From: jcarl@pizza.ess.harris.com (Joe Carl Jr.)
Subject: Re: [Mor-Ganth] Mr. Briggs house. Let's Talk payment
Organization: Harris Corporation - ISD
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 21:31:36 GMT

> The others went to their rooms to get settled for the night, while Barnabus
> and Bartholemew scrabbled around in the kitchen and prepared the
> sitting room.
> 
	Dahvyn was still dazed from the "rawness" of the data stream.  His
body functioned as usual but the voices, the uncontrolled inputs...Minds!
were still battering his thoughts.  Cranach was quieter than the others
but his mind seethed below the placid surface making his face appear 
hazy and fluid to Dahvyns gaze.  He open the window and took deep
breaths of the unexpectedly fresh air.  He looked arround the room and 
realized he had no purpose in coming here.  His only posession was his 
coat and there was little purpose in taking it off.  Cranach was laying 
his sword on the bed by the door, fine, the window was fine.

> Cranach and Gray were the first to return from their chambers.
> "Please, do have a seat and get comfortable."  Just then the
> Dwarf entered. "You too, have a seat, Barthowlemew will be out 
> with crumpets and tea soon."
> 
> As they all got settled a fairly tall skinny halfing with blonde curly
> hair entered the sitting room.  He was holding a tray with a tea pot and
> some cups on it.  Crumpets and bread cakes arrayed around the platter.
>  "I would like you all to meet my cousin Barthowlemew."
> 
>
	Dahvyn sat uneasily in the chair trying to pull his thoughts back
from the sea of people surrounding him.  The idea of being uncomfortable
in the data stream was so foreign as to be baffling to him.  He had ridden
data waves since his earliest youth.  In the past hundreds of years he had 
never had this reaction before.  But, he had never read an unprepared mind.
	The nausea and disorientation hit him like a wall. He felt the 
sweat on his face and the voices became a constant babble in the background.
"I need to lie down for a while, I...uh...guess I ate too much at dinner."
Dahvyn stood unsteadily and look slowly at the faces of those arround him.
As he walked from the room he wondered why the dwarf had such a relieved 
expression on his face. 
	His words echoed and re-echoed in the thoughts of the other members 
of the party.  He started to laugh at the replys forming in each of them 
when the hunger hit him.  He dropped his coat on the bed and a cat lept 
through the window before the collar hit the pillow.
	An owl winged its way across the tree tops.  The moon lit the world 
brighter than the sun would for a normal man.  The data stream faded behind
him save a few scattered points.  The world was a cold night of trees and
small creatures, dark shadows and small noises: an owl's world. In time, 
the data stream silenced to a single point of shielded thoughts.
 	The owl was tempted to keep flying forever leaving the sudden
responsibilities and dangers behind.  Sythyka can waste forever hunting
an gray owl in a forest of similar creatures.  The beast within was stronger
than the beast without and the owl began looking for a place to hunt.  The
lone data point was closer.  The owl reached for altitude and searched 
the air behind him.  Nothing, no closer this time, but no farther away.
	The owl sighted a clearing a mile farther on, transformed, and a 
hawk reached it in a matter of seconds.  The hawk landed by memory and 
became Dahvyn again.  Dahvyn could read no thoughts from the intruder, but
felt him coming.  He had, perhaps, a two minutes minutes. Simple spells
would do for first defense, to mount an attack would be to announce himself
to Sythyka and her friends.  This would be avoided as long as possible.
None of his transformations could have arroused her yet. " Was the map more
of a trap than I expected ?" He thought.  Did one of them turn him in.
If it was a trap It would be one Sythyka would regret, the beast was strong
tonite even if he was hungry.  
	There was no time to waste on speculation.  No components.  His hair
grew to waist length, "I should have done that earlier", he pulled
three strands and tied the ends together.  It made a strand 6 feet long
which he tied so that it was taught between two trees.  One spell to make 
the strand unbreakable, another to mask my weakness with an illusion.
Four shimmering, translucent walls sprang up around him.  One wall masking
the nearly invible strand.  The "cut wire" was between him and the mind of 
the man following him. " Let him race to me and try to bowl me over"  Dahvyn
thought.  Now I must wait.  " Patience is a weakness in the younge" his
father had said.  It was a lesson well learned in his child.  " I'm
waiting, fool" he sent mentally.  
			He waits.

--
Joe Carl Jr.               "It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a
jcarl@jabba.ess.harris.com   fool, but what he does know that ain't so."
                                                           -- Josh Billings
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