te me, I'll kill you.  I'll do it without a second thought.  Treat me like something not worth your effort one more time, and I'll rip off your tail and hang it on my wall as a trophy.  Talk to me like you did again, and I'll hang you off the fence and skin you.  And I'll make sure you live long enough to see your own pelt.  Do I make myself abundantly clear?"
	Staring at him in horror, she could only give a slight nod.
	"Good.  I hate repeating myself."
	She suddenly erupted into a bawl of tears, but he tuned out her sobs and stalked away from the pool.  Wondering when he'd become so hard.  He'd only meant to make it clear that he would brook no attitude from the girl, and then he was suddenly threatening her life.
	He knew that the time away had been good for him, but even then he knew that he was nowhere near in complete control.  That little episode was a very impacting reminder of that fact.  He still had to be very careful of himself, else he would do something that he would truly regret later.
	On the other hand, the Wikuni would have probably taken anything less to be empty words.  At least now, she understood exactly how he felt about her attitude.
	The entire affair managed to spoil the exuberance and anticipation he'd been feeling.  Muttering to himself, he stalked up the stairs, in the direction of the kitchen, intent on claiming the breakfast he had left his room to get in the first place.  He stopped when a glimpse of red hair shown ahead of him, a thick shock of hair the color of fire disappearing up the staircase.  He fully well remembered, with a bit of a shiver, the last time he had seen a redheaded woman on the steps leading from the baths.  Memories of that nightmarish encounter were dim, but the emotions behind them, emotions to which he was susceptible considering his months in cat form, made his ears go back and made his heart flutter in his chest.  Advancing slowly and carefully, he knelt at the base of the steps and stared up their length, up to where they slowly began to turn to the left, his nose sifting through the myriad scents left on the stone by countless feet.  Only those that were freshest had any meaning to him, and none of them were Jesmind.  In fact, her scent was nowhere around.  Could it have been someone else?  Jesmind's hair color was odd, but not unique.  He had not seen anyone else in the Tower with quite that shade of fire red hair, but that didn't mean that there wasn't another one.
	But his nose didn't lie.  Nobody had been on the steps in the last half an hour, except for himself.  He puzzled over that for a moment.  How could the woman with the red hair have went up the steps, and not left a scent?  Even if her feet had never touched the ground, the traces of her scent would still be drifting in the warm, muggy air.  Especially since the air circulated down the stairs; he could feel it against his face.  He was downwind, and yet there was no scent at all.
	Tarrin debated what to do.  There was another set of stairs leading out of the baths, on the far side of the chamber, so he wasn't pinned into going in this one direction.  But he was curious about who, or what, he had seen, something that left behind no trace of its passage.  Jesmind was good, but there was no way she could have done that.
	The sound of sloshing behind him told him that the Wikuni had dragged herself out of the bathing pool.  He could hear her panting, almost as if to keep control.  Yet she didn't say a word.  She was either too frightened of him--no, it had to be that.  He didn't credit her with enough sense to be otherwise.
	Not caring to be brained from behind by an indignant wet Wikuni, Tarrin advanced up the steps cautiously, claws out, his every sense straining to know what was around the slight bend in the staircase as it rose up to the ground floor.  There still was nothing, only his own scent going down.  When the landing came into view, he again saw only the briefest flash of red, a lock of hair disappearing around the corner.  He rushed up to that spot and stared down the hallway.  It was a hallway that led into the center of the Tower, towards the Heart, and there was not a single doorway between the stairs and the ornate iron gate that marked the Chamber of the Heart.  There was nowhere for the mysterious figure to go, and yet she, or he, vanished without a trace.  Without any trace at all, for there was no scent on the stone that was even a day old.  Nobody went into the Chamber of the Heart without a good reason.
	Tarrin could think of only two things.  Either his eyes were deceiving him, or whatever it was had no scent.
	If his eyes were deceiving him, then they were doing it again.  Tarrin could see faint movement behind the iron gate marking the end of the hallway, a flash of red and white behind the intricate iron scrollwork, iron wrought into the shape of the shaeram on each of the two iron gates.  Just like the red and white of Jesmind's hair and shirt.  It wasn't like Jesmind to sneak around like this.  If Jesmind wanted to talk to him, or to fight, she would have come right out and got him.  He seriously doubted that she wanted to fight, but if she did, then maybe she was trying to bait him into ambush.  Curiously detached, he realized that he needed to find out exactly who, or what, that was, to see if it was friend, foe, or other.
