The Tower of Sorcery f-1

by James Galloway

  "Now, enough silliness," the Keeper said. "Come sit on the table, Tarrin. We're going to try a few experiments to see what limit your power has. I promise you that you won't have to touch the Weave without being restricted in some way. And if you feel anything unusual while trying, you're free to stop and let us know. We don't want this to be painful for you."

  "Alright," he said suspiciously.

  That began a very curious morning, where the Council would cut him off from the Weave at varying strengths before he tried to make contact with it. And unlike the previous attempts, this time the Council could manage his power, if but for a few moments. By reducing his ability to touch the Weave, it lengthened the amount of time he had before the power that tried to flood him could wear away at the barrier they placed in front of it. They had tried stopping that flood while it was in progress the time before. This time they put obstructions in front of it before it could really get moving.

  But it was still no solution. It took the combined might of the Council to slow the flood by a moment or two, but it did give Tarrin long enough to perform a few simple weaves, and it gave him time to let go of the Weave before that flood hit him and neutralized his ability to separate himself from his magic. He was very careful not to let it catch him; the pain of tearing himself away was enough to make it something to avoid if at all possible. And the Council, fully understanding that their circle was in very real danger should Tarrin get overwhelmed, were also very careful to be ready to break the instant Tarrin did get overwhelmed.

  After a morning of such careful, delicate probing and experimentation, they had found that Tarrin's raw power could be briefly contained by a barrier. They had studied how his power worked, and the Keeper had promised him that the six Lorefinders in attendance, of whom Brel was part, would study that and try to come up with a new, more effective barrier that they could use for him to help him control that power.

  The Keeper leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. The lunch bell had just sounded on the grounds, and the Council looked a bit harried. It was real work for them to use their power to control Tarrin's, so he could do what the Lorefinders asked. "I think this is a good stopping point," she said. "We've made real progress today."

  "Yes," a dark-haired Sorceress, Lilenne, said. She was the Mistress Loremaster, the lead of that organization of knowledge-seeking katzh-dashi. She was a Shacean, with a thin, graceful neck and a swallow's eyes. She was pretty, but there was a sharpness to her features that Tarrin found a bit unnerving. She looked like a bird of prey. "We have made good progress, yes? I think we can find a control solution for you, Tarrin. Maybe something that you can even use for yourself to give you more time, yes."

  "I'd appreciate it," Tarrin said sincerely. "I can't learn if I can't use the Weave, and I can't get out of here if I can't learn."

  "Yes, well, a solution, we will work on that for you, yes. Have no worry. I notice you use our library."

  "It's a good way to study what I can, Mistress."

  "A good attitude, yes," she said with a hawkish smile. "Come to the library tonight. A book, I will give to you, on High Sorcery. Maybe it will help."

  "Is that wise, Lilenne?" the Keeper asked.

  "High Sorcery, it is his domain, Keeper," she replied calmly. "If he can access it alone, then he should learn as much about it as possible, because nobody will be there to help him. Mistakes, it will help him avoid them. Best he be armed with everything he can, yes?"

  "You're the Lorefinder, Lilenne," Amelyn told her. "We will accede to your judgement in the matter."

  "Tomorrow," she told Tarrin, looking at him, "be here at sunrise. We will keep working."

  "Yes, Mistress Lilenne," he said respectfully.

  "You are excused, Initiate," the Keeper told him. "You have done well today."

  "Thank you," he said, scooting off the table.

  It wasn't as long as he thought it would be, but he definitely felt it. He was tired, both from effort and from fear. He was afraid of Sorcery, because he knew what was waiting for him if he was flooded. That pain was something nobody could ever get used to, and it was pain that he would avoid at all costs. Only if threatened with more pain than he would feel tearing himself away from the Weave would he subject himself to that kind of punishment. The morning of feeling it right on the edge of him had exacted a toll, and he felt drained by the time he walked out the door.

