Chapter 9

      He had no idea how long he had wandered.

      Tarrin was padding slowly beside a pile of reeking garbage in a narrow, crooked back alley, so exhausted that he could only move one leg at a time.  He had ran all night, in his cat form, running from the horrors that he had almost carried out, running from himself.

      He wanted to die.  He wished to the Gods that Jesmind had taken his life back in Torrian, that he would have just laid there and let her rip out his throat.  The guilt of his crime had crushed all will and hope from him, and it was as if his life was over.  But that had not happened, and the Gods had not answered his prayer and struck him dead, so he was going to have to do it himself.  Suld had a nice deep harbor.  A walk off the pier would end his agony, would forever silence the animal, the monster, inside him.

      The only problem was, he was lost.

      Suld did not gently slope down towards the sea as most port cities did.  It was a slightly hilly area in a natural harbor, and the land rose and fell in very gentle waves that had no definite direction.  The stench of the city blocked out the smell of the sea, and his very small size prevented him from seeing it.  And he had no idea at all of where he was.

      The irony of it almost made him laugh.  He couldn't even kill himself right.

      He dragged himself along several streets, wandering aimlessly with his head down and his tail dragging the ground, until he could go no farther.  He was on a wide street in a classier part of town, where iron fences separated well kept lawns and gardens from the street and from each other, and where large houses rested on sizable plots of land.  It was dawn, and already many carriages, horses, and pedestrians were going about their daily business.  He needed to stop, to rest, but he couldn't do it here.  He would be disturbed, and the last thing he wanted was to be disturbed.

      He wriggled himself between the iron bars of a fence and crawled up under a well manicured shrub.  It was dark, and cool, and peaceful there.  A fitting place, a quiet place.  A place to reflect.  He was too numb now to feel the pain, there was only the memory, the sight of his mother starting at him in fear, the knowledge that had he not been stopped, he would have taken the life of one of the people on that world that he would die for.  His family had come to find Tarrin, but they had found the beast that lurked within him, the beast that he could not control.  He would die before he hurt his family.

      And he had to die to make sure that he didn't.

      He would sleep.  Close his eyes and let the slumber take him, hold him, keep him sedate and calm, keep him from hurting anyone else.  He would lay down under that excellent bush, and he would sleep.

      And he would remain so until he was dead.

      He collapsed under the bush unceremoniously, too tired to even make himself comfortable.  Then he closed his eyes, and dreamless oblivion engulfed him.

      He was only vaguely aware of the hands on him until he was totally surrounded by them.  The scent of a very young human filled his nose, one whose hair smelled of lilac, and his nose and fur were being held against a very soft fabric.  Linen, maybe, or silk.

      "Aww, what happened to you, little kitty?" a piping girl-child's voice called, as a tiny hand started petting him.  "You like you were chased through a garbage pile."  Tarrin remained limp in her arms, eyes closed, even though he was awake.  He really didn't care.  It was as if anything that was done had no meaning for him, and he drifted in his own world of unfeeling numbness.  He could hear, and understand, but it had no importance to him.  If she petted him, he did not care.  If she took him by the head and broke his neck, so much the better.

      "Aww, you must be sick," she said, compassion in her voice.  "Don't you worry, little kitty, I'll take care of you."

      He felt himself being carried, and then a door was opened.  "Mother, look what I found in the garden," she said brightly.

      "Janette!" came a shocked gasp.  "You take that, that creature back outside this instant!"

      "But she's sick, mother!" the child protested.  "And she's lost, and all alone.  She must be scared half to death."

      "Is it even alive?" she asked suddenly.

      "She's breathing," the girl told her mother confidently.  "I think she just needs a warm place to sleep and some food, and she'll be alright."

      "No!" the woman said adamantly.  "I will not have that animal in my house."

      There was a brief pause.  "Then you take her," the little girl said with surprising firmness in one so young.  "If you throw her out, she's going to die.  And I won't do that."

      It was a devastatingly effective tactic, it seemed, for Tarrin was shortly thereafter bathed and put on a soft pillow, with a small coverlet put over him to keep him warm.  The little girl stayed right beside him, filling his nose with her scent, scratching his ears and petting him, crooning soft words to him.  Her gentle, sing-song voice disrupted his attempts to return to the oblivion he so badly wanted, but he refused to open his eyes, or so much as move.  To do so was to recognize life, abandon his will to end his life, and it was hard enough supressing the Cat's instincts, the foremost of which was the instinct of self-preservation.  He would lay there until he died; the little girl was just dragging out his wishes.

      The little girl proved to be a stubborn opponent.  Long after most children would have lost interest, the little girl was still there.  She refused a call to lunch, and then another call to dinner, staying by him, reading to him, petting him and trying to coax him into activity.  She ignored the maids, the butler, and even her own mother's firm command to "leave that creature be and come eat your dinner".  She stubbornly stayed by him, even when her father came into her room.

      "Your mother said you found a cat, and you won't eat your dinner," he said in a firm voice.

      "She needs somebody with her, father," she said maturely.

      The coverlet was pulled from him.  "But she's asleep, pumpkin," he argued.  "You should let her sleep and come down and eat your supper."

      "She may be asleep, but she's all alone in a scary place," the little girl told her father.  "I don't want her to be sad.  You don't get well when you're sad.  You told me that yourself."

      "Uhm, yes, well," he floundered, unable to counter her argument.  "She's wearing a collar," he remarked.  Tarrin felt a tug on the black metal collar around his neck, the transformed shaeram.  "I'll ask around and see if anyone has lost a cat.  If we can get her home, maybe she'll get well faster.  And you can eat your dinner."

      Dinner was brought up to the little girl, who managed to outlast her parents on that score.  He could smell roasted beef just in front of his nose, but his desire to be no more was so strong that even the primal force of hunger could lift him from the pillow.

