James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

And it was so strange being back in the Tower. Dar had been very happy to see him, and they had spent the time between dinner and lights out catching up. Dar had taken the Test, and showed potential. He was starting the Initiate next month. Several novices they both knew had left the Tower for various reasons, and there was a rumor that there was going to be a Wikuni coming to the Tower and going through the Initiate. Dar himself was ecstatic over passing the test and going on to the next phase of the Tower training, for going back and being a spice merchant was the last thing on earth he wanted to do. The rules of the Test forbade him from even telling Tarrin so much as how long it took. If an Initiate passed information about the Test to anyone, he was immediately expelled. Dar was set to enter the Initiate at the beginning of the next week, which was only three days away. He had already finished his Noviate studies, and was spending his last three days working in the library with the Lorefinders.

As far as his first day back went, it was a continuation of what had gone on before. The Novices avoided him, the Sorcerers gawked at him and pestered him, and the Tower's servants and guards gave him looks like he was going to sharpen his claws on the furniture. The only real difference was that he really didn't care anymore. His time with his little mother had brought to him a balance, and he realized that there was nothing that he could do about the shortfallings of those around him. If they couldn't trust him, or didn't like him simply because of what he was, that wasn't his problem. He'd found his acceptance, with Allia and Dar, and with his family. There was no more he needed.

His family. He was a little nervous about seeing them, after what had happened, but he really didn't think that they would hold it against him. By now, they obviously learned about his nature as a Were-cat, and that was the only explanation that he could give to them. He felt that they could accept it. But it didn't make the reality of what had happened any easier to bear.

Dar yawned and rolled over. "Good morning," Tarrin told him calmly.

"You're up early," Dar said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in bed. "What time is it?"

"Sometime around dawn," he replied.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"No," Tarrin relplied. "I'm too wound up to sleep."

"You're going to be hurting around noon," he said.

"No," Tarrin said. "I can sleep whenever I want for as long as I want, but I can also stay up as long as I want."

"Oh. I didn't know that," Dar said, putting his feet on the floor.

"I didn't either until about a month ago," he told him, unfolding his legs out from under himself and standing up. He stretched langorously, his paws brushing the ceiling, and he snapped his tail to and fro to get the tingles out of it. "I'm going to have a busy day today," he grunted. "They're giving me the Test, and my family is coming in to see me. Two things to worry about."

"The Test isn't all that bad," Dar assured him. "I'm not so sure about your family. Your mother makes me nervous."

"She does most people," Tarrin said.

"She really likes Allia. And Allia really likes her. They're two of a kind."

Tarrin chuckled. "Maybe now you understand why I got into such a deep friendship with Allia so quickly," he said. "She's so much like my mother, I couldn't help but like her, almost immediately."

Dar nodded. "She's been teaching your mother Selani. Oh, yes, your mother comes and visits her quite a bit. I've heard them talk a few times. Mostly, she's making Allia tell her about you."

Tarrin blinked. But then again, that was actually a good idea. Nobody knew Tarrin better than Allia. She'd been the only one he'd confide in over the months, and she knew how his mind worked. By talking to Allia, his mother was reacquainting herself with her own son. Tarrin rubbed his furred finger against his chin, thinking about it. That was a good sign, that she was so intent on learning about Tarrin's changes. That told him that she still cared, even after what had happened. Of course, he felt in his heart that she would forgive him, but a little backing up with hard evidence didn't hurt a bit.

He had changed quite a bit. And it went much deeper than the fur on his arms and legs.

"Your sister has learned it too," he added. "She can talk Selani just like Allia."

Now that was surprising. Jenna had a talent for languages; she could speak the trade tongue that was the commonly recognized language among the twelve kingdoms of the West, but she also knew High Sulasian, the archaic language spoken by high court and by some villages in the western areas, and she knew Dalasian, learning it from Karn the smith. That she learned to speak fluent Selani in a bit under two months was amazing. It reminded him how smart his sister was, much smarter than him.

"Allia is subverting my family," Tarrin said with a laugh. "Next we'll all be wearing desert garb and running the dunes."

Dar stood up and started dressing, and that reminded Tarrin to change out of his rumpled Novice clothes and put on some fresh ones. He was supposed to wear his usual novice clothes, but they were expected to be clean and very well groomed. The Test was as much ceremony and ritual as it was an assessment of his sorcery. Tarrin would never really look very well groomed, since his claws tended to shred pant legs and shirt sleeves. He found the best shirt and pants he had, showing very little wear from the passage of time and meeting up with the tips of his claws. The pants were always worse. The claws on his feet didn't retract completely the way his finger claws did, so they tended to snag on pant legs as he put them on, if he wasn't careful about it.

He really wasn't sure what he felt about the Test, even after thinking about it much of the night. He was a little nervous, but that seemed to be normal. Fear of the unknown was a common trait in anybody. He did feel alright with some parts of it, such as this vow he had to speak. The Goddess in the statue had told him that he could speak the vow without meaning it, just to humor the Council of Seven. Knowing that was coming was a tremendous relief. It wouldn't bowl him over, and what was important, it wouldn't present the Council with a bewildered, nervous poppinjay there for them to take advantage of him. He had a bit of confidence in what was to come, confident in the permissions given to him by the Goddess. Confident that he didn't have to challenge his independent nature when he was required to speak an oath that would put him into the service of another.

There was a knock at the door, and then it opened. Sevren was standing there, in his plain brown robe and the wire-rimmed spectacles he wore over his eyes. Sevren's scent was a bit nervous. Tarrin trusted Sevren, at least as much as he trusted any of the katzh-dashi . Sevren's interest in him had been a bit irritating at first, with all the strange questions and weird requests, but Sevren was very sincere in his desire to study Tarrin's Were condition, and Tarrin couldn't fault him for wanting to learn. Over the course of these little interview sessions, Tarrin had grown fond of the man. Sevren was a very easy-going individual, and for him to be nervous, about anything, was very much out of character. "What's the matter, Sevren?" Tarrin asked. Sevren didn't like to be called "master" or "lord" when they were alone.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," he waved off. "They're waiting for you."

"Already? I haven't eaten yet."

"Time waits for nobody, young one," he said. "Now hop."

"Yes, Sevren," he said, standing up and stretching a bit, working the kinks out of his tail.

Severen led him to a chamber very high up in the main Tower, a room so high that, if it had a window, one could probably see halfway to Shace. It took them nearly ten minutes to climb the stairs to get up that high. Tarrin always wondered why so few of the Sorcerers weren't overweight. After climbing up all those stairs, he knew exactly why. The Keeper's office wasn't even that high up. And yet, if he kept his bearings, they weren't even at the very top. The stairs still went up when the reached the proper floor. The chamber itself was featureless, built of gray stone, perfectly circular, and there was not a whit of furniture or carpet or decoration. Just a empty room. The only thing in it other than living things was a glow-globe, high up near the ceiling, a ceiling that had to be fifty spans high. Standing in the room were the seven members of the Council. The only ones that Tarrin could identify were Ahiriya and the Keeper, but all seven of them wore fine clothing and tried to have a very regal, wise look about them. The way they looked at him made him nervous.