by Fel
As the door squealed closed, Tarrin looked down the dank passage. It was pitch black, and unlike the first one, this one was filled with cobwebs and smelled heavily of mold and stagnation. Keritanima touched the Weave and created her little ball of light again, and it illuminated a rubble-strewn passage with an uneven floor, the skeletal remains of rats and other creatures, and thickly covered in cobwebs.
"This is a good sign," Keritanima said. "Maybe the priests don't know about the hidden chamber."
"How could they forget?" Tarrin asked. "They're right on those plans you got."
"It took me a while to find those, Tarrin, and how often do these men look at the plans?" Keritanima asked calmly. "As long as the place isn't crumbling around them, they probably never think of looking at things like engineering plans. Maybe they just stopped using this section, and it was forgotten over the years. Remember, brother, the cathedral is almost five hundred years old."
"I didn't know it was that old," he said.
She nodded. "Let's move. Time's wasting."
It was slow going, because they had to tear down cobwebs and avoid stepping on things that crunched. The passage was in disrepair, and the slick floor, littered with debris, made footing treacherous. They turned into a side passage, and went down a flight of dilapidated stairs that took them underneath the cathedral's main level. The passage ended in a slimy stone door with a pull ring. Keritanima pulled on it, and it opened into a similarly eroded passageway. It lacked the cobwebs and the dead rats, but it did have the crumbling mortar in the walls. Tarrin felt a strange twinge as they entered the new passageway.
"The door is secret from this side," Keritanima noted curiously. "I wonder why."
"Who knows?" Tarrin asked.
"This passage shows signs of recent travel," Allia said, pointing to a bootprint in the dank lichen decorating a stone on the floor.
"Let's hope we don't find whoever made that," Keritanima said. "This way," she pointed, and they started in the same direction as they bootprint had gone.
The passageway turned twice, and ultimately led to a large door bound with a bolt and two chains, and it was locked three times. They also found the owner of that boot. It was a lone priest, by the tattered remains of a black robe decorating the skeletal body, looking to be long dead. Long enough for mold to grow on the bones. There was no sign as to what killed the man. It was as if he simply died when he reached this place.
The twinging Tarrin felt was stronger, and he realized that it was coming from the door. He reached out with his senses, and could almost feel the magic tied up into the door. Keritanima had just knelt by the door, and was reaching out for the first lock with a pick in her hands.
Tarrin pulled her away from the door hurriedly, making her sit down hard on her own tail. She gasped and glared at him, but didn't shout. "What did you do that for?" she demanded in a harsh whisper.
"The door is magical," he warned her. "It may be trapped."
Keritanima gave him a speculative look, then he felt both her and Allia touch the Weave and assense the door. "There is a very, very old spell on it," she agreed. "Hundreds of years, by the way it settled into the stone."
"Perhaps the spell is a trap, and it killed that man," Allia surmised.
"Lula never taught me how to unravel the spells made by priests," Keritanima said, a bit helplessly. "How do we go about it?"
"I think I have an idea," Tarrin said. He had to do this fast. Reaching out, he touched the Weave and almost immediately struck. Others had tried to cut him off from the Weave enough for him to have an understanding of how it was done, so he wove together a spell consisting almost entirely of Divine Power, Fire, and Mind, and then he unleashed it on the door. The weave surrounded the door, and then it hardened into a barrier that choked the enchantment off from the Weave. The spell didn't get its power from the Weave, but it received it from its source through the Weave, and that gave him a way to disrupt it. The same way a Sorcerer could block the powers of a priest, Tarrin attacked the permanent spell placed on the door in the exact same manner.
The door shimmered and then went dark at the same time that Tarrin's paws suddenly exploded into radiance, the white wispy aura that denoted the use of High Sorcery, and he found himself struggling against an onslaught of power. It was even more this time, more and faster and harder, and it was only him fully expecting what was coming that allowed him to tear himself away, cutting himself off from the Weave. He still suffered a backlash, a backlash severe enough to disturb the air around him and send a short gust of wind to pull at the clothes of his sisters. A backlash that put him on his knees, panting heavily as he tried to find some coherent thought.
