Not even Val would, in his wildest dreams, expect Tarrin to do what he was intending to do. It was crazy, and it was just slightly dangerous, but it would get Jasana and Jesmind out alive, because he could guarantee that Val's attention would not be fixated on them. And after all, that was all that mattered.
Sometimes crazy works.
Though the vrock were looking for them, Tarrin's magical belts seemed to conceal the two Were-cats from their notice, and so they were able to move very quickly. They went on very late into the night, found small caves to rest in, then set out again well before sunrise. It was bitterly cold during those nighttime hours, so cold that Tarrin had to put on his heavy coat, but the cold did not slow them down. The exertion of running kept them warm when that heat was trapped in by the heavy coats they wore. Tarrin paused less and less frequently to check the map, as its contours slowly set themselves into his memory to the point where he had the whole thing memorized, but those stops were for more than just checking the map. They were also chances to take a short break and get a little food or water, so they continued even after the need for the main excuse for them was taken away.
The first serious attempt to find them came on that second day. A penetrating wave of power swept over them, another searching sweep by Val, which caused Tarrin to instantly stop and kneel down to hide his movement. But this time it stopped when it touched Tarrin, stopped for a heart-seizing amount of time, as if it could sense something beneath the powerful non-detection his amulet provided. But it could not breach the amulet's protection, so it moved on after a moment
"What's the matter?"
"Val just tried to find me," he answered. "He almost did."
"Can we do anything about that?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. So we just go on."
Jesmind looked decidedly nervous. "Alright," she said uncertainly.
That established a pattern of activity that lasted for ten days. Tarrin and Jesmind would move swiftly over the snow, stopping only when a vrock appeared in the skies over them, Val's searching magic swept over them, or they needed a short break. The probes against the power of his amulet became stronger and stronger, as if Val knew there was something there, but just couldn't find any evidence to prove it. They also saw a party of Trolls, trudging along the far side of one of the interconnecting valleys, their large frames plowing a path through the snow. They didn't slow down when they saw them, for they were too far away, and the light snow that was falling would make it even that much harder for the distant monsters to make out the very subtle visual evidence that they weren't alone in the pass. The weather didn't entirely cooperate during those ten days, going from sunshine to light snow mostly, but there were two rather strong snowstorms that rolled through and buried the land in another six spans of snow. The first happened when they were asleep, but the second struck late in the afternoon of the seventh day, and it was when it hit when one of the strange peculiarities of the water-walking power of the belts became evident. They could move in the snowstorm, but if they stopped in any one place long enough for snow to fall around their feet and cover them, it was as if they'd been set down into stone. They made that mistake, stopping as Tarrin checked the map, and when he went to move again, he found his left foot stuck under the snow. It had taken shapeshifting to get clear of it, but when he shapeshifted, the belt was put into the elsewhere, and its magic was removed from him and he sank deeply into the newly fallen snow. Jesmind had to pick him up and literally toss him into the air, so he could shapeshift freely, then reactivate the belt before his feet hit the snow.
As they travelled, both of them became much more intense. All banter and playful chatter ceased as they got closer and closer to their goal, and they got even more grim every time a vrock appeared in the sky. They were getting deeper and deeper into the heart of their enemy's power, and both of them were completely focused on the tasks at hand and very serious. They both knew that this was not the time for fun and games. Their hunter's instincts had taken over, and they knew that in this situation, they were not the hunters, but the prey. So they had to be eternally vigilent against attack, else they would be captured and the life of their daughter would be forfeit.
After ten days of travel, with only seven days left until Gods' Day, they came over a high pass and could finally see a break in the jagged peaks, and were looking down over a great distance to the flat tundra. They still had about a day of travel through a series of narrow valleys like the ones through which they had been travelling, steep, often treacherous gorges between high peaks whose floors were nearly as steep as the walls that surrounded them. They had descended several thousand spans, steadily coming down, and now they could see the rest of the way down to the tundra below.
"Is that it?" Jesmind asked as they stopped to look down between the two peaks, look down to a featureless white plain.
"That's it," he told her in a weary voice.
"There don't seem to be any foothills."
"We're too far away to tell. We'll be another one or two days in the mountains. Maybe even three."
"Why three?"
"We might slow down," he said, pausing to kneel and pull out the book of charts. He checked the date, then looked up in the afternoon sky to the eastern horizon, where the faint outling of Vala, the Red Moon, was rising behind the whitish Skybands. It was in an early rising cycle, just a tad past half full, a cycle of rising during the day that would get pronouncedly earlier and earlier for the next six afternoons. All four moons were going to do that, so they could be out in the middle of the day to form the eclipsing conjunction. "And we need to find a cave where we can rest until we come down onto the tundra."
"I don't see anything out there."
"The pyamid is about two hundred longspans northeast," he told her. "We'll find patrols out, but the main army is there."
"Two hundred longspans on flat ground? Tarrin, it won't take us two days to do that."
"I figured on that back when we'd have to go through the snow," he told her. "Since this is alot faster and easier, we may have to meander around up here in the mountains for longer than I anticipated."
"How long will it take us to cross the tundra?"
