That made him think. He wasn't in the desert anymore, and it was going to be noticably cooler in Arkis than it had been in the desert. He'd been there for so long, he'd gotten used to it. Besides, he was in hostile territory once again. Arkisians weren't very friendly inside their own borders. Arkisians were still Arakites, and those arrogant tendencies were still present in their cultural mindset. It was well known throughout the West that travellers weren't welcome beyond the coastal cities of Arkis. That meant that he needed to travel with at least a little bit of nondescript motivation, to at least not attract every eye to himself. His height and his race would make it impossible for him to hide, but at least he could try.

So he decided that a change in clothing was in order. He Conjured forth first a pair of leather breeches-some things would never change-and a linen shirt much like the one he used to wear while travelling to Dala Yar Arak. He'd gotten so used to wearing a vest that he Conjured a new one of those too, putting it on over the shirt. He remembered the cloak that had served him well in Yar Arak and Saranam, so he Conjured a new black cloak, voluminous and hooded to hide his race from the Arkisians. Then he Conjured a new scabbard and harness for his sword, then brought it out of the elsewhere and settled it onto his back, under the cloak, with the hilt protruding through a slit in the cloak. It would not do to go around without being visibly armed. It would just be begging for someone to challenge him. His sheer size and the sight of that hilt should frighten off all but the most rabid antagonists.

He wove together a simple spell of Fire and Air, forming a magical mirror in which he inspected himself. The cloak did what it was supposed to do, hid him from prying eyes. Pulling it closed in front of him made him look like a walking curtain, but it also caused his black fur and sun-darkened skin to become lost in the dark shadows inside the cloak. There was nothing he could do about his feet, but the black fur on them made them look something like boots to a casual glance, and that was usually enough to cause them to escape notice. He put on the sun visor he used in the desert, and nodded when he saw that it hid his eyes behind their violet coloring. With the hood pulled over his ears, he looked like nothing more than a rather striking, mysterious stranger. Not a non-human.

It would do.

He removed the cloak and scabbard, setting the scabbard on the ground and rolling up the cloak to serve as a pillow, then he laid down in the small meadow in which he had landed and stared up into the sky. He had passed through the desert. He was surprised that he managed to get so far, and do it so quickly. Laying there, counting back the months, he realized that they'd left Suld over a year ago, nearly a year and a half. They'd left in the early winter, arrived in Dala Yar Arak before the misdummer festival, then he'd spent the summer and early fall crossing into the desert. He'd spent the remainder of fall and the winter there, and it was now early spring in the West again. Early spring. It had been nearly a year and a half. It had almost been two years since leaving Aldreth. So much had happened in those two years.

Two years. He was nineteen now, though he felt like he was more like ten thousand. His life was so drastically altered from what he'd thought it would be when he left Aldreth. He wouldn't have even been able to imagine things turning out the way they had. Tarrin Kael, a simple villager with dreams of being a Knight, carrying the most second most sought-after artifact in the world. Tarrin Kael, the rather naive young man determined to chase a dream, turning out to be a Were-cat, a Sorcerer, a Knight, and so many other things. He'd live an entire lifetime in those two years, and if he died right there on that very hillside, in that small meadow, he could go to the Realms Beyond knowing he'd experienced more in those two years than many men did in their entire lives. It seemed nearly surreal, thinking back over the many things that had happened to him in those two years. Jesmind and the spat they'd had, the intrigue in the Tower, and Jula's betrayal. His turning feral from it, and the long ship voyage. Nearly getting killed and losing Keritanima to her father, then gaining the trust and love of Triana. The short yet momentous events that had taken place in Dala Yar Arak. Then the furious chase from the city, as Tarrin led away the seekers of the Book of Ages, and his nearly madness-causing melancholy trapped in cat form with emotions the Cat could not sort out. Then there was the desert, and all the crazy wildness that had happened there. Var and Denai, the rather invigorating weather and animal life, and the mysteries of the Cloud Spire and the ancient ruins of the Dwarven city. The final battle with Jegojah, and the revelations he brought that sent him rushing like a madman back to Suld.

Two years. Had it really been so long? Had so much happened in that short time? It had to have been. Tarrin's mind often had trouble noticing the passage of time, but in this case, he could feel every day of it gone by. It felt more like fifty years than two, but the Human in him easily rationalized that it truly had only been two years.

Hopefully, it wouldn't be another two years. That was his new dream. He would get the book to Suld, beat back the attackers, then hopefully the Firestaff would be discovered somewhere close to Suld. He hoped it would be a simple matter of riding out from Suld, picking it up, then sending it into the elsewhere and disappearing until after this supposed pre-ordained time went by. Then it would be harmless for another five thousand years, and by then it would be somebody else's problem.

And what about afterwards? After he completed this unwanted task for the Goddess and was released, free to go on with his own life? What then? Tarrin looked up into the stars and considered it. It was something he usually didn't allow himself, because for so long he thought he wouldn't live to the end of it. But now, now that he felt he was coming close to the end of things, it looked hopeful that he might actually survive to carry out his mission. There wasn't much left to do, and to be honest with himself, he was a totally different person now. He was no easy mark now, not by a longshot. It would take something truly significant to kill him now, but that didn't make him in any way complacent or secure in his power or his suvivability. That gave him hope that whatever truly significant things that were out there wouldn't take him by surprise. A child with a dagger could kill him if it caught him off guard, and that was the main thing he had to do now, keep alert and ready for such things.

But what then? When it was over, what then? What one thing did he want to do with his life after it became his and his alone?

It didn't take long for him to find an answer to that. Go home.

Home. There was only one place he thought of when someone said that word, and that was Aldreth. He'd be passing through Aldreth on the way to Suld, and in a way, he wanted it that way. He wanted to go through Aldreth and see it, to know what was waiting for him at the end of his journey, the carrot danging before his nose to motivate him to bring his task to a successful conclusion. He would go home. He would build himself his own place just across the boundary, in the Frontier, a place that would signify the changes that had taken place in his life. But he would be no more than a stone's throw from the old farm, always within a shout of parents and siblings and friends, the family he had left behind and so desperately wanted around him now. That was all he wanted out of life. A home in a place that felt like home to him, near his family, near what was familiar to him. And since he'd be in one place, Triana and Mist could visit him any time they wanted. Mist could bring their son with her, and he could at least pretend that a family of his own would be raised in that small farmstead.