"What was that?" Allia asked.
"That was High Sorcery!" Keritanima gasped. "Tarrin, how did you do that?"
"I can't help but do that, Kerri," he panted. "It's the problem I'm having."
"No wonder the Council is in such a twist," she said in awe. "I thought you were just having a problem with control, but you just did something Lula said was impossible for one person!"
"Let's save this for later," he said, managing to get back to his feet. "The weave I put on the door isn't going to hold forever. When it weakens, the spell on the door will come back, so let's get it open before that can happen."
"You didn't destroy it?"
Tarrin shook his head. "I don't know how," he said helplessly. "But I do know how to cut people off from the Weave. That's what I did to the door. The barrier I wove around it will sustain itself, but only for a few minutes, so move, sister! You don't have all day!"
She nodded, and was working on the first lock immediately. She got it open, then opened the second in a matter of seconds, but the third turned out to be challenging. She hastily prodded and picked at it, then one of her tools snapped audibly. She cursed and pulled another from her bracer, her hands moving with steady precision even as the seconds ticked away. When Tarrin felt the weave blocking the door began to unravel, he took a step towards the kneeling Wikuni. "Kerri, hurry!" he said in a strangled tone. "It's almost broken!"
"Got it!" she said, pulling the lock off and backing away just as the barrier collapsed, and the door shimmered with magical light.
Keritanima blew out her breath, then she laughed ruefully. "Well, that was interesting," she said in a playful tone. Touching the Weave, she wove together a spell of air that allowed her to move things with Sorcery. The bolt of the door turned and pulled free of the wall, then she used weaves of solid air to push the door open without touching it.
"Why didn't you pick the locks using that?" Allia asked.
"Pick locks with air weaves?" Keritanima asked. "Do you have any idea how precise and delicate you have to be to pick a lock without jamming it?"
"Then I guess you can't," Allia shrugged.
"Now it's a challenge, sister," Keritanima grinned. "I'll find a way to do it."
Tarrin helped Keritanima back to her feet, and the fox Wikuni pulled off the robe and swished her tail a few times. "Now let's see what's worth protecting with a magical trap," she said with a twinkle in her amber eyes.
The interior was dark and surprisingly dry, and Tarrin sensed that magic kept the room thusly. The room held only one thing, a large bookshelf that stood alone in the center of the room, and was loaded with books and scrolltubes. About fifty books, all bound in black leather, and some twenty or so scrolltubes on a small stand on the top shelf. Each tube looked to be made of ivory. Thick dust was covering the books, tubes, and the shelf, and prints formed in the dust on the floor as the trio moved into the rom. There was nothing else in the room.
"Jackpot," Keritanima whispered in a reverent tone. Tarrin and Allia followed her as she approached the large stone shelf, then pulled a book at random from it. The cover had imprinted on it a shaeram, a clear indication of what the book was about.
"And this is what we came for, my deshar," she said, using the Selani term for siblings, holding her hands out to the bookshelf. "If we're
lucky, this is everything the priests knew about the Sorcerers. If we can't find something useful in this, then there won't be anything useful to know."
"Strange," Allia mused. "I expected there to be more."
"I'm glad there's not," Keritnima replied. "There are alot of books here, deshaida. You'd be surprised how much information you can put in this many books, if you're methodical about it." She reached behind her, for the canvas bags she had stuffed under her shirt and into her belt. "Alright, pack them in tightly, Tarrin. Scrolls in their own bag."
Tarrin ended up with three large bags packed so tightly with books and scrolltubes that there was no danger of them opening and becoming damaged. They weren't too heavy for him to easily carry, but they were very bulky and unwieldy, ensuring that he would have to move carefully. He had them at his feet, getting ready to pick them up, but Keritanima sighed and stared at him. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Getting ready to pick these up," he said.
