The Questing Game f-2

by James Galloway

  "We aren't afraid of heights," he heard her say in a mocking tone, taking a few steps back, blowing out her breath, then dashing forward and jumping off the edge. She literally flew over the gulf between the rooftops, and overshot the front edge of the roof by nearly eight spans. She landed unsteadily in the middle of the rooftop, skidding to a halt, then she turned and faced him with a shocked look on her face. "Did I just do that?" she asked in wonder. "That had to be twenty spans!"

  "About that," Tarrin agreed. "Now do you understand why you're not wearing a dress?"

  Jula laughed. "I think I get the idea," she admitted. "That, and I'd be giving anyone who happened to look up while I was jumping quite an eyefull."

  "You can do that without the dress," he said absently. "Let's go, cub. We have a long way to go."

  What was second nature for Tarrin was something new and exciting for Jula. She learned quickly what the range was for her jumping, and was soon hopping from flat roof to flat roof with as much ease as him. Once she became more confident, Tarrin picked up the pace, having them move along the rooftops faster than a man could move on the street. The night air was cool and crisp, a common phenomenon when the air was so dry and the sun was no longer out to keep it heated, and it whistled in his ears as they travelled more or less in a straight line, towards the rising Twin Moons.

  "Are those men over there?" Jula asked as they paused on one roof.

  Tarrin glanced over, where two men were moving from one roof to another. Just not as gracefully or easily as the Were-cats. "They are," he replied. "Thieves use the roofs the same way we do. It's only smart. Very few people look up. The people who live in these houses come up sometimes too."

  "I saw a couple of them. I think you steered us around one."

  He nodded. "I don't think the lady would have liked us barging in on her."

  "I didn't see her."

  "You're still focusing on your jumping. We passed her about five minutes ago."

  "I wonder what they do up here."

  "Appreciate the view, I suppose. That, or get a breath of fresh air. It smells alot better up here than it does on the street."

  "I noticed that. I can't identify half of what I smell, but not very much of it smells all that good."

  "That comes with experience," he told her. "I can't identify every smell either. The only way to learn the smells is to investigate them."

  "No thanks," she grunted. "I know all the smells I need to know. I know a human's smell, I know that Selani's smell, I know my own smell, and I know yours. That's all I need to know."

  "Clever," he said applaudingly. "Tracking your own scent is a common trick. It keeps us from getting lost."

  "I learned that one before I-before I went insane," she said hesitantly, a quiver of pain touching him through her bond. "I learned your smell so I can find you in case we get separated. And after that Selani tried to skewer me, I decided it was a good idea to learn her smell, so she can't sneak up on me."

  "Good. You're starting to think like a Were-cat," he said.

  "That had nothing to do with thinking like a Were-cat," she admitted. "That had to do with keeping my face in one piece."

  "Don't let your guard down around Allia, cub," he warned. "She accepts that you're my cub, but she's still very angry with you. She won't forgive you for what you did as quickly or easily as I did, and her honor demands you be made to pay for your crimes. If she gets piqued, she'll try again. And if she does, you'd better run away from her as fast as you can. If you even try to hurt her, I'll rip out your spleen. Do you understand me?"

  "So I can't fight back?" she flared.

  "No, you can't," he said flatly. "Just get away from her if it comes to that. If you try to fight back, you'll just be killing yourself."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that you stand no chance against Allia," he said in a blunt tone. "She'd take you apart. She's my best friend, cub, and that means that she knows all my weaknesses. I'm not half as invulnerable as your old companions believe. She knows how to kill a Were-cat. She could kill me if she was serious about it. I'm not fool enough to fight her."

  "If they only knew," she chuckled ruefully. "But they're not going to hear it from me."

  "That's nice to hear," he said absently. "Come on, we're almost there."

