[Notes for the run of December 9, 1999.] We sleep through most of the day. Come dusk, we try to decide whether to travel at night, but that would be a lot slower (even with a mostly full moon), so we decide it's better to stay the night and get back onto a daytime travel schedule. We're treated to some elven music. Anton asks about their music, and is told that the important part is the pauses. In fact, there's a great piece of music that is nothing but silence. Mia asks about the waybread herb plant that's proving hard to move out of its pot. She gets a bit of potting soil. When she asks what makes this soil different, she's given a long series of "new age-ish" instructions involving making friends with the grass and various other things spanning several hundred years. Someone jokingly suggests that, now that we know the soil is special, Mia should just ask Calais to check his pockets for some after we leave. Anton asks the elves if they know anything about the giants in the mountains. These elves say there's another clan that lives closer to the mountains, that tend to do more travelling, so perhaps we should ask them. Anton asks if we can have some sort of identifying token to use as an introduction, and the elves point to Rhori. "Well, you have _him_." They do remind Rhori of the name of the clan: Corustran. The elves have sent some of their number to accompany Silverlocke. They are very concerned about the Charioteer, whose presence in Torat is creating a great imbalance. Great forces are being brought to bear against that. If the forces continue to build this way, everything could be torn apart. Anton asks about the Keys. The elves seem a bit confused as they note that we have the keys with us, indicating Paris and Rhori. They do remark, of course, Understanding is Key. The horses, having fed for two days on way oats, make better time than normal when the Party finally sets out. [If I missed anything else while getting Shannon, please let me know.] We think about swinging past the Magician's rose garden to see if he's there and can provide a book about cloud giants, but decide it would take at least half a day extra just to look, and a whole day or more if we ended up waiting, so we opt to take Alexis directly to the library and the egg to the comparative safety of Westmore. Firstday. We keep off the roads until we're in sight of Westmore. As we cut back to the road there and urge the horses in, Paris and Rhori notice that the usual horse patrol has two fewer riders than usual. At the gate, we ask about it, and are told Lord Chivar isn't riding because he's in mourning. His wife was brutally murdered last night. The fellow doesn't have first-hand information, but does say that he doesn't think anybody's been apprehended for the crime. Paris mentions that Lord Chivar's youngest son Jules is one of her classmates. Given that, we all decide to head to the palace to report and get what news we can. The guards there are extra alert, but no more numerous than usual. Paris reports that we've completed half of the quest and returned to do more research, and asks about the news we got at the gate. The Duke confirms that Lady Marian Chivar was brutally murdered, along with her guard, and her serving maid. (The guy at the gate had said there were ten guards killed; that may have been an exaggeration, or the Duke may have used "guard" in its plural sense. The gate guard also claimed the murders took place virtually at the palace walls, but this too is probably hyperbole.) There will be a service tomorrow, at which Paris and Alexis may pay their respects. Sir Gryphon has cancelled classes for three days. Rhori asks if there was any evidence of black magic. The Prince, with something of a sour look, says that the Baron Ruby has gone out hunting, along with Brillig. There were signs that the black church was involved. The Lady and her guard were killed while out in the city. Rhori has a thought about this (rare!), but also thinks to keep his mouth shut (even rarer!) until he has a chance to talk to Silverlocke. The Duke checks with Mia to confirm that she's a practitioner of water magic as well as rainbow, and says he has a nephew who would like to talk to her about it. He asks her to wait a bit after the audience. They ask if there's anything else. Calais makes sure we bring up the loss of Rhori's armor, and Rhori gets permission to talk to the quartermaster about replacing it. As we wait for the Duke's nephew, Raymond, a page shows up with a note for Paris, signed with just the letter C. It asks Paris to come immediately. She excuses herself. Raymond turns up, and shows Mia a couple books. One of them is second level water magic, including the teleport spell. The other is second level arcane, and includes a "teleport after" spell. He's apparently trying to combine them in some way to enable Silverlocke (or others) to pursue the teleporting black mage(s). Calais heads off to find Irolo to see about constructing a more protective container for the egg. Alexis and Anton head for the library. Lucas finds the padre to report for work and to see what else might be going on. Off camera, Paris goes to see the Princess Carline. She thanks Paris for coming quickly, and opens a box and passes Paris a note. "Never try to doublecross us. This is what happens to those who try." It's signed with the blotch of the Raven, much more nicely made than the blotch we saw on the street the night our quarters were burned. The Princess says the note was found near the Lady Chivar. "All my brother