He looked back at them. They were all there, but there were some missing faces. Ariana, for one. And Var and Denai. He hadn't so much as seen them during the whole time at Suld, and he hoped for a moment that they were alright. Then again, odds were, Denai was already pregnant, the way those two carried on, and had had to return home. A Selani would not fight pregnant, and the woman's husband also would not fight to protect the interests of the child. Three of the five Cambisi weren't there, and Ulger hadn't come down to see them off.
And there was no Faalken.
Sighing, he kissed his mate goodbye one more time, then turned to follow Keritanima and Allia as they started for the gangplank.
One more thing, kitten, the voice of the Goddess reached him. I want you to give the Book of Ages to Jenna. It belongs to her now.
Without batting an eye, he paced back over to his sister and parents. "Jenna, you take this," he said, taking the book out of the elsewhere and then handing it to her. "Guard it, sister. It holds many secrets we don't want falling into the wrong hands."
Jenna looked reverently at the book, then cradled it to her breast. "With my life, brother," she assured him with a serious look. "With my life."
"Then it's in good hands," he smiled. "Be good," he told his parents, kissing his mother on the cheek one more time, then hugging his father. "I'll keep Jenna up to date on what's going on," he told them. "So you won't be out of touch."
"Be careful, my son," Eron said seriously.
"Come back to us, Tarrin," Elke pleaded.
"If I have to swim back," he assured her. Keritanima shouted at him that he was keeping them at the dock, so he turned and padded away from friends, family, and people he did not want to leave. Jesmind made sure to pull away, step back so she wouldn't try to stop him, and part of him wanted her to do it. He stepped onto the gangplank, and it was pulled as soon as his feet were off of it, on the deck. Wikuni sailors moved quickly and efficiently, slipping the hawsers, and the grand ship immediately began to be pulled away from the quay, pulled out in the direction of the open sea.
Tarrin stood on the sterncastle with his companions, and they all looked back to their friends on the dock, waving to them and hearing them wish them safe journey. But Tarrin's eyes saw no one but his mate and his daughters, standing at the back of the group, his mate having trouble looking in his direction. When she did, he saw her tears, and that almost made him jump over the rail and swim back to her. But he couldn't do that, and he knew he couldn't.
Rewards, the Goddess said. There would be rewards. He knew of his reward now, and it stood on that dock watching him leave. All the reward he ever wanted was his mate and his daughters. His family. There could be no greater reward than that.
But they were behind him now. He turned slowly, deliberately, and looked over the length of the ship, out over the open ocean. It was all going to happen out there. Everything that he'd been doing for the last two years was upon him, and the end of his quest now had a solid, definable conclusion. Now he wasn't chasing after some misty dream, he was pursuing the very object the Goddess needed him to find. He would find it, he would find it and defend it, keep it out of reach of those who wanted it until the appointed day came and gone, and it posed no more threat. He would not fail the Goddess.
He would get his reward.
To: Title EoF
Epilogue
The icy plains of the tundra generated its own weather, but that day was almost warm, blowing winds not carrying the bite of the arctic ice upon them as they whipped across the rolling terrain of moss, lichen, and in some patches, sturdy grass. Caribou and wolves and white-furred foxes skulked about the landscape, as did lemmings and small biting insects, eking out a meager existence in the remote, barren, harsh landscape.
But they had all fled from one particular area, an area now inhabited by man. Many humans, as well as many Goblinoids, all gathered around a strange thing that all the wildlife avoided, a thing that radiated a comforting heat, but also a sense of darkness, of evil , that distressed the wildlife enough to avoid it despite its comforting warmth. It was a pyramid made of black stone, a strange building nearly five hundred spans high and a longspan long at any one side's base. It had been there for thousands of years, a forgotten monument built in a barren tundra that had not known the footstep of man in a thousand years.
But now they had returned, preying on the caribou and scaring the wolves away, forcing the wildlife to flee from the region. They had began to arrive during the harsh winter, a winter that was eight months of the year's ten, bundled in layers of fur to protect against the lethal cold. More and more arrived as the winter thawed into spring, and now as summer had begun to set into the land, the men and Goblinoids had stopped coming. They did nothing, only camped around the pyramid, as if they were waiting for something.
Within the pyramid, there was nothing but darkness. A single corridor led from the north face into its depths, a bleak passage that swallowed the light of the torches lining the walls, making each torch seem as a small star in the endless black sky. At the center of the pyramid was a massive chamber whose dimensions were concealed by the blackness within, with only a dais and several writing tables upon it really easy to make out.
Those, and the statue.
It stood at the center of the platform, which had steps on all four sides leading to the floor some thirty spans down, a statue made of basalt or some other black rock, a statue of a human-like figure in robes, its arms crossed before it and a stern look on its face. It was all inky blackness, except for its eyes. Eyes that glowed with a pulsating white radiance.
They have failed me, a voice emanated from the statue, directed to a tall, thin woman standing before it, a woman with black hair and dark, glittering eyes. But it is of no moment. Only the failure of Shaz'beka disappoints me. I expected more from her.
"She nearly won for you, Master," the woman replied in a very respectful manner. "If not for the Were-cat, she would have broken them."
Always the Were-cat, the voice spat. He is a thorn in my side. A thorn it now falls upon you to remove for me, Lyselle.
"As you command, my Master," the woman said with a bow of her head. "I have a plan."
Explain.
"Yes, my Master. The Were-cat is sui'kun. I researched them, and you must agree that we have nothing that can fight one such as that directly.
I will grant that.
"Thank you, my Master. But despite his power, he does have weaknesses.
You believe to be able to exploit them?
"Yes, my Master. They didn't find all our spies when they found out Amelyn. I have eyes in the Tower, and they tell me much."
She looked up at the statue. "Master, the Were-cat may have the power, but he will not use it against us if it threatens his own."
His ties do run deeply, but his family is as fearsome as he. Do you believe you can get to them where others have failed? The ones sent to eliminate Jula failed miserably.
"I believe we can this time, Master. If things go as I plan, the Were-cat will recover the Firestaff, and then he will hand it over to us, and do it willingly."
Her dark eyes glittered momentarily. "One like that, he would pay anything to get back his children."
Indeed. You may proceed with your plan, Lyselle. Do not fail me.
"I will not, my Master," the woman said, bowing her head once again, and then leaving the statue, going down one of the sets of steps. Leaving the statue to its own, so it could ponder, plan, plot, and dream of a bright future.
A future of dominance.