Power.
It was all around him. He could sense it in the Weave, he could even sense it through the All, surrounding him, enticing him, causing him to reach towards it the way green things reached for the sun. The Weave was strong in this region of the desert, with an unusual concentration of strands surrounding a minor Conduit and two medium ones. That power pooled around him, coalesced in the strands immediately surrounding him, attracted to his presence by some unfathomable means. It reached towards him the same way he reached towards it, but some unknown force or means prevented them from making contact with one another.
Sitting in the full force of the sun, eyes closed and attention focused inward, Tarrin sought to find his way to that energy. The heat of the sun was actually helping him, soothing him with its warmth, almost feeling like it was flowing through him the same way that the power of the Weave used to flow through him. He could feel every nuance within the Weave, feel it for longspans in every direction, even deep under the earth. He could feel the collection of energies around him, as the energy flowed through the strands to collect around him, to pool up as if to bask in his presence. That strange energy always followed him around, and he still had no real true understanding as to what it was. He knew that it was a residual energy that was created by the interaction of the flows within the strands. Almost like a by-product of the flowing of magical energy through the Weave. It was also created when Priest or Wizard magic entered and exited the Weave. Like a harmonic or echo of magical power, a harmonic spawned by the original, yet the harmonic remained inside the Weave long after the original was gone.
Voices disturbed him. Sarraya and Denai were chatting again, taking advantage of the break in their journey northwest to eat lunch and talk. The two of them seemed to have struck up a good friendship. Denai was even calling Sarraya shaida now. The Selani hadn't really annoyed him so far today, but it was just the day before when they met. She was bound to annoy him eventually. Tarrin had spent the morning teaching Sarraya more and more Sha'Kar as they moved, and the little Faerie had so far proved to be an exceptional student. She never forgot anything. He felt some fringes of Druidic magic around her while he was teaching, so he had some suspicions that she was using her magic to boost her learning. The same way that Dolanna had when she learned Sha'Kar in a matter of days. The idea of teaching Sarraya with Denai in earshot had concerned him at first, but then he realized that she was Selani. If he forced her to swear blood oath never to teach what she learned to someone else, then it would go no further than her. He didn't entirely trust her, but he knew the Selani. He trusted their culture more than their members.
Nowhere. He was getting nowhere again. No matter how he tried to reach out to the Weave, it simply wasn't there. Just a short time of trying had worked up his temper, and he knew that he had to stop before he got so aggravated that Denai's presence became dangerous.
Opening his eyes, he blew out his breath. He hadn't tried last night, and he wasn't about to let that go. They had stopped twice to rest or eat, and both times he had sat down in a meditative position and tried to find his power again. This was the third time, and it was no more successful than the other two. He rubbed his eyes gingerly with a finger and a thumb, then uncurled his tail from around his legs. The mental effort of reaching for the power was surprising, leaving him feeling a little tired every time he tried it. That fatigue would fade quickly, so it wasn't a real problem for him.
What was the answer? It almost drove him crazy. He knew that he could do it. He'd seen that Sha'Kar woman use her power, and he knew that he could do it too. But it was like trying to cage the wind. He had tried so many different ways to reach out to the Weave, but it was like it was a ghost. He could see it, but he couldn't touch it. What made it worse was that his sense of the Weave grew sharper and sharper in the days since the fight with the Sha'Kar woman. His sense of the Weave grew more and more clear, more precise, and he could sense it from greater and greater distances. He had gotten to the point where he could almost see the energy flowing through it, like pulses of light travelling along the ghostly tendrils that hid behind the reality before him. And it still pulsed in that sound that was like a heartbeat, expanding and contracting in time like blood flowing through vessels, like he was somehow inside the bodiless form of the Goddess herself, and could see the true workings of her wonders from the inside.
At least today there were no real distractions. The eyeless face was still there, lurking just underneath his conscious, but for some reason it had been unusually subdued today. The emotions it incited in him were also more subdued today, allowing him to think more than feel, and not feel as if his world was floating on the blood of the innocent, innocents destroyed by his own hand. He could still feel it there, but for a change, it did not attempt to torture him this day.
Denai approached him. She was about average height for a Selani female, which made her unnaturally tall to a human, but she seemed almost laughably short to him. She only came up to his chest. With him seated, he nearly came up to her shoulders, putting his eyes on a direct level with her breasts. She stopped a few paces from him, making sure that he had seen her and acknowledged her presence, then came within arm's reach of him slowly. That close to her, her coppery scent washed over him like rain, making him miss Allia. Denai's scent was markedly similar to his sister's. The idea that she was standing but he was seated flitted through his mind, reminding him that he was at a disadvantage. At first, he wanted to stand, but the part of him that chanted over and over again that there was nothing to fear from Denai made him stay seated, to stay in a vulnerable position, to see what she would do. If she attacked, he was confident he could take her down with his tail, and then it was a simple matter of finishing her off. "I made oatcakes, Tarrin," she offered. "I even have some honey to flavor them."
"I'm not hungry, Denai."
"You haven't eaten all day," she protested. "You need to eat, or the sun will drain you of your strength."
"The sun doesn't bother me, Denai," he said calmly, looking up at her. "I'm not human. Heat doesn't bother my kind." Well, it was almost true. Were-cats were highly adaptable. Given about a month or so, the heat truly wouldn't bother one.
"Fine. Here," she said, holding out a waterskin. "I know you need this."
