But it merely righted its head and gave him an evil grin. "Ye be good, Were-cat, good indeed," it complemented. "Jegojah's head would have bounced on the floor if Jegojah were human." Much to his dismay, Tarrin realized that its helmet wasn't even bent.
Tarrin couldn't hurt it with his staff. It was somehow invulnerable to it. But why did the Goddess tell him to bring it?
Because it was the only weapon he had, and though it couldn't hurt it, it was still useful. And though it couldn't be hurt by his staff, his claws had quite visibly damaged it. Just like the Wraith, Tarrin could injure this opponent if he attacked it with his natural weaponry. Attacking it one magical creature to another.
He had to get that sword away from it. He understood that clearly. If he didn't, it would chop him into fishbait. It moved in quickly to re-engage, and Tarrin worked feverishly against the sword, keeping it away from him at all costs, fighting from a purely defensive posture. Blood began slicking the floor from the wound in his side, and his foot slipped in it just enough to make the undead creature charge in for the attack. But Tarrin simply let the foot slip out all the way, sinking underneath the blow meant to take off his head, and then he used a Selani form to rise up with his free paw leading, a deceptively slow move that carried tremendous power in it. It hit the creature in the breastplate, and Tarrin's momentum carried it into the air, then sent it flying backwards. It landed on its back a few spans away, and Tarrin capitalized on that by vaulting into the air after it, the butt of his staff leading as he tried to impale its face on the end of his weapon.
But it wasn't there anymore. Tarrin heard it behind him as he landed, so he rolled forward and came up facing it. Its breastplate was caved in at the abdomen from the force of Tarrin's blow. It pointed its sword at him, and before Tarrin even knew what was going on, he was on his back, pain blasting along his chest and arms. He could feel the shirt against his chest burn from the impact with whatever magic the creature had thrown at him. The smell of ozone was strong in the air, and the passage echoed loudly with a thunderclap. Magic! The Goddess warned him that it was a powerful creature, and it was only logical that that meant that it also had some magical capability. It was on him instantly, and the only thing that saved him from having his head split in half was a raised foot. He caught its wrist on the pad of his foot, bending his back impossibly tight and bracing his body with his arms as his leg absorbed the force of the attack, stopping the edge of the blade mere fingers away from Tarrin's forehead. Tarrin's leg was much stonger that its arm, and his body uncoiled like a spring, hurling the creature away from him as his leg and body pushed against it. But it didn't fall down, and Tarrin's backwards roll didn't get him far enough away. He ducked under another blow meant to chop his head in half, but he didn't get down far enough.
Tarrin screamed in pain as his right ear fell to the floor beside him, and that pain triggered the Cat in a way that he could not suppress. The animal in him took over, and his eyes blazed from within with a greenish aura that consumed them. Jegojah actually backed up as Tarrin exploded from his crouch and threw his staff aside, assaulting the undead creature with a blind, mindless fury that took the creature by surprise. He was quickly bleeding from several shallow cuts and slashes in his arms and upper body, but he completely ignored the pain as the Cat in him sought nothing less than ripping off the creature's head. The creature contained Tarrin's mindless fury, understanding that he had lost control, and it made him pay for it every time Tarrin's claws sought out its face by cutting another bleeding line in his hide. Grabbing the edge of the creature's shield, Tarrin ripped it off of its arm, but it cost him a deep stab to his left shoulder in reply. And just as the pain had triggered his loss of control, that deep injury, to the bone, somehow shocked him back into rational thought. He grabbed the sword with his other paw, ignoring the blade's edges digging into his fingers, then pulled it out of his shoulder, then twisted it to the side. He spun away from that motion and planted his clawed paw right in the creature's face as it tried to recover its position, staggering it back and giving Tarrin a chance to see what he had done to it while he was in his rage.
At least he had given back as good as he got. The creature had several very deep rends in its armor from his claws, and its face bore no less than four quartets of deep slashes that dug into the bone. And now that it didn't have a shield, Tarrin felt that it evened things a bit. His left arm was still movable, but it caused a shockwave of pain in him every time his shoulder shifted. His head was pounding, and he could feel blood pour into his ear canal like water, dulling his hearing on the right side.
It cackled again, giving him what Tarrin felt was a leery grin. "Oh, clever, clever Were-cat," it rasped. "Ye be better than Jegojah expected. Professional trained, ye be, by a master who knows his fighting."
"Let's get on with it," Tarrin snarled.
The creature moved as if to advance, but then it called out a single unintelligible word, then slammed its booted foot into the floor. It created a seismic shockwave that sizzled up the hallway like a tidal wave, and when it hit Tarrin, it picked him up and hurled him twenty spans down the passage. His back slammed into the ornate gates to the inner chamber, and the shockwave drove them open and spilled him onto the floor beyond.
