Going out onto it seemed insane. It was smooth, wet, and it was horizontal. He had no way to climb out onto it, because there was nothing for his claws to snag. He had to go around it.

A thought reached him. If he was caught above the cloud by the Aeradalla, his spire-climbing career may be cut brutally short. He had no idea how they may react to an invader climbing up into their domain. He realized that he might have to wait just inside the cloud until darkness, and then continue up by the light of the Skybands and the moons. But that was an issue to take up once he found the top of the cloud.

He almost chuckled inwardly. He did it again. The Cat did it to him again, made him form a half-baked plan that he'd have to abandon early, and continue on by the seat of his pants. The cat was a creature of impulse, and planning things out was an alien concept to it. It lived in the moment, and thinking ahead required going against that instinctual concept of life. One of these days, he was going to sit down and think one of these wild ideas all the way through.

Then again, if he did that, he may not be willing to do things like this.

"What is that doing here?" Sarraya finally asked.

"I have no idea, but we have to go around it," he told her.

"It looks like it was made," she said, peering through the thick fog.

"Magic," he told her shortly. "Now keep quiet, if you don't mind. I don't need to be distracted right now."

But moving along the base of that horizontal barrier proved fruitless. It seemed to extend as far as he went on both sides, and he realized that it had to be something placed there to do exactly what it was doing to him, keep him from going any higher. He had the sneaking suspicion that it went all the way around the rock spire.

Since he couldn't go around it, he had to go over it.

"Sarraya, I need you," he said after realizing that.

"What do you need?"

"I think this is a barrier put here to keep people from getting up there," he told her. "I can't climb over it myself. Do you know any spells that will help me get over it?"

"Um… yes, I know something," she said after a moment of thought. "A spell that will make your paws and feet stick to the stone, like a spider. It's not an easy spell, so I can't maintain it for more than a few minutes."

"Sarraya, I have no idea how far we have to go," he said in protest. "I'm not going to hang my tail out there unless I know we can get back to safety."

"Well, it was a thought," she said glumly. "It's the only thing I know to help you climb out there."

Tarrin looked at the rock. And he got an idea. "Sarraya, can you look into the rock and see if there are any caves in there? Something that goes up to the top?"

"Clever," she said in appreciation. She got off his head and hovered in the air over his head, her little wings beating frantically at the thin air to keep her stable, as he felt her probe the rock with her Druidic abilities. "Clever boy," she laughed. "There's a small lava tube about a hundred spans into the rock, and it goes pretty far up. I think it may go up to the very top. But it's too small for you."

"Is it too small for my cat form?"

"Clever!" Sarraya said brightly. "Your cat form will fit in it, but it'll be cramped."

"Now, how do we get in there?" he asked.

"We can burrow into the rock," Sarraya offered. "We could look to see if it opens somewhere that we can reach, or we could try to use magic to penetrate the rock and reach the tube."

"How long would it take if we burrow?"

"I could burrow a tunnel all the way in, but I can't make it very large," she told him. "We have to figure out some way to get you into that tunnel while in cat form, and that won't be easy. If you try to shift hanging on the rock, you're going to fall."

"Can you make an opening large enough for me to squirm into, then go with the narrow tunnel the rest of the way?"

"I think I could," she said after a moment. "I'll be pretty much wiped after this, so you'd better not ask for anything else."

"Then let's try it," he said. "If anything, it'll give us a place to rest for the night, if we can't get to the top."

"Alright. Move down some so I have some room."

Tarrin did that for her, moving about ten spans from the barrier. Sarraya hovered in a position over his head, then put her hands on the stone. He felt the sudden surge of power from her, a visible aura around her for just a moment, and then there was a sound like cracking stone. The stone around her suddenly shattered. Not exactly like that, but it did instantly turn into dust, and that dust suddenly billowed out from the huge hole she had made, falling over him and making him sneeze. She disappeared from his view, going into the hollow she had just made, and then he felt another powerful surge of her power, and a crack sound that seemed to go deeply into the stone. He felt it through his paws.

What he wasn't ready for was the sudden explosion of wind that came through that newfound passageway, sending dust streaming out on that sudden, fierce wind. More than dust. Sarraya came spinning out of the new tunnel like a leaf on the wind. He felt a wild surge of panic when she spiralled into the fog and out of sight, but then he heard her wings in the fog, and saw her. Her damp body was now covered with sticking dust, making her look like she'd fell into mud. Her tiny face was drawn, and she could barely fly in a straight line. She was panting heavily, and she landed on Tarrin's back and grabbed hold of his braid, sucking in air.

"That's it for me," she wheezed. "I couldn't even conjure up a pebble right now."

"You've done enough, Sarraya," he told her. "Let me climb into the hole, and we'll rest a while before we move, alright?"

"Fine," she puffed.

The wind continued to flow through the tunnel, funneled by its small size. She had made an opening just big enough for him to slide into, and it narrowed considerably to something that would be a tight fit even for his cat form. He pulled in and shifted quickly, feeling the wind tug at his fur and dry his eyes. Sarraya flopped down against his side, and he curled up around her to keep her warm and give her something soft to rest against. "Where is this wind coming from?" he demanded in the manner of the Cat.

"The tube has to open to the outside," Sarraya said aloud weakly. "When I opened this tunnel, it gave the air in the tube a new way to go."

"Is it going to stop? I really don't want to have to crawl with it in my face."

"I have no idea," she replied. "At least thank it for blowing out the dust, or we'd have had a very unpleasant trip through it."

Tarrin hunkered down against that chilly, damp wind and waited. He needed to rest, and Sarraya definitely needed to rest. They did so for a considerable time, as he noticed the light in the cloud starting to dim. "It's getting close to sunset," he realized. "And the wind is starting to die down."

"I guess the sun was making it flow like that," Sarraya said, her voice stronger now. She had cleaned the dirt off of herself, at least after Tarrin started trying to groom her. The dust didn't taste very good, but his compulsive need to keep clean was enough to make him try to clean up his friend. "When do you want to go?"

"When you feel up to making light. It'll be pitch black in there, and I don't want to move around in there in the dark."

"Good point."

They rested a while longer, and Tarrin spent that time listening. Not to any sound, but to the eerie harmonic echoing that reverberated through him. It was a magical effect, caused by his proximity to the Conduit. It ran through the center of the rock spire, and now that he wasn't so intent on climbing, or sleeping, he had a chance to notice it. He had the feeling that if he got closer, its song would become more clear to him. It was nothing of any great importance or danger, however. He had passed through strands, even Conduits before. If he had to pass through that one, it shouldn't do any harm. He looked at Sarraya, who was sleeping against him, then out into the cloud. It started right after the entrance, hiding everything and muffling all sound, giving him the sensation that he and Sarraya were now the only people left in the world. At least in this world. That silence lulled him to put his head down, and since he had nothing else to do, he promptly went to sleep.