wants to know is, do we need to seek further within the palace." Paris chokes out that she doesn't think so. As Carline puts the note back in the box, she adds softly, "There is no need for the Chivars to know of this. They have suffered enough. My brother knew you could keep the secret." Paris also drops in on Lorraine, who is quite depressed about the murder. The only thing that cheers her up is the idea of having to find Paris a suitable dress to wear to the memorial service. Mia goes to see Henri, who also seems a bit somber. He tried to help the Prince and Duke by raising someone from the dead, but it didn't work because the killers removed the heart and brain. The killers clearly knew just what it took to prevent the Raise Dead spell from working. Henri adds that the flesh-eating beetles were probably gratuitous. Mia feels ill. Rhori leaves the castle so Hobbes can contact Rex, which lets Rhori get together with Silverlocke and Brillig. Rhori gives his report, and says we have yet to get the rod. Silverlocke says they're trying to find out where the big bad guy is. Rhori suggests asking "the guy with the lamp", but Silverlocke reminds Rhori that that's a long journey. Rhori also tells Silverlocke he thinks that "Lady Chivar was killed by the same people that tried to kill Paris." Silverlocke tells him, in some reasonably effective but non-intimidating way, to stay out of the affairs of nobles. Given that the black church is clearly still active in town, we remain on alert while in town, travelling in groups and sticking to the main thoroughfares. So we're all together -- including Alexis but not Lucas -- as we're heading home that evening. Just as we leave the Adventurers Guild area, we hear a raucous voice singing over to the left. We look down the alley, and someone there asks "Why are all of you upside-down?" There's a young man, clearly drunk, hanging upside-down out a window. We offer to let him down, but Rhori says "Don't we want to wait for him to say something first?" Anton flies up and finds that the man's leg is caught in a noose. He asks how it got that way, and gets a jumbled, drunken explanation about some sort of bet. As he rambles on, he says something about having to wait for someone to "seek me at the top of the bottom of the hole in the tooth. Follow the unnamed path, up three down falls, in through the valley of the hill of silver." We figure that's all we're going to get, and let him down. We make it safely back to Alexis's place, dropping her off there, and proceed back to our own quarters. Rhori asks what Alexis and Anton found out today in the library. The Teeth of the World are a row of mountains, with taller ones at each end (like bicuspids), mostly topped by a cloud layer but with one of them a bit shorter, hence called the Hole in the Teeth. The whole row is concealed behind another range of mountains, so we'll have to cross those to get to the Teeth. The next day, Paris and Alexis go to the noble memorial service. The only thing that strikes Paris as odd is that, during the eulogies, the Prince's remarks, delivered with all the oratory skill at his command (which is quite a lot), begin, "Where are those who said they would answer my call?" Lady Alexis stiffens at this. The next line is echoed by everyone except Paris (who doesn't know the words) and the Chivars. "Why do you sleep when your country needs you? Were your words so much stronger than your arms? Why do you sleep when I still need you?" Paris inquires afterward, and learns this is The Lament, said at noble funerals when someone dies in the service of their country. Usually it's for knights and other such warriors. So the Prince is implying that what was done to Lady Chivar was an act of war. Alexis and Anton find records of a previous mountain expedition that was seeking griffon eggs. (One of them apparently got hit by a silver card that taught him something about griffons.) They encountered bats as big as men, but they don't mention anything else about hazards. They do mention a distinctive set of three waterfalls, but those were in the preceding mountain range, not the Teeth. We post a notice at the Adventurers Guild seeking someone with mountain experience. We particularly hope to locate one or more of the folks who were on the griffon-egg expedition. Anton and Calais follow up on it, sniffing around, with Rhori and Hobbes nearby in case things go sour. We find some guys who profess to have mountaineering skill, but Calais doesn't judge them to be any better at climbing than himself, and they all want outrageous payment. Some others seem to be trying to draw us out, but we steer clear of them and manage not to reveal too much. We do find one of the earlier travelers, not the one who knows about griffons (that fellow is laid up with a bum leg). He's not interested in travelling with our group, but we get more details from him. He mentions a hill where one large bat tends to sit; it's white (probably with guano), which in heraldic terms is the same as silver. He gives us more landmarks and suggests what he thinks is the best route. His group stopped when they saw the lay of the land wasn't going to get to the griffons. We ask about that, and he says the land is very rough and jagged, so getting across it will be tough if we don't have a route. We think to ourselves that maybe we'll get some help from the elves, though the elves obviously are _not_ where these guys went. In addition to even more rope than usual, we bring along wedges and mallets suitable for splitting