Dazed, Tarrin lay on the floor, knowing that the creature was coming but unable to figure out how to make his body move. Each bootstep seemed to be an eternity apart, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. His eyes came into focus just in time to see it swinging its sword in a broad overhanded chop, meaning to put him down for good. He managed to find out how to move his arms, and a blast of pain heralded his success as his paws arced up and over his body, then slapped together on either side of the broadsword's blade. The blade cut into the pads on his palms, but the pressure he exerted on the sides halted its forward motion just above his chest. Shock registered on the undead creature's face as Tarrin's foot smashed into its knee, buckling it and making the creature roll to the side as its supporting leg crumpled under its weight. Tarrin pushed the sword along with it as he rolled in the other direction, coming to his feet as the creature also regained its footing. Its left leg was bent at an unnatural angle at the knee, but it didn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort.
With a grim look on its face, the thing advanced and engaged, but it limped on its damaged leg. That gave Tarrin an advantage, and the Were-cat suddenly became like smoke, always just within the reach of the creature's sword, but never quite where the sword was trying to go. Tarrin evaded and dodged the still-fast sword, moving like a reed in the wind, folding and slipping around the blade as it sought his blood. He was trying to work the creature into a position where he could give it a finishing blow, but the cagey undead creature seemed to sense each of his attempts to work it into a bad position. They traded futile blows for a long moment, until the creature managed to slash Tarrin across the thigh with its sword when he again slipped on a small pool of his own blood. Sucking his breath in from the pain, Tarrin staggered back with a paw over his leg. Something suddenly seemed to seize his tail in a hellish sensation of fire, but something that seemed to burn and freeze at the same time. His tail flinched away from that feeling, and he didn't dare look back to see what it was. The undead creature was coming at him in a rush that startled the Were-cat, too fast for its damaged leg, until he realized, too late, that it had lunged with every intention of falling onto the Were-cat after it its sword spitted him, using him to break its momentum. Tarrin managed to slither around the point of the sword, but the creature slammed into his side, right against his injured shoulder, and Tarrin screamed and was staggered back from that painful force.
Then all the world became pain.
Jegojah stumbled forward after ramming its shoulder into the wounded shoulder of its opponent, forcing it back. The Were-cat seemed to cross some sort of invisible boundary, and then its entire body was surrounded with some kind of blazing white light! It was almost like smoke, surrounding the Were-cat, floating up and away from
him in wisps and tendrils as if caught in some kind of wind or current. Jegojah recognized it as Magelight, and he had only seen it once before.
When his living body was killed on the battlefield, destroyed in the fires of High Sorcery, what the current Sorcerers called Ritual Sorcery.
Jegojah staggered back, in awe, and it was then it realized that it was too late to run.
Never had Tarrin experienced such pain. It infused his very being, blazing into every tiny part of his body, seeking to fill him until he exploded. The transformation into a Were-cat, long buried in his mind, was a candle held up to the bonfire compared to what sought to erode his very sanity now. Only dimly did he understand that it was the power filling him, seeking to charge him to the bursting point, flooding into him in such a rush that he could not hold it all.
Tarrin had stepped into the massive Conduit that ran up the center of the Tower, and the tremendous magical energy within it had touched him.
His mind floating in a tidal wave of agony, Tarrin desperately realized that if he didn't do something with the energy filling him, it would destroy him. His eyes focused through the wispy white light surrounding him at the awestruck Doomwalker, and he let out a primal scream of pain and rage, focusing it on his opponent. His frenzied mind attempted to embrace the power, channeling the power, trying to harness it, to control it ever-so-slightly before it could incinterate him from within. Raw power blazed from his incandescent body, striking the Doomwalker in the chest, and then filling it with the same energy that was filling him. But the Doomwalker was not a Sorcerer, could not even begin to hold the power that Tarrin was forcing into it.
In a brilliant pillar of fire, the Doomwalker's body was reduced to ash in mere instants.
Incapable of focusing his awareness on anything else, still screaming, Tarrin raised his arms and did the only thing he could, release the energy back into the Conduit, allowing it to flow through him without building it up. The entire Conduit suddenly flared with blazing white light, pulsing up along the current of magical energy, then shattering the crystal dome that stood at the very top of the tower, sending the column of incandescent light through the Ward surrounding the grounds. It saturated the magical matrix of the Ward, forcing it to glow with the same brilliance, but did not disrupt its integrity. The column of blazing light shot high into the sky, to illuminate the entire city of Suld with the light of the daytime sun. The desperate act gave him a fleeting instant of rational thought, reducing the incredible pain to a level, however brief, where his mind had the chance to react.
Out. He had to get out of the Conduit. Even allowing the power to flow through him was searing him from the inside out, trying to burn his body to ash. Finding his legs through the whirlpool of pain that sought to suck him into oblivion, Tarrin managed to command his legs to push off and forward, a desperate leap to get him clear of the Conduit before the power burned him to a cinder. Unable to feel anything other than the pain coursing through him, he had no idea if he had left the ground, had even moved, before the pain overwhelmed him, and he knew no more.
The brilliant pillar of white light remained for several seconds, catching the attention of every man, woman, and child in the city of Suld. It was beautiful and silent, a column of white light, so bright it stung the eyes if one looked directly upon it, standing over the city like some fantastic finger of a god. And then it flickered and vanished. The light of the Ward, forming a dome over the Tower grounds, remained for a moment more, pulsing and flickering, and then it too faded from view, leaving the entire city to wonder what magic the mysterious Sorcerers were conjuring.
