r was advancing on him confidently, advancing through the dust cloud that had concealed her for a moment.  He had to use something that would burn off the power inside, give him a chance to catch his breath, but not something that she could disrupt.
	He could feel her counterstroke building within the Weave itself.  Earth.  It had something to do with Earth.  Whatever she was doing wasn't High Sorcery...it was that other-magic that she used, a type of Sorcery he couldn't sense, couldn't see.  He reacted too late to sense the weave as the ground beneath him began to shudder.  He tried to jump aside, but a massive hand of stone rose up from the ground, and it closed over him.  Crushing pressure struck him, broke his tail and one of his arms, and it squeezed a ragged cry from him as the hand tried to snap him in half.  The power within shuddered as the pain made him lose control for a split second, then he quickly wove a weave of Air and Fire, then unleashed it outwards from his body.  The effect was purely explosive, like gunpowder put to the torch, and it shattered the stone hand in a loud blast of dust, fire, and black smoke.
	The pain had been too much.  The Cat rose up within in a heartbeat, going from unwilling participant to fully in control in the blink of an eye.  The Cat completely dropped all his defensive measures, opened itself up to the Weave without hindrance.  It thrust out into the Weave with flows, and then snapped them back to make them form a small spiderweb of little strands to feed his power, to directly connect him to the Weave itself.  The power that flooded into him went from a flood to an absolute deluge, causing the nimbus of Magelight around him to intensify, to expand visibly.  The connection to the Weave intensified his sense of it, and he could feel its power pulse and flow like blood, circulating through the Weave, but it coalesced in the strands nearest the Sha'Kar, as if her very presence saturated the strands with power.  In that fleeting moment he realized that all strands were not the same, that the power within one strand was not the same as all other strands, as he'd been taught.  It was something that he'd seemed to comprehend already, but he hadn't realized it until he saw the effect the Sha'Kar had on the Weave, an effect caused by her very presence.
	An effect caused by his presence.
	With a vicious snarl, Tarrin wove together a weave of Fire and Divine, and the ghostly aura of Magelight around him shifted from white to red.  He released it, and the aura around him suddenly expanded, grew, became a living thing unto itself, a massive bird made of pure fire.  He imparted the magical construct with self-animating properties, as if the very element of Fire were collected and fused into a coherent magical being.  He had no idea what he was doing, how he did it, but he knew what he'd just formed.
	An Elemental.
	A magical creature under his direct control.  It would obey him, do his bidding, until he dismissed it back into the Weave or it was destroyed.  He pointed at the Sha'Kar imperiously, and the Elemental understood exactly what it was created to do.  With a shrill cry, the bird of Fire streaked away from him, towards the Sha'Kar, talons extended and ready to attack.
	The Sha'Kar was smiling.  That only enraged the Cat even more, sent it spiralling into the abyss of utter rage.  She made a slashing motion with her hand, and he felt the eddies and currents within the strands shift, alter.  They suddenly became motive, as if she were controlling them, and they suddenly extended outside the Weave and formed into flows.  Flows of Water and Air.  They lashed out from the Weave itself, struck the Fire Elemental as if they were arrows, and the flows coalesced within the Elemental to counter the weaving he had done to create it.  The bird gave a startled cry, a cry of pain, as the Sha'Kar's weaving unravelled the very magic that made it what it was.  The fiery bird spread its wings and began to thrash, and then the fire that made up its form simply broke up and evaporated like smoke.
	The Sha'Kar didn't have time to gloat.  Another weave of Fire, Water, and Air formed in Tarrin's paws, and he unleashed it on the woman in the form of intense, powerful lightning.  She raised her hand, and he could sense the shift of the Weave as it seemed to respond to her.  Flows of Earth came free of the Weave and rose up from the ground.  The lightning hit that flow of Earth, and the energy of the lightning was absorbed harmlessly into it, deflecting the physical effect of the weave harmlessly.
