[Session 139, cont'd]
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Kit tries to reassure him. "We are going to get them back. We're going to heal any hurts that have been done, and this is not your fault."
"He said, if I came to them, he'd let them go. He said I was the one they wanted."
"They're lying," says Alistair. "If you come to them, then they will certainly kill your friends. That's why we're not letting you go there."
Kit adds, "We're going to keep you safe, and we are going to take care of this. What you just did was very, very brave. Good job."
"The brave thing was coming back when they told me to come and save them?"
"It's very, very hard to do your duty when your duty involves letting other people remain in danger," says Alistair. "Protecting yourself at the risk of others is much harder than doing your duty when that requires being brave about your own peril."
"I would cut the elf who sent me the message if I could. He's evil. He's a traitor."
"That is true, but that is also another reason for you to not be the one who performs the rescue. Sometimes we need to harm people for the evil they do. To make them suffer because of your anger at them is a path to evil. It leads away from what we try to do as as lords and as warriors. We sometimes need to harm people because it's necessary to protect our society, our people, the greater good. But there's a difference between ordering someone executed because of their crimes and of a need to send a signal and ordering someone tortured and killed because of the desire to exact vengeance upon them. One of those is the path to Glordiadel in the Heavens, albeit not an easy path, and one that may require us to seek forgiveness for the evils that we must do. And one of those is a path to Paranswarm in the Hells."
"If you say so..."
"The same can be said, of course, about the great gods that most of your people follow. That is not an area where I am as comfortable speaking of it."
"What I can tell you, young lord," says Dame Brionna, "is that in my desk drawer I keep a piece of parchment with two numbers on it. Currently those numbers are 31 and 15. The first number is the number of times I have helped prevent His Majesty from being assassinated. The second to the number of people I have personally killed. And I pray for guidance, and mercy, to the Lord of Light for both of those numbers. I play that I may continue to protect His Majesty, but also that the second number may not grow larger unless there is need--mostly in service to the first number."
"Thank you, Dame. I'm going to go back to the chapel."
"If I may, before you leave..." Alistair pauses to make sure that the Noldor youth will accept it, and then gives him a tight hug.
He bursts into a fresh set of tears, losing his composure altogether.
Kit takes over hugging him, and providing handkerchiefs.
"If you could see him to the chapel, he'll probably be able to pull himself together there."
Kit nods, and leads him away, ready to talk if he wants, and just to be quiet with him if he doesn't. He remains silent. He knows that he can't save them, and believes that the Council can. When they reach the chapel, she asks, "My lord, would you prefer to be alone? Would you like me to send Bishop Waters?"
"Yes, maybe a priest would be good?"
She nods, and quickly briefs Bishop Waters, who happily goes to minister to him.
Meanwhile, Alistair, Dame Brionna, and the Sixth Daughter are planning the response. Lord Silverleaves got the location from the young Noldor lord. It's odd--it's outside the city in a direction that they would have thought the Fae would have been aware of, but they haven't said anything so they appear not to be aware of it. It is in the same direction as the Tor, but not all the way to it.
Alistair decides to reach out to the Tor to see if they can cut off flight in that direction. "The Sixth Daughter should scout it and figure out a plan for a line of attack. And then we'll bring down the hammer with all of our heaviest hitters."
"Yes, lord. If I get to stick a dagger in one of them, I will be content," says the Sixth Daughter, with a gleam in her eye.
"I am sure you'll get the opportunity to get some. Can I ask, you won't have problems in a military operation with a Noldor lord and an Eldar lord, will you?"
"I know who the enemy is. My mother knows who the enemy is. Lolth will ride with me."
"Some drow would know that but still find themselves unable to avoid attacking their allies."
"Yes, I know." She makes a flippant motion with her hand. "They're not well trained. My men are."
"Understood," says Alistair. He also suspects that the Lolthian drow may have lost some of the blood fever, but he isn't about to point that out.
The Minister of the Mind reports that the children will be recovered after maybe 8 to 12 hours in skin. It is simply the aftereffect of Coercion, although the most powerful aftereffect he has ever seen. He also confirms that there must have been a mass hold effect if the Coercively obdurate person was unable to move, as Coercion would not have affected her at all. They assume that it was simply a second layer, as a precaution against the first failing, because there is no evidence that they perceived her trying to move. That suggests that they are operating effectively and taking precautions against possible failure points.
