"I'm glad I finally heard Jula's story," he said as they walked around the hedge maze. "She won't talk to anyone, so she's been a real big mystery here in the Tower."
"Why would anyone want to know things like that?"
"Only a very few people here trust her, Tarrin," Dar told him. "If she wasn't in Jenna's favor, they'd probably run her off. They remember that she betrayed the Goddess, and many of the katzh-dashi feel that that's an unforgivable offense."
"I trust her."
"You didn't at first," he said mildly.
"But she's my daughter."
"That had nothing to do with it," he replied. "You watched over her as a daughter, but you didn't trust her. I didn't think even you could forget who she was and what she did, but you surprised me. After the battle, I realized that you'd completely accepted her. I was happy for that. Jula was a very lonely woman, even among the other Were-cats. The Sorcerers couldn't forgive her, the Were-cats wouldn't forgive her, and she was stuck with both groups. I really felt sorry for her."
"Didn't you try to talk to her?"
"I did, but she wouldn't talk to anyone," he sighed. "Only you. From what I hear, now she's been accepted by Jesmind and Jasana, so at least she had someone to talk to while we were gone."
"Well, she's not alone anymore, so I guess things all worked out," Tarrin shrugged.
"Ugh, I'm a mess," Dar grunted, scrubbing his hair with his hands. "Let's go take a bath."
"Sure."
The baths weren't very busy, since it was sunset and people had better things to do. There were only a few Sorcerers and servants using the baths, and since it was after hours, there were no Novices to hand out towels or clean up the bathing chamber. When there were no attendants, towels were stacked on a large shelf near the stairs, and the two of them helped themselves to towels and moved towards the closest available benches.
"What do you do every day, Dar?" Tarrin asked, finally remembering to do so."
"Well, right now, I've been working with the Lorefinders," he answered. "Since I can read Sha'Kar. I've been working with them and a few of the Sha'Kar to teach them the language."
"What do all the other Sorcerers do all the time?" he asked. "I don't really see what they do all day."
Dar laughed. "Believe it or not, not a whole lot," he replied. "Being a katzh-dashi isn't a very strenuous occupation. Most of them spend most of their time studying Sorcery or history. Being katzh-dashi is about learning things, and that's what most of us concentrate on. There are some who like to go out in the field and gather information, or search for new Novices, and some have just started concentrating on Sorcery used in combat. They call themselves the Swords of the Goddess," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I think they just like blowing things up."
Tarrin laughed, then handed Dar the soap. "What, don't all the Sorcerers learn battle magic?"
"Of course they do," he nodded. "That's what makes all this talk of War Sorcery such nonsense. Like I said, I think they just like marching around and looking important, and exploding targets in some vain attempt to impress people."
"Who knows, maybe they'll actually be useful," Tarrin speculated.
"Maybe as the ones crazy enough to go first," Dar snorted. "Those kinds of nuts can have it."
"If that's what they want, who are we to gainsay them?"
"I have better things to do with my life than throw it away like that," Dar grunted.
"Have you seen Tiella?"
He nodded. "She's out of the Initiate. She decided to stay with the katzh-dashi, so she's in indoctrination."
"What's that?"
"The period between being an Initiate and a full katzh-dashi," he answered. "Where you learn about the politics of the Tower and the customs and such, and where they teach the kind of Sorcery that they don't want the freelancers to know. The Initiate concentrates on magic, and since you don't have to join the order after finishing the Initiate, they don't teach those things there. They save that and the really advanced magic or dangerous magic for those they can keep an eye on."
"What kind of magic?"
"Almost all the Mind magic," he said as he washed the soap off himself. "They don't teach Mind weaves to people that may go out and use them on people to get rich or control people. The only Mind magic they teach in the Initiate is mostly how to defend against it and how to recognize mind-affecting magic used by the Priests and Wizards."
"I guess that's a good idea," Tarrin shrugged. "What else do they teach in indoctrination?"
