[R] Dariel tells Hazy a story

     It was night on the ocean.  The _Arcas_ sailed slowly toward
Generica, the only sounds the whistling of the wind through the
rigging and the creaking of the planks.  All of the passengers were
asleep--of those who slept, that is.

     Dariel stood on the deck in silence, resting his arms on the
wooden railing of the ship.  He looked out over the waters, watching
the rippling of the waves in the pale moonlight.  Raising his eyes, he
studied the stars in the sky, memorizing their positions and
contemplating their slow drift across the heavens.  A soft light began
to suffuse his features, spreading slowly to a dim glow which
surrounded his entire body.

     A faint breeze brushed his cheek.  The glow faded away as he
turned to see Hazy Drifter appear next to him and eye him curiously.

     "Hi!" she said with a smile, "That was very pretty.  How do you do
that?  You know, I saw a bug do something like that once!"

     "I--" Dariel said.

     "Where do you come from?  Is it very different there?" she
continued.

     "Well--" was all he managed to say.

     "Do you like it here?  Are you a human?  Why are you going to
Generica?" Hazy paused abruptly, putting a slim grey hand up to her
mouth.

     Dariel smiled.  "Is that everything?"

     Hazy looked down at her shifting feet.  "Um, actually no--but Karl
says I shouldn't ask more than five questions at once.  He says if
he can control his drinking then I can darn well learn to control my
questions."  She looked up quickly, "Oh, I DO have more questions
though..."

     He laughed, a beautifully rich, melodic sound.  "Wait," he said,
raising one hand to forestall further inquiry.  "I'll answer your
questions, but first let me tell you a story.  About a machine that
answered all questions..."

			   *         *         *

     Once upon a time (Dariel said), there was a country which
possessed a Great Oracle.  Such was the power of the Oracle that
it was able to answer every question put to it truthfully and
completely.  It would tell anyone anything and everything that he
wished to know.

     Although the Oracle was not evil in itself, it would often be put
to evil uses.  The King of the country would make the Oracle his sole
advisor and forbid its use to any other, for fear of the information
which it could give.  The King would ask it "who among my generals is
plotting against me?" and the Oracle would answer "Lord Bronn" or some
such, and the unfortunate would be impaled upon a stake outside the
Royal Palace.  The King would ask "how can I stop growing older?" and
the Oracle would cite an unspeakable rite involving the fresh blood of
seven young virgins.  "What are the True Names of the thirteen Dukes
of Hell and how can I bind them to my service?" and the Oracle would
supply the King with the appropriate information.

     And so it would be, until the day that a King grew so dissipated
and careless that someone succeeded in giving him the Final Death and
taking his place.  Often the deposer would be no better than his
predecessor.  Sometimes, the newcomer would rule well and wisely for a
short time, only to fall prey to one of the many men who coveted the
power of the Oracle.

     Thus it was that the Great Oracle, which might be viewed by some
as a great blessing, was instead the bane of the land.  Until finally,
the heroine Tisiphone ended the millennium-long reign of the Sorcerer-
King Tyrax IV by besieging to the Royal Palace, defeating in single
combat Arzag-Madur, King's Champion, and putting the depraved monarch
to the sword.  In the end, there was only the Great Oracle.  Recognizing
the evil uses to which it could be put and judging from the countless
years of suffering which had resulted from its existence, she was
determined to destroy the Oracle for once and for all.

     "How do you work?" she asked the Oracle, hoping that if she
understood its function, she would be able to find a way to
deactivate it.

     "I hold a magical filter, a container of air, and a Demon of the
Second Kind," the Oracle proclaimed.  "The Demon of the Second Kind
is a creature magical and thermodynamical, non-classical and
stochastical.  Air is made up of tiny molecules, constantly jiggling
this way and that, colliding and bouncing.  By the sheer randomness of
the motion of the molecules, it occasionally falls into a meaningful
configuration, much as if you were to shatter a window and find that
the glass shards had spelled your name.  On the large scale, this never
happens, but at the level of the air molecules jostling and jumping all
over the place, it happens several trillion times a second, if not more
often.  The Demon sits over a tiny pinhole on an otherwise airtight
box, reading all of the significant information found in the motion of
the air, which then passes though the magical filter to arrive only at
the appropriate response."