They also notify the childrens' parents that their children are safe but in the palace and that the young Noldor lord will be rescuing the lost ones shortly.
They consult with Lord Silverleaves on the best way to scout the enemy. "There might be a way with the Fae that they could send an animal and see through its eyes. That's not psionic as mine would be, and not magical; for if they have a mage of sufficient power to cast a mass hold, he will also be capable of detecting magic. But just sending a bird flying over..."
They reach out to the Tor lord.
"Your Majesty, when shall we see you for another... you're very serious at the moment."
"Yes, I am very serious. There will be time to frolic together soon enough, but for now we must talk of more serious things."
"Very well. Are you in danger now?"
"There is a trap that has been laid for the young Noldor lord, who is with us."
"Who would lay a trap for such a one?"
"A Twilight Elf, who is among those who have fallen to the greatest corruption."
"I see."
"Perhaps a Twilight Elf who is being advanced in some way, or having his powers augmented in some way, as he's demonstrated more Coercive capability than most Twilight Elves would be capable of. We believe that they are located in the area. We are planning a rescue operation, but we wondered if it might be possible for you to gather some intelligence through the eyes of an animal without using psionics, without using arcane magic or divine magic in the conventional sense, but using the natural magics of the world that you are more in tune with."
"Of course, Your Majesty. After all, we are bound to the land. You could do it as well, but you haven't the training."
"If I were interested, could you teach me?"
"Oh, aye, we could teach such things. They are simple, not the great spells of the land. You probably do not have the life span to learn those but the small spells, of course. In the meanwhile, I will link your vision to the animal that I send. Now you will be seeing through a bird's eyes, so therefore it is different than seeing with your own eyes."
"Perhaps a raptor would have the right visual perspective for what we need."
"Very well." The Tor lord speaks to the air for a couple of minutes, and then, all of a sudden, Alistair is soaring high about the earth in long lazy spirals looking down, and then the raptor starts to head in the direction he nudged.
Alistair remembers when this village was closed down back in his grandmother's reign. The spring ran dry, and it hasn't been used since. But in the midst of the old buildings, he sees that under a shed roof a stone altar has been built. He also sees an oddly shaped cloud that stays drifting directly above it, which the raptor seems to have no interest in entering, which he presumes is a concealed voller.
He also sees several figures moving around down there. No elf, but five of the translucent beings and a group of things that look like humanoid birds that walk on their rear legs and carry light weapons. A couple of them have leather, but otherwise the are unarmored.
One of them is presently bent over the altar on which you see young Thaddeus strapped down, and he is very slowly drawing a thin knife down in a long cut next to several others. Alistair notes that the iconography on the altar is that of the Blue Sun.
A priest approaches Dame Brionna and quietly murmurs that the Noldor lad calmed down in the chapel. His friends yelled at him not to come when they showed them to him, which was the only thing that let the Council persuade him to leave the matter to them. The Bishop plans to let him sleep in the chapel, which Dame Brionna approves, but asks that he be kept under supervision.
Alistair can see no signs of Gregory on the ground, however. The beating wings of the raptor momentarily part the cloud it is floating above, just enough, so that he can see the deck of a ship. It looks to be made of wood, implying that it is not an Eldar voller. However, there is another altar built on the foredeck, which has a couple of drow guards standing about looking somewhat uncomfortable, and a boy which he surmises is Gregory bound to the altar. He hasn't been cut, but there is an odd blue stone set right at his sternum. Then, of course, the mists of the cloud reclose over him.
"They're going to make him into one of the blue creatures presumably. Or rather, they're not but just because we're going to stop them."
Dame Brionna says, "Your Majesty. I am fully healed. Do I have your permission to go out there?"
"No, you do not."
"They're sacrificing children!"
"And that is why we're sending Lord Davion. You're not capable in the way that the leaders of this operation are, and you're too valuable to send as another simply super elite soldier."
"We do need to send a bunch of outstanding soldiers."
"Oh, we absolutely do. But, for example, those will be the Sixth Daughter's people, and those will be variety of paladins of Glordiadel that Lord Davion will select from among those he knows and trusts, and those will not be highly important imperial officials. And those will not be people whose primary duty is as a commander, not as a soldier."
The Sixth Daughter gently strokes one of Dame Brionna's armored arms. "Do not worry. I will get in a couple of blows for you."
