tening to make his knees unlock again.
	Too much.  It had all been too much.  This was the last thing he ever expected to see when he came home!
	Jesmind looked at him with unwavering eyes, and then she smiled slightly.  "Welcome home, Tarrin," she said to him, putting a paw on Jasana's back.

	Tarrin knew manipulation when he saw it, though it took him a while to see it for what it was.
	Tarrin's cute little daughter, that sweet-looking little girl, had manipulated him like he was a puppet.
	But he had no defense against it.  She had seen that he was very angry, so she got his attention and assaulted him in every manner in which she could, attacking him through guilt and instinct and love to batter down all the barriers to his anger he had erected.  That sweet little girl was a cunning little sneak.
	Tarrin wasn't quite sure how long he had sat at the table, with Jasana sitting happily in his lap, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.  Jesmind had made him some dinner, but he didn't remember what it tasted like, or even what it was.  Or even if he ate at all.  The shock of this radical shift in his life had yet to run its course, and he was still stunned by the immensity of it.
	Jesmind had born his daughter!  A little girl, a little girl with powers of Sorcery that would be incredible!  He still reeled whenever he thought of that, but there she sat in his lap, happy as could be, playing with the end of his tail as the two adults sat in uncomfortable silence.
	But there were things he just had to know, and that meant that he had to ask.  "Jesmind," he finally said.  "How--"
	"She's a Were-cat, Tarrin," Jesmind smiled, as if predicting the question.  "She's normal for her age.  Remember, she'll be a fully grown adult by the time she's ten.  We're not like humans."
	"How old is she?"
	"About a year and a half," Jesmind replied.  "But she has the mind of a six year old.  We mature just as fast mentally as we grow."  She gazed into his eyes for a long moment, then blinked and looked away.  "My turn. What happened to you?"
	"This?" he asked, holding up an arm, with the fetlock dangling from his outer wrist and forearm.  "I came out second best in a fight with a Succubus.  This was the result."
	"I'd like to hear that story."
	"There's not a whole lot to tell," he grunted.  "Why here, Jesmind?  Why did you bring her here?"
	"Because this is your home," she said seriously.  "This is where I wanted her to be.  I didn't want her to grow up without knowing her father.  If you wouldn't have come back, at least this place would have told her all about you."
	"Mama likes it here," Jasana said.  "We fish and we hunt and we make things, Mama teaches me all about the forest and the humans and things, and sometimes the Drew-weed and the funny humans comes from the forest and visits with us."
	"Druid, dear," Jesmind corrected absently.  "You call him a drew-weed, and he's likely to smack your bottom."
	"Funny humans?"
	"That old man, Garyth," Jesmind answered.  "He's holed up in the Frontier with some of the villagers."
	"I heard about that," Tarrin grunted.  "I've already started fixing the problem."
	"You didn't--"
	"Oh yes I did," Tarrin said hotly.  "I'll make Aldreth safer than the Heart.  Nobody comes into my village and burns down houses and kills people.  Not without dying for it, they don't."
	Jesmind looked into his eyes.  "You've changed, cub."
	"I'm not a cub anymore, Jesmind," he said bluntly.
	"No, I guess you're not," she sighed.  "You're nothing like what I expected, though."
	"What did you expect?"
	"The same innocent little cub that needed me," she said, looking into his eyes.
	"That Tarrin died a long time ago, Jesmind," he said distantly.  "Along with alot of what you remember."
	"Mother's been telling me about what happened to you.  I'm sorry--" she broke off, looking away.  "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."
	Tarrin put a paw on his daughter's torso.  Part of him could understand why she left him, but the rest of him was still angry and betrayed by it, by her not telling him.  The only thing keeping him from strangling her was the fact that Jasana was sitting on his lap.  He was going to settle with Jesmind--oh, yes, he was--but not while Jasana was around.
	"I see that not everything is a bad thing," Jesmind said, reaching out and grabbing his other paw.  He flinched slightly at her touch, a touch that brought back memories of both sweet sensualness and anger and rage, a mixed confusion of emotions that had always defined his relationship with his fiery first mate.  "I see the manacles are gone.  Mother told me about them, told me what they meant.  I'm happy to see that you gave them up, and everything they represented."
	"It," he said after a moment, then blew out his breath.  "It wasn't easy.  I still think it was a bad idea."
	"It's a good sign.  Mother said you were nearly as feral as Mist, but I don't see it in you.  You've managed to regain yourself since the last time she saw you."