	The power rebuilt within him instantly.  It began to haze the air around him as it heated him, heated it, the buildup of power so great that it started to distort the aura of Magelight around him.  The Cat sensed this, felt the fiery pain of being so filled with the Weave's power, but it was too angry to care.  It only saw the Sha'Kar, and it would not stop until it got her, no matter what the cost.  The Cat could shrug off the pain that would have left Tarrin squirming on the ground in agony, as pure, total fury, the need to kill, overrode all sense of self.  Tarrin wove again, weaves of pure Earth, sending them into the ground.  The weave was on a titanic scale, a weave so vast, so convoluted that the Sha'Kar actually seemed impressed, uncertain as to how to go about stopping it before it was released.
	The ground beneath his feet began to shiver.  Then to tremble.  More and more of the Weave's power infused it, causing it to vibrate in time with the pulsating power he pushed into it, causing the rock spires to sway and dust and rock to fall from them.  More and more power was charged into the rocky flat under his feet, until the very earth tingled and trembled, making sand drum up and rising up a cloud of dust from the rocky ground.  Tarrin closed his eyes and hunched his shoulders as the strain of weaving such power without releasing it began to wear on him.  Sweat streamed from his face, and his paws began to shake, but he would not stop.  Hair and fur began to shrivel, singe away from the internal heat of working with such power, but he would not stop.  Blood began to thicken as heat caused it to coagulate, but he would not stop.  Skin began to redden and blister as the awesome flow of energy through him burned into him like fire into paper, but he would not stop.  He let out a gasping cry from the effort, from the pain of such power flowing into and through him, power the likes of which he had never tried to manipulate before.
	His eyes snapped open, and he felt the last flows fall into place.  Then he released it.
	The ground suddenly split open like a melon dropped from a tree.  The sound it made was indescribable, as raw stone was split open on a massive scale.  The fissure opened just before him, and it raced away from him in the direction of the Sha'Kar, a shockwave of seismic force on a monumental scale, a shockwave so powerful the air above the ground was displaced with such force that it could kill.  The ground shook and swayed like a table with broken legs, and an explosion of dust erupted from the ground all around him.  One rock spire swayed too far, then toppled over, but the sound of its crashing to the desert floor was lost in the deafening cacophony caused by the rupturing of the earth itself.  The fissure ran so deep that it punctured the crust of the land, penetrated all the way down to where the molten core of the world laid hidden.  A geyser of ultra-hot liquid rock erupted from the fissure even as it continued racing away from him, spraying hundreds of spans into the air, literally burning the dust from the air as it started falling to the ground like a deadly rain.  The fissure raced right towards the Sha'Kar, but the woman made no move to evade or escape it.  She simply stood there until the last moment, when she vaulted into the sky with support from weaves of Air.  She rose above the shockwave, but not above the sudden spraying eruption of magma that spewed out from the fissure.
	Even lost in the throes of total rage, Tarrin was astounded by what he saw.  The magma struck the woman, struck her squarely and true, but it did no harm.  It simply clung to her like mud, neither burning nor searing.  But he knew it struck her truly, for her black clothing burned and seared from contact with it, all of it except that utter-black cloak she wore, for the magma simply struck its surface and vanished within its unfathomable depths. She brushed it away as she rose over the top of the spraying geysers of fire as if it were nothing but troublesome dust, leaving behind unharmed skin showing through the charred holes in her clothing.
	She was utterly immune to heat.  It could not touch her, it did her no harm whatsoever.  He could assense her, he realized that it was no spell or magical effect that was protecting her.  Her body itself was immune, though he could sense that the effect had been worked on her by some kind of magical process.  It explained her preference for Fire weaves...even if they were turned against her, they could not harm her.
	Tarrin and the Cat both were dismayed.  He had put almost everything into that weave, so sure they both were that if the shockwave didn't kill her, the spray of magma would.  They were both forces of such magnitude that even a Ward would not be able to resist their power.  He was exhausted, exhausted even beyond his rage, all his energy used up in the weave he had created, a weave that he now saw had done nothing more than tear a gash in the flesh of the earth, a gash that now bled profusely.  But his Cat half, his fury, would not permit failure now.  He had nothing left to Weave, but he would not stop.  The need to destroy overshadowed self-preservation.  Besides, now he was vulnerable, exposed.  He would not allow her to pick him apart in his weakness.  Better to die fighting.
	If Fire was her friend, then perhaps Water was her bane.
