"Your eyes are very sharp, Selani," Sapphire said intently. "Tell me, what else do you see that we cannot?" She motioned them away. "Step back, let her inspect without interference."
That was a good idea. Allia's vision would pick out things all of them would miss, and giving her unrestricted access to the crime scene would let her study things carefully. They all stepped back and let her do her work, and Allia bent to the task quickly and quietly. She looked at the outside of the box, then the inside. She reached in and adjusted the six remaining bottles carefully, fingering them and looking at the cushion upon which they rested. "Did any of you disturb anything within the box other than Tarrin?" she asked.
"We pushed the packing material out of the way," Keritanima replied.
Allia nodded and started rifling through the packing material, a kind of shredded plant-like material that looked like straw, smelled like flax, and was quite curly and springy. She pulled it out of the box and searched through it meticulously, and they all watched on in uncertainty, not sure what she was looking for. Keritanima finally broke the silence. "What are you looking for?" she asked.
"Hair," she answered. "We all lose hair, sister. It falls out all the time, and I am forever seeing it on the floor. I was going to look for it on this floor, but you swept the dust away, and now I will have to pick through the dust piles. This is much cleaner, much faster, and we know that any hair we find within had to come from whoever did it. It is the only way it could get inside the box."
"That's damn clever," Keritanima said appreciatively.
"Most people do not think about hair," Allia said. "Only when it falls out over one's eyes or they find it on their clothes does one really consider it. Whoever did this was very careful to cover his tracks, but I do not think that even he considered that such a thing may be traced back to him. If we can find but one hair, we have a solid lead on our target, and maybe magic can supply us the identity of its owner."
"I am impressed," Sapphire said honestly. "You are a formidable woman, Selani."
"I am but my father's daughter," she said modestly, continuing to carefully sort through the packing matieral.
Allia had struck on idea that was marvellous in its elegant simplicity. Tarrin was certain that she was right, that whoever had done it had never thought to check the box to make sure his hair hadn't fallen inside. He, like Keritanima, and even Sapphire, put a paw to his head and patted it. All his hair was bound up his his braid except for his bangs, which hung over his face, so it would be hard for him to leave any hair behind that didn't come from that one place. But not everyone wore a braid, and besides, his arms and legs were absolutely covered with hair. Fur, actually, but it was hair. He pinched his bangs and pulled very, very gently, feeling the hair slide between the pads on his fingers, and when they came free, a single blond hair had come away with them. He looked at it intently for a moment, seeing the little root at the end, then he reached aside and dropped it to the floor deliberately.
They watched on in breathless silence for what seemed to be half of forever, as Allia methodically and painstakingly sorted through the flaxen-seeming packing material, shredded plant material that had dried out to be springy and voluminous. She stopped, and then tensed, and that made all three of them take an impulsive step forward. "Ah, here we are," she announced in a delicate, quiet voice, pulling her hand out of the box.
She came out with a single hair. It was quite short, rather thick, and looked rather tough and resilient. Tarrin looked at it for a long moment, and a growing horror began to sink into the pit of his stomach.
The hair was white.
Looking down, he set his foot against the floor and dragged it. It left behind a quartet of deep scratches in the floor, the scratch made by his big toe respectably deep while the the one made by his smallest was barely more than a skim on the gray slate. They were set at regular intervals apart, and those intervals were more than five times wider than the scratches Allia had found.
Tarrin felt his knees weaken, and he staggered back until a tall stack of crates kept him from falling over. He stared at that little hair in absolute horror, his heart pounding. It all fit. It fit! The purging spell, the scratches, and that was the key, that one little hair.
Not hair. Fur.
With a dreadful click of things, things in the present, things in the past, it all fell together, and it all fell together neatly and perfectly. His expanded memory let him go back over every moment of it again and again, read the inflections within the words, the set of shoulders, the hidden meaning behinds questions and statements. It made his mind whirl, and he nearly felt like he was going to black out for a moment. Shock, outrage, and fury clashed with other feelings, feelings of protectiveness, of love, of gentleness. They warred in him openly as his outrage contended against one of the few things within him that could stand up to it.
His protective instincts.
Staring at the little hair like it was a Demon, he put his paws to his head and literally howled in his confusion and conflicting desires.
"Tarrin!" Sapphire said in sudden concern, "are you alright?"
Allia, however, had narrowed her eyes on the little hair, and the truth opened itself to her. "May the Holy Mother forgive her," she said in a trembling voice.
"Who is it?" Keritanima asked, then she too seemed to understand. "Oh, Goddess!" she wailed, putting her hands to her muzzle.
"Who?" Sapphire asked in a voice that would brook no opposition. "Who has done this?" Jenna looked at the little hair, and she put a hand to her stomach as her expression turned a bit sickly. Sapphire put a hand on her and made her look into her eyes. "Who did this?" she demanded. "It is white, and it looks like fur. Was it Jesmind?"
"No," Jenna replied in a weak tone. "It was Jasana."
To: Title EoF
Chapter 8
The world was tearing itself apart.
