Wake up.
Despite the events of the prior day and the weariness he had felt, that soundless voice caused Tarrin to awaken instantaneously. On two prior occasions, a ghostly voice just like that had awakened him when he was in great danger; once in the inn at Watch Hill right before the fire, and once in Duke Arren's castle in Torrian right before Jesmind attacked him. Tarrin's subconscious remembered those events, and it had literally slapped his conscious mind awake the instant the ghostly voice reached him. He rose up from the bed by his arms and looked around, realizing that he wasn't going to see the owner of the voice, but it was for danger that his senses scanned the elaborately decorated bedroom. His ears and nose detected no invaders, and the light streaming in from the window showed no intruders to his eyes.
Wake up, Tarrin, the voice called again, and he realized that it wasn't the voice of the Goddess, it was the disembodied voice of Spyder, being whispered through the Weave in that strange manner she used. It is time for your first lesson.
"Can you hear me?" he asked in a quiet whisper, not wanting to wake up his mate.
Of course I can hear you, the reply came, lightly amused. Your sister is resisting me.
"Shout. Jenna doesn't like to wake up."
I can see that. Get dressed, and come to me. We have little time.
"Where are you?"
If you can't find me, then you're not worthy of my instruction, came the rather tart response in Sha'kar, so she could convey all of her irritation with his remark, and he realized she wasn't going to speak again.
Grumbling, Tarrin disentangled himself from Jesmind and swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was one of those four-poster beds, with the curtains that could be drawn closed. It was also raised, with little steps leading up to it so short humans could get into the bed without having to climb up the side of it. For Tarrin and Jesmind, it was generally perfect for their height. It was oversized, drastically so, but that meant that it was just large enough for him to fit in it. It was also very comfortable, so much so that Tarrin contemplated stealing the bed once he got back to Aldreth. He'd Conjure it out of the Tower.
"Mmmf, Tarrin, where are you going?" Jesmind asked blearily, reaching out for him and grabbing his tail.
"I need to go talk to someone," he answered her.
"It's the middle of the night!"
"Actually, it's about an hour or so before dawn," he corrected, looking out the window. "This person doesn't keep what you'd call regular hours."
"Blow him off and come back to bed."
"I'd like to, but you don't say no to this person," he chuckled, getting up. "Let go of my tail, Jesmind."
"No," she said indignantly. "Make me."
"You don't want me to do that, my mate," he warned in a teasing voice.
Jesmind kicked down the covers enough for him to get a good view of her, and then she stretched in a most attractive, erotic manner, leering up at him. "Make me," she repeated in a throaty purr.
"That's not going to get me back in bed, woman," Tarrin laughed. "This is something important. I told you that I'd have to spend a great deal of time away from you. This is just the start of it."
Frowning, Jesmind let go of his tail and rolled over on her side, holding her head up with her paw. "Who in the world would call you out of bed before dawn, when you're already going to go have breakfast with all the others?" she asked. "And why didn't I hear it?"
"This is rather special person, love," he told her, grabbing his trousers from the floor and pushing a foot inside. "This is what you may call one of my mentors. She's promised to teach me some things that only she can teach. I don't want to miss it, Jesmind. If I miss learning from her, I'm not going to be able to learn it anywhere else."
"She?" Jesmind said archly.
"You are so jealous," Tarrin laughed.
"I told you I was jealous, beloved," she teased. "I don't like any female getting private time with you, even human ones."
"Well, don't worry. I seriously doubt that this female has any ideas like that. We're not exactly what you'd call compatible species."
"Oh. Well, I guess that's alright, then," Jesmind said after mulling it over a moment. "When are you going to come back?"
"I have no idea," he grunted. "Let's just meet for breakfast. I'm sure one of the others is going to show up, they can take you down there. I'll come and find you when I'm done." He glanced back. "Oh, Jesmind."
"What?"
"What I'm doing is an absolute secret. You can't tell anyone, and I mean anyone. Not even mother, and especially not Jasana. Alright?"
"Well, if that's the case, then what is it worth to you?" she asked coyly. "My silence isn't cheap, beloved."
"I'm sure we can work out something later," he grinned at her, coming over and kissing her, then raising up and putting on his shirt and vest. "Be assured that I'll be willing to pay your price."
"Well, if it's a seller's market, I'm sure I'm going to have to fix quite a price tag to what you're interested in buying," she said with a wink and an arch little expression.
"So long as it doesn't interfere with what I have to do here, love, you can name your price," he told her with a smile, reaching down and taking her paw. She pulled him down forcefully and wrapped her arms around him, then gave him a very deep, lingering kiss, one of those kisses that never failed to scatter his thoughts to the four winds. Then she pulled away and playfully bit at his neck-playfully for a Were-cat meaning that the bite wounds she created healed over almost instantly. Tarrin had come to discover that Were-cats didn't do that with casual mates. Jesmind had never nipped and bit at him like she did now until after they professed their love for one another. He'd found out last night that the biting was intimate, even sensual in a way, for the tiny shocks of pain only made the pleasure that much more enjoyable. The passing of blood could pass a bond, even unintentionally, so two Were-cat mates didn't bite one another-aside from being in the throes of passion-without reason. Between close mates, the biting and passing of blood was not something to worry over, since they were so close in the first place. The idea of taking Jesmind's bond had crossed his mind more than once, and it was something he certainly wanted to do before he left. Having her bond would allow him to find her, no matter where she was, and it would let him know she was alright.
The force of her bite was apparent when he rose up from her, for she had a thin trail of his blood on the corner of her mouth. He smiled down at her. "Now then, let me go take care of this, and I'll see you at breakfast," he told her.
"Alright," she sighed. "I'll be waiting for you."
He wiped the thin line of blood from her chin with a finger. "You have no idea how happy that makes me," he told her, then he stood up and looked towards the door. "I'd better go before I get chewed out for being late. I'll see you in a while, love."
"Remember, beloved, you owe me," she called in a smug little tone as he walked away.
"I'm sure the haggling will be very, fun," he said over his shoulder as he went out the door.
Out in the sitting room, Tarrin stopped and closed his eyes. Spyder had to be relatively close, and that meant that she would have an affect on the Weave that he should be able to sense. The proximity of the main Conduit did dull his senses a little, drowning out the tiny shifts in the Weave he would usually be able to sense, but it couldn't hide the Urzani woman's powerful effect on the Weave. She was above him, well above him, from the sense of it, either on the top floor or the roof of the Tower itself.
He'd come to understand that Spyder didn't think in what one would call linear terms. Given the choice between the top floor and the roof, Tarrin would guess that she was on the roof. It just fit in more with what he understood of her. Stepping out onto the balcony, Tarrin wove together a quick spell of Air, forming a platform which would lift him up to the roof. He stepped up onto it, then caused it to rise, carrying him up to the top of the roof.
As he expected, the utter blackness of that strange black cloak she wore was visible on the other side of the roof, back to him, standing on the elegantly sculpted ledge of the Tower and looking out towards the east, towards the impending sunrise. Tarrin had never been on the top of the Tower before, and he was surprised by what he saw. Instead of emptiness, there were several small buildings, what looked like sheds or standing closets, scattered across the pristine white marble rooftop, which was perfectly flat. The dominating feature of the rooftop was the pyramid-shaped crystal cap that stood over the center of the Tower, where the Conduit that passed through the Tower was. The Conduit passed through that crystal skylight, through its exact center. The crystal showed no signs of being worked or shaped, it was perfectly smooth, unmarred, as if one massive crystal had been found and carefully cut down and polished into that final form. It was also fairly large, more than three times his height at its apex; after all, it covered a hole some forty spans across.
