The Loresinger watched him, contemplation tight in his gaze, and warned of the gravity of Shahar’s request.
I know, said Shahar, still with a great deal of respect. But, important.
But Wilrok would teach him, it seemed, if this was what his heart was truly set on. The Ankhal, then bid Shahar to relax. The younger man felt a bit of surprise; just like that? Was there nothing that had to be done in preparation? Though it was not what he had expected, he quickly pushed those thoughts aside and did at the Loresinger asked. He took a deep breath, and on the exhale his shoulders dropped and his abdomen eased. He slumped for a moment before remembering that he was in the presence of an Ankhal and straightened, doing his best to remain sitting up completely without tensing any of his muscles.
When he nodded his readiness, Wilrok began. It was a very strange feeling; the Ankhal was moving his hands, as if touching something invisible, and Shahar felt it. As if his arm or foot was being pulled away, except it was neither of those because both of his arms and feet lay still. Something was stretching, and though it wasn’t painful it was a feeling that was alien to the hunter, as if Wilrok was pulling on the very fibers that made him him. And then in heightened, growing in strength and intensity, and more of the stuff that was Shahar was drawn out in every second. He blinked, but something else was filling his awareness, a sensation unlike any he’d felt before. It superimposed over his vision, even as he tried to blink it away, and it grew stronger and stronger until he even hesitated, trying to slow the change, but Wilrok’s magic was steady, sure and immutable. With a quiet exhale, Shahar was pulled into the Web.
At first, he didn’t know what happened. His sight was completely gone, not like his eyes were closed but like he didn’t have eyes at all. Everything shook and shivered, and he with it, and noise assaulted him from everywhere. He didn’t know where, or even what he was, and so he did the only thing he knew to do: he froze. He hunkered down, or at least this… place’s equivalent of hunkering down, and let the noise and the vibrations of Endrykas wash over him.
Calm. Focus. Nothing’s happening. Calm. Focus. Nothing’s happening. He repeated the mantra to himself, over and over, as the din of all the people and horses and sheer volume of events that made up this city, this spot, began to fade and blur into each other, as the tracks of the animals fade into the vastness of the Sea of Grass. If he focused on the whole, the pieces became easier to ignore.
Shahar eased, then slowly opened his… er, awareness and carefully assessed his surroundings.
He was attached to something, something strong and stable. It was shaped like a thread, but the cords that made it were almost completely without fraying. Shahar was clinging to this thread, and realized with shock that he was no longer shaped correctly. There was no physical medium through which he was attached to this thread, only a feeling. There weren’t any words in Shahar’s vocabulary to describe it, but the closest he could come to justifying what he now existed as was “spider.” The Web, for what else could it be but the Web, shivered a his touch, with his own and but also by the hands of many others. The Web was being plucked and moved by the passing of many people and creatures, each with their own unique sounds that radiated from the Web in all directions, like ripples on a lake. He felt them coming towards him from all sides, but there was only one source nearby. Curiously, Shahar went towards the source, which was deep and powerful in timbre so that it almost shook him. He examined it, and then it spoke, causing the hunter to retreat in alarm before realizing, to his shock, that the thing was Wilrok. Shahar lingered, then approached again, circling, examining the thing that was now Wilrok. Was that was he looked like, then? No longer a person, but something that trembled with the force of his own soul to such a degree that he trembled the Web to which he was now tied.
Then the other vibrations, those too were ripples that came from things, from sources. At this revelation, Shahar turned from Wilrok and began to traverse the small pond of the tent they were in. Over there was a pot, which made a tiny, almost insignificant ripple, and then there were the grains inside it that made a bit of a stronger one. But their ripple had been other places, and they made a brilliant, miniscule strand of thread that twisted into the whole and then went somewhere else, where the pot of grains had been before it had been right there. Shahar leaned close to the strand, following it in amazement to the center of the pavilion where it was joined by a much stronger thread, a thread that could only be a person. The hunter followed that one now, in a circle around the tent, then to the entrance. He looked outside, and then there were more threads, so many threads of so many different people. He looked back and forth between all he could see, felt all the vibrations high and low of so many different people and creatures that had passed this way.
There, that thread was the strongest of them all. He darted over to it, examining it, circling and giving it something like a poke. Who had made this one? Ooh, it had gone into the Loresinger pavilion; was it Wilrok’s? No, the sound was higher than Wilrok’s, who was low-tuned and strong. This one was a bit higher, a bit faster, with an altogether different feel. It felt good to the touch, aligning with Shahar perfectly, and the Dawnwhisper realized with a laugh that it was his own thread.
“It’s mine,” he said in wonder, finding that Web-speak was somehow easier than voice-speak. “I came into your pavilion here, and this is me doing it. I remember it. But, what are these other threads? They are other people, aren’t they? Why didn’t I see anyone else when I came here? Why is mine stronger?" There were so many questions inside him of why, how, where, is this it, and he almost tripped over his own words to get even a few out. If there was a way of signing within the Web, his posture would have been one of wonder, amazement, vast curiosity and torn in all directions.