  He thought about the Goddess' riddle for him, and its solution. So she had worked a way around the restriction for her people, but why was it so important to him that she would send him off to find out why? It really didn't make much sense. After all, he never intended to become katzh-dashi, and it wasn't like that would do him any good anyway. Maybe she was just testing him, to see how observant or how smart he was. Maybe she wanted him to know for some other reason, something that he couldn't comprehend. The Goddess was obviously trying to carefully set him up for something, but unlike the katzh-dashi, he trusted the Goddess. If she wanted him to do something for her, he probably would.

  Miranda's wise words about a person occassionally having to give up personal need to fulfill the needs of others rang in his mind for some reason. Maybe the Goddess needed something from him, and because he was one of her children, he would have to try to fulfill it for her.

  Maybe everything she was doing, and everything around him, was preparing him for the choice that she said he would have to make. And that choice would involve whose needs he would strive to fulfill.

  The thought occupied his mind as he went to the kitchens and fixed himself a plate for lunch, then sat down in the small Inititate's dining hall and pondered on it. Because he was so preoccupied, Dar managed to sit down at his table before he scented or noticed the young man, and that startled him. His claws were out and halfway across the table before the young man flinched, but they stopped well short of his nose.

  "Don't do that!" Tarrin gasped as he pulled his paw back. "Never sneak up on me, Dar! It's dangerous!"

  "I didn't realize you weren't paying attention!" Dar objected. "By the Scar, Tarrin, you're hard enough to sneak up on as it is, and I've seen what you do when you're surprised! Do you think I'd do it to you on purpose?"

  Tarrin gave him a look, then laughed ruefully. "No, I guess you wouldn't," he agreed. "How is class?"

  Dar gave a sour sound. "It's like trying to grab smoke," he complained. "I can feel it out there, but I just can't seem to find it."

  "It was the same for me," he said. "Just stick with it. It'll come to you."

  "I hope so. It's aggravating. And Keritanima doesn't help. She makes it look easy."

  "Huh?"

  "She was standing in the hall practicing her weaves as we came down the hall to our practice rooms," he complained. "She's only just begun the Red, but she throws weaves around like a full katzh-dashi. It's really annoying."

  "Kerri is, special," Tarrin chuckled. "I think she's a natural."

  "That's what my teacher calls her," Dar agreed. "But she uses the term daughter for some reason. She always calls Keritanima 'that lucky daughter'. I'm not sure what it means."

  "Me either," Tarrin told him. "The katzh-dashi use alot of strange terms that only they understand."

  "No doubt," Dar grunted. "I talked to Allia this morning."

  "Oh? And where is the wound?"

  Dar laughed. "She's not like that anymore," he grinned. "She looked haggard. Did you keep her up last night?"

  "We were doing something," he said calmly, but the direct look in Tarrin's eyes made Dar nod knowingly.

  "Speaking of something, I also talked to Tiella this morning too," he said. "I think there's something wrong with her."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "She's beet-red," he said. "Does she have a chill?"

  Tarrin laughed. "No, she has a little problem with modesty," he replied. "She likes you, and it mortifies her that friends see her without any clothes on."

  "Is that all?" he asked. "We have communal baths in Arkis.
I'm not used to that kind of a reaction."

  "She's from a little, very straight-laced and highly moral village, Dar," he said. "Just seeing a woman's bare knee is a scandal retold for years there."

  "How barbaric. Were you like that?"

  Tarrin shook his head. "My mother is Ungardt, and my father is from Suld. They're a bit more cosmopolitan, so even before this happened," he said, holding up his paw, "I had a little more open viewpoint about that kind of thing."

  "Strange," he mused.

  "Truly," Tarrin agreed.

  "She likes me, you say? We barely know each other."

  "She's a good judge of people, Dar," he said mildly.

  "I must say, she's very cute. I wonder if I could convince her to go for a walk in the garden with me."

  Tarrin didn't say anything, and Dar missed his grin. "What did she have to say?"

  "Not much," he replied. "She hasn't found anything out about what you asked her to find. Not yet. She said that they've been too busy to really say anything to her."

  That, Tarrin could understand. "Well, at least she's keeping me posted," he said.

