The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  Faalken!

  Tarrin pulled his head up, looking towards the Knight. Dolanna and Dar had the burly Knight on his back on the ground. Camara Tal was standing over him, her halter burned in half and leaving her bare from the waist up, but she had no blackened wound in her chest. She had healed herself. She had her amulet in hand, but her head was bowed. Both her hands were bloody. He saw with cold horror the huge pool of blood that was around the Knight, covering his sheared armor, soaking into the dirt and into the robes that Dolanna and Dar were wearing.

  "Fa-Faalken," Tarrin wheezed, trying to get back his breath. "N-No, Faalken."

  Dolanna looked up at him, looked into his eyes, and what he saw in them caused a cold hand to wrap around his soul.

  Faalken was dead.

  It struck him like the hammer of a giant. The enormity of it drove daggers into his mind, burned his soul with the purity of its significance. A friend had died, a friend had died protecting him. A friend had died because of him, a friend was dead, and it was his fault.

  It was his fault.

  Images of his mother, staring at him with terror in her eyes as he held her against a wall, preparing to rip off her head, swirled in his mind. Images of the many people he had killed, images of Faalken, the cherubic, optomistic Knight who always had a smile and a comical word, one of the few people who could make Tarrin laugh. A cheery soul, a warm friend, his light forever extinguished.

  And it was his fault.

  Faalken was dead because of him! The words of the Doomwalker returned to him, the taunting, offering him the choice between saving his friend or destroying the Doomwalker. In his rage, he followed the only path that made sense to the animal within, the destruction of an enemy. He had let Faalken die just to satisfy his own lust to kill. Jegojah may have struck the blow, but it was Tarrin who had let Faalken die!

  Faalken was dead. Faalken was dead, and Tarrin had killed him.

  He shook his head dumbly, denying the stark truth, the horrible realization that he was now the monster that he had always feared he would be. He had caused the death of his own friend. But there was no denying a truth so powerful, so simple, so logical. Tarrin had had a choice, and he had chosen to let Faalken die. He was guilty, he was the one. It was all his fault.

  Paws to the sides of his head, Tarrin reared back and wailed to the sky, a heart-rending moan of utter despair, of abject sorrow.

  Faalken was dead. And he was the monster that killed him.

  Chapter 21

  Time stood still.

  It was the best way to explain it. For some amount of time, he had no idea, he had sat there, on the edge of his bed, staring at a blank wall. He had retreated into himself, far beyond the timeless existence of the Cat, into an unthinking void in which no sensation could reach. And there he had stayed willingly, for there was nothing but anguish awaiting him outside that safe area. He had no idea how he had returned to the Dancer. He had no idea if his sister, Camara Tal, and Sarraya were well. There was nothing, nothing but that blissful emptiness where he could hide from the sorrow.

  But physical needs drove him out of his unthinking daze, a powerful hunger that was so strong that it reached into his safe place and ripped him from it. And in the return to time, so returned the pain of the memories from which he was hiding.

  Faalken was dead.

  Faalken was dead, and he had caused it to happen. He hadn't delivered the killing blow, but Faalken was there on his behalf, fighting for him, protecting him from the Doomwalker. He didn't have to be there. He didn't have to die. And what was worse, at one point he knew Faalken was mortally wounded, he knew that Faalken was going to die. Jegojah had even taunted him about it, that Faalken was dying, and only healing could save him. And instead of throwing the Doomwalker aside and saving his friend, he had gone even deeper into rage, abandoning Faalken to death just so he could destroy Jegojah. Regardless of how out of his mind he was at the time, that simple, stark, agonizing truth stared him in the eye and refused to let him forget. He had killed Faalken twice over, once by letting him fight, and again by not healing him when he had the chance.

