The Questing Game f-2

by James Galloway

  He never remembered running across the deck. One moment he was hunched in the stairwell, and the next he was kneeling beside Miranda. Her simple peasant dress was scorched in several places, but it was the hideous charred wound in her chest, smoking above and between her breasts, that captured his attention. Her burned breastbone was clearly visible, and the flesh around gaping wound was seared. The smell of burnt fur and flesh reeked from her. Tarrin looked at her in stunned confusion, into eyes that were glassy and empty.

  "No," he said quietly, hugging her to his chest. She was dead. He couldn't believe it. Miranda, gentle Miranda, with her quiet, wise ways and her cheeky grins. Miranda, who always had a place on her lap for him, always took the time to pay attention to him when nobody else would or could. Miranda, who probably understood him better than Allia, yet never sought to usurp Allia's rightful place in his life. Always favoring the background, even with him, her presence was always noticed by him, even if it wasn't by anyone else. She was his friend, one of the few that she trusted. She couldn't be dead. It was impossible!

  He stared into her empty eyes again, shaking his head. The impact of something searing against his back barely registered to him, because his entire world seemed to be dissolving away.

  "No," he said more forcefully, as dumb shock was quickly being replaced by rage. A searing, blinding, overwhelming anger that boiled up in him like an erupting volcano, but he did not fight it. He couldn't fight it. Not like this, not now. He welcomed it, joined with it. He knew what it wanted to do, and he wanted that himself. He set Miranda down on the deck gently.

  "NnnnnnnnnnnnnnOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He shrieked as he lost himself. Blindingly white radiance literally exploded from his paws, as the Cat took hold of the Weave and nearly ripped it asunder as he demanded its power, all the power it could give to him. He jumped to his feet as that power began to build, faster than was possible for the richness of the surrounding Weave, until its light limned over his entire body. The scream of denial transformed into an inarticulate bellow of pure, abject fury, so loud that it echoed back from the fogbank and made the entire ship vibrate with the immensity of its power. He raised his paws against the nearest of the Zakkite skyships, which was about twenty spans in the air and about thirty spans off the rail, whose every eye was riveted to him.

  A huge bolt of pure, raw, magical power blasted from his paws, the same chaotic weave of Fire, Air, Earth, Divine energy, and token flows from the other spheres to grant the spell the power of High Sorcery. It struck the Zakkite ship dead in the stern. The instant it hit, the wood of the side of the ship simply disintegrated under the immense power of the weave, and debris and shards of wood exploded with the beam as it ripped its way completely through the entire ship. He deliberately raked that magical onslaught across the entire ship's length, from stern to bow, literally cleaving the ship in half, implacably sending a steady stream of fiery debris flying from the far side of the ship as the beam burned and punched through the ship and continued on for nearly a league before finally dissipating.

  The attack sent the first ship tumbling to the sea with a loud, frothy splash, and suddenly every attacker's magical attacks came right for him.

  Riding a nearly euphoric sensation of the raw power of High Sorcery, Tarrin opened himself up to it more and more, drawing in the power faster than the Weave could supply it, surpassing what he could usually hold without injury. His rage, his fury caused him to completely ignore the usual dangers of wielding that kind of power, and quickly his clothes and fur began to smolder as he drew in so much that his body could not contain it. But he was beyond pain, beyond caring. There was only those who had killed Miranda, and the overwhelming desire, the need, to make them pay for their crimes. There could be no vengeance too merciless, too brutal. They would suffer a million times more than what they had done to Miranda. Tarrin swatted his arm to the side negligently, weaving together a spell made up almost purely of Divine power, with only token flows from the other spheres to grant the weave the power of High Sorcery. The area around the galleon shimmered in a scillinting sphere, and all the magical attacks of the Zakkites struck that barrier, and were absorbed. He turned his attention to the next ship, weaving together a nightmarish weave of Fire, Divine energy, and Earth, infusing it with such power that it almost completely drained him to create it, then he snapped the weave down and manifested it. A black ball, crackling with electricity, appeared in his cupped palm, and he turned and hurled it at the next closest Zakkite ship in a sidearm motion. The ball expanded as it soared at the ship's middle until it was the size of a wagon, causing the Zakkites aboard to turn and flee from it in terror. But there would be no escape.

