From: bwr@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (bruce.w.reisman)
Subject: STORY: Darkness Rising (part 49)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 13:53:18 GMT

49.  APPROACH


"There were some humanoid figures out there doing work," Vilim comments
after everyone calms from Alicia's offer of using the panther.

"Uh, humm," Kidd vocalizes noncommitedly.

"Perhaps the thing to do is see if we can capture one and interrogate
it," Vilim continues.

"You do mean to sort of pluck one off the plain and bring it here?"
Omerta asks.

Vilim smiles, "And see if we can gather some intelligence."

"Interesting thought," Jhere interjects.  "Perhaps Alicia in her thyfur
form could pick one up?"

"There's an easier way," Alicia comments.  "If I were to take Vilim and
we were both invisible and could get close enough then Vilim could send
one away --"

Vilim interrupts, "Remember that troll that went up in the cloud.  Perhaps
we could bring one of those creatures to us."

"So you're suggesting that we wait at least another full day and try and
get further intelligence by doing something like this rather than attempt
to take the keep first thing in the morning?" Jhere asks.

Vilim smiles slyly, "Fools rush in where --" he wisely trails off and
Jhere fixes her stare on him.

"That's an interesting thought, though," Jhere continues.  "Alicia, you
could carry Vilim tied on to you?"

Alicia nods.

"How close do you need to be in order to do that," Jhere now addresses
Vilim.

"I can fly myself," Vilim points out.

There is some further quiet discussion regarding various distances to and
around and within the city and their present location.  Jhere is clearly
puzzled because she's pretty sure his flying talents are not that potent
and finally points out, "Vilim, we are at least two hours by pony to the
lookout by the edge of the mountain.  It will be full dark by the time you
could get there."

They continue to discuss possibilities and finally settle on Alicia flying
Vilim invisibly to just outside the city walls; he will then fly himself
into the city and snatch away the nearest creature and return himself
instantly to the camp.

Jhere now turns to Oliver, "This does sound like a rather intriguing
idea."

"It certainly does," he answers but doesn't add anything further.

Jhere continues on, "So then, too, we need to be aware of roughly where
the creature will appear and be prepared to confine it."

"I will attempt to move this creature to this spot two feet above the
ground," Vilim points to an area near where they're sitting.  "If I'm
off a little bit --"

"Then we need to be prepared to take several of us to go into a haven
with it whereever it appears." Jhere says.

They continue to discuss possibilities and eventually decide they need
further intelligence before proceeding.  Namely they need to know if the
creatures are still about the city now that it's getting near dark.

Jhere finally turns to Alicia, "Why don't you send Hawk to do a flyby now
and come back and report."  Alicia nods.

"Vilim," she continues, "Alicia's going to send her hawk to do a flyby now
and see if there's any creatures still about."

"Instruct the hawk to see if there are any creatures near the edge of the
city," Vilim says to Alicia.

Alicia nods.  She is well aware of how to communicate with Hawk.

"Vilim, all we need to know is if they're still out of doors --"

"That's the minimum," he agrees.

"And from there I don't think we want to bring one back this evening
anyway.  I think many of us are getting tired and it would be better
to do it in the morning."

"Then who cares if they're working at night?"

"Just to give us more information."

Vilim glances upwards and shrugs in frustration as if to say, then what's
the point?  But replies patiently instead, "Under cover of darkness I
thought we might be able to steal one away easier without anyone else
noticing that one of their own was there one second and disappeared the
next."

"Well," Ragnor interjects, "tonight we can find out if they're indeed
working and then *tomorrow* night we can kidnap one."

"But then we have to wait an additional day," Jhere begins.

"The longer we have to stay a few miles from the tower, the better the
chance of our being discovered on their terms rather than ours," Omerta
adds.

Jhere thinks a moment. "All right.  Then we'll go after a creature tonight
if the hawk reports there are any out.  Otherwise we'll do it right after
dawn."

"One issue to be concerned about at night is if I'm not perfectly accurate
in my moving the creature back here, uhm, somebody's got to be ready to
notice if it appears nearby --" Vilim trails off.

Oliver points out, "If it's not in range of us there's no way we will
perceive it."

"Well, then," Vilim counters, "if the first one doesn't make it, I'll send
a second."

Kidd asks, "How will you know?"

"Well, maybe I'll throw two.  You want two?"

"No." Jhere flatly answers.

"Oh, why not?" Kidd asks.

"But then you can play one off against the other," Vilim also points out.
"To get more information."

Alicia now interrupts to point out she can in fact put her consciousness
within Hawk's so she can see and hear and direct him.

"Do it," Vilim answers.

