cities alone, without his sisters and friends around him to give him some support and some familiarity to keep him calm.  He'd managed to go into that Saranam city easily, and though he'd felt anxiety and fear, it had been managable.  But these Selani...it seemed different somehow.  He trusted their behavior, up to a point, because of Allia and his understanding of them.  Yet he was afraid to surround himself with Selani.  Perhaps it was because, unlike humans, Selani did pose a danger to him.  Allia was more than capable of killing him, and he knew it.  That caused him to afford much more respect to a Selani opponent than a human.  And that was probably why he was afraid of them.  Respect caused him to fear them, fear them more than humans, simply because they could hurt him.  With humans, it was different.  The average human had almost no chance of doing him any harm, so he wasn't very worried about going out among them.  It took an extraordinary human, or one with knowledge that was not commonplace, to do him harm.
	Strange.  If that were the case, then maybe he was more tolerant than he thought he was.  If he was able to differentiate between those that could harm him and those that could not, and give each group a different level of caution, then perhaps he wasn't quite so feral as he believed.
	He watched the Selani as they watched him, gathered on that side of the camp, many of them holding weapons and watching to see if he did anything hostile.  He knew the sharpness of Selani eyes, so he knew that they had seen the brands.  That was probably the only reason they weren't attacking him as an outlander.  He was a mystery, an unknown, carrying the brands that would give him safe passage through the desert, but of a species they had never seen before.  The combination of those meant that they would simply not pester him.
	Well, at least most of them thought that way.  One rather tall Selani broke away from the group, holding a longspear in his hand.  He marched towards Tarrin calmly and steadily, but Tarrin gave no outward reaction to the man.  He simply watched him, with only his tail moving back and forth.  A surge of irrational fear rose up in him, but he rose up along with it and stomped on it.  He would not be a slave to his own fear.  He would not!  It was hard to scent the man through the dried blood that still stuck to him, from the fight with the inu, but once he got close enough, the coppery-flavored scent of the Selani reached him.  There was nothing in that scent to hint to him what the man intended to do.  Usually, a scent gave away fear, anger, even murderous intent.  But he couldn't find any of those things in this man's scent.
	The man didn't attack.  He stopped, about ten paces from Tarrin's rock, and grounded the butt of his spear in the dusty soil.  "You claim blood debt on my daughter?"
	"She claims it against me," he said evenly in reply.  "I already absolved her of any need to satisfy her debt.  What she does is by her own choice."
	"You carry the brands, so you must know of our custom.  You know she would not simply walk away."
	"I certainly tried to convince her.  I don't have time to shephard a child."
	"Speak carefully about my daughter, stranger," the man said with a bit of steel in his voice.  "Her brands give her the same rights as any of us."
	"Truth is truth," Tarrin said, rising up onto his feet, rising up over the Selani man.  To his credit, the Selani didn't flinch away from Tarrin's unnatural height.  "All of you are like children to me."
	"Seeing you like this, I see the truth of that," the man acceded with a hint of a smile.  "What my daughter does is her choice.  I have no right to force her.  Those rights were surrendered when she took the brands.  But I will not allow my daughter to travel into danger without understanding that danger."
	"I intend to let her guide me for a few days, then I'll send her back," he told the man.  "I'm not the kind that goes looking for danger.  I agreed to let her guide me so I could avoid dangerous areas."
	"She says you intend to move in the night.  That is seeking danger."
	"These Sandmen don't concern me, shih," he said, using the Selani term for honored stranger.  "I don't fear ghosts."
	"You don't understand the danger."
	"I understand the danger.  They are ghosts made of sand.  There are ways to stop sand."
	"My daughter said you are shaman.  Is this true?"
	"It is," he replied honestly.  "I also have an companion who is shaman."
	The man looked him up and down.  "My daughter is an adult, so I can't stop her.  But if something should happen to her, there will be blood between us, stranger."
	That was a Selani term for a feud.  "Whatever happens to your daughter is by her choice, not yours," he replied, looking down at the man.  "First she is old enough to make her own choices, now you seek to dishonor the choices she makes."
	"That is a father's right," he said evenly.  "Why do you seek to travel at night?"
	"To get away from you," he replied bluntly.  There was no reason to lie to Selani.  "I don't like strangers.  I can't find peace with them close to me.  So I will move away from you before I rest."
	"My daughter is a stranger."
