Tarrin blinked. How clever! Whoever made the magic of the amulet had done an incredible job! It was no surprise that it had survived thousands of years, had even survived the Breaking.
That was the first of its abilities. The second was the ability to communicate over distance, placed within it after the Blood War, during what most called the Age of Power. What he knew was that it worked from amulet to amulet, like how he communicated with his sisters. What he didn't know was that its power originated from his amulet, and that it could be used to communicate with anyone who wore a Sorcerer's Amulet, and whose name he knew. The amulets of his sisters were probably the exact same as his. Little did they know that they had had the ability to communicate with any Sorcerer, anywhere, so long as he or she wore an amulet and they knew the Sorcerer's name. He thought that it had been a part of a unifying weave that was also woven into the amulets of his sisters, but that wasn't the case. The entirety of the weave was placed within his amulet.
And that explained why using the ability tired out the person who originated the conversation. Because that person was the one who was doing all the work. After all, all he was doing was speaking through another's amulet, then listening for what was said in reply through the other amulet.
He was again startled. Such an ingenious idea! He realized quickly that the Ancients probably all had this weave in their amulets, which would allow any Sorcerer the ability to communicate with any of his or her siblings at any time, from any place. The weaves of the spell that gave it this ability seemed… routine. He didn't quite understand how he knew that, but he could tell just by looking at the weaves that they were made by someone who had made this same weave time and time again. There was no personal flare or style in this weave, as there was in the weave concerning the elsewhere. It was an average, run-of-the-mill weave that had no sense of self. In other words, it was a basic enchantment, and that lent credence to the idea that it was common among the Ancients.
The Goddess had misled him! She hadn't come out and said it, but when she explained this to him, she made it sound like he could only use it to speak to Allia and Keritanima. That their amulets were linked, were special. She steered him away from the truth for some reason. That was something he meant to ask her the next time she visited.
Of course! They were linked. If Allia and Keritanima could speak to him, then their amulets had to have the same weave in them. All three were very, very old, ancient. They looked now to him that they dated back to the time when his amulet received the enchantment that gave it this ability. That made their three amulets unique, the only three known to have survived the Breaking intact. In a metaphorical sense, they were linked.
Another of its enchantments was a simple weave that hid the wearer's location from any kind of magical attempts to locate him. That one was simple, and was very effective. It was also one about which he knew. The Keeper had also known about it. He thought that the Keeper had made it, but she hadn't. This magical weave predated the Breaking. The katzh-dashi had probably come to discover this aspect of the amulet during their inspection of it.
The last enchantment was the most recent, and it was the one of which he knew the most about. And cursed, from time to time. It was the binding weave, an enchantment that prevented him from taking it off. It was so tightly woven into the fabric of the metal, into the fabric of the other enchantments, that any attempt to break or disrupt it would shatter the weaves that gave the amulet its powers. Any attempt to take it off would disenchant the amulet, leaving it non-magical. The complexity of the weave astounded him, and immediately he realized that the Keeper and the Council would be utterly unable to do this. This was done by someone whose magical skills were beyond comprehension, who was so adept at weaving that they could interweave both modern and ancient magicks so seamlessly that there was no way to separate them. That took an understanding of the ancient weaves that went beyond modern knowledge. Looking into the weaves, he felt and saw and sensed a familiarity to them, a sense of presence left behind in the weaving, almost like a signature. It was something with which he was intimately familiar.
This was done by the Goddess.
The Goddess had done this weaving, and she had absolutely made sure that the amulet's powers could not be used by anyone else but him. If someone got the amulet off his neck, then it would be nothing but a very old piece of black steel. If it survived the unravelling of weaves that had infused it for most of recorded history, at any rate. The shock of it would probably destroy the amulet.
Interesting. Very, very interesting. Without too much thought, he reached within, through the Cat, and came into contact with the All. He then formed image and intent that Summoned his staff from where it was laying by the fire, and held it in his right paw. Then, focusing on the amulet, he willed it to go into the elsewhere.
And it disappeared.
The sense of it was in his mind, hovering just outside reality, within the grip of his now empty paw.
He willed it to return, and it did so, as his paw closed around it as it appeared within his grip.
Tarrin smiled grimly. This, this had some interesting possibilities. This was instantaneous, not like Summoning, where he had work himself up to it. The ability to instantly summon up a weapon had any number of clever uses in battle.
Leaning on his staff, he looked down into the vast chasm before him. Back when he was human, staring at such a massive gulf may have unsettled him, but not now. The Cat had no fear of heights, for it was confident in its own abilities. His toes gripped the very edge, his claws extending out into empty air that was supported by the ground over a longspan below him. The wind picked up a little, a local effect caused by the rift, as the air was caught up inside and channeled to travel along its length. It was a cold, dry wind, the cold of the desert night, but his feet were warmed by the last of the day's heat trapped in the rock under them. The wind carried up the smells from the chasm floor below, scents of green things and reptiles, dust and rock, and of water. They were very faint, but they were enough to remind him of the way the forest smelled, the place he had always and would always consider home.
He wasn't really suited for all this. That thought had never really crossed his mind before, mainly because he hadn't felt like he'd had much choice. When Tarrin had no choice, he tended not to dwell on what he wanted or what could have been, trying to make the best of the situation. But it was still there, the thought that he really wasn't suited for all this. He was nothing but a village farmboy who had dreams of making a name for himself. Well, that had happened, but it wasn't exactly the way he hoped it would come about. He wanted to be a Knight. He'd realized that dream, but it was under he most bizarre of circumstances. They should have chosen someone else, like a great, courageous Knight, or some vastly educated Wizard. Or maybe even that Sha'Kar woman. Anyone but a teenaged villager from a place so remote that most people in the very kingdom in which it was located had no idea it was there.
Strange that the gods would hinge the safety of this world on a raw-boned, rather naive young man, who turned out to be a murderous uncaring monster. Maybe there was such a thing as a universal sense of humor. Perhaps the universe thrived on irony.
The voices of Var and Denai reached him, and he turned to look. They were telling stories, boasting to one another with wildly elaborated tales of daring and courage. Yet another in a long string of competitions. The two of them seemed to fit together, somehow, in his mind. Almost as if they belonged with one another. Maybe this competition was their way of feeling one another out, to see if they were a good match. He knew that they were. Var had the patience and temperment to reign in Denai's youthful exuberance, and Denai would bring a fire into Var's life that seemed to be necessary.