Tarrin Kael had been an optomist. Tarrin was fatalistic. Tarrin Kael would have found the good in his current situation. Tarrin just found it to be yet another needle in him, to go along with all the other needles. Tarrin Kael would have looked up at the sky and said "Wow, how beautiful!" Tarrin looked up at the sky and simply saw stars. Tarrin Kael would sigh in relief when this was all over, and return to a good life. Tarrin fully expected to die. And if he did not, then there would no longer be anything left to live for. He had done too much evil in this world now...he was beyond redemption. The accusing gazes of the thousands of eyeless phantoms reminded him of that night after night.
He wondered how his parents and Jenna were doing. They were probably still in Ungardt. It was summer there now, a very short summer, starting to wind down into winter. His mother was probably with her father, Eron was probably learning how the Ungardt brewed their heavy ale and whiskey, and Jenna was probably breaking hearts. It had been so long since he'd seen them, remembering how they looked seemed hard now. And Jenna was a year older, she had to be taller, more like a woman and less like a little girl.
It would be good to see them again. But they were in Ungardt, and he was in the Desert of Swirling Sands.
The wind picked up, blowing cold air over him. The thong holding his braid untied, and his hair quickly unbraided itself in the steady wind, fanning out behind him like a yellow cloak. It dragged the ground now when unbraided, and though he could change its length, something inside him liked it that way, despite the weight of the braid and the stress it put on his scalp. Perhaps it was a masochistic bent. Perhaps it was a reminder, a constant sensation to remind him of how it felt to feel pain when something inside him had become dead to it. He really didn't know, all he did know was that it was something he preferred.
He looked up into the sky again...and all he saw were stars.
He closed his eyes and turned into the wind, feeling its icy fingers caress his exposed skin, felt it pull and tug at the fur on his arms and feet, felt it billow out his hair, felt it pool inside his ears as they caught it. This was feeling. Cold biting, the chilly domain of the desert at night, where the air stole away all the heat the sun imparted to things during the day. This desert was two different worlds. The burning fires of day, and the cold hand of night. Yet they existed in the same place, separated by the movements of the sun, forever chasing one another across the land in an endless cycle of repetitive monotony.
Two different worlds.
A dark smudge appeared on the western horizon, and he'd been here long enough to comprehend what it meant. A sandstorm was coming. It was why the wind had started to pick up, it was the wind wall the preceded them. The boulder field was a good place to weather a sandstorm, so long as it didn't bury them. The boulders would break up the wind, protect them from the scouring power of the blowing sand.
He had time. He sat down and calmly rebraided his hair, watching the boiling fury of nature approach, studying it carefully to come to a better understanding of how they moved, how they worked. This one wasn't that fast, but it was still pretty speedy as it neared him. It was a big one as well. He guessed that it would last for some time. Maybe long enough to bury the boulder field in sand, if it died out over them. Maybe taking a few precautions would be a good idea, and for that, he'd need Sarraya's help. A couple of large Wards to deflect the sand would keep them from getting buried.
The time for pondering was past. The reality of the desert had intruded on his musings. It was time to deal with things.
He tied the thong securely around his braid, then scooted over the the boulder's edge and slid down. Time to deal with reality.
The sandstorm lasted for three days. For three long days, Tarrin and Sarraya huddled in the boulder field, inside a tent protected by a strong Ward against the blowing wind and sand. The wind howled and screamed outside his Ward, making it loud in the protected area, but at least the wind was kept off of the tent, denied the opportunity to rip the tent out of the ground and deprive them of their only shelter.
The three days were very slow ones for Tarrin. When not trying to sleep, Sarraya instructed him more and more on Druidic magic. She taught him how to conjure water; it turned out that he had had the right idea when he tried himself. Had he not gotten distracted while making the attempt, it would have worked. She taught him more about conjuring many items, and taught him the techniques behind conjuring very large items.
But through it all, it was still just Conjuring. The core method of it did not change. All she taught him were the little differences and tricks necessary to make it more flexible.
