"The tracking weaves we spun into the amulet aren't working, Keeper," Amelyn Storm, the Mind seat, said bluntly. "We don't know why. We know they're still active, but we can't get a direction out of them. As to the non-detection, that's working, and working too well. It's blocking some of the indirect weaves we've been trying to use to find him. We never expected to have to rely on them to find him," she said quickly to head off the comment. "That's what the tracking weave was for."
"Has anyone tried weaving a spell to find the Adamantite that the amulet is made of?" Koran Dar, the Amazon Air seat, offered in his quiet voice. Koran Dar was the youngest of them, but he was a very wise man, and his voice was heeded when he bade to speak.
"I tried that," Darrian Goldaxe, the Dal Earth seat, growled in his rocky voice. If anyone could find a metal, it was Darrian, who was much like the earth, and the Earth-God for whom he was named. He had a special affinity for metals, which was the main reason he sat on the Earth Seat. "I think the Were-cat's magical nature is masking it."
"That's possible," Ahiriya grunted. She too was named for a Goddess, the Goddess of Fire. It was amazing to the Keeper how some parents just seemed to know what their children would be when they were born…or maybe the children, with such important names, drifted towards the significance of them. "That may also be why our finding weave isn't working."
"Keeper," Amelyn said quietly, "we should leave open the option of finishing him. If he goes on a rampage, he could kill hundreds of people."
"Then let him," she growled. "He's too important, Amelyn. That Death spell was only set in place should he fall into the hands of the katzh-maedan. If he leaves the city, then we may have to use it, but not until then."
"As you decide, Keeper, but keep in mind that he may already be mad. And I can't undo his madness."
"I'm aware of the limitations, Amelyn," Myriam said. Because Tarrin wasn't human, it rendered him almost totally immune from Mind weaves woven by those not of his race. It had to do with thought; since he wasn't human, he didn't think in the same way that humans did, and that made his mind closed to those weaves that the Mind affluents used. But in this case, that was a liability. It removed the Tower's options of simply controlling him through Sorcery, or curing or holding off his incipient madness.
"With all due respect, Keeper," Jinna Brent, the fox-faced Shacean Water seat said in her accented voice, "but Tarrin, he may not be the one, no? It could still be the Selani, or the Wikuni. Or maybe one we have not found."
"I'm almost positive it's him," she said, tired of this old argument. "What little information we have to go on fits him almost perfectly."
"But he is too much trouble, no? Already he causes us grief. Maybe another would do, yes? The woman Were-cat, she is still here. It would not be hard."
"And are you going to volunteer?" Myriam asked icily. It was answered with silence. "Tarrin had a very strong mind, and it seems like it was too much for him. How powerful do you think your will is, Jinna? Amelyn? Koran Dar? Nathander?" She crossed her arms under her breasts. "You all know that the one has to be powerful in Sorcery, and if it's not him, then it might have to be one of us."
"Better him than me," Darrian growled.
Myriam grunted. "Have the city guards tripled," she said. "Have them look for him, and for any stray black cats they find. He has to be hiding somewhere in the city, and we have to find him before he either goes berzerk, kills himself, or tries to flee."
Tarrin was more or less adopted into the house of Tomas the merchant, his wife Janine, and their daughter Janette, because Tomas the merchant couldn't find the missing owner. There was also Nanna the maid, Dernan the butler, and Deris the cook, and the uncountable ladies that made up Janine's social circle.
It was a large house, with three stories and a basement, filled with expensive furniture, silk buntings, and intricate tapestries, and where Arakite rugs laid thickly on the floor. It was the domain of Janine the wife, and she ran it like a little general. Everything had a place, and it was kept in strict order. Even the dust was strictly arranged by size and consistency before Nanna had a chance to come by and sweep it up. At first, Janine the wife had no idea where Tarrin would fit into that order. He was a cat, after all, and she had real fear for her expensive tapestries and curtains. But Tarrin solved that problem by remaining as inobtrusive to the suspicious woman as possible. He stayed almost exclusively with Janette, and any time he and Janine the wife shared company, he was careful to remain sedate and quiet. He did not claw the furniture or rip up the tapestries. He did not soil the carpets, and he was the picture of gentility when Janine the wife was entertaining her silk-clad lady friends, playing Tarok or stones. Dernan the cook, Nanna the maid, and most of the ladies absolutely adored Tarrin, and that seemed to grind Janine the wife's gears somewhat. The one thing he absolutely would not do was so much as scratch Janette. Even in his semi-aware state, he understood the calamity that would befall the little girl, should he bite her. So in their long, endless games, he was very, very careful not to even scratch her by accident. If she got too close in the game, he would stop. He would not lick her, nor would he let her anywhere near him either during or after his grooming of himself. He took no chance whatsoever that even the most fleeting contact with his spittle would transform her. He wouldn't put anyone else through the torment he'd suffered, the torment that put him in the house in the first place.
The majority of his time was spent with Janette, his little mother. Janette doted on him almost too much, and he was the central aspect of her life since the moment she found him under the bush. He adored his little mother with a passion, and was quite content to follow her around, always being near her. When she was bathing, or eating, or doing her studies with her mother, he was always close to her, usually laying by her feet sleeping. Any time her lilac-scent faded from his awareness, he went to find her. And once he knew where she was, he was content to let her be. Janette's parents had taken notice of Tarrin's unusual behavior, but had passed it off as a strange attachment stemming from her finding him and nursing him back to health. But it was more than that. Janette helped keep the pain away, and in her company he found love and acceptance.
There was very little concept of time in the Cat's eternal now, but Tarrin seemed to sense somehow that a considerable number of days had passed since she found him. He had that sensation because, over time, his human awareness became more and more dominant, as if it was too strong for the Cat to totally subjugate. The catlike instincts were slowly taking on a human reasoning, and he started to become aware of things that had no meaning for him earlier. Things changed around the house to help him respark the human awareness, such as Janine's change of attitude towards him. At first, she barely tolerated him. But as time went on, and he proved that he was no threat to her decorations or her daughter, the woman fell into a gruff acceptance of him. She paid him no attention, but neither did she pay him any mind.
It was after Janette's bedtime when Tarrin was laying sedately by the fireplace. When he was not with his little mother, the fireplace was his domain. He would go to bed with her and wait for her to go to sleep, then he would lay by the fireplace until it fell to embers, when he would go back up and sleep at the foot of her bed. There was almost always a fire burning, even in the middle of summer, for light if nothing else, and its dry heat was very pleasing to him. Janette had had to practice the flute before bed, just one of many lessons she went through each day, as her mother turned her into a "proper lady". In that respect, the little girl drove her mother wild. Janette would have been much happier on a farm, because she loved to be outside, loved to crawl through the grass and climb trees and catch frogs. That was rather hard on the pretty silk and brocade dresses Janine the wife had her wear, and it was always a point of contention between them. Ladies did not do such things. What Janine the wife seemed to fail to understand was that Janette was not a Lady. She was a child. And crawling in the grass, climbing trees, and catching frogs were things that children did.