Tower of Sorcery

by Fel

  "He never told me that," Jesmind said in quiet reflection.

  "Tarrin's heart is deep. He would go to great lengths to bring comfort to total strangers. To hurt people is totally against his nature."

  "Yes, that's the problem," she grunted. "That's the other thing I came to talk to you about."

  "What?"

  "You have to get him out of here," she said. "This place is killing him bit by bit. The Tarrin I see now isn't the same cub that walked through those gates. He's turning hard, and if something isn't done, he'll become feral. He's already half feral now. It won't take much to make him feral permanently."

  "Feral?"

  "It's a term we use," she replied. "To us, it means savage, or vicious. More than a few of us are like that. We may be intelligent, but we're still part animal. If you beat an animal long enough, it turns mean, and it will never trust anyone again. That can happen to us too. If he's put through too much in this pit, he'll never trust another soul when he finally walks out those gates. He'll be feral. He'll only trust those people that he trusted before he turned feral, and when they're gone, that's it. He'll run into the forest, and noboby will ever see him again."

  "I cannot take him from the Tower, Jesmind," she said in a troubled voice.

  "No, but you can take the Tower out of him," she replied. "You have to make sure that he spends time with the Selani and the little mouse. He trusts them. But it can't be just walks in the garden. It has to be quality time with nobody watching or eavesdropping, where he can express himself to them. If he keeps himself bottled up all the time, all his fears and suspicions are going to grow in him like a cancer. You also have to make sure that he stays in constant contact with people that he loves. Bring his parents here at least every other day. He has to have alot of positive human contact to counteract the suspicion that's starting to fester in him. And for the gods' sake, make them stop making him feel like a prisoner!" she snapped. "You better tell the Keeper and those others to just back off. They're killing him with attention."

  "I did not realize that his position was so tenuous," Dolanna said in surprise. "He does not seem--"

  "He's a damn good actor, Dolanna," Jesmind said grimly. "I can see it all over him. The simple fact that he flinches when people touch him is all the indication I need. He's keeping up faces because he knows that something's going on, and he doesn't want to tip his hand that he knows. And that's just adding to his trouble."

  Dolanna pulled on her robe and tied it about her slim waist. "I will do what I can, Jesmind, but I can offer no guarantees. I am not in a position of authority here."

  "No, but you're the only Sorcerer that Tarrin explicitely trusts," she replied. "That gives you a lot of say in his well being. If you tell them that what they're doing is killing him, they'll have to listen. Because none of the others can get close enough to him to find out for themselves."

  "True," she agreed. "I will do what I can for him. I can make no guarantees, but I will try."

  "You'd better," she said, closing her fist. "If he goes feral on me, I'm going to come back here and take his pain out of a few backsides. Tarrin's not vengeful. I am. Make sure the Keeper knows that her own skin hangs on how well they treat my cub."

  "I am sure that she will swoon over hearing such news," Dolanna said dryly.

  "She can swoon all she wants," Jesmind snorted. "I have to go. I have to penetrate the Ward before too many people are around to notice it. Just do what you can for him, Sorceress. Keep my cub sane."

  "I will try," she replied gravely.

  With a simple nod, Jesmind turned and left the woman standing by her bed.

  It wasn't much, but it was all that she had. All that Tarrin had.

  It surprised him.

  Tarrin sat in the garden, watching the sun come up, unsure of what he was feeling, and what it meant.

  Jesmind was a woman that never ceased to confuse him to no end. The emotional whirlwind she had always been able to create in him had only intensified with her leaving, leaving him unsure of what he felt for her. The bizarre mixture of hatred, anger, and trust and even desire he felt for his enigmatic bond-mother had been scrambled like an egg with her gone, and there was an emptiness inside him that he didn't expect every time that he thought about her.