She concentrates and suddenly the hawk, which had been perched on a tree
limb nearby, takes off like a shot.

"Now who has the ability to create havens besides her Majesty, Alicia and
myself?" Jhere asks.

No one does and Vilim looks puzzled.  "Are you really worried about one
creature coming back with this large a party around?"

Jhere ticks off her reasons, "One, yes.  Two, we don't want any
possibility of the Queen being identified yet."


Jhere opens a channel to Ariel, "I have been assuming because I saw you
become Freya's avatar and chase off the Death Stalker, that as Queen
and Freya's High Priestess, you can and will do whatever is required to
destroy the Death Stalkers.

"I no longer believe this, Ariel. I can't believe I'm asking this, but I
*must* know -- will you be able to *take* life?

"I've seen you *threaten* and heal, but I've *not* seen you injure.  The
more I get to know you, the more I'm thinking you can't do that yourself
-- allow *others* to, but not yourself.  Am I right?"

"Jhere, in Freya's cause ... or in protection of my person or any
allied with Freya ... I will take life.  My rapier and bow are not
mere decorations!  But I will only do so as a last resort."

Jhere sighs, somewhat relieved.  "Ariel, I asked -- I needed to know -- so
we can effectively and *most* safely plan our plans of attacks and battles.
For example, maybe rather than Oliver and myself expecting you to be on the
front line with us, you would be much more effective as a healer?  This is
why I proposed you stay back tomorrow with Lord Alan."

"It would be best, I think, if neither you nor I led the group into
battle.  But for healing, I am but a conduit for Freya's power, as you
are, yourself ... as Alicia, misguided though she may be, serves Mielikki.
Someone must stay to protect Lord Alan, and the rear of the advancing
party.  I am willing to take that role."

Jhere smiles slightly, "Thank you.  Do you have any other thought on the
plan for tomorrow?"

"No."


It is moving into early evening.  The hawk will have to return shortly or
it won't come back till morning.  Fortunately, for once it is clear and
the almost half full moon is on its way toward setting, so there is still
plenty of light.

When the hawk returns Alicia shakes herself and wakes and reports that the
the worker creatures are still randomly moving about the town.

"It certainly seems very weird to have these creatures pushing rocks
around all the time," Ragnor comments.

"I don't think we should go in before dawn," Oliver comments, looking
directly at Jhere, who sighs.

"Why?" Vilim asks.

"Because they can see in the dark better than we can," Omerta correctly
responds.

"Exactly," confirms Oliver.

"I can see as well as they do," Vilim counters.

"Vilim, if you can take them all on, we'll congratulate you when you
return.  But ..." Omerta smiles, "... for the moment we'll take just one."

They continue to discuss what they're going to do.  Alicia will fly Vilim
-- tied to her back -- to the outskirts of the city.  They will both be
invisible.  Vilim will then use his own flying capabilities to fly into
the city, hopefully unobserved or sensed and will 'snatch' the first
available creature.  The rest of the group will remain standing at alert
near the edge of the camp waiting for the creature to appear.  At which
point, it will be surrounded, subdued and if necessary taken by Jhere into
a haven for questioning and possible disposal.

Vilim then concludes, "If the obvious 'victim' is in a pair, then you may
end up receiving two.  But I will not send more than two."

Oliver comments, "You *could* send the other one someplace else --" and
everyone laughs remembering the trolls.

They finally agree to leave right at dawn as soon as Alicia can turn into
a thyfur again.  The group prepares to separate to get some sleep.  Omerta
quietly asks Oliver if there are any special preparations he should make.
Oliver replies no, but just be ready for trouble.  Omerta then sets the
watches, excusing Vilim and Alicia.


During the night the temperature continues to drop down to roughly
freezing and the wind picks up.  Everyone digs out their leathers and
furs as the cold begins to bother them.


	[Knearn]
	The 7th day of Hi Summer in the year 6049
	temperature:	high 76 - low 35
	sky:		clear skies in the morning, give way to clouds
			and drizzle from mid-afternoon until late night
			before clearing again
	wind:		0-29 mph (calm - strong breeze)
			(diminishing as the drizzle arrives)

At dawn everyone has risen and prepared for battle.  They briefly argue
about exact placement of the mercenaries but finally decide despite
Jhere's reservations, that the majority of the mercenaries will form a
large circle and wait.  Alicia is rigged with a harness for Vilim and
then Omerta turns Alicia and then the harness invisible.  At this point
Vilim goes ahead and makes himself invisible.  He also casts a protective
spell on himself as well.

