"I don't know about magic, but this place is very special," he said in a quiet voice. "Maybe it's a good thing that nobody really comes here."
"Yeah," he agreed. "They'd just mess it up."
They sat down on the bench and stared at the exquisite statue for a long time. They didn't speak. Talking was unnecessary. They both simply contemplated the statue, her arms held out in a gesture of welcome, the look of gentle caring on her face.
"It's getting late," Dar said, looking at the dimming sky. "We probably missed dinner."
"It was worth it," he said calmly.
"It was," he agreed.
"We should go. They may be looking for us, and they won't find us here."
"Yes. We should remember that. This might be a nice place to get away from it all."
Tarrin glanced around at the clearing. "Yes, it would be," he said. Looking up, he could see that the hedges didn't conceal the center from the vast height of the main Tower. But from that height, one would need a spyglass to see who was down here.
They went back to the Novice quarters, and Tarrin considered the fountain. It was a beautiful place, and it was indeed very well hidden. It was the perfect place to go when he didn't want to be bothered.
"Let's see if we're not too late for dinner," Dar said.
"You go ahead," he said. "I need to do something."
"Alright. See you in the room. I'll try to sneak something back for you."
"Thanks," he said.
He immediately went to the Library. He wasn't too late to keep his appointment with Dolanna. The library was a vast place, a chamber that took up almost every span of available room on one side of the Tower. It went from the inner wall to the outer wall, took up two levels, and probably took up enough room to house about three hundred people. The floor was lined with bookshelves, and each one was piled heavily with books. There was a set of steps on each side of a large statue of some robed man with long hair and no beard, leading to a half-upper level with even more bookshelves. In the exact center of the lower floor, up against the wall that separated the central core of the tower, was a circular desk behind which sat the Master Librarian and two or three of his scholar attendants, who were responsible for keeping the Tower's vast wealth of books in a neat and orderly fashion. Tarrin hesitated to let one of those librarians pass, pushing a wooden cart stacked with books that were to be replaced on the shelves.
Ignoring the several curious looks, Tarrin squatted down and put his nose close to the floor. There were a multitude of scents all jumbled together on the floor, but he knew precisely which one he was looking for. He had to check two other likely places it would be until he found Dolanna's scent, sharp and strong and fresh. After that, he simpy followed it. It went up the stairs and into a dark corner of the huge library. She was sitting at a solitary table behind a large, dusty bookshelf, where a single one of those glowing globes hovered over the table to provide light.
He sat down across from her at the small table quietly. She looked up from the book she was reading, then carefully looked in either direction for eavesdroppers. "Thank you for coming, Tarrin," she said.
"What did you want to see me about, Dolanna?" he asked.
"Nothing earth-shaking, my dear one," she said with a smile. "I simply wanted to talk to you about your journey to the Tower. I felt that there some things that you did not wish to talk about in front of Sevren."
"Not a whole lot," he told her. "Me and Jesmind, we, uh, got very, you know, uh-"
"I understand," she said quickly. "I had assumed as much."
"Why?"
"Because, my dear one, that is a very effective way for a woman to control a man," she said.
"That's not why it happened," he said.
"Then what did occur?"
Tarrin explained to her the social peculiarities of the Were-cats, as it was described to him by Jesmind. Dolanna simply nodded. "Yes, that is logical," she said. "I should have expected as much. I keep falling into the trap of thinking of you and the other Were-cats as thinking in a human manner."
"No, we don't," he said soberly. "Here lately, I've really noticed it. I've changed, Dolanna."
"How so?"
"I'm starting to think almost the same way Jesmind does," he told her. "I used to be nervous about undressing in public. Right now, Dolanna, I could strip and walk across the library without batting an eyelash. It just doesn't seem the same as it once did." He shuddered slightly. "I find it very easy to kill," he added.
"What else?"
"Just little things, Dolanna, mostly along those lines," he said. "I think the time with Jesmind opened my eyes to that other side of me, and now they're starting to communicate. Jesmind told me that I was ignoring it. Well, I'm not doing that anymore. And it's doing it without me knowing about it. When I was in the baths, I realized that my ideas about being nude changed. It wasn't until then."
"It is your instincts," she told him. "They are starting to merge with your conscious mind. Tarrin, it is what is supposed to happen, and it is a very good sign. You do not seem to be having any problems integrating them together, which is also very good."
"It's just scary," he told her. "I'm starting to wonder at what I'm going to do next. It's like I'm starting to lose control."
"No, dear one," she assured him. "The fact that you can recognize these changes in attitude tells me that you are still very much in control of yourself."
"It's still weird," he said. "At first, when I met Jesmind, I was amazed at how different she was. She was blunt and almost totally fearless, and she thought about some things in ways I never thought any woman would ever think about them. And now I find myself acting more and more like her with every passing moment. I know I'm not becoming her, because she's female and I'm not, but I'm starting to think almost the same way. I'm getting just as blunt, and I find myself capable of doing things that would have made me almost faint just last month."
"You are starting to think like a Were-cat," she told him gently.
"I didn't realize that it would be so different," he admitted.
"But you do realize it, Tarrin, and that is your best weapon in learning how to deal with it," she told him.
"I hope so," he sighed.
"Just believe in yourself, dear one," she told him.
He nodded. "Did you tell them about Jesmind?"
"Yes," she replied. "The Keeper has started putting eyes out to watch for her. So far as I know, she has yet to arrive. Nobody has seen her."
"They're not going to," he grunted. "If she doesn't want to be seen, she won't."
"We must have faith," she said.
"What about the Goblinoids?"
"Now that we have passed on to the King," she told him. "I have not heard what will be done about it, but at least the King now knows what is happening. I am certain he will mobilize units in the army to deter them from getting any ideas."
"Good," he said. "Dolanna, that place in the center of the Tower, what is it?" he asked.
She gave him a curious look. "It is called the Heart of the Goddess," she told him.
"I know. Me and my roommate were in there. There's something in there, something magic. But before we could find out, someone came in and threw us out."
"That was a good thing," she told him with a look of concern on her face. "Tarrin, you have awesome potential, and you will have tremendous power when you learn to use it. That place, it is very central to our power as Sorcerers. It is something that you will not understand until you learn about the Weave. But for now, consider it to be a place with a great deal of magical energy. With your inherent aptitude, I am surprised that nothing bad happened."