Chapter 8

        "Face what you have become," the words rushed over him, through him, strking him in the soul, forcing him to face the wrong he had done in his life.

        "No, not again," Tarrin raged within the confines of the dream, raging against the thousands of eyeless shades placed there to torment him.  "Not again!  I will not fear a dream!  You can't harm me, shadow!" he snapped at the face that had become burned into his memory, the pretty young girl with the chalky skin and black pits where her eyes had once been.  The dream would not stop, it would not leave him in peace, it was the same thing over and over, night after night, day after day, whenever he went to sleep.  Not again!  Not again!

        "We are yours," she said in that haunting voice, reaching out for him.

        He started awake before those killing hands could reach him, gasping for air and sitting straight up, claws out and ready to repel the attack.  Then he flopped back down on the leather floor of the tent, laid over sand, breathing heavily.  It wouldn't leave him alone!  Night after night, day after day, any time he closed his eyes and went to sleep, the dream came to him.  It haunted him, infused him even while awake, had begun to consume him.  The eyeless face was burned behind his eyes now, haunting him both in dreams and awake, giving him no peace.

        He had to get out, to walk around.  He left the tent Sarraya had made that evening and walked out into the frigid night air, breath misting before him as the sweat on his body threatened to freeze before it evaporated.  The cold air was better than a slap in the face, causing his mind to sharpen from its bleary haze and focus on reality.  Fifteen days now.  Fifteen days without any real sleep, fifteen days of repetitive torture from the beautiful face with no eyes.  He rubbed his face with his large paw, feeling the rough/smooth pad of his palm slide along his cheek, felt the clawtips digging into his scalp just below his ears.  Fifteen days without good sleep.  He felt so tired, so unfocused, but there was very little he could do.  Sleep always ended in the dream.  Attempts to meditate, as Allia taught him, ended just as quickly because of the face that stared back at him from the darkness of his mind.

        Why?  Why now?  Why did the dreams have to come now?  He needed to seek out this new way to use Sorcery, but the plague of the dream would not allow him to concentrate, would not give him the peace he needed to search himself for the answer.  It was always there, always, never giving him peace, never leaving him alone, a constant burning gaze of accusation that made him shudder away from it.  It had been making him edgier and edgier since the battle with the little kajat, fraying his nerves, making him even more short tempered.  And in his position, being even more testy was not a good thing.

        His fear angered him, and that anger festered inside.  Why should he fear a dream?  It was a shade, a phantom, something with voice and no substance, something that could not do him harm.  The Cat did not understand this Human preoccupation, nearly obsession with the image of the girl, and it began to grow impatient, even agitated.  The face was unbalancing his Human mind, and that put stress on the delicate balance between his Human and Cat parts, threatened the balance of his very sanity.  The Cat took that anger and fed off of it, nurtured it, turned it into an ember bed of seething discontent.

        He began growling low in his throat, and it turned into a furious roar.  He snapped his paws down to his sides and stared up into the sky, up at all four moons, seeing the ghostly image of the girl reflected back in all of them.

        "We are yours," he chiming voice rang in his ears, taunting him from within the ethereal mists of the dream, burning him with its accusation.  "Face what you have become."

        That had come from outside of him.

        Whirling, claws out and eyes blazing from within with their greenish radiance, he turned on that voice, fully prepared to destroy it, to get rid of the face haunting him, to be free of the torture.

        The face was there, taunting him, but it faded before him and left behind Sarraya, a very frightened Sarraya, who had backed up in the air and was making ready to flee from him.  "T-Tarrin?  Are you sleepwalking?"

        Blinking, coming out of his threatening posture almost immediately, he stood up to his normal height and blew out his breath.  It was Sarraya.  Had he mistaken her voice for the dream?

        He looked away from her.  "No, I'm alright," he replied quietly.

        "Are you sure?  Do you want to talk about it?"

        "No," he told her.  "I, I can't sit here any more.  I have to move."

        "It's the middle of the night!"

        "Then stay here," he told her in a curt tone.  "I can't rest any more.  I'm going on."

        "Tarrin, you're not being reasonable."

        "Like that matters to me," he growled, walking past her hovering form.

        He retreived his sword and belt and put them on, then gave her only a single look before turning his back on her and starting to run to the northwest.  He meant it.  If she didn't want to come, she could stay there and sleep.  She could catch up to him later.  He wouldn't sit there and endure the dream, the face any more.  It was better to move, to engage his mind and give it something else to do.

        For almost the entire night he ran, running to keep himself occupied, running because he dreaded what would come when he stopped.  He ran beyond hunger and thirst, ran in an almost perfect straight line, even stepping on a deadly imuni and never knowing it, the lethal reptile too stunned that a desert creature had the audacity to tread on it to retaliate before the offending foot was out of its reach.  He ran on, running in a kind of mindless daze, running both towards and away from the object that drove his flight.

        A beautiful face that had no eyes, whose gaze burned with towering accusation, revealed the dark blight within and forced him to face what he had become.

        It was a revelation he could not accept, and so he fled from it.  But there was no fleeing from a dream, no escape from that which came from within.

        Pushed beyond his endurance, Tarrin tripped on a rock and tumbled to the ground, body exhausted from lack of sleep and the night's efforts.  He lay there for a long moment, panting heavily, then he rolled over on his back.  He could still see the face before him, but he was too tired to care now, worn out by his hard running.  Panting, he lay there and let the cold air cool the sweat on his body, let the sensation of it drown out the pain inside, let physical feeling overwhelm internal emotion.

        Didn't they understand that it wasn't his fault?  When he killed, it was almost always because he was in a rage, and he had no control over himself then!  It was a Were-cat's nature to suffer the rages, Triana herself had told him that!  No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he would never overcome that simple truth.  It was a part of what defined his existence.

        But even that wasn't an excuse.  When he destroyed a portion of the gladitorial arena in Dala Yar Arak, that had been a conscious choice.  He had deliberately done that, had intentionally destroyed it knowing full well that innocents were going to die.   He had killed hundreds in order to simply irritate Shiika, to pin her down and give him time to get to her Palace unhindered.  Those deaths were the ones that blighted him, had darkened his soul, had sent him beyond the point of redemption.  It had been an act of evil, and it made him no better than the men he hated for the same behavior.