Alicia takes off and everyone else moves over to the 'staging' area.
Jhere stays just outside the set circle; she will not involve herself
unless absolutely necessary.

Alicia and Vilim circle to the east of the city.  About a quarter of a
mile from the city, with the sun at their backs, Vilim casts his flying
spell and floats off of Alicia.  As previously decided, Alicia then flies
up and circles the city well out of the way of any actions Vilim may take.

A few seconds from the edge of the city ruins Vilim casts his previously
prepared time altering spell.  He pauses in flight quite surprised and
dismayed.  The creatures on being seen up close are clearly unintelligent,
*faceless*, crudely fashioned golems.  He realizes capturing one would
be clearly useless.  He proceeds toward the tower to see if he can see
anything more than Alicia did.  He approaches to within 100 feet.

Vilim tries to determine what's within the tower through analyzing the
tower itself.  The tower seems to be made of stone, piled without mortar,
by the efforts of the golems (or others like them).  This happened within
the last month.  There seems to be no active magic present, nor are there
any openings other than small gaps between the stones and the square dark
entrance that Alicia had already reported.

He flies in towards the tower, curious to see if he will draw some
response, but prepared to escape quickly if he should.  No overt action
occurs, though as he draws near, he's flung skyward by an updraft close
to the tower.  He notes that the ground has been completely cleared in a
10' wide swath adjacent to the tower.

When he's again within 100' he casts a spell to expand the cracks he's
seen high up in the tower.  The top of the tower suddenly begins to shake
and to fall apart, collapsing, crumbling ... then he's quite startled to
see it comes back together, reassembling itself as it was before.  Alicia
pauses in flight, noting this peculiarity.

Vilim bails out, returning himself instantly to the party.

Alicia waits a few more minutes and seeing nothing further of interest
returns leisurely to the camp.

Meanwhile, the party is waiting tensely.  Suddenly *Vilim* appears within
the circle.  With remarkable restraint, no one shoots him.

"What happened!" Jhere demands.

"Bringing back one of the creatures would be useless -- they are work
creatures that have no being -- they are golems -- there are no faces,
features, etc. and they are stone."

"Just because they were high, doesn't mean we couldn't question one
later," Ragnor comments with a grin.

"Not 'stoned', *stone*," Vilim replies quite pained.

Kidd laughs as the rest repress grins.

"Do you mean to say they ignored you?" Omerta asks.

"Well, I *was* invisible, and out of the flow of time, so --" Vilim
answers.  "Anyway, it was clear that they were being directed and were
focused on that purpose and it's not clear they could do anything other
than what they were doing."

"Did you see any of the intelligences or sense anything from the tower?"
Jhere asks.

"I approached the tower," Vilim answers, quirking his face up clearly
perplexed about something.  "I destroyed the tower."

"Excuse me!" Jhere exclaims.

"I did some damage to the tower --"

"Why?" Jhere asks.

"May I finish?" he replies.  "To test the tower.  And the tower
reconstructed itself."

Jhere turns to Ariel, who shrugs.

"Now the other thing to know about the tower is that it seems to be
intended to be the residence of something or someone," Vilim continues.

"What exactly did you do to the tower?" Jhere asks turning back to him
as Ariel offered no insights.

"Nothing out of the normal."

"Yes, Vilim, but what means did you use?" Omerta demands.

"You didn't use the scroll, did you?" Jhere goes on.

"No," he answers.  "It would be hard to read while it was invisible
anyhow," he grins.

Jhere goes on incredulously, "You destroyed the tower and it rebuilt
itself?  And took no action against you?"

"No.  And the tower seemed to be initially built out of the ruins by the
golems.  But it's also not clear what is holding that stone together --
there's something unnatural there, but I didn't sense any specific magic
I could tell was there."

"Do you think the scroll would work?"

"I have some doubts, given what happened, but there's no way of telling.
I attempted to do some damage high up on the tower so as not to destroy
the entire tower.  That part of the tower seemed to collapse and then
reform."

Jhere turns to Lord Alan, "Does this sound familiar in any way?"

"Well," he thinks for a moment.  "It's hard to say precisely.  It sounds a
little bit like a spell of construction that's operating continuously but
they don't do that."

"So this is not something you could do?"

"Not as described, no."

"Could you *un*do it?"

"No.  My skills are skills of building."

Vilim goes on to describe the number of workers he saw, what they're doing
and so on -- about 30 to 40 in each area, maybe 100 all told.  He sensed
they could walk by them and they would ignore the party.

"But could their directing intelligence redirect them toward us?" Jhere
asks.

"I have no idea whether the intelligence is there, or just placed inside,
or they're working as separate creatures.  I have no further knowledge."

