"Certainly," he said with curiosity tinging his voice.
Tarrin led Dolanna over to the corner of the grand hall, then turned to face her with his back to the wall. Faalken joined them quickly. "Dolanna, I saw something up in the hallway. It was something like a living shadow. If it didn't smell the way it did, I may not have seen it."
"Smelled? How did it smell?"
"Evil," he told her. "Death, decay, hatred, but it was evil," he said with a shudder.
"A shadow, you say?"
"Aye," Faalken told her. "Tarrin threw a candle at it, and its body looked like it was made of liquid shadow."
"A Wraith!" she gasped. "What would a Wraith be doing here?"
"What is a Wraith?" Tarrin asked.
"It is a creature summoned from the Lower World," she told him. "It is the spirit of a man who had done great evil in his life. They are not free, they must obey the orders and commands of the Wizard who summoned them. It was not here by chance."
"Then why was it here?" Faalken wondered.
"That I cannot tell you, but the fact that it was here does not bode well. It may have been sent to kill someone, or merely to spy. Their shadow-like bodies make them excellent spies. Arren must know of this immediately. That creature may be eyes for a hostile force."
"Dolanna, if it was eyes for a hostile force, it wouldn't have been sitting at the end of a closed hallway," Faalken told her. "If it was there to spy, it was looking for a specific person that walked along that hallway."
They both looked at Tarrin.
"Possibly," she answered the unspoken question. "If the Were-cat was sent to kill him, it may have been checking to see if she was successful."
"And now it knows that she failed."
"Why would that matter?" Tarrin asked. "I'm a nobody. Why would they be watching me?"
"I do not know," she said. "And that is not a good thing. Somebody outside is acting on information I do not have. If that is it at all. It may have had an entirely different mission in mind." She pursed her lips. "But it is best to assume the worst, so that is what we will do. We cannot leave now. Night is the time of the Wraith. They cannot exist in open sunlight, so we will leave in the morning, when their eyes cannot follow and the summoner must rely on another means of scrying us. In the meantime, everyone will move into an apartment with only one entrance and as few windows as possible."
"But what about the dinner?" Faalken asked.
"As of right now, it is of no moment." She stepped slightly away from Tarrin. All three of them looked towards the raised table, and it was only seconds before Arren looked in their direction. Dolanna made a discreet gesture for him to join them, and he immediately stood up.
"Something's wrong," he said soberly as he joined them.
"Tarrin and Faalken found a Wraith in the passageway outside his door," she told him bluntly.
"A Wraith, eh?" Arren said grimly. "That's not a good sign."
"We do not know why it was here, but we are going to assume that it is part of what happened to Tarrin. We will leave at dawn tomorrow."
"Good," he interrupted. "If there's a Wraith after you, you sure as light don't go outside in the dark."
"Yes," she agreed. "Until then, I am putting our group out of eyesight. I need from you an apartment, with two or three goodly sized rooms, with only one door opening out to the keep. And with as few windows as you can manage."
"I have something like that," he said. "It's a guest apartment, with a bedroom, a room for a maid, and a sitting room. It only has two windows, one in each bedroom, and a single door to the hallway."
"That will do," she told him. "Tarrin, go to Walten and Tiella and have them come here."
"Yes ma'am," he said immediately, then he left the trio and walked over to the table.
"Tarrin, you look....different," Tiella said. "Not bad, just different."
Tarrin's change was the last thing on his mind. "Dolanna wants to talk to us, now," he told them. "Come on."
Walten looked at the food on his plate and sighed, then he stood up.
"Tiella, Walten," Dolanna said immediately when they joined her, "I want you to go to your rooms with Tarrin and gather up your belongings. Do not leave each other. Visit each room in turn. When you have everything, go to the landing of the stairwell on the fourth level and await us. Do you understand?"
"Yes ma'am," Walten said, and Tiella nodded.
"Arren, please have servants take up enough food for seven people," Dolanna went on as Tarrin left with his companions. "Include plenty of meat."
