James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

He was one with the power, and he would use that power.

A low growl in his throat built quickly into a scream that seemed to go in harmony with the shimmering sound caused by the aura of magic around him, as he built up the power, the will, the rage to unleash his magic, to accept the searing, beautiful pain of High Sorcery and use the gift granted him by the Goddess to free himself from the prison of his enemies.

Then the weave was suddenly unleashed in the direction of his pointing paws, driving into the ceiling. It moved at speeds that transcended imagination, searing through the rock and mortar above him, burning through the layers of natural stone and earth, and vaporizing a hole through the floor of the crypt above. It continued on, blazing a hole through the crypt's ceiling, through the floor of the Nave, through the ceiling of the Nave, and up and into the heavens.

Allia watched Keritanima run, but she immediately understood that it was not cowardice. She heard the Wikuni shout for them to lower the Ward, and Allia felt it when it was done. The Weave flowed back into its normal place within the cathedral, the strands returning to their rightful places within the Nave. Allia didn't quite understand why her sister was so rash. Lowering the Ward was allowing the priests access to their magic!

And then Allia felt a weave of horrific power form, manifest, and then disperse in the blink of an eye. The entire Cathedral shook and shuddered in the aftermath of that incredible weave, and a loud boom rocked the floor beneath them, making the stone groan and squeal as it settled back into place. What power ! She had never felt its like, never dreamed that anything like that could be done! She could feel it below them, a power twisting the very Weave itself, drawing it towards it as it built up power to do something else.

That was Tarrin ! Nobody , not even a circle, could make the Weave do that!

"Get back!" she suddenly screamed in fear. She could feel it build, and build, and build , and she realized with horror that Tarrin was about to do something serious . And he was directly under her feet! "Holy Mother, everyone get back!"

Allia pushed Darvon out of the way, and the others scattered just as a strange light appeared in the floor. And then a beam of pure, intense, blinding white light erupted from that spot, splitting the air in a loud shattering scream that caused Allia's ears to start bleeding. It burned through the floor in an instant, then travelled up and through the ceiling of the Cathredral to travel towards the heavens. It sustained itself for no more than two heartbeats, but it made absolutely everyone within the Cathedral drop to the floor and scream in fear and terror.

The light faded to its blinding incandescence, but remained as a painfully bright shaft of pure white light that illumunated the Nave as if someone had pulled the sun into the chamber. Allia winced against that painful brilliance, then her mouth dropped when the silhouette of a humanoid being appeared within that radiance, fading enough to show the outline of a long tail. Even with the light, Allia could see that he was absolutely covered in blood. From head to foot. And he had arrows sticking out of him!

"Tarrin!" Allia screamed in surprise, joy, and fear, shouting over the pulsating, choral shimmering sound emanating from that bright light. She feared her brother at that moment.

Floating within a cushion of his own power, Tarrin rose from the molten tunnel created by his weaving, raised into the Nave of the Cathedral of Karas, utter fury making his face a twisted mask of rage. Incandescent white eyes, blazing from within with the power of High Sorcery, locked on the pulpit where Irvon stood. The fat cleric stared at Tarrin in pure horror, unable to move, unable to act, unable to do anything but watch.

A black ball of sizzling power formed in his paw, crackling with electrical energy, as Tarrin built a weave of Confluence and Divine energies, with only token flows of the other spheres added to give the weave the power of High Sorcery. That black ball swallowed up the light, dimming it around him, sucked up the light into its utter black depths, even pulled the air into it. Tarrin gave the priest a merciless, snarling shout, and then hurled it at him. The priest, paralyzed by his own fear, could only stand there and watch as his doom hurtled towards him.

It struck him in the face, and where it touched him, it sucked everything inside it. Irvon's head contracted, pulling into that ball, bone splitting and spraying blood into the air, blood which stopped flying outward and fell back into the black ball. Irvon's body began to be sucked into the small ball, crushing down and into the small thing, no larger than a child's toy, yet pulling the entirety of the fat priest's corporeal form inside. The gloriously decorated and gilded pulpit too crushed under the magical force of that black ball, breaking asunder and following Irvon's body into its unimaginable black depths. The ball hovered in midair a moment, hovering over where Irvon and his pulpit once stood, and then it simply vanished.

Tarrin whirled around within his shaft of light, and his eyes fell on Allia. That face, that beautiful face, was like a slap in the face to him. It declared to the Cat beyond any measure that he was indeed free. Allia was near him, Allia would protect him. She would gather him up and carry him to safety, because he knew that as soon as he let go of the Weave, he would fall unconscious. He has pushed himself too far. The Cat looked at its sibling, its sister, and it rejoiced, fading back into the background of Tarrin's mind, allowing his consciousness to regain control.

Tarrin looked on Allia with pure horror in his eyes, and then those eyes rolled back into his head.

The light rising up from the floor of the Nave wavered, and then it vanished. Tarrin's inert body crashed to the floor, unmoving, leaving an entire church full of awed, terrified observers to stare at him in shock.

To: Title EoF

He had no idea where he was.

He only knew that he was clean, dressed in a soft cotton nightshirt, and the room held traces of the scents of Allia and Keritanima.

He was alone, and the room was illuminated by a single candle, burned well near to the nub. His body still ached, but it was a faint pain, distant and weak, and it would soon be gone. He felt extremely weak, and it was an effort to sit up in the bed and put his back against the headrest. His tail was tingling from where he was laying on it.

The manacles. They were still on his wrists. Nightmarish images swirled around the dark corners of his mind, images of what he had done while out of control. He couldn't remember details, but he knew that he had killed many people. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that, but he was so weary that he knew that in his current condition, he wouldn't care if he destroyed an entire kingdom. He was just too tired, too numb. He knew that he would have to reckon with what he had done later, but at that moment, he was still in shock. It wasn't the time. Physically, he wasn't much better off. He had been healed, or he had healed himself, but it had left him so weak that he could barely move. He felt a bit dizzy any time he moved his head, and there was a light fuzz over his consciousness that demanded he return to sleep. But where the body was willing, the mind was not. A tremendous amount had happened, and his mind couldn't reconcile with putting it off until later.

He had snapped. Really snapped, not just lost his temper. It was exactly what Jesmind had been talking about, something she said would happen eventually, no matter how careful he was. He had never felt so helpless in his life. That much, he clearly remembered. The Cat had kicked him aside like a misbehaving pet and taken full control of him, and he watched himself acting and reacting through eyes he could no longer control. He still couldn't recall specifics of what happened, but something deep inside told him that he didn't want to know. He did remember killing. Many, many people. That much was clear, but not how many, and how, and where he was. He only remembered searching for a way out, and killing anyone who got in his way.