"It's beautiful," Dar whispered.
Tarrin couldn't answer. He approached the rim of the fountain and boldly stepped up onto the lip, then waded through the ankle-deep water. He went right up to the life-sized statue and stared at its intricately detailed face, a beautiful face with elegant cheekbones and almond shaped eyes under very delicate brows. Tarrin reached out and put his paw on the cheek of the statue, just to make sure that it was really stone. Never had he seen such unbelievably detailed sculpture. For an irrational moment, the statue's exquisite figure reminded him of Jesmind, and he wondered if she somehow had something to do with it.
"What are you doing?" Dar asked.
"It's really stone," he told him. "You can see the hairs in her eyebrows."
"It's almost embarassing," Dar said.
"What?"
"That's not all the hair the sculpter made," he said delicately.
Tarrin looked down. "You can see each hair in that too," he said.
Dar blushed.
"What?" he asked. "It's just stone, Dar. I don't think it cares if you look." Tarrin stopped himself. Where did that come from? That sounded just like Jesmind. Had those short days changed him so much?
"Well, it's still improper."
"Don't be such a prude, Dar," he said. "With all the art I saw in the room, I would think that you could appreciate the art of this, even if she is nude."
"Yes, well, I can appreciate the art," he said, "but it's almost too life-like. If you touched that statue in the wrong place, I think it might slap you."
Tarrin rather bluntly placed the palm of his paw against the area of contention. Dar choked a bit, and then he laughed. "No slap," Tarrin said.
"You're fearless," Dar told him.
"No, I'm just not afraid of a piece of marble," he replied.
"Well, you couldn't have touched it in a more sensitive place," Dar said.
"Yes I could have, but the statue was carved with her legs too close together," he said.
"Tarrin!" Dar hissed. "That's nasty!"
"And you've never thought of doing it yourself?" he asked pointedly.
"Yes, well," he said, clearing his throat and turning a bright shade of red. "I never thought to do it to a piece of stone."
"Now you're thinking the right way," Tarrin said, leaving the statue and wading back across the fountain.
"You don't think the same way we do," Dar deduced shrewdly.
"No, I don't," he said calmly. "What I consider modest and improper isn't the same as what you do, Dar. It has to do with what I am." Again, he marvelled at how much like Jesmind he sounded. "This is a very nice place," he said. "That's the most beautiful fountain I've ever seen, and the whole thing is pretty. I could live in here."
"I wonder who keeps it like this, since the opening is so overgrown that it's hidden," Dar wondered aloud.
"Somebody has to," Tarrin agreed. "This place would be a jungle if it wasn't tended. But there are no human smells in here. Not even a trace of one," he told him. "Nobody has been in here in weeks, maybe months. And that's too long for it to look like this."
"Maybe the place is magic," Dar said.
Tarrin considered that, and then he thought about the way he felt in the huge chamber Dar called the Heart of the Goddess. But that same feeling wasn't here. But there was a different feeling here…a feeling of peace. That was the only way to describe it. Standing there, staring at that beautiful statue, Tarrin coudln't deny that there was something very special about this place, something that made him feel very much at peace.
"I don't know about magic, but this place is very special," he said in a quiet voice. "Maybe it's a good thing that nobody really comes here."
"Yeah," he agreed. "They'd just mess it up."
They sat down on the bench and stared at the exquisite statue for a long time. They didn't speak. Talking was unnecessary. They both simply contemplated the statue, her arms held out in a gesture of welcome, the look of gentle caring on her face.
"It's getting late," Dar said, looking at the dimming sky. "We probably missed dinner."
"It was worth it," he said calmly.
"It was," he agreed.
"We should go. They may be looking for us, and they won't find us here."
"Yes. We should remember that. This might be a nice place to get away from it all."
Tarrin glanced around at the clearing. "Yes, it would be," he said. Looking up, he could see that the hedges didn't conceal the center from the vast height of the main Tower. But from that height, one would need a spyglass to see who was down here.
They went back to the Novice quarters, and Tarrin considered the fountain. It was a beautiful place, and it was indeed very well hidden. It was the perfect place to go when he didn't want to be bothered.
"Let's see if we're not too late for dinner," Dar said.
"You go ahead," he said. "I need to do something."
"Alright. See you in the room. I'll try to sneak something back for you."
"Thanks," he said.
He immediately went to the Library. He wasn't too late to keep his appointment with Dolanna. The library was a vast place, a chamber that took up almost every span of available room on one side of the Tower. It went from the inner wall to the outer wall, took up two levels, and probably took up enough room to house about three hundred people. The floor was lined with bookshelves, and each one was piled heavily with books. There was a set of steps on each side of a large statue of some robed man with long hair and no beard, leading to a half-upper level with even more bookshelves. In the exact center of the lower floor, up against the wall that separated the central core of the tower, was a circular desk behind which sat the Master Librarian and two or three of his scholar attendants, who were responsible for keeping the Tower's vast wealth of books in a neat and orderly fashion. Tarrin hesitated to let one of those librarians pass, pushing a wooden cart stacked with books that were to be replaced on the shelves.
