While putting on the new clothes, he realized that the small pouch he kept on his belt was broken, and that the little coin charm device Anayi gave him was missing. It must have fallen out. He reached within again and willed it to appear in his paw, and the All responded. The little device appeared in his hand… hot enough to burn cloth if it was placed on top of it. It must have been laying out in that volcanic rift. He set it aside and allowed it to cool as he went about Summoning or Creating new versions of all his little personal possessions that he'd lost during the fight. He really didn't carry much, just the coin, a small dagger, and usually a small coil of leather thong for the bindings of the sword. His claws tore them frequently, requiring him to rewrap the hilt from time to time. After that was done, he finished putting on the new clothes and made sure the sword would fit in the new scabbard, then got ready to move. He didn't feel very comfortable where he was, and too much had happened in the last couple of days. He wanted to move on for the rest of the day, and then he'd talk it through with Sarraya in detail tonight, talk it through and have a chance to sort through it all.

Now he just had to get Sarraya's attention.

"Sarraya!" Tarrin boomed towards the rift, holding his paws up to his mouth to direct the sound. "Sarraya, I'm ready to go!"

He waited a few moments, but she didn't reply or appear.

The rift was only a short distance away. He started off in that direction, but before he got more than a few hundred paces towards it, Sarraya's tiny form appeared in the shimmering heat and haze from the sun and smoke of the rift. Her blue skin was smudged with black here and there, and her gossamer clothing was a bit singed and blackened in places. She came up to hover in front of him, a smile on her face. "You look fresh," she noted. "I take it we're leaving?"

"I'm ready to go. You have fun?"

"Yes, I consider a stroll through a volcanic wasteland to be so enjoyable," she said in a sarcastic tone. "But I did learn a few things."

"Like what?"

"Well, like lava can't melt other rocks immediately. It needs time. And that some kinds of rock won't melt. I tossed some sandstone into the lava, and it exploded."

"Exploded?"

"Yes, it was pretty neat. Maybe the sand that makes up the rock will melt, but the rock itself won't."

"Sand melts into glass."

"I know that, but the lava is too hot. It makes it do something else."

"Explode, from the sound of it."

"I'd guess so," she said.

"So, to put it in a nutshell, you were over there playing with the lava."

"Sometimes play can be educational," she said primly.

"Yes. I'm sure it can."

She slapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go already!"

Tarrin stood up to his full height and stared off towards the northwest, the way he intended to go. It was shimmering in the day's heat, but he could make out a large expanse of flat rocky waste, but there were rock spires and some irregular terrain on the horizon. With any luck, they'd come out of this barren expanse and get into the scrubby plains that Allia had described so often, plains where a surprising number of plants grew in the desert. Enough to support minimal herding. When he reached those plains, he would reach the Selani. He wasn't looking forward to meeting the Selani, but he was getting tired of looking at sand and rock. It would be nice to see some more of the desert.

Northwest. The way he was going. He had a great deal to learn, a great deal to do, and he'd learn it and do it while he was over that way. Quite a lot to look forward to. It wouldn't be easy, but then again, anything easy wasn't worth the effort. Part of him was dreading what was before him, but another part of him was looking forward to the challenge, looking forward to the experience. It would be a long, hard road, but the rewards he would find at the end of it would more than make it worth his while.

"Let's go," he mirrored her, and then he started off towards the northwest at a ground-eating pace that few could match for very long.

As much as he was ready to move on, the weather wouldn't cooperate. Tarrin and Sarraya were driven into a large cave before sunset by a small yet powerful sandstorm, and they'd had to retreat deeply into the cave to avoid the scouring wind. The sandstorm gave them time to eat supper and rest a while, and to talk. Tarrin related everything that had happened to him before he woke up, about his conversation with the Goddess, and he also told her about the dreams he'd had. He made sure to explain as much as he could about both the conversation and the dreams, and when he was done, he sat back and allowed the Faerie to think it over. Sarraya was a bit erratic and a little flaky, but she was exceptionally intelligent. She was alot like Phandebrass, easily misunderstood because of her unusual outward personality. He'd come to discover that Sarraya was both smart and keen, able to see to the heart of things very quickly. He could rely on her in that manner.

"Alright, so, whatever changed you altered your ability to touch the Weave," she said in a clinical voice, sitting on his knee and looking up at him. "Have you tried yet?"

He nodded. "Nothing. It's like it's not there. And it's really annoying, because I know it's there. I just can't find it."

"Sounds like most of this is going to be getting over your frustration," she said with a little grunt. "Knowing how you handle frustration, I think I'll keep my distance from you while you're trying."

"That may be a good idea," he agreed seriously. "I know it can be done, because that Sha'Kar woman was using High Sorcery. She also used Sorcery in some ways I can't even describe. I think those were Weavespinner ways."

"Try."

He groped for an explanation. "She didn't use Sorcery," he said helplessly. "It was like the magic was just there. She didn't draw it or weave it or do anything you have to do to use Sorcery."

"Well, your Goddess told you that there's more than one way to use Sorcery," Sarraya said. "This must be some sort of direct use. A way to use it that doesn't require any preparation or formulation. Almost like Druidic magic, if you think about it."

"How do you mean?"

"She just wanted it to happen, and it did," she explained. "That's the core of Druidic magic, if you recall. But this was much faster, and if you didn't feel anything from her, then it either doesn't take effort, or you weren't sensitive enough to feel what she did. Either would explain it."

"It has to take some effort, so I'd say that I couldn't feel what she did," he said with a little sigh. "That, or she did it so fast I couldn't make it out. She was an Ancient, Sarraya. She must be so good at magic that I couldn't even begin to keep track of her."

"Could you keep track of everything else she did?"

"Some of it," he replied. "She could weave spells so fast, I barely realized that she was releasing them before they were coming at me. She didn't use alot of power when we fought, she just out-wove me. She taught me a few things about Sorcery, that's for sure," he said with respect in his voice.

"Like what?"

"How to not only disrupt weaving, but to turn it against the weaver," he answered. "She attacked one of my weaves while I was weaving it, and caused it to collapse into an entirely different spell just by introducing a few stray flows into it. Then it blew up in my face."

"You didn't release it?"

"When she attacked it, she gained control over it. She was the one that released it, not me."

"So, you learned something already. You think you could incite another Sorcerer's spell into releasing before it's finished?"

"I think I could," he said after a moment of reflection. "Flows are flows. What they do depends on who controls them. I'm strong enough to wrest control from someone else. At least I would be if I could touch the Weave," he added in a growling voice.