	He collected himself to try again, looking up at her airborne form with utter fury and contempt.  He reached out to the Weave--
	--something was wrong.  It was beyond his control now, it flowed into him like the ocean trying to fill a teacup, it flowed into him beyond the physical limits of his body.  A chain reaction had begun within him, as power beckoned to power, energy attracted energy, and his physical resistance to it had been overwhelmed.
	As the fur on his right paw suddenly singed away, as the exposed skin and flesh beneath blackened like wood in a kiln, he realized that this time, he had reached too far.
	He was going to be Consumed.
	That was when the pain of it struck him.  Drove into him like a spear.  The pain his Cat instincts had suppressed could no longer be denied, and it boiled into every fiber of his being along with the power of the Weave.  The entire might of the Weave was trying to flood into him, and he could no longer expend that power.  It had nowhere to go.  It was building inside him, building and building, and the power carried with it its lethal heat, energy that was not compatible with his body.  The energy brought pain, and it built more and more.
	The aura of High Sorcery around him shuddered as if struck, and then dissipated.  In its place came a terrible shimmering of the air, as it began to heat beyond even the heat of the desert, heated by his proximity.  The leather vest and trousers and scabbard began to smoke from contact with his body, a body that seemed paralyzed to him now, the commands to move lost in the molten sea of pain that raged inside.  Through that sea of agony he tried to move, tried to think, tried to regain his contact with the Weave and expel the power building up inside, but it was as if the Weave had become a one way door.  The power could come into him, but once within it became trapped by the attraction of the power with itself.  That was the mechanism of being Consumed, his rational mind concluded distantly.  The power reached a point where it would no longer move, it became bound to itself within, and its presence caused more power to join it.  The body was never meant to hold such power, the power of the Weave itself.
	Paws closed into fists, tail straight out behind him and trembling, Tarrin tried in vain to find a connection to the Weave that was not flooding into him, seeking in desperation to expel the power building up inside, but a part of him sensed that it could not be stopped.  He had crossed over the line, and now the power had a life of its own.  It was calling to its own, seeking to infuse him with the totality of the Weave, and that was a power that his body could not withstand.  Eyes that were about to boil in their sockets gazed down at trembling paws, watching in horror as the blackened skin began to split and crack, showing nothing but blazing energy beneath.  The pain scoured away all conscious thought, made the pain of being turned into a Were-cat seem like a skinned knee in comparison.  There was no stopping it, no controlling it, no defense against it.  The blazing energy dimmed, and then pure fire erupted around his paws, adding to the burning from within, tearing a ragged scream from him as the first physical signs of his impending doom showed themselves.
	It can't end this way! Tarrin managed to scream in the silent tunnels of his mind.  Not now, not like this!  He wouldn't die alone in the desert, not when so much depended on him!  His sisters, his family, Janette, they depended on him!  They needed him, and he would not surrender.  He would not!  But there was no quarter in this, no mercy.  He could do nothing against the power of the Weave itself.  That which had saved him so many times had finally turned against him, and his own connection to the Weave only served to strengthen its power to destroy him.
	For the first time, he was helpless.  But he could not accept it.
	"No," he gasped, forcing his arms up, forcing himself to stand up straight.  Beyond all defiance of rational comprehension, he stared the full power of the Weave directly in the face, stared into the heart of the Goddess herself, and refused to yield. "Not...like...THIS!" he screamed.
	But against that power, stubborn defiance could not last long.  Its might overwhelmed his attempts to shunt it off, to block it, to slow it down, saturating his body with its power.  The end of his tail burst into flame, the tops of his feet began to smolder, and the very air around him became alive with magical energy, charged by its proximity to him.  The power was building, building, eating him piece by piece, and he could sense that once it reached the point where it would fill him no more, it would destroy him in a cataclysmic explosion of energy.  Just as he had once charged Jegojah's body to the bursting point, so it was being done to him.  He had Consumed Jegojah, and now the restless spirit was seeing his measure of revenge.
	The pain taxed away what little he had left.  He began to sag to the ground, sagging into a funeral pyre formed from himself, and the stark reality of a violent death, a death of the most unimaginable pain, rose up before him.  He was too weary to care, the pain was too much to bear, even for him.
	This time, there was no escape.  Since there could be no escape, then there could only be release.