	Tarrin looked at the top of Jasana's head, at her pert little ears.  She was such an adorable little girl.
	"She also told me about what happened with Mist," Jesmind added, and that made Tarrin blush slightly.  "Don't worry, I'm not jealous.  I think it was a wonderful thing you did."
	"Jealous?  What right do you have to be jealous?" he flared.  "You abandoned me a long time ago, Mother."
	Jasana put her paws over his casually, patting it, and her touch had a powerful effect on him.  It soothed him almost immediately, and it reminded him again how much control this little girl seemed to be able to enact against him, whenever she wanted.
	"You have no idea how much it tore me up to do that, Tarrin," she said earnestly, gazing into his eyes.  "I was torn between my duty to you and the safety of our daughter.  Can you appreciate how that made me feel?"
	He could appreciate how it must have made her feel, but it didn't make him feel any better about it.  Jesmind's abandonment of him had hit him very hard, and even now he was still feeling the effects of it.  A part of him even felt that feeling jealous over the little girl in his lap would have been perfectly acceptable, but there was no way he could harbor any negative emotions against the precious little girl.
	His daughter.
	"It's getting late," Jesmind said, looking out the kitchen window.  "Why don't you stay here tonight?"
	"I'm not about--" he started, but he was cut off.
	"Please, papa?" Jasana asked, looking up at him with those adorable eyes.  "Please stay with us tonight?"
	He found himself to be defenseless against that.  "I--alright," he huffed.
	Jesmind and Jasana did their nightly chores while Tarrin sat at the table, chin on his paws, trying to make sense of everything.   He was both happy and furious, relieved and annoyed, felt both accepted and betrayed.  It was simply too much for him to deal with at one time.  He was angry with Jesmind, but he couldn't deny what they had once shared.  She had abandoned him, betrayed him, and though his heart rebelled at that, his mind fully understood and agreed with her decisions.  Had he not come from slaughtering twenty one Dal soldiers in Aldreth, he may not have acted so harshly towards Jesmind and wouldn't have upset his daughter like he did.  Seeing her, hearing her voice, incited memories of the Tower in him, both good memories and bad memories.  It reminded him of the unmitigated hatred that they had had for one another, and then it reminded him of the tenderness and affection they had found for one another after that.  It reminded him of the long thoughts of her while she was away, thoughts of lustful need, thoughts of company and warmth, and fury at how she had left him.  His feelings for Jesmind had always been a chaotic whirlwind, and that had only increased now that he knew why she had left him in Suld.
	Home.  That was one thing.  He was home, even if he found something waiting for him here that he hadn't been quite ready to accept.  This was the same room that he and his mother and father and sister had spent many an evening, reading, listening to his father play the lute, learning things, telling stories, or just watching the fire burn in the hearth.  This was where he had grown up, where he had always thought he would be, at least until he was fifteen.  Only four years ago, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.
	At that moment, he truly felt old.
	Things were different.  Jesmind had moved the table, and his parents' chairs were gone.  So was the little table that sat between them, chairs just in front of a thick bearskin rug sitting in front of the fire, a rug that had a few blackened burns in its backside from the popping fire.  Tarrin had always liked the musty, warm smell of that old rug.  He wondered where it was now.  In their places now was a single chair facing the fire, with a small wicker basket sitting beside it, and three large pillows spread out near the hearth.  The kitchen was bare compared to what he remembered, for Jesmind only seemed to have a few pots and pans, a few baskets and bins for food.  It looked empty.
	"Go take your bath," Jesmind said to her daughter sharply, shooing her off with a paw on her bottom.
	"Aww, mama, I hate baths!" Jasana protested.
	"Tough.  Now get moving."
	Pouting a bit, the little girl shuffled into the back room, where his sister's bedroom had once been.
	"She's getting to be a handful," Jesmind sighed, sitting at the table.  "She's a devious little monster, to be honest about it, cunning and sneaky."
	"Sounds like Kerri," Tarrin said absently.  "She's certainly smart."
	"I have trouble keeping her interested in things," Jesmind admitted.  "She learns so fast, I'm running out of things to teach her."
	"She's a Sorcerer," Tarrin told her bluntly.
	"I know," Jesmind replied.  "I can feel it in her.  And if I can feel it in her, she must be pretty strong."  She blew out her breath.  "I know you're very mad at me, Tarrin.  I just hope you can forgive me for all this."
