"Alright," he said. Tarrin was starting to get annoyed. That he had a name seemed to be something a step in the right direction, but he had nowhere to take it, and so long as he was in the Tower, he had no means to search it out. Tarrin didn't like being the target of someone's homicidal tendencies; at least someone he didn't know. Jesmind, he could understand, and he had hopes that the two of them could settle their differences peacefully. But this mystery man Kravon was an unknown, a stranger, and he had no idea how to make him stop other than to kill him. But he didn't know who he was. That was the problem.
If he only knew why they were after him, at least then he'd have some idea of what to do, how to make them stop. He was floundering around in a sea of possibilities, and it was a long way to shore. He couldn't think of anything he'd done to offend someone to the point where they would have him killed. It was maddening.
He sat in his room for quite a while pondering it, then finally gave up in disgust. Allia was meditating in her room, a private time that she needed to herself, so he decided to read a book until she came for him.
The door opened, and the Keeper entered his room. Tarrin stood hastily and bowed to her.
"I was told what happened," she said. "It won't happen again, I can assure you of that," she said in a flinty voice. "I'm having the compound searched at this very moment, and no visitor may enter armed from this day forward."
"That's all well and good, but that doesn't tell me anything," he said pointedly. "Why are they trying to kill me, Keeper? They've been trying for a very long time now. They must have a reason."
She looked him in the eye, but said nothing. "Don't concern yourself with it, Tarrin. You're under our protection, and we're going to protect you. Oh, I've received word that your parents and your sister are on the way here," she said.
That managed to sidetrack his anger. "They're coming here?" he said, his heart both leaping in his chest and sinking into his gut at the same time. He so desperately wanted to see them, but an irrational fear of how they would react to his new shape almost gave him the panics. If they rejected him, it may be more than he could bear. He knew his parents; he doubted they would do such a thing, but a part of his mind simply wouldn't stop thinking about it.
She nodded. "I got word yesterday that they were at Marta's Ford. By now, they are halfway to Ultern. They should be here by the Midsummer Festival."
"I can't wait to see them," he blurted.
"You'll have to wait until they arrive," she said with a smile and a wink. "The teachers tell me that you're doing well," she said, changing the subject. "Keep up the good work, Tarrin. Now, I must be off. Take care of yourself."
And then she left, leaving him somewhat giddy at the thought of his family coming to see him.
The door opened again. "Was that the Keeper I just saw?" Allia asked.
"It was," he replied. "My family is coming to the Tower to visit me," he told her.
"That is good news," she smiled.
"I hope so," he said. "If they see me like this and scream and run away, I think I'll kill myself."
"Do not get worked up over it," she said, patting him on the shoulder. "You are their son, and they love you for who you are, not how you look."
"I hope so," he sighed.
"Come, let us go someplace quiet, so that you may practice."
"Not the garden," he said. "There are people watching me right now, I think. If I disappear in there, they may send people in to find us."
"Then we will not practice the hand-language today," she said. "Let us simply talk. You need to work the edge off of your accent."
"I can speak the language almost as well as you can," he said tartly, in Selani.
"Maybe, but if you're going to do something, do it right," she shrugged, speaking in Selani as well. "You don't sound Selani, and that's what matters."
"Whatever," he said. "We need to talk anyway. Let's go out and walk around the outer garden a while. I have some things to tell you."
"Alright."
Outside, they walked the paved paths along the gardens, and Tarrin noticed that they were a bit busier than usual. More than one Sorcerer, and more than one guard, walked along the paths. At least two kept him in sight at all times. He was definitely right about that. "Allia, they want something from me," he told her in Selani.
"What?"
"I don't know, yet," he said. "I looked into the Keeper's eyes today, and I could see things there. She knows who's trying to kill me, and why. But she won't tell me who it is or why they're doing it. And they want something."
"Well, since you're not dead, they obviously don't want your body," she said. "They're going to teach you magic, and they've been having me train you to fight. That means that it's not you they want. Perhaps they want something that you can do for them."
