James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

It was a puzzle, and it was like trying to put one together with a blindfold on, and he wasn't allowed to touch the pieces either. But until he knew who and what was behind it, there was nothing that he could do but keep one step ahead of them. They seemed fanatically intent on keeping him from reaching to Tower of Sorcery. He was just as determined to do it just to spite them. Tarrin thought about that as he absently played with Jesmind's hair, studying the white-backed cat ear that was poking up out of that brilliant red mass, noticing how it was large, but not too large, and how it moved even in her sleep towards any sound. He ran the back of his finger along her cheek, then over the smooth skin where a human ear would have been. It looked odd to him, even now, not to see an ear there.

"Mmmmm," Jesmind sounded, stretching under him. Her arms wrapped back around him almost immediately, and she gazed up into his eyes with a bemused, content expression on her face. "Good morning," she sounded, bringing a paw around and tapping him on the tip of his nose. "Such a serious face," she chided. "Don't I get a smile?"

"Not right now," he told her.

"Well," she said, ignoring him, "I'd say that that was definitely worth stopping for."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said dryly.

"Cub, I don't think you want to hear how much I enjoyed it," she said with a grin. "Unless you'd like a rather detailed account of the parts I found most pleasurable?"

"Ah, no," he replied urbanely.

"Good," she said. "Talking about it with you right here will just give me ideas, and as much fun as this is, we have to move. Where are our clothes?"

"I have no idea," he replied.

She laughed richly. "Then we really must have enjoyed it," she observed. "I hope I didn't tear them."

She waited a moment. "Tarrin."

"What?"

"To get up, you have to get up," she told him. "I can't move with you on top of me."

After finding their clothes, Tarrin crawled out of the den. He had dirt caked to him in many places, and there were streaks of brown on him. "That's what happens when you sweat in a dirt-floored den," she told him with a wink. She looked much the same as he did. "There's a stream somewhere nearby. We can wash off there."

The smell of water led them to a very small little brook, and they found an area of relative depth to wash off the dirt, then let the sun and wind dry them before they dressed. As they sat by the stream, basking in the warmth of the sun, Tarrin decided to start trying to convince her to come with him. "Where will we go from here?" he asked.

"We'll have to turn northwest for a while," she told him, smoothing out the fur on her arms, then using her claws as a comb to brush her thick hair. "I think going on to Darsa is the best thing to do, whether they follow us or not. After we lose ourselves in the people there, we can get back to my range easily."

"Why turn northwest?"

"Because of the Scar," she told him. "It's a big ravine that runs almost to the coast. Once we get to it, we'll run beside it. Darsa is at the end of it."

"If you're worried about that, then we can just go to Suld," he said. "It's a large place, full of people, and we'll be allowed to stay in the Tower. I think that we'd be safer there than running around out here."

"No," she said firmly. "I'm not going anywhere near those spellweavers. It was one of them that collared me."

"Really?" he gasped.

"I know Sorcery when I smell it," she said in a deadly voice. "I don't know much about Druidic magic, but I've got enough of it to sense a Sorcerer's weaving, and I felt that right before I lost my memory."

"Not all people who can use Sorcery are Sorcerers," he told her. "Many of them don't want to be in the order. Maybe it was one of those freelancers."

"I don't care," she grated. "I'm still not going anywhere near them. And neither are you."

"I have to," he said. "Jesmind, I am one of those people. Before I left home, I saw my sister nearly kill someone with Sorcery. It was an accident, but it was no less deadly. If I don't go somewhere and find someone to teach me how to control it, that may happen to me. And I may kill somebody. I don't want to hurt anyone, Jesmind, least of all you."

She gave him a hot look, but he pressed on regardless. "I don't see why you can't teach me what I need to know there," he said in a reasonable tone. "That way I learn what I need to know about being what I am, and I'm in a place where I won't accidentally kill someone with Sorcery."

"I'm not going there," she told him in a steely tone. "And since I'm not, you're not. And that's the end of it."

"Gods, woman, do I have to burn your hair off to make you understand?" he said hotly. "I don't want to hurt anyone, and if I hurt you, I think I'd kill myself. There's only one place that I can go to keep that from happening. Why are you being so stubborn about this?"

"Cub, I'm about one step from shutting you up," she growled, balling one oversized hand-paw into a fist. "I said no. In case you don't understand what that means, it means no . I'm not going to Suld, and you go where I go. That means you are not going to Suld."

He was getting angry with her, but he knew better than to press it too far, else she'd start getting suspicious. When the time came, he needed as much a head start on her as he could get.

After dressing, they started off again at that ground-eating pace that they'd used the day before. It was amazing that he could run so fast for so long. At that pace, he knew he could outrun a horse, for while a horse could run faster, it couldn't do it as long as he could at the speed he was running. The forest became populated by more and more evergreens as the terrain quickly became hilly. There was less undergrowth as well, which allowed them to run faster when there was no trail to follow.

The Scar was almost self-descriptive. It was a huge ravine that simply opened with no warning. It was about a hundred paces across where they'd encountered it, and it went straight as an arrow due east and west. Jesmind stood confidently at the very edge of the deep crevice, which had a considerable amount of standing water at the bottom which was at least two hundred spans down, shading her eyes with her paws from the bright sun as she studied the horizon to the east, and then to the west.

Tarrin stood at the edge, looking down at the narrow lake at the bottom. "What now?" he asked.

"There are some bridges across here and there," she said. "There are enough woodsmen around for them to need them. We'll cross one and get on the other side, then cut the bridge so the Dargu can't follow." She grunted. "Damn, I don't see any," she informed him. "Let's skirt this thing to the east and see if we can't find one."

They turned east and followed along the edge of the ravine. Tarrin noticed that it stayed at almost the exact same width, and the walls of the ravine's sides were smooth, with striated, multi-colored bands of rock that went all the way down to the water's edge some distance below. "I wonder if there are any fish in there," he mused.

"There are," she told him. "I fell in once. It took me almost an hour to climb out. That water is cold ."

"How did that happen?"

"The bridge fell out from under me," she shrugged, "and I was too far away to jump to the edge."

"I wonder what made it," he said.

"From what I hear, it was some God," she remarked. "I guess he was having a hissy fit or something."

They found a bridge about an hour later. It was a rotted rope bridge with wooden planks, and it looked like it would collapse if a fly landed on it. Jesmind frowned a bit after looking at it, but a few tugs on the supporting ropes showed that they were firm. "We may as well try this one," she said. "The worst that can happen is that we both get wet."