      As Tarrin's will ebbed away, even his will to die, he retreated farther and farther into himself, fleeing from the pain, finding the oblivion he so desperately sought inside his own mind.  He found an easier way, a simpler way, to find peace.  He opened his mind to the Cat, and allowed its awareness to join with his seamlessly, completely.  The Cat knew only of now, that moment.  The past and the future were irrelevent, meaningless to it.  It was the now that mattered, and in that eternal now, Tarrin could find peace, refuge from the pain, from the guilt, from the agonizing, nightmarish memories of what he had done.

      Tarrin had feared his instincts, loathed them, tried to control them.  He found peace by surrendering to them.  And in that surrender, the sentient being that was Tarrin was suspended, pushed by the wayside, taking up that dark place in their mind where the instincts had once lurked.  It was dark there, and there was only the impressions of senses, a vague awareness of reality...and there was no pain.  Caught up in the eternal now that was the way of the thinking of the cat, there was no past, no pain from the past, no future, no fear of what it would bring.  There was only now, and in that now, there was no pain.

      In that instant, that eternal now, Tarrin was the observer, the lurker, and the Cat was the one in control.

      Slowly, he opened his eyes.

      The room was a large, airy one, full of light and brightness and cheer.  He was on a large bed, propped on a pillow.  It was warm, and safe, and he felt secure in his surroundings.  A plate of meat was sitting just away from his nose, but he was so weak that he could not fight off the coverlet to reach it.  The Human in him knew the words that were the things he could see, could understand the sounds that the human made, and he used that knowledge.  He was a pragmatic creature; though the Human seemed both alien and a part of him at the same time, he had no fear of it, and was not afraid to allow its greater understanding of things guide it.

      The little human made a bevy of delighted sounds when she saw his open eyes, sitting down beside him and hand-feeding him the much needed meat.  He felt safe in the presence of the little human, safe and protected, as safe as he would feel curled up against his mother's stomach.

      That thought caused a pang of hurt through the Human in him, but he could not understand why.

      He accepted the little mother's preening sedately.  He was warm, and safe, and there was no hurt or hunger.  He was content.  He closed his eyes and purred his contentment.

      However much he wanted unfeeling sleep, the reality of life would not allow Tarrin to slip away.

      Tarrin's attempt to submerge himself into the Cat had worked, but only up to a point.  He too shared the Cat's eternal now of existence.  In mere hours, he lost his feelings against the memory of what happened, and that was what caused his rational mind to flow back up from the darkness.  What was past was past, and it was of no moment.

      That first night, as Janette slept contentedly with him laying at the foot of her bed, Tarrin's rational mind rejoined the Cat in the world of the outside.  Unlike his attempts to quell or control the Cat, the Cat welcomed his awareness as a brother, and made room for him in the forefront so that they both may live the life that was theirs.  It was a poignant lesson to his rational mind, about how badly he had misjudged the instincts that were inside him.  They were not all evil and destructive.  He still didn't trust himself, but he had come to the conclusion that, so long as he was not put in a position where he would be challenged, he would be content.

      And living out his life as a little girl's pet seemed to him to be an excellent way to go about it.

      The Cat didn't mind; all it was worried about was food, shelter, and protection, and those existed in this place.

      It was perfect.  It fulfilled all his physical needs while providing him a place to create a new life for himself, a life free of the pain and guilt that had nearly destroyed him.  Janette's house was a good place to hide, and it was a place where he could find a simpler existence, free of the pressures and failures of his past.

      The next morning, the matronly, gray-bunned maid opened the door and called to the girl, waking her up.  She yawned and stretched, then looked right at Tarrin.  "Good morning, little kitty," she called, reaching down and picking him up.  Tarrin decided that he rather liked being held and cuddled, because the girl's touch was surprisingly gentle, and there was a selfless giving love in her touch that was impossible to ignore.

      In her nightclothes, she trudged down the stairs to the small room where her parents were taking their breakfast.  The mother flashed the daughter a stern look the minute she noticed her.  "Do you have to carry that creature around?" she demanded.

      "She doesn't know her way around yet," Janette countered artfully.  For such a young girl, not even ten, she seemed to know exactly what to say to play her parents like a lute.  "And besides, she was sick yesterday.  I don't want her getting tired."

      "I think the cat can walk on her own, pumpkin," her father said, trying a different tactic.  "And it's important for animals to exercise while they're getting well.  It makes them get well faster."

      "Really?" she said.  "Then I'll take her out into the garden after breakfast."

      "That may be a good idea," he said.

      "Maybe it will run away," the mother murmured under her breath to her husband.

      "I think I'll call you Shadow, little kitty," the little girl said with a smile, handing him a piece of breakfast sausage.

      "Don't get too attached to her, pumpkin," the father warned.  "I'll ask around and find out who owns her today.  She may be going home."

      "Then I'll go visit her," she said diffidently.

      But the trip "home" never materialized that day.  It was spent with the little girl coddling him outrageously, walking with him around the gardens, and inside it was a game with a little wooden doll tied to a string.  Despite having a human awareness, the Cat in him absolutely could not resist attacking that little wooden doll, and Janette was inexhaustible in her desire to drag it for him.  They played like that for hours and hours, until a call to dinner interrupted the game.

      The humans ate as Tarrin laid sedately by the fireplace in the main room.  He was content.  And he was content to stay where he was as long as he could.

      "What do you mean, you can't find him!" the Keeper, Myriam Lar, raged to her Council.  It was the day after Tarrin's flight from the Tower.  The Keeper had already made some very grim plans for Jesmind, though from what she'd managed to piece together, it wasn't really anyone's fault.  Jesmind happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Even Tarrin's parents agreed that she had made no attempt to fight, only to try to reason with Tarrin.  "That weave was to hide him from his enemies, not to hide him from us!"

      But Tarrin's disappearance was of the most dreadful concern.  They needed him.  Allia wouldn't be enough, they needed him.  And now he was out in the city, either trying to kill himself or trying to kill everyone he could get his paws on.  Either way, it was a dangerous and deadly situation.

