"Perhaps the spell is a trap, and it killed that man," Allia surmised.
"Lula never taught me how to unravel the spells made by priests," Keritanima said, a bit helplessly. "How do we go about it?"
"I think I have an idea," Tarrin said. He had to do this fast. Reaching out, he touched the Weave and almost immediately struck. Others had tried to cut him off from the Weave enough for him to have an understanding of how it was done, so he wove together a spell consisting almost entirely of Divine Power, Fire, and Mind, and then he unleashed it on the door. The weave surrounded the door, and then it hardened into a barrier that choked the enchantment off from the Weave. The spell didn't get its power from the Weave, but it received it from its source through the Weave, and that gave him a way to disrupt it. The same way a Sorcerer could block the powers of a priest, Tarrin attacked the permanent spell placed on the door in the exact same manner.
The door shimmered and then went dark at the same time that Tarrin's paws suddenly exploded into radiance, the white wispy aura that denoted the use of High Sorcery, and he found himself struggling against an onslaught of power. It was even more this time, more and faster and harder, and it was only him fully expecting what was coming that allowed him to tear himself away, cutting himself off from the Weave. He still suffered a backlash, a backlash severe enough to disturb the air around him and send a short gust of wind to pull at the clothes of his sisters. A backlash that put him on his knees, panting heavily as he tried to find some coherent thought.
"What was that?" Allia asked.
"That was High Sorcery!" Keritanima gasped. "Tarrin, how did you do that?"
"I can't help but do that, Kerri," he panted. "It's the problem I'm having."
"No wonder the Council is in such a twist," she said in awe. "I thought you were just having a problem with control, but you just did something Lula said was impossible for one person!"
"Let's save this for later," he said, managing to get back to his feet. "The weave I put on the door isn't going to hold forever. When it weakens, the spell on the door will come back, so let's get it open before that can happen."
"You didn't destroy it?"
Tarrin shook his head. "I don't know how," he said helplessly. "But I do know how to cut people off from the Weave. That's what I did to the door. The barrier I wove around it will sustain itself, but only for a few minutes, so move, sister! You don't have all day!"
She nodded, and was working on the first lock immediately. She got it open, then opened the second in a matter of seconds, but the third turned out to be challenging. She hastily prodded and picked at it, then one of her tools snapped audibly. She cursed and pulled another from her bracer, her hands moving with steady precision even as the seconds ticked away. When Tarrin felt the weave blocking the door began to unravel, he took a step towards the kneeling Wikuni. "Kerri, hurry!" he said in a strangled tone. "It's almost broken!"
"Got it!" she said, pulling the lock off and backing away just as the barrier collapsed, and the door shimmered with magical light.
Keritanima blew out her breath, then she laughed ruefully. "Well, that was interesting," she said in a playful tone. Touching the Weave, she wove together a spell of air that allowed her to move things with Sorcery. The bolt of the door turned and pulled free of the wall, then she used weaves of solid air to push the door open without touching it.
"Why didn't you pick the locks using that?" Allia asked.
"Pick locks with air weaves?" Keritanima asked. "Do you have any idea how precise and delicate you have to be to pick a lock without jamming it?"
"Then I guess you can't," Allia shrugged.
"Now it's a challenge, sister," Keritanima grinned. "I'll find a way to do it."
Tarrin helped Keritanima back to her feet, and the fox Wikuni pulled off the robe and swished her tail a few times. "Now let's see what's worth protecting with a magical trap," she said with a twinkle in her amber eyes.
The interior was dark and surprisingly dry, and Tarrin sensed that magic kept the room thusly. The room held only one thing, a large bookshelf that stood alone in the center of the room, and was loaded with books and scrolltubes. About fifty books, all bound in black leather, and some twenty or so scrolltubes on a small stand on the top shelf. Each tube looked to be made of ivory. Thick dust was covering the books, tubes, and the shelf, and prints formed in the dust on the floor as the trio moved into the rom. There was nothing else in the room.
"Jackpot," Keritanima whispered in a reverent tone. Tarrin and Allia followed her as she approached the large stone shelf, then pulled a book at random from it. The cover had imprinted on it a shaeram, a clear indication of what the book was about.
"And this is what we came for, my deshar," she said, using the Selani term for siblings, holding her hands out to the bookshelf. "If we're lucky, this is everything the priests knew about the Sorcerers. If we can't find something useful in this, then there won't be anything useful to know."
"Strange," Allia mused. "I expected there to be more."
"I'm glad there's not," Keritnima replied. "There are alot of books here, deshaida. You'd be surprised how much information you can put in this many books, if you're methodical about it." She reached behind her, for the canvas bags she had stuffed under her shirt and into her belt. "Alright, pack them in tightly, Tarrin. Scrolls in their own bag."
Tarrin ended up with three large bags packed so tightly with books and scrolltubes that there was no danger of them opening and becoming damaged. They weren't too heavy for him to easily carry, but they were very bulky and unwieldy, ensuring that he would have to move carefully. He had them at his feet, getting ready to pick them up, but Keritanima sighed and stared at him. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Getting ready to pick these up," he said.
"Why carry them?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"I've seen you shapeshift with things in your hands," she told him. "They just disappear. These things are going to bang around and make noise, and risk damaging them. Why don't you just make them disappear, and let Allia carry you out of here?"
"I've never tried that before," he said honestly. "I know things go elsewhere when I shapeshift with things in my paws, but I don't know if something this big will do that."
"Try," she said dismissively.
"What if they disappear, but never come back?" he asked pointedly.
"Good point," she said after a brief consideration. She pursed her lips, then pulled out an empty sack and handed it to him. "Now try," she said.
Nodding, Tarrin stepped back, then shifted into his cat form. The sack vanished, as he knew it would. He then returned to his humanoid form.
And the sack was in his paw.
"Good. Now try it with one bag," she told him.
After a bit of experimentation, Tarrin found that all three sacks would vanish when he changed form, locked in that elsewhere created by the amulet when he changed his shape. And more importantly, they would be back in his paws when he shifted back, as would everything inside the bags.
No wonder the Goddess didn't want him to lose the amulet. It had just proven how incredibly useful it could be.
Stuck in his cat form, Tarrin found himself riding in the cowl of the black robe Allia was wearing. Paws on her shoulder, he peeked up over her shoulder, watching as they moved. He wondered at the amulet for a moment, then rememebered that the Goddess had given Keritanima an amulet. One that was for her, like the one Allia wore was for Allia. He had the suspicion that he knew one of the things that it would do.