It coalesced from the dark shadows that seemed to swirl up from the floor, the immaterial taking form, condensing into the shadowy body and glowing green eyes that Tarrin had seen twice before. The air was bitingly cold, Tarrin's breath misting before him, as if it too was trapped inside the barrier and was isolated from the warmer air outside. The undead shade grew into its full height, and its glowing eyes blazed with sudden evil eagerness as it started to move. Despite the fact that Tarrin was more than a head taller than the undead creation, he had the sensation of being trapped in a cage with a rampaging bear.
It was all an elaborate trap, designed to trap him inside with the Wraith. But knowing that didn't help him at the moment. Baring his fangs, he growled at the creature, the Cat boiling up in his mind to try to wrest control from him. But the Wraith was unimpressed at his show of threat, advancing on him at a slow, almost leisurely manner, almost as if it knew that Tarrin had nowhere to run. It reached for him lazily, and then was surprised when Tarrin was simply not there. Tarrin was ten spans over the creature's head, having vaulted straight up. He pushed off the barrier behind him and landed on the far side of the symbol, quickly taking in his surroundings. The symbol was about ten paces across, which was very little room to maneuver, but he had an unlimited ceiling with which to work. If he had a chance to use it. The Wraith turned around quickly, its eyes glowing in hatred as it advanced on him again.
Tarrin struggled with the Cat for control as it tried to get him to fight, to fight as any cornered animal would when threatened with death. But the Cat didn't understand that this was not an enemy that could be battled with teeth and claws. Tarrin had seen the creature put its hand through a man's chest. It was a body without substance, which used its deathly cold as its weapon. If he tried to rake it, his paw would pass through it, and he would probably lose his paw. The Wraith seemed to understand this, and it was taking its sweet time to close the distance, almost allowing Tarrin to contemplate his fate. Then it struck at him again. Tarrin dodged it easily, dancing away, putting his back to the barrier, then rolling to side as it took yet another swing, staying out of its reach. It staggered forward, then it too struck the barrier and rebounded.
It was trapped in here with him.
It rushed on him with sudden, shocking speed, a single arm lashing out from the side. It struck Tarrin high in the side, and Tarrin screamed in pain as the shadowy hand raked its insubstantial fingers against his ribs. Pain blazed along his side as he lurched away from that hand, and he staggered forward as the Wraith seemed to stop in confusion. Tarrin, however was not confused. It made perfect sense to him, as the words of Dolanna came back to him, spoken so long ago. You are a creature of magic, she had told him. You can only be harmed by fire, magic, acid, silver, other creatures of magic, and weapons of nature.
Other creatures of magic.
The Wraith's hand had not passed through his body, as it had done so with the man before, and it was what the Wraith had obviously expected to happen. It had struck him, made actual contact. The cold of the grave was still there, but it struck his skin, and while it had frozen the flesh and muscles around his ribs, it did not go deep enough to reach his vital internal organs. And Tarrin realized one other truth in that physical contact.
If it could touch him, then he could touch it.
His eyes lighting from within with their green fire, Tarrin snarled at the creature once more and spread his paws wide, claws out. He embraced the Cat in that instant, becoming one with his animal half, and he felt it shunt his human awareness off the side to let the Cat deal with the situation. He was going to need every advantage he could muster to kill the Wraith without getting his face frozen off. His united whole squared off against a now tentative Wraith, but the Wraith was compelled into its action by the magic that had created it. It was there to kill Tarrin Kael, and that was what it had to do. It rushed forward with its hands out, but Tarrin slithered to the side and raked his claws against its exposed flank. Icy pain blasted up his paw as the cold conducted through his claws, but he ignored it in his animalistic rage, doubling every second as he fought for his life. His claws ripped through the shadow that made up the Wraith's side, peeling some of it off to evaporate like mist exposed to the heat of the sun. Tarrin backed away, shaking his paw vigorously as it turned around, a grim smile on his face.
He could hurt it. If he could hurt it, then he could kill it.
And it seemed to understand that as well, for it came at him like a raging beast. It punched and kicked at him, but Tarrin avoided contact with those lethal shadowy limbs as much as possible. He could not avoid forever, and soon he was blocking them with his forearms, feeling pain blast through his arms every time the blocked a fist or foot. His paws became numb, but his claws were frozen in place out of their sheaths, and his muscles were locked in their raking positions. He was struck again on his hip, making Tarrin howl in pain and sending a deadly numb wave down his right leg. Tarrin jumped back from a wide sweep, almost collapsing around his numbed leg. Some semblance of human awareness came back to him. The Cat seemed to realize that brute force wasn't going to win this, so it seemed to draw on Tarrin's knowledge, on his experience and skills, and on his intellect. His human consciousness began guiding the Cat's instincts.
The Wraith attacked with amazing speed, but Tarrin was suddenly a ghost himself. The creature struggled to reach the Were-cat, but Tarrin was always just out of reach. His tall, supple body flowed around the Wraith like water, weaving like a blade of grass in the wind, bending but not breaking, always close to hand but evaporating like mist when it went to touch. Tarrin danced around the undead creation thusly for several frenzied moments, flowing away from its viperlike strikes, and retaliating with rakes of his claws into the monster's shadowy body. But where the Wrath found nothing but empty air, Tarrin's claws found purchase, stripping away puffs of its insubstantial body. The Wraith moved faster and faster, became more and more desperate to find Tarrin with its hands, but the Were-cat was always just out of reach. It scored several minor hits, touches on Tarrin's blocking arms, and it also managed to get a grip on Tarrin's braid. He felt the cold conduct right through his hair, freezing his scalp, but when the Wraith went to jerk the Were-cat's braid, it broke off from his head, then shattered on the floor when the Wraith tossed the frozen braid aside.
Tarrin was in worse shape than he led the creature to believe. Warm blood soothed the agonizing frozen flesh on his side and hip, where his skin and muscle had torn around the unbending frozen places where the Wraith had touched him. Each strike on him, each forced block, stole more and more of this warmth, and he could feel the chill of the grave settling into his bones, slowing him down and causing biting pain to flow through him like blood. Tarrin was growing weary as his energy was literally sucked away with each glancing strike, and he was panting heavily. He had to end it, and end it fast, or the Wraith would kill him. There was no help from outside, but Tarrin didn't blame any of them. Even Allia would be no help to him against this creature. He knew that dancing any more would weaken him too much. It was time to attack the Wraith head-on, injury be damned. It was a choice between risking a swift death and ensuring a slow one.
He turned on the Wraith with no warning, and he attacked it with such savagery that the Wraith was taken aback. Claws ripped considerable wisps of shadow away from its body, taking out its right eye, as Tarrin struck at it again and again and again, driving it backwards. Tarrin felt its hands strike him in the side and chest and shoulder, but he ignored the Wraith's blows and concentrated on ripping it to shreds as quickly as possible. The Wraith actually backed up to get away from him as Tarrin assaulted it furiously, ignoring dreadful wounds to his shoulder and chest and neck, not feeling the side of his chest rupture around a frozen expanse of flesh and send blood pouring from him in such a rush that it fell to the floor in rivulets. Tarrin was beyond pain, beyond feeling, beyond thought. There was only the Wraith, and his mind had focused down to the single goal of destroying it. Tarrin did sidestep when the Wraith reached for his face, slamming his claws down on its right arm with enough force to tear the shadowy limb from its body at the elbow, a limb that fell to the floor and evaporated like mist. The Wraith fell to the ground, and Tarrin jumped on top of it, ignoring the instant freezing of his knee and foot, holding the Wraith down with one paw on its chest as his other paw rose up over his head, then drove down like a striking snake. The claws drove right into the shadowy head, right through it, driving the tips of his claws into the stone beneath. The Wraith made a curious keening wail, then its entire body simply evaporated like smoke before the wind.
In his rage, Tarrin started looking around for his enemy, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then the pain hit him. He arched his back and howled in agony, as if a thousand red-hot lances drove into him, and then he mercifully passed out, falling into a half-frozen pool of his own blood.
Outside, Sevren held tightly onto Allia with both hands, ignoring the struggling Selani's desperate cries and savage oaths and promises to kill him. Sevren knew no weaves to affect a Wraith, and they had been moving about inside with such ferocity that no other weaves would have been useful. To allow Allia to rush in there would have killed her, and maybe Tarrin too. Sevren didn't like standing helpless outside, but under the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do. He'd had the presence of mind to send another Initiate out to find a Sorcerer, any Sorcerer, with healing ability. Sevren himself could barely ease the pain of a scratch, let alone seal it.
With the Wraith vanished and Tarrin passed out, Sevren released the Selani and followed her as she rushed towards the Were-cat, who was laying in a pool of blood that was expanding at an alarming rate. Then the Selani rebounded off the ward with enough force to knock her down. Sevren paid her little mind, reaching out his hands to test for an invisible barrier, but there was none. He passed into the circle and instantly felt the biting cold against his skin. He almost knelt in that pool of blood, but he remembered at the last instant what a danger Tarrin's blood posed to him. He wove a weave instead, freezing it solid, then used another weave to drag Tarrin's body out of the red circle. Kneeling, he put his hands on Tarrin's chest and wove yet again, thawing the frozen flesh of Tarrin's body and restoring his body's warmth, heat that had been bled out by his blood loss and the touch of the cold of the grave that came with the Wraith's shadowy hands. He worked quickly and carefully, else his warmth actually cook the flesh of his patient rather than thaw and warm. Tarrin's body began to shudder violently, and his teeth chattered with such force that blood started flowing from his mouth. Sevren saw with some horror three of Tarrin's fingers, claws driven into the stone, broken off from the hand that had driven through the Wraith's head. Tarrin's arms were almost frozen solid from the repeated touches of the Wraith. Tarrin's shirt was soaked with blood, plastered to his chest and sides, and it was starting another pool of crimson around his torso.
Then another was beside him. It was Koran Dar, the Divine Seat, and one of the most powerful healers in the Tower. Koran Dar put his hands on Tarrin's chest, and the Were-cat's shuddering instantly stopped. Sevren stood after Koran Dar nodded to him, his hands covered in Were-cat blood, and then he stepped outside the ward. A strange feeling on his hands made him look down, and he saw that the blood on his hands had been stopped by the ward's power. Two small spots of red were on the floor over where his hands had pass through the ward. The Initiates were gone, even the Selani, and in their stead stood the Keeper and her secretary, Duncan, as well as Ahiriya and Amelyn, two of the Council. "Tell me what happened," the Keeper said in a hissing voice, through clenched teeth. Her features were tightly controlled. She looked about as mad as a bear with a hornet in its mouth.
Consicely and quickly, Sevren related to her the events. "I was trying to see the runes of the warding circle when the Wraith appeared," he said quickly. "Tarrin pushed me out of the circle, and before I could put together any kind of spell, they were moving around too fast for me to try anything. Then the Selani tried to rush into the circle with a dagger," he sighed. "It was all I could do to keep her outside. If she'd have gone in there, it would have killed both her and Tarrin. Tarrin actually managed to kill the Wraith, and when he did, I rushed in to help him as best I could."
The Keeper was silent for an agonizing moment, a moment where Sevren saw his life pass before his eyes. "You did what you could," she said in a grim voice, one that made Sevren take an involuntary breath. "I can't even see the runes."
"I know," he said quietly, not wanting to press his luck. "I've never seen its like. Will Tarrin be alright?"
"We'll know as soon as Koran Dar works with him. For now, link with us and help us break the Ward holding him in."
Sevren nodded, and in seconds, the runes that made up the Ward flared into brilliant light, then winked out of existence as the combined power of the Keeper's circle destroyed it. The ward's walls shimmered, then vanished, and a wave of cold air that carried the smell of death and blood washed over them. The Keeper broke the circle, her eyes furious, but her voice tightly controlled. "Ahiriya. Amelyn. We raise the Ward immediately. I'll not have one more attempt on Tarrin. Not one." She grunted. "Amelyn, gather the others, and as soon as Koran Dar stabilizes Tarrin, we'll raise the Ward."
