communion with the Goddess.
	It was a test!  All this time, all those times he had nearly destroyed himself with Sorcery, they all were just precludes to this!  If he was to ever find his true power, to find the answers that his Goddess told him to find, he would have to face the possibility of destruction by the very power he sought to master.
	It certainly looked like he found that mastery.  He was still alive, for one, and his amulet now looked exactly like the Sha'Kar woman's amulet.  It had that same strange spidery-like alteration to the central star.
	Of course.  Sarraya chuckled.  If they were called Weavespinners, what better symbol to represent them than a spider?
	"I'm getting too old for this," she sighed, using Druidic magic to pick his inert form off the blisteringly hot ground.

	Light.
	There was light all around him.  He couldn't see it, but he could feel it deep inside, feel the radiant warmth of it as it shined upon him.  It flowed, this light, flowed and pulsed and shimmered from one place to another, moving in a vast cycle of uncountable paths that all eventually began and ended at the same place.  It was a heady feeling to sense the light, mystical in its underlying intent, moving of its own without rational rules to define its existence.  Beneath the flowing of the light was a strange sound, a sound he could not hear, yet he could.  It was a steady, rhythmic thumping, a gentle pulse of lifeblood through this ether river, a river that began where it ended and existed within a neverending cycle of self-replenishment.
	It was a heartbeat.
	That heartbeat was the collective energies of thousands and thousands of beings, all beating in perfect unison, hearts that sustained this vast web of interlaced rivers of light.  They did not know that they worked together.  They did not know that their lifeblood was also the lifeblood of this grand network.  From the wellspring this light flowed, flowed through the hearts of those who circulated it, flowed through the heart of the world, and then it returned to the wellspring from whence it had come.  It was an endless cycle, like the tides, the currents, the winds, the seasons.  It had a beginning and an end, but the end was naught but the beginning of the next cycle.
	He opened his eyes.  He found himself adrift in a sea of vast black emptiness, except for the crisscrossing rivers of light that flowed around him, in all directions, extending into infinity to light the void, but never so numerous that the void was consumed by their presence.  Those rivers nearest to him were warped, leaning towards him, yearning for him the way plants yearned towards the sun.  The sight of it was beautiful, so beautiful that his heart felt like the most breathtaking sunrise would seem as dull grays on slate in comparison.  His heart also sustained this vast web of light, but unlike others, he fully sensed what was happening, was aware of it.
	The Goddess gives the power, but it is the hearts of the Sorcerers that bring it from the wellspring and deliver it to the land, he thought in a moment of revelation.  Without the Sorcerers, there would be no magic in the world.
	"You see truth, my son," the voice of the Goddess shimmered through the rivers of light, through the strands of the Weave.  She was close, yet distant, near yet far, existing in a place that was both near him and beyond his imagination.  "You see the truth of things that few have experienced.  You have become what you were always meant to become."
	"But what is that, Mother?" he called out into the void.  "What good does it do me to know these things, when I can't do anything with them?"
	"You underestimate the power of knowledge," she replied from her unseen place.  "Did your battle not teach you that knowledge is the greatest form of power?"
	He blinked.  That was easy enough to agree with.  That Sha'Kar woman had taken everything he did and twisted it back on him, with contemptuous ease.  It wasn't because she was more powerful than him, it was because she had a greater knowledge about the Weave than he did.  That knowledge made her the better of them.
	"To influence a thing, you must first be aware of that thing," she told him.  "You cannot master things you cannot understand.  You cannot master your power without first understanding its truth."
	That made sense.  He couldn't deny that.  "Mother...what was I meant to be?"
	"What you are," she replied cryptically.
	"But...but I'm not worthy of any of this," he said meekly.  "I'm a half-crazy Were-cat who'd sooner kill you than shake your hand.  I don't deserve to see such wondrous things.  Why me?"
	"Why not?"
	She had asked that question of him every time he asked his own, and he still had yet to find a suitable answer for her.  In this crazy, illogical world, it was only fitting that a feral Were-cat be given the responsibility for saving the very people he did not care about.
	Fate, he had discovered, had a very strange sense of humor.
	"Don't worry at it too long, my dear kitten," she said to him in a silvery voice, a voice full of humor, warmth, and love.  "You have other things to consider."
	"What?"
	"You have faced your power, and have conquered it," she told him.  "You have crossed over into a new realm of magical ability.  You are now a true Weavespinner, in heart and soul as well as name.  But as with any new beginning, there is a period of adjustment, of learning.  And so it is with you, my dear child.  You are so fond of thinking of things in linear terms, so consider it this way.  One path has come to its destination, but another leads you off to the horizon.  Your body has changed, as has your connection with the Weave.  These are your first obstacles, the first challenges you must face and overcome."
	"Changed?  You mean I have to learn everything all over again?"