He looked at the skin with narrow eyes, his feral nature rising up. The thought of what she did to that water rushed through him first, then he quashed such irrational thoughts deliberately. The girl was a Selani. She'd never intentionally poison someone. That was inexcusably dishonorable. He reached out carefully to take the skin, and as soon as he had it in his paw, he snatched it away from her, pulling his paw away from any possible danger.
She levelled her amber eyes on him, eyes that reminded him of Keritanima, then she smiled that charming smile of hers. "Look. No blood," she said, holding up her hands palms out.
He raised a paw, extended one finger, and showed her one of his long, wicked claws. "Would you like some?"
"Uh, no."
"Then go away," he said dismissively, but the command was unmistakable in his voice.
Denai said nothing more. She turned her back to him and walked away, rejoining Sarraya near a small fire she had made to cook whatever crawly thing she had managed to spit on her dagger. There were certainly enough crawly things out here. The land was relatively flat, with clumps of strange brush or tough weeds here and there, scattered across the dusty ground. The dirt had a strange reddish tint to it, and it was loose and compliant to the touch. It was actually quite soft. There were very few stones out here, and the ones that were here were very small. He had the sneaking suspicion that they were only here because sandstorms had picked them up and placed them out here. The vegetation could support life, but nothing on the scale of an inu, sukk, or kajat. Most things out here were small and scuttling. Lizards, bugs, spiders, a few mice, from the smell of things. He did smell some residual scent from a bird of some kind, and there was a faint trace of what smelled like some kind of canine, though. The grayish color of the ground to the west hinted that things were a little different over there, but that could also be the heat-haze rising up from the baking ground to distort the far landscape.
"Here," Denai said. Tarrin looked in that direction, and saw Denai and Sarraya hunching over something on the ground. "This is a zubu. That means slow walker. It's one of the common spiders in this region."
"Is it venomous?"
"Sarraya, everything in the desert is venomous," Denai said with a little chuckle. "My people have all but become immune to poison, with as many poisonous things out here that bite or sting us." She pointed down. " Zubu aren't really dangerous unless you annoy them. They're very gentle. Some of my people even keep them as pets."
"Are they deadly if they do bite?"
"Very," she replied. "Their poison is almost as potent as an umuni ."
"Isn't it a bit strange to keep a spider for a pet that can kill you if it gets annoyed?"
"What better pet to have?" she countered. "I'll guarantee that you'll never take a zubu for granted. It's a responsibility that you'll never dismiss."
"How do you mean?"
" Zubu get short-tempered when they're hungry," she answered. "The best way to keep a zubu happy is to keep it well fed."
"Oh. I get it," she mused, then she laughed. "What do they eat?"
"Anything that they can bite," she replied in a light tone. "They seem to prefer jumping mice and digger-beetles, though."
"It's pretty big for a spider."
"Yes, it's one of the larger breeds of spiders in the desert," Denai agreed. "It's not very fast, so it relies on camoflage to protect itself. And since it is so venomous, few predators will try to kill one unless they're very hungry."
"If they're not so fast, how do they catch mice?"
" Zubu are great hunters," Denai answered. "They track down the mice and attack them in their burrows, where the close quarters keeps them from getting away. Some also hunt by staying very still in a place that's well-travelled. They move slowly, but they can move very fast in a short jump. They use that to spring on unwary prey from ambush. If something can evade that spring, they'll get away from it, because it can't move quickly."
"Some of the spiders I know do the same thing," Sarraya told her. "We call them jumping spiders."
"That is what zubu do," she affirmed.
Tarrin rose to his feet, swishing his tail a few times, then turned his back to the pair of curious women and looked towards the west. He drank from the skin that Denai gave to him, finding the water to be somewhat stale and hot, but that was normal for water in the desert. The noontime heat hid the far distant from his eyes, hiding it behind the shimmering haze caused by the hot ground, but he could still make out a single rock spire not too far away from them. He was primarily looking for sandstorms, but he'd come to discover that it was rare for a storm to kick up during the midday heat. The winds that fueled them died down during the hottest part of the day. Only the big storms that came off the Sandshield rumbled across the desert in the midday hours.
"You done?" Sarraya asked, coming up from behind and hovering just beside his head.
"Guess so," he replied. "No luck, though."
"I sorta expected it," she told him. "As soon as we eat, we can move on. Are you hungry?"
"Not really," he told her.
Denai came up on the other side of him, rather close. It concerned him a little that she would get so close to him, but she didn't seem to notice. "That's the Lone Spire," she said, pointing to the singular rock spire in view. "It's a landmark. We're only about a day from the Great Canyon. Do you want to see it?"
"What do you mean?" Sarraya asked.
"It's a little out of the way, but it's very beautiful," she replied. "If you're curious, we can turn west and see it, then just follow the edge to where we can cross."
"We're not here to sightsee," Tarrin told her gruffly. "I have to cross the desert as fast as I can. That's the only reason I'm bringing you along, girl. If I'll lose time, then I'm not going that way."
"It was just a suggestion, Tarrin," she said mildly. "If you don't want to go, that's fine."
"How soon will we reach it if we go the other way?" Sarraya asked.
"About two days, but what you'll see there is nothing compared to what's that way," she said, pointing west. "It's still a formidable canyon where we're going to cross, but there are paths to get down the canyon walls. Over that way, it's just a cliff."
