ed.  That wasn't really a challenge to his ferality.  He didn't particularly trust Denai, but he knew that he felt she was no danger to him.  He felt wary when she got too close to him, but he felt no true trepidation either.  He was hovering between pushing her away and treating her like a daughter, and he knew it.
	Small steps, his mother would tell him if she were with him.  One step at a time, and don't overreach.
	Strange.  Since he'd accepted Denai, the eyeless face that haunted him had eased considerably.  It was still there, but it was much as if its fangs had been drawn.  It felt little more than a kind of reminder now, an awareness of what would happen to him if he started back down the path of ruthlessness.  How could Denai's presence defuse that acidic image so?  It wasn't like she meant anything to him.
	It was something that seemed totally illogical.  So much so that it made his head a little woozy just trying to think about it, so he decided to think about something else.
	He watched the two Selani chat with Sarraya, not really listening to them.  They seemed...familiar.  Familiar with one another familiar with Sarraya, despite the fact that she was so obviously different than them.  Selani were a rather stoic lot, hard to surprise and even harder to unbalance.  It was a racial trait, something that they shared with Allia.  But there was no resolute stoicism in how they talked, or their body language.  Allia seemed stiff sometimes, but that was because she was thrust into an alien culture with little experience with it.  The fact that she wasn't too fond of humans exascerbated it.  But when they were alone, when she was among her friends, she was much as those two were now.  Looking at them, he couldn't imagine either of them being a threat to him.  Yet he knew that if he were to get close to them, they would suddenly seem much more threatening than they did now.  Even if they weren't, his feral instinct would convince him that they were.  Part of him wanted to be over there with them, talking about nothing in particular, getting to know them better.  But that part of him was enslaved to his towering fear of strangers, a fear so powerful that it would cause him to lash out in violence against anyone he felt was too dangerous.
	Strange that he would feel so alone.  It was an odd realization.  Watching them, listening to them, it made him feel...lonely.  Sarraya understood him, talked to him, but he knew that his quiet manner put her off.  He just didn't engage in idle chat, and that was what the Faerie needed right now.  She was better off with those two, getting to know them and making them feel more comfortable in his presence.  In any case, she couldn't ease the ache inside him.  She was a dear friend, and he was glad she was there, but she wasn't his sisters, she wasn't his parents.  Only they could fill the void left in him by their separation.
	As always, when he felt lonely or afraid or confused, all he had to do was look up.  He rose to his feet and turned his back on the three of them, raising his face to the White Moon.  That milky face stared down at him, sang to him in ways anyone not Were would never understand, and as always, the cheeky grin of Miranda seemed to shine down on him from that skybound moon.  Looking up at the moon appeased the animal in him, but it also reminded him of friends and family long away, friends and family who were waiting for him to return to them.  Miranda's cheeky grin was affixed into Domammon now, but it also invoked images, memories of dear sisters and beloved parents, memories of trusted friends and stalwart companions, memories of home.  He really didn't have a home anymore, but he knew that wherever he was was home, so long as those that made him feel safe were around him.  The human in him yearned for friends and family to be with him, but until that day came, the echo of it granted to him by Domammon would have to suffice.
	The White Moon was no friend, but it carried an echo of the feeling of belonging, an echo that soothed his troubled mind, if only for a little while.

	The night passed with no trouble.  The four of them took turns keeping the fire bright and strong, both warding off the night's chill and repelling the sand-ghosts that haunted the desert the night before.  The night allowed Tarrin to think, to look at the other three with him as they slept and ponder their presence, and how they made him feel.  It made him come to a few conclusions, conclusions that part of him still all but rioted against, so strongly they were aligned against the idea.
	If Var asked to travel with them, Tarrin would not say no.
	He'd decided that while throwing strips of bark into the fire in the dead of night.  He had to do what Mist did.  He had to confront what he feared, confront it and face it day after day after day.  He couldn't do that unless an object to fear was available.  Denai wouldn't be enough, she reminded him too much of a child for him to truly fear her.  Var was an adult, someone that the animal in him did indeed fear, but Var was also trained enough to be able to evade any sudden attack that he may initiate against him.  Given a little preventive education by Denai and Sarraya, the Selani male should be able to prevent himself from getting into any of those situations.  Something inside him told him that Var wanted to stay with them.  He didn't know what it was, but it was a strong feeling.  And given what had happened recently, he'd decided to listen very closely to that gut feelings.  So far, they had yet to lead him astray.  And Var's presence would force Tarrin to face his fear, face the demons inside that urged him to attack or to flee.  Given time, he hoped, he would find that fear was his enemy, not the people who created it inside him.
