He put his paw around her shoulders. "It was necessary," he told her gently. "But now we have the tools we need to move swiftly and without worrying about being seen, and that's going to give us a much better chance to get there and get her back."

"I know," she said, putting her head against his shoulder. "Someday we'll have to bring Jasana here," she said. "I kind of like it here. It'll be quite a journey, though, just to take a bath in a hot spring."

"I've been here long enough to get a good lock on this place, Jesmind. I can Teleport back here whenever I please."

"You can?" He nodded. She smiled up at him, then kissed him lingeringly on the lips. "I knew there had to be some good use for all that magic of yours, my mate."

"Yes, it can do alot more than amuse you, can't it?" he asked dryly.

She laughed and slapped him on the back with a paw. "Move over," she commanded. "I haven't had any meat that wasn't crusted with salt for two days."

After a heavily filling meal, Tarrin caught up on his sleep, lounging in the heat in his cat form, laying on one of the heavy fur coats he'd made. It was quite relaxing, and the coat had Jesmind's scent all over it, which pleased him. He always seemed to sleep better when surrounded by the scent of a mate.

When he woke up, with Jesmind sleeping up against him in her cat form, he realized that their time in the hot spring was at an end. That saddened him a little. He had spent good time here with Jesmind, had healed their relationship here, and though the circumstances of their visit were dire, he would leave the place with fond memories. He had taken his break from reality, though, and it was time to get back to things. He had to rescue his daughter. Though he had enjoyed his time here, that thought had never been far from his mind.

The vacation was over.

Rising up, he licked affectionately at his mate's cheek and ear, grooming her. It woke her up, but she submitted to his attention, lifting her head to give him more access to her fur. For the first time in quite a while, he heard her purring. Though the loss of their daughter had deeply pained them both, at least for the moment, she had found enough contentment to purr. He groomed her for quite a while, prolonging her pleasure as much as he could, but the inexorable ticking of the clock that so ruled them intruded on his intimate moment.

Sighing inwardly, he stopped, then rose up and padded away from her, giving himself enough room to shapeshift. He did so without thought, rising up to his full height and looking around the chamber, knowing that it was time to go. "Pack up," he told her in a sober voice that was all business once again.

Jesmind shapeshifted laying on the coat, then rolled over on her back and sighed. "We have to come back here," she told him, putting a paw on her stomach as he found his vest and slipped it on. She had piled the clothes they weren't wearing by the food pack, so he reached down and grabbed her breeches, then lobbed them at her. They landed on her shins, and she sat up and looked at them. "Ah well, back to silly human customs," she mused. "I forgot how free it feels to go without clothes."

"You just like me staring at you."

"Of course, but there's still something nice about being naked."

"Be glad you're Were. After five hundred years, could you imagine how you'd look if you didn't regenerate?"

Jesmind laughed. "Gravity would have done a number on me, that's for sure," she said as she started pulling on her pants. "My breasts would be hanging down around my hips."

"So, there's at least one thing clothes are good for," he told her calmly as he picked up the food pack. He made sure it was empty, then tossed it aside. He had no more use for it. He tossed Jesmind her shirt, which she pulled on, then made sure to hand her the magical belt he'd made, which she'd placed at the bottom of the stack of folded clothing. She took it and put it on immediately, touching the cathead design of the buckle gently.

"You have the hang of how it works?"

She nodded. "I practiced with it while you were working on the other one. You should have warned me," she accused.

"About what?"

"That if I stepped out onto boiling water, it would burn my feet!"

"I thought you'd have the sense to realize that, Jesmind," he told her.

"You did it!"

"I can't be hurt by heat either," he said mildly. "Forgot about that, didn't you?"

Jesmind glowered at him, then made sure the Cat's Claws were settled on her wrists.

They were ready to go in a matter of minutes, and Tarrin stopped to look back. It had been a good stop. He and Jesmind had repaired their damaged relationship, and he had made items that would help them greatly in the journey to come. They had lost eight days, but with the ability to move on top of the snow, they could quickly regain some of that lost time. He checked his book, then his watch, and realized that they had actually lost ten days. His pause before making the objects, the pause in between, and the pause afterwards added up to two days. There was only eighteen days left. They were far behind schedule!

"Come on, we have to go!" he said with sudden urgency. "We're behind!"

"We are?" she asked in surprise.

"By two days!" he said with a growl. "I knew I shouldn't have rested so much!"

"You had to rest, Tarrin!" she protested. "It wouldn't have done you any good to start out if you couldn't walk without your knees buckling!"

"I should have let you carry me," he said, sick with himself. They had to make that time back up! "I should have given you the map and let you carry me while I rested!"

"Calm down, my mate," she told him. "These belts you made will let us go very fast. We can make the time back up. Don't get stressed."

He was about to give her a nasty retort, but he blew out his breath and collected himself. She was right. They would move much faster with the belts, and the combination of the Illusion and the fact that they would leave no trail would protect them from aerial hunters. "You're right," he growled. "But we can't lollygag around anymore. We have to go, and go now."

"Well, let's go then," she said, touching the belt around her waist, then bending down and picking up the two heavy coats he'd made and the white cloaks she'd made. She handed him his, and he tied them in a roll behind his shoulders again, a cushion in case he accidentally rose up into the roof of a cave. Jesmind did the same, pulling a bit in discomfort at the fur-lined heavy shirt he'd Conjured for her. "Let's go before I melt," she complained.

The passages on the other side of the hot spring were much easier to traverse than the ones down which they'd originally came, and that, he realized, was why the ones on that side had animals in them. They moved with great speed, almost haste, rushing along the passages and galleries, pausing only when a fork in the tunnels made him pause to use magic to determine the path they needed to take. The caves turned into a labyrinth of interconnecting passages, and they were inhabited. They saw several smaller lobster-like creatures, some huge flying bats, slugs and a centipede that had to be twenty spans long. Some of them fed off of mushrooms and fungi that grew on the walls, and the rest fed off the ones that ate the fungi. There were some pretty big animals, but none of them actually attacked the swiftly moving Were-cats. Tarrin guessed that since they'd never seen anything like them before-or sensed, since some didn't have eyes-they decided to leave the strange creatures alone, uncertain as to how dangerous they were.

Since they weren't harassed, the two Were-cats managed to get to the cave opening on his map in less than a day. The fact that they'd not once had to creep or crawl or climb cliffs or swim across lakes helped significantly. The light that flooded the tunnel made both of them move a little faster, knowing that they had come to the end of their journey, but Tarrin was a bit wary of leaving the safety and protection of the caves. But it was necessary; they could move much faster overland, and the route to the pass on his map was much shorter going through the passes than trying to find a way to get there through the caves. They reached the cave opening, which was a small ledge looking down into a deep chasm. The sky was cloudless and a deep blue, the air thin-they had come up a great deal since entering the caves-and it looked to be about noon or so. Jesmind stopped at the edge of the ledge and looked down into the chasm as icy stiff wind whipped at them.