"Healing," he said. "Anything that takes four or more spheres too. The Initiate is about teaching Sorcerers enough not to get themselves killed. They save the advanced magic for those who are willing to devote their lives to its study."
"Don't they teach-what do they call it-oh, Circling in the Initiate?"
"They do, because what harm can it do?" he asked in reply. "You can only Circle with other Sorcerers, and they're not likely to find others out in the world. There are few enough as it is, and those that leave after the Initiate often don't advertise the fact that they're Sorcerers. Most of the world still blames us for the Breaking, so it's never healthy to advertise the fact that you're a Sorcerer."
"I guess not. How have the other Sorcerers handled the Sha'Kar?"
"Pretty well, actually," he said with a chuckle. "All the humans are falling all over themselves to learn Sha'Kar as fast as they can. All the Sha'Kar are a bit overwhelmed by all the attention they're getting."
Tarrin pulled the braid over his shoulder and untied the thong. It had been a while since he'd taken it out and washed all his hair. He'd been considering cutting the thing off. It was very heavy and it pulled at the back of his head uncomfortably, and when it was wet it gave him a headache with its weight. He wasn't sure why he hadn't done it yet. Maybe because it was the only thing he had outside the brands that reminded him of everything he'd forgotten. Without it, it would be easy to pretend that it had only been a few rides since he left home, instead of two years and more. "Think about it, Dar. How would you feel if living legends suddenly showed up at your doorstep?"
"I guess travelling with you numbed me to that kind of thing," he chuckled. "I'm used to outrageous things now." He dunked himself under the water's surface, and then came up and slicked his black hair back from his face. "I need a haircut."
"I need one more," he said, waggling the end of his long, long hair at Dar.
"If you cut that off, people would scream," Dar smiled. "You tried once before, but it lasted about a day. Kimmie gave you one offhanded remark, and you regrew your hair by suppertime."
"You make it sound like they controlled me," he noted.
"Not in the slightest, but Kimmie and Jesmind could make you do things when nobody else could," he amended. "Because you loved them. That let them get away with more than anyone else could have possibly gotten away with."
"As long as I wasn't henpecked," he laughed.
"Well, I'm getting waterlogged here, so I think I'm going to get out and dry off," he said. "And I have some work to finish. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, go ahead," he said. "I want to finish washing this, then I'll probably go spend the rest of the night with Jasana."
Dar climbed out of the pool, and Tarrin bent to the considerable task of washing the entirety of his hair. He debated again whether or not he should cut it off the whole time he was washing it. Scrubbing hair longer than the height of a small child is a time-consuming task, and the population of the bathing pool completely changed, then slowly dwindled as Tarrin scrubbed from the roots of his hair to the very tips, having to gather up the long locks and keep them out of the pool to lather them. It seemed a ridiculously boring chore, and he had all but decided that maybe something of a trim would be in order tomorrow. Maybe not take all of it off, but he wouldn't mind losing about half its length. It would be much lighter, alot less inconvenient, and it would probably stop the headaches. He didn't mind the idea of having a braid, but it was just that it was so
long and so heavy. If it was neither of those things, he probably wouldn't mind it at all.
Finally finishing, he waded towards the cooler, slightly shallower end where the stone steps leading out of the pool were located, sat down on them, and bent to the task of rebraiding his hair. It took him nearly a half an hour, mainly because he wasn't very good at doing it to himself. He'd braided his mother's hair many times, but it was alot different when he couldn't see what he was doing. He had to take the braid out and rebraid it three times when he realized that it was all uneven and probably looked like a big knot at the base of his neck. If he had to have it, he was determined that it wasn't going to look unkempt.
At long last, he was done. He retied the leather thong at the base of his braid to cinch it, and instead of getting out, he decided to go down towards the hot end and enjoy it a few minutes before leaving. Most of the bathing he'd done was in cold water, and that didn't tend to make him want to linger for very long. The hot baths he took at home didn't stay hot for very long in the winter, and in the summer a hot bath was the last thing anyone wanted. Aldreth and Sulasia lay in a temperate zone, where the winters could be very cold and the summers very hot.
