"That's not entirely true, Dolanna," he said absently. "Only seven of the same species can circle."

"Where did you hear this?" she asked quickly.

"I didn't. I remember it from when I joined the Council's circle. If you don't mind me sounding obvious, there were eight of us in it. It didn't form a mass mind because my mind isn't human. My different mind blocked it. I realized it when I dissolved the circle. I think that's one of the reasons why I had trouble holding it. If it had been seven other Were-cats, I don't think the Cat would have rejected the contact."

Keritanima gave him a strangled look, then she laughed. "I forgot all about that!" she admitted in a loud voice. "You even told me that!"

"Kerri forgot something?" Tarrin asked, giving her a smile. "Someone look out and see if the sea hasn't turned to glass."

"Well, maybe not forgot. Maybe more like misplaced," she said with a chuckle.

"The theory does have merit," Dolanna said after a moment of tapping her chin, obviously in deep thought. "A great deal of merit. The reason a mass mind forms is because of the presence of numerous minds linked together in the communion of the circle. It only stands to reason that a mind of a dissimilar nature would reject such a formation, and prevent the mass mind from forming. The different mind would insulate the other members of the circle, protecting them from the formation of a mass mind. After all, the mass mind cannot form unless all participants of the circle join with it. If one does not, then all do not. It is the very nature of a circle."

"What does that mean to us students?" Dar asked curiously.

"A circle is inclusive, Dar,"she explained. "It is like a school of fish, or herd of goats. Where one goes, all go, when one turns, all turn. But if one does not jump off a cliff, for example, then none will."

"Even if other goats go first?" he asked.

"It is an abstract concept," she reiterated. "Think of the herd being tied together with rope. If the one goat that does not jump is strong enough, it holds all the other goats up, preventing them from falling to the bottom."

"Oh," he sounded. "I think I get it. Even if all the other goats want to jump, they can't do it because the one goat that doesn't want to jump won't allow them to. Because they all have to go together."

"Pecisely," Dolanna agreed. "They must go together."

"So, if we had seven human Sorcerers aboard, we could conceivably make a circle as large as ten," Keritanima mused. "The seven humans and use three non-humans."

"Perhaps larger," Dolanna elaborated. "There are many ways to circle, young one. If the lead of a circle were to join to another circle, they could conceivably expand the total number to fifteen. Seven in the first, seven in the second, with the non-human mind between them to act as a buffer." She tapped her fingers on the bed. "It certainly makes sense. The old stories tell of the Ancients joining in circles numbering in the hundreds, to perform their mightiest magic. That was when the Sha'Kar lived. Non-humans, to buffer their circles and permit them to join in such large numbers."

"Can we prove it, though?" Keritanima asked.

"Actually, yes," Dolanna said. "We have two humans here, and Dar knows how to circle. Dar, Keritanima, join into a circle. Keritanima, you lead it."

Tarrin felt the edges of it. Dar reached out to Keritanima in the oddest way, almost as if he were trying to touch the Weave. But instead of touching the Weave, he was trying to touch Keritanima. He felt Keritanima respond to that searching probe, and when they met, he felt their power pool together and expand.

"Very good. Now, Keritanima, join with me in another circle. I will lead it."

Tarrin felt it again, as Keritanima simultaneously maintained her contact with Dar, and reached out to touch Dolanna in the same manner Dar had reached out to her. He felt Dolanna's reply, and then they too were linked together into a circle. The pooled power of Dar and Keritanima suddenly expanded into Dolanna, joining the two human Sorcerers through their non-human conduit.

"Yes, I think it does work!" Dolanna exclaimed. "I can barely feel Dar at all! Keritanima is isolating him from me, yet I can still access his power!" She looked at Tarrin. "Did you feel it? How it was done?"

Tarrin nodded. "It was like trying to touch the Weave, except she was trying to touch you."

"Try it," she urged. "Reach out to me. Try to touch me."

Tarrin nodded and closed his eyes. He knew how to touch the Weave; it was almost instinctive now. He used the same sensation to begin, but instead of trying to touch the Weave, he reached out for Dolanna instead, using her scent and her feel and her presence to guide his awareness.

It was shockingly easy. He touched Dolanna, almost as if she were the Weave, and he felt her mind respond. There was almost something of a door opening between them, and he found he could peek through it and look into her mind. But she could also look into his, and the Cat took immediate notice of this unknown, strange sensation, of this strange presence. It rose up to investigate, to challenge the interloper.

Dolanna gasped audibly as the Cat invaded her through the contact between them, and he felt her mind attempt to push it back away from her. He tried to rein it in, convince it that the mind in contact with them was a friend, not an enemy, not an attack, but the impulse was powerful and it was irresistable. He felt the Cat rise up and smite the doorway between them, shattering it like a window.

Both Tarrin and Dolanna cried out, reaching for heads that were suddenly splitting with pain. The Sharadi Sorceress sagged in her chair and Tarrin's head banged into the wall behind him. Keritanima winced, flinching away from the other two, but Dar made no outward motion at all that he felt anything. "That was very unpleasant," Dolanna said delicately, rubbing her temples.

"I felt it too," Keritanima said. "What happened?"

"Tarrin rejected the link," Dolanna replied. "Violently. The disruption of the circle fed back into us as a backlash."

"I didn't do it on purpose," he said defensively.

"I did not say that you did, dear one," she assured him. "I do not wish to try that again any time soon."

"I warned you it may happen."

"So you did. But we do seem to have unlocked a forgotten secret. This is something I must write down and send back to the Tower for further study."

"You're going to tell them?" Tarrin flared. "I don't trust them, Dolanna!"

"True, but we cannot allow knowledge to be cast aside," she said calmly. "If we fail in our quest, we very well may perish. I will not allow this to die with us." She patted his paw. "Besides, dear one, how can they possibly use this against us? All of the non-human Sorcerers are right here. This provides them with absolutely no hold over us. Because of that, I see no reason not to share it."

He looked for a good logical reason to object, but he couldn't find any. He decided that logic was a great deal overrated. "Well, I still don't like it," he snorted, crossing his arms.

"I do not like it very much either, but I see little recourse," Dolanna assured him. "Because of my newfound headache, I think we will stop for now. After I recover some, we will continue with normal lessons."

"That's fine with me," he said flatly. But then the words of the Goddess, about how he chose his own path, echoed in his mind. "We'll try it your way, Dolanna," he said, with considerably less hostility in his voice. "I guess I can trust you to do the right thing."

"I appreciate that," she said, standing up. She swooned slightly, but Dar was there to give her a reassuring arm. "I think I need to lay down a while," she announced.

"I'll take you to your room, Dolanna," Dar said in a gentle voice.