      "The tracking weaves we spun into the amulet aren't working, Keeper," Amelyn Storm, the Mind seat, said bluntly.  "We don't know why.  We know they're still active, but we can't get a direction out of them.  As to the non-detection, that's working, and working too well.  It's blocking some of the indirect weaves we've been trying to use to find him.  We never expected to have to rely on them to find him," she said quickly to head off the comment.  "That's what the tracking weave was for."

      "Has anyone tried weaving a spell to find the Adamantite that the amulet is made of?" Koran Dar, the Amazon Air seat, offered in his quiet voice.  Koran Dar was the youngest of them, but he was a very wise man, and his voice was heeded when he bade to speak.

      "I tried that," Darrian Goldaxe, the Dal Earth seat, growled in his rocky voice.  If anyone could find a metal, it was Darrian, who was much like the earth, and the Earth-God for whom he was named.  He had a special affinity for metals, which was the main reason he sat on the Earth Seat.  "I think the Were-cat's magical nature is masking it."

      "That's possible," Ahiriya grunted.  She too was named for a Goddess, the Goddess of Fire.  It was amazing to the Keeper how some parents just seemed to know what their children would be when they were born...or maybe the children, with such important names, drifted towards the significance of them.  "That may also be why our finding weave isn't working."

      "Keeper," Amelyn said quietly, "we should leave open the option of finishing him.  If he goes on a rampage, he could kill hundreds of people."

      "Then let him," she growled.  "He's too important, Amelyn.  That Death spell was only set in place should he fall into the hands of the katzh-maedan.  If he leaves the city, then we may have to use it, but not until then."

      "As you decide, Keeper, but keep in mind that he may already be mad.  And I can't undo his madness."

      "I'm aware of the limitations, Amelyn," Myriam said.  Because Tarrin wasn't human, it rendered him almost totally immune from Mind weaves woven by those not of his race.  It had to do with thought; since he wasn't human, he didn't think in the same way that humans did, and that made his mind closed to those weaves that the Mind affluents used.  But in this case, that was a liability.  It removed the Tower's options of simply controlling him through Sorcery, or curing or holding off his incipient madness.

      "With all due respect, Keeper," Jinna Brent, the fox-faced Shacèan Water seat said in her accented voice, "but Tarrin, he may not be the one, no?  It could still be the Selani, or the Wikuni.  Or maybe one we have not found."

      "I'm almost positive it's him," she said, tired of this old argument.  "What little information we have to go on fits him almost perfectly."

      "But he is too much trouble, no?  Already he causes us grief.  Maybe another would do, yes?  The woman Were-cat, she is still here.  It would not be hard."

      "And are you going to volunteer?" Myriam asked icily.  It was answered with silence.  "Tarrin had a very strong mind, and it seems like it was too much for him.  How powerful do you think your will is, Jinna?  Amelyn?  Koran Dar?  Nathander?"  She crossed her arms under her breasts.  "You all know that the one has to be powerful in Sorcery, and if it's not him, then it might have to be one of us."

      "Better him than me," Darrian growled.

      Myriam grunted.  "Have the city guards tripled," she said.  "Have them look for him, and for any stray black cats they find.  He has to be hiding somewhere in the city, and we have to find him before he either goes berzerk, kills himself, or tries to flee."

      Tarrin was more or less adopted into the house of Tomas the merchant, his wife Janine, and their daughter Janette, because Tomas the merchant couldn't find the missing owner.  There was also Nanna the maid, Dernan the butler, and Deris the cook, and the uncountable ladies that made up Janine's social circle.

      It was a large house, with three stories and a basement, filled with expensive furniture, silk buntings, and intricate tapestries, and where Arakite rugs laid thickly on the floor.  It was the domain of Janine the wife, and she ran it like a little general.  Everything had a place, and it was kept in strict order.  Even the dust was strictly arranged by size and consistency before Nanna had a chance to come by and sweep it up.  At first, Janine the wife had no  idea where Tarrin would fit into that order.  He was a cat, after all, and she had real fear for her expensive tapestries and curtains.  But Tarrin solved that problem by remaining as inobtrusive to the suspicious woman as possible.  He stayed almost exclusively with Janette, and any time he and Janine the wife shared company, he was careful to remain sedate and quiet.  He did not claw the furniture or rip up the tapestries.  He did not soil the carpets, and he was the picture of gentility when Janine the wife was entertaining her silk-clad lady friends, playing Tarok or stones.  Dernan the cook, Nanna the maid, and most of the ladies absolutely adored Tarrin, and that seemed to grind Janine the wife's gears somewhat. The one thing he absolutely would not do was so much as scratch Janette.  Even in his semi-aware state, he understood the calamity that would befall the little girl, should he bite her.  So in their long, endless games, he was very, very careful not to even scratch her by accident.  If she got too close in the game, he would stop.  He would not lick her, nor would he let her anywhere near him either during or after his grooming of himself.  He took no chance whatsoever that even the most fleeting contact with his spittle would transform her.  He wouldn't put anyone else through the torment he'd suffered, the torment that put him in the house in the first place.

      The majority of his time was spent with Janette, his little mother.  Janette doted on him almost too much, and he was the central aspect of her life since the moment she found him under the bush.  He adored his little mother with a passion, and was quite content to follow her around, always being near her.  When she was bathing, or eating, or doing her studies with her mother, he was always close to her, usually laying by her feet sleeping.  Any time her lilac-scent faded from his awareness, he went to find her.  And once he knew where she was, he was content to let her be.  Janette's parents had taken notice of Tarrin's unusual behavior, but had passed it off as a strange attachment stemming from her finding him and nursing him back to health.  But it was more than that.  Janette helped keep the pain away, and in her company he found love and acceptance.

