"You think I can move him before he gets baked by this heat?"

She actually laughed. "Think, you foolish sprite. Should he not already be dead?"

Sarraya had no answer. If the heat was so intense that she had to protect herself with Druidic magic, then he should have been killed by it long before she reached them. And yet he was unharmed.

"Wait!" Sarraya shouted, but the shadow of the woman was gone, and something inside her told her that she was no longer there, even if she chased after her.

Sarraya bit her lip, fretting. What had just happened? Why did this figure from the past return to the present, return to attack Tarrin, but not to hurt him? What was this test the woman spoke about? How did Tarrin survive? It was madness! She looked down at him, and then she remembered the woman's words as her eyes locked on his amulet, an amulet that had changed.

Only in the moment of destruction can a Weavespinner attain communion with the Goddess.

It was a test! All this time, all those times he had nearly destroyed himself with Sorcery, they all were just precludes to this! If he was to ever find his true power, to find the answers that his Goddess told him to find, he would have to face the possibility of destruction by the very power he sought to master.

It certainly looked like he found that mastery. He was still alive, for one, and his amulet now looked exactly like the Sha'Kar woman's amulet. It had that same strange spidery-like alteration to the central star.

Of course. Sarraya chuckled. If they were called Weavespinners, what better symbol to represent them than a spider?

"I'm getting too old for this," she sighed, using Druidic magic to pick his inert form off the blisteringly hot ground.

Light.

There was light all around him. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it deep inside, feel the radiant warmth of it as it shined upon him. It flowed, this light, flowed and pulsed and shimmered from one place to another, moving in a vast cycle of uncountable paths that all eventually began and ended at the same place. It was a heady feeling to sense the light, mystical in its underlying intent, moving of its own without rational rules to define its existence. Beneath the flowing of the light was a strange sound, a sound he could not hear, yet he could. It was a steady, rhythmic thumping, a gentle pulse of lifeblood through this ether river, a river that began where it ended and existed within a neverending cycle of self-replenishment.

It was a heartbeat.

That heartbeat was the collective energies of thousands and thousands of beings, all beating in perfect unison, hearts that sustained this vast web of interlaced rivers of light. They did not know that they worked together. They did not know that their lifeblood was also the lifeblood of this grand network. From the wellspring this light flowed, flowed through the hearts of those who circulated it, flowed through the heart of the world, and then it returned to the wellspring from whence it had come. It was an endless cycle, like the tides, the currents, the winds, the seasons. It had a beginning and an end, but the end was naught but the beginning of the next cycle.

He opened his eyes. He found himself adrift in a sea of vast black emptiness, except for the crisscrossing rivers of light that flowed around him, in all directions, extending into infinity to light the void, but never so numerous that the void was consumed by their presence. Those rivers nearest to him were warped, leaning towards him, yearning for him the way plants yearned towards the sun. The sight of it was beautiful, so beautiful that his heart felt like the most breathtaking sunrise would seem as dull grays on slate in comparison. His heart also sustained this vast web of light, but unlike others, he fully sensed what was happening, was aware of it.

The Goddess gives the power, but it is the hearts of the Sorcerers that bring it from the wellspring and deliver it to the land, he thought in a moment of revelation. Without the Sorcerers, there would be no magic in the world.

"You see truth, my son," the voice of the Goddess shimmered through the rivers of light, through the strands of the Weave. She was close, yet distant, near yet far, existing in a place that was both near him and beyond his imagination. "You see the truth of things that few have experienced. You have become what you were always meant to become."

"But what is that, Mother?" he called out into the void. "What good does it do me to know these things, when I can't do anything with them?"

"You underestimate the power of knowledge," she replied from her unseen place. "Did your battle not teach you that knowledge is the greatest form of power?"

He blinked. That was easy enough to agree with. That Sha'Kar woman had taken everything he did and twisted it back on him, with contemptuous ease. It wasn't because she was more powerful than him, it was because she had a greater knowledge about the Weave than he did. That knowledge made her the better of them.

"To influence a thing, you must first be aware of that thing," she told him. "You cannot master things you cannot understand. You cannot master your power without first understanding its truth."

That made sense. He couldn't deny that. "Mother… what was I meant to be?"

"What you are," she replied cryptically.

"But… but I'm not worthy of any of this," he said meekly. "I'm a half-crazy Were-cat who'd sooner kill you than shake your hand. I don't deserve to see such wondrous things. Why me?"

"Why not?"

She had asked that question of him every time he asked his own, and he still had yet to find a suitable answer for her. In this crazy, illogical world, it was only fitting that a feral Were-cat be given the responsibility for saving the very people he did not care about.

Fate, he had discovered, had a very strange sense of humor.

"Don't worry at it too long, my dear kitten," she said to him in a silvery voice, a voice full of humor, warmth, and love. "You have other things to consider."

"What?"

"You have faced your power, and have conquered it," she told him. "You have crossed over into a new realm of magical ability. You are now a true Weavespinner, in heart and soul as well as name. But as with any new beginning, there is a period of adjustment, of learning. And so it is with you, my dear child. You are so fond of thinking of things in linear terms, so consider it this way. One path has come to its destination, but another leads you off to the horizon. Your body has changed, as has your connection with the Weave. These are your first obstacles, the first challenges you must face and overcome."

"Changed? You mean I have to learn everything all over again?"

She laughed lightly. You see to the point, as always, she said winsomely. You have crossed into a new realm, Tarrin. In your prior land, you were the master. Now, you are again the Novice. You must relearn everything you learned before, because now, everything is different."

"But, but that other one was using High Sorcery," he reasoned. "That means that I can still use Sorcery the old way."

"You can use Sorcery in the way that other Sorcerers do, but that is but one aspect of your power, and it is also something you must learn again. Your connection to the Weave is different now. Surely you remember Dolanna's lessons."

He realized that he already knew the answer. "Every Sorcerer has his or her own way of touching the Weave," he repeated the lesson. "It's unique for every Sorcerer. It's why no Novice is permitted to read or study Sorcery before their first lessons, because it may contaminate their ability to use their magic."

"It is a personal communion, and it differs from person to person. But now, my Tarrin, you are a different person. So you must learn to touch the Weave anew."