The strange woods that Denai had talked about were no exaggeration. They were honest-to-goodness trees, and he was told that they surrounded a large, nearly lake-sized oasis.
But they were a kind of tree that Tarrin had never seen before, tall trees with no branches on the trunks. The only foliage on those brown-barked, ribbed trees was at the very top, and it consisted of a fluffy, down-like greenish fuzz growing from drooping spines that blossomed out from the tops of the trees like some kind of gigantic flower. Those bizarre leaves drifted and danced in the wind, and the trees looked as if one good sandstorm would uproot them and send them flying like the seeds of a dandelion.
Tarrin and Denai stood on a rocky promontory on a very low escarpment wall, staring at the forest some longspan or so to the northwest, directly in their path, with the midday sun beating down on them from above. The trees were strange-looking, but they were thick, making the wood deep and dark and a perfect place for things to hide. He could see wide tracts in the woods, where kajat had probably knocked over the trees to form pathways, and there was a very large herd of chisa grazing on a grassy undergrowth that grew on the ground under the trees. He could see, looking closer, that there were large lizards climbing on the tree trunks, trying to get to strange fruits or nuts that dangled from the foliage of the trees, out far enough to make reaching them a dicey proposition.
Tarrin had to agree. The place probably was infested with the reptillian carnivores of the desert, given that so many prey animals lived within the forest's boundaries. That meant that it was a place worth avoiding.
Avoiding it would be a simple matter of skirting it from the south. They were only two days from the Sandshield, by Denai's estimation, and it was almost due west from their position. They wouldn't have to enter the forest, only pass close to it. But passing close to it would probably be just as dangerous as entering it. Kajat tracks were on the ground not five spans from them, on the sandy ground at the base of the small, five-span high escarpment, showing that the big predators, and most likely their smaller cousins as well, did leave the forest and come out into the windswept plain from time to time.
"I've never seen trees like that," Sarraya noted from her hover between them.
"The clan that lives here trades the nuts from the trees," Denai said. "It's a dangerous pastime to collect them, but they're very good at it."
"The Selani tend to be good at anything they put their minds to," Tarrin noted absently, looking to the west, to the Sandshield invisble beyond the horizon. So close. They had been in the desert for three months now, and he was ready to leave. He looked more Selani than Were-cat now, with his sun-browned skin and sun-bleached hair, which was nearly white now. His time in the desert had been eventful and he had enjoyed much of it, but it paled in comparison to the driving need to get to Suld, and get there quickly.
He had checked in with Keritanima during their journey to the forest. The spring was coming late to the northern sections of the West, and much of Draconia and points north and west were still snowbound, even in the lower plains. It was still snowing in the mountains. That was a tremendous relief, but he knew that it wouldn't last forever. He figured it would take him about a month to get from Arkis to Suld, and he also knew that it would take a month for the ki'zadun's armies to reach Suld once they could march. That was cutting it very, very close. All he could do was thank the Goddess and her sisters, T'Kya and Leia, the goddesses of the weather and nature respectively, that the snow was still coming down in the north. They would need him in Suld, need his power, to fight off the Demonic horde that the ki'zadun had assembled to destroy the Tower. It was a race now, and from the looks of it, Tarrin had an edge.
But that could all change if a warm spell melted the mountain snows, and that warm spell was more and more likely as the spring matured into summer. It was already unusual that it was still snowing so far into spring, so counting on the snow to stay on the ground wasn't a realistic hope. All he really wanted-or realistically hoped for-was that the snow would stay on the ground long enough for him to get to Arkis. Once he got to Arkis, he could outrun the marching army and beat them to Suld. Armies didn't move very fast, and though Tarrin had to cover three times as much distance, he could do it ten times faster.
Keritanima had seemed almost bubbly when he talked to her. She was in Suld now, with her Wikuni army, and she had more coming. They had put cannons on the walls and had blockaded all Tykarthian ports to stop any possible supplies from getting into the hands of their enemies. The king of Tykarthia had been furious over the blockade, called it an act of war, but Keritanima literally told him to stuff it and get ready to fend off an invasion of nightmares. She had also managed to get information that the Ungardt had stopped the war with Tykarthia. This surprised Tarrin, since he hadn't yet talked to Jenna. He wanted at first to talk to her immediately, but then he remembered the severe weakness he had felt after his own ordeal. It took him two days to recover from that, and Jenna wasn't a Were-cat. It would tak her much longer. So he decided to allow her to have a full ten days of rest, a full ten days to recover and come to terms with what had happened, before talking to her. But it seemed that someone else had already told someone in Ungardt what was going on, and it wasn't necessary now for him to intervene. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Goddess had done that, had directly told Jenna what to do, what to say to their mother to get Grandfather to stop the war, and that is what seemed to have happened.
Things looked favorable, in that regard. Keritanima told him that the Ungardt were assembling into large groups, and that was an omen of what was coming. Even an army of Trolls would be wary to attack a mob of Ungardt berzerkers. Ungardt didn't form large, singular armies. Every clan was its own army, and it only followed orders from its clan chief. That was seventeen separate formations of Ungardt, and they weren't all going in the same direction. Some were moving into Tykarthia, obviously to attack and slow down the ki'zadun when they did march out of the Draconian mountains, and some were moving along the coast either on ships or on foot, Suld being their obvious destination. Tarrin didn't hold much hope for the survival of those armies intending to attack the ki'zadun in Tykarthia, but they would buy everyone else precious time. Ungardt weren't ones for guerilla tactics. They would fall on the enemy in a furious assault, and about all they could hope to do was engage the army and slow it down a few days, and thin out the numbers. Tarrin didn't like the idea of men and women throwing their lives away like that, but under the circumstances, he wasn't going to object too much. If the enemy was attacked three separate times it would slow them down by nine days, at the least-one day to set up, one day to fight, one day to recover-and those nine days would be critical. The Arakites were coming, already on ships and under full sail for Suld, and the Legions would make every difference in the world. Even a few of the famous Legions could turn the tide of battle, for there was no army of soldiers better trained, commanded, and experienced than the Legions of Arak. Their endless battles with Godan and Nyr made them some of the most fit soldiers in the world.
Keritanima had things well in hand. He had every confidence in her, mainly because she was doing it all without letting the katzh-dashi know what was going on. That spy was still in the Tower, and she could warn the ki'zadun that the Sulasians knew that the army's target was Suld. She had Miranda and that one fellow called Jervis, and they had quite effectively locked the katzh-dashi out of the loop of information. Only the Keeper was being kept informed of what was going on, and she deferred to Keritanima, since she had to use Keritanima's spies, messengers, and resources to do anything regarding the invasion. Keritanima was the real power in the Tower now, the Keeper in everything but name, and that suited him just fine.
There was also bad news. Jula had been set loose to track down the spy, but so far she had had no luck. Tarrin had felt the fringes of her frustration from time to time, skulking the Tower in search of her elusive prey, but Tarrin had confidence in his bond-child. Jula was smart, resourceful, and now she had the Were-cat temper to give her a fearsome reputation. It would only be a matter of time before her quarry made a mistake, and that one mistake would be all it would take. Jula would have her then, and Keritanima and the Keeper could move their preparations out of the secret closets and into the public eye.
But bad news often held good news. Triana had told Keritanima to tell him that Jula was about as stable as she was going to get. Triana had requested for a Druid to come and evaluate Jula, and Triana had high hopes for her. Jula had managed to find her balance, just as Tarrin had done, and it looked very hopeful that she would be the third of the turned Were-cats to be accepted into Fae-da'Nar. Jula was alot like Tarrin, relatively feral thanks to her treatment by the ki'zadun, but she had managed to stave off the madness. He knew that she could do it. Jula was an iron-willed woman, all she had required was someone to teach her how to keep control over her instincts. Triana was the best teacher in the world at that kind of thing, teaching what the instincts meant as well as how to keep them in check. With a better understanding of herself, Jula would be able to maintain the laws of Fae-da'Nar, and not be a danger to herself or others. At least no more of a danger than any other Were-cat, anyway.
Tarrin had the feeling that Triana had grown somewhat attached to his bond-child, but he knew that Triana would never admit to it.
Denai nudged at his arm and pointed towards the forest, where a very large, dark shape moved behind the initial treeline, then disappeared. "We've been noticed," she told him. "You know how kajats are. If he thinks he can chase us down, he'll try."
