Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  The human in him wondered at this. She was strong. She could do all the things he could. So why such small things? Was she toying with him?

  There was one way to find out.

  Setting his feet apart, he wove on a massive scale, flows of Air mainly, forming the first stages of the air shockwave that had proved to be so devastating all the other times. Eyes blazing with white light, a vicious snarl on his face, the air before him took on a reddish hue, an irregular reddish haze as the weave began to form--

  --But a lance of Fire struck his weaving, Fire laced with weaves of Air. The Air weaves in her counterstroke interacted with the flows in his, causing them to cancel one another out. The weave collapsed in on itself violently, then the flows of Fire interacted with the remaining flows in an odd manner, reforming into a new weave that immediately manifested. It formed as a ball of intense burning flame that suddenly exploded in all directions. An inferno of hellish fire blasted towards him, and he barely had the time to erect a Ward of Fire flows, a shield against it, before it engulfed him. He covered his face and flinched away instinctively as the fire blasted over him, but his Ward protected him from the fire. The Ward itself seemed to be caught up into the fire, as latent magical flows in the fire itself attached to the Ward, consumed it, ate away at its integrity, causing it to fail. But not before the fire exhausted its magical energy and dissipated.

  Even the Cat was impressed. She used his own weaves against him!

  The fire winked out, and in its wake it left a rocky ground that was blackened and smoking. The dirt and sand that had collected were now pools of clear glass laying on the blackened stone.

  She had struck at his weave! While he was weaving it! And she even set up her attack so it used the flows not cancelled out to reform into a new spell. She had caused him to use up his own energy to create a spell of her design!

  This was a true Ancient.

  But the Cat understood its mistake. The weave took too long to create. Against her, he had to use fast weaves, things easy to create and with power. If he gave her an openeing, she would destroy his attempts to weave, maybe even turn them against him once again.

  Weaving Air again, this time he used something fast and quick, something that could be realeased as quickly as it was woven. It released as a scythe of pure Air, a rush of air with a cutting edge more lethal than any sword or blade, and it lashed out like a whip towards the Sha'Kar as she drifted to the ground. The Sha'Kar simply raised her hand to meet the leading edge of that weave, then deflected it with a slash of her hand, deflected it to the side. It continued on, striking a rock pillar, then slicing it in half at the base as neatly as a knife cut butter. The pillar shuddered, then slid off its sliced base and then toppled over in an explosion of dust and a ear-splitting boom.

  The power rebuilt in him as quickly as it had been expended, and he felt the stress. He was starting to wear out, to tire, and the power was becoming harder and harder to control. But there was no room for weariness here. The Sha'Kar was advancing on him confidently, advancing through the dust cloud that had concealed her for a moment. He had to use something that would burn off the power inside, give him a chance to catch his breath, but not something that she could disrupt.

  He could feel her counterstroke building within the Weave itself. Earth. It had something to do with Earth. Whatever she was doing wasn't High Sorcery...it was that other-magic that she used, a type of Sorcery he couldn't sense, couldn't see. He reacted too late to sense the weave as the ground beneath him began to shudder. He tried to jump aside, but a massive hand of stone rose up from the ground, and it closed over him. Crushing pressure struck him, broke his tail and one of his arms, and it squeezed a ragged cry from him as the hand tried to snap him in half. The power within shuddered as the pain made him lose control for a split second, then he quickly wove a weave of Air and Fire, then unleashed it outwards from his body. The effect was purely explosive, like gunpowder put to the torch, and it shattered the stone hand in a loud blast of dust, fire, and black smoke.

  The pain had been too much. The Cat rose up within in a heartbeat, going from unwilling participant to fully in control in the blink of an eye. The Cat completely dropped all his defensive measures, opened itself up to the Weave without hindrance. It thrust out into the Weave with flows, and then snapped them back to make them form a small spiderweb of little strands to feed his power, to directly connect him to the Weave itself. The power that flooded into him went from a flood to an absolute deluge, causing the nimbus of Magelight around him to intensify, to expand visibly. The connection to the Weave intensified his sense of it, and he could feel its power pulse and flow like blood, circulating through the Weave, but it coalesced in the strands nearest the Sha'Kar, as if her very presence saturated the strands with power. In that fleeting moment he realized that all strands were not the same, that the power within one strand was not the same as all other strands, as he'd been taught. It was something that he'd seemed to comprehend already, but he hadn't realized it until he saw the effect the Sha'Kar had on the Weave, an effect caused by her very presence.

  An effect caused by his presence.

  With a vicious snarl, Tarrin wove together a weave of Fire and Divine, and the ghostly aura of Magelight around him shifted from white to red. He released it, and the aura around him suddenly expanded, grew, became a living thing unto itself, a massive bird made of pure fire. He imparted the magical construct with self-animating properties, as if the very element of Fire were collected and fused into a coherent magical being. He had no idea what he was doing, how he did it, but he knew what he'd just formed.

  An Elemental.

  A magical creature under his direct control. It would obey him, do his bidding, until he dismissed it back into the Weave or it was destroyed. He pointed at the Sha'Kar imperiously, and the Elemental understood exactly what it was created to do. With a shrill cry, the bird of Fire streaked away from him, towards the Sha'Kar, talons extended and ready to attack.