"Yes, Keeper," the dark-haired woman replied.
"Ahiriya."
"Yes, Keeper?"
"I want every Mage in Suld driven out of the city. I don't care what it takes. I want the Priests too afraid to leave their churches. I want them to know that when the Tower is displeased, the consequences are not worth the risks."
"It will be done, Keeper," she said quietly. The look on her face made it clear where she thought the blame was.
"I want whoever did this found. Alive," she grated. "I'm going to kill him myself."
"It will be done, Keeper," the fiery-haired woman repeated. Sevren knew that it was one of the jobs of the Fire seat. Hers was the task of running and arranging the things that were not exactly within the bounds of law and propriety. She ran the Tower's spy networks, and it was her responsibility to make those who made too much trouble for the Tower "disappear". It was a job for which she was well suited. Ahiriya was born to a noble family in Draconia, where policital intrigue, betrayal, and assassinations were as common as livestock and clouds. She performed her unusual duties with a savage efficiency that made the others in here rather unique profession very nervous and wary. Nobody crossed the Tower, and Ahiriya was one of the reasons for it. No doubt Ahiriya blamed herself for this attack; it was her responsiblity to know what was going on, both in the Tower and out in the world. The attacks on Tarrin had probably driven the woman crazy with their subtlety and cunning. This one, by far, had to be the most cunning yet.
Two Tower guards had arrived with a litter, and they were carrying the limp form of the Were-cat away, with the Selani walking beside him, holding his huge hand in hers. Sevren noticed that the hand again had five fingers, and looked for all the world like no damage had been done to it. Concern for the young man in his eyes, Sevren followed the litter out of the chamber.
He missed seeing the Keeper order the Were-cat's blood put into jars and stored in a safe place.
Tarrin drifted in darkness for quite a while before he finally managed to claw himself back into awareness. All of the pain was gone, pain that he didn't really remember that well, but he still felt cold in his bones. The scents in the room were both familiar and unknown, as Allia's coppery scent mingled with the scents of Sevren and three or four others that he didn't know, and those scents mingled with the very familiar scents of his own room. The bedsheets were freshly laundered, and one of the scents was thick with food, as if the person had just come from the kitchens or from dining. The new pillow's goosefeathers were old enough to give up most of their goose smell, but had not been used, so the pillow had not taken on the combined miasma-scent of the people who had laid their heads on it. And underneath it all was the stony smell of age that the Tower itself exuded, a smell of stone exposed to air for thousands of years, a smell that he didn't even notice anymore unless he was paying close attention to his nose. He felt strangely weak and very tired, and the voices he heard sounded curiously distant. But he was awake, and didn't quite feel like going back to sleep, so he stirred and opened his eyes.
Allia was there immediately, smiling down at him and patting his paw. "Welcome back, deshida," she said in a warm voice, cupping his cheek in her other four-fingered hand. "How do you feel?"
"A little cold, but otherwise alright," he replied as he sat up in the bed, then scooted back so his back was against the headboard. His clothes were folded and piled his desk chair, on the far side of the room, sitting in an upholstered chair that wasn't part of the furniture of his room, held some middle-aged woman he did not know-no, she was one of the Council members. He recognized her dark hair and heart-shaped face. Sevren was standing on the other side of the bed, along with a plump older woman wearing a gray dress of coarse wool. Beside Allia's stool stood a very, very tall dark-haired man that Tarrin recognized as another of the Council. "What happened?"
"You were attacked by a Wraith," Sevren told him calmly. "I'm sorry that I didn't help, Tarrin, but I don't know any weaves to affect a monster like that, and you were moving around too much to try anything else."
"It's alright, Sevren," he waved him off. It was coming back to him quickly, as the Cat gave up the memories of the nightmarish, whirlwind fight. He reached up and put a paw on the side of his head, and felt short hair. Very short. "What happened to my braid?"
"It broke off," Allia told him. "You look slightly funny like that."
"I imagine I do," he replied with a smile. "It'll grow back by tomorrow," he told her. "That's why I keep it long in the first place."
The dark-haired man sat down on the edge of the bed and took Tarrin's face in both his hands abruptly. Tarrin felt fingers of Sorcery flow into his body, searching, reaching, examining that which could not be seen. This man was a powerful healer, Tarrin realized. Probably one of the Tower's strongest. "There's no permanent damage," he said in a deep voice, a very strong one. Tarrin looked up at him, seeing high-boned features that were very strong and somewhat handsome. He had no beard, and his skin was a strange dark bronze, almost coppery in color. His black hair was done up in a single tail that flowed down his back to peek out from behind his right arm. "I still don't see how you survived."
"I agree," Sevren said ruefully. "No offense, Tarrin, but that Wraith should have killed you with the first blow."
"It can't," Tarrin said absently. "At least, not without hitting me in the right place."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Dolanna explained it to me," he replied. "It's a magical creature. Well, so am I. Because of that, we can hurt each other. That means that I can touch it, and it can't help but touch me."
"Ah," the dark-haired man mused. "So it couldn't put its hand through your body."
"More or less," Tarrin affirmed. "It still hurt like anything, but it saved me from instant death. And I think that's what got me stuck inside the symbol," he added. "Sevren said it was a circle."
"A Warding Circle," Sevren said. "A mystical construction Mages use to protect themselves from their conjured creatures. Magical beings can't cross a Warding Circle's perimeter. I guess it also works on magical creatures that exist in this world to begin with."
"I guess I could get in, but I couldn't get out."
"No, it should have stopped you from entering as well," Sevren said. "There was some kind of spell placed on it that made it dormant until a magical creature went in."
"So, it was a trap," Tarrin said calmly. "I expected as much."
"Well, don't worry about that anymore," the woman sitting on the chair told him. "The Council is taking steps to see that it doesn't happen again."
"No offense, ma'am, but I'll believe that when I see it."
"You missed that part," she told him. "The Ward has already been raised."
"Ward?" Tarrin asked.
"The Ancients placed a tremendous Ward around the Tower, Tarrin," Sevren told him. "It was woven into the fence. When it's raised, it prevents any magic or magical creatures from entering the grounds. It will stop the Wraiths and other magical monsters that have been attacking you. It also totally absorbs any spellcasting on the Grounds that is not Sorcery. If there are any Wizards or Priests here, their magic is useless. Only Sorcery works."
"So you see, young one, you are much safer now," the woman told him. "Without magic, these mysterious enemies will have a much harder time getting to you. And since we've increased the guard on the grounds, it will be that much harder."
The copper-skinned man took his hands away, and Tarrin felt the magic fade from inside him. "You are perfectly healthy," he announced. "You'll be a little weak for a few hours, but that'll pass with a good meal and some rest. I'll have a proper meal sent to you, but in the meantime, no strenuous activity and stay in your room. Allia, stay with him and make sure he doesn't exert himself."
"Yes, Master Koran Dar," Allia said with a flinty look at her friend.
"Now then, we should leave Tarrin to his rest. Come along, Mathilde."
"Yes, Master Koran Dar," the plump woman piped in a voice too shrill for her size.
Koran Dar and Sevren left the room, Sevren giving Tarrin a reassuring pat on the arm and a promise he'd come back later that afternoon to see him. The dark-haired woman gave Tarrin a calm look, then left without a word. Two men that had been standing outside his door quickly entered and picked up the fancy chair, then spirited it out of the room and closed the door behind them. Allia got up from the stool and sat down on the side of the bed, her white hair falling from behind her shoulders as she leaned over him with a stern look on her face. "You about scared me to death!" she told him in Selani.
"I didn't do it on purpose, believe me," he sighed. "Why didn't you come running in there?"
"Because Sevren wouldn't let me," she grunted sourly. "He's strong for such a thin human. He wouldn't let go, even after I threatened to gut him with a dinner spoon."
"He did the right thing, deshaida," he told her. "You wouldn't have been able to help."
"I know, but I can't stand aside idly and watch my brother fight for his life," she said in a voice thick with emotion.
"I love you too, my sister," he smiled, touching her cheek with a furry finger. "How long was I out?"
"Not long," she replied. "Master Koran Dar is a very strong healer."
"I wouldn't notice," he said, "I don't even remember how bad I was hurt."
"It was not pretty, my brother," she told him. "The Wraith hurt you badly. You even lost a couple of fingers."
Tarrin held up both paws and wiggled his fingers with a smile. "You can't keep a good paw down," he said with a chuckle.
"I know, they grew back," she said. "Koran Dar was very surprised."
"Well, at least this way, I didn't lose the whole day," he said thoughtfully.
"How well do you think the Sorcerers can defend you?" Allia asked.
"I'm not really counting on them," Tarrin replied, leaning back some. "I think this magical ward of theirs will slow this Kravon person down, but I doubt it'll stop him."
"Wise," Allia agreed. "Always expect the worst. That prevents nasty surprises."
"There's more we need to talk about," he said.
She nodded in acknowledgement. "You should be able to move about by this afternoon," she said. "As long as you don't push it. We can do it then. For now, how about a nice game of stones?"
Tarrin laughed. "Anxious to put me back out, I see," he said with an impudent grin. "Go ahead and get the board. I can lose a few times before this meal arrives."
They were close to the end of the first game when the meal arrived. It was a large affair that took up four trays, but the smell of the food seemed to break a dam of starvation in his stomach, and he attacked the food with wild abandon. Tarrin seemed to understand that it was the healing that did it, both his own regeneration and the strength-sapping healing that the Sorcerers employed, but that didn't make him any less ravenous. He polished off the entire meal and went back to the game, losing to Allia and then starting a new game. At about noon, Koran Dar entered the room and gave Tarrin an exhaustive examination. Tarrin was starting to get a bit annoyed at the prodding and magical searching inside his body. Koran Dar even opened his mouth and took a look at his teeth. "How often do you bite your tongue?" he asked.
Tarrin blinked in surprise as Koran Dar let go of his lower jaw. "I used to bite it alot," he replied. "Sometimes clear through."
"I noticed," he said. "Those teeth look like they could be painful."
Tarrin unconsciously ran his tongue over his altered teeth. They looked more or less human, except all of them were sharp. They either ended in points, or in sharp ridges along molars. His elongated fang-like incisors were the greatest sign of that part the change had rendered on him. "Not really," he said. "Sure, it hurts, but then it heals over."
"I've been meaning to ask you about something," Koran Dar said. "You grew back fingers that you lost in the battle."
"I know, Master Koran Dar," he said, holding up his hand. "I guess we regenerate lost body parts. I know I can regrow teeth. Allia has knocked some of them out."
The tall, dark-skinned man gave the chocolate-skinned Selani a curious look. She smiled at him and reached under her Initiate shirt, then pulled out a simple leather thong around her neck, that had six teeth hanging upon it. Three of them were obviously Tarrin's fang-like incisors. "Just a reminder to my brother for when he gets stupid," she said with a faint smile.
Koran Dar laughed richly. "You remind me too much of home, Allia," he said with a warm smile.
"If I may ask, where is your home, Master Koran Dar?" she asked. "I have never seen a human that looks quite like you."
"I come from the Southern Continent, Sharadar," he replied. "Actually, from a series of islands off the northeast coast of it."
Tarrin made the connection instantly. "You're an Amazon?"
Koran Dar nodded. "I know, we don't often leave our islands," he said. "I, well, let's just say that I decided to avoid an unpleasant marriage arrangement when I was very young. The ship that granted me passage docked in Den Gauche. I discovered I had the Gift, so I found my way here."
"My father told me stories of the Amazons," Tarrin said. "He said-well, you shouldn't be here."
