Chapter 1

	It was, quite simply, the most wonderful present he had ever received.
	The house was absolutely everything he had ever wanted in a house.  It was a four story affair, comfortably large but not outrageously spacious, with the top and bottom floors being an open attic and a compartmented cellar.  That left two floors for living space, but that was more than enough.  The house faced east, faced Aldreth, and it let those on the porch enjoy a sunrise, as those inside could look through the large windows that faced west and watch the sunset.  The ground floor was dominated by a large living room that ran from the front of the house to the back, complete with large windows on the rear wall and a glass-paned door that opened to a large deck built on the back of the house, even larger than the deck-like porch that was built at its front.  This large living space was divided into a parlor-like area on the north side and a large dining table on the south, a table that could easily seat fifteen people, a table that took up almost all the floor space on that side of the house.  There was a fireplace on either side of the large windows and door that led outside, and the stairs leading up to the second floor were just off the entry foyer, running up towards the north side of the house.  A passage leading from the dining room held a single small door on its right side that opened into a small privy-like chamber that held nothing but a device called a toilet.  It worked just as a privy did, but instead of waste dropping into a midden, letting the smell waft up the same way, this device used water to flush waste into a pipe that led out of the house.  Running water refilled the tank that served as a resevoir for the water, creating a way for the house's inhabitants to relieve themselves without having to go out to an outhouse, that also wouldn't stink up the house.  The large room that occupied the north side of the house, under the stairs going up, and just down a very wide, short passage, was the kitchen, a very large kitchen complete with shelves and cabinets and two--two--Tellurian stoves that could burn either wood or coal, which made cooking much easier.  And just in case he wanted to cook over an open fire, there was also a large fireplace with fixtures for kettles or spits in the hearth, as well as a bread oven just under the mantle, for baking bread or keeping items warm after cooking.  The stairs down to the cellar were in the kitchen, just beside a small pantry closet, and there was a larger pantry on the other side of the entrance to the kitchen for storing foodstuffs or cooking utensils.  The most fascinating part of the kitchen, however, was the sink, complete with running water that poured from a strange brass spigot-like device called a faucet.  There were two knobs for that thing, one that caused cold water to pour out, and one that caused steaming hot water to pour out.
	The other side of the ground floor, also separated from the living area by a passage, was the largest bedroom in the house, which was the domain of the master of the house.  It was just as large as the kitchen, dominated by a bed so large and long that it looked about large enough to fit a Troll, and it was probably one of the most comfortable beds that ever existed.  Leaving no comfort overlooked, the bed's headboard was filled with small shelves for holding small items that the user of the bed may want near, but not want to have to reach out of the bed to a nightstand to retrieve.  That massive four-poster bed, built on a poster bed's frame but without the posters and curtains, sat squarely in the center of the floor against the south wall, and all the other furniture in the bedroom was arranged around this dominating centerpiece.  To each side of it was a small night stand, and a a large brass-bound chest sat at its foot.  On the west wall, just to the left of a large bay window, was a huge writing desk, complete with a small brass lamp-like device that glowed with soft magical light whenever it was touched, a place for someone who had a great deal of correspondence to have a good place to conduct business.  The large cherrywood desk had numerous drawers both under the surface and on a shelf of sorts that was built on the back of the desk, where the drawers and shelves were much smaller, meant for tiny things that one wouldn't want to put in a big drawer and risk them getting lost.  On the other side of that bay window was another desk-like table, but this one had a mirror on the back of the desk.  It was called a vanity, a piece of furniture that was rather unnecessary, but then again, the giver of the house and all the furniture within was a woman, and a woman would consider such a thing an critical element to any properly furnished bedroom.  There was a large window on the east side of the house as well, but it was not a bay window, but it too served to separate furniture.  