Chapter 16

        Nothing was ever going to be the same.

        Climbing out of the black pit of nothingness, Tarrin clawed his way back to consciousness.  He could still smell the smoke and the dust and the stone, he could feel the heat of melted rock surround him, and he could remember everything that had happened.  He still felt weak, exhausted, but his Were powers of regeneration were already hard at work, drawing on the power of the All to replace energy that had been drained away in his battle with the shadow of Val.

        Opening his eyes, he took in a blasted circle of melted rock that had started to harden, forming a ring of ripples around its edges as the liquid rock had been pushed away from Tarrin’s body, getting far enough away to cool down again.  He was laying in cooling lava, hardening even as he watched, feeling the heat in it quickly dissipate into the much cooler air and rock that surrounded it.  Beyond that was a jagged landscape of ruin.  Buildings had been knocked down and shattered, and their debris was scattered in the streets, atop their foundations.  To his eternal, ultimate relief, he saw no bodies in that rubble.  That, at least, was something to happy about.

        Slowly, carefully pulling himself up onto his knees, he leaned back and sat on his feet, a paw to his head as he tried to clear out the cobwebs.  He remembered the fight, how he had used his power against the shadow of Val, then pulled back into a defensive stance and allowed the desperate creation to use up all its reserves in a desperate attempt to overwhelm him.  And then he destroyed it.

        Suld.  Jenna was going to kill him.  He looked around and saw destruction in every direction, destruction that went for blocks in every direction.  Columns of smoke rose into the air from multiple fires scattered through the blasted ruins, and each one was a stab in his soul.  He should have lured Bane out of the city.  He should never have fought him in Suld, shouldn’t have put the citizens of Suld in danger!  All of this was his fault.  He leaned forward and pounded his fist on the rubbery, semi-hardened lava crust, cracking it and exposing glowing liquid rock beneath.

        Blowing out his breath, he put that aside for the moment, for there were other concerns, other worries.  That, that thing, that shadow.  How had Val created something that had the power of a god?  And his own reply, it was unbievable.  He looked down at his sword, that black-bladed Eastern weapon with its chisel tip and oval crosspiece.  Who would have known that it had that kind of power?  It could turn him into a god.

        But a mortal god, not possessed of the divine knowledge of his power.  He remembered that quite clearly, that he had had no idea what to do with that power.  It had taken the shadow of Val’s use of its own power to teach him what to do, how to release it.

        He remembered it all.  It had been the sword that had reached into him and used his Druidic magic, had used his power to Summon it to him.  It was possessed of a kind of sentience, an awareness of things that had caused it to react, to bring itself to him, and then use its power to allow him to reach into the power he had once possessed as a god.  The touch of that power had changed him, transformed him into what he was when he was a god.  He had become an Avatar, an Avatar of himself, as the Goddess had told him long ago.

        The sword laid there on the cooling ground, and he feared it.  But what was more, he could feel an awful desire within him to pick it up, to use it.  Having that power inside of him, it was indescribable, and a part of him cried out to experience it again, to become whole, to reclaim what had been taken away from him.

        It was the temptation that had caused people to become obsessed with the Firestaff, a corrupting power that subverted all to its own will.

        But it was also his duty to protect that artifact, as much as the Firestaff.  He was its chosen owner, protector, and he couldn’t allow it to be used.  As much as he feared it, it was his, and it was his duty to protect it.

        With a trembling paw, Tarrin reached out and slid his fingers around the hilt of his sword.  It felt as it always had, hot from the molten rock beneath it, but not feeling like an artifact that could do what he knew it could do.  But he could sense that potential within it, that same vague sense of power he had noticed before, and could also sense the awareness inside of it.  It was a dim awareness, a dormant one, but ready to awaken and perform its task when it felt that the need was great enough.

        In that touch he understood a fundamental truth.  He could not use the sword to become a god.  It was the sword who decided when that was necessary.  He could not force it, he could not demand of it, he could not trigger it himself.

        And never had he felt such joyous relief at understanding a truth than he did at that moment.

        Using the sword to drag himself to his feet, feeling his knees wobble a little from the effort, he pulled himself up and surveyed the destruction, knowing that he was responsible for it.  They’d all been watching.  Why hadn’t they contained the destruction, like they had at Gora Umadar?  This didn’t have to happen!

        “We did,” the voice of the Goddess called aloud in her curious choral voice, as if it held such power that no single voice could contain it.  He turned and saw her step from a column of smoke, with her seven-colored hair and glowing eyes and shimmering dress made of starlight.  Her expression was sober, almost grim, but she reached her hand out to him as she always did, and he took that hand and held onto it very tightly, betraying his uncertainty and fear over what had happened.  “The same reason why we didn’t get close to you in Gora Umadar is why we didn’t get close to you here, kitten.  We didn’t want your power touching ours.  We protected the rest of Suld, because if we hadn’t, the only thing that would be standing within ten longspans of here would be the Tower.”

        Tarrin stared at her a long moment, then sighed and passed his paw over his face wearily.  “I’m sorry, Mother.  I didn’t know.”

        “You should have felt us, kitten,” she told him seriously.

        “Mother, if I did feel anything, I wouldn’t have known what it was,” he told her.  “I didn’t have any idea what I was doing.  If Val’s shadow wouldn’t have used its power against me, I wouldn’t have known how to do it myself.  I just copied what I saw it do.  The whole time, I was either totally confused or scared out of my mind.”

        She stepped up to him and put her delicate hand on his face, and he could feel the power of that touch.  He leaned his head against that touch, taking comfort in it, put his paw over her hand to keep her from taking it away.  “I know, my kitten,” she said in a gentle voice.  “You weren’t ready for what happened, and now you’re confused and out of sorts and very frightened.”

        “How did he do it?” he asked plaintively.  “Will there be any more of them?”

        She shook her head.  “No, kitten.  There will not be any others.”

        He looked right into her eyes.  “Why didn’t they stop that thing before it got so strong?” he demanded.  “I know that the gods knew about it.”

        “Kitten, it was no threat to any god so long as it lacked the power to use divine energy,” she told him.  “When it took the Firestaff from you, it gained that power, by siphoning it off the Firestaff.”

        Tarrin pulled away from her, turning and taking a few steps away, looking at the ground.  “Then everything it did was nothing but a plan to make me produce the Firestaff,” he reasoned.  “When I first took it out, Bane was shocked and worried.  I thought it was because I pulled out a weapon I could use against him that he couldn’t destroy.  Now that I think of it, though, it was because I was about to take his head off with it, and he realized that he was going to have to take it away from me.  He knew that wasn‘t going to be easy.”

        “Yes, kitten.  It’s been going around for years now, collecting up ancient magical objects, gathering up everything it needed to force you to use the Firestaff.  The armor, the circlet of magical protection it wore around its neck, the lion-faced shield, they were nothing but tools to take away your options.”

        “And I fell for it.”

        “You had no idea what it was, kitten.”

        “No, but you did,” he said in a low, accusing tone.

        There was a long silence.  “I couldn’t tell you, Tarrin,” she told him in a somber tone, using his proper name.  She rarely did that unless she was being deadly serious with him.  “I was forbidden.”

        “Why?”

        “Because they--no, we.  We wanted to see what you could do.  We wanted to see just what would happen.”

        “Well, now you know,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.  “And all it cost you was half of Suld and a few thousand mortal lives.”  He turned to look back at her, but flinched away in shock and surprise.

        There was fire between them!

        He staggered back, turning because the fire had turned as well, and saw it on the edge of his vision.  It stayed right there, right on the edge of his vision, even after he came to a stop.  He twisted his torso in a way that no human could duplicate, twisting until his shoulders were almost squarely facing in the other direction of his hips, but the fire continued to move.  What was this strange magical effect, and why couldn’t he feel it?  Was it some kind of attack, or just an after-effect of the battle with Val’s shadow, a bit of stray magic?

        “Tarrin, Tarrin, calm down!” the Goddess called urgently, quickly scurrying towards him.  “It’s not dangerous!  It’s not what you think!”

        He reached out and swatted at that fire, for he did not fear it--

        --and felt it get struck.

        That almost made him flop down on his backside.  He felt that!  He reached behind him and pinched that fire in his paw gently, and he felt the pressure.  For that matter, it didn’t feel like fire.  It was solid, and it was warm to the touch but not hot, but he could feel that touch.

        He felt another touch, on the other side, and he turned to look at the Goddess.  She stepped away from his flank, and he felt a pressure as she pulled away from him.  She had something in her hands, and when he looked at it, he could see that it was more fire.

        Fire that was attached to his back.

        The wings!   The wings were still there!  They hadn’t disappeared with the rest of the fire when the sword had closed the door between him and his godly power!

        “That’s right, kitten,” the Goddess told him quickly, soothingly, continuing to hold onto that wing of flame, pulling it out so he could see it.  “The wings didn’t disappear.  They’re a part of you now, just like your arms or legs.”