  What concerned him was how serious she seemed to be not only about him, but about his mental condition. He felt rather in control of himself, but Jesmind's concern about him made him second-guess his own confidence. He felt more than in control, since his time in cat form had ended, he'd existed in a very content peaceful state with his cat half. He'd had very little problem at all, because he understood his animal instincts much better. Now he wondered if he was in control as much as he thought. He did have to admit that her closeness had made him feel more secure, even when he wanted to tear out her throat. That was a primitive instinctual reacion and he knew it, but he was powerless to overcome it. With her gone, he felt much more vulnerable, and it was a feeling that he didn't like. Not one bit. One thing he had learned about himself was that any time he felt uncertain or uncomfortable, it fomented discord between his rational mind and his instincts. In order to maintain his balance, he was going to have to be very careful and try to remain calm and in control. Even if he wasn't in control, it was important for him to feel like he had control of his life, and that was why he had dropped a note off at Keritanima's door before coming outside. The sooner he started regaining control of his life, the better it would be for him.

  One could only think for so long about things that couldn't be answered, and Tarrin was never one to dwell on negatives. He had to look forward, to the future, and come to terms with it. But one thing was for certain. With the way he felt now, he didn't want to live in the stress of the Tower's shadow for any longer than absolutely necessary. They had brought him to Suld, and at first he had been happy to come. But the reality of what was going on around him had jaded his initial optomism. He didn't like not knowing what they wanted from him, and the fact that they wouldn't come out and tell him made him feel that it wasn't something that he'd like doing very much. Tarrin's initial impression of the Keeper had been dislike. It had degenerated into distrust when she put the collar on him, and now it was bordering on rebellion because he knew that something was going on. No, not bordering. It was rebellion. Tarrin wanted no part of what the Tower was planning for him. He was brought to the Tower to learn, and from the beginning he was told that continuing to study Sorcery would be his own decision. That after he learned the basics and was no threat to the world, he was free to go. But they weren't going to let him do that, and that made him feel trapped. Tarrin didn't respond well to that feeling.

  The sharp scent of Keritanima touched his nose, and he looked up from the gravel pathway. She was advancing towards him slowly, dressed a bit hastily in an Initiate dress but sleep still creeping across her features. She wasn't her usual perfect self, but then again, her Royal Highness wasn't accustomed to waking up before the sun. Tarrin had slid a note under her door, a note that her maid or one of her two bodyguards had no doubt given to her. Keritanima shared her apartment with her mink-wikuni maid, and during the night a pair of absolutely massive lizard-Wikuni guarded her door. The Keeper made Keritanima adhere to the Initiate codes, but she had been forced to make several exceptions, due to her royal lineage.

  "I'm going to kill you, Tarrin," she said grumpily. "Do you have any idea how much I hate getting up in the morning?"

  "You'll live," he told her. "I figured that this would be the best time to talk."

  "The only reason I came out was because Jervis hasn't gotten here yet," she told him.

  "Then it's best that we talk now," he told her.

  "Where's Allia?"

  "Still asleep," he replied. "I don't think that she's going to be a big help in what we need to talk about."

  Her amber eyes gave him a penetrating look. "I take it something happened?"

  He nodded. "Jesmind is gone," he told her.

&n
bsp; "You--"

  "No, nothing like that," he cut her off. "She had to go back home. But she said a few things to me that made me think, and it's something that concerns both of us."

  "This master plan?" she asked, and he nodded. "Well, I guess I feel secure enough to get started," she announced. "Miranda has already made many friends among the Tower's servants."

  "Miranda?"

  "My maid," she replied. "Miranda knows about me, Tarrin. She's one of the reasons I'm still alive."

  "You didn't mention her before."

  "That's because she likes to keep it as quiet as I do," she told him. "If my father ever found out, he'd realize that Miranda would have to know the truth, and he'd probably have her executed for treason."

  "I doubt that."

  "You don't know my father," she said. "You said something about a Tiella?"

  He nodded. "Tiella is a novice that came to the Tower with me," he said. "She can help because her daily task is to clean the Keeper's office."

