Chapter 26

 It was much better than the circus.

 Tarrin allowed himself to be carried in Allia's arms as they entered the gate of the house Dolanna, Dar, and Phandebrass had found, just as the sun began to touch the buildings on the western skyline.  It was very large, impressively so, a three story townhouse enclosed in an ornate iron fence.  It had a sandy plot in front of it, with two palm trees flanking the front door.  A carriage house rested to the left of the building, and a storage building stood to the right.  From what Dar had told him after they returned, there was a small garden in the back, yellowed from the dry summer heat.  The house was whitewashed stone, with that same flat roof as all the others, and very small windows paned in glass.

 "Nice," Jula remarked.  She wore an Illusion of an Arakite wife, black-robed and veiled, and she walked beside the Selani.  Allia glared at the Were-cat female, but said nothing.  There was still a great deal of simmering hostility in Allia towards her.  He may have accepted her, but Allia did not.  She had been civil to her in respect of her friendship with Tarrin, but he knew that wouldn't last forever.  Eventually, her emotions were going to get the better of her, and she was going to try to kill Jula.  Jula already knew that trying to defend herself against Allia would be a death sentence--by Allia's hand, or by Tarrin's paw should she actually harm his sister--so at least she was prepared for that eventuality.  Once Jula got away from her, Allia's temper would cool.  Tarrin knew Allia very well.  Any attempt on Jula would be an irrational emotional response, and it would last only as long as Jula remained in her sight.

 "I say, let's not stand and gawk at the thing," Phandebrass said from behind.  "Let's go inside, where it's cool."

 "How much did this cost?" Camara Tal asked, hiding behind an Illusion that Dolanna was holding over her.

 "Only about a hundred thousand gold shars," Dar told her.  "We bought it."

 "Bought?  Why did you do that?"

 "So we would not be held responsible for damages, and we could change things," Dolanna answered her.  "Sarraya was kind enough to conjure the gold, so the cost was not an issue."

 "I haven't tired myself out like that in a hundred years," the Faerie complained from above him.  She was invisible-- even the fluttering of her wings was masked by magic when she was like that--but her voice was clear and audible.  "It was zapping up a chest of gold for Renoit that put me on the ground.  Did you really need to give him that much?"

 "As far as I am concerned, we did not give him enough," Dolanna told the sprite.  "Renoit was a gift of the Goddess, so important was his aid.  He literally got us to Dala Yar Arak alive.  What you conjured for him only begins to demonstrate how grateful we are to him and his circus."

 The interior of the dwelling was much like other Arakite homes he'd invaded over the days.  The rooms were large, with high ceilings, and there were no hallways.  The stairs ran up the side of the house's main living chamber, running from the first floor to the third, with a landing at the second floor.  The first floor held that large living chamber, a kitchen, a dining room, a den with empty bookshelves, a smaller sitting parlor with old furniture, storerooms for the kitchen, and a door leading to a small, dark, surprisingly cold basement.  From what Dar told him, the second and third floors were bedrooms, or whatever kind of rooms the occupants made them to be.  The house was furnished in typical Arakite furniture; low, large cushioned chairs instead of couches or sofas when chairs were even there, for most Arakites preferred soft pillows and cushions laid upon a carpeted floor.  The eating table was only about a span high, with cushions for the diners to sit upon instead of a traditional table and chairs.  The bedrooms were more traditional, in his eyes, with beds, a washtable, and a large chest at the foot of the bed.  A few bedrooms also had a vanity and armoire, rooms furnished for women, and one had a writing desk.

 Tarrin sat down in the large living chamber on the first floor calmly, still in cat form.  Chopstick landed beside him, done flitting through the large house to get an idea of it, and the drake nudged and nipped at him playfully.  Turnkey landed on the other side of Chopstick, and the drake turned his playful attentions away from the boring Were-cat and to an opponent more willing to engage in a little mock battle.  Phandebrass stepped over the wrestling drakes absently, carrying a very large leather case in his hand.  "I say, I'm going to miss all my space on the Dancer, but I have what I need here for field work, I do.  I say, Jula, if you're not busy, maybe you'd like to answer some questions for me.  I'm a student of many fields of study, and I never pass up the chance to expand my horizons."

 Jula glanced at Tarrin with a knowing smile, then looked at the doddering mage.  "Thank you, but no," she replied tactfully.  "Tarrin told me not to involve myself with the others until he has time to get me ready for it.  Whatever that means."

 "I say, I understand perfectly.  I saw how Triana handled him.  I would be something of a distraction, I would," he chuckled.

 Tonight.  He still wasn't that sure of what to do tonight.  He didn't want to miss a night of searching, but if there were Demons out there hunting for him, going out would be a very bad idea.  He had his staff with him, sitting in the elsewhere at the moment--he wasn't going to let that out of his sight--but he didn't want to get into a running battle with such obviously dangerous opponents.  He'd slip up eventually, and they'd kill him.  Fighting them was that last thing on his mind, but he didn't want to lose a day.  Not a single day.

