Tarrin felt…strange. There was something in this vast chamber, but he couldn't quite put his claw on it. It hovered right on the edge of his consciousness, almost like something that rested just at the edge of his vision, a sound that was so faint that he couldn't tell if it was real, the phantom of a scent in his nose. "Do you feel that?" he asked Dar quietly, almost reverently.
"Sometimes I do," he replied. "There's something in this place, but the Sorcerers won't tell me what it is. I think it has something to do with magic. Not many people come in here, so I like to come in here alot and think."
Tarrin advanced into the huge open area, still trying to understand the extremely vague sensation he was feeling. His pads made no noise on the black tiles as they crossed the boundary and set foot on the green of the surrounding circle of the symbol. Tarrin felt that unusual sensation more strongly as he advanced into the middle of the huge room. He looked up into the soaring void that rose up over them, an enclosed area that went up so high that he could just barely make out the ceiling so far above. Tarrin put a paw out in front of him, because he could almost see a something coalescing in front of him. As he moved closer, it seemed to be more distinct.
When his paw crossed the invisible barrier above where the green circle ended and the red triangle began, something strange happened. A faint, ghostly radiance appeared around Tarrin's thick fingers, and it swirled and eddied like water between and over them. At the touch of that visible light, Tarrin's fingers tingled angrily, pins and needles that were almost painful, yet seemed to go through his fingers as well as around.
"Amazing!" Dar murmured, standing beside him. "It never did that to me."
Tarrin put his entire paw in, feeling the tingles, watching the light ghost up and around his paw. It was almost like water; whatever it was was definitely flowing, from the floor up towards the ceiling so high above. "Put your hand in," Tarrin told him in a wondrous voice. "Don't just put it in, feel what's there."
He did so, closing his eyes. After a moment, while Tarrin put his other paw in and played with the swirling, smoky radiance, Dar's eyes snapped open. "I feel…tingles," he said. He put his other hand out, and then tendrils of ghostly smoke-light started wisping out from under Dar's hands. "Incredible!" he whispered as it became stronger. "I can feel it!"
Tarrin raised a foot, to take a step inside.
"I wouldn't do that," a voice called from behind.
They both whirled around. The woman standing before them was very, very tall, and she was almostly achingly beautiful. Her skin was bronze colored, but her hair was a brilliant, fiery red. A most unusual combination. She wore a daring, low-cut red silk dress, and had a figure that most women would kill for. Dar instantly bowed to the woman, and Tarrin clumsily did the same. Her hard green eyes swept over them quickly, then she walked up to them. She stepped between them and put her hand out, over the barrier, and Tarrin watched it as it reached into the same area where he had been. "You have no idea what you're doing," she said in a hard voice, "and that can kill you if you're not careful."
Her hand suddenly erupted into a white fire, which spread over her palm, and licked up from under her cupped hand. She removed her hand from the place, and the white fire was still in her palm, dancing and weaving in the air. Tarrin could feel the heat from it; it was real fire. It was pure white, but it was real. "This place, I don't think it's safe for either of you. You'd best not come here again."
Swallowing, Tarrin looked at the fire. Why hadn't it done that for him? Like she said, it was something he had no knowledge of, but he just had to know. "What is it, Mistress?" he asked.
"It is Sorcery," she said simply. "It's something you haven't learned yet. But from what I just saw, it's something that both of you will learn," she added with an appraising look at Dar.
Dar positively beamed.
"Just don't get creative," she said. "Before you even try to use Sorcery, there are many things you have to learn. It's way too easy to kill yourself if you don't know exactly what you're doing."
"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."