	It only took an instant's thought to form his awareness around the shape of the cat, and then his body flowed into the form as his vision blurred.  He heard a startled gasp behind him, down the stairs, but he ignored it as he crept on utterly silent paws up the hallway, which was lit with glowglobes like all hallways within the Tower proper.  He reached the iron gates, then slunk down on his belly and looked through a hole in the ironwork by the base, looking into the large room.
	The room was empty, except for Jesmind.  She was standing with her back to him, her thick mane of wild red hair flowing down her back and around her shoulders, bunching up against the base of her tail.  A tail that swished to and fro in a reflexive, rhythmic pattern.  Her paws were clasped behind her back in a relaxed manner, and she was staring at the strange place in the middle of the chamber, staring upwards at the ceiling so incredibly high above.
	Tarrin saw immediately that all was not what it appeared to be, because Jesmind had no scent.
	It was not Jesmind, he was certain of that.  It could not be her, no matter how much it looked like her.  Because she--it did not have a scent.
	"I know you're there, Tarrin," the figure called.  It sounded like Jesmind's voice, even down to the undertones of impatience in the timbre.  "You don't have to hide from me.  You know me better than that.  If I wanted to fight, I'd have attacked you while you were busy with the walking throw-rug."
	It was very convincing.  Very convincing.  But it was not Jesmind.  Tarrin changed form absently, taking a step back.  He had no idea who or what that was, but since it was somehow pretending to be Jesmind, he didn't want to risk trying to find out more.  Yet maybe he could find out more.
	"What do you want, Jesmind?" he asked acidly.
	"To talk."
	"The last time you said that, you tried to rip my head off."
	"Times change, Tarrin," she said.  Tarrin's eyes narrowed.  Jesmind didn't call him by his name.  She called him cub.  "I've been thinking.  I make the offer to you one last time, Tarrin, but this time, you don't have to leave.  I talked to the Keeper the other day, and she explained how, dangerous, this Sorcery business can be if you're not trained.  I can teach you what you need to know while you're here."
	Clever.  Just what he would want to hear out of her mouth.  Tarrin reached out with his senses, closing his eyes and taking in the air deeply through his nose, straining with his ears.  He could hear the Wikuni behind him, advancing curiously, could hear her breathing.  No such sound emanated from the chamber before him.  The smell, the feel of that Conduit thing that Ahiriya had described tingled along his skin, but he could discern no scents of anything alive inside the chamber, nor could he hear anything.
	A scent.  Yes, there was a scent.  A smell of....ozone.  Like the smell of lightning after it strikes.  And there was a sound coming from the room, but not of breathing.  More like the sound of a distant wind, the sound of air pushing against air.  Both were very faint, almost negligible, but they were there.
	"Wikuni," he said calmly, quickly, aware that she stood right behind him, "give me your slipper."
	"What?  I--"
	"Don't argue!" he snapped in a sibilant hiss.  "Just give it to me!"
	Lifting a foot with a mutter, she reached down and removed her slipper, then handed it to him.  "I don't see what--"
	She cut herself off as Tarrin reared back and then threw it into the room with considerable force, squeezing it through a hole in the gate, and managing to strike the figure square in the back.  The throw had enough to stagger the form forward, until its foot crossed the line and into the dark circle that marked the boundary of that Conduit Ahiriya said was there.
	It gave a keening cry, like the sound of wind howling through the treetops, a horrid sound that made Tarrin's ears stand straight up, then try to fold in on themselves to block it out.  Then the form of Jesmind vanished in a whirlwind of dark clouds.  But the whirlwind seemed to falter, as the magical power inside the Conduit charged whatever it was that had been hiding behind Jesmind's appearance.  The magical energy rushed into it, making it glow, and showing Tarrin its form.  It was some kind of odd creature seemingly made out of the air itself, and its shaped altered wildly as it writhed and convulsed in the magical vortex that was the Conduit.  It gave another keen, until a sudden blast of wind lashed out from inside the glowing area as the figure itself discorporated.
	Shielding his eyes from the sudden hot wind, he heard the Wikuni gasp behind him as the hot wind passed them by and blew faint dust down the hall.  "What was that!" she demanded in a slightly shocked voice, a voice held under tight control.
	"I don't know," Tarrin replied.
	"How did you know it wasn't, well, whatever it was?"
	"It had no scent," he replied calmly.
