"They can hurt Demons now," he said, releasing his grip on the resevoir of energy, and immediately sensing every Circle on the grounds tap into it. The Weave shuddered as the Circles fed off his accumulated power, and the sounds of sudden explosions and sharp detonations echoed and re-echoed across the grounds. "Come on, let's go deal with this," he said grimly.
Not like that! the Goddess commanded. They need your power right now, kitten, not your sword!
Before he could reply, a Whisper reached him. Tarrin, you've got to give us more! Ianelle demanded in a hurried, desperate manner. We can't draw out much more on our own!
Where is Jenna? he demanded quickly.
Fighting her own battle in the city! she replied urgently. Quickly! We've nearly depleted what you gave us!
He knew immediately and instinctively what he had to do. "Sarraya, stay with Allia," he ordered. "Keep an eye on each other, and remember that only Allia can do any real damage."
"I can be of use, even if I can't fight directly," Sarraya said quickly.
"Then do it," he said, putting a weave of Air underneath him. "Be careful," he told them as he quickly lifted off the ground, standing on a platform of his own power, rising up with shocking speed, rising up over the battlefield. He could see it now. Pockets of fighting surrounded the seven towers, heavy, intense fighting as groups of Knights, Wikuni Marines, and Arakite Legions surrounded lone or small groups of many kinds of horrid Demons. From human-like armored half-breed Cambisi to those huge vulture-like ones, even two of the four-armed, pincer-handed dogheaded Demons like the one he'd fought in Dala Yar Arak. Big ones, little ones, all of them ugly, and all of them killing humans with almost wild abandon, swinging black-bladed weapons or rending with teeth and claws or killing with crushing blows of raw power. Circles of Sorcerers, each led by a Sha'Kar, struck at the Demons almost recklessly, driving blasting, incandescent bolts of pure, unrefined magical power into them. The bolts exploded when they hit Demons, annihilating the creature, and occasionally accidentally catching up the warriors trying to pin them down in the magical firestorms, killing and injuring their own. The Sha'Kar were trying to minimize the friendly casualties, but what they were working with was raw and volatile, and they didn't have an exacting control over the power they trying to wield.
Worries of his family was pushed aside as he rose to the very top of the Tower, over it, looking down on the combatants like they were tiny figurines. He backed up until he was nearly in the center of the Tower, and he distinctively felt it when he made contact with the major Conduit that rose up from the crystal dome at the very center of the Tower's top. The endless power of the Weave reached out and grabbed him with that contact, literally dragging him into the Conduit, and he felt its power race over him, around him, through him, making every bit of his body tingle and buzz like pins and needles as the power reached through him. As the Goddess reached through him, directly through him, using him as an instrument to do her bidding, just as she had done during the battle against the ki'zadun. He felt himself being shunted to the side as the power of the Goddess joined with his, and he felt her unfathomable energy touch him. Shrinking back from the immensity of her, seeking shelter from her might in the feeble shell of his mortal form, he tried to look away from her terrible beauty, tried not to experience the thrilling, terrifying, awe-inspiring sensation of being directly linked to the power of a god.
An amount of power so vast it would have destroyed him had he tried to wield it himself rose up out of the Conduit, causing the huge pillar of magical power to suddenly blaze with light brighter than the sun. As it had done when he was being turned, the entire Weave around the whole city of Suld suddenly became visible, glittering, glowing strings and strands of energy that crisscrossed the streets, the buildings, the ground, the sky, covering the cityscape with a multitude of glittering lines of magical power. Tarrin could only snap his head back and gasp as that power touched him, infused him, then flowed through him, reaching out into the entire Weave as the Goddess' invisible hand cupped the totality of her precious creation and twisted it, wringing all the otherworldly magical energy within it like a maid wringing a washcloth and funnelling it to the Tower of Six Spires.
She wasn't done. He could sense it, though he tried not to look into and through the connection that now existed between his mind and her godly intelligence. With a speed that made him look like an untrained Novice, flows of power, hundreds of individual spells, lanced out him like arrows shot from a bow, visible lances of magical power that erupted from the blazing pillar of light that was the Conduit and rained down all over the Tower grounds. Their targets were not the Demons, they were the grim, courageous humans fighting against invincible foes to give the Sorcerers a chance to destroy them. In that blink of an eye, in that one instant, several hundred spells were woven through him, snapped down with blazing speed, and then released. Every spell activated unerringly, performing a trick similar to what Tarrin had done for Allia, as every human defender's weapon suddenly began to glow with a bright white light, a light that would allow the weapon to deal true harm to the Demons they were fighting.
In that touch passed information, and he understood the reason for her actions. The strictures in place would not allow her to interfere directly. She could not destroy the Demons unless they directly threatened her icon. But she could act indirectly, and that was exactly what she did, by giving those defending the Tower grounds a fighting chance against their invulnerable opponents. The only way in which she could directly interfere was when it concerned the Weave, her domain, and she had done that as well by gathering up all the alien magic that her children would possibly need in order to repel the Demonic invasion.
Her touch retreated from him, the door between his mind and her power closed, and he understood why they had needed him. Only a sui'kun could do what she just did. He and Jenna were the only ones she could have used to take direct action the way she had.
The draining effect it had on him was stunning. Swimming in a haze of bone-numbing weariness, Tarrin felt his own power slip, until the only thing holding him up was the power of the Conduit itself. She had used him as her vessel, her hand in the real world, but much of the power that had been unleashed in the material world had come from him . It would have killed anyone not a sui'kun instantly. His heart racing, his breathing shallow and as rapid as the drumming of a running rabbit's feet, Tarrin somehow managed to get himself out of the Conduit, where he crashed limply to the roof of the Tower. He had no idea how long he lay there, concentrating only on sucking in as much air as he possibly could, wondering if he was going to die laying there on that rooftop of utter exhaustion. He felt like the Goddess had ripped out a piece of his soul, and he could barely find the energy to breathe, let alone move. His heart began to falter slightly in its rapid beating, and the power of his regeneration began to falter as well as it too was drained, trying to draw up power from the All to enact recovery, but lacking the strength to do even that.
Then tiny hands were on him, and from their touch came an angry, invigorating strength. Tarrin gasped as a blast of warmth flowed through him, delivered by the tiny hands of Sarraya, flinched, then scrambled up to his paws and knees, fumbling with the sword that was still in his paw, miraculously retained through it all. Though it was a welcome sensation, it came in a vast wave, as if Sarraya were trying to make him explode with the excess energy she was sending into him.
"Enough!" he gasped, feeling his heartbeat start to slow, felt heat and vigor spread out into his arms and legs, felt strength return to muscles that had been completely depleted of energy. "I'm alright!"
"That was quite a show," Sarraya said without humor. "Can you move?"
"I can move, but I'm tapped," he grunted. "I couldn't weave a candle lit right now."