interfere directly," he told her.  "They won't attack.  But as long as Val doesn't directly attack them, they will defend the army against his power.  They can do that much without inciting a direct confrontation.  You know, one of those things that may destroy the world."
	Jesmind glanced at him, her eyes suspicious, then she seemed to understand.  She snorted, putting her paws on her hips.  "A silly way to have a war," she said.  "Where half the people on our side are too afraid to do what they have to do."
	"Well said," he nodded.  "Now, if I'm going to do this, I'd better rest a while."
	"Why don't you take a bath with me?" she invited, grabbing the end of his tail and tugging lightly.  "That will relax you."
	"And we'll end up doing something more strenuous than what I'll be doing when I'm making the objects," he said dryly.
	"Well, at least you'll sleep soundly afterward," she said with a naughty smirk, pulling on his tail more insistently.  "Come on, my mate.  Let me pamper you a little before you have to wear yourself out with your magic."
	"How can I refuse a naked woman?" he asked with a smile.
	"Why do you think I took off my clothes?"
	He laughed and let her lead him to her favorite bathing pool by his tail.

	It was, by far, one of the hardest things he had ever had to do.
	It had cost him two days of sleepless, continuous effort, but now, two days and alot of energy later, he held the final result of his toil in his paws.  It was an unassuming-looking leather belt with a gold buckle shaped in the fashion of a cat's head.  The leather was as supple as silk but as strong as steel, leather of the highest quality, and the gold pure, alloyed with other metals just enough to allow it to retain its shape--in its purest state, gold was a very soft, malleable metal.
	It had certainly been worth the effort.  After Jesmind had indeed pampered him a little bit, massaging him, paying him very gentle and loving attention, he slept a while and got to work.  He decided on using a belt because it was a rather mundane item, not the kind of thing that one would identify as a rare magical object.  And besides, the phsyical characteristics of his race made a belt more practical than other things.  He already wore a necklace, earrings and rings were impractical for a Were-cat, and they couldn't wear boots.  Their claws made any kind of magical garment a dangerous proposition, since an errant claw may tear the garment and disrupt its magical properties, and some kind of token or object that wasn't worn could conceivably be lost or dropped by accident.  A belt wouldn't come off unless it was taken off, it served a useful purpose other than that of its magic, and it was the last thing someone would suspect was a magical device.  It was safely out of the way of a Were-cat's claws, and its sturdy leather would resist any incidental claw that may brush across it.
	After he decided on using a belt, he bent to the task of Creating one.  He tried several times until he got one that he felt was good enough to accept a magical enchantment.  After that was done, he then proceeded with the very difficult task of infusing it with magical power.  He had never done it before, but the knowledge of how it was done was solidly in his mind, part of what he'd learned when he was turned.  He went very carefully nonetheless, not wanting to waste precious time by messing it up and having to start all over again from scratch.
	It was alot harder than he thought it would be.  He had to use High Sorcery to start the process, preparing the object to receive a magical enchantment, and that was alot more critical to the process than he first realized.  The better he did with the preparation, the more magic the object could accept, and therefore the greater its potential.  Preparing an object was purely a function of art, not spellweaving, for he had to pattern his preparing weaves carefully to take the material and feel of the object into account.  The preparing weave had to fuse with the belt's leather and gold seamlessly, flawlessly, becoming so united with it that it was as if it had always been there.  Since every object was different, that made every attempt to prepare an object a unique exercise in being able to bring out the utmost potential of the object in question.  This was why the object had to be of the utmost quality, he realized after he had begun.  If the object was shabbily made, its impure nature would taint the process of preparing it to receive a permanent magical enchantment.  An object of quality would be much more receptive to the preparing spell, more attuned to the purity of the magic it was being prepared to contain.
	This was where Tarrin ran into his first problem.  The belt he had Created was an object of quality, but it had a certain sterility to it that the magic had trouble overcoming.  A normal object made by the hands of a master craftsman showed in its very nature the effort the craftsman had expended to make it, but Tarrin's Created belt had no such sense in it.  It made it unusual, and magical spells as delicate as the one he was using did not like unusual.  But the mutable nature of the spell allowed him to work around this little problem, and as such it served more as an educational tool that would better prepare him when he made the second belt.