"How long is this canyon?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"If you're down at the base, it takes three days to run from one end to the other," she told him. "But that's if it was an easy run. The canyon floor is a maze of fallen rocks and rough terrain. It takes alot longer than that."
"What made it?"
"Nobody really knows," Denai answered. "There are smaller canyons in the desert made by old rivers that dried up, but the Great Canyon doesn't look the same as them."
No river made it. It sounded curiously like the Scar, the rift in northern Sulasia, only this one was considerably larger. Considerably.
"Your people go down there alot, Denai?"
"Oh, no," she replied. "It's a hunting ground for inu and kajat, the same as the Maze of Passages. The faster we start up the other side, the safer we'll be."
"There's enough food down there for them to survive?"
"Water pools in the deeper areas of the canyon," Denai told her. "The water supports plants, and those support enough prey for them."
"How wide is it where we're crossing?"
"About a morning's run," she replied.
"A morning run?" Sarraya asked in shock. "It has to be longspans across!"
"I don't know exactly, but it's pretty wide," she replied. "Wider there than most other places. My father thinks that the width of the canyon there has to do with the fact that its walls aren't so steep."
Now he was getting curious. But it was a curiosity that would be satisfied in two days, when they got there.
"Come on, I'm hungry," Sarraya said. "Those cakes are getting cold."
"What a strange thing to say," Denai chuckled as they left Tarrin.
After the meal, they started out again. Tarrin again instructed Sarraya in the Sha'Kar language, and Denai paced him step for step. They moved from the sparsely vegetated area into a thickly grown region, the plants half-buried in deep sand and dust. A sandstorm had passed through in recent days, leaving the area nearly submerged in sand.
"How do the plants survive?" Sarraya asked as the other two ran.
"They're used to being buried," Denai replied from behind her. "They go dormant until the winds blow away the sand."
"Makes sense," Sarraya shrugged.
The afternoon wind kicked up as the sun began to set, and it was particularly fierce. Tarrin and Denai had to turn their backs to it as it assaulted them in the face, but Sarraya used her Druidic magic to repel the blowing sand and dust.
"This is almost as bad as a sandstorm!" Tarrin said in annoyance.
"It's just the evening wind," Denai told him. "It'll die down after sunset."
"Then let's find some shelter. I don't think a tent will stand up in this," Sarraya called.
They found something that was almost a cave in a broken spire, a hollowed-out niche protected from the winds by the fallen top half of the rock column, forming an isolated courtyard of sorts covered by soft sand. Sarraya conjured up wood for a fire as Tarrin hung up a leather sheet at the narrow side of the enclosure to break up the wind funneling through it. Denai had left them to find something to eat, but returned moments after Tarrin got the fire going with an umuni dangling from her hand. It had a small puncture wound in the top of its head, probably from Denai's dagger. He'd seen that she was deadly accurate when she threw it.
"I didn't think those things were edible," Tarrin said to her. "They don't smell like they are."
"Smell? They're edible, so long as you don't eat the head," she told him. "Why wouldn't they smell edible?"
"Remember what I told you, Denai?" Sarraya reminded her.
"Oh, yes. Well, they're edible. Not very tasty, but the sandstorm that buried the plants made all the animals I'd rather eat move on until the sand blows off. I could use a chisa right now. Even a sukk or a goat."
"You can keep it," Sarraya said as she used her Druidic magic. Several large apples, a pile of berries, and a few tomatos appeared on the sand in front of her. "I conjured up extra for you two. It'll stretch out that lizard meat in a meal."
"What are these?" Denai asked, picking up a tomato. "And where did they come from?"
That Denai wasn't too surprised to see them wasn't itself a surprise. She had seen Sarraya-and even Tarrin-Conjure more than once since she joined them, and he had the feeling that Sarraya explained that to her while he was sleeping. Denai knew that they were both shaman.
"They're called tomatos," Sarraya answered. "And they're from wherever they were when my magic picked them up. Try it, you might like it."
Denai bit into the tomato, and was a bit startled when its juices dribbled down her chin. Then she laughed. "It has its own water!" she said in delight. "It's good. Tangy. My people like food with tang." She took another bite. "You can make anything you want appear?"
"Within reason," Sarraya answered. "I couldn't move a mountain, but I can conjure up just about anything I want to eat."
"Even water?"
"Even water," she affirmed. "But it doesn't just appear. It's borrowed from where it used to be, and appears here. These fruits were all probably sitting on some tree or vine somewhere. When I conjure water, I take it from somewhere else. But don't worry, I'm careful to conjure a special type of water that doesn't exist in the desert," she said quickly. "That way I'm not depleting the wells of your people."
"There's lots of water here, Sarraya," Denai said dismissively. "You just have to know where to look for it, that's all." She motioned out towards the massive fallen rock pillar. "All those plants out there don't live on air, you know."
"I've been wondering about that," Tarrin said gruffly from where he was finishing tying down the leather, at the top of the fallen rock. "I've seen way too many plants and not nearly enough water."
"He does pay attention," Sarraya teased, then she laughed. "I've sensed several underground rivers here, but they're very deep. There's alot of water in the desert, but it's all deep underground. I'll bet those plants have roots that are a hundred spans long, to reach down into that groundwater."
"Those roots probably keep them from getting blown away in storms," Tarrin added.
"Root fiber is what we use to make ropes," Denai told them. "And some clothes. It's very tough."
"It would have to be," Tarrin said, dropping back down to the sand. "So, if we dug a well, we'd eventually hit water."