        In stunned shock, he untwisted himself and put a paw over his shoulder, reaching back behind him, and he felt it.  It was attached to his back just over his shoulder blades, right where Ariana’s and Shiika’s wings were attached to their backs.  He could feel the smooth, seamless transition between his skin and the fire, felt where they merged to become one, felt the hole burned in the back of his vest to accommodate it.  Now that he could feel them, knew that they were there, and he already had an understanding of how they worked, he unfurled them gently, slowly, giving the Goddess time to let go of one of them.  They obeyed his mental commands, opening completely to reveal a wingspan of twenty-five spans.  They weren’t distinctly shaped, vague fiery forms that looked like a cross between Ariana’s bird-like wings and Shiika’s bat-like wings.  The fire that made them up did not shimmer or flicker, like it was a frozen, solid mass that had substance, but no weight.  Creations of magic that were no less real to him, wings of solid fire that were truly a part of his body.  The individual licks of flame that constituted the fiery appendages were each different colors, and collectively they looked like feathers, or scales, giving the solid masses of fire texture, making them look like the wings they imitated.  Each wing was a vibrant array of red, orange, yellow, white, and even some blue, representing the spectrum of color a flame could contain, scattered through each wing in a random manner that made them appear vaguely like the multicolored wings of a Faerie.

        Tarrin stared at them for a long moment, and then bowed his head and folded them behind his back.  They were majestic, they were grand, and they were also an unending reminder of what had happened.  They were the physical indication to all that Tarrin was no longer who he once was, and could never be again.  They were the mark of his power, the outward manifestation of the power within, and they would never let anyone forget, not even him, that he was forever changed.

        He found no joy in them.

        “They’re afraid of me, Mother,” he said in a quiet, somber tone.  “I could see it.  I could feel it.  They think I’m just as much an abomination as that shadow of Val was.”

        “Well, kitten, you are rather, unique,” she said hesitantly.  “And the Elder Gods never expected that this was going to happen.  We thought that you might exhibit certain abilities stemming from your divine soul, but we never thought you would be able to directly touch that power and manifest it the way you did today.”

        “Then why did they let me fight Val’s shadow?”

        “To see what you could do,” she told him.  “The other Elder Gods wanted to test you, to see if you were capable of doing what they want you to do.  They allowed Val‘s abomination to exist, knowing that it would seek you out, and serve as the perfect test.”

        “What they want me to do?  I thought that I‘d never be asked of anything again after I took care of Val for them,” he said in a dangerous tone.  “What do they want, Mother?”

        “Nothing more than what you already do, my kitten,” she told him seriously.  “By your very nature, you are a defender, a guardian, a protector.  Someone we could depend on to handle problems beyond the power of most mortals.  Things that the Elder Gods don’t want to get involved in, for any number of reasons.”  She stepped up to him and extended her hand, which he took without hesitation.  “Before, we have always used Spyder for these things, kitten.  But she is only one person, and after so many years of faithful service, we felt that it was only fair to her to find someone to help her shoulder that burden.  When my mother allowed me to revive you, it was with the hope that you could be another defender like Spyder is, someone to help her.  Letting you fight Bane was a test to see if you were capable of the task.”  She closed her eyes.  “We did not expect it to get so out of control,” she admitted, then opened her eyes and regarded him gently.  “When Bane showed its true power, we were afraid.  We all honestly believed that it would never take the Firestaff from you, but we underestimated it.  Badly.  And for that, kitten, I am truly sorry.  After it used the power of the Firestaff to empower itself beyond your ability to defeat it, the gods all gathered here and debated the issue, and it turned into an argument.  One of us had to bring his icon here and face that monstrosity, which would put us at risk, and none but me was willing to do so.  Gods don’t like risk, kitten, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she admitted.  “But before Ayise decided to risk losing my power to the world, you showed your true power.  After that, it was decided to let you deal with Val’s shadow, and we bent to the task of protecting as much of Suld as we could from the effects of your battle.”

        “To do your dirty work for you,” he said in a growl.

        “To do what a god would not, but all but a handful of mortals could not,” she said quickly.  “These are the kinds of things Spyder does for us.  She is my daughter, but she serves all of us.  That is what we hoped you could also do for us, kitten, after giving you a few decades to yourself and allow you to rest.  We all thought that after so much time, you might be amenable to the idea of helping us.

        “Kitten, I won’t lie to you.  The gods do fear you.  Some of them think it was a mistake to let me bring you back, and even more now think that you must be destroyed.  They’re afraid of you because you’re nothing like what they’ve experienced before.  What you need to do, kitten is show them that they have no reason to be afraid.  I’m not afraid of you, because I understand you, and I love you.  I know you’d never do what they’re afraid you might do.”

        “What?”

        “Destroy the Balance,” she answered.  “You are still a creation of the Firestaff, kitten.  You are still outside the control of the gods.  Were it not for our closeness, the Elder Gods would have destroyed you months ago, or never permitted me to restore you in the first place.  But now that you’ve displayed the ability to use the power you lost when you destroyed yourself and Val at Gora Umadar, they worry that our relationship will not be enough to keep you from destroying the world, that I cannot control your destructive tendencies.”

        “You make it sound like they think I’m some kind of maniac,” he protested.

        “Kitten, think,” she told him very seriously.  “You do not have a record of what we could call rational behavior.  And your history of laying waste to the local geography is well documented.  What else would you have them think, given your past?”

        That brought him up short.  She had him there, that was for sure.  He wiped out the docks ward of Den Gauche, he eradicated any number of seagoing vessels on the high seas, he had created a volcano in the Desert of Swirling Sands by cracking a hole in the land, he had flattened large swaths of Dala Yar Arak, and there was a twenty-longspan wide gaping wound in the world where the pyramid of Gora Umadar had once stood.

        “That’s right.  But you can change that impression they have of you, kitten.  Win their trust, and they won’t fear you.  They’ll see you as I see you.  I trust you, my kitten.  I placed my faith in you and chose you to defend my icon when Val‘s army came to destroy it.  I could have had Spyder do it, but I did not.  I placed my fate in these hands,” she said, taking his other paw and holding both of them before him.  “And you protected me.  I am here, my magic still blesses Sennadar, because of these hands, my kitten.”

        “I love you, Mother,” he told her, closing his fingers around her delicate hands.  “That’s why I obey you.  But I don’t care about the others--except Fara‘Nae.  I don’t care if they trust me.  The only trust that matters to me is yours.  They just have to leave me alone.”

        She gave him a wan smile.  “Feral even to the gods, kitten?” she asked.

        “Especially to the gods,” he answered flatly.  “While they were busy hiding under their beds and whining about how terrible it was that Val was running loose, they left me to deal with him.  They didn’t care about me, Mother.  They only cared that someone else was going to make their nightmare go away, no matter what it cost me.”

        “That’s unbecoming, kitten,” she chided.  “The gods do care about you.  They just did what had to be done.  Even me, if you don‘t recall.  You forgave me for this,” she said, touching the fetlocks sticking out from under the Cat’s Claws meaningfully.  “Can‘t you forgive them for what they had to do as well?”

        “They care about me?  Didn’t you just say that some of them want to destroy me?” he asked pointedly.

        “Some do,” she admitted.  “Some also care about you.  I love you, as does Fara’Nae.  Karas respects you and looks out for you, for you are Sulasian, and Dallstad explodes with pride over you, for you are Ungardt, and Dallstad reveres power.  That one of his children has achieved such power is his wildest dream’s realization.  Many other gods admire you, but they would never admit it.”

        “I don’t have any problem with that, Mother,” he told her.  “I know how Fara’Nae feels, and I can respect Karas and Dallstad.  But that doesn’t sweep everything else under the rug.”

        “Don’t get difficult with me now, kitten,” she told him sternly, gripping his fingers.  “If you want to survive, you have to prove to the other Elder Gods that you’re not a threat.”

        “I’m no threat to them,” he said quietly, letting go of her hands.  “All I want is to be left alone.”

        “Kitten?  Does the offer of the Elder Gods appeal to you?” she asked hesitantly.

        He was quiet a moment, his eyes lost in thought, and then they focused on her, his face becoming an expressionless mask.  “If Spyder wants my help, she can come to me.  I’ll do what she asks out of respect for her, not out of any need to obey them,” he answered with a powerful, level voice.  “When she needs me, have her come to me.  I’ll be there for her.  After all she did for me, it‘s the least I can do.”

        “Then I think that satisfies all sides, my kitten,” she told him.  “For now.  In the meantime, please understand that you must be on your best behavior.”

        “What difference does that make, Mother?” he asked caustically, spreading his wings.  “These are all I have left from it.  I can’t touch that power like this, and I can’t even make it that I can.  The sword’s what does it, not me, and it decides when it’s time to open the door.  I’m just a mortal, Mother.  If they’re so afraid of me, just take my sword away,” he told her.  “Then I won’t be a threat to them or the Balance.  That way, everyone would be happy.”

        “You know that’s impossible, kitten,” she told him.  “It won’t allow anyone to take it from you.”

        Tarrin folded his wings back behind him absently.  “Then I guess we’re all stuck with it,” he told her.  “Them, me, everyone.  I didn’t want this, and this happening to me is their fault.  So forgive me if I’m bitter about knowing that now they’re afraid of me.  They started this, they made me like this.  Now they have to live with it, and so do I.”

        “Kitten, your emotions are talking,” she said gently, putting her hand on his shoulder.  “Go to Wikuna.  Go and rest and reflect on what has happened, and we’ll talk again when you come home.”

        “Go to Wikuna?” he balked, snapping out his wings.  “Like this?”