	"I'm not sure I can," he said stiffly.  Without Jasana there, his anger had free reign to rise up again.
	"That's your decision, but I'm not going to let our problems stand in the way of our daughter," she said bluntly.  "Jasana needs both of us."
	"I thought females didn't let males interfere."
	"Not usually, but she's a Sorcerer, Tarrin," she said with a little fear in her voice.  "I don't know what to do about that.  You're a Sorcerer, so I was hoping that you'd know what to do.  She's starting to be a problem."
	"What do you mean?"
	"She's starting to use her power," Jesmind told him, reaching out and putting a paw on his forearm.  "I don't think she understands what she's doing yet, or if she's aware of it, but I've caught her using her power three times so far.  That doesn't count what I haven't seen."
	"She shouldn't be able to do that.  She's just a girl.  Sorcery doesn't manifest until puberty."
	"Should or shouldn't, the fact is that she is doing it," she said calmly.  "I'm afraid of what might happen.  I remember what happened with you, and I don't want her to be in any danger."
	"What is this I hear?  Jesmind is admitting that she was wrong?"
	Jesmind gave him a hot look.  "Of course I can admit it when I'm wrong.  I let my hatred of the Sorcerers cloud the fact that you were better off with them than with me.  Does that make you happy?"
	"No, it doesn't.  What would make me happy would be for us to go back to that time and have you not leave," he said gruffly, glaring at her.  "That hurt me, Jesmind.  Alot more than you think it did."
	"The past is past," she huffed.  "I made my decision, and I have to live with it just as much as you do.  We can let it poison us, or we can accept it and move on with our life."
	"I don't forgive that easily, woman," Tarrin said ominously, his ears twitching.
	"I'm not asking for your forgiveness," Jesmind snapped.  "I apologized for leaving you, but it was the best--the only--thing that I could do under the circumstances."
	"That doesn't help, Jesmind!" Tarrin told her in a rising voice.  "If you had even an inkling of what I've been through the last two years, you'd never have left in the first place!"
	"Am I a psychic now?" she asked archly.  "I did what I had to do at the time!"
	Tarrin rose to his feet, slamming a paw down on the table with enough force to crack it.  He looked down at Jesmind with rising anger, but she stood in the face of his wrath calmly, stoically.  "How would you feel if you came home after two years and found your old mate living in your house with a child you never knew you had!" he raged at her, pushing his paw down into the table with enough force to split it in half.  "Do you have any idea how tired I am of surprises!  How tired I am of having my life turned on its ear every two months?" he asked her as the two sides of the table clattered to the floor.  "I'm trying to stop an army from overrunning Suld, and I find you and this waiting for me on the road back!"  He threw up his paws.  "Damn it all, I give up!" he said in exasperation.  "I'm going to go into a monastary!"
	Jesmind looked at him for a long moment, then she suddenly burst out into helpless laughter.  Tarrin fixed her with an unholy stare, but she kept right on laughing, even going so far as to tip backwards in her chair and fall to the floor.  Tarrin's fury with her melted into an indignant kind of embarassment, because he had no idea what she found to be so bloody funny.
	"Ohhh, my," Jesmind managed to heave, then she laughed a little more.  "No matter how much you say you change, Tarrin, that tells me that you're still the man I remember.  You're still my Tarrin."
	Tarrin glared at her.
	"I'm done with my bath, mama!" Jasana called, coming out of Jenna's old room.  Tarrin glanced at her, then shook his head.
	Jasana forgot to put clothes on.
	"Why are you on the floor?" she asked her mother.
	"It's alright, cub," Jesmind chuckled.  "Go put your nightshirt on."
	"Yes, mama," she said obediently, then padded into his parents' old room.
	Jesmind pulled herself off the floor, looking up at Tarrin with slightly mischievious eyes.  "I know you're mad, but you're a Were-cat, Tarrin.  You'll get over it," she grinned.
	"Don't count on it," he snorted, crossing his arms defiantly.
	"Well, I seem to remember this one time that we hated each other," she smiled, "and it didn't last as long as I thought it would.  Face it, Tarrin.  You like me, I like you.  You may be mad at me, but that will pass, and we'll be nice to each other again."
	Tarrin glared at her again.
	"I may not be your bond-mother anymore, but I know you, Tarrin.  I know you better than you think.  Look me in the eye and deny that you feel anything for me."
	He couldn't do that, so he simply looked away from her.