	She blinked, giving him a curious look.  Tarrin noticed that those amber eyes were clear and totally lucid.  They were...calculating, and they took in Tarrin from top to bottom, as if by that one glance, the Wikuni could work out the inner motives of his deepmost self.  As if she was reassessing her opinion of him.  Her look made him do the same thing.  This Wikuni was more than she appeared.
	"What in the Pit was that?" a voice called.  Tarrin and the Wikuni both turned to look, to see two of the three from the baths, the man and the blond woman, standing in the hallway with towels wrapped around themselves.
	"We don't know," the Wikuni said in her normal imperious tone.  "Some kind of glowing ball thing got our attention, so we came down here to look at it.  When we got here, it gave off that horrid sound and then just popped."
	"Strange," the woman hummed, tapping her lower lip with a delicate finger.  "I--nevermind, you're Initiates.  I'll be able to find you.  I'll be asking you about this later today, when I have a chance to find you.  I want to know what that sound was."
	"Why not now?" the Wikuni demanded in an impetuous tone.
	"Because I'm standing here wearing a towel," she replied.  "And that's Mistress to you, Initiate."
	"M-Mistress," the Wikuni said gratingly, having to all but wrap her mouth around the word.
	"Now go get out of that wet dress, and for the Goddess' sake, comb out your fur," she ordered.  "You look like a drowned rat."
	The Wikuni stamped her foot with a huffing sound escaping her lips as the two Sorcerers went back down the staircase.  "I do not look like a drowned rat!" she said hotly.
	"Actually, you do," Tarrin said in a calm voice, totally devoid of amusement.
	"Well thank you, mister messenger!" she snapped at him.  "It's your fault I'm standing here getting dye in my fur!"
	Tarrin glanced at her, a sneaking suspicion dawning in his mind.  "You can drop the act," he said.  "I saw your eyes.  There's no way you can be that smart and that stupid at the same time."
	She seemed about to give him what-for, then she scratched the back of her head and laughed ruefully.  "You can, if you pay attention to what you're doing," she relayed in a calm, conversational tone.  "Most people wouldn't catch a slip that small.  And I usually wouldn't make such a slip, but you surprised me."
	"Slip?"
	"Why, I'm the Brat Princess," she told him with a cheeky grin.  A grin that showed her very sharp teeth.  "Didn't you know that?"
	"It seemed fairly obvious to me," he drawled, "but I don't see the need for it."
	"You would, if you understood the situation," she sighed.  "It is something of a secret, Tarrin.  I spent a great deal of time convincing everyone I'm an empty-headed shill.  I don't need you to go behind me and ruin that."
	Nothing sparked Tarrin's curiosity more than a mystery, and here was a living one.  The thought that she had to act like a brat intrigued him to no end, and his mind whirled with possible explanations.  "We have time," he said.
	"I'm wet and look a drowned rat," she chuckled.  "I don't have as much time as you.  Sunrise isn't far off, and I have to be ready.  We'll talk--oh yes, we'll talk, but it will have to be later.  Just promise me that you won't give me away."
	"I won't," he said.  "After the dunking I gave you, you have a perfect excuse to avoid me.  So there won't be any more slips."
	"True.  I like the way you think," she agreed with that same toothy grin.  "In fact, I'll absolutely loathe you for what you did, but since you're so, well...."
	"Direct?"
	"Yes, direct.  That's the word I needed.  Since you're so direct, I'll be too afraid of you to push things.  The Brat Princess is a whining self-centered poppinjay, and she likes to hurt people that slight her, but she's a coward.  She wouldn't risk you hurting her."  Even her manner was different.  Tarrin could see it in her, how she moved.  She moved with a stately confidence that belied the impression that he had of her, although there was a certain tension in her, as if she was afraid to act true to her real nature in front of him.  She was obviously able to submerge herself in her role as the Brat Princess so completely that she could literally take on an entirely new set of mannerisms.  This was not a spoiled whining little egotistical brat.  This was an intelligent, cunning, calculating young woman that seemed a bit haunted and somewhat defensive.  No doubt for the reasons that she pretended to be so much less than what she actually was.
	"I'll keep your secret, Wikuni," he promised.  "Just be careful around me."
	"Keritanima," she said.  "My name is Keritanima.  Keritanima-Chan Eram, Jewel of the Western Star, Lady of the 20 Seas, Bearer of the 5 Bands of Nan, Holder of the Ring of Bakul, Crown Princess of Wikuna.  And don't you forget it," she added with a playful banter, a sly smile curling the corner of her maw.