Struggling to remain standing, struggling to remain conscious, Tarrin wilted against the boxes behind him, paws to his head as the awful truth struck down on him, crushed beneath a weight that he could not bear. Jasana. Jasana had been the one to turn him. His own daughter!
It was a truth he could barely comprehend. The depths of his shock and betrayal were equalled only by the love he had for that little girl and his need to protect her. It went over and over again in his mind, seeing the single white hair, realizing that the scratches in the floor came from Jasana's claws, his expanded memory allowing him to look back on the conversations he'd had with his daughter and pick out every single one that had warned him of this possibility. Of course, that Tarrin was ignorant of the depths of her determination, and even now he was stunned that she would actually do what she had done. But Jasana had proved one thing in the time he'd known her, and that was that she was capable of almost any action if it meant getting what she wanted. He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to know what she had done, but it was something he could not ignore, not deny, not forget.
The room spun around and around like a top as mental shock wreaked havoc on his physical body. How could she do it? What possessed her to risk his wrath, when she knew how he would react? How could she betray him so utterly? He couldn't understand it, he just couldn't understand it! Feeling his knees buckling, he turned and leaned over the boxes, his tail convulsing and trembling uncontrollably. How could she have done it? And why did it have to be her? If it had been anyone else, he could have justified his rage. But he could not bring himself to harm his daughter, and it meant that his righteous indignation had no release, his fury had no outlet. It only made him more furious that it was her, that one of the most dear people to him had been the one to betray his trust. That rage built up inside him, mingled with the shock and confusion and consternation and chagrin that came with finding out that his own daughter had been the one to betray him.
Claws sank into the wood as his mind, overwhelmed by incredibly powerful, intense emotion, began to lose coherence. The rage was overhwelming, and it wanted to
go up and destroy the girl. But she was his daughter, and he could not bring himself to harm her. His need to lash out at her was defeated by his very powerful instinct to protect her, and the frustration of being unable to satisfy his dark need was like an infection in his mind, festering and consuming rational thought, a rusted nail driving into his brain and leaving nothing but pestilence in its wake. Claws sank deeper and deeper into the wood as his fingers clenched, as a buzzing between his ears made it harder and harder to think, as his vision seemed to fade and become hazed. All rational thought seemed to flee from the fury building inside him, fury at Jasana, fury at his frustration, rage caused by knowing that one of the people he loved most dearly in the world had done such a terrible thing to him. Jasana had done the unforgivable, but he could not pass judgement on her. Her position as his daughter both made him even more furious at her for her betrayal, but also protected her from his retaliation. It was a trap, a deadly cycle that only caused his fury to build higher and higher.
Like the snapping of a twig, Tarrin's rational mind lost control, and it succumbed to the rage. Eyes exploding into the green aura that so clearly marked his anger, unholy beacons of pure evil, Tarrin threw himself into his rage. Claws crushed wood beneath them, pierced them, and the Were-cat was suddenly overwhelmed by an overpowering, almost mindless need to destroy. If he could not destroy the one responsible for the rage, then he would destroy everything else.
With an animalistic roar, Tarrin hefted up the wooden crate caught in his claws, lifted it over his head, and then hurled it at the wall with every bit of strength he could muster. It struck the wooden wall with such incredible force that the stones of the wall were actually buckled by the impact, and the wooden crate literally exploded into tiny shards that flew all over the room, with enough velocity to drive into the Were-cat's chest and arms and become lodged, like huge splinters. The pain barely registered on the Were-cat as he clasped his paws together and smashed them down on the crate that had been below the first, sending wood and pieces of old crystal that had been within it flying in every direction.
It was a rage unlike any other he had ever experienced, and even the Cat within understood it, in some deep, instinctive manner. There was no thought, absolutely no thought, only the burning, blinding, utter and complete rage, complete fury, almost pristine in its elemental purity. Fury destroyed thought, rage swallowed up memory and experience, transforming the dual mind of the Were-cat into nothing more than a murderous machine reacting only to stimulus, unable to even think in the submerged manner in which it usually did when operating in a rage. There was no thought, no thought at all, only driving, insane fury and an overwhemling compulsion to destroy. And since memory and experience were locked away by the rage, the unthinking mind could not reach out and smash things with Sorcery, which would have been its first response had it been in a normal enraged state. The unthinking mind could only lash out physically, could only satisfy the need to destroy with claws and fists and feet and teeth.
"Goddess!" Jenna called in shock as they scrambled to protect themselves from the flying shrapnel. "He's lost it! Everyone get out now!"
On hearing the voices, the Were-cat turned around and found himself facing four females. In his fury, he could not recognize any of them, they were all but red-tinged figures, objects to destroy, things to kill. With a snarling, hissing roar of challenge, the Were-cat dropped into a deep slouch, paws wide, ready to kill these unknown figures. Two of them backpedalled furiously, one stood stock still, but the last drew two weapons from beneath a baggy garment and brandished them at him. "Go!" that one shouted, though in his current state, the Were-cat could not understand the meaning of the sound. "I will keep his attention!"
