The Tower of Sorcery f-1

by James Galloway

  "I want Dolanna to teach me."

  "We've already arranged that," she said. "Tarrin, no one person can teach you, but Dolanna will be involved in your education. She will be one of your instructors."

  "Why more than one?"

  "Because different katzh-dashi are better at different things," a tall, slender man wearing a blue robe said calmly. "Each instructor teaches a student what he or she excels at, so that the student is always trained by those who best know the subject at hand."

  That made sense, so Tarrin only nodded and took a less hostile stance.

  "You will have many teachers. Even some of us will instruct you," the blond woman said.

  "Now stop asking silly questions," the Keeper grunted. "Go to your room and pack your things. The Mistress of Novices will arrange your move to the Initiate rooms. The Master of Initiates will be expecting you before noon."

  "Yes, Keeper," Tarrin said quietly. He gave them all a very curt, cursory bow, then padded out of the room.

  "Defiant," Koran Dar, the tall, willowy Amazon Seat of Divine Power, what some called the Seat of the Goddess, mused as the door closed.

  "As stubborn as a rock," Amelyn, the dark-haired Seat of the Mind, grunted.

  "But he is the one," Jinna, the blond Water Seat said quietly.

  "He is a Weavespinner," the Keeper said almost reverently. "A Weavespinner!"

  "Maybe there is hope for us after all," Darrian, the burly Earth Seat, said in his gravelly voice. "There's been no record of a Weavespinner since the Ancients left us."

  "Remember, that's not a requirement," Nathander, the Seat of Air, said in a calm voice. "The ancient writings state that any of noble blood that is not human can do this task."

  "He hardly looks noble," Ahiriya grunted.

  "He's the son of a clan princess," the Keeper told her. "A prince. That qualifies. The Selani is the daughter of the chief, and her Royal Highness' pedigree leaves no question in the matter."

  "Be that as it may, since we don't absolutely need him, we can always get rid of him if he gets out of control," Nathander said in a brutal tone. "One of the other two will suffice."

  "But they don't have his power," the Keeper said. "That may be very important when the fur starts to fly."

  "The dagger in your hand is better than the spear flying towards your back," Nathander said in his detached tone. "I don't relish the idea of taking a life needlessly, but we must always keep the greater good in mind. If he gets out of control, we may have to put him down. To protect the rest of us, if for any other reason. A madman with that kind of power running around could shatter what it took us two thousand years to build."

  "I must agree," Amelyn said. "I can't affect his mind with any of my weaves, Keeper. If he goes mad, there won't be anything I can do to heal him."

  "Then we'll have to be careful," she said, looking at the door. "That boy is our best chance. We just have to keep him sane long enough to do what he needs to do. After he's done, then we won't need him anymore," she said in a grim tone of finality.

  Tarrin walked with Allia from the main Tower and towards the North Tower, the tower of Initiation. Both of them were packed, wearing Novice white but carrying no Novice uniforms with them. They were being led by a young Initiate wearing a red shirt. The fact that Allia was with him told him something, that they wanted to keep them together. They'd rushed her through two months of Novitiate in two days, then simply said she passed and told her to pack this morning. Probably not moments after he walked out of the Test himself. He wasn't sure what their game was, but he knew it had something to do with him, maybe with Allia. They wanted something, and they wanted Tarrin to give it to them. Or possibly both Tarrin and Allia, judging by the way they were kept together.

  But that wasn't something he didn't already know, and it wasn't something that he was in a position to do anything about at the moment. He had no idea why they wanted him, what they wanted, or when they wanted it. He was totally in the dark, and without information, he had no way to plan a way to get him out of or around whatever this thing was that they wanted. The Goddess in the statue had said that, at this moment, half of the world's attention was placed right on his shoulders. No doubt this maneuvering in the Tower had something to do with the Goddess' proclamation. They knew that he was important. That had to be key to the reason that he was here.