"Let him," Tarrin grunted, dropping down to the base of the small escarpment. "He'll only try once."
Denai laughed. "You'll have to teach me how to kill kajats."
"Easy. All it takes is insanity."
"Or the ability to jump twenty spans," Sarraya chuckled.
They stayed about a longspan away from the forest, skirting its edge, and they kept one eye on the trees, and the other on the surrounding rocky, scrubby terrain. Tarrin could smell the kajat and the inu, both old tracks and fresh trails, and their prints were visible between the low, fluffy bushes that grew near the forest, soaking up the water that seemed to be more abundant in this small area. Their prints as well as chisa, sukk, and a few tracks and scents he didn't know. There were also Selani tracks, their soft-soled boots leaving those distinctive marks in the ground as they moved towards or away from the forest, from north to south.
"It's getting pretty hot," Denai complained, fanning the top of her loose shirt. "Strange for it to be so hot this far north."
"I didn't notice," Tarrin replied absently. "I hope that doesn't mean it's getting warm in the West," he added with a grunt.
"I'm sure your Wikuni will let us know if something important happens," Sarraya told him. "Are we going to stop for the midday?"
"No," Denai said before Tarrin. "We'd be crazy to stop this close to the forest. I don't want to stop until we have an entire afternoon between us and the forest."
"Good plan," Tarrin agreed, slowing to a stop and looking at a skull laying near a bush. It was a large, narrow skull, the skull of an inu. It had a hole in the side of it skull, and there were deep gouges near the base of it, the signs that the skull had been raked by sharp teeth. The bone was still slightly pinkish, a sign that it hadn't been dead very long. "That's fresh."
"Looks like an inu wasn't paying attention," Denai mused. "Those teethmarks look like a kajat."
"A small one," Tarrin agreed, looking towards the forest when a slight sound reached his ears. Those cat ears picked up, turning towards the sound, locking in on it. "There's something moving around over there."
"It's not stupid enough to attack us here," Denai scoffed. "It would have to run over a longspan just to reach us!"
The sound was a strange rumbling, not the thudding of feet or the rustling of trees. "It's not that, it's something else," he said, opening his senses. It was indeed a rumbling, a low-sounded rumbling, like the rumble of thunder moving through the ground rather than through the air. As he opened his senses, his sense of the Weave also expanded, allowing him to feel more and more of it. Whatever it was was affecting the Weave as well, causing it to shudder and vibrate as if being shaken.
He could feel it in the pads of his feet now, a vibration in the ground. Tarrin knelt down and put the palm of his paw on the ground, feeling that strange rumbling. It was coming from the ground.
"I think it's-" Sarraya began, then everything suddenly got turned on its ear.
The ground suddenly heaved violently. Tarrin, who was already squatting down, put his other paw down to stabilize himself as the ground rocked and swayed underneath him, and the sound of it became a loud crackling, the sound of breaking stone. Denai gave out a cry and tumbled over onto her back, then rolled over on her belly and covered her head with her hands. Tarrin turned and looked to the south, and saw the escarpment suddenly buckle, then heave and buckle again, rising up visibly as the ground shuddered horrendously.
It was an earthquake! And what was bad luck, it was a natural earthquake!
"It's an earthquake!" Sarraya shouted as a cloud of dust began to rise from the quivering ground. "Stay down, don't move! That escarpment is a fault line!"
Tarrin watched in a kind of nervous curiosity as the escarpment seemed to undulate wildly, growing higher and lower visibly, until the shuddering and the motion ground itself to a halt. The ground still shook and grumbled, until that too began to die away, as a cloud of dust rose up around them.
Denai began to laugh. "You are bad luck, Tarrin!" she jibed at him. "It had to be an earthquake, didn't it! It couldn't have been something simple, like a kajat attack. No, you just had to go and bring an earthquake with you!"
Tarrin looked at her, hazy in the rising dust, then snorted. "Don't blame nature on me," he told her. "This was natural. I had nothing to do with it."
"Very natural," Sarraya agreed. "The escarpment is almost a span higher now. It's a fault."
"What is a fault?" Denai asked as she regained her feet.
"It's a crack in the earth," Sarraya explained as Tarrin stood up, brushing dust off of his pants. "The earth moves, Denai, it doesn't just sit there, but it only moves a finger or two a year. A fault is where two parts of moving earth push up against each other. They can't move freely, because of the grinding, so they move in big jumps and heaves, and those are earthquakes."
"I'll take your word for it, Sarraya," Denai chuckled. "I don't know anything about any of that."
"Well, there's something else I can add to the story," Tarrin grunted.
"All we need now is a flood, a tornado, and a hurricane, and we'll have the complete set of natural disasters," Sarraya laughed.
"Floods happen in the desert, when it rains," Denai told them. "I don't know what a hurricane or a tornado is."
"Types of storms," Tarrin told her. "This dust is getting thick. Let's move away from the forest."
"Good idea, it's giving the predators cover," Denai agreed.
They moved south, away from the forest, for about five longspans, climbing back up the now taller escarpment to do so, then continued westward. They did so carefully and cautiously as the dust settled, making sure that nothing surprised them. The going was as quickly as the dust would allow, but several smaller earthquakes, what Sarraya called aftershocks, kept both Tarrin and Denai a little edgy during their skirting of the forest. They managed to get the forest behind them by sunset without any trouble, and set up for the night in a hollow niche in the side of a small rock spire. There were several more aftershocks over the course of the night, but they did little more than shake dust from overhead, and the two landbound beings eventually became accustomed to the faint rumbling.
They were off again in the morning, but they had barely gone more than five longspans when Tarrin pulled up abruptly and stared at a patch of sandy ground, between two large thorny bushes. It was a pathway of sorts, an animal trail, and there were footprints in it that Tarrin never thought he'd see in the desert.
Trolls.
Tarrin knelt by the tracks, even bent down to take a whiff of them. The stench of Troll was all over the footprint, and what was more important, it was very fresh. Not even an hour old.
"What manner of beast made those?" Denai asked.
"Trolls," Tarrin said, nearly spitting out the word as the instinctual hatred for the Goblinoids roared up inside him. Were-kin and Goblinoids were bitter natural enemies, and every fiber of Tarrin's being screamed out for him to track down and kill the invading marauders.
"Trolls? I thought they lived in mountains."
"Usually they do," Sarraya said. "I have no idea how they're surviving out here in this heat. Trolls aren't built for it. You think it's a coincidence?"
Tarrin snorted. "They know where I'm going, Sarraya. They know that there are only so many passes through the mountains. These must be scouts, sent to find me and catch me before I can cross."
"I'll bet the passes too are infested with Trolls," Sarraya fretted.
"They're after you?" Denai asked.
"They're after what I'm carrying, and they'll kill everything they can get their hands on to get it," he told her bluntly. "Are there any Selani holdings nearby?"
"I really don't know, but they can't be too far if they harvest the nuts from the forest," she said. "Don't worry about them, Tarrin. Most of the warriors are at Gathering, but those remaining behind to watch things won't attack these Trolls if there are too many of them. And they'll never find my people," she added with a grin.
"Let's hope so," Tarrin grunted. "Your people aren't ready to deal with Trolls."
"They can't be that bad."
"Not really, but a few of your people may get killed before they understand what they're fighting," Sarraya told her seriously. "Trolls are nasty customers."
"What is a Troll like?"
"Taller than Tarrin, and about three times as wide," Sarraya told her. "They look ungainly, but they can move very fast when they want to. They're probably as strong as Tarrin, if not stronger."
"Formidable," Denai said. "But my people would respect their size."
"It's not their size you have to watch, it's their speed," Tarrin told her, looking out into the desert, in the direction the tracks led, looking due south. "Trolls use their size as a feint to make a quick lunge for the kill. They're stupid, but they know that most people don't expect them to move as fast as they do."
"They'd not catch my people off guard," Denai upheld.
"In either case, let's hope they're smart enough to stay out of sight and wait for the rest of their clan to arrive before trying to chase them out."
"Let's not overlook the real problem here," Sarraya said. "If there are Trolls in the desert, that means that there are Trolls in the pass. I'd rather not fight a running war with Trolls on steep mountain trails. That's their territory, and we'd be at a serious disadvantage."
"Are there any other passes near here?" Tarrin asked Denai. "Anything, no matter how small?"