As soon as Tarrin put his foot on the ledge and stepped onto the rooftop, the Urzani woman turned around to face him. She was on the opposite side of the rooftop, which put a few hundred spans between them. He started walking towards her, feeling more and more the powerful effect she had on the Weave, so strong that even the main Conduit seemed to want to pull towards her. He glanced at the crystal pyramid as he passed by it, noticing that though he could see the main Conduit clearly, it cast no reflection against the crystal.
"Your sister is late," she said in that crisp, exacting manner of hers, but she was speaking Sha'Kar.
"She's a slow starter," he replied cordially, also in Sha'Kar. "Once she's fully awake, she'll start hurrying. She doesn't want to miss this."
"I would think not," Spyder said, slightly amused. "Can she speak the True Tongue?"
"I don't think so," he replied. "Only a handful of us can. Almost all of my close friends can, just to warn you. Don't say anything in Sha'Kar you don't want them to know if we ever happen to be with them."
"I doubt that will be an issue," she shrugged. "If I mean to say something only you will hear, I will whisper it."
He knew immediately what she meant. "How do you do that?" he asked immediately.
She smiled. "Patience, youngling. Let's wait for the child. I only want to teach it once." She pulled the cloak around her absently. "I'll have to teach the child the True Tongue. I feel uncomfortable passing knowledge outside my native language."
"I take it you know a way to do that quickly?"
She nodded. "Usually it would be impossible for me to use such a Mind weave on someone not my race, but my age and my intimate understanding of the human mind allows me to surpass that boundary," she explained. "You, on the other hand, are quite beyond me."
"That's alright, I already know it," he said urbanely.
"True, but there are some things I will teach Jenna through Mind weaves that I can't teach you. You'll have to learn them from her. Quickly."
"I'm a pretty fast learner," he assured her. Then he connected what she said to what they were doing quickly. "You're not coming back, are you?" he realized. "This is our only lesson, isn't it?"
She looked at him, a deep, penetrating look, and then gave him the slightest of smiles. "You are quick," she complemented. "Mother said you were much smarter than even you realized. But you are wrong, Tarrin Kael. I can grant simple knowledge, like a language, through Sorcery. But passing on a skill, something you have to practice to master, would be foolish to do. To have the knowledge to do something but lack the skill to do it is a very dangerous combination. It would be like a smith's apprentice trying to forge a ceremonial sword. He knows how it is done, but lacks the skill and experience to perform the task."
He worked that out in his mind, and understood that she was right. "What kind of things are you going to teach Jenna through Mind weaves?"
"Obviously, only knowledge," she replied. "I intend to teach her the history of our order. The true history. It will be one of her tasks to set that history in writing and allow the other Sorcerers to read it. For too long I have been the repository of our history and culture. That burden is now Jenna's."
"Why is that important?"
"To understand where one should go, sometimes one must know from where one came," she told him evenly. "To know our history will allow Jenna to guide the katzh-dashi in the proper direction." She gave Tarrin a slightly sorrowful look. "After today, your sister will be a different person, Tarrin," she warned in a compassionate voice. "Just as your own trial caused you to mature too soon, what I will teach Jenna will mature her as well. She will still be your sister, but she will carry a wisdom and knowledge beyond her years. That can't help but change her."
He sighed, for he knew she was right. But Jenna would still be Jenna, and that was all that mattered to him. With her newfound knowledge, Jenna wouldn't help but have a different outlook on life. He only hoped that it would change her for the better, where his own trial had, at least at the beginning, changed him for the worse. "She'll still be my sister, and I'll still love her," he said calmly.
"Indeed," Spyder said with a slight smile. "She is coming."
"I can feel her. It seems she thinks you're on the top floor," he realized. She was approaching from the interior of the Tower.
"She'll learn she's wrong when she gets there and finds I'm still above her," Spyder told him lightly. "She'll come up from that stairwell there," she said, pointing to one of the tiny closet-like doors, which he realized were the tops of stairwells.
They waited in silence for only a moment, and then Jenna burst out of the opening door. She looked a little dishevelled, with her dress buttoned up the wrong way, her hair wild from where she'd slept on it, and one of her shoes in her hand rather than on her feet. She spotted them immediately and hurried over to where they were standing. "I'm sorry, I couldn't find my shoes!" she panted breathlessly.
"You are out of shape, girl," Spyder said critically. "You must exercise. A strong body is critical to strong magic."
"I will, I promise," she said, getting her breath back. "I don't get much chance to do much here in the Tower. Where are we going to start?"
"Brusque, is she not?" Spyder asked conversationally to Tarrin.
"When she's interested in something, she tends to forget custom and courtesy," Tarrin chuckled in reply.
"Well then, since you are so ready to begin, then let us begin," the Urzani said, stepping up to the smaller human adolescent. "I can tolerate not the ugliness of the Sulasian tongue," she stated flatly. "I will teach you the True Tongue, so we can speak without sounding like a pair of clucking chickens."
Despite who Spyder was and the eminence about her, the sense of awe she tended to inspire, Jenna laughed at that. That laugh was cut short when the tall, tall Urzani reached out and put her slender, four-fingered hands on each side of Jenna's head, on her temples. Tarrin didn't see anything, but he could clearly feel the Urzani pull the flows out of the strands with a surety and speed that made him nearly miss what she did. An unbelievably complicated spell formed between those hands, directly inside Jenna's mind, that had tendrils of the spell feeding back into Spyder's own. He felt a sudden surge of envy for his sister, for in that fleeting moment, the minds of Spyder and Jenna were linked as knowledge passed from one to the other. Jenna had had the privilege to share knowledge with the oldest, wisest, most learned living being on the face of the world. There could be no higher honor than that.
As quickly as it happened, it was over. Spyder removed her hands easily as Jenna staggered back a step or two and put a hand to her forehead. "Goddess!" she gasped. "How did you do that!"
She spoke in flawless Sha'Kar, even having the same accent as the Urzani. Of course, that was expected, seeing as how the Urzani's knowledge of the language was what was given to her.
"Easily, if you know how, young one," Spyder smiled down at her.
"I, I know, Tarrin!" she said in wonder, standing there and staring at her brother in surprise. "I know who we were, and what we used to be! She showed me what we were like in the past! And she showed me how we came down to where we are now!"
"I know, Jenna," he nodded. "I know."
"I, I can't believe it," she said in surprise, dropping her shoe. "How could it all have happened?"
"It's all there, young one," Spyder told her. "All of it. You will write that down, Jenna," she ordered. "You will pen it in your own hand, in your own way, and then share it with the others."
"I-yes, I will," she said, looking in his direction, but he could tell her eyes were distant. "It's sad, really. All that beauty, gone. Why didn't we see it coming?"
"Think, child."
"We were naive," she realized. "We believed everyone would think and act as we did. We thought everyone understood. But we were wrong."
"We were wrong," the Urzani mirrored in a wan tone.
"And now it's the three of us?"
"Yes and no," Spyder smiled. "I may be sui'kun, but I have other duties. Tarrin is sui'kun, but he exists outside the order of things. For now, there is only you. But in time, others will appear, and then you will help the katzh-dashi restore the order to its former glory. It will be as it once was, Jenna. But only if you work hard to realize it."
"What are you talking about?" Tarrin asked.
"There used to be seven Towers, Tarrin," Jenna said, closing her eyes to remember what Spyder showed her. "Every Tower had a sui'kun. At any one time, there are only seven sui'kun. One for each Tower. But if you and Tarrin don't count, won't that make nine?" she asked the Urzani.
