Featherdemon
3rd Level Red Feather
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Hello,
Please find detail below the final part of this tale in which we discover the fate of WOrzen Eccles, we find out why Gedan was chasing Worzen and we learn more of Dan and Gedan's relationship.
Hope you enjoy!
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It felt like I'd barely got a moment's rest when I was disturbed again.
"You did it," Gedan said and pulled me off of the floor and into her embrace. She put my back to the prostrate Worzen in doing so but I didn't care.
I let the feeling of her hug over take me before answering. "For a moment I thought…"
"I told you I wouldn't let that happen," she said, shaking me gently as if to rid the horrid thoughts from my mind. "I told you I would save you."
"And I never doubted you."
Gedan giggled and drew me into a full hug. For a moment I was content just to be held, the feel of her warm body and the sweetness of her scent making all else redundant. The grip of the mire and the terrible feeling of sinking slipped away. It didn't feel like a casual hug; it felt more emotionally invested.
"Thank you, Daniel Rott; I am in your debt."
Suddenly the smile fell from her face and in the next moment she was throwing me to one side. I skidded through the grass, tumbling and rolling on the solid ground.**I rolled to my feet, dizzy and disorientated and ignoring the stinging wounds on my arms and back. I looked back to see Worzen slashing at Gedan with a razor blade.**My jacket and shirt lay in tatters at the edge of the Mire. How had he done that so quick?
"You're an idiot!" Worzen shrieked, slashing wildly at Gedan who ducked and weaved effortlessly out of harms way.**"I won't go back!"
"You have no choice," said Gedan.
"I'll kill you before I let you do that!"
Seeing Worzen slash at Gedan so, even though his strikes were always a step behind her dodges, filled me with a terrible anger.**I cried out and scrambling to my feet, I clutched a rock from the ground and hurled it at him with all my strength. It struck him on the arm but Worzen barely seemed to notice it.**
"I will kill her!" he screamed.
I ran at him, blind with rage and heedless of the damage he could do to me with blade.**As I charged him, Worzen turned and slashed with his blade but I ducked and threw myself against him.**I hit him with all my weight and I knocked him off of his feet. We fell in a tumble of arm and legs, wrestling and clawing at each other madly, perilously close to the edge of the bog.**
I could smell his unwashed body and the ale on his breath as he fought.**I could see madness in his eyes.**Worzen was stronger than me, but my fury granted me an edge and I was able to roll him onto his back, hammering at his face with one hand while holding off the blade with the other. I heard something crack in his face and blood spluttered from his nose and for a moment I paused.**
I saw his narrow eyes, hard and grey like granite; he was glaring at me but all I felt was rage and with a feral cry I drove my head into his face. More blood flowed and he went still beneath me.
Breathing heavily, I stared down for a moment at Worzen Eccles – the man who I'd chased into this horrid place, the man who had almost killed me. He looked unconscious, his face and hair covered in blood and his features a ruin after the beating I'd given it.**I wiped his blood off of my face, stunned and a little sickened at what I'd done and trembling from the adrenaline rush. I checked his pulse with my trembling hand. He still lived though he would not be pretty.
Suddenly Worzen's eyes snapped open and a moment a later he was slicing at my arms and chest with his blade, opening deep wounds in my flesh.**I felt little pain but the panic of his attacks rocked me. I shoved myself off of him, fending off the slices with my arms.**Blood was everywhere. I crawled away but Worzen followed me, climbing to his hands and knees, intent on killing me.
"Gedan!" I called out.
A heart beat later Worzen was looming before me; then he was driving down on top of me with all of his strength, the edge of his razor aimed at my throat.**I brought up my knees, putting them between me and him, while I grasped at his wrists to halt the arch of his weapon.**I stopped the blade, but with all of his weight behind it, the edge was slipping closer. Blood was pouring from my wounds and I could feel the deeper cold of shock settling in.**I gritted my teeth and tried desperately to stop Worzen. But I knew it wouldn't be enough – he would win this fight.
"Gedan, help!"
And then, Worzen and his blade were gone, lifted off of me in the blink of an eye.**The sudden lack of something to fight against brought me up on my elbows. I groaned in pain, covering my chest with bloody arms.**
I saw Gedan standing at my feet, Worzen squirming helplessly in her grip.**She'd plucked him off of me with contemptuous ease. She held his wrists so tight that his fists were going white. The blade tumbled from his grip.**
"Stop this!!" said Gedan, her face blank but her eyes were hard. "No one has to die here!"
"I'll kill you!" he shrieked at her.
Worzen was strong and fought like a beast, kicking and struggling for all his worth, but he was nothing compared to the grit of Gedan. She held him off of the floor, effortless and ignorant of the fierce kicks Worzen landed on her.**With the blade dropped and his kicks having no damage, Worzen was left only threats and obscenities.
"I'll cut open your friends! All of them! I won't stop!"
Gedan's face softened, the expressionless mask she'd wore moments ago being replaced by something sadder. A sad realisation sliding over her. "I didn't want this," she said, her voice gentle. "I wanted to bring you back. I wanted to save you; to take you out of this place and fix what you did."
Worzen spat blood on Gedan's coat.
"But you won't let me save you, will you?" Gedan said.
"No!"
"Then I can't allow you to do this any more."
"You…can't stop me! You can't even kill me!"
Gedan frowned. "If I let you go you'll only kill more people," she said. "You would have killed Daniel and he's the one who saved you.**Your madness is complete. I can't save you; I wish I could, but I can't."
I watched in horror as Gedan turned so her back was to me and I could no longer see Worzen. She threw him backwards along the edge of the Mire, away from me and the blade that he'd savaged me with.
"Go," she said, her voice sad and resolute.**"I will not kill you Worzen but I will chase you no more. If you can escape this Mire alive you will be free of me, but from this moment on I will have nothing more to do with you."
Worzen was up on his feet in a moment and his eyes fell instantly to the blade on the floor. Bloodied and battered, the man's first thoughts were still his weapon.**He crouched like an animal ready to pounce, but knowing he was no match for the one who stood in front of him, he stayed frozen.
Gedan picked his weapon up and carefully folded the blade away. She looked distastefully at the blood that dripped from it.**Without another thought she threw it over to her right, over a rocky promontory and out of sight.**
At once, Worzen scrambled after it and then he too was gone.
The moment Worzen disappeared from sight Gedan turned back to me and knelt at my side.**Her face was lined with worry and concern and whatever she felt about the Worzen situation was carefully hidden from me.**
"Are you all right?" she asked, her stunning eyes falling onto my face then back to my wounds.
"Cold," I said.
Gedan's hands hovered over my wounds, touching them with a fleeting brush of her fingers to measure their depth and seriousness.**I saw her brow furrow once or twice but in the end a look of relief crossed her face.
"The wounds are superficial," she said, "they'll heal fine but I'll do what I can till I get you home."
Dashing away for a moment Gedan gathered the tattered remnants of my shirt and top, wrapping and binding them about my wounds as best she could. Then she slipped her coat off and put it on me.**It carried her scent and instantly the pain of my wounds seemed to lessen.**She helped me to my feet.
"What about Eccles?" I asked.
"Forget about him."
"Shouldn't you go after him?"
Gedan shook her head. "I meant what I told him," she said. "I am done chasing him. I cannot help him and I will not kill him.**So I will waste no more time with him.**He is on his own now. My priorities have changed." She looked at me and smiled. "You are my only concern now."
I could hear the sadness in Gedan's voice even though she hid it from her face.**It was palpable, hanging in the air around us.**I squeezed her hand as best as I could.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.
"I will be."
