James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Yes, Master Brel," they said in unison.

"Thank you, Lem. You can return to your duties." The young man bowed and scurried away. "You're here because you've proven you can handle the power of Sorcery," he told them. "Things work here much the same as they did in the Novitiate, except you'll be spending alot more time in study and practice than you will doing errands and working chores. Come with me."

They followed him back to the staircase, up two floors, then back out to the outermost hallway that ringed the tower. "I run a very tight tower," he said in a waspish tone. "If you thought Mistress Elsa was bad, she's a kitten compared to me. I'm a firm believer that punishment wears the nonsense out of someone." They stopped in front of a door. "Each of you will have your own room," he said. "Two rooms share a common storage closet. This will be your room, Tarrin," he said, pointing at a door. Tarrin didn't even bother asking how he knew his name. No doubt Master Brel had received a three page report on his two unusual Initiates ten minutes after Tarrin walked out of the Keeper's office two days ago. "Consider yourself lucky. Most new Initiates don't get a room with a window."

"Is the room across from Tarrin's occupied?" Allia asked in her strong, silky voice.

"No, and it's Master Brel," he said sourly.

"Then I will take that one, Master Brel," she said.

He gave her a startled look. "By the Goddess, you will not !" he gasped. "The very idea is insane!"

"Why is that, Master Brel?" she asked cooly.

"You're a girl!" he shot back.

"And why does that matter?"

"It's improper!" he snapped. "What's to stop him from walking in on you undressed? And what's to stop him from letting a boy into your room, if he doesn't go in himself?"

"How narrow," she said with a sigh. "If I want a male, I will not ask Tarrin to smuggle him in. I will let him in myself," she said bluntly. Brel stared at her with his eyes about to jump out of his face. "I am not human, Master Brel. Do not assign your human moralities to me." She crossed her arms under her breasts. "As to him 'walking in', I assure you that there is nothing under my clothes that he has not already seen. As to him being my lover, please, be sensible. As much as I love him, it is as a sister loves a brother. I am not in the habit of sleeping with my brothers."

Brel made a few strangling noises.

"Perhaps I should let a boy into the room of a female roommate, should you not pair us together," she mused aloud. "Maybe the experience would take the steel out of her back."

"Now see here!" he raged suddenly. "I'll not have that kind of talk in my tower!"

"It's a losing cause, Brel," the Keeper's voice called from the hallway. "Just give them the rooms they want and be done with it. I assure you, nothing improper is going to happen between them." Tarrin and Allia bowed to her as she approached, and Brel nodded to her. "I have another Initiate for you. I need the largest room you have available. One with a window."

"I take it the Wikuni has arrived, Keeper?" he asked, regaining his composure.

She nodded. "Her convoy just arrived in the harbor. She'll probably show up here tomorrow. It should take her that long to decide what to wear," she grunted with a sigh.

"Wikuni?" Tarrin repeated. "A Wikuni here, Keeper?"

"Not just any Wikuni," she said. "One of their Princesses. We made a deal with the King to bring her here for education."

"Pardon my saying so, but you don't sound very enthusiastic."

She laughed ruefully. "I guess I'm not. This Princess has a, reputation. I have no doubt she'll be as inconvenient as possible."

"Ah," he said. "One of those ."

She nodded. "I can feel the gray hairs coming already."

Tarrin chuckled. "Patience, Keeper," he said with a grin.

"I'll keep that in mind. Go ahead and take care of the young ones, Brel. I'll wait in your office."

"No, Keeper, I won't keep you waiting. Go make yourselves at home," he told them. "Feel free to rearrange the furniture if you feel like it, but keep everything clean. The kitchens are in the main tower. I'm sure you already know where they are. Go get some breakfast, and I'll have someone show you around after you get something to eat."

"Thank you, Master Brel," Tarrin said. "I was getting a little hungry."

He gave Allia a short, hostile look, then walked away with the Keeper by his side. "I have a room on the fifth level, Keeper, one of the largest. It has a nice view of the gardens," he was saying as they walked away.

Tarrin looked at Allia, and they both shrugged. "Another?" Tarrin asked.

"I guess so," she replied in Selani. "I'm starting to think that they're collecting Non-humans."

"You may not be far off the mark," he replied as he opened the door.

"If they're putting this Wikuni in the Initiate, then she must be capable of doing Sorcery," she speculated.

"I was thinking the same thing. They're not collecting Non-humans, they're collecting Non-humans that can do Sorcery."

"I think that's about right. Have you seen your parents yet?" Allia asked as the glowglobe inside the room brightened in response to the opening door.

"Not yet," he replied. The room was the same size as the room that he and Dar had shared, but it was only for one person. The room had a larger bed, with a large chest at the foot of it much as his old room had been. The room had more furniture, though. A large writing table was against the left wall with a chair resting in front of it, and a bookcase stood beside a washstand on the right wall. A key, the key to the room, was sitting on the top of the bookcase. There were two tables flanking the bed, two small nightstands, one of which held a lantern, the other a candle and candletray. Tarrin wondered what the lantern and candle was for with the glowglobe hanging in the air. What amazed him most was the carpet on the floor. It was a large carpet, dyed a solid blue with gold threading in geometric patterns along the outside edge. From the feel of it under his toes, it was old, but well maintained. The room had two windows as well, just on the outsides of each nightstand, small windows that a child would have trouble trying to squeeze through.

Compared to the Novice rooms, this was luxurious.

"I wonder if mine is this nice," Allia mused. There was a door between the washstand and bookcase on the right wall, the door leading to the central storeroom which this room and the next one over shared.

Tarrin leaned his staff in the corner and set his two packs down on top of the chest. "I'd hope so. Those windows may be a problem."

"Why?"

"Jesmind."

"Ah. I'm sure that you can figure out a way to defend them. And they let you out as easily as they let her in."

"Can't argue with that," he agreed as they opened the door to the storeroom.

It was large for a closet, with shelves lining the walls between the two doors. Two large chests sat against each wall, each chest flanked by two smaller ones, the same style and size chests as the one at the foot of his bed. A pole ran under the high shelf on each side of the closet, and several curious metal and wood hangars hung on them. Tarrin had seen hangars before, but only in the inn back at Aldreth. They were a relatively new innovation, from Shace. They'd been making wardrobes with hanging poles in them. They were primarily for dresses, to hang them to air them out and keep them from wrinkling.

"They certainly give us plenty of room," Tarrin noticed.

"I guess they think that we'll be living here for years," she replied as they opened the far door.

Allia's room looked so much like Tarrin's that he wondered for a moment if they hadn't gotten switched around in the closet. There was one difference, however. Allia's carpet was a darker shade of blue, and had a solid brown border instead of a geometric pattern border. "I'd say that it is," Tarrin noted calmly.