Then all the world became pain.

Jegojah stumbled forward after ramming its shoulder into the wounded shoulder of its opponent, forcing it back. The Were-cat seemed to cross some sort of invisible boundary, and then its entire body was surrounded with some kind of blazing white light! It was almost like smoke, surrounding the Were-cat, floating up and away from him in wisps and tendrils as if caught in some kind of wind or current. Jegojah recognized it as Magelight, and he had only seen it once before.

When his living body was killed on the battlefield, destroyed in the fires of High Sorcery, what the current Sorcerers called Ritual Sorcery.

Jegojah staggered back, in awe, and it was then it realized that it was too late to run.

Never had Tarrin experienced such pain. It infused his very being, blazing into every tiny part of his body, seeking to fill him until he exploded. The transformation into a Were-cat, long buried in his mind, was a candle held up to the bonfire compared to what sought to erode his very sanity now. Only dimly did he understand that it was the power filling him, seeking to charge him to the bursting point, flooding into him in such a rush that he could not hold it all.

Tarrin had stepped into the massive Conduit that ran up the center of the Tower, and the tremendous magical energy within it had touched him.

His mind floating in a tidal wave of agony, Tarrin desperately realized that if he didn't do something with the energy filling him, it would destroy him. His eyes focused through the wispy white light surrounding him at the awestruck Doomwalker, and he let out a primal scream of pain and rage, focusing it on his opponent. His frenzied mind attempted to embrace the power, channeling the power, trying to harness it, to control it ever-so-slightly before it could incinterate him from within. Raw power blazed from his incandescent body, striking the Doomwalker in the chest, and then filling it with the same energy that was filling him. But the Doomwalker was not a Sorcerer, could not even begin to hold the power that Tarrin was forcing into it.

In a brilliant pillar of fire, the Doomwalker's body was reduced to ash in mere instants.

Incapable of focusing his awareness on anything else, still screaming, Tarrin raised his arms and did the only thing he could, release the energy back into the Conduit, allowing it to flow through him without building it up. The entire Conduit suddenly flared with blazing white light, pulsing up along the current of magical energy, then shattering the crystal dome that stood at the very top of the tower, sending the column of incandescent light through the Ward surrounding the grounds. It saturated the magical matrix of the Ward, forcing it to glow with the same brilliance, but did not disrupt its integrity. The column of blazing light shot high into the sky, to illuminate the entire city of Suld with the light of the daytime sun. The desperate act gave him a fleeting instant of rational thought, reducing the incredible pain to a level, however brief, where his mind had the chance to react.

Out. He had to get out of the Conduit. Even allowing the power to flow through him was searing him from the inside out, trying to burn his body to ash. Finding his legs through the whirlpool of pain that sought to suck him into oblivion, Tarrin managed to command his legs to push off and forward, a desperate leap to get him clear of the Conduit before the power burned him to a cinder. Unable to feel anything other than the pain coursing through him, he had no idea if he had left the ground, had even moved, before the pain overwhelmed him, and he knew no more.

The brilliant pillar of white light remained for several seconds, catching the attention of every man, woman, and child in the city of Suld. It was beautiful and silent, a column of white light, so bright it stung the eyes if one looked directly upon it, standing over the city like some fantastic finger of a god. And then it flickered and vanished. The light of the Ward, forming a dome over the Tower grounds, remained for a moment more, pulsing and flickering, and then it too faded from view, leaving the entire city to wonder what magic the mysterious Sorcerers were conjuring.

To most, it was simply an interesting event, something to talk about the next morning. To others, it was a sign. An omen, a warning of things to come.

To them, it was the beginning. And also perhaps the end.

With a ragged gasp, the Keeper was shocked awake by what was happening around her.

The entire Weave was shuddering! The delicate magical matrix of energy to which all Sorcerers were linked suddenly pulsated and writhed, and for a fleeting instant the Keeper thought the entire Weave would tear itself asunder, generating another magical cataclysm similiar to the Breaking. Intense force caused the strands near her to shudder and shake, like an earthquake in the Weave, and she could almost sense the unnatural energy coursing through the strands.

And outside her large window, the night suddenly became as daytime, as brilliant white light flooded into her chamber and illuminated the city beyond.

It had to be caused by an outside force. There were natural shifts in the Weave, even the occasional violent raealignment of the strands, and sometimes even the breaking of a strand. But none of those things came close to what she was feeling around her, feeling the power of it tingle against her skin, almost as if the power were seeking to touch her. She dared not try to touch the Weave and assense what was happening to it. To open herself to it while it was unstable could destroy her.

It lasted for several seconds, and then the Weave settled back into normalcy. She sat in her bed, staring at the light outside the window, then jumped up and rushed to it in time to see the magical light within the Ward begin to wane, flickering and dimming until the night was as it was supposed to be.

So it was true. The task for which they were training their nonhumans was truly at hand, and those who had objected to the precaution would have to hold their tongues. Just as predicted, the turning of night to daytime in the city of the Goddess' children had come to pass.

It was time.

The first guard to arrive in the Heart of the Goddess found only Tarrin, clothes, fur, and hair burned away, with savage burns all over his body, laying prone on the floor. He also found a bloodstained sword, a broken, dented shield, and a large pile of black ash. The tip of the Were-cat's hairless, charred tail had wispy white tendrils of magic floating and dancing around it, which broke away from it like smoke to flow up towards the heavens.

At first, there was only a sensation of nothing. But that eventually faded, and Tarrin realized slowly that he wasn't dead. Scents began to touch his nose, and muffled sounds began to creep into his awareness.

He was laying on a soft sheet, in a soft bed. He was on his back, and a warm, soft blanket covered him. The coppery smell of Allia was near to him, as was the human scent and lavender and ivory that always identified Dolanna. He also could smell the sharp scent of his mother, and the leathery smell that always tinged his father's scent. He wanted to open his eyes, but he found himself to be so tired that even that simple act would have been a momumental achievement. The very act of breathing, of beating his heart, were efforts that forced his body to focus all of its attention on those tasks. His awakening also brought pain, dull ache in his shoulder and head, along his side, and over about every square finger of skin he had. He felt like he had the itching sickness, and was covering his entire body. It wasn't severe, just enough to be annoying, but even that sensation was welcome compared to the oblivion from which he had climbed.