Tarrin Kael Firestaff Collection Book 3 - Honor and Blood by Fel ©

by James Galloway (aka Fel)

  Here he was, a rather naive boy from Aldreth, who was in the middle of forging an alliance of several different races, and he hoped one more, to defend his patron goddess from banishment. Here he was, a youth from a forgotten corner of the world, who had travelled halfway across the Known World in little more than a year, pursuing a mission that belonged in the prose of epic poetry. He he was, a boy who had left chaos in his wake, destroying, killing, trailing behind him evil forces seeking to stop him. Here he was, the implacable, merciless Were-cat who had assassinated the Emperor of the largest kingdom in the world.

  The titanic enormity of that act hadn't occurred to him until lately. He had thrown the largest empire in the world into chaos, all done in order to use that chaos to secure the Book of Ages. And now he had left Arak in the hands of the Succubus, Shiika. Turned over millions of lives to the rather dark designs of a Demon. And he had no remorse over it. In his mind, Shiika would probably be a better ruler than the last Emperors had been. For now she ruled openly, with full knowledge of her heritage known to the people, and it would be her they would revolt against, not a puppet, should she run Arak into the ground. The problems before were that the domination she used to control her Emperors left them incapable of running the empire. Now, at least, they had someone competent. She wouldn't be a compassionate ruler, but Shiika was smart enough to what to do to keep her Empire running smoothly. Given the raw size of Arak, perhaps a pragmatic ruler was better than a compassionate one anyway. An empire of that size would be utterly unable to clothe, feed, and house everyone. Shiika had the mentality to make the hard choices necessary when trying to operate a kingdom that stretched further than the West did. Shiika wouldn't give a bag of gold to every street urchin, but she would stabilize things so those street urchins could find work to clothe, feed, and house themselves.

  No matter what good he felt was coming out of the act, he remembered that it had been an act of impulsive emotion at the time. He wanted Shiika out of the way, and the most practical way to go about it seemed to be to kill the Emperor, to deny her the boons of her station. That he would immediately resort to such drastic measures said much about his own personality.

  But he had changed over the months in the desert. He could admit that now. He had come to accept two new friends, Var and Denai, had found the strength in himself to control his feral nature when it was necessary. He'd never truly conquer it, but at least he had proved to himself that when he needed to, he could keep a reign on that side of himself. He had shifted his balance from the Cat back to the Human, allowing his humanity to again control the majority of his actions, just as it had before Jula collared him and began the sequence of events that had turned him feral. He could never trust a stranger again, or even feel comfortable around one, but he found that he could tolerate them again, listen to them, allow them the chance to prove themselves to him.

  The sound of clanking pulled him from his reverie, and he looked up to see Jegojah showing Denai some of the motions of the style of swordplay he used. The Selani amazed him hourly with their almost blind acceptance of the Revenant, an undead being whose appearance would send humans into a panic. But the Selani were a very calm people, calm and open, and hard to surprise. They didn't see Jegojah as a threat, so they didn't fear him. They accepted Jegojah for what he was, even applauded such a strong desire to set things right, as was the reason Jegojah hadn't passed on with Faalken. Jegojah remained behind to avenge the torture he had endured, the loss of his honor, against the ones who had imprisoned him. The Selani found vengeance to be an honorable pursuit, so they looked upon Jegojah as a respectable, honorable being. That he was Tarrin's guest also allowed them to accept his presence in the desert. Denai was in good hands. Jegojah was a formidable foe, a warrior of the highest caliber, even without the magical powers that had made him a Doomwalker. Denai would benefit from getting instruction from one as impressive as Tarrin's old adversary.

  It wasn't the only thing that had gone on during their wait. Var had lit a fire at the top of a rise, and for the strangest reason, it billowed out a thick reddish smoke. Denai explained that it was a signal, a signal visible during the morning hours before the haze of the day obscured distance. Var was signalling the other Selani, and Denai said that it was just a matter of time before the other Selani relayed that message to where it was meant to go.

  Var was out hunting at the moment, so Tarrin looked down again and stared at the fetlock on his forearm. They were waiting for Ariana and her king, waiting for them to arrive so Tarrin could talk to them. He already knew what he wanted of them. There were many Aeradalla, but he seriously doubted that he could convince them to join a war that had no meaning for them. But their ability to fly would be of invaluable use as scouts and messengers, scouting out enemy positions and sending secure messages between allied armies. So he meant to ask this King Andos for about fifty Aeradalla scouts to help his side in the upcoming battle. Tarrin felt that to be a reasonable request. Some kings were very grateful for acts of personal kindness, but were as hard as stone when it came to the welfare of their people, and Tarrin would respect Andos for that. The needs of the people should always come before the wishes of the ruler. So he had come up with the idea to use the Aeradalla as scouts, observers, and messengers. All they needed were magical devices that would allow them to talk to people on the ground, and their value to his side would be incalculable.