	"Your daughter is one stranger.  One, I can tolerate.  A group is another matter."
	"A strange reasoning."
	"I'm not human, shih.  Don't try to judge me by any standard you're used to."
	"I've taken it," he said, using a Selani slang phrase for understood.  The Selani language had a kind of thing for the word take.  It appeared in many phrases and expressions, even when it made little sense for it to be there.  "If I may be so bold, what exactly are you?"
	"There's no word for me in your language," he replied.  "You can call me a man-cat.  That's the closest I can get."
	"It seems fitting," he agreed.  Denai appeared on the edge of the camp, with a pack on her back and trotting towards them easily.  She came up behind her father, who turned to look at her, and then she put her hand to his face in ritual farewell as he did the same with her.  "Go with caution, daughter," he warned.  "Don't let need for honor cloud your judgement.  A wise woman knows when a debt is repaid, and when the greed for honor has taken over."
	"I'll be alright, father," she replied easily.  "If that one can kill a pack of inu, I don't see much need to worry."
	"Be careful all the same," he warned.  "We'll sing for you each night until you come home."
	"I appreciate that, father," she said with that charming smile.  "I'll be home as soon as the debt is repaid."
	Tarrin settled his sword a bit on his back, then turned away from them and started off towards the northwest.  He'd give them a moment in private, and besides, seeing them like that made him miss his sisters, and his parents, and Triana.  It wasn't something he wanted to dwell upon.
	Behind him, the Selani camp arose in song.  The sound of it was haunting, as a multitude of gentle, soft voices joined together in what sounded to him was a benediction, and a plea for the safe return of their daughter.  The sound of it was haunting, complicated, as the many voices joined together to form a choral whole that was stronger than the sum of its parts.  It reminded him in a strange way of the Goddess, and the curious choral effect of her voice when she spoke to him, as if no one voice could contain all the power within it.  This wasn't the powerful choral quality ofthe Goddess, but the voices carried a strange power of their own.  It incited several memories of Allia and her lovely voice, how she would sing for him whenever he was feeling unwell or out of sorts.  Her voice was nothing like what he heard behind him, but the sound of it only made his longing for Allia's company that much worse.  He closed his ears to that sound, looking down at the ground as he left, picking up his pace to get out of earshot of their lovely song, a song that reminded him of the family he had left behind.
	And he was missing them more and more with every passing day.

	Denai was going to be a problem.
	He realized that while sitting around a campfire with her and Sarraya about midnight.  They had moved through half the night to get some distance from the other Selani, and had seen none of these mysterious Sandmen that the Selani warned him about.  They found a nice place in a shallow hollow in the side of a rocks spire, a hollow that caught the fire's heat and warmed the area much more than if they were out in the open.  Denai had brained a large lizard, nearly five spans long, with a slender throwing dagger, and that had been dinner.
	Denai was...energetic.  That was a kind term.  In actuality, she was hyperactive, overflowing with youthful energy and exuberance.  Her eyes were shining with that energy as they sat around the campfire, and she had trouble sitting still as she and Sarraya talked aimlessly about this or that.  She was a far cry from the dignified Allia, who moved so much less so than this girl.  Even Var, in the short time he'd observed him, didn't act quite like this young Selani girl.  Var was more lively than Allia, but nowhere near this.  That wasn't to say that Allia was unusual, but his sister had an aire of dignity and honor about her that made her seem different than those two, and she wasn't prone to fidgeting and waggling about as Denai was.  Denai was a talker, and that too seemed strange for a Selani.  She loved to talk, nearly as much as Phandebrass, but unlike him she would be silent and let those around her speak back.  She had an intense interest about him and Sarraya, and went on and on and on and on with her questions.  So many that she'd had to retreat to the far side of the fire when Tarrin fixed her with an ugly stare and laid his ears back at her.  Sarraya knew him and knew Were-cats, so she knew that it was time to separate the exuberant girl from the brooding Were-cat which was the focus of her curiosity.
	The follies of youth.
	Tarrin didn't consider the fact that Denai was probably older than he was.  He was only eighteen, but he'd seen so much in his short life that he felt much, much older than that.  Denai had that same fire, that spirit that he had had when he left home with Dolanna and Faalken, which was what seemed a lifetime ago. She saw their trip as an adventure, something exciting and fun, something to look back upon and remember fondly.  For him, it was yet another chore, yet another obstacle to overcome as he hurtled towards his own fate.
