From: spider@Orb.Nashua.NH.US (Spider Boardman)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [GATM] [LH] Housing the children
Date: 06 Oct 1993 00:04:27 GMT
Message-ID: <SPIDER.93Oct5200427@orb.Nashua.NH.US>
References: <CDHJFo.EwM@ibeam.intel.com> <SPIDER.93Aug19014937@web.zk3.dec.com>

[ADMIN:	Frying up loose ends.  Selna and M'arrella are written by Spider
Boardman.  Lex is written by Stephen Hutchison.  Erik appears courtesy of
"The Dreamer".  This work is copyrighted by these three authors.
]


[[Hey, isn't it getting to be naptime?]] M'arrella asked.

Selna looked up at the brightening sky.  <<I guess it is almost dawn.
Yes, it's time to head back to the inn for some sleep.>>  She started
heading east, out of the Low City.

[[?!?]]  M'arrella seemed confused at Selna's actions.

<<Sorry.  I have one of *those* feelings.  This morning, I think I need
to walk back, rather than cutting through the Void.  Something's going
to happen out here.>>

[[If you say so.]]

She came out onto the Arcade of Unforgotten Heroes and started north
toward the Dragon's Inn.  Suddenly, she felt a gathering of power up
ahead.  She started running.  She slowed again as she came near the
gathering of various priestly sorts, facing down a hideous green and
purple parody of a dinosaur.  <<What in the world?  That looks like
a nun wielding that ruler!  Whose junior high is this, anyway?>>

[[What's a junior high?]]

<<Remind me to tell you later.>>

They had arrived in time to hear the "nun" offer a form of
reconciliation to the dinosaur:

+ "I offer you one, and only one chance.  Willingly free those you have
+ fed upon, and the Powers will transform you into a being greater by far
+ than you have ever dreamt of becoming.  What say you?"

+ "LET ME LOOSE AND I WILL SHOW YOU. YOU WILL BE MY NEXT FEED, THEN THAT
+ MISERABLE HOBBIT WILL BE NEXT."

Selna approached the edge of the group of priests, observing the
struggle with her eyes, her ears, and her mind.  She started praying,
requesting guidance.  A feeling of rightness.  <<OK, so this is right.
The dinosaur has to go.>>  A scene of planning, with a hint of approval.
Attention drawn to the sound of the chanting, with an emphasis on
harmony.  <<They have a good plan in action here, but there's a hole for
resonance.>>  A choice--a Pyrrhic victory, or a clean one.  <<They should
manage without any assistance, but I can help prevent casualties.  Good
enough.>>  She prayed some more, invoking strength and protection for
those who were struggling to defeat Br'Nai.  She felt some probing, and
a flash of discovery.  It didn't register as an immediate threat, so she
simply noted the source and didn't let it distract her from her
invocations.

Finally, the ordeal was over, as the first rays of sunlight burst
through the clouds.  Selna surveyed the scene, looking to see if anyone
needed immediate help.  <<Hmm.  That chief priestess is quite drained,
but she's not in any real danger.  Anybody else?  Those kids?  They're
physically all right.  They need emotional help, though.  I wonder what
that godling was doing with them?>>

[[Are you sure you want to know?]]

Selna smiled briefly.  <<No.  But now that I've stuck my nose into this
business, I'm too curious not to find out about it.>>

[[Thought so.  Was the probing from that godling?]]

<<No, it was from one of the onlookers.  It came from over there--the
person has since moved about, over to--there!  It's that guy in the
void-suit.  Huh!  His companion has a shadow cloak, too?  Not the same
as Luthor's, but it's still a shadow cloak.  Fascinating.  Anyway, time
to go exchange greetings with the one in the void-suit.>>

[[Are you sure that's a *greeting* you have prepared?]]

<<He started it by staring at me first!  So there!>>  Selna began to
thread her way through the knot of people after the man in BLACK,
focusing her senses on him as she went.  <<Oh, my.  He's *not* human.
I think I have some idea what he is, but I thought that discussion was
pure theory....>>

[[What do you mean?]]

<<He's from one of the edges of the manifold where any possibility of
supporting life hits limiting cases.  At least, that would match with
Klosh's lecture on the dangers of roaming beyond one's ability to
adapt.  He described something which is almost exactly like this guy.
Klosh never let on that he'd observed any such race, but I guess he
never quite told us it was all speculation, either.>>

Selna finally caught up to her quarry as he was nearing the children.
"Hi.  Since you've already been probing at me, I figure you're my
designated contact person.  Is there a plan for helping these waifs?
Oh, by the way, my name is Selna vir Challerburde.  What's yours?"

"Selna?  OK, I can handle that.  'Raelf David Alex Berenson, call me Lex."
The blue-dyed man turned to his equally blue companion.

"Erik, this is someone my grandfather knew about five hundred years
from now, and under a somewhat different name."

Selna's eyebrows arched.

Erik bowed politely, GREY cloak swirling behind him.

"Milady."

She bowed slightly in response.

"Yes," Lex said.  "We do have a plan for the urchlings.  We've got
a building about ... two miles west of here, along this street, and
then four blocks north.  It was going to be an expansion of the women's
hostel but I think it's going to be an orphanage now."

Erik pointed to the crowd of priests and nuns, all gathering the
shocked and now-crying children together.

