"Maybe not," Tarrin said cautiously.

"What?"

"Maybe they can't see it," he said.

"Tarrin, how could they miss something like that?" the Wikuni demanded.

"Maybe it doesn't want to be seen," he said after a brief hesitation. "There's something magical about that place, Kerri. I think all three of us agree to that." Both of them nodded in agreement. "So maybe the place hides itself. It's obvious that nobody knows that it's there. Or at least nobody bothers to visit it."

"You mean that someone or something went out of its way to create a place that nobody can find?"

"I found it," Tarrin said calmly. "Maybe it's just someplace that a human couldn't find. Maybe a Sorcerer used a weave from the flows of Mind that hides the place, and since I'm not human, it didn't affect me."

Keritanima gave him a very penetrating look, then she snorted. "I don't think I like where this is going, so I think I'll drop it," she told him tersely.

"Why not?"

"Alright, since you want to press it, think a minute. Allia said she couldn't see the place from the top of the Tower."

"That's right," Allia said. "I couldn't see anything."

"So, Allia isn't human," Keritanima pointed out. "So there goes that theory. I can't explain it, and I don't think I want to know how, but I'll accept that something is hiding that place."

Tarrin thought that he knew, but he wasn't sure if he should tell them. Even his friends knew his sanity was tenuous, and if he started claiming that he had spoken with the Goddess of the Sorcerers, they'd probably go running for the Keeper. And he really wouldn't blame them. He was pretty sure that she kept the courtyard hidden, but he didn't know why, and he wasn't sure why she allowed him to find it.

"Alright, but do we want to depend on that?" Tarrin asked. "My parents live in the city. I'm going to go visit them tonight. If I ask, they'll probably let us bring the booty there."

"No," Keritanima said. "The Priests may be able to track it down with magic if we hide it in the city. But I'll bet my furry tail that their magic won't penetrate the Ward surrounding the grounds, so they won't know where to look to find what we steal."

"That's a very good point," Allia agreed. "If we have to live with the Ward, we may as well use it in our favor for a change."

"Just so," Keritanima agreed with a smile.

"Well, I was going to tell you this later, but since you're here, it may as well be now," Tarrin began. "I went to the library where they hold all the real books on magic, Kerri, and your idea of researching may come up empty."

"Why?"

"Because the Ancients wrote everything down in the language of the Sha'Kar," he told her. "Nobody knows it anymore. Jula told me that the Tower already has almost everything the Ancients knew in their library, but there's nobody left that can read it."

Keritanima scratched her muzzle absently. "So they lied in the lesson where they said the Ancients took everything with them."

"Probably not," Allia said. "They very well may have. What the Tower managed to gather is probably the books that the Ancients missed. It may be everything they knew, and it was just copies of what was already here."

"True," the Wikuni agreed. "So, it's a bust?"

Tarrin nodded. "Everything of importance to the Ancients was written in Sha'Kar, I was told."

"That's not what I was after, Tarrin."

"No, but Jula's talk made it apparant that the katzh-dashi had already tried what you wanted to try," he told her. "She described the Sha'Kar from what she said were records left behind that they could read. I think that's a pretty good indication that they'd researched as much of the Ancients as they could too, because she said the Lorefinders have been trying to break the code of the Sha'Kar writing for a thousand years."

"Hmm," the Wikuni pondered, eyes dropping to the floor as her fox ears ticked reflexively. "I think you're right, brother dear," she said absently. "I didn't know about the Sha'Kar books."

"I didn't either. I think the Tower keeps them a secret," Tarrin replied.

"That, or it's something that nobody talks about," Keritanima added. "I've noticed that there are alot of things that people don't talk about around here." She stood up. "That makes the cathedral that much more important," she announced. "More and more, it looks like almost everything we'll be able to use will be what we can take out of there."

"If there's anything in there at all," Tarrin added.

"Don't be a pessimist," Keritanima chided.

"You shouldn't pin all our hopes on a cloud," Tarrin returned.

"I'm not, believe me," she said. "If we can't find anything useful in the cathedral, then we're just going to run. We'll have to take our chances."

"You keep talking more and more about running," Allia noticed.

"That's because I have no intention of going back to Wikuna," she said bluntly. "It's either the throne or the grave for me, and the throne will lead to the grave. I have a much better chance here."

"You're Wikuni, Kerri," Tarrin said. "That makes you very easy to find."

"True, but I'm getting as far away from the sea as possible." That sounded as unnatural as one could get to Tarrin. Wikuni were born on the deck of a clipper, and to ply the seas and trade was all that their race lived for. "My father's reach shortens considerably once you lose sight of the sea. Besides, the only place we can go to escape the Tower is Allia's desert. The Selani are the only people that can protect us."

"I'll not have my father challenge the Tower until I know there's a good reason to run," Allia warned her. "You may be casual with my people, but my clan will be taking a very serious risk in harboring us if the Tower wants us badly enough. You forget, you're talking about an order that can send the weather itself to attack my people. My people can't fight the wind."

"Allia, as far as I'm concerned, we already have reason enough to run," the Wikuni replied. "It's blatantly obvious that they want something from us. They didn't bring us here just in the interests of interracial peace. They want something from us, and it must be bad, because they won't tell us what it is. You don't withhold information unless that information threatens your plans. If this task wasn't anything serious, or it wasn't dangerous, we'd have already been thoroughly prepared for it long before we took our first crack at touching the Weave." She sat back down again irritably. "I have the very strong feeling that we're being offered up like sacrificial lambs to further the Tower's goals, and I'm a girl that's learned to listen to her gut. It's saved me more times than I can conveniently count. That tells me right there how bad the Sorcerers want it. To put me in danger risks a war with my father, and no kingdom that borders the sea is insane enough to get into a war with Wikuna. And you, Allia, if your father found out that they killed you for their own ends, I have no doubt that the Selani would Call Council and pour over the Sandshield like a tidal wave of destruction."

Both Tarrin and Allia were quiet for a very long moment. Keritanima was right. If this task wasn't dangerous, they would have extensively prepared them for it. A soldier that fully understood the objectives of the mission stood a much better chance of successfully completing it. And the Tower was going to an awful risk. If Damon Eram or Allia's father found out that their daughters were being trained for a suicide mission, the destruction would reach staggering levels, because those forces would have to take Sulasia apart to get at the Tower itself. Wikuna and the Selani were two of the forces in the Known World that no nation wanted to cross, because they had a very long reach.

"I don't know about you two, but I don't want to be here when they decide to choose one of us," she told them bluntly. "I have the feeling that Tarrin will be their choice, but if he should fail, one of us would be next. I've lived too long to get killed by something that I never intended to cross paths with in the first place."