	After he solved that problem, he finished with the preparation of the belt, infusing it with a weave that would bind to the magic that was put into it afterwards, and render them permanent.  Once that was done, he began on the work of placing the magic itself.  He had to do it flow by flow, carefully, painstakingly, interlacing his work with the binding weave, carefully placing it, then checking it, then double-checking it.  He had to maintain the flows he was setting the entire time, every flow, and the effort of keeping a steadily growing and more complicated weave organized was part of the exhausting effort of doing what he was doing.  The flows did not set, the flows did not hold themselves.  He had to place each one and hold it right where it was as he started with the next.
	The binding weave that would make the whole thing permanent did help in that regard.  By altering it in a very slight way, he caused a portion of its binding effect to become active, which held the flows he already set down where they were and give him a chance to rest.  But the binding was very temporary, rarely lasting more than an hour, and the flows tended to drift a little bit while they were being artificially maintained by the binding weave.  Every time he paused to eat or rest, he had to go back over all the work he'd already done and correct minor shifts in the flows that, had he not fixed them, would have caused the whole thing to be ruined if he tried to activate the object.  After he finished that, a process that could take anywhere up to two hours by itself, he could continue the slow, painstaking process of weaving the spell flow by careful flow.
	It took him nearly a day and a half of constant effort to complete the three weaves.  They would have been very easy to weave on their own, but the demands and requirements of putting them into the belt were very, very different from usual Sorcery.  He had to interlace the weaves so they could work together, yet be separate.  He also had to very carefully overlay the weave of non-detection so the magic of the belt wouldn't be apparent to anyone but someone with as much power and skill as he, who was the creator of the item, had.  It would take a sui'kun to get around the powerful weave of non-detection in the belt and recognize it for what it really was.  He also had to carefully program in the triggers that would give the wearer the power to command the magic the belt made available.  Tarrin had already decided that the only triggers needed were the ability to activate or deactivate both the Illusion and the ability to walk over water-like surfaces like they were solid ground.  The non-detection would never deactivate, forever defending the belt and its wearer from magical detection of the magic the belt contained, but only the magic that was contained within the belt.  He had to very carefully find where in the structure of the weaves to place those two triggers, which would cause the magic to activate and deactivate without disturbing the function of the belt or the operation of its other two functions.  That was not easy.  If he put it in the wrong place, a trigger to deactivate one function could cause all the belt's magic to stop working.  If he really messed up, he could set the trigger in a place that would permanently disrupt the magic he'd placed in it, rendering it nonmagical.  The setting of triggers was a very delicate operation, which was why magical devices like the Cat's Claws, which had many functions and also had the ability to change its operation depending on a great many possibilites, were so incredibly rare.  His respect for his sister reached new heights when he realized how staggering the effort to make those bracers had to have been.  The many layers of triggers concerning the operation of the blades was eclipsed only by the raw power of the magic she'd placed into them to make them serve as magical armor.  It had to have taken her rides to make those things, rides of constant effort and no sleep.
	But he finished that, and after he was done, he meticulously went over every single flow to make sure it was all where it was supposed to be.  Once he was utterly convinced he had it all right, all he had to do was fully activate the binding weave he had placed in it before he started.  The binding weave clamped down on the weaving he'd done, searched through it, then it snapped down his weaving on its own and released all the magic of the belt in one simultaneous act, causing the magic of the belt to flare into life.
	It had been alot of work, but it was done.
	He held the belt up as Jesmind lounged nearby, reading a book he had Conjured for her before starting his work, sighing in relief.  He was tired.  He could stay up for days if he had to, but this was two straight days of no sleep and exhausting work.  For a moment he wondered how Jenna survived when she made the Cat's Claws.  It looked rather normal, and what was more important, he could feel the weave of non-detection hard at work, hiding the magic of the belt by making it have the same feel and sense as a tiny capillary strand, the smallest and weakest of all the strand structures.  If anyone ever felt anything at all.  Only a strong Sorcerer or magic-user would even notice anything unusual about the belt, and those who did would mistake it as nothing more than background magic, nothing they'd think was coming from the belt itself.
