Tarrin crept back from the treeline and found a nice crutch between a large limb and a trunk, then hunkered down to sleep out the rest of the day.
Orisen the guard stood on the high battlements of the impressive walls of the city of Suld. They were high walls, strong walls, and they had never fallen to an invading force. The job of guarding those walls fell to men like Orisen, but unlike most wall watchmen of Suld, Orisen took his duties very seriously. Every night, he prowled the city walls of the south sector like an impatient general, his eyes scanning the dark landscape for the slightest movement. His ears strained to hear any sound not normal for that sector of the city at that time of the night, since Suld was such a large city that it never truly went completely to sleep. In his illustrious ten year career on the South wall, he'd witnessed three robberies on the streets below, all of which had been solved and the perpetrator caught and convicted on his testimony. He'd also been privy to one murder, which was also solved. He'd even caught personally sixteen men that had tried to sneak either into or out of the city at different times of the night. Orisen was a good man, and he took his job as seriously as a surgeon did when he cut open a man. He stood at his favorite battlement, staring out over the farmland and small village outside the south wall, thinking how nice it was that the winter's chill was gone, and the early summer night was much preferable to prowling the walls wearing five cloaks and three pairs of breeches.
He never saw nor heard the ghostly shape that rose up from the wall not ten paces to his right, darted across the twenty spans that made up the top of the wall, and disappeared quickly over the other side.
He did perk up and rush to the city side of the wall when the sound of a roof tile hitting the street reached him. Many thieves liked to run the rooftops, and that sound was one of the most obvious that gave them away. He looked over the side of the wall. He could see the tile in the torchlight at the base of the wall, but there was nothing, and nobody, else to be seen. Longspan Street was deserted.
Reassured, Orisen the guard went back to his serious duty of defending the city of Suld from any and all threat, be it from inside or outside.
Tarrin stood in the shadow of a large manor house, near its fence, staring at the massive compound that was the Tower of Sorcery. He was a bit discouraged at what he saw. The obvious gates to the compound were guarded by men that frightened Tarrin not a little bit.
By the time he'd gotten to the huge towers, it dawned on him that the men guarding it would have no idea who he was. He didn't want to get into a fight with them, and he certainly didn't want them to go crazy at the sight of him, and more than once the thought that one of them would be happier turning him to the people looking for him crossed his mind. But he absolutely had to get inside. Jesmind could be behind any building, and the men that were obviously looking for him could be readying to slide a dagger in his back at any moment. The miasma smell of the large city, which was surprisingly clean for its size, effectively robbed him of his most powerful sense, his sense of smell, and the background noises prevelant in the city made it hard for him to lock in on the faint sounds of someone sneaking up on him. He had to get in, but he didn't want to risk trying to get in through the front gate. He wasn't going to feel safe until he was inside that tower, and in the presence of people that he felt he could trust. And that meant Dolanna, or Faalken, or Walten or Tiella.
That left doing it the other way. There was a fence surrounding the tower compound, an elegant structure of iron that rose up and ended in a tapered curl at the top. It was only about fifteen spans high, and it was much too elegant and showy to be very effective. It also had not one speck of rust anywhere on it. A one-eyed man with no legs could get over that fence in a very short amount of time, much faster than the regular patrols Tarrin saw roaming the fence perimeter to get there in time.
But it couldn't be that easy, and he knew it. That left only one solution. That fence had to be magic. This was the Tower of Sorcery. There were lots of people inside that could do magic. So if they were so lax about defending such a flimsy fence, then it only stood to reason that the fence was capable of defending itself.
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.
Chapter 7
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.
Now to the business of getting himself captured. It was going to be an easy affair, he was certain. All he had to do was go out into the hall and just wander around until he crossed paths with someone. That someone could almost certainly tell him where to go, or maybe that person could direct him to Dolanna. Either way, he would be more than satisfied. He had no idea if Dolanna even knew he was still alive, and he wondered if she was worrying about him. He'd been too busy with Jesmind, and then with getting away from Jesmind, to even consider what had happened to his friends after he'd left them on the other side of the river. He hoped that they'd not had the same trouble he'd had with Goblinoids, and that their trip to Suld was a quiet one.