        No matter what affected him, no matter how feral he was or how little others mattered, that simple blaring truth could never be forgiven.  He hadn't been able to even forgive himself, though he had buried it inside, drowned it in the gravity and importance of his mission.  But now, out here in the desert, there was nothing to stop it from returning, to rise up and remind him of his evil, to show him what he was now.

        Maybe that was it.  Maybe the dreams were his conscious, using the quiet time of the desert to finally voice its objections, to remind him of what had happened.

        But it didn't have to paralyze him!  He knew what he'd done, and he did feel remorse, but it couldn't matter now.  Nothing mattered but the mission!  The safety of Janette depended on him, the future of that little girl was now firmly in his paws, and he would let nothing stand in his way, not even himself.

        In this instance, the ends justified the means.

        That didn't make him feel much better, but it was a truth.  It was a powerful truth.  The deaths of a few thousand by his paw meant little in the face of the countless hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, who would die if he failed.  But they mattered very little to him, even now, so he had to rationalize his devotion to the mission by seeing it in the terms of one life, one future, a life and future that he very much intended to protect.  The rest of the world could sink into the Pit for all cared, it was Janette that mattered to him.  After everything that had been done against him, to him, he had no more compassion for the world that had destroyed his future.

        He sat up, seeing that the first hints of dawn had begun to appear on the eastern horizon, causing the Skybands at the horizon to take on that pinkish cast they showed just before the sun came up.  He couldn't go on with the dreams.  They were starting to affect him in very bad ways, even had started making him hallucinate.  He simply couldn't face what he had done, could not bear the merciless eyeless gaze that haunted him.  There was no hiding from the dream, but there was a way to draw its fangs.

        But the price of that may be more than his humanity, maybe even more than his soul.  To take the bite out of the dream, he would have to completely reject his humanity, to totally eradicate any feeling of pity or guilt inside.  He could do it easily, all it would take would be to find a new balance between him and the Cat, where its survivalist outlook on life would overwhelm his human emotions.  That would make him everything he did not want to be, a brutal reactionary being that existed for its own survival, at the cost of anything around it.  There would be no mercy in that being, and what was worse, there would be no constraint.  It would kill without reservation, without consideration, without hesitation.

        He could live with the memory of being a monster, or he could become one.

        Neither option seemed very attractive, and it left him feeling helpless.  That feeling made him angry, and that anger quickly built into an aimless fury.  It wasn't fair!  Why did this have to happen to him!  He'd been trying to change, trying to reclaim some of his humanity, lose some of his feral harshness.  Why did the dreams have to upset that?  They were forcing him to abandon his goal of being more like Triana, forcing him to become the one thing that he could not bear to become!

        It wasn't fair!  When was he going to finally get a break?  After everything he'd done, he deserved a chance!

        He accepted what he was, but he hated it.  He faced the possibility that he would be worse, and it frightened him...but wouldn't he just accept that too?  After all, in that state, he wouldn't care what he did.  But there would always be the human in him, trapped in the control of the Cat, screaming to the end of his days that what he was doing was wrong.  It would never go away, it would become the new face staring back at him, though it would have no fangs.

        Maybe he wasn't as well adjusted as he thought.  He accepted his condition now.  In many ways, he preferred it.  He was Were now, and it seemed inconceivable to be anything else.  But the Human in him still could not accept it, could not live with it.  It did not want to be Were.  It wanted its place back, to be the only voice inside him, unrestricted by the animal instincts that influenced his behavior.  He'd hated being feral for a long time, but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.  A feral Were-cat was forever feral.  Just like being turned, there was no changing that.  It was a conditioned reaction to stimulus.  It was instinct, and there was no going against instinct.

        There was no going back.  Once one was turned, the transformation was complete, and there was no going back.  If something stripped his Were nature from him, it would kill him.   He accepted it because he had no choice.  He lived with it because he had no other way to live, and no matter how bad it was, his own nature would not permit him to give up.

        After so long, the Human in him had finally begun to stir.  He realized that, sitting there and looking at the horizon.  It had finally found the strength inside to challenge his Cat instincts for dominion of his mind.  That had to be it.  His attempts to curtail his feral nature had strengthened it, and only now had it begun to strike back at the instincts.  It explained the dreams, it explained a great deal.

        But it faced an almost insurmountable challenge.  And so, it seemed, did he.

        He sat there while the sun rose, watching it through hooded eyes, knees drawn up and chin resting on arms set across knees, tail wrapped around his ankles.  He watched the progression of darkness to light with little awareness of it, as night succumbed to day in varying degrees, consumed by his own internal conflict.  Even the flittering buzz of Sarraya's wings did not make him look away from the rising sun, nor did her landing on his shoulder make him move.

        "It helps to talk about it, Tarrin," she said gently, putting a hand on his cheek.  A very tiny hand.

        "I've been having a dream," he replied woodenly.  "It's the same dream over and over.  In the dream, all the people I've killed come back and haunt me.  One in particular stands out, and I see her face behind my eyes all the time.  It won't let me sleep."

        "That's your conscious talking to you, Tarrin," she said compassionately.  "Just be patient, and the dream will fade."

        "I can't take it anymore, Sarraya!" he said in pleading voice, charged with emotion.  "I see that face, and it reminds me of what I've done, what I've become!  And it's right!  I am a murderer!"

        "Life is never easy, Tarrin," she told him in a gentle voice.  "Part of life is living with the past.  Another part is living for the future.  You've been placed in a very difficult position.  It makes you do things you don't want to do, but you have to do them because things would be worse for everyone if you don't.  I don't really blame you for the things you've done, because if you hadn't, we wouldn't be here now.  You have to understand that.  The dream will fade, but it has to run its course."

        "I just can't face it anymore," he said wearily, tears welling up in his piercing eyes.  "I can deal with what's outside, but this never gives me peace."

        She reached up and put her hand on his temple.  "That's because you're tired," she told him, and he felt her well up with Druidic magic.  He could feel it in her hand, feel it through her touch, feel it flow into him.  "Lay back, Tarrin, lay back and let yourself rest.  I'll keep the dream away from you.  I'll make sure you sleep."

        He sniffled, and found himself obeying her, laying back on the hard rocky ground.  He felt that hand on his temple the entire time, until he was fully reposed on the rocky ground.  "I'm just tired of it, Sarraya," he said in a small voice.  "I don't want to face it anymore.  I don't want it anymore.  I want them to leave me alone."