At that moment we heard Worzen let out a scream from the other side of the ridge.**It was a horrid, frightened scream, one we had both heard before.**I looked towards the sound. I didn't say anything and nor did she.**We both knew what that sound meant.
"Crap," I said. "Do you want to go and—"
Gedan shook her head, a sharp and curt gesture underlined by the sorrow in her eyes. She had such a helplessly sad look on her face that I don't think I will ever forget it.*I felt an odd sense of guilt, as if even with my wounds I should still be doing something.
"Come on," I said, "then you can lead me to where he is."
Gedan gripped my arm to restrain me gently. "Dan…you can't save him," she said.
"I need to be sure it's finished," I said. "I need to be sure that there is nothing more we can do."
Gedan sighed and gave me a single nod of her head; it was a sombre gesture that tugged on my heart to see.**She was fighting against her urge to save him; that wild and selfless need to help everyone burned in every part of her body.**But now she had to resist it because she knew saving Worzen would only lead to him killing more people. It hurt her to do it. And seeing him again, so in need of help and so close to death, would only make it worse.**I knew Gedan didn't want to see what was happening.**We both knew perfectly well what fate was claiming Worzen.*
Yet at my mere asking, Gedan would put herself through all of that torture again; not because she wanted to or because she needed to – but because I had asked.**She was hurting herself for me.
Gedan led me forward along the edge of bog to our left and over to the rocky promontory to the right. It was a short distance but still, our every step was haunted by the shrill cries of Worzen's desperate struggle.**
In seconds we were able to see through a tangle of trees and bushes to where Worzen and his blade were stuck in a watery mud hole. He had his back to us and he was thrashing wildly, which was only making him sink quicker.
"Gedan!" he shrieked, "Gedan!"
I felt Gedan tense against me at the sound of her name being called so desperately.**I turned to look at her face, to see if she was all right.**She had her eyes closed and I suspect that she was trying her very best to not go running to him.**Even after everything that he had done, Gedan still wanted to save him. She frowned fiercely but said nothing.
"Please!" Worzen shrieked. "I don't want to die!"
Gedan's face soured. Her grip on me tightened at the helpless fear in the man's voice and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. She turned into me a little, looking for solace.**My arm was all ready around her shoulder but I hugged as much as I could.**To hear him so scared and frantic even managed to move me, so who knows what it would do to someone like Gedan.**
I looked back and saw the mud was up to Worzen's chest now and his thrashing had only driven him further from solid ground. I looked forward and despite it all, I searched for a way to see if he could be reached.**With my coat and shirt in tatters and serving as bandages, Worzen was too far for us to reach.**I looked to see if there were any trees that might offer us a way but again there was nothing. My heart should have sunk to know he was beyond help but it merely hardened.
"We can't reach him," I said, "even if we wanted to, we can't get to him."
Gedan nodded.
I felt suddenly helpless and useless. "Do we call out to him?" I said. "I…don't know what we can do…"
"Nothing," Gedan said gently. "There's nothing we can do. Alerting him to our presence will only make his suffering worse. He is alone with his terror and there is no comfort for him."
I looked at Gedan. "Can you…comfort him somehow… maybe ease his fear?" I said, without knowing why the thought had even popped into my head.
"No," she said, shaking her head.
"But you want to, don't you?"
Gedan nodded slowly.
"I'm sorry Gedan," I said and hugged her.
Gedan nodded and said, "I didn't want this Dan, I didn't want it to end this way."
We stood there, helpless witnesses to Worzen's horrid fate.**I had to look away when the muddy water was sloshing at his neck and chin; his screams up to that point will stay with me forever. Every cry made me remember how close I had come to sharing his fate.**I shuddered in horror.
"Can we go, please?" I said. "I've seen and heard enough."
Gedan turned and pulled my head against the fur of her shoulder, so I could see only her and not what was happening. Then she covered my ears with her hands; she was shielding me as best she could from Worzen's death. Part of me felt awkward, that it should have been me offering her sanctuary from the horror of what was happening, but truth be told I was grateful for her gesture.**
I don't know why she didn't just walk away with me. It would have been easier for us both. Perhaps she wanted to be witness to it, to see it through to the end. Maybe she felt that if she couldn't save him, the least she could do was bear witness to his last moments.**Whatever the reason, Gedan put herself through what must have been a terrible few minutes.
I didn't see or hear anything of Worzen's last moments. Gedan saw and heard it all, without flinching and without relaxing her protective grip on me. I knew without looking that it tore at Gedan to be so helpless before someone so in need of her help.**For someone who had said that she would save anyone, to not be able to save him must have been nothing short of torture.**Even at the very end she had wanted to save him – she had even convinced me that it was worth trying. Even after what she had said, if there had been a way to reach him, Gedan would have done it, of that I have no doubt.
Gedan, someone who would save even an evil man could only stand, watching and listening to Worzen Eccles die.
* * * *
After a while Gedan gently lifted my head from her shoulder and resumed her position of supporting me.**Her cheeks had tear trails on them and her eyes were wet.**She blinked quickly but did not meet my gaze.
Taking a deep breath, I looked over through the bushes to the mud hole, but there was no sign of Worzen – he had gone under.**The mud bubbled once but other than that there was no evidence of the trauma that had taken place there. I sighed.
"He's gone," she said with quet greif.
I nodded. "Rest in peace," I said and made a cross sign on my chest.
It was over. The man who haad murdered those three officers was dead; not by my hand and not by the judicial arm of Brickten law – but by his own hubris.**I don't know if that was justice or even if it mattered any more, I just knew it was over and that it gave me no pleasure to have seen Worzen Eccles die that way.
"I'm sorry," I said, looking back to Gedan. "You did all you could to save him."
"As did you," she said. "And I will not forget that, Daniel Rott."
Gedan turned to look at me and as she did, the sadness fell from her features; her ears picked up, her tail swished and a purr rose in her throat. A bright and tender smile filled her face. Her eyes shone a little brighter than a few moments ago, as if something that had been missing earlier was being replaced.*She drew me into into a full hug and for a moment her cheek was pressed against mine; an infinitely tender feeling. In a moment it passed and she drew back a little.*
"Time to get you home," she said.
"Best thing I've heard yet all night."
Gedan's smile turned to something a little cheekier. "Are you strong enough to ride on my shoulders?"
"You're kidding me, aren't you?" I said looking at my bandage wrapped arms and chest. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Gedan giggled and to hear it was enough to make me forget the horror of what had passed before.**Checking my bandages once more to ensure they would hold, she fastened her coat about me then she slipped behind me.**A moment later I felt her head pass between my knees and her shoulders beneath my cheeks.**Gripping my legs, she stood up gently and then I was sitting on her shoulders.**I laughed nervously as she rose up, fearing I might topple over, but once again Gedan's strength and balance were perfect. I may as well have been a scarf about her neck for all the difference it made to her.
"Is this really a good idea?" I asked, giggling nervously.
"Well you're up there now," she said, tittering. "And I have no intention of putting you down till we are at your house."
I gripped her shoulders. "Do you even know where I live?"
Gedan squeezed my legs. "I'm sure I can find it," she said. "But feel free to shout out if I'm going the wrong way."
I should have felt uneasy and off balance being so high up, but I actually felt like it was perfectly natural. I felt safe and secure, as if I had been this tall since the day of my birth.
"Like this all the way home?" I asked.
"Unless you're going to be sick, then you walk," she said.
I laughed. "What if someone sees us?" I said, having nightmare visions or Gedan running through the streets of Brickten with me on her shoulders and people watching us from their windows.