Taking a deep breath, Tarrin went up to the door and opened it. Not even approaching the farmers had been quite so difficult. Mainly because he was starving when he approached the farmers, and hunger dulled much of the fear of encountering people. Despite his newfound comfort with what he had become, he was still very much insecure about how others would react to him, and he found himself to be desperately afraid that people would want to have nothing to do with him now that he was no longer human. Tarrin was used to being alone much of the time, but before he always had his family. Now he had nobody, and that frightened him more than a little. Being alone in a crowd was the worst way to be alone, because one had a whole group of people around to remind one of just how alone one was.
The hall was quiet and deserted. Tarrin could smell traces of human scent, which were rather fresh. Though the hall was empty now, people did come down it with fair regularity. He had a choice of left or right. Since it really didn't matter to him which way to go, Tarrin went in the direction that seemed to have the stronger human smell, which was to the left. The hallway curved ever-so-gently to the right, so he couldn't see very far down it to look for people.
Tarrin's first encounter in the Tower was almost by surprise. It was with a rather small woman wearing a simple gray dress with a white apron over it. She was obviously a maid or servant. She came up the hall in the direction that he was walking, and stopped dead when she saw him. He was about to greet her, but she gave out a shrill scream that hurt Tarrin's ears, turned the other way, and ran for all she was worth.
Tarrin sighed audibly, and then he couldn't help but laugh. All the trouble he'd gone through to get here, and now nobody wanted to talk to him. He couldn't get himself caught.
He didn't smell the two humans until they were nearly up the stairs that descended to his right. They were both young, not even twenty, and it seemed obvious to Tarrin that they had come in response to the woman's scream. There was a young man and a young woman. The young man was wearing a pair of simple brown wool trousers and a blue shirt, and the young woman was wearing a plain red dress, devoid of any adornment. They were both attractive young humans, the man with brown hair and dark eyes, and the woman with black hair and grayish eyes that stood out. They both gaped at him in shock, then they too turned to run back down the stairs.
"Stop!" Tarrin barked in a voice that cracked like a whip. They did so, instantly. They didn't even turn around to look at him. "Go find a Sorcerer, any Sorcerer, and bring them back here. Tell them that there's a Were-cat in the Tower, and to come see what it wants right away. I'm going to wait right where I'm standing." They hesitated. "Well? Move!"
They bolted down the stairs.
Tarrin leaned he back against the wall, idly checking the claws on his fingers for splits or other damage. He was starting to get surly about the whole affair. Getting himself caught wasn't supposed to be this much work.
Another man rushed up from the direction the maid had run, and the sound of metal jingling told Tarrin it was a guard long before he rounded the curve. He was a young man, burly, with a blue surcoat over a chain jack. He was carrying a drawn sword. He had dark hair and dark eyes, which were a bit wild at the sight of the emaciated Were-cat. "Oh, put the sword away," Tarrin snapped at him churlishly.
The man came to a stop and stared at him, obviously at a loss as to what to do. Tarrin marvelled at the base intelligence of the occupants of this tower. "Put the sword away," he said in a slow tone, as if addressing a child. "Turn around and go find someone in charge. Tell that someone that there is a Were-cat in the tower that wants to talk to someone with a mind. Bring them right back to this spot."
He too just stood there.
"Go!" Tarri
n snapped.
He hastily turned and trotted away, still carrying his sword.
Tarrin leaned his head back against the wall. For their defense, he realized that his appearance here was probably a bit shocking. As formidable as the defenses and security were around the compound, it was probably quite unusual to see someone that looked like him prowling the halls. But that was three people off to bring back someone that he could talk to. He was sure that it wouldn't be very long.
The young man and woman indeed returned, not a moment later, with someone with them. He was a mature man, probably around forty, with specks of gray disturbing the continuity of his dark hair. He was thin and studious looking, with a long face and smallish ears, and his eyes were decorated by a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles sitting on the end of his nose. His brown eyes seemed to take in the entirety of Tarrin with only a single glance. He was wearing a severely plain brown robe, with a leather belt around his waist from which two leather pouches and a small dagger hung.
"Are you a Sorcerer?" Tarrin asked abruptly.
"Yes," he replied. "My name is Sevren Dallinson. Who might you be, stranger, and what business do you have with us?"
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