	In a way, he envied Denai.  She was young, and didn't know any better.  Everything for her was new and exciting, and her outlook on life was along the lines of "take no prisoners."  He could appreciate that.  He'd felt that way once, a very long time ago.  Too long ago.
	Tarrin listened to her drone on and on, absently looking down at the ground, and that was when he noticed it.  Gold.  A large nugget of it, just laying on the desert floor like a pebble.  He reached down and picked it up, and saw that it was indeed pure gold.  It wasn't as shiny as jewelry was, twisted a little into an irregular shape that resembled a peanut, but a clawtip showed him that it was indeed real gold.  Allia had said that the desert was littered with it, that it was holy to Fara'Nae.  That was the main thrust of the current frictions between Arkis and the Selani, that Arkisian gold hunters were invading the desert to get the gold that was literally strewn across the landscape.  There was a time when he would have wondered at finding such a thing, when gold meant something to him.  Now, it was just another pretty metal.  Gold, and the greed it incited, were primarily human wants.  His Were-cat mentality didn't see much use for gold.  He could provide for all his own needs, so money wasn't something that interested him.  Gold had no value other than what others were willing to give in trade for it.  And out here, where there was no one to trade with, it made it just as valuable as any other pebble laying on the desert floor.
	Well, if it was holy to Fara'Nae, he figured that it probably wasn't a good idea to disturb it.  He put it back where he found it, and turned his ears back to Sarraya and Denai.
	"I don't see why you'd need to learn all those languages if nobody ever comes into the desert," Sarraya said to the Selani.
	"Merchants come into the desert," Denai told her.  "They speak the four common trade languages, so the obe must know all four."
	"Four?  I thought there were two."
	"Four.  The common tongue of the west, the common tongue of the east, the language of the beast-men, and the language of the south."
	"Beastmen?  You mean the Wikuni?" Sarraya asked curiously, and Denai nodded.  "And which is the south?"
	"Sharadi," Tarrin said calmly, interrupting them.  "Dolanna told me that the common trade language of the southern continents is Sharadi."
	"That's it," Denai agreed.  "The obe serves as the translator for the chief, and also as an advisor.  It's a hard job, because obe aren't permitted to fight unless the chief is in danger.  We sacrifice much for the honor of the position."
	"I didn't know a Selani would agree to not fight," Sarraya teased.  "But to learn four languages at once, wow.  That's hard."
	"It's very hard.  I'm still learning.  We have to know the languages as well as those who learned it from infancy.  Sometimes I get confused, and start speaking in another language when I'm trying to use one of them.  I was taught all four at once.  Sometimes they get jumbled together."
	"Tarrin suffers from that too," Sarraya grinned.  "He's like an encyclopedia of languages.  I don't know anyone who can speak as many languages as he can.  But you know two that he doesn't," she told the Selani.
	"I do?  Which?"
	"Wikuni and Sharadi," she replied.
	"Keritanima and Dolanna were teaching them to me, but things kept them from finishing," he told the Faerie, gnawing a bit more on one of the bones left over from the lizard.
	"Then perhaps I can help settle my blood debt by finishing," Denai offered.  "It will help me get better by teaching you.  I can't teach you as well as those others could, but I'm sure you can learn something from me that you didn't know."
	"Maybe," he said indifferently.
	"How many kinds of jobs are there in the Selani camps, Denai?" Sarraya asked.
	"Jobs?  You mean positions of honor, like an obe?"
	"Yeah.  Tarrin knows all about it, but he won't tell me anything."
	"Well, there are the obe.  There are si'swan, the Scouts--"
	"Allia is a Scout," Tarrin told Sarraya.
	"Scouts are gifted with the Eyes of the Holy Mother.  That gift makes them perfect watchers.  There are the oribu'oni, the Weapons Makers.  They are a society of high honor, and it is great honor to be accepted into them.  We have shaman, the Voices of the Holy Mother, our healers and magicians.  They are the greatest of honorable societies.  Even a chief bows to the words of a shaman, because they speak with the voice of the Holy Mother.  We are all dutiful children, and we obey her words.  There are other societies--"
	"Societies?" Sarraya asked.
	"Think of them as guilds, or groups," Tarrin interjected.  "Members of a society can belong to different tribes or clans, but the bond of society makes them a group to themselves.  There is a society for every job or skill, from potters to warriors.  A Selani can belong to more than one society, if he has more than one skill.  Just to keep Denai from spending hours describing them."
