Tarrin Kael Firestaff Collection Book 3 - Honor and Blood by Fel ©

by James Galloway (aka Fel)

  "Wow," Sarraya breathed as they all stood at the edge of it, looking down. There was leafy vegetation at the bottom, and he could see large four-legged reptiles, larger than a horse, munching sedately on the plants. They were grayish-green and rather chubby in appearence, with boxed snouts and a long, meaty tail. They were called chisa, plant-eating cousins of the carniverous desert reptiles, and were most often the dinner of their cousins. Allia said they were rather dimwitted and slothful, uncaring of anything that wasn't dangerous to them, but they were very, very skittish. So long as they weren't spooked, they were gentle as lambs. Frighten them, and they would go on a stampede that would kill anything smaller in their path. That combination seemed a paradox to him, but many horses were the same way. They were gentle and playful, but if you frightened them, they could be very dangerous.

  Tarrin knelt down and put a paw on the rock at the edge of the cliff. He felt something...odd. Putting his paw on the stone strengthened that feeling, a strange tingling. He closed his eyes and felt the stone through his paw, felt into it in ways he wasn't quite sure he understood, reached into it as if reaching into water to find what was at the bottom. The latent residue of it was still there, after all these years, a residue dating back more than five thousand years. An echo, a memory of what had happened here before, back when the Desert of Swirling Sands was a lush verdant belt of fertile farmland.

  An echo of magic.

  Magic the likes of which had not been seen since, the magic left behind when a god took direct action. This was Priest magic, of the highest order, a Priest beseeching a god to do something directly.

  It only made sense. No magician, not even a circle of the most powerful Ancients, could have made this rift.

  "What is it, Tarrin?" Sarraya asked.

  "This canyon isn't natural," he replied in a distant tone. "It was made. The magic of its creation still echoes in the rock, after all this time."

  "Truly?" Denai said in wonder. "What could have made something like this?"

  "A god," Tarrin replied, standing back up. "Only a god could do this."

  "Why would they make something like this?" Var asked curiously. "It serves no purpose."

  "Not now," he replied. "But five thousand years ago, I'll bet that this made one terrific barrier."

  "The Blood War!" Sarraya said in surprise.

  Tarrin nodded. "It fits. This is from the Blood War. Probably a barrier to keep the Demons on one side of it. That side over there, if I remember my history right," he said, pointing to the far side.

  "Huh," Var grunted. "My people always thought that it was shaped by the wind."

  "It has been since it was made, but it would take wind a million years to eat out a rift this size," he replied. "You said there were plants, Denai. That looks like a jungle down there."

  "The land below is below the water level," Var told him. "It seeps out of the rocks and pools up, so it can support plants. Most don't know that a verdant belt exists in the middle of the desert."

  "Do your people try to go down there?" Sarraya asked.

  Var shook his head. "The lands below are too dangerous," he replied. "There are a great many inu and kajat below, and the Cloudracers claim that area as their own. We respect their claim."

  "Cloudracers? What are they?"

  "Wait long enough, and you'll see one," Denai told the Farie. "Tall people with wings."

  Tarrin raised an eyebrow and looked down at the Selani. "Tall? Thin? With feathered wings?"

  Denai nodded.

  "So that's why she flew north," Tarrin said, piecing it together.

  "Who?" Sarraya asked.

  "Ariana," he replied. "The Aeradalla. Remember her?"

  "Oh!" Sarraya said in realization. "They live in the desert?"

  "That would explain why nobody ever sees them," Tarrin reasoned, then he turned to Denai. "Do you know where they live?"

  "Everyone knows," she replied. "They live at the top of the Cloud Spire. We'll begin to see them now, since we're moving into what's considered their territory."

  "Allia never said anything," Sarraya said, a bit annoyed.

  "We keep them a secret," Var told her. "It's part of our pact with them. No Selani will tell outsiders about the Cloudracers."

  "She wouldn't even tell me," Tarrin grunted. "That must be a serious oath. Wait, why did you tell us?"

  "Because it's something you would have found out on your own," he replied calmly.

  That surprised him a little. Allia had kept a secret! It made him wonder what else she hadn't told him, what else her Selani honor would not allow her to reveal. He didn't really blame her, because he understood how she felt about oaths, but it made him a little curious. He wondered what else she knew, how many more mysterious secrets she kept locked up inside her.

  Tarrin looked down again. The Aeradalla would wait until later. "Where do we cross this thing?" he asked.

  "That way," Denai said, pointing northward.

  "May as well camp here," Sarraya noted. "It's getting dark, and you definitely don't want to wander too far in the wrong direction around here."

  "Truly," Denai said with a smile. "I'll find a good site for us."

  "Not if I find it first," Var said in a swaggering tone.

  "We'll see about that, Var," she said, and then they both turned and raced off in different directions.

  Those two would turn absolutely anything into a competition.

  "Heh," Sarraya grunted. "Want to wait, or find a site while they're busy trying to outdo each other?"

  "There's a good place right there," Tarrin said, pointing to a slight depression in the sandy, barren soil that would serve well to capture the heat of the fire and keep the site warm.