      There was very little concept of time in the Cat's eternal now, but Tarrin seemed to sense somehow that a considerable number of days had passed since she found him.  He had that sensation because, over time, his human awareness became more and more dominant, as if it was too strong for the Cat to totally subjugate.  The catlike instincts were slowly taking on a human reasoning, and he started to become aware of things that had no meaning for him earlier.  Things changed around the house to help him respark the human awareness, such as Janine's change of attitude towards him.  At first, she barely tolerated him.  But as time went on, and he proved that he was no threat to her decorations or her daughter, the woman fell into a gruff acceptance of him.  She paid him no attention, but neither did she pay him any mind.

      It was after Janette's bedtime when Tarrin was laying sedately by the fireplace.  When he was not with his little mother, the fireplace was his domain.  He would go to bed with her and wait for her to go to sleep, then he would lay by the fireplace until it fell to embers, when he would go back up and sleep at the foot of her bed.  There was almost always a fire burning, even in the middle of summer, for light if nothing else, and its dry heat was very pleasing to him.  Janette had had to practice the flute before bed, just one of many lessons she went through each day, as her mother turned her into a "proper lady".  In that respect, the little girl drove her mother wild.  Janette would have been much happier on a farm, because she loved to be outside, loved to crawl through the grass and climb trees and catch frogs.  That was rather hard on the pretty silk and brocade dresses Janine the wife had her wear, and it was always a point of contention between them.  Ladies did not do such things.  What Janine the wife seemed to fail to understand was that Janette was not a Lady.  She was a child.  And crawling in the grass, climbing trees, and catching frogs were things that children did.

      Janine the wife was there, in her favorite chair, reading from a thick book, as Tomas the merchant sat in his favorite chair next to her. Janine the wife was a tall woman, thin and shapely, with a pretty face and her brown hair done up on a bun most of the time, except when she was entertaining, when it was let down in cascading waves.  Tomas the merchant wasn't at home very much during the day, off caring for his business.  He was a thin, tall man with lanky arms and a gentle face, his brown hair thick and long, and done up in a single tail at the back of his neck.  When he was home, he was either working on his papers or spending time with his family.  Tarrin rather liked him, because he was a calm, unruffled sort of fellow with a very practical mind.

      "You look worried, my love," Janine the wife said to him.  The two of them seemed to be deeply in love.  They certainly carried on as if they were.

      "The Star of Jerod still hasn't come in," he said, biting his lip slightly.  "It's three days overdue."

      "That's only three days," she said.

      "I know, but Bascone usually isn't late."

      "I thought Bascone was captain of the Wave Sprite."

      "He was," he said.  "He took over the Star two months ago."

      "I'm sure he's alright.  There's been some rough weather south.  He may have been delayed."

      "I hope so," he said.  "He was carrying Arakite silk, and if I lose that cargo, we're going to take a serious loss."

      Tarrin looked into the fire, transfixed by the dancing of the flames.  Just as he looked away, the fire popped suddenly.  The sound startled him badly.  Despite his time in the peace of the house, he still reacted with the reflexes of a warrior.  He jumped up and faced the fire, hissing defensively, until he realized that it wasn't an attack.  Then, feeling a bit foolish, he laid back down.  Tomas the merchant's chuckle didn't help his pride much.

      "He's a jittery thing," he remarked to his wife.

      "I think her last owner wasn't very nice to her," Janine said grudgingly.  "She follows Janette around like a puppy.  It's like she thinks she's the only good person in the world."

      "He," he corrected.

      "I thought it was a girl."

      "No, it's a boy."

      "Janette thinks it's a girl."

      "I know.  I don't have the heart to tell her any differently."  He shuffled a few more papers.  "I hope Bascone puts in tomorrow," he sighed.  "My buyers for that silk are getting impatient."

      "Bascone's a dependable man," she assured him.  "If he's late, then he ran into trouble."

      "I know, and that's what worries me," he grunted.

      "He's a good captain, dear," she said calmly.  "It'd take nothing short of the Gods themselves to sink Bascone's ship."

      "I can take the loss on the ship.  It's that silk I can't afford to lose."  There was a shuffle of more papers.  "Oh well, I'll worry about it tomorrow," he sighed.  "Shadow," he called.

      Tarrin turned his head and looked at him.  "He's a smart cat," he chuckled as he motioned to him.  Tarrin got up and yawned, then padded over to Tomas's chair, and jumped up into his lap.  He settled down as Tomas the merchant rubbed the back of his neck pleasingly.

      "Not you too," Janine huffed.  "Everyone in this house is in love with that creature."

      "I think you keep saying that just to be contrary, dear," he accused.  "You're just annoyed that our little girl browbeat you into keeping him."

      There was a long silence, then Janine the wife laughed ruefully.  "Maybe," she said.  "Janette can be a terror when she has her mind set on something."

      "She's her mother's daughter," he said fondly.

      "Any word of who owns it?"

      "None," he said.  "I've asked all around the neighborhood, but nobody owned him.  Not around here, anyway.  Looks like we're stuck with him."

      "I think that was a bit obvious," she said dryly.

      Tomas the merchant chuckled.  Tarrin started purring as Tomas's fingers found all the itches.  "I don't mind him," Tomas the merchant said.

      "He doesn't like me," Janine the wife said gruffly.

      "Try being nice to him," Tomas the merchant replied.

      "I am," she said indignantly.

      "You don't kick him, or beat him, or dunk him in boiling water.  Yes, you're so very nice to him," Tomas the merchant said.  Janine the wife laughed helplessly.

      "What are you going to do tomorrow?" she asked.

      "I think I may send the Sprite out to look for Bascone," he said soberly.  "He's using the standard route, so if he's in trouble, Pichet will be able to find him and help him."

      "Is Pichet on the schedule?"

      "Not right now," he said.  "I can't buy that wool shipment until the silk comes in, so Pichet's in port until Bascone gets here.  At least this way, Pichet and his sailors have something to do."

      Janine the wife chuckled.  "They do get rowdy after a few rides in port."

      Tarrin tuned them out, putting his head down.  Being a cat gave him a great deal of time to think, and lately, his thoughts were becoming more and more sober.  He thought alot about what had happened, and his current situation.  More and more, he was starting to realize that being a cat was all well and good, but his human awareness made going through the motions day after day to get a bit old.  And he'd been thinking of his family.