  Faalken had been such a good friend. Honest and sincere, but his sense of humor had been what had defined him. Cherubic, always seeing the laughter in things, even playing childish pranks and tricks, the Knight's immaturity was something of an uplifting thing for Tarrin, who was always so weighed down by his personal problems. Faalken could always make him smile, and could often bring him to laugh. He knew when to put it aside and be serious, but his way of looking at the world had bolstered the Were-cat in his times of need for companionship, even understanding. Faalken had been there from the start of it, had been there to escort the villager from Aldreth and start him on his journey. Though he didn't broadcast it, Faalken had known Tarrin very well. He understood his nature, and could always deal with him, even soothe him with wise words that were so much out of his character, and a mark of how wise the Knight had really been. It felt so wrong to be travelling without the Knight, it left a huge hole in him to think that his good friend, one of his oldest friends in the madness of his life, wouldn't be there anymore. He just couldn't be gone, but Tarrin knew that he was.

  And it was his fault.

  Drawing his legs up to his chest, he wrapped his tail around his ankles and rested his chin on his knees. It was so unfair. Jegojah was there to kill him. Why did the Knight have to be so brave? Why did he challenge the Doomwalker instead of backing away? But he already knew the answer. The Doomwalker was coming after Dolanna, and Faalken's training, his mission, his duty, was to defend her. To the death, if need be. He had faced the Doomwalker and defended Dolanna. It cost him his life, but in what was the only small thing that gave Tarrin comfort, he had succeeded. Dolanna had been saved, as had Dar and Phandebrass, saved because Faalken had put their lives over his own and blocked the Doomwalker's path to them. In that respect, Faalken was a hero, a mighty hero whose brave deed should never be forgotten.

  He didn't have to be gone. Tarrin could have saved him, but he did not. Lost in the mindless fury of rage, Tarrin had cast aside his friendship and love for the Knight and had selfishly sought to satisfy his own primal need, to kill Jegojah. In his rage, he had no care for himself, no concept of the idea of self-preservation, and now he knew that he had no care for anyone else either. The rage was all, the primitive drive to kill, and it was both master and slave. It was something that he would have to live with for the rest of his life, something that he neither could forget, nor would allow himself to forget.

  He wore his manacles to remind him of the price of trusting strangers. Now they also would remind him of the price that could come with his rage.

  His rage had destroyed enemies before, it gave him a power against which few could stand, and it was something that he had no longer feared. But now it represented the terrible reality that in his rage, he wasn't the only one in danger. He didn't care about himself, but the anguish that his rage had killed a friend was almost too much for him to take.

  He had become a monster, at that moment. He had abandoned a cherished friend in his moment of need to pursue his own petty needs. It was done. No amount of wishing could bring Faalken back, could allow him to change that truth. He felt a cold disassociation to that epiphany, a feeling of emptiness that tried to swallow the pain. That was the Cat in him, he realized. Powerful emotions like sorrow were something alien to it, and it sought to overwhelm them with the seductive allure in living in the moment, living in the now, where the past and the future were things that had no meaning. He had lived like that before, after he had nearly killed his mother. But he could not retreat into that blissful state again, not with Allia and Dolanna and Dar in danger, in danger because of him.

  For the first time in a very long while, he had managed to overpower the Cat within, and forced it to accept his desires over its own.

  The Cat in him was a pragmatic creature. It could understand the pain of loss, but it was the past, and the past had no
meaning. The now was all. And in the now, he had other friends, other treasured companions that would need protection. From others, from himself if need be, but they were there. He would not lose another friend. He would not. He would not allow himself to kill another friend, but he would be there to prevent anyone else from killing them either. That single thought overwhelmed him, dominated him, swept aside any objection from his human morality. No matter what it took, no matter who or how many he had to kill, he would defend the friends that he had left.

  Tarrin closed his eyes, felt them burn after being open for such a long time. The physical sensation amplified his mourning of Faalken, amplified the vow he made to himself to protect the rest. He felt the burning, the pain, and he welcomed it. It would be part of him, part of him forever, a dark stain on his soul that could never be erased.

  His lack of control had finally done what he, what they all, had feared. It had gotten someone killed.

  Eyes closed, a single tear formed in the corner of his eye, rolled down his cheek. The death of Faalken had left a hollowness inside him, a wrenching gape in his soul that could never be filled, could never be made whole. But he had to go on. He had no choice. He had a duty to perform, a mission to accomplish, something that was larger than Faalken, larger than him. He had to protect the world. If he just stopped, if he allowed himself to be drowned by his own pain, then Faalken's death would have been in vain.