"Well, that's it," Sarraya announced after Tarrin had conjured a stone about the size of a large dog. "I've taught you everything you need to know about Druidic magic. At least for now. We'll have to find something else to talk about from now on."
For some reason, this disappointed him. "That's it?" he demanded. "Sarraya, I've barely broken a sweat! I can learn more!"
"I know you can learn more," she affirmed. "But I'm not a good teacher. I'm not going to put your neck on the block, Tarrin. I've taught you what I feel comfortable teaching you, and I won't teach you any more. You know what you need to know to survive, and that's all I told you I was going to teach you."
For some reason, he was bitterly disappointed. Probably because he felt the same way about Druidic magic that he did about Sorcery when he first started. He was wildly curious, interested, and he wanted to learn everything there was to know about it. But he couldn't use his Sorcery without extensive preparation and help anymore, and there was nobody left to teach him anything. So all he had was Druidic magic. And now he couldn't learn any more of it, because Sarraya refused to train him.
"I'm not worried about learning from you, Sarraya," he nearly pleaded. "You've done a good job teaching me."
"If you only knew," she laughed ruefully. "Tarrin, I did a very bad job teaching you. I didn't do anything that I was supposed to do, and I more or less just let you go on your own. If Triana knew how I taught you, she'd rip off my wings. You know how to Conjure, and you know how to Summon. Because you know both of them, that means you automatically know how to Create--after all, Creation is just the Conjuring of something that doesn't exist. Why do you need to learn anything else right now? Just go with what you know for now, get a feel for the Druidic magic. And when we get out of the desert, when we get back to Triana, she can teach you anything else you may want to learn. Is asking you to wait such a bad thing?"
He stewed for a moment. "Yes, but I guess I don't have much choice," he grunted. "I guess I'm unhappy because this is magic I can use."
"Then why aren't we trying to work out what's going on with Sorcery?" she asked. "Tell me what you feel from the Weave right now."
"Everything," he replied automatically. "I can feel every strand within a longspan. I can tell how strong they are, and I can feel a Conduit about ten longspans south."
"And this shouldn't be possible, should it?"
"No, it's not," he replied. "I should only be able to feel this when touching the Weave, and I still wouldn't be able to sense things much past a few hundred spans."
"Me and Dolanna had some long talks about Sorcery. Answer me this question. When a Sorcerer is touching the Weave, then he can use Sorcery, right?"
"Right. It's what we have to do in order to use our magic."
"Fine. So, you say you can sense the Weave. Ever think that that may be because you're actually touching it?"
If she would have dropped a grain barge on his head, it would not have produced a more profound effect on him. Of course! The sense of the weave was exactly the same as when he was touching the Weave! Exactly! The only difference was that he wasn't actually connected to the Weave, there was no channel open between him and its power. Outside of that one difference, everything else was the same.
"Almost," he said immediately. "I'm not actually connected to the Weave, but everything else is the same."
"Says you," s
he replied. "If you can sense the Weave, then there has to be a link between it and you. Think you can find it?"
"Why would I want to do that?"
"Tarrin, you big silly, if you can figure out how you're linked to the Weave, then you could learn how to affect it through that link," she told him with a grin. "And since this link seems passive rather than active, I don't think High Sorcery would be a threat to you."
Tarrin stared at her for a long moment. He could find no hole in her logic. She was right! She was absolutely right! He now remembered a conversation he'd had with Dolanna a very long time ago, when she was teaching him about Sorcery. As a Sorcerer learns more about the Weave, and practices, it brings that Sorcerer in a more intimate contact with the Weave. That Sorcerer can draw energy from it faster, from a wider area, can weave flows together quicker, and can even directly affect the Weave without drawing in, she had told him when she was teaching him about Sorcery.
Directly affect the Weave without drawing in.
In other words, a Sorcerer with great experience could use Sorcery in a way not considered possible.