On futher questioning, Vilim reveals as he thinks about it that the
creatures are indeed very slow and rather fumbling in their actions which
would perhaps make some sense if they were actually blind as seems to be
the case, though they have no trouble actually moving the rocks around.

He adds he also finds it interesting that the guiding intelligence within
the tower did not seem to be able to detect him when he was outside the
normal flow of time.

Jhere turns back to the Queen, "Ariel?  Do you have any ideas at this
point?"

Ariel reluctantly says, "It seems to me that perhaps we have fewer
creatures to deal with than we expected.  It might be well to determine
what motivations the creature or creatures have that's directing this
activity."

"So perhaps a frontal approach would be best?" Jhere asks.

"Perhaps."

Oliver is definitely *not* in favor of this.  Omerta on seeing his Duke
is displeased comments, "Is there something you would prefer, your Grace?"

"The fact that Vilim didn't attract notice or attack doesn't tell us
anything about what might happen were we to openly approach.  Something
that is powerful enough to hold the tower together and control -- whether
directly or indirectly -- that many creatures, I don't know how many could
knock at the door and stand against it if it chose not to treat them with
kindness."

"If a person lived in the kingdom with such power --" Vilim begins.

"Alicia!" Omerta calls out, "please don't change back.  We may need your
assistance in making a map of the maze of the town."

She has just made herself visible prior to landing and nods, exhaling on
Omerta, who gags slightly and turns away.

Vilim attempts to talk again, "Your Majesty, if such a person of such
power existed in this kingdom, would not you be aware of such a person?"

"There are several who come to mind, who might have this degree of power.
If they did not draw attention to themselves, one would not notice them at
all.  So I cannot say with certainty that this is one who I have heard of
or is known to me or is one who is totally unknown to me."

"Of those who may be capable of this are any indeed friends of the
kingdom?" Vilim asks.

"Some of them," she wryly answers.  "Some are foe, some are neither."

"Is the list too long to go through, your Majesty?" Omerta now asks.

"I don't see what importance it has."

Vilim goes on, "One must question the motivation of one who would build a
tower and all the construction around it in the town, without spreading
any knowledge it's a friendly force back to the kingdom."

"Well, we don't know," Jhere points out.  "We came the back way.  Perhaps
we need to send in a small party.  A small party that can remove itself
quickly and safely, such as yourself," she addresses Vilim.

He gulps and then glares at her, but not too intensely as the Queen is
right there.

"If Vilim will provide the transportation for me to leave, I'll go."
Omerta states.

"But we must know what we're going to do when we get there," Vilim
protests.  "Knock at the door?"

"Yes," Jhere replies exasperated now.

"Do you need *me* to do that?" Vilim almost begs.

"No.  We need someone who could presumably get themselves out when
captured," Jhere answers.

"My feeling is if this thing is as powerful as you seem to think, it will
be too late by the time one wants to leave," Vilim continues to protest.
"My knocking on the door does not sound very beneficial."

"So where does that leave us?" Jhere asks.  "Ariel, do you have any
suggestions as to our next step?"

"Why not send one of the mercenaries as a messenger?" Vilim sounding
rather desperate proposes.  "With a message of peace and goodwill and
see what happens?"

"No," Jhere begins.

"Aren't the mercenaries here to take some risks?" Vilim asks her.

"Not unreasonable risks."

"Unreasonable for mercenaries, but not for *us*?" Vilim shakes his head
in sheer disbelief.

Omerta proposes that Joel might be a suitable emissary and suggests he
could be offered knighthood as an incentive upon his safe return.

Vilim almost gritting his teeth finishes his thought, "We might reasonably
expect that someone appearing clearly as a messenger might not be harmed,
whereas someone else might be."

"That may well be true," Oliver finally interjects.  "Certainly we can ask
for a volunteer amongst the mercenaries."

"Then I think we follow my original plan and leave her Majesty and Lord
Alan and some of the mercenaries here while we move to the edge of the
mountain and watch as the messenger enters the city," Jhere says.

After some further discussion, the message is composed and Joel volunteers
to take it after being carefully coached in what to say, not to say and
definitely not to take any risks.  The formal message is, "Greetings from
Oliver, Duke of Knearn.  I seek audience with the occupant of the tower."

Alicia is made invisible again and she follows Joel as does everyone else
except the Queen and her party.

Joel approaches the entranceway to the tower which is on the side facing
away from them.  He looks a bit perplexed, Alicia notes.  He waves and
shouts, "Hello!  Hello!"  After a bit he shrugs and steps inside.

Alicia continues to watch for a while, but he does not reappear.


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