"Four days," he said. "That's what I'm planning on, anyway."
"Why so long?"
"Because there are going to be patrols out," he told her. "We'll have to avoid them, and that's going to slow us down."
She snorted. "It would be easier to go through them."
"And leave a trail a child could follow," he said shortly, looking up at her.
"Fighting them would make me feel better."
"Yes, well, think about this. If we fight, we can't use the belts."
"Why not?" she demanded.
"What is blood, Jesmind?" he asked bluntly.
"Ohhhh," she said. "Well, we'll have to use weapons. Our claws may not be able to get past the skin, but I don't think it'll stop weapons."
"I hope not," he said.
"Then we'd better make sure," she said, extending the talons on the Cat's Claws. "Make your belt stop for a minute."
He understood what she wanted to do. Nodding, he put his book away and then deactivated the belt. He immediately sank four spans into the snow, his feet hitting enough solid matter to stop him when the snow was up to his waist. It was a little surprising to him, and he nearly lost his balance trying to shift his weight in the snow. Jesmind began to laugh uncontrollably, literally dropping onto her backside, unable to stop.
Tarrin glared at her a moment, then blew out his breath. "While you're laughing, I'm standing here for any flying Demon to see," he told her bluntly. "Now let's test this and move on."
"Sorry," she said, turning suddenly serious. "But it is funny, my mate."
"Fine. We can both laugh when we're somewhere safe." He held out his bet arm, offering his elbow. "Be careful. Those are magical weapons, love. Anything you do to me, I can't heal."
"Then how are we going to test it?" she asked. "I'm s
ure they'd cut your skin no matter what."
"No they wouldn't," he answered. "There's water in you skin, Jesmind. If you can draw blood, you can sink them all the way into my arm."
She nodded in understanding, retracting all the blades but the one over her index finger.
"You've got the hang of that, I see."
"It's really not that hard. Now hold still," she ordered, reaching the point of the blade towards his bare upper arm, above the fur line. Tarrin felt the icy cold touch of it, and it left blood behind when she drew it away from the gentle touch. Even such a light touch cut him with absolute ease, a testament to the lethal edge on those metal claws. "They work," she said, retracting the blade, then hooking him under his arm and hauling him out of the snow. She heaved him up quite easily, since his weight didn't even come close to challenging her inhuman strength, and Tarrin reactivated the belt before his feet touched the snow. They struck the snow like it was a solid surface, and he settled them down easily as a tiny thread of blood trickled down into his fur. He Conjured a small leather bandage and wrapped it around the cut, not wanting even a single drop of blood to fall into the snow and reveal that he had been there.
"Let's get moving," he announced. "Let's get as close to the tundra as we can, then find a cave to hole up and rest a while."
"I could use some," she grunted. "But it won't be as nice as the hot spring was."
"Welcome to reality," he told her as he reactivated the Illusion, and turned to start back down the valley.
They managed to get quite a distance before they found a cave to rest in for the night, and while Jesmind collapsed in it, Tarrin went up onto a small rock and stared up at the sky. All four moons had set long ago, leaving nothing but the brilliant stars and the Skybands. They had six days now, now that midnight had passed. In six days, he would have his daughter back. His family and Val's forces would be at war, a war in which even the gods were going to participate. They would be there to defend the army against Val's power, as much as they could without forcing a direct confrontation. Tarrin still felt a little angry about their cowardice, but on the other hand, he understood how chaotic things could get if one of the Elder Gods lost an icon. The natural force that god controlled would go wild, and would remain so until the god managed to create a new icon. The only god who could conceivably lose an icon and not have it cause major damage to the world was his own Goddess', Niami. She controlled only magic, but the destruction of her icon would kill any Sorcerer with even a modicum of power or training. That would literally strip the entire world of its magic, killing every creature that depended on magic, like dragons, Faeries, and Were-cats. Niami's banishment would make the whole world mundane, and he doubted that any magic would survive until she recreated her icon. She would return to a world that had been totally stripped of it magic, and that would make her a goddess with nothing to control. Or a goddess supplying a power to the world that nobody there would remember how to use, and as such it would be wasted.
He hated the idea of his sisters and friends fighting in that war. It would be so big, so charged with magic, that their lives were in very real jeopardy. But no matter what happened with Tarrin, that army had to be destroyed. They couldn't let it out of the tundra, where it could wreak havoc in Ungardt, Draconia, and Daltochan, then spread out to threaten all of the West. It was too big for any one kingdom to face alone. At least the gods would be there. If Val could attack the army of his allies, then the Elder Gods could turn around and attack Val's army. That was the deadlock, he saw. If the gods had to defend their own armies, their power cancelled one another out, and it would be up to the armies themselves to decide things. Neither god could strike at the other's army without letting down the defense of his own. They either let the armies decide it or both armies were annihilated, leaving a very tense standoff where Val may very well decide to throw caution to the wind and attack the Elder Gods directly.