      He missed them.  Even with what happened, he loved his family very much, and knowing that they were only across town made it even worse.  He knew they were worried about him, despite what happened, and that added to his concern.  Allia was probably a wreck by now.  Without him, she had nobody, and despite her strength, in this foreign land, a friend to talk to was absolutely vital to her.  He just hoped that she met his parents, and that his parents and sister would somehow take his place in her life.  Give her someone to talk with.  Dar was probably in the Initiate by now; he wasn't sure, because time had a surreal quality to him, caught between his human awareness and the Cat's eternal now as he was.  Tarrin hoped that Sorcery was everything the young man dreamed it would be.  He had several real reasons to leave, to return to his life and take up his responsibilities.

      But the knowledge of what he had done, and his fear of himself, kept him firmly in place.  It was better for him to stay here, stay in a place where there was no temptation, no danger.  His little mother was the sole reason he hadn't gone totally mad, and wasn't dead at that moment.  If not for her, he would be gone.  And in her arms, he felt absolutely safe and secure, and knew that nothing bad would befall him.  He knew that that little girl was the only thing standing between him and insanity, and he just didn't feel he was ready to go on without her there to soothe his fears and make all the pain melt away.  He just wasn't ready to leave.

      He wondered what happened to Jesmind.  Without him there, she had no reason to stay.  And after so much time, if she hadn't found him yet, she wasn't going to find him.  He wondered if she was combing the forests and plains around Suld in an attempt to track him down.

      The next day taught him that someone was looking for him.  Nanna the maid answered the door, where a sober looking young man wearing a coat and breeches of soft gray velvet stood.  He was wearing a shaeram.  Tarrin hunkered down in the shadow of the hallstand as the man took off his three-corner cap and greeted Nanna the maid politely.  "Good morning to you, madam," he said.  "I was wondering if you could help me."

      "What do you need, good sir?" she asked.

      "The Tower is looking for something, madam," he said.  "It's a black cat, just a bit larger than an average cat.  He's wearing a black collar.  Have you seen such a cat?"

      It hung there for several seconds.  "Whatever is the Tower doing looking for a cat?" Nanna the maid asked curiously.

      "It belongs to the Wikuni Princess," he said ruefully.  "If it's not found, there's going to be some very strained words passing over the Sea of Storms."

      "Well, I'm sorry, good sir, but I've not seen this cat you seek."

      "Ah, well," he sighed.  "Should you spot him, there's quite a substantial reward for the one who brings him back.  You can bring him to the Tower gate, and the guard there will direct you."

      "I'll keep that in mind, good sir," she said.  "I'm sorry, but I have work to do.  Good day to you."

      "A good day to you, madam," the man said, dipping his cap to her again.  Then Nanna the maid shut the door.  She shook her head, and then noticed Tarrin hunkered down under the hallstand.  Nanna the maid didn't miss much of anything.  "The Royal cat, eh?" she chuckled, beckoning to him.  Tarrin approached her warily, an irrational thought that she meant to carry him after the Sorcerer crossing his mind.   But she just cradled him in an arm, scratching him behind the ear.  "Well, get that out of your system, Shadow," she smiled.  "I saw how you acted when you got here.  That royal brat was very mean to you, and I'll not give you back to be tortured.  Besides, Janette would be devastated."

      And that was that.  Nanna the maid never made mention of the visit to the others, not even to Tomas the merchant, and it was simply dropped.

      But it was important to Tarrin, and he brooded over it for several days after the visit.  It was obvious that though he was done with the Tower, the Tower was nowhere near done with him.  It also told him that they did want something from him, else they wouldn't be looking for him.  And it told him that they knew he was still inside the city, else they wouldn't waste people's time by sending Sorcerers door to door looking for him.  But, on another note, he realized that they couldn't find him with Sorcery, else they'd have been here the day after he fled.  That was a very important bit of information, something that he filed neatly away in his memory.  But he was a bit more careful after that, not going out into the areas of the garden that were visible from the street, and not laying in the windowsills looking out as he used to do.

      But life inside did not change.  He was still with his little mother most of the time, content to just be near her when she was busy with something else.  And yet, as days passed, he found that his desire to be with his little mother faded from fanatical, to important, to merely being his wish.  He was healing, he knew, coming to terms with the trauma that had put him in Janette's arms in the first place, and he was relying less and less on the little girl's calming love and affection.

      It was probably then that he knew that, while he loved this house dearly and everyone in it, that it would not make him content to live out his life here.  Eventually, he would leave, would have to leave, and find a life for himself elsewhere.  Janette would grow up, and her life would become full with husband and children.  And while he knew that, should he stay, he would be a part of that life, it seemed wrong to him to take away something from her just for his own selfish desires.

      He knew it would be soon, but "soon" was a very vague concept to one that had trouble marking the passage of time.

      He laid and thought about his eventual departure often, while Janette was busy with something else, but he had no idea how many days it had been since he had made that decision.  The eternal now of the cat prevented him from simply counting the days, since the memories of the past days seemed to blur into one another in a jumble that made it impossible to discern one day from another.  Janette's world was one of strictly regimented activity, for she performed the same lessons almost every day, did the same things every day, and there was nothing different from which Tarrin could refer to try to calculate the amount of time that had passed.  All he had to go on was the seasons, and it was still hot outside during the day and warm in the night.  It was still summer.

      It had been a day, like any other.  Janette had spent time with him between her lessons, playing with him, or taking a nap with him, or just petting him, as she always did.  After dinner, she was sent to bed, and Tarrin stayed at the foot of her bed, as was his custom, until she was asleep.  Once she was asleep, he would go down to the fireplace and lay on the hearthstones, soaking up the fire's warmth and listening to Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife talk.  He was on his way there when a sound from the kitchen disturbed him.  Thinking it was Deris the cook, Tarrin thought to beg a treat from the portly, jovial man before moving into the living room.  Deris was a friendly man, and like the rest of the household, he rather liked Tarrin.  He gave Tarrin scraps and treats whenever he was cooking, so Tarrin made a special point to be the man's friend.