	Standing up, stretching, he decided to test his new creation.  He put it on and stepped up to the nearest pit of water, one that was bubbling rather angrily, and willed the water-walking aspect of the belt to activate.  He felt a strange surge, and a weird tingling in his feet that quickly stopped, and that was a good sign.
	"Tarrin!  You're done?" Jesmind called from where she was laying on her side, still unclothed.
	With a short hop, Tarrin jumped out over the pool of bubbling water.  His feet struck its surface, and they did not sink.  It was something like trying to stand during an earthquake, for his weight did not in any way impact or change the surface of the water, a surface that was boiling and shifting beneath his feet.  Jesmind laughed as he threw his arms out and quickly stepped to the edge, forced to use his arms to keep himself from falling over.  He made it to the edge, turned and knelt down, then pushed his hand against the water.  It too struck the surface and then stopped, and what was curious to him, no amount of strength he tried to exert against the water would change its surface in any way.  It was like the water was impenetrable stone.  The surface was boiling, and that meant it was hot enough to burn an unprotected paw, but Tarrin's immunity to heat protected him from the dangerous temperatures.
	"It works," he told her with a slow smile.  He willed the power of the belt to cease, then he pushed at the water with his finger once again.
	His finger easily sank into the boiling water.
	"It definitely works," he said confidently, then he willed the Illusion to activate.  It was hard to feel anything with the non-detection actively trying to hide it from him, but he made it, so he knew what to flook for.  He felt a surge of magic that quickly surrounded him, then seemed to solidify into an Illusory image.  "Did I disappear?"
	Jesmind gaped at him, then she laughed.  "There's a little disortion around your silhouette, and it gets a little worse whenever you move, or I change my vantage point," she told him, moving around him to check from different angles.  "Is that invisibility?"
	"In a sense," he answered.  "The Illusion picks up what's behind you and projects that image forward."
	"So it's like camoflage.  I guess that's why there's that small distortion on the edge.  It's the border between the magic and reality."  She walked completely around him, then stopped before him.  "I can definitely see the green of your eyes, and they certainly stand out.  But from a distance and from behind, I'd never notice you."
	"That's what matters," he nodded, willing the Illusion to stop.  "Am I here again?"
	"In all your wondrous glory," she told him.  "That's amazing, my mate!  Is that mine or yours?"
	"If you want it, it's yours," he shrugged.  "But you're going to look a bit silly running around with nothing but a belt."
	"Who's here to notice?" she asked.
	"Did you have any trouble while I was working?"
	"Nah," she sounded.  "That lobster thing hasn't come back yet, but it's about due.  I was kinda hoping that it would show up while you were working."
	"Don't bother it, Jesmind," he told her.
	"What you didn't know wouldn't hurt me," she grinned.
	"It would have been a little hard to to hide that much," he chided.
	"I'm curious."
	"If you're that desperate for lobster, I'll Conjure you some," he told her.  "Just don't try to eat the one that comes in here."
	"Spoilsport," she teased.  "How do you feel?"
	"Like I've been dragged behind a horse for a few months," he answered honestly.  "I'm hoping the second one won't take me as long.  Since I made the first one, and it seems to work, I'll know what I'm doing a little better the next time."
	"Well here, let's get you into one of the springs," she said, taking his paw.  "I'll fix you something to eat, and you can soak before you get some sleep."
	"That sounds wonderful," he sighed sincerely, letting her lead him away.
	After a long, relaxing soak in a hot spring and a filling meal, Tarrin got some much-needed sleep.  he slept longer than he intended to sleep, and because of that he started on the second belt almost immediately once he got up, almost forgetting to Conjure Jesmind the food and some things to help her pass the time before he committed himself to his work.
	The second belt took him only a day and a half to make, but just because he had experience now, that didn't make it any easier.  It did make the process of laying down the weaves a little faster, and he had to rest less often.  But when he finished with that one, he was even more worn out than with the first, as the concerted effort of making both belts without proper rest between the two projects had taken its toll on him.  He finished when Jesmind was taking a light nap, dozing in cat form just outside the circle he'd drawn on the stone that told her not to come any closer to him than that.  Tarrin didn't disturb her, moving to a stable pool of water to test the belt.  He put it on and activated it, then stepped out onto the surface of the water as if it were solid ground.  Nodding to himself, he returned to solid ground and deactivated it, then went over to the food pack he'd Conjured and pulled out a meal of bread, cheese, and salted ham.  He fell on the meal ravenously, finishing it and continuing to deplete the pack, until he realized that he'd eaten everything he'd left for his mate while he was working.  He solved the problem by Conjuring a large side of beef out of some inn's kitchen somewhere, one that hadn't been cooked yet, but the meat's raw state in no way discouraged him from starting to devour it.