	"That's what I thought," Jesmind chuckled.  "Don't worry, Tarrin.  Anger is natural for our kind.  I've tried to kill my own mother, and I meant it at the time.  It keeps our relationships invigorating."  She put a paw on his forearm.  "You'll come to realize that I did what was best for Jasana at the time, and that I'm sorry that it hurt you," she said gently.  "Believe me, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn't think of any other way to protect Jasana."
	"I, I don't know, Jesmind," he said gruffly.
	"Just sleep on it, Tarrin," she said.  "Stay with us tonight.  Get to know your daughter.  I promise you, you won't feel so angry in the morning."
	Jasana padded out from the room and immediately set herself in front of her father, arms out expectantly.
	Tarrin reached down and picked the little girl up, holding her close to him, letting her scent and the sense of her saturate his senses.  He couldn't deny the love he felt for this unexpected bundle of joy cast across his path.  Despite the seething anger he felt for Jesmind at the moment, he couldn't ignore the powerful feelings that the little girl inspired in him.  This was his child, his daughter, and he wanted to know her.
	There would be reckoning with Jesmind later.  And probably reckoning with the Goddess, who had no doubt sent him here to find them.

	"So, the rabbit went down into the hole, but mama reached in and grabbed it," Jasana chattered along exuberantly.  It was later that evening, and Tarrin laid on the floor where the old rug used to be, laying on the pillows with Jasana just beside him.  Jesmind had quietly withdrawn from them to allow Tarrin time alone with his daughter, time to talk to her, get to know her.
	He'd discovered several things about her already.  She was bubbly, for one, full of energy and life, always racing around.  She talked alot, which reminded him of Sarraya, chattering on about things that had great importance to a child, yet meant very little to an adult.  He wasn't sure if that was normal for her, if it was just excitement at having him with her.  She liked to touch people, touch things, touch everything around her.  And she was very affectionate, having seemingly formed an immediate bond with her unknown father, acting like he had always been a part of her life, like it was nothing special that he had finally shown up for the first time in her life.
	And he had learned much about the workings of her mind.  She was only a year and a half old, yet she had the maturity and ability of a six year old human child.  Maybe even more so.  From talking with her, he had come to realize that Jasana's mind was not normal, even for a child of six.  She was very intelligent, exceptionally so, admittedly much smarter than he was.  She had a keen understanding of things that seemed to be out of place for such a tender young age, an insight into the subtle signals that passed between her parents that allowed her to effectively control Tarrin's temper any time she wished, usually by little more than a touch and a smile.  She didn't seem afraid of her father's volatile temper at all, and he realized that that was because she had no reason to fear something she could utterly control.
	Tarrin had never been wrapped around someone's finger before, and he found it to be both annoying and embarassing.
	But the truth hurt.  Jasana's gentle presence had a dramatic effect on her father, calming him where nobody other than his parents, Allia, or Keritanima could hope to calm him.  She conjured up images and feelings of Janette, his little mother, causing the same powerful motivations in him that he had for that darling little human girl.  He found himself completely in her thrall as he sat there and listened to her talk about when Jesmind had taken her out hunting the day before, teaching her how to pull rabbits out of burrows without getting bitten in the process.  Such savage training seemed out of place for such a sweet little girl, but Tarrin knew that Jasana was a Were-cat.  Hunting and killing were instinctual responses in her, and as such they were things that would be a part of her life.  It was only natural for her mother to teach her all about killing prey.
	It seemed surreal, lying there on the floor, a floor ingrained in his deepest memories, lying there with a little girl that was his own flesh and blood, his own daughter, listening to her prattle on aimlessly.  Laying there told him how tired he was, how hard he had pushed himself, how draining that day had been both physically and emotionally.  He was tired.  Goddess, he was tired.
	"Papa, you're not listening to me," Jasana said sharply, nudging him.
	"I'm sorry, cub," Tarrin said blearily.  "I'm just very tired."
	"That's alright, papa," she said with a giggle.  "You just put your head down and I'll read you a bedtime story, just like mama does for me."
	"I'm a little old for stories, cub," Tarrin chuckled wearily, putting his head on his paws and staring into the fire.
	"You're never too old for stories.  Mama says so herself."
	"Really?  And what's her favorite story?" he asked with a slow smile.
	"Her favorite story?  Well, she likes telling the story of the Wanderer."
	"I didn't ask what story she likes to tell, I asked what story is her favorite," he corrected her.
