In a brilliant pillar of fire, the Doomwalker's body was reduced to ash in mere instants.
Incapable of focusing his awareness on anything else, still screaming, Tarrin raised his arms and did the only thing he could, release the energy back into the Conduit, allowing it to flow through him without building it up. The entire Conduit suddenly flared with blazing white light, pulsing up along the current of magical energy, then shattering the crystal dome that stood at the very top of the tower, sending the column of incandescent light through the Ward surrounding the grounds. It saturated the magical matrix of the Ward, forcing it to glow with the same brilliance, but did not disrupt its integrity. The column of blazing light shot high into the sky, to illuminate the entire city of Suld with the light of the daytime sun. The desperate act gave him a fleeting instant of rational thought, reducing the incredible pain to a level, however brief, where his mind had the chance to react.
Out. He had to get out of the Conduit. Even allowing the power to flow through him was searing him from the inside out, trying to burn his body to ash. Finding his legs through the whirlpool of pain that sought to suck him into oblivion, Tarrin managed to command his legs to push off and forward, a desperate leap to get him clear of the Conduit before the power burned him to a cinder. Unable to feel anything other than the pain coursing through him, he had no idea if he had left the ground, had even moved, before the pain overwhelmed him, and he knew no more.
The brilliant pillar of white light remained for several seconds, catching the attention of every man, woman, and child in the city of Suld. It was beautiful and silent, a column of white light, so bright it stung the eyes if one looked directly upon it, standing over the city like some fantastic finger of a god. And then it flickered and vanished. The light of the Ward, forming a dome over the Tower grounds, remained for a moment more, pulsing and flickering, and then it too faded from view, leaving the entire city to wonder what magic the mysterious Sorcerers were conjuring.
To most, it was simply an interesting event, something to talk about the next morning. To others, it was a sign. An omen, a warning of things to come.
To them, it was the beginning. And also perhaps the end.
With a ragged gasp, the Keeper was shocked awake by what was happening around her.
The entire Weave was shuddering! The delicate magical matrix of energy to which all Sorcerers were linked suddenly pulsated and writhed, and for a fleeting instant the Keeper thought the entire Weave would tear itself asunder, generating another magical cataclysm similiar to the Breaking. Intense force caused the strands near her to shudder and shake, like an earthquake in the Weave, and she could almost sense the unnatural energy coursing through the strands.
And outside her large window, the night suddenly became as daytime, as brilliant white light flooded into her chamber and illuminated the city beyond.
It had to be caused by an outside force. There were natural shifts in the Weave, even the occasional violent raealignment of the strands, and sometimes even the breaking of a strand. But none of those things came close to what she was feeling around her, feeling the power of it tingle against her skin, almost as if the power were seeking to touch her. She dared not try to touch the Weave and assense what was happening to it. To open herself to it while it was unstable could destroy her.
It lasted for several seconds, and then the Weave settled back into normalcy. She sat in her bed, staring at the light outside the window, then jumped up and rushed to it in time to see the magical light within the Ward begin to wane, flickering and dimming until the night was as it was supposed to be.
So it was true. The task for which they were training their nonhumans was truly at hand, and those who had objected to the precaution would have to hold their tongues. Just as predicted, the turning of night to daytime in the city of the Goddess' children had come to pass.
It was time.
The first guard to arrive in the Heart of the Goddess found only Tarrin, clothes, fur, and hair burned away, with savage burns all over his body, laying prone on the floor. He also found a bloodstained sword, a broken, dented shield, and a large pile of black ash. The tip of the Were-cat's hairless, charred tail had wispy white tendrils of magic floating and dancing around it, which broke away from it like smoke to flow up towards the heavens.
At first, there was only a sensation of nothing. But that eventually faded, and Tarrin realized slowly that he wasn't dead. Scents began to touch his nose, and muffled sounds began to creep into his awareness.
He was laying on a soft sheet, in a soft bed. He was on his back, and a warm, soft blanket covered him. The coppery smell of Allia was near to him, as was the human scent and lavender and ivory that always identified Dolanna. He also could smell the sharp scent of his mother, and the leathery smell that always tinged his father's scent. He wanted to open his eyes, but he found himself to be so tired that even that simple act would have been a momumental achievement. The very act of breathing, of beating his heart, were efforts that forced his body to focus all of its attention on those tasks. His awakening also brought pain, dull ache in his shoulder and head, along his side, and over about every square finger of skin he had. He felt like he had the itching sickness, and was covering his entire body. It wasn't severe, just enough to be annoying, but even that sensation was welcome compared to the oblivion from which he had climbed.
But Tarrin's magical nature was strong, and soon he felt himself strengthen, even as the voices around him sharpened to the point where he could understand the words. He took stock in himself, and found that he could move, if only just, flexing his paw around the hand that was placed within it. A hand that he hadn't felt until the pressure of it squeezing back overwhelmed the burning itch dominating his sense of touch.
"Tarrin?" his mother's voice called. "Tarrin, open your eyes. You can do it."
His eyelids were hard to open. Something was crusted over them, and they didn't want to fold properly. The best he could manage was a half-open right eye, but the left refused to cooperate. But there was nothing but grayness past his eye. With detached interest, he realized that the eye was blinded. "Tarrin, what happened? What did this to you?"
It was hard to make his voice work, and it required a supreme effort on his part. His voice came out in the barest of whispers, and his eye fluttered close even as he spoke, as if he could not support speaking and keeping his eye open at the same time. "D-Doom…walker," he managed to gasp, and it was enough to send him spiralling back into the blackness.
It was a long time before he clawed his way back to consciousness. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but if the condition of his body was any indication, it had been quite a while. The burning itch was gone, and the play of light against his eyelids bled through them and registered to his eyes. His shoulder and ear still ached a bit, but on the whole he felt much stronger than before. He was still weak, but the simple act of opening his eyes wouldn't exhaust him this time. The scents in the room were the same, but also different. His parents and Allia were still there, as was Jenna. There were two or three other humans in the room also, scents he didn't know. No, he did know one of them. The blond Sorceress, Jula, whom he had met in the baths some time ago. There was very little talking, and Tarrin was keenly aware of a hand holding his paw.
His eyes fluttering open, he squinted against the bright light in the room, then they focused on his mother's haggard face. She had dark circles under her eyes, and strangely, her braid had been cut off. She smiled warmly at him as his eyes focused on her, and she patted his cheek lovingly. "Good morning, my son," she said with a smile. "How do you feel?"