"It won't matter," Spyder said dismissively.
"The power of magic may come from the Weave, but it's the Sorcerers that bring it out," Jenna said. "Every Sorcerer alive enriches the Weave, but every sui'kun that's alive restores a portion of the Weave to its original state. There are three of us-"
"Four. You forgot Jasana."
"You're right, four. That means that four-sevenths of the Weave's original power is back." Jenna's face screwed up a moment. "But if there are nine, won't that mess it up?"
"No," Spyder assured her. "Tarrin and myself may impact the Weave, but we are meant to exist outside the order of things. When the eighth and ninth and tenth are born, they will simply be linked with the aspects of magic we already represent. They will replace us."
"What will happen to us?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"We will simply no longer represent an aspect of magic," Spyder shrugged. "We won't lose our powers or be killed, if that's your worry. After what happened with the Breaking, the Elder Gods have decided to allow the Goddess to keep two or three sui'kun in reserve, to use a term, in case one of the others dies, or another such accident or dark plot occurs. If one of the other sui'kun were to die, their burden would fall upon us until a new sui'kun is born to take up the burden."
"Ten? Who is the tenth?"
"Jasana," Spyder replied. "You and her and I, we will represent the stability of the Weave. Our presence will ensure that another Breaking won't happen."
"Oh. I understand," Tarrin told her.
"Every sui'kun is linked to a major Conduit," Jenna explained to him. "Our being alive makes it appear, and it remains until we die. We're like the living extensions of the Goddess."
"In our own way, we are Avatars," Spyder told Tarrin, using a word he understood. "We are blessed by the Goddess and the other Elder Gods. When the power of magic was formed, the Elder Gods decreed that its power be limited in some manner, so it was decided that it would be tied to mortals. Sorcerers. Every Sorcerer alive makes magic- all magic-just a tiny bit stronger. But the realms of magical ability are restricted by us. When your daughter was born, Tarrin, it restored a portion of magical ability back to the world. Wizards regained the power to conjure Demons, though it took them a great deal of time to rediscover the spells for doing so. Priests regained the power to commune directly with their gods. Sorcerers and Druids gained no new powers, but the enrichment of the Weave strengthens our powers unilaterally. When the next sui'kun is born, Wizards and Priests will regain another realm of their lost powers, and Sorcerers and Druids will gain more power. And it will continue until there are once again seven. When that happens, all the old powers will be restored, and magic will return to its former power. At that stage, even the mundanes will have enough magical ability to cast minor Wizard cantrips without any deep study." She glanced about. "I think that is enough debate. I am here to teach you Sorcery, not teach you history. You can debate things on your own time."
"Yes!" Jenna said emphatically.
"Come," Spyder told them, motioning towards herself. "Sit. Sit and listen."
They obeyed her quickly, coming to sit before her. She sedately did the same, facing them with her stormy blue eyes and the deep mysteries contained within them. "You two, both of you, you are clumsy," she told them bluntly. "You are slow, ungainly, wasteful, and inefficient. The time it takes you to weave your spells is absolutely inexcusable," she said in a hard tone. "That is where we are going to begin. You will watch me, watch and feel and learn. By the end of this session, I expect both of you to be able to pull the flows from the strands as quickly as I can."
Jenna swallowed, but Tarrin, who wasn't as intimidated as his sister, fixed the Urzani with a disapproving look. "I didn't come up here for insults," he warned her.
"Until you impress me, it is all you will receive," she replied in a diffident tone. "You are both children. Until you show me that you deserve it, you will receive no respect from me." When Tarrin's eyes narrowed, the woman simply stared at him. "What I offer is not something you cannot live without," she warned in a dangerous tone. "Anger me, and you'll be receiving your lessons from Jenna."
That quelled any kind of objection he may have had. Despite her abrasive manner, he found he could endure it for the chance to learn from her.
"Very well. We begin," she announced.
Despite his annoyance, he was quickly caught up in the utterly fascinating realms of true Sorcery. Spyder demonstrated how she commanded the Weave, and both of them absorbed her every word intensely, watching her like hawks eyeing a mouse. She showed them how slow and clumsy they truly were, accessing her power with an ease that made them both look like Novices again. But as she demonstrated, she taught. She showed them how to get around the resistance the Weave offered to them, a newfound resistance that came with being a sui'kun . They both had learned Weavespinner ways on their own, and they both had discovered how inefficient their way really was as they watched a true master of the art perform. "You are not weaving spells. You are bringing the magic of the Weave to life. It is not a profession, or a skill, or a craft. It is an art, and you must feel that art in your soul. The more you feel it within you, the more responsive the magic becomes to you. When you and the Weave are one, it will respond to you as quickly as it does for me. Some of the resistance you encounter is because you don't put your soul into your spells. Sorcery is a thing of beauty, every spell a work of art. You must breathe life into your creations, and when you do, the magic will come to you as easily as it did once before."
"Why is it that the Weave resists us now, when it didn't before?" Jenna asked curiously after Spyder finished demonstrating a rather complicated weave that caused a swirling nexus of energy to appear over her head.
"Because of what you are," she replied immediately. "The immunity from the fire the power of the Weave can spawn also causes us to resist magic. Magic is like water, it will always follow the path of least resistance," she explained when she was confronted with two blank looks. "Before, you were downhill from the magic. Now, you are uphill. Magic is but a form of energy, as is heat, which is fire. Our resistance to the heat the Weave can generate in us also makes us resistant to the magic we try to draw in."
"I guess that makes sense," Tarrin said after a moment of mulling it over. "You said magic. You didn't just say Sorcery," he realized.
"Correct. Should some Wizard or Priest actually manage to blindside you with a spell, your body will actively resist its power. Depending on the power of the spell and the skill of the caster, it will either fizzle out, be cancelled, have its power reduced, or affect you as it would any other person. But that is a moot point, young one. No Wizard or Priest should ever be able to manage to finish a spell against you. If he does, it will be because you allow it."
"Nobody's ever taught me how to do that," he told her. "Block magic."
"Truly? Do they teach the new Sorcerers anything at all?" Spyder asked in exasperation.
"Actually, they do, but I was never really trained," he said contritely. "What I do, I kind of learned by myself."
"Ah. Then you truly are as sensitive to the Weave as I hoped," she said with a nod. "What you do comes to you through the Weave, as it whispers its secrets to you. Some are very sensitive to it, and can hear things that others can't. You seem to be one of those who are very sensitive, since the Weave whispers spells to you. That takes great sensitivity, for it's something that requires a great deal of information to come to you. As you know, the whispers of the Weave are very faint, very subtle, and often they aren't complete."
He knew that to be true. The sense of things he got from the Weave had been fragmented, jumbled, just bits and pieces here and there. A piece of a sentence, a short image that was often fuzzy or indistinct. What little of it he remembered, or knew to be coming from it. If the instructions of how to weave spells were coming to him from the echoes of memory within the Weave, then he must be able to hear much more than he first thought.
"It's also why you could hear me whispering from so far away," she smiled. "That first time. I didn't expect you to hear it from such a distance."
" That's how you do it!" he realized immediately, when she called it whispering. "You're speaking right into the Weave!"
"Is it so hard to understand?" she asked with a very disarming smile. "It's not even something that requires a spell. You can join with the Weave. If you can do that, then you can send words into it without actively joining with it."
"And since only sui'kun can sense the Weave like that, then we're the only ones who can hear it," Jenna concluded.