Ignoring the several curious looks, Tarrin squatted down and put his nose close to the floor. There were a multitude of scents all jumbled together on the floor, but he knew precisely which one he was looking for. He had to check two other likely places it would be until he found Dolanna's scent, sharp and strong and fresh. After that, he simpy followed it. It went up the stairs and into a dark corner of the huge library. She was sitting at a solitary table behind a large, dusty bookshelf, where a single one of those glowing globes hovered over the table to provide light.
He sat down across from her at the small table quietly. She looked up from the book she was reading, then carefully looked in either direction for eavesdroppers. "Thank you for coming, Tarrin," she said.
"What did you want to see me about, Dolanna?" he asked.
"Nothing earth-shaking, my dear one," she said with a smile. "I simply wanted to talk to you about your journey to the Tower. I felt that there some things that you did not wish to talk about in front of Sevren."
"Not a whole lot," he told her. "Me and Jesmind, we, uh, got very, you know, uh-"
"I understand," she said quickly. "I had assumed as much."
"Why?"
"Because, my dear one, that is a very effective way for a woman to control a man," she said.
"That's not why it happened," he said.
"Then what did occur?"
Tarrin explained to her the social peculiarities of the Were-cats, as it was described to him by Jesmind. Dolanna simply nodded. "Yes, that is logical," she said. "I should have expected as much. I keep falling into the trap of thinking of you and the other Were-cats as thinking in a human manner."
"No, we don't," he said soberly. "Here lately, I've really noticed it. I've changed, Dolanna."
"How so?"
"I'm starting to think almost the same way Jesmind does," he told her. "I used to be nervous about undressing in public. Right now, Dolanna, I could strip and walk across the library without batting an eyelash. It just doesn't seem the same as it once did." He shuddered slight
ly. "I find it very easy to kill," he added.
"What else?"
"Just little things, Dolanna, mostly along those lines," he said. "I think the time with Jesmind opened my eyes to that other side of me, and now they're starting to communicate. Jesmind told me that I was ignoring it. Well, I'm not doing that anymore. And it's doing it without me knowing about it. When I was in the baths, I realized that my ideas about being nude changed. It wasn't until then."
"It is your instincts," she told him. "They are starting to merge with your conscious mind. Tarrin, it is what is supposed to happen, and it is a very good sign. You do not seem to be having any problems integrating them together, which is also very good."
"It's just scary," he told her. "I'm starting to wonder at what I'm going to do next. It's like I'm starting to lose control."
"No, dear one," she assured him. "The fact that you can recognize these changes in attitude tells me that you are still very much in control of yourself."
"It's still weird," he said. "At first, when I met Jesmind, I was amazed at how different she was. She was blunt and almost totally fearless, and she thought about some things in ways I never thought any woman would ever think about them. And now I find myself acting more and more like her with every passing moment. I know I'm not becoming her, because she's female and I'm not, but I'm starting to think almost the same way. I'm getting just as blunt, and I find myself capable of doing things that would have made me almost faint just last month."
"You are starting to think like a Were-cat," she told him gently.
"I didn't realize that it would be so different," he admitted.
"But you do realize it, Tarrin, and that is your best weapon in learning how to deal with it," she told him.
"I hope so," he sighed.
"Just believe in yourself, dear one," she told him.
He nodded. "Did you tell them about Jesmind?"
"Yes," she replied. "The Keeper has started putting eyes out to watch for her. So far as I know, she has yet to arrive. Nobody has seen her."
"They're not going to," he grunted. "If she doesn't want to be seen, she won't."
"We must have faith," she said.
"What about the Goblinoids?"
"Now that we have passed on to the King," she told him. "I have not heard what will be done about it, but at least the King now knows what is happening. I am certain he will mobilize units in the army to deter them from getting any ideas."
"Good," he said. "Dolanna, that place in the center of the Tower, what is it?" he asked.
She gave him a curious look. "It is called the Heart of the Goddess," she told him.
"I know. Me and my roommate were in there. There's something in there, something magic. But before we could find out, someone came in and threw us out."
"That was a good thing," she told him with a look of concern on her face. "Tarrin, you have awesome potential, and you will have tremendous power when you learn to use it. That place, it is very central to our power as Sorcerers. It is something that you will not understand until you learn about the Weave. But for now, consider it to be a place with a great deal of magical energy. With your inherent aptitude, I am surprised that nothing bad happened."
"I think it almost did," he said with a shudder. "Me and Dar were playing with the area inside the symbol, because it was creating light when we put our hands in it. The woman came in and stopped us before we did anything else."
"Then your roommate has the talent," she told him calmly. "He will be a Sorcerer."
"Yes, the woman told him that," he replied. "He's very happy about it."
"Have you, done anything with Sorcery?" she asked.
