"Only so long as I stay in the Initiate?" he pressed.

"Only so long as you stay in the Initiate," she affirmed.

"And if I decide I don't want to be a Sorcerer?"

"Then you go your own way," she shrugged.

Which means that I can un-enroll myself whenever I feel like it, he thought with a calm look at her, trying to hide a grin. "Alright, but if you trick me, I'll hand you your guts one handful at a time," he said in a dangerous voice.

"I would expect no less," she said in a slightly sickened voice. "Kneel."

He did so, reluctantly. "Do you swear that you will obey the will of our Goddess, She Who Goes Unnamed, patroness of the katzh-dashi and Goddess of the Weave?"

"I swear," he said after feigning a few seconds of indecision.

"Do you swear to do your utmost to pass the Initiate, to come to the end of the training and say that you gave it your all in good faith?"

"I swear," he said immediately.

"Do you swear to obey the commands of your instructors, and the laws of the Tower, so long you remain bound to the order?"

"For so long as I remain in the Initiate, I so swear," he said flatly, giving the Keeper a deadly look.

"That's not enough."

"That's all you'll get," he said with a steely tone, standing up. Towering over the diminutive Keeper, he looked down at her with a blunt expression of mule-headed stubbornness. "If I decide to stay as a katzh-dashi, we'll have to renegotiate. Until then, take what I've given you and be happy with it, because I won't go a step farther. It's more than I'd have given anyone else," he told her adamantly.

"You push it," she said with hot eyes.

"You forget what you're dealing with," he replied in a calm voice. "I'm not a human. My nature is contrary to tying myself down in one place, and giving someone else control over me goes against just about every instinct I have. Be lucky I went as far as I did."

"I think you forget your place," the Keeper said in her commanding tone.

"Then feel free to educate me," Tarrin said, casually popping his claws and giving them a cursory glance, letting the Keeper see just how long and sharp they were.

"Myriam," the dark-haired woman cut in. "Myriam, you forget-"

"I forget nothing," she snorted.

"Tarrin is right," the woman pressed. "If swearing oaths is against his nature, to force him into more than he is willing to give may upset the balance of his mind. You don't want him disappearing for three more months, do you?"

"No," she said.

"Take my word for it, Myriam," she said. "If he didn't want to be here, he would never have returned. I think we can trust him with what he has already given."

"Yes, yes, you are right," she said with a contrite smile. "I forget that he returned on his own."

"I have one more thing," Tarrin said.

"What?"

"I want Dolanna to teach me."

"We've already arranged that," she said. "Tarrin, no one person can teach you, but Dolanna will be involved in your education. She will be one of your instructors."

"Why more than one?"

"Because different katzh-dashi are better at different things," a tall, slender man wearing a blue robe said calmly. "Each instructor teaches a student what he or she excels at, so that the student is always trained by those who best know the subject at hand."

That made sense, so Tarrin only nodded and took a less hostile stance.

"You will have many teachers. Even some of us will instruct you," the blond woman said.

"Now stop asking silly questions," the Keeper grunted. "Go to your room and pack your things. The Mistress of Novices will arrange your move to the Initiate rooms. The Master of Initiates will be expecting you before noon."

"Yes, Keeper," Tarrin said quietly. He gave them all a very curt, cursory bow, then padded out of the room.

"Defiant," Koran Dar, the tall, willowy Amazon Seat of Divine Power, what some called the Seat of the Goddess, mused as the door closed.

"As stubborn as a rock," Amelyn, the dark-haired Seat of the Mind, grunted.

"But he is the one," Jinna, the blond Water Seat said quietly.

"He is a Weavespinner," the Keeper said almost reverently. "A Weavespinner!"

"Maybe there is hope for us after all," Darrian, the burly Earth Seat, said in his gravelly voice. "There's been no record of a Weavespinner since the Ancients left us."

"Remember, that's not a requirement," Nathander, the Seat of Air, said in a calm voice. "The ancient writings state that any of noble blood that is not human can do this task."

"He hardly looks noble," Ahiriya grunted.

"He's the son of a clan princess," the Keeper told her. "A prince. That qualifies. The Selani is the daughter of the chief, and her Royal Highness' pedigree leaves no question in the matter."

"Be that as it may, since we don't absolutely need him, we can always get rid of him if he gets out of control," Nathander said in a brutal tone. "One of the other two will suffice."

"But they don't have his power," the Keeper said. "That may be very important when the fur starts to fly."

"The dagger in your hand is better than the spear flying towards your back," Nathander said in his detached tone. "I don't relish the idea of taking a life needlessly, but we must always keep the greater good in mind. If he gets out of control, we may have to put him down. To protect the rest of us, if for any other reason. A madman with that kind of power running around could shatter what it took us two thousand years to build."

"I must agree," Amelyn said. "I can't affect his mind with any of my weaves, Keeper. If he goes mad, there won't be anything I can do to heal him."

"Then we'll have to be careful," she said, looking at the door. "That boy is our best chance. We just have to keep him sane long enough to do what he needs to do. After he's done, then we won't need him anymore," she said in a grim tone of finality.

Tarrin walked with Allia from the main Tower and towards the North Tower, the tower of Initiation. Both of them were packed, wearing Novice white but carrying no Novice uniforms with them. They were being led by a young Initiate wearing a red shirt. The fact that Allia was with him told him something, that they wanted to keep them together. They'd rushed her through two months of Novitiate in two days, then simply said she passed and told her to pack this morning. Probably not moments after he walked out of the Test himself. He wasn't sure what their game was, but he knew it had something to do with him, maybe with Allia. They wanted something, and they wanted Tarrin to give it to them. Or possibly both Tarrin and Allia, judging by the way they were kept together.

But that wasn't something he didn't already know, and it wasn't something that he was in a position to do anything about at the moment. He had no idea why they wanted him, what they wanted, or when they wanted it. He was totally in the dark, and without information, he had no way to plan a way to get him out of or around whatever this thing was that they wanted. The Goddess in the statue had said that, at this moment, half of the world's attention was placed right on his shoulders. No doubt this maneuvering in the Tower had something to do with the Goddess' proclamation. They knew that he was important. That had to be key to the reason that he was here.

The North tower, like all six of the surrounding towers, was much smaller than the main tower. About half the height. Several bridges ran from its red stone walls over to the main tower, some hundred spans or more in distance, and Tarrin wondered how the plain stone spans, with no support or bracing, managed to stay up. They didn't even have guardrails. The bridges were not for Novices. Tarrin had never set foot on one of them before. From what he knew of the Tower, most of the main tower was filled with the library, rooms for the katzh-dashi, and it was where most of the business of the order was conducted. The North Tower was for the Initiates and their training, and the South Tower was mainly for research. It was where the books not kept in the main library were stored, the books full of things that were potentially dangerous to people who had no idea what they were doing. Like nosy Novices. There was alot of traffic between the South Tower and the main spire, because many of the Sorcerers worked there to try to rediscover the secrets that had disappeared with the Ancients.