The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  With a foot to his belly, Jula kicked him off of her, separating them for a moment. Both were covered with blood, both of their blood, and most of Tarrin's clothing had been shredded by Jula's rending claws during their initial contact. He landed on his feet and immediately reversed his momentum, rushing right back at her. She managed to twist out of his charging attempt to grapple her, and she turned and ran for the door. But Tarrin turned even as he went by and grabbed her by her long, filthy hair, snapping her head back forcefully and pulling her off her feet. He turned on her as she landed on her back, trying to put a paw through her head, but both her feet rose up and kicked him dead in the face before he could reach her, kicked him with so much force that he was lifted off his feet, sailed over his own head, and landed hard on his stomach a couple of paces away.

  Regaining his feet, the enraged Were-cat shook his head a few times to clear the ringing in his ears. He hadn't been hit that hard in a long time. The impact of it had shaken a bit of his rage loose, allowing a portion of his conscious mind to return to him. And that logical part analyzed things. It realized that if they just flailed at one another, either of them could win. It would come down to whose regenerative power would fail first. But she fought like a wild animal, where he had been trained by some of the finest fighters in the entire world. He wasn't using what he had been taught, he was simply lowering himself to her level and playing by her rules. His rage wasn't going to win this battle. He would need his reasoning mind to be completely assured of victory.

  Tarrin rose up from his hunched posture, and retracted his claws. That made the female give him a curious look, unsure of what he was doing, until he closed his fists and shifted into the Ungardt defense position. She hissed at him and rushed, then tried to bull into him to continue raking at him wildly. But he backed up, keeping a cushion of distance between them as his paws and wrists deflected her seeking claws. He tried to get her to hit his manacles, where the steel would protect him from having to heal the wounds she inflicted, save his strength for more serious injuries. Jula seemed unmoved by his shift in tactics, simply trying to bull him down and rip him apart, but she couldn't get close enough to him to do it. He backed up in a complete circle to keep the cushion between them, and the entire time he studied her movements. She was wild, untrained, and that meant the her movements were instinctive in nature. Her speed made this dangerous, but he was just as fast as she was. She depended completely on her speed and her regenerative defense, because she had no formal training. She only attacked. She made no attempt to defend herself.

  He'd seen enough. She drove a paw in to try to gouge out his eyes, but he caught her by the wrist, turned to press her up against his back, then whipped her over his shoulder in an arm-throw takedown. She slammed into the floor hard, her breath blasting out of her lungs. He dropped to a knee and tried to punch his fist right through her face, but she rolled aside even as he struck. His fist drove into the soft stone of the floor of the ruined house, shattering the stone it hit and sinking half his fist into the basement beneath. He rose back up to his feet as she rolled to her own, and confusion was evident on her face. She had never seen that coming. But that moment of confusion evaporated in her insane fury, and she charged him again.

  She staggered back woozily when his fist slammed into her cheek, using his longer reach to hit her before she could reach him. Her knees wobbled for a second before they solidified, and she wiped blood off her lip that had come out of her nose. The raw power of the punch had affected her, just as it had done Triana. Regeneration couldn't quickly counter the stunning effects of a powerful physical blow. Even that wasn't enough to dissuade her. She roared at him furiously and lunged at him with her claws on one paw leading, but Tarrin simply twisted to one side and leaned back, and let her paw fly harmlessly past his head. He grabbed that paw's wrist after it went by even as he continued spinning to one side, jerking her out of her jump path and swiging her around, then letting her go. She sailed out of control, slamming into one of the walls of the house squarely on her back. She rebounded off the wall and landed on her side on the floor.

  Shaking her head, she got back to her feet, but now the mindless fury on her face was replaced by trepidation. He still stood between her and the door, and he knew it. Now the animal within was telling her to flee, and he knew that too. But she wasn't going to get away. He may have enough of his rational mind to fight her, but the desire to kill her was still making his mind swirl in a maelstrom of anger and rage.

  She made a show of readying to pounce at him, but at the last instant she turned and tried to rush around him, trying for the door. He turned in the other direction, putting his back to her for an instant, and then his manacled fist came flying around him as it whipped around his body, using the momentum of his spin to accumulate awesome speed and power. The manacle struck her just under the left arm, in the ribs, and it blasted her off her feet as her body simply folded around the irresistable force of the blow. She tumbled to the floor, spitting up a mouthful of blood, but she again got out of the way when he went for her prone form. She got back to her feet and ripped her claws right over his face, nearly taking out his eye, but he grabbed that paw as it went past, then slammed his fist into her face. Still holding onto her, he punched her again, and again, and once again, making her knees wobble, then yanked her to the side and spun her back to him, then wrapped her up in the Ungardt sleeper. Arm over her neck, he squeezed with all his might, enough to take the head right off of a human, cutting off the blood to her brain and her windpipe. She struggled, gasping for breath, then pain shot through his groin when her tail lashed up and struck him between the legs like a whip. The intense pain made him loosen his grip on her, and he struggled to recover from it, struggled not to lose himself to the rage again. She bit the arm that had been around her neck savagely, and the pain was like a wake-up call as her long fangs penetrated deeply into his forearm. It conjured an irrational image of Jesmind, her fangs sank into that very same arm, and it was like the entire nightmare had begun again. He jerked that arm back with her teeth still stuck in it, snapping her head back. She grabbed his arm with both her paws and got her teeth out of his arm, but her arched back shuddered when his fist hit her right in the kidneys. Her head slid under his arm and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath and groaning, as he staggered back and allowed his regeneration to wash out the pain her tail caused him.