	He stopped fighting.  He opened himself completely to the Weave, opening himself in a way he had never done before, an opening without fear, without worry, without defense from the power.  It was an opening of utter totality, exposing his very soul to the raging torrent of energy that sought to destroy him.  In submission to the finality of his existence, he utterly surrendered to the might of the Weave, allowing it to do with him what it will.  So long as it was done quickly.  He didn't want to suffer anymore.
	The energy within, the energy without, it responded to that submission, responded instantly.  It drove into him with renewed vigor, with such speed and force that his body was literally picked up from the rocky ground.  In the blink of an eye, he was filled to the limit, reaching the maximum potential of his body.  The pain was consumed by that sensation of fullness, a power carrying a sensation that defied rational explanation, neither pain nor sweetness, hot nor cold, fast nor slow, gentle nor harsh.  It merely was, and in that instant, he understood that that moment of utter maximum, that he had reached the abyss.
	Yet he did not fall in.
	It was as if the power stopped.  He felt it radiate into him, through him, it reached out and touched the Weave, and then it bonded it to him.  The pain washed away, leaving behind nothing but a sensation of the power itself, and then that sense of power faded to the sense of the Weave.  And then it was gone.
	There was no sensation at first, neither within nor without.  Then he felt the Weave bend.  He felt it warp, shift, pull towards him, and his sense of it suddenly became as clear as opening his eyes.  He could feel the currents and surges within the strands, he could feel the pools and eddies and charges that existed within them.  He could see inside the strands, inside the Weave, as if the totality of it were revealed to him.  He could see things he had never seen before, sense things he could not before.  He could feel Allia and Keritanima through the Weave, could feel the pulsing of their hearts through the Weave, felt that they, and all Sorcerers, were linked to the Weave in ways the modern katzh-dashi could not even comprehend.  He could feel Jenna, knew exactly where she was, knew that she was pouting from some kind of punishment.  He could feel all of them, every single one, both near and far, old and young, friend and foe, weak and powerful, those long in their power and those who had never actively touched it before.  Their hearts, their souls, they were linked to the Weave, made up a part of the gentle rhythm of the beating of the Heart of the Goddess.
	And at the heart of it rested a pair of glowing, benevolent eyes, eyes that looked on him with love and gentle compassion.  The eyes of the Goddess herself looked upon him, and within them he could only see a loving benediction.  The eyes said everything without words.  He had surrendered to the power, and in that surrender, rather than destroy him, it had caused him to transcend the concepts of Sorcery.  He had crossed over into a new realm of magical communion.  He had become one with the Weave itself, and it was tied to him more closely than any katzh-dashi could realize.  He was the Weave, and the Weave was him.
	Through his mind's eye, he saw, felt the change in his amulet.  The concave star in the center of the device shifted, flowed, as two delicate tendrils of black metal grew out from each side of the central star, grew out, bent, then reached out to touch the triangles that surrounded it.  The eight lines merged with the six triangles, two each on the top and bottom triangles, one each on the four that formed the sides, and the central star took on the abstract image of a spider sitting within the center of its web of triangles, all held within a circle.
	Now, her voice echoed through his mind, through the Weave, through the entire world, now, my dear one, you are truly a Weavespinner.
	The power faded from him, and the eyes tumbled away from his inner eye as he lost contact with that sensation.  His weariness and weakened condition had overcome him, and he went from basking in the eyes of the Goddess herself to the blackness of unconscious oblivion.

	Half a world away, in a large courtyard in the middle of a cavernous maze of carefully tended hedges, there stood a large fountain.  The fountain was made of marble, and clear, pure water flowed within its base, the sound of its splashing a soothing sound to any who heard it.  In the center of this fountain stood a statue of a nude female, the carving of it defining perfection itself.  The face was a lovely one, gentle and kind, and any who stared upon it was calmed and felt peace.
	The eyes of the statue suddenly erupted with intense white light, and the features of the statue changed visibly, flowing from that gentle benediction to a sense of triumph, of victory.  The statue suddenly became surrounded by nimbus of soft bluish light, the light of High Sorcery.  And then it was gone, and the light within the eyes of the statue faded away, leaving nothing but the victorious expression upon the statue's lovely features.