"Eventually," Sarraya agreed. "It would have to be a really deep well."
"Our clan-holdings have wells," Denai told them. "Some of them go down so far that you can't climb out. The ropes for the buckets could loop around buildings a couple of times."
"So, the Selani do know about the water," Tarrin mused. "Makes me wonder why they don't just dig deep wells and make permanent houses."
"Because our herds would eat all the plants," Denai told him. "We go where the foraging is best. There are oases out there, and our shaman can create water when the need is very great. But they won't do that unless there's no other choice. The Holy Mother forbids it, except in emergencies."
"That sounds a little mean," Sarraya said disapprovingly.
"Not at all," Denai said. "Our Holy Mother wants us to be strong, and be able to survive without her. She won't let us depend on her, but she will be there when we need her help. If we depended on the Holy Mother for water, we'd forget how to find it for ourselves."
"Well, I guess so," Sarraya said. "But I still think it's mean."
"Well, let's cook this," Denai said, pulling her dagger. " Umuni is horrible unless you cook it."
Tarrin looked into the fire as Denai spitted the large lizard and set it hanging over the flames, lost in thought. Time seemed to be crawling by, but in reality a great deal of it had passed. It had been three months since he left Dala Yar Arak. The summer was gone, autumn nearly so, and winter was probably taking hold in Aldreth right now. All the leaves were gone, and they'd probably had the season's first snow. The desert was the desert, uniformly hot, except in the northern reaches. It was hard to keep track of the seasons with as much travelling as they'd done, and most of it taking place in hot lattitudes. So much time gone by, time more or less wasted in travelling. They spent all that time to travelling to Dala Yar Arak, and they were there only for a few days. Now he was spending all this time travelling to Suld, and who knew how long he was going to stay there before moving on?
It seemed nearly surreal. He had no idea how long it was going to take him to get through the desert, so he had no idea what kind of climate would be waiting for him when he managed to cross the Sandshield. He had to cross in the north, where winter would be in full force if he came out at the wrong time. They'd been in the desert about a month so far, a little more than that, and had barely managed to get very far at all. The sandstorms kept slowing them down, kept forcing them to hide from them until they passed. Those days waiting were a blur of monotony, and it made him feel like they'd been in the desert much less time than they actually had.
He watched the fire dance a moment longer, his eyes lost in the wavering flames, then he blinked and looked up at the sky. The White Moon, Domammon, was just beginning to rise. The Red Moon, Vala, was hidden in its new phase, and would be so for the next few days, and the Twin Moons had yet to rise. The Skybands cut the starry sky with an uncharacteristic brilliance that night, their stripes of bright color battling with one another to hold his eyes. They had been steadily widening by barely perceptible degrees when they turned northerly, allowing them to see more and more of them as they moved away from the equator. They had been a razor's edge at Dala Yar Arak, but at home in Aldreth, they took up about an eighth of the sky on a cloudless night. His mother told him that they dominated the entire southern sky in Ungardt. The Skybands in the south, and the Gods' Curtain in the north made nights in Ungardt very bright.
From beyond the rocky pillar came a strange hollow sound, almost like a moan. Tarrin turned his ears in that direction as it sounded again, an eerie sound that made the fur on his arms stand up. It was a sound without feeling, without anything, like an anti-sound that sought to deaden his ears in a curious manner. A sound without feeling, almost as if the voice was meant to take all feeling from those that could hear it and leave them numb. The Cat in him seemed to respond to that sound instinctively, wanting to get away from it. But Tarrin's human mind realized that it was an animal's reaction to an unnatural entity, much as it had been when he'd been confronted by a Wraith. That reinforced Denai's description of them as ghosts.
"What is that sound?" Sarraya asked, shivering her wings.
"That's a Sandman," Denai replied to her, standing up with a sober expression. "It's very close. It's time for you to make more fuel for the fire, Sarraya, and we'll need to keep it bright all night. Sandmen don't make noise unless they know living beings are close to them."
"They won't come near us?" Sarraya asked.
"As long as we keep the fire up," she replied. "Sandmen don't like the light."
There was another moan, and another, and they began to sound… eager.
"Holy Mother," Denai said urgently. "That's not right. They must be chasing someone!" she said.
"How do you know that?"
"That's the sound they make when they try to kill," Denai told her. "The eagerness in the voice gives it away."
"Who would they be chasing out here?" Sarraya demanded. "We haven't seen anyone since we left your tribe."
"Maybe a Scout that didn't get back to a tribe in time," Denai told her.
It wasn't a scout. The object of the Sandmen's attentions came up and over the fallen rock spire a scant moment after Denai stood up, moving with tremendous urgency and haste. So much haste that the figure slipped trying to come down, and ended up flopped unceremoniously on its back just inside the perimeter of the campfire's light. The scent of the figure reached Tarrin's nose as he moved to rise, and much to his shock, he recognized it.
It was Var!
"Var!" Tarrin said sharply, coming up onto his feet as the Selani male sat up and looked up to the rock over his head.
"Tarrin!" Var said in surprise, then he laughed. "The Holy Mother must be guiding my steps to bring me so close to you at such a convenient time!"
"What are you doing here?" Tarrin demanded hotly in Selani, glaring at the man.
"Going to Gathering," he shrugged. "My tribe means to take this route, and I'm scouting it. I lost my fire-pack to an over-eager inu. It's good luck that you happened to be nearby."
"You know this one?" Denai asked curiously.