	She laughed lightly.  You see to the point, as always, she said winsomely.  You have crossed into a new realm, Tarrin.  In your prior land, you were the master.  Now, you are again the Novice.  You must relearn everything you learned before, because now, everything is different."
	"But, but that other one was using High Sorcery," he reasoned.  "That means that I can still use Sorcery the old way."
	"You can use Sorcery in the way that other Sorcerers do, but that is but one aspect of your power, and it is also something you must learn again.  Your connection to the Weave is different now.  Surely you remember Dolanna's lessons."
	He realized that he already knew the answer.  "Every Sorcerer has his or her own way of touching the Weave," he repeated the lesson.  "It's unique for every Sorcerer.  It's why no Novice is permitted to read or study Sorcery before their first lessons, because it may contaminate their ability to use their magic."
	"It is a personal communion, and it differs from person to person.  But now, my Tarrin, you are a different person.  So you must learn to touch the Weave anew."
	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."
	"No doubt," he said with a tired smile, reaching down for it.  It was still hot.  She must have swiped it right off someone's dinner table with her Conjuring.
	The goose was perfectly cooked--she'd probably Conjured it off some inn's main dining table--and the first bite unleashed an onslaught of ravenous hunger.  He stripped both drumsticks before Sarraya had much of a chance to do anything, and he began working on the main body of the bird with his claws and teeth by the time she was sedately perched on a rock facing him.  She'd Conjured up some berries for herself, and they shared a meal in relative silence, at least until Tarrin slowed down in his eating enough to speak between bites.
	"How long was I asleep?" he asked.
	"Just over the night," she replied.  "I brought you over here to get you away from that mess you made."
	"What mess?" he asked, but Sarraya was already pointing.  He looked in the direction she indicated, and he saw a black pillar of smoke boiling up from the ground some distance away, spreading out into the high sky.  The smoke was being distorted by the morning wind, wind caused by the sun's heating of the air, wind that rushed from the east to the west, then was turned back by the prevailing winds that came in from the west once the sun had heated the desert.
	"That's your doing," she told him archly.  "In ten years, there's going to be a mountain there."
	"A mountain?  What did I do?"
	"You ripped a hole in the earth that runs all the way to the magma," she said casually, but he could tell that just saying it was of monumental importance to her.  "I can't fix something that big, so it's just going to have to stay."
	"Magma?"
	"Liquid rock," she explained.  "The earth rests on an ocean of liquid rock, so hot that you wouldn't even have time to feel pain if you fell into it.  Not that you'd live long enough to get that close to it in the first place."
	"Oh.  My father calls it lava.  He saw some when a volcano in Shac erupted."
	"Lava, magma, it's the same thing," Sarraya shrugged.  "Since your little hole goes all the way through, now it's spewing out of it.  It'll cool off and turn back into rock, then build itself up into a mountain."
	"The land isn't going to sink, is it?" he asked fearfully.
	Sarraya gave him a curious look.  "Whatever gave you that idea?"
	"You said that the land floats on it.  When you put a hole in a boat, it sinks."
	She glanced at him, then laughed.  "No, that's not going to happen.  You don't know very much about the real way the world works, do you?"
	"I'm not Phandebrass, Sarraya," he said defensively.  "I know what my parents taught me, that's about it."
	"All that time in the school in Suld, and you didn't learn anything?"
	"They didn't give me much time to learn anything but Sorcery," he grunted in reply.
	"Funny that you didn't know about the magma, yet you wove a spell to cause it to erupt."
	"I do things I don't understand when I do that," he told her.  "It's like when I'm like that, I know things I don't really know, and I forget them when it's over."
	"Probably because you're in touch with the Weave," she speculated.  "Nevermind.  You don't look like you're up to a debate right now."
	"No, not really," he said, looking back at the smoke.  "So, that'll be a mountain?"
	"A volcano, to be precise," she answered.  "We can call it Mount Fury."
	Tarrin chuckled ruefully.  "At least it'd be a fitting name."
	"Do you remember much about what happened?"
	"Some," he replied.  "I get the feeling that after a while, the rest will come back to me.  What happened to that Sha'Kar woman?"
	"She disappeared not long after you passed out," Sarraya said worriedly.  "Tarrin, you were being Consumed.  What happened?  How did you weasel out of it?"
	"I, I have no idea," he replied.  "I don't really remember very much about that."
	"The Sha'Kar spoke to me before she disappeared," she said.  "She said she was there to test you.  She said that she was sent to make you lose control."
	"I had a feeling that was the case," he said calmly.  "I thought about that a bit just before I opened my eyes.  I couldn't think of any sane or rational reason she would have come here and attacked me that way."
