It was summer again. A full year had turned since the day I’d taken that walk down the beach. And now I was walking again, leaning on a black staff as I trudged down the road. It was hot and dusty and I was very weary. It had been a long day. The sun beat down on my head and I had no hat and no water or food. I almost turned back when I realized my lack of supplies, but somehow now that I had begun, I didn’t want to halt my journey. I was going home.

That first day I encountered no one. I set up a simple camp in a clump of trees by the side of the road. The way I’d chosen led along the coast, and from where I was I could hear the distant boom of the waves. Their crashing accompanied me during most of that long weary journey. I found a stream and quenched my thirst, but could do nothing for my hunger. I could conjure food, but food created by magic has little substance, and would not satisfy. I hoped to meet some fellow traveler willing to share provisions, or find a farmstead along the way that might give me food in exchange for some magical service.

With that thought in mind, I took time the next morning to set a small illusion spell on myself. It would hide the collar and slave mark, for an escaped slave was fair game for any that could catch him, and I didn’t want to dodge slave-takers along with all the other problems I’d have on this trip. Staff in hand I set off down the road.

Lord Morren had built his house in an isolated spot, but it wasn’t long before little farms began to appear here and there along the way. I stopped at the first one that lay near the road. I knocked on the door of a whitewashed farmhouse. The lady who answered it looked friendly enough.

“What can I do for you, young sir?”

“I’m just passing through, and I’m in need of a few supplies. I was hoping I might barter such skill as I have for some food and a skin of water, ma’am.”

“And what skills have you, lad?”

I hoped that she wasn’t one of those people who feared or hated magic. There weren’t many, but there were some, especially among the peasant classes. I said, “I’m a mage of some small ability. I can do little charms for luck and to help out around the farm.”

“I thought as much, from the look of that staff. Though you don’t look near as noble as most mages I’ve seen, and I’ve seen more than a few pass by here. They go up to the Lord’s house over that way. But then, you most likely know all about him, being as you’re a mage yourself.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to discuss the recent demise of Lord Morren with her, no matter how friendly she was. She realized that I wasn’t going to respond to her remark, so she continued, “I’d be more than happy to trade you a bit of food for a charm or two. We’ve some cows that have been off their milk as often as on these days and a health charm for them would be more than welcome.”

A half hour later I was walking down the road again, a small pack full of food on my back and a water skin hanging from my belt. I’d even gotten a hat to keep my skin from burning. I hadn’t been out in the sun for so long I was quite pale. The relief from the sun was welcome as I trudged down the dusty road. It stretched before me in an endless ribbon or hard-packed earth. I proceeded down it step by weary step. For two days I caught a ride with a trader’s wagon hauling goods, but the rest of the distance I covered on my own two feet. I had a lot of time to think as I put one foot in front of the other. I thought about my father quite a bit. I’d always just reacted to him, to his seeming rejection. I’d never really thought about what it was like from his point of view. Every father has high hopes for his children. He’d wanted me to have everything he’d had and more. How could he have been anything but disappointed when I proved unable to fulfill his dreams? I didn’t think he had realized how much I wanted his good opinion, and how much his rejection had hurt me. He had been as frustrated at my latency as I had, and had unthinkingly taken that frustration out on me.

I wanted to sit down and talk with him, tell him how I’d really felt, and find out how he’d felt. I wanted to see my mother again, and my brother Chris. Knowing now that seeing them was at least possible I allowed myself a bout of self-indulgent homesickness. I missed them terribly!

During the long hours of walking and the sometimes longer hours lying sleepless on the hard ground at night I pondered the reasons for my sudden emergence from latency in both magical and feline abilities. After a lot of thinking I came to a conclusion. I recalled the painful ache in my hands whenever I’d gotten really angry. I recalled too the irrational fear of my own anger I’d always struggled with. And the last piece of the puzzle was my former low tolerance for pain. Sometime in my childhood I’d gotten angry enough that my claws had begun to emerge, but it had hurt too much. Pain can kill anger very effectively. And so I’d become afraid of the pain and, by extension, the anger that caused it. Any time I got angry enough for my claws to come out my fear had stifled it. And since the claws were the key to the rest of the Ritah abilities, I’d never been able to develop any of them. But the long months of pain I’d endured as Lord Morren’s power source had built up my tolerance to pain to the point where I no longer feared my anger and the pain it might cause.

My latency might well be traced to the same source. The fact that I could shapeshift, something rare to the point of being legendary, even among full-blooded Ritah, suggested that my Ritah powers were unusually strong. I knew that one kind of magic could interfere with another when spell-casting, especially when both were very strong. I surmised that the same thing had happened to me. With my feline powers pent up inside, they’d suffocated my magical abilities, preventing them from surfacing. So when I’d finally gained my cat powers it had opened the way for my magic. And then Lord Morren’s attack, using my own life force as it did, had acted as a catalyst to bring my power to life.

There were days when I could hardly believe all that had happened. My life seemed divided into three totally unrelated parts. There was my old life as a latent at home, my miserable existence as a slave, and now this empowered state I found myself in. I thought of my homecoming, imagining what it would be like to return and be welcomed. Father would be so proud of me at last! But as I imagined my triumphant return the images turned sour. I remembered my joy when I’d learned that my father wanted me after all. I had felt then that he loved me despite my lack of ability. But if I returned home now, triumphant and powerful, how could I ever be sure that it was true? How would I know whether my welcome was because Father loved me, or because I’d become what he had wanted of me? The nagging doubt would always remain; would my father have welcomed me without magic, without ability?