The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  A bolt of pure magical energy, so bright that it hurt to look at it, erupted from his paws, that same primal weave he had used before, one of the few ways in which the Cat knew how to use magic. It roared down the deck, missing the Amazon by fingers as she dove aside, then hit the sterncastle and caused he wooden wall to explode violently, sending flaming shrapnel back across the stern section of the deck. The bolt blew out the stern of the ship, splitting the water as it streamed across the surface for nearly a longspan, then hitting the water and causing it to explode. That detonation sent a shockwave of hot air back at the ship, making it rock, and sending a spray of water hundreds of spans into the air.

  Seeing his antagonist still alive, the Cat within changed tactics. Energy hazed around him, an aura of Magelight, as he collected the power to weave together another spell, sucking it from the Weave faster than it could flow into him, causing the Weave around him to shudder and vibrate in a eerie harmony that only a Sorcerer could hear. He wove together that spell, consisting primarily of Divine energies, with token flows of the other Spheres to give the weave the power of High Sorcery, and a small ball of infathomable blackness coalesced over his left paw. Electrical energy crackled around it, against his paw and manacle, increasing in birghtness and frequency as the black ball expanded, swallowing up the light. The Cat knew that against this weave, there was no defense. Without so much as a thought, he released it, hurling it at her in a broad sidearmed toss. It hurtled towards her, and her almond eyes widened in shock and fear as it sought to utterly destroy her.

  Then it simply stopped. Both Tarrin and Camara Tal stared at the magical orb in stunned shock, and then Sarraya appeared directly in front of it, her tiny hands held out as if to push it away. She somehow brought it to a halt, then pushed up with both arms, and the ball sailed into the sky, barely avoiding the ropes of the rigging. An image of something similar touched the Cat within him, an image of Triana turning his spell into the sky, taking control of its direction. Sarraya had done the same thing. Her tiny hands pointed at him, and he felt the Weave simply disappear, draining away from him as if it had never been. The power within had nowhere to go, so it generated a backlash that put him on his knees, a backlash that generated a physical blast of wind that radiated from him and struck everyone and everything around him, knocking people back and making the masts and rigging sway in the sudden wind. The Magelight winked out from around him, the incadescent white light faded from his eyes as he felt the Weave abandon him.

  Even that was not enough. His rage was focused on Camara Tal, and he would not stop until she was dead. The Faerie had opposed him, so she was now also his enemy. His leg still broken, he pulled himself to his feet, leaning grotesquely against his broken leg, eyes still blazing with the greenish aura that made them so striking. Someone grabbed him by the wrist, and he pulled on his arm, dragging that someone towards him. Paw grabbing the figure by the neck, he lifted it up, then slammed it against the deck with impressive force, claws on his other paw rearing back to kill the interloper. But a flash of silver hair and a brown-skinned face struck his mind harder than a giant's fist, and eyes bluer than the sky locked onto his calmly.

  It was Allia!

  The sight of her was all it took. If there was one person in the entire world that Tarrin could not harm, could not injure, no matter what his mental state, it was his Selani sister. Her visage soothed his fury, the security he felt when he looked at her defused his explosion, allowing him to regain control of himself. Tarrin wilted visibly as his rage drained away, drained out of him by the blue of her beautiful eyes, eyes that bored into his and did not waver. He let go of her neck and knelt beside her, confused and scattered, unable to link together two coherent thoughts. That was somewhat normal after coming out of a rage, and he knew in the back of his mind that he only had to wait out the disorientation. He had very little memory of what he did while in that state, lost in the swirling fury that had dominated his mind. With the loss of his rage, the pain of a leg that had healed wrong struck him, pain of muscles only partially mended hit him like a thousand sticks all over his body.

  He looked up just enough to see Sarraya. The tiny Faerie looked at him with concern, compassion, and mercy, and he could only stare at her. "Sleep," she whispered to him sweetly, touching him on the forehead gently. "Let the pain go through sleep."

  It had to be magical. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by a weariness that flowed into him, through him, settled into his bones, dulled his pain, calmed the chaos of his mind. Eyes rolling back into his head, Tarrin sagged to the deck, lost in a dreamless oblivion of sleep.

  There was a moment of stunned, awed, horrified silence. Everyone who had witnessed the entire episode stared at the inert Were-cat, worry showing on their faces that he would wake up and continue his rampage. The Amazon half-sat, half-lay nearby, watching the Were-cat carefully, wiping a line of blood from her chin, as the Faerie landed just in front of the Were-cat's head, putting her hands on his forehead and cheek.

  The moment was ended by the Selani. She rose quickly from where she lay on the deck, blood smearing her back and flowing down the backs of her legs. The deck was split where the Were-cat had rammed her into it, but she showed no signs that she even realized she was wounded. Hot eyes locked on the Amazon, and only one word was uttered, a word that made it clear how she felt.

  "Fool!"

  The word echoed through the silence, issuing through the ship, ringing in the ears of nearly everyone who was looking on. The Selania balled a four-fingered hand up into a fist and shook it at the Amazon, who still looked a little dazed from the assault.