To the left of that window was a large bureau, a standing closet of sorts with drawers underneath a large open space where things could be hung off small wooden hangers.  To the right was a very large piece of furniture that was nothing but drawers, a thing called a dresser.  Quite an odd name.  It was made of cherrywood, as everything in the room was, and its many drawers were designed to hold clothes that wouldn't be damaged if they were folded up and stuck inside them.  Underneath it all was a massive soft blue carpet, that took up the entirety of the floor, from wall to wall.  Blue was the motiff of the room, aside from the reddish furniture, and those two colors seemed to meld in a curiously pleasing fashion.  There were paintings to each side of the bed, the one on the left of a fox-Wikuni woman with a wry, almost amused expression on her face, and the other of a ethereal, breathtakingly beautiful Selani woman dressed in her desert garb.  Over the bed's headboard was a third painting, that of a handsome woman with a blond braid as thick as a man's wrist and an attractive aging man with a bit of gray in his short-cropped dark hair, both of them with a hand on the younger figure before them.  That figure was of  a young dark-haired girl with a pretty face and an expression of wisdom beyond her years.  There was a tapestry on the wall just to the side of the door leading in of a huge blue dragon, and a pedestal to the other side held a small black metal cat statue atop it, as if it were being kept in a prominent place of honor to display its beauty.  Behind and above that pedestal was another painting, one of an exceedingly handsome woman with an expressionless mask, who had strange cat-like ears poking out of a head of tawny hair.  Though it was only a painting, it seemed to radiate strength, as if the strength of the woman's image who was captured on canvas was so powerful that even her likeness radiated it.  On the wall with the door, to each side of those impressive pieces of art, were two other doors.  One led to a very large closet of sorts with room to hang enough clothes for ten people.  The other door led to what had to be the most luxurious feature in the house, a bathing room.
	It was just like what he remembered from Wikuna.  A large room decorated with colored tiles, which formed a shaeram on the far wall when one walked in.  Against the left wall was a toilet like the one in the small privy-like room that stood off from the passage leading to the kitchen.  It operated using running water just like the other one, flushing waste down a pipe and out of the house.  There was a large sink just past it, a sink that also had hot and cold running water running from a faucet that looked almost silver, it was so shiny.  There was a large mirror over the sink.  Behind the sink, taking up the entire back wall, was the bathtub.  It was a monstrous affair, easily capable of holding three people, oval in shape and deep enough to drown a small child if it was filled with water.  It too had running water, running from a huge faucet that rose in an elegant arch over the bathtub's rim to pour down inside it.  There was a drain in the bottom that one could close off by flipping a small lever just under the faucet, a clever mechanical addition to make things much easier.  On the right wall was a small bureau of sorts for holding bathing supplies, such as soap or towels.
	The upstairs was divided into eight rooms separated by a passageway that ran up the center of the the floor.  Each room was equally large, separated by its partner by a closet.  Each room had its own closet.  Each room was decorated slightly differently, but all of them held a large bed, nightstands, a dresser, a chest at the foot of the bed, a writing desk, and a large bureau.  The furniture in each room was of a different wood, and the carpets and decorations in the rooms were different colors, following different styles.  At the far end of the hallway was a split, each side passage only a pace or two long.  The left branch led to a single door, and the right split ran up into a very steep set of stairs leading to the attic.  That single door led to another bathroom, though it was not nearly as spacious or luxurious as the one in the master bedroom.  It had a toilet, sink, and bathtub in it just like the one on the first floor, but they were much more tightly grouped in the smaller chamber, one of white tiled sterility.  It had a very small pantry-like closet for holding towels and bathing supplies opposite the toilet.
	The attic was an open expanse that ran the length and breadth of the house, its ceiling the roof of the house, with the edges much shorter than the middle as the roof sloped down.  The cellar was divided into four rooms, each designed to hold different things.  One room was intensely cold, below freezing, to store perishable goods like meats and vegetables.  One room was dry and cool, for storing grains and fruits, and the other two were meant to hold old junk and other such things that would certainly accrue over the years.