      But it was not Deris in the kitchen.  It was empty, and the sound he heard was someone using a thin probe to unset the latch on the door.  Tarrin's ears laid back as he realized it was an intruder, not Deris.  The door opened, and a thin man dressed in dark clothes, and carrying a knife in his hand, stepped into the sacred confines of his little mother's house.  Tarrin came around the corner ears laid back, back up, and growled at the man threateningly.  He wouldn't get in without a fight.

      "'Ere now," the man chuckled in an evil voice.  "The mouse thinks 'e's a lion, 'e does."

      The man took a step towards him, but he did not move.  It occurred to Tarrin that if they made a racket, Tomas the merchant would investigate, and he would walk in unarmed against a man with a knife.  His life would be in very real danger.  And since he had been in the form of the cat for so long, simply changing form to deal with the bandit didn't occur to him; changing form was something he didn't even think of anymore without working himself up to it.  Tarrin knew he was no match for a human, not as a cat, but he absolutely could not let the man get by him.  The life of his little mother depended on it.

      In desperation, Tarrin suddenly felt something drawing in, filling him with a seething life that almost set his blood on fire.  A fuzzy image of fire came to him, fire roaring from the hands of a pretty brown-haired girl, even as the world around him seemed to be overlaid with impressions of glowing strings crisscrossing the room.  The sensation of drawing in moved those strings, causing them to draw towards him, until little pieces of them flew out and entered him.

      That image of fire seemed to weave itself from his imagination and into reality.  A red-hot tongue of flame lashed from him, simply materializing in front of the defensive cat, and it roared at the man.  It washed over him, singing his hair and setting small licks of fire to his clothes before flashing out of existence nearly as quickly as it appeared.  The man cried out and dropped the knife, staggering back towards the door.  Angry red welts were already forming on his face, and the skin on his hand had an almost liquid consistency from its immersion in Tarrin's fire.  "It's a devil-cat!" he cried, then he turned and fled out the door.

      Tarrin suddenly felt too weak to move.  It was as if all his strength was sucked out of him with that fire.  He wilted to the floor as a suddenly concerned Tomas charged around the corner, holding a rapier in his hand.  Tarrin was surprised that Tomas held it with a cool familiarity that told him that the man knew how to use it.

      "Shadow!" he called in sudden concern, kneeling by the exhausted Tarrin and putting a gentle hand on his back.  "Are you hurt, boy?" he asked, his eyes staying on the door.

      "What's the matter, Tomas?" Janine the wife called, coming up behind him.

      "The kitchen door is open," he said.  "I think someone tried to sneak in, but it looks like Shadow here startled them."

      Strong hands picked him up, and Janine cradled Tarrin to her breast, her free hand checking him for injuries.  Despite his exhaustion, he meowed plaintively to her, and put her head against her shoulder.  "There's a knife on the floor," Janine said.

      "I think Shadow attacked the man," Tomas the merchant chuckled.  "He must have been up on a counter, and leaped at him when he came in.  That's a good cat," he said with a laugh, petting him gently.

      "He knows who feeds him," Janine said with a laugh.

      Tomas looked out the door, then closed it, reset the latch, and then locked it.  Then he picked up the knife.  "It's still warm," he noticed.  "I think I'll have a talk with Deris about leaving the kitchen door unlocked when he's not in the room," Tomas the merchant said.

      "Be easy on him, Tomas," Janine the wife said.  "I'm certain that it was an accident.  He's usually very careful."

      They took him back to the living room, where Tarrin spent most of his night on Janine's lap.  He was very frightened, frightened of what had just happened, so he clung to the woman like a child clinging to its mother.  Janine, a bit startled that Tarrin would show her so much affection, stroked and soothed him the way only a mother could, easing him from the death-grip his claws had on her and coaxing him into simply laying on her lap.

      He had used Sorcery.  And just like his sister, it had been raw, uncontrolled, an attack made in desperation.  That changed everything.  It was the reason he had fled from Jesmind in the first place, and he realized that, until he learned how to control it, that he would not be safe, nor would others be safe around him.  He could have easily set fire to the house, or killed himself with his ignorance.  He knew then that he had to leave, and very soon.  He had to go back to the Tower, go back to the only place that could help him control his power, and he had to go before it happened again.  Next time, he may not be so lucky, and he knew it.  He had to accept his responsiblities, stop hiding from them.

      It was time to grow up.

      Tarrin had been solitary all the next day.  It hurt Janette a little bit, but Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife figured that he was still a bit shook up over his encounter in the kitchen.  What he was doing was making a decision, one that didn't come lightly to him, and he needed time by himself in order to reach it.

      That night, after everyone was asleep, Tarrin padded up into Janette's room.  He looked at the darling little girl, all snug in her covers and with a cute little expression on her face.  How he was going to miss her.

      After a few moments of concentration, Tarrin changed form.

      The realignment of his thinking was quite profound.  After so much time in his cat form, with the cat in control, it was unusual to have to think through the cat's distraction in order to form thoughts.  The cat accepted the reversal of roles graciously, returning to its place in the corner of his mind.  And when it returned, Tarrin bade it farewell as a brother, not in relief that it was gone.  The time in his cat form had allowed him to come to a deeper understanding of his cat instincts, and though he still feared what he may do someday when he was in a rage, at least he could face that future with at least some hope that he could prevent anything as horrible as what he nearly did to his mother from happening.

      He knelt by her bed, putting a paw on her shoulder.  "Janette," he called softly.  "Janette, wake up.  I need to talk to you."

      The little girl opened her dark eyes.  Though he was a stranger, Janette did not scream or look up at him in fear.  The light of the moons and the Skybands filled her room with enough light for her to see his face, and though he was unknown to her, his gentle way of waking her seemed to allay any fear and replace it with curiosity.  "Who are you?" she asked.

