Weavespinner

by James Galloway

  It was the strangest feeling. The human Tarrin had been afraid of losing his identity with the return of the memories, but it had turned out to be a false fear. That part of him was still there, merged once more with the collective whole of human, Cat, memories, fears, and mental impulses that formed the core of his personality. He had not become another person, he had merely been restored to the person he had once been. All the memories of his time as a human were there, neatly arranged with the older memories that had been denied to him. The newness of things was gone now, though, and in a way he regretted that. The human Tarrin had been trusting, almost naive, and had had a youthful innocence about the world that made everything seem interesting and good. But that was gone now, educated by the dark experiences of memory, and he knew things would never seem so fresh or new to him again.

  Putting his face in his paws for a moment, he tried to mull through the fresh chaos in his mind, as the last traces of the potion were still trying to affect him. What they did, curiously enough, was open the entirety of his own memory to him, and he realized sitting there that he could remember absolutely everything that had happened to him since before his own birth. The images and fear of being born were as clear as they had happened yesterday. Hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, the accumulated events of his entire life were fresh in his mind, rekindled from the darkest recesses of himself by the magical power of the potion Phandebrass had crafted for him. The good and the bad, the proud accomplishments and the humiliating mistakes, the moments of boredom and the moments of abject terror, they were all there, arranged for him within his mind, able to be called forth whenever he wished. He found it curious that he could literally see within his mind's eye every page of every book he had ever read, even ones he had but paged through absently. Every building in every city, every face that met his eyes, every sound, every smell, every thought that had crossed his mind, all of it was there. It didn't cause him any pain or discomfort; truth be told, it was more a curiosity than anything else to him.

  There were other things there as well. He distinctly remembered the potion getting swept up in the power of both the Weave and the All as they reconnected with him, and it had caused the potion's power to rise up into the Weave. The entirety of the Weave's drifting echoes of memory were called to him, and he could remember them filling him with thousands and thousands of years of memory, using him to complete themselves. He also remembered the Goddess reaching into his mind and wiping away those things no mortal was ever meant to see, those things that would have destroyed his mind were he given any chance to reflect on them. She had been very selective, very careful in her pruning of that lore, though. She had not touched much of it, like the history of the order, the Sorcerers who had lived before him, the things they had accomplished.

  It was all there. Ten thousands years of history, the complete history of the katzh-dashi. It was all there, and he was amazed. The katzh-dashi had originally been created to do just what he was doing. They were the guardians of the Firestaff, using their power to protect the artifact from misuse. They had been formed in the first days of the Urzani dynasty, just after the Urzani completed their conquest of the Known World, and but days after the Firestaff was very nearly used by someone. They had been formed by the Goddess, formed from the only Sorcerers at that time, the Urzani themselves, formed to take possession of the Firestaff and keep it out of the hands of those who would misuse its power. At that time, there was no Wizard magic, only Sorcerers, Priests, and Druids, and only Sorcerers had the numbers and the detachment necessary to undertake such a mission. They set their roots in Suld, which at that time was nothing but a plain by the sea, where the first of the majestic towers had been constructed to take advantage of the Conduit that rested there. They hid the Firestaff in the Tower, and settled in to strengthen their powers of Sorcery to better defend the artifact from those who would dare try to use its power.

  Tarrin knew that Suld had literally built up around the Tower, but he hadn't known that it was the Urzani that had originally founded Suld. And it made him realize that Suld was probably the oldest city in the entire world. Not even Dala Yar Arak had been in existence as long as Suld had.

  That exploration of their powers was what caused the foundations of what they knew now to come to pass. A special Sorcerer was born, one with powers far greater than any other, and this Sorcerer survived being Consumed. She crossed over into a new realm of magical power, and she became the first of what were now known as the sui'kun. That woman was Spyder, and her power had caused her to become the Empress of the Urzani Empire, the absolute ruler of the entire Known World. But she disappeared not long after being put on the throne, and Tarrin knew that she had given up the duties of the empire to answer the call of the Goddess to become the Guardian of Haven, the only place in the world where magical gateways that led into the world from others existed.

  The Goddess was the soul of the order, but to Tarrin's surprise, Spyder was its mother. It was she who showed the others the path into the realm of the Weavespinners, and it was her footsteps in which everyone else walked. Spyder was the first sui'kun, the first of the seven to be born, and the only one to survive to this day.

  The destruction of the Urzani empire thousands of years later had caused them to lose the staff, having it stolen by someone who had fallen under the spell of its corrupting influence, and over time their self-imposed mission changed from protecting the staff to exploring the limits of the power of Sorcery as the realities of their situation changed drastically. It was those Urzani that had been among the first to approach the other races after losing their homes, beseeching the humans how had taken over the ancient city of Suld--ancient even then!!-- to allow them to return to their beloved Tower and exist among them in peace. The humans agreed, and that started the slow and harmonious integration of the Urzani back into the lands of civilization, their long exile finally ended.