        “Kitten, they are part of you now,” she told him.  “Best you get used to that fact now, quickly, and accept its truth.  Don’t hate them for what they are, appreciate what they can be,” she told him.  “They are much more than what you think of them now.  In time, you’ll understand that.  In time, you’ll be amazed you ever hated the idea of having them.”  She reached to his side, behind him, and he felt her stroke the inside slope of his left wing.  “Besides, I find them to be quite beautiful.  A reflection of the beauty within, the beauty you so rarely show to the world.”

        There was very little he could say when she complemented him so, since her good opinion of him meant so much to him.  That she found them beautiful killed any sarcastic or combative reply he might have made.  He simply blinked slowly and bowed his head, a gesture more eloquent than any word of thanks could ever have been.

        “They’re looking for you, my sweet kitten,” she told him in an intimate voice, leaning her head near to his.  “Go to them and think on what I’ve said.  And keep an open mind.  Don’t let your fear and worry over what happened jade your outlook.  I think you’ll find later that this isn’t an act that curses you, but the day you have been set free.”  She stepped back, away from him, her eyes gentle and benevolent, her expression loving.  She kissed her fingertips and motioned towards him, and then her Avatar simply disappeared.

        But unlike any time before, this time he felt that disappearance.  He felt her power flow, felt her use it to return her icon back to the courtyard.  He had never sensed that before, that use of divine power.  That, he reasoned logically in the back of his mind, had to be a side effect of the wings, or that the wings were a side effect of what had happened that had allowed him to sense that.  The door between him and his lost power was not sealed off, or the wings would not be a part of him now.  It was cracked open, the narrowest of openings, but it was enough to put the wings on his back, and it was enough to open his eyes and senses to things that a mortal could not sense.

        No, it wasn’t just the wings.  He remembered seeing the eyes of Shirazi staring at him from within the sun several days ago.  That, that was the first time he had ever sensed the hidden world behind the mortal one, where the power of the gods operated.  That had been the first instance of him using the power inside of him, the first indication that Niami had indeed been right, that he had inherited some trace of power from his brief time as a god.

        He brought the wings forward, past his body, and looked at them, studied them.  They were the symbol of the change in his life, and not just the change within.  It would take time for him to get used to them, to become accustomed to their existence and get used to moving to take them into account.  He had no idea how Jesmind and the other were going to react when they saw them, but they would certainly require some changes to be made to his house and to his life with Jesmind to accommodate them.

        Nothing was going to be the same after today.

        He could hide from it, or he could meet the challenge of it head on, which was what Were-cats did best.  Meet the challenge head on, subdue it, defeat it, and prove who was the stronger.

        And Tarrin never backed down from a challenge.

        Slowly folding the wings behind him once again, he absently Summoned what was left of his beloved Ironwood staff.  What he got back was little more than a shard, a fragment, but a simple Druidic spell reached into it and encouraged the living wood to grow, to expand.  In seconds, the blackened shard that was all that was left of his trusted staff had expanded out to its original length, as the shaft of wood shaped itself to the image in Tarrin’s mind, all the way down to the scratches and slight dents that ran up and down it, minor mars in its smooth finish with which he was intimately familiar, causing the shard to become again the staff it had once been.

        That, at least, was something he could fix.

        He moved towards the Tower, seeing that some people were starting to appear, and they were all staring at him wildly.  He sent out probing fingers of Mind through the rubble, and to his surprise, he found very, very few traces of casualties.  Only about thirty.  The citizens of Suld had scrambled away from the fighting in a panic, and that panic had saved hundreds of lives.  That, or Tarrin’s dark reputation for laying waste to large areas when he fought was more well known than he first realized.  Or it was also possible that Karas and the Goddess had made sure to clear the area of people by having them flee.  After all, the gods knew it was coming, and they weren’t merciless.  Karas would have made sure to clear his children out of the path of danger.  Those dead, those he could detect in the blasted ruins, were the ones that refused to listen.  In that respect, Tarrin rather coldly felt that they got what they deserved.  One should never ignore the commands of one’s god.

        It was a walk without much feeling, but with a great deal of inner turmoil.  The idea that the gods were afraid of him didn’t bother him as much as it probably should, but the knowledge that they had done it to him on purpose ate at him in a way he couldn’t forget.  He felt used, he felt violated, he felt that they had taken terrible advantage of him.  And after things went awry, they did not come to help him, they were so afraid of putting their precious power at risk.  And then, after the sword had unlocked his power, they had the gall to think that they should destroy him.  They made him what he was, they were responsible for it all.  And after their little game blew up in their faces, instead of taking responsibility for things and trying to help him, they sent the Goddess to placate him, put it all on her shoulders, still refused to even acknowledge the part they had played in this debacle.  And now Tarrin had wings he did not want, had discovered an awful truth about himself he would have much preferred not to know…and there was nothing he could do about it.

        It was déjà vu all over again.  Once before he’d been forced to come to terms with a dramatic and overwhelming alteration to his life, to radically deal with change, to learn how to live with something that had been thrust upon him by another without any choice in the matter.  Learning to deal with his Were nature had been long, cruel, and painful, but eventually he had come to terms with it, had even come to embrace it, to love it, and chose to be Were instead of human when he had once had the opportunity to make that choice for himself.  At least he would have, had Jasana not made that decision for him.  And now he found himself again at the beginning of a long, unpleasant road.

        It was more than just the wings.  He knew that they were just a symbol of an awful reality.

        He was no longer truly a mortal.

        And yet, he was not a god.

        He was trapped between them in the most terrible manner, more than a mortal, less than a god, and so far he’d come to discover that the gods were afraid of him.  They’d be overjoyed if he just dropped dead, as Triana had so eloquently said of the Were-cats where Fae-da’Nar was concerned.  For the same reason they had feared Val, and now that fear was directly leveled on him, despite the fact that he really didn’t have the power that they thought he had.  So long as he was the way he was, he didn’t have any divine power.  It was all gone, locked away, removed from him, with the wings as the only indication of the potential of that power, or perhaps some kind of latent semi-divine ability much akin to the powers that the Goddess thought he might possess.  In a way, perhaps the wings were that ability, finally having manifested itself.

        It was as good an explanation as any, for he honestly had no idea.  This was truly uncharted territory for him, a realm of things with which he had absolutely no experience.  He was no theologian, he was no sage, he had no idea about the true workings of the gods outside of Niami and the things that she had told him about the others.  That was all.  Mortal magic was totally different from godly power, divine magic.  The only one who could really explain to him what was going on was the Goddess, and it seemed that she was going to let him work things out for himself.

        Sometimes it irritated him when she did that, but he wouldn’t dare challenge her over it.  Where Mother was concerned, there may be questioning, but never defiance.  If she wanted him to find the answers himself, then that was the way things were going to be.  He may not like it, but he would do it.

        As to the mortals…well, the looks on the faces of the Sulasians who watched him slowly pad past were not encouraging.  Not a single face did not show shock and fear, even awe, but then again, to be fair to himself, he realized that they’d just fled from a terrible calamity.  It wasn’t unheard of in Suld to see strange magical effects from time to time, and it wasn’t but three years ago that they’d fought a war right here in the city that had unleashed some spectacular magic.  But despite that tolerance for magic, he knew that it wasn’t accurate to judge how the average person was going to react just now.  When he visited Keritanima, the reactions of the people of Wikuna would be a good basis for that.

        The first one in his inner circle to reach him was Kimmie.  She bounded over a pile or rubble at an intersection which marked the boundary of where the protection of the gods had ended.  On one side of the street, there was a pile of rubble built up in the street as if it had stacked up against a solid object.  The other side of the street was more or less untouched, as were the buildings behind it.  There was only broken glass littering the streets, shattered when the force of the battle had conducted through the protection of the gods and blown out the windows of the buildings closest to the protective barrier.  She gaped at him for a moment, then sprinted up to him so fast she had to skid to a stop, all but crashing into him.  “Tarrin!” she gasped, wrapping her arms around him.  “Are you alright?  What happened?  What’s going on?” she said quickly, looking past his shoulder, right at the wings.

        He put his paws on her shoulders.  “I’m alright, Kimmie,” he told her wearily.

        “Don’t scare me like that!” she said in a trembling voice.  She jumped up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, then kissed him passionately.  He put his paws on her back and kissed her back, and almost flinched when her paws grabbed him by the wings, right near where they merged with his back.  Kimmie rarely exhibited so much emotion, having to be careful about such things around Jesmind, but her fear for him had overwhelmed her usual stoicism.  Kimmie loved him desperately, and he loved her in return, and at that particular moment, Jesmind was the last thing on both of their minds.

        “Tarrin, what happened?” she asked anxiously, squeezing the solid fire of his wings.

        “Definitely not what I intended, love,” he replied grimly.  “I’ll explain it all when we get back to the Tower.”

        “Where did these come from?” she asked, then she gasped.  “Jesmind said you had wings when--”

        “It’s a long story,” he told her as he kissed her one more time, then set her down on the ground gently.  “And not one I want to repeat any more than necessary.”

        “Alright,” she said, hugging him tightly.  “I was worried about you!”

        “I was worried about me there for a while too,” he chuckled humorlessly.  “Are the others out here?”

        “Jula and Allia are, but everyone else is waiting at the Tower.  The amulets weren’t working, so they sent us out to find you.”