"Please do."
"Heart blows or lung blows? Do you want them to suffer, or just stop?"
"I have no desire for them to suffer, but I do not wish them to be ever able to inflict any more evil upon the world."
"Then I will kill them cleanly with my sword."
Alistair says, "Let's get some information on those bird people and who they are, and what they can do before we send anybody against them. And also I want to clarify that the primary objectives are taking out the leadership of this and freeing the children. But if those can both be accomplished, then prisoners are also useful, for interrogation."
Lord Davion enters. "Your Majesty!"
"Yes, Lord Davion?"
"The honored Farsensor, Lord Silverleaves, said that this was the symbol the Twilight Elf who is working for the abominations sent?"
"Yes, it was the symbol with which the letter was signed."
"He should be dead. I thought he was dead. I thought... He's been dead for thousands of years. I remember my House killed him for betraying them. I do not know what else to tell you, but I thought you should know. I'll be more thorough killing him than my Father was."
"This is one of several occasions on which great Noldor lords specifically have thought definitively that they had killed servants of the Eldritch who then turned up alive. Princess Curinirim also thought she killed Quinliart's sister, then found that she had lived. I suspect there is something else we need to be looking for."
"Forgive my blindness, please your Majesty, what do you mean by something else?"
"We need to be looking for how they survived, and whether there was a deception."
"I attended this man's execution. I know we put him in the ground, and I know where we put it in the ground, in which niche in the Necropolis of the Screaming Skulls he was placed in dishonor! Upon my honor, I swear this!"
"Could it be something like a phylactery sort of process? Something like a lich?"
"It could be. I do not think my Lord Aufaugautharim considered the possibility that such a being could have a phylactery. I do not know much about such things, but one of the great alchemists might be able to reveal something more about it. Still, I think it unlikely."
"What about clones? Would it be possible for him to have been cloned after he died or would he have had to have been cloned while he was still alive? And then the clone would have had to have been restrained."
"Your Majesty. If they did that, then yes, of course. His death would have prevented a clone made after it, but not one while he still lived. But they would have had to have expected him to die."
"Or simply been willing to maintain creches of clones of many of their great servants."
"That is a possibility I do not wish to entertain. No matter how thorough I am, it means he could come back again."
"What of the Noldor traitor?"
"He is the traitor from among the Noldor."
"I had thought that that that one was was buried in a defined niche."
"I am forbidden to speak of this with any other race. But, Your Majesty, I've long not been in favor in the courts, so I will. I am hopeful to always to be in favor in this court. He was buried in the niches of the dishonored, beneath the Great Temple of the Spider in the City of the Screaming Skulls. Thousands of years ago I attended his funeral. I watched the crypt sealed.
"The two possibilities you raise are the only two, and, to be honest, I think a phylactery is extremely unlikely. I think it is more likely that you are correct, and there are clones. There's no other possible explanation. Resurrection would be impossible after those circumstances."
"Among humans, such a thing might be falsified. It might be an impostor. There are claimants to any number of thrones who claim that they are the child, actually deceased, of the former lord or what have you? Could not a Twilight Elf use another elf's sigil?"
"Use another's sigil, perhaps, but there are certain psionic signatures you might say that cannot be forged and that appear with the sigil. I know the signature of that Twilight Elf on that sigil, and this bore those same marks. It is him, of that I have no doubt."
"To our perspective, our enemies often seem deranged. Might that be a result of the clones, and likewise allow them to have clones more easily?"
"Yes. It wouldn't cause the mental disorder that any of us would experience with clones, but they would still need to restrain the clones, because otherwise otherwise they would seek him out, and one of them would die. Yes, yes, as long as they're restrained they can be kept well."
"My people are mortal, so among humans, the standard plan is that you would have the material for a clone collected and then not have the clone actually grown unless and until the original had already perished."
"That is the plan among your people, but your clones grow much faster than ours. It would not work for them, unless they were willing to lose the use of a minion for decades. But now consider Quinliart's sister-- her return was almost immediate. The clone was already grown."
"Possibly more than one. My lord, I hate to ask this, but what other notable deaths have there been who might have clones, and therefore come back?"