	"You know much of our people, Tarrin," Denai said, her voice telling him that she was impressed.  "The shaman serve as the arbiters between clans or tribes when they have blood issues.  The Holy Mother does not permit us to fight among ourselves, so our societies allow us to reach across clan lines when the need is there."
	"I've been to the desert before, but we never really talked to the Selani," Sarraya told Denai.  "I was visiting another Druid--"
	"Druid?  You mean the Watchers?"
	"That's what he said you called him," Sarraya replied.
	"Watchers are men and women of honor," Denai said.  "They have always been helpful to our people when we've needed it.  The Holy Mother has decreed that Watchers are to be treated with courtesy and respect.  If you are a Watcher, then you're worthy of honor."
	"Well, it's nice to be appreciated," Sarraya said, giving Tarrin a teasing look.  "At least someone around here does."
	"Don't worry, Denai.  Sarraya will give you plenty of reasons not to think so highly of her in just a few days."
	Sarraya glared at him, but Denai laughed.
	"Well at least I don't snore!" she flared.
	"Says you," he replied mildly.
	She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to a smiling Denai.  "What is this Gathering I heard about?"
	"We gather together every year," she replied.  "We trade goods and stories.  We compete among ourselves in contest of skill, and the societies have a chance to gather and share knowledge and renew kinships.  It's also a time to find husbands or wives, because it's not good for the people as a whole if too many marriages are made within the same tribe.  We gather at the Cloud Spire, so its shade makes the long days less taxing on us."
	"Sounds like a huge fair," Sarraya mused.
	"Fair?"
	"A fair is a good comparison.  A fair is much like a Gathering," he told Denai.
	"I meant to ask you something, Tarrin."
	"What?"
	"Your brands.  Are you truly of the clan chief's blood?"
	Tarrin gave her a curious look, then he rememebered that the little line through the clan brand on his shoulder denoted "royal blood," and was something only the blood of a Clan Chief wore.  "My deshaida is the daughter of a clan chief," he told her.  "I've never met her clan.  She was the one who gave me the brands."
	"Strange for her to do it without her clan's permission."
	"She made it rather clear that it was unusual," he agreed.  "But the circumstances were unusual too."
	"What circumstances?"
	"None that concern you," he told her rather shortly, crushing the bone with his sharp teeth and drawing out the marrow.
	"Ignore him, Denai.  Until he gets to know you, he'll be about as warm as an angry hornet."
	"I meant no offense," Denai said contritely.
	"Don't worry about it," Sarraya told her.  "Old badger-butt over there doesn't like anyone at first.  Just give him time, and he'll grow on you."
	Tarrin fixed Sarraya with a flat stare, his tail stopping in mid-swish.
	"See?  Only someone who loved him would put up with that day after day," she said flippantly.
	Despite herself, Denai laughed.  "Why are you crossing the desert?  Why not use those water-carriages that the beast-people use?"
	"Ship.  They're called ships," Sarraya told her.  "We're travelling overland because it's a bit unsafe on the ocean right now.  Tarrin's brands give him safe passage through the desert, and none of our enemies will follow us here."
	"Enemies?  It sounds like you have quite a story to tell," she said, her eyes taking on a dreamy quality.
	"We do, but it'll have to wait for later.  Tell me about that singing I was hearing as we left your people."
	"They were singing for me," she replied.  "Singing a prayer of good passage, so that the Holy Mother may watch over and protect me on my journey."
	"Interesting.  Tarrin told me that the Selani love to sing."
	"Singing is the way the Holy Mother wishes us to say our prayers aloud," she told the Faerie.  "Because we sing our prayers, we've found singing to be soothing to us, or voice our contentment.  If you hear a Selani singing, then the Selani must be either feeling very good, or is a little upset."
	"What happens when you want to pray for something that you don't have a song for?"
	"The song is the prayer," she said pointedly.  "We build the melody as we go.  The better the song, the better the chance that the Holy Mother will answer the prayer.  From the time we can speak, we learn the concepts of music and melody and harmony, all so we can be heard above other Selani when we pray."
	"It sounds like a competition."
	"I guess it is," Denai admitted.  "Singing is one of the most serious competitions during the Gathering.  The greatest singer in the desert is afforded much honor."
	"What other competitions are there?"