To most, it was simply an interesting event, something to talk about the next morning. To others, it was a sign. An omen, a warning of things to come.
To them, it was the beginning. And also perhaps the end.
With a ragged gasp, the Keeper was shocked awake by what was happening around her.
The entire Weave was shuddering! The delicate magical matrix of energy to which all Sorcerers were linked suddenly pulsated and writhed, and for a fleeting instant the Keeper thought the entire Weave would tear itself asunder, generating another magical cataclysm similiar to the Breaking. Intense force caused the strands near her to shudder and shake, like an earthquake in the Weave, and she could almost sense the unnatural energy coursing through the strands.
And outside her large window, the night suddenly became as daytime, as brilliant white light flooded into her chamber and illuminated the city beyond.
It had to be caused by an outside force. There were natural shifts in the Weave, even the occasional violent raealignment of the strands, and sometimes even the breaking of a strand. But none of those things came close to what she was feeling around her, feeling the power of it tingle against her skin, almost as if the power were seeking to touch her. She dared not try to touch the Weave and assense what was happening to it. To open herself to it while it was unstable could destroy her.
It lasted for several seconds, and then the Weave settled back into normalcy. She sat in her bed, staring at the light outside the window, then jumped up and rushed to it in time to see the magical light within the Ward begin to wane, flickering and dimming until the night was as it was supposed to be.
So it was true. The task for which they were training their nonhumans was truly at hand, and those who had objected to the precaution would have to hold their tongues. Just as predicted, the turning of night to daytime in the city of the Goddess' children had come to pass.
It was time.
The first guard to arrive in the Heart of the Goddess found only Tarrin, clothes, fur, and hair burned away, with savage burns all over his body, laying prone on the floor. He also found a bloodstained sword, a broken, dented shield, and a large pile of black ash. The tip of the Were-cat's hairless, charred tail had wispy white tendrils of magic floating and dancing around it, which broke away from it like smoke to flow up towards the heavens.
At first, there was only a sensation of nothing. But that eventually faded, and Tarrin realized slowly that he wasn't dead. Scents began to touch his nose, and muffled sounds began to creep into his awareness.
He was laying on a soft sheet, in a soft bed. He was on his back, and a warm, soft blanket covered him. The coppery smell of Allia was near to him, as was the human scent and lavender and ivory that always identified Dolanna. He also could smell the sharp scent of his mother, and the leathery smell that always tinged his father's scent. He wanted to open his eyes, but he found himself to be so tired that even that simple act would have been a momumental achievement. The very act of breathing, of beating his heart, were efforts that forced his body to focus all of its attention on those tasks. His awakening also brought pain, dull ache in his shoulder and head, along his side, and over about every square finger of skin he had. He felt like he had the itching sickness, and was covering his entire body. It wasn't severe, just enough to be annoying, but even that sensation was welcome compared to the oblivion from which he had climbed.
But Tarrin's magical nature was strong, and soon he felt himself strengthen, even as the voices around him sharpened to the point where he could understand the words. He took stock in himself, and found that he could move, if only just, flexing his paw around the hand that was placed within it. A hand that he hadn't felt until the pressure of it squeezing back overwhelmed the burning itch dominating his sense of touch.
"Tarrin?" his mother's voice called. "Tarrin, open your eyes. You can do it."
His eyelids were hard to open. Something was crusted over them, and they didn't want to fold properly. The best he could manage was a half-open right eye, but the left refused to cooperate. But there was nothing but grayness past his eye. With detached interest, he realized that the eye was blinded. "Tarrin, what happened? What did this to you?"
It was hard to make his voice work, and it required a supreme effort on his part. His voice came out in the barest of whispers, and his eye fluttered close even as he spoke, as if he could not sup
port speaking and keeping his eye open at the same time. "D--Doom...walker," he managed to gasp, and it was enough to send him spiralling back into the blackness.
It was a long time before he clawed his way back to consciousness. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but if the condition of his body was any indication, it had been quite a while. The burning itch was gone, and the play of light against his eyelids bled through them and registered to his eyes. His shoulder and ear still ached a bit, but on the whole he felt much stronger than before. He was still weak, but the simple act of opening his eyes wouldn't exhaust him this time. The scents in the room were the same, but also different. His parents and Allia were still there, as was Jenna. There were two or three other humans in the room also, scents he didn't know. No, he did know one of them. The blond Sorceress, Jula, whom he had met in the baths some time ago. There was very little talking, and Tarrin was keenly aware of a hand holding his paw.
His eyes fluttering open, he squinted against the bright light in the room, then they focused on his mother's haggard face. She had dark circles under her eyes, and strangely, her braid had been cut off. She smiled warmly at him as his eyes focused on her, and she patted his cheek lovingly. "Good morning, my son," she said with a smile. "How do you feel?"
"Like an army marched over me," he replied in a weak voice. "What happened to your hair?"
She put a hand to her short locks, an annoyed look on her face. "I'll explain later," she told him. "The important thing is that you're alright."
The Tower of Sorcery Page 63
