"The question now is how do we get inside?"

From their hiding place, Haleth squinted thoughtfully at the tower and the wall which surrounded it. The landscape of the northeastern shore of the Sea of Rhun was rugged, barren granite. The tower loomed on a rough outcrop that was joined to the shore by a narrow strip of land.  Haleth and Inglor were huddled behind an enormous boulder to avoid being seen.

A small troupe of guards patrolled the isthmus several times a day. Their guardhouse was just in front of the wall that blocked access to the tower. Haleth had the odd impression that their purpose was to keep people within the tower rather than preventing intruders from entering.

Inglor watched the white capped waves crash onto the shore without comment. He had become steadily more withdrawn in the weeks that it had taken them to find the Hosluin's tower. The long silences weighed heavily upon Haleth, who was still determined to go her own way once the palantir was in the hands of the King of Gondor. To distract herself from her inner anxiety, she concentrated on retrieving the Seeing Stone from the squat, gloomy lair of the Hosluin.

"Is the tower completely smooth?" Haleth asked Inglor. She was planning on scaling the wall at night and entering the tower through a high window.

"No. There is a stairway spiralling up the outer wall. It may reach all the way to the roof," Inglor replied quietly, his eyes never leaving the waves.

"Oh," Haleth said, taken aback. Walking up a staircase was certainly easier than climbing a stone wall. It would be far too easy; the stairs were undoubtedly watched.

"Last night there was a light flickering in one of the topmost windows," Inglor said, his voice remote.

"It wasn't candlelight?" asked Haleth dryly.

"No," he replied, without the slightest trace of humour. "Unless Hosluin candles burn with blue flames. It must have been the palantir."

"Can you be certain?" Haleth asked quickly, wondering if the Hosluin could use the Stone properly. If that was the case, the Hosluin could become aware of their presence at any time, assuming they were not aware of them already.

"Quite certain, yes," he said distantly. "I very much doubt that any of them have learned to direct it, though. It takes a certain amount of skill and raw willpower to operate a palantir.

"Have you seen the bottomless pool that Calanloss mentioned?" Haleth asked while she wondered how Inglor was so knowledgeable about the palantiri.

"We are not high enough for me to tell," Inglor said, finally looking at her directly. "But it seems as though several new structures have been built."

"What additions?" asked Haleth, forcing her mind to stay strictly on the business of taking back the palantir. It was not easy to maintain her concentration beneath Inglor's calm gaze.

"A rough wall, a moat and a few outbuildings," he shrugged. "None of them look especially well made."

"I imagine the Hosluin needed more room," Haleth muttered. She caught herself twisting the silver ring and forced her hands apart. "I wonder how many of them are in there?"

"I would guess about fifty," Inglor answered.

"How are we going to get in?" she wondered again, her fingers drumming on the ground.

"We could join them," Inglor said evenly.

Haleth flashed him a sour look. "I'm sure they'd never be suspicious us," she said acerbically. "Especially after they tried to..." She stopped abruptly, regretting mention of the poisoning incident in Dale. Her fingers automatically sought the ring.

"They are not aware of us yet," said Inglor.

"We can't be certain of that." Haleth shook her head.

"We can be fairly certain of it," he corrected her. "I went into town last night to gather information."

"What?" Haleth demanded, motioning him to stop. "You went into town last night? When?"

"After you had fallen asleep," said Inglor. He shifted uncomfortably and studied the horizon.

Haleth briefly reviewed her memory of the previous evening. There had been no mention of his going anywhere.

"You left me vulnerable to anyone or anything that might happen along?" she asked. "You wouldn't let me stay alone in the hold of a ship where one call would bring half a dozen people but you did this? Why?"

"I knew someone else was in the hold," Inglor tried to explain.

"You did not!" Haleth roared, her voice carrying over the crash of the waves. "I discovered that for myself and told you of it."

"Please do not speak so loudly," he begged her. "Someone might hear you."

"The same someone who might have found me alone and asleep last night?" she asked acidly but more quietly.

"There was no one in the area," he said firmly. "I checked very carefully before leaving."

