James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Oh, pumpkin, I don't want to leave you," he said, collecting her up into his arms. "I love you very much, Janette. You're my very own little mother. But sometimes, we all have to do things that we don't want to do. Like when you take your lessons with the flute. I know you don't like it, but you have to do it." He looked into her eyes, wiping away a tear. "I have things I have to do out there in the world, little mother," he told her. "Just like your father, when he goes out every day to mind his affairs. As much as I love you, and I love this house, this isn't my place. I can't do what I need to do here. Can you understand that?"

"I guess so," she sniffled, "but I don't want you to go away."

"And I don't want to leave you," he said, smoothing her hair. "You're very important to me, little mother."

"Why do you call me that?"

"Because that's how I think of you," he smiled. "You are my very own little mother, there to make all the bad things go away. You made me feel like I had a reason to keep living, pumpkin, and because of you, I think I'm ready to go back to what I'm supposed to do. And every time I feel lost or scared, all I'll have to do is think of you, and it won't seem so bad." He sniffled. "I don't think you'll understand how much you mean to me, Janette. I was so close to giving up. So close that you'll never understand. And you brought me back. I want to thank you for that, Janette."

He held her very close for quite a while. "I'm sorry, pumpkin, but I have to go," he told her. "And for that, I'm going to need your help."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You have to open the door for me, little mother." He let go of her and changed form, then jumped up into her lap. He nuzzled her as she picked him up, and he savored the scent of her, the feel of her, as she carried him downstairs. She opened the door and set him down, tears rolling down her cheeks. He changed form again and knelt by her, holding her close one last time. "I'm going to miss you, little mother," he told her. "I wish there was something I could give you to remember me."

"I don't need something to remember you," she sniffled. "I don't want you to go, but if you have to, you have to."

"I won't be gone forever, pumpkin," he told her. "Someday, I'll come back. I won't be your cat, but I'll come back and see you."

"Promise?"

"Promise," he said, tapping her on the nose.

She was clutching something in her hand, then thrust it at him. "I won't need this with you gone. Maybe you'd like it. Just in case."

He took the object. It was the little wooden doll, tied to a string, the toy that they'd used to play with for hours on end, day after day. His eyes filled with tears as he clutched the tiny doll. "Oh, little mother, you still know just what to do to make me happy," he told her, hugging her. "This little toy means quite a bit to me." He fashioned the string into a loop, and then put the doll around his neck like a necklace. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Until then, think well of me."

"I will," she said. Then she gave him a look. "What is your name? I know it can't be Shadow."

"My name is Tarrin, little mother," he smiled.

"Goodbye, Tarrin," she said, putting her little arms around his neck. He held her close for a moment, and then let her go.

"Goodbye, Janette," he returned. "Don't forget to shut and lock the door," he warned. Then he let her go, and turned away from her. He didn't want to look at her again, else they'd be eating breakfast together. He changed form again, then slunk out of the garden, wriggled through the fence, and then went off in search of the Tower.

It only took him about an hour to find the Tower. The problem was getting in.

The guards were as thick as fleas on a dog. They patrolled the fence in such tighly packed patrols that it would be absolutely impossible to sneak in. He didn't want to just walk up to the front gate, because he wasn't sure how they would react to him. They may have received orders to kill him. He had no idea how long that he'd been gone, so he wasn't sure if they thought he was a raving maniac. Not that he'd been too far from it, but he didn't want to have to fight off a pack of guards just to prove that he wasn't crazy. He'd sat there and watched until well after the sun came up, looking for an opportunity to get in, but one never materialized.

He was laying under a wagon, pondering the situation, then something quite suddenly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He yowled and tried to kick free, but that grip suddenly wrapped around his neck. If he struggled too much, he'd break his own neck, so he went very still.

"I am very put out with you, cub," Jesmind's flat voice came to him, even as her smell, concealed by the miasma of the city, reached his nose. She turned him around and gazed into his eyes. Tarrin couldn't struggle, and with her paws on him like that, he couldn't even change form. "If you had any idea what I've gone through to find you," she grunted, then she sighed. "Ah well, that's water under the bridge now."

He hissed threateningly at her, and her flat eyes narrowed.

"Don't take that tone with me, cub," she said ominously. "Or I may forget my promise to your mother and kill you here and now."

"Promise?" he asked in the manner of the cat.

"I promised her I would bring you back alive, and I'll do just that. Now shut up. I regret it enough as it is, but my word is my word."

That revelation came on two fronts. One, that she had went out to find him not to kill him, but to return him to his mother. The other was that she had very strong prejudices against lying. When he split from her, she accused him of breaking his word. Now he understood why it made her so angry. It seemed to be a part of her elemental nature to accept a promise as a sacred bond, and if it was broken, then it violated her to the very core.

The ten men at the gate lined up to block her at first, but a few deadly looks made them part like water before her. Five followed her, at a discrete distance, as she made her way along the paved road that led to the central Tower. She carried Tarrin like a purse, still throttled at the neck, and Tarrin was pretty sure that it was because of him that they let her inside the grounds. "I can walk," he told her.

"No, you can't," she said in a grim tone. "If I let you go, you may take off again."

"I won't," he said. "You found me because I was coming back."

"I'm not taking any chances," she said in a cold tone.

She took him into the Tower, along the curved hallways, up stairs, until she reached the antechamber to the Keeper's office. Duncan, the Sorcerer who acted as the Keeper's personal secretary and attendant, stood as Jesmind barged into his office. In that large room, his desk was right by the door leading to the Keeper's office, and three of the four walls were lined with chairs and couches. He said not a word, just eyed the black cat in her paw keenly, then simply stepped to the side and opened the door for her.

The Keeper was sitting behind her redwood desk, scratching out a letter or some other correspondence, when Jesmind marched into her private domain. The floor was covered with a single massive Arakite carpet, and two ornate, deeply cushioned chairs stood in front of her desk. A portrait of a vibrant brown-haired man in robes hung behind her on the wall, the room's only wall decoration. The Keeper's gray eyes narrowed as she looked up at the disturbance.

"I didn't think you'd have the nerve to face me, Were-cat," she said in a steely voice, setting down her pen.

Jesmind raised her arm, the one holding Tarrin, and then dropped him on her desk. "I said I'd bring him back alive. Here he is. Now take your thrice-damned curse off of me."

"Tarrin?" the Keeper asked in surprise.

Tarrin changed form right on top of her desk, and then he was kneeling on its wooden surface, staring down at the woman calmly. "Keeper," he said formally. "Can I hit her now?"