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"You are aware of much more than I expected," she said with a sigh. "I happen to know that Tarrin is indeed being trained for a very special task. I do not know what this task is, but I have been given instruction from the Keeper herself that he is to be trained as quickly as humanly possible. As to the attacks on him, that I do not know. I do know that the Keeper somehow knows who is behind it, but she would never share such knowledge with me. I am not, as they say, in the i
"So, the Tower wants him alive, and someone else inside the Tower wants him dead," Jesmind surmised. "Now, the big question is why. What makes my cub so important?"
"His power, probably," Dola
"And some other group is trying to stop it?" Jesmind asked.
"I would assume so," Dola
"It almost washes, but not quite," the Were-cat snorted. "If that were so, then what about the others? Are the Selani and the little mouse as strong as he is?"
"No," Dola
"Then what do they have to do with it?"
"They are non-human," Dola
"So, we have a big hole," she said. "And it's going to be up to you to fill it, woman. I won't be here."
"You have given up on Tarrin?"
"No," she replied. "He's still my cub, and he always will be. But I can't stay here anymore. I'm going to go home and try to arrange to have someone else come and teach him what he needs to know, but I may not be able to. The others may decide that he's too old to be taught, and simply decide to have him killed."
"Others? Which others?"
"We don't all run naked through the forest and howl at the moon," she snorted. "Well, not all of us, anyway. The woodland folk all live by a set of laws, and we Were-cats are part of it. Those laws are why I tried to kill my cub. I didn't want to do it, but I had no choice. It's still against our law, but I hope I can convince them that he's not too far gone. There are few enough males as it is, killing one just because he had to come here first would be a crime."
"The Fae-da'Nar," Dola
"Yes, I know that Were-wolf," she said dismissively. "Doesn't it seem awfully convenient that the one Sorcerer that just happens to have experience in dealing with Were-kin just happens to be the one that finds a fledgling Were-cat on her doorstep?"
"I asked the very same question myself, when it ocurred," she replied smoothly. "I considered it coincidence before. Now, I do not think I am so certain."
"Good. Someone in this Tower is trying to kill my cub, Dola
"So," Dola
"He never was," she grunted. "He made me angry, but among our kind, angry doesn't really count. I've tried to kill my own mother. And I meant it at the time. It's the way we are." She turned around a moment. "It's him," she grated. "When I was watching him from a distance, I saw the young cub I saw when I first found him, and I'd give up on taking him down as a Rogue. But when I tried to talk sense into him, he would get me so mad all I wanted to do was wring his neck. That cub has got a very sharp tongue."
"That is, interesting," Dola
"I never turned on him," she said heatedly. "He knew what he was getting into-"
"You gave him no choice, Jesmind," Dola
"He never told me that," Jesmind said in quiet reflection.
"Tarrin's heart is deep. He would go to great lengths to bring comfort to total strangers. To hurt people is totally against his nature."
"Yes, that's the problem," she grunted. "That's the other thing I came to talk to you about."
"What?"
"You have to get him out of here," she said. "This place is killing him bit by bit. The Tarrin I see now isn't the same cub that walked through those gates. He's turning hard, and if something isn't done, he'll become feral. He's already half feral now. It won't take much to make him feral permanently."
"Feral?"
"It's a term we use," she replied. "To us, it means savage, or vicious. More than a few of us are like that. We may be intelligent, but we're still part animal. If you beat an animal long enough, it turns mean, and it will never trust anyone again. That can happen to us too. If he's put through too much in this pit, he'll never trust another soul when he finally walks out those gates. He'll be feral. He'll only trust those people that he trusted before he turned feral, and when they're gone, that's it. He'll run into the forest, and noboby will ever see him again."
"I ca
"No, but you can take the Tower out of him," she replied. "You have to make sure that he spends time with the Selani and the little mouse. He trusts them. But it can't be just walks in the garden. It has to be quality time with nobody watching or eavesdropping, where he can express himself to them. If he keeps himself bottled up all the time, all his fears and suspicions are going to grow in him like a cancer. You also have to make sure that he stays in constant contact with people that he loves. Bring his parents here at least every other day. He has to have alot of positive human contact to counteract the suspicion that's starting to fester in him. And for the gods' sake, make them stop making him feel like a prisoner!" she snapped. "You better tell the Keeper and those others to just back off. They're killing him with attention."
"I did not realize that his position was so tenuous," Dola
"He's a damn good actor, Dola