In a blur, Tarrin moved himself back to the desert, back to the ruins of Mala Myrr, back to the exact place where he'd started when he released Jegojah and Faalken from the Soultraps. He sent his senses into the strands, seeking out the path he had taken so many months ago, hoping that there would be some trace of it remaining in the Weave. Then, rather foolishly, he realized that all he had to do was send himself back to that dark, emotionless room where the Soultraps had been the same way he sent himself to Mala Myrr. He didn't have to know how to get there; he just needed to know where he was going. That was all.

And he was. Just wanting to go there was all it took. He found himself looking out through the strand into that room, but it was a room that, even through the distortion, looked much different than it had before. Tarrin wove a spell that opened a clear window between the Weave and the real world, an undistorted image of what was beyond the strand, and he was quite surprised to find that the room had been emptied of the furniture and the vials and the bottles and the books and strange objects that had been there before. The room was empty. Completely empty.

A little puzzled, Tarrin cast out his senses, looking for another strand that intersected with the building. He found one, which wasn't very easy, given that the Weave was much thinner where he was than it was in the Tower. He moved himself into that one, which required him to double all the way back to a major Conduit and then come all the way back, a journey that would have been a hundred leagues up and back had he had to travel it in the real world. He changed his position instantly, moved into a strand that moved vertically through the building where the room was located, a strand that would let him see the inside of the place a little better. He moved up and down floors, looking out into the real world using his window, but found the place empty. Most of the furniture was still there, but all the small things were gone, and he found the place was devoid of occupants. In some rooms, snow had piled up in corners, blown through open windows. Rising up out of the building, he looked down on it from the strand from overhead and found himself looking down on a huge castle, more like a citadel, sitting on top of a huge grey mountain while snow and howling winds swirled around it. In the distance, he could see a large body of water surrounded by rugged grayish peaks, but he couldn't see much beyond that because of the wind-driven snow.

A little annoyed, Tarrin wove a projection of himself and pushed himself into it, which would allow him to move about in the real world. He used it to explore the castle, every room of it. He combed it level by level, chamber by chamber, even using Sorcery to ferret out every hidden room and secret passage and checking them as well. There was no one there. Not only was there no one there, they had left absolutely nothing behind to give him any clues or information. They had abandoned this place, he realized, and in that evacuation they had been extremely thorough in removing any trace that they had been there. Tarrin returned to the Weave in disappointment, and because the effort of projecting was going to tire him if he kept it up too long. He may need to project again when he did find where Jasana was, and he didn't want to tire himself prematurely.

There's nobody here, he said to himself, which became a Whisper in the Weave, since he had no body to make sound. Now what?

That is because you look in the wrong place.

Tarrin was startled; that voice was a voice that he had not heard in many months.

It was Spyder.

Follow my thought, her voice commanded. I will guide you to what you seek.

He did so, following the sense of direction from which her voice emanated. It led him back into the major Conduit, back into a Core Conduit, one of the seven of the greatest Conduits that depended on the sui'kun for their existence, and then out through a steadily shrinking series of strands, becoming smaller and weaker and thinner with each intersection or split, until he reached a place where all the strands seemed to have been turned, pushed back away from something that felt like it was as solid barrier.

Come out.

Without much thought about it, Tarrin pushed flows out of the strands at that strange location and wove them into a projection of himself. Once the weave was formed, he pushed his consciousness into it, and then opened his spectral eyes.

He was on a snow-choked plain. There was nothing but snow as far as he could see in any direction, but there were mountains on the southern horizon, and directly ahead of him, about a league, the snow suddenly stopped to reveal a strange swath of grassland.

Tarrin's ears laid back slightly when he saw a vast army of Goblinoids and humans camped in that grass, and they weren't bundled up against the bitter cold that he could sense plagued this area. There was a sea of them, specks of dark breaking up the green of the grass, sitting around fires, training with weapons, sleeping or sitting in row upon row upon row of small tents that were erected in that grassy plain. Standing directly beside him was Spyder, and he realized that she too was a projection. She wasn't actually there.

"Gora Umadar," she said in a distant voice, pulling that black cloak around her a little more. "You are Ungardt. You know the name."

He did. It was supposedly a cursed place far to the east and north of Ungardt, in the tundra north of the Petal Lakes. Ungardt legend said that an ancient beast of evil was imprisoned within it, and it was bad luck to venture out of the Ice Mountains that separated the lands of Ungardt from the tundra holding the fell place on the other side.

"That is where they hold Jasana," she told him in that same dead, sing-song voice.

Tarrin tried to push out into that grassy plain, to try to sense Jasana, but it was like there was a wall holding him out. "Why can't I sense anything over there?" he asked.

"Val's icon is there, Tarrin," she answered. "He exerts a force that the Goddess cannot counter. The restoration of the Weave has restored most of his power, and now he can wield it directly. That is something that no god can counter without bringing his own icon here, and no god will risk that. If Val and another god did battle through their icons, the results would be disastrous."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because they would be fighting directly," she answered, her eyes sweeping out over the snowless plain and the army it held. "Should one god triumph over the other, his icon would be destroyed, and all his godly power contained within it would sweep out like a firestorm. It would destroy the entire region. For any other god, it would mean millenia of banishment from the world. For Val, it would mean death."

"Because he's trapped in his icon?"

"Because he is a child of the Firestaff," she corrected. "He has never existed anywhere else but here, Tarrin. That is the difference between him and the other gods. That is why they cannot allow any more children of the Firestaff. When I sealed him into his icon, I didn't draw the very essence of him out of where the gods are and imprison him in it. That would be impossible for me to do. I am only a mortal." She looked at him. "His essence was already here. I sealed him into his icon to restrict his power, to force him to be physically present in order to use his godly powers, which restricts the range of his reach. Nothing more. And that I could do only because all ten Elder Gods united and gave me that power. For the gods, an icon is a presence in this world. For Val, it is him, just as your physical body is you. Destroy it, and you destroy him, whether he is sealed in it or not."

That filled Tarrin with a kind of grim excitement. "Then I could destroy him," he said in a dreadful voice, his need to avenge himself against those who had abducted his daughter running hot in his mind.