"You said a Sorcerer came and asked for you, right?" She nodded. "Well, it seems I'm not the only one they want."
"Maybe they asked for me because of what I could teach you," she said.
"They had to do that long before they ever knew of me," he protested. "You know how long it takes to get to the desert from Suld?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," she said primly. "And you're right. They had to send that Sorcerer months before I left my people, and we've been here only about three months."
"And I was still human at that time," he added. "Maybe they wanted you," he said, "and since I'm here, they decided I'd do a better job of it. Whatever it is."
"It's all just sand blowing in the wind," she sighed, bending down to look at a particularly lovely rose. "We can't prove anything."
"Maybe not, but I can start looking for answers," he said.
"How so?"
"I'm a Were-cat, dear one," he said with a smile. "I can go places that humans wouldn't even dream about."
Her look sobered instantly. "What you're thinking about is one step from suicide," she warned. "The Keeper is a Sorcerer. I'll guarantee that she and her office have magical protection."
"Hmm," he said, rubbing his chin with the side of a finger. "You're right. But Tiella cleans the Keeper's office. I think I'll ask her to start remembering any scrap notes she happens to see. Maybe we'll get lucky."
"Just be careful, deshida," she warned.
"I will," he promised.
It was a large problem, but the thought of his family coming quickly drowned out such heavy thoughts, and replaced them with a mixture of joy and terror that put him on edge for several days, and put him so out of sorts he did not one thing to start unraveling the veil of mystery surrounding his place in the Tower. He wanted desperately to see his parents, his sister, to put himself in the arms of his mother and father and know that they would accept him as he was. But the very thought that they would reject him made his heart lurch. He'd had a nightmare that made him sleepless for three days, a nightmare that his mother looked on him for the first time, and a look of horror overwhelmed her. Mere words or actions could hold nothing on that one dream, that one image, that had shaken him to the very core. It seemed the embodiment of all the gnawing fears, the self doubts. He'd thought he'd achieved an equilibrium with his animal instincts, but the fight with Jesmind showed him how pitifully wrong he was. They only seemed abated because he was in a very controlled, safe environment. He knew, then, that every time his life was in danger, or he was angry, that he would fight that same fight, a fight for control. And he knew that he could lose.
Of Jesmind, there was no sign. She had simply vanished again, most likely waiting for another chance. Tarrin still had mixed feelings about the fight, and about her. She wanted to kill him, but he knew he could not kill her. It just seemed wrong. When they were apart, the Jesmind he remembered was the incisive, light-hearted woman whom he'd met in that treetop, who had a quirky sense of humor and those glorious green eyes. But it was like she was another person now. He saw it in her eyes right before that fight. She absolutely despised him, hated him with every fiber of her being. In a way, that hurt him, because he
didn't feel the same way. She had cared about him in some way before he left her, that he knew. Be it compassion, or responsibility, or even the beginnings of friendship, he wasn't sure. But not anymore. He could see the lust for revenge in her eyes.
It was a hot summer day, and Tarrin sat panting on the sand-pit practice field, nursing a broken tail. Allia stood calmly in front of him, hand on her hip, with a distant expression he knew only too well. Allia was nearly sadistic when she was training. She'd told him that a respect for pain was one of the lessons learned. It was the way she had been taught. She had the scars to prove it. "Don't lead with your foot like that again," she told him absently, checking her fingernails for any sign of damage as Tarrin took his broken tail in his paws. There was a visible kink it in, and he winced as he pulled the bones apart and gently let them come back together in the right way, so they could heal. Despite a month of training, he'd yet to even lay a paw on her. He was starting to get frustrated. No matter how well he thought he was doing, she would simply seem to grow an extra arm or leg, and that phantom limb would hit him in some very sensitive area. The Troll-skin gloves she wore gave her strength proportional to his, and without that strength advantage, it was clear who the better fighter was.