        "I'll make sure they leave you alone," she told him in a motherly tone, cooing to him.  "Just close your eyes and go to sleep, Tarrin.  I'll be here to watch over you."

        He closed his eyes, and he felt something strange cover over his mind, like a heavy wool blanket that muffled his thoughts.  The blanket was drawn over the eyeless face, concealing it from him, and that immediately made his body relax.  It was gone, hidden away, and his mind seized on that cessation of the endless guilt and torture, let him drift into a dreamless, contented slumber.

        Sighing, Sarraya leaned against his shoulder, continuing to use her Druidic magic to subdue his mind, to give him the opportunity to rest without his memories coming back to haunt him.  She could feel it through her magic, feel the towering mountain of self-loathing and regret that had built up inside.  So much pain.  There was so much pain inside him.  How had he hidden it for so long?

        It saddened her, but it also gave her hope.  For too long, she had feared that he had become what she saw in him, but this told her that he had not.  He had teetered on the edge of that dark pit, had indeed fallen in for a while, but he had not surrendered to it.  He was trying to claw his way out of it.

        He was strong.  He could make it.  All she had to do was offer him a helping hand.  And that she could do.

        She had helped unbalanced Were-kin before.  It was one of the reasons Triana had sent with him.  She knew what to do to help him recover his humanity.  And she would be there for him whenever he needed her.

        She leaned against his shoulder, looking up into his face with tenderness.  Strange that a Faerie would become so attached to a Were-cat, but she couldn't deny it.  They had their moments of contention, but under it all was the genuine affection they had for one another.  He was so complicated, like an child seeing through the eyes of an adult, trapped between two worlds and unsure which was the one where he belonged.  It made him testy, unpredictable, and not a little violent, but the gentleness he used when dealing with friends and loved ones showed her the truth beneath that facade of ruthless strength.  His outward personality was nothing but a front, a shield to protect the young child inside him from the harsh brutatlity of the world.  But it couldn't protect him anymore, and his defenses were starting to crumble.

        But, truth was truth.  She loved him like a brother.  And because of that, she'd do everything in her power to help him.  She would help him find the truth inside him, help him discover who he really was.

        She would be there for him.

        The rest had done him good, but had done little to calm his mind.

        He ran over an area of stony hard desert, running on solid bedrock that had been stripped of all soil, a table of rock.  The rocky spires which dotted the desert were thick here, almost like a great forest of stone trees, spread out just enough so that it left wide expanses of relatively flat rock between them.  Piles of sand and dust had built up at the leeward sides of the bases of some of the pillars, but there was little more loose soil or sand to be found.  It was midafternoon, and the searing heat of the day had begun to wane with the lowering of the sun, but it was still blisteringly hot.

        But he barely noticed it anymore.  Fifteen days in the desert had given his body the time it needed to adapt to the brutal conditions, to build up a tolerance for the tremendous day heat and the biting night cold.  He knew that it was his Were regeneration that did that, that had changed his body to deal with a new environment, but he didn't think that much about it.  The sun had bleached his hair to nearly white, and the sun had darkened his skin so much that he looked like a Selani.  He looked like a true child of the desert, though it was still an unfamiliar and dangerous environment to him.  Sarraya too had seemed to adapt to the heat, but he had the feeling that her Druidic magic was working there somewhere to make her more comfortable.  She never seemed to sweat or complain about the heat.

        He felt...awkward.  Sarraya knew now, knew his secrets, and that made him feel strangely vulnerable.  She was a friend, but she saw him at his worst, had seen every aspect of his worst, and he wasn't sure how to take that.  His Were pride was stung; he had admitted weakness to an inferior.  Part of him wanted to prove to her that he was still strong, that he was still dominant.  Part of him wanted to prove it to himself.  The Human in him was glad that Sarraya was with him, for she gave him someone to talk to, someone to confide in, someone to hear his troubles with a sympathetic ear and provide comfort and reassurance.  She had allowed him to sleep, to rest without the terrifying nightmare to disturb him, and he couldn't thank her enough for that.  She was a companion out in this blasted wasteland, a safeguard against isolation.  He was both glad and unsettled that she was with him, but that was only natural for someone who often had two minds about everything.

        He ran on over the heated rock, on pads that had toughened to deal with the harsh things on which they tread, with Sarraya's buzzing wings telling him that she was close.  Fifteen days.  Alot had happened in those fifteen days.  He'd met a Selani.  Twice.  He'd seen the mighty kajats, had gotten into two fights with them.  He'd seen the killing lizards, the umuni, but he'd yet to see some of the other wildlife that Allia had described.  He hadn't seen any inu yet, but he figured that was a good thing.  The way Allia talked, the inu were the worst of them.  Inu literally meant quick death in Selani.  He wasn't sure if that was a testament to their speed, or how effective they were at bringing down a victim.  Either way, the Selani were very hard to impress, so if they gave a monster that kind of name, there was absolutely no doubt that it was a name well earned.  He hadn't seen the massive armadillo-like kusuks, fifty-span long beasts that looked like gigantic rolly-polly bugs that were often found under rocks.  He had yet to see a single chisu, moderately sized reptiles that ate whatever plants that they could find, and served as the main meal item for kajats and inu.  Allia said that the Selani didn't herd them because they had very nasty dispositions, and their flesh did not taste very good to Selani.  It had to be a reptillian version of mutton, an animal that humans herded for wool and food, but few actually enjoyed eating.  Nor had he seen the draka, insectoid creatures that looked like giant ants.  From what Allia had said, draka were very docile and gentle, and were often herded by Selani.  Not because they were good to eat, but because they could live well with the herd animals the Selani did eat, and they were very alert.  Draka were exceptionally gifted with sharp senses, and they warned the Selani when something dangerous to the herds was nearby.  In exchange for their service as sentries, they were kept fed and sheltered.  It was a mutually beneficial relationship.  The draka kept the Selani from losing their goats and sukk, the huge, flightless birds that served as the basic staple of the Selani diet, to roaming predators.

        But he was in the corner of the desert.  From what Allia described, most of it didn't look like this.  Most of it was barren soil dotted here and there with tough desert plants, just enough graze to support their animals.  This was a very barren part of the desert, all sand and rock, and there was nothing here to support any great amounts of wildlife.  He'd encountered two kajats, but he hadn't seen anything on which they could prey, so they had to be wandering, hunting for new territory.  Not all of the Desert of Swirling Sands was quite as desolate as this corner of it.