	"At least you're thinking," she teased, then she got serious again.  "She said that you had to lose control if you were ever going to get stronger.  She said that all Weavespinners had to face being Consumed.  She said that if you survived, you were a Weavespinner."
	"I thought I already was one."
	"Maybe in name, but I think you had to do that to be able to use the power that the Weavespinners use.  Can you feel anything different right now?"
	"I can see the Weave, Sarraya," he answered, looking around and surveying it with his strange second sight.  "I can see every strand, and I can feel the pulsing of the power flowing through them like blood through a body.  I can feel that power pool up in the strands nearest to me, and feel them bend in towards me.  Almost like I'm attracting them."
	"I think you are," she agreed.  "Look at your amulet."
	Tarrin picked it up off his chest, and immediately saw the difference.  The central star now had two bent lines coming out of each side, reaching out and touching the triangles that surrounded the star.  The star looked vaguely like a spider with those little leg-like formations extending from it.
	Spider.  Weavespinner.  How appropriate.
	He touched the new features in his amulet gently, feeling it through the pad in his finger, marvelling at it.  If this was what it meant to be a Weavespinner, why didn't he feel very much like celebrating?
	"I didn't get much out of that Sha'Kar woman, but she did say that she was sent by the Goddess herself.  I guess your patroness got tired of you figuring out ways to avoid losing control."
	Tarrin chuckled.  "That does seem to fit with what I know of her.  My Goddess isn't one to wait too long, for just about anything."  He stroked the amulet gently, almost lovingly, his emotions for his Goddess taking control of him for a brief moment.  "In a way, I'm glad she did it this way.  Better to face that moment here, against someone that wouldn't immediately finish me off if I survived, and where nobody else would get hurt."
	"Hmm.  That's a good point.  I didn't think of that," Sarraya grunted in agreement.  "Maybe it's why she told you to come out here.  If you would have failed, the result would have been...momentous.  To say the least."
	"I can imagine.  I remember a bit of what happened.  I was full of power.  When my body would have finally succumbed to it, all that power would have been released into the physical world.  It would have been released as a Wildstrike.  A really big Wildstrike."
	"I know.  When I realized what was happening, I tried to get as far away from you as I could.  I hope you don't mind," she said quickly.
	"I don't blame you at all," he told her with a warm smile.  "I would have done the same thing."
	"Good," she sighed.  "I didn't want you to think I was running away from you, or abandoning you."
	"You were doing the smart thing, Sarraya.  I won't be mad at you for that.  I completely understand."
	She beamed for a moment, then started on another berry.  "I hate to say it, but your sword is gone," she told him.  "It's still over there.  I was too busy worrying about you to look for it."
	"Not a problem," he told her, holding out his paw.  He was tired, but he felt strong enough to Summon it, and the sooner he did, the less energy it would take to retrieve it.  He reached within, reached through the Cat within, and made contact with the vast source of power known as the All.  The image and intent in his mind were clear, plain, and the All responded to the simple request immediately.  But Sarraya had suddenly jumped into the air and screamed "Tarrin, no don't!"
	But it was too late.  There was a shimmering to his side, and the sword appeared in his hand.
	A sword that was glowing white-hot from heat.
	His immediate reaction was to drop it, to let go of it, as the heat of it assaulted his senses.  He flinched away from it as he let go, rolling to the side as it clattered to the rocky ground, his heart going from slow to racing in half a breath.  Adrenalin surged through him as it anticipated pain from his blunder.
	Pain that never came.
	His breathing becoming quick and shallow, he looked down at his paw, and saw that it was totally unmarked.  Impossible!  He could feel the heat of the sword.  He could feel that it was so hot that it would instantly blacken flesh that came into contact with it.  Yet it had not so much as singed him.  The heat of it made his face feel tight, but it had not burned him.  How could he feel the heat, yet not be burned?
	"Tarrin!" Sarraya said in a strangled tone.  "Are you alright?"
	"It, it didn't hurt me," he said in confusion.  He reached out towards it, felt its heat...but felt no pain.  He reached closer and closer, but still there was heat but no pain.  Then he put a finger on it and immediately recoiled.  Again, he felt the heat, felt that the metal was a little rubbery from the heat, but there was no sizzling of flesh or singing of fur.  "Sarraya, I can feel the heat, but it's not hurting me!" he exclaimed in shock, touching the weapon again.  Then, courage bolstering him, he reached down and wrapped his paw around it, picking it up off the rock.  He could feel the heat radiating against him.  The air around it was so hot that it could burn the lungs, yet it did him no harm.  He held it close to his vest for a moment, a vest that was already blackened from the exposure to heat before.  He touched it to the leather, which immediately began to hiss and burn from contact with the blade.  Then he shifted it and put the flat of it against his chest.  Again, he felt the heat, but there was no pain involved with it.  He pulled it away from his chest, and saw that aside from a bit of ash from the leather of the vest that was left behind by the blade, it didn't leave a mark on him.