 There were other considerations.  He had to take Jula with him, and she would be a liability.  She just wasn't ready to face such things.  She needed more time, more training, and more experience.  He'd be too busy worrying about her safety to pay attention to what he was doing, and that would create a very dangerous situation for both of them.

 Dolanna solved his problem for him, as she came into the room from the kitchen.  "Nobody leaves until Phandebrass completes his work," she announced.  "Dar and I will go to the market for supper and breakfast for tomorrow, but nobody else will leave.  Not until Phandebrass is done."  She looked at Tarrin. "And that includes you, dear one.  You need a day's rest, anyway.  You have pushed yourself hard these last days.  It is starting to show on you."

 "Tell her I wasn't really set on going out anyway, Allia," he told Allia in the manner of the Cat.  When he did so, Jula's ears picked up noticably, and she stared at him in surprise.  "I can't take Jula until she recovers, and I won't leave her alone."

 "What is that, Tarrin?" Jula asked.  "I can't hear a thing, but...it's like I can hear what you want to say."

 "It's how cats communicate," he replied to her.  "You hear what I want to say, without me actually having to say it.  We can understand any kind of cat, from a housecat to a lion, and they'll usually obey us when we ask them to do something.  Cats have respect for Were-cats."  He looked at her.  "And just so you know right now, Allia can understand us," he warned Jula.

 "I don't see a problem with that," she said.  "Could you teach me how to do that?"

 "Well, it's something you probably can't make yourself do," he said dubiously.  "It would be easiest if you were in cat form, because it's an instinctive knowledge.  Then you wouldn't have to try to force yourself."

 "You need to teach me how to do that anyway," she pressed.

 "I think you're old enough," he said after looking at her a moment.  "I could do it, and I'm younger than you."  He shapeshifted back into his humanoid form, looking down at her.  "We may as well start now," he said.  "Come with me."

 "Where are we going?" she asked as she followed him to the stairs.

 "A bedroom," he replied.  "You don't need any distractions.  You'll have enough of them as it is."

 He chose the first bedroom he reached on the second floor, one of the smaller ones with only a bed, chest, and washstand.  He closed the door behind her, and immediately started unlacing his shirt.  "What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

 "Take your clothes off," he told her.  "They won't change with you."

 "I understand that, but why are you taking off your clothes?"

 "Because we're going to kill two birds," he replied.  "This is something you'd eventually have to face.  I may have my amulet, but I'm not going to cheat in your training.  I'll do it the same way it was done to me."

 Jula turned her back for a moment and pulled her shirt over her head, as Tarrin removed his pants and shirt and placed them on the bed.  She kept her back to him as she took off her pants, and she stood there for a long moment.

 "Turn around," he ordered.  "You can't avoid it forever, Jula.  The best way to get you over this is to make you meet it head on."

 She turned around, but she kept her eyes locked on his.  He sighed and shook his head, then raised his paws from his sides.  "Look at me, Jula.  Look at all of me.  You're going to see it all eventually anyway, and it doesn't offend me for you to look."

 She hesitantly did as she was commanded, blushing furiously as soon as her eyes dropped.  Tarrin even turned around for her, so she could see everything.  "Just one word of warning.  Looking is one thing.  Touching is another.  It doesn't bother me to have you look at me, but putting your paws on any of my more sensitive parts is not recommended."

 "I wasn't considering it, Tarrin," she replied, turning beet red.  "It's strange.  I don't really feel embarassed standing here naked.  What embarasses me is having you standing here naked.  Isn't that strange?"

 "It's your instincts," he told her.  "It took me all of about four days to shed my human modesty.  I was exactly the same way you are now.  My own nudity didn't make me bat an eye, but someone else's bothered me.  You'll get over it."  He stepped back from her slightly.  "Alright, shapeshifting is alot easier than you think it is.  You already know how to do it.  It's in your blood.  The trick of it is the first time.  If you do it consciously just once, you can do it again like it was the easiest thing in the world.  To shapechange, you have to imagine yourself as a cat, then will yourself to change.  That's all there is to it."

 "That's it?"

 "That's it," he affirmed.  "It's a natural part of you.  Here, watch me."  He shapeshifted for her.  He could shapeshift without even thinking about what he was doing, he had become so accustomed to it.  Because his clothes did change with him, he probably shapeshifted much more than other Were-cats.  "Now you," he told her in the unspoken manner of the Cat.

 Jula closed her eyes and balled her paws up into fists.  "Squat down," he warned.  "If you shapeshift like that, you'll end up standing on your hind paws.  You'll topple over."

 "I didn't think of that," she admitted, squatting down and putting her paws on the ground just inside of and between her feet.  In the very pose he had used to show her why she couldn't wear a dress.  She didn't change for a moment, and he could feel her trying through the bond.  She was telling herself to change, but there wasn't enough willpower behind it to cause it to happen.  "You have to want it," he told her.  "Make it happen.  Will it to happen.  Use that Sorcery-trained willpower, Jula."