        Tarrin pulled up.  The western horizon, which was now off to his left since he'd been travelling northwest as per Var's advice, was starting to darken.  He knew what that meant.  "Sarraya," he called as he pulled up, "there's a sandstorm coming in."

        "I see it," she replied.  "This place is pretty bare.  We'll have to dig in."

        "Not much to dig into," he grunted, looking down at the bare stone beneath his feet.  "And it'll let the sand drain into whatever we make."

        "Then let's raise the stone," she replied.  "You think you can do that?"

        "Sorcery?"

        She nodded.  "I can't do that with Druidic magic."

        "It would be easy," he said after a moment of contemplation.  Basic Earth weaves.  Simple.  "I wouldn't even need High Sorcery for it."

        "Then I'll choke down on you pretty hard," she commented, flying up to him.  "This is as good a place as any."

        "No doubt there," he agreed.  The nearest rock spire, wall, or irregularity in the bare stone was a few longspans away, and they didn't have that kind of time.  "Instead of raising a stone shelter, why don't I just use a Ward?"

        "Because I'd rather have a shelter," she said.  "If your Ward fails, we'll be exposed.  The rock will still be there."

        "You have a point," he acceded.

        It was a pretty simple process.  He felt Sarraya's Druidic magic fall over him like a blanket, and he reached through that restrictive presence to the Weave.  It responded to him sluggishly, and he drew in the sweet power of it as quickly as the Faerie's barrier would permit.  When he had enough, he began weaving flows of pure Earth, sending them down into the ground as he released them, then he raised his paws in a gesture.  The stone in front of him began to swell, expand, then it suddenly began to rise from the rock table like a folded cloth pushed up by a pet beneath it.  Streaming the magic through him, letting it flow through him as it continued its work, he systematically raised up the stone to form a triangular wedge, very low to the rocky floor of the desert, and gently sloped on both sides so that the wind wouldn't eddy around the top and cause sand to build up on the leeward side.  It was just high enough to let him stand fully erect at the center without hitting his head.  The rock continued to move, to flow, changing its color as its substance shifted to his directions, and throughout there was a low grinding sound, as if the stone did not flow as smoothly as it looked to move.  He sealed up both sides of the triangular structure, then opened one side into a narrow entrance.  After that was done, he formed a crude door of stone,drawing the stone right from the earth, and attached it to the structure with simple eyes and hooks.  He remembered to make a slot on the back and on the walls flanking it to hold a bar, then formed a stone bar so the door could be secured against the wind.  The last little detail was a series of tiny holes in the top of the door, just enough for air to get in, but not enough for sand.

        Once he had the shelter formed, he used another form of Earth weaving to harden the stone to the wind, make it very hard to wear down, giving it strength to stand against the wind and the scouring sand it would carry within.

        Blowing out his breath, he let go of the Weave and surveyed his handiwork.  Then he marvelled at how it felt to use Sorcery safely, to be able to use the gifts granted him through birth without fear of them destroying him.  How much others took it for granted!  It wasn't until he let go of the Weave that the sweetness of it touched him, reminded him of what it once felt like to be a Sorcerer, to command the power and not fear it as he did now.  What would have been commonplace, child's play, for Dolanna, Dar, or Keritanima was something for which he had to prepare, plan, get cooperation from Sarraya to accomplish.

        How wonderful it would be to be able to use his magic the way they did.

        But such warm thoughts were doused when the eyeless face seemed to settle into the back of his mind, reminding him that there was no escape from it, reminding him of the darkness he had perpetrated, the darkness that had blackened his soul.  It effectively sucked away the joy, the satisfaction he'd felt at creating the stone shelter.  He sighed morosely and looked to the western horizon, guaging the speed and direction of the storm.  It was bloody fast, and it was coming right at him.  As all storms seemed to do.  At the most, they had about ten minutes before it hit.  It wasn't a very large one.  They'd be stuck in the shelter for at least a day, but no more than three, if he estimated the sandstorm correctly.

        A couple of days of forced isolation.  He hoped Sarraya could take it.  He hoped he could.  The eyeless face made him restless, and a day or more of being stuck in the shelter, with nothing more than Sarraya or the walls to look at, would not do him very much good.

        He was right to worry.  After retreating into the shelter, just as the wind wall struck, he immediately felt enclosed, restricted, isolated.  Sarraya sat down in the back corner of the dark, triangular structure, where he could not possibly hit her by accident, where she yawned.  "I don't think this is going to be very fun.  Want to play some chess?"

        "We'd better do something," he replied.  "I'm already starting to get anxious."

        But games only went so far.  After playing chess, stones, cards, even little stupid games of words and gestures, Tarrin grew bored.  Sarraya laid down to take a nap after conjuring herself some dinner, leaving Tarrin to sit and ponder and stew over what had happened in the last few days.  He had nearly killed himself with Sorcery--again--but this time he'd learned a new trick.  That trick of using High Sorcery on himself had worked, and had worked well.  He couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work again, and that made him relieved.  At least now he didn't fear getting Consumed as he had before.  With Sarraya to help, he could cut himself off from the Weave before it got out of his control.  If things came down to him using his full power to survive, at least that option was again available to him.

        Perhaps the Goddess did send him out here to learn.  He had certainly learned that little trick.  He had learned things about himself he preferred not to know, and the eyeless face made sure he couldn't forget.  The desert was boundless, and it was empty.  It left him with little more than Sarraya's companionship, and though that was enough, it was still little enough to feel that he was out here more or less alone.  Tarrin didn't depend on Sarraya like he had Allia or Dolanna.  He loved the little pain, but she wasn't Keritanima or Jesmind or Triana.  She had a place in his heart, but she wasn't the closest of his friends.  She would help him, but he still couldn't feel as if he could open up to her as he could with Allia, to speak everything in his heart and seek wisdom and support.  She just wasn't like that in his mind.  Even now, after admitting how badly the dream scared him, he couldn't bring himself to admit it to her again.  Part of it was pride, part of it was uncertainty.  Sarraya was a friend, but she wasn't family, not like Allia.  He didn't feel comfortable saying things like that to anyone not family, like Allia, Keritanima, Triana, or even Jesmind.