	Tarrin chuckled in spite of himself.  "Until I hear it about three hundred times, I think I will," he admitted.
	"Trust me.  You'll know it by heart by the end of the day," she winked.
	Tarrin actually laughed.  "I take it I'm in for a very long day?"
	"Everyone in my class will be," she grinned.  "I have a reputation to maintain, after all, so I have to make a very memorable first impression."
	"I'd better warn Allia," he chuckled.  "And you'd better not annoy her until after I have a chance to explain things to her.  She's even more direct than I am."
	"I'll remember," she promised.  "Just don't tell her about me."
	"I'll figure out a way to explain it," he told her.
	At sunrise, there were eight young men and women standing outside Master Brel's office.  Tarrin had spent the time eating and waiting thinking about the strange encounter, with the whirlwind creature.   Not three days after he returned, another attempt was made on him.  He had no doubt that it was an attempt.  No doubt that going into the chamber and facing what looked like Jesmind would have meant his death.  It was yet another strange magical creature, something which he had no idea what it was.  He'd have to ask Dolanna, when he next saw her.  Dolanna's knowledge of magical beasties was very impressive.
	Allia was there, and there were four others, two young men and two young women, all of them highly born, from the looks on their faces.  Two in particular, a young man and young woman, looked noble to their fingertips, and the hot looks they passed at each other, an open animosity that bordered on rage, sizzled the air between them.  The other young man looked like a Dal, and the swallow-necked young lady with her black-black hair and wide blue eyes was most defintely Shacan.  No doubt that the two glaring at each other were nobles whose houses were at odds with one another.  The other young man and lady were staying pretty well back from those two, but keeping them between themselves and Tarrin and Allia.  From the looks of them, the two glarers were either Sulasian, Draconian, or Tykarthian.  The three nations' peoples looked much alike.  Tarrin joined Allia with a smile and an outreached paw, which was taken by his blood sister.  She looked striking in his red Initiate uniform, a strange color on her after seeing her wear nothing but white since he knew her.  She'd even had her silver hair trimmed and neatened from its long, ragged appearance for the occasion.  "How did you sleep last night, sister" Tarrin asked.
	"Well, but I felt lost within that large bed," Allia said.  "I thought the beds of the Novices were soft.  I fear I may grow used to your wetlander comforts."
	"Maybe in another lifetime, deshaida," Tarrin told her with a smile.
	He was about to say something else, but Keritanima came around the corner, looking quite regal and splendid.  The signs of her recent dunking had been totally removed.  Her fur was soft and silky and properly brushed, her long auburn hair was done up into a coronet atop her head, one made of beaten gold and set with a rainbow of assorted jewels, tumbling down her back and over her shoulders in carefully arranged waves and curls.  Her Initiate dress was of the standard cut and form, but it was made of the finest silk, and had lace at the sleeves and at the throat.  The look on her face was more imperious than regal, the look of a self-centered brat who knew the power she held.  Tarrin had to admit, she played her part perfectly.  Had he not known better, he would have been totally convinced.  In fact, he had been, until he caught her in her lie.  She looked every inch a princess.
	"That reminds me," Tarrin whispered to Allia in Selani.  "Don't pay any attention to the Wikuni or her antics.  Just ignore her.  I already warned her to leave you alone.  I'll explain later, when we have time to talk."
	"I will," she promised with a faint nod, and a calm look at the Wikuni.  Tarrin glanced at Keritanima and gave her a faint nod, which she acknowledged with a slight movement of her eyes.
	Keritanima did not disappoint.  First, she went off on the tall noble boy that had been giving hot looks to the young lady, dressing him up then down, and calling him about fifty types of scoundrel and ruffian.  All because he didn't offer to kiss her ring.  Then she bored into the young lady for not curtsying quite deep enough after Keritanima had demanded, in an ear-grating voice, to be afforded the respect due to her station.  She invented several new terms of disrespect on the spot when the noble boy politely told her she was being too loud, then she actually slapped the other young man, whom Tarrin did not know, that had been standing on the other side of the young lady and young man that had been looking daggers at each other.  For no reason Tarrin could fathom.  When he gave her a hot look, she reminded him that she was the Crown Princess, and that if he so much as thought about laying a hand on her, Daddy's Royal Marines, two hundred of whom were now garrisonned on the Tower grounds as part of the agreement between Wikuna and the Keeper, would find him and use him as a target dummy.