  Once Tarrin got them back to the neighborhood where he stopped searching the night before, not far from where he had found Jula, he squatted on the lip of a rooftop and pulled out the medallion. Jula watched in curiosity as Tarrin held it up, and it began to glow with a reddish aura. "It's pointing that way," he said, pointing with his finger to the southwest. "Not very far away either, by the looks of it."

  "So it found the book that fast?"

  "No, it found an ancient object either the same size as the book or smaller," he replied. "If it's not the book, the medallion won't point to that object again. We have to find it so we can see if it is or not."

  "Systematic."

  "Phandebrass can seem a bit of a flake, but he's actually a very sharp man," Tarrin said respectfully of the doddering mage. "When he puts his mind on a problem, he can be incredibly clever and resourceful finding an answer."

  "I hope I get to talk to him. I haven't talked to anyone but you since this morning."

  "They're keeping their distance," he replied. "I needed time with you, and I didn't want them tainting things. Phandebrass would be asking you a million questions if I gave him the chance." He stood up. "Let's go, cub. We may have all night, but we can't waste it all on our first bite."

  "What are we going to do?" she asked as they jumped to another roof.

  "We'll enter the building where it is and find it," he replied. "We'll do it without disturbing whoever lives there. The idea is to get in, find the object, and if it's not the book, then to get out without anyone knowing we were there."

  "So we'll be thieves," she said with a strange eagerness in her voice.

  "Something like that. The sneaking around will be good practice for you. I couldn't have set up a better exercise in skulking. Skulking is important for a Were-cat. We love to skulk."

  "I think I can feel that," she replied. "The thought of sneaking around is… appealing. And it's coming from the instincts, not me."

  "It's a hunting skill," he told her easily as they moved to another roof. "It's alot like stalking prey. That excites your predatory instincts."

  The building holding the object turned out to be a very large warehouse, on the fringe of a district full of warehouses and large buildings. It was a closed building, with some yard between it and a large wall that was built around it to keep people out. Tarrin and Jula circled its perimeter to ensure that the target was inside. The wall was just as high as the buildings around it, so he could only see a small portion of the building's upper story. He had no idea if there were guards patrolling the property.

  "They're not going to make this easy," he grunted, standing up at the edge of the roof closest to the wall. The warehouse was surrounded by houses and a large open space on the west side, and none of the buildings were very close to the wall. It was like it was a little island in the neighborhood. It was forty spans or more to the wall, out of jumping distance for Jula. Tarrin could possibly make it, if he had a good running start. He'd never tried jumping that kind of distance with such a small margin of error. Even jumping across the river back in Sulasia didn't have the exacting demands that trying for the top of that wall would have. If he missed, he'd announce to everyone in the area that someone was trying to break in.

  "What are we going to do?"

  Tarrin held out his paw, palm up, and extended his claws. "Climb," he replied. "Just stay close to me and be quiet, cub. We may run into guards, so keep your ears up."

  He didn't have much of a plan. He rarely did. Even with Jula tagging along with him, his idea of going about it was very simple. Climb in, sneak around, find the object, then sneak out. They dropped down off the roof, and after pausing to make sure the area ar
ound them was clear of people-never a sure thing in this city of endless activity-they darted to the base of the wall. The wall was brick, covered with plaster. Clawmarks were going to show on it, but that was just too bad. Digging his claws into the plaster, Tarrin started up the face of the wall. Jula followed behind him, moving much slower as she worried about what she was doing, but the instinctive ability to climb was taking over even as she worried about it.

  Tarrin reached the top of the wall and peeked in. It was a courtyard, its bare dirt packed with the movement of wagons and horses and people. This was a merchant's warehouse, and he used it daily to move his goods. His eyes narrowed on a trio of men walking along the side of the warehouse, away from where the Were-cats were. The warehouse was guarded. That wasn't much of a surprise. Jula reached the top of the wall and looked over, her ears picking up. "Guards," she said. "Looks like a merchant's warehouse, from the condition of the courtyard."

  "I see you know something about theft," he grunted.