"I'll try not to," Tarrin grunted as he got to his feet. he spread his legs wide, in a ready stance, and waited for her. She didn't disappoint him, wading back into the fray confidently. What amazed him about her was her fluid suppleness. She seemed to be capable of moving in ways even a rope wouldn't dream of. She was like a candle flame, contorting in the wind, bending herself in almost impossible angles to avoid blows, and then springing back to the attack. That agility coupled with her speed made her almost impossible to hit. Tarrin was no novice, but even his own training couldn't find a hole in her defenses. He gritted his teeth as she flowed around several more darting attacks, then she kicked him right in the backside with the inside of her foot. He stumbled forward as she laughed lightly, and that just seemed to set off something inside him. He was going to get her, no matter what it took. He'd give her a reason to laugh.
He set his feet wide again, putting his clawed paws out over his feet, spreading his weight. She'd warned him against doing just that, because it would slow him down. And when she saw him do it again, she rushed in to chastise him. She feinted a jab, then spun around, bringing her foot up, performing one of her circle-kicks. Her foot whistled through the air as it sped towards its target, his cheek.
And passed through empty air.
She almost spun to the ground, and had to wildly catch herself before falling down. She'd been counting on hitting him to stop her momentum, and he'd simply disappeared. All she saw were his pants laying on the ground. She gasped as the significance of that hit her.
Just as the pad of his paw struck her right on the back of the head. She catapulted forward, head first, and her face dug a furrow in the sand as she hit the ground.
Tarrin pulled his hand back, enormously pleased with himself. She'd preached and preached about the advantage of surprise in combat. She never even dreamed that he would change form on her. That put him right out of harm's way, and after slipping out of his clothes, he changed back right behind her and literally slapped her on the back of the head.
Allia turned over and sat down, spitting sand out of her mouth. Her sweat had made the sand stick to her face, and it looked like she painted her face. Tarrin took one look at her and started laughing. "I believe you made your point," she said icily, as the instructors and cadets stopped to look at them. The fact that Tarrin had no clothes on didn't catch everyone's eye nearly as much as the sight of the nigh-invincible Allia with her backside on the ground and her face caked with sand.
Faalken and Valden walked over from where they and their six cadets had been watching the two spar. They always watched them, because there was much to learn from watching two such as them. From time to time, Allia and Tarrin sparred with the cadets, to give them some exposure to fighting against Non-humans. Tarrin and Allia both used tactics that relied on their natural abilities; Allia's speed, and Tarrin's strength and natural weaponry. In that way, Tarrin and Allia were more cadets than Novitiates. They were even more involved with the Knights than most cadets were, since they too sparred with the Knights. To give the Knights some basics of unarmed combat, and too to fight against unconventional foes to broaden their experience. Allia had approached the idea with trepidation at first, but the tremendous respect the Knights had for her had worn away that reluctance. She often called to them by their names, which was amazing, considering she would not so much as speak to a Novice, and wasn't quite cordial to Sorcerers that talked to her.
Allia gave him a wry smile, and offered her hand. "Very well done," she complemented. "You changed form on me. I didn't think of that."
"I hope you're not talking about me," Faalken said dryly. Tarrin blinked. She spoke in Selani. Tarrin often forgot that he was the only one who could understand her when she did.
"No, Faalken," she said as Tarrin helped her to her feet. She pulled up the tail of her shirt and started wiping off the sand. "I was telling Tarrin that he did very well."
"That was a pretty clever move," Faalken agreed. "Uh, Tarrin, you can put your pants back on now," he said pointedly.
Tarrin chuckled. "The clothes don't change with me, Faalken," he said, reaching down and collecting his pants, and then putting them back on. "Why do you think I didn't do that before? I'd be losing clothes left and right."
Valden laughed. "True enough," he said. "I'd feel a bit out of place bare as a newborn in the middle of a battle."
"At least people would say you had courage," Faalken noted slyly.
"They'd say I had something," Valden returned. "I doubt it would be courage."