        Jesmind.  Still it was Jesmind.  Why couldn't he get her out of his mind?  He hadn't seen her in so long, she'd probably forgotten about him by now.  She was a memory, and a rather dim one at that, but there was still something inside him that yearned for her, the way plants yearned for the sun.  In her was a woman that understood him, didn't judge him, was one of his kind.  She was a bad-tempered witch, but all female Were-cats were like that to varying degrees.  It was a racial trait.  She had been the first woman he'd been intimate with, and he guessed that a part of him just couldn't forget that.  That she had been the first to hear his deepest secrets, to become privy to his most private thoughts.  She had shared a part of him, and though they had been enemies, he hadn't really been able to bring himself to do her any true harm, outside that one ugly incident when he thought she was threatening his parents.  A part of him loved her, that was true, but a part also couldn't forgive her for abandoning him, hated her for her actions.  She had left him alone and exposed, and when she left, he became easy prey for Jula's scheming.  If she'd been there, she would have stopped Jula before any of that nasty business under the Cathedral happened, and he wouldn't have become feral.

        Or would he?  So many had tried a hand at killing him, who was to say how it would have affected him?  His ferality was a reaction to that, just as much as it was a rejection of humans and their society.  Kravon's group had been the most adamant about it, but Sheba the Pirate had tried, the Wikuni had tried, the Zakkites had tried, and Shiika had tried, and who knows who else had plans, but hadn't had the opportunity to carry them out.  He was the most sought-after being in the world right now, and outside the Wikuni and Shiika, the rest were still out to get him.  That would easily be enough to turn him feral.

        There was no real easy answer to that question.  So much had happened over the last year, too much.  It was all a jumble.  The black moods after leaving Suld, the fight with Sheba and the first outward signs of his feral nature.  The battle with the Zakkites, the wounding from the silver crossbow quarrel.  Learning from Triana, accepting her as his bond-mother, as much a part of his intimate family as his birth parents.  Just about everything that happened in Dala Yar Arak, from Jula to the battle to recover the book from Shiika.  And now he was out here in this barren wasteland, following nothing more than blind faith, seeking to cross the vast, dangerous desert and finding himself to be more of an enemy than the desert and all its dangers.  He was stronger now, both in body and magic, but that power carried a double-edge that cut him as much as it cut his enemies.  His powers were growing stronger and stronger...he could feel it.  He could still feel it.  His connection to the Weave was changing, growing, evolving, expanding, opening the sense of it to him at all times.  He knew that the power of the Weavespinners was out there, and if he could calm the eyeless face within his mind and find peace inside himself, he could find a way to touch that mysterious power.

        A power not seen in the world for a thousand years.

        But did he want that power?  He was already insanely powerful.  A single Weave from him could destroy entire ships, lay waste to large tracts of land, cause even Demons to fear him.  He could even change the weather.  But what did that power bring him?  It brought him more and more danger.  It brought him newer and more powerful ways to unleash his primal rage, to slaughter the innocent on scales inconceivable to the average killer.  It brought its own danger, for it was a power he could not control with his rational mind.  It brought him protection from his enemies--who would be foolish enough not to fear his power?--but that protection came at a cost he didn't think he was capable of paying.  He had gained power, but he lost his humanity in the exchange.

        Too great a price to pay.

        He flopped down on his back, hearing the wind howl outside, smelling the dust and the rock and the faint traces of sand drifting in through the airholes, felt the warmth still gathered inside the bare rock beneath him, feeling the Weave surround him, felt the pulse of the magic within the strands like the beating of the heart of the Goddess.  And if he had it all to do over again, what would he change?  Such a simple question, but with no clear answer.  Every act of dark intent he had done had ended up having a benefit he couldn't deny.  Every sacrifice he had made had brought to him a greater gain.  He had given away some of his humanity, and had received the power to do what the Goddess commanded him to do.  He had killed many, but had the Book...and that was the most important thing in the world right now.  He had become Were...but if he had not, then he probably wouldn't have Allia and Keritanima and Jesmind and Triana in his life, probably wouldn't have anyone in his life.  Mainly because he'd be dead.  Jegojah would have destroyed him the first time they met if hadn't been Were, if his own power hadn't burned him to ash.

        He had sacrificed his life in order to keep living.  He had sacrificed his soul to surrender it to a goddess.  He had sacrificed his humanity in order to save the very people he no longer cared about.

        It was no easy question, with no easy answer.  Every act he had done that he wished he could take back had had an effect that he didn't want to give up.  Without his Were nature, he'd be dead.  Without his power, his friends may very well be dead as well.  Without his feral savagry, he would not have the Book of Ages.

        And all it cost him was his peace of mind.

        Such a little thing when help up to the millions of lives that depended on him carrying out his mission.  Of course, he didn't care about them.  He rationalized it, as always, in simple terms using someone whom he did care about, Janette.  This was all about her.  She was the representation of the entire world, and saving her world meant saving it for everyone else.  She was still about the only oasis of calmness in his life, and thinking about her made the eyeless face shrink back into the dark tunnels of his mind.  Hers was a selfless, vibrant, genuine love, and she had been his savior.  She had literally saved him from insanity, and he would do anything for her.  She was as much a mother to him as Triana or Elke Kael, or even the Goddess, only she was the mother of the Cat within, where Triana and Elke were mothers of body and heart, and the Goddess was mother to his soul.

        If rationalizing things in simple terms was what he needed to motivate himself, then he just had to pit his Little Mother against the dark images that haunted him.  Let the eyeless face gaze into the loving heart of that wonderful little girl, and then he'd see if that haunting face could stare at him with the same venom afterward.

        His actions made him a monster, but what he held in his heart was pure, beyond the monster's reach.  And what was held in his heart more than anything else was the love of family, of friends.  The love of the Goddess, the love and respect for Elke Kael and Triana, the pure love for Allia, the deep love and affection he held for his other siblings, Keritanima and Jenna.  And of course, the shining, boundless love he held for Janette, his Little Mother.  That love couldn't be tainted by the darkness of his deeds, and it would always be with him.  Such powerful love could never be extinguished.

        He was tired.  He clung to that final though, the thought of the love of family, of letting the spirits that tortured him stare into the face of Janette, as he closed his eyes and allowed the howling of the wind to lull him to sleep.