	"Mmm," Jesmind hummed in her humanoid form, coming up behind him and sitting down beside him.  She was still nude, but to his relief, she wasn't wearing the belt.  That would look a little silly.  She had probably played with its magic for a while, then got bored with it and put it away.  "Done already?"
 	He nodded, taking another piece of meat off the flank with his claws.  "When are you going to put on some clothes?"
	"As soon as we leave here," she told him.  "You may not notice it, but it's rather hot in here.  I'd rather sweat into the open air rather than my clothes."  She ran her paw up his back sensually.  "Besides, I think you enjoy the view."
	"I can't argue with that," he admitted with a slight smile.  "As soon as I get some sleep, we'll be on our way again, my mate.  and we'll have to pick up the pace."
	"That's fine with me.  I'm starting to get restless in here.  It's hard to sit and do nothing while--" her voice broke a little, and she looked away.
	He put his paw around her shoulders.  "It was necessary," he told her gently.  "But now we have the tools we need to move swiftly and without worrying about being seen, and that's going to give us a much better chance to get there and get her back."
	"I know," she said, putting her head against his shoulder.  "Someday we'll have to bring Jasana here," she said.  "I kind of like it here.  It'll be quite a journey, though, just to take a bath in a hot spring."
	"I've been here long enough to get a good lock on this place, Jesmind.  I can Teleport back here whenever I please."
	"You can?"  He nodded.  She smiled up at him, then kissed him lingeringly on the lips.  "I knew there had to be some good use for all that magic of yours, my mate."
	"Yes, it can do alot more than amuse you, can't it?" he asked dryly.
	She laughed and slapped him on the back with a paw.  "Move over," she commanded.  "I haven't had any meat that wasn't crusted with salt for two days."
	After a heavily filling meal, Tarrin caught up on his sleep, lounging in the heat in his cat form, laying on one of the heavy fur coats he'd made.  It was quite relaxing, and the coat had Jesmind's scent all over it, which pleased him.  He always seemed to sleep better when surrounded by the scent of a mate.
	When he woke up, with Jesmind sleeping up against him in her cat form, he realized that their time in the hot spring was at an end.  That saddened him a little.  He had spent good time here with Jesmind, had healed their relationship here, and though the circumstances of their visit were dire, he would leave the place with fond memories.  He had taken his break from reality, though, and it was time to get back to things.  He had to rescue his daughter.  Though he had enjoyed his time here, that thought had never been far from his mind.
	The vacation was over.
	Rising up, he licked affectionately at his mate's cheek and ear, grooming her.  It woke her up, but she submitted to his attention, lifting her head to give him more access to her fur.  For the first time in quite a while, he heard her purring.  Though the loss of their daughter had deeply pained them both, at least for the moment, she had found enough contentment to purr.  He groomed her for quite a while, prolonging her pleasure as much as he could, but the inexorable ticking of the clock that so ruled them intruded on his intimate moment.
	Sighing inwardly, he stopped, then rose up and padded away from her, giving himself enough room to shapeshift.  He did so without thought, rising up to his full height and looking around the chamber, knowing that it was time to go.  "Pack up," he told her in a sober voice that was all business once again.
	Jesmind shapeshifted laying on the coat, then rolled over on her back and sighed.  "We have to come back here," she told him, putting a paw on her stomach as he found his vest and slipped it on.  She had piled the clothes they weren't wearing by the food pack, so he reached down and grabbed her breeches, then lobbed them at her.  They landed on her shins, and she sat up and looked at them.  "Ah well, back to silly human customs," she mused.  "I forgot how free it feels to go without clothes."
	"You just like me staring at you."
	"Of course, but there's still something nice about being naked."