"Not really," she replied after thinking a moment. "My education of this stretch of desert is pretty old, but I do remember that there are only two passes in the north. The other one is a hundred leagues north of here."
"That's too far," Tarrin grunted. "What about going straight over the mountains?"
"The Sandshield is a narrow mountain range, but the mountains that are there are very rugged and very high, Tarrin," Sarraya said. "Those passes are the only way through for a reason."
"Could I get over the mountains without using the pass?"
"Probably, but it would be a very hard passage," Sarraya told him. "You'll be climbing up and down the mountains. And we're talking about some formidable mountains."
"Well what do you expect me to do, Sarraya?" Tarrin said to her in a little frustration. "We can't go through the pass if it's being occupied, and I don't have time to make any detours. I have to get to Suld as fast as I can."
"Well then, stop thinking with your muscles and think with your head," Sarraya said sternly. "You're a Sorcerer, Tarrin. Do you know any magic that might help you get over the mountains?"
"I-" he began, then it occurred to him that Sarraya was right. What good was his magic if he never thought to use it? He could think of any number of ways to use magic to get over the Sandshield, and all of them were feasible options. "You're right, Sarraya," he admitted. "I can think of about ten different ways to get over the mountains with magic."
"Well then, there we go," Sarraya grinned. "Let's just head straight for the mountains, and when we get there, you can magic yourself across."
"For someone with a small head, she certainly has big ideas," Denai teased.
"At least I use what brains I have, Denai," Sarraya shot back playfully.
"Which way do we go to get to the mountains as fast as possible, Denai?" Tarrin asked.
"Due west," she replied, pointing. "If we push, we can get there in a little over two days. Maybe two, if we really push."
"How far will we be from the pass?" Tarrin asked. "The majority of the Trolls will be near the pass, to intercept me."
"A good day south of it," she replied. "It would have taken us four days to reach the pass."
"Then that's where we're going," Tarrin said, standing up. "This bunch of Trolls is going south, so they shouldn't be a problem."
"We'd better move carefully, if these Trolls are that dangerous," Denai warned.
"We move as fast as we can," Tarrin told her bluntly. "If we run into Trolls, then we'll kill them and keep going. Dead Trolls can't report back and tell the others they found us, can they?"
"I knew there was a reason I liked him," Denai said to Sarraya with a laugh as they started west.
A strange sense of urgency welled up inside Tarrin as they ran due west, keeping the western edge of the Skybands firmly in front of them on the horizon as they raced across the increasingly stony, barren desert. He wasn't entirely sure what was making him feel that way, but there were certainly enough reasons for it. He had to get to Suld, and now the ki'zadun had sent their Trolls out into the desert to slow him down or catch him. When he'd heard about the plan to attack Suld, he'd more or less thought that they'd forget about him, concentrate on taking Suld and taking the Book of Ages off his dead body. But that obviously wasn't the case. He was still very high up on the enemy's list of objectives, important enough for them to divert Trolls into an environment that would kill them in a matter of rides, all done to intercept him.
If that wasn't bad enough, he also worried about his sisters, all three of them. Jula hadn't found the spy yet, so that made the tower a dangerous place for Allia and Keritanima. Shiika's daughters would be arriving any day now, if they weren't there already, and that meant that it was going to tip their hand to the spy that something was going on. Six cambisi weren't going to just drop in for tea. The spy may find out what was happening, and warn her masters and try to kill Allia and Keritanima. It would be a very bad thing no matter what happened, because this spy had to be someone very powerful to remain hidden, despite the intense efforts that had been undertaken to ferret her out.
And then there was Jenna. Her ten days would be up tomorrow, and Tarrin intended to contact her and explain what had happened. She had to be pretty nervous by now, with an expanded sense of the Weave, yet no ability to touch it. He'd told his mother that the loss of powers was temporary, so he was sure that Jenna knew that too, but it would still be very unsettling for his younger sister. He wanted to talk to her, explain things, tell her that it was just a matter of time until her body adjusted to the changes and allowed her to use her powers again. He was sure that that would calm her down. And, to be honest, he just wanted to see her again. He missed his family, more than he realized, given that he was always so careful about not thinking about them. He just wanted to be near them again, even in the surreal manner of projecting himself through an Illusion. It was better than nothing.
There was little worry for himself, but there was alot of worry for the Selani. He really hoped that they could stay out of the way of the Trolls. They had no idea what they'd be up against, and that was going to get some of them killed. Tarrin no longer had any real fear of Trolls, not since he'd faced the one at the trading outpost at the border of the desert. They had chased him and hounded him a long time ago, back in Sulasia, but that had been a younger, more inexperienced Were-cat, facing huge numbers. Now he was older, wiser, stronger, and he'd found that a Troll wasn't as formidable as it had once seemed. He was on par with a Troll in strength and size, but he was faster than them, and that was all the advantage he needed. Even a smaller Were-cat was more than a match for a Troll, but it gave him great comfort to know that they'd be the ones afraid of him, and not the other way around.
All the thoughts of Trolls seemed to draw them to him. Around midafternoon, they pulled up when Denai spotted a small group of them at the edge of the hazy heat distortion that limited distance vision in the desert. There had been four of them, and they were moving in the same direction as Tarrin was. Tarrin had to resist the urge to chase them down and kill them. Trolls were still dangerous, and four agianst one were not good odds, considering he had to keep an eye on Denai. He'd rather catch a Troll alone and kill it, let Denai get first-hand experience with their size and strength and speed before allowing her to fight them on her own.
"They're not moving very fast," Denai said. "We'll catch up to them quickly."
"There are four of them, Denai," Tarrin grunted. "That's bad odds right now."
"You don't have to protect me," Denai flared, as if she could see right to the matter. "I'm an adult. I can fight one of these Trolls. And since there are only four of them, I say we kill them so they don't pose a threat to my brothers and sisters here."
"She's got a point," Sarraya said to him. "There are only four. We can kill at least two of them before they realize they're under attack, and then you can show Denai how to kill a Troll with the survivors."
Tarrin couldn't argue with her logic, and his hatred of Trolls, of all Goblinoids, was screaming for the blood. "Alright, but no glory seeking, Denai. This is a flat ambush, plain and simple. I want to kill them before they can become a threat."
"The Selani know how to ambush," she said with a grin. "There's no dishonor in a good surprise attack. The dishonor is the victim's, for not paying attention."
And so, they picked up the pace and set themselves in a roundabout course that would take them around the Trolls and allow them to get in front of them without being seen. The Trolls were moving at a very sluggish pace, probably because of the heat, and it only took them about half an hour to circle around the Trolls and set up in a nice spot where two large boulders were pushed against each other, providing the perfect cover. The heat had also made them less observant, for they came right over the rise and down the little hill without bothering to check for danger or keep watch on their surroundings. When they apporached, Tarrin got a nose full of their stench, and he also smelled blood all over them. Troll blood. As they came closer, he saw that all four of them had arrows broken off in them, or had dirty bandages wrapped around arms or legs. They'd been attacked by archers, and that intrigued Tarrin. The Selani disdained missle weapons other than what could be thrown, they didn't use bows. Who was out here in the desert shooting arrows into Trolls?
"They're wounded," Tarrin whispered in a very low tone. "This should go quickly, but don't get overconfident."
"I'll be careful," Denai whispered back.
They waited for them to reach their position, then simply came over the boulder and attacked. And it was very effective. The Trolls were totally taken by surprise, and their weakened condition made their reaction that much more sluggish. Tarrin didn't even bother with a weapon, coming over the boulder with claws extended and murder all over his face, slashing the throat out of the nearest Troll before his feet even hit the ground. Denai came after him with an undulating cry, her sword seeking out Troll flesh and biting into the belly of the fellow beside the one Tarrin had just killed. Sarraya distracted the other two with a blinding flash of light generated by her Druidic magic, and that set them off balance enough for Tarrin to engage them as Denai stabbed her Troll right in the groin, making it squeal in a voice too high pitched for its great size.
With his inhuman power, Tarrin slammed his shoulder into the nearest of the pair, bowling it off its feet, but his companion raised a very large, ugly-looking battle axe and took a swing at Tarrin's head. The Were-cat swatted the weapon aside almost contemptuously, then his paw closed around the wrist of the hand holding the axe and drove claws right into the bones. The Troll cried out, which turned into a whoomph when Tarrin's padded foot slammed into its belly and folding it over his foot. Tarrin grabbed the back of its head, getting a paw full of greasy, stringy green hair, then yanked it down as his other paw picked up the dropped axe. He held it up and pulled the Troll forward, getting it off balance, then planted the axe in the back of its neck. The Troll's thick bones prevented a decapitation, but the blow was still invariably fatal.