"Looks like we need some transportation, Lex."

"You're right.  Hmm.  A hundred thirty four kids.  Time for some
creative rite-ing."

"Hmph."  Selna raised an eyebrow at Lex.  "That's not supposed to
be a pun in this language."

"So sue me," Lex said absently, making his black wand grow into
a seven foot wizard's staff.  <<From Air and Earth I call you,
come to my bidding now.>>

A pulse of magic washed out of the staff, and Lex staggered briefly.

"That's strange," he muttered.  "Four of them locked into the street
right in front of the Dragons' Inn.  <<Be free into my service>>  There,
that'll fix that problem."

Selna gave a sidewise look at Erik, who was watching with fascination
as the wind began to spin in place before them, growing pale green
eyes that blinked at them.

<<Hello, little ones,>> Lex said as the ground before him surged up
into four manlike heaps, with blinking red eyes.

{[ Who Calls Who_Calls Us _Us? ?]}

<<'Raelf of the 'kan.>>

{[What is your What_IS_your _will  will?]}

<<Help me to safely bear the children, priests, and nuns, quickly
but without undue haste, to the place we are preparing for them.>>

{What is our compensation}

<<Friend winds, you blow where you will.  I only ask for help.>>

{Granted.}  The green eyes blinked again.

[We_Will_be_Freed?]

<<Freed to return to your homes in Earth and free from summoning
for a hundred years.>>

[Agreed_]

The whirling winds moved to where the priests and children were
trudging along, and began lifting them up, one by one, whispering
the quiet words of comfort of the warm southern sea winds.

The earth-mounds, like waves in the ground, surged towards the
group, moving under other children, and the sisters, and slid
them along quickly towards the west.  Some of the children (and
quite a few of the priests and sisters) shrieked in surprise,
but others laughed and started singing travel-songs.

"Uh oh," Lex said, and started sprinting to keep up with them.

Selna lifted an eyebrow, and rose gently from the ground.  Erik
inclined his head politely, and rose with a swirl of his GREY
cloak, and the two of them followed.


They flashed past a host of surprised early-morning folk, arriving
in moments at a two-story building with signs of recent repair.
The whirlwinds laughed and deposited their burdens gently on
the ground, and the ground subsided as the four earth-beings
disappeared back into their otherwhence homes.

"What a mess," Lex muttered, as Erik and Selna appeared beside
him.  Half of the sisters, supporting their exhausted leader,
went into the hostel.  The senior acolyte, and two of the older
sisters, opened the front doors of the building where the children
would be housed.  The inside was clean, but bare.  The entry
lobby was big enough for the children to all sit on the floor,
which the majority did, slumping together.  Some of them had
fallen asleep on the trip here, and the youngest ones were still
unconscious, being carried by priests.

The old hermit priest Howard started giving quiet directions
to some of the priests, thanking them for their help, and asking
a few of them to stay and watch over the children while the
actual sleeping arrangements were made available.

"See," Lex said, "We don't have any furnishings yet.  However,
grandfather's memories tell me that you know some of the djinn
spells, right?"

"Well, yes," Selna replied cautiously.  "What do you have in mind?"

Lex led Selna through a doorway into a long hall.  To the right
was a stairway going up.

"Dormitory upstairs."  Erik followed after, whispering minor
invocations of Shadow to straighten a crooked stair here and
to smooth a rough splintered banister there.

"This is where they're going to stay,"  Lex indicated a cavernous
room with wooden frameworks where beds were going to be placed.
One or two had been completed, covered with futons, but the
majority were still bare, their drawer sections empty.

"Fine," Selna muttered.  She began whispering in a language that was too
strange to hear clearly, and smoke began to pour from her staff.  After
a few minutes, the smoke had taken form as more bedding, heavy quilts,
and wooden frameworks and folded white robes, towels and sandals and
carved wooden cups.  A small spray of red flowers appeared on the end of
each of the bunks.

"Now, we make it real," she smiled.  A single word and a complex gesture
snapped through the ether, and something _changed_ in the room.

"Impressive," Lex said.  "You did remember to forge the tax
stamps and the guild labels, right?"

"Of course.  Do you take me for a novice or something?  They're even
appropriate ones for this locale."  She grinned.

"OK.  Over here's the storeroom.

"All right.  So, you need extra bedding, clothing, maybe movable
partitions?"  Lex nodded.  "How're you set for foodstuffs?"

"Frankly, we've got nothing here yet."

"I'd be happy to take care of that."

"We'd appreciate it.  Hey, stop by the LightHouse tonight, we're
having a small party.  We can talk over old times."

She quirked an eyebrow at him.  "What appearance would be appropriate?"

"Oh, party dress.  There'll be children present, and others who might
be easily shocked."

"Understood.  Thank you for the invitation.  I expect to attend."  She
went downstairs, humming an old elvish tune of celebration.

Lex grinned at Erik.  "Told ya she wasn't just a curiosity seeker."

"I never thought she was," Erik retorted.  "I just said she's not
what she seems."

"That's the truth.  The trick is figuring out _which_ of the things
she seems is the thing she really _is_..."

--
Spider Boardman					spider@orb.nashua.nh.us
speaking only for myself			...!decvax!orb!spider