  Still struggling with the image of Jesmind, of the memory of how it all began, Tarrin snarled at the female as she got back onto her feet , losing his grip on his rational mind once again. But instead of rushing her and trying to rip her apart, Tarrin lunged forward just a bit, then fully extended his body to send his fist sizzling between her upraised paws and right into her nose. The blow shattered her pert little nose, crushing it against her face and his fist, and it sent her right back to the floor. She sprawled onto the floor nervelessly, and she laid there for a few seconds before she began to move again. She moved just in time to catch his paws as he dropped on her, struggling to keep them away from her head. Desperation showed clearly on her face, as the glow in her eyes faded and showed the green cat's-eyes of a Were-cat beneath that glowing radiance. In those eyes was fear. But Tarrin barely registered that, for his mind was spinning with images of Jesmind, memories of the pain and fear and confusion he felt when he'd first been bitten, and seeing Jula before him only brought back the memory of what he was, what he had become. Her face became the representation of everything he hated in his own life, everything he feared, and he tried to destroy it with every fiber of his being. But Jula was fighting for her very life, and that gave her a strength to match his fury, keeping his bloody claws from reaching her as they trembled to sink into her flesh.

  He felt her foot claws snag on the skin of his hip and push, and it was enough to drive him off of her. He was pushed off to the side, and she immediately rolled the other way and sprang to her feet. She had no intentions of fighting anymore, she turned right towards the door an
d tried to flee to it. She managed one step before Tarrin's foot swept her ankles, spilling her back to the floor. "No!" Tarrin screamed furiously as he regained his feet at the same time she did. "Not again! You're not getting away!" He struck her in the face, snapping her head back, and her paws fatally sank down from the stunning effects of the blow. Instead of grabbing her by the head, he hit her again, and again, staggering her back as he vented all his frustration, all his rage, all his pain on her. He had her now, and there would be no quick kill. He grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her into his grasp, then lifted her over his head by her arm and a paw on the small of her back. He turned and threw her into one of the walls with all of his strength, with all of his pent-up fury and rage, with such tremendous power that her body shattered the bricks and plaster that held it together. She was driven through the wall in an explosion of brick, crumbled mortar, and flakes of white plaster, landing limply on the street beyond as shards of masonry rained down on and around her.

  The blow had killed the house. The entire structure began to groan and shift, dust and pieces of stone dislodging from what was left of the ceiling, and the entirety of the building began to lean ominously in the direction of the wall that Jula's body had punctured. Instead of trying to escape, his enraged mind simply reached out, reached out and made a connection to something outside of him, a sensation he remembered only once before. That connection seemed to expand him, make him part of a greater whole, and in its connection he was blessed with power. That power exploded from him, sending a shockwave of force away from him to shatter the crumbled dwelling in a loud detonation, to keep it from collapsing on him by sending it away from him. In a column of dust, the building where they had been was blown apart by the defensive reaction, sending bits of masonry raining down for blocks in every direction.

  Tarrin stepped from the cloud of billowing dust, and looked right at Jula. She was on her stomach, looking back over her shoulder, and there was panic in her eyes. She struggled to get to her feet, but her body was trembling with the effort. Her regenerative power was beginning to wane, slowing down as it struggled to heal what were probably massive internal injuries, and it left her vulnerable until she could move. She tried to crawl away from him feebly, but he was on her before she could get more than one paw away from him, kicking her in her wounded side and putting her on her back. She cried out at the impact, a cry that turned into a gasping whimper when she landed on a rock that dug into her injured body. But he showed no mercy, kneeling over her chest and grabbing her by the hair, then punching her dead in the face. The blow sent her head crashing back to the ground, taking a pawful of her hair out of her scalp, which Tarrin threw aside contemptuously. All the things wrong with his life were her fault. They were because of her! He killed people, he couldn't make friends, he had become a stranger to his own friends and family because of her! Her organization had killed Faalken, and had tried to kill him! Rage became powerful emotion, grabbing her by the neck and pulling her up so her glazed eyes could meet his. "You destroyed my life, and you did it for nothing!" he screamed hysterically at her. "I hate you for what you did to me! I want you to suffer, suffer like you've never suffered before!"