	It was morning, and the sun was rising over the eastern horizon.  With it came the morning winds, but they were broken up by the rock spire and the fallen rock that formed the enclosed space that they had used to set up their camp.  He couldn't really hear them whipping outside the camp, but it was early yet.  They were at their strongest about an hour after sunrise, after the sun had had some time to heat the air and cause it to move.  The others were also awake, eating a meal of toasted oat cakes Denai had made over the fire.  Var seemed completely at ease with the others, trading barbs with Sarraya lightly.  Tarrin had not spoken to any of them since the night before.  Then again, he had something to do, and it wasn't going to put him in a very good mood.
	It was time to aggravate himself.
	He wanted to do it last night, but even he wasn't crazy enough to go out into the darkness alone with those Sandmen out there.  He didn't want to do it near them, because their scents distracted him, and he had enough distractions already.  The top of the broken rock spire would do very well, he'd decided.  It was out of the way, yet not too far from the others.  They wouldn't bother him up there--at least they wouldn't if they knew what was good for them--and it would give him the isolation and peace he needed to try to regain his magic.
	"Go ahead and get started," he told them, without bothering to greet them.  "I'll catch up in about an hour."
	"Well good morning," Sarraya said acidly.
	"We'll not leave you behind, Tarrin," Denai said mildly.  "If you're not ready to leave, then we'll wait."
	"I guess I should move on," Var said with a bit of a sigh.  "But without my fire-pack, I don't do my people very much good as a Scout.  I can't set signal fires to warn them of possible danger."
	"I can whip up anything you need, Var," Sarraya offered.  "You name it, I'll Conjure it."
	"I appreciate the offer, friend Sarraya," Var said with a smile.  "That way I don't feel as if I'm dishonoring myself by abandoning my duty."
	"Accidents happen, Var," Sarraya told him dismissively.  "Especially when those accidents hunt you down and try to eat you."
	Var laughed.  "If it's alright with you, I'd like to travel with you for a ways.  This stretch of desert has proven to be dangerous, and as they say, safety runs in numbers.  I think that travelling with you would be much more interesting anyway, and right now, we're all going in the same direction.  I can do my duty to my tribe and scout, and travel with you at the same time."  He smiled.  "You could always use another pair of hands to keep the fire going, couldn't you?"
	Var looked at Denai, Denai looked at Sarraya, and Sarraya looked at Tarrin.  She knew that it hinged on Tarrin's consent.  Tarrin had already made his decision, but something in him told him not to tip his hand that he had.  He stood there and fixed Var with a suitably flat look, one that made the Selani take a step back, then he blew out his breath.  "Just stay away from me," he warned in an ominous tone.  "And don't bother me.  As long as you do that, you can do whatever you want."
	"Why, Tarrin, that's something of a surprise," Sarraya said in sincere consternation.
	"He's a pair of hands for the fire.  Nothing more," Tarrin growled in her direction, then he turned his back on them, and started climbing up the broken rock spire.
	"I think he likes you, Var," Sarraya said with a giggle, but Tarrin tuned them out before he heard any replies, using his claws to scamper up the sheer rock face with ease.
	He found a comfortable spot on the relatively flat top of the broken spire, sat down and wrapped his tail around his crossed legs, and began.  His method for trying hadn't really changed since the start, because it was the only thing he could think of to try.  He tried to reach out to the Weave and have it respond.
	And like every other time, it was nowhere to be found.  For well over an hour he attempted to make contact with the Weave, but it all came to naught.  As always, it was visible but untouchable, a vaporous ghost that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it.  Every time he reached towards it, it melted away from him.  It was the same aggravation, because he could sense the Weave, sense its every nuance for longspans in every direction, could feel the pulsing of the magical energy of it through the Weave, through his veins.  He could hear it, hear the choral echoing vibrations as the magic flowed through it, could almost hear the pounding of the Goddess' heart along the strands.  His ability to sense it was so incredibly acute that it mystified him that he couldn't find a connection to that energy, a bridge to bring its power to him.