  Keritanima chuckled. "I think that that's definitely a help," she agreed. "But she can't rifle the Keeper's desk."

  "I know," he said. "But she can pass along anything she sees in passing. Tiella has a good memory."

  "I hope so," Keritanima said, tapping herself on the end of her snout with a clawed finger. "Allia told me the other day that she can understand you when you're a cat. Does that mean that you can talk to other cats?"

  Tarrin blinked, and gaped at her. "How did you know that?"

  "It's elementary, if you think about it," she said. "If she can communicate with you as a cat, then you must speak in some sort of language. And if you do that, then obviously cats can communicate with each other."

  "I'm glad you think it's obvious," he told her.

  "Then it's true."

  "Without going into a long explanation, yes."

  "Then why don't you ask some of the Tower's cats to give you a hand?"

  "Because they're still animals, Keritanima," he told her. "Cats aren't stupid, but their intelligence isn't the same type as ours. I wouldn't know where to begin asking a cat to dig for information without guiding it step by step."

  "Well, it was a thought. But it definitely means that I need a cat."

  "What for?"

  "Who better to send with information?" she asked with a smile. "All it takes is a hollow collar and instructions to find you. Assuming, of course, that I could make it understand to come find you."

  "Now that, I could help you with," he said. "I can ask it to come find me when you say something specific to it. They don't understand the common speech, but they can learn a few words."

  "Good enough," she told him, leaning back and looking at the sunrise. "Just keep it low, Tarrin. Let me handle it."

  "I was planning to," he assured her. "But I'm still going to see what I can learn."

  "How so?"

  He extended his claws and showed them to her. "These let me get into alot of open windows," he replied calmly.

  "Just be careful," she replied.

  "I'm always careful, Keritanima," he replied soberly, looking at the rising sun.

  "Good, because I may need your help."

  "How so?"

  "The fastest way to find out what someone knows about someone is to make them talk about that someone," she explained. "If you want me to find out why they're so interested in you, you have to make them talk about you. And nothing can make that happen faster than when you make them angry."

  Tarrin smiled slightly. "I think you have a plan."

  "Oh, I have a very good plan," she replied with a roguish smile. "It involves all three of us. It's certain to drive the katzh-dashi crazy. That's just an added bonus, because what it's going to do is make certain that alot of people talk about us. That's information that'll be easy to gather up." She put her feet on the bench and drew up her knees to her chest. "The Princess Brat has been doing that for quite a while, so she can easily incite the Sorcerers into conniptions, but can you and Allia do it?"

  "What would we have to do?"

  She licked her chops absently, thoughts obviously forming behind her eyes. "The quickest way for the two of you to make them angry would probably be to become defiant," she reasoned. "That should be easy for you. But the problem is going to be coming up with a reason for you to rebel that makes sense. Plus it will make them show us just exactly how valuable they think we are."

  He could understand the logic of that. By seeing how much they would take before they finally took action, he would understand how valuable he was.

  "Since I've established the fact that the Brat Princess likes you two, she would probably join in the rebellion," she continued. "I'd rather not, but unfortunately, it's the way things are."

  "Why is that?"

  "Oh, I didn't tell you," she said with bright eyes. "I touched the Weave yesterday!"

  "Congratulations," he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. "What's it like?"

  "I'm not supposed to tell you that, but I loved it!" she said in wonder. "Now I understand why I've always detested the idea of being Queen. Sorcery is what I was born to do."

  "I'm happy for you, Keritanima," he said, then he chuckled. "Why did your father give you such a long name?"

  "It's something of a custom among female aristocrats," she sniffed. "My sisters have names just as long as mine."

  "Well, I'm in danger of biting my tongue off every time I say it, so I'm going to call you Kerri," he told her. "Not because it sounds nice, but because I don't want to go around sounding like an idiot."

  She laughed. "Kerri, is it? Well, I guess I can live with that. We'll discuss my fee for being so gracious some other time. Anyway, since I've just managed to make a touch on the Weave, rebelling would mean refusing lessons. I'd rather not do that, but I may not have a choice."