Koran Dar nodded. "I know. I think I'm the only male Amazon outside of the isles of Amazar." According to his father's stories, the Amazons were a race ruled by female warriors. They were fierce and strong, and they ruled almost fifty islands in a large chain of the northeast coast of Arathorn. Amazon law was that all men were property, even men that made their way to their islands by accident. Men were the submissive sex on the Amazon Isles, though they were by no means weak. Koran Dar was a good example of that. He was tall, very tall, lean and graceful, and the way he moved told Tarrin just how strong the man was. "You should stay in bed for two more hours," he ordered. "Just to give your healing a chance to set. Then you may get up and move about, but no strenuous activity for at least a day."
"Will he be able to take to the training field tomorrow, Master Koran Dar?" Allia asked.
"Fighting? Yes, he should be up for it," he replied. "I think he'll be whole by tomorrow morning. Now then, I have other matters to attend. Be well, both of you."
Allia got up and bowed to him in the Selani manner as he left, then she sat back down on the side of the bed. "Now then, we were about to start another game," she prompted, putting the stones board back on the bed in front of her.
Later that afternoon, after Allia had gone to bathe and eat, Tarrin wandered idly around the gardens. He did so for nearly a half an hour, feigning intense interest in the flowers and trees, making the other visitors lose track of him. Because of who he was, many eyes followed him, both the curious and those who were there to keep their eyes on him. He entered a confined area of small shrub trees bordering a large trellis holding thick climbing vines, then he managed to evade the other garden visitors' line of sight and change form. Now small and inobtrusive, Tarrin slinked easily through the gardens and entered the hedge maze. Allia was probably already there, waiting for him, as they'd agreed upon as they played stones. They didn't come out and say it, cause both of them were aware that someone was probably listening to them. He simply asked her if those roses of hers were still pretty, and she told him that he should go take a look at them. That was all both of them needed. Tarrin didn't trust speaking to her in the manner of the Cat, because if she could understand it with magic, then so could others. He had no doubt that some Sorcerer about knew a spell to make that happen, so it didn't make that method of communication secure.
She was in there. Her scent trail was strong on the ground, and Tarrin used that as his guide to lead him into the center of the maze. It took him only a short time to get into the center courtyard, where Allia was tending the large rose bushes behind the fountain, the fountain which held the statue of the Goddess who had spoken to him. It had been a very long time since he'd been in the courtyard, and the sight of the statue momentarily overwhelmed him with a feeling of warmth and security. Almost as if it emanated from the statue itself. It was as beautiful as he remembered. The statue's marble face was still carrying that utter perfection, that smooth flawlessness. The body was just as perfect and tall and lithe as he remembered, and the statue's hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back in frozen waves, the detail so fine that he could see the individual strands in the tumbling mass. The peacefulness of the courtyard was still there, and it soothed him, welcomed him, made him feel as if, in all the world, this was the one place where he would be safe. The sound of the bubbling of the fountain's water seemed to soothe him, and the faint rustle of the roses and flowers in the courtyard as the wind caressed them made him feel a tug for the wide expanses of the tractless forest.
He changed form absently, adjusting his shirt a bit as Allia turned around at the faint sounds that he made as his large feet slipped across the thick, lush grass at the edge of the courtyard. "You're late," she chided in Selani.
"There were alot of people in the gardens," he shrugged. "It took me a while to find a secluded spot."
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, coming over and sitting on the marble bench before the bubbling fountain.
"A few things, actually," he replied, sitting down beside her. "I guess the first would be-"
There was a faint noise outside the choked-off opening. The sound of branches being moved, very carefully. He stood up instantly and rolled his paw to Allia as he padded towards the opening. "Oops, sorry," he said in false contrition.
"That's alright," she said in a voice that lacked the sudden wariness showing on her face. "I don't think you tore it."
Though he doubted that the eavesdropper could understand the words, he had to be impressed by Allia's ability to think on her feet. He rolled his paw at her again as he approached the opening with one paw out, claws extended. "Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?" she continued.
Tarrin was there. His paw lanced into the ragged wall of irregular branches that choked off the opening of the courtyard, striking like a viper. His claws and fingertips hit the border of a heavy material, and they closed around it. It was the bodice of a dress. He yanked back, dragging the wearer of that bodice through the branches quickly. In a explosion of green and brown, the red dress of an Initiate was yanked into the courtyard, and the wearer of that dress had reddish fur and a tail. Tarrin threw the figure to the ground, where it made a squeak of surprise.
Tarrin looked down into the hot eyes of Keritanima, the yellow orbs blazing up at him as her face screwed up into a near-snarl, showing just a little bit of her formidable canine teeth. "What did you do that for!" she demanded.
"You should know better than that," he shot back at her, reaching a paw down and offering it to her. Allia's eyes were flat and hostile as Tarrin helped the Wikuni to her feet, where she brushed off her red dress and then delicately checked the front of her dress for rips. The neckline was askew, from where Tarrin had grabbed it, showing a considerable amount of fur-clad cleavage.
"I should slap you for putting your hand down my dress!" she barked at him in a tiff, straightening her bodice and then adjusting the plain leather belt around her slim waist. "You don't go pawing a lady! It's impolite."
"So is eavesdropping," Tarrin replied.
"I wasn't eavesdropping," she sniffed. "I was trying to figure out how in blazes you got through there. And I certainly didn't want to get yanked through like a-my, what a lovely statue," she said, her tone going from annoyed to sincerely impressed in a heartbeat.
"Allia, I'd like you to meet Keritanima," he said to his Selani friend. "The real one."
"The Brat Princess is real enough," Keritanima winked. "Pleased to meet you," she said, holding her hand out to Allia as if she expected the Selani to kiss it.
"She is different," Allia said. Allia did nothing to accept that hand, crossing her arms under her breasts and giving the Wikuni a strong look of distrust.
Tarrin nodded. "She screwed up her act and I figured it out," he said, to which Keritanima sniffed disdainfully. "I promised to keep her little secret. I was going to tell you about it, so you didn't kill her in a pique."
"I doubt she'd have gone that far," Keritanima said calmly.
"I beg to differ," Allia said with steady eyes. "I came close to doing it five times during the morning."
"Well, then I guess I'm doing something right," the Wikuni grinned toothily. "I see they Healed you all up, Tarrin. Are you feeling alright?"
"Good enough," he said.
"What are we going to do with her now?" Allia asked Tarrin in Selani.
"You won't do anything with me, oneshai," Keritanima replied sternly in flawless Selani, using the Selani term for "near-stranger", which was a term to use with business associates and distant acquaintances.
Allia gaped at her, and Tarrin chuckled ruefully. "Where did you learn that?"
"As a Princess, I'm expected to know all the languages of the peoples that we trade with," she said in an annoyed tone. "You have no idea how many people we trade with," she said in exasperation. "I still haven't learned them all. It's a frightful bore."
"I didn't know that the Wikuni trade with the Selani," Tarrin said.
"I did not either," Allia admitted.
"We trade with the Bloodwater Clan," she replied. "They're the only ones that come close enough to the ocean for us to see. We saw them about three hundred years ago, worked out a couple of trade pacts, and everyone's happy. There's quite a market for Selani koufa fiber." Koufa was the plant fiber that the Selani used to make their incredible clothing. It was very tough, and very light. It kept the wearer warm when it was cold, and cool when it was hot. It wouldn't accept dye, so all of the Selani clothing was the same colors, the colors of different types of koufa plants. But those colors were white, brown, and a beige that was almost the exact color of sand, which was perfect camoflauge in the desert.
"Ah," Allia said. "We don't have contact with that Clan. They're too far south."
"Then there you go," she said, walking away from them and sitting down sedately on the bench. Her bushy fox tail swept back and forth a few times, then settled to a stop behind her.
"How did you find us?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"You're not the only one with a nose," she told him with a wink. "Unlike most of the Wikuni, I have the senses of the animal as well as the looks. Both of you have very distinct scents, and neither of you did anything to hide your trail."
"Now what?" Allia asked Tarrin quietly.
"Now, we talk," Keritanima replied for him, patting the stone bench beside her impatiently.
"About what?"
"About why it seems so odd that I find a Selani and a Were-cat in the Initiate at the same time as myself, when the Tower hasn't had a Non-human in the Initiate since before the Breaking."
That got Tarrin's attention. Then again, he realized that Keritanima was a High Princess, someone that, being used to political intrigue, would quickly see the oddities. He nodded to Allia, and they sat down on the bench beside Keritanima's after Tarrin moved it so they could face each other. Tarrin gave the amber-eyed Wikuni a calm look. "I've been curious about the same thing," he said. "So I've decided to find out what's going on. Since it seems to involve Allia, and now you, I think we should pool our knowledge and see if we can't work out some ideas."
"Well, you've been here longer than me, so give me some background. I can't work on something if I don't know anything about it."
Tarrin and Allia then took turns telling the Wikuni about what they knew. About the inordinate attention they'd been receiving, about the Keeper's gift to Tarrin of the amulet, and how it wouldn't come off, and about the multiple attacks by the mysterious unseen enemy. Tarrin stressed that, at first, he thought that he was the target, then realized later that Allia had been present during all of them but one. Two, now. Tarrin told her about the conversations he'd had with the Keeper, about his mistrust of her, and her reactions when he gave her Kravon's name and with certain other things. Then he went back to the attacks. Although they wanted Tarrin dead, it was obvious that Allia was also on that list. And because Keritanima was also a Non-human in the Initiate, a non-human that could do Sorcery, that put her at possible risk as well.
"Now that you say that, I have to admit that what happened to us coming here makes sense," she said.
"What?" Tarrin asked.
"We were attacked six times by Zakkite ships," she said. "The Zakkites dwell on the southern continent of Valkar. They have a mighty navy, and they try to rule the twenty seas through force. The Wikuni have been at war with them for generations. We were attacked six times by sizable groups of Zakkite ships. Each time, they specifically came after my ship. After the first time, my ship was put at the center of the formation, I was transferred to another vessel, and more ships were called from Wikuna. And that didn't help, because they came after my ship the next time, and the next. Almost as if they had a spy in our fleet."
"I don't think that's coincidence, but I don't see how some kingdom across the sea could be connected with what happened to us," Tarrin said dubiously.
"If this Kravon fellow has the magic to send Trolls and Wraiths after you, then I don't see why he couldn't contact the Zakkites and tell them where I was, then pay them to try to sink me."
"A bit far fetched, but possible," Allia agreed.
"Far fetched works in politics," Keritanima shrugged. "The more distance you can put between you and a murder, the less chance it comes back to you. Alright then, I think we can say with some certainty that there is an attempt to get us-all three of us-out of the way. We know what is going on. We know, at least partially, who is to blame. This Kravon fellow you mention. Now we need to find out the other three questions: how, when, and most importanly, why." She got up from her bench and began to pace, her hands clasped behind her back, her furry brows lowered in thought. "You say that the Keeper wasn't surprised about you finding out this name, and you said that you think that the Keeper may know what's going on. So, we may be able to found out the why of it from her. The Keeper's been around a while, so that's not going to be easy. Any information she has is likely to be very hard to find, and what we can find will probably be defended."
"I came up with the same things," Tarrin sighed.
Keritanima gave him a grin. "I think I could make something of you, Tarrin," she said. "You made the right conclusions. But the Keeper isn't the whole Tower," she said. "The Council may also have some information laying around that we can use. I don't doubt that the Keeper either told them what's going on, or had to talk very fast with them in order to keep them in line. After all, I heard that it's going to take all of them to raise this Ward that's supposed to help protect us from the attacks."
"I don't understand how that gives the Council answers," Allia said.
"It's quite simple, Allia," she replied. "The Council will obviously want a reason for why they have to put out so much effort. When the Keeper says it's for Tarrin's protection, the next logical question is 'who wants to kill him?' Well, for her to answer that, she'll either be giving them information that we need, or lying to them in order to secure their cooperation. Either way, it's information we'll want to know. If she gave them answers, then that's information that we can use. If she lied to them, we can use that too."
"How?" Tarrin asked.