"Then you'll have a lot of questions to answer in the morning, won't you?" she said and laughed carefree and merry.***
Once again I felt giddy and ridiculously light hearted. The pain and shock of my wounds was gone, replaced with a tingle of excitement in my belly that would not fade or be softened.**My memory of Eccles and his death was intact and painfully sharp, but the thrill of being with Gedan and hearing her laugh pushed it all to the back of my mind.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Just don't drop me!"
"Here we go!"
As good as her word, Gedan ran at break neck speed through the pitch black Mire with me firmly rooted to her shoulders.**Her speed now was more relaxed than when we had been in pursuit of Eccles, but it was no less bracing or thrilling.**We were racers through a treacherous land but I knew nothing would stop us.
The world about us was utterly black, with little or no moonlight reaching the ground. I saw nothing of the world as it whooshed by me and it was only the little ducks and turns that told me we were passing trees.**I heard birds and other things pass us by but I gave little heed to them, revelling in the rush of the wind on my face.**Every now and then I would feel her jump or skip to navigate a hazard but other than that she seemed to choose the easiest and safest path.
It wasn't long before I was shouting and whooping and laughing, challenging the dark gloom of the Mire with my cries.**It was the most alive I'd ever felt in my entire life.**Nothing had come close to it and I doubted anything ever would. It blew all traces of sadness and anger away and left me grinning and chattering like child.
"How does this compare?" she asked at once point.
"Brilliant! Just brilliant! Faster - go faster!"
And so Gedan did.
*****************************************************************
When we reached the outskirts of Brickten, my face ached more than my wounds for I had smiled and laughed so much on the way back.**Gedan slowed down to a fast walk to reduce the amount of attention we attracted. She looked as perfectly composed now as she had when we first met, not a singe pant of breath or even the faintest suggestion that she had exerted herself.**
"C-can you run forever?" I asked, trembling and breathless.
"Not forever," she said and grinned, "but I can run for a long time."
I shook my head. "All that running, jumping and climbing and not a single moment of breathlessness," I said. "What wondrous creatures Kats must be."
Gedan grinned and looked up at me. "Oh you have no idea," she said.
I grinned.
"And I still want to hear that question once we are at your home, Daniel Rott, so do not think to be falling asleep."
I shook my head. "I don't think I will sleep for a week," I said.
"You will sleep wonderfully," Gedan promised softly, "you will enjoy a lovely, deep, refreshing sleep unlike any you've had before; I promise."
Brickten was silent and still, save for my breathing.**Its cobbled streets and neatly stacked houses were pristine in the early morning gloom.**Everything looked clean and in place, a wonderful sense of order to it all.**
"This is Brickten," I said proudly.
"It's lovely," said Gedan, "now where do you live?"
It took only a few minutes for me to lead Gedan to the dark blue front door of my house. She lowered me to the floor and extracted herself gently from under me.**My legs ached and it took me a moment to find my feet, which Gedan found most amusing.**
We went inside and into my parlour.**My house smelt of shoe polish and cold meat from breakfast.**The instant we were inside and the lamps were lit. Gedan ushered me to one of the chairs.
"Sit," she said, "I will boil some water and clean your wounds."
In no time at all, Gedan had boiled water and was peeling the bandages off of me.****
"I can do it," I said.
"You could barely walk a moment ago."
"Give it here!" I took the cloth from her and bathed my wounds while she watched, looking for any sign of infection.**There were none and I was able to re-bind myself without much effort at all.**Still, to my irritation, Gedan insisted on retying them when I was finished.**
"I fear you will carry scars for the rest of your life Dan," she said as she finished. "I'm sorry that you suffered so."
"It's not your fault," I said. "At least when I wake up tomorrow, it will prove that I didn't dream this whole thing."
Gedan giggled and nodded. "I would rather you had something sweeter and less painful," she said.
Once the bandaging was done, I made tea for us both but Gedan declined. The clock on my mantle piece showed it a little after three am.
"You promised me a chat," I said.
Gedan nodded and sat down in one of the smaller chairs. "I am all yours until you fall asleep," she said.
"Will you tell me what Worzen did?" I asked. "What was bad enough to have you chase him so doggedly?"
Gedan sighed. "I guess you have earned the right to know," she said. "I am not the only Kat, Dan. There are many others, all similar to me. We are family and I guess you could call me their mother, though I did not actually give birth to them."
I nodded.
"We can be...summoned through specific rites and without going into too much detail, we offer a lot to those who summon us."
A host of wild thoughts entered my mind. "I bet," I said.
"There was a young married couple, Aaron and Jennifer Cushins - a lovely young couple with their lives ahead of them. They lived in in America; a place called Indianna." Gedan smiled softly. "They brought a Kat into their hotel room to help celebrate their Wedding. They had planned all manner of treats for each other."
I felt a cold dread touch my gut when her smile faded.
"Worzen Eccles broke into their room while my Kat, Lisi is her name, was entertaining them. Worzen killed Aaron and Jennifer where they lay. Lisi fended him off but he escaped. By the time the medical team arrived, it was too late."
"Oh god..."
"Lisi came to me, devastated. Had she not been there, they might have been able to defend themselves. It was her presence that made them so helpless. She blamed herself for their deaths. She still does."
"How long ago was that?"
"Six years."
"And you have been chasing him since?"
Gedan nodded. "Ever since he got out of prison," she said. "I wanted to take him back, to make stand before Lisi. Not to kill him and not to torture him. But so she could see who was responsible."
"That's terrible."
"It's in the past now," she said. "Lisi will get over her grief in time and the man who did the terrible deed is...well, we need not worry about him."
I nodded. "For what it is worth, I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
For a little while we chatted about nothing and I told her about what I'd done in my years gone by. She asked about a wife or children, but there were none to talk about. She asked if that was something I wished to change. I said I didn't know.**
I asked questions of her and where she came from but she was reluctant to say much other than to say it was a very far off land and that I would likely never see it.**She told me that there were plenty of Kats where she came from but as to what they did, she just smiled and*said I wouldn't believe her even if she told me.**
It was a sweet little chat that we had but all too soon I felt the first wave of tiredness creep over me and my eyes grew heavy.
Gedan rose, taking the tea cups from me. "Time for bed, Dan," she said softly.
"Can you not stay longer?" I asked, unhappy at the idea of her parting.
Gedan shook her head, smiling down at me. "I'm afraid not," she said.
"But I don't want you to go."
She smiled tenderly at me then put the cups in the kitchen. When she came back, she was still smiling.
"So what happens now?"
"Once you're sleeping I will slip away from Brickten," she said. "Tomorrow, Sergeant Daniel Rott, you will go on with your life and continue to do all manner of wonderful things for this lovely town."
"And what of you?"
Gedan grinned. "I will do all manner of wonderful things for my town," she said.
"Is that it?"
"Yes, but I hope you will go on with your life with the sweet memory of me to keep a smile on your face," she said.**
I nodded. "But a memory is all I will have?"**
"It is how it must be."
"Why?" I asked,
"Because our time together is over," she said softly.**
Those few words were the most painful and sweetest goodbye ever given to me. I would be lying if I said it didn't make my heart ache. Hearing her say it like that made me feel sad. My feelings felt suddenly heavy. It was so impossibly final.
"It hardly seems fair," I said. "After all we have gone through tonight, for it to end this way…"
"You mean for it to end with you safe and warm in your bed?" she said with a grin. "I think that is the perfect ending."
"I can think of better ways."
Gedan smiled warmly but shook her head.
"I didn't mean that!" I said hastily.**"I meant for us not to see each other again is a little harsh. I only just met you and you tell me now this is all we get together? I feel like I've done something wrong or I'm somehow not worthy of you."
