James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Of course I am, dear brother," she winked. "I'm a Wikuni. We're all weird."

"To your toenails," he agreed.

"Well, I'm done," Keritanima said, folding up the sack. Tarrin too was finished, but Allia was still placing the last few books into a chest. She too had paged through one or two of them while putting them away. Keritanima took one from her with a smile, the one with the shaeram on it, then opened it. "In common," she said. "I think I'll get started. I'm too wound up to sleep right now, and we have to start reading them sometime."

"We should all take one book," Allia said, reaching in and picking one up.

"No," Keritanima replied. "I'm not taking them out of the courtyard. If someone picked up one of our books and tried to take it back to the library, we'd have alot of explaining to do. If you want to read them, it will have to be done here."

"I guess that is only wise," Allia agreed after thinking about it for a moment. "How will you arrange that much time?"

"By not getting much sleep," she grunted. She sat down at the table and put the book in front of her, then opened it to the first page. "Tarrin, would you be the greatest brother in the world, and go get me something to eat? I'm starving."

"And how do I explain carrying a tray of food into the maze?" he asked.

"Not if they don't see you carrying it," she winked.

"Do you think you want to trust food I carry around that way?" he asked pointedly.

"We won't know until we try, now will we?" she asked with a grin.

"I'm hungry as well," Allia said, patting her flat belly. "I would be very honored if you would do this for us, Tarrin," she smiled at him, just a little bit too sweetly. "Clan members always help one another."

"I never had to put up with this from Jenna," he grunted sourly. "And since when did you start teasing me, sister?"

"I guess Keritanima is a bad influence on me," Allia said with a sly smile.

"Tarrin, swing by my room and tell Miranda to give you my scribing kit," she added.

"Goddess help me," he said in a plaintive voice, turning and changing form, then loping out of the tent.

When dawn came that morning, it found the three of them still in the courtyard. Tarrin was in cat form, curled up on the table and regarding Keritanima while she continued to read. Allia was laying on a canvas cot brought by Tarrin, asleep to at least look presentable for the next day. Miranda was there as well, sitting in the chair across from Keritanima, writing something down in an empty book studiously.

Keritanima had all the books on the table. She had skimmed through each one to get an idea of what information it held, and Miranda had written it all down on a small book she had brought when Tarrin came to fetch items for Keritanima. Miranda had returned with Tarrin instead, and she had taken the role of secretary and scribe, helping Keritanima catalog and document the suspected information held within each book. Tarrin was shocked that it had taken the entire night, but there was supposedly alot of information in the books. Most of it was history and observations, as the priests watched the katzh-dashi , watched them and wrote everything down. They had compiled lists of members, Council members and their histories, and even a list of the Novices and Initiates coming and going. The church had people deep into the structure of the katzh-dashi for them to get some of that information.

She had just begun to unroll the scrolls. Tarrin was lounging somewhere between sleep and wake, letting the harmony of holy ground lull him with sensations of security and peace, when Keritanima's ragged gasp startled him out of his reverie.

"What is it?" he asked in the unspoken manner of the Cat.

She gave him a strangled look. "Do you know what this is?" she demanded in an almost hysterical voice, a voice that had Allia awake and instantly alert. Miranda gave Keritanima a calm, assessive look.

"No, tell me," he replied calmly.

"This is a primer !" she said almost exuberantly. "It's a key for learning the language of the Sha'Kar!"

Tarrin gave her a stunned look, then jumped off the table and changed form. "You mean-"

"It'll take some work because this scroll doesn't have a guide for their written alphabet, but this is what the Lorefinders have been looking for for a thousand years!" she declared. "With this , and alot of work, we can read what's in the books in the library!"

"What's on the other scrolls?" Allia asked immediately.

Keritanima unrolled another one. "It's the same," she said, and then she was silent until she went through them all, leaving her friends in a state of quiet, nervous anticipation. "This is a comprehensive guide to learning the language of the Sha'Kar!" she finally said. "The priests have been sitting on the one thing the Tower has been hunting for for a thousand years!" She gave Tarrin a triumphant look. "And you thought we may not find anything useful!" she declared with a laugh.

The Sha'Kar. Books written in that ancient, mysterious language were all that were left now, and nobody could read them. The language had resisted every attempt to decipher it, even magical attempts. And now they had found the one thing that could break that ancient language, a series of instructional writings on learning it.

But why was it so easy ? That information should have been ferociously defended, and the church should have used it! Did the church truly not know that they had it? That passage and area were run-down and unkempt…could they have forgotten that it was there over the years? That seemed unlikely, but there was a simple truth staring at him in that they had it. Maybe they did forget it. Maybe a high priest had ordered the room sealed, and over the years, the memory of it and what it had once held had been forgotten, lost in the musty old tomes of history kept by the church historians. There to be found, but lost among the sea of old lore accumulated by the church over the years.

Keritanima was actually jumping up and down, twirling in circles with a scroll to her breast. "This is it! This is it !" she squealed, acting like a little girl who had just been given a pony. "I couldn't have asked to find anything better than this!"

"Highness, you're about to tear the scroll," Miranda said soothingly.

Keritanima's face became horrified, and she instantly calmed down, though her tail was absolutely writhing behind her. "We have to get started, tonight!" she said excitedly. "Miranda, I want you to do something very important for me," she said. "Something that you may not like."

"What is that, Highness?" she asked.

"I want you to transcribe the scrolls into a book," she said. "I know how fast you can write."

"That's going to occupy a great deal of my time, Highness," she said after a moment. "I do have other duties."

"You'll have to make time, Miranda," Keritanima said happily. "I'll help, but I'll be spending most of my time studying these. And I'd like to have a backup copy. Just in case."

"I won't say no, Highness," Miranda sighed. "I will get to work on it today. May I take the scrolls from the courtyard?"

"No," Keritanima told her. "They stay here, where they're safe."

"It isn't going to be easy to explain why I spend hours at a time in the maze, Highness," she said calmly. "The scrolls must be removed."

Keritanima took on an agonized look. "You're right," she sighed. "Alright, you can remove the scrolls, but no more than two at a time. And they're to be heavily guarded at all times. Either Binter or Sisska have to carry them when you don't actively have them in front of you." She gave Miranda a blunt look. "I'll impress them with how absolutely vital the scrolls are. They are to defend them to the death, if necessary."