	"Amazing!" Tarrin exclaimed in awe.  "Is it the sword?"
	"It's you," Sarraya said quietly.  "That's what the Sha'Kar woman meant!" she shouted suddenly, startling him.  "That's what she meant when she pointed out that the heat should have already killed you!  Whatever it is that's doing it has to be--"
	"It's an aspect of a Weavespinner," he concluded for her.  "I noticed that in the fight, that fire wouldn't hurt her.  Oh, it burned her clothes, but it wasn't hurting her.  I guess Weavespinners can't be hurt by heat, or fire.  I wonder why."
	"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Sarraya laughed.  "Fire is one of the few things that can hurt you, Tarrin.  Or at least it used to be."
	It was a weird feeling.  He, Tarrin Kael, was now utterly invulnerable to heat.  But he just didn't feel very much different than before.  It's not like it was something flashy or gaudy, like when he was turned.  Not something noticable, something that separated him from the rest of humanity.  But Sarraya was right, it was very much welcome.  It would keep the desert's heat from bothering him, at any rate.
	But then again, it hadn't been bothering him before.  It did at first, but days went by and he felt more and more comfortable.  He thought it was because of his regeneration...but maybe it wasn't.  Maybe, as he grew closer and closer to this new level of power, maybe this aspect of it had begun to appear in him.  Maybe his tolerance for the heat had to do with his magical power and not his Were regeneration.
	Tarrin chuckled ruefully.  Cook a piece of meat enough times, it gets to the point where it can't get any more done.  Maybe that's what happened to him.
	"What do I do with this?" Tarrin asked, holding up the sword.
	"I can't cool it off, it may damage the metal," Sarraya replied.  "Just put it aside and make sure it stays flat.  It's so hot, it may bend if you don't lay it flat."
	He nodded, fidgeting the sword on the rocky flat until he found a position where the blade laid flatly on the ground.  The leather bindings around the hilt were burned off, but that wasn't a great problem.  "Alright, now what?"
	"Now?" Sarraya asked.  "Now we rest.  You need to recover before we can start off again.  While you're resting, I'm going to go over there and study it," she motioned at the pillar of smoke.  "I've never had the chance to study a rift before.  It should be interesting."
	"Make sure you take notes, or Phandebrass will never forgive you," Tarrin told her, rising up onto his knees, then shifting into cat form.  He then curled up into a small niche in the rock, near the heat of the sword, and closed his eyes.  "I'll be right here," he told her in the manner of the Cat.
	"Alright.  I'll see you in a while."
	Sarraya flitted off, leaving him to his rest.  It was the first time he'd been in cat form since the trek across the plains of Yar Arak, but there wasn't any hollowness or pain this time.  He was too weary, and he'd been too long in his humanoid form, had enough time to sort through the complex emotions that his cat side could not tolerate, the emotions that caused that pain in the first place.  The eyeless face that always seemed to be behind his eyes also dimmed with the shift, as human morality was subjugated to the purity of instinctual thinking.  It was something of a respite from the guilt that eyeless gaze incited in him, to lose himself in the serenity of the now, where the future and the past were nothing but empty shadows, and the present was all that mattered.
	He relaxed, and allowed himself to drift off into a contented sleep.  He'd have many things to think about later, but for now, all he wanted to do was sleep.

	A day's rest did wonders for his body, but did little for his mind.
	The memory of what the Goddess told him had slowly seeped back into his mind as he rested, and it caused him to have strange, disjointed dreams while sleeping in cat form.  He usually didn't have memorable dreams when he slept in cat form, because his thoughts were filtered through the instincts of the Cat, but these were powerful thoughts, powerful images, and they were strong enough to penetrate into his alternate mental state.
	He remembered the entire conversation with the Goddess as a dream, a dream he knew was nothing but recalled reality.  After that, he dreamed about Allia and those with her.  He dreamed that they were standing on a ship's deck, staring at a horizon filled with smoke, and a sense of foreboding seemed to hang over them like a pall.  There were dark shadows over them, over all of them, but they seemed to focus around Dar.  He dreamed of Keritanima, dreamed of her standing on a mountain of screaming skulls, weeping tears of blood as she ripped the fur from her muzzle and commanded the skulls to be silent.  He dreamed of Jenna, standing before a massive steel door that glowed red-hot from heat, reaching out to it with no concept of the danger it posed, walking towards it steadily and stepping over the burned, smoking bodies of their parents.  He dreamed of Faalken, his curly hair matted with spoor and the flesh torn from his face, standing on a rock spire and holding a flaming sword aloft.  Just behind him stood Jegojah, his sword bloody and a resolute look on his withered features.
	And he dreamed of Jesmind, standing in a small, cozy cottage 