Nowhere. He was getting nowhere again. No matter how he tried to reach out to the Weave, it simply wasn't there. Just a short time of trying had worked up his temper, and he knew that he had to stop before he got so aggravated that Denai's presence became dangerous.
Opening his eyes, he blew out his breath. He hadn't tried last night, and he wasn't about to let that go. They had stopped twice to rest or eat, and both times he had sat down in a meditative position and tried to find his power again. This was the third time, and it was no more successful than the other two. He rubbed his eyes gingerly with a finger and a thumb, then uncurled his tail from around his legs. The mental effort of reaching for the power was surprising, leaving him feeling a little tired every time he tried it. That fatigue would fade quickly, so it wasn't a real problem for him.
What was the answer? It almost drove him crazy. He knew that he could do it. He'd seen that Sha'Kar woman use her power, and he knew that he could do it too. But it was like trying to cage the wind. He had tried so many different ways to reach out to the Weave, but it was like it was a ghost. He could see it, but he couldn't touch it. What made it worse was that his sense of the Weave grew sharper and sharper in the days since the fight with the Sha'Kar woman. His sense of the Weave grew more and more clear, more precise, and he could sense it from greater and greater distances. He had gotten to the point where he could almost see the energy flowing through it, like pulses of light travelling along the ghostly tendrils that hid behind the reality before him. And it still pulsed in that sound that was like a heartbeat, expanding and contracting in time like blood flowing through vessels, like he was somehow inside the bodiless form of the Goddess herself, and could see the true workings of her wonders from the inside.
At least today there were no real distractions. The eyeless face was still there, lurking just underneath his conscious, but for some reason it had been unusually subdued today. The emotions it incited in him were also more subdued today, allowing him to think more than feel, and not feel as if his world was floating on the blood of the innocent, innocents destroyed by his own hand. He could still feel it there, but for a change, it did not attempt to torture him this day.
Denai approached him. She was about average height for a Selani female, which made her unnaturally tall to a human, but she seemed almost laughably short to him. She only came up to his chest. With him seated, he nearly came up to her shoulders, putting his eyes on a direct level with her breasts. She stopped a few paces from him, making sure that he had seen her and acknowledged her presence, then came within arm's reach of him slowly. That close to her, her coppery scent washed over him like rain, making him miss Allia. Denai's scent was markedly similar to his sister's. The idea that she was standing but he was seated flitted through his mind, reminding him that he was at a disadvantage. At first, he wanted to stand, but the part of him that chanted over and over again that there was nothing to fear from Denai made him stay seated, to stay in a vulnerable position, to see what she would do. If she attacked, he was confident he could take her down with his tail, and then it was a simple matter of finishing her off. "I made oatcakes, Tarrin," she offered. "I even have some honey to flavor them."
"I'm not hungry, Denai."
"You haven't eaten all day," she protested. "You need to eat, or the sun will drain you of your strength."
"The sun doesn't bother me, Denai," he said calmly, looking up at her. "I'm not human. Heat doesn't bother my kind." Well, it was almost true. Were-cats were highly adaptable. Given about a month or so, the heat truly wouldn't bother one.
"Fine. Here," she said, holding out a waterskin. "I know you need this."
He looked at the skin with narrow eyes, his feral nature rising up. The thought of what she did to that water rushed through him first, then he quashed such irrational thoughts deliberately. The girl was a Selani. She'd never intentionally poison someone. That was inexcusably dishonorable. He reached out carefully to take the skin, and as soon as he had it in his paw, he snatched it away from her, pulling his paw away from any possible danger.
She levelled her amber eyes on him, eyes that reminded him of Keritanima, then she smiled that charming smile of hers. "Look. No blood," she said, holding up her hands palms out.
He raised a paw, extended one finger, and showed her one of his long, wicked claws. "Would you like some?"
"Uh, no."
"Then go away," he said dismissively, but the command was unmistakable in his voice.
Denai said nothing more. She turned her back to him and walked away, rejoining Sarraya near a small fire she had made to cook whatever crawly thing she had managed to spit on her dagger. There were certainly enough crawly things out here. The land was relatively flat, with clumps of strange brush or tough weeds here and there, scattered across the dusty ground. The dirt had a strange reddish tint to it, and it was loose and compliant to the touch. It was actually quite soft. There were very few stones out here, and the ones that were here were very small. He had the sneaking suspicion that they were only here because sandstorms had picked them up and placed them out here. The vegetation could support life, but nothing on the scale of an inu, sukk, or kajat. Most things out here were small and scuttling. Lizards, bugs, spiders, a few mice, from the smell of things. He did smell some residual scent from a bird of some kind, and there was a faint trace of what smelled like some kind of canine, though. The grayish color of the ground to the west hinted that things were a little different over there, but that could also be the heat-haze rising up from the baking ground to distort the far landscape.
"Here," Denai said. Tarrin looked in that direction, and saw Denai and Sarraya hunching over something on the ground. "This is a zubu. That means slow walker. It's one of the common spiders in this region."
"Is it venomous?"
"Sarraya, everything in the desert is venomous," Denai said with a little chuckle. "My people have all but become immune to poison, with as many poisonous things out here that bite or sting us." She pointed down. " Zubu aren't really dangerous unless you annoy them. They're very gentle. Some of my people even keep them as pets."
"Are they deadly if they do bite?"
"Very," she replied. "Their poison is almost as potent as an umuni ."
"Isn't it a bit strange to keep a spider for a pet that can kill you if it gets annoyed?"
"What better pet to have?" she countered. "I'll guarantee that you'll never take a zubu for granted. It's a responsibility that you'll never dismiss."
"How do you mean?"
" Zubu get short-tempered when they're hungry," she answered. "The best way to keep a zubu happy is to keep it well fed."
"Oh. I get it," she mused, then she laughed. "What do they eat?"
"Anything that they can bite," she replied in a light tone. "They seem to prefer jumping mice and digger-beetles, though."