Tarrin nodded. "He came about this close to getting killed," Tarrin said, holding his finger and thumb barely apart.
"He's of my clan, but not of my tribe," Denai said. "Who are you, stranger?"
"Will someone tell me what's going on?" Sarraya demanded. "What is Var doing all the way out here?"
"The stranger is a Scout for another tribe," Denai told her. "He lost his fire-pack fighting inu. He came here because of our fire."
"Oh. I know you speak the Western tongue, Var," Sarraya said sharply. "If you're going to talk around me, do it that way. I get cranky when I don't know what's going on."
Tarrin raised his ears at that, but then he remembered that quite a while ago, Var told him that Sarraya had told him some things. She couldn't do that if they didn't share a common language.
"My apologies, friend Sarraya," he said with a grin, in accented Sulasian. "He spoke to me in the True Tongue, and I responded in kind out of reflex."
That made Denai's eyebrow rise. "When did a Scout learn a trade language?" she asked him curiously.
"When his mother is obe," he replied with a shrug, standing up. "I know this is forward of me, Tarrin, but I need a fire this night. May I join yours? I'll do my part to keep it lit tonight, as is only proper."
Tarrin blew out his breath. Another stranger. But he wasn't about to send him back out to those hideous moans, though. Even he had limits on heartlessness. Those moans totally smothered even his curiosity to see one of these mysterious Sandmen. Tarrin knew Var, up to a point. He felt that he could trust his presence for a night. After all, Var already had an intimate understanding of how fast he would die if he did something stupid.
"Just tonight," Tarrin told him bluntly. "You already know how I feel about strangers."
"I know fully well. I'll stay on this side of the fire," he said, motioning towards Denai and Sarraya.
"Sounds like you just made it, Var. Literally," Sarraya grinned at him as Tarrin sat back down. Denai did the same, and Var moved over to their side of the fire. He dropped down in a cross-legged position beside the rock on which Sarraya was standing. "From the sound of those moaning sounds, I don't think I'd want one of them joining us."
"Sandmen are not to be taken lightly," Var said seriously. "Were it not for those inu, I'd be tending my own fire right now."
"Don't the inu have trouble with the Sandmen too?"
Both Var and Denai shook their heads. "Sandmen don't attack animals," Denai told her. "They only attack intelligent beings."
"But no animal will get anywhere near one," Var added. "They run from Sandmen. I've always wondered why, since the Sandmen won't bother them."
"Because they're unnatural," Sarraya told him. "Animals are sensitive to things like that. They won't approach unnatural things."
"I guess so," Var shrugged. "A Selani with half a brain runs too." He looked at Denai casually, then offered his hand to her, reaching over Sarraya's head. "I am Var Dellin'Sun, of Clan Dellinar," he introduced in Selani.
"I am Denai Shu'Dellin, of Clan Dellinar," she replied in kind. The two of them looked at one another steadily, then Denai took his hand and gripped it firmly. "Honor to the clan."
"Honor to the clan," he repeated, and then they let go of each other's hands. "How did she come to travel with you?" he asked Sarraya.
"Tarrin pulled her butt out of a pack of inu," Sarraya replied with a little laugh. "She's guiding us around some of the bigger obstacles in payment for that."
Var looked towards Tarrin, then looked at Denai, who looked a trifle embarassed at that revelation. "Surprising that you'd change your mind now, Tarrin. You told me that you wouldn't travel with strangers."
"Why do you think I'm over here, Var?" Tarrin asked sharply. "I didn't know that the desert was so hard to navigate in this region. Denai is saving me time, nothing more. When we're in the open again, I'll send her back to her tribe."
"It's not your choice when I leave," Denai flared. "I'll leave when honor is satisfied, and not a moment sooner."
Tarrin narrowed his eyes and stared at her in a manner that made her flinch away from him.
"Now now, let's not get into an argument," Sarraya said quickly. "At least with another pair of hands, we can keep the fire going without losing too much sleep. From the sound of it, we'll need it," she said after another of those hollow moans came over the fallen spire. "That gives me the shivers."
"Where did you meet them?" Denai asked Var.
"I challenged Tarrin because we thought he was an invader," Var told her. "It didn't last long," he said with a laugh. "I haven't been beaten down like that since I was a child. I decided to follow him after I was defeated and study him, maybe challenge him again. After he killed a kajat single-handedly, I decided challenging him again was not wise."
"He did that?" Denai said in surprise, looking at Sarraya.
"He cheated a little with magic, but he did," Sarraya told her with a wide smile.
Tarrin tuned them out as his eyes drifted back to the fire. The scents of Var and Denai were unsettling him a little, invoking instinctive feelings in him to chase off the interlopers, instincts he strove to control. He remembered Var very well from before, and his reaction to the male Selani was greatly different than it had been to Denai. Denai was like a child to him, but Var was definitely not a child. He was an adult, a dangerous adult well trained in the Selani fighting styles. It was because of that, he realized, that he wasn't quite as willing to accept Var's company as he had been Denai. Denai was also an adult, and probably well trained in the Dance, but he saw her as a child. No matter how old she really was, her manner and look and scent decried her youth to him, and that protected her from the brunt of his hostility. Var was another matter. He was a mature Selani, an adult well into his prime, and that caused Tarrin's hackles to raise up and stay up. His generosity to Var seemed misplaced now that he was stuck with the Selani male until morning. For that matter, he was surprised he went that far. Two rides ago, he would have thrown Var back out into the darkness without a thought as to whether he lived or died.