"Tarrin, what's going on?" Tiella asked after they left the hall. Tarrin noted that both of them stayed rather close to him, but not too close. They were trying to be as casual about his change as they could, but Tarrin could smell the tension in both of them. They were afraid of him. Probably with good reason, he concluded with a slight sigh. He was afraid of himself.
"We saw something upstairs, called a Wraith," he told them. "Dolanna thinks it may be watching us, so we're going to all stay in the same place tonight, so she can keep watch over us, I think."
"Wraith?" Walten said. "Jak told me a story about those. They're supposed to be living shadows, and their touch is like the cold of the grave."
"We didn't get close enough to touch it," Tarrin said as they started up the stairs. "Dolanna thinks it may have something to do with--with the one that attacked me," he said after a second of inability to say it. He still couldn't.
They went to Tiella's room first, and with the help of the two young men, they were on their way to Walten's room in minutes. Walten's room was even faster. They went up to the same corridor where Tarrin had seen the Wraith, and he couldn't help but make sure it was gone as they rushed into his room and he collected up everything of his that he could find. But most of his belongings were missing, especially his staff and his bow. He didn't recall seeing them earlier, either. They left his room quickly and went to the stair landing that Dolanna had said to go to, and there they waited for many tense moments.
Tiella looked at Tarrin covertly after they stopped, then she blushed when he looked at her. "I'm sorry, Tarrin, I can't help it," she said shyly.
"I guess I can't blame you," he said gruffly. "I'd stare too."
"What does it feel like?" Walten asked.
"It's hard to explain," he replied. "More like I'd had on blinders and my ears covered and my nose pinched shut all my life. The tail is still pretty weird to me, but I'm getting used to it." He looked back at the member, which was swishing to and fro with a slow rhythm. Did you go into the city?" he asked.
"No," Tiella replied. "After you were hurt, Dolanna wanted us to stay close. Torrian isn't that big, anyway. She said that we're going through Marta's Ford, Ultern, and Jerinhold. Then we get to Suld itself," she said eagerly.
"I thought you were still nervous about leaving Aldreth," Walten said accusingly.
"I want to see the cities," she told him.
"I just want to get out of Aldreth," Walten grunted.
Dolanna and Faalken came up the stairs seconds later, with several servants behind them. To his relief, Tarrin saw his packs and his weapons in the hands of three of them, and he could smell roasted meat under the domes of the platters that the serving women carried. "Do you have everything?" Dolanna asked. "If not, then it will be left behind."
"We got everything, Dolanna," Tiella replied.
"Good. Follow us."
They were led to a small apartment, with three rooms. There was a smallish sitting room into which the door opened, and there were two bedrooms attached to it. They put down their packs as the serving staff carried the other things into the room, and Arren appeared at the door. "Dolanna," he called.
"Arren," she said, "if you would, post guards at the door, but warn them that they will not, under any circumstances, open the door. It could mean their lives."
"I'll warn them," he said grimly.
"Young ones, listen carefully," Dolanna said as she closed the door
after the last servant. "I want you to stand in the middle of this room with Faalken. Do not say a word, and to not move until I tell you that it is alright."
Faalken ushered them into the middle of the sitting room, standing beside a plush upholstered chair that was flanking a sofa. When they were there, Dolanna turned around and bowed her head. Tarrin could feel what was happening. There was again that sensation of drawing in, into Dolanna, and for a second he could almost see something around him move. She stayed still for several moments, until the outside walls, ceiling, and floor suddenly seemed to shimmer. But just for a moment. Dolanna sighed audibly and slumped a bit, then turned around and faced them. "Do not open the door, for any reason, unless I tell you that it is alright," she warned. "Do not get too close to the windows. Do not even get close enough to touch the window sill." She put a hand to her brow. "Now then, I am going to rest a while. There is food over there, and I have some books in the smaller pack if you would like to read."
Tarrin and Faalken sat down at the small table in the corner and began eating dinner as Walten and Tiella used the stones board that was on it to play a game. "What did she do?" Tarrin asked Faalken.