That was the very thing that the Goddess intended for him to stop when she sent him after the Firestaff. Tarrin couldn't really do anything about Val, because he had used the Firestaff before Tarrin had even been alive, but he still had to keep it out of enemy hands. If Val used it, his power would increase that much more, and he would quite possibly have the power to banish all the Elder Gods and take control of the world himself, capable of carrying out the duties that the Elder Gods had been tending. A world remade in Val's image, where he ruled all with absolute power. That was a world that couldn't be allowed to be. There would be no room in it for everyone he held dear.
Timing. Timing was everything. The battle with the dragon to gain the Firestaff showed him that. An hour earlier, and he would have been killed by the dragon in battle. An hour later, and he would have claimed the Firestaff without a fight. There was an issue of timing in this as well, getting to Val at that perfect moment where the nearness of the conjunction gave Tarrin a powerful bargaining position, a position he would use to get his daughter back. The other issue of timing would be how well the gods timed the appearance of the army with the beginning of the conjunction. They were supposed to transport the army to the tundra and begin the battle the second the conjunction began. That, the conjunction itself, and Tarrin would all be distractions to Val, and Tarrin was going to need for him to be distracted at that moment. That was his one and only chance to make sure Jesmind and Jasana got safely away from the pyramid. After that, it all came down to luck. He freely admitted that, but many of his plans depended on luck for success. Luck seemed to be his ally more often than not, so why not plan for its eventualities?
That was what Jesmind was getting suspicious about. He could tell. His plan to get there and to get Jasana were quite detailed, but his plan to get out seemed to her to be uneasily vague. That was probably the stickiest part of the plan, the one in which luck would play the greatest role. His continued existence after Jesmind and Jasana got safely away depended a great deal on how lucky he was going to be at that particular moment in his life. He'd planned all he could for it, but the fickle finger of luck was going to be the deciding factor.
And that seemed strangely fitting to him. Tarrin was more than willing to gamble absolutely everything on his luck. He prayed Val wasn't quite as reckless as he.
Sometimes crazy works.
Distantly, he became aware of Jesmind. She seated herself beside him on the rock, and spent long moments in silence, staring up into the sky with him. The Skybands were particularly brilliant that crisp, clear night, dominating the entire southern sky, their full color and beauty shining freely without the lights of the moons to shade, stain, or interfere with them. To the north, the lights of Maiden's Ghost flickered in the sky, curtains of bluish light that wavered and shimmered in the night sky. Ungardt legend said that they were caused by an ancient maiden who was lighting the way home for her lover, who sailed away in a ship and never returned. Shining in the northern sky, a beacon to him to bring him home. Between them were the stars, a sea of little flickering lights glittering down like tiny diamonds within heaven's treasure chest, opened to those below so they could stare up and wonder at the riches above them.
Jesmind slid her paw into his, and he clenched it tightly. They didn't have much more time. He was worried for her, and for Jasana. Their escape from the clutches of Val would be very dangerous. He could only hope that his crafty mate could get their daughter out of there alive. But then again, there was nobody else he would or could trust with something as precious as his daughter other than his daughter's mother, the only other living soul that could possibly understand what that little girl meant to him. Because she meant just as much to her. He would destroy the world to save her, he would willingly die to protect her. He would do whatever it took to get her back. Jesmind would do the same.
They didn't speak. They only stared up into the night sky, dreading what was coming, but knowing that the end of the ordeal would return their daughter to them.
Because they had made such good time, Tarrin slowed them to a walk the
next day, as they easily began the descent towards the tundra. The easier pace left them with more energy, but that only gave them more time to stew. They were both already wound very tightly, and the delay only seemed to aggravate Jesmind, who wanted to run down there, who wanted to get there and retrieve their daughter now. For Jesmind, everything was now. That lack of foresight cost them dearly way back when they had first met, when her need to take him to her den now rather than after he'd learned what he needed to learn had been what caused the feud between them. The result was that Jesmind became very hostile on the walk down the connecting valleys that would eventually lead to a pass that would bring them out of the mountains. She fought with him constantly over his slow pace, and it was only his repeated reminders that they had to be there at a certain time that kept her from racing off on her own.
Tarrin felt the same way. It was killing him to slow to a walk when his daughter was in the clutches of someone that wanted to hurt her, but he had no choice. She would have to stay where she was until Gods' Day, there was absolutely no way he could change that. No amount of running or racing was going to let him get there a single hour earlier than he needed to be, else his arrival would spell the end for them all. He didn't know how she was, whether or not they were caring for her, if they were hurting her. They had to keep her alive, but that was all. Torturing a child was not something he would put past his enemies. She was defenseless without her magic, and wouldn't be able to fight back-
He stopped thinking about it. Thinking about it was working him up, and he had unconsciously picked up his pace. He had to believe, have faith that the Goddess would protect their daughter from harm while she was in the clutches of Val.
As if thinking about Val brought his attention down on them, Tarrin felt that same oppressive weight appear in the air around him. He immediately stopped and put a knee down on the snow, trying to behave like an immobile magical anomoly in the Weave, to make it harder for the imprisoned god to find him. It hovered around him, probing lightly with light fingers of investigation, then came the familiar press, as Val tested the veracity of this unusual fluctuation in the Weave. Tarrin endured that for a long moment, feeling like someone putting wet wool on top of him, and then it withdrew, but not move on.
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