 That did it.  He felt her will it without reservations, and it triggered the shapeshift.  She flowed down into her cat form, a bit smaller than his own.  She looked down at herself with curious eyes, standing up and looking to her side.  "The instincts are very loud now," she told him in the unspoken manner of the Cat, without even thinking about what she was doing.  Her instincts were taking root.  "But they're not fighting with me.  It's like it's totally natural."

 "Exactly," he told her, sitting down.  "Every little thing a cat does will make perfect sense to you, and you'll find that your instincts are much stronger in cat form.  You'll do the very same things cats do, and it will seem completely right and proper.  Grooming yourself is a good example.  Eating what you catch is another."

 "You're, you're right," she said.  "I do have the impulse to groom.  And it doesn't seem wrong."

 "The longer you stay in cat form, the stronger the instincts become," he told her.  "Over time, you'll even start thinking like a cat, but the cat will never completely overwhelm your rational mind.  You may have trouble remembering things, or keep track of time, or have a little problem shapeshifting back, but that's only if you've been in cat form for a very long time.  Months."

 "How do I change back?  Just do the same thing?"

 He nodded.  "Just will it, and you'll change back.  Go ahead.  Then change back and forth a few times until you get the hang of it."  He sat on the bed sedately while she practiced, changing form many times.  Each time, he felt that it required less effort for her.  Just like him, she adapted quickly to the natural ability, mainly because it was something she instinctively knew how to do.

 "I wondered why you leaned down before you shapechanged," she told him after returning to her humanoid form.  "You make it look natural, falling down into your cat form.  There's quite an art to the transition, isn't there?"

 "The body changes.  The position doesn't," he told her.  "You'll get the hang of it.  Moving from a vertical base to a horizontal one isn't that hard.  You just have to set yourself up for it."

 "I noticed," she agreed.

 "Come with me," he said, opening the door before going back to cat form.  "Just feeling yourself in that body isn't enough.  You need to get a feel for how it works.  So we're going to go hunting."

 "What is there to hunt here?"

 "You'd be surprised where mice and rats can hide," he told her.  "I'd rather get some squirrel, but there aren't any around here.  Squirrel is my favorite."

 "You eat them?" she protested.

 "Change back, and you'll understand completely," he told her as he sat down.

 She hunkered down and flowed into her cat form, and she sat sedately.  "You're...right.," she said slowly.  "Why was I objecting to it in the first place?"

 "Precisely," he told her.  "Assigning human ideals to your new life isn't going to work, Jula.  To beat the madness, you have to embrace the change.  You're not a human anymore."

 "It's not easy."

 "That's why there are only three Changelings," he said succinctly.  "You, me, and Kimmie.  Nobody else managed to conquer the madness."

 "You know how to fill a girl with confidence."

 "I never said it would be easy.  I just said you could do it," he told her, standing up.  "Nothing easy is worthwhile.  Now come on.  I'll teach you how to hunt.  It's time to earn our keep by chasing off the mice.  And get a meal in the bargain."

 "I wonder how mouse tastes," Jula mused as the pair of them bounded out the door, heading for the kitchen.

 The afternoon and a good deal of the evening was spent educating Jula on the arts of hunting, cat style.  She picked it up quickly, and he had to admit, she had a knack for it.  She caught her first mouse quickly after learning the basics of it from watching Tarrin.  She was very good at driving the mouse in the direction she wanted it to go, trapping it in a dead end, where it was an easy target.  After retrieving their clothes, the rest of the night was spent teaching Jula about the laws of Fae-da'Nar.  The laws were easy.  The customs weren't.  Sarraya sat in on them while he taught her, saying nothing, observing things.  He had a feeling she wanted to see how well he remembered what was taught to him, or how well he could teach her.  Jula was every bit as smart as he remembered, and she listened intently to his every word.  Again, he realized that she was being very serious about her instruction.  She didn't want to go mad again, and it showed in the determination she showed in her lessons, and it explained why she was so fanatically loyal to him.  She knew that he was her only chance, so she clung to it, clung to him, like a sailor clinging to a rope in a storm.

 It was a double-edged sword.  Her determination may hurt her when it came time for her to surrender some ground to her instincts.  He worried a bit as he taught her that she may try to resist them, and if she did, she would simply be starting down the path to madness again.

 Sarraya yawned.  Tarrin had brought Jula to one of the larger bedrooms, one with a vanity and armoire, and Sarraya was sitting on the edge of the vanity as Tarrin and Jula sat on the bed facing one another.  It was going to be their room.  He was serious about not letting her out of his sight.  They were going to sleep in that room, Jula in the bed, Tarrin in cat form at the foot of it.  He was usually more comfortable sleeping in cat form anyway.  He often went to sleep in humanoid form, only to find himself in cat form when he awoke.  It wasn't supposed to be possible to shapeshift in one's sleep, but either he was doing it, or he was waking up, shapeshifting, and then forgetting in the dull state of mind that came with being half-awake.  "I think we can wrap this up, Tarrin," she told him, flitting into the air and landing on the bed between them.  "It's nearly midnight.  Everyone else is in bed."