  It had been two days, so they were expecting Andos and Ariana any time now. They were camped in an open area just outside the boundary of the city, where he said they would be, and he had no doubt that the Aeradalla wouldn't easily see them. He had passed that time in quiet recuperation, recovering his strength after exhausting himself in the battle with Jegojah and the conferences with his sisters. He felt fully recovered now, and what was more important, he realized that it was exactly as it had been before. He was still growing, still coming into the fruition of his ability, and that meant that his powers would grow stronger over time. He knew that he was stronger now than he had been before fighting Jegojah, because he had exercised the use of his powers. Just as his power of High Sorcery had grown stronger and stronger every time he used them, he realized that his powers as a Weavespinner would mature over time, until he reached his full powers. All he had to do was use his power, exercise it, study it and experiment with it, allow it to strengthen in him until it could strengthen no more.

  He had also explored this strange ability to join with the Weave. For the last two days, he had entered the Weave for extended periods of time, and had explored the Heart. It was a place of utter vastness, yet it seemed to have defined boundaries. Finding those boundaries, he had discovered, was not as easy as it seemed. It was populated by the stars of all the living Sorcerers, both awakened and yet to be discovered, and he could float in that dark void and watch the stars awaken and fade away, representing the births of some and the deaths of others. The brightness of those stars denoted the raw potental of the Sorcerer in question, and the color of the star, he learned, was an indication of how experienced the Sorcerer was with his own power. The Sorcerers who hadn't awakened their power yet were reddish, while the progression from unawakened to fully experienced was a progression from red, through white, and into blue. After hours of watching, he came to understand that many more were appearing than were disappearing every day. It was the revigoration of the Weave, he realized, the return of the power of the Weave back to its former glory. As more and more Sorcerers were born, their hearts enriched the Weave, made it stronger and more able to carry powerful magic. The Goddess didn't speak to him while he was exploring, and he felt that she did that on purpose. She was letting him explore on his own, draw his own conclusions.

  It was strangely peaceful within the Weave. He was separated from himself, and that gave him quiet time, time to ponder and reflect, time to get closer to the Weave by trying to fathom its vastness. But was lonely there. He was the only one, the only being in that empty sea, and that was a pretty fright
ening experience in a way. And it made him understand how the Goddess must feel. This was the Heart, where her Weavespinners would come to rejoice in her presence, and she had been alone here for a very long time. She had that Sha'Kar woman, but somehow Tarrin got the idea that she didn't come here very often. Now there was Tarrin, and Jenna. Three souls to give the Goddess company here in the Heart.

  It was when he was there that he felt that the Goddess truly was a Goddess. Almost at all other times, she was little more than a voice that spoke to him, and spoke to him as a friend. She didn't seem like an all-powerful deity when she was like that. But here, when he could look into her eyes, could feel and sense and be enveloped by the awesome might of her power, a power that defied his ability to quantify it, he understood the true majesty of his rather unusual Goddess. It was there, in the Heart, that he worshipped the Goddess for what she was, his Goddess, and felt indescribable joy when she responded to that adoration with the power of her love. She had told him long ago that the worship relationship of mortal and god was a give-and-take operation, where the mortal received what he gave to the god. And she had been right. The love he felt from the Goddess more than made up for anything that he gave to her in worship, love, and friendship. Knowing he had a place with her was more contenting to him than nearly anything else in the world.

  There were other reasons to visit the Heart. Sometimes, while he was there, memories and echoes of lost knowledge reached him, like distant calls. They were random, and most of them made no sense, but sometimes he heard something or caught a sight of some visual echo that did mean something to him. He saw Myriam Lar, the Keeper, as a young woman, accepting the sceptre of leadership of her station in some hasty ceremony. He never knew that the Keeper had assumed her office at such a very young age, for the schooling he had received there had little to do with the modern history of the Tower. He had seen images of the Sha'Kar as they had been back in the Age of Power, and they did look just like the Selani. Almost. Some had dark skin, some had very pale skin. Some had blond hair, some had blue hair, some had black hair. But what all of them shared was that thinness, that delicate bone structure, and those pointed ears and four-fingered hands. The Sha'Kar of the Age of Power were much shorter than the Selani, but he realized that that was because by then, they were two separate races. The history of the Selani went back five thousand years, at some division that had taken place back in the dimmest past that had led them down different paths. The Selani were the descendents of the Sha'Kar, and the desert had changed them.

  Thinking of that made him recall what the Goddess had told him while he was there, something that had altered his view on the races of Sennadar considerably.

  "Not quite, my kitten," the voice of the Goddess spoke to him from the Heart, directly from her presence there, when he had pondered the relationship between the Selani and the Sha'Kar. "The Selani and the Sha'Kar are related, but the Selani aren't descended from them. To put it in relative terms, they are siblings, not parent and child."

  "Siblings? What do you mean?"

  "Both races are descended from a parent race. Their relations stretch back through that parent race, not with each other. That's why Selani and Sha'Kar are similar, not exactly alike. Had the Selani been descended from the Sha'Kar, the similarities between their languages would have been much more prevelant."

  That made a great deal of sense. He drifted closer to the Heart, looked up into the eyes of his Goddess, and felt her power and her love. He had to fight through the adoration of that to form his thoughts. "What caused the division, Mother?" he asked.