        “They weren’t?” he asked, and she shook her head.  “Why didn’t Jenna or Jula try to Whisper?”

        “They did,” she said.  “They even joined the Weave and tried something, they said something about your star, but that didn’t work either.”

        “Huh,” he mused.  “I guess the barrier stopped everything, even Whispering or speaking through a star.  They must have stopped trying before the barrier was lowered.”

        “What barrier?” Kimmie asked.

        “Later,” he told her, putting a paw to his amulet and using a trick he rarely used, speaking to multiple people at once.  Everyone close to him either carried or wore a shaeram, even Azakar, just so they could be contacted.  “I’m alright,” he announced.  “Don’t try to talk back to me.  Everyone just go back to the Tower, and I’ll meet you in the first dining room off the kitchen in the east passage.”

        “Tarrin, where are you?  What happened?” Jenna’s voice immediately touched him through the Weave, as he heard her Whisper.

        He shook his head and grumbled, shifting his awareness just enough to answer.  “I told you not to answer back,” he told her.

        “You think I’m going to obey you?  You’ve got another thing coming!  What happened?”

        “I’ll explain everything when I get there.”

        “Are you alright?” she asked in sudden concern.

        “I’ll live.  You’ll understand when you see me.”

        “Love, what happened to you?” Kimmie asked as she put herself under his arm, draping it over her shoulders and holding onto his paw tightly, as they started slowly towards the Tower.  For some reason, he suddenly felt more weary than he had when he was talking to “When are those going to go away?”

        “They won‘t,” he said grimly.  “They’re permanent.”

        She gave him a startled expression, then she laughed.  “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I think they’re quite handsome.  They make you look majestic.”

        “Thanks,” he said dryly.

        “How did that happen?”

        “I told you, I’ll explain it later.”

        “I can’t wait that long, my love,” she told him quite seriously as she carefully helped him up the pile of rubble she had vaulted to get to him.  “Anything that happens to you is something I’m not going to wait around to hear.  You don’t have to go into too much detail.  Just give me the basics.  The short version will do.”

        He blew out his breath.  “You’re going to nag, I take it?”

        “Darling, I’m going to nag until there’s no tomorrow.”

        “Sometimes I really hate you females, do you know that?”

        “Hate me now, love me tomorrow,” she told him brusquely, helping him down the far side of it.  “Now talk.”

        With very little emotion, walking along streets as started, terrified residents of Suld watched them slowly go past, Tarrin curtly summarized what had happened.  He explained what Bane really was after he told her about his seizure of the Firestaff.  “All these years, I thought  Val was dead,” he said with a shudder, his wings shivering.  “And all that time, that monstrosity that everyone thought was Stragos Bane has been running around preparing to fight me.  It killed the Were-kin and a bunch of others to steal their souls, so it could feed off of them.”

        “Why Were-kin?” she asked.

        “Because all Were-kin have magic,” he answered after a moment’s thought.  “I’d bet most of the others he killed were arcane mages and Priests.  People with magical ability.”

        “That does seem logical,” she agreed after a moment.  “If it was feeding off of them, it probably sucked their magic dry, then took their souls.”

        He continued, being quite honest about what happened with the sword, and how lost he was being in command of all that power.  “I had no idea what to do, at least until I realized that the Firestaff was what was giving that thing its power.  I Summoned it to strip that thing of its ability to get its power, then it used its power against me as a last-ditch effort to kill me before I could figure out how to use my power.  When I saw how it did that, I copied it and did the same thing.  It had only limited power, but I didn’t, so I just burned up its reserves.  After that, it was defenseless, so I destroyed it.”

        “Wow,” she breathed.  “You said that your Goddess thought that you might have some kind of latent ability.  But this--”

        “It wasn’t me,” he told her.  “It was the sword.  It’s an artifact, love.  And now we all know what it does.”

        “It gives you back what you lost when you sacrificed yourself to destroy Val.”

        He nodded.  “Part of it, at least, or else I‘d have known what to do,“ he told her.  “The sword is sentient, Kimmie.  It was the one who decided to change me, not me.  It even used my own Druidic magic to Summon itself to me.”

        “That’s strange.  I never noticed anything like that from it before, and you even let me examine it.”

        “I know.  I didn’t know either.  I could tell there was some kind of dormant power in it, but I never dreamed it could do what it did.”

        “That is rather remarkable,” she said thoughtfully.  “And I take it it somehow changed you back when it was over, but--” she cut off, touching his new wing.

        “They didn’t disappear,” he affirmed.  “The Goddess came and talked to me after I came to.  She told me that they won’t go away.  They’re a part of me now.”

        “Well, it’s going to take some getting used to,” she admitted, then she chuckled.  “So, can you fly?”

        “I, I have no idea,” he answered honestly.  “I know how they worked before, when the sword changed me, but I don’t know now.  They don’t feel quite the same.  I can make them move, but I haven’t tried anything else yet.”
        “You know that Phandebrass is going to come after you,” she said with a wink.

        “In a way, I’ll be glad of it, love,” he told her.  “His endless questions might help me understand exactly how they work and what they do.  The Goddess hinted that they’re capable of things I’m not aware of.  Phandebrass might be able to help me figure that out.”

        “He just might at that,” she agreed.  “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever known.”

        “Too bad he’s so flaky.”

        “He’s not that bad!” Kimmie said quickly.  Kimmie was always very quick to defend her mentor.

        “Right, he’s not that bad,” he drawled.  “And I remember a certain time when he shrunk you down to the size of a chalice.  And then there was the time he stopped in the middle of a battle to ask a Demon questions.  And there was that Carnivorous Clock incident, and then there was that time--”

        “Alright!” she cut him off with a growl, slapping him on the back.

        “I’m feeling a little stronger, love,” he told her, taking his arm off her shoulders.

        “I didn’t put it there to support you,” she said loftily, grabbing his arm and draping it back over her shoulders.

        Tarrin pulled her close for a moment, revelling in his love for her, and the eternal relief that she seemed to have taken his shocking news rather well.

        The walk to the Tower was long and nerve-wracking, at least for Tarrin.  Everyone was staring at him, and every stare was dumbfounded.  He knew that the wings looked bizarre, exotic, but they didn’t have to stare that way.  But there was nothing he could do to hide them.  They were much too large, and since they were made of fire, they cast a rather bright light that made them impossible to miss.  He felt extremely self-conscious, and not a little out of place.  That seemed silly to him, since he was a Were-cat, and was at least head and shoulders above most humans.  He was used to them staring at him, but now it seemed unpleasant for them to be doing so.  It had to be because he hadn’t had time to get completely used to this radical change in his life quite yet.

        One thing was for sure, he realized…going to Wikuna was going to be a test of courage for him, to face the world with him being the way he was now.  That itself seemed a bit ludicrous to him, since so few things actually scared him anymore, but it was there, and he was mature enough to see it and understand it.  But  knowing it was there wasn’t going to make it any easier.

        Jula and Allia, who must have joined up before reaching him, came running up from a side street when they were about four blocks from the Tower.  Both put their hands on him and babbled at him frantically, Allia in Selani and Jula in Sulasian.  “I’m alright, I’m alright,” he told them both quickly.

        “Brother, what happened?” Allia said intensely, staring right at his wings.

        “It’s going to take a while to explain, sister,” he told her, but he looked at Jula to cut off her inevitable question.  “I’m very tired, and I just want to get back to the Tower and sit down.  So please, save the questions until then.”

        “You want back to the Tower, father, you get back to the Tower right now,” Jula said in a fierce voice, and he felt her set her will against the Weave.  With extreme speed, Jula sent out a probe of Mind weaves, and he felt them search an area within the Tower.  After that, she wove the spell of Teleportation quickly, surrounding all four of them with it.  In the blink of an eye, they went from standing in the street with the stunned citizens of Suld gawking at them to standing near the far wall of the dining room next closest to the kitchen in the east passage, where Tarrin had told them to gather.  She had probed the room with Mind weaves to ensure there was nobody inside, then Teleported them to it.

        Rather clever use of a Mind weave, given that they were close enough to make it a feasible trick to use.

        “Let’s get you to the dining room and get you comfortable,” Kimmie said immediately.  Jula wormed herself under his other shoulder, and the two Were-cat females--who were the best of friends with one another--treated him like he was incapable of walking on his own, guiding him through the door that Allia opened for them and down thirty spans to the next door, the last one before the kitchen.  One of the cooks happened to glance down the hallway and spot them, and the tall, thin man dropped his ladle in shock and stared like a rabbit staring down the maw of a wolf.  He stared until Allia jerked open the door of the dining room, one of the larger ones, and the two females half-carried him inside.

        Within the dining room was one of the large tables, which had twelve chairs surrounding it, and six of them were occupied.  Jenna sat in the chair closest to the door, and beside her was Dolanna.  Phandebrass and Allyn were seated further down, and Camara Tal and Koran Tal were also present, Camara Tal holding a black-haired baby in her arms.  Those were just the ones seated.  Jesmind was pacing back and forth impatiently, her back to them when Allia opened the door, and all three of his daughters were gathered in the back of the dining room, playing with Fireflash, Chopstick, and Turnkey.  Sarraya was with them, hovering over Jasana’s head.  Dar and Tiella weren’t there, nor were his parents, nor was Azakar.