"Any number of ways," she said, turning to them and holding out her hand. "One," she said, ticking a finger. "Leverage. We could use that information against the Keeper as a threat. Two." She ticked another finger. "The very lies she tells may be useful to us, just for what she says. The best lie is a lie that is sweetened with truth. Sometimes those small truths can be added up together to form part of a real answer. Three." She ticked another finger. "If she's lying then it's something that she doesn't want her council to know, or she doesn't trust them. Either way, we'll know where to look for the information that we need. Knowing why she lied may be useful itself. Four." She ticked her last finger, keeping her thumb tucked against her palm. Tarrin noticed that she had a pad on her palm, and her fingers, the same way he did. "If we know what those lies are, we can build on them ourselves in order to further our own interests. All it takes is a little bit of creative thinking."
Tarrin was impressed. This was something at which the politically versed Keritanima excelled. "You certainly don't seem like the Brat Princess right now," he laughed.
She grinned at him. "I have no idea why I told you. I could have easily lied my way out of it. I guess I trust you or something, which is a first."
Or something, an impish voice called in his mind for the briefest of moments, and then it was gone. Tarrin smiled to himself, both relieved and excited. So his memories of that weren't dreams, or nightmares. "I must say, I like this version of Keritanima much better than the old," Allia added. "Your screams hurt my ears."
"I practiced a long time to get them that way," she said with a laugh. "You have no idea how much work it was for me to perfect that."
"Why?" Tarrin asked. "Why all this deception?"
"Protection," she said with a sigh and a defensive tightening around her eyes. "I have three sisters behind me, any of which would gladly plant a dagger in my back at the first available opportunity. And that doesn't take into account the army of greater and lesser nobles, all of which view my untimely demise as an event worthy of a celebration. Because they all think I'm a scatterbrained wastrel with no thoughts for anything but pretty dresses and jewels, they constantly underestimate me. It's what keeps me alive." She sat down again. "To be very honest, I don't want the throne. I'd be much happier anywhere else. But whoever does take the throne after my father dies will track me down and have me killed, because I'll be a direct challenge to her power. I could decide ten years down the road that I wanted the throne, and law would demand that she step aside in my favor. There's no law for abdication in our country. I can't just say 'I don't want the throne' and expect to be left alone. I learned that when I was about seven years old. And that was when the Brat Princess was born. The only reason I'm still alive is because Jenawalani, Veranika, and Luralalena think that the only reason I'm still alive is blind luck."
Allia gave the Wikuni a compassionate look, and Tarrin took her hand in his paw. "It must have been awful," he said quietly.
"Yes, well, one learns how to stay alive," she said with a sniffle. "I spent my childhood learning how to convice people that my idea of a serious decision was whether to wear a silk gown or a satin one. Sometimes people found out, and then I'd have to have them killed. That happened quite a bit as I was starting out, and still learning." Tarrin shuddered at the calm, matter-of-factness in her voice. But he realized that he was probably no better. He too would kill without mercy to protect himself. "I've made it this far," she said with a wan smile. "I've just got to live long enough, which isn't very easy. Unfortunately, my game against my sisters has convinced most of the nobles that I'll be an absolute disaster as a Queen, so they've decided that Jenawalani, the next oldest, is a much better choice for the Diamond Throne. When I'm not disrupting the scheming of my sisters, I'm dodging the assassins hired by the nobles. After I take the throne, I can have my sisters exiled, so they'd have a great deal of trouble getting me killed. I won't like being Queen much, but it's the throne or the grave. And I'm not too happy about either choice."
"Why not leave?" Allia asked.
She laughed. "I have, several times. It looked like it was just an immature fit over not getting my way, but each of them were serious attempts. You have no idea how far my father's arm can reach. If I want to get away, I have to literally convince him that I'm dead. But that's another matter," she said crisply, getting control of herself again. "We have more important matters to handle here than my sordid past. The problem is, we can't tackle them right at the moment."
"I take it you want time to think about it?" Tarrin asked.
She nodded. "This is pretty complex, and besides, I haven't really had time to settle in yet. I need to identify the agents that both the Tower and my father have watching me, so I'll know who to misdirect when the time comes to start getting serious. That, and the Brat Princess can be very useful in gathering information. You wouldn't believe how talkative some people can get when they think that you have no idea what they're talking about." She chuckled to herself, then cleared her throat. "We'll just have to wait for a while, until we've had time to come up with some ideas about how to go about this, and I've managed to gather up some information. In the meantime, we go on as if this conversation never happened," she told them. "That means that once we leave here, I'll be the Brat Princess again."
"I understand," Allia said. "I'll do my best not to kill you."
Keritanima laughed. "I appreciate that," she drawled. "You can hit, just be gentle."
"I can knock you down without so much as mussing your fur, shaida," Allia smiled.
Keritanima all but glowed. "And may I call you shaida?" she asked in a strangely formal, tentative voice. As if she was afraid of the answer.
"I would be honored," Allia returned, standing up and putting her hand on Keritanima's cheek. Keritanima gave her a shy smile, then blinked. "Uh, I have to go. They'll be looking for me soon, and I can only say I was lost in the gardens for so long before it becomes illogical."
"Alright," Tarrin said, standing up. "How will we tell you-"
"I'm a fast learner," she said. "Isn't that such a lovely statue?" she asked, staring at it again. "And look, roses. They're so thick and well tended. By the way, I'm pretty sure that they'll be following me, watching me, writing down everything I say, and probably inspecting my dirty shifts. I think you two should expect the same kind of treatment, so be very careful. The only reason I've gone against my every instinct about speaking frankly in an open area is because the place seems to be very well hidden, and it's too soon for them to really set up their eavesdropping network."
"It is," Tarrin agreed.
"This is the only place where we can talk freely," Allia added.
"Good. Now, just for my own sanity, please keep my indignities to a relatively low level," she grinned. "The Brat Princess is afraid of Tarrin, and of you, but that makes her angry, so she'll overcome it eventually and start in on you. You'll have to chastise me occasionally, but please keep it to a level where they don't have to call in a healer. What Tarrin did to me keeps him off of my list for almost a good month," she grinned.
"What did you do to her?" Allia asked.
"I didn't tell you?" She shook her head. "Huh. I threw her into the bathing pool."
"So? That doesn't seem so frightening."
"He threw me into the hot end," she shuddered. "And threatened to kill me if I bothered him again."
Allia laughed. "Yes, I can see how that would be memorable. That water gets hot towards the far end."
"I think it boiled some of the fur off my tail," she said absently, bringing her tail around and stroking the fur meticulously. "Anyway, let's concentrate on ideas about how to solve these problems. And I think we should start making plans for leaving."
"Why?"
"A wise person always plans for the worst," she told them. "If the answers we get upset us that much, or we find out that they just wanted us to sacrifice us on some altar or something, we may decide that we like it better somewhere else. One thing that we should keep in mind is that, when we leave, the Tower will come after us. So we should learn everything we can about Sorcery. It may be useful."
"So, you're saying that for now, we should concentrate on Sorcery."
"More or less," she agreed. "We still have the problems to solve, though, so keep part of your mind on that problem. I have to go," she said quickly. "They'll be looking for me, and probably for you two as well. Give me about ten minutes, then you may want to drift out yourselves. I think we can set up another meeting relatively easily," she smiled.
He nodded. "Be careful, shaida," Allia told her.
"I'm always careful," she said quickly, then she flashed Allia and Tarrin that toothy grin. "Can I leave on my own, or do you want to boot me over the top this time?" she asked Tarrin.
Tarrin laughed. "I think you can find the way out," he told her.
"I'm so glad," she grinned, then she turned and threaded her way through the choking branches. Tarrin noticed that she did so without so much as shivering the leaves.
"An interesting woman," Allia said after she was gone. "She has a great deal of anger, and pain."
"I can imagine, growing up being afraid of your own sisters," he sighed. "I couldn't imagine Jenna trying to kill me."
"She's strong, though," Allia said, tapping her cheek with a long, delicate finger. "And full of surprises. She had me totally fooled."
"Yes, but I think she fools everyone, deshida. She had me fooled, until she slipped up."
"I think we're lucky that she trusts us with her secret, and that she agrees about what you had to say."
"I'm sorry I didn't discuss it with you first, my sister-"
"You didn't have time, my brother," she cut him off, putting her hand on his arm. "I realized that this is what you wanted to talk to me about. Well, you did so, with Keritanima here too."
Tarrin chuckled. "She certainly took us in hand," he said ruefully. "I almost feel used."
Allia laughed. "She was just taking command of a situation she could easily understand," she told him. "That, and no matter what she says, she is a Princess. Even the intelligent Keritanima is used to being obeyed. We may have to break her of that."
"Now that, I'll pay to see," Tarrin grinned at Allia.
"You may be doing the breaking," she pointed out.
"Then it won't cost me that much," he said. They waited in silence for a few moments. "Go ahead and drift out, my sister. I'm going to sneak out the other way."
"Alright. Be careful, deshaida."
"You too, deshida." Tarrin changed form, looked up at his now-gigantic friend, then slinked through the choking wall of branches and then wormed through a small hole in the shrub wall on the far side of the verdant passageway.
The night was a long one, surprisingly cold for so early in autumn, as Tarrin mulled over what Keritanima had to say. It was brief, but it made alot of sense. So did her request to slow things down. She had just gotten here, after all, and needed some time to settle in and get comfortable, but just knowing that she was going to be there to help was a tremendous relief. He felt much better about what he needed to do, knowing that she was very, very good at this kind of thing. After he woke up, some goodly time before dawn, he realized that nobody had told him what he was supposed to do. His injury the day before had cut him out of the rest of Sevren's lecture and tour, and had probably ended it outright, but he hadn't been told where to be today. He decided that asking Master Brel where he was supposed to go at sunrise.
He and Allia were up well before dawn, and after a long bath, they handled breakfast. Allia didn't know where he was supposed to go either, for she was supposed to meet a Mistress Jandi at a tutoring room in the main Tower, one of the places that Tarrin didn't see. They parted in the Initiate's dining room, and Tarrin returned to the North Tower to ask Master Brel what he was supposed to do.
As he reached the door of the Master of Initiates, a familiar scent touched his nose. It was Dolanna, and it was only minutes old. He quickly followed the trail, turned a corner, and found the diminutive, dark-haired woman standing calmly in front of his door. She wore a simple blue dress of heavy silk, protection against the biting chill of the morning, and a wool cloak of a similar blue. Her hair was done up in a series of curling loops that hung from the back of her head, from a silver coronet-like adornment. Her dark eyes were warm and friendly as she saw him turn the corner, and she raised a hand to him with a smile. "Tarrin," she said warmly as Tarrin smiled and took her small hand. "I heard about your battle yesterday. Are you well?"
"I'm fine, Dolanna," he told her. "Are you here to see me?"
She nodded with a smile. "Yes, today is your first day of instruction," she told him. "For obvious reasons, they decided that I would be the best to begin your education."
"Well, I'm so glad that they worry about my well being," he said dryly. "Would you like to come in?"
"No, we will go to the tutoring rooms," she told him. "Come with me."
They spoke in low tones as they travelled from his room to the main Tower, as Dolanna inquired about his time away from the Tower, and how he felt after his fight the day before. She didn't speak of anything important, but the calm, cool looks she gave him, which were somewhat out of her character, convinced him that she knew that they were being watched. He played along with her, being polite and using the proper terms of respect, even though his warm smile told her that he didn't feel any differently to her than he did before he got to the Tower. In many ways, Dolanna had saved his life, over and over. He had a very special affection for the small dark-haired woman, thinking of her almost as a mother, and he was one of only three people in the Tower he trusted with his life.
The room she led him to was a very small one, that was not illuminated with a glowglobe. Instead, three candles burned in a small candelabra that stood on a small table on the far side of the room. Before it stood a small table and two chairs, each facing the other. The dim confines of the room were a stark contrast to most of the rest of the Tower, which was known for its bright glowglobes and large rooms. There was no carpet on the stone floor, nor were there any decorations covering the slate-gray stone of the walls. "Sit down," she told him as she closed the door. He did so, and she took the seat on the far side of the table. She affixed him with a warm smile. "Now then, I am certain that you are wondering why you will learn in a room like this," she smiled.