	"There are alot of them.  One of the most honorable is the contest of the Dance," she said.  "There are all sorts of contests of skill with weapons and feats of strength or agility.  There are races and contests to see who can climb the highest up the Cloud Spire.  The societies compete among themselves to see who can make the greatest object, or perform their craft with the greatest skill.  The items that win those competitions stay with the winning Selani's clan until the next Gathering.  It's a matter of honor to own an object that won a society's contest at the Gathering."
	"What happens to them at the next Gathering?"
	"They are given to the most promising apprentices of the societies, so they can study them and learn the secrets of their crafts," she replied.
	"So, let me guess.  The apprentices compete to see who gets to keep last year's winners?"
	Denai nodded, reaching to her waist and pulling out a slender dagger.  "This was one of those objects, made for the competition between oribu'oni.  It was given to my brother when he won the right to own it, and he gave it to me.  It's the best dagger I've ever owned.  Its balance is perfect for throwing."
	"You call it a dagger, I'd call it a sword," Sarraya grinned.
	"Are all your people your size, Sarraya?"
	"Of course," she smiled.  "I'm actually a bit tall among my people."
	"I've never seen a race so small.  No offense," she said quickly.
	"None taken, Denai.  We know we're short.  We don't have complexes about it, you know."
	Tarrin snorted in derision.  "You stay out of it!" Sarraya barked at him, then turned back to Denai.  "Sometimes being so small has advantages.  You just have to look for the good in it, that's all."
	"Are all Tarrin's kind so, so tall?"
	"No," Sarraya replied.  "He's out of the ordinary for his kind, but as a whole, his kind are much taller than humans, or Selani."
	"It only goes to show that it's as the Holy Mother teaches.  That the world is full of great differences, and that those differences make the world richer for their presence."
	"That's very profound," Sarraya said with no hint of teasing or amusement in her voice.
	Denai gave Sarraya that charming smile, then took a sip of water from a waterskin.  "We'll continue this way for a day or two more," she said.  "But then we'll have to turn due north to avoid the Great Canyon."
	"How far away is this Cloud Spire?" Sarraya asked curiously.
	"It's in almost the exact center of the desert," Denai replied.  "Nearly a month of travel, north and west of here."
	"Really?  I didn't realize that the desert was so big."
	"It's nearly as large as the West," Tarrin told her absently.
	"It'll take longer for my people to get there because they'll have to avoid certain dangerous areas," Denai said.  "They'll spend almost as much time travelling south and east as they do north and west."
	"What kind of areas?"
	"The Great Canyon," she said, looking up as she thought.  "The Maze of Passages, the Great Salt Flat, and the Boiling Lake."
	"Boiling Lake?  What is that?"
	"A large lake, but the water is so hot it boils," she replied.  "My mother says it's because of heat that comes from underground.  The water boils as it comes out of the ground, and it has a bad smell.  The very air around the Boiling Lake is unhealthy, so we avoid it.  The whole region is empty, because the fumes from the lake and the water itself kill off any plants or animals that try to live there."
	"What is the Maze of Passages?"
	"It's an area of badlands," she replied.  "Raised rock crisscrossed with countless deep crevasses that serve as passages through the region.  The passages are infested with inu and kajat, preying off the animals and Selani foolish enough to enter the maze.  We'll pass by there in about ten days.  It's just past the Great Canyon's northern edge."
	"It's a good thing you're here, then," Sarraya said. "Tarrin would lead us right into it, and get us immediately lost."
	"You can fly.  Why do you care?" Tarrin shot back in reply.
	"I don't, but then I'd have to save you again and again, and you know old and boring that gets after about the fiftieth time," she teased.
	"Whatever."  He yawned.  "I'm getting tired.  I'm going to bed.  You two had better remember that we have a long way to go tomorrow."
	With that, he hunkered down and shifted into cat form.  Denai's startled gasp as she rose to her feet quickly made him realize that he hadn't warned her or said anything, but in reality, he really didn't care all that much.  He curled up near the fire and closed his eyes, allowing the care-free nature of the Cat soothe him and prepare him to sleep.  The dreams and the eyeless face had trouble finding him when he was in cat form, and so it had become his preferred way to sleep.  In reality, he preferred sleeping in cat form over his humanoid form most of the time anyway.
	"Magic!" Denai breathed.
	"Not magic, nature," Sarraya told her.  "He's a Were-cat."
	"What is that?"