  And that single thought filled him with a searing resolve, a resolve that overwhelmed his pain.

  Faalken would not die in vain. His death would be remembered, it would be honored, and he would never be forgotten.

  He would not forget. He would never forget.

  The wind was particularly lamentful that day.

  The thin, emaciated, dead-eyed mage stood on the balcony, looking over a scene of bleak gray. A stone valley, barren and void, but a valley filled with the smoke and light of campfires. The smell of it reached all the way up the mountain, reached the vaulted walls of Castle Keening, reached Kravon's thin nose. The smell of Trolls and Dargu, Waern and Bruga. Foul odors, rank odors, the smell of unwashed Goblinoids as they feasted, fought, and waited in the inhospitable valley below. The Petal Lakes were barely visible at the end of that valley, opening to the rich mining region that Draconia and Daltochan occasionally fought to possess.

  Soon now, soon the Goblinoids would march down that valley and create a new world. Soon now, Val would be reborn.

  It was such a disappointment. The diamond amulet around Kravon's neck was pulsating with a heat and radiance that signalled the Doomwalker's failure. It had been banished to the amulet once again, destroyed by the Were-cat a second time. Momentarily, he would interrogate the shade and come to discover what had gone wrong. He entertained the idea of destroying Jegojah, but Doomwalkers were frightfully difficult to create. Even in failure, the Doomwalker still had uses. To press the Were-cat if nothing else.

  Reports coming in from agents were favorable. The Were-cat seemed to be more and more disjointed. He was increasingly violent, and his raging was becoming more and more destructive. Their tactic to drive the Were-cat mad seemingly was not working, but it was still successful in that it was keeping the Were-cat dangerous, where local populations and laws would work against him, slow him down, aggravate him even more. They now knew where the fat circus master was taking him, and it made good sense. Dala Yar Arak. Home to one of the most impressive libraries in the world. They obviously were looking for the Book of Ages, the tome that was reputed to hold the location of the Firestaff within its pages. Kravon had agents in Dala Yar Arak that were already looking for the book, but it was a daunting task. He understood their failure so far, and could accept it, albeit a bit grudgingly. It was just such a large city, finding a single book was nearly an impossible task. Even using magic to find it had not succeeded thus far. Attempts to divine the book's location were being blocked, actively blocked. That meant that the book was being guarded in some manner. His agents were using indirect magical methods to find the book, methods that lacked in exactness. They would find the book. It would just take time.

  Time was something that they had in short supply.

  The Were-cat was coming, and Kravon had little doubt that it would also use magic to try to find the book. The Were-cat was the Mi'Shara, and that fact may work in its favor in its own attempt to find the Book of Ages. Kravon feared that it would find the book in a matter of days, without having to struggle through endless dead ends and misidentified leads. It could very well walk into Dala Yar Arak, get the book, then walk back out before his minions had followed up on a single new lead. That was an unacceptable situation.

  Turning from the balcony, Kravon walked back into the large room that served as his lab and receiving room. Several black-robed apprentices and fellow wizards were also present, going about the tasks of preparing the material components they would need for their magical spells. Held in cages and in irons against the wall were several test subjects and experimental creations, from a hawk-headed human that was quite insane to a vacant-eyed Bruga that had been the victim of a new spell that his mages were researching. Kravon dismissed their suffering as easily as a cat dismisses the suffering of the mouse. They were but things to him, things of flesh, there to submit themselves to his mastery and the power of him and his fellows.

  "Clear the summoning circle," he said in his dead, quiet voice. "We will raise the image of Jegojah."

  His minions moved with quiet efficiency, which Kravon expected. Slothful or undutiful minions tended to become the next experiment. In moments, the inlaid summoning area was clear, the candles were lit, the doors closed, and they had formed around it in readiness to do their master's bidding.

  Holding the amulet in his hand, Kravon began the spell. His voice began softly, but the power of it rose slowly and steadily as the mystical words flowed from him. The candles began to flare or dim in cadence with the words he spoke, a sign of the power they contained. The words reached a mighty crescendo, causing the candles to roar up with the brightness of torches, then die out as quickly as the wind could extinguish them. That wind blew into the circle as a ghostly light emanated from the diamond amulet Kravon wore outside his black robes, a ghostly radiance that separated itself from the amulet and entered the circle. It expanded and intensified, until a phantasmic image of the Doomwalker as it had appeared in life appeared within.