  "You set him off deliberately!" The Selani raged at the Amazon. "You did that on purpose! Fool, Tarrin is not a dog that you can beat so long as it is kept on a leash! When he is enraged, everyone and everything around him is in danger! Had he chosen to use another weave, rather than concentrating on just you, he would have destroyed this ship! You nearly killed us all!"

  "I meant to make him angry, not to make him go off," Camara Tal replied woozily.

  "There is no difference when it comes to him!" Allia screamed back at her furiously. "Shebaka!" she cursed sulfurously, then she went on a long string of Selani curses that lasted for quite a while, more than long enough for Dolanna and Dar to arrive from below decks.

  "What happened here?" Dolanna demanded. "Dar, tend Camara Tal. Sarraya, what is going on?"

  "Not much, Dolanna," the sprite said grimly as Dar helped the Amazon get back on her feet. "Camara the Genius over there just ruffled Tarrin's fur deliberately. He went into a snit and nearly killed all of us while trying to wipe her off the face of Sennadar."

  "She did what?" Dolanna demanded, flabbergasted. "Camara Tal, surely you have more sense than that!"

  "I didn't mean to enrage him, only to anger him," she defended herself.

  "Oija!" Dolanna sighed in her own language. "Amazon, that is a line so faint that no one aside from Tarrin himself can distinguish it! Tarrin is not dangerous so long as you do not provoke him!" she said with impressive power in her voice. "What insanity possessed you to do such a thing?"

  "They were playfighting," Sarraya told her. "Tarrin was handling it pretty well until Brainchild over there started taunting him. He snapped and tried to take her head off, and she used magic to subdue him. That managed to just really tick him off."

  "No wonder," Dolanna snorted. "To use magic against him is the same in his mind as attacking him. When you did that, you drew his wrath as surely as the sun rises in the morning."

  Camara Tal wiped some blood off her leg, the four neat slashes in her abdomen already healed over. "I'll remember that next time," she said calmly.

  "There will be no next time," she replied. "If Tarrin even allows you near him again, it will be a miracle. You have probably just permanently poisoned him against you, Camara Tal. I suggest you keep your distance, if you wish to live. If he is too violently opposed to you, we will let you off at Saranam. That will be the only way to save you
."

  "Come on, one little spat won't--"

  "We shall see," Dolanna interrupted. "Tarrin is not a forgiving person, Camara Tal. If he blames you for what happened, he will not forgive you. And if he will not forgive you, then he will probably try to kill you. Tarrin's mentality is very much aligned by thinking of everyone as friend or foe. We will have to see where you stand when he awakens."

  The Amazon was silent, crossing her arms under her breasts and staring at the small Sharadi Sorceress with unblinking eyes. Then she turned and walked away.

  The night was warm and breezy. The rain line that had dampened the ship had passed long before the sunset, but behind it was cooler, dryer air that was unsettled now that the sun had gone down. It blew from the east fitfully, bringing along with it the smell of more rain to come, hidden behind the horizon. The ship's masts and ropes creaked in the breeze, the sails still down and tended by a handful of men as the ship made up time by sailing at night. Those men ignored Tarrin for the most part as he stood at the bow, looking at the dark seas ahead.

  Sarraya had helped fix the damage he caused. She had conjured forth boards to replace the walls of the sterncastle he had destroyed, and an afternoon's work while still moving had sealed up the holes. The smell of the scorched wood was still heavy aboard the ship, as was the faint scents of blood from the few people that had been hit by shards of flying wood. There had been no deaths, not even a serious injury from the flying shrapnel, but there had been enough bleeding to leave traces of its smell in the deck.

  He could smell their fear, and he couldn't blame them. They had seen him at his worst, and they couldn't forget it. The smell of their fear roused the Cat within him, response to prey-fear, but it was nothing he couldn't control. Their fear was justified. They should be afraid of him. The memory of what had happened had eased back to him faster than usual for a rage, probably because he was enraged only for a short time. Camara Tal had sent him into a rage, and she had done it deliberately. Well, maybe not deliberately, but she was definitely trying to make him angry. Trying to teach him a lesson, he guessed, a lesson about anger. But she was the one who learned the lesson. Tarrin's anger was a weapon, a powerful weapon when unleashed, a weapon that did not discriminate. It was a double-edged sword, giving him the power to destroy what he normally couldn't destroy, but also representing the greatest danger to himself. He couldn't control his Sorcery, unless he was in a rage. Only then did he have the power, for the Cat had the primal drive, the will, to control what his conscious mind could not. But when he had the power, he had no morals, no compunction to use it responsibly. When enraged, he did not care, not about enemies, not about friends, not even about himself. He would gladly destroy himself, if it would destroy his enemies at the same time. He eventually would destroy himself, the one time Sarraya or Allia was not there to prevent him from doing so.

  He was his own worst enemy.