        “Tarrin!” Jenna shouted in fear and relief when Jula and Kimmie helped him through the door.  “Goddess, what in the world happened to you!” she gasped when she saw the wings.

        “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he answered as Jesmind raced over and bulled the other two females out of her way, hugging him fiercely, her paws pushing up against the base of the wings before she realized it, then she flinched them away.  Tarrin looked at the others, and saw the surprise on their faces.  He wondered what expressions would replace them when they found out the truth.

        “Papa, you have wings!” Rina exclaimed as his three daughters gathered around him, hugging his legs, clamoring for his attention.  “Can I have wings too?”

        Tarrin gave the little girl a start, then he laughed helplessly.  “Cub, if I could, I’d give you mine,” he told her as Jesmind released him enough to guide him to a chair, and he finally and quite contentedly sat down.  The bottoms of each wing were bent against the floor, something he recalled seeing happen to Shiika every time she was sitting at his parents’ table.

        “Tarrin, just what are those?” Camara Tal asked, pointing at his wings.

        “A mistake,” he said in a grim tone.  “A very, very bad mistake.  And it’s a mistake that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

        “Well, I think they look proper,” Sarraya announced imperiously.

        “I’ve seen these before, father,” Jasana said quite seriously, reaching out and touching one of his wings without fear.  “When you fought Val.”

        Tarrin sighed and pulled off the Cat’s Claws, tossing them unceremoniously onto the table.  “I know,”
 he told her.

        “I say, you’ve got to tell us what happened, lad!” Phandebrass said urgently.

        “In a little bit,” he answered.  “Where are our parents, Jenna?  And Dar, Tiella and Azakar?  I don’t want to explain this more than once.”

        “Dar and Tiella are on their way,” Jenna told him.  “Mother and father should still be in the kitchen.  Didn’t you see them when you came in?  You had to come through the kitchen to get here.”

        He shook his head as Jula spoke up.  “I Teleported us here,” she informed her, “into the dining room beside this one.  We came from the other way.”

        “Oh,” Jenna fretted.

        “Cub, go get your grandparents,” Jesmind ordered Jasana in a voice that would brook no disobedience.  She nodded without argument and ran out the open door.

        “What about Zak?”
        “He’s in Wikuna,” she answered.  “The sashka requested him and three other of our best Knights to take part in Kerri’s personal guard, some kind of ceremonial honor guard.  I Teleported them and four Arakite Legionaires from the garrison Shiika still has in Suld to Kerri’s palace last night.  Darvon and General Kang from the Legions were summoned as well.  They went over two days ago.”            

        “Sounds like the sashka has some kind of big event planned,” Tarrin mused.

        “Vendari are paranoid sometimes,” Jenna snorted.  “I think he’s just putting Kerri, Rallix, and the baby behind a wall of living steel and muscle.”

        “Dallstad’s axe!” he heard Elke Kael exclaim as she rushed through the door.  In seconds, he was swarmed by his parents, as Elke put her hands all over him and Eron put his hand on Tarrin’s shoulder, asking him if he was alright.  “I’m fine, I’m alright,” he assured them.  “As soon as Dar and Tiella get here, I’ll explain what happened.”

        “What are these things, son?” Eron asked.

        “They’re wings, Grandfather,” Jasana replied in a surprisingly steady voice.  “This is almost what father looked like when he used the Firestaff to be a god, so he could fight Val.”

        “Well, that sums up what happened rather well,” Kimmie grunted tonelessly.

        “What?” Jenna said quickly.

        “We wait for--”

        “Mikaras’ endless hoard!” he heard Dar gasp in Arakite from the door as he came in, then he rushed up from behind Tarrin and looked at him.  “Tarrin!  What happened!?”

        “I’m getting a little tired of people asking that,” he growled, giving Tiella a warning stare as she entered.

        She laughed nervously.  “I was going to ask too, but admit it, friend, you don’t see something like that every day,” she said, pointing at his wings.

        “Close the door, Tiella,” Jenna ordered.  “We’re all here, so now Tarrin can explain what in the nine Hells happened.”

        They all sat down around the table--Sarraya and the drakes on the table--with cubs in the laps of the Were-cat females, and after weaving a Ward to prevent eavesdropping, Tarrin finally started.  He left very little out, explaining how Bane’s hatred had attracted him to him, and then about the battle between him and a human-seeming Bane had ensued.  He described his shock at not killing Bane with the cannonball, and then how Bane had used the lion-face shield to give his sword an acidic bite.  He explained in greater detail how Bane had a magical device to counter every advantage Tarrin usually enjoyed after Jesmind asked him why he didn‘t just melt Bane with magic.  “You should send someone out to find those objects, Jenna,” he told her.  “I touched the armor, so I can Summon it, all of it if I specifically Summon it as a complete set.  The gauntlets too, since I grabbed Bane‘s hand.  But you need someone to go out and get the sword, shield, and a circlet that Mother said Bane was wearing.  You do not want those objects falling into unfriendly hands, especially that circlet.  It can stop Sorcery.  Goddess, it can stop any magic.”

        She nodded, and Tarrin felt her bridge up just enough to Whisper commands to Ianelle.

        After that, he described in detail how Bane had maneuvered him into producing the Firestaff, how he had taken away all of his other options, and how he had made a grab for the artifact when he had a chance to do so without getting killed.  “The instant he touched it, there was nothing more I could do.  He drew power off the Firestaff, and it let him get strong enough to shake me off.”  Then he described how the shadow of Val cast off the mortal disguise it had been using and assumed a divine Avatar form.

        “It was an Avatar?” Jenna gasped.

        Tarrin shook his head.  “Not quite,” he replied.  “Mother told me that it was a creation of Val, a kind of shadow of himself that he left behind after he was destroyed.  It was so weak it had to hide inside a mortal shell, at least until it got its hands on the Firestaff,” he said sourly.  “But once it did get its hands on the Firestaff, it used it to power its godly powers.”

        “I say, that’s not supposed to be possible,” Phandebrass said in quiet introspection.  “The shadow shouldn’t be able to exist without the god who created it alive to power it, it shouldn’t.”

        “That’s how Val got around it, Phandebrass,” Tarrin told him.  “The shadow was like a magical object.  Val created it with certain abilities, some of them godly, but he didn’t put his own power into it.  He created it in such a way that it could use divine power, like an Avatar, but he only gave it just enough of his own energy to give a chance to get some other power before Val was destroyed.“

        “How could it have done that?“ Kimmie asked.  “There was just you and Val.“

        Tarrin shook his head.  “He didn’t have to put it right there with us,“ he told her.  “Odds are, he dropped it in the middle of the Goblinoids, or among his own Wizards, where it could immediately kill a few of them and take their power and souls to make itself self-sufficient.  Once it took enough power to survive, it didn’t need Val’s power to continue to exist.  Val created it, but after the last of his power faded from it, it had managed to get just enough energy to survive.  After what happened at Gora Umadar, it drained power from magicians and fed on souls to survive.  It had to find the power to survive from other places.  That’s also why it needed the Firestaff.  It was the only thing on Sennadar that could give it enough power to use the godly abilities Val gave it.  Everything it’s done since Gora Umadar has been part of a plan to force me to produce the Firestaff, so it could try to take it from me.  And it succeeded,” he admitted with a pained, guilty flush.

        Phandebrass was quiet a moment.  “I say, that was damned clever.”

        “Val was many things, but he was not stupid,” Tarrin said in grudging respect.

        With a sigh, Tarrin then described his flight from it, then his anger and his brief attempt to battle the shadow.  He was brutally honest about how stupid that act was.  Then he described how the shadow had him cornered, and how the sword had reached into his power and used it to Summon itself to the battlefield.

        And then, with a quavering voice, he explained what the sword did, specifically emphasizing that the sword had a kind of sentience about it, and that the decision to change him came from the sword, not from him.  “It turned me into something very close to a god,” he told them with a shiver.  “I could feel the power inside of me, the power of a god, but it didn’t change my mind.  I had no idea how to use that power.  It scared the life out of me, to be totally honest,” he admitted.  “But to let me use that power, it had to change me into what I was when I fought Val the first time.”

        “Oh, with the wings and the burning fur and hair and being all huge!” Jasana said in excitement, recalling his appearance from when he used the Firestaff.

        “Everything but the being big,” he agreed with a nod.  “Like I said, it didn’t completely change me.  If it had, I’d have had the mind of a god, able to use the power.”  He continued with the tale, describing how he had fallen back on fighting with his sword because he had no idea what else to do, how Val had realized that though Tarrin had the power of a god at his command, he either didn’t know how to use it or wasn‘t capable of it, and then Val’s taunt that made him realize that the Firestaff was at the center of the entire battle.  “I realized all I had to do was take the Firestaff away from him,” he said with a self-deprecating grunt.  “If I’d have been thinking, I would have done that before I tried to take it on with Sorcery.”

        “You Summoned it, didn’t you?” Sarraya asked.

        He nodded.  “After I got it, the shadow lost its endless power, it only had what it had stored up.  It panicked and tried to blast me with that power, and when I felt it do that, I copied what it did and blasted it right back.  That’s what knocked down so many buildings,” he said guiltily.  “We got into a battle of power.  But it couldn‘t replenish its power, and I could.  So, I just made it burn up all its stored energy, and then once it was defenseless, I killed it.”

