He reached the first rock spire about an hour before sunset. The spires were clustered together loosely, a good distance between each one, and as he passed by the first, he slowed to a walking pace. This was the place. What had called out to him? What was it that had incited such a powerful reaction? The static charge that had been in the air was gone now, but there was something else. It was a sense of… presence. There was someone here, a someone whose very presence weighed down on the air itself. The Weave itself seemed to oscillate, to shimmer, to vibrate in response to this presence, and the strands were actively leaning towards some focal point.
As if the presence had the power to affect the Weave, just by its presence alone.
Would he find Fara'Nae here? Was this a place holy to her? The only beings he could think of that could do such things were gods. Was this collection of rock spires like the courtyard in the hedge maze back in the Tower? It wasn't the Goddess. He'd feel it if she was the one that was here. Her sense of presence was completely different from this.
At least that sense of presence acted as a beacon. He could follow it right to its source.
Sarraya began to get fidgety as Tarrin walked towards that sense of presence, slowly, calmly, more curious than worried. "Tarrin? I feel…"
"I know. I feel it too."
"Is this what you heard?"
"No, but this is what called me," he said. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. "It's over there," he said, pointing.
"That's not the only thing here," Sarraya said. "I just saw a Selani."
"Where?" he asked.
"To your right," she replied. "Just behind that rock spire over there."
Tarrin turned and looked. It was a smaller rock spire, as thick around as most large trees, and only about twenty spans high. He couldn't see a Selani, but Selani were experts at hiding and stealth. If Sarraya saw one, she saw one, and she was lucky to see the Selani in the first place.
"I'll go see what else is around. I'll be right back."
"Be careful," he called as her wings began to buzz, and she faded from sight as she started towards the rock spire.
Tarrin continued walking towards that sense of presence alone. He wasn't really afraid. There had been nothing in the call that invoked fear. Even his feral suspicion seemed to be overwhelmed by the wild curiosity behind the strange, voiceless call. All of him wanted to find out who this strange presence was, and why it called to him.
For another ten minutes he moved towards that sensation, until he came around a small rock spire and got his first look at it.
It was a humanoid, or at least he thought it was. It was tall, and was totally garbed in a strange black cloak, a cloak so black that it consumed any sense of dimension the figure held. It was as if the cloak had been cut from the most impenetrable darkness, and the figure he saw was nothing but a cut out sheet of paper held up to the sun. It stood upon one of the rock spires, one of the smaller ones, and he couldn't tell if it faced him or not. All he could see was a black shadow between him and the sun. The only reason he could tell it was a cloak was because the afternoon winds pulled and tugged at it, making the dimensionless form before him waver and ripple like a reflection on dark water.
He came to a stop about a hundred spans from the spire, looking up the thirty spans to the figure. He was closer now, and he could see that it was indeed a cloak. It opened occasionally in the wind to reveal a formless figure beneath, a figure wearing black garments that blended in with the utter blackness of the cloak, serving to distort the figure's shape and form from his eyes. That opening told him that the figure faced him, but he could not see through the hood to discern any features.
He still felt no fear, but he felt a powerful sense from the figure. The Weave was bending in towards it, and just as the Sorcerer back in that city had sensed him, so he sensed it. This figure was a Sorcerer, and its power was unfathomable. He had never felt anything like it before.
" Vosh, " the figure intoned, and that made his jaw drop, intoned in a rich alto voice that absolutely had to belong to a woman. That was a Sha'Kar word! " Vosh. Unda ne. Vasti dosba no. "
He was absolutely stunned. The pronunciation was much different from what Keritanima had taught him, but it was undeniable that it was Sha'Kar that the form was speaking. " Time-ending. Arrived have. I for-you-waiting have been. " At last. You have come. I have waited for you.
He was completely bowled over. She spoke Sha'Kar! That language was dead, nobody spoke it anymore! And she spoke it like she'd spoken it all her life!
"Do I surprise you?" she asked in Sulasian, and her pattern of speech was odd. It was as if she spoke every word with absolute exacting precision before moving on to the next. "You have come. You are ready," she told him, reverting to Sha'Kar.
Hearing her speak Sha'Kar invoked an automatic response in him, and his gift for languages rose up, instantly correcting the improper pronunciations that Keritanima had taught him when they were learning the language. "Wh-What do you mean? Who are you?" he managed to stammer, in a Sha'Kar dialect almost mirroring her own.
"Who I am does not matter," she said, reaching up for the hood of her cloak. "That you heard my call is all that matters now. You are ready." She pulled back her hood, and he almost fell to his knees.
She was a Selani!
Selani! Her features were undeniable! She actually bore a curious resemblance to Allia in her cheeks and her blue, blue eyes. Her hair was silver where Allia's was white, shimmering in the brutal desert sun, and she had a faint scar on her left cheek, a dark line on her smooth, dusky brown face. The scar did nothing to mar her exceptional beauty, it only accented the graceful beauty of her face to his eyes. Almost as if it were a beauty mark. Her face was lovely, but it was her eyes that captured his attention. A deep blue, like Allia's, but behind them was a sort of deep ocean of knowldge and wisdom that made her eyes haunting, piercing, ensnaring the eyes of others yet making them worrisome and uncomfortable to stare into their depths. Those eyes looked into you, and they exposed all your secrets, made her know every part of you, both good and bad. There was no hiding from those eyes. They were not the eyes of an ordinary mortal being, and they marked her for the kind of exotic, unique entity that she was. Piercing blue eyes stared down at him, and the expression on the face was stony, unreadable. She was obviously mature, but her features did not betray her age. But there was a set in the way she held herself, the way she looked at him with those powerful eyes, a sense and feeling much like Triana. This woman was old. At least as old as Triana, and that made him make a vital connection.
A truth crashed down on him at that moment. Sha'Kar is alot like Selani, he had told Keritanima as he learned it. The words are different, but the structure of both languages is similar, Keritanima had told him. Almost as if they had been descended from the same root language.
This strange woman wasn't Selani. She was Sha'Kar!
The Selani and the Sha'Kar were related!
A Sha'Kar! A living Sha'Kar! They were supposed to be extinct, the race snuffed out in the Breaking! He took a frightful step back from her, fearing her now, because if she was a Sha'Kar, then that meant that she was an Ancient. It certainly explained how her very presence seemed to attract the Weave, warp it, draw it to her. Her power was incredible!