"Do not get too much of an opinion of yourself, Valden," Allia said calmly. "I have seen you in the baths. They would say you have something, but it would not be what fills your codpiece."
Valden gave her a strangled look, and then turned beet red. Faalken almost fell over in a sudden gale of uncontrollable laughter. Allia gave Valin a very calm, sober look, then one of those sea-blue eyes winked slyly, and a corner of her lip quirked up into a near-smile.
"Ye Gods!" Valden gasped mockingly. "Allia has a sense of humor! Great Karas, call me home, for the end is here!"
"It's a rather base one, at that," Faalken managed to gasp. He was wheezing audibly, and was bent over.
"You humans are so amusing," she said with a light smile, then she put her four-fingered hand on Valden's cheek, bent down and kissed the shorter man's other cheek like his daughter, and then turned her back to him. "I think that is enough today, Tarrin. A day of practice is always better when the student can walk away with a sense of accomplishment. And you have done very well today. Very well indeed."
"Well thank you," he said with a smile.
"Come, let us bathe. I need to get the training field off of my face and out of my hair."
Tarrin chuckled, picking up his shirt from the post where he'd left it hang. They left Faalken, who was still in a state of near-paralysis, now on his knees, laughing uncontrollably, pounding his hand on the ground.
"All kidding aside, Tarrin, you're coming along very well," she told him as they walked back to the Tower. "I know I didn't do half as well after only a month and some days."
"I had prior training," he shrugged, then he wrinkled his nose. "Goodness, Allia, put those gloves somewhere else," he said.
"I left them with Valden," she objected.
"What?"
"Valden has them," she affirmed.
"Then why do I smell Troll?" They both looked around, and there was nothing. Just grass, the Tower, and a few of the surrounding buildings that they could see.
"Maybe Valden is upwind of us," Allia shrugged.
"Maybe you're right," he agreed.
He felt a tiny shudder under his feet, conducted up through the pads on his foor. That was the only warning. But it was enough. A paw on
Allia's shoulder sent her careening to the side as he lunged the other way.
As a club almost as large as Tarrin smashed the air between them and crushed into the ground, sending dirt and grass in all directions. Both Tarrin and Allia rolled to their feet.
And found themselves surrounded by four Trolls. Twelve spans tall, nearly twice as tall as their opponents, their wide-featured, brutish faces were alight with the prospect of the kill. Each one had nothing but a fur loinclout cinched with a leather belt, and all four were carrying clubs as big as Allia. Tarrin understood the nature of that selection immediately. His magical defense did not carry over to the raw physical force that the Trolls would put into those clubs. They would kill him just as fast as any human should they hit him
They wasted no time. Allia gave a ear-splitting undulating cry, the cry of alarm among her people, as her hands flashed to the daggers she kept in her boots. Tarrin was a bit more direct, as the Cat flowed into and through him. Instinct and thought were one, and they caused him to explode into action. He ducked under the massive swing of another Troll, and then kicked it in the side of the knee before it could recover. Tarrin's strength caved in the side of its knee, and it sagged to the ground with a bass-deep rumble of pain, rolling around on its back holding its knee. Allia simply stepped aside as the Troll behind her gave a vast overhanded swing, spraying dirt in every direction, then she danced lightly around it and sank one of her daggers into the back of its knee. It too sagged to the ground. Tarrin ducked under one swing, then dove forward to evade the other Troll's swing. He danced around so that one Troll shielded him from the other, a Troll that had turned to meet Allia. He saw his chance. "High and low!" he shouted to Allia in Selani. "I'll go low!"
"Go!" she barked, backpedalling out of reach of a huge swing.
Tarrin lunged forward just as the Troll in front of him started after him, which surprised it. The Troll obviously wasn't used to such small creatures attacking it. It tried to step back a bit, but Tarrin dove right between its legs, rolled, and came up sprinting. The other Troll had set its feet to deliver another overhand blow; Tarrin could see the club come up over its head. Tarrin ducked down a bit and ran between its legs.
The Tower of Sorcery Page 37