 "We're not everyone else," he told her calmly.

 "Well, I'm getting sleepy," she protested.

 "Then go to sleep."

 "I can't," she snorted.  "Fae-da'Nar won't accept her if you teach her.  When it comes to it, I'll tell them that I was observing.  That, they'll accept.  So I have to be here whenever you teach her."

 "You weren't here before."

 "You were teaching her basics before," she countered.  "You don't need me to teach instinctual knowledge, Tarrin.  Now you're getting into those things that I do need to be here to observe."

 "Just who are you in this organization?" Jula asked her.

 "I'm a Druid," she replied.  "Consider me to be management.  Your life hinges on whether or not I think you're fit to be part of our society, cub, so you'd better be nice to me."

 "Sarraya!" Tarrin snapped.  "That's uncalled for."

 "He was never nice to me," she sniffed, pointing at Tarrin.  "I wonder why I even bothered to accept him."

 "Well, like father, like daughter," Jula said with a flinty look, then she graced Sarraya with a glorious smile and laughed.  "Almost.  I can't quite get the hang of that looming trick."

 "You're not tall enough," he said dryly.  "I hate to say this, Jula, but you're short."

 "I've always been short," she said dismissively.  "At least now I'm short only in comparison to my own kind.  It's strangely satisfying to be taller than most human men."

 "You'll grow as you age," Tarrin told her.  "We never stop growing, but it's very slow.  Triana, my bond-mother, is a head taller than me."

 "Let's stop talking about height," Sarraya said.  "As you can see, I'm not equipped to talk about that."

 Tarrin stared calmly at her, but Jula laughed.  "Well, you could always loom over a grasshopper," she teased.

 "Maybe I'll shrink you down to my size," Sarraya threatened, wiggling her tiny fingers at Jula.

 "Children," Tarrin said calmly.  "If you're tired, we'll stop.  I guess you are, Sarraya's getting cranky."

 Sarraya stomped her foot on the bed and glared at him.

 "I take it this is my room?" Jula asked.

 "Our room," he corrected.  "I told you before, you don't get out of my sight, cub."

 "How are we going to share the bed?"

 "Easy.  You sleep in the bed, I sleep at the foot of it.  Just don't kick me."

 "How--oh, nevermind.  I forgot about that.  Is it that comfortable?"

 "I prefer it," he replied.  "Besides, as tall as we are, our feet usually hang off the end of the bed."

 "True, you are too tall for this bed," she agreed, looking at it.  "Maybe I'll try it."

 "Suit yourself," he shrugged.

 The door opened, and Dolanna peeked in.  "Are you going to eat?" she asked.  "It has been waiting for you for hours."

 "Oh, yes," Sarraya said, flitting into the air and zipping past Dolanna's head.

 "I am getting a little hungry," Jula admitted.  "The mice don't go very far in this shape."

 He nodded.  "We're about to go to bed.  Is everyone settled in?"

 "More or less," she replied.  "Your pack is down in the living room.  You have your staff?"  He pointed to it, where it stood in the corner.  "Jula is going to need some new clothes, Tarrin."

 "I know.  As soon as Phandebrass finishes, I'm going to take her to a tanner."

 "Tanner?  Sarraya can conjure the clothing, dear one.  Just ask her."

 "She could," he admitted.  "I didn't think about that."

 "Sounds like I need to find out about Druidic magic," Jula said.  "I never studied it."

 "It can be useful," Tarrin said, standing up.

 After eating a stew Dolanna had kept on a smoldering fire in the kitchen, Tarrin and Jula padded through the dark, empty house.  She told him that she had placed a Ward around the outer fence that would keep out everyone not mystical in nature, and Phandebrass had cast some magical spells to protect the house for the night against those mystical beings, so everyone could sleep without having to post a watch.  Tarrin trusted in the magic of his friends, but they weren't dealing with an enemy that was easily deterred.  That made him a bit nervous.  When he got back in the room, he picked up his staff and shapeshifted with it, making it disappear into the elsewhere.  That way it would be right in his paw, if he had to deal with any kind of supernatural visitor in the night.  He kept the door open as well.

 Jula took off her clothes without much hesitation, then shapeshifted into a cat and jumped up on the bed.  Tarrin joined her, and they were soon joined afterward by Chopstick and Turnkey.  Jula didn't quite know what to make of the two small drakes, until they settled down on the bed with the Were-cats and went to sleep.  Tarrin didn't mind.  The drakes liked sleeping with him, and there was plenty of room.  He laid down and put his head on his paws, and closed his eyes.  He would sleep, but it would be a very light sleep.  Nobody was going to sneak up on him during the night.

 "Tarrin!" a voice called, from far away.  "Come on, suta, it's time to get up!"