	Within the huge central tower of the seven that made up the Tower of Sorcery, at its very core, flowed a magical feature known as the Heart of the Goddess.  It was the largest Conduit in the world, the main artery through which the lifeblood of Sorcery flowed.  It was the wellspring of the power of the katzh-dashi, a spring of energy from the Goddess herself.
	That pillar-thick Conduit of magical energy suddenly flickered into visibility, then flared with a soft bluish radiance.  But only for a moment.  It was enough for every Sorcerer on the grounds to stop in his or her tracks, to stop and clutch at his or her chest as the power of the Weave expanded, shifted, if only a little, a sense of alteration that no Sorcerer in proximity to the Heart could miss.
	It was enough for most of the citizens of Suld to stop what they were doing and look towards the Tower of Six Spires, the center of the city, where a pillar of soft light shimmered in the clear morning air, and then winked out.  Most of them simply shrugged and went back about their daily business, for such magical apparitions weren't uncommon when the Tower was concerned.
	But others understood it for what it was.  And they felt fear.
 
Chapter 9

	It was like the Gods had come down to earth to do war.
	Sarraya flew at full speed through a blasted wasteland, a scene of carnage the likes of which she had never seen before, nor cared to ever see again.  Just the memory of it was enough to make her shiver.  The air was hot, nearly lethally hot from the lava, and the smell of sulfur and brimstone was heavy with the dust and the noxious gases erupting from the ground itself.  Rock spires were laying on the ground, some melting in widening lakes of liquid rock, sending smoke and flames from the impurities in the rock wafting into the noxious air.  The few pillars that still stood were all moved, leaning, and showed the signs that they had been subjected to unimaginable forces.  The heat was so intense that she had to use her Druidic magic to protect herself from it, else she would die quickly as she flew into the raging firestorm that ringed the central area where the main battle had ensued.  She darted through the surreal landscape, trying to find Tarrin before the pooling lava swept over him and burned him to cinders, her concern for her friend overshadowed by the awe of what she had just witnessed.  
	The power!
	She had never seen such a display!  The two of them had gone after each other with High Sorcery, and the earth itself had paid in blood for their conflict!  The wounds were deep, raw, bleeding.  Even now the fissure Tarrin had opened in the ground still oozed lava, and she could sense that it would become a volcano.  It would not heal itself, it would simply grow into a mountain.  The land had shaken, rock spires had toppled, and both the Weave and the All had shuddered violently in their battle.  The Weave had been twisted, bent, warped, it had even moved while they were fighting one another, as if the presence of both of them at the same time, both using powerful magic, was nearly too much for the Weave to bear.  It nearly tore, creating an effect similar to a miniature Breaking.  The All had reacted to the raw power they sent at one another, and it had reacted to both of their magical spells that affected the land.  Tarrin's little stunt with the fissure nearly sent the All spraying up out of the ground like the lava that still oozed forth, and that would have killed them all.
	But he was still alive.  How?  She could feel that he was still alive, but he had crossed the line.  He was being Consumed!  She first wanted to rush to him, but a Sorcerer of his power meant that being Consumed would be absolutely disastrous, so she fled from the area when she realized that he had passed the point of no return.  She had been feeling it, feeling the Weave itself writhe as the power of it tried to destroy him...and then it just stopped.  She was absolutely mystified by that.  It just stopped.  That was supposed to be impossible.  When a Sorcerer started the chain reaction of being Consumed, it was irreversible and unstoppable.  And yet when it happened to Tarrin, it just stopped.
	How?
	She finally spotted him, laying on a risen section of ground, risen over the pooling lava before it, and to her surprise, the other one was standing before him, looking down at him.  The ground had heaved and shifted when he made the fissure, and it made the start of it rise up as the land before it displaced the land surrounding it in order to make enough room to open the fissure.  At that close proximity, the ambient heat of the lava should have been cooking him, but he looked unharmed.  His hair and fur had even grown back.  The other one wasn't attacking him now, she simply looked down at him.
	A Selani with that kind of magical power?  No.  She had to be Sha'Kar.  The Sha'Kar looked much like the Selani, and many in the circles of the forest folk speculated that the two were related.  The Sha'Kar were long dead, but their affinity for Sorcery, and the agelessness it imparted to them, meant that it was entirely possible that at least one of them had survived.  Because of that, she wasn't entirely surprised to see a Sha'Kar.  This one was one of the Ancients, one of those Sha'Kar that had knowledge of the greatest of the secrets of Sorcery.  But why had she attacked him in the first place?  They were two unique beings.  She should have been happy to see him!  What provoked the assault, and the vicious battle that followed?