	He concentrated on his sense of it, listening to it, feeling it more and more intently.  Maybe, he reasoned, if he could come to a more intimate understanding of it, it would be there when he reached for it.  Falling back on the skills taught to him by Allia, he emptied his mind of all extraneous thoughts, emptied his mind of all feelings and sensation.  He emptied himself of everything except for the Weave, of his sense of it, giving it the entirety of his concentration.  Eyes closed, his ears twitched with the sounds of the Weave, a eerie haunting melody of discordant notes that blended together into something that was disturbingly beautiful.  Like the haunting songs of the big fish that Keritanima called whales, echoing through the Weave.  He descended deeper into himself, subverted all thought in lieu of seeking the unspoken messages he hoped that would be in the Weave that could guide him to its power.  His expression became neutral, then serene as he raised his chin and opened his senses, seeking to touch the Weave with more than just his mind, trying to leave all distractions behind him.  Even the eyeless face fell away from his consciousness as he strove to reach above all other things, to rise above all distraction and seek to call in the power he sought.
	The attempt had a strange, unpredictable effect.  He became aware of a change, a fundamental shift in his senses, and when he opened his eyes, the desert was gone.  It had been replaced by a void of utter, unfathomable blackness, a darkness that went beyond any description of black.  It was an anti-light, an utter lack of anything.  His first reaction was one of fear, but that flowed away quickly when he realized that there was nothing there to harm him.  It was merely a place, like any other, and somehow he knew that he could return to where he had been at any time if he so wished it.
	At that realization, the void parted, opened like a blossoming flower, and the countless strands of the Weave seemed to wink into existence all around him, going off into infinity in every direction, even below him.  With the appearance of the strands, he recalled being in this place before, a place that did not exist, a place that existed somewhere outside reality.  The throbbing of the strands reached his ears, breaking the silence, and the pinpoints that marked the hearts of the Sorcerers appeared in the black sky, like stars of white light that winked and shimmered in the sky.  The scene before him was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn't quite remember exactly when and where and how he had come to be here before.  He recalled speaking to the Goddess in this place, and when he did, her words came from outside, not from within himself as they usually did.
	The Goddess.
	He knew this place now.  It was here where the Goddess explained what had happened to him after fighting the Sha'Kar.  He realized that he was not in that place, as he had been before.  He was merely looking within it from the outside.  How he knew that, he didn't know, but he knew it to be truth.  It was within the wellspring from which all magical energy flowed, and to which all magic in the Weave eventually returned once it flowed a cycle through the strands.  It was a heart of sorts, both sending out and calling in the magical energies that infused the world, using the hearts of the Sorcerers as the driving force which caused the magic to flow.
	Sorcerers.  In this place, they were all one, a unified whole working towards a common objective.  It was the life energy of the Sorcerers that caused the magic to flow, and that revealed to him a fundamental truth, a truth that seemed so obvious to him in that moment of lucidity.
	Sorcery was dependent on the number of Sorcerers alive to fuel it.  The diminishing of the might of the Sorcerers wasn't because of lost lore or disappearing Ancients or weakened natural ability, it was because there weren't enough Sorcerers left to support magic of that magnitude.
	The Goddess said that the old powers were returning to the world.  If that was so, it was because a new generation of Sorcerers had been born, born in such numbers that the Weave's ability to support magical energy had been significantly increased by their presence.  Even those who had never touched their power supported the Weave, granting their hearts to it.  It was why Sorcery was not a learned skill, but a natural ability.  Their presence would cause the Weave to expand, to enrich, to grow, and all who could access it, both directly and indirectly, would gain power from that enrichment.  Sorcerers would find that they could handle more power, weave new spells, expand their own personal maximums, and wizards and priests could again cast spells denied to them for a thousand years.
	The Ancients hadn't been more powerful at a basic level, they had simply lived at a time when the Weave was much stronger than it was now.  They had certainly had more knowledge of the Weave, but their power was due to the Weave, not their innate ability.