        “Then what?” Dolanna asked intently.

        “The sword must have realized that there wasn’t any more need for it, so it closed the door between me and my power, and I changed back.  Except for these,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.  “For some reason, these stayed.  After it was over, I was exhausted and passed out.  When I came to, the Goddess came and talked to me.”  His expression turned dark.  “It turns out that the Elder Gods let that abomination run around free just so it would fight me.  They wanted to test me, she said, see if I was strong enough to be another guardian like Spyder is, and they wanted to see if I really did have any kind of abilities stemming from my condition.  But it got out of hand,“ he growled.  “When the shadow took the Firestaff from me and took on that shadow form, they knew I couldn’t fight it, but they still wouldn’t help.  Mother told me that they were all arguing about who was going to go down there and destroy the shadow.  Not help me, destroy the shadow.  When Mother told them she would go, they wouldn’t let her, because they didn‘t want to put her at risk.  They set all that up, let Val’s shadow live, then let it fight with me, and when it got too powerful for me to destroy, they hung me out on the clothesline by my tail and left me to die,” he said with a savage hiss.  “They didn’t care about me, they didn’t even think twice about it.  They abandoned me.  And after the sword changed me, they got frightened of me.  I could feel it when they were looking at me,” he said in a grim tone.  “They think I’m as much an abomination as Val’s shadow was.  I’m not supposed to exist, and I’m certainly not supposed to have this power.  Me just being here makes them nervous.”

        They were all silent for a very long moment, until Jesmind put her paw on his shoulder.  “Tarrin, what about these?” she asked, pointing to the wings.

        “They’re a part of me now, Jesmind,” he said grimly.  “Just as much as my arms and legs.”

        “They won’t disappear?” she asked in surprise.

        “No, they won’t,” he said, bowing his head.  “They’ll always be there to remind me of what the sword did to me, and remind me of the cruel game the Elder Gods played with my life.”

        “My dear one, this is the same attitude which cost you so dearly before,” Dolanna said gently.  “Do not think of the wings as merely a new set of manacles, else that is what they will become.  These are a gift, my dear one, a wondrous gift given to you by the sword.  Not by the Elder Gods, not by fate, not by evil design, but by your sword.  It had no part in the unfeeling actions of the gods, and to taint its gift to you with your anger towards them is not proper.  Do not dishonor them so.”

        Tarrin bowed his head, stung by Dolanna’s remark.  She was right, of course.  But knowing she was right and being able to do what she said he should do were two very different things.

        “If you think about it a moment, dear one, perhaps you would understand why it gave them to you,” she continued with a slight smile gracing her handsome face.

        He looked at her.  “What?  Why?”

        “Because, dear one, you love to fly.  We all know how much you enjoy it, and yet you do not indulge in it, because it would be a frivolous use of your power.  I know your mind, dear one.  You have never been one to exercise your power without good reason, and self-interest is not one of those.  You also cannot justify using your power for your own pleasure when you forbid Jasana from doing the same.  The sword simply gave you the ability to do what you so love to do with no excuses to not do it.”

        “I say, she has a point,” Phandebrass agreed.  “You do love to fly, lad, you do.  Perhaps the sword, I say, maybe it simply gave you the wings to make you happy.”

        Niami’s words instantly came back to him.  They are much more than what you think of them now.  In time, you’ll understand that.  In time, you’ll be amazed you ever hated the idea of having them.  It was possible, he reasoned.  Maybe the sword, being linked to him in the way it was, knew he loved to fly, and decided to give him the ability to do it, to reward him in some manner.

        In any event, Dolanna was right.  He shouldn’t hate the wings because of what happened.  They were an effect of events, not a symbol of them.  To fixate his blame on them would be counterproductive, and could also inhibit his ability to understand them and the power that they represented.

        He should keep all his anger squarely on the heads of the Elder Gods.

        “Well, the big question is now what?” Jenna proposed.

        “We go to Wikuna,” Tarrin said quietly.  “Mother ordered me to go.  I won’t disobey her, no matter how much I just want to go home.”

        “I say, my boy, you and me should have a very long talk,” Phandebrass said immediately.

        He nodded.  “I’m going to need your help trying to understand what happened to me, Phandebrass.  Yours too, Camara,” he said, looking at her.

        “Why mine?”

        “Because you’re a Priest,” he answered.  “Divine magic is most closely related to Priest magic, since you’re doing nothing but using divine magic in the first place.  Your experience in the subject is going to matter.”  He wavered his paw before him.  “If Neme allows you to help, that is.”

        “Neme loves all of you,” she announced flatly.  “She’d skin me if I didn’t help you.”

        “Well, that’s five,” Tarrin grunted sourly.

        “Five what?” Elke asked.

        “Five gods that don’t want to destroy me,” he answered.  “Mother told me that Fara’Nae, Karas, and Dallstad support me, argued on my behalf.  I guess if Camara’s right, Neme does too.”

        Fireflash finished eating from a plate that Sarraya had Conjured for the drakes to keep them out of trouble, and bounded over to Tarrin fearlessly.  He jumped up and used his wings to vault up onto his shoulder, then nuzzled his neck.  Tarrin chuckled and patted the little drake on the top of his head.  “I’m glad you’re not scared of me, little friend,” he said with sincere relief.

        “Posh,” Sarraya sniffed.  “Do you think those wings makes you something other than Tarrin?  Does a man that loses an arm become something other than himself?  I say the wings are an improvement, but they don‘t change who you are.”  Tarrin gave Sarraya a quick look of surprise.  That was quite a bit of wisdom coming out of his flightly, impulsive friend’s mouth.  Sometimes it was easy to forget that beneath her erratic behavior, Sarraya was actually quite smart.

        “I think your opinion is jaded,” Dolanna told her with a smile.

        “Of course it is,” she said with a wink at Dolanna, fanning her chitinous, dragonfly-like wings ostensibly.

        “Well, if we’re going to Wikuna, we’ll have to wait until Ianelle finds those objects,” she announced.  “I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure theyre in the Tower.  I don’t think Kerri’s ready for us anyway.  Do you want to lay down a while, Tarrin?” she asked in in concern.  “I’ll have an apartment made up for you.”

        “No, I’ll be alright,” he assured her.  “It’s nothing my regeneration can’t fix.  I just need some time, that’s all.”

        “I say, I can’t wait to get started!” Phandebrass said eagerly.  “Do you want to start now, or rest a while?”

        “As long as we just talk, I don’t mind,” he answered.  “That won’t tire me out.  But no experiments!” he warned in a stern voice.

        “I say, how can I experiment if I have no background information?” he replied.  “Let me go get an empty journal.  We must write this down, we must, to save it for posterity!”  He jumped up and raced towards the door, his gray robe flapping behind him and nearly losing his ridiculous pointed hat.

        “You might want to take the cubs somewhere, Jesmind,” Kimmie told her after Phadnebrass managed to finally get out the door, after three attempts to open it in his exuberant haste to retrieve his journal.  “This might get boring for them.”

        Jesmind and Elke looked worriedly to Camara Tal, who put up a free hand.  “I’ll keep it from getting out of control,” she promised.

        “I’m staying,” Jasana announced adamantly.  “I’m not leaving you, father.”

        Rina hopped down from Jula’s lap and ambled over, then climbed up into Tarrin’s.  “I won’t get bored, I promise,” she told him with an adorable smile.

        “I think they’ll be alright,” Jesmind said.  “You should eat something, my mate.  It’ll help you recover faster.”

        “I’m not hungry,” he told her.

        “That doesn’t matter,” she told him imperiously.  “You’re eating.  I’ll be right back.”  She set Jasana on the floor and got up, then stalked out of the room in a manner that told Tarrin she was preparing to do battle with him when she returned.

        “I think you’d better just shut up and eat, Tarrin,” Kimmie said with a wink.

        “It looks that way,” Tarrin said with light amusement.  He almost flinched when Jasana boldly reached out and put her paws on his wing.

        “It’s warm,” she reported.  “But not hot.  And it’s solid.  It’s real soft,” she said, putting her face against his wing and nuzzling it.  She flinched when Tarrin pushed back, then giggled and tried to envelop the large wing in an embrace.

        “Oooh, let me!” Rina said, squirming down from his lap and joining Jasana in this new game.  Tara joined them, and Tarrin leaned his elbows against the table and allowed them to explore this new, mysterious alteration to their father.  Their utter fear of his wings, and all they represented, gave Tarrin a strange lift of spirit.  They seemed to accept this change in him, and looking around the table, at his parents, at Kimmie, at Dar and Dolanna and Jenna and Tiella and Camara and Koran Tal and Jula.

        That was the first of the major hurdles to him.  None of them seemed repulsed or put off because of this change in him, and that made him much more secure.  They all watched the three children explore his wings, touching them, feeling them, smelling them, even tasting them--something that made Tiella cough when she saw Jasana put her tongue on his wing--until Tara jumped up and climbed up onto the joint of his right one.  Her weight wasn’t enough to so much as even register to the magical appendage, and though her claws could find purchase against the living fire, they could not puncture it, nor did the feel of those claws in the texture of his wing bring any pain.  “Now I’m as tall as Papa!” she proclaimed when she threw her arms over the edge and pulled herself up, looking down at them.