Tarrin glanced back to see that Denai had killed off her opponent, and that left only one. The Troll he had bulled to the ground looked at him with terrified eyes, scrambling to its feet and grasping a crude club. This one was relatively uninjured, and that was the reason that Tarrin had chosen to make it the last one. Tarrin stalked in on it slowly, carefully, letting it realize that it had to fight in order to survive. When that revelation dawned in its small, piggish eyes, a snarl of fury twisted its ugly features and it raised its club to attack.
Tarrin toyed with the Troll for a long time, letting it attack him, letting Denai see how fast a Troll could move when it wanted to do so. And the Troll was indeed fast, but nowhere near as fast or as nimble as its Were-cat foe. Tarrin simply snaked around its club, or blocked it by hitting the wrist or arm wielding it, or swatted it aside with his paws. The Troll got more and more desperate when it realized that it was fighting a foe much better at fighting than itself, and its attacks became more frenzied, faster, and more and more powerful. Tarrin still avoided the club with an eerie ease, as if he were dodging blows from a small child in a game. He kept doing that until he felt that Denai had seen enough, then he turned on his opponent with a suddenness that completely took the Troll by surprise. With one blow, he knocked the Troll's club wide, raking the inside of its arm with his long, deadly claws, sending blood and skin and bits of torn flesh flying in an arc as his claws slashed through tissue and muscle. The Troll howled in pain, but that turned into a faint gurgle as two of Tarrin's claws punctured its throat with surgical precision, driving them into the windpipe and the jugular. The Troll grabbed its neck with both hands as it sank to its knees, its lifeblood pouring out of its neck with shocking speed, even as that blood flowed into its windpipe and began drowning it in its own blood. But it bled to death long before it died of drowning, slumping to the side and then falling limply to the ground.
"And that," Tarrin told her, wiping a spatter of that horrid-smelling blood from his face, "is how you kill a Troll."
Denai laughed. "It certainly did put up a fight."
"Trolls aren't cowards," Sarraya told her. "But they're stupid. That balances out."
"I noticed. They don't even try to defend themselves, do they?"
"No. They rely on strength and speed to kill their foe quickly. When facing someone that they can't kill with the first or second blow, they find themselves outclassed." He wrinkled his nose. "Let's get out of here. Trolls smell terrible, and their insides are worse than their outsides."
"I don't smell anything."
"You're not a Were-cat," Tarrin told her bluntly. "I need to wash this blood off of me. The smell is driving me crazy."
After cleaning up, they found a secure place to camp for the night, in a relatively deep cave in the side of a rocks spire. Tarrin Conjured a leather sheet to hang over the entrance to block the light of the fire, and they spent the night taking turns watching. There were several fires visible to the north, several more to the south, and even a few to the east, which was the direction the cave mouth faced. They were probably fires for the Trolls to ward off the Sandmen, for he doubted there were that many Selani about with all of them at Gathering. He'd seen a few of them near the rock spire, or perhaps it was the same one two or three times, a ghostly bundle of drifting sand, sand that was whirling around inside some kind of invisible boundary. That was all a Sandman was, a blowing quantity of sand, and that was what made them dangerous. They attacked by enveloping and asphyxiating their victims, and since all there was to them was that sand, there was nothing to attack to fend them off. They only feared bright light, and retreated from it when it was presented to them.
The night passed without incident, and they began again that morning, moving quickly yet carefully in a straight line to the west. They crossed over three separate trails left behind by Trolls that morning alone, as the huge brutes patrolled the desert during the cooler period of the morning. But they saw none of the Trolls that morning, nor during their brief stop to rest during the full midday heat.
They did see Trolls during the afternoon, but they were already dead. Tarrin and Denai moved through a small battlefield carefully, a place littered with twelve dead Troll corpses. All of them had arrow sticking out of them, but they also showed signs of being killed with swords and spears. There were footprints that didn't belong to the Trolls on the battlefield, and Denai grinned at Tarrin knowingly when he realized that they were the soft-soled boots of the Selani.
"Selani, using bows?" Tarrin asked curiously. "I didn't think they'd do that."
"It's not dishonorable to use bows," Denai told him. "My people adapt to the situation. These big monsters require wearing them down from a distance before closing in for the kill. A bow and arrow can do that."
"I'm surprised they'd think of it. I'm surprised they had bows available."
"We're close to the humans," Denai shrugged. "Maybe this clan trades with them, and has bows. Maybe they use bows often."
"There's a hint of Druidic magic here," Sarraya announced. "I think a Druid is helping the Selani kill the Trolls."
Tarrin opened his senses, and then he too felt it. A faint trace of what had been Druidic magic, clinging to one of the Troll corpses. It had been killed with that magic. "I'll bet that Druid Conjured the bows for the Selani," Tarrin agreed.
"Our people honor the Watchers," Denai said. "If the Watcher told them to use bows, they would use bows."
"That's a smart thing to do," Sarraya laughed. "If anyone knows how to kill a Troll, it's a Druid. Druids hate Goblinoids nearly as much as the Were-kin do."
"It looks like my people are doing their best to make the Trolls feel as unwelcome as possible," Denai chuckled, standing up from her inspection of one of the corpses.
"I'm glad they're doing that. Knowing the Selani, they're luring the Trolls into ambushes. They may not be quite so willing to chase us down if they spot us, fearing it to just be another trap."
"We can hope," Sarraya said. "But if they see you, they're going to chase us down anyway," she told him.
"That can't be helped," he told her with a slash of his arm. "I can't move as fast in human form, and I'm not going to sacrifice any time. It takes alot less time to kill Trolls than it does for me to move in human form."
"I was just giving you options," Sarraya said.
They left the scene of the Troll massacre behind, continuing west. The Selani had been doing such a good job of annoying the Trolls that they saw no more of them that day. Denai speculated that her cousins here had all gathered together with the Druid and were finding and killing the Troll patrols, and most likely driving crazy whoever was sent to command the dull-witted brutes when entire patrols didn't return to report. Tarrin had to admire the bravery of the Selani, willing to take on vastly superior numbers of physically superior opponents. But living in an environment with such beasts as inu and kajat had made the Selani fearless when challenging much larger, stronger foes. Odds were that the Selani had engaged the Trolls, had learned their lessons-probably at a cost of several lives-then had adjusted their tactics to most efficiently kill off the invaders. He had no doubt that they'd sent word back to Gathering about the invasion, and the clan that lived in this territory was coming to eject the invaders. Until then, the sentries left behind were amusing themselves by torturing the invading force.
Sometimes he counted every lucky star there was that he'd been befriended by such a unique, formidable race.
That evening, as they made camp in a shallow dell surrounded by irregular boulders, Tarrin took the precaution of Warding the camp. It was too dangerous now, too close to the Trolls, and they had no concealment. So he raised a Ward to keep out the Sandmen, then covered the outside of it with an Illusion that made the interior of the Ward look empty. He set the Illusion so it would be sustained by the Ward-not an easy feat-then wove the Ward so tightly that it would take it two days to unravel. After that was done, he sat down by a faint light that Sarraya had created with her magic, joining his two female companions in a dreary meal of Conjured fruits and berries. There would be no fire that night, nothing to draw the Trolls to them.
But the night revealed to him the outline of the Sandshield, sitting on the western horizon. The end of the desert was now within sight, and it made him reflect on what had happened to him while within its boundaries. He had sank to the very depths of his own self-loathing out here in the desert, but had also risen to the very pinnacle of his magical power. He had climbed the unclimbable Cloud Spire and discovered the wonders that existed there, and had seen the incredible cost that power could exact in the shape of a wasted Aeradalla, enthralled by the power of a magical artifact. He had faced his own personal demons, and allowed the blowing sands of the desert to scour his shame and guilt away, leaving behind the trapped soul imprisoned within the dungeon of its own fear. A soul that had found its way to freedom.
