James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"I'll have Deris leave the back door unlocked," Elke said.

"No, just have him not bar the door. Just use the lock. Kerri says there's no lock made that she can't pick. We'll see if she's just bragging tonight."

"The High Princess of the Wikuni can pick locks?" Elke asked in surprise.

"Mother, Kerri is full of surprises," Tarrin chuckled. "And unfortunately, I have to cut this short. It took me longer to get here than I planned, and I have to be back at the Tower by the noon bell."

"This is Keritanima-Chan Eram ye're talkin' about, ain't it?" Anrak asked suddenly. "I heard that she has the brain of a sand shrew."

"She has the brain of a genius, Grandfather," Tarrin said with a laugh. "She just pretends to be an idiot. And that's privilged information," he said sternly. "If I find out you've been blabbing, I'll take out your other eye. Do you understand me?"

"He's gotten aggressive, daughter," Anrak noted to Elke.

"It suits him," Elke said with a shrug. "And it is important you keep it quiet, father. Their safety depends on Keritanima's little game. If you get my son in danger, I'll gut you like a pig and drag you around by your entrails. Do we understand one another?"

"As sweet as ever, eh daughter?" Anrak said with a rueful, gravelly chuckle.

"Just making sure you understand the consequences," she warned.

"In this family, there are always consequences," Anrak said.

Tarrin returned to Dolanna and the others half an hour before the noon bell, and they had him back on the grounds by the determined time. After a quick lunch in the kitchens, Tarrin was summoned to the Chambers of Seven, which was the council chamber used by the Council. Tarrin was not looking forward to it. Just as he suspsected, the Council itself was going to try to correct his problem in using Sorcery, and that made him very nervous. Tarrin didn't trust the Council. He had some friendly feelings towards Koran Dar, because the man seemed calm, wise, and gentle, but he was only one of the seven. Of the others, he only had had contact with Amelyn and Ahiriya, and neither of those meetings had been entirely friendly. He didn't even know the names of all seven.

And now he was going to be forced to put his life in their hands. That didn't set well with him, and by the time he reached the ornate, bronze gilded door that was the entry to the Chambers of Seven, his tail was lashing back and forth like a farmer reaping wheat with a scythe.

For the ruling body of the katzh-dashi , they kept themselves in a humble state. The room wasn't that large, and it was totally devoid of all decoration. The gray stone walls were illuminated by a large glowglobe hovering in midair over a circular table made of white stone. Inlaid on the surface of that round table was a shaeram device, in full color, and around that table stood seven simple padded chairs. Where each triangle that represented a Sphere pointed away, a Council member sat, and Tarrin realized immediately that the Seat of each Sphere sat with their own color pointing towards them. The Keeper, who represented no Sphere, sat in a void between two spheres, and she also faced the door. Seven faces turned to look at him, and Tarrin very nearly turned around and left. They were hard faces, all of them younger than he would have imagined for a ruling body of a world power, a couple of them outright hostile, and their scents were as hard as their expressions, though they were tinged with fear. They were his enemies, he knew that at that moment. They had always been.

"Come in," the Keeper ordered. "We have much to do."

"What are we going to do?" Tarrin asked, staying by the door.

"You will address the Keeper in a term of respect!" Amelyn snapped at him suddenly.

"Amelyn," the Keeper said sternly. "We're going to try to help you," she told him. "We have to understand what's happening to you when you try to touch the Weave, and then we'll try to help you work around the problem."

"What do I have to do?" he asked warily.

"Just come in, and have a seat on the table," the Keeper said. "Right in the middle."

Approaching them, he stepped up onto the table, but as soon as he looked down at the shaeram , memories of the fight with the Wraith flooded into him. He almost couldn't bring himself to step across that green circle, and it made him extremely nervous and unsettled to seat himself cross-legged atop the concave star that represented the Goddess. He wrapped his tail around his body and rested it in his lap.

"Very good. Now, reach out and touch the Weave. If you feel yourself losing control, let it go, wait a few minutes, and then touch it again."

Silently, Tarrin assensed the room. It was in very close proximity to the Heart, and the air was almost saturated with very large strands that carried alot of magical energy. There was alot of power in the room. Touching the weave was almost instinctual for him, and he achieved communion with the Weave as easily as others may pick up a basket. He felt that sudden heat approach, the avalanche of raw power that always sought him out when he touched the Weave, and he broke away before it had a chance to find him.

"That was too soon, Tarrin," the Keeper's voice called to him. He looked down at her, and could see her form shimmering in a curious way that seemed to tell him that she was touching the Weave. "We have to see what happens, and you broke contact too soon."

"I'm not going to let that happen, Keeper," he said adamantly.

"We're here to cut you off, Tarrin," she soothed. "We won't let it get away from you. Just touch the Weave again, and this time let whatever happens happen."

"That's easy for you to say," he snorted under his breath, then he reached out and touched the Weave again. Almost immediately, the onslaught of magical power was upon him, and he gasped reflexively as it tried to fill him with the full power of the Weave. It overwhelmed his ability to let go of the Weave instantly, creating a connection so powerful that just letting go wouldn't be enough.

He felt something try to fall between him and the Weave, an invisible something with no substance, yet had a palpable effect on the magic trying to flood into him, but it was rebuffed forcibly when it tried to choke off the flow of power into him. In half a heartbeat, his body was saturated with power, energy that built and built and built and had nowhere to go. He felt another attempt to limit that influx of magical energy, but it was again slapped away by the raw magnitude of the energy it was trying to stop.

In sudden desperation, he opened himself to the Weave more fully, allowing the energy to flow through him rather than build within him. That helped, but not by a great amount. The power still sought to build inside him, but it did slow it down. That gave him the time he needed to recover his wits, to remember how to sever himself from the Weave, and he slammed the door in the face of that power. The backlash put spots behind his eyes and a sudden pounding in his head, a shockwave of intense pain through his body, and it even made the seven Sorcerers studying him reel back in their seats as if struck by a physical blow.

"Amazing," he heard Koran Dar murmur.

Tarrin sagged a bit, paws to his head as the pounding eased. The pain faded quickly, but it left an imprint of itself in his mind. He opened his eyes just in time to see a ghostly white radiance, wispy like smoke, fade from around his paws.

It had been the first time he'd let it go that far, foolishly trusting that the Council could control him, and the pain of disconnection was almost intolerable. His body was trembling from the lightning-fast wave of pain the rushed through it, as if some intangible being had flown through his body. Panting, he put his paws on the table to brace himself, letting the trembling cease and the memory of the pain dim.