  The ball hit the ship almost perfectly amidships, and in that touch it doomed the black vessel. Wood sheared and snapped as it was sucked into the unimaginable void created by the weave, drawn into that black oblivion with such force that the air itself howled into it with hurricane force winds. It picked up hapless Zakkites and anything not nailed down, sucking it into its effect, sending them into an abyss from which there would be no escape. The ship compressed and crumpled around the black sphere, crushing and crunching to the sound of howling wind, ripping wood, and the screams of the doomed, until the last shards of the bow, the stern, and the masts were drawn into its black depths. After the last pennon on the mast disappeared, the ball shrank steadily, until it too simply winked out of existence.

  The lull of sound was from the awed, stunned disbelief of the four remaining Zakkite vessels, and it gave Tarrin a chance to recharge. The energy roared into him, but it did not come fast enough. The Weave couldn't support the demands he made on it. Eyes blazing with incandescent white light, he reached out his paws to the sky and forced the Weave to obey, drawing in energy of all seven flows, then sending them out from him in every direction. They spiralled together as they radiated out from him in every direction, intertwining with each other in groups of seven, until they made contact with other strands. When they did that, Tarrin pulled on them, causing each intertwined finger of flows to suddenly flare with bright white light, then fade into invisibility. Along with the light came a shimmering bell-like sound that vibrated the very air, causing wind to blow away from him with enough force to tatter the fog bank that had been resting to their port. The light faded to nothing, as did the sound. The intertwined flows were gone.

  Leaving new strands in their stead.

  Standing in the center of a web of saturated strands, Tarrin immediately drew in more power than he could hold, so much that the air around him wavered and the deck beneath his feet began to blacken. There was no pain in his fury, a fury unlike anything he had ever experienced, a fury that did not care if he survived so long as he took those responsible for Miranda with him. He generated a weave of pure Air, not high Sorcery, but a weave of such titanic immensity that its physical manifestation was nearly as large as the ships it was created to attack. It manifested as an invisible wall of pure air, and Tarrin made a pushing motion with one arm-

  – -And there was a thunderous BOOM, as the Zakkite ship directly astern simply shattered against the force of a wall of air, as large as it was, striking it at supersonic speed. There was no piece of it larger than a teacup, and the finely pulverized debris sprayed the water aft of the galleon in a spreading fan pattern that turned the waters gray. The shockwave caused by the attack had kicked up a wave ten feet high, that went racing to the southwest at a speed that defied imagination.

  The other ships finally reacted. The remaining three began to turn, to flee from this monster who could destroy entire ships with single spells, but they would not get far. Still holding the air Weave, Tarrin sent it against the next nearest ship. He slashed both arms down in a smashing motion, and the flat surface of the weave slammed into the top of the next nearest ship. It didn't strike at supersonic speed, but it struck with enough force to shatter the masts and crush the ship underneath it. An ear-splitting series of explosions of ripping wood h
eralded the death of the vessel, smashed into fragments that were slammed into the ocean with enough force to send up a splash hundreds of spans into the air.

  The toll of his actions slowly began to catch up to him. Even in his rage, he began to feel the bone-weariness that working with such power was causing, an exhaustion that would kill him if he didn't stop. But he would not stop. Not until they all paid for what they did to Miranda. But even in they purity of his rage, he understood that he had to do it fast. Already, he could feel the burns, the injuries he had done to himself. He understood that he was walking a razor's edge between being Consumed and dying from burning up all his own energies. But there was no fear in it. He would welcome either, so long as they came after he destroyed the Zakkites.