It made him remember what the Goddess had told him, when she explained why his sense of the Weave had changed. High Sorcery is simply an alternative method of using Sorcery. She told him that Sorcery and High Sorcery were simply two ways to use the same power, and that there were also other ways to do it as well. She told him that he could learn how Weavespinners learned their magic, that someone would teach him.
She didn't mean the Selani goddess, she meant himself!
It all made sense now. Tarrin's connection to the Weave had increased, expanded. It had extended beyond some mysterious threshold and caused him to elevate to a new level. His many explosions of High Sorcery had intensified that connection, had brought him into touch with the true power of a Weavespinner. He was just now starting to feel those connections, feel the fundamental changes in his magic caused by having his eyes opened to a new way to use Sorcery. He was growing into his power, and like any growing process, he underwent a period of change, and a period of discovery.
He had come to the desert thinking that Fara'Nae would teach him about Weavespinners. Now, it seemed that he had come to the desert to discover that magic for himself.
He sat down on the covered sand. Hard. Sarraya took one look at him, then started laughing delightedly. "I take it you just underwent an epiphany?" she asked with a grin.
"I think you're right, Sarraya," he said quietly, respectfully. "Dolanna told me a long time ago that experienced Sorcerers could directly affect the Weave while touching it, even without drawing in the power to affect it. The Goddess told me that there are more than two ways to use Sorcery. It fits. I think you're right. If I can figure out how to affect the Weave through my sense of it, I may be able to use Sorcery without getting burned by High Sorcery. I wouldn't be opening that direct link to the Weave, and that's how it gets to me."
"Well, I'm glad I was able to help out," she smiled.
"Sarraya, you are a wonder," he said with a smile. "How can such a flake be so smart?"
"Hey!" she snapped, then she laughed. "Well, it's just truth in advertising," she admitted. "So, what do you do to figure it out?"
"Practice," he replied. "Just keep trying until I finally figure out what works. Since I'll be doing it with no idea what I'm doing, it'll just be luck."
"Then again, that seems to work for you," she grinned. "The less you know about something, it seems, the better it works for you."
"Guess I'm not saddled with doubts and worries," he said ruefully.
"So, what now?"
"Breakfast. I'm not ready to tackle this problem just yet, not so soon after learning Druidic magic. I'll start on it tomorrow. Hopefully this sandstorm will be past by then."
"Then Conjure us some breakfast," she told him. "Just make sure you get ripe fruit this time!"
"I liked them like that," he teased her as he began the mental preparations necessary to use Druidic magic.
The rest of the morning, and the day and afternoon and evening, for that matter, were spent in quiet meditation, as Tarrin sought to find this mysterious connection between himself and the Weave, tried to use Sorcery without touching the Weave. The problem was that he had no idea what he was looking for, what had changed. He felt no diferent than he did before this change inside. His sense of the Weave had changed, but it seemed that nothing else did. The first thing he tried to do was affect the Weave simply by willpower, but that didn't work. It was like smoke, something he could see but not touch, a hazy illusion without substance. He searched inside him for something new and different, but that too didn't work. There was nothing different within him, nothing he could sense. The attempts wore him out, physically and mentally, just as trying to touch the Weave for the first time had done to him so long ago. The seeking of the magic required intense concentration and effort, and it took its toll on him as the day progressed.
And behind it all was the eyeless face, disrupting his attempts to find this new form of magic. Every time he reached a state of contemplation, it appeared in his mind, and upset his attempts to seek it. The face did not lose its effect on him, even after so many days of enduring it. It could still cause a mindless panic and terror in him, if it struck with enough force or he was unprepared to deal with the emotions it incited inside him. He was forced to try to push it out of his mind and try to find a state of deep concentration at the same time, and that was not easy.
The end result of it was that by sunset, as the sandstorm died out, he was mentally and physically exhausted. So exhausted that he almost immediately fell into a deep, dreamless slumber after eating, a sleep so deep that even the dream could not find him. He awoke the next morning feeling a bit woozy, but a night's complete sleep had done his body very well.
