James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"True," the Wikuni agreed. "So, it's a bust?"

Tarrin nodded. "Everything of importance to the Ancients was written in Sha'Kar, I was told."

"That's not what I was after, Tarrin."

"No, but Jula's talk made it apparant that the katzh-dashi had already tried what you wanted to try," he told her. "She described the Sha'Kar from what she said were records left behind that they could read. I think that's a pretty good indication that they'd researched as much of the Ancients as they could too, because she said the Lorefinders have been trying to break the code of the Sha'Kar writing for a thousand years."

"Hmm," the Wikuni pondered, eyes dropping to the floor as her fox ears ticked reflexively. "I think you're right, brother dear," she said absently. "I didn't know about the Sha'Kar books."

"I didn't either. I think the Tower keeps them a secret," Tarrin replied.

"That, or it's something that nobody talks about," Keritanima added. "I've noticed that there are alot of things that people don't talk about around here." She stood up. "That makes the cathedral that much more important," she announced. "More and more, it looks like almost everything we'll be able to use will be what we can take out of there."

"If there's anything in there at all," Tarrin added.

"Don't be a pessimist," Keritanima chided.

"You shouldn't pin all our hopes on a cloud," Tarrin returned.

"I'm not, believe me," she said. "If we can't find anything useful in the cathedral, then we're just going to run. We'll have to take our chances."

"You keep talking more and more about running," Allia noticed.

"That's because I have no intention of going back to Wikuna," she said bluntly. "It's either the throne or the grave for me, and the throne will lead to the grave. I have a much better chance here."

"You're Wikuni, Kerri," Tarrin said. "That makes you very easy to find."

"True, but I'm getting as far away from the sea as possible." That sounded as unnatural as one could get to Tarrin. Wikuni were born on the deck of a clipper, and to ply the seas and trade was all that their race lived for. "My father's reach shortens considerably once you lose sight of the sea. Besides, the only place we can go to escape the Tower is Allia's desert. The Selani are the only people that can protect us."

"I'll not have my father challenge the Tower until I know there's a good reason to run," Allia warned her. "You may be casual with my people, but my clan will be taking a very serious risk in harboring us if the Tower wants us badly enough. You forget, you're talking about an order that can send the weather itself to attack my people. My people can't fight the wind."

"Allia, as far as I'm concerned, we already have reason enough to run," the Wikuni replied. "It's blatantly obvious that they want something from us. They didn't bring us here just in the interests of interracial peace. They want something from us, and it must be bad, because they won't tell us what it is. You don't withhold information unless that information threatens your plans. If this task wasn't anything serious, or it wasn't dangerous, we'd have already been thoroughly prepared for it long before we took our first crack at touching the Weave." She sat back down again irritably. "I have the very strong feeling that we're being offered up like sacrificial lambs to further the Tower's goals, and I'm a girl that's learned to listen to her gut. It's saved me more times than I can conveniently count. That tells me right there how bad the Sorcerers want it. To put me in danger risks a war with my father, and no kingdom that borders the sea is insane enough to get into a war with Wikuna. And you, Allia, if your father found out that they killed you for their own ends, I have no doubt that the Selani would Call Council and pour over the Sandshield like a tidal wave of destruction."

Both Tarrin and Allia were quiet for a very long moment. Keritanima was right. If this task wasn't dangerous, they would have extensively prepared them for it. A soldier that fully understood the objectives of the mission stood a much better chance of successfully completing it. And the Tower was going to an awful risk. If Damon Eram or Allia's father found out that their daughters were being trained for a suicide mission, the destruction would reach staggering levels, because those forces would have to take Sulasia apart to get at the Tower itself. Wikuna and the Selani were two of the forces in the Known World that no nation wanted to cross, because they had a very long reach.

"I don't know about you two, but I don't want to be here when they decide to choose one of us," she told them bluntly. "I have the feeling that Tarrin will be their choice, but if he should fail, one of us would be next. I've lived too long to get killed by something that I never intended to cross paths with in the first place."

The attention of half the world is fixed directly on your shoulders , Tarrin remembered the Goddess saying. Yes, he would be their choice. But for what?

"I can't argue with your logic," Allia said finally. "So I'll have to admit that it would be a risk I would allow my father to take. And after we tell my father about what went on here, he'd certainly protect us. He did not send me here to become a pawn in the Tower's games."

"The only part I can't figure out is you ," Keritanima said, pointing at Tarrin. "You're the one part that doesn't fit. And I want to know why."

"How do you mean?" he asked in confusion.

"Because how you ended up here doesn't make sense," she said directly. "One thing we all share is that we're all non-human. But you started out human. That link between us falls apart when I try to figure out why the Tower brought you here."

"It was bad luck that Jesmind-"

"No," she cut him off. "You told me that Jesmind was controlled. Someone sent her after you, and I've seen you fight. You wouldn't have stood a chance against her as a human, controlled or not. She would have ripped you in half the instant she got her claws into you."

"I didn't let her get her claws into me," Tarrin flared. "I held my own long enough for Dolanna to get there and use Sorcery on her." He grabbed his left arm almost unconsciously, the arm Jesmind had bitten.

"I'll grant you that," Keritanima said. "But you said yourself that them getting you as well as us was blind luck. I don't think so now."

"Why?"

"Because, brother dear, they'll choose you ," she said with penetrating eyes. "I believe in luck, but this is luck that would make Bekir herself look twice." She got up again and began to pace. "You're a black sheep, Tarrin," she began. "You ended up non-human by accident. You're not important, you're just a farmboy from a backwater frontier village."

"Well thank you very much," Tarrin said acidly.

"Brother, you mean the world to me, but I'm looking at the big picture, not my view of it," she said with a disarming smile. "You are a nobody, Tarrin. You're not important. Or you weren't important before Jesmind sank her fangs in your arm. That's when you became important. Me and Allia, we share certain commonalities. We're both royalty, and we're both non-human by birth and upbringing. You don't fit in with us. You're a human in a non-human's body. Sure, you're not human now, but you were born human, and you still try to act human. Maybe that's what makes you so important, or maybe it was indeed just raw blind luck. Either way, the Tower will use you, and they know why. I want to know too."

"That doesn't explain why you think Jesmind was sent after me," Tarrin said bluntly. Keritanima was starting to jump around, and he couldn't quite follow her line of thought. She tended to leave things out when she was talking her way through a problem, so he focused on the part he did understand.