	But what about the Breaking?  They had taught him that the Breaking happened because too many magicians and too many magical objects placed such a strain on the Weave that it could no longer support the demands placed on it, and it tore.  The Ancients that existed before the Breaking simply vanished.  Did they vanish because they knew what was coming, or did they vanish because they were dead?
	And if they vanished because they were dead, wouldn't that mean that the Breaking happened because too many Sorcerers died at the same time, so many that their loss weakened the Weave to such a point where it could no longer supply the magical energy that the magicians and priests and magical objects demanded from it?
	You fool!  If you destroy us, you destroy yourself!
	The voice seemed to echo through the Weave, echo from a time and place distant from him, like a memory of a dream.  A memory of the past.
	The Tower of Dreams has been destroyed!  Thousands are dead!
	The Conduit at the Tower of Dreams has broken!  The shock of it destroyed the Tower of Stars! 
	Mikan, you fool, don't you understand?  The Weave can't survive this!  It's going to tear!
	Where were the voices coming from?  They echoed through the Weave, like whispers from the past.  Were they truly the voices of the Ancients, still drifting along the currents of magic for a thousand years?  Or were they merely shades of the past, conjured by his own imagination?
	We have no choice, Keeper!  We must flee to the Lost City.  You know what's going to happen, and who will they blame?
	The Sui'Kun! a ragged cry called.  The Sui'Kun are dying, Keeper!  Their hearts are bursting like balloons!
	Voices.  More and more of them surrounded him, whispered and screamed and howled and cajoled and pleaded and demanded and begged and growled and beseeched and--
	Too many!
	They seemed to boil up from the strands, boil out of the Weave like bubbles from a boiling pot, assaulting his ears, all of them at once.  Too many for him to hear any one voice, too many to make sense of anything that any of them said.  They got louder and louder, as if they were vying to get his attention, trying to drown one another out.  Louder and louder, more and more demanding, all of them murmuring in his ears, turning into a chaotic cacophony that threatened to drive him insane, pounded in his ears, pounded into the core of him like a spike being hammered into his brain.
	"N-No," Tarrin grumbled, trying to push the voices away.  "I can't understand you!  You're hurting me!"
	The voices only got louder and louder, a thundering roar that made him feel like his head was going to explode.
	"No, stop!  Stop, you're killing me!  Stop!  STOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
	The blackness flashed, and then he felt himself tumbling down through the endless void, felt it as something inside him pulled himself away from the voices before they destroyed him.  The blackness flashed, and then there was an explosion of light before his eyes--
	--and he was clawing himself up to his feet, shrieking at the top of his lungs for them to stop, cold sweat drenching him in a sudden wave that made him feel cold.  Panting heavily, his eyes seemed blurry, uncertain, and then they focused on the sun-baked expanses of the Desert of Swirling Sands, adjusting once again to the light of the sun.  A moment of panic washed over him, but he realized he was back in the desert, he was back and safe, and there were no more voices.  The voices were gone, leaving him with a pounding headache.
	He flopped down onto his back onto the stone, panting heavily and trying to sort through the myriad of voices, trying to remember what he heard before they tried to drown him in their pain.  What horror!  Not just the words, but the emotions of those who had placed those voices in the Weave shivered through him, and an abject terror of an entire world seemingly going mad was the main core that unified them in his mind.   They had all been terrified, shocked.  It began to come back to him.  Was that what had really happened?  Had an attack of some kind at one Tower caused a Conduit to tear, which destroyed the Tower at the other end of that Conduit?  And had the loss of so many Sorcerers, thousands of them, caused the Weave to weaken under its burden, and then finally tear in what most people knew as the Breaking?
	He put his paw over his face as he got his breathing back under control.  He heard Sarraya's buzzing wings a second before she called out to him in concern and fear.  "Tarrin, what happened?" she asked quickly, coming up close to his head.  "Your ears are bleeding!" she gasped.
	He could feel it now.  The warmth flowing into his hair, oozing out of his ears.  It had been more real than just a hallucination.  It had been real.
	He sat up, causing her to have to move out of his way, finally feeling the wild emotions and terror flow out of him.  Those were not his emotions.  They were shades, memories of a past horror so powerful that they had been branded into the magic of the Weave for all time.  They were ghosts from the past, and they couldn't harm him now.