  "She went on and on about the Initiate," he said. "She's being moved over here in a few days. She's really anxious to get over here."

  "I seem to recall you doing the same thing, Dar," Tarrin chuckled.

  "Yes, well, it is alot more interesting," he admitted.

  "You just wanted out of the kitchen."

  Dar laughed. "I will never touch another pot or pan for as long as I live," he said emphatically.

  They enjoyed the rest of their meal with idle chatter, and Dar had to scurry back to class. Tarrin had a need to talk to someone, and all of his friends were busy, so he found himself in the company of Sisska and Miranda. The delicate, cute little mink was scribing from a scroll and into a book, and Tarrin was shocked at the raw speed at which she could write. She had already completely transcribed the first scroll, and was halfway through the second by the time Tarrin was let in by Sisska and took a seat across from the small table which she used as a desk. Miranda's writing was crisp, clear, and exacting, and she could write with such speed that it seemed almost inhuman. He noticed that the pen wasn't a quill pen, it was a curious wooden pen with a strange metal tip. Ink seemed to come out of nowhere, appearing on the paper, though there was a pot of ink sitting on the table by the scroll.

  "Tarrin," she said in greeting as he sat down. "Excuse me if I don't give you much attention, I'm rather busy at the moment."

  "It's alright," he told her. "Where is the ink coming from?" he asked curiously.

  "This is one of the inventions from Telluria," she told him. "It's called a fountain pen. You fill the pen with ink, and the special tip makes it come out only when you're writing. You can write very fast with one, because you only have to refill the ink every few pages rather than ever few lines."

  "Interesting."

  "Expensive," she said, leaning back and blowing on the page to accelerate the drying of the ink. "This pen cost me almost five hundred gold lions."

  Tarrin gaped at her. "Five hundred gold coins?"

  She nodded. "They're dreadfully hard to make, so they're very expensive. But in my position, it was worth the cost." She turned the page, then looked up at the scroll, and began transcribing again. "I hope to be done with this by the end of the week."

  "I didn't realize you'd be so busy," he said in apology. "I'll just come back later."

  "We don't have to talk, Tarrin," she said, looking up at him and smiling. "If all you want is company, feel free to stay. Sisska plays a very good game of chess. Don't you, Sisska?"

  "I will teach you, Master Tarrin, if you wish," the massive Vendari female offered.

  "Why not?" he shrugged. "Where is Binter?"

  "Watching her Highness," the Vendari said, coming over after firmly barring the door. "The Tower forbids him from accompanying her, so he always follows her to be near, in case of attack."

  "I can't blame him," Tarrin said. "You two take your job seriously, and it would probably drive him nuts to let her run around out there by herself."

  "Binter protects her Highness when she is away from Miranda. Miranda is my child."

  "Child?"

  "A Vendari term for the one they protect," Miranda said from the table.

  "At least it's not a trial of Honor and Blood," Tarrin said to Sisska with a smile.

  "It can be at times," Sisska said with a faint glimmer of humor. "Miranda is more reckless than her Highness. She gives me fits sometimes."

  "I can't help it if you can't keep up," Miranda grunted from her chair. "Now stop distracting me. I almost made a mistake."

  "Yes, Miranda," Sisska said in a calm, bass voice. "The chessboard is in the closet, Tarrin. Please fetch it for me."

  "Sure," he said.

  Chess was complicated, but Tarrin's grasp of strategy and tactics, taught to him by his parents, and a quick memory allowed him to grasp the more obvious ideas behind the game. Sisska showed that she was indeed good, explaining some of the more subtle concepts of the game, and effective ways to use the advantages of the different pieces. After Tarrin got a good basic idea behind the game, he began to play against Sisska. Sisska showed no mercy, however, defeating him soundly time after time. But Tarrin wasn't one to get frustrated, and Sisska always explained the mistakes he made after each game. That allowed him to learn quickly how to avoid obvious errors that kept costing him the game. Keritanima's cat, Bandit, curled up in Tarrin's lap to sleep, and Tarrin accepted his little cousin calmly, absently petting it and scratching it behind the ears as he furiously thought ways to make the game less humiliating for him.