  Letting go of her neck, he slapped her with the pad of his paw, smacked her hard enough to snap her head to the side on the ground. Then he slapped her with the other paw, snapping her head to the other side. She was the object, the representation of everything he hated in his own life, and punishing her was the same as punishing what was inside him, the darkness that he hated, yet could not deny was part of him. With tears streaming down his face, he struck her again, and again, and again, feeling nothing but more anger and pain every time he hit her, feeling nothing but the rage as he punished the one responsible for it. She was unconscious, beyond pain, and that only made him more enraged. He wanted her to be awake for this, to feel her life slip away from her, to know that he had destroyed her.

  Tarrin, enough! Stop this! the voice of the Goddess rang in his mind, forcefully.

  "She did this to me!" he retorted hotly, grabbing her by the hair and lifting her head off the ground.

  And how does it make you feel? she demanded. Does it make you feel better to hurt her? Does it make everything alright? Does it make you feel more human to act like an animal?

  The words were like a slap across the face. He blinked and looked down at the helpless Jula, but his mind was on what the Goddess said. He felt....rage. Hurting her didn't make him feel better, it only made him more and more angry. There was no satisfaction in it, only a towering fury, a need to hurt that had nothing to do with punishing her. He didn't want to punish her. He was punishing himself. And if he killed her, all he would have would be the memory of it, and it would bring him no real comfort. In the end of it, he no longer saw Jula. She was only a representation of what he truly hated and despised, and that was what he had become. And that was what he was trying to punish, to destroy.

  He sat down on Jula's dirty stomach limply, looking down at her with sober eyes. She was completely mad. There couldn't have been a worse punishment for her than that. He knew. He had felt that madness, he had faced it, and he had conquered it. She had suffered for what she did to him, suffered more than he could ever inflict on her. She was what he nearly became, she was what he could still be if he couldn't control himself. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. If he would have killed her, then he would have become her, completely dominated by his rage. He had been like that for a while now, since Faalken's death. He had become even more consumed by his anger, anger at Faalken's death, a death he couldn't let go, couldn't mourn. Anger that caused him to kill indiscriminately, seeking only the flimsiest of justification for it, killing that had become easier and easier, and had began to be satisfying to him. The only difference between him and her was that she had no control over her actions, where he consciously chose his. If he would have submitted to his rage this time, if he would have taken her life, it would have been the first step down the path of his own madness.

  Now you understand, kitten, the voice of the Goddess sang within him. Now you understand.

  Wiping his eyes with the back of his paw, he looked down at the unconscious Jula. He had been so close to killing her, to killing himself. But he didn't see himself in her anymore. He only saw a tortured woman, consumed from within, who was no longer the conniving manipulating betrayer she had been in his past. Just as he was no longer the same Tarrin, this was no longer the same Jula.

  For the first time since she had captured him, Tarrin found it in himself to forgive.

  But he wasn't finished with her, either. He couldn't allow her to roam around free, not in her mental state. It would get him in trouble with the citizenry, as the screaming woman proved to him. Besides, he had a duty to Fae-da'Nar to deal with her, before she destroyed their repuation. And it felt wrong to him to leave her like this. She had been punished for what she did to him, punished many times over. But she would never appreciate her actions if she couldn't reflect on them in a rational manner. Besides, she had some very logical, very simple assets to make keeping her very smart.

  In her head was a gold mine of information he needed, a treasure trove of knowledge they could use. She had been part of the ki'zadun, she knew who they were, where they were, and what they did. She could help them thwart their activities in Dala Yar Arak, could help Tarrin get the Book of Ages first by disrupting one of his greatest challengers.

  And she possibly knew where Kravon was.

  He may have fogiven her, felt pity for her, but Kravon was another matter. He may have come to an understanding about himself, but it still didn't change some things. He would always be what he was. He only needed to be able to control it.

  Jula. Strange, sometimes, the way the fates blew things around. He never dreamed he'd end up with Jula. Leaning down, he pushed her head to one side, then sank his fangs into her neck. He drew in her blood, tasting it, swallowing it, and at the same time he did something that he had no idea how
to do. Yet he did it perfectly. In a corner of his mind, a sense of her sprang into being, a sense of where she was, and a general feeling of her. He could feel her madness through that tentative feeling of her, subdued by her unconsciousness, but there all the same. It explained many things to him in that fleeting instant of feeling her. It explained how Jesmind and Triana always knew where he was, it explained how they always seemed to know exactly what to say. It was because they knew how he was feeling, through the bond they had taken from him. He rose up over her, watching the bite marks heal, feeling her proximity through the bond. Jula. Jula was now his child, and he accepted responsibility for her. It was just as good, since he was the only one who could help her. And she would repay that aid with her knowledge.

  He got off of the unconscious female, then picked her up and slung her limp body over his shoulder. There were things that needed to be done. Dolanna couldn't heal Jula of her madness, because they weren't the same race. But Tarrin was. Dolanna could show him what to do, and he could do it. Getting a grip on the back of Jula's thighs, he settled her so she wouldn't slide off his shoulder, then he turned and started back towards the circus. There were things to be done, and an old friend to deal with. An old friend, now a new child.

  Chapter 24