	"Sarraya," he said a bit wildly.  "I could hear them!"
	"Hear what?"
	"Voices from the past," he told her.  "Voices from the Breaking.  They're still in the Weave, Sarraya, echoing inside it for a thousand years, echoing until the end of time.  So many!"
	"Well, let's not dwell on that right now," she said, and he felt her touch her Druidic magic.  She put her hands on one of his ears, and felt her magic urge the bleeding to cease.  Somehow, some way, the wounds didn't immediately heal.  "Did you make any progress?"
	"I...I think so," he replied.  "I didn't find my power, but I did come into contact with the Weave, somehow.  I can't explain it."
	"I don't think I'd understand if you did," she said seriously.  "What did the voices say?" she asked curiously.
	"The Breaking happened because something terrible happened, so terrible that it made a Conduit break.  Some kind of an attack on a Tower.  It destroyed the Tower, and the broken Conduit destroyed the Tower at the other end.  So many Sorcerers died that it weakened the Weave, weakened it to the point where it couldn't support the magical demands placed on it, so it ripped.  Sarraya, the Sorcerers didn't cause the Breaking.  Whoever attacked that Tower did," he said seriously.
	"How could that happen?  Why would the Weave tear if too many Sorcerers died?"
	"Sorcerers are the Weave," he told her.  "Without Sorcerers, there would be no Weave.  The Goddess grants the power, but it's the Sorcerers that draw it out from the Heart.  The more Sorcerers there are, the more power gets drawn, and the more magic there is that comes into the world.  The more magical demands on the Weave, the more Sorcerers have to be alive to sustain it."
	Sarraya gave him a very long, very penetrating look.  "Tarrin, what you just said, you can never repeat it," she said in a voice so serious, so grim, that it took him aback.  "Do you understand me?"
	"Sarraya--"
	"Do you understand me?" she said fiercely.
	"I--alright," he said, uncertain in the face of such vociferousness from the usually capricious Faerie.  "Why?"
	"Because you just said the one thing that shouldn't be known," she said in a hiss.  "If people knew what you just said, the entire world would be in danger."
	"You knew?"
	"Of course I knew!" she said in a heated voice.
	"Then why did you ask?"
	"To see if you knew," she said in a muted tone.  "If certain people knew what you just said, and given how few of you there are right now, do you see why it's so very important for that not to be common knowledge?"
	He looked into her eyes, and understood immediately.  Sorcerers were rare.  In all but a very few kingdoms, they were reviled as the bringers of the Breaking.  They had to travel with Knights for their own protection from ignorant mobs of peasants who believed that Sorcerers were really witches.  If someone knew that the Weave depended on Sorcerers, they could conceivably kill off so many that the current Weave would collapse into another Breaking.
	"How did you know that, Sarraya?" he asked in surprise.
	"I'm a Druid, Tarrin," she said in a hiss.  "And I've been along a long time.  I know alot more than you think I know."  She flitted back a little, and composure returned to her.  "Are you feeling alright?  Ready to move?"
	"I think so," he told her.  "I'm just a little overwhelmed, that's all."
	"Let me go down there and assure Denai and Var you're alright.  That should give you enough time to recover yourself.  When you're ready, come down, alright?  There's no rush, Tarrin.  Come down when you feel ready."
	"Alright.  I'll be down in a little bit," he told her.
	The Faerie flitted down, leaving Tarrin to his thoughts, and to recover from the harrowing experience.  What had happened?  It was as if his consciousness had merged into the Weave itself.  But how was that possible?  To do something like that, he had to be in contact with the Weave, but at no time did he feel such a connection.  He could still sense the Weave, sense its every minute detail for over a longspan in every direction, but at no time did he take in any power, or even feel the sensation of touching the Weave.
	It still didn't explain what had happened.  Somehow he had communed with the Weave itself, and the Weave had granted him knowledge of events from a thousand years ago.  He had communed with it without directly touching it, from as near as he could tell.  He wasn't sure which was more perplexing, that he somehow gained contact with the Weave without actively connecting to it, or that it had imparted upon him lost knowledge without even his asking for it.  He had just thought about the Breaking, and all those voices seemed to bubble up out of the Weave, as if to give him insight into an ancient, misunderstood disaster.  Of its own volition.  The Weave had sensed his thoughts, and responded to it without his direction.  And it did all of that without him touching it.