"Not precisely, child. Any who have crossed over can hear it. You forget that the vast majority of what you'd call Weavespinners are da'shar, the Enlightened. Any who can join with the Weave can hear a whisper. But just as there is more than one way to speak, there is more than one way to whisper. You can send your voice to a specific person, if you're familiar with them. Or a group, if you know each of them. But we digress. Back to your lessons!"
Tarrin felt a bit ecstatic that he managed to solve that nagging mystery more or less on his own, and that gave him a bit of added interest as the Urzani continued to show them how to go about drawing the magic out. He was still impressed and awed at the speed and skill with which she worked her magic. "Remember, young ones, it is not a spell. It is a work of art. You are not workers or magicians, you are artists. You must give of yourself when you form the weaves, you must be willing to put into the weave what the Goddess does on your behalf. When you can give of yourself, the Weave will respond. After all, no relationship can work if it only has one side. In order to take, you must give."
"That doesn't make sense," Jenna complained. "How can you give and take at the same time?"
"That is the dilemma," Spyder smiled. "It is nothing that I can easily answer. You remember what it was like the very first time you touched the Weave? How it seemed impossible, and yet there it was, responding to you?" They both nodded. "This is much the same. Any da'shar or sui'kun can weave spells by force, as you two do, but a true Weavespinner knows that the secret to gaining the power is to give back to the Goddess. What you give back is what you must learn. When you understand, it will come to you as easily as breathing."
Tarrin didn't find that to be a very straightforward answer. He looked at the ground and mulled it over. Give back. Give back what? He couldn't expend power into the Weave, since that's where he drew it in the first place. One couldn't give back more than what was taken; it was one of the fundamental rules of magic. But if he didn't give back energy or power, what did he have to surrender to the Goddess in order to secure the unmitigated cooperation of the Weave?
She called it an art. When artists made something-true artists, anyway, like how his father made bows and arrows-they poured themselves into their creation. The best of them could breathe that spark into them that made those items and objects truly remarkable. That breath, that spark, came from the artist, a piece of their inspiration and vision that was transferred into the object upon which they labored to transform into that special work. Maybe it was a piece of themselves, maybe it was the inspiration or the touch, but something definitely passed from the artist to the object of his creation during that process.
But Weaves weren't works of art. They were patterns of energy, arranged so that when they were released to interact with the physical world, their arrangement and cascading effect and counter-effect with the physical world and with one another produced a repeatable, consistent effect. Weaves couldn't be seen or sensed except by other Sorcerers, and when the spell was released, the weave literally destroyed itself. How could that be art? And how did giving something back raise simple weaving into art?
What to give back? What did he have? He had only himself. He had his strength, his motivation, his devotion, his sense of duty, his love for-
Love. That was what he had to give. The Weave was the Goddess, and the Goddess was the Weave. Working Sorcery was a demonstration of his connection to the Goddess, the granted ability with which he was blessed when he was born. Sorcerers were the priests of the Goddess, and she had once told him that they praised her with every spell they wove. When he was touching the Weave, he was touching the Goddess. When he was weaving spells, he was beseeching his Goddess to grant him her power. She had once told him that the love and devotion of a mortal made a god stronger, even the Elder Gods. Weavespinners had to be filled with power when they entered the Heart and looked into her eyes, and when that happened, the love the Sorcerer held for the Goddess was unbound, and bound him to her heart and soul.
Artists loved their work. Part of what they gave to their creations was that love of art, that love of creation, that spark that made the object truly remarkable. If he was to be an artist of the Weave, he had to give his love to the Weave every time he touched it.
He closed his eyes and aligned his mind to wrap it around that idea, and then he pushed his will against the Weave, with the intent to weave together a simple two-flow spell that would cause a small bluish light to appear before him. As he made his connection to the Weave, he brought his love for the Goddess into the forefront of his mind, and then he offered it to her in a silent surrendering to his deity, knowing he was leaving himself open to her utterly. What he got in response was an absolute torrent of power, pulling from the strands with such shocking speed that it startled him, and behind it he could feel the Goddess herself, her presence loving, almost whimsical, and he could almost hear her voice as she chided him. Long ago I told you that the relationship between us was give and take. Give me your love, and my power is yours to command, my sweet kitten. The sense of her, the closeness he felt to her was very nearly what he felt of her when he was in the Heart, and he had to remind himself to stop revelling in it and attend to the task at hand. He was so caught up in the sense of it that he forgot that the flows weren't going to actively weave themselves together by themselves. He took hold of the flows in a gentle touch, and then urged them into the proper weave-to force them or exert will against them seemed… churlish. He was taking hold of the power of the Goddess herself, and that required reverence and respect. Once it was in place, the weave released on its own, without any urging from him, and the blue ball of light appeared just in front of him and over his head.
"Was that so hard?" Spyder asked with that same disarming smile. "Did you see how he did that, Jenna?"
"I think so," she replied immediately.
"It was… beautiful," he said reverently. "I never understood before. Not like that." He wiped at a single tear forming in the corner of his eye, fully aware he had just experienced a religious revelation.
"Our Mistress is a gentle one, brother," Spyder told him with a nod. "All she asks of us is our love. Give her that, and what she returns to you is tenfold."
Tarrin watched as Jenna seemed to pick up the trick of it. He could sense her push her will against the strand, and then he felt her offer of herself the same way that Tarrin had done, giving her love to the Goddess, surrendering to her Mistress in an act of faith and supplication. Flows of Air, Water, and Divine power pulled from the strand, and then Jenna deftly wove them together and released it as an Illusion with only a sound component, that sound being a rolling crescendo of triumphantly blaring trumpets. Spyder actually laughed at Jenna's choice of weaves, a sound that Tarrin found to be very appealing. She seemed hard and aloof, but he was warming to the ancient Urzani woman. "You're right, Tarrin, it's like the Goddess is holding you when you-it's just wonderful!" she said, with a bright smile and arms hugging herself.
"Now, practice," she commanded. "It's much like learning to touch the Weave the first time. You can always do it again, but you need to get accustomed to it."
Until well past sunrise, the two of them practiced under Spyder's watchful eye. She critiqued them on their styles of handling flows, correcting little things that made them faster and more efficient. Tarrin especially had a bad habit of trying to draw out more power than he needed for his spells, and Spyder rode him hard over that the entire time he practiced. "You are not trying to break an eggshell with a hammer!" she reprimanded sharply after the fifth time he overdrew, despite her warning him about what he was doing. "Pull only what you need, no more, no less! Drawing more than is needful will tire you prematurely!"
"I'm trying," he said with a fret. "I'm not used to delicacy in spells."
"Then you must retrain yourself," she said sharply. "Sorcery is an art, not a display of naked force! Painters do not ram their brushes through the canvas!"
Tarrin's good feelings about her began to evaporate as she harangued him several more times, as he drew out the flows again and again and again. He became so annoyed with her that he lost track of what he was doing, until she suddenly pulled back from him and smiled warmly. "There, see?" she asked. "I knew that if I gave you something else to worry about, you'd stop concentrating so much on what I wanted you to learn."
"What?" he asked in confusion.
"Weave this spell," she said, and he felt her draw out flows of all six Spheres, then tie them in an intricate knot as she pulled an ordinary pebble from the black depths of her cloak, barely larger than a pearl. When she released the spell, it caused the stone to shimmer suddenly, then flare with a bright light. When the light faded, the small stone was gone, in its place was a sapphire the same size and shape as the pebble. She had Transmuted the stone, one of the most intricate and demanding tricks of Sorcery that could be performed.