        A sleep that was not plagued by the repeating nightmare.

        The sandstorm blew itself out by dawn the next day.

        The air was charged.  He could feel it around him, a kind of electric charge that hung in it, around him, giving the cold air more energy than felt normal.  It tingled his skin as he exited the little shelter he'd raised with his power, thousands of little pinpricks of energy that made him shiver.  He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but he could feel that the Weave was...disturbed.

        There wasn't another way to put it.  The Weave was as it always was, but there seemed to be something different in it now.  Something deep, something he'd never felt before.  The Weave felt normal, but beneath that he felt a kind of tension, a tautness in the strands around him that shouldn't have been there.  The pulse-beating of the energy within the strands was higher pitched, louder, more pronounced, and it seemed strange, unusual...strained.

        There was still a thin pall of dust in the air from the sandstorm.  Maybe that was it.  It concealed a part of the sky, forced him to breathe with the scarf over his face to keep the choking dust out of his lungs.  Dust sometimes carried static, and its movements could even generate little static zaps.  Maybe that was what he was feeling.  Maybe it was disrupting his sense of the Weave in some way.  After all, these senses were new to him, and he had no idea how they could be affected by external forces.

        He shook himself a bit to adjust to the cold, wishing that he'd Conjured up something that he could have eaten hot, or cooked.  Another breakfast of water and fruit did not sit well with him.  He was a carnivore...but the problem was that there was nothing to hunt out in this rocky waste.  He could Conjure animals himself, but he had to agree with Sarraya in that matter.  It did seem a bit, cruel, to Conjure an animal to its death.  Almost dishonorable to the animal.  Druidic magic respected the balance of nature and of life, and it just felt like a violation to do such a thing.  His belly and his Cat instincts disagreed, but he hadn't reached the point where he'd cross that line just yet.  He could tolerate another day of fruit, berries, nuts, and water.  After all, this place couldn't be a rocky table all the way to Arkis.  It had to end somewhere, and he might get lucky.

        It had been a strange night.  He didn't remember falling asleep, but he did remember the fact that he wasn't startled awake by the nightmare.  For the first time in many days, he'd slept through the night without Sarraya's help, slept without the dream or the face of the dead girl to haunt him.  That face was back, just behind his eyes, taking up its place within him, but the two consecutive nights of peaceful sleep had done much to renew his strength.  He felt ready to deal with its accusing, empty gaze today.  He felt ready for just about anything.  It was almost like the charge in the air was bleeding into him, energizing him in some strange way.  He felt almost optomistic, and was in a better mood than he'd been in for months.

        Sarraya flitted out of the shelter and gave him a calm look, but said nothing at first.  She pulled up a gossamer little bit of cloth over her face, coughed, then snorted loudly.  "Can't this place go one ride without choking me?"

        She seemed to be back to normal.  Maybe she'd blown off what had happened earlier.  That, or she was acting normal for his benefit, since she could probably tell that his earlier weakness had embarassed him.

        "It likes you," he said absently, looking up into the dust-hazed sky.  He could barely make out the Skybands, but he saw enough to determine which direction was northwest.  Visibility was poor, the dust acting like fog, but he could see about a half a longspan ahead.  And on this flat, rocky table, that was far enough.

        "The air feels weird," Sarraya complained.  "Like static."

        "I noticed," he replied.  "I think it's the dust."

        "I don't remember feeling this before."

        "I guess not every storm has the same effect," he told her.  "Want to ride or fly?"

        "I'm cold, so I'll fly for now.  The activity will warm me up."

        "I know the feeling.  Let's go," he agreed, then he started out at a ground-eating pace to the northwest.

        "Hey!  Wait for me!"

        He ran out of the dusty pall around midmorning, and the sun's blistering heat found him without the dusty haze to deflect its might.  The heat of the sun didn't really bother him much anymore, nor did the radiant heat of the rocks, or the air itself.  He had become truly acclimated to the savage heat of the desert, his body's Were aspects adapting him to his new environment.  He was much leaner now, lean and lithe and dangerous-looking, and his black for actually served to trap cooler air next to his skin, insulating his furred parts from the full fury of the sun and leaving him feeling much cooler than someone without fur.

        He still saw nothing, nothing but empty flatness, but the appearance of more rock spires on the horizon bolstered him.  He began to notice them at noontime, when they stopped to eat a Conjured meal of fruits and water.  The Fingers of the Goddess, they were called, reaching up from the desert floor.  There were a great many of them.  The last time he moved through one of those forests of stone, he'd seen a great deal of desert wildlife.  Maybe those rock spires harbored an evening meal.  Tarrin squatted down over the little Faerie, giving her shade from the merciless sun as he ate a curiously cold peach.

        Sarraya fanned herself with her wings, pulling on the neck of her gossamer gown repeatedly to circulate fresh air under her clothes.  She had done well in the desert heat, never complaining about it, but today she seemed to be affected by it.  "Is it just me, or is it really hot today?" she asked in a breathless voice.

        "It feels pretty hot," Tarrin agreed.  The midday sun was fully up, and that meant that it was blasting the rocky flat with its full fury.  It was the hottest part of the day.  "I've been wondering, how are you dealing with the heat?"

        "Faeries aren't as fragile as we look, Tarrin," she said primly.  "We're almost as rugged as you Were-kin."

        "And how much do you cheat?"

        Sarraya gave him a hot look.  "I don't cheat!" she flared, then she gave him a sly grin.  "Well, not much, anyway.  About noon, I'm starting to shield myself from the heat with Druidic magic, but I can take it most of the rest of the day."

        "It's strange, Sarraya, I'm totally used to it now.  I don't even sweat anymore."

        "You sweat, trust me," she said.  "It just evaporates so fast that you don't notice.  Anyway, you're a Were-cat.  Were-cats have that damned regeneration.  It adapts you to anything from this blasted wasteland to arctic tundra."

        "I already figured that out," he grunted.  "You want to ride for a while?"

        "I think I'd better," she replied.  "It's so hot, I'm even feeling it through my little magical shield.  I don't want to give myself a heat stroke by flying."

        "I wonder how far away those rock spires are.  The sun bends things, makes the distance--"

        Come to me.