"We've have had only a precious few hours together," said Gedan, "and I am sorry it cannot be more. Truly I am. But there are some who don't even get that."
"I find that poor consolation."
"I know. But know I am glad of the time we have had Dan," she said, looking into my eyes.
"As am I," I said, "but I want more."
Gedan nodded but didn't say anything.**It felt odd to be standing on the precipice of a painful goodbye with someone I'd only known for a few hours.**Yet despite the time involved, I felt like I had known Gedan for all my life and I was about to lose a very important part of me.
"Is there nothing I can do to change this?"
Gedan closed her eyes for a moment, as if wondering on something. Again I felt that odd breeze in my thoughts "No," she said softly. "I'm afraid not."
"No way I can summon you back?"
She giggled. "No," she said.
An idea popped into my head and I rose from my chair so suddenly that it startled Gedan, who stepped back.**I hurried over to my writing desk and from one of the smaller drawers I plucked a boxing medal that I'd won some years earlier. It was made of silver and had a Boxer striking a pose carved into. In my youth it had been a treasured object of mine.**I walked over and offered it to Gedan.
"What is this?" she asked, looking at it.
"A gift for you," I said.**She started shaking her head and hands but I ignored her. "I am going to have to insist, Gedan.**I will eventually understand why we will not see each other again and as much as it grieves me, I will not argue about it.**But you will not leave here without something to remember me by."
Gedan took my hands gently in hers, closing my fingers around the medallion. She smiled at me, her tender eyes locked on mine. "I won't forget you Dan," she said.**
"Not with this; you won't forget me at all," I said and ignoring her complaint I put it around her neck.**Thankfully, she let me do so and when I stepped back, she left it on.**"There, looks much better on you."
"You shouldn't give this to me. It is yours."
"And now it is yours."
Gedan giggled and looked down, twirling it with her hands. "Thank you," she said, a little bashful, "It does go well with my fur, doesn't it? I will keep it as a gift and symbol of what we shared."
I nodded, triumphant. "Good."
Gedan purred softly and took hold of my hands again. There a look in her eyes that was new; it was a knowing and mischievous look. I might have said it was borderline sultry and seductive, but I would not flatter myself so.**She stroked the tops of my hands.
"Now, sweet Dan," she said her voice warm and tender. "You and I are alone..."
I gulped and nodded. "Yes?"
"You can tell me," she whispered, her face close enough to mine so I could see the individual strands of hair on her brow. "What was your second question?"
I giggled and blushed, remembering it anew. Gedan laughed softly at me.
"You have all ready answered it," I said.
She tilted her head curiously. "I have?"
I nodded. "I was…going to ask you…for a kiss," I said.
Gedan dipped her head and made that purring sound again. She looked at me through her lowered eyes. "Ah," she said, turning coyly from side to side, "A sweet request indeed."
"The sweetest," I said.
"But," she said, "I've not really given you a kiss, have I? We have brushed lips but that was not a proper kiss. The gift I have been given, this wonderful medallion and the comfort of your company, demand something more fulfilling.**I think that question of yours still remains unanswered, Dan."
It took me a moment to realise what she had said but when it clicked, I blushed fiercely. "Y-yes, please," I said.
Gedan edged closer again, her lips so close to mine that I could feel the wash of her breath. My heart was thundering in my chest. "You will fall asleep once this is done," she said softly.**"And this kiss is just a kiss. It will not be anything more."
"I understand."
"I want to thank you for your help Dan," she said, looking sweetly at me. "You have been very kind to me on this journey.**I am glad to have met you."
"All I did was to get in your way," I said. "You're the one who did all the hard work."
Gedan shook her head. "You did more than that," she said. "Much more. You gave up on getting your revenge to help me. You even tried to save Worzen Eccles; despite all the wrong he had done you to help me.**And such a display compassion is a very special thing."
"If you say so," I said.
"But more than that you helped me give up on my revenge," she said. "I would have hounded Worzen to who knows what depths had I not met you. Your willingness to surrender your wrath allowed me to do the same. You helped me let go of Worzen. And for that you will forever be in my thoughts."
I blushed. "Wow..."
Gedan cupped my face with her hands; a sweet cradle that I would languish in forever if**I could have. She looked as beautiful and as ravishing now as she had earlier, but now with no coat on I could more of her stunning form.
"You are a very kind man."
"You make it easy to be kind," I said.
Gedan smiled and stroked my face, her lips almost touching mine. "With this kiss we say goodbye, Daniel Rott," she said. "But know that I will never forget you."
"Promise me."
"I promise," she said. "For as long as the stars burn you will be in my thoughts."
"Thank you," I said, "but can you promise one thing more?"
She nodded.
"Promise me you won't hate yourself over Worzen Eccles."
"What?"
"You did all you could to save him," I said. "i]It was his choice to run and not let you help him that killed him - not yours."
Her eyes seemed to water. "Why do you ask that of me?"
"Because I don't want you to think you failed," I said. "You want to save everyone. You have this wonderful need to save people and I don't even think you have a choice in it sometimes. You feel compelled to save people, or at the very least, try your very best. And you did, Gedan. Tonight I saw you do everything you could to save Worzen Eccles."
"Oh, Dan..."
"You told me before that you'd never met anyone who you didn't want to save...and I want you to know that you still haven't. Please remember that."
A tremble of feeling rippled her sweet features and I feared for a moment she might cry.**But they settled once more into a look that was impossibly tender.**"Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
I saw her eyes close and watched her lean in to kiss me. I waited until the last minute before closing mine so I could memorise as much of her as I could. I took a deep nose full of her scent, convinced I would not know it again in all my life.
An instant later her lips were on mine, impossibly soft and sweet. It was the perfect kiss, better than what had gone before. Her scent and her taste knocked all of my senses out of bearing.**My heart thundered. I clutched at her arms, overcome by the sensation of it.**I felt suddenly light headed.**I remember marvelling at her kiss and I wanted for it to never end.
Then white light filled my head and I knew nothing more.
* * * *
When I woke the next morning I was tucked neatly in my bed, wearing my night gown with my clothes folded on the dresser chair. I felt refreshed and alive with new vitality.**I looked at the clock and saw I'd slept for seven hours solid.
It took me a moment of frowning before the memory of how I had ended up here came to me. Gedan had carried me up to my bed and tucked me in, just as she had promised.**I must have passed out during her kiss and she'd had no choice to do it.**I laughed out loud, picturing her lugging me up the stairs.
"I must have been a very good boy," I said.
Then I remembered the kiss in more detail and I felt something all together different and much more pleasant.
After a while I removed my bandages to check on the wounds I'd received. The cuts on my arms and chest had healed considerably by the morning, though I do not know how they could have healed so fast.**Gedan was right that I would scar – theere would be neat silver lines on my body; but I did not mind.**They are subtle enough to be missed by the passing eyes and they are a worthy reminder of what deeds were done that night.
Of those hours with Gedan - the Kat who would save everyone.
Later on in the morning I checked my parlour for evidence that it hadn't all been a dream.**Much to my delight, I found that Gedan had taken the medal with her as she had promised. It made me smile for the rest of the day to know that wherever she was, she had something of mine with her – that I would continue to be with her.
Gedan had also left me a simple note with one line written in perfect calligraphy; the phrase was 'Thank You Dan'.**It was even marked with her scent that never seemed to fade.**It is my most treasured possession.**
The papers told the story that Worzen Eccles had fled into the Mire and had not been seen since.**They assumed he was either living on the Mire or dead.**I never mentioned my journey into the Mire or the miraculous friend I made. For the rest of my days her name will be the first word on my lips in the morning and last the thing on my mind at night.