  Tarrin's eyes narrowed. "Maybe not," he said. "It's not in stone yet, but let me see if I can't organize a bit of covert instruction."

  "That short one? Dolanna?"

  He nodded. "She's a very good friend. I may convince her to teach us secretly."

  "We'll spend our time in rebellion in the library," she continued. "If we want a real chance at getting away, if it comes to that, we'll need every advantage we can get our hands on."

  "How?"

  "Tarrin, the Ancients wielded power that would make the katzh-dashi look like Novices," she said. "If we could somehow learn just one or two little secrets, we could maybe use them to make good on any escape. Don't you forget that if we run, they'll just use magic to find us. We have to find a way to stop that before we try anything."

  "You sound convinced that we will."

  "I am," she said. "I know a sinking ship when I see it, Tarrin. They want something from us, and they're more than willing to do whatever it takes to get it."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Just call it women's intuition," she told him. "I have alot of little reasons that all add up to the same conclusion."

  "Well, we can try, but they've had whole platoons of Sorcerers trying to do the same thing that we're going to do, Kerri. I don't know if we'll have any more luck than them." He leaned forward. "The Lorefinders do nothing but try to find the lost secrets."

  "True, but they're looking at it from a smashmouth perspective," she snorted. "They're looking for the secrets to be written down in the books, waiting for them to find it. The secrets are there, but they're not obvious."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Tarrin, you'd be surprised at how much you can learn about a people just by figuring out what a day in the life of that person was like," she explained. "If we can figure out what they did from day to day, nothing serious or titanic or earth-shaking, just how Ancient Sorcerer Bobbi went about her daily routines, we may find something that they missed."

  "How does that help us learn new Sorcery?"

  "By understanding an effect, one can often make it come to pass," she pointed out. "After we learn more about Sorcery, we may b
e able to reverse-engineer some of those effects." She picked at her dress absently. "I'm pretty sure that the Lorefinders are looking for the wrath of the gods type things. They're not looking for how, perhaps, our Ancient Sorceress, Bobbi, cleaned her robes at the beginning of each day."

  "And that information was probably left behind," Tarrin said in a glimmer of insight.

  She smiled. "Of course. The Ancients took almost everything with them, and they probably didn't write about themselves, but I'll bet that others did. From what I understand, the Church of Karas hated them, and I'll bet that they were exhaustive in their study of the Ancients."

  "Why?"

  "How better to defeat an enemy than to understand that enemy?"

  "'A predictable enemy is a defeatable one'," Fox quoted from one of his mother's many sayings.

  "Just so," she agreed. "So we may be paying the Cathedral a visit. That's the main repository of almost all the lore of the church of Karas. I think we'll find some very interesting things there."

  "They wouldn't let that kind of information out. And they'd boil their own gizzards before handing it over to the Tower," he reasoned. "So it's probably still there."

  "Very good," she smiled. "I'll make a politician out of you yet."

  "I hope not," he grunted. "So, what's our first move?"

  "Our first move is to learn," she replied calmly. "I won't be ready to move forward for a few more days. Maybe a ride. But when I am ready, you have to get unfriendly. Find something that you really hate about your situation, but make sure it's something that they won't change. And when I give the signal, make it very clear that you're unhappy. Cause all sorts of trouble, until the Keeper herself has to deal with it. When she refuses to change it, then you go on strike."

  Tarrin laughed. "That's a clever way to say it."

  "Allia will stand by you, and after a bit of wishy-washiness, the Brat Princess will too. That will conveniently give us some time to kill, and we'll do it in the library. Miranda will be gathering information, as will Tiella and you. And hopefully, your friend Dolanna will give us some help. After that, we'll have to see where we stand with what we've got before we make our next move. We can't learn secrets unless we have at least a basic understanding of Sorcery, and for that, we'll need Dolanna."