	"Be glad you're Were.  After five hundred years, could you imagine how you'd look if you didn't regenerate?"
	Jesmind laughed.  "Gravity would have done a number on me, that's for sure," she said as she started pulling on her pants.  "My breasts would be hanging down around my hips."
	"So, there's at least one thing clothes are good for," he told her calmly as he picked up the food pack.  He made sure it was empty, then tossed it aside.  He had no more use for it.  He tossed Jesmind her shirt, which she pulled on, then made sure to hand her the magical belt he'd made, which she'd placed at the bottom of the stack of folded clothing.   She took it and put it on immediately, touching the cathead design of the buckle gently.
	"You have the hang of how it works?"
	She nodded.  "I practiced with it while you were working on the other one.  You should have warned me," she accused.
	"About what?"
	"That if I stepped out onto boiling water, it would burn my feet!"
	"I thought you'd have the sense to realize that, Jesmind," he told her.
	"You did it!"
	"I can't be hurt by heat either," he said mildly.  "Forgot about that, didn't you?"
	Jesmind glowered at him, then made sure the Cat's Claws were settled on her wrists.
	They were ready to go in a matter of minutes, and Tarrin stopped to look back.  It had been a good stop.  He and Jesmind had repaired their damaged relationship, and he had made items that would help them greatly in the journey to come.  They had lost eight days, but with the ability to move on top of the snow, they could quickly regain some of that lost time.  He checked his book, then his watch, and realized that they had actually lost ten days.  His pause before making the objects, the pause in between, and the pause afterwards added up to two days.  There was only eighteen days left.  They were far behind schedule!
	"Come on, we have to go!" he said with sudden urgency.  "We're behind!"
	"We are?" she asked in surprise.
	"By two days!" he said with a growl.  "I knew I shouldn't have rested so much!"
	"You had to rest, Tarrin!" she protested.  "It wouldn't have done you any good to start out if you couldn't walk without your knees buckling!"
	"I should have let you carry me," he said, sick with himself.  They had to make that time back up!  "I should have given you the map and let you carry me while I rested!"
	"Calm down, my mate," she told him.  "These belts you made will let us go very fast.  We can make the time back up.  Don't get stressed."
	He was about to give her a nasty retort, but he blew out his breath and collected himself.  She was right.  They would move much faster with the belts, and the combination of the Illusion and the fact that they would leave no trail would protect them from aerial hunters.  "You're right," he growled.  "But we can't lollygag around anymore.  We have to go, and go now."
	"Well, let's go then," she said, touching the belt around her waist, then bending down and picking up the two heavy coats he'd made and the white cloaks she'd made.  She handed him his, and he tied them in a roll behind his shoulders again, a cushion in case he accidentally rose up into the roof of a cave.  Jesmind did the same, pulling a bit in discomfort at the fur-lined heavy shirt he'd Conjured for her.  "Let's go before I melt," she complained.

	The passages on the other side of the hot spring were much easier to traverse than the ones down which they'd originally came, and that, he realized, was why the ones on that side had animals in them.  They moved with great speed, almost haste, rushing along the passages and galleries, pausing only when a fork in the tunnels made him pause to use magic to determine the path they needed to take.  The caves turned into a labyrinth of interconnecting passages, and they were inhabited.  They saw several smaller lobster-like creatures, some huge flying bats, slugs and a centipede that had to be twenty spans long.  Some of them fed off of mushrooms and fungi that grew on the walls, and the rest fed off the ones that ate the fungi.  There were some pretty big animals, but none of them actually attacked the swiftly moving Were-cats.  Tarrin guessed that since they'd never seen anything like them before--or sensed, since some didn't have eyes--they decided to leave the strange creatures alone, uncertain as to how dangerous they were.
	Since they weren't harassed, the two Were-cats managed to get to the cave opening on his map in less than a day.  The fact that they'd not once had to creep or crawl or climb cliffs or swim across lakes helped significantly.  The light that flooded the tunnel made both of them move a little faster, knowing that they had come to the end of their journey, but Tarrin was a bit wary of leaving the safety and protection of the caves.  But it was necessary; they could move much faster overland, and the route to the pass on his map was much shorter going through the passes than trying to find a way to get there through the caves.  They reached the cave opening, which was a small ledge looking down into a deep chasm.  The sky was cloudless and a deep blue, the air thin--they had come up a great deal since entering the caves--and it looked to be about noon or so.  Jesmind stopped at the edge of the ledge and looked down into the chasm as icy stiff wind whipped at them.