	"Well, sit back down, and I'll explain everything.  I'll even explain a few things to you so you don't make a mistake around him.  He may look all cute and cuddly, but he can be as savage as an inu.  Well, actually, alot worse than that," she added as an afterthought.
	"He's that dangerous?"
	"He can be, if you're not careful around him.  But like many kinds of animals, he's only dangerous if you trigger a hostile response from him.  If you're careful around him, he can be as sweet and gentle as a newborn babe.  Just listen, and I'll tell you everything you need to know about Were-cats, and Tarrin, Denai.  When I'm done, you'll be an expert."
	Tarrin drifted off to sleep as Sarraya's voice droned on, explaining the nature of his kind to the young Selani.  Tarrin didn't mind.  Sarraya would teach Denai what she needed to know not to get herself accidentally killed around him.  That was always a good thing.
 
Chapter 11

	Power.
	It was all around him.  He could sense it in the Weave, he could even sense it through the All, surrounding him, enticing him, causing him to reach towards it the way green things reached for the sun.  The Weave was strong in this region of the desert, with an unusual concentration of strands surrounding a minor Conduit and two medium ones.  That power pooled around him, coalesced in the strands immediately surrounding him, attracted to his presence by some unfathomable means.  It reached towards him the same way he reached towards it, but some unknown force or means prevented them from making contact with one another.
	Sitting in the full force of the sun, eyes closed and attention focused inward, Tarrin sought to find his way to that energy.  The heat of the sun was actually helping him, soothing him with its warmth, almost feeling like it was flowing through him the same way that the power of the Weave used to flow through him.  He could feel every nuance within the Weave, feel it for longspans in every direction, even deep under the earth.  He could feel the collection of energies around him, as the energy flowed through the strands to collect around him, to pool up as if to bask in his presence.  That strange energy always followed him around, and he still had no real true understanding as to what it was. He knew that it was a residual energy that was created by the interaction of the flows within the strands.  Almost like a by-product of the flowing of magical energy through the Weave.  It was also created when Priest or Wizard magic entered and exited the Weave.  Like a harmonic or echo of magical power, a harmonic spawned by the original, yet the harmonic remained inside the Weave long after the original was gone.
	Voices disturbed him.  Sarraya and Denai were chatting again, taking advantage of the break in their journey northwest to eat lunch and talk.  The two of them seemed to have struck up a good friendship.  Denai was even calling Sarraya shaida now.  The Selani hadn't really annoyed him so far today, but it was just the day before when they met.  She was bound to annoy him eventually.  Tarrin had spent the morning teaching Sarraya more and more Sha'Kar as they moved, and the little Faerie had so far proved to be an exceptional student.  She never forgot anything.  He felt some fringes of Druidic magic around her while he was teaching, so he had some suspicions that she was using her magic to boost her learning.  The same way that Dolanna had when she learned Sha'Kar in a matter of days.  The idea of teaching Sarraya with Denai in earshot had concerned him at first, but then he realized that she was Selani.  If he forced her to swear blood oath never to teach what she learned to someone else, then it would go no further than her.  He didn't entirely trust her, but he knew the Selani.  He trusted their culture more than their members.
	Nowhere.  He was getting nowhere again.  No matter how he tried to reach out to the Weave, it simply wasn't there.  Just a short time of trying had worked up his temper, and he knew that he had to stop before he got so aggravated that Denai's presence became dangerous.
	Opening his eyes, he blew out his breath.  He hadn't tried last night, and he wasn't about to let that go.  They had stopped twice to rest or eat, and both times he had sat down in a meditative position and tried to find his power again.  This was the third time, and it was no more successful than the other two.  He rubbed his eyes gingerly with a finger and a thumb, then uncurled his tail from around his legs.  The mental effort of reaching for the power was surprising, leaving him feeling a little tired every time he tried it.  That fatigue would fade quickly, so it wasn't a real problem for him.
	What was the answer?  It almost drove him crazy.  He knew that he could do it.  He'd seen that Sha'Kar woman use her power, and he knew that he could do it too.  But it was like trying to cage the wind.  He had tried so many different ways to reach out to the Weave, but it was like it was a ghost.  He could see it, but he couldn't touch it.  What made it worse was that his sense of the Weave grew sharper and sharper in the days since the fight with the Sha'Kar woman.  His sense of the Weave grew more and more clear, more precise, and he could sense it from greater and greater distances.  He had gotten to the point wh