	The house was more than simply wonderfully furnished or beautiful or spacious.  It was decidedly magical, and the visible evidence of that magic was all over the house.  The most obvious source of magic was the light.  Light was present in each room of the house, emanating from small globes that hovered near the ceiling and emitted soft yet bright light that illuminated the entire room.  Those globes of light would move if someone commanded them to do so, and would dim or brighten, even go out, at vocal command.  The second obvious indication of the house's magical nature was the air.  It was fresh and clean, no room ever seemed stuffy, and it was comfortably warm.  The air stayed at a comfortable temperature at all times, regardless of how cold or hot it was outside, and the temperature in each room could easily be changed by whoever was in it.  All they had to do was ask that it be a little warmer or colder, and the air changed to suit.  Even the air's humidity could be changed like that.  That magical sphere of control extended outside the house, nearly fifty spans in every direction, leading up to the border of its control.  That border was dramatic when one crossed it if the temperature differences were extreme, and it formed a solid boundary for certain insects and other pests.  They were kept out of the house and out of its yard by the magic, but still allowed other certain insects or animals to pass through.  Flies, wasps, biting insects, termites, weevils, aphids, and ants were stopped by the barrier, but everything else could enter.  But there was another barrier that started at the house, which no insect or rodent could cross, to keep such things out of the house.  At the edge of the meadow was another magical creation, an arch that only certain people could see, which would transport one to a sister arch that stood at the edge of a farmstead about a day or so to the west if one stepped through it, a farmstead closely linked with the house and its owner.
	Although it wasn't obvious, there was a pervasive magic within the house that had driven the owner of it crazy for the first few days of his ownership.  Simply put, the house's internal rooms were too big to fit within the outside frame that enclosed it.  Careful measuring and pacing off proved that; each room inside the house was larger than what was normal, and when all of them were added together, they formed a structure nearly twice as large as its outside dimensions.  The builder of the house was quite an exceptional individual, however, and doing such a thing was well within her capabilities.  Just why she decided to do it that way eluded him, but there had to be a reason.  Perhaps she wanted the house to appear modest on the outside, but be much larger and more grand on the inside.  That was as good a reason as any.  He'd stopped trying to figure her out a long time ago.
	There was also another kind of magic at work in the house, the magic that dealt with the running water.  The water simply appeared within tanks under the basement floor, the hot water was magically heated, and then it moved through the house in pipes that were built into the walls and floors, the pressure used to make it move was also supplied by the magic that governed its operation.  When the water was sent down the drainage pipes, those pipes gathered into one main outlet pipe that simply stopped, and that water simply disappeared just as it appeared within the tanks.
	Some objects in the rooms of the house also had magical capabilities.  All the fireplaces had logs in them, and they would burst into flame at command.  The wood never burned down, though the fire was very real, as if it were trying to consume wood that regenerated itself as fast as the fire burned it.  There were never any ashes, and in reality, the fires weren't really need.  Fire provided light and heat, and both were already supplied by the house's other magical qualities.  But sometimes it was nice to sit by a fire, so they were there to provide that comfort.  The two stoves in the kitchen were similar to the fireplaces.  They would heat up simply by turning a little dial on the front of the stove, a mechanical indicator governing a magical operation--yet another clever little trick.  The cook could utterly control the temperature of the stoves, allowing for a slow simmer or a searing blackening of food being cooked atop it or within the ovens.
	The house itself was a wonder, but where it sat was nearly as perfect.  It stood in a small meadow surrounded by lush, virgin forest, forest untrod by the steps of man for a thousand years.  It was utterly isolated, nearly a day away from the nearest human settlement, a place of uncrowded serenity.  The meadow had a little stream that flowed along its south side, a curving brook that had any number of fat fish drifting in the pools that stood on either edge of the meadow, separated by a rocky, twisting flow that looked much like a miniature river's rapids.  The stream had worn itself down a span or so into the ground, eating out its bed, a miniature gulley of sorts carved out of the flat meadow, one of the rare areas of perfectly flat ground in the gentle foothills of the Skydancer Mountains, some two days or so of travel to the north, mountains that could be seen from either porch of the house on a clear day.
	All in all, it was a fantastic house, one that would quickly and thoroughly spoil anyone who stayed in it for any amount of time.