  There could be time for one more weave. The remaining two ships were fleeing from the galleon, close to each other. Tarrin reached out in his rage and drew in the power to weave, saturating himself with the power, the majesty, the might of High Sorcery. His fur was all completely burned away, and his skin was smoldering as the power burned him alive from the inside out, but he did not stop. Weaving together a weave composed primarily of Water, he raised both hands and released it. Two massive walls of water rose up from the sea on both sides of the Zakkite vessels, who immediately tried to climb out from that valley of death. The walls of water shimmered and pulsated, undulating like the surface of water blown by the wind in a pond, then their surfaces snapped taut, as if some giant had pulled the corners of a sheet laid over them.

  When they did that, Tarrin slapped his hands together, which made the two mountains of water smash into one another with a thunderous noise, grinding the last two ships into small shards of waste. The debris showered the sea all around them as the two mounds of water turned into a singular column of power that sprayed out as if a god had thrown a small island into the sea, spraying water, wood, and the mangled bits of the dead all over the water's surface for longspans in every direction.

  The last windrows of the sound faded away, and Tarrin sagged to his knees on the deck. Charred paws came to rest on Miranda, where he had laid her so gently, and in that touch he could sense everything about her. His awareness heightened by his touch on High Sorcery, still saturated with its power, he could assense her in a way that he had never been able to do before. Her body was dead, but the soul within had not yet been released, as it awaited Dakkii, the goddess of Death, to come to claim her. With a clarity that seemed unnatural, he understood the significance of that simple fact. Sorcery could not resurrect the dead, but Miranda was not truly dead. Not yet. But Dakkii was coming-in his state of expanded awareness, he could feel her approach, knew that there wasn't much time.

  Reaching out one more time, understanding that to draw on the Weave again would be fatal, he drew in the power for one last spell. There was no regret in the action. The rage had subsided, leaving behind an emotionless sense of awareness that judged an action only by its rightness, and what he was going to do could not be any more right. He leaned over and put one paw on Miranda, and the other on Sisska, then closed his eyes. The black metal amulet around his neck flared into sudden incandescence as he wove together Water, Air, Earth, Divine energy, and token flows of the other spheres so that his weaving carried the power of High Sorcery, and then released them into the two females. His touch became a searing flash of light, and both females suddenly bowed their backs and snapped their jaws tightly shut. The weave of healing literally attacked the ghastly wounds which had killed both of them, reknitting flesh, smoothing away burned bone, reconstructing entire sections of body, and then infusing them both with the pure energy of the Weave. That spark of power incited their hearts to beat, their diaphragms to flex, reawakened the souls that had been preparing to depart this world and move onto the next. The power of his touch was more potent than any spell of destruction or battle, as if the Weave itself responded to him with a complete surrender that was missing when he used it in anger or to destroy, magnified by the utter saturation of energy that the new strands allowed him to bring to bear.

  As one, both Miranda and Sisska drew in a ragged breath, on their own. They would make it.

  He had no more. Still connected to the Weave, he no longer had the power to sever himself from it, or to let go of it. But it did not rush into him as he thought it would have. He was utterly defenseless to the Weave, yet it did not seek to fill him with its power. Instead, it simply drained away, evaporated, letting go of him with a gentleness that made him blearily wonder what had happened. But no matter how gently it happened, it still generated a backlash within him, one that his body simply could not tolerate. Eyes rolling back into his head, he collapsed forward, and knew no more.

  "By all that's holy!" Dar said in utter awe, crawling out from his hiding place. Keritanima stood not five paces from Tarrin, Miranda, and Sisska, hands held out. He could feel her, feel the tremendous effort it had taken her to cut Tarrin off from the Weave. Dar wasn't an expert on Sorcery, but he was positive that she just saved his life. He was being Consumed, had drawn too much power to handle, and had she not stopped that, it would have killed him. His body was burned, blackened, as if he'd walked through a fire, but Dar knew that those were only the injuries that they could see. The same thing had been done to him inside, almost like he'd been cooked in an oven. She stood there for a long moment, a look of terror and hope in her eyes. It would have to have been Keritanima to do that. Not even Dolanna had the raw power necessary to try to overwhelm Tarrin, even when he was in such a weakened state. Keritanima was a powerful Sorceress, and would be among the very strongest, if Tarrin's power did not eclipse her. Only she had both the power and the ability to even hope to cut Tarrin off from the Weave.

