Jula's name had somehow slipped through the sieve, but she wasn't one to take chances. So she was readying to leave. If anything, Tarrin was still out there, and he wasn't about to forget about her. Nobody knew where the Knights had taken him, but wherever it was, she doubted he was still there now. His regeneration had probably restored him to mobility, and she had no doubt that she was probably at the top of his list of people to kill. The collar subdued his will, but not his memory. He knew who collared him, and judging by what he did to the people in the passages, she was taking no chances on any feelings of mercy he may be having.
Some of them made her physically sick. She had to admit, though, when Tarrin killed someone, they were dead.
Besides, with Suld compromised, all the remaining agents were scattering, in case their names did come up. Only a select few, like the Black Mistress, were remaining in place, mainly because their names wouldn't appear anywhere, and their positions were vital to Kravon to keep track of their enemies. Jula knew her identity, but she wasn't fool enough to repeat it. Besides, with her leaving, it was one less danger to the Mistress' position. Jula was very secure in that she would be allowed to live, for the ki'zadun had very few Sorcerers, and those that they did have were very important. She would be more useful somewhere else now, possibly Tor, Arkis, or maybe even Telluria. Somewhere warm. Jula was sick of cold.
She reached her room with a sigh of relief, and found everything where it was supposed to be. She was packing light, only personal keepsakes and a few dresses, and enough gold to get to Den Gauche. From there, she would travel to where they wanted her to go. Her single suitcase stood on a neatly made bed in the frugally appointed room, which was somewhat messy after her rush to prepare for her journey. The room was empty, and much to her relief, all she had to do was pick up her bag and go. She crossed the room, reaching out for her bag-
– and suddenly found herself face-first against the far wall, face throbbing and buised, a tremendous power holding her feet some half a span off the floor. By the neck. With only a slight chill through her, she realized who it was, and why he was there.
So close. She had been so close.
"I know much, Tarrin," she said in a calm, reasonable tone, making no attempt to resist. "I can tell you who's been trying to kill you, and who ordered me to capture you. You can even go kill her, because she's right here in the Tower. All it will cost you is letting me live."
"That's too high a price to pay," he replied in a brutally cold tone.
She screamed only once, when those claws drove into her back. That scream turned into a ragged, stifled gasp when they hooked around her spine, just below her ribcage, and then ripped. She felt a section of her spine tearing free of her back, making a sickening sound like ripping of cloth, but it was a ripping of flesh and a snapping of bone and sinew. She could feel the hole it left behind, a hole so large that a child put his arm inside it, a hole that poured out her blood over legs that could no longer feel, could no longer move. The pain transformed into an icy coldness, a cold that warned her of her own impending death. Not from a blow from his paw, but from her lifeblood flowing out of her. Tarrin had opened her up like a fish, and now she was going to die slowly.
He threw her aside roughly, coldly, and she landed on her back, with a pool of blood forming around her. She looked at him, and saw nothing but pure, abject hatred. And a half a span of her own spine clutched his bloody paw. Her breath was coming in shallow, quick pants, and the cold spread up into the places where she could feel, the cold of the grave.
"That was for taking my freedom," he hissed. "If you survive, then consider us even."
He threw the grisly object in his hand down onto the floor, a trio of bloody pink bones with gray nerve dangling out of each end, and then he turned his back to her fearlessly and stalked away.
Shaking fingers reached into the pouch at her waist, fingers that fumbled open the flap. The cold was growing, growing, and her sight and clarity were fading with every beat of her heart. She heard him leave, knew that she had only precious moments before she would be dead, and only few seconds of rational thought before the cold within overwhelmed her.
Jula was a survivor. She had survived a long time, becuase she always understood the risks, and always planned for when those risks went bad.
Her trembling fingers pulled from the pouch a small glass vial, a vial filled with dark red blood. It was stoppered with wax to keep it from drying, and the mark of death was etched plainly onto the side of it. The vial she stole at the same time that she stole the collar.
Not death. Life.
Biting through the stopper with chattering teeth, Jula let the blood flow into her mouth. She bit her own tongue and swirled it around in her mouth, letting that blood enter her bloodstream, then swallowed all of it. She put her head back as her tongue went numb, and then her stomach, and then they began to itch. Then to burn. That feeling began to radiate out from her tongue and stomach quickly, washing over her, even into areas left paralyzed by the destruction of her spine.
She gave out only a single ragged laugh as the tidal wave of pain swept over her, blasting away all conscious thought.
Myriam Lar was very upset.
She sat at her dressing table, brushing out her thick auburn hair staring at her own reflection absently.
Tarrin Kael was gone. The Knights had swept him up and spirited him away, and they wouldn't return him. Not only that, they had left the grounds and removed themselves to the chapterhouse. Darvon wouldn't say why, but the tone of his voice made it clear that he was mortally offended by something that the Tower did. She didn't know what they knew…because if they did, then they would be justified.
It still sickened her, but there had been no choice. At the time, they had only known of Allia when the plan was made. The Tower needed to be the ones to recover the Firestaff. There was no choice in the matter. Only in the hands of the katzh-dashi would the relic be safe from misuse. In the wrong hands, it could be disastrous. And soon it would reveal itself again to the world, following the five thousand year cycle of power that governed its operation. At the end of that cycle, or the beginning, it would reach its peak. And for one day and one day only, any who held it to the four joined moons could command its might, and bestow upon themselves the power of a God.
Not just any god. An Elder God, a truly immortal deity who would rival in power with the others of that most elite group. A god with no constraints, with no bounds, existing outside the structured pantheon. The Elder Gods would be forced to rise up and deal with the usurper, and it would be a war that would destroy the world.
That couldn't be allowed to happen. The katzh-dashi would find it first, find it and keep it, securing it away until that day came and went, and it would be nothing but a useless curiosity for another five thousand years.
In this mad crusade, the katzh-dashi found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed. Other groups, nations, kingdoms, they had more resources, and they already had a head start. The scramble to find the Firestaff, what some called the Questing Game, began more than a year ago, when a battered scroll was discovered in ruins in Sharadar, a scroll that hinted at the long-lost location of the Firestaff. It was written that it existed behind the wind, within the realm of eternal shadow, and guarded by a defender of power. The Book of Ages also mentioned the ancient artifact, a device with the power to destroy the world. It wrote that Mi'Shara, nonhuman noble-born Sorcerers, had the best chance of finding the artifact. But it also wrote that anyone who could find the Firestaff and either defeat or outwit its Guardian could gain ownership of it. A Mi'Shara simply had a better chance.
Mi'Shara were frightfully rare beings. When the choice was made to use a Were-creature to create one, there was only Allia, and there was a sincere fear among many in the Council that she would not be enough. So plans were made, and a Were-creature was located and captured for the task. The arts of Communing with the Goddess, to directly ask her questions of great importance, required High Sorcery. And even then the answers were usually very unreliable, either being too cryptic to comprehend or outright wrong, when she deigned to answer at all. The Goddess' unwillingness to lead her children had confounded Keeper and Council alike since the katzh-dashi had returned to the Tower, but in this case they had produced a good result. When asked if there was a human Sorcerer of noble blood to be found, the cryptic response led to Tarrin. He was the only noble-born Sorcerer they could find, an obscure villager in a long-forgotten corner of the kingdom, who was the son of an Ungardt princess. Dolanna was sent to perform the Test there, even though they already knew he had potential. She was also selected because she had made a study out of Were-creatures, both their society and their physiology. If anyone could keep the fledgeling Were-cat sane, it was Dolanna.