James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

A plan formed in his mind. He would get over that fence and get to those buildings across the open area, then use them as cover to sneak up to the overpowering presence of the central tower. Once he was there, he would find a way to sneak in. And after he was inside, he'd just surrender himself to the first person that walked by. They could find Dolanna, and Dolanna could set everything straight. And then he'd be safe.

Tarrin watched the movements of the patrolling guards closely. The men, dressed in white surcoats over a chain jack, moved in groups of four, with one man leading, two in the middle, and one man bringing up the rear. One man held a torch, the man in the back. That made sense, because it kept the glaring light out of the eyes of the men that were trying to see, while still illuminating their path. A group passed by about every ten minutes, but they didn't move at the same pace, so that amount of time changed randomly. Again, a good idea, because predictability was the first step down the road to defeat, when it came to anything military. He was just going to have to take his chances.

He waited almost another half hour, until one torch disappeared around a distant building, and he did not see another appear around the other corner. With a sudden lurch, he sprinted down the street that led up to the fence. He carefully gauged its height; he couldn't even so much as let an errant hair on his tail touch that iron. He glimpsed a spot of ruddy torch light just as he reached the point where he had to jump, because he was going too fast to turn aside. He sprang for all he was worth, clearing the fence clearly by nearly the length of his own tail, and he hit the ground at a dead run. He was across the two hundred space field in the same amount of time it took the average man to light a torch. He disappeared from sight just as the next patrol came around one of the buildings farther down the way.

With the stealth of the cat of which he was part, he slunk across the massive compound, around large buildings and small ones, across a sand-filled area that was obviously some sort of training area for military men, then between buildings where the sounds of sleeping men could be clearly heard. He ducked into a narrow gap between two small buildings to avoid another patrol, then he darted across an open area to another building that was right beside one of the six towers that surrounded the main spire. Even the surrounding towers were huge, hundreds of spans tall, and his neck craned as he looked up its dizzying height. The central tower was more than twice the height of the six surrounding ones, a massive cylinder that towered over the city the same way a lone tree towered over a meadow. The top of it had to be at least a thousand spans in the air, and the effort and engineering required to build it absolutely boggled his mind.

He stopped gawking like a tourist and studied the surface of that huge central spire, easily visible even from that distance to his light-sensitive eyes. He saw what he wanted, a balcony some hundred spans off the ground. That was his way in.

He sprinted silently across the open ground to the smaller tower, then circumnavigated it with an eye out for torches. Once he was on a line with that balcony, he ran across the open area between the two towers. He stopped at the base of it, and it loomed over him. For an irrational moment, he thought it was about to fall over on him, as he looked up to see where the balcony was. he squelched the squeak of surprise at that idea, then, after a few quick looks for wandering patrols, he put his claws into the stone. He didn't want to be discovered hanging off the wall. That would be very inconvenient.

The tower's stones were made of some kind of white marble or granite, and they didn't even have so much as a scratch on them. They fit together so tightly that Tarrin had trouble finding creases to stick his claws, and Tarrin realized that there was no mortar between the blocks. It had to be magic holding the unimaginably huge construction together. It was slow going up the side of the wall, because of the tight fitting stones and no wear which would have given him places to put his claws. It took him nearly an hour to clambor up the one hundred or so spans, and he nearly fell twice. Sweating, exhausted, and with his belly trying to gnaw a hole through his skin, Tarrin got his fingers around the base of the guardrail around the balcony. He hauled himself up onto the balcony with main force, then stopped and got his breath back while looking down over the large open yard at the base of the tower.

He'd made it.

Now he had to get inside. Turning to the door to the balcony, Tarrin turned the latch in his oversized paw and felt the door open. It made no sound, but the glass paned door was pushing up against the drapes that had been drawn over it. He pushed it out as quietly as he could and slithered in through the opening. He found himself in a rather large, lushly appointed bedchamber, complete with a slumbering occupant. It was a woman, by her scent, but there wasn't enough light in the room for him to get the best of looks at her. She stirred slightly as Tarrin closed the door to her balcony. Tarrin wanted to be caught, but he decided that being caught in a woman's bedchamber was not the best way to go about it.

He padded across her carpeted floor as silent as death, then snuck through the door on the opposite wall after opening it to make sure that it wasn't a closet. He found himself in a large hallway that curved very gently to one side, which was illuminated by curious globes that hung from the ceiling, globes that gave off a milky white light, but no obvious heat.

There was nobody to be seen. He couldn't even hear anyone.

He yawned. He wanted to be captured, but there was nobody about to go to the trouble. He was exhausted, and hungry, and filthy, but the only one of those he could remedy was the exhaustion. He'd find some quiet, dark place to lay down for a while, then he'd let himself get caught in the morning, when there were people awake.

It took him only a few minutes to find an empty bedchamber. From the smell of it, this chamber wasn't used by anyone, so he was rather sure that nobody would bother him until he was awake and good and ready to be captured. He took no notice of the room other than its empty smell, then flopped down heavily on a soft feather bed. He didn't care if his filthy clothes were dirtying the covers. He'd made it. He was in the Tower of Sorcery.

Now he felt safe.

Tarrin fell immediately into a deep, dreamless slumber, a look of calm contentment on his face.

To: Title EoF

Tarrin awoke slowly, and for a moment, he forgot where he was. He was warm and content, and the early summer sun washed through a partially curtained window. As he awoke he wondered why mother hadn't woken him up before now. But the tingling sensation in his tail from where he'd been laying on it brought him back to the present, as did the gnawing hollowness in his belly. He was still filthy and half starved, but at least he was warm and safe. That almost made up for it.

It was an effort to get out of the soft feather bed. Tarrin saw that he was in a very lushly appointed bedchamber, very much like the one that he'd came in through the night before. It had the soft bed, two nightstands to either side of it, a chest for clothes at the foot, a stand for a washbasin, a writing desk in the corner, and an armoire to hang clothes that were too delicate to be folded. There was a small tea table in the corner by the glass-pane door that led to another balcony. The walls were adorned with tapestries, one a simple geometric design that was pleasing to the eye and the other a scene depicting a solitary knight riding his charger across a grassy meadow. He stood by the bed for a moment, feeling a bit dizzy from having to exert himself. Now that he'd made it, he was allowing himself to feel every little ache and feel the weakness of several days with almost no food.