Foolishness. Tarrin stood up again, taking an aggressive posture as he decided that he didn't need Sarraya's approval. She'd taught him how to Conjure, and it was something that he knew he could do. He fully intended to be careful about it.
Sitting down cross-legged, Tarrin held the waterskin before him. The trick of it was to Conjure the water into the skin. He considered what had to be done carefully. The image would have to be water, but water inside the skin. Envision a full skin, with the intent that clean water be inside it. Yes, that would be the methodology for conjuring a liquid. The liquid inside its container, where the intent was more important than the image. Sarraya had told him that some Druidic magic used intent over image, and some used image over intent. The key to a successful Conjuration would be to match up the right image with the right intent.
He realized a snag. When Sarraya did it, the skin didn't just go poof and was full. It visibly filled. If he tried to Conjure the skin full when the skin wasn't expanded to accept the volume of it, something unpredictable might happen. He remembered Sarraya's warning's clearly: Exotic is bad.
So. That meant that he had to somehow sustain the Druidic spell, make it progress to where he wanted it, then cut it off. So, perhaps the image would be of water, and the intent was to have it appear within the skin at a set rate of appearance. Like water pouring from a jug. Yes, that would work. Envision water, and the intent would be for it to pour from wherever it came from like water pouring from a jug.
Fretting a bit, Tarrin put his chin in his palm and mulled it over. He was starting to understand why Sarraya was so serious about this. Since he wasn't sure of the exact way to imagine what he wanted, of what kind of intent he needed, he wasn't sure if it was going to work or not. And in Druidic magic, if you didn't know, you didn't try.
But he needed water. And it was starting to get serious. He was really thirsty.
Steeling himself, he decided to do it. He wasn't going to suffer because Sarraya was mad at him. He closed his eyes and used his training to sweep all irrelevant thoughts out of his mind. He held up the waterskin and formed the image of water. Pure, clean water, fresh and safe. That image fully formed, he decided on his intent. For water to appear inside his waterskin at the same rate that his mother's old battered pewter pitcher poured out water when it was used. It would stop when the skin was full, just like filling a glass. He blew out his breath, and then reached into himself, into and through the Cat, reached within and found that place where the gentle warmth of the All resided inside him. He reached into it, touched it, felt it suddenly infuse him. He felt it wash over his mind, see his image, sense his intent, and then he felt its power flow through him.
From out of nowhere, the face of the girl struck him, like a hammer. Her visage suddenly laid over the image of water, her eyeless gaze boring into him, the totality of his guilt and shame burned into his mind. He recoiled from that image, from himself, and that seemed to suddenly twist and distort the energy flowing through him.
The waterskin in his hand suddenly exploded!
Water, a geysering torrent of it, suddenly exploded from the skin, and its direction was directly back into his face! He inhaled a good lungful of it as he gasped when the power changed inside him, and then the force of it sent him flying backwards, tumbling along the ground. He could feel the power still flowing through him, but it had taken up a life of its own, and it no longer depended on him to manifest in the real world.
It was out of control!
Control! Get control! he thought to himself as he was pushed out of the stream of water erupting from thin air, saturating the ground. He rose up onto knees and elbows and coughed out the water from his lungs, and quickly formed the intent that the water geysering from nowhere stop. His reaching within was frenetic, hurried, but the All again responded to him, finding no image but sensing an intent, and then the power flowing through him increased considerably. It rose up against the other power already moving through him, blocking it, restricting it, quickly and efficiently strangling it until it flowed no more.
The intense geyser of water stopped as if an unseen hand had simply turned a valve. The power flowing through him, all of if, simply stopped. Unlike Sorcery, there was no pain, no sense of lessening from the experience. It simply stopped.
Coughing again, Tarrin rose up onto his knees. He was soaked all the way to the skin, and was kneeling in a column of sandy mud caused by the geyser. Most of the water created by it had already seeped into the dry ground, leaving a dark, muddy splotch behind, and a shallow gouge had been dug out by the water as it hit the ground forcefully, piled up into a little wet sandbar at the far end of the muddy streak. A pool of muddy water quickly disappeared where it pooled up before the sandy barrier. He shook his head, snapping his wet braid to and fro to get the water off his face, stop it from dripping into his eyes, making his ears twitch reflexively.
Then he laughed.
That wasn't quite what he had in mind, but he had to admit, he wasn't thirsty anymore. The water had cooled him off, and the dry air and hot sun were already starting to dry him out.
The little adventure showed him that Druidic magic could be a continuous process rather than the simple manifestation of power. It had kept going within him, and he had the feeling that it would have kept going until he actively stopped it. After all, the power wasn't coming from him, it was simply moving through him. And when he opened the door, it would stay open until he closed it again.
" Ande no adu bai!" came an amused voice.
Tarrin turned to look, and found himself staring at two Selani. Both were male, tall, thin, sleek, wearing the sand-colored baggy clothing for which they were well known. It took him a second to translate that. Ande no adu bai… You funny are. He thinks it was some kind of joke!
" Ande no doro na quiste dai, ne? " the second seemed to say to the first. You think dangerous is? Since Selani didn't employ pronouns when referring to an object, the context of the sentence made it clear he was referring to Tarrin. " Sume no natta abuda-ko bakaida, suja. " Water from somewhere want-to-come, as-you-know… That water had to come from somewhere, you know.
Shaking his head slightly to ready himself for whatever was about to happen, he sized up these two. Thin, sleek, tall, standard Selani. They moved like Allia, so they were quick, and they were old enough to be dangerous. Both of them carried longswords in scabbards on their backs, but the shorter of the two, the one that spoke first, also carried a wooden spear tipped with a steel point. But they had no idea what he was, or how to deal with him. Against two, Tarrin had the advantage.
And they had no idea he could understand what they were saying.
"Well, he may be a magician," the first said, and now that Tarrin was paying attention, he didn't mull over translating. "He's certainly no human. Want to roll for the honor?"
"I'll give you this honor, Var," the second said with a wicked little smile. "You're the one looking to impress Suji. Maybe a story of your skill and bravery against an unnatural invader will enhance you in her eyes."
" Chuko," Var said, the Selani word for "come", waving Tarrin to stand up as he lowered his spear. " Chuko."
He wanted to fight. A test of skill, a challenge to the invader. It was the Selani way. If an invader could best a Selani, he earned a day's reprieve from all other challenges, as a tribute to the honor and skill of the invader. Of course, in actuality, it was win and die a day later, because the next day the entire tribe would come after the target. So in this case, it was die, or win another day of life.
Best get it started with some intimidation, he realized. Against one, he had all the advantages. He let the Selani approach him, spear levelled, get closer and closer. Once he was just at the range of his own spear, he stopped, and Tarrin looked up at him calmly. He wasn't afraid of a single Selani.
Now that he was close, Tarrin got to his feet. Slowly. Rising up to the Selani's eye level, then over it. And over it, and over it, and over it, until he absolutely towered over his smaller opponent. He looked down at the Selani with an emotionless expression, standing fully erect and in a powerful posture that emanated strength and confidence. Just like he'd seen Triana do it so many times, a stance that intimidated everyone around her.