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From: andsol@cml.rice.edu (Andrew Solberg)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: Under Foot
Date: 10 Jun 1994 04:39:48 GMT
Organization: Rice University
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <2t8qqk$1lh@larry.rice.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cml.rice.edu

The Fellows of Light are an ancient brotherhood, sullen and mysterious,
and not well loved by all.  The bleak grey of their stone walls rise 
without feature or decoration to frown over the sagging roofs of the
South Gate Quarter.  I have come to know that ageless edifice, and the
secretive ways of its denizens, rather better than I would prefer.

In the Month of Spring's Early Thaw I stayed for a time within the
Fellows' walls.  I came to this great city with nought but my scabbard
and the sword given to me by my mother, and to her by her mother before
that.  Inquiry led to a pointed finger, to a whispered name and a 
rustling of skirts.  I knocked upon the great ironwood portals with a
solid bronze ring the size of my head.  With the rain streaming down
behind me, the gates opened and gave me grudging shelter.

I could stay, I was told, and eat the heels of their bread by the fire.
This much was given with great scorn on their part, and great thanks
on mine.  Food and hearth -- such things are banquets and palaces to
the empty of stomach and soaking of garb.

In the morning I was shown the cellars.  The rain had been coming 
down for five days without respite, and the lowest of the Fellows'
storage nooks were flooded up to the ankles.  I was not told what to
do, and I needed not ask.  I found a bucket and began to work.

My labors took me much of the next day, but eventually the lowest of
the cellars were dry.  In fact, the work seemed to progress rather
quicker than it ought; I made note of this fact but did not pursue
it further. I was too worn out to do much other than curl up by the
fire and sleep.  

The next day the cellars were full again, and I grimly set to work
with two buckets and a yoke.  The added bucket saved me much time and
effort, and I had more time to contemplate the mystery of the waterline
that slowly lowered itself.  Towards the end of my labors, I took a
smoky torch from the cellar's wall cresset and waded into the shallowing
pool, hoping to find the water's uncharted egress.

I found what I was looking for in the furthest and dimmest corner of
the little space: a tiny eddy in the otherwise placid waters.  I felt
in the brackish liquid with my fingers until I encountered a crack
of exceptional wideness between the flagstones of the floor.  Clearly
the water was draining into some space below and beyond.

I finished my labors and sat in the hearth's warmest corner to dry my
boots, as had become my custom.  The brotherhood's two great dogs,
called Aeloth and Inza by the unsmiling Warden, lay their heads in
my lap.  I pondered the strange flow of water and its possible meaning.

Could there be a sub-cellar, long abandoned and forgotten, below the
loose flag?  What of the Fellows' property lay flooded and ruined
below that stone?  I am a woman of duty, and I felt it only just that
I approach the brotherhood with my discovery, in hopes that the knowledge
conferred might help my reluctant benefactors.

In the morning, after a good rest, I sought out the Fellows and told
them of my thoughts.  I wish now I had not.


TBC

-- 
HWRNMNBSOL  (andsol@cml.rice.edu)  H:(713)794-0021                 
Rice University, Department of Mathematics: Long Division Specialist       
"FORD, REAGAN NECK IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY" -- Ethiopian Herald, 2/24/76
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