James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"I know," Tarrin said absently thinking back to Jenna and her explosive experience with the power of Sorcery.

"Now get on with both of you," she said shooing them away with a hand as the fire winked out from the other. "I suggest you not come back here until you've learned more about the power of Sorcery."

They left her with hurried bows, almost running from the vast chamber. Only when they were clear of her did they start whispering fervently. "You will be a Sorcerer!" Tarrin whispered to him, as Dar said "that was absolutely incredible!"

Dar looked over his shoulder. "That was Ahiriya," he told Tarrin in a hushed tone. "She sits on the Council of Seven."

"Ahiriya?" Tarrin asked. That was also the name of a Goddess, the Elder Goddess of Fire.

"I know, she almost looks the part, doesn't she?" Dar said with a grin. "She sits in the Fire seat on the council and everything. She has just as much of a temper too. She's the last person in the Tower you want to have mad at you."

"The Fire seat?"

"The council, it has six members," he explained. "Each one is the seat of one of the six spheres of Sorcery. Air, earth, fire, water, the mind, and the power of the Goddess. The Keeper is the seventh. They rule the Tower."

"I remember that much," he said. "I just didn't know they called themselves that, that's all."

"You'll learn most of that in the first week or so of the Novitiate. That's about all they talk about. Rules, rules, rules, and just how deep you bow to which person. I think it's a bit silly, myself," he grunted. "Back home, you bow to the king, but that's about all. We're kinda informal about that kind of thing."

"You sound like a noble," Tarrin said.

"Well, my father is a Margrave," he admitted. "That's a rank something like a Baron here in the west, but there are no lands that go with the title. It's like a landless noble."

"A landless noble?" Tarrin asked.

Dar nodded. "He earned it about fifteen years ago. The king needed something done badly, and my father managed to do it for him. He gave my father the title in thanks."

"Hmm," Tarrin sounded.

"We don't take it seriously, anyway," he said. "My family earns money through the spice trade, so we don't really need land."

"My father said that Novices work when not in class," he said.

"We do," he said with a wince. "I got very lucky. They wanted you to know your way around, so I have the afternoon off to show you the Tower."

"What do you usually do?"

"Scrub floors, scrub walls, scrub pots and pans, scrub scrub scrub," he said with a face. "I swear, when I get out of here, I'll never so much as look at another scrub brush as long as I live."

Tarrin laughed. "You should work on a farm," he said. "You do the same things every day, over and over. As soon as you finish it, it has to be done again. It's very monotonous."

"Sounds like torture," he said.

"You get used to it," Tarrin said. "I didn't mind most of the chores. It was something to do." He looked down at his paw idly. "Besides, we had a small farm, and there were four of us, so there wasn't a huge amount of work. We had alot of free time."

"What did you do with it?"

"Hunted, roamed around in the forest, that kind of thing," he said. "My father was a Ranger, so he taught me all about the woods. My mother's Ungardt, so I learned all about fighting from her. That's more or less what I did with my free time."

"I sat and learned numbers, then learned how to cheat spice dealers," Dar said with a grin.

"Must have been boring."

"You have absolutely no idea." He looked around. "Let's go back outside. It's a nice day, and if any Sorcerer decides they need something, they can make us do it. We're the mules in the Tower, and idle mules irritate many of the Sorcerers for some reason."

Tarrin laughed. "Outside sounds like a good idea."

The sky was clear, with the Skybands cutting across the blue in their dull white colors. They went to the massive garden behind the Tower proper, where numerous Novices toiled in the meticulously arranged gardens with gardeners and Initiates supervising them. The garden was in its early summer bloom, and it was a sea of colorful flowers divided by red brick walkways. There were several fountains among the large sections of roses and tulips and numerous other flowers, and they stopped at each one and gazed on the beautiful sculpture that often spouted streams of water. There was also a huge hedge maze behind the flower gardens, and the two of them wandered the pathways of that huge maze for almost the entire afternoon, going well past the point where the pathways were neatly tended.

"Things are getting ragged," Dar noticed.

"I don't think they come in this far," Tarrin replied.

Dar laughed. "Maybe we'll come across the skeleton of the last person who did," he joked.

"It's certainly large enough to get lost in," he said.

"Do we even know where we are?" Dar asked a bit uncertainly.

"I know where I've been," he assured him. "I can smell our trail, so we can just follow that to get out."

After a while, though, Tarrin was getting aggravated. They'd followed every single possible path, and yet they still hadn't found the center. "There has to be a way in," he growled.

"As rough as these hedges are," Dar said, pushing away a branch that quite nearly grew across the entire path, "The way to it may have grown over."

"I think you're right," he agreed. "Let's start looking for holes in the hedge."

After about half an hour, they found it. It was indeed overgrown, and so badly that it literally looked like a wall. They pushed through it, walked down a short path that was similarly choked, and then they found themselves standing in the center.

The hours were worth the effort. There was a fountain in the middle of the large grassy clearing, a fountain that was bright and clean despite the obvious years of neglect. There was a statue in the center of the pristine marble fountain, a statue of a woman of indescribable beauty. The stone was unweathered, and it seemed to literally capture the sparkle in the eye of the long-haired, nude figure. The sculpture was so incredibly detailed that Tarrin could see the individual strands of hair flowing down the back of the statue's shoulders. It stood on a pedestal in the center of the fountain, where small spouts of water filled the small center area with the sound of happily splashing, bubbling water. The figure was in a delicate feminine pose, and its arms were outstretched, as if welcoming them into the clearing. The clearing itself was neat and clean, despite the obvious fact that nobody came into it anymore, with several rose bushes growing to each side of a single solitary bench that sat in front of the fountain. There was a red brick path around the fountain, widened around the bench, running under their feet towards it.

"It's beautiful," Dar whispered.

Tarrin couldn't answer. He approached the rim of the fountain and boldly stepped up onto the lip, then waded through the ankle-deep water. He went right up to the life-sized statue and stared at its intricately detailed face, a beautiful face with elegant cheekbones and almond shaped eyes under very delicate brows. Tarrin reached out and put his paw on the cheek of the statue, just to make sure that it was really stone. Never had he seen such unbelievably detailed sculpture. For an irrational moment, the statue's exquisite figure reminded him of Jesmind, and he wondered if she somehow had something to do with it.

"What are you doing?" Dar asked.

"It's really stone," he told him. "You can see the hairs in her eyebrows."

"It's almost embarassing," Dar said.

"What?"

"That's not all the hair the sculpter made," he said delicately.

Tarrin looked down. "You can see each hair in that too," he said.