"No," he told her. "After what happened with Jenna, I don't even want to try until I know what I'm doing. I've seen what can happen if I mess it up."
"That is a very good attitude," she told him fiercely. "Sorcery is not bad, Tarrin, but you must understand what you are doing when you do it, or there is a tremendous potential for disaster. Training people as powerful as you is very, very dangerous because of that. I have asked for the honor of doing that myself. I feel that I am best qualified to do it, since I know you so well, and you are so comfortable with me."
"I wouldn't mind it."
"But they may not allow it," she told him. "I am very strong, Tarrin, but there are others much stronger than I. They may decide to pair you with a Sorcerer with enough raw power to stop you from hurting yourself. And there are only a handful with that much raw talent in the Tower."
"Not if I refuse to learn from them," he said.
"Tarrin, you cannot do that."
"Really? What's stopping me?" She gave him a blank look. "I didn't think so."
"Tarrin, that is rebellion you are talking about," she said. "That is not tolerated in a Novice."
"I'm not a normal Novice," he told her.
"You will get in a great deal of trouble," she warned.
"And? Dolanna, I'm already in trouble. Do you think that a little bit more is going to make a difference? Between Jesmind and the Goblinoids and the person that was trying to kill me, I'm really not going to worry about someone getting into a twist because I want a specific teacher."
She gave him a strange look, and then laughed delightedly. "Tarrin, my dear one, you are going to drive this Tower to distraction," she told him fondly. She looked down the passage between the bookcases. "It is getting late, dear one. We should be leaving."
"It is getting there," he agreed. "I don't have anything to do tomorrow either…maybe I'll spend the day reading. And maybe see you in here. Around sunset maybe."
"Perhaps," she said with a smile.
Tarrin left her sitting at the table. It had been a productive meeting. Dolanna had calmed some fears that had broiled up in the past day, and he had learned a thing or two besides. And he got to talk with Dolanna. Tarrin had a very special rapport with the Sorceress, and they both knew it. It had been she that had kept a terrified Tarrin from going into histrionics after he'd been bitten. It was her gentle guidance that had literally kept him from going mad. And they had a very close personal friendship as well. She was in many ways one of the crutches on which he leaned, and he would have no one else teach him about Sorcery. Unlike many others in the Tower, he already knew Dolanna, already knew what to expect from her. Despite them being Sorcerers, and despite the warm welcome he had received from many in the Tower, Tarrin was still a bit reluctant about getting close to strangers. He wouldn't be as forthcoming with a stranger as he would with Dolanna, and that made her the best teacher for him.
Tarrin was used to being what he was. Now he had to get used to how that would affect relationships with others.
Tarrin was up before dawn, and so was Dar. Someone walked up the hallway just as Tarrin awoke, ringing a bell. That was obviously the signal for all Novices to get up and start preparing for the day. Tarrin had had a very good sleep, and much to his surprise, so had Dar. Dar had not shown the slightest reservation about sharing his room with such an exotic, unknown creature as Tarrin, and that surprised the young Were-cat considerably. Dar was perfectly at ease with Tarrin, and that simple fact had endeared the Arkisian to him even more than the previous day. Being able to sleep soundly in the same room as someone was a definite measure of trust.
Tarrin wondered if it hadn't been for that specific reason that Dar was chosen to be his roommate. Because he was so tolerant.
Dar groaned, sat up, and yawned deeply. "Dawn gets here earlier every day," he grumbled in complaint as he rubbed his eyes.
"Of course it does," Tarrin told him. "It's coming into summer. Each night is a bit shorter than the last. If you'd go to bed at a decent hour, then you wouldn't be so sleepy."
"You're the one who kept me up," he shot back. "Do you always like to play cards?"
"It helps me think," he shrugged.
"Next time, read a book," he complained, sliding out of bed.
"I may. You're a lousy hand in King's Sword."
"
Give me a break, I just learned it last night," he said indignantly.
"Do you play stones?"
"Religiously," he replied.
"I'll get a stones board."
"Not in this room you won't. Neither of us will sleep if you do."
"You may be right there," he admitted. "I don't like stopping in the middle of a game."
"I don't either." Dar was wearing his small clothes, and he pulled his robe off the peg and belted it on.
"What's the routine in the morning?" Tarrin asked.
"We all have to bathe first," he said. "After that, we eat. Then we either go to class or to our work."
"All the Novices at once?"
"No, they do it a floor at a time. We have to go bathe first."
"What do the others do while they wait?"
"They wait," he said. "They have to get up at the same time we do. But we have to wait on them to finish before we can go to eat, so it evens out."
"Well, what happens in you want to take a long bath?" he asked.
Dar laughed. "Tarrin, you don't see many Novices take long baths," he said. "At least everyone but Torians."
"Why is that?"
"Because they have to appear naked in front of the others," he said. "The Torians have communal baths, so it doesn't bother them. Most Novices jump in, jump out, and then wrap a towel around themselves as fast as they can."
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