      "I'm your cat," he said with a smile.

      "You are not," she said indignantly.

      "Yes, little mother, I am," he told her, cupping her cheek in his huge paw.  "Well, I'm not really a cat.  Not just a cat.  Here, let me show you."  He stood up and stepped back from her.

      "You're not wearing any clothes," she remarked.

      "I know," he shrugged.  "I don't have any.  Now watch."  He changed form for her, and saw her eyes widen and heard her gasp.  Then he changed back, and returned to his spot beside her bed.  "See?"

      "You're not a girl," she accused.  Tarrin marvelled at her innocent way, at how she could so easily accept what would have been earth-shattering to an adult.  Children were very adapatable.

      Tarrin laughed.  "No, I'm not a girl," he agreed.

      "If you're not a cat, why were you a cat?  Why stay here?  Don't you have a home?"

      "Well, it gets complicated, little mother," he smiled, stroking her hair.  "You see, I was lost.  I was lost, and very frightened, and very sad, and I didn't know what to do.  I was so afraid that I didn't want to go on living.  And then a little girl fished me out of a bush," he said, tapping the end of her nose with his fingertip.  "You saved me, Janette.  If you wouldn't have found, me, I would have died.  Here, with you, I found my way again, little mother."  He cupped her cheek again, his paw almost swallowing her face up.  "I can't ever thank you enough, Janette.  You showed me how to live again."

      Her eyes welled up with tears.  "You're going to go away, aren't you?"

      "Oh, pumpkin, I don't want to leave you," he said, collecting her up into his arms.  "I love you very much, Janette.  You're my very own little mother.  But sometimes, we all have to do things that we don't want to do.  Like when you take your lessons with the flute.  I know you don't like it, but you have to do it."  He looked into her eyes, wiping away a tear.  "I have things I have to do out there in the world, little mother," he told her.  "Just like your father, when he goes out every day to mind his affairs.  As much as I love you, and I love this house, this isn't my place.  I can't do what I need to do here.  Can you understand that?"

      "I guess so," she sniffled, "but I don't want you to go away."

      "And I don't want to leave you," he said, smoothing her hair.  "You're very important to me, little mother."

      "Why do you call me that?"

      "Because that's how I think of you," he smiled.  "You are my very own little mother, there to make all the bad things go away.  You made me feel like I had a reason to keep living, pumpkin, and because of you, I think I'm ready to go back to what I'm supposed to do.  And every time I feel lost or scared, all I'll have to do is think of you, and it won't seem so bad."  He sniffled.  "I don't think you'll understand how much you mean to me, Janette.  I was so close to giving up.  So close that you'll never understand.  And you brought me back.  I want to thank you for that, Janette."

      He held her very close for quite a while.  "I'm sorry, pumpkin, but I have to go," he told her.  "And for that, I'm going to need your help."

      "What do you want me to do?"

      "You have to open the door for me, little mother."  He let go of her and changed form, then jumped up into her lap.  He nuzzled her as she picked him up, and he savored the scent of her, the feel of her, as she carried him downstairs.  She opened the door and set him down, tears rolling down her cheeks.  He changed form again and knelt by her, holding her close one last time.  "I'm going to miss you, little mother," he told her.  "I wish there was something I could give you to remember me."

      "I don't need something to remember you," she sniffled.  "I don't want you to go, but if you have to, you have to."

      "I won't be gone forever, pumpkin," he told her.  "Someday, I'll come back.  I won't be your cat, but I'll come back and see you."

      "Promise?"

      "Promise," he said, tapping her on the nose.

      She was clutching something in her hand, then thrust it at him.  "I won't need this with you gone.  Maybe you'd like it.  Just in case."

      He took the object.  It was the little wooden doll, tied to a string, the toy that they'd used to play with for hours on end, day after day.  His eyes filled with tears as he clutched the tiny doll.  "Oh, little mother, you still know just what to do to make me happy," he told her, hugging her.  "This little toy means quite a bit to me."  He fashioned the string into a loop, and then put the doll around his neck like a necklace.  "I'll be back as soon as I can.  Until then, think well of me."

      "I will," she said.  Then she gave him a look.  "What is your name?  I know it can't be Shadow."

      "My name is Tarrin, little mother," he smiled.

      "Goodbye, Tarrin," she said, putting her little arms around his neck.  He held her close for a moment, and then let her go.

      "Goodbye, Janette," he returned.  "Don't forget to shut and lock the door," he warned.  Then he let her go, and turned away from her.  He didn't want to look at her again, else they'd be eating breakfast together.  He changed form again, then slunk out of the garden, wriggled through the fence, and then went off in search of the Tower.

      It only took him about an hour to find the Tower.  The problem was getting in.

      The guards were as thick as fleas on a dog.  They patrolled the fence in such tighly packed patrols that it would be absolutely impossible to sneak in.  He didn't want to just walk up to the front gate, because he wasn't sure how they would react to him.  They may have received orders to kill him.  He had no idea how long that he'd been gone, so he wasn't sure if they thought he was a raving maniac.  Not that he'd been too far from it, but he didn't want to have to fight off a pack of guards just to prove that he wasn't crazy.  He'd sat there and watched until well after the sun came up, looking for an opportunity to get in, but one never materialized.

      He was laying under a wagon, pondering the situation, then something quite suddenly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.  He yowled and tried to kick free, but that grip suddenly wrapped around his neck.  If he struggled too much, he'd break his own neck, so he went very still.

      "I am very put out with you, cub," Jesmind's flat voice came to him, even as her smell, concealed by the miasma of the city, reached his nose.  She turned him around and gazed into his eyes.  Tarrin couldn't struggle, and with her paws on him like that, he couldn't even change form.  "If you had any idea what I've gone through to find you," she grunted, then she sighed.  "Ah well, that's water under the bridge now."

      He hissed threateningly at her, and her flat eyes narrowed.