	"Her favorite story is the one she tells me about you, papa," she replied, her expression turning sober.  "She tells it to me almost every other night."
	"A story about me?  I'd like to hear it."
	"Well, I don't know if she wants me to tell you," Jasana fretted, but then she giggled.  "But she's not here, is she?"
	"Jasana, you are a sneaky little rat."
	"Mama says worse things," Jasana told him with a roguish smile, but then her expression turned sober again.  "Mama told me that you were once a human, like Uncle Garyth, but you became like mama when she bit you."
	"That's right."
	"I don't understand that.  How could you be something else than what you are?"
	"Magic, cub," he told her with a smile.
	"Oh.  Anyway, she said that you were chosen by someone to do something very important, something so important that you couldn't be with us.  She says that you've travelled all over the world doing this thing, and that someday you'd come home to us and we could be a family."
	"She said that?"
	"Umm," Jasana said with a nod.  "Mama tells me something new every night, like how you stole some great thing from an evil monster in a faraway city, or you fighting Trolls in the forests, or you beating some evil thing that tried to hurt you, or how you learned about things from Gramma after you got hurt.  She once told me about how you climbed some great stone tree and found a city at the top."
	Tarrin was startled.  That all had happened.  How did Jesmind find out what he was doing?  Triana.  Of course.  Triana was a Were-cat with some extraordinary sources of information.  Triana was telling Jesmind, and Jesmind was telling Jasana in the form of bedtime stories.  "Seems pretty wild to me, cub," Tarrin said mildly.  "If I did all that, where would I find time to sleep?"
	"I asked her why you couldn't come home, but all she says is that you're not done yet," Jasana sighed.  "But you're done now, right papa?  You came home, just like mama promised.  Does this mean we can be a family now?"
	Tarrin sighed deeply.  "No, kitten, it doesn't," he said quietly.  "I'm afraid I just came home for a little while.  I have to leave again, and very soon, because there are very important things out there I need to do."
	"It's not fair," Jasana said petulantly.  "Aren't I important to you?" she asked in a small voice, staring at him with large, expressive eyes.
	That was a low blow, but he'd come to learn that Jasana went for the throat.  She was a devious manipulator, and she went right for the jugular with that remark and those heartbreaking eyes.  "I'm doing this because you are that important to me, cub," he told her carefully.  "If I don't do this, then our home won't be safe.  I have to keep the den safe, don't I?"
	"Well," she hedged, looking away.
	"Exactly.  Sometimes we all have to do things we don't want to do, even when they don't feel right to us."
	Jasana looked at him with a pouting expression.  Goddess, this was a devious little girl!  He very nearly groaned.  Devious!  He pitied Jesmind at that point, having to deal with this cunning little handful all day every day.
	"That's not going to work on me, Jasana," he said firmly.  "Unlike your mother, I'm used to dealing with sneaky little girls like you."
	The pouting expression vanished like it had never been, and the girl pushed her strawberry blond hair from her face.  "When will you come home for good, father?" she asked intently, sudden maturity creeping into her voice.  "Mother misses you, and I want you to be with me."
	"I don't know, cub," he sighed, putting his chin on his paws and staring into the fire, feeling his eyes grow heavy.  "Hopefully, very soon."
	Rain began pattering on the roof, droning on in a way that tempted him into going to sleep in the most delicious manner.  "So that means that you'll come home?" Jasana pressed.  "That we can be a family?"
	"Family is what we make of it, cub," he told her in a distant tone.
	"That's alright.  You promised to come home," she said happily, snuggling down beside him.  "You promised."
	"I am home, cub," he said in a musing doze, and then he closed his eyes. "This is my home."
	And then the hard days, the weather, the events of the day overwhelmed him, and he drifted off to sleep.

	Jesmind couldn't help but feel her heart go all aflutter.
	She leaned against the doorframe, looking at her Tarrin and their daughter sleeping on the floor by the fire.  When he was asleep, the softness and gentleness of her former cub shone through the tension that was always in his expression, making him as handsome and appealing as she remembered him to be.  It didn't seem fair for so much misery to be heaped on those shoulders, and though she was proud that he had managed to come through it without losing his mind or his humanity, she still grieved for him, for the pain he had been forced to endure.
	Seeing him there on the floor reminded her of why she had brought Jasana here, why she had bothered, why she cared.