  "I'm not a total idiot," she said in a slightly challenging tone.

  "Let's argue later," he said brusquely. The guards turned the corner and disappeared, and Tarrin rose up and threw his leg over the wall. Jula moved to follow, and he climbed about halfway down the wall before letting go and dropping silently to the ground below. He motioned for her to do the same, but she hesitated. He heard her curse under her breath, then she pushed away from the wall and dropped nearly twenty spans to the ground. She dipped down a bit more than him-she wasn't as strong as he was-but the fall did her no harm.

  "Come on," he said quietly, darting into the shadows created by the warehouse.

  They entered through an open second story window. The interior of the warehouse was a huge open space, with a platform for the second floor that only ran about a quarter of the building's length before ending with no rail or barrier to keep people from falling off. The interior was packed with rows and rows of wooden crates, burlap bags, and clay jars and vats.

  "Looks like he's doing well," Jula remarked in a very quiet whisper. "I smell men in here."

  "There, there, and there," Tarrin pointed, to where his eyes, nose, and ears told him that guards were wandering. Three tiny spots of ruddy light drifted on the first floor, reflecting off the stacked crates and goods as the men patrolled the interior. One of them appeared between stacks of crates briefly, holding a small lantern in his hand to penetrate the gloom inside the large building, then he disappeared behind them. Tarrin held up the medallion, and it pointed to the floor below. The object was only a few hundred spans away.

  "Over there," he pointed to where the medallion was indicating. "Remember, keep silent. We are ghosts in the night."

  Putting a paw on the edge, he slid off of it and dropped to the packed dirt floor below with utter silence. Jula dropped down beside him, and they stalked into the maze of irregular corridors created by the stored goods.

  He had to admit, she could move quietly. Jula seemed to have already learned the arts of moving quietly, for her wide feet made not even a whisper of sound. There was only the faint brushing whispers of cloth sliding against cloth, and the sound of their breathing and heartbeats. There were other noises, the scuttling and faint squeaking of the rats that lived in the building, the sound of a few bats and a couple of pigeons that had managed to find a way in and roosted on the roof rafters over them. The three men on the floor made the most noise, their boots impacting the hard dirt floor and creating echos through the cavernous building that Tarrin could track to keep tabs on their three adversaries. He led Jula on a meandering path through the crates, a path that kept them well away from the three wandering guards, letting the medallion home him in on their objective.

  When they reached it, Tarrin found a snag in their little plan. The object was packed inside a wooden crate, and it was on the bottom of a stack of other crates. There was no way to get to the object without making noise, either by ripping the crate open, or unstacking the crates to reach it. Doing either would bring the guards, and that meant that they would be leaving bodies behind as clues for whoever tried to solve the mystery.

  "It's in the bottom crate," he grunted in a faint whisper. "We have a problem."

  "Not a problem," she said motioning with her hand. Tarrin felt her touch the Weave, and a weaving took form around them, encompassing the crates as well. "I just blocked any sound from leaving the interior of the weave," she announced in what seemed to him to be a loud voice. "Now we won't make any noise."

  "I didn't think of that," Tarrin admitted, grabbing the side of the wooden crate, and ripping it away with his claws. The wood made a sharp cracking sound as he tore it from the nails holding it to the crate, but there was no echoing off the other stacks. The weave was indeed stopping sound.

  "I may be a Were-cat, but I was a Sorcerer first," she said with a light smile.

  Tarrin reached into the crate, and pulled out several objects, all of them antiques. The medallion pointed to only one of them, a brooch of jade attached to a gold chain to make a necklace. "This is it," he sighed, touching the medallion to the necklace, which made its glow wink out.

  "Why would they pack jewelry in a crate and leave it in here?" Jula asked curiously.

  "Exactly why you're asking," he replied. "How better to protect valuable goods than by hiding it in a sea of other goods? Unless you know exactly where to look, what are the odds of finding it?"