"She laid a ward on these rooms," he replied. "It's very exhausting."
"What is a ward?"
"It's like a barrier," he told him. "I don't know how she made this one, but I've seen ones that stop magic, ones that keep people from crossing them, even ones that stopped stone from passing over a boundary. They can be made lots of different ways. You'll have to ask her for specifics, though."
He nodded, resolving to do just that.
After eating, Faalken stood up and looked at the three. "We'll be getting an early start, so I suggest we go to bed now. Tiella, go sleep in Dolanna's chamber. Walten, you and Tarrin sleep in the other room. I'll sleep in here."
They separated quickly, wordlessly. The next room was a small bedchamber, with the bed, a small armoire, and three small tables. There was only one bed.
"You sleep on the bed," Tarrin told him. He knew that Walten would not want to sleep in the same bed with him. To be honest, he didn't want to either. Not until he trusted himself. "I'll sleep over there. Let me go get my bedroll."
Tarrin recovered his bedroll, and Walten was already in bed by the time he got back. "Go ahead and put out the light," Tarrin told him. "I think I can manage."
"Alright. Night, Tarrin."
"Night."
As soon as the lamp was out, Tarrin got the most blatant sign of his change, for after a moment of grayed vision, the entire room bloomed into light as his eyes adapted to the darkness. Just the light of the Skybands through the window, patchy from clouds, was enough to paint the room to his eyes in bright shades of black, white, and gray. He realized that he couldn't see color with such little light, but the fact that he could make out every detail of the room made up for that. He put out the bedroll in the corner, near the window, and sat down upon it, feeling his tail come to rest against the floor, and stared out at the room, wondering at how sharp and clear his vision was, musing at seeing only in black and white. Just like a cat, he could see in just about any light except total darkness.
In the room, alone, in the dark, Tarrin felt the Cat inside his mind, and for the first time all day, for the first time since waking up, he felt fear. They had kept him busy most of the day, keeping his mind off of it. But there was nothing but time now, time waiting for the dawn, time for nothing but cold reality to come down on him. It was in there, staring back at him, and he could feel its power. The power of a caged animal. The song in his mind grew more powerful now that he was listening to it, and it took active concentration not to succumb to it, to do as it urged him to do. He had no one to talk to, nothing to do in order to distract himself from it, and that made it prominent in his mind. And that proximity to something that seemed so strange to him began to make him afraid.
It was as if the whole room changed. The bright black-and-white room seemed to become ominous, and he found the colorless, shaded vista before him to be suddenly frightening. It was alien to him, and the wonder he'd felt when first beholding it drained away, replaced by trepidation and anxiety. For some unknown reason, he backed up on the mat, backing up until his back was to the wall. But there was no getting away from that which made him afraid. It was inside him, part of him, staring back at him, trying to take control of him. There was nowhere he could go to hide from it, no way to make it leave him alone. It was there and would always be there, and that simple fact terrified Tarrin. Because it was already so strong in his mind, and he was told, and knew in his heart, that it would only grow stronger.
He pushed back into the corner, feeling his tail kink a bit from the pressure. He brought it around him and wrapped it across his ankles, drew his knees up to his chest, hugged his waist with his arms, and put his head back against the corner. With the song of the Cat disrupting his thoughts, he stayed curled up in the corner, huddled from something that could not be hidden from, trying in vain to push it out of his mind, to find enough peace to sleep.
Chapter 4
It had been the longest night Tarrin had ever had.
It was an eternity there, alone, in the dark, with nothing between him and the Cat but his willpower. Time had seemed to stop, and he had felt every second go by. He spent the night jumping at every little noise, huddled in that corner like a trapped mouse, so desperately wanting to talk to someone that he very nearly went to wake them up. But that would be giving in, and he knew that he had to learn how to fight it now, quickly, before it had the chance to overwhelm him. There wouldn't always be someone to talk to.
