That proposition seemed daunting. Learn it all again? Go through it all again? Suffer the dangers of his power all over again?

"No, my kitten," she said gently. "There is no more danger. There will never be danger of that sort again for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You are sui'kun now, Tarrin. That's a Sha'Kar term for Weavespinner. A Weavespinner cannot be harmed by the power of the Weave."

"I'm immune to Sorcery?"

"No. You are not immune to Sorcery. You will simply never again be threatened by its power. It cannot harm you, no matter how much of it you hold."

"So I can't be Consumed?"

"A Weavespinner cannot be Consumed," she affirmed. "My time grows short, kitten. You're about to wake up now, and you're not going to remember any of this immediately, because I don't want you interrupting your rest with your usual pondering. But you'll recover your memory after you rest, and I want you to think about it when you do remember."

"I will. Mother, who was that Sha'Kar woman?"

The Goddess laughed sweetly. "That is none of your business. But don't worry, you'll see her again someday. I guarantee it."

The sense of her seemed to both retreat and not move, a strange feeling of paradox, and then the web-covered black sky suddenly began to shift, then to spin. He felt a strange sensation behind his eyes, as if the real world was recalling his soul from the nether regions to which it had travelled. He closed his eyes as a sense that he was travelling a million longspans in a breath swept over him… and then there was nothing but darkness.

Light.

It seeped into his vision, interrupting the dark security of sleep, and it stirred him out of a deep, dreamless slumber, that and a strange sound that sounded like someone dragging a chain over stone.

With awakening came memories, images. A Sha'Kar woman, an Ancient. An Ancient that attacked him! They had fought, and he had lost control of his power, finally lost total control… but he hadn't been Consumed. Something else had happened, something strange, something inexplicable.

Something… beautiful.

Groaning, Tarrin returned to full consciousness as his senses seemed to reawaken with the rest of him. He could smell Sarraya somewhere about. He could smell sand and rock and dust, but there was also a latent smell like sulfur, like brimstone. A smell he had only just recently smelled, but the memory of it was very fresh. His body was spent, exhausted. The sun hung low on the horizon, meaning that it was either sunrise or sunset. The stone around him wasn't radiating heat and the wind was just starting to stir, so he knew that it was morning. The only reason he woke up was because he was hungry and thirsty.

That wasn't the only thing he noticed. He could see the Weave now, see it as a ghostly backdrop to reality. He could see the strands crisscrossing through the sky and the land, see them yet not see them, as if they were ghostly after-images that faded from view if there was something solid behind them. He could see them all, but it was as if he were looking upon them with a separate set of eyes. The strands of the Weave didn't interfere with his normal vision in the slightest. Almost as if both images were being imposed over one another, yet both were completely separate and could not interfere with one another. He could see the strands, and he could sense the power within them. Not just the flows and spheres, he could feel the true power within, the pulsating energy that flowed through them, and he could feel the eddies and currents, the bottlenecks and the rapids, the pools and the trickles that made up the energy of the strands. It was an energy that was part of the Weave, created by the seven spheres interacting with one another in ways that the modern Sorcerers could not comprehend.

The fight. His body still shivered over what had happened between him and the Sha'Kar. Magic on a level he didn't think possible had passed between them, and though he didn't remember it at the time, he began to recall the way the Weave shuddered as it struggled to meet the demands on it from the two of them. Well, most of it had come from him, aimed at her. He recalled that the Sha'Kar didn't really attack him with as much power as he used against her, using instead her experience and finesse to counter his attempts to use brute force. But the sense of her had not lied. He knew that she would have been able to meet him power for power, if it had come to that.

The battle was confusing. He was still alive, so why didn't she finish him off? Why did she attack him in the first place? She was Sha'Kar, an Ancient, and she had knowledge that didn't exist in the world anymore. What he wouldn't have given to spend an evening talking with someone like her! She was at least a thousand years old, and she had knowledge of the old powers, of the Weavespinners, knowledge he desperately needed. Such vast knowledge, and she had used it to literally spank him in a magical clash. He had no illusions about who had come out of their confrontation the winner.

Maybe that was it. Maybe she didn't come to kill him, but to test him. Maybe she was just there to take a measure of him, for some reason. She had to know something about him, after all. There was no way that she could have found him, called to him in that weird way, without knowing who he was, what he was doing, and where to find him. It was about the only reason he could think up for her to do such a wild thing.

Or maybe she knew exactly where to find him. She was a Sha'Kar, an Ancient, and that meant that she was a Sorcerer. She had to have an amulet around her neck just like him, and she answered to the Goddess the same way he did.

It had to be a test of some kind, because only about six people knew where he was. Sarraya, Triana, Keritanima, Allia, Fara'Nae… and the Goddess.

It was the only thing that made sense. The Sha'Kar had been sent, sent to test him in some manner.

But why? That was the question. Did the Goddess want him to get a taste of a real Weavespinner? Was it a lesson? An ordeal? A test of loyalty? A test of faith? A test of power?

On the other hand, if someone like that was really alive, what did she need him for anyway? That Sha'Kar Ancient could have easily taken the book from Shiika. She probably knew where it was all along. She may even know exactly where the Firestaff was located. Why send him, when she could have gotten it by now? It was certain that nobody living on this world could possibly take it from her. She was the paramount, the most powerful living being he'd ever seen.

It made very little sense. And since it had no easy answer, it was something best left to think about when he felt more rested.

Just moving was an effort. He was laying on his side, and his tail was numb from where he was laying on it. He managed to slide a paw under him, then push himself off the bare rock, but it felt like he weighed a thousand stones. He pulled himself off the ground, then pulled his tail out from under him and rolled over to sit down. He dropped the limp tail in his lap, waiting for the blood to flow back into it and reawaken it.

He nearly got knocked over when Sarraya slammed into him at full speed, her tiny body almost toppling him as she grabbed hold of his neck and hugged him fiercely. "Tarrin!" she said in excitement and relief. "You're awake!"

"You nearly knocked me back out," he wheezed, putting a paw down to steady himself. "For a little thing, you hit hard."

"Sorry," she said, letting go and hovering before him. "I take it you're tired?"

"That's an understatement," he said tonelessly. "I think the only reason I woke up was because I'm hungry."

"Well, say no more," she smiled. She motioned with her hand as he felt her come into contact with her Druidic power, and a large roasted goose simply appeared on the ground before him. The smell of it wafted to him, and it caused his stomach to almost take control of his body. "I usually don't steal like this, but this is a special condition." Then she giggled impishly. "I'm sure the cook who made it must be rubbing his eyes in disbelief about now."