If anything else, the realization that his fear did not rule him was the most important thing he would be taking from the Desert of Swirling Sands, ten times more important, more precious, than any amount of magical power. To know that he was not a prisoner of himself meant more to him than being the king of the world. The manacles on his wrists were a constant reminder of the cost of trust, but they had also imprisoned him within his own fear, a fear that fed off itself and grew stronger and stronger over time. He had become so afraid of losing his freedom that he did indeed lose it. But he didn't lose it to a stranger or a betrayer, he lost it to his own fear. And that had been worse than being collared, because they were chains that he almost could not break. Just as it had been done to Mist, Tarrin very nearly found himself being imprisoned by his own fear for centuries, but he thanked the Goddess that he had found the strength to save himself before his fear had come to completely dominate him. As it had done to Mist.
Triana was right. Meeting Mist was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. It showed him what lay at the end of the road he'd been travelling, and it had given him the ability to turn himself around.
Tarrin held up his arms, looking at the manacles. Realizing what they had done to him made him see them in a new light. They weren't only the reminders of the price he'd paid for trusting someone, they came to also represent the chains in which he had wrapped himself, chains every bit as powerful as the collar that had once controlled him, chains imprisoning him from within instead of without. It was only fitting that the manacles were just that, manacles, symbols of enslavement to the will of another.
But reflection wasn't the only thing heavy on his mind that night. It was time to talk to Jenna. He just hoped that she would be ready. Sarraya took the first watch, and as Denai slept and the Faerie kept an eye on things, Tarrin sat down within a small strand and sent his consciousness out into the Weave.
Finding himself within the endless boundaries of the Heart, Tarrin bent about the task before him with only a cursory genefluction and period of adoration for the brilliant light that was the Goddess. There would be time enough for proper adoration later, but at that moment he had a job to do. He cast out his senses into the thousands and thousands of stars that represented all the Sorcerers, seeking out the star that was his sister. And he found it easy to locate, for it was fundamentally different from all the other stars, outshining with a brilliance that made it unmistakable. Jenna's familiar sense of presence radiated from her star, proving to him that this was indeed hers. He sent his consciousness past the star, using it as a signpost to locate Jenna's physical presence in relation to the Weave. That too turned out to be easy, for Jenna's presence had a powerful effect on the Weave, the same effect he had. His very presence was enough to warp it, and that same warping effect made such a distinctive mark on the Weave that he sensed its location in a matter of minutes. Only two beings other than himself could have produced that kind of an effect, and he knew that it wasn't Spyder. It wasn't strong enough to be her.
Weaving together an Illusion of himself, Tarrin cast it from the Weave, and then pushed his consciousness into the Illusion.
He opened his spectral eyes to find himself in a very narrow, very cramped cabin, obviously a cabin on a ship. The low beams had tar splattered on them. There was nothing in the cabin but a small cot, a desk of sorts built into the wall beside it, a stool nailed to the deck before it, and Jenna herself, sitting on the bed reading a book by the light of a lanturn. His sister looked a little thin, and there was still a heavyness about her expression that told him that she hadn't completely recovered from her ordeal yet.
"Jenna," Tarrin called. His dark-haired sister jumped in surprise, then looked up hastily. When she did, her surprised expression turned to joy and amazement.
"Tarrin!" she cried, throwing the book aside and jumping to her feet. Tarrin held out his arms to stop her from trying to embrace him; he remembered what happened with Keritanima.
"This is an Illusion, Jenna!" he warned quickly. "You can't touch me."
"Tarrin, mother said you did this!" Jenna called happily. "Are you alright?"
"What's more important is how you are," he countered.
"I'm still a little tired, but I'm alright," she told him. "I've lost my powers. Mother said you said it was just temporary, but-"
"I know, it still worries you," he interrupted. "It is only temporary, Jenna. Your body is readjusting itself to the Weave, because what happened to you changed your body. Since the body is what makes us able to touch the Weave, that means that you have to wait until your body reestablishes its connection to the Weave before you can use your powers." He looked down at her as she sat back down on the bed, and he sat his Illusion on the stool before her. "I see you're on Grandfather's ship," he noted. "Where are you headed?"
"Suld," she replied. "Mother figured that it would be the best place to go, with what's happened to me and what you said to her."
Tarrin grunted. "I'd have preferred you not go there, but in a way, it may be for the best," he told her. "Have you noticed that you have a different sense of the Weave?"
"Oh, yes!" she said quickly. "I can almost see it sometimes, and I can feel it all around me. Sometimes I can almost hear something, like the beating of a heart, and the strands all quiver in time with it."
"Good, then you're already starting to adjust," he told her. "You'll regain your powers soon. Exactly how long, I have no idea. It took me about two rides or so to get my powers back, and since you're so close to me, I figure you'll regain yours at about the same time."
"That's a relief," Jenna sighed.
"It won't be the same, Jenna," he warned. "You'll have to relearn how to touch Sorcery all over again. It's different for you now."
"Can you teach me?" she asked immediately.
"Well, there's not much to teach," he said. "I can help you avoid the stumbling block that tripped me up. I kept trying to touch the Weave, and kept failing. I didn't realize that we don't have to do that anymore."
"We don't? Then what do we do?"
"Nothing," he told her. "It's all willpower now, Jenna. You just have to will it, and if you have your powers back, it'll happen. You just have to will it hard enough. The Weave will fight against you, in a way that's alot different than Sorcery, so when you do manage to get the Weave to respond, you'll have to be ready for it to try to resist you."
"That sounds pretty easy."
"It is," he assured her. "And there's something else you need to know."
"What?"
"You have access now to High Sorcery," he told her. "You can use that power by yourself, without a Circle. I just want to warn you not to experiment too much with it. If you have to use it, go ahead, but only use it if you don't have any other choice."
"Does it work the same way too?"
"No, it's different. You have to draw in the power of the Weave to use High Sorcery, much like you'd draw power to use regular Sorcery. When you need to use it, you shouldn't have any trouble making it happen. Just remember that it's going to tire you out, so only draw what you need, and use it quickly. You don't play or show off with High Sorcery. It's only to be used when it's needed."
Jenna flushed visibly.
"I know, that's how you got into this," Tarrin said with a slight smile. "Showing off for your friends, and you lost control, didn't you?"
Jenna blushed furiously.
"I thought so," he chuckled.
"I couldn't help it!" she said in a plaintive tone. "I just love using Sorcery so much! I can't believe that I was ever afraid of it!"
"But now you know better," he said calmly.
"You have no idea how much I know better," she blurted.
"That's a healthy attitude," he told her. "It would have happened eventually, so don't kick yourself over it. The Goddess explained it to me. You and me, we're what they used to call sui'kun. For us, losing control as we did was an absolute certainty. If it hadn't been then and there, it would have been somewhere else. It would have eventually happened to both of us, no matter what."
"Well, that doesn't make me feel any less foolish," Jenna admitted.
Tarrin laughed. "Don't worry about it, sister. You survived it, and that's what was most important." He assensed himself, and found that he was still feeling very strong. He didn't want to wear himself out doing this, in case he had to defend the camp with Sorcery, but he felt that he had plenty more time. "There are some thing you can do now, if you'd like to learn."
"What kind of things?"
"Things only you and me and one other person can do," he smiled. "We are Weavespinners, Jenna. We have access to things that other Sorceres can't even imagine. Would you like to learn?"
"Oh, yes!" she said happily. "Teach me, Tarrin! Please?"
"Alright," he smiled. "What I'm doing now is part of something that you can do now. We can separate our consciousnesses from our bodies and make them enter the Weave. Before I came to see you, I entered the Weave, and used it to find you. Then once I did, I created this Illusion and put myself into it. My real body is back in the desert, but I can't see or hear or smell anything back there, because my consciousness is here, with you, in this Illusion."
"So, I can send myself directly into the Weave?"
Tarrin nodded. "You did it once before, remember? When you lost control, you found yourself flying, and then you were in this huge black void, surrounded by stars and strands, and you saw yourself looking into this brilliant light that seemed to have eyes. Those eyes looked down at you, and you suddenly felt better than you ever had in your life, as if someone had touched your soul."
Jenna's eyes began to well up with tears. Tarrin's explanation had obviously conjured up fresh memories of that experience.
"It was so beautiful," she whispered. "I thought it was a dream when I woke up, but a part of me told me that it couldn't have been."
"That was the Goddess, Jenna," he told her gently. "You sent yourself into the Heart, into the core of the Weave, and you looked into the eyes of the Goddess. Wasn't it wonderful?"