	He was so tall.  Looking at him like that, stretched out on the floor, his height was so apparent.  He was as tall as her mother now, with those tufts of long fur on his ankles and forearms that marked the unnatural aging he had been exposed to far away and some time ago.  It seemed so unnatural, and yet it also seemed...proper, to look up into his eyes instead of having them level with hers.  He radiated a strength now, an inner strength just like her mother, an aura of unshakability that would intimidate everyone around him.
	So many changes, but underneath it all, he was still the same Tarrin.  Her Tarrin.
	It was unnatural.  She knew that it was.  It was completely unnatural for her to be so attached to one male, so utterly devoted to him, so ready to spend all of eternity in his company.  But she couldn't deny it, even from herself.  She loved him, loved him like she never thought she'd love any male, and she would win him.  He was angry now, but that would pass.  She could be patient.  She was more than five hundred years old, so the idea of wearing him down over the course of a year or two didn't seem like a very long time to wait.  Jasana would keep him from running away, so she had all the time in the world.
	Of course, she wasn't the only one waging war.  She had heard much of what had happened between Tarrin and his daughter, and Jesmind had to smile.  Jasana was working on him too, trying to make him stay with her, and what was more, trying to break down Tarrin's anger at Jesmind and get him to accept her.
	Between Jasana and Jesmind, Tarrin didn't have a chance.
	Jesmind smiled warmly at her fractured little family, unable to resist the scene.  She padded over and laid down on the other side of Jasana, curling up with them, feeling for the first time that her life had been completed.  She had her daughter, and now she had her Tarrin.  Even if he wasn't very happy with her, she knew, she felt, she was certain that he would forgive her and accept her once again.  Until then, she would be content with what she could get, even if it meant curling up with him and their daughter while he was unaware.
	Closing her eyes, she immersed herself in the scents and sensations of family, and then drifted off to sleep.
 
Chapter 23

	Sunrise.
	Usually it was the beginning of a new day, but to Tarrin, it represented the dawning of another chapter of his life, and one which he was not entirely prepared to accept.
	Tarrin sat on the porch rail on the east side of the house, whose door faced north, watching the sun rise in relative silence, with only the chirping of the birds to interrupt the continuity of quiet.  Jasana and Jesmind were still asleep, still laying on the floor in the house, and that had been the first shock of the day.  Jesmind had made herself very comfortable with him and their daughter while he was asleep, and her scent had conjured up dreams not entirely suited for sleeping next to his young daughter.  If that hadn't been bad enough, he had felt a curious softness inside him when he had opened his eyes and looked at Jesmind's face across from him.  When she was sleeping, when she was at peace and at rest, the hardness that limned over her face and eyes was gone, revealing the true radiant beauty that she possessed.  Tarrin had been moved by that beauty, a beauty that had both haunted him and aggravated him since the day she abandoned him.
	He wasn't prepared to give in to that quite yet.  He was still utterly furious with his former mate, and looking at her like that, remembering how lovely she was and how good it felt when they--
	Tarrin shook his head, shivered his tail, then looked back at the rising sun.  There were other matters than Jesmind and Jasana to deal with, though they did occupy the majority of his thoughts.  It had been eleven days since the Goddess had told him that the ki'zadun would be moving.  That meant that they had been on the move for six days.  Six days.  That put them somewhere between Draconia and Tykarthia, and that meant that soon the Dal army in Sulasia was going to be moving to set up the trap that would destroy the Sulasian army not garrisonned in Suld.  Tarrin's primary concern was Suld, but he also couldn't see just giving up on his countrymen sitting out there waiting for the jaws to clamp shut around their throats.  Tarrin was behind the Dal army, and that was something that Keritanima had told him over and over was the best place to be when attacking an armed formation.  He was still determined to reach Suld, but this was what the Goddess had meant when she said he would know when he could break the rules.  She said he would know when it happened, and it had happened.
	The Goddess had sent him on this path so he could be reunited with Jesmind and meet his daughter.  The part about the daughter, he very much was happy over.  The part with Jesmind was not.  He didn't understand what significance they played in the grand design, but he had faith that the Goddess knew what was best.  She hadn't been wrong yet.
	That gave him free reign.  He could move any way he wished, and that meant that he could now fly to Suld; or, more to the point, fly to wherever the Dal army was at at the moment in Sulasia.  Probably around Ultern, or maybe even Jerinhold.  The problem was that he didn't have an army.  He only had himself, and though his magic was indeed potent, it couldn't defeat an entire army by its