  Jegojah had been a handsome man, with dark brown hair and skin browned by exposure to sun and wind. He had the graceful features of a Shacèan, and penetrating violet eyes under heavy brows. His image was garbed in what he had worn at his demise, a rugged suit of plate armor with a blue surcoat, holding the Shacèan crest upon it.

  "Why do you summon Jegojah?" the shade demanded, in a hollow, distant voice that seemed to saturate the laboratory and raise the hair on the back of Kravon's neck.

  "You failed," Kravon said calmly.

  "Failure, it was inevitable, yes," it replied in that unearthly voice. "The Were-cat, his power is without equal. An army, it could not stand against that power, no."

  "No Sorcerer is that powerful," the mage protested.

  "Sorcerer?" Jegojah scoffed. "Weavespinner, that is what he is, yes. No chance Jegojah had against that. Without magic, he fought, yes, until Jegojah made him angry. In anger, the Were-cat, he can control that power."

  "So, you admit to me that you are no longer any use to me," the mage said dangerously, tapping the amulet which bound Jegojah's soul.

  "Threats, they mean nothing now," Jegojah snorted disdainfully. "Destroy Jegojah if ye must, but be done with it. Jegojah's time, ye waste with idle threats, yes." Jegojah crossed his arms.

  "Then make your report. What happened?"

  Emotionlessly, the soul of the Doomwalker described the two battles he had with the Were-cat, from Triana's intervention and her training of him, to the battle in Saranam. "The human Knight, he is dead, yes," Jegojah reported. "A pity. With honor, he fought, and with his life
did he buy three others by blocking my attack long enough for the Were-cat to reach me. Respect, Jegojah affords such a man. With honor will Jegojah remember his sacrifice, yes."

  "Spare me your trivial feelings," Kravon snapped coldly. "I have no more questions for you. Be gone."

  Soundlessly, Jegojah's image dissolved into nothingness.

  Kravon turned from the summoning circle, tapping his chin in thought. Obviously, trying to drive the Were-cat insane wasn't going to work. He was too solidly entrenched in his Were-cat nature. But there were other ways to get at the Were-cat, ways other than trying to drive him crazy.

  If driving him mad wasn't going to work, then he'd have to make sure that the Were-cat's movements in Dala Yar Arak would be hindered at all times, to delay it and give his own agents more time to find the Book of Ages. That would be easy enough. He was a Were-cat, after all, and it would only take a few well-placed atrocities to poison the city against him.

  And he had the perfect tool for such a plan.

  He turned and glanced at his favorite decoration, giving her a cold, thin smile. There wasn't much left of Jula now. What had once been a clever, careful, intelligent asset to the Shadow Network was now nothing more than a mindless animal. She wore no clothing, hunched against the wall with utterly mad eyes. She was dirty and bedraggled, her hair long and tangled, smeared with rotting bits of flesh, dirt, and excrement. Her face was still hauntingly pretty, with large green eyes, but the black fur and massive clawed paws told any onlooker that her beauty was a deadly one. And the madness in her eyes was just as apparent, an utter madness that made her attractive face eerie to behold. Kravon had to admit that he could look into those eyes and feel fear. She was nothing like what she had been when she arrived. She had been in her right mind then, just as cunning and manipulative as ever, convincing Kravon that now she was a Mi'Shara, and that she still had great worth to the organization. That she could be the one to find the Firestaff, to procure it, and hand it over to restore Val to his rightful place in the pantheon of gods. He had discovered that she had drank the Were-cat's blood after he caught up with her and mauled her for what she did to him, then left her to die. She had done it to save her own life, but in the end, it had destroyed her. He had watched her descent into madness with a clinical curiosity to observe the process, after it was apparent that her mind could not withstand the instincts that had been fused with it. He had watched her degenerate from the clever Sorceress to a mindless animal that would kill anything she could get her claws on.