It was a very simple plan, simple yet very effective. Or so he hoped. Sarraya had thought that one up. The little Faerie, who had lost her wings in the vicious battle with the Demon who had been guarding the book, was sitting down at the base of the log, dozing a bit before another day of being carried along on his head. She was the only friend he had now, the only one he could talk to. She was irreverant, combative, a bit surly because she couldn't fly until her wings grew back, but he could understand her irritation. When not fuming over not being able to fly, she kept him distracted, entertained, with wild stories and crass humor. Faeries were punsters, pranksters, flighty and impulsive, with a bent for humor and self-gratification. But she had managed to subvert her own impulses around him, mainly because he wouldn't tolerate being the butt of her practical jokes. She had learned that lesson the hard way, a long time ago. A very hard lesson. He looked down at her. The gossamer haltar and skirt she wore were dirty and bedraggled, not a little torn, but her bluish skin was clean and shiny, and her reddish auburn hair was clean and neat. She had healed herself of her broken bones with her considerable Druidic magic, but for some strange reason she couldn't cause her wings to regrow. He had offered to heal her with Sorcery, but she had refused. She had told him that her wings had to regrow naturally, that it was important to her health and her ability to use her innate magical abilities. He didn't understand that response, but he would abide by her wishes. She wasn't that heavy, even when she had to ride him like a horse when he was in cat form.
The nine days had replenished him as well. The activity had been good for him, and he felt fully restored after the vicious battle against the huge Demon that had been guarding the book. It had been a momentous thing for him, for he had learned great things that day. Tarrin was a Sorcerer, a being that had a natural connection to the matrix of magical energy that surrounded the world, a matrix known as the Weave. Tarrin was more than an ordinary Sorcerer, however. He was called a Weavespinner, a being who had the ability to call upon the might of High Sorcery alone, a being who could directly affect the Weave itself, something that a normal Sorcerer could not do without being linked together to combine their powers.
But the battle with the Demon had showed him something new, something different. Tarrin had used a spell of Druidic magic to finally defeat the monster, something that he never knew he could do. It was something that he thought was impossible. It was decreed by the Allmother, the Elder Goddess Ayise, ruler of the gods, that no mortal would be permitted to wield more than one order of magical power. But Tarrin had used two. The Goddess had explained to him that it was because he was not mortal that this was allowed to be. Tarrin-all Were-cats, for that matter-were blessed with the ability to regenerate any wound not inflicted by magic, silver, or raw natural forces or unworked weapons of nature. Aging did not seem to fall into any of those categories, so a Were-cat's body regenerated the effects of aging, rendering them virtually immortal. A Were-cat lived until something killed it. That made Tarrin more than mortal, something other than natural, and it allowed him to transcend that limitation and gain the ability to use more than one type of magic.
He hadn't told Sarraya yet. He didn't quite know how to broach the subject with her. Sarraya was a Druid, a very powerful Druid, and she could teach him how to use Druidic magic. But he wasn't quite ready to ask her yet, not until she got her wings back and wasn't quite so cross all the time.
The Demon worried him a little bit, for that fight reminded him of Shiika, the Demoness who actually ruled Yar Arak. She had been conspicuously absent after he killed the mortal Emperor she used to rule her empire, and levelled a good deal of the gladitorial stadium where he had caught up with her. She had kidnapped his friends, annoyed him, made him very mad, so he had retaliated on a very grand scale, disrupting her very government by assassinating the Emperor she controlled. The invasion of her Palace to claim the book from her still confused him. He had buried her in rubble, but he had been in the Palace too long. She must have freed herself. Why didn't she come for the book? Perhaps she feared him. Tarrin's powerful Sorcery could cancel out her Demonic magic, and he had found a sword that could harm a Demon after she destroyed his Ironwood staff. Only objects not of this world could injure Demons, and the staff and sword were both otherworldly in nature. But that wasn't like Shiika. The Demoness never had to challenge him to simply take the book and hide it from him. Now that he'd had time to calm down, he had to admit to himself that in a strange way, he liked the Demoness. She really hadn't been that serious about killing him. She did attempt to warn him off first, only trying to kill him after he ignored her warnings. And though she had kidnapped his friends to gain his cooperation, she did release them without being forced to do so. That told him that there was more to Shiika than he had first seen. A great deal more.
Tarrin's Were-cat mind wasn't like human minds. What Shiika did in the past didn't hold as much water for him as it would for a human. Tarrin did not hold grudges. What was past was past. He'd tried to kill his own friends and family before, and he meant it at the time. But after he calmed down, it was as if it had never happened. It was the nature of Were-cats to be that way. Their fiery, unpredictable, and aggressively violent natures had earned them the distrust and scorn of the rest of the forest-dwelling beings, a loose society known as Fae-da'Nar, but that too didn't really bother the Were-cats very much. They did as they did, and they made no excuses for it. It was who they were. Shiika's harms against him were balanced by her acts of contrition, not challenging him over the book, releasing his friends, so it gave her a clean slate in his mind. If he met her again, she would neither be friend nor enemy.
Not that he would trust her. Tarrin's feral nature did not allow him to trust strangers. He could barely tolerate being around them. But trusting a Demoness would be insanity, even if he lacked that distrustful nature.
He looked to the sunrise. He was going the other way, to the west, a very long journey before him. He had to return to the Tower of Sorcery, the base of power for the organization of Sorcerers known as the katzh-dashi. The Goddess herself had told him to go there, because the information in the book was useless unless the book was in the Tower. He had not opened the book yet-he had no intention of opening it until he was in Suld-so he had no idea exactly why he had to go to Suld. But he would not disobey his goddess, no matter how nonsensical her instructions were. She told him to go to Suld, so he was going to Suld. She also told him not to get on a ship, and he would not get on a ship. That meant that he had to travel across the entire continent on foot, would have to traverse the arid savannahs of Yar Arak, the dusty plains of Saranam, he would have to cross the Desert of Swirling Sands and climb the Sandshield Mountains, he would even have to travel across Arkisia and the Frontier to return to Sulasia, but that was the way things were.
It would be a very long journey, but it was a journey he would undertake willingly. He would do anything the Goddess asked him to do. If she told him to jump into a bonfire, he would do it. He was a faithful child of the Goddess, and he would do her bidding. Not because he feared her or revered her, but because he loved her. His relationship with the Goddess was much more than goddess and mortal. It was personal, even loving, for she often directly spoke to him to give him instructions, grant him her wisdom, or nurture him in times of despair or confusion. Her interest in him, her gentle aid, her love, her devotion to him had sealed him to her, had caused him to give her something that he would never give to another.