The next morning had dawned clear and calm. There was still a bit of a dusty pall in the air from the sandstorm, and climbing onto the boulder showed him that the strong Ward he had made had been a very good idea. The Ward had about a span of sand built up around its border, and the sand was noticably higher between the boulders now than it had been before the storm. A span of sand wouldn't have buried them, but it would have collapsed the tent and left them exposed to the power of the scouring wind.
Sarraya flitted up and landed on his shoulder. "Dusty," she remarked, then she sneezed.
"The storm was a big one," Tarrin replied. "It's going to be dusty for a couple of days, at least." As he said that, he took the red scarf the girl gave him and settled it over his face, then donned his violet-shaded visor. The sun wasn't bright enough through the dust to be painful, but it would keep the dust out of his eyes. "You're going to have to navigate, Sarraya. I can't see the Skybands in this dust."
"Not a problem."
"What about the tent? Want to take it with us?"
"Why?" she asked. "If we need a tent, we'll just make another one. Let the Selani have it."
"I keep forgetting about that."
"That's why I'm the brains of this outfit," Sarraya teased.
"A Faerie, the brains of an outfit. I'm doomed."
"Hey!"
Navigating the boulder field was easy enough for him, he simply jumped from rock to rock, hopscotching his way through it. What made it a chore was that the boulder field was very, very large, longspans wide, and a couple of longspans of methodical jumping began to tire him.
"I wonder what happened to put this many rocks in one place," Tarrin mused to Sarraya as he jumped onto a particularly big rock, towering over the others.
"I'm not really sure," she replied. "The rocks don't look like they were in water, but something had to spill them out here."
"How can you tell they weren't in water?"
"They'd be smoothed down," she replied. "Water is even more corrosive than a sandstorm, over time. "Ever notice that the rocks you find in streams are smooth and look polished?"
"I never thought of that," he admitted. "You sound as smart as Phandebrass
sometimes."
"I'm not sure if that's a complement or not," she said uncertainly.
The passage through the boulder field was more or less uneventful, at least up to a point. It changed quickly when he jumped from one rock to another, and his feet immediately sank down into the rock on which he landed. It wasn't stone!
Dislodged by a sudden, violent shift of the rock beneath him, Tarrin was spilled to the ground as the rock on which he had landed seemed to unfold itself, unbend, and he found himself looking up into the hungry gaze of a small kajat. It had huddled down, and it had looked so much like a rock with its brown scaly hide, he had literally jumped on top of it.
Snapping jaws instantly sought him out, and in desperation, before he could even feel fear, he twisted on the ground and got a foot on the lower jaw and both paws on the upper. Crushing pressure instantly struck him, and his foot was punctured by the spearpoint of a tooth, but his inhuman power proved to be the match of the monster's jaw muscles, if only just. Trembling with effort, staring into the maw of the huge lizard, Tarrin struggled against the vice-like crush of the monster's jaws. The pressure the monster put on him was astounding, threatening to shatter the bones in his arms and legs and he fought with all his strength to keep the jaws from closing on him. The things' fetid, hot breath blew over him, fueling his purpose, inciting the Cat within to lend all of its strength to keep him alive. With a growling roar of a cry, he pushed the jaws apart just a little, enough to straighten out his back and try to reach the sword on his back with his tail. But the monstrous reptile picked him up off the ground and began whipping its head from side to side, seeking to dislodge its meal enough to where it couldn't resist its jaws any longer. He hung on for dear life, both trying to keep the jaws from crushing him and keep his paws and feet where they were to keep the monster from killing him in one bite.
His paws slipped. He started falling backwards, out of its maw, but the fanged mouth snapped shut on his thigh, severing his right leg just above the knee. He tumbled to the ground as the intense pain of losing his leg ripped through him, before quickly being replaced with the angry tingling that told him that the leg was already starting to regenerate. The pain and the shock of the ambush pushed him over the edge, causing the Cat to rise up within him and cause his human consciousness to be shunted to the side. He got up onto his one remaining foot and jumped up onto a boulder, eyes consumed with the unholy greenish fire of his anger as he roared his challenge to the massive reptile.
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