	The owner of that house was a young Were-cat named Tarrin Kael, who had earned it as a gift from his Goddess by doing nothing less than saving the world.  He had crossed half the world in pursuit of his mission, and that mission was to find and secure an ancient artifact known as the Firestaff, a device with the power to turn a mortal into a god, a device that half the world wanted for itself.  He had been successful in that mission, but it had changed him a great deal.  He had left home as a human, but had become a Were-cat.  He had begun a modest, thoughtful, compassionate young man, but had been subjected to torment after torment that had turned him hard and grim and almost savage, extensions of the animal instincts that had become a part of him after his transformation.  He had become one of the most powerful users of magic in all of Sennadar, a force so tremendous that entire armies could not stand against his might.  And at the end, he had become a god, having used the Firestaff in a last-ditch effort to protect his daughter and destroy the endless threat that had been Val.
	He had been a god for all of about ten minutes, if that, however.  The reason his Goddess wanted him to find it was because anyone who used it and became a god would incite a war with the other gods, as they stepped in to destroy the interloper.  A god created using the Firestaff wouldn't be a part of the organized structure that the gods used, would be outside the pantheon, and would be a direct threat to the Balance that the gods strove to maintain.  Tarrin knew when he did it that he would have to destroy himself along with Val in order to avert a battle between him and the Elder Gods from coming to pass, a battle that, had he fought it, would have sent civilization back to the stone age.  The Elder Gods had contained Tarrin and Val in their own battle, and they had managed to sink the land into the magma below and form a gaping wound in the earth that still existed to this day, a hellish inferno of open lava pits and toxic gases that not even the Elder Gods could heal.  The damage they had wrought was immense, and had the gods not contained them, it would have extended for thousands of spans in every direction.
	To avoid doing any more damage, Tarrin destroyed both Val and himself in a suicidal release of all his godly might.  The only reason he was still alive was because he had had the foresight to understand what had to be done, and he had taken steps.  He had prepared a device called a Soultrap that would capture his soul at the instant of his destruction, hold it within itself and protect it until the Goddess could decide what to do about it.  He had left his braid with Kimmie, and the Goddess had used that to create a new body for his soul.  Because of his forward thinking, he had survived the destruction of his godly form, but Val had not.  With nowhere for his soul to go, it was caught up in the destruction of his form, and he was utterly destroyed.  Tarrin had no memory of his time as a god, and he preferred it that way.  He understood that it was best when one had no inkling of what it was like to be something other than what he was meant to be.  His experience adjusting to his Were nature proved that to him beyond any doubt.
	All he had ever wanted was exactly what he had now.  A house out in the middle of nowhere, where he could just live.  That was all he wanted.  A place to raise his children, a place that was all his own, and time that wasn't spent in the pursuit of some mad quest.  To him, it was the best gift his Goddess could have ever bestowed upon him.  She had given him a house, but much more than that, she had given him his freedom.  He was no longer bound to her will, no longer acting as her agent in the quest to find the Firestaff.  For him, for any Were-cat, being free was the most important thing that there was.  It defined their existence, and it was the driving force behind most of their behavior.  The fastest way to set off a Were-cat and send it into a blind, flying rage was to deny the Were-cat freedom.  Were-cats were capable of shocking brutality whenever they felt in danger of being captured or imprisoned, even the mildest and most gentle of them.  Now, he could do whatever he wanted to do.  His time was his own, and he answered to no one.