  He had never- never- thought that he would ever see anything like that. He had felt it in his soul, a power so immense that anyone who could touch the Weave could not help but feel. Tarrin had created new strands, built them out of flows pulled from existing strands, and for no reason other than the fact that he wanted to draw more power, faster. Dar stood there and stared in mute shock as Keritanima rushed over the the inert trio, stared dumbly as Miranda took in a shuddering breath, and then sat bolt upright so quickly that it nearly scared him into wetting himself.

  "A Weavespinner," Dolanna said in reverence, coming up beside him, and seeming to know what he was thinking. "That, my young pupil, is what being a Weavespinner truly means." She touched the shaeram around her neck delicately, then grabbed hold of it in a strong grip. "Come, Dar, Tarrin is badly injured, and there are many in need of our aid. I will need the power of a circle to help mend them."

  Crying.

  Someone was crying. Someone was dead.

  Miranda!

  "Miranda!" Tarrin gasped, eyes fluttering open as consciousness flooded into him with a speed that left him disoriented. He felt as if he'd been baked in an oven, and his entire body itched. And it ached with a weariness that seemed to have infected him like a disease, leaving him feeling feeble. The recent past was lost in a haze of weariness and a memory of rage. He had lost control of himself again, he remembered that, but as was normal for him, his actions during that period of frenzy were murky and indistinct. Time would sort them out. As if he really wanted to know what he had done this time. He was too tired to brood about it, but he distinctly remembered what triggered it. Seeing Sisska and Miranda laying dead on the deck.

  He was in his cabin. Keritanima sat on the edge of the bed, Allia stood at her shoulder, and much to his eternal relief, Miranda sat on a plush chair that had not been in his room before, right at the head of his bed. She had a blanket in her lap and was dressed in a soft blue dressing gown, and on her face was a look of profound relief. The scents of his other friends were still strong in the room, hinting that he was being visited often, as was the smell of some kind of hot broth.

  That was an expression shared by all three women. Keritanima's hands were on his shoulders, pushing him down, and Allia had a hold of one of his paws. Both of t
hem looked just a little haggard. "You put yourself right back down, brother," the Wikuni princess said sternly, but the tears in her eyes gave away her concern. "Don't you ever do that again!"

  "Wh-what happened?" he said in a bare whisper. "I, don't remember very much. Only seeing Miranda laying on the deck. Everything after that is a blur."

  "Brother, let us just say that you avenged Miranda," Allia said gently.

  "As you can see, I'm just fine, Tarrin," Miranda told him, a voice that sang like music in his ears. "A bit weak and a little tired, but otherwise fine." She took a sip of that broth he had smelled earlier. "Kerri's been babying me almost as much as you. She won't let me walk ten steps by myself."

  "And if you do, I'm going to chain you to your bed," Keritanima said with a steely expression at her maid.

  "What happened?" he asked again.

  "Zakkites," Keritanima replied. "Six of them. They came out of a fogbank and hit us before we even knew what was going on. They were about to sink us, but you showed up and destroyed them with Sorcery." She shuddered. "You nearly killed yourself, Tarrin. If I hadn't been there to cut you off from the Weave, what's left of you would be in a little jar. Don't ever scare me like that again!"

  "Azakar," he recalled blearily. "I never saw Azakar. Is he alright?"

  "We had to fish him and a few others out of the sea," Miranda replied, drawing a glare from Keritanima. "He was thrown overboard after the first assault."

  "Sisska?"

  She's fine," Keritanima assured him.

  "Binter is tending to her," Allia told him. "She is still recovering from her ordeal. Binter agreed to allow me the honor of defending Keritanima until he can resume his duties."

  "That couldn't have been easy," Tarrin said weakly. "I'm really thirsty, sisters. Can I have something to drink?"

  Keritanima picked a cup of broth up from a small table, and Tarrin sensed her touch the Weave. It began to steam slightly, heated by her magic, and she allowed him to take small sips. The liquid was flavored with chicken, and tasted sweeter than any wine ever could.