"It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" Jenna agreed emphatically.
"Well, you can go back there any time you want," he told her. "All you have to do is send yourself into the Weave."
"How do I do that?"
"It's a matter of concentration," he told her. "It helps if you're in physical contact with the Weave, but it's not absolutely necessary. I have to be in physical contact with it to do what I'm doing now, because I used my powers across a thousand leagues, but to just join with the Weave and go to the Heart doesn't require it."
"How do I do it?" she asked, more urgently.
"You just close your eyes and relax," he told her. "Relax and use the tricks father taught you when shooting a bow, about emptying your mind of stray thoughts. Then you reach out and feel the Weave, with all your senses. And when you do that, when you can feel every little thing in the Weave all around you, you simply let yourself merge with it. When you do that, your consciousness joins with the Weave, and you can travel all over it with your mind."
"Can, can I wake up when I want to?" she asked.
Tarrin nodded. "You can always wake up any time you want, just by wishing it," he assured her. "You can also find the Heart any time you want, because you'll always be able to feel it when you're joined with the Weave. It will guide you to it whenever you want to go there."
"I want to try it," she said immediately. "I want to go back to that place."
"Not right now," he told her. "I need to ask you a few questions first."
"What?"
"Did Mother have Grandfather stop the fighting with Tykarthia?"
"No, Mother didn't do that," she answered him. "A few days ago, a Wikuni ship stopped us and sent over a man with some papers for Grandfather. When he read them, he told the Wikuni to tell the other Ungardt clan chiefs what was going on. Then the Wikuni left, and their ship sailed off. Yesterday, three of their big-what do you call them, clapper ships?"
"Clipper ships."
"Clipper ships, they joined Grandfather's longship and they're going with us to Suld. Mother said they're escorting us, to make sure nothing tries to sink us on the way."
"Good old Kerri. She doesn't miss anything," Tarrin chuckled.
"You mean that Wikuni girl sent the ships?"
"That Wikuni girl is the Queen now, Jenna," Tarrin smiled. "She sent them to protect you, because you're the same as her little sister now."
"I didn't know that," Jenna fretted. "If I did, I'd have been nicer to her."
"When did you meet Kerri?" he asked curiously.
"It was when we visited you at the Tower," she replied. "I thought she was a mean jerk. She was really nasty to Mother."
"That was an act, to confuse her enemies," he told her. "Kerri's really nothing like that. She's a total sweetheart."
"Well, that's how she seemed to me," Jenna huffed.
"That's how she wanted you to think of her, so you felt the right way," Tarrin told her with a light grin. "When are you going to get to Suld?"
"I think Father said we'd get there in a few days," she answered.
"Good. Just be careful when you get to Suld, Jenna. And I don't want you going to the Tower. It's too dangerous there."
"Mother wants to spend the time there with Master Tomas and Mistress Janine," Jenna told him. "Mother doesn't want to go to the Tower either."
"That's a good idea," Tarrin agreed. "You'd have Janette there to play with."
"I like her. She's a nice girl."
"She's a wonderful girl," Tarrin said warmly. Memories of his Little Mother never failed to cheer him up. "She means alot to me."
"I can't see why."
"Because she saved my life," he answered honestly. "If Janette hadn't have found me, I'd have died."
"You never told me about that."
"I will someday, but not now," he todl her. "I can't do this for very long, because it tires me out very fast, and I can't afford to get exhausted right now. I'll have to abandon the Illusion in a minute."
"But I wanted to try to join the Weave!" she protested.
"I can't coach you, Jenna," he explained. "It's something you just have to do for yourself. I'll tell you what. I'll wait in the Heart for a while, and if you show up, we'll talk some more. If not, then I'll understand."
"Understand what?"
"It's not as easy as you think to do what I'm doing," he warned. "It does take a little practice. If you get surprised or lose your focus, you'll find yourself back in your body before you realize what happened. Odds are, the first time you manage to do it, you'll be so surprised you'll lose it and end up back where you started. So if you can't make it to the Heart tonight, I'll understand perfectly. It's not something I expect you to just do the first time and be perfect." He shook a finger at her. "And do not push yourself too hard, young lady," he warned. "It takes effort to do this, and the more you push yourself now, the longer it's going to take for you to regain your powers. So if you can't do it tonight, then wait a day or so before trying again. So you can rest."
"Alright," she promised. "I'll try tonight, but if I can't do it, I'll wait a day before trying again."
"Good. I'm going to dissolve the Illusion now, so I'll wait for you in the Heart. If I don't see you, then you take care of yourself, and I'll come over and talk to you again in a few days, alright?"
"Save it for when we're in the Heart, brother," Jenna said with a challenging smile.
"We'll see," he replied. "See you soon."
And he withdrew from the Illusion, allowing it to unravel.
He returned to the Heart and did exactly what he said he would do. He waited. He wanted Jenna to do it all by herself, with no help, no coaching, so she'd be able to say to herself that she did indeed do it all on her own. It would be good for her self-esteem, for Jenna often lacked confidence when she was a girl. Learning Sorcery had bolstered the girl's confidence, but he knew that losing her powers had been a crushing blow for her. This would allow her to rebuild that confidence again.
He didn't have long to wait. Jenna appeared within the Heart mere moments after he left her, her phantasmal body wearing what she had been wearing in the cabin in the real world. Her expression was gloriously happy, her face beaming. "I made it!" she cried happily as she floated over to him.
It was a very long time in coming. Tarrin reached out and embraced his sister, holding her soul in his arms the same way he would have held her body, and he felt the core of her close to him. Topmost in that sensation was the love they shared, the deep connection of family, a feeling so profound that it made the Heart shimmer with a strange bell-like choral echo.
"Tarrin, I've missed you so much!" Jenna whispered to him as she hugged him.
"I've missed you too," he returned, revelling in the sensation of finally being near to a member of his family again.
Their embrace was a long one, but they eventually pushed out so they could look at one another, Jenna's hands on his sides and his arms looped around her protectively. "What was that about me not getting here?" she challenged with a bright smile.
"I'm glad you made it," he told her. "This doesn't tire me out like projecting does."
"You'll have to teach me how you do that."
"I already did," he smiled. "Now then, why don't you tell me all about what happened in Ungardt? And not just what happened with magic. I want to hear all about your visit there."
For quite a while, Tarrin listened to Jenna talk about their trip from Suld to their grandfather's home, in a small town called Dusgaard, then she described the town and the people there. Being a young girl, Jenna focused on small things that wouldn't have mattered to an adult, mainly on the boys of the village. Tarrin enjoyed it all, even the things that really didn't matter to him, because they mattered to her. He learned that life in an Ungardt village was rather boring, especially during the winter, so the people did all sorts of things to keep themselves occupied. They met in the town hall and danced, they went on sleigh rides, the men hunted reindeer and boar, the women would often meet while the men were hunting to gossip, and they would tell stories during the long winter nights. He learned from her that there was a period of about two rides when the sun barely came over the horizon, for about half an hour of dawn-like sunlight before it set again. The Ungardt were a boisterous people, so Jenna described quite a few brawls and altercations, even among the women. Ungardt women weren't as docile as other human women, many of them learning to fight. An Ungardt woman was just as likely to get into a fight as a man. That surprised and frightened Jenna a little bit, until she got comfortable with the idea that most Ungardt women were like their mother. Outwardly aggressive, but very sensitive and warm and loving when one got past that roughened exterior. The Ungardt were a surprisingly emotional people, which probably explained their penchant for getting into fights.
Jenna didn't quite fit in with her larger, more physical playmates, but her magic was the balancer. They didn't pick on Jenna because she could strip them naked without laying a hand on them. And she had done so to the first young man that had tried to bully her. At first, they were afraid of her, but after a little time to adjust, they came to accept her as just another young lady. Jenna made many friends during her time in Ungardt, and she spoke most often about a girl named Marianne, a busty, rather lustful young girl who was a pattern Ungardt, who was her best friend there. Jenna had been a bit scandalized by Marianne's loose concept of morality. She was a very direct girl with a mind entirely too old for a fourteen year old girl. Yet somehow, Marianne had won his straight-laced sister's confidence, and the two of them had become best friends.