That struck him, in a strange way. That was true. Two rides ago, he would have thrown Var out. But now he would not. Had he truly begun to change? Had his feral nature softened in that time, as it had for Mist? He didn't feel any different. Truth be told, he felt even more edgy now than he did two rides ago, because of the damned face that haunted his dreams and his moments of reverie, and also his frustration at being unable to find his magic again. But all things aside, he had to admit that he was doing something that he wouldn't have done two rides ago. He wasn't about to accept Var into his company, but he felt he could tolerate him for one night. That was something. He hated being the way that he was, and before he always felt powerless to do anything to change it. Even when he tried to change, it came to naught. But, in his own defense, Jula's intrusion into his life and the chaos surrounding the Book of Ages had unravelled whatever progress he had made, and then the long time in cat form, forcing it to try to deal with emotions beyond its ability, undid the rest of it.
Maybe he could change. He knew that he could never be as trusting as he'd been before turning feral-there was no going back-but all he really wanted was to be able to look a stranger in the eyes and not feel so afraid, then feel angry at fearing a weaker being. Mist had changed. She had accepted Tarrin, accepted him completely and without reservation, something he never thought would happen. He still felt intensely relieved, and a little proud of that fact, that he had managed to ease the horrific pain the Were-cat had endured for so many years. He knew that he could never accept strangers as anything but strangers, but there were many kinds of strangers, just as there were many kinds of friends. He had already began to rationalize his feelings for people not his friends, as he had for Denai, to classify them in levels of threat based on his impressions of them and their ability to threaten him. He just had to take that a little further, reach a point where the fearful animal in him would listen to his rational mind when it told the animal that a stranger was no threat.
Denai was a part of that. Part of the reason he had accepted her was a need to prove to himself that he could function in proximity to a stranger. But he'd chosen a stranger that he felt was no threat to him, barely more than a girl that he felt needed to be watched over and protected. That wasn't really a challenge to his ferality. He didn't particularly trust Denai, but he knew that he felt she was no danger to him. He felt wary when she got too close to him, but he felt no true trepidation either. He was hovering between pushing her away and treating her like a daughter, and he knew it.
Small steps, his mother would tell him if she were with him. One step at a time, and don't overreach.
Strange. Since he'd accepted Denai, the eyeless face that haunted him had eased considerably. It was still there, but it was much as if its fangs had been drawn. It felt little more than a kind of reminder now, an awareness of what would happen to him if he started back down the path of ruthlessness. How could Denai's presence defuse that acidic image so? It wasn't like she meant anything to him.
It was something that seemed totally illogical. So much so that it made his head a little woozy just trying to think about it, so he decided to think about something else.
He watched the two Selani chat with Sarraya, not really listening to them. They seemed… familiar. Familiar with one another familiar with Sarraya, despite the fact that she was so obviously different than them. Selani were a rather stoic lot, hard to surprise and even harder to unbalance. It was a racial trait, something that they shared with Allia. But there was no resolute stoicism in how they talked, or their body language. Allia seemed stiff sometimes, but that was because she was thrust into an alien culture with little experience with it. The fact that she wasn't too fond of humans exascerbated it. But when they were alone, when she was among her friends, she was much as those two were now. Looking at them, he couldn't imagine either of them being a threat to him. Yet he knew that if he were to get close to them, they would suddenly seem much more threatening than they did now. Even if they weren't, his feral instinct would convince him that they were. Part of him wanted to be over there with them, talking about nothing in particular, getting to know them better. But that part of him was enslaved to his towering fear of strangers, a fear so powerful that it would cause him to lash out in violence against anyone he felt was too dangerous.
Strange that he would feel so alone. It was an odd realization. Watching them, listening to them, it made him feel… lonely. Sarraya understood him, talked to him, but he knew that his quiet manner put her off. He just didn't engage in idle chat, and that was what the Faerie needed right now. She was better off with those two, getting to know them and making them feel more comfortable in his presence. In any case, she couldn't ease the ache inside him. She was a dear friend, and he was glad she was there, but she wasn't his sisters, she wasn't his parents. Only they could fill the void left in him by their separation.
As always, when he felt lonely or afraid or confused, all he had to do was look up. He rose to his feet and turned his back on the three of them, raising his face to the White Moon. That milky face stared down at him, sang to him in ways anyone not Were would never understand, and as always, the cheeky grin of Miranda seemed to shine down on him from that skybound moon. Looking up at the moon appeased the animal in him, but it also reminded him of friends and family long away, friends and family who were waiting for him to return to them. Miranda's cheeky grin was affixed into Domammon now, but it also invoked images, memories of dear sisters and beloved parents, memories of trusted friends and stalwart companions, memories of home. He really didn't have a home anymore, but he knew that wherever he was was home, so long as those that made him feel safe were around him. The human in him yearned for friends and family to be with him, but until that day came, the echo of it granted to him by Domammon would have to suffice.
The White Moon was no friend, but it carried an echo of the feeling of belonging, an echo that soothed his troubled mind, if only for a little while.
The night passed with no trouble. The four of them took turns keeping the fire bright and strong, both warding off the night's chill and repelling the sand-ghosts that haunted the desert the night before. The night allowed Tarrin to think, to look at the other three with him as they slept and ponder their presence, and how they made him feel. It made him come to a few conclusions, conclusions that part of him still all but rioted against, so strongly they were aligned against the idea.
