The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  It was unwise to take Allia. It had been a hasty decision, and she had learned over the years that the mistakes caused by a hasty decision often took ten times longer to correct than it took to make the decision. She understood that now. Tarrin was out there. He was not out of control, and he'd been out of sight for quite a while. She was holding everything that mattered to the Were-cat, and there was no telling what he would do now that he'd been stripped of his family. The only thing she was sure that he wouldn't do would be to go stark raving mad and start destroying the local geography. The man had an infuriating knack for coming out on top, and she was worried that he'd found that same edge to use on her that had caused him to defeat stronger enemies before.

  Shiika hadn't survived as long as she had because she was a fool.

  Anayi, she sent out her thought. Demons were telepathic by nature, and allowed her to communicate with all of her brood wherever they were. She sent out her thought to Anayi, her blond daughter.

  Mother?

  Move the Selani and her friends, she ordered. Get them out of the Palace. Send them to the south wharf, free them, and then put them on a ship bound for anywhere but here.

  What about the female Were-cat, mother?

  She goes as well, daughter. He's just as fanatical over her as he is over the others. I have a bad feeling that Tarrin is coming for them. I want leverage against him, and it won't work if we have even one of them.

  If I free them, you can't use them, mother, she pointed out respectfully.

  He won't know that, daughter, Shiika replied calmly. Just make sure you keep the Selani gagged until you free her. That should give your brothers enough time to midirect him when he arrives.

  You believe he is crazy enough to attack the Palace?

  Daughter, I've studied this one for a long time, and I've learned that he's not afraid of anything, she replied. I was probably foolish for letting him live, but I just can't bring myself to kill him. I admire him too much.

  I will do what you command, mother, Anayi replied. Immediately.

  She broke her contact, satisfied. If he tried anything, his friends could be used to delay him, to bribe his good conduct.

  She turned her attentions back to the games. Perhaps there would be something good to see today. She watched with little interest as the first of the matches began, two Arakite gladiators fighting in a singles match. They were both well trained, and the spectacle didn't hold her attention.

  Her interest exploded when she saw a flash of yellow in the crowd facing her private box. She saw it again, moving through the crowd, and her heart started thumping in her chest when she saw the spectators on the far side suddenly beginning to scatter, scattering in the path of something they did not want anything to do with.

  Impossible! It couldn't be him! How would he know where she was? She stood up quickly, hands on the arms of her throne, and then she saw him. Even from such a distance, he could see the fury in his stance, the abject hatred burning in his radiant green eyes.

  "What is it, my dear?" the Emperor asked her curiously.

  For the first time in nearly five thousand years, Shiika felt fear.

  He felt nearly outside of himself.

  Tarrin moved into the huge arena quickly after reaching it, not bothering to hide himself in his human form, moving with a fast, determined gait that caused anyone to look at him melt from his path. He was angry, very, very, angry, and every step made it worse. Shiika was in there, somewhere, and when he found her, he would make her regret what she did to his sister, to his friends. He had plans. Yes, he had a very simple plan to deal with her, and another to retrieve his friends and family from her Palace without getting them killed.

  Moving through the robed Arakites quickly and steadily, he found his way to the stands. She had to be in a private area of the arena, a special seat that overlooked the floor, a place with a good view. He needed to see the arena, see how it was laid out, to know where she would be. She was the Empress, so her place would be exalted, and it would be obvious. Once he found her, he would make her pay for what she did.

  Outside, Tarrin walked along a ledge on the stands leading down to the floor of the arena, looking out at its construction. Immediately, he knew where she was, a very impressive filled area on the far side, which had only one small balcony which held several figures. One of them he could immediately recognize as Shiika, in her human disguise. And the sight of her all but sent him flying to a violent rage. Seeing her relax, seeing her lounge about while the Goddess only knew what was happening to his friends--at her hands!--was nearly too much. His eyes igniting from within with their unholy glow, a visible mark of his rage, he snarled wordlessly in her direction and started quickly down the steps, to the ledge marking the end of the stands.

  He needed an unobstructed path to the Demon's balcony.

  Throwing people out of his way, people who had just begun to look in his direction rather than down at the barbaric activity occurring on the arena's floor, Tarrin stalked through them with his pulse pounding in his ears, a reddish haze filming over his eyes. He was absolutely furious, and he welcomed it. He was intentionally trying to work himself up, to find that plateau of pure fury that gave him the ability to control his Sorcery with absolute precision. He would need it to get to the Demon, to reach her in her high, lofty perch. The people in front of him began screaming in fear and scattering before him, and that was good enough for him. He started moving towards the waist-high ledge that ended the seats, a wall that was twenty spans high when looking at it from the floor, a wall that ended on each side of the flat surface that supported the Emperor's private seats. He reached that ledge, jumping atop it directly facing the Emperor and Empress of Yar Arak, staring at the Demoness Shiika with every bit as much hatred and rage as he felt inside.

  He knew exactly what to do.