	Tarrin had trouble trying not to laugh.  Her mind was fluent, and her acting was quite impressive.  She flowed from one irritating state to another, cajoling, commanding, making snide comments, throwing barbs and darts at the assembled Initiates that rolled from her maw with ceaseless frequency, or demanding compliments on her great beauty, or her pretty coronet, or commenting on the rarity of value of the silk in her dress.  In mere moments, all four of the other Initiates looked ready to kill her.  Allia gave her flat, challenging looks, looks that cowed Keritanima every time she seemed to want to approach.  Tarrin, remembering that he didn't like the Wikuni in public, affixed her with similar flat stares, and those kept her on the far side of the gathering.  When Brel appeared around the far corner, Tarrin thought that the other four would rush forward and kiss the hem of the man's robe in gratitude.
	"Hhhrumph," he grumbled, "well now, it looks like all of you are ready.  Follow me.  And keep quiet."  They followed the withered old man out of the North Tower and back to the main Tower.  They ended up in a small chamber near the Novice quarters, that had ten chairs arranged to face a point in the front of the room.  Brel left them there with commands for them to sit and wait.  Tarrin chose a seat near the back, giving the chair a bit of a wary look.  It had a solid back and no padding, and chairs like that gave him nowhere to put his tail.  He turned the chair around and straddled it, folding his arms on the back of the chair and leaning into them.  Keritanima, not wanting to be outdone by a chair, left immediately after Brel, and Tarrin could hear her voice piercing the rock as she demanded a split-back chair with lots of cushions, and refreshment.  Tarrin thought she would have demanded someone to fan her, if she thought she could get away with it.
	"I may end up killing that, creature," Allia said quietly.
	"Just ignore her," Tarrin told her.  "She won't bother you directly."
	"She's bothering me indirectly," she grunted.
	"May be, but you'll understand later.  Let's meet after we get out of here, by the statue.  We need to talk."
	Allia nodded, and Keritanima returned, a smug look on her face.  A minute later, a split-back chair was brought into the room, but no cushion.  She berated the servant over the slight for several moments, then seated herself regally on the chair, her tail threading the space between the slats in the back of the chair.  There was low talk, talk of expectations and wondering at what would happen this first day, and Tarrin joined in it mentally.  He had no idea what would be done this day, the first day of the Initiate, and his mind went over the possibilities as they waited for whatever it was to happen.
	The door opened, and the thin form of Sevren entered the room.  He looked just as Tarrin had remembered, tall and thin with those wire-frame spectacles over his eyes, dark hair speckled with gray, cut short, and that same type of brown robe with the leather belt.  It seemed no surprise to Tarrin that Sevren was the instructor.  He was one of only two Sorcerers Tarrin knew well, and trusted.  He had no doubt that the Keeper had put Sevren into the job to keep Tarrin at ease, and in a way, he did not mind at all.  Tarrin's suspicions of the Tower made him wary of the people who lived within it.  Sevren was one of the two exceptions.
	"Good morning, Initiates," he said in his calm, pleasant voice.
	"Good morning," they said in unison, except for Allia and Keritanima.
	"My name is Master Sevren, and I'll be teaching you your first day's lesson.  I have no doubt that all of you are wildly curious about what we will do today, and what you will be doing for the next few years."  Keritanima's eyes narrowed at his use of the word years.  "That is what today's lesson will be about.  A tour of the parts of the Tower we use for instructing Initiates in the use of Sorcery, an oveview of what will happen in the next month, and a little bit of historical lecture, so you will know where the katzh-dashi came from, and where we hope to go in the future.  Because it's early yet, we'll take care of that right now."
	"The Katzh-Dashi are a very ancient group," he began, raising a hand and conjuring forth an Illusion before him.  It was a two-dimensional illusion, a simple image like a portrait, but drawn on air rather than canvas.  The image conjured by the illusion was the Tower itself, without the six surrounding Towers.  "They have occupied this land for nearly seven thousand years.  Most of what happened in such distant past is lost to us, but we do know that even then the katzh-dashi performed tasks that gave us our name.  If you didn't know, katzh-dashi means "servants of man" in the Ancient Tongue."
	"Servant?" the young lady who'd been glaring at the man said in a hot tone.  "I am nobody's servant!"