Gedan.
Please find detail below the final part of this tale in which we discover the fate of WOrzen Eccles, we find out why Gedan was chasing Worzen and we learn more of Dan and Gedan's relationship.
Hope you enjoy!
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It felt like I'd barely got a moment's rest when I was disturbed again.
"You did it," Gedan said and pulled me off of the floor and into her embrace. She put my back to the prostrate Worzen in doing so but I didn't care.
I let the feeling of her hug over take me before answering. "For a moment I thought…"
"I told you I wouldn't let that happen," she said, shaking me gently as if to rid the horrid thoughts from my mind. "I told you I would save you."
"And I never doubted you."
Gedan giggled and drew me into a full hug. For a moment I was content just to be held, the feel of her warm body and the sweetness of her scent making all else redundant. The grip of the mire and the terrible feeling of sinking slipped away. It didn't feel like a casual hug; it felt more emotionally invested.
"Thank you, Daniel Rott; I am in your debt."
Suddenly the smile fell from her face and in the next moment she was throwing me to one side. I skidded through the grass, tumbling and rolling on the solid ground.**I rolled to my feet, dizzy and disorientated and ignoring the stinging wounds on my arms and back. I looked back to see Worzen slashing at Gedan with a razor blade.**My jacket and shirt lay in tatters at the edge of the Mire. How had he done that so quick?
"You're an idiot!" Worzen shrieked, slashing wildly at Gedan who ducked and weaved effortlessly out of harms way.**"I won't go back!"
"You have no choice," said Gedan.
"I'll kill you before I let you do that!"
Seeing Worzen slash at Gedan so, even though his strikes were always a step behind her dodges, filled me with a terrible anger.**I cried out and scrambling to my feet, I clutched a rock from the ground and hurled it at him with all my strength. It struck him on the arm but Worzen barely seemed to notice it.**
"I will kill her!" he screamed.
I ran at him, blind with rage and heedless of the damage he could do to me with blade.**As I charged him, Worzen turned and slashed with his blade but I ducked and threw myself against him.**I hit him with all my weight and I knocked him off of his feet. We fell in a tumble of arm and legs, wrestling and clawing at each other madly, perilously close to the edge of the bog.**
I could smell his unwashed body and the ale on his breath as he fought.**I could see madness in his eyes.**Worzen was stronger than me, but my fury granted me an edge and I was able to roll him onto his back, hammering at his face with one hand while holding off the blade with the other. I heard something crack in his face and blood spluttered from his nose and for a moment I paused.**
I saw his narrow eyes, hard and grey like granite; he was glaring at me but all I felt was rage and with a feral cry I drove my head into his face. More blood flowed and he went still beneath me.
Breathing heavily, I stared down for a moment at Worzen Eccles – the man who I'd chased into this horrid place, the man who had almost killed me. He looked unconscious, his face and hair covered in blood and his features a ruin after the beating I'd given it.**I wiped his blood off of my face, stunned and a little sickened at what I'd done and trembling from the adrenaline rush. I checked his pulse with my trembling hand. He still lived though he would not be pretty.
Suddenly Worzen's eyes snapped open and a moment a later he was slicing at my arms and chest with his blade, opening deep wounds in my flesh.**I felt little pain but the panic of his attacks rocked me. I shoved myself off of him, fending off the slices with my arms.**Blood was everywhere. I crawled away but Worzen followed me, climbing to his hands and knees, intent on killing me.
"Gedan!" I called out.
A heart beat later Worzen was looming before me; then he was driving down on top of me with all of his strength, the edge of his razor aimed at my throat.**I brought up my knees, putting them between me and him, while I grasped at his wrists to halt the arch of his weapon.**I stopped the blade, but with all of his weight behind it, the edge was slipping closer. Blood was pouring from my wounds and I could feel the deeper cold of shock settling in.**I gritted my teeth and tried desperately to stop Worzen. But I knew it wouldn't be enough – he would win this fight.
"Gedan, help!"
And then, Worzen and his blade were gone, lifted off of me in the blink of an eye.**The sudden lack of something to fight against brought me up on my elbows. I groaned in pain, covering my chest with bloody arms.**
I saw Gedan standing at my feet, Worzen squirming helplessly in her grip.**She'd plucked him off of me with contemptuous ease. She held his wrists so tight that his fists were going white. The blade tumbled from his grip.**
"Stop this!!" said Gedan, her face blank but her eyes were hard. "No one has to die here!"
"I'll kill you!" he shrieked at her.
Worzen was strong and fought like a beast, kicking and struggling for all his worth, but he was nothing compared to the grit of Gedan. She held him off of the floor, effortless and ignorant of the fierce kicks Worzen landed on her.**With the blade dropped and his kicks having no damage, Worzen was left only threats and obscenities.
"I'll cut open your friends! All of them! I won't stop!"
Gedan's face softened, the expressionless mask she'd wore moments ago being replaced by something sadder. A sad realisation sliding over her. "I didn't want this," she said, her voice gentle. "I wanted to bring you back. I wanted to save you; to take you out of this place and fix what you did."
Worzen spat blood on Gedan's coat.
"But you won't let me save you, will you?" Gedan said.
"No!"
"Then I can't allow you to do this any more."
"You…can't stop me! You can't even kill me!"
Gedan frowned. "If I let you go you'll only kill more people," she said. "You would have killed Daniel and he's the one who saved you.**Your madness is complete. I can't save you; I wish I could, but I can't."
I watched in horror as Gedan turned so her back was to me and I could no longer see Worzen. She threw him backwards along the edge of the Mire, away from me and the blade that he'd savaged me with.
"Go," she said, her voice sad and resolute.**"I will not kill you Worzen but I will chase you no more. If you can escape this Mire alive you will be free of me, but from this moment on I will have nothing more to do with you."
Worzen was up on his feet in a moment and his eyes fell instantly to the blade on the floor. Bloodied and battered, the man's first thoughts were still his weapon.**He crouched like an animal ready to pounce, but knowing he was no match for the one who stood in front of him, he stayed frozen.
Gedan picked his weapon up and carefully folded the blade away. She looked distastefully at the blood that dripped from it.**Without another thought she threw it over to her right, over a rocky promontory and out of sight.**
At once, Worzen scrambled after it and then he too was gone.
The moment Worzen disappeared from sight Gedan turned back to me and knelt at my side.**Her face was lined with worry and concern and whatever she felt about the Worzen situation was carefully hidden from me.**
"Are you all right?" she asked, her stunning eyes falling onto my face then back to my wounds.
"Cold," I said.
Gedan's hands hovered over my wounds, touching them with a fleeting brush of her fingers to measure their depth and seriousness.**I saw her brow furrow once or twice but in the end a look of relief crossed her face.
"The wounds are superficial," she said, "they'll heal fine but I'll do what I can till I get you home."
Dashing away for a moment Gedan gathered the tattered remnants of my shirt and top, wrapping and binding them about my wounds as best she could. Then she slipped her coat off and put it on me.**It carried her scent and instantly the pain of my wounds seemed to lessen.**She helped me to my feet.
"What about Eccles?" I asked.
"Forget about him."
"Shouldn't you go after him?"
Gedan shook her head. "I meant what I told him," she said. "I am done chasing him. I cannot help him and I will not kill him.**So I will waste no more time with him.**He is on his own now. My priorities have changed." She looked at me and smiled. "You are my only concern now."
I could hear the sadness in Gedan's voice even though she hid it from her face.**It was palpable, hanging in the air around us.**I squeezed her hand as best as I could.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.
"I will be."
