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"And from there, a boat ride," Tiella said.
Dola
"I like the sound of that," Tarrin said sincerely.
"As do I," she said. "Now then, let us pick up the pace a bit. We still must make Skeleton Rock before we may stop."
Skeleton Rock was literally self-explanatory. They reached the formation right at nightfall, and all four moons rose early and full, washing the land with enough light to see by for a human. The others couldn't see that far into the distance, but Tarrin's eyes could easily see to the cliff face that towered over the road some distance away. In the side of it, there was the head and partial skeleton of a monstrous animal so huge that Tarrin doubted it was ever alive. The skull was long and vaguely reptillian, and it looked like the teeth were as long as Tarrin's foot, all of them coming to sharp points.
Tarrin peered at the formation for several moments, then stopped Dola
"Nobody knows," she replied. "The bones are actually stone, but I have been told that bones turning to stone is a natural process. It means that the bones are beyond ancient. They are so old that all the Tower's attempts to study them through magic have failed. It is just too far back for our magic to reach. There are reports of much smaller creatures resembling that one that live in the Desert of Swirling Sands, to the west."
"Much smaller? How small?"
"About the size of a house," she replied calmly.
"Yeek," he said under his breath. "I wouldn't want to see one of those up close. It looks like it's nothing but an eating machine."
"That is a fairly accurate description," she said with a light chuckle.
Tarrin was given his own tent, and it was another night of dreams. The fear wasn't as bad this second night, but the dreams were even worse, because more than once he simply could not wake from it. They were also mixed with human-like dreams of the men that he had killed, rising up from their resting places and following him around, demanding to know what gave him the right to take their lives. That scared him more than the Cat dreams. Tarrin had suppressed the shock, fear, and horror at what he had done, but when he was asleep, they all rushed back at him in a flood.
Hours before dawn, he found the idea of going back to sleep to be too frightening to contemplate, so he dressed and left the tent. Three men were standing guard around the camp, and the fire was low. He spent the hours before dawn reading one of the books Dola
There were four distinct types of magic-users, and each one drew magic from a different source. The Sorcerers, who were born the ability inside them. Where anyone with sufficient intelligence could learn another type of magic, only people born with the ability inside them could be Sorcerers. They manipulated the existing pattern-web of magic that laid over the world, twisting and changing it into the magical effect they wanted. This magical matrix was called the Weave, and it was from this web of magical energy that Sorcerers drew their power. Sorcerers were the only magic-users that could generate Illusions, it said, and a Sorcerer could interfere with the flow of magic through the Weave that would disrupt and block the powers of a Wizard. There were also Wizards, or Mages, who drew on their magical power from an elsewhere, a place that nobody really understood. They did this with their arcane chants of special words of power and precise gestures, and the presence of certain materials that were vital for the magic to operate. Wizards were the only ones that could Conjure creatures up from other worlds and command them to do their bidding. Much like the Wraith that he had seen. Priests, or Clerics, were the worshippers of Gods, and it was the Gods that supplied these faithful with the magical power. Tarrin was already familiar with Priests, for one from the temple to Karas in Torrian visited Aldreth every two months to check in on them and see if they were doing alright. Abram preached alot about the goodness and power of his God when he was there, and though the villagers politely ignored his ranting, they were always happy to see him, because he could perform healing on the sick or injured. The main powers of a Priest were healing, supportive, and defensive, the book said, meaning more to aid than to hurt, but Priests did have formidable offensive magic at their command. Mending broken bones, breaking fevers, that sort of thing was what Abram did for the village. Sorcerers could heal too, but a Sorcerer's healing worked differently. Sorcerers could heal injuries, but not illnesses. The last type of magic-user was also a type that was born with the ability. They were called Druids, and little was known about them or their magical power. What was known was that their power seemed to come directly from nature itself, almost like the magical energy of life that was theirs to command. Druids were rare and exceptionally powerful, because a Druid could disrupt and block the magical attempts of any other type of magic-user. But Druids were as rare as they were powerful, living far from human settlements and doing their obscure work in the wildest of the wilderness.
Tarrin digested that during the dark hours, wondering at the why of it. Why could Sorcerers block a Wizard's attempt to cast a spell? And why didn't Dola
Many questions, questions that he doubted the book was going to answer.
The wiry man, Jarax, came out of a tent and sat near him by the fire. He was a thin man, seemingly too thin to wear the heavy armor, with wiry muscles and a long, narrow face. His black hair was short and slicked back off his face, and he had a scraggly beard and moustache. "I see I'm not the only one that can't sleep," he said.
Tarrin had not talked to any of these men, and he was a bit afraid to do so. They knew what he was, and it was their companions, their friends, that the female killed in her escape. He was almost certain that most of them probably blamed him in some way for what had happened. Besides, he was a bit nervous about talking to strangers. He couldn't see past his own transformation in order to communicate with people he didn't know, so self-conscious was he about what had happened to himself. Tarrin just nodded vaguely, hoping the man would just sit down and be quiet. He wasn't sure if the man was talking out of simple courtesy, or friendliness, or out of fear of him. All in all, he rather preferred it if there was no talk at all.
"What are you reading?" he asked politely.
"A book on magic," Tarrin replied quietly.
"Don't think I ever read that," he mused, leaning back against a log. "I prefer stories and poetry myself." Tarrin went back to his book, and after a few moments, the man spoke again. "Is that what you always read?" he asked curiously.