  Raising his paws as she started out of her throne, Tarrin touched the Weave. The power of the Goddess flooded into him, but it met a dam, a controlling force in his anger, a power that forced it to conform to his will. Conscious mind and the Cat joined to a common purpose, Tarrin raised his paws as they exploded with Magelight, raised them over his head as his entire body limned over, and then he quickly levelled them in Shiika's general direction. A sudden, awed hush fell over the thousands of people around him, around them, but he didn't even notice them. He levelled his paws at the Imperial couple, and wove together that chaotic mix of Fire, Water, Air, and Divine flows, with only token flows of the other Spheres to give his weave the power of High Sorcery. He wove it together with a stunning speed, knowing it so well, and then released it from his paws.

  A white-hot bar of pure, raw magical power issued forth from his outstretched paws in time with a sudden fierce scream from his mouth, and it sizzled across the empty air that separated him from them. Shiika saw it coming, flinching away from its magical power. But she was not its target.

  Zarthas Arakis, Emperor of Arak, never saw it coming. So intent was he on the gladitorial match below, he only looked up in time to stare his own demise in the face. Tarrin's magical attack struck him dead in the face, and it incinerated everying from the chest up. The blast of magical fury lasted but a heartbeat, but when it faded, there was a hole in the back of Emperor Arakis' throne big enough for a child to crawl through. There was a hole in the wall leading all the way to the exterior of the arena behind it, and the blast of magical power had extended nearly two longspans from the arena before dissipating, flying into the sky at an angle that did not bring it into contact with any other buildings. His severed forearms, the rest of the arms vaporized by the intense magical attack, still laid upon the arms of his throne, twitching spasmodically, and the remaining parts of his body quivered for just a moment before slumping slowly to the side. The bodies of two of his guards, each missing portions of their heads, dropped to the floor behind the throne, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Now she couldn't command the Legions. They only listened to the Emper
or. The Empress was nothing but a pretty plaything hanging on his arm. Without her puppet, she could no longer command the official aspects of her Empire.

  You bastard! he heard her voice, but inside his own mind. Just like the Goddess! Do you have any idea what you've done?

  "It's called revenge, Shiika!" he shouted, in a voice magically augmented so she could clearly hear it over the sudden loud din, as the spectators realized that this strange inhuman creature had just assassinated the Emperor of Yar Arak. Tarrin reached away from him as the power within suddenly issued forth from him in the form of pure flows, twisting together into groups of seven as they left him. Those that made contact with strands held fast, and he yanked on them to form new strands. They shuddered into existence, and he suddenly sat within a spider's web of power, a web that would fuel his weaves until he no longer had the strength to control them. "Now let your subjects see what you really are!"

  Clapping his paws together, Tarrin quickly wove together the weave of pure Air of which he was so fond, the shockwave that had proven so devastating. The reddish glow formed in front of him immediately, and in his rage, he all but ripped the power from the Weave to create it. It solidified in a shocking amount of time, the disorganized reddish aura turning solid before him, before Shiika could even completely step away from her throne. He knew what he was about to do. He knew what it would do, and what it would mean. But he did not care. A million Arakites weren't worth even one of his friends. And if had to raze the city to the ground to get them back, then so be it. They were all that mattered.

  With a cold, ugly snarl of hatred, Tarrin released it with a sharp snapping motion of his paws.

  The coherent reddish glow shuddered, then suddenly exploded with unimaginable force. It raced in a straight line away from him, expanding in all four directions as it moved, lancing through the air at supersonic speed. In the blink of an eye, the shockwave was nearly forty spans across and sixty spans high, just barely going over the heads of the two astounded gladiators on the sand below, scouring away the sand of the arena floor when it made contact with it. When it impacted the far side of the arena, it was nearly twenty spans wider than the Imperial balcony, and those spectators sitting in proximity to the Emperor were caught in the power of the spell.

  The entire back section of the stadium shuddered only once, and then was destroyed by the power of Tarrin's weave. Hundreds--thousands--of hapless spectators simply vanished in the titanic force generated by the weave, rending their bodies into pieces so tiny that they were all but annihilated. The stone of the arena shattered, and was sent flying away from him, forming a killing hail of debris that rained down on the buildings, streets, and citizens that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A BOOM, louder than anything those lucky enough to survive the weave had ever heard before, thundered across the city, knocking nearly everyone still alive from their feet as if the sound had substance and force. A sudden wind whipped across the half-scoured field, drawing the dust of the destruction away from Tarrin, air that rushed in to replace what was sucked out as the shockwave passed by.

  And now those that survived had seen the Empress wiped out. If she appeared again, they would know that she could not possibly be human.

  Tarrin lowered his paws, his expression an emotionless, stony mask. He had just crossed a line that he hoped he would never have to cross. He had just slaughtered innocents. Children. People whose lives never had to cross his own. People who did not deserve to be sacrificed in the name of his own rage.

  And he did not care.

  They meant nothing to him when compared to the lives and safety of his sister, of his friends, of his bond-child. If it would forever blacken his soul, then so be it. At least his family and friends would be alive.

  And that was all that mattered.

  Shiika was certainly either buried in the rubble, or seriously at a disadvantage. He had stripped her of her ability to bring the Empire down on him, and he had seriously undermined her position in Dala Yar Arak, with one simple attack on the Imperial family. She wouldn't be able to interfere with him until he was well inside her Palace. He would find his friends, even if he had to bring her Palace to the ground in the process.