He found that his memory of the weave was still fresh in his mind, so he sent his will out and had it touch the Weave, and felt it respond to him when he gave his love back to it. Almost as easily as she did, Tarrin wove the exact same spell together. Spyder reached within her cloak and withdrew another small pebble, and he released the spell into that stone in her hand. It too shimmered, then flared into light, and the light faded to reveal another sapphire.
"I did it," he mused, looking at the sapphire in her slender, four-fingered hand.
"It is an easy spell, but you did it quickly," she told him with a smile. "You do learn fast, Tarrin Kael. You wove the spell quickly, neatly, efficiently, and effectively. I am most pleased with your performance."
Tarrin beamed at the compliment as she pulled out yet another stone and looked at Jenna. "Your turn, child. Show me how well you can mimic spells you see."
Tarrin watched Jenna take the test. Her ability to touch the Weave and draw the flows out easily was apparent, but her weaving together of the flows took a considerable amount of time. She didn't have Tarrin's natural affinity for it, so she wove the spell carefully, then doublechecked her work before releasing it into the stone. Her caution turned out to be unnecessary, for the third small stone too shimmered and flashed, and left behind a sapphire.
"Very good," Spyder nodded. "You learn very fast, child, and have a good memory. Few could repeat a spell of that complexity after only seeing it done twice."
"You said it was easy," Jenna said self-effacingly.
"It's easy for me," the Urzani told her pointedly. "Since Tarrin is so sensitive to the Weave, he can feel much more than he can see, and that allows him to follow complicated weaves more easily than most. Given your young age and your lack of experience, I am pleasantly surprised at how quickly you picked it up. I'm very pleased at your progress, child."
Jenna blushed under the compliment, and the Urzani got back to her feet. "The lesson is over. Since you have figured out how to whisper, I'll leave it to you to figure out for yourself," she told them with a smile. "Consider it a test. When next I call you, I expect you to have the process mastered."
"We will," Jenna told her immediately. "When do you want me to start writing?"
"Whenever you feel ready," she shrugged. "I know you may want to consider what I gave to you, and I'm sure that Tarrin will want to hear some of it. There is no timetable, child. It is when you feel it is right to do it."
"Alright," Jenna told her obediently. "When can we see you again?"
"When I call you, you will know," she said with a mysterious smile, reaching behind her and pulling the cowl of her black-black cloak over her head. "Remember to practice. You can never practice enough."
"We will," Tarrin promised.
Spyder nodded, and then the inky blackness of her cloak seemed to flow over her face, and then she was simply gone.
How did she do that? There was no sense of magic about it, no weaving, no shifting of the Weave. It was like she was doing it without magic… but such a thing absolutely had to be magic. How could she enact a magic he couldn't see or feel or sense?
"I don't think I'll ever get used to that," Jenna laughed. "Well, brother, we've been summarily dismissed. Should we go to breakfast now?"
"They're all probably waiting for us," he replied. "Jenna, when she taught you Sha'Kar, did she teach you the written form of the language?"
Jenna seemed to look inward for a moment. "No," she replied. "Why do you ask?"
"I was hoping that we could cheat a bit, but it looks like the Goddess isn't going to let me do it this time," he grunted.
"We still love her, though," Jenna said seriously.
"Oh, yes, sister. I do love her."
"What will we tell the others if they ask where we've been?"
"The truth. That we were in a training session, and we won't give any kind of specifics. They'll all just assume that I was training you. They know I've been meaning to do it."
"True enough."
"Well, sis, let's get off the roof and get moving, before mother comes looking for us." Tarrin chuckled. "She probably had a fit when she realized you weren't in your room."
"I'm in for a tongue-lashing, that's for sure," Jenna sighed as she returned to her feet.
"Not really. When mother hears that you were with me, I'm the one that's going to get chewed out," he told her.
Jenna looked at him as he stood up, then she laughed. "I knew there was a good reason you were older than me," she teased as she took his paw, and then led him towards the nearest stairwell.
The impending lecture never materialized, for his parents were too busy when they finally caught up to them. They were in one of the private dining rooms off the kitchen, and the entirety of their group was present. Tarrin ignored everyone else and went straight to Dolanna, taking her hands gently in his paws, then abandoning decorum and picking her up, twirling in circles as he hugged the diminutive, dark-haired Sorceress. Tarrin's love and respect for Dolanna went deep, and her mild ways and gentle wisdom had had a profound impact on his life. If not for her, he would be dead, and he never allowed himself to forget that fact. After greeting his mentor, he took Dar's hand and realized that the young Arkisian was getting tall. Dar was sixteen now, and he seemed to be shooting up like a weed, his growth coming much later than for most boys. He was even starting to grow a thin moustache and beard. He greeted Camara Tal and Phandebrass in turn, not quite as fondly as he did Dolanna and Dar, but they seemed to understand that. They were friends to him, but lacked the connection he had with the others. At least they respected the differences. There were three other faces in that dining hall, two of which robbed just a little of the happy mood. The Keeper was there with Ahiriya, but the Lord General of the Knights, Darvon, was also in attendance.
Tarrin looked around and saw everyone save Sarraya, Binter, and Sisska. Jesmind and Triana were talking, with his daughter in Triana's lap. Eron and Elke Kael were talking with Thean, and Kimmie was hanging on every word from the mouth of Phandebrass, still wearing that patched robe and still had that slightly absent quality about him, whose two drakes were sitting on the table in front of him. Camara Tal, who had traded in her haltar and tripa for a rather plain gray waistcoat over a linen shirt and black trousers-probably at the behest of the scandalized Sulasian ladies in the Tower-was saying something archly to Azakar, resplendent in his armor, who stared down at her with a scowl. Keritanima and Allia were just seating themselves, Keritanima wearing a rather elegant if plain cream-colored dress that complemented the color of her fur, and Allia wearing a white linen shirt and leather breeches. Szath, that monstrous Vendari bodyguard, wearing the common bandolier and kilt but carrying an axe that would stand taller than Dolanna if stood up on the floor, took up a place behind the queen's chair, hovering over her. Miranda was making absent gestures in front of Jula, the mink Wikuni advertising her wares in a soft green brocade dress with sleeves gored with blue silk that left a great deal of white fur-clad cleavage bare, as she spoke to the Were-cat. But his bond-daughter's attention was focused on her hand rather than her words, the tip of her tail twitching in a manner that told him that Jula's instinct to pounce was being teased by that waving hand. It was nearly everyone he called family or friend, and he took a moment to bask in the sense of being with them once again before they all sat down and got to the business of eating, attended by a small army of wild-eyed Novices and servants.
But he knew that the intimate mood of the breakfast wouldn't last long. Not with the Keeper and Ahiriya present. And he was proved right when the plates were pushed away. "It's been quite a while since you were last here, Tarrin," the Keeper told him calmly. "I'm sure you'll understand when I say I have a great many questions to ask you. The first of which being, did you get what you were after?"
"I have it," he replied stonily. Tarrin's dislike for the Keeper was still strong; he would never be able to forgive her or the Council for what they did to him, no matter how necessary it was or how much he preferred how things turned out.
"Thank the Goddess," the Keeper sighed. "Maybe there's some hope for us yet."
"I would like to see it," Ahiriya said with blatant longing in her voice. "If only to hold it in my hands and know I have touched it."
"I didn't bring it for you," he said dangerously. "I brought that book back here because that was what had to be done. But I'll be damned if I let any of you so much as look at it. Not after what you did to me."
"Don't take that tone with me, boy," Ahiriya said in a flinty tone.