  The North tower, like all six of the surrounding towers, was much smaller than the main tower. About half the height. Several bridges ran from its red stone walls over to the main tower, some hundred spans or more in distance, and Tarrin wondered how the plain stone spans, with no support or bracing, managed to stay up. They didn't even have guardrails. The bridges were not for Novices. Tarrin had never set foot on one of them before. From what he knew of the Tower, most of the main tower was filled with the library, rooms for the katzh-dashi, and it was where most of the business of the order was conducted. The North Tower was for the Initiates and their training, and the South Tower was mainly for research. It was where the books not kept in the main library were stored, the books full of things that were potentially dangerous to people who had no idea what they were doing. Like nosy Novices. There was alot of traffic between the South Tower and the main spire, because many of the Sorcerers worked there to try to rediscover the secrets that had disappeared with the Ancients.

  From the inside, though, Tarrin couldn't really tell the difference between the towers. They had the same gray stone walls, and were lit with glowglobes hovering near the ceiling. The Initiate led them through the main doors and down a corridor that led towards the center of the tower, then down one of the curving inner ring hallways. He took them up a flight of stairs, back into the intersecting hallway, and out to the outermost ring, the room with windows facing outwards. That was where the office of Brel was. A sign hung on a scrupulously scrubbed door with his name and his title. The young man, a tall Draconian from the look of him, with long dark hair and broad shoulders, knocked exactly three times and waited nervously. His two charges made the young man decidedly nervous. "Enter!" a voice called.

  The young man opened the door. "Two new Initiates, Master Brel," the young man said. "The Mistress of Novices bid me bring them to you."

  "Very good, Lem," he said in an irascable tone. "I'm coming out."

  "Yes, Master Brel," he said, closing the door. "Nobody goes in there unless they're in trouble," he whispered to them.

  Tarrin rolled his eyes, and Allia chuckled a bit.

  Brel came out with a slamming of the door, ignoring the short bows given to him by the three in the hall. He was a small man, thin and very short, looking about ten years past his grave. He was sallow and emaciated, with thin little wisps of white hair clinging to a scalp pocked with liver spots. His face was sunken and weathered, but his brown eyes were very lucid and sharp. The man reminded him of Mother Wynn, the old woman he'd encountered on the flight away from Jesmind and to the Tower. His scent was sharp and acrid, and it was obvious from the smell of him that he didn't bathe as often as he should have. He wore a stained gray robe that had a couple of tears in it, belted at the waist. "First rule," he said in a snappish tone. "Nobody goes in my office, unless I let them in. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Master Brel," they said in unison.

  "Thank you, Lem. You can return to your duties." The young man bowed and scurried away. "You're here because you've proven you can handle the power of Sorcery," he told them. "Things work here much the same as they did in the Novitiate, except you'll be spending alot more time in study and practice than you will doing errands and working chores. Come with me."

  They followed him back to the staircase, up two floors, then back out to the outermost hallway that ringed the tower. "I run a very tight tower," he said in a waspish tone. "If you thought Mistress Elsa was bad, she's a kitten compared to me. I'm a firm believer that punishment wears the nonsense out of someone." They stopped in front of a door. "Each of you will have your own room," he said. "Two rooms share a com
mon storage closet. This will be your room, Tarrin," he said, pointing at a door. Tarrin didn't even bother asking how he knew his name. No doubt Master Brel had received a three page report on his two unusual Initiates ten minutes after Tarrin walked out of the Keeper's office two days ago. "Consider yourself lucky. Most new Initiates don't get a room with a window."

  "Is the room across from Tarrin's occupied?" Allia asked in her strong, silky voice.

  "No, and it's Master Brel," he said sourly.

  "Then I will take that one, Master Brel," she said.

  He gave her a startled look. "By the Goddess, you will not!" he gasped. "The very idea is insane!"

  "Why is that, Master Brel?" she asked cooly.

  "You're a girl!" he shot back.

  "And why does that matter?"

  "It's improper!" he snapped. "What's to stop him from walking in on you undressed? And what's to stop him from letting a boy into your room, if he doesn't go in himself?"