  "Would you like to hear a story of ancient times, my kitten?" she asked. "It's been a very long time since I've told a story, and this one has always been one of my favorites."

  "Of course I would," he replied, hovering closer to her.

  An image appeared before him, an image of four beings. One was human, one looked Dwarven, and the other two were unknown to him. The first looked vaguely like a Bruga, with a wide nose and tusks, and the other was a very lithe form, much taller than a human, tall and thin and delicate, with pointed ears and long, four-fingered hands. He would call it Selani, but this being looked nothing like a Selani. "In the very beginning of this world, my kitten, the Elder Gods set forth on the land these four sentient races. The Humans, the Dwarves, the Goblins, and the fourth, whose name has been lost over the mists of time."

  "You know what it is, don't you?"

  "Of course I do, but until someone discovers it, I have to keep it a secret," she replied with a light voice. "They were placed in the world and allowed to go their own way, to build their own places in ways that pleased them, but they were only given a basic understanding of things like tools and society. Those prehistoric beings used rocks tied to sticks for weapons, and the ones that did wear clothing wore untanned skins. Such basic knowledge was not known to them.

  "But as time went on, the four races evolved. They became smarter, more experienced, and began forming the basics of the society you know today. They also spread out and found new environments, new challenges. Those distant travellers were altered by their environment, adapting to it to survive, until they became so separate from the others that they became a race of their own. The Gnomes were descended from the Dwarves in this fashion, as were the many different branches of the Goblinoids you know today. The nameless race also began to diverge from its core, splitting into two separate groups. One became known as the Mishin, who grew progressively smaller and smaller and concentrated on happiness and joy. The other branch became known as the Urzani, who clung to the tenets of martial prowess and magical power. They were a dark-hearted branch, and it is said that their skin turned dark to mirror the darkness within their souls. They grew to hate the Mishin, hate them with a passion, hated them for the joy that was lacking from their own lives. So, being what they were, they gathered together and destroyed the Mishin.

  The image changed, going from an image of those four races to a large army of dark-skinned warriors wearing gleaming armor. "After destroying their cousins, the Urzani began a great war with the other races. It was called the First War, and it was something unexpected for the Goblins and the Humans and the Dwarves. The war was fought and ended, with the Urzani controlling most of the Known World. The Dwarves retreated to the high mountains, where the Urzani could not defeat them in battle, and the remaining free humans fled across a vast desert to unexplored lands.

  The image changed again, to a huge, impressive city that would rival Dala Yar Arak. "This began the Age of Dynasty. The Urzani ruled the world for nearly three thousand years, but so much time without enemies to fight or lands to conquer ate at the society like a cancer. They were warriors without anything to fight, conquerers with nothing left to conquer. So the culture of the Urzani slowly turned on itself, became decadent, until at last the mighty Urzani empire fell to the Humans, Dwarves, and Goblins who had once been in its thrall. After the destruction, the Urzani fled from their former slaves, and it caused the re-establishment of the humans, Dwarves, and Goblins in the world.

  The image shifted to that city in ruins, and then it was rebuilt in another architectural style. "But the Urzani couldn't hide forever. After some centuries, they slowly re-emerged. Having no lands to call their own, they were forced to live with the other races in small groups. The lust for war had been bred out of the Urzani over the time of their rule, and the Urzani that remained were allowed to live with the other races in peace, for they were still strong and formidable warriors, and were also strong in magical power. The word Urzani came to mean Trusted over time, and came to be integral components of the societies in which they lived, respected and admired by all races. The Urzani bound the rest of the world together, giving all races a common ground on which to negotiate, through their native Urzani population.

  The image turned gray, and then refocused on a scene of two armies, their numbers in the hundreds of thousands, clashing on a vast, flat plain. "But then came the Blood War. The Urzani r
ose up along with the Humans and the Dwarves, the Goblins and the Gnomes, to fight the Demonspawn for their very survival. I won't go into the specifics of all that, for you know what eventually happened. The Demonspawn were exiled from the world, but it came at a cost too staggering to describe.

  "The effect of the Blood War on the Urzani was horrific. They had survived, but the entire race had been traumatized by what had transpired." The image faded, then reformed to show four robed Urzani, beaten and bloody and bruised, with horrified expressions. "They were traumatized to the point where the entire race began to divide again, separating into distinct groups who had reacted to the Blood War in different fashions. One branch had been horrified by the tremendous destruction, and they devoted themselves to ensuring that such an event never happened again. They also threw down their weapons, knowing that they had been no use against the Demons, and exclusively studied the myriad forms of magic. These, over time, came to be known as the Sha'Kar, the Beings of Light, a race of powerful magicians, pacifistic in nature but ever watchful should the Demons return.

  "The second group of the Urzani had placed the blame for the Blood War on the humans. The thousands of years of living with other races had been wiped away by the Blood War, reverting them to a xenophobic group that wanted nothing to do with any other race. They gathered together and searched long and hard for a place devoid of any other race. The beginnings of what is now the Desert of Swirling Sands called to them, called them to a place where no other race could survive, and they found it to their liking. They became known as the Selani, the Wanderers.