        Tarrin's ears picked up, and he stood up and turned towards wherever that came from, towards the northeast.  He hadn't heard it with his ears, he'd sensed it some other way.  Almost like a whispering.  And the voice was unknown to him.

        Come to me, it repeated, that same inaudible whisper, yet it was plain to him.

        "Tarrin?  What's wrong?" Sarraya asked.

        "Someone's...calling me," he replied uncertainly.  "Can't you hear it?"

        "No, I don't hear anything but the wind," she replied.

        I know you can hear me.  It is time.  Come.

        There was a...rippling.  He couldn't describe the sensation.  Like ripples in the very air itself, shivering over him.  They came from the northeast, the same as the voice.  The sense of static in the air returned, more oppressive now, feeling like it was weighing down on him.

        Something deep inside him reacted to that sensation.  Before he realized what he was doing, he was walking towards the northeast, towards a cluster of rock spires that seemed to be separate from the others, sitting just before the horizon.

        "Tarrin?  Tarrin, what are you doing?" Sarraya called, flitting up from the desert floor and flying up to him.  She landed on his shoulder, then switched shoulders so the sun was blocked by his head a little better.  "What's going on?"

        "I can hear it, Sarraya," he replied.  "It's calling to me."

        "It could be a trick," she warned.  "I don't hear it."

        "I don't really hear it either.  At least not with my ears."

        "It could be a trap, Tarrin."

        "Then let's go spring it," he said calmly.  He was wildly curious about this.  It seemed to cause something within to respond to it, almost like an irresistable call, like the singing of a Siren.  He could not deny the power of the summons.

        "What did it say?"

        "Only to come," he told her.  "And it said that it's time."

        "Time for what?"

        "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

        He picked up into a trot, then that ground-eating loping run that allowed him to run all day without rest, a pace that covered a great deal of ground.  He ran in the direction that the calls had originated, his curiosity running wild.  He had no idea what he'd find when he got wherever he was going, but the irrepressible need to go there and seek out this strange voice did not fade in the slightest.  The thought of it absolutely consumed him all afternoon, even smothering over the eyeless face behind his eyes, dominating his thoughts.  The cluster of rock spires grew closer and closer as the afternoon progressed, and he seemed to sense that that was the destination.  That was from where the call had issued, that was where the answer to this mystery would be found.  He didn't ponder much on the manner of the call, only its substance, only its effect.  Sarraya rode along in relative silence, fretting and frowning just about the entire time, but she grew quiet when she realized that no amount of arguing, shouting, cajoling, wheedling, or even begging was going to turn him from his course.  Tarrin was dead-set to his path, and she could not cause him to drift from it.

        He reached the first rock spire about an hour before sunset.  The spires were clustered together loosely, a good distance between each one, and as he passed by the first, he slowed to a walking pace.  This was the place.  What had called out to him?  What was it that had incited such a powerful reaction?  The static charge that had been in the air was gone now, but there was something else.  It was a sense of...presence.  There was someone here, a someone whose very presence weighed down on the air itself.  The Weave itself seemed to oscillate, to shimmer, to vibrate in response to this presence, and the strands were actively leaning towards some focal point.

        As if the presence had the power to affect the Weave, just by its presence alone.

        Would he find Fara'Nae here?  Was this a place holy to her?  The only beings he could think of that could do such things were gods.  Was this collection of rock spires like the courtyard in the hedge maze back in the Tower?  It wasn't the Goddess.  He'd feel it if she was the one that was here.  Her sense of presence was completely different from this.

        At least that sense of presence acted as a beacon.  He could follow it right to its source.

        Sarraya began to get fidgety as Tarrin walked towards that sense of presence, slowly, calmly, more curious than worried.  "Tarrin?  I feel...."

        "I know.  I feel it too."

        "Is this what you heard?"

        "No, but this is what called me," he said.  He didn't know how he knew that, but he did.  "It's over there," he said, pointing.

        "That's not the only thing here," Sarraya said.  "I just saw a Selani."

        "Where?" he asked.

        "To your right," she replied.  "Just behind that rock spire over there."

        Tarrin turned and looked.  It was a smaller rock spire, as thick around as most large trees, and only about twenty spans high.  He couldn't see a Selani, but Selani were experts at hiding and stealth.  If Sarraya saw one, she saw one, and she was lucky to see the Selani in the first place.

        "I'll go see what else is around.  I'll be right back."

        "Be careful," he called as her wings began to buzz, and she faded from sight as she started towards the rock spire.

        Tarrin continued walking towards that sense of presence alone.  He wasn't really afraid.  There had been nothing in the call that invoked fear.  Even his feral suspicion seemed to be overwhelmed by the wild curiosity behind the strange, voiceless call.  All of him wanted to find out who this strange presence was, and why it called to him.

        For another ten minutes he moved towards that sensation, until he came around a small rock spire and got his first look at it.

        It was a humanoid, or at least he thought it was.  It was tall, and was totally garbed in a strange black cloak, a cloak so black that it consumed any sense of dimension the figure held.  It was as if the cloak had been cut from the most impenetrable darkness, and the figure he saw was nothing but a cut out sheet of paper held up to the sun.  It stood upon one of the rock spires, one of the smaller ones, and he couldn't tell if it faced him or not.  All he could see was a black shadow between him and the sun.  The only reason he could tell it was a cloak was because the afternoon winds pulled and tugged at it, making the dimensionless form before him waver and ripple like a reflection on dark water.

        He came to a stop about a hundred spans from the spire, looking up the thirty spans to the figure.  He was closer now, and he could see that it was indeed a cloak.  It opened occasionally in the wind to reveal a formless figure beneath, a figure wearing black garments that blended in with the utter blackness of the cloak, serving to distort the figure's shape and form from his eyes.  That opening told him that the figure faced him, but he could not see through the hood to discern any features.

        He still felt no fear, but he felt a powerful sense from the figure.  The Weave was bending in towards it, and just as the Sorcerer back in that city had sensed him, so he sensed it.  This figure was a Sorcerer, and its power was unfathomable.  He had never felt anything like it before.

        "Vosh," the figure intoned, and that made his jaw drop, intoned in a rich alto voice that absolutely had to belong to a woman.  That was a Sha'Kar word!  "Vosh.  Unda ne.  Vasti dosba no."

