Not like him.

"That's no way to treat Tarrin, Miranda," Keritanima's voice called from just in front of him. He didn't bother to open his eyes, for Miranda was still scratching his ears.

"He doesn't seem to mind, Highness," Miranda said with a chuckle. "Besides, it's good for him."

"Miranda, dear, Tarrin can understand you," Keritanima said with a giggle. "I'd be careful what I say."

"There's nothing I'd say behind his back I wouldn't say to his face, Highness," Miranda said idly, gently pinching the tip of his ear. "Me and Tarrin are good friends. Aren't we, Tarrin?"

Tarrin waggled his tail a couple of times and meowed in agreement.

"Tarrin needs some good old fashioned spoiling," Miranda said in a light voice, stroking his head and neck in a way that made him immediately go limp. "It's good for him."

"Well, don't spoil him too much," Keritanima said.

"Oh, I'd never do that," Miranda said with a light chuckle, petting him again.

"Keritanima," Dolanna said sharply. "We are not done yet today."

"You're not teaching anything I don't already know, Dolanna," the Wikuni replied, a bit tartly. "My teacher, well, she kind of went beyond the normal scope of instruction."

"Yes, Lula does tend to do that with students who are capable," she said calmly, mainly to herself.

And so Keritanima padded off with Dolanna's consent, going below decks.

Tarrin listened to Dolanna continue, even as Miranda's scratching fingers sought to distract him. It was a long journey they were on, and it was dangerous. Tarrin had been charged by the Goddess of magic to find a lost artifact called the Firestaff. It was a very powerful device, made so long ago that nobody remembered the creators, and inside it was the echoes of the power of Creation that the goddess Ayise used when she made the world. Though it was just an impression of that original power, it was still more than enough to do nearly anything. Once every five thousand years, at a specific time of day, the staff would activate, and imbue the person who was holding it with the powers of an Elder God. It was just this possibility that he had been charged to prevent. If Tarrin got the Firestaff first, he would either destroy it or ensure that nobody could ever get to it. Throwing it into a volcano or the middle of the ocean seemed like good places, but he much preferred the idea of destroying it. That way it could never threaten anyone ever again.

If anything, he was a very unwilling participant in this. It went against his Were nature to agree to obey another, even a goddess, but he had done just that. It was against his nature to subvert his freedom to another, but he had done just that. It was against his instincts to do what he was doing, but he was doing just that. All because what he was doing was that important. If someone got hold of the Firestaff and used it, the Goddess had already spelled out what would happen. It would be a war. The Elder Gods would have to destroy the newcomer, because the new god would not be constrained by the same rules as the others. He would be a wild card, an unknown, and his very existence could threaten the entire world. The destruction wrought by that war would be devastating to the world, for it would be their battleground. In one way, it had already begun. Tarrin was not the only person hunting the Firestaff at the behest of a god. The war had already begun through the human agents of gods that wanted the Firestaff. The Goddess had called it the Questing Game, and right now, it was dominating the world. Many people, groups, organizations, and powerful leaders were either hunting for the Firestaff or had agents doing it for them. Tarrin was just one among many, but he was a Mi'Shara, a nonhuman noble-born wielder of Sorcery, and that was supposed to give him an advantage. He had no idea how or why, but it was.

There were alot of things he didn't know about what he was doing, and there were some he wished he didn't know. They had already gathered to talk about going to Dala Yar Arak. That was the first step, the Goddess had told him, because that was where the Book of Ages, an ancient tome of history, was reputed to be hidden. In the book was information they needed to find the Firestaff. It turned out that Dala Yar Arak was going to be a serious problem. It was the largest city in the world, in the heart of the empire of Yar Arak, and that was the root of their problem. Yar Arak was the largest nation in the world, but it was a savage, oppressive tyranny, ruled by an Emperor, and it was by his whim that he ruled. Arakites were considered to be the pinnacle of achievement and breeding, and non-Arakites were looked down upon. Non-humans were automatically considered to be property of the state, slaves for the Empire, a rule that had started after the Selani invaded Yar Arak and humiliated them. Slavery was an institution in Yar Arak, and even the lowliest Arakite had at least one outlander slave to attend him. The only non-humans that could go to Yar Arak and not be automatically enslaved were the Wikuni, and that was because only the Wikuni provided Yar Arak with vital traded goods. And even then, they were only permitted to trade at Dala Yar Arak, and they were restricted to a very small section around the docks called the Low District. This put Tarrin and Allia at a terrible risk, for Tarrin would be very, very valuable to the Arakite nobles, who collected rare and exotic slaves as status pieces, and all Arakites hated the Selani with a passion. Should she be captured in Dala Yar Arak, Allia wouldn't live more than a few hours. It seemed it would be easy to just use the Low District, but things weren't that easy. Keritanima was a Wikuni High Princess, even though she had rejected her title, and that made her presence dangerous to them in the Low District. The Wikuni priests could communicate over great distances, and there was no doubt that the Wikuni enclave in Dala Yar Arak already knew that Keritanima had run away, and probably had orders to either send her packing back to Wikuna, or kill her outright.

For Tarrin, it represented the ultimate horror. Tarrin had a phobia about being caged or imprisoned, it was an instinctive reaction from his Cat half, and being put into slavery would definitely qualify. It would trigger a rage, and he would go berzerk. There was no telling how many people he would kill trying to flee from Dala Yar Arak. Tarrin's very precarious condition had figured into Dolanna's thinking, but she still had not come up with a solid plan to get them to Dala Yar Arak and keep them there safely. It was something that she was still working on.

The Goddess had sent him to the last place in the world he needed to be, but he had to obey her. He just had to.

Tarrin's relationship with his goddess was very unusual. He acknowledged her as his patroness, but never overtly worshipped her. She talked to him from time to time, and when she did, it was more like person to person than goddess to mortal. He loved her, deeply, but it didn't feel like loving a deity. It was more like loving a very good friend. He did believe in her, and had faith in her, however. It was the only reason he had agreed to work for her. But in his mind, she was more than a goddess, just as she was more than a friend. She held a unique position in his life, an unseen, mystical presence that quietly and gently led him down the path he needed to travel. She didn't speak to him often, not often at all, but when she did, it seemed more like a parent checking in on a child than a visitation from a Goddess to her subject. Tarrin's complicated relationship with the Goddess seemed strange to him, yet at the same time, since he'd never really talked to a god before, he had no idea what normal was supposed to be.

"Land ho!" a voice called from high above. Tarrin opened his eyes and looked up, where a single sailor in the crow's nest was pointing to the bow. "Land ho!"