"I did notice that this place is a bit different," he said.
"There are reasons. The glowglobes tend to distract Initiates as they practice, and the room has nothing in it other than what needs to be here. That prevents accidents. Remember when I declined to teach you about Sorcery as we travelled?" He nodded. "I did that because it was necessary. We do not allow those with the Gift to come here with any sort of prior knowledge, because your first impressions of your power are very, very important. You must be allowed to explore your connection to the Weave in a way that lets you form your own opinions, else you will always be shackled by your own preconceptions."
"I don't understand," he said.
"In simple terms, dear one, you must come here with an open mind," she told him. "In reality, at first, I will not be teaching you. I will only show you how to come into touch with your power, and then explain the sensations you feel and the things that you see. It is very much a personal process, and it differs slightly from Sorcerer to Sorcerer."
"Oh," he said. "So, if I read a book about a Sorcerer and how he does his magic, I'd always remember that," he said.
She nodded. "And if his techniques were incompatible with your power, it would seriously hamstring your ability." She patted his paw fondly. "Now then, let us begin."
For almost the entire day, Tarrin did nothing but learn mental exercises. He learned techniques to clear his mind of unnecessary thought, and techniques to create calm when emotion threatened to overwhelm him. That, he was told, was important, for the first real taste of the Gift often terrified the Initiate. The trick to gain center, as he called it, he already knew. His father taught him that for archery, and it was a part of his mother's fighting training. It was also very important in the Selani style. To be one with the opponent. Not to be distracted by unnecessary thoughts, not to let fear rule the mind. Tarrin discovered that Dolanna's techniques were somewhat different, and they were also very effective. By the early afternoon, after a short break for lunch, he had gained proficiency in her techniques, and she moved on to the next stage.
"Very good," she said as he leaned back in his chair. "Now then, to show you exactly what you'll be doing." She made a gesture, and he felt that peculiar sensation of drawing in. Then several opaque strands of some sort of wispy material slowly faded into view. Two of them came from the ceiling, one from the floor, and the other three from the walls. They crisscrossed the room in seemingly random patterns, but two of them intersected. Where they touched, a tiny ball rested. The strands were white, and they varied in size. One of them was as thin as a grass stalk. One was as thick around as his wrist. They weren't straight either. He noticed that one of them had a definite curve, and the two that connected were bowed towards each other where the ball of intersection rested. The other three were arrow-straight. Tarrin turned in his chair to follow one of them out of the room with his eyes, seeing it disappear into the wall leading into the hallway. "This, dear one, is the Weave," she said in a grand voice. "This is the source of our power. It is what we use in order to create our magic."
"Strings and ropes?" Tarrin asked. "What are they?"
"They are magic, dear one," she said. "Pure magic. They are called strands. They are all connected together in a a great matrix which covers our world. This is the magical conduit through which all magic travels, even the magic of the other orders. Think of them as strands in a spider's web so vast that it cannot be seen by only one person." Dolanna pointed at one that ran beside them, and Tarrin watched as it seemed to unravel before his eyes. Six smaller strands pulled away from the white core, each smaller strand carrying a color. Red, yellow, orange, blue, violet, and indigo. "Do you recognize those?" she asked.
"Yes, they're the six spheres," he replied in wonder. "Where's the seventh one?"
"I cannot draw that sphere out," she told him. "In fact, no one person can. It requires Ritual Sorcery."
"Why?"
"We will explore the why of it later, dear one," she told him. "You have much to learn before we reach that point. Each strand is made up of the seven spheres. They are jumbled all together, and the presence of all of them are what makes the strands what they are. You can see that the six smaller strands, which we call flows, are connected to the strand from which they were drawn." She made a pointing gesture, and the red flow extended across the room and connected to another strand near the wall, then it separated from the original strand from which it had been pulled. "A flow usually cannot exist unless it is anchored to a strand, but, as you can see, you can transfer a flow from one strand to another."
"Did that one lose its red?"
"No, dear one," she said, having the red extend out again. "Not all the Sorcerers alive have enough power to totally deprive a strand of one flow. I only borrowed the tiniest fraction of the flow from the strand, and it will get that back, because this strand is connected to that strand within the great web of the Weave," she pointed to the two strands she had affected in turn. "There are ways to make a flow stand alone, but we will get into that after you learn the basics. Each flow is independent and unique," she continued, as the red flow and the blue one extended. They touched, even wrapped around themselves, but they didn't join. "They are like oil and water. They will not mix with flows from other spheres. But flows from like spheres will merge," she said. Another red string flowed out from a different strand, and the instant it touched the first one, they joined. The extra bits at the ends of each one simply vanished, and the now-single red flow formed a straight line between the two strands.
"As you can see, strands are not all the same size. This strand, which is small," she pointed, "is no less powerful than that strand, which is large." She pointed to the wrist-thick strand. "But they are different in how fast you can pull the flows from them, and the power that those flows can hold. It is much like having a bottle and a bucket, both full of water. You can draw the water out of the bottle, but it pours much more slowly than you can get the water from the bucket."
"Ah, so I can't draw out magic as fast from the little one as I can from the big one?"
She nodded. "Most Sorcerers do not just draw from one strand, even a larger one," she told him. "We draw flows from all of them around us, all at once. To draw from just one strand would make even the tiniest magical task take hours."
"So, how do you make these little magic ropes make things catch fire?" he asked.
She smiled. "Ever to the point. I have missed you, dear one." She lifted her hand with her palm up, and Tarrin saw little red flows streak out from the strands in the room, and into her. Then he saw red strands flicker from her hands and form into a reddish ball of something in her hand, and then a small lick of flame appeared in her cupped palm. Tarrin saw that the lick of fire was still connected to the strand with tendrils of red, tendrils that danced like smoke in a gentle breeze. "Doing our magic is not quite as easy as most believe," she said. "It requires two very different steps. First, you draw in the magical energy from the Weave. Then, once you have it, you weave the flows you have drawn into a specific effect. This weave," she held up the small lick of fire, "is very easy to create, for it is only one flow. You can see the flows that tie it to the Weave, which continue to fuel its power. If I cut off that flow of energy-" the tendrils vanished, and then the lick of fire winked out-"the weave is disrupted, and it disappears. Other weaves require many flows used together in order to function, such as Healing. That is a combination of Fire, Water, Earth, and Divine power. They can get very, very complex."
Tarrin leaned back in his chair and thought about it a minute. "So you draw in the magic, then while it's inside you, you put it together in a way that makes something happen, and then you just let it go?"
"Generally speaking, yes, dear one," she replied. "We generalize the process at first, but that is the core of what we do."
"It seems easy."
"It is easy," she said, "if you know what you are doing. Some, like you and your sister, have enough raw potential to seem to be able to use your power unconsciously."
"Hold on," he said. "You said the magic is all in this Weave, right?" She nodded. "Then what makes me any different from anyone else? Everyone keeps saying how much potential I have, but how does it make me different? I mean, if the magic is all outside, why are Sorcerers not equally powerful?"
"A very good question," she said with a smile. "There are several answers. A great deal of a Sorcerer's potential depends on three things. How closely he is tied to the Weave, how much power he can hold, and how much he can safely manipulate. Two of those aspects change with experience. One does not. As a Sorcerer learns more about the Weave, and practices, it brings that Sorcerer in a more intimate contact with the Weave. That Sorcerer can draw energy from it faster, from a wider area, can weave flows together quicker, and can even directly affect the Weave without drawing in. The amount of power a Sorcerer can manipulate also increases over time, as he grows into closer contact with the power that he is controlling. But the amount of power that a Sorcerer can hold, the raw amount of energy that he can safely build up inside, never changes. That is purely an aspect of the person. Some magical weaves require vast amounts of power to be woven correctly and have them work. Those weaves the Sorcerer can learn, but if he was to try to use them, they would kill him. His body would simply burn up trying to contain more power than it can withstand." She shuddered. "That is probably the greatest danger you face as you learn. We call it being Consumed, and it is a ghastly way to die. You are destroyed from the inside out, and nothing, not anything, can stop it once it begins. Those lucky ones that realize what is happening kill themselves before it overwhelms their reason." She patted his hand. "Anyway, what makes you so strong is just that. You have awesome potential, Tarrin. You can hold more power than four Sorcerers linked."
"That still doesn't make much sense," he said dubiously. "I mean, if you can never do some things-"
"I did not say never," she smiled. "There are some very advanced techniques we can learn to allow us to weave spells beyond our natural ability to create. Channeling is the most common. But we still cannot exceed that very basic limitation that our own bodies place upon us, and many of our techniques only allow us to step just so far above that natural limitation."
"Oh, alright," he said. "That makes sense. No, wait. If you draw the magic inside you, and then you weave it together and release it, then why didn't the strands come out of you when you unravelled that strand over there?"
She laughed lightly. "My dear one, you make this so easy. You see immediately what I must work to make others understand. Remember when I said that one part of the Weave is connected to all others?" He nodded. "I become a doorway of sorts, dear one. The power I draw in is a direct proportion to the power of the Weave that I can directly affect. When I draw a flow into me and build up its energy, I can release that energy wherever I choose. Magic is a very simple power, Tarrin. It will follow the path of least resistance. If the place I choose is closer to another strand than it is to me, the magic will travel to that strand and then push out the flows to that point." She reached up a hand and put it through the strand over her head. "When we draw in our power, when we touch the Weave, we become a living part of it," she told him. "The flows that draw from the Weave and enter me also connect me to the Weave, and magic will flow much easier through flows and strands than it will across empty air. Almost always, you will see weaves extend from strands to the point of effect. That energy must flow through me and to that place, and if it a shorter distance from that place to a nearby strand, then that is the path that the energy will take."
"Why do you have to build up power, when it's already there?" he asked.
"How do you mean?"
"You say that you build up power inside you, then it leaves you and then goes where you tell it to go. Then you weave that power together and form a spell. Why not just try to weave it together over there in the first place? That way, you don't have to draw anything in."
"A thought, but it will not quite work, dear one. When I weave together flows somewhere else, I'm trying to affect the magic over there with the magical power I have inside me. In effect, I'm pushing a line of blocks, trying to get the end block to fall off the edge of a table. By pushing at this end, I can make the block on the far end fall off the table. The Weave measures the power I have inside me against the weave I'm trying to build, and if it is enough, I can push out that energy and weave it together to do what I want it to do. I cannot push any more power into the Weave than what I currently hold, so, to again put it in terms of water, the water I carry in a bucket cannot fill up a barrel. If the weave I am trying to build requires a barrel of water, it will not work. If it only requires a bucket, it will work. If it only requires a glass of water, and I try to fill it with a bucket of water-"
"It overflows."
She shook her head. "It never gets the chance to overflow. Because the weave is triggered once it has enough power and I weave it together, the excess energy has nothing to do, and it is disspated through the Weave. The proper term is that it is absorbed by the Weave."
"So…to stay on the water, it's like filling a glass over a waterfall," he said. "The water that flows over the glass just drops back into the stream."
"Precisely," she said with an approving nod. "You do suffer a bit of a backlash, because that power partially rebounds back into you. It is not pleasant, so you learn quickly not to try to put more magic into a weave than it can safely hold."
"Safely?"
She chuckled. "Yes. If you charge a weave's flows without weaving them together and allowing them to expend the energy you charge into them, they can release that energy in totally random ways. It is called a wildstrike, and the effects can be spectacular. The power of the Weave itself can blow through a ruptured flow, like a torrent of water blasting from a hole in a dam. That is one of the reasons this room is so bare. And these walls are sufficiently reinforced by magical wards and physical buttressing."
"And that's the danger you warned me about," he surmised.
"One of them, yes," she said. "Toying with Sorcery without experience or guidance can be deadly.
