"Sounds like most of this is going to be getting over your frustration," she said with a little grunt. "Knowing how you handle frustration, I think I'll keep my distance from you while you're trying."
"That may be a good idea," he agreed seriously. "I know it can be done, because that Sha'Kar woman was using High Sorcery. She also used Sorcery in some ways I can't even describe. I think those were Weavespinner ways."
"Try."
He groped for an explanation. "She didn't use Sorcery," he said helplessly. "It was like the magic was just there. She didn't draw it or weave it or do anything you have to do to use Sorcery."
"Well, your Goddess told you that there's more than one way to use Sorcery," Sarraya said. "This must be some sort of direct use. A way to use it that doesn't require any preparation or formulation. Almost like Druidic magic, if you think about it."
"How do you mean?"
"She just wanted it to happen, and it did," she explained. "That's the core of Druidic magic, if you recall. But this was much faster, and if you didn't feel anything from her, then it either doesn't take effort, or you weren't sensitive enough to feel what she did. Either would explain it."
"It has to take some effort, so I'd say that I couldn't feel what she did," he said with a little sigh. "That, or she did it so fast I couldn't make it out. She was an Ancient, Sarraya. She must be so good at magic that I couldn't even begin to keep track of her."
"Could you keep track of everything else she did?"
"Some of it," he replied. "She could weave spells so fast, I barely realized that she was releasing them before they were coming at me. She didn't use alot of power when we fought, she just out-wove me. She taught me a few things about Sorcery, that's for sure," he said with respect in his voice.
"Like what?"
"How to not only disrupt weaving, but to turn it against the weaver," he answered. "She attacked one of my weaves while I was weaving it, and caused it to collapse into an entirely different spell just by introducing a few stray flows into it. Then it blew up in my face."
"You didn't release it?"
"When she attacked it, she gained control over it. She was the one that released it, not me."
"So, you learned something already. You think you could incite another Sorcerer's spell into releasing before it's finished?"
"I think I could," he said after a moment of reflection. "Flows are flows. What they do depends on who controls them. I'm strong enough to wrest control from someone else. At least I would be if I could touch the Weave," he added in a growling voice.
"Well then, I'd say that the encounter did more good for you than we first thought," Sarraya told him with a smile.
"I hope so," he said absently, turning an ear to the wind. It was still howling outside.
"I don't think you should start right now," Sarraya told him. "Take a couple of days first. Think about everything, rest a while. You're not quite ready to take on something like this yet."
"I know, but I do know that I can't waste too much time."
"Why?"
"You told me that the Sha'Kar said that my time was running out," he replied. "I'm on a tight schedule here, it seems. So tight that the Goddess had to send the Sha'Kar to move me along. I'll wait a day, but that's all. Tomorrow night, I'm going to start trying to find my power again."
"I hate to say it, but you're right. I hate working on someone's strings," Sarraya grunted.
"We've been doing this since the start, Sarraya," he told her. "Sometimes, I think that I was born with those strings on me."
"Maybe. But look at it this way. At least you're having a very interesting life."
He looked at her, then laughed in spite of himself. "Want to trade?"
"Ah, no. I doubt I'd enjoy going through life as a boy."
"What difference does it make?"
"All the difference in the world," she replied. "Bodies are bodies, but souls are the true gender. If I were trapped in a man's body, I think I'd have a very hard time functioning in human society."
"You do already."
"I'm not human, am I?"
"Neither am I. At least not anymore."
"Would you want to go back?"
"I don't think about that, Sarraya," he said seriously. "I never think about what could have been. I can't change the past, so it's better if I don't dwell on things I can't change. This is the way it is, and that's life. I can't be changed back without dying in the process, so I'm stuck this way."
"Just for argument's sake, let's say you could. Would you want to?"
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the stone behind him. When he closed his eyes, the eyeless face appeared in his mind, casting salt into his raw wounds yet again. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I've been this way for so long, I can't even imagine being another way. But-I just don't know, Sarraya."
"Tarrin… what do you think you'll do when this is all over?" she asked hesitantly.
"I haven't thought about it," he told her. "To be honest, I don't expect to live through this. And maybe that's for the best."
"Why say something like that?"
"I have something to focus on now. When this is over, I'll have nothing left in my life. Kerri will go back to Wikuna, and Allia will go back to the desert. I could visit, but I wouldn't be welcome in either place. I know that already. I'd have no purpose, no goal. And without something in my life, my ferality will take over. I'll end up like Mist, living in complete fear. I think I'd rather die than face that." He sighed. "I'm a Weavespinner, Sarraya. I know how powerful I am. Do you want someone like me out there, with all this power, and no constraints about using it?"
"Well… no."
"I've done enough damage already. I'm tired of destroying things, of killing people. The best thing that could happen out of all this is I end up getting killed when it's over."
"Well, I think that that's a defeatist attitude," she said sternly. "Triana would slap you for saying such things."
"Triana would understand," he told her. "She wouldn't like it, but she'd understand."
"Well, I don't understand, and I won't allow it. I absolutely forbid you to die."
Tarrin looked down at her, then chuckled. "And who made you queen of the universe, little dolly?"
"I did," she said flippantly. "And as queen of the universe, you can't disobey me. If you die on me, I'll kill you."
Tarrin laughed. "Yes, Your Majesty," he said in mock supplication.
"Now let's get some sleep," Sarraya said. "We have a long way to go."
"Isn't that the truth," Tarrin agreed in a distant tone. "A very long way to go."
The last rays of the sun peered over the twin mountains known as the Earth's Breast, shining their last on the grim stone fortress built at the top of a sheer mountain. It was known as Castle Keening, a name granted to it because of the fierce mountain winds that howled through the battlements at all hours of the day and night. Its builders designed it to guard the wide mountain pass which it overlooked, a protection from raiding Goblinoid tribes that would attack mining caravans that extracted the precious metals, iron, and lead that were abundant in the range that surrounded the triple lakes known as Petal Lakes. But as the Dals pushed the Goblinoids more and more out of the mountains to the south, the need for the grim fortress waned. It was left abandoned, fell into disrepair, after its service was no longer required. The memory of it faded as the deposits of metals were mined out in the southern reaches of the Petal Lakes region, as the miners moved to the north to exploit the mineral wealth that remained. The wide pass below was dotted with abandoned villages and solitary inns, respites from hard mountain travel for the miners and the merchants that came to buy their ores, and the wagoneers that transported it.