No, he wasn't going to play their game. He had the feeling that they had set the rules very much in their own favor. Now that he knew what was waiting for him, he could devise a way to get past them safely before he reached that juncture. If it took her twenty days to get this far in a wagon, then it would take him about ten to twelve days to run the same distance. If he didn't hurry.

"I haven't seen any sign of Trolls," he repeated. "There's nothing between you and the city but an empty road. If you're that worried about Trolls, then I suggest you walk fast."

"You're going to abandon us?" she asked in disbelief.

"What happens to you after I leave this place doesn't concern me," he said stonily, staring at her with emotionless eyes. "If not for that child, I would have left you to die. Don't push my patience, female, or I'll put you back in the same condition I found you in."

She gaped at him, clutching at her child instinctively.

"I am no savior or hero, female. I am just a nameless traveller with too much of a soft spot for children. I'll give you what you need to make it back to your city. Whether or not you reach it all depends on you."

There was nothing she could say in the face of such a statement. She just clutched her child in tight arms and stared at him in disbelief, and not more than a little fear.

Sensing her fear, angry with himself that he would fear someone who was obviously terrified of him, Tarrin snorted and threw the waterskins down near the wagon. "There's a spread back there with enough food on it to last you to that city," he told them testily, pointing behind him. He placed the visor over his eyes, pulled up the hood of the cloak, then wound the scarf around his neck, around the outside of the hood loosely. "You should wait here for tonight, then start out in the morning. Once you do, don't stop until you reach safety."

He looked sideways at the little girl. There was something about her, something curious. It was something he was just starting to notice, as if there was an aspect of her that had been hidden from his view before, but was now becoming clear. It wasn't just her. He could almost see the Weave, almost as if he had charged the strands around him and set them glowing, but barely enough to see them in the daylight. Despite that unseeing sense, he could feel them all around him much more clearly than he usually would be able to do. Usually he could only feel the local strands, and discern a Conduit from a strand, but would have to touch the Weave to learn anything more precise. But now each strand seemed to be distinct and separate, as if he could feel how large they were without touching the Weave, how much energy they possessed, and where and how they joined with Conduits or other strands.

The little girl had potential. Alot of potential. She was a Sorcerer. Or she would be, in about eight years, and a very strong one.

That was why she seemed suddenly unusual. He was sensing the Weave, and despite the fact that her talent had yet to manifest, it still connected her to the Weave in a manner unlike other people.

"What?" the woman asked in a cautious voice. Tarrin realized that he was staring at the girl. He blinked and looked away, trying to understand this alteration in the Weave. Was it in the Weave? Maybe it was something of an aftereffect of touching the Weave inside that Conduit. Perhaps it left him with a temporary connection to the Weave, a tenuous one through which he could do nothing but sense. He'd never touched the Weave directly through a Conduit before-at least not willingly-so he wasn't very familiar with any possible side effects of such an act.

Again, it was something that could wait until he had the time and opportunity to think it through. Being so close to the woman was still making him just a bit edgy, which was probably why he didn't notice the expanded sense of the Weave sooner. A small part of him had this irrational worry that she was going to suddenly jump up and attack him, and despite the fact that he knew he could kill her with no danger to himself, it just wouldn't go away. And it was something that he just couldn't ignore, no matter how much his rational mind told him that the woman was no threat to him.

His relief from his feral nature hadn't lasted that long. The very first encounter with strangers after the girl, and he had quickly reverted to his old self.

Tarrin levelled his gaze on the woman, who was now painted over in gentle violets through the tinting of the visor. "In six years, take your daughter to Sharadar," he told her evenly. "Take her to the Tower of Sorcery in Abrodar, and enroll her in the school there."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because in ten years, that girl will be katzh-dashi," he replied bluntly, using a term that the woman would certainly understand. "The girl has considerable potential. She'll be a strong Sorceress."

He wasn't about to send her to Suld. He didn't trust anyone in the Tower outside of Sevren and Dolanna. If she had to learn about Sorcery, it was better for her to go to Sharadar. In six years, Sharadar may have the only Tower left standing. That depended on how quickly he could ferret out the spy in the Tower and get rid of her.

"Stay put until tomorrow, then walk fast," he told her. "Protect the girl. In twenty years, she'll be a woman of great importance. And thanks for the warning about the Trolls," he added as an afterthought.

The woman stared at him in surprise, but he didn't pay her much mind. He had a long way to go, and he had quite a bit to ponder while travelling. He had to think up a way to get around the Trolls with a minimum of danger to himself, and he wanted to see if this curious after-effect of touching the Conduit would fade sooner or later. He pulled the cloak over his shoulders, looking down at the pair one more time, then he started walking past them. He kept his ears and senses open to feel or hear it if the woman suddenly rushed him, but such a thing didn't happen.

She did call to him one more time, however, after he had passed her and started along the road towards the desert, a road whose end would present him with an exciting passage into the desert. "Thank you!" she called. "Thank you for saving us!"

Tarrin made no visible sign that he had heard her, and there was nothing inside that reacted to her gratitude. Helping her was only a means to protect the child. That was all that really mattered to him. There was nothing out in the plains to threaten them, so they would simply have a long walk ahead. He expected them to make it with no problem, and that released him from any sort of feeling of responsibility for them. He simply walked away from them, into the setting sun, leaving them to whatever fates smiled or frowned upon them.

And he didn't think twice about it.

It wouldn't fade.

Tarrin lay in a shallow bowl, dozing after a morning of dreamless slumber in one of the shallow depressions caused by the wind, sandwiched between a sand-colored leather spread that concealed him from any observers and thick bales of wool that Sarraya had Summoned from where the woman and child had been. He had moved on to get away from the woman, moved most of the night until his weariness forced him to stop. It wasn't sleepiness, it was the exertion of nearly three days of constant activity with very little rest. He still felt something of an aversion to shifting into cat form, so he had slept in his humanoid form under the leather cover that Sarraya conjured, laying on a bed of sheared wool that kept him quite warm and comfortable.

Despite a night and morning, the sense of the Weave had not faded. He could still almost see it, sense every strand around him, sense their sizes and power and position within the Weave. He could feel the magic within them, feel it in a way that made the magic pulse with the beating of his heart. It confused him that the sense of it had yet to fade, even after so long. It made him start to wonder if it was going to fade at all.