  The Sha'Kar was smiling. That only enraged the Cat even more, sent it spiralling into the abyss of utter rage. She made a slashing motion with her hand, and he felt the eddies and currents within the strands shift, alter. They suddenly became motive, as if she were controlling them, and they suddenly extended outside the Weave and formed into flows. Flows of Water and Air. They lashed out from the Weave itself, struck the Fire Elemental as if they were arrows, and the flows coalesced within the Elemental to counter the weaving he had done to create it. The bird gave a startled cry, a cry of pain, as the Sha'Kar's weaving unravelled the very magic that made it what it was. The fiery bird spread its wings and began to thrash, and then the fire that made up its form simply broke up and evaporated like smoke.

  The Sha'Kar didn't have time to gloat. Another weave of Fire, Water, and Air formed in Tarrin's paws, and he unleashed it on the woman in the form of intense, powerful lightning. She raised her hand, and he could sense the shift of the Weave as it seemed to respond to her. Flows of Earth came free of the Weave and rose up from the ground. The lightning hit that flow of Earth, and the energy of the lightning was absorbed harmlessly into it, deflecting the physical effect of the weave harmlessly.

  The power rebuilt within him instantly. It began to haze the air around him as it heated him, heated it, the buildup of power so great that it started to distort the aura of Magelight around him. The Cat sensed this, felt the fiery pain of being so filled with the Weave's power, but it was too angry to care. It only saw the Sha'Kar, and it would not stop until it got her, no matter what the cost. The Cat could shrug off the pain that would have left Tarrin squirming on the ground in agony, as pure, total fury, the need to kill, overrode all sense of self. Tarrin wove again, weaves of pure Earth, sending them into the ground. The weave was on a titanic scale, a weave so vast, so convoluted that the Sha'Kar actually seemed impressed, uncertain as to how to go about stopping it before it was released.

  The ground beneath his feet began to shiver. Then to tremble. Mo
re and more of the Weave's power infused it, causing it to vibrate in time with the pulsating power he pushed into it, causing the rock spires to sway and dust and rock to fall from them. More and more power was charged into the rocky flat under his feet, until the very earth tingled and trembled, making sand drum up and rising up a cloud of dust from the rocky ground. Tarrin closed his eyes and hunched his shoulders as the strain of weaving such power without releasing it began to wear on him. Sweat streamed from his face, and his paws began to shake, but he would not stop. Hair and fur began to shrivel, singe away from the internal heat of working with such power, but he would not stop. Blood began to thicken as heat caused it to coagulate, but he would not stop. Skin began to redden and blister as the awesome flow of energy through him burned into him like fire into paper, but he would not stop. He let out a gasping cry from the effort, from the pain of such power flowing into and through him, power the likes of which he had never tried to manipulate before.

  His eyes snapped open, and he felt the last flows fall into place. Then he released it.

  The ground suddenly split open like a melon dropped from a tree. The sound it made was indescribable, as raw stone was split open on a massive scale. The fissure opened just before him, and it raced away from him in the direction of the Sha'Kar, a shockwave of seismic force on a monumental scale, a shockwave so powerful the air above the ground was displaced with such force that it could kill. The ground shook and swayed like a table with broken legs, and an explosion of dust erupted from the ground all around him. One rock spire swayed too far, then toppled over, but the sound of its crashing to the desert floor was lost in the deafening cacophony caused by the rupturing of the earth itself. The fissure ran so deep that it punctured the crust of the land, penetrated all the way down to where the molten core of the world laid hidden. A geyser of ultra-hot liquid rock erupted from the fissure even as it continued racing away from him, spraying hundreds of spans into the air, literally burning the dust from the air as it started falling to the ground like a deadly rain. The fissure raced right towards the Sha'Kar, but the woman made no move to evade or escape it. She simply stood there until the last moment, when she vaulted into the sky with support from weaves of Air. She rose above the shockwave, but not above the sudden spraying eruption of magma that spewed out from the fissure.

  Even lost in the throes of total rage, Tarrin was astounded by what he saw. The magma struck the woman, struck her squarely and true, but it did no harm. It simply clung to her like mud, neither burning nor searing. But he knew it struck her truly, for her black clothing burned and seared from contact with it, all of it except that utter-black cloak she wore, for the magma simply struck its surface and vanished within its unfathomable depths. She brushed it away as she rose over the top of the spraying geysers of fire as if it were nothing but troublesome dust, leaving behind unharmed skin showing through the charred holes in her clothing.

  She was utterly immune to heat. It could not touch her, it did her no harm whatsoever. He could assense her, he realized that it was no spell or magical effect that was protecting her. Her body itself was immune, though he could sense that the effect had been worked on her by some kind of magical process. It explained her preference for Fire weaves...even if they were turned against her, they could not harm her.

