"I really didn't want to see that," Jula said with a shudder. "I feel sorry for the cub. She only did what everyone else wanted to do, but was too afraid to try."
"I know, but if she were older, Triana would have killed her. You know the law."
"I know," she sighed. "What happened down there? The whole Tower shook."
"I was in a rage. Triana stopped me, and she did it faster than I thought she could have. I think she has experience in dealing with raging Were-cats."
"With Jesmind as her daughter, I wouldn't be surprised," Jula said with a slight smile as they reached the stairs, Jasana's howls still ringing in their ears.
"I remember every moment of it," he grunted. That was very unusual for a rage. Usually he had no memory of it initially, but the memory slowly bled into him afterwards. He remembered every minute of this one, from Allia besting him in the storeroom to laying waste to the lower levels of the Tower to the very, very short confrontation between him and Triana. "I've never been handled like that before," he admitted. "Triana must have practiced for the day she'd have to subdue me. It took her all of about half a moment." He put a paw to his head. "I was too enraged," he told her in a distant tone as they descended down the staircase. "I was so mad, so completely enraged that I couldn't even remember things I usually remember when I'm in a rage. I couldn't even use Sorcery."
"That's a good thing, father," she said with a shudder.
"I'd have to agree with you," he nodded. "I don't think that would have happened anyway, Jula. Mother was watching, and she wouldn't have allowed me to use Sorcery against her Tower. Remember, what she gives to us freely she can withhold when it's needful." He was silent a moment. "I do remember trying for Sorcery there at the end, and I think I could have used it if Triana hadn't been on me. I was shocked, daughter. I'm still shocked. Triana's a lot more powerful than I thought."
"I thought you said you couldn't remember how to use Sorcery."
"Triana had me in some kind of locking move," he told her, "and she was overwhelming me with Druidic magic. I think that shocked me out of the depths of that rage, enough for the Cat to regain access to some parts of our mind. I reached for Sorcery because Triana had taken everything else away. And she was waiting for me to try that," he admitted with a grim chuckle. "I didn't think a Druid could cut me off, but I know now I was wrong about that."
He thought back over that episode, and realized once again how much of a liability the rage could be. He'd been so furious that he didn't even try to defend himself from Allia, didn't understand the danger she posed. He just attacked her wildly, and in that wild, undisciplined flailing, Allia picked him apart and stuck her sword in his neck. He had been so enraged that he couldn't even remember how to use his magical abilities. The only reason he had Druidic magic was because the All connected with him, not the usual system where he reached into the All. And even when he had the power, he could do nothing with it than crude, elemental bashing, flailing about with the magic like it was an extra arm, using nothing but raw, unrefined eruptions of naked power. He had had no control, no finesse, none of the usual exacting precision with which he usually wielded his Druidic magic and his Sorcery both, and his fury severly limited the possible ways he could have used the All. In this case, that was a good thing, since he was too angry to get creative in his destruction, but in any other case it would be a very, very bad thing to have happen. Then with Triana, he was so enraged that he couldn't use his full power, couldn't even use the power he had at hand in a rational manner, and she beat him because of it. Tarrin was glad they'd beaten him, but that competitive part of him still objected to being bested, no matter what the contest. Besides, they were very important lessons for him, lessons in how not to act when facing a powerful foe. He'd learned long ago that rage was an asset to his opponent, not to himself, because it reduced his capacity to think rationally, and now more than ever using his magic required a great deal of rational control. Jegojah had taught him that lesson in the most bitter fashion, when his rage had caused Faalken's death. In a way, it was good to be reminded of that fact. If he was in a rage, all he could do was use heavy-handed, crude magic, relying on power. Now he knew so many spells, so many spells that could protect him or help him win a fight, but he couldn't use any of them if he was so enraged that all he wanted to do was blow things up. It was even more critical with Druidic magic, for in a fury he may try to sink a mountain into the sea or something else like that, and it would end up getting him killed. It was good that he had lost his temper inside, where the confined space also limited the available options for destruction. Since all he had around to destroy were crates and walls and ceilings and floors, he didn't try something that he wasn't capable of accomplishing, like exploding one of the buildings on the Tower grounds or something like that. The restrained nature of the underground passages were actually an asset to him that time, and their simplisitic monotony protected him from himself.
Yes, he realized, if he had lost control anywhere else, there was a very good chance he wouldn't have lived for very long.
He thanked the Goddess for small favors, and continued down the staircase with a new, sober sense of determination. He could never have that happen again. Who he was and what he could do meant that it would most likely be fatal the next time.
Jasana's howls of pain were lost to his ears now, and he was secretly glad of that. Maybe he was a doting father, but he really didn't relish the idea of seeing his child in pain. Any of them. And from the look in Triana's eyes, she was certainly feeling pain right now. Triana could be very heavy-handed when she punished someone, an extension of her dominating nature. She would beat some sense into the child, she would make her see things her way. In her own way, Triana was the best available choice to punish Jasana, for she would show no favoritism, and she would not relent until she was certain that the child had learned her lesson. Triana could be ruthless that way.
"She's that strong?" Jula asked.
Tarrin realized they were still talking, and he shook his head. "It's not her power, cub, it's how she uses it. I think at one time, she was using about six different spells on me. That means she had to be actively concentrating on each and every one. And she was physically struggling to keep me in that strange armlock, and she was using a very delicate spell designed to reach into my mind and shake my conscious mind free of the rage. That's not something I'd try if it was the only thing I was doing. She's a very powerful Druid, cub, I can't say she's not, but I don't think I'll ever see anyone in my life that's not a god that has more control over magic than Triana. I don't think even I could do what she did."
"After a thousand years, I think you'll admit you lied just now," she teased.
"Maybe, but I doubt it," he grunted. He could sense Jenna and Keritanima clearly now; they were coming up the stairs. Jenna was actively searching for him, sending faint magical pulses into the Weave in waves and looking for the responses as they made contact with Sorcerers. It was an old Weavespinner trick called sounding, something she had learned from either Spyder or the Sha'Kar. The modern katzh-dashi knew of a weaker form of the trick they used in the form of a spell, which they used to ferret out untrained Sorcerers, for they would register to the technique, albeit very faintly. Because Tarrin had such a powerful effect on the Weave, he would have the strongest response, and that would tell her exactly where he was. It was a trick that let her get around the nondetection ability in his amulet, which protected him from almost any other form of magical detection. After all, she wasn't looking for him, she was looking for the effect he had on the Weave. That was a very different thing, and it was something that the amulet did not-could not-conceal. "Here comes Jenna and Kerri."