	"We all serve, Milina," he told her cooly.  "You serve your father by being here.  I serve the Keeper by teaching you.  The Keeper serves the needs of those she commands with her decisions.  We all serve.  It was always the goal of the katzh-dashi to serve mankind by using our magical powers for man's benefit.  Anyway," he said adjusting the spectacles over his eyes, "for thousands of years, we did just that.  We served.  The city of Suld developed around the Tower of Sorcery, and over the years, grew to its current size and position of one of the largest cities in the West.  I'll not go into the specifics during this time, a time we call the Age of Power.  You'll get the specifics at a later date.  What you need to know is that, at that time, the Ancients and the Sha'Kar worked harmoniously towards some unkown goal, and served man when not actively working towards it."
	"What goal, Masster Sevren?" the blond young man asked.
	"We don't know, Kev," he sighed.  "The records of what the Ancients were working on were lost in the Breaking."
	"Who were the Sha'Kar?" Keritanima asked idly, examing her short, sharp claws.
	"Again, we don't know," he answered.  "All we know is that they were a Non-human race who were very powerful in the Gift.  The entire race vanished during the Breaking."
	"Well, what is this Breaking you keep talking about?" Keritanima asked.
	"It is the darkest hour of our history," he replied soberly, and the illusion changed to a large group of people standing outside the Tower gates.  "It happened exactly two thousand, one hundred and twelve years ago."
	"Ah, that.  We call it the Year of Chaos," Keritanima said in a disintered voice.
	"Different cultures would have different names for it, but they are the same," he said calmly.  "Anyway, it was the end of what many call the Age of Power.  Back during that time, magic was a commonplace thing.  Many practiced it, and many more had created items of magical power to perform tasks.  Even the most dullard farmhand had the magical aptitude to cast minor enchantments and cantrips, if he studied the proper magical words.  Perhaps it was this commonality that created the Breaking," he speculated with a sigh.  "Anyway, to make it short, since most of you probably know many stories about it, the Weave was ripped.  We still don't know how or why it happened.  Most scholars think that the magical pressures placed on it by the peoples of the world had torn it, and the backlash caused almost all of those magical objects to explode, almost all at the exact same time.  Since those magical treasures were owned mostly by the rich and those versed in magic, it killed most of the important people in the world.  Kings, Emperors, powerful Wizards, rich merchants, nobles, many of them were killed by the disaster.  The sudden power vacuums in each kingdom caused chaos as wars erupted over succession.  It was a ghastly time," he sighed.  "What was probably worse than this was that it killed almost everyone with knowledge of Magic.  There was a void of magical power in mere seconds."
	"What about Sorcery?" the dark-haired girl asked.
	"Well, that is itself a mystery," he told her.  "After the initial explosions, some courtier rushed to the Tower to seek aid for the wounded king, and he found nothing.  The Towers, all seven of them, were totally, completely empty.  Even the furniture was gone.  The Ancients, our forebearers, had vanished like smoke in the Breaking.  To this day, we have no idea what happened.  Whether they all died, or simply foresaw what was coming, and removed themselves.  If so, we don't understand why they didn't come back after the backlash had finished.
	"This disappearance caused problems," Sevren sighed, pointing at the illusion.  "The people of Suld believed that the Sorcerers were responsible for the cataclysmic accident.  We still take blame for it, even though we honestly don't know if the Ancients caused the Breaking or not.  There simply is no evidence left behind.  Anyway, because of this, the Tower was attacked by a mob of Sulasians seeking vengance by trying to tear the Tower down.  But the magic that had raised the Tower was still strong, and they couldn't so much as scratch the stones.  After that, the new King, taking the place of the prior one who had died of his wounds, declared all Sorcerers to be enemies of Sulasia, and they were to be killed on sight.  The Tower was considered to be cursed by most, and it was abandoned to fall to ruin."
	He removed his spectacles and cleaned a lens on his robe.  "I don't need to describe the next few hundred years to you.  I'm sure all of you have heard the stories."  Tarrin had indeed.  Almost one hundred years of war, famine, and chaos, where kingdoms rose and fell by the year.  "But things settled down, as things had to.  But the loss of the many Mages and Priests, killed by their own magical objects, left a void in our culture that took almost a thousand years to replace.  As to the Sorcerers, well, anyone who displayed talent in Sorcery was branded a witch, and was either killed or driven out.  The Priesthoods of many kingdoms actively hunted down Sorcerers, killing them wherever they could find them, and especially the priesthood of Karas, the patron god of Sulasia.  In 