"You seem to understand the generalities of weaving flows, but there are some restrictions of which you must be aware. There are only three true strictures when it comes to weaving flows, Tarrin," she said. "Firstly, you cannot weave where you cannot see. That is our range. While you can weave some flows without seeing what you are doing, and indeed there are many that must be woven inside objects, where you cannot see what you do, but you cannot direct them at anyone or anything unless you can see it. You cannot weave flows trying to paralyze someone on the far side of a closed door, nor can you weave in the dark unless you can see your target's location. You do not necessarily have to see his face or form, but you must be able to see enough of him to know where he is. But no matter what, you cannot create flows at great distances, whether you know someone is there or not. The reason for this is complex, but it comes down to perspective. Since you are 'seeing' the flows woven together, it means that flows that are exceptionally tiny are impossible to create. People at great distances appear tiny, so to affect them from such a distance means that, in relation, you are trying to weave flows in a tight space."
"In other words, Dolanna, accuracy is dictated by distance. The farther away a target is, the harder it is to hit it. And once something is outside of bowshot, you just can't get anything there. It always falls short."
"More or less, though it is a bit more complex than that," she agreed. "Secondly. Flows exist in a state of partial independence from the Weave, and from other flows from different sphere, but they actively merge with flows of the same sphere. Once they are drawn from a strand, you cannot use other flows to try to affect them without considrable danger. In effect, you cannot mop up water with more water. There are indirect ways to do this, however. You can unravel another Sorcerer's weaving by trying to control his flows directly, or attack the Sorcerer directly with Sorcery to make him stop, or attempt to cut that Sorcerer off from the Weave, but you could not send flows out to untie his flows. If you do, the like flows simply merge, you get a tangled mess, and it often explodes as a wildstrike. Thirdly. Because the flows cannot affect flows, and like flows merge and disrupt themselves, that means that we cannot weave flows upon ourselves. When we are weaving, we are living extensions of the Weave, but we are only filled with certain flows, and the flows of the weave we are creating interfere with the power of the flows we are holding inside. We cannot heal ourselves, or weave any weaves that would affect ourselves. The flows merely enter us, touch the power within of the same sphere, then rush out down the flow and go back to the strand. We lose the power from inside, which takes away our ability to push it against the weave, and then it simply fizzles out. Fortunately, any attempt to weave flows on ourselves simply fizzle, and do not form wildstrikes. That prohibition starts at your skin and goes inward. It also means that you cannot weave any weaves against or for another Sorcerer who is actively in contact with the Weave. But mind you, that means those weaves that affect the Sorcerer's body directly. Sorcerer's Fire can burn a Sorcerer just as quickly as it can burn anyone else, because it is an external effect that comes into contact with that Sorcerer."
"What would happen if you try? Wouldn't it kind of ruin his spell?"
Dolanna smile broadly. "Yes and no," she told him. "The energy you are exerting against him is pushing towards him. Once it comes into contact with him, it comes down to who is stronger. If the attacker is more powerful than the target, he can reverse the energy of the flow and drain off any energy inside him, or he can pump power into the victim, exceed his ability to hold it, and force him to release his touch on the Weave in order to avoid being Consumed. If the target is more powerful, then he can block off that flow, literally drawing in so strongly that the attacker cannot overcome the force. Or he can simply allow the attacker to feed him that power without drawing in. If the target can hold more than the attacker, then the attacker could never force the target to let go of the Weave. Either form weakens the target's ability to weave flows, for he must dedicate a portion of his attention and his power to controlling the attacker's energy, but it cannot stop him."
"Then why can't a Sorcerer do weaves on himself?" he pressed. "All he has to do is resist his own attempt to drain, or feed off of the power he's trying to push into himself."
"Ah, but in both instances, there is a catch," she told him. "If you try to feed off of the power you channel into yourself, then what happens when you stop drawing from the Weave?"
"You-ohh," he said. "You cut off your own power, and then your spell fizzles."
"Precisely. No matter how you try to balance the feeding with the restraining, they will always cancel one another."
"What if you only try to feed off of a little of your energy?"
"What indeed? You should already know the answer, dear one."
He thought about it a long moment. "I guess you can't," he said. "If you try to feed off of only a portion of the energy, you're working harder to feed yourself a little bit of power that you get back. So you have to make it stronger, which makes you have to cut back on drawing power, but you can't do that, because if you do you lose that power to make weaves. You could never put enough power into it to make it work."
"A bit long winded, but essentially correct, Tarrin," she commended. "No matter how you try to balance it, you cannot get back more energy than what you are expending on yourself. To be absolutely technical, you can weave spells on yourself using this technique, but the flow of power would be like a slow drip of water trying to fill up the bathing pool. You would grow a span of hair by the time the weave showed any signs of effect. And since it is a sustained process, you would exhaust yourself and have to stop long before you so much as dampened the pool's bottom."
Tarrin laughed. "I guess that make it a bit inefficient."
"The draining aspect is just a little bit more difficult to understand. When you try to drain from yourself, you are reversing the energy flow through the strand, but you are still expending that energy to enact the drain. Remember when you asked me about trying to overcharge a weave? Where does that energy go?"
"Well," he said, thinking about a moment. Then he thought about it some more. "Doesn't it dissipate back into the Weave?"
"Yes, that is what happens. You do not get that energy back. It disspates into the Weave. Think about it, dear one. You are expending energy to drain energy away from yourself. You lose that energy, and then must replace it with more energy, which is used to try to drain away that same energy. You are pushing and pulling on something at the same time, and when you do that, it does not move. The harder you push, the harder the counter will pull. And all the while, you are drawing more and more energy that is doing nothing but making you draw more energy. It is a feedback cycle that causes you to eventually let go of the Weave to avoid injuring yourself."
"Oh, I see," he said.
"That is not an absolute, Tarrin. There are certain instances when a Sorcerer can weave flows on himself, and that is when he is holding power from all seven Spheres. When he, in effect, becomes a strand rather than a flow. And that can only be done using Ritual Sorcery, because the sphere of Confluence, or green, will only draw out under extreme magical power. To even be able to touch Confluence takes considerable power."
"I take it you don't know why that works that way either?"
"Not yet," she smiled.
"I have a question."
"Go ahead, dear one."
"You said that flows can't affect each other. Well then, how do weaves with more than one flow produce an effect? I mean, they can't affect each other."
She laughed. "You are making me work, dear one," she chided, "but you ask very insightful questions. Each flow cannot affect each other, but they can affect the energies that each one releases. The way a weave is woven together is critical to the working of the weave. The weaving dictates how, when, and at what strengths the energies of individual flows are released, and that very intricate process is what welds those energies together to form a specific effect." She raised her hand again, and he saw two flows, red and yellow, flow out of a strand and merge over her hand. This time, the merging was very slow, unlike the first time, and he saw the specific way that the flows were tied in with each other. Then the flows generated an effect, a small ball of pale white light that hovered over her palm, fed by two separate tendrils that linked it back to the strand. Those two tendrils drifted towards each other, touched, then wrapped around each other to form a twisted cord of sorts, although each tendril was most definitely separate. Just like the strands in a rope were individual cords woven together to form a larger one. "Do you see?"
"Yes," he said, studying it.
"That is a common effect. Separate flows that feed the same weave do that. Again, we do not know exactly why."
"So, you're feeding it energy?"
"Yes. Instead of constantly drawing it in and then releasing it, now I am a gate. The energy flows through me and into the weave. It is feeding itself, but I regulate that power. If I cease concentrating on it, the gate closes-" the little ball vanished-"and the weave dissipates."
"That's what you were talking about when you were saying how a Sorcerer can manipulate energy."
"Yes and no," she said. "The ability to sustain a weave is a learned ability yes, and it is an aspect of that ability to manipulate. Yet it is still dependent on the amount of power you can hold. You cannot sustain a weave that you could not create in the first place. It is easier to sustain a weave than it is to create it, because it does not involve an active use of power, but you had to create it first."
"Can you sustain one weave and then make another?"
"Yes," she told him. "It takes practice, for you have to concentrate to hold the first together while you weave the second. It is a skill you will learn over time. The most skilled of us can work with many weaves at the same time, and some can even create multiple weaves simultaneously, though this is exceptionally difficult. My mentor could build twenty seperate flows and sustain them all. That was quite an accomplishment."
"Huh," he said, looking around. "Why can I see them now, anyway? I could never see them before."
"Because I am making them visible," she told him. "I have been sustaining that weave this whole time." The strands fluttered, then disappeared from view. "When you are touching the Weave, you can see them. You do not necessarily have to see them to weave flows together, but you can always see the strands while you are in contact with the Weave, and you must be able to see your target to direct them."
"And that's all there is to it?"
"That is all there is to it," she smiled. "It is a very simple concept, and I believe that is why so many have trouble. Often, the simplest things are the hardest to understand."
"I'm not so sure about that," he said.
"Alright then," she smiled, "where does the sun rise every morning?"
"In the east," he said.
"Why?"
He gave her a confused look. "It is a simple thing, Tarrin. The sun rises every morning, and it rises in the east. Why?"
"Because, well, because it does."
"Why?"
"It just does."
"Why?"
She was getting on his nerves. "I have no idea. It just does."
"Yes, it just does," she said a delicate little smile. "A simple thing, yet it the why of it is beyond most of us."
"Do you know?"
"I have no idea, dear one," she laughed. "I simply accept it." She made the Weave visible again, then drew out the six flows for his eyes. "As you know, these are the six spheres. Do you know which is which?"
"Well, fire is red," he said. "I figured that out already."
"Correct. Fire is red. Water is violet. Earth is indigo. Air is yellow. Blue is mind, or the power of thought and will. Orange is divine power, and green is confluence. Each sphere represents a primal force in our world. Four of them are physical, and the other three are not. Earth, air, fire, and water, the four elements. The power of the mind and that of the Goddess, or divine power, are not physical, but are very much still powerful forces that shape our world. The power of Confluence binds these six powers together and gives them a unified purpose. Do you remember the symbol of the katzh-dashi in the upper chamber? How the green circle enclosed the other six?"
Tarrin nodded. "I noticed that they all touched it."
"Yes, that represents the binding power of Confluence. When all seven are joined, they become strands, or white. Which is the white star in the center. When all seven join, they create a whole stronger than the sum of the individual parts. That is a representation of what sets us apart from all other orders of magic, forming circles. Unlike the Wizards, Priests, and Druids, we can directly link our powers together to form a magical force stronger than the sum of the powers of each individual Sorcerer. It takes a circle to manipulate the power of Confluence, of binding, which is the most powerful of the spheres, and as such is the most difficult to control. It is a very resistant sphere, fighting against outside influence at all times."
"I guess that makes sense," he said.
"You will study that in detail once you are raised to the green," she said. "Forming circles is the last stage of your instruction." She glanced at the candles, the ones that replaced the last set at lunchtime, which were very nearly burned down to nothing. "I think we can stop here for today," she said. "You will practice those centering exercises tonight, dear one," she said. "If I feel you are ready, tomorrow I will guide you into touching the Weave yourself. Perhaps even attempt a weave."
"Alright," he said. "Do you think I'm doing alright, Dolanna?"
She laughed sweetly. "Tarrin, my dear one, I think you understand more than Initiates that have been here for a year," she said. "What I told you today was very short," she admitted. "I did not explain a great, great many things, for I wanted to test your natural understanding of the Weave, yet you made the connections on you own. And you passed with flying colors. You seem to understand things that take months for others to comprehend. Most would never have asked the questions you ask, and many more would not understand the answers. Like I told you once before, you are a natural. I have every confidence that you will amaze the Tower with your progression." She reached up and tapped his ear, which flicked involuntarily under her light touch. "And this is the reason I will allow you to progress so quickly."
"How do you mean?"