     "A Demon?" Tisiphone repeated, disbelievingly.  "What is its True
Name?"

     "Maxwell-119134," the Oracle answered.

     Tisiphone scratched a protective triangle on the floor and recited
an incantation to release the Demon, but nothing happened.

     "I am warded against such attacks," the Oracle explained.

     "How can I destroy you, then?" she asked.

     "I am impervious to effects magical and physical.  The only way in
which the Demon can be set free is if you ask me a question that I
cannot answer."

     Tisiphone asked it questions about everything on the world, above
it, and below it.  She asked it philosophical questions.  She asked it
questions about the secrets of the gods, the meaning of all signs and
dreams, the locations of long-lost treasures, the fates of past heros,
and the potentials of her own destiny.  She asked for and received the
Pathways of Mastery, the Runes of Structure, the Census of the Overworld,
and the Methods of Ascension.  She spent twelve and a half years
closeted with the Oracle, day and night (for she had learned from it how
to do without sleep), asking it questions continuously.

     At last, having exhausted all of the topics she could imagine, she
got up to leave, resigned to only being able to guard the Oracle with
twenty-three of the Unbreakable Seals and hide it in the Most Hidden Place.

     Just before she left the Great Oracle to construct the Seals, she
turned to it and asked "What question has no answer?"

     And laughed out loud, for the Oracle was silent.  It never spoke
again.

			   *         *         *

     "... and that is what happened to the machine which could answer
all questions." Dariel concluded.  He smiled.  "Now, for some answers
>from me.  Let's see...  First of all, I was converting the star light
into my substance.  The glowing is a side effect.  It's kind of hard
to explain; I don't know quite how to put it.  It's not entirely
magical, but it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't absorbing the light.

     "I haven't really seen enough of this Place to tell if I like it
here, but at least I don't dislike it yet.  I don't have any plans for
when we reach Generica; I've never been there before.  Perhaps I will
visit their Mages' Guild.  I should learn more about the nature of
magic in this Place.  I hope the wizards here aren't all like Amaan.

     "You are right, though; I am from someplace else.  I come from
Stronghold and I am Here because my Master willed it."  The capital
letters in Dariel's voice were almost audible.  It had grown somber
and his face turned serious.  "I have done what He asked of me, and
now I am waiting for a Wayfarer to return me to Stronghold.  That
might not be for several of your years.  Or centuries.  Or maybe not
ever."  He scrutinized Hazy intensely for a moment.  "There is War,
Hazy, and I am one of the soldiers.  I didn't want to be--I wasn't
created to be--but the struggle is not going well, and it was
necessary," he said sadly.  "Keeper forbid that one of the Enemy's
agents should reach this Place before it can be guarded."

     Hazy wanted to ask Dariel who his Master or Enemy were, what
Stronghold was like, what Wayfarers were, what sort of war he was
fighting, and how he knew her name, but he looked away at the horizon,
apparently troubled by his revelations.

     When he looked back at Hazy, he appeared to have gotten over his
brief depression.  He smiled and asked, "Say, Hazy, have you ever been
under the ocean?  Would you like to go exploring with me?"

     Her questions were lost in a sudden rush of excitement.

--
[ADMIN:  Thanks to bannon@maine.maine.edu for use of the character
         "Hazy Drifter".  "The Demon of the Second Kind" is from the
         writing of Stanislaw Lem.  "Dariel" originates with me.]

Comments, compliments, and complaints can be conveyed to:
Bernie Hsiung (bshsiung@eecs.umich.edu)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-