At that moment we heard Worzen let out a scream from the other side of the ridge.**It was a horrid, frightened scream, one we had both heard before.**I looked towards the sound. I didn't say anything and nor did she.**We both knew what that sound meant.
"Crap," I said. "Do you want to go and—"
Gedan shook her head, a sharp and curt gesture underlined by the sorrow in her eyes. She had such a helplessly sad look on her face that I don't think I will ever forget it.*I felt an odd sense of guilt, as if even with my wounds I should still be doing something.
"Come on," I said, "then you can lead me to where he is."
Gedan gripped my arm to restrain me gently. "Dan…you can't save him," she said.
"I need to be sure it's finished," I said. "I need to be sure that there is nothing more we can do."
Gedan sighed and gave me a single nod of her head; it was a sombre gesture that tugged on my heart to see.**She was fighting against her urge to save him; that wild and selfless need to help everyone burned in every part of her body.**But now she had to resist it because she knew saving Worzen would only lead to him killing more people. It hurt her to do it. And seeing him again, so in need of help and so close to death, would only make it worse.**I knew Gedan didn't want to see what was happening.**We both knew perfectly well what fate was claiming Worzen.*
Yet at my mere asking, Gedan would put herself through all of that torture again; not because she wanted to or because she needed to – but because I had asked.**She was hurting herself for me.
Gedan led me forward along the edge of bog to our left and over to the rocky promontory to the right. It was a short distance but still, our every step was haunted by the shrill cries of Worzen's desperate struggle.**
In seconds we were able to see through a tangle of trees and bushes to where Worzen and his blade were stuck in a watery mud hole. He had his back to us and he was thrashing wildly, which was only making him sink quicker.
"Gedan!" he shrieked, "Gedan!"
I felt Gedan tense against me at the sound of her name being called so desperately.**I turned to look at her face, to see if she was all right.**She had her eyes closed and I suspect that she was trying her very best to not go running to him.**Even after everything that he had done, Gedan still wanted to save him. She frowned fiercely but said nothing.
"Please!" Worzen shrieked. "I don't want to die!"
Gedan's face soured. Her grip on me tightened at the helpless fear in the man's voice and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. She turned into me a little, looking for solace.**My arm was all ready around her shoulder but I hugged as much as I could.**To hear him so scared and frantic even managed to move me, so who knows what it would do to someone like Gedan.**
I looked back and saw the mud was up to Worzen's chest now and his thrashing had only driven him further from solid ground. I looked forward and despite it all, I searched for a way to see if he could be reached.**With my coat and shirt in tatters and serving as bandages, Worzen was too far for us to reach.**I looked to see if there were any trees that might offer us a way but again there was nothing. My heart should have sunk to know he was beyond help but it merely hardened.
"We can't reach him," I said, "even if we wanted to, we can't get to him."
Gedan nodded.
I felt suddenly helpless and useless. "Do we call out to him?" I said. "I…don't know what we can do…"
"Nothing," Gedan said gently. "There's nothing we can do. Alerting him to our presence will only make his suffering worse. He is alone with his terror and there is no comfort for him."
I looked at Gedan. "Can you…comfort him somehow… maybe ease his fear?" I said, without knowing why the thought had even popped into my head.
"No," she said, shaking her head.
"But you want to, don't you?"
Gedan nodded slowly.
"I'm sorry Gedan," I said and hugged her.
Gedan nodded and said, "I didn't want this Dan, I didn't want it to end this way."
We stood there, helpless witnesses to Worzen's horrid fate.**I had to look away when the muddy water was sloshing at his neck and chin; his screams up to that point will stay with me forever. Every cry made me remember how close I had come to sharing his fate.**I shuddered in horror.
"Can we go, please?" I said. "I've seen and heard enough."
Gedan turned and pulled my head against the fur of her shoulder, so I could see only her and not what was happening. Then she covered my ears with her hands; she was shielding me as best she could from Worzen's death. Part of me felt awkward, that it should have been me offering her sanctuary from the horror of what was happening, but truth be told I was grateful for her gesture.**
I don't know why she didn't just walk away with me. It would have been easier for us both. Perhaps she wanted to be witness to it, to see it through to the end. Maybe she felt that if she couldn't save him, the least she could do was bear witness to his last moments.**Whatever the reason, Gedan put herself through what must have been a terrible few minutes.
I didn't see or hear anything of Worzen's last moments. Gedan saw and heard it all, without flinching and without relaxing her protective grip on me. I knew without looking that it tore at Gedan to be so helpless before someone so in need of her help.**For someone who had said that she would save anyone, to not be able to save him must have been nothing short of torture.**Even at the very end she had wanted to save him – she had even convinced me that it was worth trying. Even after what she had said, if there had been a way to reach him, Gedan would have done it, of that I have no doubt.
Gedan, someone who would save even an evil man could only stand, watching and listening to Worzen Eccles die.
* * * *
After a while Gedan gently lifted my head from her shoulder and resumed her position of supporting me.**Her cheeks had tear trails on them and her eyes were wet.**She blinked quickly but did not meet my gaze.
Taking a deep breath, I looked over through the bushes to the mud hole, but there was no sign of Worzen – he had gone under.**The mud bubbled once but other than that there was no evidence of the trauma that had taken place there. I sighed.
"He's gone," she said with quet greif.
I nodded. "Rest in peace," I said and made a cross sign on my chest.
It was over. The man who haad murdered those three officers was dead; not by my hand and not by the judicial arm of Brickten law – but by his own hubris.**I don't know if that was justice or even if it mattered any more, I just knew it was over and that it gave me no pleasure to have seen Worzen Eccles die that way.
"I'm sorry," I said, looking back to Gedan. "You did all you could to save him."
"As did you," she said. "And I will not forget that, Daniel Rott."
Gedan turned to look at me and as she did, the sadness fell from her features; her ears picked up, her tail swished and a purr rose in her throat. A bright and tender smile filled her face. Her eyes shone a little brighter than a few moments ago, as if something that had been missing earlier was being replaced.*She drew me into into a full hug and for a moment her cheek was pressed against mine; an infinitely tender feeling. In a moment it passed and she drew back a little.*
"Time to get you home," she said.
"Best thing I've heard yet all night."
Gedan's smile turned to something a little cheekier. "Are you strong enough to ride on my shoulders?"
"You're kidding me, aren't you?" I said looking at my bandage wrapped arms and chest. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Gedan giggled and to hear it was enough to make me forget the horror of what had passed before.**Checking my bandages once more to ensure they would hold, she fastened her coat about me then she slipped behind me.**A moment later I felt her head pass between my knees and her shoulders beneath my cheeks.**Gripping my legs, she stood up gently and then I was sitting on her shoulders.**I laughed nervously as she rose up, fearing I might topple over, but once again Gedan's strength and balance were perfect. I may as well have been a scarf about her neck for all the difference it made to her.
"Is this really a good idea?" I asked, giggling nervously.
"Well you're up there now," she said, tittering. "And I have no intention of putting you down till we are at your house."
I gripped her shoulders. "Do you even know where I live?"
Gedan squeezed my legs. "I'm sure I can find it," she said. "But feel free to shout out if I'm going the wrong way."
I should have felt uneasy and off balance being so high up, but I actually felt like it was perfectly natural. I felt safe and secure, as if I had been this tall since the day of my birth.
"Like this all the way home?" I asked.
"Unless you're going to be sick, then you walk," she said.
I laughed. "What if someone sees us?" I said, having nightmare visions or Gedan running through the streets of Brickten with me on her shoulders and people watching us from their windows.