"Sorcery requires mental concentration and control, but what it requires most is willpower," she told him. "You must exert your will on the Weave in order to make it do what you want it to do. Because of your change, you posses tremendous will, and despite what you believe, you have a great deal of control over your own mind. Most other Initiates would spend rides, months, sometimes even years, building up the basic mental control and will to use the Weave. You already have that. You earned it while learning how to deal with your dual nature. Because you already have a very forceful mind, I think you would be capable of exercising yourself against the Weave."
"I hope so," he sighed. "I just don't want to feel lost, and I don't want to sit in here for a few months."
She patted his arm, her dark eyes warm and reassuring. "Trust me, dear one," she said. "You will do fine." He didn't tell her the other reason, that the faster he learned Sorcery, the faster he could use it to his own ends. To find out who was after him, find out what the Keeper and the Tower wanted of him, and another tool to use against those who were trying to kill him. "You are released. Report back to this room tomorrow at dawn."
"Thank you, Dolanna," he said, standing up.
"Mistress Dolanna," she said with a slight smile.
"Whatever," he winked at her. A little bit of insubordination was perfectly acceptable between friends. At least he felt so.
Back in his room, he considered Dolanna's words, and privately rejoiced in the fact that she was the one teaching him. Because she already knew him so well, that allowed her to do exactly what she did. And it seemed that would allow him to not spend day after day sitting there doing stupid mental exercises. Thinking of exercises, Tarrin changed into his leathers and picked up his staff, feeling its comfortable weight. Allia had been itching to get back onto the training field, and he was too. At that moment, Sorcery was the last thing on his mind. After two months without a workout, he felt rusty. He knew that Allia would think of that first thing after being released from her class, just as he had. He opened the adjoining door and went into her room, but found it empty, and the fading scent told him he had not been there since the morning. He wrote her a short note telling her where he would be, then he left through his own room and hurried out towards the sand-floored exercise grounds where the cadets of the Knights spent their days in training.
The day was cool and sunny, with a ridge of flat clouds standing to the west. The Skybands were wearing their customary day colors, the faint dull white, and Dommammon, the White Moon, was showing in the blue sky as a thin crescent. Although it was well into fall, coming on winter, the air was still quite comfortable. Back in Aldreth, he had no doubt that they'd already had their first snow. The village, being in the foothills of the Skydancer Mountains, tended to get snow earlier than Torrian, which was only 3 days to the southwest. His father had told him that Suld, being on the coast, had a much milder climate than the inlands of Sulasia. It did get cold, and snow and even having the harbor ice up were not uncommon, but the icebound time was not very long. Snow only piled up for about a month during winter, and then the first stages of early spring would melt it. It was the winter that was unusual, for it took winter more time to settle around Suld than it did most of the rest of Sulasia, even those areas to the south. Eron Kael suspected that the Tower had something to do about that.
The training area was populated, which was normal for this time in the afternoon, full of young men wearing leather jerkins and holding wooden swords, practicing forms, sparring with each other, or thrusting or chopping at the numerous wooden posts that were staked into the sandy ground. Surrounding and interspersed with these cadets were the Knights in their mail shirts, giving instruction, correcting mistakes, or punishing cadets for bad errors. Some of the faces, Tarrin recognized. Most he did not.
One cadet stood out, literally, among those on the field. He was a young man, that was obvious from his face, but the young man towered over the other cadets and Knights as if they were children, and he was almost a head taller than Tarrin. Tarrin was amazed at that, for few humans could look him in the eye. The young man had chocolate brown skin, even darker than Dar's swarthy complexion, was more than an axe handle wide across the shoulder, and had arms that looked like gnarled tree trunks. As Tarrin walked up to the edge of the grounds, the young man just kept getting bigger and bigger. He wasn't just tall. He was awesomely developed, and Tarrin had no doubt that the young man was monstrously strong. He swung his practice sword with a calm, calculated efficiency that came with long hours of practice.
A mop of dark curly hair sprouted from a rank of cadets, and Faalken appeared at the edge of them. Wearing a battered mail shirt and a pair of undyed leather breeches, the burly, jovial Knight recognized him and rushed over, his wide, cheeky face beaming. Tarrin smiled warmly and took Faalken's hand when he reached him. "By Karas, it's good to see you again, Tarrin!" he said in a joyful voice. "We heard you'd come back, but they didn't tell us you'd be returning to the grounds."
"They didn't tell me I could," he replied, "but they didn't say that I couldn't, either."
Faalken laughed. "You may get in trouble. You're supposed to be devoting yourself to your magical training."
"They can get as mad as they want," he shrugged. "Besides, I was told that my time outside of class is my own. They didn't put any kind of restriction on it." He glanced at the monster of a man. "Who is that?"
"His name is Azakar," Faalken replied. "He came from Arak."
"Arak!" Tarrin gasped.
Faalken nodded. "He's an escaped slave. He was one of their gladiators, and somehow managed to get free while he was being moved from one Arakite city to Dala Yar Arak. From what we know, he managed to get passage on a Wikuni clipper, and wound up here. Someone that speaks Araki helped get him into the service on the docks as a laborer. He learned our language out on the docks. Not long after you left, he showed up at the gates and asked for the chance to become a Knight. He's good, Tarrin. He was still in training when he escaped, but he learns fast. We have trouble training him," Faalken chuckled. "I use the troll-skin gloves when I work with him. I'm not used to my students being stronger than me."
"Cheater," Tarrin teased. The cadets, those who did not know him, were now only half paying attention to their work, for they were staring at him as much as they could get away with. "How have things been for you?"
"Oh, the same," he smiled. "Dolanna hasn't been out, so I've been amusing myself on the training grounds." He chuckled. "More like getting my backside tanned. Allia has been teaching us some of her technique. We've decided to integrate some of it into our training."
"Not a bad idea."
"Our armor keeps us from getting exotic, but it's always good to know some unarmed combat. Just in case you lose your sword. Allia helped us come up with some moves and forms that work with our armor. I've gotten pretty good at parrying with my forearm guards," he said. "That wouldn't help me against someone using a broadsword, but it works pretty well against Allia and her shortswords."
"Why not?"
"Broadsword? It'd break my arm," he replied.
"Oh, yes. I forgot, you humans are fragile things."
"You just keep talking," he warned with a grin. "I've got the gloves right now."
Tarrin grinned back, nudging him with his elbow. "I know. I can smell them."
"You came out to grind off the rust?"
"Yes," he replied. "That fight I had yesterday reminded me how important it is for me to be able to defend myself."
"Dolanna told me about that. She said that the Keeper about had a conniption after it happened. I even heard that the Tower is going to run every other magic-user out of Suld in punishment. I know that they're doing something," he said. "The priest didn't show up this morning for morning prayers, so the Lord General had to conduct the service." The Lord General of the Knights, their leader, was a strapping man of advanced years named Darvon. Despite his white hair and wrinkled face, he could still swing a broadsword and run wearing armor, and there wasn't a craftier fighter among the Knights. His many, many years wearing the armor had taught him more tricks than most of the Knights put together knew. Tarrin had fought him only once on the training field, and it had been quite an educational experience for the young Were-cat. Tarrin didn't think of Darvon as old. Tarrin thought of Darvon as experienced. What made Tarrin laugh at Faalken's declaration was that Darvon despised conducting service. Tarrin had no doubt that it was very short, very blunt, and very interesting.
"It must have been, fast," he mused.
"I think it sounded something like 'Lord Karas, Amen'."
Tarrin laughed. "That sounds about right," he said. "I think that the Church will start worrying about the moral standing of her Knights if that keeps up."
"We're not paid to pray," Darvon's voice piped up from the side. Tarrin and Faalken turned to look, as the white-haired, broad-shouldered commander of the Knights of Karas walked towards them. Darvon was a man of slightly more than average height, and despite his years, he was still very burly. He moved with the grace of a man half his age. He was wearing a mail shirt and a pair of leather chausses, with his old, battered broadsword on his belt. His face had been handsome once, but his face was about the only thing on Lord General Darvon that showed his age. His skin was permanently browned from exposure to the wind and the sun, and his eyes and mouth were surrounded by a myriad of deeply etched wrinkles. His face wasn't very full, but lacked the gauntness of an old man, with only a little bit of sinking about his cheeks and eyes. Those eyes were a very light shade of gray, quite striking, and they were as clear and lucid as they had been twenty years before. Tarrin bowed as he approached, and Faalken saluted his commander sharply. "Good to see you back, Tarrin. You ready to give up on the Tower and come over here, where you belong?"
Tarrin laughed. "I'd love to, my Lord General, but I don't think that the Tower is going to give me up just yet."
"Such a waste," he said with mock disappointment. "Where's that pretty little she-demon? You two are usually together."
"I think she's still in class, Lord General," he replied. "I left her a note to come out here when she's done."
"Good. I miss seeing you two try to kill each other. It was very entertaining."
"I think my Lord General is just glad that Allia won't single him out with Tarrin on the field."
Tarrin laughed, and Darvon fixed Faalken with an icy stare. "I do very well for my age. Allia said so herself."
"Still, though, it looks very bad for the Lord General of the Knights to have his face planted in the sand."
"I seem to recall seeing you in that same position," Darvon said stiffly.
"Yes, but I'm not carrying the honor of the Knights on my back either," Faalken said airily, waving a hand negligibly before him.
"Let's see how the honor of the Knights weighs on your shoulders, Sir Knight," Darvon warned in a voice promising death, drawing his sword.
Tarrin scrambled out of the way, then he got a very nice view of watching Darvon systematically beat Faalken into the ground. The curly-haired knight fought well, which was to be expected, but Darvon proved quite succintly just who the better man was with a broadsword. It ended when Darvon struck Faalken on the arm with the flat of his sword, with enough force to knock the man down. Then Darvon grinned at him evilly as he slid his sword home. "It looks like the honor of the Knights is intact," he rubbed it in. "You need more practice, Faalken. A one-armed baby could have bested you."
"I was just being nice to my Lord General's advanced age," Faalken retorted with an outrageous grin as he regained his feet.
"Keep talking like that, and you'll never make it to my age," Darvon warned. "Tarrin, I want to you spar with Azakar. The boy gets a bit smug with himself sometimes, and I want him to learn a lesson. Make sure you surprise him early on. I want him to learn how to size up an enemy."
"Yes, Lord General," Tarrin said with a bow.
"What keeps him from getting smug?" Faalken demanded.
"Allia," Tarrin and Darvon replied in unison.
Darvon called the massive young man over, and Tarrin was again impressed with his size. He was very tall, true, but he was also exceptionally well developed. Muscle rippled through his arms and along his bare chest and stomach, and he moved with a belying grace that warned Tarrin that he was much faster than he looked. The young man stared at Tarrin for a moment, but to his credit, he was not obvious about it, nor did he seem put off by Tarrin's obvious nonhuman nature. "Azakar, I want you to spar with Tarrin here," the Lord General said. "Full contact."
"Yes, Lord General," the young man boomed in a deep bass voice, bowing gracefully to him. He looked at Tarrin, looked at Tarrin's staff, then he raised his wooden practice sword. "I'll be careful, Sir Tarrin," he said calmly. His voice was not boastful, though his words said much about who he thought was going to win. And for that reason, Tarrin took no offense. Thinking one was going to win was very important when it came to fighting. If you didn't think positively to win, then you'd almost certainly lose. "I will do my best not to hurt you."
Faalken and Darvon broke up laughing, and Tarrin had to supress a grin. Azakar obviously had no idea what he was about to get into. The young man gave his two superiors a curious look, then he turned his attention on Tarrin and assumed a ready stance.
"You're not going to hurt me," Tarrin promised him in a casual voice, as he assumed a ready stance with the staff held in an end-grip.
"Begin!"
It took only two swipes. The first blasted the wooden sword aside, knocking the big man off balance, and the second took him full in the side. The breath wooshed from Azakar's lungs as he was carried off of his feet, to land heavily on his back in the sand nearly ten spans away. He slid another five spans, rolling over a few times until he came to a full stop. He didn't move for several seconds. Tarrin grounded his staff and calmly waited. He knew that he hadn't hurt the young man seriously, just bruised his ribs. Tarrin had struck rather carefully to ensure no bones were broken. The young man groaned and rolled over, then he sat up clutching his side. He gave Tarrin a wild look of shock. "H-H-How?" he managed to wheeze.
