Chapter Seven:

Shanara sat in the library, her face close to the book she was reading, the better to see in the quickly dieing fire light. Most unfortunately, the book was completely encrypted and rather difficult to figure out. The writer had intended for it to be that way.

She sighed in frustration. "Why on earth do they bother with this!" She said exasperatedly. "Pointless, they might as well make it so you can read it!" she continued grumbling to herself for a few minutes, and the words remained unintelligible. She wished with all her heart that she could read it.

Finally, she gave up and snapped it closed irritably. Shanara returned the book to it's place on the vast shelves and then turned to coax the fire into greater life. After she was satisfied with it she immediately returned to her search. She was attempting to find a healing spell, despite Tharn's half hearted protests that there was nothing wrong, and Pat's regretful admittance that she probably wouldn't find anything to help him.

As the man and his familiar were slowly realizing, they had seen this illness before, on their home world. There was absolutely no cure. Tharn could only hope and pray that they were mistaken, but only time would tell. And meanwhile, they had to console Shanara. They were very careful to be sure she didn't discover their belief. So, there she was, looking for some spell that might cure him. Pat had just shaken his head, and given her a look of uttermost sympathy. The poor kid.

Shanara brushed a stray brownish-red curl behind her ear and pulled down a promising volume. It was no good. It took her a good hour to figure out what each book said, and then another to read it, only to discover that there was absolutely nothing that would do her any good. Finally, after many long hours of searching, she reluctantly gave up. She could have cried with frustration and bitter anger. How, out of all those books, could there be nothing, absolutely nothing, that would be of any use?

She jumped and looked up as the door opened with a slight creak and Pat padded in softly. "Came to check on you. You've been in here for hours." he saw the look on her face and said softly, "I take it you didn't find anything." Shanara looked away, biting her lip. "No. Not a thing. It's not fair. Will he get over this? it just seems to get worse and worse.... oh Pat, what's wrong with him?"

The cat was overcome with sympathy and sadness for his young companion. "I'm not sure Shan. I have a few theories, but there isn't really any way to be sure. I just pray it's nothing more than a bad virus and he'll get over it." she didn't seem to like his answer.

He sighed and leaped up onto the table, and then into her arms, purring. He found that humans loved it when cats purred, and he hope it would make her feel better. It didn't work. She just sighed, stroking his soft black fur. "What...what do you think it is? Don't lie to me. I see the two of you talking... he's going to dies, isn't he?"

Pat stared at her intently. "No. He'll be fine. You'll see." he purposely ignored her first question. "You should go to bed. It's getting late." with that he wriggled free of her arms and left, his tail dropping sadly.

******************************************************* As the weeks went on, Tharn only got worse. It seemed to Shanara that he was simply wasting away into nothing. He finally gave up trying to convince her he would be okay, because now it was quite apparent that he wouldn't be. and it seemed that he and Pat had been right in their assumptions.

Were he came from, occasionally, either the very old or the very frail were inflicted with what they had dubbed 'the wasting disease' and rightly so, seeing what it did to people. But they were very rare cases indeed, which was perhaps why no one had ever come up with a cure. But when one did catch it, they were sure to die a slow, painful death. There were also theories that it was genetic.

Seeing as his father had died of the same thing, he thought glumly, it was probably true. He just hoped that it wasn't so genetic that Shanara would be ailed by it too. He trusted her mothers side would out in that, however.

"Well old friend, I expect it won't be long now." he said to Pat who lay purring by his head. The cat glared at him indignantly. "No! Don't say that. You'll be fine, just wait, I'm sure you will!" but no amount of wishing and hoping and praying could change the course of fate. If Pat had been human, or if cats could shed tears, he would have sobbed bitterly. "Just wait, we'll get you through this." Tharn weakly patted his life's companion on his head and said, "I wish you were right. Oh I wish you were right." he sighed deeply, and was surprised to find that such and action hurt him.

"I want you to promise me something...." Pat who was now perched on his chest, the better to look him in the eye, nodded. "Anything." Tharn smiled. "Always...so... eager. Good. If I..... if I die, as I undoubtedly will, promise me you'll look after Shanara for me. Don't let grief overcome you friend, for she will need you more than ever." Pat meowed pitifully. "I promise. I'll take good care of her. I promise!" satisfied, Tharn lay back and closed his eyes... how good it felt to sleep...... ************************************************** Shanara was once again seated in the library, but this time she wasn't reading, she was thinking. And very frustrated thoughts they were. Despite the fact that both her father and Pat refused to tell her what was wrong, afraid that she would worry to much, she had noticed that his condition was getting worse seemingly by the hour, and she looked on him about every ten minutes until finally he had shouted at her that what he needed was rest and he couldn't get that with her constantly waking him.

So she changed it to peeking to see how he was every thirty minutes, and every hour seeing if he needed anything. He refrained from telling her that this was much worse then what she'd done before, because he could see she was just worried about him.

She had at first attempted to remain with him all day long, but found she needed something to do, something to keep her mind off the despair that filled her every time she allowed herself to consider what it was that could be so effectively taking him away from her. Seeing him made that despair worse.

Everything seemed to make it worse. She just wished he would get better. Sighing, she leaned back in her chair causing it to stand on two legs, a habit her father had tried desperately to break her from. She felt a pang of anguish in her heart as she was once more reminded of her father.

Shanara decided it was once again time to check in on Tharn again, and was about half way to his chambers when a small black something hurled itself at her. "Oh Shanara, I'm glad I found you! Please come... quick..."

Bewildered she petted and soothed the cat until he was calm enough to give her an intelligible answer to what was wrong. "Tharn!" he gasped. "Oh come quick...." she dropped the cat to his distaste and was running down the long corridor as quickly as she could, not even listening to the end of his sentence. She didn't need to. Something was wrong. Something had happened. That was all her panic stricken mind could take in at the moment.

Authors Note: Hope you are all likeing this. And for the curiouse, the 'Wasting disease' is actuall cancer.