        He was absolutely stunned.  The pronunciation was much different from what Keritanima had taught him, but it was undeniable that it was Sha'Kar that the form was speaking.  "Time-ending.  Arrived have.  I for-you-waiting have been."   At last.  You have come.  I have waited for you.

        He was completely bowled over.  She spoke Sha'Kar!  That language was dead, nobody spoke it anymore!  And she spoke it like she'd spoken it all her life!

        "Do I surprise you?" she asked in Sulasian, and her pattern of speech was odd.  It was as if she spoke every word with absolute exacting precision before moving on to the next.  "You have come.  You are ready," she told him, reverting to Sha'Kar.

        Hearing her speak Sha'Kar invoked an automatic response in him, and his gift for languages rose up, instantly correcting the improper pronunciations that Keritanima had taught him when they were learning the language.  "Wh-What do you mean?  Who are you?" he managed to stammer, in a Sha'Kar dialect almost mirroring her own.

        "Who I am does not matter," she said, reaching up for the hood of her cloak.  "That you heard my call is all that matters now.  You are ready."  She pulled back her hood, and he almost fell to his knees.

        She was a Selani!

        Selani!  Her features were undeniable!  She actually bore a curious resemblance to Allia in her cheeks and her blue, blue eyes.  Her hair was silver where Allia's was white, shimmering in the brutal desert sun, and she had a faint scar on her left cheek, a dark line on her smooth, dusky brown face.  The scar did nothing to mar her exceptional beauty, it only accented the graceful beauty of her face to his eyes.  Almost as if it were a beauty mark.  Her face was lovely, but it was her eyes that captured his attention.  A deep blue, like Allia's, but behind them was a sort of deep ocean of knowldge and wisdom that made her eyes haunting, piercing, ensnaring the eyes of others yet making them worrisome and uncomfortable to stare into their depths.  Those eyes looked into you, and they exposed all your secrets, made her know every part of you, both good and bad.  There was no hiding from those eyes.  They were not the eyes of an ordinary mortal being, and they marked her for the kind of exotic, unique entity that she was.  Piercing blue eyes stared down at him, and the expression on the face was stony, unreadable.  She was obviously mature, but her features did not betray her age.  But there was a set in the way she held herself, the way she looked at him with those powerful eyes, a sense and feeling much like Triana.  This woman was old.  At least as old as Triana, and that made him make a vital connection.

        A truth crashed down on him at that moment.  Sha'Kar is alot like Selani, he had told Keritanima as he learned it.  The words are different, but the structure of both languages is similar, Keritanima had told him.  Almost as if they had been descended from the same root language.

        This strange woman wasn't Selani.  She was Sha'Kar!

        The Selani and the Sha'Kar were related!

        A  Sha'Kar!  A living Sha'Kar!  They were supposed to be extinct, the race snuffed out in the Breaking!  He took a frightful step back from her, fearing her now, because if she was a Sha'Kar, then that meant that she was an Ancient.  It certainly explained how her very presence seemed to attract the Weave, warp it, draw it to her.  Her power was incredible!

        "You see truth," she said in a calm voice.  "You know me now.  You fear it."

        "Y-Y-You're--You're a Sha'Kar!" he managed to get out.

        "If giving me such title pleases you," she told him mysteriously.

        "What do you want from me?"

        "You have heard my call," she said again.  "It is time."

        "Time?  Time for what?"

        "Time," she replied, pulling a slender arm from beneath her cloak and simply pointing a delicate finger at him.

        And with that word and gesture, the ground in front of him just simply exploded.  The impact of it blasted the breath from his lungs, picked him up, carried him along with the shockwave of the explosion as bits of rock and debris drove into him.  He felt himself flying through the air, and then was tumbling on the ground with a dozen shouts of pain emanating from various parts of his body.  He rolled to a stop, his body a bit dazed, but his mind whirling like a hurricane.  There had been no touching the Weave, no sense of Sorcery from her!  It was as if she'd woven the spell outside his senses!

        She attacked him!  She was a Sha'Kar, an Ancient, and she had attacked him!  How was he going to fight an Ancient?  How was he supposed to stand against that kind of incredible power?

        He rose up to his feet, crouching down over them, tail slashing back and forth as an instinctual need to face this challenger battled with the human realization that this was no being to fight.  Panting from the pain of the shrapnel, pain that eased as his body mended itself, he looked up and saw her descending from the top of the spire slower than would be natural, as if the air was holding onto her and lowering her gently to the ground.

        His mind raced through innumerable possibilities, but it kept returning to two simple conclusions.  One, that there was no escape from someone like this.  Her magic could easily keep him from escaping.  And since he could not flee, he had to fight.  Sarraya wasn't here, so that made his most poweful weapon unavailable to him, but that didn't mean that he was just going to lie down and die for her benefit.  He was a Were-cat.  He knew how to fight without Sorcery.

        That one thought nearly scared him into losing his composure.  Fight an Ancient?  It was madness!  Something very close to abject terror closed on him as the woman's feet hit the ground, as she lowered those eyes on him.  She outmatched him in every sense of the word...but then again, he'd been outmatched before, and he had found ways to win.  It was live or die, so he'd better get his mind going and find a way to either defeat her or escape from her.

        With deliberate slowness, he drew his sword, letting her hear the sound, trying to do anything to rattle her steely composure.  He was much taller than her, and he was a physically intimidating person.  It had worked on many others before her.  Perhaps it would work on her as well.

        She simply stood there, staring at him.

        He couldn't show fear.  Gritting his teeth, feeling like he was about to run into the mouth of some giant predator, Tarrin exploded forward out of nowhere, moving with all the speed and power his body could give to him.  Sword held point towards her, he covered the distance between them faster than a thoroughbred could sprint, his fear and adrenaline granting him incredible speed.  She simply watched him coming, and made no move to avoid him or defend herself.  He knew that that was a very important observation, but if she wasn't going to move, he was going to take his shot at her.  He charged right at her, on top of her in the blink of an eye, and he thrust the black-bladed sword directly at her chest.

        And she made no move to evade, until the very last second, when she pulled her cloak around her.

        The blade met nothing.  It simply kept going, and going, even as Tarrin's feet slid to a stop just before her.  It sank into the impenetrable blackness of her cloak, swallowed up by it, and it met nothing to slow it down.  He thrust through her so hard that his paw also dipped into that inky blackness, and when it did he felt an agonizing, biting cold sl