  Then came the Blood War. The katzh-dashi rose up from their study to try to repair the damage done by Val and the Firestaff, and ended up forming a pivotal role in the defense of the world against the Demons. The vast majority of the katzh-dashi, tempered by their thousands of years of peaceful study, had come to reject war and devoted themselves to peace, but also devoted themselves to protecting the world from another Demon incursion. They were the ones that became the Sha'Kar, and it caused the order's focus to shift once more, from quiet study to both defending the Firestaff and protecting the world from Demonspawn. The Firestaff, they decided, was best handled by completely removing it from all possible temptation, so it was placed in the care of a mighty dragon and sent off to a lone island, thousands of longspans from any shore, where it would be well protected, and also where its power to corrupt could do no harm.

  They continued to grow in power and learning, spreading to other Towers, and establishing themselves as the most powerful magical force in the world. Not even the introduction of Wizard magic by strange visitors from beyond the boundaries of the fabric of the universe, strange men from other dimensions of reality, weakened the might of the katzh-dashi. It was they who caused the Age of Power to come to be, as the learning of the Sorcerers and the growth of their numbers and influence quite literally affected the entire world. The Weave grew strong, rich, and it touched all the people of the world, giving the most mundane soul at least a minor amount of magical capability.

  But the Age of Power ended in the Breaking. Not even the memory of that time he had gained from the Weave told him much about it, only that some group attacked two of the Towers and managed to kill two of the sui'kun. The Weave, which depended on the sui'kun, faltered, and then it tore. That caused the Breaking, which killed uncountable numbers of Sorcerers, Wizards, and Priests and sent the entire world spiralling down into a black century of war, famine, pestilence, and upheaval. The Sha'Kar vanished, thought to be extinct, and all the rich history and lore of the order, all their magical accomplishments, were lost as well, locked away in books that the
descendants of the Ancients could no longer read.

  It was a rich history, and Tarrin felt honored to be a recipient of that lore. He knew that what he knew was what Jenna had learned from Spyder, or at least parts of it. Spyder had been alive through almost all of the history of the katzh-dashi. She was the very first of the sui'kun, and in many ways, she was the icon of the order, the literal handmaiden of the Goddess. He felt even more honored that she had personally trained him.

  Knowing where the order came from and where it was going was imporant, he could see that now. The katzh-dashi had lacked direction after the Breaking, lost its history, and finally things were getting back in the direction they were supposed to go. It would be thousands of years before the number of Sorcerers were enough to cause another Age of Power. Perhaps next time there was one, they'd have the wisdom of experience to not cause another Breaking.

  It was a very strange thing to wake up with memories that weren't there when one went to sleep. That meant the lore of the Weave as much as it did regaining all the memory he had lost to the curse placed on the Firestaff. But his memory was whole again, beyond whole, and it was senseless to dwell on it for very long. It was over, it was done, he had been graced with knowledge beyond the scope of his awareness, and what was more important, he was Were once more.

  He looked at his paws again, looking at the fetlocks on his wrists. Now that he had his memory back, now that he could look into his own feelings, he had to admit it to himself. Miranda was right. Given what he knew now, were he still human, he would have chosen to be turned again. The memory of himself as a human seemed strange, bizarre, almost frightening. He had been so weak. So dependent on others, so limited. He would never have been happy like that, not so long as the memory of what he had once been was with him. Despite the pain he had suffered, despite the terrible things he had done as a Were-cat, he knew that the change had been absolute. He was a Were-cat, and always would be, in mind and sprit if not in body.

  But that did not justify what had been done to him. Despite the fact that he would have chosen to be Were, it did not make this alright. He had been denied the one thing the Goddess herself wanted for him, the right to choose his own future, his own fate, for good or ill. He had been violated at the core of his being, in the most intimate manner possible, and he meant to find out who did this to him and unleash his wrath. Someone had changed him back, had done it against his will, and what was most outrageous, had done it in the most cowardly way imaginable. The culprit didn't even have the guts to look him in the eye and bite him. No, this person had put Were-cat blood in the potion or had spat in it, not wanting him to know who had done it.

  The possibilities were rather obvious. Of everyone involved, Jesmind and Kimmie had the most at stake. But that didn't mean that one of them did it. It could have been any of the females, even Jula, though he had the feeling that it wasn't her. Jula would never deprive him of the one thing she herself probably wished was hers. The right to choose. Jesmind certainly was capable of it, and so was Kimmie. Spiking the potion would be more Kimmie's approach than Jesmind, since she'd probably just bite him if she meant to change him back.

  Whoever it was, she was going to be very sorry she did it. He didn't care who it was who did it. First he was going to beat her to within an finger's breadth of her life, then he probably wouldn't speak to her again for a very long time. As angry as he was, he was more than capable of even thrashing Kimmie, who was pregnant with his child. Not even that would protect her from his vengeance if it turned out that she was the one who did this to him. He wouldn't kill whoever did it, but she'd be on his bad side for the next few hundred years. It may take that long for her to heal from the thrashing he intended to lay down on her.