        Phandebrass came barreling back into the room with two heavy books under one arm and an inkpot in the other hand.  “I’m back!  I say, Tara, that’s rather clever, it is.  Does that hurt, Tarrin?  Let me see!  Did her claws injure you?  Does her weight strain your wing?  I really must get a piece of one of them, I must.  Would it hurt if I snipped off a bit at the tip?”

        “No experimenting!” just about all of them shouted at him in unison, which made Phandebrass start, and then laugh.

        Jesmind returned with a platter of ham, one of his favorites, and put it in front of him without a word.  Then she sat down and stared at him with a commanding gaze until he began to eat the ham.  They then passed most of the morning as Phandebrass examined his wings through both physical study and asking him questions, questions Tarrin did his best to answer.  The Wizard’s questions were wide-ranging and quite insightful, asking him about how they worked--at least what he understood--how they moved, if he had sensation in them, if they were material objects and not just magical, and other questions which were the same ones just rephrased.  Then he produce a measuring cord, with knots in it to denote units of measure, and measured both wings exhaustively, from every conceivable angle, as Kimmie drew a detailed illustration of them in one of the two journals he brought with him.  Fireflash had not liked this, for the addled Wizard had shooed him off Tarrin’s shoulder to perform the measurements.  His attempt to measure wingspan was amusing, given that Tarrin’s wingspan was more than four times longer than his measuring cord.

        “I say, they don’t look that big when they’re folded up,” he said with a fret, standing behind the seated Were-cat.  Tarrin turned his head and saw the mage scrutinizing his wing carefully.  “I say, there’s no joint.”

        “I know there’s not,” he answered.

        “If there’s no joint, then why do they move the way they do?” he mused, mainly to himself.

        “They’re not made out flesh, ninny,” Camara Tal told him acidly.  “But since they shaped like wings, isn’t it logical that they move like them?”

        “Magic is not a logical force, my dear,” he said, quite seriously.  “They’re warm now, safe to the touch.  Can you make them hot, lad?  I say, can you control the heat of them?”

        “I, I think I can,” he said after a moment.  “Off, cub,” he ordered of Tara, who slid down the slope of the back of the wing.  All three cubs cleared away as Tarrin stood up and took a step back, away from the table, then thoughtfully brought the chair around him with his tail and pushed it in.  He opened his mind to the wings, feeling them, sensing the strange magic that constituted them, a magic that caused them to be solid objects and an integral part of his body.  He concentrated on the fire, the solid fire that made them up, and tried to will it to become hotter, tried to get in touch with them with, tried to actively control the magic that caused them to be.

        What he touched made his eyes snap open in shock, as he came into communion with a powerful energy that lurked just beneath the surface of his soul, the source of the power that caused the wings to be, and felt it react to his attempt to touch it by granting him power.  He staggered back and raised both of his paws as he felt the power concentrate around them, and to his shock, fire erupted into being around both of them!

        “Tarrin!” Jesmind said in a strangled tone as Dolanna quickly jumped up and set her will against the Weave, weaving a spell of Fire and Divine, a ward that blocked heat and fire, and surrounded Tarrin’s body with it, setting it so it would move with him, always staying one span away from him at all times.  The fire intensified around his paws, flattening out against the Ward, and his wings blazed with bright light, as the fire which made them burned brighter, burned hotter, radiating out an intense heat that would have set fire to the wall behind him, had Dolanna’s Ward not entrapped the heat around him.

        It was the shock of it that caused it to get out of control.  Quickly, effortlessly, Tarrin searched through this lurking power and understood that it wanted to obey him.  It was unlike any magical force he had ever worked with before, for the magic of every order of magic on Sennadar resisted the magician in some way.  But not this power.  It sensed his surprise and his desire to stop the fire, and the fire simply stopped.  The blazing light emanating from his wings returned to the glow they had before, and they stopped radiating that killing heat.  That touch told him much about this force.  It was a part of him, but more than that, it was a willing part of him, obedient, waiting only to be touched and used.  And it was subservient to him, only seeking to do that which it sensed would please him, only that which he wanted it to do.  His surprise had caused the power to react erratically, to be unsure of what Tarrin wanted it to do.  But it was so zealous to serve, it had manifested itself in the way that it had, as if it felt that that was what Tarrin wanted of it.

        It had to be the most unusual, and somewhat pleasant, surprise of all of this.  This strange hidden power, a power dealing with fire and heat, a power he sensed had been there all along, utterly obeyed him.  It did not fight, it did not twist his intent, it did not seek to subvert his will.  It only served.  In that touch on his power he came to understand this, but he also came to understand that though the power would obey him, it would not teach him how it was used.  He would have to learn what it could do, learn how it worked, and unlock its secrets on his own.  Through practice and trial and error if nothing else.

        “Tarrin, are you alright?” Camara Tal asked quickly, half-rising from her seat with Shaul still in her arms.

        “Stop!” Tarrin barked harshly as he raised his arm and presented the palm of his paw at Jesmind, who was about two steps from the Ward.  He had stopped the fire, but the heat was trapped inside of it with him, and it was deadly.  Jesmind froze in her tracks, which caused her to look down, where she saw the stone beneath and around his feet blackening as she watched.  “Dolanna--”

        “I will bleed off the heat,” she answered quickly, and he felt her weave a spell to do just that, which extinguished fires and sucked all the heat out of an area.  It was a spell Sorcerers used to kill fires and freeze water into ice.  The temperature around his body quickly dropped to the same as the room’s air, and Dolanna lowered the Ward.

        “That was fast thinking there, Dolanna,” Sarraya said, wiping her brow in relief.

        “I was prepared for just such an emergency,” she told those in the room.

        “I’m glad one of us was,” Jenna said ruefully.  “I never thought to be ready for that.”

        “I say, that was exciting,” Phandebrass said in an unflappable manner.  “I see that you can indeed control the fire, you can.  I must make a note of that,” he said, writing quickly in his journal.

        “It also just told us there’s more involved here than the wings,” Kimmie said clinically, staring at him.  “That fire that came up around your paws wasn’t your wings, was it, Tarrin?” she asked.

        He shook his head.  “It was caused by the same power that created the wings,” he answered, putting a paw to his stomach.  “Something inside of me.  I think it’s the ability the Goddess said I might have when she brought me back, because I get the feeling that it’s not the same power the sword gave to me when it changed me.  I think this was always here.  I don‘t think the sword had anything to do with it, it‘s just that when the sword changed me, it made this manifest itself.”

        “The same yet separate?” Camara Tal asked.  “Is that possible?”

        Phandebrass nodded.  “Different aspects of the same power,” he answered her.  “I say, Sorcerers display similar characteristics.  There are Sorcerers, then there are Weavespinners, there are,” he said, holding out each hand.  “Both are different abilities, but they draw from the same source of magic, they do.  Different ways of using the same power.”  He clasped his hands together to illustrate his point.  “I think this is a manifestation of Tarrin’s ability to tap into his divine soul in a mortal form,” he surmised.  “But when the sword changed him, it gave him a new way to use the same power, and a much more effective way at that, I might add.”

        “That does make a weird kind of sense,” Jula agreed.

        “Sorcerers aren’t the only ones, they aren’t,” he added absently.  “Wizards have splinter groups, like the Necromancers.  Karas gives magic to the Priests, but it was said that during the Age of Power, the Knights of Karas also had magical abilities granted them by their god.  I say, they weren’t the only ones.  Every god had Knights of their order, holy warriors imbued with magic granted by the god they served.  But the Knights of Karas are the only organized order left I know of, they are.”

        Jenna was about to say something, but she stopped when Tarrin sensed Ianelle’s voice drift to her on the Weave.  “Ianelle has the objects,” she reported to them.  “They had to shoo off some adventurous children before they accidentally got themselves killed.  “She says they’re all there, so don’t worry about Summoning the armor and gauntlets, brother.”

        “Good timing,” Dar chuckled.

        “She’ll be along as soon as she delivers them to the Lorefinders.  I’m going to let them study them for a while.  I guess when she gets here, we can go.”

        “She’s going?” Elke asked.

        Jenna shook her head.  “She just wants to see me off, mother,” she answered.  “This place would go to chaos if me or Ianelle weren’t here to keep things together.”

        “Is Haley coming this time?” Sarraya asked curiously.

        “He didn’t ask to,” Jenna answered.  “He’s been busy with his festhall.”

        “Too bad.  I like him.  He’s a lot more fun than some of you other stuffed shirts,” she said with a grin at Tarrin.

        “Well, why don’t you go down to his festhall then, bug?” Camara Tal asked caustically.  “We certainly won’t miss you.”

        “I’m just crushed, Camara,” Sarraya said with an outrageous smile.

        “At least Auli’s still in Sharadar,” Dar said with relief.  “Not that I don’t love her like a sister, but she always causes so much trouble.  I think Kerri would kill her.”

        “If she didn’t, one of the Vendari certainly would,” Tarrin said bluntly.  “There is no way we’re taking Auli to Wikuna.  With so many Vendari around, one of them would definitely kill her before we came home.”  There was also the unspoken reason which everyone understood, and that was the need to keep Auli and Sarraya safely separated.

        “Well, it would be one way to solve the Auli problem,” Kimmie said with a light chuckle.

        “You get to clean up the mess,” Tarrin told her, which made her laugh and put up her paws to decline his offer.