	For the first few days after coming to this place, coming home, he hadn't done much of anything.  But the shock of everything that had happened was still fresh in his mind, and he was still trying to adjust to the finality of it all, the fact that it was over.  He wasn't alone, however.  He had been surrounded by other Were-cats, friends, lovers, mothers and children, which formed the core of his immediate family among the Were-cats.  Firstly there was Jesmind, his mate and the mother of his oldest child, Jasana.  Then there was Mist, the feral Were-cat who was the mother of his son, Eron.  Then there was Kimmie, a former mate who was the mother of his twin daughters, Tara and Rina.  The last of the females in the house was Jula, his bond-daughter, a human that had been turned like him, who he had taken in to raise as his own after finding her.  He had hated her at first, because she had betrayed him when she was human, but he couldn't ignore her desperate need when he found her as a Were-cat.  That hatred had died away, and now there was nothing but genuine friendship and his sense of parental responsibility towards her.  Even though she was an adult now, cut free of his control, he thought of her as a daughter, and always would.  And that meant that she had a place within his house.  She lived with him willingly, for she felt comfortable with him, and there were things that he could teach her about Sorcery that she could learn nowhere else.  The last member of his little family was Triana, his bond-mother, the Were-cat who was so much like his mother to him that he may as well be her natural son.  He had two mothers; Elke Kael, the human who had born him, and Triana, who had become every bit as much a mother to him as Elke still was.  She didn't stay with him for very long after they arrived, only long enough to see him settle in, then she was off to take care of some other business, promising to return.  She was like that; she was the oldest of the Were-cats and one of the strongest Druids, so she was usually a pretty busy woman.  They were quite an unusual group, a group that hadn't meant to stay together for very long.  Mist and Kimmie had meant to take their children back to their own den at first, but after they had seen the house and come to enjoy it, they kept putting off their departure more and more, until they finally decided to just stay.  Tarrin's current mate, Jesmind, hadn't been all that happy about that, since she saw Kimmie and Mist as potential rivals over Tarrin, but all it had taken was one storm of weeping from Jasana over losing Eron as a playmate to crush her reservations and hostility about the idea.  Despite everything that had happened, even her abduction and imprisonment by their enemies, Jasana still had a manipulative streak in her about ten longspans wide, and she could play her mother like a lute when she wanted to do so.
	They had settled in quite well, truth be told.  Tarrin had immediately laid claim to the master bedroom, and since Jesmind was his current mate, she ended up in there with him.  Every adult had her own room upstairs, and Jasana and Eron shared a bedroom between them, having become such close friends.  The other four bedrooms were unoccupied, but ready for any visitor that would certainly come calling.  Tarrin had a great many friends, strange and powerful friends, any one of which more than had the capability of dropping in at almost any time, regardless of his home's remote location.
	There were quite a few of them.  Tarrin knew a great many unusual people, since he was so unusual himself.  His sisters were perfect examples of that.  They were the two non-human females that had been in the Tower at the same time as him, and the three of them had formed powerful bonds of love and friendship that had carried Tarrin through a great many trials.  They were as different from one another as they were from him, but their diversity had made them a very powerful force to be reckoned with.  The only thing they had in common was Sorcery, for all three were capable of using that ancient form of magic.  Allia had to be his closest friend, even closer than his mates or parents.  She was a Selani, a tall, lithe, slender, and deadly woman whose abilities in the fighting arts her people called the Dance were without equal.  She was one of the very few living things Tarrin would fear if he was forced to fight her; that was how dangerous she was.  She was quiet and reserved most of the time, for her sense of honor wouldn't permit her to carry on while in public.  But in private, she was a warm, caring, compassionate woman with a wicked sense of humor and a tremendous capacity to give.  His other sister was Keritanima-Chan Eram, the current queen of Wikuna.  She was a Wikuni, one of the animal-people from across the sea, bipedal humanoid beings that resembled common animals.  Keritanima resembled a fox, and her personality was much like the animal she resembled.  She was clever, insightful, intelligent, and very cunning.  Keritanima could play the game of politics better than a vast majority of the other monarchs and rulers with which she dealt, and she could put her formidable mind to work against almost any problem and find a solution.   She was an acerbic, surprisingly funny woman, possessing both a towering ego and a remarkable ability to laugh at herself.  She noticed absolutely everything that went on around her, and her mind was a remarkable thing.  Keritanima had to be the smartest woman Tarrin had ever known.