The only problem he could see was the depth of the water. It only came up to his stomach, and he had to bend his knees to let the water come up to his chin. That, and he felt the strange desire to lay down in the water, to simply relax and let the water's heat soak into him. There really was no way to lay in the water other than to swim, and that seemed like too much exertion to him at the moment. Despite that disappointment, he found the water quite relaxing, and he was content to sort of float there with his feet on the bottom of the pool but not supporting his weight, half-floating, half-standing with the water lapping at his ears and its heat surrounding him in a most pleasing manner.
He was so relaxed, he didn't realize that someone was pulling on his hair until there was enough force behind it to move him. Someone had a firm grip on his braid, and that grip was pulling him. He opened his eyes, and to his shock, found himself staring up into the amused, hungry eyes of Auli.
He rose to his feet so quickly that the water erupted around him, but Auli had a very firm hold on his braid, and her grip on it pulled his head up short. His head was yanked to the side painfully as he rose up over her, a mixture of surprise and shock and a little embarassment over being taken so completely by surprise showing on his face as he grabbed his braid with his free hand and yanked it free. Auli was nude, and there was a look of smug victory in her eyes as she moved towards him. Tarrin's eyes moved to and fro, and he realized that he and Auli were the only ones in the baths. There would be no others to put her off this time. She had truly caught him alone. "Hello, Tarrin," she purred as she reached out and put her hands on his chest. "I've been waiting a very long time to get you alone."
Tarrin recoiled from her, not quite sure why he was doing so. He liked Auli, he was attracted to Auli, and part of him wanted Auli. But something else was there, and it told him that getting involved with Auli would be a very bad idea, and at the moment, that part of him was in charge. "A-Auli," he stammered, backing away from her. His attempt to retreat was met with her advancing, and the water slowed him as she was pulled along in his wake. "I told you to leave me alone. I don't want to-"
"Of course you do," she said with bright eyes, keeping her hand on his upper chest. "You just don't want to admit it."
Tarrin kept backing up, but he ran out of pool. His back and shoulders hit the high edge of the pool painfully, and in a blink she was against him, wrapping her arms around him, even hooking one of his legs with her own, locking him in place. Thought became hard when she pressed up against him, when he could feel her body pressing against his, feel all those things he'd been dreaming about touching him in the most intimate ways.
With a hungry look, she leaned completely forward and kissed him with the same passion and exuberance that he remembered from before, a kiss that caused what little thought he had to scatter and quite effectively subdued all those nagging warnings that were still trying to run through his mind. So close to her, with her naked body pressing against his, with her kissing him, no amount of objection was going to pierce the powerful sensations her kiss and her touch had evoked in him. All of Jula's advice was completely forgotten, scoured away by the power of Auli's kiss.
He knew beyond any doubt that Auli had won when she grabbed his wrist and ever-so-sensually set his hand on her backside, and he did not move it away after she removed her hand. But even that realization was drowned by her as she overpowered him with the raw energy of her touch and her kiss, and he found himself surrendering to her willingly, eagerly, wanting to accept the delights that she offered. The thought that they were in a public place, that almost anyone could come down those stairs and catch them making love in the bathing pool, that Jesmind was going to try to kill her when she found out, and then she was going to kill him, that this was a terribly bad idea, all of them were wiped away, and there was nothing left but the desire to finally experience what part of him had imagined and fantasized over the days.
To give in to Auli and let her do whatever she wanted.
It was both everything he imagined, and everything he feared it would be.