wood, so we can extract the heartwood from a tree. We don't have any gear particularly suited to mountaineering; even the guy from the previous expedition didn't really know anything more than general climbing. Thirdday we set out. (Yes, someone tells Lucas so he knows to show up. He brings along an extra spear in addition to his lance.) Paris has once again requisitioned horses and supplies for us. It rains. We travel quite a bit west and south. As expected, we find several rivers coming together in a large lake. We circle this landmark and ride on, following a river that leads to the falls. At the end of seventhday, we find ourselves approaching a hill where the top is completely white. We set up camp, looking for a place with good cover against giant bats. We figure we'll be able to get past the hill in daylight the next day. The bats do come out at night, but we're well prepared and keep them at bay. At the end of the next day we see in front of us a beautiful three-step waterfall. Realising we'll never get the horses up the falls, we decide to look for the elves. It takes us most of the rest of the day before an elf steps out and asks Rhori if they should eliminate the rest of us. Rhori tells him no. The elf introduces himself with a name that's more like a musical sound, which we end up deciding is Llyurylly'yl, of the clan Corustran. We tell him a bit of what we're doing, and he asks if we're travelling. Rhori says yes, and the elf asks if he can go with us; he likes travelling. (We'd heard that some elf clans like travelling more than others.) We say sure, but ask if the elves will keep our horses for us. (Oh right, remarks the elf, human horses can't go up waterfalls.) The elf describes how to get to the giant's city, but it involves a bridge that appears only during a full moon, and we don't have that long. We figure we'll head up anyway and hope things work out. We get up to the top of the waterfall. Indeed, there's no obvious direct route, but the elf shows us a path off to the side. He remarks that there's nothing noteworthy about the path; nobody's even given it a name. Check. We follow the elf along the unnamed path, eventually reaching the Teeth. We climb the shortest Tooth to the lip of a twenty-mile-wide caldera. Peering over the edge, we see a very deep hole, with the bottom obscured by mist. As we look down, Mia and Paris notice a pile of rocks jutting out from the side. (A pile jutting from the side?) Anton ties a rope to his waist and starts to levitate down, then suddenly feels the world shift as he finds that "down" is sideways to where he thought it was. He decides to try activating his levitate spell anyway, just as Rhori and Hobbes come tumbling over the side, and roll onto the sideways "ground", giggling and wrestling. They disentangle themselves and go back to look over the precipice, where the party is, to their eyes, clinging desperately to the cliff face. Anton heads "up". The rest of us see him apparently laying on his back and heading off sideways toward the opposite edge of the caldera, which is about twenty miles away. Rhori and Hobbes start heading toward the mists. The rest of us nerve ourselves and go over the edge into the caldera (which then looks like a twenty-mile-tall cave). We walk forward toward the mist. Anton stops his experiments and comes along as well. Paris has him check with magic sight, but nothing's magic here, and we're too far from the edge to see if it's a Torat/Tarot boundary. We walk two miles to the mist, through the mist a short ways, then two miles out to another lip. We tumble over the lip, and gravity shifts again. Anton thinks we're in Tarot now. The grass is extra bright, and there's a field of bright yellow wheat, and a hut and two farmers. They do not appear to be giants. Anton also reports a magical barrier about fifty feet above us. We can see clouds beyond the barrier. We go up to the farmers, a handsome man and a comely woman. They introduce themselves as Andre and Lucinda. When we mention the magical barrier, they say that the "keeper" rides on the barrier, but they can't tell us much more about what the keeper does; they're just farmers. We try to figure out if the keeper is Death (the next card after the Hanged Man), but they say he doesn't match the description we give. There are other farms as well. Rhori, having been advised by Hobbes that there's a strong scent of Fell in the area, asks if they have trouble with Fell creatures, and they look blank. Calais explains, "orcs". They look surprised, saying they didn't know we spoke their language. The fellow who taught them our language (we determine it was the Fool, who came through not long ago), said they should call themselves "dwarves". (That explains the bear-dwarves, too, we figure.) They call themselves "orcs". At that, Rhori draws his axe and tries to kill them, but Paris blocks him. She pacifies Rhori by pointing out that her sword is not glowing, so evil is not present, and that these people have not acted in the evil manner of the orcs we have learned to kill. Meanwhile, Calais calms the farmers, explaining about the bad orcs we've met, and the farmers explain that those are the ones who have fallen from grace. Ah, we note, that's why they're called Fell. Calais does determine that the language he knows as Fell is indeed their native tongue, and takes the opportunity to fill in a few missing words such as "please" and "thank you". The keeper arrives. He descends upside down on a rope and says, "Yes I am." Calais picks up the cue and