  For a moment, there was an eerie silence. There was only the sound of rocks raining down on the city beyond the gaping hole that had been ripped into the arena, a hole that had destroyed an entire end of its oval construction. The remaining sections of the arena creaked and crumbled ominously under the stunned crowd, the entire building threatening to collapse after the loss of its back end. The spectators did not run. Most of them did not make a sound. They just stared at the Were-cat in stupified awe. And when he finally moved, they all came to their senses.

  In a sudden roar, the crowd began to stampede for the exits, to escape the crumbling arena before the rest of it collapsed.

  Weaving together another spell of pure Air, Tarrin formed a bridge of solid air before him, weaving it with High Sorcery so it would last several moments after he stopped maintaining it. It extended from just before him all the way over the mangled stone ruin that had been the back wall of the arena, touching the ground nearly five hundred spans into the grassy park that surrounded the shattered stadium. A park strewn with large pieces of torn stone. That done, he cut himself off from the Weave, barely feeling the powerful backlash it caused within him, so utterly was he still consumed by his anger and his need to pay Shiika back for what she did to him.

  He wasn't done yet. He had one more challenge ahead, Shiika's Imperial Palace. His friends, his sister, his bond-child, they were being held there. And he would get them back.

  He had to. He had already gone past the point of no return. There could be no stopping now.

  Scrambling onto his bridge of Air, Tarrin raced over the devastation he had wrought, nearly looking to those who looked that he was flying, his mind focused on one thing, one goal.

  The Imperial Palace.

  He had to get there before Shiika did, get there and get in, then find his friends and his family. And find the Book of Ages.

  Tarrin, you fool! Shiika's voice echoed in his mind once again. Do you have any idea what you have done? Do you? You may have just killed us all! I know you can hear me, Were-cat! she thundered at him. Answer me!

  Tarrin ran on, ignoring her mental voice.

  I don't have your Allia or your friends! she said hotly. I had them put on a ship out of Dala Yar Arak! You just destroyed fifty years of careful planning for nothing!

  That caused him to falter, then come up short. "Liar!" he challenged.

  I wouldn't lie to you over this, she snapped in reply. I know you know that. I never dreamed you'd do something so stupid! You may have just plunged Arak into civil war!

  Tarrin ignored her, running again, trying to race across before the bridge dissolved under his feet and sent him crashing into the debris below. What if it was true? Could she have freed his family and friends before hand? It was certainly possible. But even if that were true, it didn't change the fact that she had the book, and he needed it. So his goal was the same, except now he had to find out just where his family and friends were. If Allia could have spoken to him with her amulet, she would have by now. So either the Demoness was lying, or she had Allia tied up so she couldn't put her hand on the amulet.

  Answer me, damn you! I don't have your precious family! Don't force me to have my brood attack you, Tarrin! You know you can't win against them!

  He ignored her, setting his feet on solid ground and racing towards the commanding structure that was the Imperial Palace of Dala Yar Arak. He could win against them now. He was not afraid of them.

  Damn you, Tarrin, if you touch that book, the magic that keeps it hidden is going to be disrupted! Every two copper mage and priest from here to Saranam is going to know exactly where it is! You won't get it out of Dala Yar Arak alive! The ki'zadun will converge on you like a school of sharks! You fool, don't you realize that I've been protecting the book
? I don't want the Firestaff found any more than you do! Give up this madness and let me keep the book protected! Nobody will take it from me, despite what you've done here today!

  He ignored her. That didn't matter. He needed that book, his Goddess commanded him to find it, and he was going to do just that. It didn't matter that their goals were generally similar, and part of him wanted to strip her of the book to spite her for her cruel disruption of his life, her attempts to kill him, for kidnapping his friends and family. He would do what he was commanded to do, and it was just a fortunate bonus that it would hurt her in the process.

  He raced on, ignoring the long tirade of colorful curses issuing from Shiika's strange mental voice within his mind. His goal was the Imperial Palace, and the prize he had sought for so many months, the prize that Faalken had sacrificed himself for them to reach, the prize that had caused him so much anguish and pain, was visible before him. He would not be denied now. His rage had become focus, an awareness of mission that allowed him to execute his plans with a curious detachment. There was no emotion now. There was only the plan, the mission, a task that must be completed.

  He would take the Book of Ages from Shiika. At any cost.

  It was maddenly confusing.

  Allia leaned back against the wall of the covered wagon in which they'd been loaded, one of the black-skinned Cambions sitting at the far end with his sword drawn. It made no sense for them to load them into a wagon and send them rumbling through the streets of Dala Yar Arak. They were all there, except for Tarrin and Sarraya, and all of them had their hands tied and mouths gagged. Phandebrass' pet drakes were there too, held in a cage that sat under the bench against the wall just behind the driver's seat, looking just as frightened as Jula. Jula strained against the heavy chains they'd used to bind her, a wild look in her eyes, and she was the one the Cambion watched the most. Jula seemed to share Tarrin's hatred and phobic fear of being imprisoned, and it was showing in her more and more as the wagon ambled along.