The Were-cat lunged at that armed figure, but even in his rage, the Were-cat was honestly taken aback by the lightning speed of this adversary. With such grace and quickness that seemed impossible, the figure danced to the side of him, and he barely registered feeling a sword slice into his side, but felt no pain. The Were-cat, beyond such concepts of fencing and strategy, mindlessly flailed at the figure, but its speed and reaction to his blows were so complete that he may as well have been trying to catch fog in his paws. In but a heartbeat, the Were-cat was struck many times, but each wound healed over as quickly as the sword was removed. The blows only served to enrage him more, if that were even possible, and the other three figures dissolved into meaninglessness as the Were-cat focused on destroying this speedy one before him.
Jenna had never seen such a display.
She pushed Sapphire unceremoniously before her as Keritanima rushed for the door. They both fully understood what was happening. Tarrin had snapped, and now he was as much a danger to them as any Troll ever was. Allia had somehow gotten his attention, though, and she desperately wanted a single second to stop and watch her. She knew Allia was fast, but she never dreamed that any living thing could move with such blazing, absolute speed. Now, finally, she understood why her brother was so respectful of Allia's fighting ability. She was one of the few beings on this entire world that Tarrin feared enough to not want to fight. Allia didn't have Tarin's strength, nor did she have his magical might. But she had speed, inhuman, unbelievable speed, and Jenna finally understood that against such speed, strength was meaningless. His strength advantage was nullified if only because he wouldn't get an opportunity to lay a hand on her.
Every bit of that speed was on display in that dank storeroom as the Selani danced, darted, weaved, and twisted around the wildly thrashing Were-cat, confusing him and frustrating him to an extreme that Jenna didn't think imaginable. Short swords struck and struck and struck again, but the magical bracers on his wrists, the very items she created for him, were now protecting him from those light slashes and stabs. Only one out of every four or five had enough power behind it to breach the invisible magic that protected him, where Allia had the opportunity to put more into the attack, and those drew blood. But those wounds healed over as fast as she could inflict them, and they were probably doing little more than making him even more angry.
"Do not push me!" Sapphire snapped in outrage, trying to dig in her feet.
"Don't argue with me right now!" Jenna said in a savage manner, the voice of a woman trying to save her own life. "We have to get away from him!"
"He is in a rage?" the dragon asked.
"Yes!" Jenna shouted in exasperation. Could it be more obvious? Did he have to wear a sign declaring his mental state? "Kerri, Allia, let's get out and trap him inside!" she shouted. "He can trash this room all he wants, but we can't let him get out into the hallways like this! He'll kill anything in his path!"
"I'll pin him to the wall!" Keritanima announced, stopping and raising her hands.
Jenna's heart seized in her chest, and she nearly felt like she was going to faint. "Kerri, no!" she shouted. If she used Sorcery, Tarrin may respond with Sorcery! And in his state, she knew that even if the three of them Circled, the chances they could stop him would be miniscule at best! "Don't use Sorcery! Don't do it!" she screamed hysterically.
"Right, right!" Keritanima shouted as she reached the door. "I forgot about that!"
"A bloody fine time to forget!" Jenna seethed as she literally dove to the floor, pulling Sapphire down with her as the furious battle raging between the Were-cat and the Selani drifted too close to them. Allia's face was a mask of intense concentration as she labored to keep the Were-cat's killing claws off of her, continuing to slash and stab at him with her lightning thrusts, using her incredible speed and agility to keep out of his clutches. Tarrin was inhumanly fast, but Allia's speed defied rational explanation, moving so quickly that her hands almost seemed to blur, the flowing of her silver hair as she moved catching the light and drawing the eyes, helping to further confound an enemy facing her.
In a rapid series of weaves and bobs, the Selani finally managed to get into a position where she could do more than jab at him. She turned and brought up her foot and kicked him dead in the face, kicked h
im with such incredible force that his head snapped back, and she turned a complete circle after the blow to play out her momentum. If Allia had struck a man like that, she would have broken his neck. The blow barely phased Tarrin, managing only to stagger him back a single step, but that was a lifetime to Allia. She slipped to his side, rotated her body, ducked under a swipe of Tarrin's claws, got herself behind his blow and into a position where he was vulnerable to her. And then, with a sickening spatter of blood, she drove one of her shortswords through the side of his neck. The blow was carefully measured and expertly delivered, causing the blade to shear through the bone of his neck and sever his spinal column, but not severing his major arteries or veins or cutting his throat.
It had a spectacular effect. Tarrin crumpled to the floor like a sack of meal, and he did not move. He did not even breathe. He was face down, so she couldn't see his expression, but something told her that she didn't want to see his expression. Allia held onto her sword, held it in place even as he fell, and her wild look at them told her that this was by no means over yet. "Get out, quickly!" she ordered. "If I hold his spine apart for too long, it will kill him! We must be out before he regains his movement!"
Jenna was stunned for a very short moment before self-preservation took control of her again. Incredible! Allia had defeated Tarrin in a fight, even when he was in a rage!
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