"I say, we didn't come here to brawl like common thugs," Phandebrass said calmly. "I think we can all conclude here and now, we can, that what Tarrin has is Tarrin's own, and none of us have any rights to it. After all, we didn't risk our necks for it."
"Speak for yourself," Camara Tal snorted. "I'd say that most of us risked alot more than our necks."
"Well, yes, true, but seriously, my dear, if we start splitting hairs, we'll all end up bald."
Camara Tal gave him a startled look, then actually laughed.
"Well, Tarrin, if our Lorefinders can't look at it, how are we going to use it to help you?" the Keeper asked calmly.
"I already have someone to do that for me," he said, looking in Keritanima's direction. "All the Tower has to do is stay out of our hair until we have what we need. Then we'll send this invading army packing and get back to business."
"Now see here-" Ahiriya flared, but the Keeper raised a hand before her.
"Let's not argue about it, Ahiriya," the Keeper said. "He acts on the will of the Goddess. I'm not going against her. We give him whatever he needs, and we don't argue. After all, we want him to succeed, don't we? If that means we leave him alone and give him whatever he asks for, then so be it." She looked around the table. "The Tower has been, fractured, of late. The business with Amelyn-" she choked on that name audibly-"has made us forget that we are united in a common interest. Since the Goddess supports Tarrin, that means the Tower will as well. However we can."
"That is a healthy attitude, Keeper," Dolanna said mildly.
"It's not what I want," the Keeper admitted with a frown. "But we need Tarrin. Too much depends on what he's doing. So I'll do whatever it takes to help him."
Tarrin stared at the Keeper for a very long moment. He didn't trust her, not one bit, but he had to admit that he did not mind hearing her say that. Having to fight tooth and claw with the Tower was one of the reasons he was so reluctant to come back, that and the memories and who was still here. If the Keeper was going to cooperate and stay out of his way, it was going to make things much easier. Then again, he wasn't quite sure how cooperative they were going to be when they found out that he had no intention of returning to the Tower with the Firestaff. He was almost positive that they thought he'd bring it back here… after all, where else was he going to go with it? There were few places that would be safe for him and for it after he got his paws on it. The entire world was going to stop in its tracks and come after him, and he knew it. Where better than Suld, where a massive army already stood and the katzh-dashi were at their most powerful, more than enough deterrence to fight off challengers?
They'd be in for one nasty shock, that was for certain.
"I'll take you at your word, because I know you don't have the nerve to lie to me, Keeper," Tarrin told her flatly, and that made her reflexively reach up and put a hand over her chest, where he had branded her. "Right now, just stay out of our way. Let us do what we need to do. After all, you have enough to keep your mind occupied as it is, with the army coming down our throats."
The Keeper looked at him, but said nothing.
"I'm a little annoyed with you, Tarrin," Camara Tal told him caustically. "They said you got here last night. Why didn't you come find me!"
"I figured you'd find me," he shrugged. "I'm sure they announced me being here all over the Tower, Camara."
"I was busy," she said sharply.
"Then that's your fault, my dear," Phandebrass said with a teasing smile.
"Watch it, before I give you reason to research a spell to regrow teeth, you old fool," she snapped at him waspishly.
"Unfortunately, business kept me from greeting you properly, dear one," Dolanna apologized. "By the time the message reached me, it was very late. I decided it would be best to wait until the morning. I did not want to disturb you."
"You never disturb me, Dolanna," he assured her with a gentle smile.
"And you have brought your daughter," she added, looking at the very shy-seeming Jasana, who was sitting on Jesmind's lap.
"How did you know about her?" he asked in surprise.
"I tell Dolanna things I won't tell the others, cub, given her relationship to you," Triana told him bluntly. "She deserves to know, and she knows how to keep her mouth shut."
"Oh," Tarrin said mildly. Triana sounded a bit short-tempered this morning, and he knew better than to pick a fight with her. Anyone but her.
"What bee stung your tail this morning, mother?" Jesmind asked brashly. She had more guts than him.
"It's nothing that concerns you, cub," Triana replied immediately.
"Regardless, Tarrin, you must be very proud of your daughter. From the feel of her, she is as strong as you are."
Both the Keeper and Ahiriya nodded at Dolanna's statement, but Jesmind put her arms around her daughter defensively. "You'll get to know her, Dolanna, but you'd better tell the rest to keep clear of her. Jesmind doesn't like Sorcerers, and she's likely to get nasty with anyone who overly annoys her."
"Damn right," Jesmind said in a dangerous tone.
Dolanna looked at Jesmind for a moment, then she smiled slightly. "You came to me seeking my trust once, Jesmind. I hope you can find it in yourself to afford me that trust now."
"You I don't mind, Dolanna," Jesmind said dismissively. "It's the rest of these carrion-eaters I can't stand."
Tarrin could sense that things were about to enter realms about which he didn't want to talk, so he decided to cut things short. That, or Jesmind was going to say something that would completely alienate the Keeper and Ahiriya. Either way, it was something he was pretty sure he didn't want to happen. He pushed away from the table and stood up, looking down at them all with steady eyes. When his eyes passed over Keritanima and Miranda, the pair of them nodded imperceptibly to him, and then Keritanima elbowed Allia lightly in the ribs and passed her a few words in the hand-code language of the Selani, what they used to communicate silently. "I have alot to do, and I don't have much time. I'm sorry to cut this short, but I have to get moving. Camara, Phandebrass, Dolanna, Dar, we'll have a chance to talk and catch up later, alright?"
"Be sure of that," Camara Tal told him. "I guess I'll go track down that no-good husband of mine and see if I can't beat some sense into him."
"And who was it that limped away with a black eye and a broken wrist the last time you two had one of those little discussions?" Keritanima asked with a wicked little smile.
"This time I won't make the mistake of looking into his eyes," the Amazon shrugged, standing up.
"Jesmind, I'll be back later, alright?" Tarrin told his mate.
"It's not alright, but I don't have much to say about it," she said in a dangerous tone.
"You're right, you don't," he agreed evenly.
"Don't you dare leave without saying goodbye to your mother," Elke Kael flared, standing up.
Tarrin attended to that, hugging his mother and father, then scruffing Jenna's hair affectionately, and then he left them all before it turned into a protracted series of farewells. He was sure that that was going to rub on a few people, but he didn't want to get hung up with them right now. He started down the hallway, knowing that those who were going to help him would excuse themselves and join him in the courtyard.
Despite it had been so long, he found it to be almost automatic when he entered the hedge maze. Just like when he brought Jenna there the day before, the way seemed to open itself to him. He walked through those plant-bound passages resolutely, knowing that what was facing him was going to be long and not entirely pleasant. Reading books and doing scholar things didn't suit him. He was intelligent and quick, but he knew that he simply didn't have the patience to sit in a chair and read book after book after book. It would irritate him, and that would make him even more impatient, and that would create an endless cycle that would probably drive him away from the books in a bad temper. But what they were doing was important, so he had to endure the discomfort.
Slipping through the choked entrance, he found himself standing in the courtyard, and despite only having been there last night, he took a moment to marvel in this magical place, and the sense of peace that it never failed to incite within him. With its perfectly grown grass-never long, though never cut-and the elegant rose bushes that grew at either side of the single bench that rested before the fountain. It held at its pinnacle the statue of the nude woman that was so marvelously detailed that it looked alive. It was alive, of course, though very few people knew that. It was the center of the area of peace, the heart of the courtyard, the point to which all attention was drawn whenever anyone entered the place. He remembered the very first time he had come there, when he and Dar had been out exploring the gardens, at how mystified he'd been by this place. He even remembered his and Dar's argument over the statue. Dar, who was raised in a place where men and women bathed together, had been embarassed by the statue's incredibly detailed appearance. Tarrin remembered, with a bit of a guilty blush, that he had fondled the statue in the most intimate manner to assuade Dar's discomfort. But at that time he didn't understand, and he was sure that the Goddess wasn't too offended. At least he hoped not.