  "Boy, will they be disappointed," Sarraya grinned as the two of them moved to erect a campsite for the night.

  They settled in for the night, but Tarrin found himself unable to sleep. He wandered away from the campsite, away from the protection of the fire, and found himself standing at the edge of the Great Canyon again, staring down into its black depths. The rift ate at him in a strange way, both its presence and how he had sensed the magic that created it. The land here had been a beautiful grassland when the rift was made, and in five thousand years, it had degenerated into this formidable desert. It made him wonder what had caused such a drastic change, what had turned the rain away from this area and turned it into a sandy wasteland. Could the rift itself had played a part in it? Had it altered the water table in the region so drastically that it changed the weather patterns? Anything was possible, but he knew that something outside of the natural order had to have a hand in changing this place.

  The memory of the magic was quite fresh, and he could still feel the tingles of the magical residue. He had never had so sensitive a feel for magic before. He hadn't been able to feel that before, but then again, he knew that everything about his magic was different now. He had little doubt that such a sensitive feel for magic was common for Weavespinners, since from what he'd managed to piece together, they were much more attuned to magic than other kinds of magicians. He couldn't make magic yet, but he knew that he had already awakened some parts of his magical ability, and this sensitivity had to be one of them.

  He touched the amulet around his neck and found that the sensation of active magic was quite different, kind of like a buzzing sensation along his fingers as they touched the black metal. Touching it made him realize that he'd been feeling it for days now, rides, but the weight of the amulet and its presence, and everything that had happened, had made him ignore or overlook the sensations that the amulet caused in him. The metal felt alive to him, and in a way, he guessed that it was. His touch told him many things about the amulet. That the magic that made it was ancient beyond understanding, from before the Blood War, and that it had been re-enchanted recently to add to its basic abilities. One of them, he knew, was the magic that kept it around his neck. He picked through the magical abilities of the amulet more closely, realizing that it was
enchanted to do more than he thought that it could.

  That surprised him. He thought that he knew everything of which the amulet was capable. The magic was ancient, but it was still powerful, so powerful that it survived the magical rupture of the Breaking. He closed his eyes and delved into the amulet, sorting through its many magical enchantments, magicks laid down successively over thousands of years. Almost as if every owner of the amulet had added his or her own personal addition to its magic before passing it on to the next. The roots of its magic were founded in the dimmest past, thousands of years before the Blood War, during the time of the True Ancients. A time during which nobody knew its history. That startled him. The amulet around his neck had to be one of the most ancient relics on the face of Sennadar!

  Most of the enchantments within had faded or lost their potency over the years, but some of them were still active, still strong. The elsewhere was its primary function, the original enchantment created into the amulet, but inspection of those magical enchantments told him that he hadn't even scratched the surface of the true power of the amulet's abilities in that direction. Searching through the weaves of creation showed him their pattern, and he found that he could read those patterns like a book, read them to understand how they worked. The elsewhere as he used it was its basic operation, what took no active will on the part of the wearer. What he didn't know was that the wearer could banish to or summon from that elsewhere any object held or worn, with nothing but the will for it to happen. The elsewhere was a non-place, but it behaved like a real place in respect to the objects stored within it. They had physical location, so objects couldn't be placed in the same area within it. That meant that if he had something in the elsewhere that had gone there from his left paw, he couldn't send something else into the elsewhere from that same paw. Something would already be occupying that area of elsewhere. He also couldn't send more into the elsewhere that, when taken all together, weighed more than he did. That was its limit. Size or volume were no barriers, it was its weight that mattered. He also found that nothing alive could be sent into the elsewhere. He found that by concentrating on it, he could sense what was within the elsewhere at any time he desired, an inventory of sorts of what he was carrying, and where it was in respect to knowing where and how it would appear when it was summoned forth.

  Tarrin blinked. How clever! Whoever made the magic of the amulet had done an incredible job! It was no surprise that it had survived thousands of years, had even survived the Breaking.

  That was the first of its abilities. The second was the ability to communicate over distance, placed within it after the Blood War, during what most called the Age of Power. What he knew was that it worked from amulet to amulet, like how he communicated with his sisters. What he didn't know was that its power originated from his amulet, and that it could be used to communicate with anyone who wore a Sorcerer's Amulet, and whose name he knew. The amulets of his sisters were probably the exact same as his. Little did they know that they had had the ability to communicate with any Sorcerer, anywhere, so long as he or she wore an amulet and they knew the Sorcerer's name. He thought that it had been a part of a unifying weave that was also woven into the amulets of his sisters, but that wasn't the case. The entirety of the weave was placed within his amulet.

  And that explained why using the ability tired out the person who originated the conversation. Because that person was the one who was doing all the work. After all, all he was doing was speaking through another's amulet, then listening for what was said in reply through the other amulet.

  He was again startled. Such an ingenious idea! He realized quickly that the Ancients probably all had this weave in their amulets, which would allow any Sorcerer the ability to communicate with any of his or her siblings at any time, from any place. The weaves of the spell that gave it this ability seemed...routine. He didn't quite understand how he knew that, but he could tell just by looking at the weaves that they were made by someone who had made this same weave time and time again. There was no personal flare or style in this weave, as there was in the weave concerning the elsewhere. It was an average, run-of-the-mill weave that had no sense of self. In other words, it was a basic enchantment, and that lent credence to the idea that it was common among the Ancients.