He'd finally managed to fall asleep sometime during the night, but it was no relief. As soon as he fell into slumber, he would have dreams. Terrifying dreams, vivid dreams, conveying a message and a set of sensations so base, so raw, so animalistic that even the surrealistic touch of the dream was enough to make him sit bolt upright and start a cold sweat. And the instant he awoke, the song of the Cat would be there, trying to lull him into complacency. He was glad of such an uncomfortable position, since it made it so easy for him to be awakened out of the dreams. The song of the Cat was much preferable to facing the dreams. He could fight the song, but the dreams, he had no defense against them. They touched him on a level that the song could not, and he could do nothing but wake up once they started. He was amazed that Walten had slept through it.
He'd been having one of those dreams, then was shocked awake by a combination of the dream and a sound in the next room. He'd never been so glad to hear a sound in his life. When he joined Faalken in the other room, neither of them said much of anything. Faalken could see just by looking at Tarrin's haggard face that it had been an easy night. The burly knight simply offered him a cup of water and let him sit quietly at the table. Faalken gently rapped at Dolanna's door, then sat down at the table with him.
Dolanna opened the door a few minutes later, stepping out wearing a simple brown silk dress. With one look, she seemed to take in the entire situation. She sat down in the chair to his right and put a cool hand to his forehead. "I can understand what it was like," she told him. "But it was necessary."
"What do you mean?"
"You had to be alone," she told him with compassion in her voice. "It may seem cruel to you, but you will end up alone at some point in your life. It was best for it to be now, while my spell holds the animal inside you in check."
He could understand her reasoning. Although it did seem a bit cold-blooded. She'd left him to face his fear alone, and while the logical part of his mind understood her reasoning, part of him was rather slighted by the callous treatment. He'd respected her before, but in a strange way, he realized that he absolutely depended on Dolanna now. Her calm demeanor and seemingly intuitive understanding of what he was going through gave him a source of strength from which to draw support.
"How do you know so much about what happened to me?" he asked impulsively.
"I, have studied this condition be
fore. There are other Were-kin out there," she told him. "Were-wolves, Were-boars, Were-lions, Were-foxes, Were-bears, and many others that are more rare. Like Were-wolverines, Were-dogs, Were-rats, and your own kin, the Were-cats. I once studied the progression of the condition, which is called Lycanthropy, in an infected man who had been bitten by a Were-wolf. It was much different in his case, but I have seen enough parallels to understand in a general way what is happening to you."
"What causes it?" Tarrin asked. "Is it a disease?"
"No, young one, it is not," she told him gently. "The Were-kin are creatures of magic, Tarrin. There is a natural magic inside of you now that is linked to the cat. While it may not seem like much, it is this magical nature that gives you many of your powers, and it is also what makes you immune to the wounds of non-magical weapons, or ones not made of silver. The only non-magical things that can harm you are falls from heights, fire, and acid."
"Powers?" Tarrin asked.
"Were-kin can change their shape," she told him. "They can assume the form of the animal to which they are bonded. But I do recall hearing or reading that the Were-cats are different than the other Were-kin in that respect. There is something limited to you or makes you different than other Were-kin, so I will not even attempt to try to teach you to shapeshift until I am certain of what that difference is. The fact that your base, natural form, the one into which you transformed at the onset of the bite, was not a fully human form lends me to believe that it is a limitation more than a difference."
Tarrin swallowed that. Shapeshifting?
"There are other powers," she told him. "Inhuman strength like yours is a gift of your magical nature. And if I remember, you can regenerate wounds received from magic, falls, acid, and fire at an accelerated rate, and that you can even regenerate lost limbs. Only the injuries made from silver counter the magic that gives you power.
"But I digress. It is this inherent magic that causes the condition, Tarrin. The only thing missing from a human is that magical touch, that essense of magical energy and animal instincts. That is what is passed on through contact with body fluids. Once it is introduced into a human, he becomes a Were-creature of the same type that passed it to him. He gains all of the powers and vulnerabilities of the Were-kin, and he is Were in every aspect. He is as much Were as the one who bit him; there is no difference between a Were-kin who was born into it and one who was bitten."
The Tower of Sorcery Page 12