"Normally, when one of my people dies, their motive force--their spirit if you would-- passes to either the East or the West. Death is rare except by choice or by execution. Obviously, it is said that in his departure Lord Quinliart killed many of Moriquendarim's loyal servents. They were evidently not cloned. They stood against him when he was seen to be leaving the service of his house. However, there have not been more than a half dozen deaths within noble houses or their Twilight Elf servants in the past 1,000 years. Of course, the one I'm looking at is much older than that, and I cannot speak for those times, for I was young when I attended that funeral."
"It was the First Age, right?"
"Yes. I do not know if there were others. I know of only that one, that one."
"I don't mean to raise other problems or concerns, but we know that there was an impostor of me, that while not exactly a clone was more like me than a simple simulacrum or doppleganger, and we know that there have been other efforts to create other impostors, and some successful. I wonder with cases like the Prince of the House of Gwyr, who was ambushed and captured and then killed, whether they could have begun a clone before killing them, and then sought to corrupt it in a way that that breaking and turning the true one would not be feasible."
The look of horror that passes across his face is impressive, given his blood and his age. "If any would do such a thing, it would be them. That was recently enough for the clone to not yet be grown. But if they were doing such a thing-- he was so young, he was like the boy in the chapel now...",
"If they were to make a clone of one of the great elves, but who is say some couple of centuries old, one of the children. How long would a clone like that take to be ready?"
"Perhaps 20% of the span that they had enjoyed, so that at least we would still have decades."
"Yes, unless there were ones that had been kidnapped or killed a century ago."
Dame Brionna adds, "Such as when they began this plot. Any notable disappearances a century ago?"
"But now we're talking about great elves who disappeared century ago, anywhere in the world, or who were killed a century ago anywhere in the world."
"Disappearances, or sudden changes in personality or activity like reclusives."
"I must consult colleagues in Krashmere. I was not there, since many years ago. It is not impossible."
"We will need to inform Princess Curinirim about this, and we'll also need to inform the lords and ladies of the great Eldar holdings."
"You shall do that. I shall go kill him again." He taps the paper again.
"Please do. And then we'll find whatever clone creches they may have, and wipe out the remainder in one fell blow."
"If I were them, I would not have them anywhere near their islands, because that would make them too susceptible to be caught in a regular attack. They are certainly not in Krashmere."
"Would collections of great elf clones generate magical or psionic effects on the areas once they began to near completion?"
"Yes, and we must presume they have at least one clone of each of them. Almost surely a clone of Quinliart as well as the others."
"That means that we can then look for an effect that they might be having and try to find them that way."
They pause and think for a bit. "Lord Davion, do you know what these bird people might be? They are not aarakocra, I would recognize those."
"Yes, those would be Rappa. Small groups have them occasionally come through the Valley of the Unknown."
"Oh, yes, I've heard of them."
"They are some of the most vicious mercenaries that come through, but they're nowhere near as good fighters as the Chulik. They're not usually evil as such, unless they converted to follow a foul god. Are they simply warriors or are their priests among them?"
"There are priests among them."
"But that's one of the reasons they might convert. Their priests suddenly found themselves embarrassed when they reached here."
"Is that because their gods are not in this planar neighborhood?"
"Yeah, unlike the Chuliks who basically don't care whether there's a god or not, and have no priests, the Rappa actually care."
"No exceptional arcane or psionic power?"
"None that I know of."
"Then they are almost certainly intended as as part of the bait, not as soldiers. The thought is that the young Noldor lord would come in to try to rescue his friend, would see them, would attack, and would wipe them out without much difficulty, because even for a young great elf perhaps accompanied by some soldiers, they would be no match. And then, while he's doing that, the drow and the Twilight Elf attack from above."
"That would make sense. He is as powerful as any of his age but he is untrained and inexperienced in the ways of warcraft."
Alistair suddenly says, "I think I know in very broad brush strokes where the clone creche might be. If I were they, I would have set it up on the Southern Continents, completely undetectable to most humans, and an area where we know that they have a foothold."
The rest of the Council immediately reacts in surprise at the idea of the Southern Continents existing at all, and Alistair quickly explains once again, not that it will help.
"But yes, I was thinking that if they hid the clones there, that would be a way of concealing it very effectively, because even people who are aware of it seem to be unnaturally uninterested in it, which also means we need to send a sending to the ship that we sent down there with an investigation team to help deal with them to specify that they should be looking for this in particular or for weird psionic effects that might indicate the location of the creche."
[End Session 139]