Re: Part 70c - Tahirah alone
The two climb the staircase, then traverse a short corridor before starting to ascend again. Eventually Kallum stops, "That's it. I reckon you've got another fifteen or twenty feet and you'll come to a door that leads out onto the top of the tower, or at least as high as you can get. There's not much room up there, but as long as you're not planning on dancing a jig or turning cartwheels, you should be fine."
"I'll wait here for you, and make sure you aren't disturbed by anybody."
Tahirah continues alone, finds the door exactly where Kallum said it would be, and steps out of the tower.
He had been right. There isn't a lot of room. Or, that is, there would be more room if most of it wasn't taken up by a large, stone, beehive-like structure, which seems to be home to numerous doves.
Tahirah skirts around the dovecot, vaguely reminded of the Charyk, and the roosts of the ormvråkar. These birds are, of course, far too small to serve a defensive purpose.
The view beyond the parapet is spectacular. Kolvir stands towering high above Amber, seeming almost luminous and ethereal in the clear air. The sky overhead is cloudless and bright. For an instant Tahirah seems to see something white, moving quickly across a highland meadow on the face of the mountain.
To her left, a forest sweeps around the flank of Kolvir, and beyond she can see that it seems to stretch away for ever. To the naked eye, there is no sign of the war which is supposedly raging in Arden.