James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Dear one, Wikuni almost never leave sight of the sea," she told him. "They are almost married to the ocean. That is why Wikuni are so rare outside of harbor towns."

"What else did the man tell you?" Sevren asked.

"Not much. I killed him pretty soon after I shook off getting hit in the head with the rock," Tarrin shrugged. "I wasn't exactly thinking straight, else I would have grilled him for more before I killed him."

Tarrin missed the slightly worried look Sevren passed to Dolanna, and her very slight gesture to leave it be.

"Have you been having the dreams?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "Jesmind did teach me a little bit before we split. She taught me how to make them stop. That's at least one good thing that came of it." He put down a stripped goose leg bone. "She also taught me how to shapeshift. It's actually pretty easy."

"Did she teach you anything else?"

"Not really," he replied. "We were only together a few days, and we spent alot of that trying to sneak around the Goblinoids that were all over the place." He decided not to tell her about the night they'd spent together. That was too private, even to discuss it with Dolanna. "What happened after the Wyvern sunk the ship?" he asked.

"There were several casualties among the crew," she replied. "We helped them as best we could, and then we took another ship south. It was a very uneventful trip after you left us. That leads me to believe that you were the reason for it."

"I was," he said. "Whoever it was that's after me certainly didn't stop after the Wyvern. I spent most of my time running from Jesmind and dodging Goblinoids at the same time."

"Are you sure that they were after you?" Sevren asked. "I'm assuming here that by Goblinoid you mean more than one race. They don't usually cooperate."

"These were," he replied. "I saw a Dargu tribe meet with a Waern tribe, and the chieftans spoke without drawing weapons. That's not right, because Waern consider Dargu a delicacy. They're working together. And that means that there's someone that's telling them what to do that they fear more than they hate the others."

"A very grim suggestion," he said, stroking his chin in thought. "I think that the King should know about this. A coordinated horde of goblinoids could storm any city in Sulasia, except for Suld." He picked up a slice of beef. "They may decide to pick a few cities in their leisure time."

The door opened, and a huge woman entered. She was wearing a pair ofblack trousers and a brown shirt, and her long, thick blond hair was done up in a simple braid that was as thich around as Tarrin's wrist, and reached almost to her backside. Her face was strong but very handsome, and she had a sword belted at her waist. There was no doubt that she was Ungaardt. Tarrin stood and eyed her calmly as she closed the door and approached them. " Vasra guhn ," Tarrin greeted. Tarrin had been taught the language of the Ungaardt by his mother. They used it often, especially since Eron had never gotten around to learning it.

" Vasra dughus ," she noted with surprise. "What clan?" she asked in the Ungaardt tongue.

"Vashtalla," he replied. "You?"

" Emden," she replied.

"We are cousins," Tarrin noted, holding out his paw to her. "Greeting, cousin. Honor to Dallstad."

"Honor and glory," she replied, clasping his wrist in a strong grip. "It's nice to meet someone with manners," she said in the common tongue, grinning. "You're Ungaardt under that fur, and dirt."

"Half," he admitted. "My mother is of the blood." "Of the blood" was the way the Ungaardt referred to themselves.

"You look Ungaardt," she noted clinically. "You take after your mother. You are also of the blood, no matter who your father was. A good thing for you."

"I'm happy with it," he said. Ungaardt were a very arrogant people, and just agreeing with her was the easiest way to keep the peace.

"But you're also a Novice, and I'm the Mistress of Novices. Don't expect any preferential treatment just because we're cousins," she said in a steely voice.

"I don't expect any," he replied.

"Good. I'm going to take you to the Novice quarters," she told him. "We'll get you some clean clothes, give you a room, and I'll show you where you can bathe."

"Yes!" he said fervently.

"You are a bit fragrant," Dolanna noted.

"Dolanna, if I smell that bad to you, just imagine how I smell to me," he told her.

She laughed. "Yes, that nose is very much a liability, is it not?" she asked with a smile.

"At the moment, yes," he said with a grunt.

"As of this moment, she's Mistress Dolanna," Elsa said bluntly. "And you're a Novice, just like any other Novice. Come along, Tarrin, and we'll get you washed and dressed."

"Yes, Mistress Elsa," he said calmly. He'd kiss a Dragon for the chance to take a bath.

"Dolanna, you can see him later," Elsa instructed her.

"I'll talk to you about arranging time with Tarrin," Sevren told her. "He's agreed to let me do some studies."

"As long as it doesn't cut into his class time, we'll talk about it," she told him. "Let's get moving, Tarrin."

The halls of the Tower were wide, and they were all lit by those softly glowing globes. From as far as he could tell, they simply hovered in midair near the ceiling. Another thing that he noticed was that the floors were carpeted out in the halls. That was unusual, and it had to be frightfully expensive if every hall was like this, considering the awesome size of the building. They went down stairs quite a ways, all the way to the ground floor, and he saw that the carpeting did indeed stop. The hallways in the sector of the Tower to which she took him were just as wide, but there were many, many more doors set into the walls. The floors and walls were absolutely spotless, and not a cobweb could be found anywhere. There were also many people. They were universally young, in their mid teens, from pale, tall Ungaardt to stocky Dals to swarthy Arkisians. Even one or two olive-skinned people from the Free Duchies between Shace and Arkis. They were wearing either plain white wool dresses or white wool shirts and brown wool trousers. They all wore exactly the same kind of leather shoes. They all stared at Tarrin in shock, and more than one shrank away from him as Elsa led him deep into the domain of the Novices.

"These are the halls of the Novices," she told him as they walked along. "There are three levels above this one also. My office door is at the end of this hall. Pray that you're not called in there." She pointed down a side hall. "At the end of that hall is the Novice Hall," she said. "It is where you will eat, and it is also where you will gather for any assemblies called for the Novices. The classrooms where you will receive your instruction are on the third and fourth levels. I'll have someone else show you all the little things. For right now, we're going to worry about the main things."

They stopped in front of a door. "This will be your room," she said. He noticed that it was within sight of the plain wooden door with her name on a wooden plaque which was nailed to the door. She was keeping him well within her sight. "You will have a roommate, Tarrin. We are not treating you any differently than any other Novice. Right now, he's probably in class." She opened the door. Inside the surprisingly large room were two narrow beds, both neatly made, with a strong, sturdy chest at the foot of each bed. Each bed also had a stand to the side of it, and there was a small writing table, with one chair, between them against the far wall. There were two pegs on the wall on each side of the room, and on the right side, one peg was occupied with a plain wool robe, and the other had a brown cloak hanging from it. Tarrin saw that hanging on the wall on the right side were pieces of paper with very elaborate sketches. Many of them were the towers and buildings of the compound, but there were also several sketches of people. One of them, he saw, was Elsa. And it was remarkably well done. Whoever had done them had a natural talent for art. "See how clean this room is?" she asked. "It had best stay this way. Now then, let's go see the Quartermaster and get you clothing."