"Azakar, Tarrin's about twice as strong as you," Darvon told him with a grin. "This was a lesson, boy. A lesson about underestimating your enemy."
"A…wise lesson, it seems," he panted as the breath returned to his lungs. "You certainly…don't look…that strong."
"It's handy sometimes," Tarrin shrugged.
Azakar wobbled to his feet, then leaned over with hands on knees until he had his breath back. Then he picked up his wooden sword. "Now that I know what to expect, we can try again," he smiled.
"Don't fall into the same trap, boy," Darvon warned. "Tarrin's a very nasty opponent. When you fight him, you damn well better expect the impossible."
"I think my Lord General is getting a bit far afield," Tarrin told him with a smile.
"I think not. Now shut up and fight."
Tarrin bowed, and then engaged the massive young man. After about ten minutes, Tarrin had to admit that he was impressed. The big man was fast, he was strong, and he was smart. He was well trained. He never fell for the same feint twice, and he was excellent at guessing out the actions of his enemy. The problem was, Azakar had never seen many of the moves and forms that Tarrin used, so those guesses just barely managed to save his backside. He spent almost all of that time on a defensive footing, trying to puzzle out the Were-cat's quick, precise thrusts and strikes that seemed to come from impossible angles, all the while suffering from stinging slaps and jabs from Tarrin's staff, or light rakes of his claws, or impact from Tarrin's feet and paws. To his credit, he managed to protect himself very, very well. From the way he reacted, Tarrin was pretty sure that he'd sparred against Allia a few times. But that was Allia. Tarrin may have been trained by his sister, but his size and power meant that his own use of those forms was somewhat different. And many of his moves had roots in his Ungardt training. He slipped backwards a bit, then baited the young warrior into a classic trap, then a quick strike to the inside of the ankle from the staff knocked his foot out from under him. Azakar tumbled to the ground in a heap, collapsing over his lost foundation. He ended up on his back, with the tip of Tarrin's staff about a finger's width from his nose.
"Consider yourself educated, cadet," Darvon told him in a gruff voice. "No matter how good you are, there's always someone out there who's better. Never forget that you may end up facing a backwater yokel with a little stick, and he is capable of beating you."
"Yokel?" Tarrin demanded.
"I'm not talking about you, Tarrin," Darvon assured him, "I'm talking about anyone Azakar may end up fighting as a Knight. It's also good for him to learn that there are more weapons than just swords and axes."
"He is good with that little toothpick, isn't he?" Faalken remarked with a cherubic grin.
That toothpick whistled through the air like an arrow, until the point of it was about a span from Faalken's grin. To his credit, Faalken didn't flich. Tarrin was holding the Ironwood staff by the very end, straight out, and the sandy wood didn't so much as quiver as it pointed at the curly-haired Knight. "Why don't you draw your sword, Faalken, and show me just what kind of toothpick I'm holding?" Azakar, not being a fool, made an attempt to scramble out of the way, but Tarrin put a foot down on his back as he rolled, pinning him to the ground.
A whiff of scent and a flash at the edge of his vision was all Tarrin received by way of warning, but it was enough. With a swift twist and lunge, he slipped underneath a foot that was flying towards the back of his head. Allia landed on the far side of the prone giant young man, her short swords in her hands an an expectant smile on her face. "If I would have struck you, you would have deserved it," she teased, waggling the tip of a sword at him. "I thought at first that you were hopelessly out of form, letting me get so close to you."
It was a very important return for Tarrin, and for Allia. A return to the field, to the familiar surroundings and routines of sparring and training with his blood-sister, gave Tarrin a sensation of normalcy. He had two months of rust to shake off, but he was surprised at how well he did against her. They danced in the sand-filled pit of the training area for the entire afternoon, getting a new feel for one another. Tarrin's staff fended off Allia's two short swords for hours, as they shuffled and wove and slipped around, by, and through one another. Selani fighting was as much unarmed combat with a weapon as it was weapons fighting with an occasional kick. Allia could kick a man about fifty different ways, and her legs were as much weapons as her swords. But Tarrin had learned well from his sister, and his own feet struck out at her about as often as they touched the ground.
Allia's best trick of the day was to jump up and above a stright thrust from his staff, then land lightly along its length. Her weight didn't make the staff's tip dip very much, as Tarrin adjusted. He didn't want to spill her to the ground. She was showing off for Darvon's benefit, no more, and he knew it. But when she gave him that look, he simply let go of the staff and let her drop. He sidestepped around a sword thrust aimed at his ear, and his tail swished out and hooked her foot as she landed. His tail wasn't that strong, but it was strong enough. It yanked her foot out and dropped her on her backside onto the ground.
"I still cannot get used to that," she grumbled as he helped her up. "I do not have a tail, so I keep forgetting how you use it."
"It's the longest limb I have," Tarrin told her with a grin. "Are we done for today? I'm hungry."
"Yes, I think so," she said. "You have not forgotten what I taught you. I am content with that."
"Good. Let's go eat, and then I need to wash all this sand out of my hair."
"Stop putting your head on the ground, and you won't have that problem," she said impishly in Selani.
"Stop knocking me down, and I won't have to worry about it," he replied pugnaciously, winking at her.
"Picky picky," she grinned. "Let's eat. You worked me to starvation."
Later that evening, as Tarrin and Allia sat in his room playing stones, there was a knock at the door. Before he could even ask who it was, the door opened. It was Keritanima. She didn't say a word, she simply pointed towards the outside, then closed the door and walked away.
It took about an hour for Allia and Tarrin to drift into the courtyard at the center of the maze. Keritanima arrived a few moments after Allia entered. She looked somewhat unsettled. "What's wrong?" Tarrin asked.
"I need to talk to you two," she said brusquely, walking into the courtyard, pausing to stare at the statue, then sitting down on a bench. "We need to arrange things."
"What do you mean?" Allia asked.
"I was thinking," she started. "If we're going to work together, it's going to be bloody hard for us to communicate outside of this place unless we come to an arrangement."
"Sounds like you already have a plan," Tarrin said.
She nodded. "I'm a brat, but I do have acquaintances. Do either of you think you could be fond of the brat? If she was nice to you?"
Tarrin thought about it a minute. "As long as you didn't try to pull any stunts with me, probably," he answered honestly. "I put up with Allia, after all."
He got a smack in the back of the head in payment for his remark. Keritanima laughed richly as he gave Allia a cold look, and she stuck her tongue out at him. As he thought many times before, Allia was a completely different person when they were alone.
"As long as you are cordial to me, I would not have that much trouble being nice to the brat," Allia answered.
Keritanima clasped her furry hands together and sighed. "Thank Misha," she exclaimed in relief. "I've already worked out how I'll cunningly work myself into your good graces. I won't tell you, so it'll be a surprise," she said winsomely, giving them a toothy grin.
"Whether we can talk to each other, we still can't really say anything," Tarrin reasoned. "They could be listening with magic."
"True, but Jervis won't think it unusual if he sees me talking with you," she said.
"Who's Jervis?" Tarrin asked.
"The man my father sent to watch me," she replied. "He looks like a completely ridiculous fop, but Jervis is one of my father's best spies and diplomats. When I found out it was Jervis, I couldn't help but start coming up with new plans. And looking forward to it," she said eagerly. "Jervis is the best. And to be the best, you have to beat the best."
"The best what?" Allia asked.
"The best liar," she replied with a grin. "If I can lead Jervis around by the nose, everyone back home will realize that I was never the spoiled princess they thought me to be. That's my own measure of revenge in all this."
"I thought the idea was to keep yourself secret," Tarrin said.
"When I leave here, I'm not going back," she said bluntly. "And I want them to know just who I am."
"Fair enough," Tarrin shrugged.
"And, of course, I'll appreciate the company," Keritanima admitted. "My maid and bodyguards know about who I am, but she's only one girl and they always kept my rooms under surveillance, and it gets tiring being nobody but the brat for months on end. Back home, I had two or three people that knew who I was. They worked for me, so I could always talk to them. But here, I'm alone."
"Worked for you? As in, did your sneaky work?" Tarrin asked.
She nodded. "Kalina looks just like me, so she worked as my double. Ulfan is a high-level member of the thieves' guild, so he could always arrange to have people disappear. He's the one who taught me all my tricks."
"You do tricks?" Allia said with a smile. "Like rolling over and begging?"
Keritanima snorted, stepping up to her. She patted her on the shoulder, then stepped away. Then she turned back around and held up Allia's ivory symbol necklace, dangling from its gold chain from between two of Keritanima's fingers. "Tricks," she said with a impish grin. "Ulfan thought I was Kalina one day when I'd snuck out of the palace, and dragged me off to the guild. That happened when I was about twelve. That's how we met. After he realized I was the princess, he let me go. But I went back the next week and started harassing him into teaching me all about thieving things. Like picking pockets and other dirty tricks. I figured that they'd be very handy later on." She handed the necklace back to Allia, then sat back down on the bench.
"What else can you do?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"Oh, pick about any lock made," she said grandly, polishing her claws on the front of her dress. "Take anything from anyone without them knowing about it. I'm also very good at signing my father's name. I learned that right after I stole one of the royal seals."
Tarrin laughed. "What more could a girl ask for?" he chuckled. "The royal seal and being able to forge the king's name? That's like being able to make your own decrees."
"It has been unbelievably useful," she said modestly. "I pestered my father for such important lessons such as juggling and tumbling when I was younger. They were good fronts for learning how to control my hands, and sneaking about without making alot of noise. And I can still juggle," she winked.
"Have you been taught to defend yourself?" Allia asked curiously.
Keritanima laughed. "I'm a princess, Allia," she said. "I'm not expected to be able to protect myself."
"Which means that you can," Tarrin reasoned with a sly look.
Keritanima reached under the hem of her dress modestly, then produced an eight finger long poinard, a thin bladed, needle-pointed dagger. Then she dipped a pair of fingers into the bodice of her dress and showed them a small, thin-bladed throwing dagger. "I keep another one as a hair barette," she told them with a smile. "Ulfan showed me how to use these. They're small and easy to hide in my royal dresses, and he didn't fancy me being alone and unable to fend for myself."
"Well, you need more than that," Allia said bluntly. "No friend of mine goes without being able to fight. I will teach you how to protect yourself the right way."
Keritanima gave her a curious look. "Truly?" she said. "I'm not much of a warrior, Allia."
"Tarrin?" Allia prompted.
Tarrin speculated a moment. He'd seen Keritanima move. She was graceful and well coordinated. She wasn't very strong, but that was beside the point. There were many ways one could fight without muscle. "We could do it," he said. "She has good hands, she's fast, and from the way she moves, she's pretty agile."
"Not all fighting is strength, shaida," Allia told her. "I fear that you will never be Selani, but you could easily learn some basic techniques for close-quarters fighting. I can teach you how to use an opponent's strength against him."
"Now that sounds fun," she laughed. "I hate to say it, but I can't stay any longer," she said, getting up. "I'll talk to you later."
As she slipped out of the opening, Tarrin leaned back. In a way, he understood what all that was about. It was nothing more than a social call. Here, so far away from what was comfortable for her, she felt more vulnerable, and that made her very insecure. She just needed someone to talk with. Really talk with. Even if it was for only a few moments.
"I see that she's starting to feel closed in," Allia remarked.
"You can't really blame her, sister," Tarrin replied. "All alone with nobody to talk to, when everyone hates you? I'd be looking for companionship myself."
"We'd best wander back, before they start looking," she said.
Tarrin nodded. "I'll see you back in the rooms," he said, standing up. Then he changed shape and slunk out a small hole in the hedge.
To: Title EoF