James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Your cat must have waited a while before trying to get my attention," Tarrin replied.

"So it did figure out to come find you," she said. "Good. I just got it today, and I wasn't sure what it would do. I was about to send Binter to get you."

"Binter?"

"One of my guards," she replied.

"What did you want to see us for, shaida ?" Allia asked bluntly.

"Have a seat. Or, for appearance's sake, have a bath," she said. "I just got my fur dry. In this humid air, it takes forever."

"You seem very comfortable sharing your bath with a male," Tarrin observed.

"We're different races, Tarrin," she said primly. "Besides, what I have, you can't see. This fur coat is very good for that."

"Point taken," he said, shrugging out of his shirt. Allia and him quickly undressed, and they slid into the bathing pool just at Keritanima's feet. Keeping up appearances, just in case someone did manage to spy on them. "I assume that you wanted more than just our company, or am I here to marvel at the perfection of the Royal form?"

She laughed. "Much as I enjoy letting my guard down around you two, no, I'm afraid this is business," she told him. "After what happened to you, the Tower is absolutely abuzz with rumor and hearsay. I've already picked up quite a few little tidbits. Miranda didn't know where to begin trying to repeat it."

"Miranda?" Allia asked.

"The maid," Tarrin answered. "Didn't I tell you her name?"

"No, deshida ," she replied.

"Sorry."

"Well, I sat down and picked through most of it, and I've come to a few conclusions," Keritanima continued. "What happened with you and that, creature, had a larger effect than just putting pretty lights in the sky. I don't know why, but it's made several Sorcerers very nervous. I found out that the Keeper's in a rage because it got onto the grounds."

"I can penetrate the Ward, so I figure that it figured out a way to do it to," Tarrin shrugged.

"You managed it?"

"With all that happened, I guess we haven't had a good talk," Tarrin said ruefully. "Yes, I figured out how to penetrate the Ward. It's very easy, truth be told. That Ward isn't half as powerful as the katzh-dashi seem to think it is."

"Good, we'll talk about that in a bit," she said. "That light show you created seems to have set something in motion. I heard a couple of Sorcerers talking about it myself. They tend to speak around the Brat Princess, because everyone believes that she's a complete ditz."

"She is a ditz, Kerri."

Keritanima gave him a wolfish grin. "That's the idea," she said.

"I don't see how you keep yourself separate from that," Allia told her. "It seems unnatural."

"It's acting, shaida ," Keritanima told her with a smile. "The Brat Princess is just an image, a front. She has her own personality, but fortunately it's not sufficiently complex that it makes it hard to keep her in character. She's not me, just a face that I show to the world. That's why I always refer to her as she rather than I . It's just a role I play, nothing more."

"Then I bow to your acting skill," Allia smiled.

"I'll take that as a complement," Keritanima said graciously. "Anyway, whatever this event was that got started by the lighting up of the Ward, I have no idea yet. They seemed almost afraid to talk about it. Miranda brought in a little extra. She tells me that alot of Sorcerers expect the King himself to try to do something, and more than one are expecting wars to start all over the continent."

"Wars?" Tarrin asked in surprise. "What on earth for?"

"That's something that we're going to have to find out," Keritanima said. "We Wikuni trade with the humans, but we don't interact a great deal with them. This probably has something to do with human history, or some obscure prophecy or foretelling that we've never bothered to look into." She looked down at them, her eyes blank as she thought, clawed finger tapping the side of her muzzle. "I have the strong suspicion that it involves us, somehow," she said finally. "Perhaps this task that they're obviously trying to prepare us for is somehow involved with the potential political upheaval."

"I don't see how," Allia said. "We hardly have the ability to stop armies."

"No, but you always have to remember that an army marches at the command of one man," Keritanima said thoughtfully. "It's not the army we're trying to stop, but perhaps the king commanding it. If that's it at all."

"What do you mean?" Tarrin asked.

"It's not the potential war that concerns me, it's the reason for starting it," she answered. "Things have been calm in the Western Kingdoms for centuries. The last major war was the Draconian civil war. The kingdoms in the West are all on good terms with one another. Why disrupt profitable trade agreements? It would have to be something of great value, more than enough to make a war profitable. Remember, war is very expensive, and not just in the cost of lives. No kingdom goes to war unless they have a good reason, and there's a potential for profit."

"So, you think all the wars would have the same objective?" Allia asked.

"Probably," she replied. "If every kingdom in the west is suddenly going to attack their neighbors, then there has to be a unifying goal behind it." She blinked, then pulled her hair back away from her face. "But that's a worry for another day," she said. "We have more pressing problems right now. Miranda heard that they're going to step up our training. I'm sure that fits in with everything else going on around here, and it proves that we do indeed have something to do for the Tower. I think that the fireworks two days ago was a wake-up call for them. We should expect things to move fast."

Tarrin looked down at the water, then leaned up against the side of the bathing pool and stared at Keritanima's feet. "I, think we're going to have a problem," he said softly.

"What? What's the matter?" Keritanima asked.

"The fight with that Doomwalker, I never told you how I beat it."

"I heard that you burned it to ashes," Keritanima replied. "They found you half char-broiled. The Sorcerers think you lost control of yourself, because one said you were nearly Consumed."

"That did happen," he said, "but it happened because the Doomwalker bulled me into the Conduit that runs through the core of the Tower."

Keritanima stared at him. Allia came up and put her hand on his back.

"The reason the Conduit lit up was because I made it happen," he told her. "I had to, or they would have found two piles of ash. It was the only thing I could do to avoid getting incinerated. But the Conduit, damaged me. I can't use Sorcery now, not without it getting away from me. I can't control it."

"Are you sure?" Keritanima asked.

He nodded. "I almost killed myself more than once trying to figure out a way around it, but I can't," he replied. "If I touch the Weave, it's like the Weave tries to grab me, and it's like it tries to fill me with all its magic all at once. I can't stop that flood, and it happens too quickly for me to even try to let go."

"How long were you active? Half a day?" He nodded. "Maybe you just need more practice, and it will come to you," she offered.

"No, this is, different," he said after a moment. "I can feel it. Whatever is happening, it's not coming from me. It's coming from outside, and there's nothing I can do about it."

"We'll have to wait and see. They've already started teaching me how to weave spells," she said. "I've managed to get single-flow weaves down without having them blow up in my face. They're going to start teaching me multiple-weave flows in a couple of more days, after my instructor feels I refine my control a bit."

"Is it easy, shaida ?"