After Jenna was done, she demanded to hear about what Tarrin had done, so he obliged her. He told her most of the tale of his journey from Suld, about his wounding and acceptance by the other Were-cats, about their trip to Dala Yar Arak and a good deal of what had happened there, and much of his trip through the desert. He left some things out, things too graphic for his younger sister, or things he didn't really want her to know. He explained to her what Shiika had done to him to make him grow, and told her all about the Selani and their desert. He told her about the Urzani woman, Spyder, about how she had come to him and forced him to come into his full power, and he told her about the Cloud Spire and his final battle with Jegojah.
"You mean that ugly dead thing was being forced to do it all along?" Jenna asked.
Tarrin nodded. "But he's free now, and he's going after the man who enslaved him. He won't bother you again."
"I used to have nightmares about it," Jenna admitted. "I was terrified that it would come back."
"Well, that's something you never have to worry about again," he told her gently. "If you do ever see Jegojah again, he'll be there as a friend, not as an assassin. He asked about you, you know."
"It did?"
Tarrin nodded. "He wanted to be sure that you were alright. He was worried that he may have hurt you."
"Well, that was nice, I guess," she said after a moment.
Tarrin felt a distant sensation. Sarraya was tugging on his ear. "Sarraya wants me for something, Jenna. I'd better go. We've been here a while."
"I don't want to go," she sulked.
"Jenna, we can come here any time we want," he smiled. "Does it matter that we have to leave?"
Jenna looked at him, then laughed. "I guess not," she admitted. "But how will I know to come here when you're here?"
"Well, I guess you won't, but I can contact you with the amulet," he told her. "I could contact you and tell you to come home. You'd know that means to come to the Heart."
"Why not just tell me?"
"Speaking through the amulets isn't secure," he told her. "But talking here is."
"Oh. Alright."
"I have to go," Tarrin said. "Sarraya's about to pull my ear off. I'll see you soon, Jenna."
"Goodbye, Tarrin. Good luck," she called as Tarrin withdrew from her, and then sent his consciousness back to his body.
Tarrin opened his eyes and winced as Sarraya wrenched his ears. "What?" he demanded in irritation.
"It's your watch!" she growled at him. "I'd like to sleep sometime tonight, you know!"
"It's that late?"
"You've been off chasing dragons for nearly four hours!" she said hotly. "Now I'm going to go to sleep. Try not to go back to zombie land, will you?"
"Well, go on," he told her, standing up. "I'll keep watch."
Sarraya frowned at him, then buzzed over to the tent and slid inside. Tarrin sat down on a rock, looking out into the darkness, and he smiled. It was good to be with his sister again, to really be with her. The Heart was just as real as reality, but it wasn't her body he'd spent time with, it was her soul. That made it that much better. It made it seem nearly holy, to hover there in the Heart and catch up with his sister, dealing with her soul to soul.
It put Tarrin in a very good mood. He felt much better now that he knew Jenna was recovering nicely, and would probably regain her powers soon. He felt much better knowing that Keritanima had taken everything in hand, and was smoothly preparing to defend Suld from the coming army. He felt very much better knowing that his parents were taking Jenna back to Suld, but not back to the Tower. They'd be safe and well cared for in the loving home of Tomas the merchant and Janine the wife, with Tarrin's Little Mother there to keep his sister occupied.
He felt much better.
He looked out into the desert, towards the mountains, knowing that tomorrow would be the last day he'd spend in the Desert of Swirling Sands. They'd reach those mountains by afternoon. They'd reach them, and his time in the desert would be over. The lessons he had learned in the desert, however, would stay with him, be a part of him for the rest of his life. They were important lessons, needed lessons, and he now fully understood why the Goddess had sent him here.
The harshness of the desert had taught him that he was his own master. The demons within would always be there. They would always be part of him, and he would always struggle against them, but now he knew he had the strength to conquer them.
He wasn't afraid anymore.
The morning dawned warm and calm. The wind, what there was, was barely more than a whisper as the three of them set out from the campsite they had erected, and had carefully taken down and wiped out any trace that they had been there. The mountains were high and rugged, many of them with snow on their tops, and they loomed enticingly to the west, within the day's reach. The sight of them spurred Tarrin on, made him run faster and faster, until Denai had to call out and remind him of the reality of their situation. There were Trolls about, and he couldn't be just running wild as he was. They had to pay attention to the surroundings, else they may run headlong into a Troll party without being ready for it.
But it was hard to keep a pace. The end of the desert was right before him, and though he had come to love the rugged desert, his anxiety over what was happening in Suld spurred him on. He had to get there quickly, he had to be there to help when the ki'zadun attacked. His Weavespinner powers could make a difference, and they couldn't do that unless he was there when the enemy army marched in.
But that wasn't the only thing on his mind. Denai was a problem, because he would be leaving her out here alone, in territory infested by Trolls. He thought about that for a while, until he came up with a decent solution. Sarraya wouldn't be too happy about it, but that was the way things were.
They encountered no Trolls during the morning, and Tarrin paced restlessly while they stopped for lunch and a little rest during the hottest part of the day. The mountains were even visible now in the midday, close enough for the heat-haze to not distort them out of visibility. The ground was starting to become more rugged; they were moving into the foothills at the base of the mountains. Tarrin waited anxiously for as long as he could, then he moved them out when he simply could not wait any longer.
And then they were moving again. They again encountered no Trolls as they ran westward, up and down steeper and steeper hills. Denai and Sarraya had been right; this close to the mountains, the Trolls were indeed centralized on the passes. There were signs that Trolls had patrolled where they were, but the signs were very old. They obviously felt that Tarrin would indeed come for the pass, and they'd focused their attention on catching him out in the desert or at the pass itself. That, or the Selani that had been attacking the Trolls had drawn most of the patrols out into the desert, out to engage the elusive guerillas and kill them. Either way, it had cleared the border desert of most of the enemy, and that allowed him much more freedom of movement. Now that he was on the border with the mountains, he had slipped in under their patrol zone, and that knowledge spurred him to run faster.
Their effortless travel stopped abruptly when they came up over the top of a particularly steep hill, and found themselves looking down on a small camp of about fifteen Trolls. Seeing them surprised him somewhat, but the sight of them incited an instantaneous response of hatred inside of him.
"Trolls," Denai said. "Feel like a little exercise?"
"I don't have time for them now," Tarrin said to her bluntly. "But I'm not going to leave them out here to threaten your people either."
"Then what are we going to do about them?"
Attuning himself to the Weave, Tarrin came to a greater connection with it, then he opened himself to its power. The energy of the Weave flowed into him unabated, and his paws began to glow in the limning, soft radiance of Magelight, a visible sign that Tarrin was preparing to use High Sorcery. He knew what he wanted to do, so he knew when he'd drawn in enough energy to make it happen. He wove the spell quickly, able to cast it over a distance because it was a relatively simple spell to create. It was a rather simple two-flow weave, Air and Fire, and when it was released, it caused an intense wall of fire to rise up in a circle around the camp, fire so hot that it melted the sand upon which it rested. The Trolls within the ring jumped up in surprise and fear, and that fear turned to terror when the ring of fire began to enclose around them. They backed away from the flames until they formed a knot in the center of it, then the stupid beings realized that they had nowhere else to go. One of them put his head down and tried to run through the flames, but his cohorts didn't see if he made it because of the intense ferocity of the fire killed the Troll before it could clear it. Its charred corpse flopped to the ground on the other side of the ring of fire, but the color and thickness of the flames hid this fact from those still inside.
One by one, the Trolls tried to run through the flames, and one by one, they died for their efforts. They kept on until they got to the last three, too frightened of the fire to try to get through it. Those three died where they stood as the ring closed on them, forming a blazing pyre in the center of the blasted, charred campsite, and when the fire died away, there was nothing but a charred, blistered scar of blackened rock and melted sand where the Trolls had once stood.
"That must be handy," Denai laughed.
"It has its uses," Tarrin answered mildly. "Let's move on."
"How'd you get the fire so hot?" Sarraya asked curiously.
"Air," he answered. "Mix in Air in with your Fire, and it makes the fire hotter."
"Clever."
"I didn't think of it," he shrugged. "It's part of what I was taught."
They ran on until about midafternoon, when they found themselves looking up at a steep slope, leading up the side of the first of the mountains of the Sandshield. They had made it.
Tarrin had reached the Sandshield.
They pulled up to a stop, looking up the formidable mountainside. "Well, I guess this is it," Denai said calmly. "Are you going to be alright?"