  The Goddess had misled him! She hadn't come out and said it, but when she explained this to him, she made it sound like he could only use it to speak to Allia and Keritanima. That their amulets were linked, were special. She steered him away from the truth for some reason. That was something he meant to ask her the next time she visited.

  Of course! They were linked. If Allia and Keritanima could speak to him, then their amulets had to have the same weave in them. All three were very, very old, ancient. They looked now to him that they dated back to the time when his amulet received the enchantment that gave it this ability. That made their three amulets unique, the only three known to have survived the Breaking intact. In a metaphorical sense, they were linked.

  Another of its enchantments was a simple weave that hid the wearer's location from any kind of magical attempts to locate him. That one was simple, and was very effective. It was also one about which he knew. The Keeper had also known about it. He thought that the Keeper had made it, but she hadn't. This magical weave predated the Breaking. The katzh-dashi had probably come to discover this aspect of the amulet during their inspection of it.

  The last enchantment was the most recent, and it was the one of which he knew the most about. And cursed, from time to time. It was the binding weave, an enchantment that prevented him from taking it off. It was so tightly woven into the fabric of the metal, into the fabric of the other enchantments, that any attempt to break or disrupt it would shatter the weaves that gave the amulet its powers. Any attempt to take it off would disenchant the amulet, leaving it non-magical. The complexity of the weave astounded him, and immediately he realized that the Keeper and the Council would be utterly unable to do this. This was done by someone whose magical skills were beyond comprehension, who was so adept at weaving that they could interweave both modern and ancient magicks so seamlessly that there was no way to separate them. That took an understanding of the ancient weaves that went beyond modern knowledge. Looking into the weaves, he felt and saw and sensed a familiarity to them, a sense of presence left behind in the weaving, almost like a signature. It was something with which he was intimately familiar.

  This was done by the Goddess.

  The Goddess had done this weaving, and she had absolutely made sure that the amulet's powers could not be used by anyone else but him. If someone got the amulet off his neck, then it would be nothing but a very old piece of black steel. If it survived the unravelling of weaves that had infused it for most of recorded history, at any rate. The shock of it would probably destroy the amulet.

  Interesting. Very, very interesting. Without too much thought, he reached within, through the Cat, and came into contact with the All. He then formed image and intent that Summoned his staff from where it was laying by the fire, and held it in his right paw. Then, focusing on the amulet, he willed it to go into the elsewhere.

  And it disappeared.

  The sense of it was in his mind, hovering just outside reality, within the grip of his now empty paw.

  He willed it to return, and it did so, as his paw closed around it as it appeared within his grip.

  Tarrin smiled grimly. This, this had some interesting possibilities. This was instantaneous, not like Summoning, where he had work himself up to it. The ability to instantly summon up a weapon had any number of clever uses in battle.

  Leaning on his staff, he looked down into the vast chasm before him. Back when he was human, staring at such a massive gulf may have unsettled him, but not now. The Cat had no fear of heights, for it was confident in its own abilities. His toes gripped the very edge, his claws extending out into empty air that was supported by the ground over a longspan below him. The wind picked up a little, a local effect caused by the rift,
as the air was caught up inside and channeled to travel along its length. It was a cold, dry wind, the cold of the desert night, but his feet were warmed by the last of the day's heat trapped in the rock under them. The wind carried up the smells from the chasm floor below, scents of green things and reptiles, dust and rock, and of water. They were very faint, but they were enough to remind him of the way the forest smelled, the place he had always and would always consider home.

  He wasn't really suited for all this. That thought had never really crossed his mind before, mainly because he hadn't felt like he'd had much choice. When Tarrin had no choice, he tended not to dwell on what he wanted or what could have been, trying to make the best of the situation. But it was still there, the thought that he really wasn't suited for all this. He was nothing but a village farmboy who had dreams of making a name for himself. Well, that had happened, but it wasn't exactly the way he hoped it would come about. He wanted to be a Knight. He'd realized that dream, but it was under he most bizarre of circumstances. They should have chosen someone else, like a great, courageous Knight, or some vastly educated Wizard. Or maybe even that Sha'Kar woman. Anyone but a teenaged villager from a place so remote that most people in the very kingdom in which it was located had no idea it was there.

  Strange that the gods would hinge the safety of this world on a raw-boned, rather naive young man, who turned out to be a murderous uncaring monster. Maybe there was such a thing as a universal sense of humor. Perhaps the universe thrived on irony.

  The voices of Var and Denai reached him, and he turned to look. They were telling stories, boasting to one another with wildly elaborated tales of daring and courage. Yet another in a long string of competitions. The two of them seemed to fit together, somehow, in his mind. Almost as if they belonged with one another. Maybe this competition was their way of feeling one another out, to see if they were a good match. He knew that they were. Var had the patience and temperment to reign in Denai's youthful exuberance, and Denai would bring a fire into Var's life that seemed to be necessary.