James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Jackpot," Keritanima whispered in a reverent tone. Tarrin and Allia followed her as she approached the large stone shelf, then pulled a book at random from it. The cover had imprinted on it a shaeram , a clear indication of what the book was about.

"And this is what we came for, my deshar ," she said, using the Selani term for siblings, holding her hands out to the bookshelf. "If we're lucky, this is everything the priests knew about the Sorcerers. If we can't find something useful in this, then there won't be anything useful to know."

"Strange," Allia mused. "I expected there to be more."

"I'm glad there's not," Keritnima replied. "There are alot of books here, deshaida . You'd be surprised how much information you can put in this many books, if you're methodical about it." She reached behind her, for the canvas bags she had stuffed under her shirt and into her belt. "Alright, pack them in tightly, Tarrin. Scrolls in their own bag."

Tarrin ended up with three large bags packed so tightly with books and scrolltubes that there was no danger of them opening and becoming damaged. They weren't too heavy for him to easily carry, but they were very bulky and unwieldy, ensuring that he would have to move carefully. He had them at his feet, getting ready to pick them up, but Keritanima sighed and stared at him. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Getting ready to pick these up," he said.

"Why carry them?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I've seen you shapeshift with things in your hands," she told him. "They just disappear. These things are going to bang around and make noise, and risk damaging them. Why don't you just make them disappear, and let Allia carry you out of here?"

"I've never tried that before," he said honestly. "I know things go elsewhere when I shapeshift with things in my paws, but I don't know if something this big will do that."

"Try," she said dismissively.

"What if they disappear, but never come back?" he asked pointedly.

"Good point," she said after a brief consideration. She pursed her lips, then pulled out an empty sack and handed it to him. "Now try," she said.

Nodding, Tarrin stepped back, then shifted into his cat form. The sack vanished, as he knew it would. He then returned to his humanoid form.

And the sack was in his paw.

"Good. Now try it with one bag," she told him.

After a bit of experimentation, Tarrin found that all three sacks would vanish when he changed form, locked in that elsewhere created by the amulet when he changed his shape. And more importantly, they would be back in his paws when he shifted back, as would everything inside the bags.

No wonder the Goddess didn't want him to lose the amulet. It had just proven how incredibly useful it could be.

Stuck in his cat form, Tarrin found himself riding in the cowl of the black robe Allia was wearing. Paws on her shoulder, he peeked up over her shoulder, watching as they moved. He wondered at the amulet for a moment, then rememebered that the Goddess had given Keritanima an amulet. One that was for her, like the one Allia wore was for Allia. He had the suspicion that he knew one of the things that it would do.

"Keritanima," he called in the unspoken manner of the Cat.

"What?" she asked, turning around. Then she gave him a curious look. "How did I understand that?"

"The amulet!" Allia said in understanding, snapping her fingers.

"That amulet you wear lets you understand me like this," he told her. "It was a gift from the Goddess of the Sorcerers. I guess she wants us to be able to communicate."

Keritanima touched her chest, where the amulet was resting under her shirt. "Clever," she said after a moment. "Can we speak that way?"

"No," Allia replied. "But it does let us understand Tarrin when he does it."

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Keritanima asked curiously.

"It honestly never occured to me," Tarrin replied.

"Let's worry about it later,"she said. "We got what we came for. Let's get out of here with it."

Using Sorcery to erase the prints that betrayed their entry into the room, then close the door and replace the locks, Keritanima led Allia back along the secret passageways, until they were again by the squeaking door leading to the main passages. "We don't have far to go, and hopefully the robes will let us just walk out of here," she said. "It's not that much past midnight. We should get back to the Tower with enough time to stash the books and still get some sleep before class in the morning."

Tarrin was pulled out of the cowl and set in the crook of Allia's arm as she pulled the hood over her face. "If anyone challenges us, let me do the talking," Keritanima told her.

"Alright," Allia agreed, and Keritanima opened the secret door.

It turned out that it wasn't necessary. Keritanima led Allia into empty hallways; obviously the ceremony that the priests woke to perform had been completed, and the hallways were again empty. Keritanima led Allia down the passage, all the way to the end, where a single simple wooden door marked the passage out of the cathedral. It was locked, but that was easy enough, considering it was nothing but a bolt keeping the door closed. Keritanima pulled the bolt and opened the door, letting the cold air into the passage, and then she stepped out. Tarrin felt the cold air against his fur, making Keritanima's and Allia's breath mist before their faces, as the fox Wikuni shut the door behind them.

They were out. Tarrin let out his breath explosively, which wasn't very much for his small cat body. From there on, it should be quick, and hopefully easy.

"And there we are," Keritanima said in a bright whisper. "Let's get back. I'm sleepy."

Keritanima and Allia ghosted into the darkness carrying Tarrin, who was carrying their booty, leaving a sleeping cathedral behind. A cathedral that had not noticed the presence of the intruders.

Tarrin discovered that it was rather nice to be carried.

After burning the robes in a narrow alleyway, Keritanima and Allia quickly and effortlessly made their way back to the Tower grounds. There wasn't as much danger of being spotted now, because a Wikuni wasn't that much of an oddity on the streets. And though Allia was Selani, her tell-tale silver hair was bound in a black cloth, and she only looked like a rather slender Mahuut woman. Selani and Mahuut shared the creamy brown colored skin, and the Mahuut were a very tall people, so Allia's unnatural height didn't make her look out of the ordinary. Tarrin was the one that would make them so noticable, and with him in his cat form, he was no longer so noticable. Tarrin rode in the crook of Allia's arm, being held gently yet firmly as they made their way back towards the safety of the Tower's grounds.

Looking back, Tarrin was very pleased. It had went very well, except for being scared out of his fur by that bell, and a couple of moments of adrenalin. Keritanima's much touted plan had worked and worked well, and despite Miranda's warning, the Wikuni stuck with it. The location of the books had been curious, but what was even more curious was their total disregard for it. The room had been abandoned, almost seemed to be forgotten, and the information had been guarded only by an enchanted doorway. Was it the real information, or just a decoy? Keritanima thought it was what they were looking for, but he wasn't so sure. He'd have to see it before he decided.

Tarrin wasn't even sure what the information was supposed to be. Keritanima had high hopes that there would be some forgotten lore in there that they could use to protect them from the katzh-dashi when it came time for them to run, but Tarrin had the feeling that there was more to it for the Wikuni. He had the feeling that she wanted to know just for the sake of knowing, an almost obsessive need to understand more and more about Sorcery.