asks, "Are you the Hanged Man?" The fellow says, "It depends on your perspective." Anton asks, "Why are you upside down?" The guy then figures out that we'll be more comfortable if he answers after we ask our questions ("after" being another term that depends on perspective, of course). In response to some question regarding his role, the Hanged Man explains that he helps protect the future, tending to things here and there so the future will come out as it should. We ask how we are to get to the giants' city, and he says he can show us how to get there. We ask what we will do there, but he says, "You have choice, and you have not yet decided which way to approach them." There are three things they might ask us for, depending on which of us speaks to them. They will not respond to a request from any save three: Mia, Paris, or Rhori. Rhori asks if we will make it back in time for the Harvest Festival. "Most of you will." (Calais and Anton note privately that Llyurylly'yl is not likely to return with us -- though given his love of travel it's hard to be sure -- but we decide not to press the point.) We ask what the giants would request from Mia/Paris/Rhori, but he says we wouldn't understand it yet. He says that whichever of the three asks, our chances of success are three out of four. Something (I didn't catch it) prompts the Hanged Man to ask, didn't we get the clues he sent us? He enumerates them in his usual backward fashion: The first clue was how to find him; the second was how to harness -- to get on our side -- the White God; the third was how to finish off the Charioteer. (Sounds like we'll need to re-examine the "queen of swords" clue later, since it apparently refers to something after (from our perspective) our finding the Hanged Man.) The Mirror shows the future, the result of choices. The shattered Mirror, and the tears, will continue to grow until all is put back together again and choices made. But that problem happens only in the three out of four cases where we succeed in solving the current problem. In the other case, it will be much longer before the Hanged Man's predictions come to pass. In his inverted way, he refers to our "first quest", to repair the Mirror and restore the World. Our "second quest" is to restore the Emperor. This comes as a bit of a relief to some, since it implies there are no other quests of similar magnitude in between those two. We try to think of what else to ask. How do we get into Pelier? "By riding your horse." How do we get out? "Most of you will ride your horse out." Where will the final choice be made? "There is only one place where the Choice is made: the room at the base of the Tower." Will all the Gods be in Torat when the Choice is made? "The Choice can _only_ be made once all the Gods are in Torat." Where will we find the Red God? "You (Mia) will meet him many times." Mia presses, where will the rest of them meet him? "That is a question many do not wish to ask. Are you sure they wish to know?" She drops the point. Mia also realises at some point that the Hanged Man reminds her of someone, but she's not quite sure who. Which card will be the Orange Goddess? "The cards are the way you draw them." What will her name be? "You mean, what will _you_ call her?" Yes. "There are so many things you _might_ call her... You'll probably call her the same you call him (indicating the elf)." Blank look. What will bring the churches back together? "That is part of your choice, and I can't see past that." Rhori asks if he'll meet his father in heaven. "That is not part of my realm, part of what I maintain." Rhori asks, on Hobbes's behalf, when Hobbes will next get laid. The Hanged Man growls a reply at Hobbes, and Hobbes whines to Rhori, "Dammit Rhori, that's not fair!" Will Silverlocke and Brillig succeed in catching the guy they're hunting for? "Not together." (Pat notes that if we had instead asked if they would rid Westmore of the Black Church, there would have been a different answer.) Will Raymond succeed in combining the two teleport spells? "Not in the future." (We conclude this means if he hasn't done it yet, he never will.) Will Mia ever learn to create new spells? "No." Why not? "You should ask the Blue Goddess (the Goddess of Magic) that one. That really is something you should understand before you make a choice." If we succeed in restoring the Emperor, where will we go next? "You will go different directions next." How will we know which way to go? "You will choose. Most of you will come together again." Rhori asks who will be made king after the Emperor is made? "There will be three to choose between." (Shouldn't that be "among"? :-) The Hanged Man seems happy to answer questions about the future for as long as we want. Apparently the "orcs" (Andre and Lucinda and their neighbors) frequently ask questions such as how best to lead a long and happy life, which is why they're farming here. This is also why the Fallen Orcs look so hard for someone to give them orders: they've given up all vestiges of choice. When we seem to have run out of questions, the Hanged Man prepares to continue with his duties, but first he will help us on our way. He lowers a rope to us, and we grab on. He hauls us up through the magical barrier, where once again we feel gravity flip-flop, then he lowers us "down" on the other side of the barrier, where we find ourselves on the top of a tower formed out of a thunderhead. This unusual entrance gets the attention of several rather large fellows. We'll pick up next time as they start to speak.