	They were just two examples of the unusual people that were Tarrin's friends.  He had travelled with many of them during his quest, strange and unusual individuals that were only unremarkable when grouped with the others around him.  The most unremarkable ones of them all had to be Dolanna and Dar, but they were only unremarkable in appearance.  Both of them were incredibly unique people.  Dolanna was a small, petite, very little woman whose ability in Sorcery was formidable, but was only eclipsed by her powerful force of will and her loyalty.  She was the closest friend Tarrin had outside of his circle of family, and he regarded almost as a mother figure.  He would obey Dolanna instantly and without question, to this day.  She was a quiet, wise, and incredibly experienced Sorceress who had ranged over most of the world doing the will of the Goddess.  Whenever Dolanna was with him, he always felt amazingly secure.  Dolanna would know what to do, she always did.  He hadn't been the only one in their group to rely on Dolanna's leadership, either.  Dar was a very young Arkisian, just fledged into a man, who was an absolute natural when it came to Illusions.  What made him unusual was his charisma.  Simply put, everyone liked Dar.  There was just something about him, a sense, an aire, that made it absolutely impossible for someone to dislike him.  He was a generous and warm individual, always kind in word and cognizant of others, and that only reinforced his unusual charismatic aura.  His personality didn't repel people once his magnetic quality drew them in.  Even Tarrin, a grim, mistrustful fellow, had been affected by Dar.  The members of Tarrin's woodland society had said much the same thing.  Even the most dour Centaur would find himself strangely drawn to the kind-hearted Arkisian.
	The rest of his group of friends were a bit more unusual in appearance than them.  Many of them were human, but they were striking humans, so unusual that they seemed different.  Azakar was probably the most striking example.  He was a Mahuut, a race of dark-skinned humans from Valkar, and he was a muscled, handsome fellow who was now a Knight.  But he was almost nine spans tall, towering head and shoulders over other men, an absolute monster of a man whose strength was unrivalled among humans.  Azakar had been a slave in the empire of Yar Arak, and though it made him quiet and withdrawn, the experience hadn't darkened his soul.  He was a Knight of Karas, a member of an order of highly trained warriors who served the Sorcerers as bodyguards when the church of Karas had no active missions for them.  Camara Tal was an Amazon, a very rare race of humans from the islands off the continent of Arathorn.  She was copper-skinned and raven-haired, and was both handsome and beautiful at the same time.  But what set her apart was the fact that she was taller than virtually all mainlander men, as she called them, and had a body that almost any woman would sell her soul to possess.  She was both muscled and remarkable well curved at the same time, a Priestess of the Amazon goddess that had been a warrior before putting that aside to answer the call of her goddess and enter her order.  She was a very willful woman, stubborn and pushy, but she always had what she considered to be one's best interests in heart when she bossed them around.  Once one got past her pushy nature, they found her to be a very generous woman, always giving of herself and seeking to nurture and protect, as were the tenets of her faith.  To be strong as steel, but as caring as a mother when necessary.  Phandebrass the Unusual was a Tellurian Wizard, a man whose age Tarrin still could not determine.  He had white hair like an old man, but had a narrow, young face, complete with a pointy nose and a new affectation, a goatee.  His eyes seemed ageless, blue eyes that looked aged and wizened, but still had a youthful sparkle in them.  Phandebrass was a phenomenally smart fellow, with a mind that could grasp things that most people could never comprehend, and his lifelong quest was always to attain more knowledge.  He was an exceptionally powerful Wizard, capable of many magicks that other Wizards would never be able to understand.  But all his learning and experience made him a little...distracted.  That was as good an explanation as any.  He was a bit absent-minded and tended to repeat himself, and often things that didn't seem all that important to him got neglected, even while he was doing them.  The problem was that what Phandebrass deemed important was much different than what most other people would.  He would often lose his focus in the middle of a dangerous operation as his mind pondered weightier matters.  That made him a little accident prone, but at least life with Phandebrass around was never boring.  People often couldn't see past his scattered nature to see how brilliant the man was, and when he put his mind to solving a problem, it got solved.  No mystery could hide from the addled Wizard once it piqued his curiosity.  He was relentless once he decided to solve a mystery.
	He had other friends who weren't human.  Sarraya had to be the closest of them.  She was a Faerie, and they had travelled a long way together.