James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

Having a goal is one thing.

Figuring out how to reach it is another.

Tarrin returned to his room and slept away some of the afternoon, catching up on sleep lost the night before, and as he slept, and sprawled on his bed in cat form, he thought about what was going on and what he'd have to do. The main problem was that he had no idea where to go to get the information he needed, not without making it obvious that he was up to something. For some reason, he was pretty sure that letting the Keeper know he was nosing around about those things would get him in trouble. Maybe even put him in danger. He knew that, since he was important to the Sorcerers, they'd give him a bit of breathing space, he didn't want to push that advantage.

Everything more or less hinged on the Keeper. He was positive that she knew what was going on. He knew that she knew who was trying to kill him-more to the point, she understood just who this Kravon fellow was. So, the problem was that the Keeper had information that he wanted. He had to get that information, but he had to do it in such a way that she wasn't aware of him getting it.

And that wasn't going to be easy. Tarrin didn't really like the Keeper, but he respected her. She was a capable ruler, and she was by no means stupid or careless. That kind of information was bound to be very sensitive, so it wasn't just going to be laying around. If it existed anywhere but in the Keeper's mind in the first place.

The first step, he guessed, would be the Keeper's office. It was where she was bound to keep her official business. There, and in the possession of Duncan, her secretary. And to a lesser degree, he realized, the official offices of the other members of the Council. From the way they all looked at him, he had little doubt that they knew a great deal about what was going on. To a lesser extent, their personal quarters were also places of interest to him. There could be information he needed in one of their rooms. So he needed to find out where the Keeper and the Council members lived. And also Duncan. When it came to information in the Tower, nobody probably knew more than Duncan, so that man could never be ruled out.

He realized quickly that he didn't have to ransack the Keeper's office. Tiella's job as a Novice was to clean it. She was already inside. He needed to talk to her. Tiella was a friend, and would probably help him out, so long as the risk to herself was minimal. She was a friend, but she wasn't stupid, and Tarrin wouldn't put her in danger for his own sake to begin with.

Another thing he needed to do was start talking to the other Sorcerers. He knew a few of them, such as Dolanna, Sevren, and Jula, but he needed to get on friendly terms with a few more. Sorcerers were more open with Initiates. He hoped that there were some rumors or gossip about Tarrin floating around between the members of the order, and if was lucky, he could pick some of that up. Dolanna would be his best bet there. If he could get her to start nosing around on her own, using her own sources, talking to her own friends, there was a good chance she could pick up some information that he could use. Dolanna was probably the only Sorcerer in the Tower that he really trusted.

His reverie was disrupted by a sudden high-pitched screeching sound. For a second, Tarrin thought it was some kind of animal caught in a trap. Then he heard it again, and realized that it was a voice screaming the word "no". It was relatively faint, as if it was coming from a goodly distance off.

Curious, Tarrin jumped down off the bed and changed form, then went out into the hall. To his surprise, a few other Initiates were drawn out as well, curious as to the animal making that sound. But their ears weren't quite as sharp as Tarrin's, which could pick out the words.

The screaming continued, changing timbre and cadence, going from long drawn-out bellows to chittering shrieks, and Tarrin followed it up three flights of stairs and down a hallway. It kept getting louder and louder, until the higher ululations made Tarrin's ears ring painfully. He came around a corner and found the Keeper standing face to face with a figure that had her back to Tarrin. She was wearing a dress, and what stood out about her was the long, very bushy tail that sprouted from the back of her dress. It was long and thick and very bushy, with reddish fur that was crowned with a white band between the red fur and a black tip. It was a fox's tail, a tail that was on a rather slender young woman with long red hair. A young woman with black-tufted fox ears poking out from her red hair.

She was Wikuni, one of the animal-people from across the sea. They all looked different, the Wikuni, two-legged beings that resembled common animals. This one resembed a fox, obviously, from the ears and tail.

She was wearing a cream colored gown that went well with her red fur and hair. Tarrin could only see the back of it, but he could see even from that angle that it was silk, it was slashed with red goring, and it had a brocaded bodice that sewed into the silk at her sides. A belt of beaten gold was around a very slender waist. She was a bit taller than an average human woman, about half a head taller than the diminutive Keeper, but she was slender and had very attractive feminine curves. A foot appeared under the hem of her dress, a dainty furred foot in a cream colored slipper. That foot stamped down, and her hands went to her hips as she shouted at the Keeper. "Unacceptable!" she shouted. "This room isn't fit enough for my pet cockatiel! I want an apartment, with piped water, and a balcony overlooking the gardens! I'll not live in this, this dungeon cell! I won't !" she shrieked, and it hurt Tarrin's ears.

For such a little thing, she was certainly loud .

"Highness, your father sent you here to receive education," the Keeper said in a cordial tone. "You're in the Initiate now, and this is where Initiates live."

"I am Keritanima-Chan Eram, Jewel of the Western Star, Lady of the 20 Seas, Bearer of the 5 Bands of Nan, Holder of the Ring of Bakul, Crown Princess of Wikuna! I will not be treated like a peasant! Do you understand me ?" she finished with a ear-splitting scream that about pierced Tarrin's eardrums. Tarrin's paws went up to his ears, and he bowed a bit and winced.

"You think you can lower it to something less loud? Like a thunderstrike?" he asked acidly.

The Keeper's eyes darted up in surprise, and the Wikuni whirled around. Her face was a cross between a human face and a fox's, with human shaped amber colored eyes over a short, boxy muzzle. Her cheekbones merged with the sides of that muzzle to give her the pattern sharp fox-like face. A button nose was at the end of that muzzle and her maw hung open in astonishment. Tarrin noticed the teeth. Despite being a hybrid of human and animal, her mouth was all fox. She had the jaws and the teeth, and for a moment, he wondered how she spoke. The ability to speak the human language depended a great deal on the shape of the human mouth. He was totally incapable of speaking any man-language while in cat shape, because his cat maw and muzzle were incompatible with those sounds.

"Highness, this is Tarrin Kael," the Keeper said. "One of the other Non-human students I mentioned."

"How dare you speak to me so, you, you, whatever you are!" she snapped at him. He watched her mouth closely as she spoke. She had different lips than what would have been on a fox's muzzle, stronger and as prehensile as human lips, which sealed the sides of the mouth and allowed her to direct the sound in the proper manner. Interesting. They were by no means human lips, but they were not animal lips either. "I am Princess Keritanima, and you will address me so!"

Tarrin approached them, looking down the considerable distances between their heights. She came up to his chin. She stared up at him coldly, but he could see the very faint amusement in her eyes. This close to her, he got a good sample of her scent. It was not human, nor was it fox. It wasn't even a mixture of the two. It was a scent uniquely individual, not what he would have expected from the looks of her. If he hadn't scented her, he'd never have identified her scent if he encountered it in the hallways. "Highness, Tarrin is the son of a king's daughter," the Keeper said bluntly. "He is as much a prince as you are a princess. And if you look, you'll see he is wearing the Initiate uniform. I myself am a Duchess. So you see, we're not quite as impressed with your title and rank as you are. Your father sent you here so we could educate you, and we intend to do just that. That means that you will live where we tell you. You will eat with the other Initiates, you will attend classes with the other Initiates, and you will live like the other Initiates. That means that everyone except the one maid we agreed to goes back to your ship. So do the clothes, the jewelry, and the furniture."