 Suta?  That was what his mother called him, Ungardt for son.  Tarrin opened his eyes and found himself back in his old room, back on the farm in Aldreth.  Everything was where it was supposed to be.  His bed and the large chest at the foot of it, the washstand with the chipped basin, the small table in the corner by the room's only window, that had the sooty lantern atop it.  He sat up, looking around in confusion.  How did he get back here?  A look down told him that he was still a Were-cat.  How did he wind up in Aldreth?

 A dream.  This had to be a dream.  But how could it be?  He was wide awake.  He could smell everything around him, from the spiderwebs high up in the rafters, cobwebs his mother never ceased to complain about, all the way to the strong soap she made him use to scrub the floorboards.  Drawing a single claw, he poked it into his arm, and felt very real pain.  They always said that you couldn't feel pain in a dream.  Well, if that were true, then he really was in Aldreth.  It was just impossible.

 "Tarrin!  Get up!" his mother, Elke, boomed in the kitchen below.  A sudden bang on the floor told him that she picked up the broom, and was smacking it against the ceiling again.  She always did that when he didn't move fast enough for her.  "You're going to be late!"

 Late?  Late for what?  He swung his feet over the bed and stood up, banging his head on a low rafter.  He cursed, holding his flattened ear and looking up.  The ceiling was where it was supposed to be, it was him who was taller.

 "Are you ever going to stop hitting your head on that beam?" Elke shouted at him.  "By Dallstad, boy, I think it's softened your brains!"

 He moved a little aside and looked at everything, still confused.  It was his room.  A look out the window showed the forest in its riot of fall colors, and there was a cool bite in the air.  It was his room.  How did he end up back here?  It made no sense.  He picked his pants up from where they were slung over the chest and pulled them on, then took a shirt off a peg by the steps leading down to the ground floor, pulling it over his head as he came out his door.  The door opened into the kitchen.  Jenna's room was just down the hall, and his parents lived in the room on the other side of the attic.  Jenna.  Where was she?  And where was his father?  If this was indeed some kind of strange dream, it would be weird if they weren't here too.

 His mother looked just like she was supposed to look.  Tall, narrow-waisted and buxom, she was Ungardt to the roots of her blond hair.  She had a no-nonsense way about her that had always intrigued him, and was probably why he liked Camara Tal, Jesmind and Triana so much.  They had similar personalities as his mother, so they were women he could understand.  She wore a torn shirt and a pair of worn leather breeches tucked into her calf boots, and she was standing in front of a Tellurian wood stove.  That wasn't supposed to be here.  It had been placed in front of where the kitchen's fireplace was, an iron pipe running to the chimney to vent the smoke from the fire.  He could smell the fire, as well as the ham steaks she was frying in a pan atop the new- smelling contraption.  When did they get that stove?  When did they come back to Aldreth, for that matter?

 "Where is father and Jenna?" he asked, sitting at the table, feeling it.  It was the same table.  The very feel of it was so familiar, so home, that he couldn't deny it.  However it happened, he was home.

 "Eron took Jenna into the village," she replied.  "She's going to magic out a few treestumps for Thendle Barston's new farm field.  I think she's also going to make eyes at Lukan Longbranch," she chuckled.  "That girl will be married by spring.  I'll bet money on it."

 "Lukan?  He's a boor.  Jenna hates him."

 "He's done some serious growing," she told him.  "You'd better eat.  You'll be late.  You know what happens when you're late."

 "Late for what?" he asked.

 Elke turned and gave him a flat look.  "Did that beam knock your mind out, boy?" she demanded.  "You'll be late for the same thing you do every day.  And you know how much that annoys me," she glared.

 "What?" he asked nervously.  Getting Elke Kael mad was never a good idea.

 "It's not right," she bristled, turning around.  "You should marry her, Tarrin!  I don't approve of this, this relationship."  She growled.  "Then again, it's her fault," she snorted.  "I don't see why she makes you live here while she lives not five minutes away.  It's crazy."

 Who?  "What?" he asked, completely confused.

 There was a knock at the door.  "Tarrin!" a voice called.  "If you're in bed, I'm going to come up there and get you!"

 Tarrin nearly fell out of his chair.  Jesmind!  That was Jesmind!  What was she doing in Aldreth?  It was madness!  And what was going on?  Things had happened, things he had no idea about.  Was this a dream?  Was this real, and he really had knocked his head on the beam one time too many?  He put his head in his paw and tried desperately to figure out what was going on.  The last he remembered, he was in Dala Yar Arak, sleeping.  This had to be a dream!  But if it was, why did it feel so completely real?

 She appeared in the doorway to the living room, and she was as lovely as he remembered.  Tall and lean, with the defined body of a Were-cat, Jesmind looked at him with those penetrating eyes of hers.  She was wearing a simple buckskin vest that left her arms and midriff bare, and showed quite a bit of her ample cleavage, and undyed leather breeches that were ragged around her ankles.  Her white fur was gleaming clean, and her red hair was tied back from her face with a simple thong that rested on her forehead.  Jesmind looked absolutely radiant, and the sight of her was enough to make his mouth go dry.

