James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"I wondered where this was," Keritanima whispered.

"What is it?" Tarrin asked.

"That's the tomb of Arbok," she replied. "Arbok was a priest of an evil god that vanished long ago. The priests of Karas executed him for crimes against Karas, then buried him on ground sacred to Karas, so that Arbok's spirit could never have peace. That was their pronouncement of justice on him."

"It is wrong to punish one beyond death," Allia said shortly. "Death is the ultimate punishment."

"Tell that to the priests," Keritanima said. "The priests of Karas have a nasty reputation. They're almost as bad as the priests of Pygas the Avenger when it comes to revenge. But they call it justice," she shrugged. "This means the big room on the other end of the cathedral is probably what we're looking for." She threw her tied hair back over her shoulder, then slashed her tail in the air a few times behind her. "Now comes the hard part."

"What?"

"Crossing the Nave without being seen," she said with an eager grin.

"Miranda was right. You do enjoy this," Tarrin grunted.

She only gave him a wicked smile, then licked him on the cheek as she turned away from the doorway.

Getting across the Nave wasn't as hard as Tarrin thought it would be. The huge chamber, filled with stained glass windows and a huge mosaic on the floor of Karas' symbol, rows and rows of pews separated from the dais and altat by an ornate polished wooden rail, was populated by some ten young men. They were all very young, looking to be acolytes, and they were attended by a single portly man with small round scars pocking his face. The man was short and had greasy hair, and he was dozing in a chair not far from the dais as the young men scrubbed at the floor and pews with soapy water and brushes. All of them were wearing a simple black robe tied with a white belt. The door though which the three non-humans looked was in the far back corner of the massive worship chamber, behind the dais and the altar. The back wall of the Nave was lined with four ornate, gold-inlaid doors. Those were probably doors to private chambers of very high ranking churchmen. Fortunately for them, all the young men and their overseer were on the far side of the huge room.

"One at a time," Keritanima said in a whisper. "Tarrin, you first. That's where we want to go," she told him, pointing to a door on the far wall.

Tarrin nodded, hunkering down, and then shifting into his cat form. He crept out into the huge chamber, noticing the ornate paintings on the ceiling, and he wondered idly how they got the painter up there.

A bell suddenly tolled somewhere over his head, and it scared Tarrin half out of his wits. He fought the wild urge to scramble up and under something, to seek cover, but he realized that nobody could see him. He was behind the dais, and he was so small that he was out of the sight of the men on the other side of it. The bell tolled six more times, and then it fell silent, but Tarrin stayed frozen until he was sure that the loud noise had indeed come to an end.

Staying near the wall, he slunk across the large chamber, quickly and quietly reaching his goal. He shifted back and opened the door, then stepped through it before anyone noticed.

The passage beyond was a mirror of the one into which the secret passage had emptied. It was just like the passage they'd found when getting into the cathedral, wide and well lit, with a carpet running along the center and the walls decorated with many paintings, banners, buntings, and tapestries. He kept an eye on that empty passageway as Keritanima and Allia slipped across the Nave unseen.

"There are no guards," Tarrin noted to Keritanima as they waited for Allia.

"There never are," she whispered back. "The priests are trained to fight. They serve as their own guards."

"But they should have men stationed in the halls," he told her.

"You can tell them if you want," she said with a wink. "I'm rather glad that they don't. If they did, this would be alot harder."

It very nearly ended a moment later. Just as Allia rejoined them, one of the doors in the passageway creaked open. Keritanima had just started down the passageway, and she quickly opened the closest door to her and ducked inside, which had been the very first door leading from the Nave. Tarrin and Allia fled inside with her, and they found themselves in a small room filled with long racks holding black robes similar to what the young men and overseer in the Nave had been wearing.

"Idea," Keritanima said, looking at them.

"Bad idea," Tarrin said as his ears picked up footsteps stopping just in front of the door Allia had just closed. His heart jumped a bit in his chest when he realized that the man was about to open the door!

– Hide!- Keritanima signed quickly, and they scattered. Tarrin had the easiest of it, for he simply changed form and got behind the door as it opened. He didn't see where Keritanima and Allia went, but when the light flooded in from the hallway, blocked by the shadow of a man, there was no sign of them. The man, a middle aged man of tall stature and a balding ring of gray hair on his head, stepped in wearing a simple black robe of a rougher weave than the ones hanging in the room. Tarrin hid in the shadows at the corner of the room, his black fur melding with the darkness, ready to shift back and attack the man, should he catch sight of his hidden sisters. But that proved to be unnecessary. He removed his robe calmly and pulled one of the others off the wall, showing no sign that he had seen any activity in the room. Hanging his robe in its place, he then tied the new robe around his waist and filed out as calmly as he had come in.

"That was nervous," Keritanima whispered as she came out from behind a robe rack.

"That was too close," Allia agreed with an explosive sigh, coming out from behind another.

Tarrin shifted back and looked at his sisters. "How far do we have to go, Kerri?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"About fifty paces, then we turn into a side passage," she replied. "I think we could make it, wearing these robes."

"We may as well," Tarrin shrugged.

They stepped out wearing the robes. Tarrin and Keritanima looked a little strange, for their tails did create a bit of a bump in the seat of the robes, and Tarrin almost stepped on his twice as it tried to find a place to hang without being scrunched up against something. Keritanima's lushly furred, luxuriantly bushy tail was causing her even more problems. Tarrin finally wound his tail around his waist to get it out of the way.

It was a very nervous fifty paces. That side of the cathedral was alot busier than the other side had been, and the trio had passed by no more than three groggy, sleepy priests as the men moved towards the Nave. Luckily for them, the three men had not given them a very close look. They heard more activity behind them, and Tarrin dared to look back. Men were coming out of the doors they were passing, priests being called to the Nave by that bell that had nearly scared his tail off. They didn't look at the three of them that closely, but more than one gave them a second glance. Maybe because they were going the wrong way.

They reached a four way intersection in the passageway, and the three of them turned up into one that no men were coming out of. Keritanima was staring at the wall, counting her steps under her breath, and Tarrin and Allia were just following her blindly. She stopped, looked towards the men filing past the intersection, then motioned at the wall beside her with a gloved hand.

It took them only a moment to find the button that opened the secret door, but this one had no man-smell to make it obvious. It was Allia's keen eyes that spotted it, a very dust-choked little spot on the wall between two stones that held the button that opened the door. And unlike the first one, this door squeaked loudly in protest as it opened. The noise made the hair on Tarrin's tail frizz, and he desperately looked back towards the intersection to see if anyone else had heard it. Keritanima dove in almost as soon as it began to open, and Tarrin and Allia piled in after her.