, so it was probably no stretch for them to understand that it was his friends that had gotten him so angry.

  It didn't take long for Sapphire to come. She landed on the bed, patted it with her tail to make him sit down beside her, and had him tell her all about it. She'd been with him on enough trips from his room, and had talked with him enough to know how all the fighting had upset him, but even she seemed a bit surprised that Dolanna nearly took a swing a Phandebrass.