 "He's up," Elke said gruffly to her.  "I'm getting tired of you stringing my son along, Jesmind.  Either marry him or let him go.  Don't keep doing this."

 "We don't marry, Elke," she said casually, padding in and sitting at the table.  He couldn't stop looking at her.  Her face was like a blazing awakening of the past, and it conjured memories of their brief, stormy relationship.  "I do as much as I can to get around that, though," she said with a sweet smile at him.  "Mother forbade me from living with him.  She says it restricts him, and it really angers the other females.  So I built a cottage just up the path from him.  She can't say anything about that," she chuckled wickedly.  "You ready to go?" she asked him.

 He was still speechless from seeing her, from having his mind go crazy at the sight of her.  Jesmind.  This just had to be a dream.  The Jesmind he knew would never be so...agreeable.  But it was so real, it just couldn't be a dream.  He could only nod dumbly to her.  He couldn't think of anything to say.

 "Well let's go," she said with a smile and a wink.  "And don't forget your staff this time.  I'll meet you outside."

 She got up and left, and he stayed at the table for a moment longer, his mind racing.  Jesmind!  He just couldn't get over it.  After so long, he finally got to see Jesmind again.  And she was so nice!  From the way they talked, he and Jesmind were something of an item.  How could that be?

 "Well, go on, suta," Elke urged. "She'll just get cranky if you make her wait."

 Without much thought, Tarrin stood up and started for the door.  He walked through the plainly furnished living room, picking his staff up from the wall just beside the door, beside a wall rack holding a bow, an axe, and a sword.  The family weapons, ready and waiting in case they needed to be used in a hurry.  he opened the door and found himself looking at the front yard of the Kael homestead.  Over there was the small barn, and his father's brewing shed was just to the side of the woodshed over there.  A small fence in front of the barn penned in two pigs, and a small flock of chickens wandered aimlessly around the front yard.  The field was to the right of him, a field of brown stalks cut low to the ground.  Jesmind stood by the fence, leaning against it and looking at the pigs, who were very unsettled by her presence.  Her tail lashed back and forth in a manner that told him she was entertaining thoughts of irritating the animals, just for the fun of it.  She looked up when he approached her mutely, marvelling at how beautiful she was.  She just smiled at him and reached out, and grabbed his paw.  "Are you ready?" she asked.

 "Ready for what?" he managed to reply.

 "Tarrin," she growled playfully, "what do we do every day?"

 "I...I don't know."

 "Are you feeling alright?" she asked with sudden concern, putting her paw to his forehead.

 "I'm not sure," he said.  "I don't know how I got here.  I, I don't remember anything."

 Jesmind laughed.  "Now I know you're playing with me," she said with a teasing grin.  "Tarrin, love, we've been seeing each other for five years.  Every day I come and get you, and we spend the day at my place.  We do all sorts of things, and some of them are very naughty," she said with a wicked little smile.  "Then you go home at sunset.  And it's going to stay that way until I can convince my mother to leave us alone.  She's really getting me mad."

 "What is she doing?" he asked as they started walking towards a path on the far side of the field, a path he didn't remember from before.

 "She's either riding me for holding onto your attention, or riding me because I'm not pregnant.  By the trees, what does she think I'm trying to do!" she growled.  "If I can't hold your attention, how does she expect me to get pregnant?"

 "Uh, well, maybe she wants you to see other males," he offered weakly.

 She glared at him, and that was enough to make him take a step back.  "There are no other males in my eyes, Tarrin," she said adamantly.  "You are mine."

 Now that sounded like Jesmind.  He relaxed significantly, though he still felt completely baffled by what was going on.  "This may sound weird, but tell me how we got here," he told her.  "How we ended up back home."

 "It's where you went, not me," she replied.  "After you stole the Firestaff from the Witch-King of Stygia, just before the day, you came back home.  I still want to know what you did with it," she said coyly.  "They say you could hear him shouting all the way in Valkar."

 "If it's past that time, then it's useless," he said clinically.  "At least for another five thousand years."

 "Here, let me carry that," Jesmind said, reaching over him and grabbing his staff.  She pulled it out of his paw and looked down at it.  "I'm surprised you still have this," she said.  "After that Demon woman stole it from you.  It was pretty amazing, how you got it back.  Unless you were just embellishing to make it sound better," she winked.

 "Demon woman?" Tarrin said uneasily.  That sent a twinge through him, a memory of what he was so worried about that last night that he could remember.

 "What was her name?  Shiika?  The one that was the Empress?"

 Shiika?  He didn't know that name.  It wasn't the name of the Empress, anyway.

 "Oh, nevermind," she said, stopping.  "Do me a favor, Tarrin."

 "What?"

 "Kiss me," she said with a seductive smile.

