"I can whip up anything you need, Var," Sarraya offered. "You name it, I'll Conjure it."
"I appreciate the offer, friend Sarraya," Var said with a smile. "That way I don't feel as if I'm dishonoring myself by abandoning my duty."
"Accidents happen, Var," Sarraya told him dismissively. "Especially when those accidents hunt you down and try to eat you."
Var laughed. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to travel with you for a ways. This stretch of desert has proven to be dangerous, and as they say, safety runs in numbers. I think that travelling with you would be much more interesting anyway, and right now, we're all going in the same direction. I can do my duty to my tribe and scout, and travel with you at the same time." He smiled. "You could always use another pair of hands to keep the fire going, couldn't you?"
Var looked at Denai, Denai looked at Sarraya, and Sarraya looked at Tarrin. She knew that it hinged on Tarrin's consent. Tarrin had already made his decision, but something in him told him not to tip his hand that he had. He stood there and fixed Var with a suitably flat look, one that made the Selani take a step back, then he blew out his breath. "Just stay away from me," he warned in an ominous tone. "And don't bother me. As long as you do that, you can do whatever you want."
"Why, Tarrin, that's something of a surprise," Sarraya said in sincere consternation.
"He's a pair of hands for the fire. Nothing more," Tarrin growled in her direction, then he turned his back on them, and started climbing up the broken rock spire.
"I think he likes you, Var," Sarraya said with a giggle, but Tarrin tuned them out before he heard any replies, using his claws to scamper up the sheer rock face with ease.
He found a comfortable spot on the relatively flat top of the broken spire, sat down and wrapped his tail around his crossed legs, and began. His method for trying hadn't really changed since the start, because it was the only thing he could think of to try. He tried to reach out to the Weave and have it respond.
And like every other time, it was nowhere to be found. For well over an hour he attempted to make contact with the Weave, but it all came to naught. As always, it was visible but untouchable, a vaporous ghost that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. Every time he reached towards it, it melted away from him. It was the same aggravation, because he could sense the Weave, sense its every nuance for longspans in every direction, could feel the pulsing of the magical energy of it through the Weave, through his veins. He could hear it, hear the choral echoing vibrations as the magic flowed through it, could almost hear the pounding of the Goddess' heart along the strands. His ability to sense it was so incredibly acute that it mystified him that he couldn't find a connection to that energy, a bridge to bring its power to him.
He concentrated on his sense of it, listening to it, feeling it more and more intently. Maybe, he reasoned, if he could come to a more intimate understanding of it, it would be there when he reached for it. Falling back on the skills taught to him by Allia, he emptied his mind of all extraneous thoughts, emptied his mind of all feelings and sensation. He emptied himself of everything except for the Weave, of his sense of it, giving it the entirety of his concentration. Eyes closed, his ears twitched with the sounds of the Weave, a eerie haunting melody of discordant notes that blended together into something that was disturbingly beautiful. Like the haunting songs of the big fish that Keritanima called whales, echoing through the Weave. He descended deeper into himself, subverted all thought in lieu of seeking the unspoken messages he hoped that would be in the Weave that could guide him to its power. His expression became neutral, then serene as he raised his chin and opened his senses, seeking to touch the Weave with more than just his mind, trying to leave all distractions behind him. Even the eyeless face fell away from his consciousness as he strove to reach above all other things, to rise above all distraction and seek to call in the power he sought.
The attempt had a strange, unpredictable effect. He became aware of a change, a fundamental shift in his senses, and when he opened his eyes, the desert was gone. It had been replaced by a void of utter, unfathomable blackness, a darkness that went beyond any description of black. It was an anti-light, an utter lack of anything. His first reaction was one of fear, but that flowed away quickly when he realized that there was nothing there to harm him. It was merely a place, like any other, and somehow he knew that he could return to where he had been at any time if he so wished it.
At that realization, the void parted, opened like a blossoming flower, and the countless strands of the Weave seemed to wink into existence all around him, going off into infinity in every direction, even below him. With the appearance of the strands, he recalled being in this place before, a place that did not exist, a place that existed somewhere outside reality. The throbbing of the strands reached his ears, breaking the silence, and the pinpoints that marked the hearts of the Sorcerers appeared in the black sky, like stars of white light that winked and shimmered in the sky. The scene before him was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn't quite remember exactly when and where and how he had come to be here before. He recalled speaking to the Goddess in this place, and when he did, her words came from outside, not from within himself as they usually did.
The Goddess.
He knew this place now. It was here where the Goddess explained what had happened to him after fighting the Sha'Kar. He realized that he was not in that place, as he had been before. He was merely looking within it from the outside. How he knew that, he didn't know, but he knew it to be truth. It was within the wellspring from which all magical energy flowed, and to which all magic in the Weave eventually returned once it flowed a cycle through the strands. It was a heart of sorts, both sending out and calling in the magical energies that infused the world, using the hearts of the Sorcerers as the driving force which caused the magic to flow.
Sorcerers. In this place, they were all one, a unified whole working towards a common objective. It was the life energy of the Sorcerers that caused the magic to flow, and that revealed to him a fundamental truth, a truth that seemed so obvious to him in that moment of lucidity.
Sorcery was dependent on the number of Sorcerers alive to fuel it. The diminishing of the might of the Sorcerers wasn't because of lost lore or disappearing Ancients or weakened natural ability, it was because there weren't enough Sorcerers left to support magic of that magnitude.
The Goddess said that the old powers were returning to the world. If that was so, it was because a new generation of Sorcerers had been born, born in such numbers that the Weave's ability to support magical energy had been significantly increased by their presence. Even those who had never touched their power supported the Weave, granting their hearts to it. It was why Sorcery was not a learned skill, but a natural ability. Their presence would cause the Weave to expand, to enrich, to grow, and all who could access it, both directly and indirectly, would gain power from that enrichment. Sorcerers would find that they could handle more power, weave new spells, expand their own personal maximums, and wizards and priests could again cast spells denied to them for a thousand years.
The Ancients hadn't been more powerful at a basic level, they had simply lived at a time when the Weave was much stronger than it was now. They had certainly had more knowledge of the Weave, but their power was due to the Weave, not their innate ability.
But what about the Breaking? They had taught him that the Breaking happened because too many magicians and too many magical objects placed such a strain on the Weave that it could no longer support the demands placed on it, and it tore. The Ancients that existed before the Breaking simply vanished. Did they vanish because they knew what was coming, or did they vanish because they were dead?