	Maybe...maybe he couldn't touch the Weave because he was already connected to it.
	The thought just drifted by in his mind, and he locked onto it with ferocity.  He analyzed it, considered it, turned it over in his mind, seeking the truth of it.  He could sense the Weave, sense it in ways far beyond mere senses.  He could feel its power, and it was a sense of it very similar to what he had felt beforehand, when he used to touch the Weave and draw in its power.  That had to be a symbol that he was actively connected to the Weave.  Its power pooled around him, and the strands pulled towards him as he moved across the desert, moved through the Weave.  It explained why he was failing to find his power.
	He was trying to touch the Weave, when he was already in contact with it.
	Of course!  How stupid could he be!  The power wasn't responding to him because he wasn't trying to get in touch with that power!  He'd been trying to touch the Weave so he could try!  But he was already touching the Weave!  The contact was very light, very gentle, because the power of the Weave wasn't flowing into him, but it was a connection nonetheless.
	Stupid, stupid, stupid!  He was trying to use his power the way he was trained to do it, when the Goddess herself told him that his power was different.  He had to try something new, something he'd never tried before, in order to find his magic again.  He was pretty sure that he could use High Sorcery the same way he did before, but first he had to learn the new way to bring the power of the Weave to him, a way that didn't include wasting days and days trying to do something he had already accomplished.
	Quite deliberately, Tarrin leaned down and smacked his head against the ground.
	He felt so stupid!
	There was a chiming, cascading bellpeal of laughter from the Weave itself.  Don't beat yourself, kitten, the voice of the Goddess reached him.  Sometimes it takes a while for you to comprehend what you already know.  It happens to everyone now and again, even gods.
	"So I'm right?" he asked quickly, hoping she would answer before she thought about whether she was allowed to tell him that or not.
	Yes, kitten, you're right.  You've been trying to do what you've already done.  Now you just have to figure out how to make the power respond to you.
	He felt...triumphant.  Like he had solved one of the great mysteries of life.  But he knew that he had really just opened his eyes to a truth that he could have discovered if he'd spent five minutes thinking about it.  "Mother, what happened to me?" he asked.  He knew she would understand what he was asking.
	Nothing, she replied.  You were simply discovering for yourself one of those things that separate you from all other Sorcerers.  Your connection to the Weave runs so deeply that it defies a Sorcerer's normal concepts.  The Weave is much more than just a storeroom of magical energy, my kitten.  I think you're starting to see that now.
	He couldn't deny that.  The Weave was so much more complex than he ever imagined.  Even looking at it casually, the complicated relationships between flows and strands, strands and Conduits, and the residual magical energy the produced within themselves made that abundantly clear, and they were things he could spend his entire life studying and still not fully comprehend the total workings of it.  His little experience with the voices told him that there was more within the Weave than simple magical power.  There were other things, like memories of past events, and there were bound to be even more mysterious aspects of the Weave that would reveal themselves to him as he came into his power.
	"Mother, what were the dreams?"
	Yet another aspect of what you are, she replied.  Since you've already taken them seriously, then I can tell you that they were serious.  I am the Weave, my kitten, and you are one of my children.  All gods have the right to pass on to their followers certain information in the form of dreams, omens, and warnings.  Those dreams were warnings, warnings I wasn't permitted to give to you directly.
	"Why not?"
	Because it would have violated the rules under which we operate, she told him.
	"It, it seems strange that you would communicate with me that way when we talk all the time."
	She laughed delightedly.  Don't forget our basic relationship, kitten.  I am the god, and you are the follower.  That we happen to talk from time to time doesn't change that.  I'm still going to communcate with you in the boring old mystical standard ways that other gods communicate with their followers.  I have to keep my mysterious means, if only for appearances' sake, don't I?  I'd probably disappoint you if I didn't act godly in at least a few ways.  You'd think you had a boring goddess.
	That struck Tarrin as funny in some way, so funny he actually laughed.  "You don't have to impress me, Mother.  I'm impressed enough.  And you're never boring."
	I'm happy to hear