  Jula looked about to say something, then she blinked and laughed ruefully. "That's so clever it almost makes me feel stupid," she said.

  "This thing is in pretty bad shape," Tarrin noted clinically, holding up the battered old jade necklace. "Odds are, the man that bought it doesn't think it's as old as it is, or maybe not as valuable. Maybe he doesn't even know it's here. With so much stuff, how do they know what is where?"

  "Records," Jula replied. "They probably have records saying exactly what they have, and where it was stacked."

  "They'd have to," he agreed. "Or else they'd spend all day just trying to find things."

  "What now?"

  "Now, we leave," he replied, putting the objects back in the crate, and pushing the boards back into place to conceal his vandalism."

  "Why not keep those?" Jula asked with a light smile.

  "Because they're useless to me," he said simply. "Now drop your weave, and keep quiet. We're going back to the window."

  The trip back to the second story was uneventful, mainly because the guards made so much noise that it was child's play to keep away from them. They were so loud that Tarrin had Jula lead the way, letting her exercise her senses to pick a path that would steer them away from them. She did very well, leading them in a very wide circle around the three watchmen, and back to where the ledge of the second story hovered over the floor. It was a simple matter to jump up to the ledge. Tarrin and Jula paused, kneeling on the edge of the second floor and looking down over the large expanse of stored goods. "How was that?" she asked in a whisper.

  "Not bad," he complemented. "But we're not out of here yet. We still have a wall to climb."

  That turned out to be no problem either. They waited for the single patrol to go around the building, then they darted out and started up the wall. Tarrin surprised Jula by vaulting up more than half the height of the wall and holding fast with his claws, then starting up as soon as he knew he wouldn't slip off. Jula gave him a slightly annoyed look, then backed up and tried it herself. She managed to hit the wall at the zenith of her jump, but her claws slid on the plaster for a split second, making her eyes go wide and causing her to gouge holes in the plaster with her claws to get solid purchase. He waited for her at the top, watching her climb up, and she gave him a hot look when she reached him. "Why didn't you tell me to do that?" she demanded.

  "I thought you were experienced enough to think about it on your own," he replied calmly. "I see you still want to think like you have your old human body. You need more practice."

  "This is new for me."

 
; "That's no excuse," he told her. "Now, do you want to sit up here and argue until they see us, or do you want to get down and argue where we won't get caught?"

  She gave him a hot glare, then threw her leg over the wall and started down.

  After dropping off the wall, they darted across the open area and quickly returned to the rooftops. Tarrin knelt down to give Jula a chance to rest after their adventure, taking out the medallion and holding it up. "Get it off your chest, cub," he said calmly as the medallion began to glow with a faith radiance. The pull was very weak; the next object was some distance away, to the north.

  "I know I must seem like a baby to you, but I'm not a child," she said in a growling tone. "I do know some things, Tarrin. Stop being so surprised when I show you that, and don't berate me because I'm not a perfect Were-cat female. I was human alot longer than you were, and I guess I have alot of what you would call bad habits to break. This isn't easy for me."

  "And it makes you think about them when I bring them up," he said calmly. "I'm not trying to humiliate you, cub. I'm trying to make you think about things. And it's working."

  "It's making me mad."

  "Anger is a good motivator," he shrugged. "There were times when I wanted to kill Jesmind and Triana. You're getting nothing different than what I got myself." He stood up. "After we're done tonight, we're going to have a very long talk. You're going to tell me anything I want to know, and just to warn you, I'm going to ask some very personal questions."

  "Why?"

  "So I can get to know you better," he replied calmly. "So I won't be surprised when you show me you're not a child. I haven't done it yet because I wanted you to get a little bit more comfortable with me. Some of the answers aren't going to be what you'd say to anyone other than a husband. And maybe not even him."

  Jula flushed slightly. "That personal?"

  "More personal than that," he affirmed. "When Jesmind did it to me, I considered dying before answering her a few times. But then again, it probably won't be that bad for you."