"Why carry them?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"I've seen you shapeshift with things in your hands," she told him. "They just disappear. These things are going to bang around and make noise, and risk damaging them. Why don't you just make them disappear, and let Allia carry you out of here?"
"I've never tried that before," he said honestly. "I know things go elsewhere when I shapeshift with things in my paws, but I don't know if something this big will do that."
"Try," she said dismissively.
"What if they disappear, but never come back?" he asked pointedly.
"Good point," she said after a brief consideration. She pursed her lips, then pulled out an empty sack and handed it to him. "Now try," she said.
Nodding, Tarrin stepped back, then shifted into his cat form. The sack vanished, as he knew it would. He then returned to his humanoid form.
And the sack was in his paw.
"Good. Now try it with one bag," she told him.
After a bit of experimentation, Tarrin found that all three sacks would vanish when he changed form, locked in that elsewhere created by the amulet when he changed his shape. And more importantly, they would be back in his paws when he shifted back, as would everything inside the bags.
No wonder the Goddess didn't want him to lose the amulet. It had just proven how incredibly useful it could be.
Stuck in his cat form, Tarrin found himself riding in the cowl of the black robe Allia was wearing. Paws on her shoulder, he peeked up over her shoulder, watching as they moved. He wondered at the amulet for a moment, then rememebered that the Goddess had given Keritanima an amulet. One that was for her, like the one Allia wore was for Allia. He had the suspicion that he knew one of the things that it would do.
"Keritanima," he called in the unspoken manner of the Cat.
"What?" she asked, turning around. Then she gave him a curious look. "How did I understand that?"
"The amulet!" Allia said in understanding, snapping her fingers.
"That amulet you wear lets you understand me like this," he told her. "It was a gift from the Goddess of the Sorcerers. I guess she wants us to be able to communicate."
Keritanima touched her chest, where the amulet was resting under her shirt. "Clever," she said after a moment. "Can we speak that way?"
"No," Allia replied. "But it does let us understand Tarrin when he does it."
"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Keritanima asked curiously.
"It honestly never occured to me," Tarrin replied.
"Let's worry about it later,"she said. "We got what we came for. Let's get out of here with it."
Using Sorcery to erase the prints that betrayed their entry into the room, then close the door and replace the locks, Keritanima led Allia back along the secret passageways, until they were again by the squeaking door leading to the main passages. "We don't have far to go, and hopefully the robes will let us just walk out of here," she said. "It's not that much past midnight. We should get back to the Tower with enough time to stash the books and still get some sleep before class in the morning."
Tarrin was pulled out of the cowl and set in the crook of Allia's arm as she pulled the hood over her face. "If anyone challenges us, let me do the talking," Keritanima told her.
"Alright," Allia agreed, and Keritanima opened the secret door.
It turned out that it wasn't necessary. Keritanima led Allia into empty hallways; obviously the ceremony that the priests woke to perform had been completed, and the hallways were again empty. Keritanima led Allia down the passage, all the way to the end, where a single simple wooden door marked the passage out of the cathedral. It was locked, but that was easy enough, considering it was nothing but a bolt keeping the door closed. Keritanima pulled the bolt and opened the door, letting the cold air into the passage, and then she stepped out. Tarrin felt the cold air against his fur, making Keritanima's and Allia's breath mist before their faces, as the fox Wikuni shut the door behind them.
They were out. Tarrin let out his breath explosively, which wasn't very much for his small cat body. From there on, it should be quick, and hopefully easy.
"And there we are," Keritanima said in a bright whisper. "Let's get back. I'm sleepy."
Keritanima and Allia ghosted into the darkness carrying Tarrin, who was carrying their booty, leaving a sleeping cathedral behind. A cathedral that had not noticed the presence of the intruders.