The statue was in a different pose now. For the longest time, it had been in a feminine stance, one leg bent before the other atop a small elevation in the base upon which it stood and one hip high, arms outstretched as if to welcome those who found the secret place into the courtyard. The set and pose of the statue hadn't changed, but now the arms were held out wide, as if to demonstrate something to those who gazed upon it, and the gentle expression that had been there before was replaced by a slightly sober look that belonged on the face of a schoolteacher, though it did not in any way detract from the beauty of that face. The hair had moved as well, he noticed.
Tarrin stepped closer, looking at the statue. "Mother," he nodded. "I didn't know you could move."
"Of course I can move, my kitten," the statue replied in a very audible voice, literally coming to life before him. The stone hair moved just like normal hair as she moved from that pose, elegantly sliding down to seat herself upon her base, feet dangling into the water. Her movements were fluid, like any living thing, and the stone that made up her being behaved like flesh or hair. He realized fleetingly that it was the first time he had ever heard that voice outside of himself, or outside of the Heart. "Icons aren't just pieces of stone. I could have my icon walk around the Tower, if I really wanted it."
"Does the Keeper know about you?"
"Yes and no. They know my icon is within the grounds of one of the Towers, but they don't know which one. Keritanima told them that they're here to destroy my icon, but the Keeper secretly doesn't believe that I'm here. She thinks that the tower in Sharadar is where my icon is, and even if my icon were here, she believes that I'd simply remove my icon to the tower in Sharadar if it were truly being threatened. But she doesn't understand that because of the forces at work you can't see or comprehend, I can't do that. Not right now. My restricting myself to this Tower is part of the agreement I had to make to be able to grant you the aid that I've granted you. To restrict myself in all ways as Val is restricted, so that I can grant you the same aid he grants his own children." She held out a hand to him, and he wasted no time stepping up onto the lip and wading across the fountain. He reached her and took her hands in his paws, feeling the stone, but sensing the incredible magical power that rested just beneath that mortal shell. He looked down into stone eyes, but he could see those same eyes that looked upon him when he was within the Heart, could feel that same sense of her presence that never failed to evoke powerful feelings of love and security in him, love and devotion to this ethereal being who so totally owned him. "I feel your love, my sweet one," she smiled up at him; despite being on the raised base, he was so tall that even that wasn't enough to put her eyes above his. "It has become so strong now, almost like a bonfire."
He couldn't really say anything to that, just looking into her eyes. "I hope I've done what you wanted me to do, Mother," he said with uncertainty. "I've tried."
"Oh, Tarrin!" she laughed. "You have no idea how proud I am of you."
That made him absolutely explode with relief and pride, knowing that one such as her was proud of him. He felt blessed, truly blessed. "Well, I know I can be a pain," he said self-effacingly.
"It's part of what makes you strong, my child," she said gently.
"What's going to happen after we find out where the Firestaff is, Mother?" he asked.
"You'll find out when you get there, kitten," she replied with a gentle smile. "For now, know that you're on the right track."
He nodded, then blew out his breath. "I'm not looking forward to this. Spending days learning Sha'Kar and then poring over endless books doesn't sit well with me."
"Well, I have a secret for you," she said with a little smile. "You're not doing it."
"Why not? Isn't that what I was supposed to do?"
"No, kitten. You had to recover the book. The task of unlocking its secrets belongs to someone else. You'll be here, and you'll help, but the main burden of that responsibility isn't yours."
"Kerri."
"It's not much of a stretch, is it?" the statue smiled. "This is just the kind of thing Keritanima is suited to do."
"I know. We make a good team."
"She'll have plenty of help, of course," the statue smiled. "But one of Keritanima's strengths is her ability to organize many and set them onto a single goal."
"She is a Queen."
"Yes, she is."
Tarrin remembered something. "You did that to her, didn't you?" he asked insightfully. "I once scoffed that she wouldn't be queen, but you told me to wait and see. You had a hand in that, didn't you?"
"I told you after that that her being queen was more important than her being with you, remember, kitten?" she told him. "Of course I did that to her. It pained me, because I don't like seeing my children suffer, but sometimes the suffering makes you stronger. Just as it pained me when I told the Keeper to send Jesmind after you. I knew what was coming, and I hated it. But sometimes we don't have choices. Not even the gods." He bowed his head, and she reached up and put a stone hand under his chin, lifting it so he would look into her eyes. "But you forgive me, don't you, my kitten?"
"I understand why you did it, Mother," he sighed. "I understand it now. I didn't at first, but I do now."
"I want to hear you say it, Tarrin. Do you forgive me?"
"Of course I forgive you," he told her emphatically. "You're my Goddess. I know you love me. You wouldn't do anything like that to me unless you really had no other choice."
He could palpably sense the surge of power that flowed into that statue, flowed through it. She had once told him, long ago, that even Elder gods gained power from the worship of mortals, though Elder gods didn't depend on the worship of mortals for their existence the way the Younger gods did.
"If you can forgive me, then you must forgive the Keeper," she told him gently. "She was acting on my orders. The Council was only doing my bidding. It's wrong for you to blame them for things they had no choice but to do."
"My reasons for not forgiving them go beyond just what they did, Mother," he growled.
"No, kitten," she told him gently. "Everything they did was because of what I told them. You must find it in your heart to forgive them. They have suffered just as you have."
He squirmed a bit under that gaze. To forgive his Goddess was one thing, but to forgive the Keeper and the Council went against his instincts. "I'll, I'll think about it," he hedged.
"For now, that's enough," she smiled. "The others are in the maze," she announced, looking over his shoulder. "It's time for me to go back to being a decoration, kitten. The others may understand what I am, but I think they'll be too overwhelmed to do what they need to do if they see my icon moving. Dar especially may have a problem with it," she said with a slightly mishievious smile.
Tarrin blushed furiously. "I really hope that didn't offend you," he said immediately. "You weren't, uh, you weren't really here when I did that, were you?"
"I'm always here, kitten," she grinned. "But I'm even harder to embarass than you are, so be assured that I didn't take offense. I knew that you didn't know what I was at the time. You were pawing a statue, after all." She stood up, still keeping hold of his paws. "Actually, it impressed me. I needed a champion with courage and strength, but I also needed one that was willing to go beyond the bounds of normal thinking. What you did proved to me that you had both of those qualities."
He still felt mortified, not willing to look her in the eye. That made the statue laugh, that same cascade of silvery bells. "Dar's problem with it is because he had something of a crush on me, kitten," she confided to him. "He was absolutely struck by the appearance of my icon. But he's gotten over it. A certain mid-grade Initiate has caught his fancy now," she said with a wink.
"I hope it's Tiella. She has a crush on him."
"Of course it is," the statue affirmed. "I've been urging them to notice each other for a while now. Tiella was very receptive to it, but Dar was a bit harder to reach. He still fears that his parents are going to show up with a pre-arranged bride for him," she chuckled.
"Why?" he asked curiously.
"Why not?" she asked winsomely. "I may be a god, but first and foremost, I'm a woman, my kitten. Women like to see their children find good husbands and wives. Dar and Tiella will be very happy together. They are a match. When I see that two of my children will be a match, I bring them together. Their happiness is my happiness."