 Tarrin gave Jesmind a long look.  Why would she ask?  Jesmind would never ask.  She would just kiss him, and to the hells with whether he wanted to kiss her or not.  That was the way she was.  Jesmind never played around when it came to what she wanted.  She wasn't coy or seductive, unless she was feeling playful.  And she didn't look to be in that kind of a mood.

 "What's the matter?" Jesmind asked, a bit annoyed with him.  "It's not like we've never kissed before, Tarrin."

 Again, the wrongness of it all touched him.  No matter how real it felt, no matter how real it seemed, it just couldn't be real.  How could he go from Arak to Aldreth in one night?  He had no memory of anything else.  But things did seem so very real.  Time seemed to have passed during his memory lapse, maybe even years.  Jesmind seemed to know his mother, and she certainly felt real when he touched her.  Her scent was even real, and the smells of the forest were very real.  Tarrin was a being grounded in his senses, and his senses told him that everything he was seeing, hearing, smelling, it all was real.  It all fit in with what he expected to see and hear and smell.  He found it very hard to accept that what his senses was telling him was real actually was not.  The very idea of it shocked his sensibilities.

 He shook his head as if to clear it, putting a palm to his head gently.  His head hurt.  What was going on?  Was this real, or wasn't it?  If it was, what happened to him to make him forget?  If it wasn't, how could a dream feel so real?  It just didn't make sense!

 "Are you feeling alright?" Jesmind asked directly.

 "I, I don't know," he told her.  "I just don't remember anything."

 "Well, I'm sure things will make sense in a moment," she smiled.  It was a cold smile, something he had never seen on Jesmind's face before.  "Actually, I think they should make sense right now."

 Jesmind took one step back from him, and then absolutely everything he saw, everything he heard, everything he smelled, it all just vanished.  There was a fleeting moment of absolute nothingness, where he could see nor hear nor smell, a moment of utter isolation that nearly sent him into a panic.  But it ended quickly, and he found himself standing in the cool air of Dala Yar Arak, on a dark, deserted side street.  He stood in front of a bizarre female, a tall woman whose face and body could only be described as the absolute paragon of feminine perfection.  There was absolutely nothing about the blond beauty that was wrong, or even not quite right.  She was just gorgeous.  The only things that made it apparent to anyone looking at her that she wasn't human was the small horns that protruded from her head, just in front of where his ears were on his own head, growing straight up and then turning sharply forward, towards her eyes.  The other feature were the large, leathery wings that rested on her back, large and tall and proud in their display.  She was tall for a woman, but much shorter than he.  She wore a halter very much like the one that Camara Tal wore, a halter that showed off a great deal of her perfectly ample breasts and her sleek belly.  A garment that wouldn't foul her wings.  She wore a simple white sash around her waist, over a pair of black trousers that were tucked into black leather boots that ended just beneath her knees.

 And in her left hand, this strange woman was holding his staff.

 "Does it make sense to you now, Tarrin?" she asked in a mocking tone.  "I didn't appreciate you killing one of my cambisi.  I had to carry that fool around inside me for nine months.  I spent alot of money training him.  Well, I can't very well have you running around with this," she said, motioning with his staff, "seeing as how inconvenient it made things, so I came over here to take it from you."

 It took his mind a moment to adjust, to comprehend what was going on, and for that moment he was slack-jawed and dazed.  But then he realized what had happened.  It had been a lie!  A game, a mental trick she used on him to make him believe he was back home!  It was all so twistedly sickening!  She had used his most treasured memories, his deepest emotions, against him in the most despicable manner!  She had created a sense of trust in him, walked beside him, had pretended to be someone who cared about him, and it was all just so she could steal his staff!

 Outrage erupted in him, and it sent him flying immediately into one of the deepest rages he had ever felt.  He had never felt so violated in his life!  The witch had used his own memories against him, she had looked inside him and played with his dreams for her own ends!  Outrage fueled an immediate, undeniable need to rip the woman into pieces.  Very small, bloody pieces.  His eyes exploded with that unholy greenish radiance that marked his anger, and he lashed out at her with a speed that would have amazed a human looking on.

 But the woman seemed to be one step ahead.  With a single thrust of her wings, she vaulted herself into the air, holding his staff in her hands.  "Temper, temper!" she called down to him mockingly as he rushed through the empty space she had just been occupying an instant before.  He turned and looked up at her, rage blinding him of everything but the need to make that bitch suffer for what she did to him.  He would make her pay!  Reaching out, Tarrin grabbed the Weave in a stranglehold, demanded all the power it could give to him and more.  It nearly ripped as Tarrin sucked the power out of the Weave faster than it could give it to him, causing his rage to share the feeling of intense pain that came with holding so much power.  But there was very little cause to fear the pain in his mental state.  He welcomed it, felt it inside him.  The air around him began to shimmer from the heat of his building power, even as his body literally exploded into Magelight.

 "You want temper?" he heard himself shouting nearly incoherently at the woman.  "I'll give you temper!"