If Var asked to travel with them, Tarrin would not say no.
He'd decided that while throwing strips of bark into the fire in the dead of night. He had to do what Mist did. He had to confront what he feared, confront it and face it day after day after day. He couldn't do that unless an object to fear was available. Denai wouldn't be enough, she reminded him too much of a child for him to truly fear her. Var was an adult, someone that the animal in him did indeed fear, but Var was also trained enough to be able to evade any sudden attack that he may initiate against him. Given a little preventive education by Denai and Sarraya, the Selani male should be able to prevent himself from getting into any of those situations. Something inside him told him that Var wanted to stay with them. He didn't know what it was, but it was a strong feeling. And given what had happened recently, he'd decided to listen very closely to that gut feelings. So far, they had yet to lead him astray. And Var's presence would force Tarrin to face his fear, face the demons inside that urged him to attack or to flee. Given time, he hoped, he would find that fear was his enemy, not the people who created it inside him.
It was morning, and the sun was rising over the eastern horizon. With it came the morning winds, but they were broken up by the rock spire and the fallen rock that formed the enclosed space that they had used to set up their camp. He couldn't really hear them whipping outside the camp, but it was early yet. They were at their strongest about an hour after sunrise, after the sun had had some time to heat the air and cause it to move. The others were also awake, eating a meal of toasted oat cakes Denai had made over the fire. Var seemed completely at ease with the others, trading barbs with Sarraya lightly. Tarrin had not spoken to any of them since the night before. Then again, he had something to do, and it wasn't going to put him in a very good mood.
It was time to aggravate himself.
He wanted to do it last night, but even he wasn't crazy enough to go out into the darkness alone with those Sandmen out there. He didn't want to do it near them, because their scents distracted him, and he had enough distractions already. The top of the broken rock spire would do very well, he'd decided. It was out of the way, yet not too far from the others. They wouldn't bother him up there-at least they wouldn't if they knew what was good for them-and it would give him the isolation and peace he needed to try to regain his magic.
"Go ahead and get started," he told them, without bothering to greet them. "I'll catch up in about an hour."
"Well good morning," Sarraya said acidly.
"We'll not leave you behind, Tarrin," Denai said mildly. "If you're not ready to leave, then we'll wait."
"I guess I should move on," Var said with a bit of a sigh. "But without my fire-pack, I don't do my people very much good as a Scout. I can't set signal fires to warn them of possible danger."
"I can whip up anything you need, Var," Sarraya offered. "You name it, I'll Conjure it."
"I appreciate the offer, friend Sarraya," Var said with a smile. "That way I don't feel as if I'm dishonoring myself by abandoning my duty."
"Accidents happen, Var," Sarraya told him dismissively. "Especially when those accidents hunt you down and try to eat you."
Var laughed. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to travel with you for a ways. This stretch of desert has proven to be dangerous, and as they say, safety runs in numbers. I think that travelling with you would be much more interesting anyway, and right now, we're all going in the same direction. I can do my duty to my tribe and scout, and travel with you at the same time." He smiled. "You could always use another pair of hands to keep the fire going, couldn't you?"
Var looked at Denai, Denai looked at Sarraya, and Sarraya looked at Tarrin. She knew that it hinged on Tarrin's consent. Tarrin had already made his decision, but something in him told him not to tip his hand that he had. He stood there and fixed Var with a suitably flat look, one that made the Selani take a step back, then he blew out his breath. "Just stay away from me," he warned in an ominous tone. "And don't bother me. As long as you do that, you can do whatever you want."
"Why, Tarrin, that's something of a surprise," Sarraya said in sincere consternation.
"He's a pair of hands for the fire. Nothing more," Tarrin growled in her direction, then he turned his back on them, and started climbing up the broken rock spire.
"I think he likes you, Var," Sarraya said with a giggle, but Tarrin tuned them out before he heard any replies, using his claws to scamper up the sheer rock face with ease.
He found a comfortable spot on the relatively flat top of the broken spire, sat down and wrapped his tail around his crossed legs, and began. His method for trying hadn't really changed since the start, because it was the only thing he could think of to try. He tried to reach out to the Weave and have it respond.
And like every other time, it was nowhere to be found. For well over an hour he attempted to make contact with the Weave, but it all came to naught. As always, it was visible but untouchable, a vaporous ghost that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. Every time he reached towards it, it melted away from him. It was the same aggravation, because he could sense the Weave, sense its every nuance for longspans in every direction, could feel the pulsing of the magical energy of it through the Weave, through his veins. He could hear it, hear the choral echoing vibrations as the magic flowed through it, could almost hear the pounding of the Goddess' heart along the strands. His ability to sense it was so incredibly acute that it mystified him that he couldn't find a connection to that energy, a bridge to bring its power to him.
He concentrated on his sense of it, listening to it, feeling it more and more intently. Maybe, he reasoned, if he could come to a more intimate understanding of it, it would be there when he reached for it. Falling back on the skills taught to him by Allia, he emptied his mind of all extraneous thoughts, emptied his mind of all feelings and sensation. He emptied himself of everything except for the Weave, of his sense of it, giving it the entirety of his concentration. Eyes closed, his ears twitched with the sounds of the Weave, a eerie haunting melody of discordant notes that blended together into something that was disturbingly beautiful. Like the haunting songs of the big fish that Keritanima called whales, echoing through the Weave. He descended deeper into himself, subverted all thought in lieu of seeking the unspoken messages he hoped that would be in the Weave that could guide him to its power. His expression became neutral, then serene as he raised his chin and opened his senses, seeking to touch the Weave with more than just his mind, trying to leave all distractions behind him. Even the eyeless face fell away from his consciousness as he strove to reach above all other things, to rise above all distraction and seek to call in the power he sought.
