"Sarraya," he said weakly, "are you alright?"

"I'm alright," she said in a small voice, sniffling. "I'm scared half out of my mind, but I'm alright. Are you?"

"I'm a little grated, but I think I'm alright," he told her. It was hard to see her. Both of his eyes had been struck by the corrosive sand, and they had been damaged. She was nothing but a hazy blur, a smudge of blue in a brown hodgepodge of indistinct shapes. "I can't see."

"Hold on." He felt her reach into that place where the magic of the Druids resided, and then heard the buzzing of her wings. A tiny hand touched his face, and gentle warmth flowed through it. His eyesight became sharper and sharper, more distinct, until he could see her clearly. He held up his paw before him, and she landed lightly upon it as he managed to focus on her. "Is that better?"

She was a mess. The wind and sand had ripped the dress right off her back, and her blue skin was striped in angry reds from the stripping of the sand. Both of her wings had survived-actually, they were a bit brighter than before, having been polished by the power of the wind and sand-and alot of her auburn hair had literally been ripped from her head.

"You're naked," he remarked.

Sarraya blushed, then laughed. "You wear a dress and manage to keep it on after that," she teased. "The cloak didn't last long, did it?"

"Would you expect it to survive that?" Tarrin asked, pointing to the fury outside the Ward.

"Nope. And I think we'd better not make that mistake again. I'll make you a long-sleeved shirt and some rugged leather trousers when it blows over. At least the sword and the pack made it."

"They're up against me," he replied. "I felt the wind trying to break the straps of the pack, but they held. I guess I'd better grow out my hair again. If anything, it'll keep the sun off my neck."

"That would be a good idea," she said, sighing. "I see one more thing as well."

"What?"

"I'm going to have to teach you some Druidic magic," she said. "If I get separated from you or die, then you won't have anything at all to help you with your Sorcery, and you'll be stuck out here with no way to get water. You'll die if I don't teach you. Evaluation or not, I'm going to have to teach you."

"I guess that makes sense," he said after a moment of consideration. "But you don't have to worry, Sarraya. I'm not going to let anything take you away from me."

"I appreciate that, but let's be realistic," she said with a beaming smile. "Why didn't you get picked up by the storm?"

Tarrin pointed down with his other paw, and Sarraya followed his finger. Then she laughed brightly. "Tarrin, that was clever!"

"It was all I could think of," he said sheepishly. "If I'd really been thinking, I would have created a Ward like the one I have up now."

"Well, live and learn," she chuckled. "Let me get you out of there, and we'll see about making some new clothes. You know something?"

"What?"

"I'm not hot now," she said.

Tarrin gave her a curious look, then laughed. Something he didn't do much anymore. Only Sarraya would say something like that, and only Sarraya could make him laugh. "I guess this is your fault. You're the one who wanted a storm."

"I guess I don't know my own strength," she said with a wry smile.

"Be careful what you wish for," he said, quoting an ancient saying, "you may get it."

"No argument here," she said with a laugh, and bent about the task of healing and clothing them.

They reached the rock spire he tried to reach before the storm late in the afternoon, well after the sun began to sink towards the horizon. It was one of the thick ones, hundreds of spans wide, and it had a nearly vertical surface that had deep ruts etched into it. Some of them were thin, some wide, some shallow, some deep, and a little exploration showed one that had a bulging pocket near the ground, half-filled with sand, going deep enough into the rock spire to almost be called a cave. It was large enough to serve as a den for the night.

The savage sandstorm had kept them pinned in for most of the afternoon. His Ward dissolved long before the storm ended, but Sarraya had used her Druidic magic to change the shape of the stone ledge upon which they stood, raising it to form a barrier against the wind, even curling it over to form something of a half-cave. Sarraya wisely put the entrance so it faced the side of the wind rather than the back, to keep the sand from building up quickly. It was a good shelter, so long as they paid attention not to let the sand build up at the entrance and bury them. After it passed, Sarraya returned the rock to its original state, and they moved on.

Tarrin leaned against the wall of the shallow nook, sitting on soft sand, while Sarraya lay on her back on the sand by his foot. He was exhausted. The heat had worn him down, and using Sorcery had brought him nearly to the limit. As if that wasn't enough, the struggle against the storm had used up what energy he hadn't used in Sorcery, used up just about everything he had left. The Weave in this region was curiously thin, and that had probably made using Sorcery much less taxing, much less dangerous to him than normal. A thin Weave meant that it took considerably longer to build enough energy to weave. That had kept him from attacking the storm directly, but it had also made it much easier to cut himself off. He leaned against the rock, feeling its strange warmth, feeling the warmth of the sand beneath him in the cool shade of the pocket, let it seep into him and soothe tired muscles.

The sandstorm had caused him to do one thing before setting out again, and that was to protect the Book of Ages. He had placed it in the elsewhere, shifting into human form and tightening the straps of the pack holding it to the point where it would disappear when he changed back. It was something that he was intending to do anyway, but the storm convinced him that getting it into the ultimate of safe places immediately was the wisest thing to do. The sword, resting beside him at the moment, had jiggled around more than was comfortable for him after the pack was removed, but he'd get used to it.

Sarraya's wings began to flutter, and then she sat up and yawned. The Faerie showed no signs that she had been flailed by the driving sand earlier that day. Her cobweb clothing was new, but this time she wore a costume much like Allia's desert garb, a loose shirt adjusted for her wings and baggy pants. She had even created diaphonous shoes for herself, to protect her feet from the sun. The ethereal material was brown, which covered most of her blue skin and made her less conspicuous to people when she wasn't invisible. She had made Tarrin a new set of clothes as well, a loose long-sleeve shirt, the color of sand, made of some very light material he had never seen before. It was so light he almost felt like he wasn't wearing anything, but he already found out that it was very strong and rugged. The trousers were good old leather, undyed buckskins, and he'd already managed to put some tears in the cuffs when he was putting them on. With feet as large as his, it was hard to get them into trousers fitted for his waist and legs without catching the claws on them. She even made him a new visor to replace the one he lost in the storm. He decided that letting his hair grow was the best move, to protect his neck, so he once again had a braid as thick as a child's arm hanging from his head, hanging down all the way to his backside.

Sarraya had been right. The length of his hair was something he could control by conscious choice. As soon as he decided to let his hair grow again, it quickly grew out to its former length.

"Well, are you ready?" Sarray asked.

"Ready for what?"

"For your first lesson."

"Now?"

"I wasn't kidding, Tarrin," she told him sharply. "The sooner you can use Druidic magic, the better. that means we start now."