"That, and their children will also be Sorcerers," he realized.
"That may be true, but I gain much more from the happiness of my children than by the children they bear." She looked over his head. "Allia ever was swift," she chuckled. "It's time for me to return, kitten."
"Alright. It was good to actually talk to you, Mother. I mean face to face."
"There is a peculiar form of satsifaction in it, isn't there?" she agreed with a curious expression. "We'll have to talk again like this soon."
He let go of her hands, and she returned to her place on the base, spread her arms out, and resumed the sober expression. And then she moved no more.
Tarrin sighed, looking up into the stone face of his Goddess, and then turned and waded back out of the fountain. It was always good to talk to her, even if it wasn't important. Especially if it wasn't important. It only showed him that she did really love him, if she was willing to give him her time for no real reason other than to talk to him. He stepped out of the fountain and sat down on the lip, looking over to the crystalline dome that covered the tent they'd erected. Inside that tent, somewhere, were the answers they were looking for. All they had to do was find it.
The dome. Of course.
"Uh, Mother," he called.
"I've already taken care of it, kitten," the statue replied audibly. "Just press your paws against it, and you'll be pulled inside. Oh, and don't worry about running out of time. I've taken care of that too."
"What do you mean?" he asked, turning to look at the statue.
You'll see, came the impish mental response, though the statue's expression did get a bit whimsical before resetting into its deceptive mask.
That piqued his curiosity, and little could motivate him more than that. He was just as curious as the cat he resembled. He padded over to the crystalline dome, and then fearlessly put his paws against it, just as he heard rustling in the hedges that told him that the others were entering the courtyard. The crystal seemed to be warm to the touch, and then he felt it part, give way for him, even as he felt it suddenly pull at him like hands grabbing his paws and dragging him inside. The pull was gentle, but it was absolutely irresistable, and he found himself being dragged through the crystal wall of the dome before he realized what was going on. He stumbled a bit on the other side, blinking, and then turned and looked back out. It was a perfect image through the crystal, just as it was a perfect view from the other side. He turned and looked at the tent, then stepped through the flap, ducking down to do so, and stepping inside.
It had been over a year, nearly two, since last he set foot in there, but absolutely nothing had changed. The table was still in the middle of the rather large tent, and against the wall of the tent were chests, four of them, all of them holding books and scrolls and individual sheets of parchment that they had plundered from the forgotten chamber in the Cathedral of Karas. Throw pillows surrounded the table and three chairs, extra seats for visitors. A glass Keritanima had brought in still sat on the table, and he realized that there was no dust on it. No dust anywhere.
That was when he noticed the silence. The absolute, utter, impenetrable silence. The only sound there was was the sound he was making. The sound of him moving, breathing, the beating of his heart. That was it. Someone had been rustling the hedges before he entered the dome, but that sound wasn't there. He went back outside the tent and looked to see who it was, but there was no one out there. He looked to the choked opening, and realized that there was someone there. The furry hand of Keritanima was visible coming through the hedge wall, but he could only see her arm, and it wasn't moving. What was she waiting on? He stood there and waited, and waited, and waited some more, but Keritanima's arm did not move. Not even a finger.
Now he was a little concerned. Keritanima had been stock-still for a good long moment. Something had to be wrong. He put his hands against the crystal of the dome, and again he felt it suddenly pull at him. He was pulled through it quickly, and as soon as he pulled free of it, he heard the rustling of the hedge, the sound of a gust of wind, and Keritanima crashed through the hedge, laughing as she looked back behind her.
Tarrin was startled. Did the dome stop time? He quickly pulled back until his back touched the dome, and he felt it drag him back through. As soon as he was completely clear of it, Keritanima suddenly froze in place, as if she too was a statue.
It did stop time! That was what the Goddess meant when she told him that they didn't have to worry about running out of time!
Not stop, just slow down a great deal, the voice of the Goddess touched him, obviously entertained by his little experiment. For every hour that passes within the dome, a minute passes outside. My father owed me a favor, so he set it up for me.
The father of the Goddess. Shellar, the god of time. Of course. Keritanima's arm didn't seem to be moving because of the distance that separated them. Had he been closer, he would have seen her hand move ever-so-slightly in the moment he waited. He pushed back through the dome, back to the outside, and Keritanima suddenly started moving again.
"-wait for that," she was saying as Allia came through the hedge behind her.
"I do not see why not. They should be more direct about it. You do not coddle the enemy," Allia retorted.
"That Demoness said she could pull the information from Amelyn's mind that we can't force out of her, but it would take time." That explained why he hadn't seen Shiika yet. "Oh, Tarrin, I didn't see you," she smiled. "Are you ready? We have alot to do, and we don't have much time."
"Actually, we have alot more time than we thought," he chuckled. "Mother's been busy."
"What are you talking about?" Keritanima asked as Miranda and Szath came through the hedge. Dar was just behind him, and Dolanna was just behind Dar. Dolanna hadn't been part of the original plan, but Tarrin couldn't argue about the value of bringing her in.
"Dolanna. Good to see you," he greeted her.
"So this is where you and the others went to go hide," Dolanna said, looking around the courtyard. "It's very peaceful here, is it not?" She looked at the statue, and then her face paled visibly. "Tarrin, my dear one, is that what I think it is?" she asked in a hushed voice.
"Yes, Dolanna, it is," he said, motioning at the statue.
" That is her icon?" Keritanima asked in surprise. "I thought it would be something else, something hidden or grand or mysterious. Not a garden decoration!"
"Where better to hide something than in plain sight, Kerri?" Tarrin asked. "At least in a sense, anyway. I think the Goddess prevents anyone from finding the courtyard that she doesn't want to find it."
"Yes, she must. I have looked down upon the gardens from the bridges, and I never saw a courtyard within the maze," Dolanna agreed. "The Goddess must hide this place from everyone, even her own children."
"We figured that out a while ago, Dolanna," Keritanima said patiently. "When none of the spies tailing me could penetrate the maze. We realized that magic of some sort hid the courtyard." She looked to Tarrin. "Alright, we need to get started. I can't wait to get my hands on that book!"
"Before we do that, let me explain something," he warned, and then he told them about the unusual properties of the dome, and the slowed time that existed inside it. "Just put your hands on it, and it'll pull you through," he explained to them. "When we're inside, we'll be in that slower time. That'll give us the time we need to find what we're looking for, without feeling too harried."
"That is a most curious effect," Dolanna said. "I do hope I can study it from the inside. A weave that could alter time could be indescribably useful."
"If anyone can figure it out, we can, Dolanna," Keritanima said confidently. "Let's get cracking."
And they did. They entered the dome one by one, and Tarrin found it amusing that though they were moving quickly to pass through on the outside, it was moments before they managed to pass through to those on the inside. Tarrin had been first, and while he was waiting for them, he thought to Conjure more chairs for them. That had been his first big shock. Druidic magic wouldn't work within the area of altered time. A little experimentation showed him that Sorcery as well would not work within the altered time. That had surprised him, but in a way, it made sense. Magic was a function of time that existed in nature. It couldn't function within an area of altered time, because the magic was still bound by the laws of natural time. Of course, there were no strands passing through the altered area, so he wasn't sure if that was an absolute. If a strand was within the area, it too may be altered, allowing it to be used to draw magic for Sorcery. But that would be something for another time.
For now, they had alot of work to do. And thanks to the Goddess, now they had some time to do it.
To: Title EoF