The attempt had a strange, unpredictable effect. He became aware of a change, a fundamental shift in his senses, and when he opened his eyes, the desert was gone. It had been replaced by a void of utter, unfathomable blackness, a darkness that went beyond any description of black. It was an anti-light, an utter lack of anything. His first reaction was one of fear, but that flowed away quickly when he realized that there was nothing there to harm him. It was merely a place, like any other, and somehow he knew that he could return to where he had been at any time if he so wished it.
At that realization, the void parted, opened like a blossoming flower, and the countless strands of the Weave seemed to wink into existence all around him, going off into infinity in every direction, even below him. With the appearance of the strands, he recalled being in this place before, a place that did not exist, a place that existed somewhere outside reality. The throbbing of the strands reached his ears, breaking the silence, and the pinpoints that marked the hearts of the Sorcerers appeared in the black sky, like stars of white light that winked and shimmered in the sky. The scene before him was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn't quite remember exactly when and where and how he had come to be here before. He recalled speaking to the Goddess in this place, and when he did, her words came from outside, not from within himself as they usually did.
The Goddess.
He knew this place now. It was here where the Goddess explained what had happened to him after fighting the Sha'Kar. He realized that he was not in that place, as he had been before. He was merely looking within it from the outside. How he knew that, he didn't know, but he knew it to be truth. It was within the wellspring from which all magical energy flowed, and to which all magic in the Weave eventually returned once it flowed a cycle through the strands. It was a heart of sorts, both sending out and calling in the magical energies that infused the world, using the hearts of the Sorcerers as the driving force which caused the magic to flow.
Sorcerers. In this place, they were all one, a unified whole working towards a common objective. It was the life energy of the Sorcerers that caused the magic to flow, and that revealed to him a fundamental truth, a truth that seemed so obvious to him in that moment of lucidity.
Sorcery was dependent on the number of Sorcerers alive to fuel it. The diminishing of the might of the Sorcerers wasn't because of lost lore or disappearing Ancients or weakened natural ability, it was because there weren't enough Sorcerers left to support magic of that magnitude.
The Goddess said that the old powers were returning to the world. If that was so, it was because a new generation of Sorcerers had been born, born in such numbers that the Weave's ability to support magical energy had been significantly increased by their presence. Even those who had never touched their power supported the Weave, granting their hearts to it. It was why Sorcery was not a learned skill, but a natural ability. Their presence would cause the Weave to expand, to enrich, to grow, and all who could access it, both directly and indirectly, would gain power from that enrichment. Sorcerers would find that they could handle more power, weave new spells, expand their own personal maximums, and wizards and priests could again cast spells denied to them for a thousand years.
The Ancients hadn't been more powerful at a basic level, they had simply lived at a time when the Weave was much stronger than it was now. They had certainly had more knowledge of the Weave, but their power was due to the Weave, not their innate ability.
But what about the Breaking? They had taught him that the Breaking happened because too many magicians and too many magical objects placed such a strain on the Weave that it could no longer support the demands placed on it, and it tore. The Ancients that existed before the Breaking simply vanished. Did they vanish because they knew what was coming, or did they vanish because they were dead?
And if they vanished because they were dead, wouldn't that mean that the Breaking happened because too many Sorcerers died at the same time, so many that their loss weakened the Weave to such a point where it could no longer supply the magical energy that the magicians and priests and magical objects demanded from it?
You fool! If you destroy us, you destroy yourself!
The voice seemed to echo through the Weave, echo from a time and place distant from him, like a memory of a dream. A memory of the past.
The Tower of Dreams has been destroyed! Thousands are dead!
The Conduit at the Tower of Dreams has broken! The shock of it destroyed the Tower of Stars!
Mikan, you fool, don't you understand? The Weave can't survive this! It's going to tear!
Where were the voices coming from? They echoed through the Weave, like whispers from the past. Were they truly the voices of the Ancients, still drifting along the currents of magic for a thousand years? Or were they merely shades of the past, conjured by his own imagination?
We have no choice, Keeper! We must flee to the Lost City. You know what's going to happen, and who will they blame?
The Sui'Kun! a ragged cry called. The Sui'Kun are dying, Keeper! Their hearts are bursting like balloons!
Voices. More and more of them surrounded him, whispered and screamed and howled and cajoled and pleaded and demanded and begged and growled and beseeched and-
Too many!
They seemed to boil up from the strands, boil out of the Weave like bubbles from a boiling pot, assaulting his ears, all of them at once. Too many for him to hear any one voice, too many to make sense of anything that any of them said. They got louder and louder, as if they were vying to get his attention, trying to drown one another out. Louder and louder, more and more demanding, all of them murmuring in his ears, turning into a chaotic cacophony that threatened to drive him insane, pounded in his ears, pounded into the core of him like a spike being hammered into his brain.
"N-No," Tarrin grumbled, trying to push the voices away. "I can't understand you! You're hurting me!"
The voices only got louder and louder, a thundering roar that made him feel like his head was going to explode.
"No, stop! Stop, you're killing me! Stop!