        “Well, I guess we should pack things up and get ready to go,” Phandebrass announced, closing the cover of his journal.  “I say, Tarrin, we’ll explore this power inside you when we take up again, we will.  I certainly must see you create that fire again, and we must explore the limits of that ability, we must.”

        “Not without me there to keep you from getting cooked, Phandebrass,” Jula told him.

        “Amen,” Camara Tal said fervently.

        Tarrin folded up the wings, and Jenna told them all that they may as well simply leave from where they were.  She excused herself to go track down Ianelle, but Tarrin didn’t sit back down.  He was lost in thought, pondering the way it had felt when he had touched that power within him.  It was odd to think that it was the power of a god, it was his power, which had been hidden from him all this time.  It was nothing more than a pale shadow of what he must have wielded as a god, but that pale shadow was formidable when compared to the power of mortal magic.  When the sword changed him, it allowed him to reach directly into that power, a power greater than the might of any mortal, yet still not quite as powerful as the power the gods possessed.

        But the key of it was that though he was much weaker than, say, a Younger God, all of his power was focused in the mortal world, where gods could only bring a portion of their power into the mortal world when they used Avatars.  Though weaker than them, that significant difference would conceivably give him the might to challenge them in the material world, even destroy their icons.  That was what the gods were afraid of.  They were afraid that he would destroy their icons, rob the mortal world of their power, and create chaos in his wake.  He realized grimly that he could do it.  He was nowhere near as powerful as an Elder God, but they could only focus so much power in the mortal world, which made him the equal of an Elder God’s icon-manifested Avatar, the most powerful form of Avatar any god could employ.  That was the Avatar that the Goddess used whenever she visited him, for some reason, despite the fact that he knew full well she could visit him using other methods.  She simply seemed to prefer it.  She could easily use the spirit-form he had seen her use after he had destroyed Val’s shadow.  That was a form of Avatar.

        It was a stupid fear.  He obeyed Niami utterly, and besides, he was a Were-cat and a Druid.  Preserving nature was not only a trained habit, but an instinctual need.  He was a creature of nature, and he both revered it and loved it, and when the need arose, he would protect it.  That was his responsibility as a Druid.

        What worried him more was Jesmind.  He glanced at her, saw the look of utter concern on her face, and he realized that she was not taking this as well as she was letting on.  He wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking yet, or how she was going to act once they got alone, but either way he knew he needed to talk to her privately, and as quickly as possible.  It wouldn’t make much sense to do it now, though.  After they got to Wikuna and he managed to disengage himself from Keritanima, he and her would have a long talk.  A very long talk.  He needed to get her to get all her worries out in the open, and then he needed to assure her that, aside from alterations in the way he did some things, the wings weren’t going to be that much of a problem.

        He noticed Dar looking at him strangely.  “What?” he asked.

        “I was just noticing something, that’s all,” he answered.

        “What?” he repeated.

        “Those wings make you look quite majestic,” he answered.

        He recalled that Kimmie said the same thing, and obviously so did she, for she was laughing and gesturing towards Dar.  “I thought the same thing,” she told him.

        “Hmph,” he snorted, crossing his arms.

        “There is one thing missing here,” Jula noted, finger tapping her cheek.  “Triana.”

        “I say, you’re right,” Phandebrass agreed.  “She always seems to know what’s going on.  Why isn’t she here?”

        “She might be traveling,” Tarrin told them.  “When she’s traveling the way she does, she can’t sense anything going on.  She’ll certainly notice it when she arrives at her destination,” he chuckled humorlessly.

        “That or she’s on the way here,” Sarraya added.  “Sometimes she doesn’t announce she’s coming.  She just comes, like it’s too much a waste of her time to let us know she’s on the way.”

        “Try being her daughter,” Jesmind growled.  “Then let’s talk about her unannounced visits.”

        Jenna returned alone, closing the door behind her.  “Ianelle has the objects put away safely,” she announced.  “She wanted to come see you, but I didn’t think you were ready to explain things again,” she finished with a sly smile.

        “No,” he agreed.  “I’ll have to go through all this again with Kerri and Zak.  I’d rather not have to do it twice more.”

        “Well, I do think you should clean up before we go, dear one,” Dolanna urged.  “Your clothes are a disaster, and you have dirt and blood all over you.”

        Tarrin looked down, and he realized that he was indeed that dirty.  But with all the chaos that had happened after he woke up and the enormity of the the situation, with the wings on his back, had utterly consumed all his attention.  That of all his friends as well, for not one of them had mentioned his rather bedraggled condition.

        “I do look a little unkempt,” he agreed mildly.

        “You look like you were drug behind a horse,” Camara Tal told him bluntly.

        Tarrin twisted around, looking at himself.  His breeches and vest were shredded here and there, and he was smeared with dirt and blood.  “I, uh,” he began, reaching behind him.  “I can’t take off the vest,” he realized with a rueful, dry chuckle.  “The wings burned through the back of it.”

        “Well, just fix it, Tarrin,” Sarraya told him airily.  “Clean up and we’ll go.  If you keep delaying us like this, Kerri’s brat’s going to be on the throne before we get there.”

        “You do the mending, Sarraya,” he told her.  “I can’t really see what I’m doing, I may botch it.  I’ll do the cleaning.”

        “Yes, your magnificent eminence,” she said outrageously, giving him a little curtsy before flitting up into the air.  Cleaning off the dirt and the blood was as simple as using a weave of Air and Water, which scoured him from head to foot and stripped away all the dirt, sweat, mud, dust, and dried blood that covered him.  The spell gathered the mess up into a compact little ball, on which he then used Sorcery to Transmute the blood into pure water.  Once the danger of the blood was neutralized, he used Druidic magic to banish the debris to the compost heap that sat behind the barn on his parents’ farm.  While he was doing that, Sarraya was flying in erratic circles around him, using her Druidic magic to mend the rips in his clothes, and make the material expand to literally grow over the areas which had been torn away.

        After she was done, Sarraya flew a slow circle around him, then flitted up and landed on his shoulder, seating herself sedately and comfortably there, as she had done so many times before.  It was something that Tarrin barely registered, even after so much time since that had been her favorite seat.  “It’ll do,” she announced after the inspection.  Fireflash bounded up off the table and took up his place on Tarrin’s other shoulder.

        “Well, I guess we’re all ready, then,” Jenna announced.  “Let’s gather in, and I’ll take us to see Kerri.”

        As they all got up and gathered around Jenna in the open area between the table and the door, Tarrin felt a strange reservation rise up in him.  The others seemed to have accepted this drastic alteration in him, though Jesmind seemed very concerned about it all, but they were his friends, his family.  It was the reaction of the strangers in Wikuna that would tell the tale of how well he would be received with this dramatic change in him.  He already knew how the gods felt about him, and now it was time to see how the mortals would react to him.  Would they fear him as the gods did?  Would they receive him, accept him despite the obvious and drastic change in him, or would they reject him?

        He could feel them now, feel every square finger of them.  The fire that made up his wings was truly alive, was truly a part of his body, was truly a part of him.  He could sense it, feel it, knew that it was just like any other part of him.  The wings could move, and they could feel, and they were irrevocably bound to him, body and soul.  They were the mark of the terrible thing that had happened to him, a symbol of the drastic change within him, and an unending memory of the cruel fate to which the Elder gods had abandoned him.  There was still a great deal of anger in him towards them, for after all he had done for them, that they would turn their backs on him and leave him to die.  They were too wrapped up in their own cowardice, so effete and arogant that they felt that his life was not worth any risk, no matter how minor it may be.  Perhaps he showed some of his own arrogance for thinking that way, but after everything he had done for them, he felt that at the very least they could have allowed the Goddess to come to his aid…but they did not.  They had set the stage, and then when the play steered terribly wrong from their script, they turned their backs on him and left him to face the angry audience alone.

        He had already been cast aside by the gods.  All he had left were the people of the mortal realm, but he knew, deep inside, that it was a world where he no longer really belonged.  He had within him a spark of divine power, something that made him more than mortal, capable of glimpsing into the world that existed behind the one that he had known all his life.  Try as they might, Phandebrass and the others would never truly understand, and that left him alone, alone even as he was surrounded by his friends and family.

        No longer a mortal, yet not a god, and not truly belonging with either side.  He was trapped between the two, caught between the life he had always known, the life he would try to continue to live, and the awful reality of what lay beyond, summed up in the fear behind the eyes of the gods that had looked down on him from above.  A life of uncertainty, a life which could be taken from him the instant the gods felt that he was too dangerous to allow to live.  He would fight them if it ever came to that, and it was in that struggle where the ultimate danger he posed to the gods, to the mortals, to the very world itself would lay.  Unable to do anything but fight back, to follow his Were-cat nature and instincts, Tarrin would defend himself, and in that defense he might very well upset the Balance that none of them, not even him, wanted to disturb.  But no matter what he felt, how dangerous fighting back would be, he would be unable to stop himself.  Self-preservation was the most powerful instinct of all in a Were-cat.  And that left him trapped once again.

        He was trapped by his condition.  He was trapped by his instincts.  And he was trapped by a terrible fate that would befall them all should the gods act against him, a fate that he would not be able to avoid or control.  He was trapped.

        Trapped.

©2000, James Galloway. All Rights Reserved.