Tarrin didn't feel quite so good about it in the morning, after Auli was gone. She had taken him in that bathing pool, and if that wasn't enough of a blow to his pride, she had convinced him to take her back to his room, where she was about ten times as aggressive and almost shocking in her behavior. He never imagined a girl could act like that. She had been-even thinking about it was both wildly exciting and somewhat unsettling. He had been overwhelmed by her raw sensuality, her overpowering feminity at first, but it was nothing but his own weak will that had caused him to bring her back to his room afterwards, when he had a chance to think rationally. He had wanted to make love to her, and there was no way to excuse it. Despite all his bad feelings about it, he had thrown all of them aside and abandoned himself to the moment.
Despite beating himself over the head for his own shortcomings, he had to admit the fact that it had been very enjoyable. Auli was a very aggressive girl, but she had never once forgotten his needs or wants. She had been exquisite, and just thinking about her, about holding her nude body, about finally being able to touch all those places only his eyes had enjoyed before, it was almost intoxicating. Auli was so beautiful, so sensual, so free with herself, and so fearless, even in bed, to make love with her was almost like satisfying one's deepest fantasies and desires. It had been nothing like he had imagined it would be.
And that was one of the dangers he could comprehend. Just as he feared, the night with Auli made him want to have more of them, and that was going to upset all his plans for making an unbiased choice. Not unless he backed off, tried to forget about her, and moved on. Auli had had her conquest, and he decided that that had better satisfy her curiosity. He'd give her her victory this time, but there couldn't be a next time. If there was, he was going to fall more and more under her spell, and he knew that that would be a very short road. Auli didn't love him. He was pretty sure that she didn't really care too much about him. He was nothing but a toy to her, a thing, a conquest. And when she was bored with him, she would throw him away, regardless of how his feelings for her may evolve. And she was definitely the kind of woman a man could find feelings for, despite knowing exactly what kind of woman she was.
It wasn't that Auli was cruel or evil, it was simply that she didn't understand. She didn't understand what kind of an effect she had on human men, men not raised in the same society in which she had been raised. Tarrin would gain feelings for Auli if he slept with her enough times, and he knew he would. He knew himself enough to understand that, because Auli was already a very good friend. He liked her. And if she kept seducing him, kept getting intimate with him, he would invariably make that leap and decide that he loved her. Auli, on the other hand, thought everyone would be like her, and that making love was something fu
n, something enjoyable, and something to be done with anyone she fancied. That was all it was to her, a fun night of pleasure. That it had any kind of lingering emotional attachments was a completely alien concept to her. Tarrin equated sex with love in his mind, where Auli didn't. It was a clash of culture, and it was going to cause him some serious problems if he didn't put a stop to it quickly.
A flash of memory, an echo of the past, a beautiful woman with flaming red hair… and bat-like wings. Something about her was similar to this, to Auli, but he couldn't remember anything more than that.
In any case, he was certain that he'd better stay away from her. What she could do to him was nothing compared to what Jesmind or Kimmie might do to her if they found out what happened last night. Auli just didn't understand that he was staying away from her as much to protect her as it was about him not wanting to get involved with her. Jesmind especially showed a great deal of possessiveness over him, almost jealousy, and she was alot more hot-tempered than Kimmie. If Jesmind knew that Auli had seduced him, she'd march off, find the girl, and turn her inside out. Literally. He was sure of that. So he had to keep what happened secret.
The first step to doing that was to get her scent off of him. He'd had enough experience with the Were-cats to know that that would give him away faster than anything else. Auli's scent had to be absolutely all over him, and probably permeated the entire room as well. He had to get it scrubbed off of him, and if at all possible, change the linens on the bed and turn over the mattress after soaking it in something like vinegar, something to either cover or destroy the scent of Auli.
He moved quickly, knowing that any of the Were-cats may show up at his door any moment. In their unpredictability they were predictable. He threw open the windows and stripped the bed of its linens, then dressed in the same clothes he wore the day before and rushed down to the kitchens for some vinegar. He realized about halfway into his boots that using vinegar wouldn't work, he'd need something to completely pull out the scent. Fortunately, just such an agent happened to be next door, and at least from Dar he could expect the secret to be kept.
Weavespinner f-5 Page 20