  Standing up, feeling the lightness and total freedom that was his once again, the freedom to jump incredibly high, to run faster than a horse, feeling his unnatural Were-cat strength flow through him, he padded over to the chest and pulled out one of the shirts that the tailor Cassiter had made for him. It was too small for him now, but that was easily fixed. As if the time as a human had never happened, Tarrin wove a quick spell to enlarge the garment, feeling full and complete control over the Weave once again.

  Strange. The Goddess said he wouldn't have the height, but she was wrong. He was just as he'd been before the Firestaff stripped him of his Were nature, eye to eye with Triana. And he felt exactly the same as he had before that happened to him, as if being a human had never happened. All he had was the memory of it, and the influences of that time on his outlook now.

  Whatever became of this, he knew it had to be fast. The return of his memory meant that the weight of the mission was again heavy on him, and he knew that the Tower was not a safe place. He could spend no more than three days here. That was all. Three days to make sure there were no lingering side-effects of the turning and the potion, and three days to track down the culprit and punish her in the most brutal manner possible without killing her. After those three days, whether he found her or not, he had to leave. It was only two months before the Firestaff activated, and summer would soon be winding down into fall. If he wanted to travel, it would be best to get out there and get a jump on the autumn storms, and give him as much time as possible to lose any pursuers and disappear with the Firestaff. Time was of the essence now, both for him and for anyone who intended to try to take the Firestaff away from him. He needed time to escape, and they needed the time to find him.

  He already knew exactly where he was going to go. The one place in all of Sennadar no man, no matter how desperate or insane he was, would dare set foot. The Desert of Swirling Sands. It was also one of the few places on Sennadar where a man could hide from an army with a reasonable chance of getting away with it. The brutal heat and rugged terrain would work to his advantage, and his magical abilities would allow him to draw those pursuers deeper and deeper into the Holy Mother's deadly embrace and let the desert do the killing for him. And then there were the Selani. Even without them, the desert was the ideal place to hide, but not even the most fanatical army was going to risk a confrontation with the Selani in their homeland. They'd get annihilated, and they knew it. With the Selani and the desert itself to protect him, he knew that he could do what the Goddess needed of him, and that was keep the Firestaff away from everyone else.

  It wouldn't take him long to get there, and it would be a very short trip if he could get Ianelle to teach him how to Teleport. If he could learn how to do that, protecting the Firestaff was going to be a very simple affair. If he found himself threatened, he could jump halfway across the Known World in the blink of an eye. He'd like to see them follow him after he did that.

  No, wait...he already did know how to Teleport. That was right there with the memories, and with calm surprise, he realized that the vast majority of the spells that had been lost to the human katzh-dashi lived on within him now. He had absorbed them when the magic potion sucked in all the memory of the Weave, and the Goddess had not bothered to erase them from his memory. He knew how to Teleport, he knew every spell that Auli had used in her rampages of troublemaking through the Tower, he knew the spells that Syllis and the old Council had used to control the Sha'Kar. He even knew spells that they did not know, such as how to safely Transmute into certain known forms. Shapeshifting. Shapeshifting through Sorcery, an art lost since before the Breaking, before the Sha'Kar, an art lost with the Blood War.

  Touching a finger to his temple, he sorted through this new knowledge quickly yet thoroughly, understanding each new spell and how it worked, and how it could be altered to conform to a given situation. There were hundreds of them, myriads of possible alterations of those weaves

  Those spells, added to the ones he had figured out on his own and the ones Spyder taught him, gave him a truly vast command of the Weave, and tremendous versatility. It helped that he was sui'kun, that a great many of them required High Sorcery in order to be used, and that he could use them by himself when he needed them.

  Tel
eporting. Tarrin snorted in mild amusement when he realized that his idea wouldn't work. A Sorcerer could only Teleport to a place he knew intimately. Not a place he had seen, not even a place he had visited, but a place where he had spent time and had come to know the area. He knew that he could Teleport easily to Aldreth, his home, and to the Tower. He could Teleport to Dala Yar Arak, or Shoran's Fork, places where he had spent much time and had come to know specific places very well. He could Teleport back to the deck of the Star of Jerod or the Dancer, two ships where he had spent much time, even if the ships weren't where he last remembered them to be. He thought he could Teleport back to Amyr Dimeon, for though he hadn't spent very long there, he had certainly made sure to know the place. And he knew he could Teleport to Keritanima's palace in Wikuna, or Iselde's house back on Sha'Kari. It wasn't the power to jump all over the world, but he could certainly go from one side to the other in a big hurry if he needed to do so.

  Strange to wake up with such an expanded memory. It was almost confusing, but the memories didn't seem jumbled or hard to comprehend. They were just there, just like all his other memories, and they only stood out when he skimmed through them looking for something specific. Both the ones that were his and the ones that were not, the ones that were normal and the ones that had been resurrected by the magical potion, which had faded from his memory. Or at least he'd thought that they had. He knew, even though he wasn't sure how, that the effect was over. He wouldn't remember absolutely everything for the rest of his life, because the potion's power wouldn't be there forever. It was already almost gone, and though its magic wouldn't give him a perfect eidectic memory, he wasn't sure if the memories he regained from its magical power would remain as they were, or slowly fade over time. Only time would answer that question, he was sure of it.