"Then you'll have a lot of questions to answer in the morning, won't you?" she said and laughed carefree and merry.***
Once again I felt giddy and ridiculously light hearted. The pain and shock of my wounds was gone, replaced with a tingle of excitement in my belly that would not fade or be softened.**My memory of Eccles and his death was intact and painfully sharp, but the thrill of being with Gedan and hearing her laugh pushed it all to the back of my mind.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Just don't drop me!"
"Here we go!"
As good as her word, Gedan ran at break neck speed through the pitch black Mire with me firmly rooted to her shoulders.**Her speed now was more relaxed than when we had been in pursuit of Eccles, but it was no less bracing or thrilling.**We were racers through a treacherous land but I knew nothing would stop us.
The world about us was utterly black, with little or no moonlight reaching the ground. I saw nothing of the world as it whooshed by me and it was only the little ducks and turns that told me we were passing trees.**I heard birds and other things pass us by but I gave little heed to them, revelling in the rush of the wind on my face.**Every now and then I would feel her jump or skip to navigate a hazard but other than that she seemed to choose the easiest and safest path.
It wasn't long before I was shouting and whooping and laughing, challenging the dark gloom of the Mire with my cries.**It was the most alive I'd ever felt in my entire life.**Nothing had come close to it and I doubted anything ever would. It blew all traces of sadness and anger away and left me grinning and chattering like child.
"How does this compare?" she asked at once point.
"Brilliant! Just brilliant! Faster - go faster!"
And so Gedan did.
*****************************************************************
When we reached the outskirts of Brickten, my face ached more than my wounds for I had smiled and laughed so much on the way back.**Gedan slowed down to a fast walk to reduce the amount of attention we attracted. She looked as perfectly composed now as she had when we first met, not a singe pant of breath or even the faintest suggestion that she had exerted herself.**
"C-can you run forever?" I asked, trembling and breathless.
"Not forever," she said and grinned, "but I can run for a long time."
I shook my head. "All that running, jumping and climbing and not a single moment of breathlessness," I said. "What wondrous creatures Kats must be."
Gedan grinned and looked up at me. "Oh you have no idea," she said.
I grinned.
"And I still want to hear that question once we are at your home, Daniel Rott, so do not think to be falling asleep."
I shook my head. "I don't think I will sleep for a week," I said.
"You will sleep wonderfully," Gedan promised softly, "you will enjoy a lovely, deep, refreshing sleep unlike any you've had before; I promise."
Brickten was silent and still, save for my breathing.**Its cobbled streets and neatly stacked houses were pristine in the early morning gloom.**Everything looked clean and in place, a wonderful sense of order to it all.**
"This is Brickten," I said proudly.
"It's lovely," said Gedan, "now where do you live?"
It took only a few minutes for me to lead Gedan to the dark blue front door of my house. She lowered me to the floor and extracted herself gently from under me.**My legs ached and it took me a moment to find my feet, which Gedan found most amusing.**
We went inside and into my parlour.**My house smelt of shoe polish and cold meat from breakfast.**The instant we were inside and the lamps were lit. Gedan ushered me to one of the chairs.
"Sit," she said, "I will boil some water and clean your wounds."
In no time at all, Gedan had boiled water and was peeling the bandages off of me.****
"I can do it," I said.
"You could barely walk a moment ago."
"Give it here!" I took the cloth from her and bathed my wounds while she watched, looking for any sign of infection.**There were none and I was able to re-bind myself without much effort at all.**Still, to my irritation, Gedan insisted on retying them when I was finished.**
"I fear you will carry scars for the rest of your life Dan," she said as she finished. "I'm sorry that you suffered so."
"It's not your fault," I said. "At least when I wake up tomorrow, it will prove that I didn't dream this whole thing."
Gedan giggled and nodded. "I would rather you had something sweeter and less painful," she said.
Once the bandaging was done, I made tea for us both but Gedan declined. The clock on my mantle piece showed it a little after three am.
"You promised me a chat," I said.
Gedan nodded and sat down in one of the smaller chairs. "I am all yours until you fall asleep," she said.
"Will you tell me what Worzen did?" I asked. "What was bad enough to have you chase him so doggedly?"
Gedan sighed. "I guess you have earned the right to know," she said. "I am not the only Kat, Dan. There are many others, all similar to me. We are family and I guess you could call me their mother, though I did not actually give birth to them."
I nodded.
"We can be...summoned through specific rites and without going into too much detail, we offer a lot to those who summon us."
A host of wild thoughts entered my mind. "I bet," I said.
"There was a young married couple, Aaron and Jennifer Cushins - a lovely young couple with their lives ahead of them. They lived in in America; a place called Indianna." Gedan smiled softly. "They brought a Kat into their hotel room to help celebrate their Wedding. They had planned all manner of treats for each other."
I felt a cold dread touch my gut when her smile faded.
"Worzen Eccles broke into their room while my Kat, Lisi is her name, was entertaining them. Worzen killed Aaron and Jennifer where they lay. Lisi fended him off but he escaped. By the time the medical team arrived, it was too late."
"Oh god..."
"Lisi came to me, devastated. Had she not been there, they might have been able to defend themselves. It was her presence that made them so helpless. She blamed herself for their deaths. She still does."
"How long ago was that?"
"Six years."
"And you have been chasing him since?"
Gedan nodded. "Ever since he got out of prison," she said. "I wanted to take him back, to make stand before Lisi. Not to kill him and not to torture him. But so she could see who was responsible."
"That's terrible."
"It's in the past now," she said. "Lisi will get over her grief in time and the man who did the terrible deed is...well, we need not worry about him."
I nodded. "For what it is worth, I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
For a little while we chatted about nothing and I told her about what I'd done in my years gone by. She asked about a wife or children, but there were none to talk about. She asked if that was something I wished to change. I said I didn't know.**
I asked questions of her and where she came from but she was reluctant to say much other than to say it was a very far off land and that I would likely never see it.**She told me that there were plenty of Kats where she came from but as to what they did, she just smiled and*said I wouldn't believe her even if she told me.**
It was a sweet little chat that we had but all too soon I felt the first wave of tiredness creep over me and my eyes grew heavy.
Gedan rose, taking the tea cups from me. "Time for bed, Dan," she said softly.
"Can you not stay longer?" I asked, unhappy at the idea of her parting.
Gedan shook her head, smiling down at me. "I'm afraid not," she said.
"But I don't want you to go."
She smiled tenderly at me then put the cups in the kitchen. When she came back, she was still smiling.
"So what happens now?"
"Once you're sleeping I will slip away from Brickten," she said. "Tomorrow, Sergeant Daniel Rott, you will go on with your life and continue to do all manner of wonderful things for this lovely town."
"And what of you?"
Gedan grinned. "I will do all manner of wonderful things for my town," she said.
"Is that it?"
"Yes, but I hope you will go on with your life with the sweet memory of me to keep a smile on your face," she said.**
I nodded. "But a memory is all I will have?"**
"It is how it must be."
"Why?" I asked,
"Because our time together is over," she said softly.**
Those few words were the most painful and sweetest goodbye ever given to me. I would be lying if I said it didn't make my heart ache. Hearing her say it like that made me feel sad. My feelings felt suddenly heavy. It was so impossibly final.
"It hardly seems fair," I said. "After all we have gone through tonight, for it to end this way…"
"You mean for it to end with you safe and warm in your bed?" she said with a grin. "I think that is the perfect ending."
"I can think of better ways."
Gedan smiled warmly but shook her head.
"I didn't mean that!" I said hastily.**"I meant for us not to see each other again is a little harsh. I only just met you and you tell me now this is all we get together? I feel like I've done something wrong or I'm somehow not worthy of you."
