Paws to the sides of his head, Tarrin reared back and wailed to the sky, a heart-rending moan of utter despair, of abject sorrow.
Faalken was dead. And he was the monster that killed him.
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Chapter 21
Time stood still.
It was the best way to explain it. For some amount of time, he had no idea, he had sat there, on the edge of his bed, staring at a blank wall. He had retreated into himself, far beyond the timeless existence of the Cat, into an unthinking void in which no sensation could reach. And there he had stayed willingly, for there was nothing but anguish awaiting him outside that safe area. He had no idea how he had returned to the Dancer. He had no idea if his sister, Camara Tal, and Sarraya were well. There was nothing, nothing but that blissful emptiness where he could hide from the sorrow.
But physical needs drove him out of his unthinking daze, a powerful hunger that was so strong that it reached into his safe place and ripped him from it. And in the return to time, so returned the pain of the memories from which he was hiding.
Faalken was dead.
Faalken was dead, and he had caused it to happen. He hadn't delivered the killing blow, but Faalken was there on his behalf, fighting for him, protecting him from the Doomwalker. He didn't have to be there. He didn't have to die. And what was worse, at one point he knew Faalken was mortally wounded, he knew that Faalken was going to die. Jegojah had even taunted him about it, that Faalken was dying, and only healing could save him. And instead of throwing the Doomwalker aside and saving his friend, he had gone even deeper into rage, abandoning Faalken to death just so he could destroy Jegojah. Regardless of how out of his mind he was at the time, that simple, stark, agonizing truth stared him in the eye and refused to let him forget. He had killed Faalken twice over, once by letting him fight, and again by not healing him when he had the chance.
Faalken had been such a good friend. Honest and sincere, but his sense of humor had been what had defined him. Cherubic, always seeing the laughter in things, even playing childish pranks and tricks, the Knight's immaturity was something of an uplifting thing for Tarrin, who was always so weighed down by his personal problems. Faalken could always make him smile, and could often bring him to laugh. He knew when to put it aside and be serious, but his way of looking at the world had bolstered the Were-cat in his times of need for companionship, even understanding. Faalken had been there from the start of it, had been there to escort the villager from Aldreth and start him on his journey. Though he didn't broadcast it, Faalken had known Tarrin very well. He understood his nature, and could always deal with him, even soothe him with wise words that were so much out of his character, and a mark of how wise the Knight had really been. It felt so wrong to be travelling without the Knight, it left a huge hole in him to think that his good friend, one of his oldest friends in the madness of his life, wouldn't be there anymore. He just couldn't be gone, but Tarrin knew that he was.
And it was his fault.
Drawing his legs up to his chest, he wrapped his tail around his ankles and rested his chin on his knees. It was so unfair. Jegojah was there to kill him. Why did the Knight have to be so brave? Why did he challenge the Doomwalker instead of backing away? But he already knew the answer. The Doomwalker was coming after Dolanna, and Faalken's training, his mission, his duty, was to defend her. To the death, if need be. He had faced the Doomwalker and defended Dolanna. It cost him his life, but in what was the only small thing that gave Tarrin comfort, he had succeeded. Dolanna had been saved, as had Dar and Phandebrass, saved because Faalken had put their lives over his own and blocked the Doomwalker's path to them. In that respect, Faalken was a hero, a mighty hero whose brave deed should never be forgotten.
He didn't have to be gone. Tarrin could have saved him, but he did not. Lost in the mindless fury of rage, Tarrin had cast aside his friendship and love for the Knight and had selfishly sought to satisfy his own primal need, to kill Jegojah. In his rage, he had no care for himself, no concept of the idea of self-preservation, and now he knew that he had no care for anyone else either. The rage was all, the primitive drive to kill, and it was both master and slave. It was something that he would have to live with for the rest of his life, something that he neither could forget, nor would allow himself to forget.
He wore his manacles to remind him of the price of trusting strangers. Now they also would remind him of the price that could come with his rage.
His rage had destroyed enemies before, it gave him a power against which few could stand, and it was something that he had no longer feared. But now it represented the terrible reality that in his rage, he wasn't the only one in danger. He didn't care about himself, but the anguish that his rage had killed a friend was almost too much for him to take.
He had become a monster, at that moment. He had abandoned a cherished friend in his moment of need to pursue his own petty needs. It was done. No amount of wishing could bring Faalken back, could allow him to change that truth. He felt a cold disassociation to that epiphany, a feeling of emptiness that tried to swallow the pain. That was the Cat in him, he realized. Powerful emotions like sorrow were something alien to it, and it sought to overwhelm them with the seductive allure in living in the moment, living in the now, where the past and the future were things that had no meaning. He had lived like that before, after he had nearly killed his mother. But he could not retreat into that blissful state again, not with Allia and Dolanna and Dar in danger, in danger because of him.
For the first time in a very long while, he had managed to overpower the Cat within, and forced it to accept his desires over its own.
The Cat in him was a pragmatic creature. It could understand the pain of loss, but it was the past, and the past had no meaning. The now was all. And in the now, he had other friends, other treasured companions that would need protection. From others, from himself if need be, but they were there. He would not lose another friend. He would not. He would not allow himself to kill another friend, but he would be there to prevent anyone else from killing them either. That single thought overwhelmed him, dominated him, swept aside any objection from his human morality. No matter what it took, no matter who or how many he had to kill, he would defend the friends that he had left.
Tarrin closed his eyes, felt them burn after being open for such a long time. The physical sensation amplified his mourning of Faalken, amplified the vow he made to himself to protect the rest. He felt the burning, the pain, and he welcomed it. It would be part of him, part of him forever, a dark stain on his soul that could never be erased.
His lack of control had finally done what he, what they all, had feared. It had gotten someone killed.
Eyes closed, a single tear formed in the corner of his eye, rolled down his cheek. The death of Faalken had left a hollowness inside him, a wrenching gape in his soul that could never be filled, could never be made whole. But he had to go on. He had no choice. He had a duty to perform, a mission to accomplish, something that was larger than Faalken, larger than him. He had to protect the world. If he just stopped, if he allowed himself to be drowned by his own pain, then Faalken's death would have been in vain.
And that single thought filled him with a searing resolve, a resolve that overwhelmed his pain.
Faalken would not die in vain. His death would be remembered, it would be honored, and he would never be forgotten.
He would not forget. He would never forget.
The wind was particularly lamentful that day.
The thin, emaciated, dead-eyed mage stood on the balcony, looking over a scene of bleak gray. A stone valley, barren and void, but a valley filled with the smoke and light of campfires. The smell of it reached all the way up the mountain, reached the vaulted walls of Castle Keening, reached Kravon's thin nose. The smell of Trolls and Dargu, Waern and Bruga. Foul odors, rank odors, the smell of unwashed Goblinoids as they feasted, fought, and waited in the inhospitable valley below. The Petal Lakes were barely visible at the end of that valley, opening to the rich mining region that Draconia and Daltochan occasionally fought to possess.