Such gentle thoughts faded by the time he was again awake.
Allia was giving him hot looks as he paced through the room, stretching himself out. He still felt somewhat weak, but he was more than strong enough to do what he had to do. He felt somewhere between sleep and awake, where his anger had been reduced to a hot spot in his mind, a mind that seemed curiously distant to him. He had no idea why, but it was allowing him to think somewhat clearly about what he had to do, and what had to be done.
He was still very angry, but he had a strange feeling of helplessness about it. He was angry, he was outraged…and yet, he didn't feel quite as angry as he actually was. It was an eerie feeling, almost bizarre, and he had no explanation for it. He suspected that the trauma he suffered at the hands of his bestial half had something to do with it, and at that moment, he really didn't mind all that much.
There would be a reckoning, and he preferred it not to be now.
"Take them off," she said in a dangerous voice.
"No," he replied flatly, ignoring her.
It was all about the manacles. They were still locked around his wrists, and he refused to remove them. They represented what had happened to him, and in a strange way, he feared to take them off, else he would forget what happened while he had them on. The memories of his actions were only just beginning to unravel from the confused mess of emotion and images knotted in his mind, a common effect after the Cat had taken control of him. It had happened before, but never quite so severely. Then again, he had never lost control of himself so utterly as he had earlier that day. It was still hazy, but the raw truth was that he had gone on a rampage, and a large number of people had died at his paws. That much he was certain of, but the specifics of it were still lost in the mists of his instincts.
"Take them off."
"I'm not going to take them off, Allia," he said bluntly, turning around. "Deal with it."
He found himself laying on the floor, with her knee in his back. "I said take them off!" she said harshly. "I cannot stand to see you with those things on your arms! Take them off now!"
"No," he said in a dangerous tone, getting up with her on top of him. His strength carried her up, until she was forced to back away or be tipped over. "Get used to it, sister, because I'm not taking them off."
"You are so dense!" she shouted at him. "Take them off!"
"No," he hissed, glaring at her. She gave him a startled look, then took a step back. Tarrin sighed, looking away from her. "I'm sorry, sister," he said contritely. "I just can't take them off."
"Alright, but we'll talk about that later," she said. "What are you planning to do?"
"I'm going back to the Tower," he told her. "My things are still there, and I'm going to catch up with the Keeper."
"I think I can live with that," she said. "What do you think we will do now?"
"Now? We run," Keritanima said as she opened the door. "It's good to see you up, brother."
"Kerri," he said with a smile. "Allia said you came to my rescue."
"You'd do the same for me," she said as she hugged him. "I don't think we're going back to the Tower. Not now. I've given myself away, and I wouldn't trust any of them."
"No, I don't think so," he said. "But I have no idea what to do now."
"Now, we get as far away from them as we can," Keritanima said. "Inland, or to the desert. One or the other."
"I don't have a problem with that," Tarrin agreed. "But first, I have a little visit to make there."
"What for?"
"I want my things, and I'm going to pay the Keeper a little visit," he said, flexing his claws in an ominous manner. "Jula too, if I can catch her."
"Tarrin, just drop it," Keritanima said. "They can't do anything more to you."
"This isn't about danger, this is about justice," Allia said. "They must pay for their crimes."
"Allia-"
"Don't try to stop me, brother," she said hotly. "What they have done to you is wrong. They must be punished for it."
"Allia, let me take care of it," he said.
"Tarrin, what you're talking about is dangerous. You don't just walk into the Keeper's room and smack her around."
"They'll never see me," he said in a grim tone.
"It's dangerous."
"I don't care."
"This isn't like you, Tarrin."
"No, it's not."
"Do not think to leave without me," Allia said hotly.
"Why don't both of you park it for a while?" Keritanima asked. "They're not going anywhere."
"Jula is," Tarrin said dangerously. "If I don't catch her before she gets away-"
"Tarrin, she's had hours to get away," Keritanima said. "She's already gone."
"I'm still going to try."
"Stubborn fool," she snapped, sitting on the bed. "I don't have any other brothers, and if you get yourself killed over something stupid, I'm never going to forgive you."
"I'll keep him safe, sister."
"You'll stay here," Tarrin told her. "I'll move faster alone, sister. For this, I need to be alone."
Allia glared hotly at him, but finally submitted to his steady gaze. "Alright, but be careful."
It was late in the evening, and Jula was terrified.
It didn't look it, but Jula was always one to be rather good at acting one way while feeling another. She moved with quick, smooth precision through the Tower, rushing back to her rooms after picking up some instructions from her superior. The Black Mistress had not been happy about the abysmal failure, but at least she didn't assign any blame to Jula. Jula had done her job, and done it well. That the Wikuni witch had somehow figured out a way to track down the Were-cat had been the ultimate in bad luck.
Just thinking of it both made her blood boil, and run cold. The Cathedral stronghold was one of the ki'zadun's oldest, largest, and strongest hidden bases. A thousand men and women were commonly within the passages, and those passages stretched out to every corner of Suld like a great spider's web. The only section of the city they avoided was the area around the Tower, and that was because many of the Sorcerers with special affinity for Earth would be able to detect the tunnels. That was why the blond Sorceress had had to lead Tarrin to the Cathedral, for it was the closest entry point into the complex from the Tower of Six Spires.
It was a complete loss. Irvon's death had only been the beginning, as Knights and Wikuni Marines used ropes to slide down the hole created by the Were-cat-she had never dreamed of feeling such power!!-and had radiated out from it like a ripple spanning out from a drop into a pond. They killed or captured almost everyone inside the complex, who was still rocked back on their heels from the incredible savagery of the Were-cat's rampaging. Hundreds of years of work and planning had been destroyed in a single morning, and men that could not be replaced were either dead or captured. The entirety of the ki-zadun's operations in Suld had been compromised. Only the agents in Court and in the Tower had survived the sweep, because many of those tunnels opened up into the private residences of officers and ranking members of the Network. And what they had found in writing or records was even worse, for they exposed the operations of the Network in several other cities in Sulasia, the Stormhaven Isles, Shace, and Tykarthia. The Network was large, it was powerful, and it was anywhere there were men and women of power.