      "Don't take that tone with me, cub," she said ominously.  "Or I may forget my promise to your mother and kill you here and now."

      "Promise?" he asked in the manner of the cat.

      "I promised her I would bring you back alive, and I'll do just that.  Now shut up.  I regret it enough as it is, but my word is my word."

      That revelation came on two fronts.  One, that she had went out to find him not to kill him, but to return him to his mother.  The other was that she had very strong prejudices against lying.  When he split from her, she accused him of breaking his word.  Now he understood why it made her so angry.  It seemed to be a part of her elemental nature to accept a promise as a sacred bond, and if it was broken, then it violated her to the very core.

      The ten men at the gate lined up to block her at first, but a few deadly looks made them part like water before her.  Five followed her, at a discrete distance, as she made her way along the paved road that led to the central Tower.  She carried Tarrin like a purse, still throttled at the neck, and Tarrin was pretty sure that it was because of him that they let her inside the grounds.  "I can walk," he told her.

      "No, you can't," she said in a grim tone.  "If I let you go, you may take off again."

      "I won't," he said.  "You found me because I was coming back."

      "I'm not taking any chances," she said in a cold tone.

      She took him into the Tower, along the curved hallways, up stairs, until she reached the antechamber to the Keeper's office.  Duncan, the Sorcerer who acted as the Keeper's personal secretary and attendant, stood as Jesmind barged into his office.  In that large room, his desk was right by the door leading to the Keeper's office, and three of the four walls were lined with chairs and couches.  He said not a word, just eyed the black cat in her paw keenly, then simply stepped to the side and opened the door for her.

      The Keeper was sitting behind her redwood desk, scratching out a letter or some other correspondence, when Jesmind marched into her private domain.  The floor was covered with a single massive Arakite carpet, and two ornate, deeply cushioned chairs stood in front of her desk.  A portrait of a vibrant brown-haired man in robes hung behind her on the wall, the room's only wall decoration.  The Keeper's gray eyes narrowed as she looked up at the disturbance.

      "I didn't think you'd have the nerve to face me, Were-cat," she said in a steely voice, setting down her pen.

      Jesmind raised her arm, the one holding Tarrin, and then dropped him on her desk.  "I said I'd bring him back alive.  Here he is.  Now take your thrice-damned curse off of me."

      "Tarrin?" the Keeper asked in surprise.

      Tarrin changed form right on top of her desk, and then he was kneeling on its wooden surface, staring down at the woman calmly.  "Keeper," he said formally.  "Can I hit her now?"

      The Keeper laughed.  "I may let you," she said.  "Are you alright?"

      "As well as can be expected," he said calmly.  "I, just needed time alone for a while.  I'm ready to go back."

      "Good," she said.  "Jesmind, leave."

      "Not until you take your spell off!" she shouted.  "I upheld my end of the bargain!  Take it off now!"

      "I can't do that," she said in an ominous voice.  "You're still a danger to Tarrin, and I won't allow you to hurt him.  Keeping you tame is in my best interest at the moment."

      "You lied to me!" she screamed, her claws extending as her eyes flared from within with that unholy greenish aura.

      "Jesmind!" Tarrin barked, jumping off the desk and putting a paw on her chest as the other took hold of her arm.  In that instant, Tarrin came to understand why Jesmind hated him so much.  It was more than a personal feeling between them.  When he left her, she accused him of lying to her, of breaking his word.  That was so totally against the basic nature of the Cat that it was her nature to take people at their word, and expect them to live up to it.  Lying was a violation of the natural order of things, and that made any Were-cat angry.  That, and there was her duty.  She had a duty to try to kill him, to stop him from doing what he very nearly did.  He could respect that, even more so now that he'd come so close to going mad.  He looked back at the Keeper.  "You made a promise," he said grimly.  "Take the spell off of her."

      "I won't do that," she said.

      "You will," he growled.  "Because if Jesmind doesn't kill you, I will."

      The Keeper's eyes widened.  "But you hate her," she said.  "She wants to kill you!"

      "A promise is a promise," he said flatly.  "I didn't understand that before.  I do now."

      Jesmind gave him a strange look, and she put a paw on his shoulder.

      "You will take that spell off of her, and you will do it right now, or else this room will need a lot of cleaning.  If you think either of us are nasty now, you should see what we can do when we're working together."

      The Keeper blanched, standing up.  "I'll need the Council.  It's Ritual Sorcery.  I can't do it alone."

      "Then have someone bring them here," he said in a dangerous tone.  "Now."  Duncan paused at the door.  "Now!"

      "Duncan, go get the Council," the Keeper commanded.

      "Don't think this changes anything between us," Jesmind said in a quiet voice.

      "I don't expect it to," he replied.  "I have no real quarrel with you, Jesmind.  You have one with me.  I don't look at you as an enemy, no matter how hard you try."

      "Then come with me," she offered.  "We can let the past be the past.  We can start over."

      "I can't do that," he told her.  "I came back here for a reason, Jesmind.  I can do Sorcery.  I nearly killed myself with it while I was away.  If I don't learn how to control it, I'll either accidentally kill you or end up killing myself.  And the only place I can learn is here."

      "Why do you have to be so stubborn!" she snapped, stamping her foot.

      "Why do you have to be so contrary?" he retorted.  "I only need a couple of years, woman.  That can't be much more than a blink of your eyes."

      "Then I guess we're back to where we started, aren't we?" she hissed.

      "I guess so.  Jesmind."

      "What?"

      "Don't even think of stepping on my tail."

      She gave him a look, then laughed helplessly.  "I see you've gotten over your silly modesty."

      "You bring out the worst in me," he replied dryly.

      "Yes," she said.  "I imagine I do, at that."

      "Are you calm now?"

      "I guess so."

      He let go of her and stepped back.  "You look haggard."

      "You're a damned hard man to find," she grunted, stretching a bit.  "I haven't had a good night's sleep in almost a month.  How's the arm?"

      "Never better.  You didn't rip