	She completely ignored the Sha'Kar, blazing a straight line right to Tarrin's side.  He lay on the hard ground, the leather clothing she made for him blackened and brittle from the heat of whatever happened.  It was even smoking a little bit.  But his hair and fur had regrown, and he had no obvious injuries.  She landed on top of his chest and put her hands on him, used her Druidic powers to assense his physical condition--
	--and she was taken aback.
	Something had changed inside him.  It was subtle, but it was there.  The power he'd used had had some kind of lasting effect on him, and she could sense that his connection to the Weave had changed in some unexplainable way.  The Weave bent towards him now, just as it did towards the Sha'Kar.  Outside of those things, he was perfectly fine.  His body was exhausted, but after a long rest, he'd be just fine.
	She darted up and was in the Sha'Kar woman's face in a heartbeat.  "Who are you, and how dare you attack him!" she demanded hotly in her piping voice, her face showing her outrage.
	The woman fixed the Faerie with a calm look, a look that shook the little Faerie's outrage-fueled indignation.  She flitted back and away from the woman, getting a full taste of the sheer aura of intimidation the woman exuded.  But Sarraya had spent much time around Triana, and the intimidating effect of the woman's presence didn't affect her for very long.  She returned to a dangerously close distance from the woman's eyes quickly, and recovered her look of furious outrage.
	"I did not attack him," the Sha'Kar snorted in a rich voice.  "I did what was necessary.  I hold no grudge against him."
	"What kind of lame answer is that!" Sarraya flared, putting her hands on her hips.  "I saw it with my own eyes!"
	"If I meant him harm, he would be dead," the woman said flatly.  "The Goddess sent me to test him."
	"The--The Goddess?  Tarrin's Goddess?"
	She nodded.  "As you may have realized, we are brother and sister," she said, reaching under her burned shirt and producing an amulet of untarnished silver.  Unlike most Sorcerer's amulets, hers was a little different.  The little concave star in the center had little lines running to the triangles, and it almost looked like a little spider.  "Mother was getting cross with him, so she sent me to provoke him into losing control."
	Sarraya's face turned a pale blue.  "Why would she do such a thing!"
	"Because he could not grow any more unless he faced his power," she replied with marked casualness.  "It is an ordeal that all Weavespinners must undertake if they are to realize their true potential.  Only in the moment of destruction can a Weavespinner attain communion with the Goddess.  If they succeed, they may progress and discover the secrets of the Weave.  If they fail, they die.  Mother was getting angry that he kept finding ways to avert fate, so she sent me to make sure of it.  His time is growing short, and he has no more time to waste floundering about."
	"What would have happened if--" Sarraya said, but the look in the woman's eyes said it all.  She swallowed.  "He would have died?"
	"It would have pained me to cause the death of a brother, but it had to be done," she said with genuine compassion in her voice.  "But now it is ended.  And I must go."
	The woman turned and started walking away, the utter-black cloak absorbing the light, making her look like a two-dimensional figure against the hellish backdrop before her.  "Hey, wait!" Sarraya shouted.  "You nearly kill him, and now you leave him here?"
	"He has you," she called without looking back.
	"You think I can move him before he gets baked by this heat?"
	She actually laughed.  "Think, you foolish sprite.  Should he not already be dead?"
	Sarraya had no answer.  If the heat was so intense that she had to protect herself with Druidic magic, then he should have been killed by it long before she reached them.  And yet he was unharmed.
	"Wait!" Sarraya shouted, but the shadow of the woman was gone, and something inside her told her that she was no longer there, even if she chased after her.
	Sarraya bit her lip, fretting.  What had just happened?  Why did this figure from the past return to the present, return to attack Tarrin, but not to hurt him?  What was this test the woman spoke about?  How did Tarrin survive?  It was madness!  She looked down at him, and then she remembered the woman's words as her eyes locked on his amulet, an amulet that had changed.
	Only in the moment of destruction can a Weavespinner attain 