Tarrin discovered that it was rather nice to be carried.
After burning the robes in a narrow alleyway, Keritanima and Allia quickly and effortlessly made their way back to the Tower grounds. There wasn't as much danger of being spotted now, because a Wikuni wasn't that much of an oddity on the streets. And though Allia was Selani, her tell-tale silver hair was bound in a black cloth, and she only looked like a rather slender Mahuut woman. Selani and Mahuut shared the creamy brown colored skin, and the Mahuut were a very tall people, so Allia's unnatural height didn't make her look out of the ordinary. Tarrin was the one that would make them so noticable, and with him in his cat form, he was no longer so noticable. Tarrin rode in the crook of Allia's arm, being held gently yet firmly as they made their way back towards the safety of the Tower's grounds.
Looking back, Tarrin was very pleased. It had went very well, except for being scared out of his fur by that bell, and a couple of moments of adrenalin. Keritanima's much touted plan had worked and worked well, and despite Miranda's warning, the Wikuni stuck with it. The location of the books had been curious, but what was even more curious was their total disregard for it. The room had been abandoned, almost seemed to be forgotten, and the information had been guarded only by an enchanted doorway. Was it the real information, or just a decoy? Keritanima thought it was what they were looking for, but he wasn't so sure. He'd have to see it before he decided.
Tarrin wasn't even sure what the information was supposed to be. Keritanima had high hopes that there would be some forgotten lore in there that they could use to protect them from the katzh-dashi when it came time for them to run, but Tarrin had the feeling that there was more to it for the Wikuni. He had the feeling that she wanted to know just for the sake of knowing, an almost obsessive need to understand more and more about Sorcery.
Tarrin realized that he was curious about Sorcery, even interested in it, but it wasn't the focus of his life. Then again, with all the chaos in his life, there wasn't a real way he could get interested in something. He was too busy trying to keep his sanity and keep himself alive. Thoughts of survival dominated most of his pondering, thoughts of discovering what was going on, who was trying to kill him, and why he was so bloody important. If they were to treat him like anyone else, Tarrin had the feeling that, were he not in such a situation, he would leave at the end of the Initiate rather than staying to become katzh-dashi. As long as they taught him how to keep from killing himself, he was content. His interest in Sorcery of late was simple self-preservation, to find a way to get around his control problem so that his power wou
ld be useful to the others when it came time for them to flee.
The sight of the ornate iron fence ended his musings, as Allia raced over the cobblestones and gently set him down. He already understood what needed to be done, as Binter approached from the shadows of an empty guardpost. He shapeshifted back into his humanoid form, the three sacks appearing in his paws, set two down, and then lobbed the third over the fence to Binter. He did it twice more, throwing the sack of scrolltubes very gently, then helped Allia and Keritanima over the fence. After they were safely over, they all dashed for cover with the sacks, because torchlight began to brighten further down the line. A patrol was coming. Tarrin went back into his cat form and darted into a shadowy corner across the cobblestone street from the fence. Tarrin watched the squad of eight men file by at a leisurely pace, then he came back out as they disappeared around the corner of a storehouse some hundred paces away. Once it was safe, Tarrin pulled off his leather shirt and used it to get across the Ward, then picked it up and put it back on as he hurried to rejoin his companions. Keritanima was grinning like the cat that got into the cream, and Allia wore that same expresionless, cool expression that she always wore. Very little got her excited. That was one thing he really liked about her. Keritanima was mercurial, but Allia was methodical and dependable, as solid as the mountain stone.
Tarrin took over the task of carrying the books when he reached them, and Binter was sent back to the Wikuni's room with a few curt gestures. Where Binter was, the Princess was, and that was a ploy that kept people's eyes away from her more than once. The trio of conspirators flitted across the grounds like ghosts, moving without attracting the attention of the guards, and easily entered the magically warmed air of the gardens and disappeared into the hedgerow maze.