 The air in front of him began to pulsate with a reddish aura, a misty cloud of glowing air that was the beginnings of a very simple weave, a weave that his enraged mind could easily create.  It began to coalesce, to brighten, as Tarrin wove the flows of pure Air, with only token flows from the other spheres to grant his spell the power of High Sorcery.  The woman was still in the air, nearly hovering, staring down at him with a suddenly serious face.  He saw her reach out and point at him, and a blasting cone of fire erupted from her palm, lashing down at him with tremendous speed.

 With a flick of his tail, Tarrin's enraged mind divided its attention.  One part of him continued with his weaving, and the other attacked the magical conduit running from the winged woman's magical attack to the outside, a place beyond his comprehension, a place that granted her the magical energy to create her spell.  She was connected to her spell by the Weave, and she was connected to the source of her power throught Weave.  And there was no magic that flowed through the Weave that he could not affect with his own power.  His power cut that connection like a scythe, and the fire simply winked out of existence well before it reached him.  A barrier of his will formed around her, pulling the Weave away from her and isolating her, robbing her of her connection to her magical source by slicing them away from her.  He had effectively cut her off from her formidable magical powers.

 "Impossible!" she gasped, staring at him in absolute shock.

 That instant of hesitation proved to be deadly.  With a building scream, rising to a tremendous crescendo that was magically amplified by his own weaving, the reddish aura before him suddenly became coherent, a wall of angry red light that faced in the woman's direction.  It was ready.  With absolutely no regard for the damage he was about to deal out to the local geography, Tarrin's enraged mind released the weave.

 The reddish wall of energy shuddered, then it exploded outward, away from him, as a shockwave of pure Air, a blast of air that raced away from him at supersonic speed.  The buildings in front of him simply disappeared as the shockwave slammed into them, killing instantly those unfortunate souls that were inside.  The shockwave did not slow down in the slightest as it shattered everything before it, expanding in an arc before him and above him, striking the winged woman not a heartbeat after she called out her surprise that he could cut her off from her magical powers.  She was slammed by that shockwave, the wall of air, and was carried along with it as it raced away from him, destroying everything in its path.  Building after building was shattered by his magical attack, creating a wall of flying debris that built up in front of the shockwave's front, sending dust and smaller bits of building tumbling in its wake.  The radical speed of the weave caused it to expand to the terminus of its power in a single heartbeat, dissipating nearly as quickly as it was released.  In the wake of its end, an ear- splitting BOOM shook the ground, caused Tarrin's eardrums to rupture, cracked the walls of the buildings that had been safely behind him, a monstrous sound that rolled out just behind a deadly cloud of debris and dust that rained down on the buildings that had been outside his weave's area of effect, destroying many of them as cow-sized chunks of shattered masonry slammed into them.

 Panting, Tarrin hunched over.  He stood at the narrow end of a cone of absolute destruction that extended before him, and went on for nearly ten blocks before the scoured earth gave way to a huge field of shattered wreckage.  Buildings to each side of the magical weave were still standing, though they were covered in dust,and many of them had been cracked by the sound of the weave as it roared over them.  The echos of that explosive sound still rang through the city.  Still absolutely furious, he looked up into the dust-choked sky.  She was gone.  If she truly was a Demon, then his weave could not kill her.  But she was gone now, hidden by the dust, and she had his staff.  The object of his fury denied him, Tarrin stood up and threw his arms into the sky, screaming out his rage, his humiliation, his sense of being violated by the winged woman, who had taken his most fond memories and dreams and twisted them so she could gain his trust, and get his staff.

 The Weave was flooding him with power once again, but he had used almost everything he had to create his retaliatory weave.  He was drained, exhausted, and even his enraged mind seemed to comprehend that it had to do something before that power scoured his flesh from his bones, and left him nothing but a pile of smoldering ash.  With barely a thought, it cut him off from the Weave, generating a backlash that literally ripped his shirt with its power, sending a powerful gust of wind away from him, disturbing the dust that had come to cover the entire area.  He was furious, in total rage, and that lent him the strength to turn away.  There would be no finding her tonight.  The shockwave threw her up, not out.  She would not be in the debris field.  She was probably tossed a few longspans before she regained control of her flight.

 His rage lessened, allowed his conscious mind to rejoin with the Cat, and it wasn't much better.  Tarrin was indignant, he was humiliated, he was just so angry over what she had done to him.  Losing his staff was just a drop of water in the well compared to his feeling of being utterly violated by the Demoness, violated all the way to his soul.

 Recovering from the backlash, Tarrin turned his back to the scene of total destruction he had wreaked upon the city.  And he gave it not a single thought.  Those who died did so because of her, not because of him.  Stalking off into the dust, almost like a fog, concealing everything not ten spans from one's face, Tarrin started back towards the house.

 There was going to be hell to pay for one Empress of Arak.

 One Shiika.

 She had to go home eventually.  He knew where to find her.  And he meant to pry his staff out of her cold, dead fingers.

 The Book of Ages be damned.  It could wait.  This...this was personal.

©2000, James Galloway. All Rights Reserved.