"Sarraya-"

"Don't put a knot in your tail!" Sarraya interrupted acidly. "Triana's not answering me."

"I think she handled it, then," Tarrin told her, blowing out his breath. "Jula's not raging now. I have no idea what just happened to her."

"Alright, got her now," Sarraya announced. Above the fire, that strange circle of energy appeared, a band of power within which a blue pattern swirled. That pattern faded and solidified, forcing Tarrin to stand to look squarely at it, until an image of Triana greeted him.

More than Triana. She was in what was probably a very well-appointed bedchamber of some kind, furnished with antique furniture. At least what was left of it. The place was a disaster area, with shattered furniture, broken glass, and bits of torn cloth scattered about the room. Behind her, Tarrin could see Jula's form sprawled on the floor, and it looked like she was sleeping. He could feel that she wasn't dead-wasn't even hurt-so he had the suspicion that Triana had put her out with some kind of magical attack.

"I was expecting to hear from you," she said shortly. "Jula's alright."

"What happened, mother?" Tarrin demanded quickly.

"The Keeper said something that upset Jula. A great deal," she snorted. "The Keeper should be glad that the job has such a high bar for its holders. If she'd been any less of a Sorceress, she'd be dead now. Jula came at her with both magic and claws."

"What did she say?" Tarrin asked.

"I have no idea. I felt it the same time you did, most likely. I got here just in time to peel the Keeper off the floor. Jula was about a heartbeat from ripping her head off."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"A couple of the Keeper's guards got a little banged up, but nothing life-threatening. Lucky for them that Jula only went through them to get to the Keeper."

Tarrin blew out his breath. What a relief! Though he had no idea what started it, at least nobody he cared about was dead. "Thanks, mother. I'm glad you're there."

"Any time, cub. I was waiting for something like this to happen. It'll be a good learning experience for your wayward daughter. This is the first time she's went off the wagon since I took her. She needs to face that side of her." She looked to the side. "I can't talk anymore, Tarrin. I'll contact you with an explanation, at least as soon as I get to the bottom of this mess. Bah, what a bother. This was not how I like to be woke up in the middle of the night."

Tarrin still had trouble contemplating that. Keritanima had told him that it took the sun time to travel around the world, and that the time in one place wasn't the same as the time in another. When it was noon in Suld, it was sunrise in Wikuna. Since they were so far east of Suld, that meant that it was much later where he was than it was there. "Well, it didn't do me much more good. Mother, is that what you felt whenever I-"

"Of course it is," she interrupted. "Welcome to adulthood, cub. And all the headaches that come with it."

"I think I liked being a child better."

"Reality is a pain, isn't it?" she asked with a curious smile cracking the stony mask that usually graced her face. "I have to go. I'll talk to you soon."

"Bye, mother," Tarrin said, and the image of her slowly dissolved.

"You have a child, Tarrin?" Denai asked curiously. "You never told us that."

"Because it's none of your business," he said bluntly to her.

"Was that your mother?" Var asked him.

Tarrin fixed both of them with an ugly stare, then turned and stalked off from the campsite.

"What's wrong with him?" Var asked curiously, in a low voice. Tarrin could tell that he wasn't saying it to him. Var probably didn't realize that Tarrin's hearing was so sensitive. Even walking away from them, he could hear perfectly.

"You forget, he doesn't trust you," Sarraya told them. "He won't talk about private things with strangers. Be lucky he talks to you at all." He heard Sarraya snort. "You're both starting to wear on his nerves. Both of you had better back off from him, or he's going to do something you won't like."

The matter was dropped after that. Tarrin thought about what had happened with Jula through most of the day, between sessions of teaching Sarraya Sha'Kar. He'd never felt rage from the outside before, and the experience had been unsettling. The feeling of it from Jula invoked his protective instincts, but it had also assaulted him, almost as if it was trying to incite him into a similar rage. It had been a frightening sensation, and something that he didn't care to go through again. Carrying Jula's bond had always felt like a responsibility, but now he realized that it was a serious responsibility. It was more than a symbolic representation of his duty to her as a parent.

It had been quite a while since he'd felt anything through the bond, so long that he'd nearly forgotten about it. That was certainly an attention-grabbing way of being reminded of it.

They reached the Great Canyon at sunset. That surprised Tarrin, because Denai told them that it was three days away, but they had reached it in two. And he was very impressed. It wasn't a canyon, it was a massive rift in the earth itself, just like the Scar in Sulasia. It simply began, with no warning or change in the surrounding terrain, a cliff that descended a dizzying longspan at least, a cliff that dropped straight to the canyon floor so very far below. The canyon itself was a mind-boggling twenty longspans across, by his estimation, the far wall almost lost in the shimmering heat of the air. The walls of the canyon were rounded by the wind, showing many layers of rock of varying colors and textures, layers stacked one upon another as they descended down to the canyon floor. But those walls were almost arrow-straight, and though the wind had dug pits and hollows out of them, it was still easy to see that they had originally been straight. Almost as if they had been shaped by some titanic chisel.

"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."