"How did you do that?" she asked.
"I've been healed so many times, I should know how it's done by now," he said in a rueful tone, shrugging. "But I really have to go. I'll see you soon."
"Be well, my son," she replied.
After taking her hand, he was quickly out and away. Out in the hall, he allowed himself to slump against the wall, paw to his head. He felt drained, as if the sudden influx of power had taken his own strength with it. What happened? By the end of that first day when he first could touch the Weave, he could easily manage to flow of power. But that had been…more, different. It wasn't the same as it had been before his fight with the Doomwalker.
"Let's talk about it, Tarrin," Jula's voice called from the door. The slender, pretty blond came up to him and touched him on the cheek, and he felt gentle warmth flow into him. "I felt a sudden, radical inflow of power, and then it cut off. You didn't mean to do that, did you?"
"I, no, I didn't," he said. He didn't know Jula well, but the few times that he had spoken with her, she had always left him with a good impression. The only katzhi-dashi he even came close to trusting was Dolanna, but Jula was right here, and she already seemed to suspect. He had no reason not to talk to her. Besides, he did like her a little bit. She was like Dolanna and Sevren, not too stuffy or full of herself. "I had touching the Weave down, but," he closed his eyes. "I think getting caught in that Conduit changed something inside me. I felt the power of the Weave, and then it tried to fill me. It came out of nowhere, and I almost couldn't cut myself off."
"I certainly wouldn't have been able to," she said in a grim tone. "It's a good thing you did. What else felt different?"
"Nothing," he replied after a moment's consideration. "Everything felt the same. Touching the Weave, building up the power to weave, and then the initial weaving. But after I let the weave go, the power just roared at me like a charging lion. I have no idea where it came from."
She stared at him for a long moment. "I really don't have an explanation for you, Tarrin," she said. "But this is something that you'd better tell your instructor, and maybe even the Council of Seven. Perhaps the Conduit injured your ability to control the power, but not anything else."
"No, I can still control it," he said. "Whatever it was, it came from outside, from the Weave. It," he began, closing his eyes and remembering the feeling, "it was as if the Weave reached out and grabbed me. It, reacted to me touching it."
"I've never heard of that before," Jula said, "but then again, I've never heard of alot of things that are possibly true. You need to go rest, Tarrin. That may be the best thing for you right now. Rest, and don't try to use Sorcery again until you feel completely whole. And for the Goddess' sake, don't do anything without a Sorcerer there to help you in case it gets away from you."
"I will, I promise," he replied sincerely.
"Now scoot, Initiate," she said with a teasing voice, patting him on the hip. "That's an order."
"Yes ma'am," he chuckled, standing up from the wall and then padding down the passageway. Something about what happened frightened him, frightened him considerably. Something was different, inside. He could feel it. He only had an active awareness of his own power for half of a day, but the natural way that it felt allowed him to understand how things had felt before. Though the Weave still felt natural, the fact that he could sense it, almost see it, told him that things were not as they were before.
Too many things.
Tarrin sat in the courtyard at the center of the maze, cross-legged on the ground in front of the stone bench, picking at the fur on his ankle and thinking quite deeply. It was midafternoon, and though nobody had tried to come and get him and talk to him, nobody quite knew where he was. He figured that Jula ran to the Council the instant Tarrin was out of her sight, and he didn't feel like being examined like a lab rat. So instead of going back to his room, he shapeshifted and slinked off into the garden. He had learned quite a while ago that he attracted alot of attention when he moved around-most Novices and Initiates hugged the walls when he passed by-but a black cat was almost completely ignored. There were veritable legions of cats on the grounds, some were pets, and the rest were strays that were fed and used as a deterrent against mice. And Tarrin fit in with them quite easily, giving him the ability to move around without everyone staring and pointing at him. Sometimes it got on his nerves, sometimes it reminded him of how out of place he was among the younger, more normal Initiates, but mostly it made sure that everyone knew where he was almost at all times.
Too many things were happening, and they were coming too fast. He laid back and stretched out on the grass, looking up at the cloudy sky. The wind was raw and cool, a signal that summer was over, though the gardens were still green and lovely. The clouds obscured the sky, heavy, laden gray clouds that cast a murky pall over the land. The type that always threatened rain, but never carried out on the promise. They fit his mood at the moment, for he had no idea what to do now.
The first was what had happened to him in that Conduit. It had changed him, somehow. He'd only had half a day to be happy that he finally figured out how to make contact with the Weave, and now the Weave was hostile to him. He'd tried many, many times to touch with Weave without it backlashing on him, but it happened every single time. It was as if the Weave were trying to trap him within it, and it was filling him with more power than he could safely contain. And every time he did it, trying to cut himself off from it became more and more difficult. He knew that doing it along was crazy, almost suicidal, but he had to know, and he didn't want the katzh-dashi to interfere. The last time he tried, the time that made him stop, the Weave nearly fried him from the inside out before he finally managed to sever himself from it. He wasn't going to try that again. He had just discovered his power, and then it was put out of his reach. And what made it deadly was it was right there, the sword he could pick up at any time and use to chop off his own head. Maybe Jula was right, maybe the accident had somehow damaged or injured his capability to use Sorcery. Perhaps it would come back, perhaps it wouldn't but it didn't change things right now. And the short term was starting to look like it was going to be absolutely critical to his very survival.
The second was the Doomwalker. He had been expecting another attack, but he hadn't considered that it would also go after his sister. She was a strong Sorcerer, but he had absolutely no idea of why it would go after her. Other than simply to punish him, to taunt him with that information should it start to lose the fight. But that hadn't been an issue. He was warrior enough to know when he had his kiester kicked. Jegojah, it called itself, had cleaned up the floor with him. Tarrin got in some licks, but the Doomwalker had never been put in a very bad position. It had used Tarrin's momentary rage against him, and had displayed an outstanding fighting ability. If that weren't bad enough, it could also use magic, and knew how to use it. If he hadn't have been knocked into the Conduit, Tarrin would have lost. He could admit it without feeling bad, because no matter how good one was, there was always someone better.
It still didn't make much sense. Jegojah had brought more than enough to the table to deal with him, and Tarrin had the feeling that it knew it. So why attack Jenna? Why risk destruction by attacking a little girl, who happened to be protected by two of the nastiest fighters in Aldreth, maybe even all of Sulasia, and no less than two Sorcerers? It didn't make much sense. But then again, nothing made sense to him because he didn't know what was going on.