"We've have had only a precious few hours together," said Gedan, "and I am sorry it cannot be more. Truly I am. But there are some who don't even get that."
"I find that poor consolation."
"I know. But know I am glad of the time we have had Dan," she said, looking into my eyes.
"As am I," I said, "but I want more."
Gedan nodded but didn't say anything.**It felt odd to be standing on the precipice of a painful goodbye with someone I'd only known for a few hours.**Yet despite the time involved, I felt like I had known Gedan for all my life and I was about to lose a very important part of me.
"Is there nothing I can do to change this?"
Gedan closed her eyes for a moment, as if wondering on something. Again I felt that odd breeze in my thoughts "No," she said softly. "I'm afraid not."
"No way I can summon you back?"
She giggled. "No," she said.
An idea popped into my head and I rose from my chair so suddenly that it startled Gedan, who stepped back.**I hurried over to my writing desk and from one of the smaller drawers I plucked a boxing medal that I'd won some years earlier. It was made of silver and had a Boxer striking a pose carved into. In my youth it had been a treasured object of mine.**I walked over and offered it to Gedan.
"What is this?" she asked, looking at it.
"A gift for you," I said.**She started shaking her head and hands but I ignored her. "I am going to have to insist, Gedan.**I will eventually understand why we will not see each other again and as much as it grieves me, I will not argue about it.**But you will not leave here without something to remember me by."
Gedan took my hands gently in hers, closing my fingers around the medallion. She smiled at me, her tender eyes locked on mine. "I won't forget you Dan," she said.**
"Not with this; you won't forget me at all," I said and ignoring her complaint I put it around her neck.**Thankfully, she let me do so and when I stepped back, she left it on.**"There, looks much better on you."
"You shouldn't give this to me. It is yours."
"And now it is yours."
Gedan giggled and looked down, twirling it with her hands. "Thank you," she said, a little bashful, "It does go well with my fur, doesn't it? I will keep it as a gift and symbol of what we shared."
I nodded, triumphant. "Good."
Gedan purred softly and took hold of my hands again. There a look in her eyes that was new; it was a knowing and mischievous look. I might have said it was borderline sultry and seductive, but I would not flatter myself so.**She stroked the tops of my hands.
"Now, sweet Dan," she said her voice warm and tender. "You and I are alone..."
I gulped and nodded. "Yes?"
"You can tell me," she whispered, her face close enough to mine so I could see the individual strands of hair on her brow. "What was your second question?"
I giggled and blushed, remembering it anew. Gedan laughed softly at me.
"You have all ready answered it," I said.
She tilted her head curiously. "I have?"
I nodded. "I was…going to ask you…for a kiss," I said.
Gedan dipped her head and made that purring sound again. She looked at me through her lowered eyes. "Ah," she said, turning coyly from side to side, "A sweet request indeed."
"The sweetest," I said.
"But," she said, "I've not really given you a kiss, have I? We have brushed lips but that was not a proper kiss. The gift I have been given, this wonderful medallion and the comfort of your company, demand something more fulfilling.**I think that question of yours still remains unanswered, Dan."
It took me a moment to realise what she had said but when it clicked, I blushed fiercely. "Y-yes, please," I said.
Gedan edged closer again, her lips so close to mine that I could feel the wash of her breath. My heart was thundering in my chest. "You will fall asleep once this is done," she said softly.**"And this kiss is just a kiss. It will not be anything more."
"I understand."
"I want to thank you for your help Dan," she said, looking sweetly at me. "You have been very kind to me on this journey.**I am glad to have met you."
"All I did was to get in your way," I said. "You're the one who did all the hard work."
Gedan shook her head. "You did more than that," she said. "Much more. You gave up on getting your revenge to help me. You even tried to save Worzen Eccles; despite all the wrong he had done you to help me.**And such a display compassion is a very special thing."
"If you say so," I said.
"But more than that you helped me give up on my revenge," she said. "I would have hounded Worzen to who knows what depths had I not met you. Your willingness to surrender your wrath allowed me to do the same. You helped me let go of Worzen. And for that you will forever be in my thoughts."
I blushed. "Wow..."
Gedan cupped my face with her hands; a sweet cradle that I would languish in forever if**I could have. She looked as beautiful and as ravishing now as she had earlier, but now with no coat on I could more of her stunning form.
"You are a very kind man."
"You make it easy to be kind," I said.
Gedan smiled and stroked my face, her lips almost touching mine. "With this kiss we say goodbye, Daniel Rott," she said. "But know that I will never forget you."
"Promise me."
"I promise," she said. "For as long as the stars burn you will be in my thoughts."
"Thank you," I said, "but can you promise one thing more?"
She nodded.
"Promise me you won't hate yourself over Worzen Eccles."
"What?"
"You did all you could to save him," I said. "i]It was his choice to run and not let you help him that killed him - not yours."
Her eyes seemed to water. "Why do you ask that of me?"
"Because I don't want you to think you failed," I said. "You want to save everyone. You have this wonderful need to save people and I don't even think you have a choice in it sometimes. You feel compelled to save people, or at the very least, try your very best. And you did, Gedan. Tonight I saw you do everything you could to save Worzen Eccles."
"Oh, Dan..."
"You told me before that you'd never met anyone who you didn't want to save...and I want you to know that you still haven't. Please remember that."
A tremble of feeling rippled her sweet features and I feared for a moment she might cry.**But they settled once more into a look that was impossibly tender.**"Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
I saw her eyes close and watched her lean in to kiss me. I waited until the last minute before closing mine so I could memorise as much of her as I could. I took a deep nose full of her scent, convinced I would not know it again in all my life.
An instant later her lips were on mine, impossibly soft and sweet. It was the perfect kiss, better than what had gone before. Her scent and her taste knocked all of my senses out of bearing.**My heart thundered. I clutched at her arms, overcome by the sensation of it.**I felt suddenly light headed.**I remember marvelling at her kiss and I wanted for it to never end.
Then white light filled my head and I knew nothing more.
* * * *
When I woke the next morning I was tucked neatly in my bed, wearing my night gown with my clothes folded on the dresser chair. I felt refreshed and alive with new vitality.**I looked at the clock and saw I'd slept for seven hours solid.
It took me a moment of frowning before the memory of how I had ended up here came to me. Gedan had carried me up to my bed and tucked me in, just as she had promised.**I must have passed out during her kiss and she'd had no choice to do it.**I laughed out loud, picturing her lugging me up the stairs.
"I must have been a very good boy," I said.
Then I remembered the kiss in more detail and I felt something all together different and much more pleasant.
After a while I removed my bandages to check on the wounds I'd received. The cuts on my arms and chest had healed considerably by the morning, though I do not know how they could have healed so fast.**Gedan was right that I would scar – theere would be neat silver lines on my body; but I did not mind.**They are subtle enough to be missed by the passing eyes and they are a worthy reminder of what deeds were done that night.
Of those hours with Gedan - the Kat who would save everyone.
Later on in the morning I checked my parlour for evidence that it hadn't all been a dream.**Much to my delight, I found that Gedan had taken the medal with her as she had promised. It made me smile for the rest of the day to know that wherever she was, she had something of mine with her – that I would continue to be with her.
Gedan had also left me a simple note with one line written in perfect calligraphy; the phrase was 'Thank You Dan'.**It was even marked with her scent that never seemed to fade.**It is my most treasured possession.**
The papers told the story that Worzen Eccles had fled into the Mire and had not been seen since.**They assumed he was either living on the Mire or dead.**I never mentioned my journey into the Mire or the miraculous friend I made. For the rest of my days her name will be the first word on my lips in the morning and last the thing on my mind at night.
Gedan.