"I'll be fine, and so will you," Tarrin told her. "Sarraya, I want you to go back with Denai."
"What?" she demanded immediately.
"Not all the way. Help Denai find the Selani attacking the Trolls and get her to them. I'm not going to allow Denai to wander around out here alone. Knowing her, she'd attack a group of Trolls all by herself."
Sarraya laughed, which made Denai glare at her. "She would do that," Sarraya agreed. "But are you sure about this? You may need me."
"I don't need you to mother me anymore, Sarraya. I think I can take care of myself."
"Well, I guess so," Sarraya sighed.
"It shouldn't take you more than a few days to find the Selani," he told her. "When you have Denai safely back with her people, you can do me a very big favor."
"What?"
"Go to the Fae-da'Nar and tell them what's going on," he replied. "Kerri's probably gotten contact with Haley by now, but it'll be alot more convincing if you go to them as well. You'll confirm what Haley will tell them, and it may convince them that they need to put a hand in."
"I have to admit, you're probably right," she sighed. "It would be very convincing. But I don't want to leave you alone, Tarrin. Triana told me to stay with you until I bring her back to you, in one piece."
"Triana will understand that this is more important than babysitting me," he told her pointedly. "After you're done there, get to Suld as fast as you can. Whether or not Fae-da'Nar helps, I know that you will, and they're going to need you. I'll see you when I get there."
"I'll be there as well, Tarrin," Denai told him. "The clan will come through the North Pass, since it'll be closest to where they are now. I'll wait for Var to catch up, then join his clan. I'm not going to miss out on this."
"I didn't think you would," Tarrin smiled at her. He reached out and took her hand in his paw, holding it gently. "You and Var, you're like family to me now, Denai. It would honor me if I could call you deshaida."
Denai's eyes almost glowed. "It would give me great honor, Tarrin. May I have the honor of calling you deshida?"
"It is a great honor to be thought of so highly by one such as you, Denai," He said with a gentle smile. "You are true children of the Holy Mother, and she must bless you anew with each dawn."
Denai actually blushed, and then she sniffled. Then she surprised Tarrin by giving him a crushing hug. "You be careful, deshida," she said fiercely. "Without us there to watch your back, you're going to be vulnerable."
"I'll be fine, deshaida," he assured her. He pushed her out enough to look down into her eyes, then he held out his paw and allowed Sarraya to land in it, standing there and looking at him with misty eyes.
"I hate the idea that I won't be there with you, Tarrin, but I'll do what you ask," she said with a sniffle. "I'll try to get back to you as quickly as I can. I may even catch up with you before you reach Suld."
"I'll be watching for you, Sarraya," he assured her. "You be careful, and don't let Denai here distract you."
"I'll be worse than her father," Sarraya grinned.
"Nobody's worse than my father," Denai laughed.
Tarrin stepped away from them, looking down at them with sober eyes. There was only one more thing to do. "Denai, I want you to do something for me."
"Anything, Tarrin. Anything at all."
With slow, measured movements, changing one paw at a time into a human hand, Tarrin pulled the manacles off of his wrists. "I don't need these anymore," he said calmly, looking at them. He knew every scratch, every pit, every dark imperfection that marred the surfaces of them. They had represented the price of trust, but he had realized that they had also chained him to his own fear. They had been a part of him, but now they were no longer. He had grown beyond the need for them now, and it was time to give them up. He had to move on with his life. "I want you to have them."
"I can't take these," Denai gasped. "You said they mean too much to you!"
"They mean nothing to me now," he told her, which made Sarraya start to weep. "Do whatever you want with them. Throw them away, give them to the Holy Mother, give them to your smiths and have them make something useful out of them. It doesn't matter to me."
The importance of that seemed to dawn on Denai, and her eyes filled up with tears. "I'll do something special with them, Tarrin," she promised. "They won't mean nothing to me."
"Then it pleases me in whatever you do with them," he told her.
"Oh Tarrin, that's just beautiful!" Sarraya said with a loud sniffle, wiping at her eyes.
Tarrin looked at the Faerie, then he laughed. "I'm not one for all this sentiment. Now back up so I can get myself over the mountains."
"What are you going to do?" Sarraya asked curiously, her wings pulling her into the air.
"You'll see," he said with a wink. "But you need to back up. You may get hurt."
They backed away from him, and he opened himself to the Weave. Drawing in the power of High Sorcery, he mulled over a dim memory of a spell cast long ago, one cast out of anger. But the memory of it was still in his mind, so he had little trouble recalling the exact method of weaving. Sending out heavy, strong flows of Fire and Divine power, with token flows of the other Spheres to give the weave the power of High Sorcery, Tarrin wove together an intricate knot of magical power, then he released it over his head.
A flash of fire appeared in the air over his head, then it expanded and took shape quickly. It expanded out to its full size, and Denai and Sarraya found themselves looking at a Roc, a Roc made of pure fire.
It was an Elemental, a semi-sentient creature created by magic. A Fire Elemental. It would exist in the physical world until Tarrin dismissed it, so long as he recharged the weave that made up its body once a day.
With a screeching cry, the Elemental landed beside him, nuzzling at him with its fiery beak. It was a solid mass, a being of solid fire, and that meant that it could carry him. Since it was a Roc, its magic allowed it to fly just like a Roc. The Fire Elemental would carry him over the mountains.
The Goddess said he had to get there on his own. She said nothing about him using his own magic to help himself along in the tough spots. He'd let the Roc return to the Weave after he got over the mountains, but for now, he needed it to get him over the Troll-infested Sandshield safely. He doubted the Goddess would mind.
Denai and Sarraya stared at the magnificent Elemental for a long moment, as Tarrin pulled himself up onto its back. He could feel its heat, knew that it would incinerate anyone not immune to its fire, yet found its fiery heat to be comfortable. This was another good reason not to take Sarraya.
"That's a clever trick, Tarrin!" Sarraya said with a laugh. "I'd have never thought of it!"
"What is it, Tarrin? It's beautiful!" Denai called.
"It's an Elemental," Tarrin told her. "Just don't get too close. The fire is real, Denai. It will burn you if you get too close."
"Alright."
"You flying to Suld, Tarrin?" Sarraya asked.
"No, you know the Goddess told me not to do that," he replied. "But I don't think she'll mind if I use the Elemental to get over the mountains. I'll go on foot after I'm on the other side."
"Alright, that tells me where to try to meet up with you again," Sarraya told him.
"I'll see both of you soon," he told them, waving his paw in farewell. "Until then, be careful, and watch out for one another."
"We'll be careful, and I'll see you in the Frontier!" Sarraya called.
"We'll see you in Suld, Tarrin! Var and I can't wait to get there!" Denai called as Tarrin spurred his Elemental to take off, controlling it with his thoughts alone, thoughts to which the Elemental responded instantly. The great fiery bird spread its wings, and with a single thrust that sent small embers out from it, the Elemental took to the air. Tarrin held on to a mane of fire as the Elemental began to circle, flapping its burning wings to gain altitude, captivating his friends on the ground with its beauty as the Elemental trailed a streamer of fire and sparkling light as it rose into the sky.
Tarrin again felt caught up in the intense joy of flying, of seeing the land open before him like an oyster holding a pearl, of feeling that utter sense of complete freedom that came from seeing the ground far below him. His happiness infected the Elemental as well, who gave out a triumphant screeching cry, a cry that attracted the attention of every living thing in the mountains beneath it. The massive, beautiful Elemental turned west, turned into the mountains, and began the hours-long journey that would take Tarrin out of the Desert of Swirling Sands, back into the West, and one step closer to returning to Suld.
Farewell, my son, the voice of Fara'Nae called out to him as he left her domain. May my sister watch over you as carefully and lovingly as I have.
In Denai's hands, the two steel manacles began to blaze with brilliant light, then began to change and contract. When the light faded, when Denai looked down at the miracle that had been taking place in her hands, she saw that the manacles had been replaced by two rings, made of many strands of multicolored metal twisted together to form a beautiful work of art. Denai and Sarraya stared at them in wonder, and then the Selani woman, not knowing what else to do with them, slid them onto her fingers. She would keep one, but the other, she vowed to herself, would be Var's. A symbol of their love for one another, and an eternal reminder of the strange friend that they had made in the desert, a friend as dear to her as any of her family.
Her deshida.
To: Title EoF