  "How narrow," she said with a sigh. "If I want a male, I will not ask Tarrin to smuggle him in. I will let him in myself," she said bluntly. Brel stared at her with his eyes about to jump out of his face. "I am not human, Master Brel. Do not assign your human moralities to me." She crossed her arms under her breasts. "As to him 'walking in', I assure you that there is nothing under my clothes that he has not already seen. As to him being my lover, please, be sensible. As much as I love him, it is as a sister loves a brother. I am not in the habit of sleeping with my brothers."

  Brel made a few strangling noises.

  "Perhaps I should let a boy into the room of a female roommate, should you not pair us together," she mused aloud. "Maybe the experience would take the steel out of her back."

  "Now see here!" he raged suddenly. "I'll not have that kind of talk in my tower!"

  "It's a losing cause, Brel," the Keeper's voice called from the hallway. "Just give them the rooms they want and be done with it. I assure you, nothing improper is going to happen between them." Tarrin and Allia bowed to her as she approached, and Brel nodded to her. "I have another Initiate for you. I need the largest room you have available. One with a window."

  "I take it the Wikuni has arrived, Keeper?" he asked, regaining his composure.

  She nodded. "Her convoy just arrived in the harbor. She'll probably show up here tomorrow. It should take her that long to decide what to wear," she grunted with a sigh.

  "Wikuni?" Tarrin repeated. "A Wikuni here, Keeper?"

  "Not just any Wikuni," she said. "One of their Princesses. We made a deal with the King to bring her here for education."

  "Pardon my saying so, but you don't sound very enthusiastic."

  She laughed ruefully. "I guess I'm not. This Princess has a, reputation. I have no doubt she'll be as inconvenient as possible."

  "Ah," he said. "One of those."

  She nodded. "I can feel the gray hairs coming already."

  Tarrin chuckled. "Patience, Keeper," he said with a grin.

  "I'll keep that in mind. Go ahead and take care of the young ones, Brel. I'll wait in your office."

  "No, Keeper, I won't keep you waiting. Go make yourselves at home," he told them. "Feel free to rearrange the furniture if you feel like it, but keep everything clean. The kitchens are in the main tower. I'm sure you already know where they are. Go get some breakfast, and I'll have someone show you around after you get something to eat."

  "Thank you, Master Brel," Tarrin said. "I was getting a little hungry."

  He gave Allia a short, hostile look, then walked away with the Keeper by his side. "I have a room on the fifth level, Keeper, one of the largest. It has a nice view of the gardens," he was saying as they walked away.

  Tarrin looked at Allia, and they both shrugged. "Another?" Tarrin asked.

  "I guess so," she replied in Selani. "I'm starting to think that they're collecting Non-humans."

  "You may not be far off the mark," he replied as he opened the door.

  "If they're putting this Wikuni in the Initiate, then she must be capable of doing Sorcery," she speculated.

  "I was thinking the same thing. They're not collecting Non-humans, they're collecting Non-humans that can do Sorcery."

  "I think that's about right. Have you seen your parents yet?" Allia asked as the glowglobe inside the room brightened in response to the opening door.

  "Not yet," he replied. The room was the same size as the room that he and Dar had shared, but it was only for one person. The room had a larger bed, with a large chest at the foot of it much as his old room had been. The room had more furniture, though. A large writing table was against the left wall with a chair resting in front of it, and a bookcase stood beside a washstand on the right wall. A key, the key to the room, was sitting on the top of the bookcase. There were two tables flanking the bed, two small nightstands, one of which held a lantern, the other a candle and candletray. Tarrin wondered what the lantern and candle was for with the glowglobe hanging in the air. What amazed him most was the carpet on the floor. It was a large carpet, dyed a solid blue with gold threading in geometric patterns along the outside edge. From the feel of it under his toes, it was old, but well maintained. The room had two windows as well, just on the outsides of each nightstand, small windows that a child would have trouble trying to squeeze through.

  Compared to the Novice rooms, this was luxurious.

  "I wonder if mine is this nice," Allia mused. There was a door between the washstand and bookcase on the right wall, the door leading to the central storeroom which this room and the next one over shared.

