The Goddess told him that he had the best chance of success, but she had warned him on repeated occassions that it didn't prevent someone else from getting to it and getting it before he did. He had the advantage now, for the first time since they started, and he wasn't about to give that advantage up. Now he had more to lose, more to protect, and what was most important, something to live for.
For the first time, he could see the end of the journey. And it made him even more worried.
To: Title EoF
Chapter 33
Because it had not taken as long as Tarrin had expected to unlock the mystery surrounding the location of the Firestaff, he found himself with plenty of spare time on his paws. That wasn't to say that he did nothing, or got lazy, though. Because he did know where to go to find the Firestaff now, he became exceptionally paranoid after that revelation, keeping his distance from anyone who wasn't included in his personal circle. He would avoid people in the halls of the Tower, he wouldn't leave the grounds, and definitely absolutely would not come within a longspan of Shiika or the Cambisi. Tarrin knew they were telepathic, that they could hear the thoughts of those around them, and despite the help they had rendered, Tarrin didn't completely trust them. Then again, it was foolishness to trust a Demon; even Shiika would admit to that. Their inhuman scents made it extremely easy for him to avoid them, for he could smell them coming at least two minutes before they arrived. That ghastly scent, to which he doubted he would ever grow accustomed, broadcast their location to anyone with a sense of smell. He was sure that Shiika and her daughters were probably getting a little annoyed with him avoiding them, but he wasn't about to let them know their secret.
Since his days weren't taken up by reading, he found plenty of time to take Jenna out into the courtyard and practice, just as Spyder commanded them. He found himself just a tad rusty at what Spyder taught them the last time, and he had to reinforce the idea of both giving and taking when using the Weave. When he again found it to be second nature, the two of them went about their homework, and that was learning how to whisper through the Weave. Tarrin had an understanding of what had to be done to accomplish the task; it required a partial touch on the Weave, a connection to it something like joining with it, but not so complete that he entered it. A partial joining, as Jenna reasoned it, a deeper connection without having it pull their consciousnesses into it. They spent a good afternoon after a noontime shower in the courtyard working on that idea, and it was Jenna who figured out how to do it first. She taught Tarrin, and her description of it was fairly accurate. It was a strange feeling, because when he was reaching into the Weave in that manner, its strands became the dominant part of his vision, and the choral pitches of the sound they made came to his ears. It was the real world that became ghostly and immaterial to him when he was reaching into the Weave in that manner, as if his consciousness had shifted planes of reality without leaving the real one. Jenna called it bridging, spanning the gap between the real world and the interior world of the Weave, which was almost like another world unto itself, and Tarrin had to agree that her word was fairly descriptive.
Spyder was correct; it was indeed easy. When bridged between the world and the Weave, everything they did, even in a physical sense, was translated into the Weave as well as the real world. When they spoke, the sound went into the Weave as well as the real world. When they moved, it was in the real world, but the strands of the Weave became actual physical objects to them, capable of hindering their progress. It was the strangest feeling to grab hold of a strand and feel its solidity in his paw, but it was more than possible. Jenna had even climbed about ten spans into the air on a rather low-angled strand that came out of the ground, and when he looked at her through the eyes of reality, it looked like she was climbing up an invisible rope. Whispering at its most basic form was as simple as speaking into the Weave. Since the Weave was another reality, abiding by its own laws, the sound went around a longspan before it became inaudible to any who could hear it. Since Spyder had called to him for about twenty longspans away, he realized that there had to be another trick to it, a way to make himself audible from great distances.
It took him about two hours to figure it out. Just like the amulets, all it took was knowing just who he was trying to contact. Jenna went out to the other side of Suld, and they tested Tarrin's theory. It turned out to be correct. He found out that he could speak to her at any distance, by focusing his words on her. The Weave picked up the words and carried them to the person he wanted to hear them, but Tarrin realized that it was a method of communication that would only work with someone with an enhanced ability to touch the Weave. In other words, it only worked with Weavespinners, for they were the only ones that could sense the Weave in the manner necessary to hear the message.
That was how Spyder knew he was ready, he realized. She had been whispering into the Weave, probably for a long time, calling out to him. When he had reached that state just before crossing over, that point where he was bursting at the seams with it, he had become sensitive enough to hear her whispers. Even though he wasn't a true Weavespinner, it seemed that when a sui'kun reached the pinnacle of their powers before crossing over, they had enough of a connection to the Weave to be able to hear the whispers.
The question still remained as to whether da'shar could hear it. Spyder said that there were fundamental differences between sui'kun and da'shar. They'd have to wait for one of the Sorcerers to cross over before they could find out where those differences lay, however. That, or convince Spyder to tell them. That didn't seem to be very likely. The Urzani wasn't inclined to talk about history. He had the feeling that the next time she called them to a lesson, it would be all business. Something told him that da'shar probably couldn't hear whispering… mainly because the amulet weave that allowed them to talk through amulets seemed to be so popular back in the days of power. If da'shar could whisper, why did they need the weave on the amulets?
Then again… Jegojah had asked him if he had learned the secret of distant communication. He didn't say it in a way that identified whispering or amulets; those words could apply to either whispering or amulets, or even communing through the Weave. Maybe da'shar could whisper. But then why use the amulets? Were they a crutch for Sorcerers until they crossed over, and were never taken out of the amulets when that happened?
Any way he looked at it, he realized he wasn't going to get an answer until either Spyder told him, the Goddess told him, or someone crossed over and became da'shar. From the looks of it, that person was probably going to be Keritanima. Her powers were formidable, and she never stopped looking for new things to learn, new ways to expand her ability. He knew that she'd secretly been trying to figure out how he could project an Illusion over a thousand leagues, despite his warning her not to try. But that was Keritanima. Always doing what she wanted, rather than what she should be doing. Or should not be doing.
At the end of their practice session, after both of them had both mastered the technique of touching the Weave enough to bridge and getting the concepts of whispering down to memory, he remembered something. The Goddess had told him that he wouldn't be responsible for finding the information that would unlock the path to the Firestaff, yet he had been the one to find the poem. Had she been wrong? Never one to shy away from asking things that were best left unasked, he put his query to the Goddess' icon, knowing that she could hear him.
"I lied, kitten," came the audible reply, as blunt and bald as the sun was bright. "I wanted to put you at ease, and lying to you was the easiest way to do it. Aren't I an evil little Goddess?" she asked with a sudden winsome smile.
Tarrin was shocked that she lied, and that she admitted that she lied… but it had been a harmless lie. Tarrin had to laugh ruefully when he got over his sudden Cat-induced affront to being deceived. After all, he knew that the Goddess would never lie to him when it was important. She had been brutally honest with him in the past, even when they were things that he didn't want to know. Her lying over something as paltry as this was hardly a reason for him to get offended. After all, if he wouldn't have found the poem, one of the others certainly would have.