  By the time Keritanima and Allia entered the room, actually giggling like little girls after Sisska rose to unbar the door and let them in, Tarrin had reached the point where Sisska had to use strategy to beat him. He still had no chance against her, but he did make her work a little to secure victory. "What are you doing in my room?" Keritanima demanded of him when she saw him.

  "Losing," he said sourly as Sisska took another piece after sitting back down.

  Binter entered just behind the nonhuman females, and closed and barred the door quietly. "Well, maybe it's just as good that you're here. I was going to send Bandit to find you."

  "What's on your mind?" he asked, making another move.

  "We're going to have class," she smiled. "All three of us have to learn what Miranda's working on. How is it going, Miranda?"

  "I'm done with the first two. I was about to go get the next two."

  "I told you she's good," Keritanima told Allia.

  "That little pen of hers helps," Tarrin said. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "Telluria is famous for inventions," Keritanima shrugged. "The wood stoves we sell were originally a Tellurian deisign. Lately, they've been working on a machine that uses steam to drive gears. They call it a steam engine."

  "What good is that?" Tarrin asked.

  "They intend to use them in ships, so ships don't have to depend on the wind anymore," Keritanima said. "The Ministry of Science in Wikuna has picked up the idea, and they're also trying to fit the steam engines to power ships. It has some promise."

  "How would steam make a ship move?" Tarrin asked.

  "The steam drives a paddlewheel," she explained. "Like the waterwheel on a mill. The paddlewheel pushes the ship along, no matter what direction the wind is blowing. They're faster than anything but a clipper with the wind full astern."

  "I still don't see how it would work," Tarrin said dubiously.

  "I'll draw it out for you sometime, Tarrin," she said, sitting down on the bed beside him. "Right now, the engines blow up more often than they work. They need refinement." She had the book Miranda was using in her lap. "Alright, put aside the game. Miranda, be a dear and clear a path for us to the sanctuary. We have alot to learn, and we don't have much time."

  "Yes, Highness," Miranda said calmly, standing up and unthreading her tail from the hole i
n the back of the wooden chair. "Sisska?"

  The massive Vendari female stood as well, then picked up her huge, wicked axe from the corner where it was standing.

  "Give us about half an hour, Highness," she said in a calm, business-like voice.

  "Half an hour," Keritanima mirrored, and the pair filed through the opened door. Binter quietly rebarred the door after they left. She opened the book with slightly quivering hands, looking at the neat, exact, almost mechanical writing that issued from Miranda's steady hand, staring at the writing almost reverently. "Here is the future, my deshar," she said in a low voice. "Your future and mine. Right here in this little book."

  "But it is not yet complete, deshaida," Allia noted.

  "That's because we haven't finished it yet, sister," Keritanima said, staring at it. "When it's done, this will be the most important book in the world. It's our passage out of here."

  "You put too much hope on that, sister," Tarrin told her. "I can't deny that it'll be useful, but it's just that. Useful."

  "Useful, yes. Important, undoubted," she replied. "But it's something more than that, Tarrin. It's a testament."

  "To what?"

  "To us," she replied, her eyes a mystery. "It's the defining statement that said that we were good enough. Better than the rest, and that we have won."

  "Deshaida," Allia said, "give over on this need to prove yourself. You are my sister. For whatever you are, it is enough for me, and I will always love you."

  Keritanima gave Allia a totally vulnerable look, full of powerful emotion, then she began to cry. Allia embraced her, stroking her hair, and Tarrin fully understood. Keritanima had never wanted anything more than acceptance from her family. Instead, they all tried to murder her. She had a new family now, a family that accepted her, loved her, and supported her. A family that loved her more than her own family ever did. Tarrin stood and accepted Keritanima into his arms, holding her close, with Allia keeping a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  "I want the brands," she sniffled from Tarrin's chest. "I want to be one of you. I want to belong."

  "You always did, Kerri," Tarrin told her gently. "You always did."