	"How do we get across?"
	"Magic," he answered, putting his arm around her waist.  "Don't wriggle."
	"I'm all yours, love," she said lightly, putting her arms around his neck.
	After scanning the skies to make sure nothing could see them, Tarrin set about the task of getting across.  It was a simple matter to weave a bridge of Air across, but it angled down, and the bridge had no friction to give the Were-cat traction.  He ended up having to slide down his ramp carefully, and activated his belt just before jumping over onto the snow.  The snow took his weight completely, and he didn't leave so much as a clawmark in the snow.  But unlike the water, the rough surface of the water gave the pads on his feet good traction.  Jesmind's foot sank into the snow, and she quickly pulled it out.  "Oops, I forgot to turn it on," she admitted, then set her foot down again, this time having it tread solidly on the surface of the snow.  Jesmind took off the roll of her coat and cloak, put on the coat, then pulled the cloak on over her shoulders over it.  The wind whipped it around her body, but she made no real notice of it.  "Put on your cloak," she ordered.  "When we're not hiding behind the Illusion, they'll still make us hard to spot against the snow."
	Tarrin nodded, pulling out the cloak and putting it on.  Jesmind winced as she looked around.  "It's really bright," she said, shielding her eyes from the sun.  The sunlight was reflecting off the unbroken surface of the snow, creating a blinding glare.
	Tarrin Conjured two of the crystalline visors the Selani wore and handed Jesmind one of them.  "These will cut down on the glare," he told her, fixing his over his eyes, causing the world to be stained with shades of dark violet.  It did help reduce the blinding light reaching his eyes.
	"Handy," Jesmind said, putting hers on and looking around as Tarrin knelt down and took out the map.
	"We go that way," he said, pointing south after studying it a moment.
	"How long to get to the tundra?"
	"I'm really not sure," he frowned.  "Maybe fifteen days.  But we have to do it in twelve."
	"Why twelve?"
	"So we can stop to rest before hitting the tundra, and I can figure out how long it's going to take us to make it to Gora Umadar."
	"Oh.  Are you ready?"
	"Hold on.  I don't want to have to stop every half hour to check the map.  Let me get a good sense of it."
	"Take your time, my mate," she assued him, settling the visor on her face a little better.  "This thing isn't  going to sit very well without ears," she grunted.
	"I must have sized it wrong," he said, standing up and pressing his paws to the sides of it.  He set his will against the Weave and sent flows of Earth into it, causing the crystal from which it was made to retract.  He fitted it to her face, sot he bride of her nose and the ridges of bone just over where human ears would have been would support the visor on her face, then extended the tips so they just slightly wrapped around.  That was how he'd fit his, and he'd found that it was both comfortable and made it very hard for the visor to come off.  It would even stay on in a fight.  "Just remember to pull it up before you try to pull it away from your eyes," he warned.
	"That's much better," she said with a thankful smile.
	Tarrin finished studying his map, then put it and the book away.  "Let's get moving," he announced, activatingthe Illusion that would hide him on the open snow.
	"That is so weird," Jesmind laughed as she activated her own, and the two figures of the Were-cats disappeared behind projections of white snow.
	They moved surprisingly fast in their new mode of travel.  Being able to run on top of the snow both allowed them to treat it like unobstructed ground and prevented any trail from being left behind.  Alot of the time Tarrin expected to take in the mountains was plowing through deep snow, and that too had been removed as a hindrance.  Tarrin led with Jesmind following, and since she was so close, she followed the slight distortion the edges of the Illusion created, giving her a visible reference point that would be much harder to see if one was further away.  The Illusion wasn't perfect, but it was still enough to hide them from scanning eyes.
	That first day, no less than six vrock soared over their heads.  Every time they saw one of them, they immiedately stopped and knelt, spreading out their cloaks to widen out the distortion effect and make it less noticable, and waited for the Demon to pass over them.  They didn't see them--or at le