  Tarrin and the Cat both were dismayed. He had put almost everything into that weave, so sure they both were that if the shockwave didn't kill her, the spray of magma would. They were both forces of such magnitude that even a Ward would not be able to resist their power. He was exhausted, exhausted even beyond his rage, all his energy used up in the weave he had created, a weave that he now saw had done nothing more than tear a gash in the flesh of the earth, a gash that now bled profusely. But his Cat half, his fury, would not permit failure now. He had nothing left to Weave, but he would not stop. The need to destroy overshadowed self-preservation. Besides, now he was vulnerable, exposed. He would not allow her to pick him apart in his weakness. Better to die fighting.

  If Fire was her friend, then perhaps Water was her bane.

  He collected himself to try again, looking up at her airborne form with utter fury and contempt. He reached out to the Weave--

  --something was wrong. It was beyond his control now, it flowed into him like the ocean trying to fill a teacup, it flowed into him beyond the physical limits of his body. A chain reaction had begun within him, as power beckoned to power, energy attracted energy, and his physical resistance to it had been overwhelmed.

  As the fur on his right paw suddenly singed away, as the exposed skin and flesh beneath blackened like wood in a kiln, he realized that this time, he had reached too far.

  He was going to be Consumed.

  That was when the pain of it struck him. Drove into him like a spear. The pain his Cat instincts had suppressed could no longer be denied, and it boiled into every fiber of his being along with the power of the Weave. The entire might of the Weave was trying to flood into him, and he could no longer expend that power. It had nowhere to go. It was building inside him, building and building, and the power carried with it its lethal heat, energy that was not compatible with his body. The energy brought pain, and it built more and more.

  The aura of High Sorcery around him shuddered as if struck, and then dissipated. In its place came a terrible shimmering of the air, as it began to heat beyond even the heat of the desert, heated by his proximity. The leather vest and trousers and scabbard began to smoke from contact with his body, a body that seemed paralyzed to him now, the commands to move lost in the molten sea of pain that raged inside. Through that sea of agony he tried to move, tried to think, tried to regain his contact with the Weave and expel the power building up inside, but it was as if the Weave had become a one way door. The power could come into him, but once within it became trapped by the attraction of the power with itself. That was the mechanism of being Consumed, his rational mind concluded distantly. The power reached a point where it would no longer move, it became bound to itself within, and its presence caused more power to join it. The body was never meant to hold such power, the power of the Weave itself.

  Paws closed into fists, tail straight out behind him and trembling, Tarrin tried in vain to find a connection to the Weave that was not flooding into him, seeking in desperation to expel the power building up inside, but a part of him sensed that it could not be stopped. He had crossed over the line, and now the power had a life of its own. It was calling to its own, seeking to infuse him with the totality of the Weave, and that was a power that his body could not withstand. Eyes that were about to boil in their sockets gazed down at trembling paws, watching in horror as the blackened skin began to split and crack, showing nothing but blazing energy beneath. The pain scoured away all conscious thought, made the pain of being turned into a Were-cat seem like a skinned knee in comparison. There was no stopping it, no controlling it, no defense against it. The blazing energy dimmed, and then pure fire erupted around his paws, adding to the burning from within, tearing a ragged scream from him as the first physical signs of his impending doom showed themselves.

  It can't end this way! Tarrin managed to scream in the silent tunnels of his mind. Not now, not like this! He wouldn't die alone in the desert, not when so much depended on him! His sisters, his family, Janette, they depended on him! They needed him, and he would not surrender. He would not! But there was no quarter in this, no mercy. He could do nothing against the power of the Weave itself. That which had saved him so many times had finally turned against him, and his own connection to the Weave only served to strengthen its power to destroy him.

  For the first time, he was helpless. But he could not accept it.

  "No," he gasped, forcing his arms up, forcing himself to stand up straight. Beyond all defiance of rational comprehension, he stared the full power of the Weave directly in the face, stared into the heart of the Goddess herself, and refused to yield. "Not...like...THIS!" he screamed.

  But against that power, st
ubborn defiance could not last long. Its might overwhelmed his attempts to shunt it off, to block it, to slow it down, saturating his body with its power. The end of his tail burst into flame, the tops of his feet began to smolder, and the very air around him became alive with magical energy, charged by its proximity to him. The power was building, building, eating him piece by piece, and he could sense that once it reached the point where it would fill him no more, it would destroy him in a cataclysmic explosion of energy. Just as he had once charged Jegojah's body to the bursting point, so it was being done to him. He had Consumed Jegojah, and now the restless spirit was seeing his measure of revenge.

  The pain taxed away what little he had left. He began to sag to the ground, sagging into a funeral pyre formed from himself, and the stark reality of a violent death, a death of the most unimaginable pain, rose up before him. He was too weary to care, the pain was too much to bear, even for him.

  This time, there was no escape. Since there could be no escape, then there could only be release.

  He stopped fighting. He opened himself completely to the Weave, opening himself in a way he had never done before, an opening without fear, without worry, without defense from the power. It was an opening of utter totality, exposing his very soul to the raging torrent of energy that sought to destroy him. In submission to the finality of his existence, he utterly surrendered to the might of the Weave, allowing it to do with him what it will. So long as it was done quickly. He didn't want to suffer anymore.