  Tarrin leaned his staff in the corner and set his two packs down on top of the chest. "I'd hope so. Those windows may be a problem."

  "Why?"

  "Jesmind."

  "Ah. I'm sure that you can figure out a way to defend them. And they let you out as easily as they let her in."

  "Can't argue with that," he agreed as they opened the door to the storeroom.

  It was large for a closet, with shelves lining the walls between the two doors. Two large chests sat against each wall, each chest flanked by two smaller ones, the same style and size chests as the one at the foot of his bed. A pole ran under the high shelf on each side of the closet, and several curious metal and wood hangars hung on them. Tarrin had seen hangars before, but only in the inn back at Aldreth. They were a relatively new innovation, from Shace. They'd been making wardrobes with hanging poles in them. They were primarily for dresses, to hang them to air them out and keep them from wrinkling.

  "They certainly give us plenty of room," Tarrin noticed.

  "I guess they think that we'll be living here for years," she replied as they opened the far door.

  Allia's room looked so much like Tarrin's that he wondered for a moment if they hadn't gotten switched around in the closet. There was one difference, however. Allia's carpet was a darker shade of blue, and had a solid brown border instead of a geometric pattern border. "I'd say that it is," Tarrin noted calmly.

  "Truly," she agreed. "It's quite nice." She put her packs on the floor and sat down on the bed tentatively, pressing down on it with her hands. "This one is almost as soft as the sleeping pillows I have back home," she said. "And I'm rather glad that I'll have you only a call away."

  "It's going to be strange sleeping without Dar in the room," he grunted.

  "He should be in the Initiate by the end of the month," she said. "You won't be separated long."

  "How do you know?"

  "Well, I've talked with him a few times since you were gone," she told him. "Nothing long. Just seeing if he'd heard anything about you."

  Tarrin chuckled. "And you didn't kill him?"

  "No," she said frostily, crossing her arms and taking a very imperial pose. "I'm not quite as bloodthirsty as that, thank you."

  Tarrin laughed. "I think Dar appreciates your restraint."

  She gave him an unflattering look. "Let's go get something to eat," she said. "I'm hungry."

  "Me too," he agreed.

>   "I wonder when they'll give us the new clothes," she mused as they went out her door.

  They already knew how things worked for Initiates in the main tower, from seeing them move around. Unlike Novices, who ate in the hall at definite times, an Initiate was allowed to take whatever food they wanted from the kitchen at any time, and they had their own special dining room, or they could take their food and eat it anywhere they wanted. That was because an Initiate's classes were not nearly as structured as a Novices, and the Initiate may spend two weeks taking a class at dawn, then move to an afternoon instruction, and so on. An Initiate's training was dependent more on the availability of an instructor than anything else, so the Initiate had to be able to receive instruction whenever it was available. Initiates also had more freedom than Novices. Once they were raised to the Blue, they were allowed off the Tower grounds, but had to remain within the city.

  After invading the kitchens and fixing plates of breakfast, they took them out to thedining room and enjoyed a quiet meal. There were four other Initiates there, two wearing green, one red, and another light purple. It looked like the one wearing purple wanted to challenge the two, who were still wearing Novice white, about eating in the dining room reserved for Initiates. But the young woman seemed a bit intimidated by the two Non-humans.

  "I wonder if they forgot about us," Tarrin chuckled as they finished. "I mean, with this princess coming in, I think the Keeper kind of messed up Master Brel's taking care of us."

  "I don't really care if they remember or not," she replied in Selani. "Just so long as they remember to give us Initiate red."

  "I guess so."

  "I don't really mind it. It's refreshing not having everyone stare at me and go out of their way."

  "No doubt," he agreed. "Maybe this Wikuni will give everyone something else to look at for a while."

  "Why are you talking?" she challenged with a grin. "You've only been back two days. I'm the one that had to deal with it for two months."

  "Who do you think was dealing with it before I left?" he retorted.

  "Point taken, deshida," she said with a smile.