  He was still somewhat mad at Camara Tal. He didn't like going into a rage. It was dangerous for him, and for everyone around him. He always had to deal with what evil he committed afterward, when the memories returned and haunted him, drove him to distance himself from his guilt, driving him more and more feral. If Allia hadn't snapped him out of it, he would have killed someone. And the thought of killing someone didn't really bother him, unless it was someone he knew and trusted. It didn't bother him, but he knew deep inside that the human in him would cringe at the act, would make him feel remorse and guilt, emotions that would only make his feral nature more solid. The more evil he committed, the more he would detach himself from the feelings associated with it, and the worse he would get. Not a year ago, he would have been mortified to kill innocent people, but now it wouldn't make him bat an eye. He was becoming more and more violent, less concerned about the suffering he was inflicting on others. What he truly feared was the day when he found pleasure in it. That would be the point of no return, when he would truly become the monster that lurked within.

  What price his power had cost him.

  Feeling the breeze against his back, smelling the wood and the people and the fear behind him, he put it out of his mind and looked up at the stars. There was only one thing good of what had happened. He hadn't hurt Allia. Even in his blind rage, he recognized her, and the sight of her was enough to instantly melt away the icy rage around his mind and bring him back to himself. Triana had told him once that the key to surviving rage was learning how not to hurt the ones he loved, even when in the throes of it. And that had happened. For the first time, that had happened. In the middle of a rage, intoxicated with fury and looking to kill, he had come out of it at the sight of his sister. He had nearly killed her. He would have killed her, but he had recognized her, and something deep in his soul had risen up and screamed no. That had been enough. He felt comfort knowing that he couldn't bring himself to hurt Allia, no matter what state of mind he was in at the time. The horror, the nightmare of killing his sister in the middle of a rage had lost its impact. It was still possible, if he couldn't recognize her, but now he knew that if he could see her, could know who she was, he could not bring himself to deliver a killing blow. He'd broken a few of her ribs when he smashed her into the deck, but that had been before he recognized her. That was the important thing.

  He didn't hate Camara Tal. Something told him that she never meant to do what she did. He doubted that she would intentionally risk the lives of everyone on the ship. Despite not trusting her, the Goddess told him that she was there to help him, and that weighted how he felt about her in his mind. He didn't trust her, but he was willing to give her more latitude than he would anyone else, if only to satisfy the Goddess. He wouldn't have her accusing him of rejecting her outright. He would give her the chance to either befriend him or alienate him. The decision was hers to make. He was mad at her, and would be for a while, but there was no hatred there. She had made a mistake, and he could forgive her for that. But he would not forget.

  The moons were out. Dommammon, the great white moon, was full, shining its brightness down upon the sea. This far south, so close to the equator, the Skybands were little more than a knife-edge in the sky, and the night seemed darker because of it. The White Moon took up some of that void with its milky light. The Twin Moons, Vala and Duva, were just cresting the horizon, each half full, and the Red Moon, Kava, was descending towards its setpoint, which was little more than a curved sliver. They all had their own cycles of waning and waxing, and were rarely either full or new at the same time. But it did happen. About every five or six months, they would become full or new for a couple of days, either filling the sky with light or descending it into an eerie darkness that was unusual. The moons had a mysterious allure for him, probably something deep within his Were nature that responded to them. It may be why so many myths about Lycanthropes changing only during the fullness of the White Moon were so rampant. It sang to him, sang to his soul, singing a sweet melody that he could neither hear nor sense, yet stirred his soul with a haunting melody of union. It was something the others couldn't understand, it was why he would stand on the deck for hours on end and stare up into the sky, almost every night that Dommammon was full. The song was strongest during the full phase of the moons, strongest with the largest moon, and it sang to him of peace and serenity, of the fullness and perfection of life uncluttered by human whims and wants. The purity of instinct, unfettered by the human taint that infected the Were-kin. Part human, part animal, both yet neither, the light of the White Moon washed away the turmoil that upset his life, made him feel harmony.

  At least sometimes. He couldn't hear the song unless he was calm and at peace, but when life made little sense to him, it was there to provide a little comfort, to help him find his path by easing his fears.

  Strange. Now that he thought of it, the moons sang to him the same way that Miranda did. How could she have such an effect on him? After all, she was just a Wikuni, a person. What could she have to do with the song of the moons? He blinked and leaned down against the ra
il, putting his chin on his furred forearms, staring out into the sea. It was fainter from her, but it was there, that same sweet song that lulled him, placated him, made him want to be near her. He could remember it clearly, and it felt the same way as it did when he looked at the moons. He had always wondered at it, why he had such an infatuation with her. He had never associated her with the moons before, but now that he did, it was a perfect match. It was strange. It was unnatural.

  He remembered when he thought she was dead, when he touched her and felt the spark of life inside. He had healed her, nearly killing himself in the process. He had touched her soul then, and though he had very vague memory of it, he could remember the blazing purity he had found within her. A power of tremendous magnitude, a power untapped. A power that seemed out of place in a Wikuni, a power of soul that transcended mortal constraints.

  Tarrin's ears picked up, and he stood straight up. No! It couldn't be!

  "Goddess!" he gasped. "Miranda's not a Wikuni!"

  Miranda was an Avatar!

  An Avatar, a direct mortal manifestation of the power of a god!

  That's right, the Goddess' voice spoke to his mind, filling him with the sweet feeling of her presence and making his soul reach out to her. Miranda is more than she seems. I have told you that before, kitten. I'm a bit disappointed that it took you this long to figure it out.