"It may not have stayed that way. You could have woken me!" she huffed.

"I thought it best that you slept," he said weakly.

Haleth thought of all the sleepless nights Inglor had caused her over the past several months.

"Never mind," she snapped. "In the future, wake me if you decide to leave in the middle of the night. I don't want anyone sneaking up on me. I want to be alert and watching if I'm alone...What?"

This last was asked because of the uncomfortable expression that had come across Inglor's face. Haleth was shocked to discover that he looked guilty. She had not imagined Inglor capable of any action that would make him feel guilty.

"I actually left and came back while you were on watch," he finally admitted, his long fingers tracing a pattern on the granite boulder.

Haleth twisted her ring and silently considered this new morsel of information.

"I was not asleep while on watch," she said huffily.

"Of course you were not," he said soothingly.

"That settles that then," she sniffed.

"It certainly does," he agreed.

"You were saying that you were certain the Hosluin did not know we were here?" she asked, resuming the original topic of the conversation.

"Yes," he said, happy to abandon the tangent. "There was no word of those in the complex being worried. In fact, there was a fair amount of talk of a large number of Hosluin traveling to the tower at this time. There was some mention of new recruits. I thought it would be relatively easy to gain entry to the tower by posing as two of them."

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Haleth said slowly.

"Why not?" asked Inglor.

"Because they'd likely get very suspicious when they saw your face," Haleth sighed, wondering how Inglor managed to remain oblivious to the effect that his appearance had on humans.

"But the Hosluin all wear cloaked, blue hoods. They never show their faces within the walls of their complex. Only the varying shades of blue robes signify the person's rank."

"Oh," said Haleth flatly. She shivered inside at the thought have having her individuality stripped away. The idea repelled her so much that she doubted she could impersonate a Hosluin at all. Inglor's descriptions, meant to bolster his argument for disguising themselves as cult members, had only convinced her to try to retrieve the palantir in a more traditional manner.

"I'd rather try my way first," she said. "If that doesn't work, we'll do it your way."

"If your way does not work, it will likely be me doing it my way because you will be in a dungeon beneath the tower," said Inglor.

"Then you can rescue me," Haleth said, smiling wryly.

"If you have time," she added, growing serious again.

"I would not leave you," Inglor said, earnestly but wearily. "You know that."

"Not if you thought I could eventually catch up with you again," she said with a crooked smile.

In the depths of the night Haleth began her solitary assault upon the Hosluin's tower. The quarter moon cast a fitful light upon the land. Its pale illumination wavered on the water of the moat that ran before the makeshift wall. The ditch cut across the isthmus to join the restless sea. Long strands of brown seaweed, carried in by the tide, floated on top of the murky water. A single cricket chirped its slow, lonely song in counterpoint to the distant wash of the waves on the stony beach.

Inglor and Haleth had scouted the full length of the wall. The tower looked as though it would be better able to withstand an attack than the haphazard wall that had been built in front of it. From where they stood, only the top of the tower was visible. The outer stairway entwined around it like a constricting snake. A pale, bluish light flickered in one of the highest windows. 

There were several heavily shuttered windows in the wall itself. Streams of dim yellow light shone through them.

Haleth stood barefoot in the shadows, carefully aimed her grappling hook and judged the distance to the top. Inglor loomed behind her in silent disapproval.

"What if you cannot reach the tower from the wall?" he whispered.

"Then I'll climb back down," Haleth answered calmly.

"What if there is a locked door?" he wondered.

"Locks are not an obstacle," she said dismissively

"What if there is a guard?" he asked.

"Inglor," Haleth sighed, still intently studying the top of the wall. "I'm not a child, even if you see me as one. I've gone into far more dangerous situations than this and come out alive. You're worrying for no reason.

"Here," she added an instant later. "I don't think I have the strength to throw this far enough. Could you do it for me?"

Inglor blinked at the grappling hook that Haleth was offering to him.

"You're asking me to help you die," he said flatly.

"No, I'm asking you to throw the grappling hook for me," she said while making an effort to not grind her teeth. "If I needed your help in dying I'd ask you to hold a sword while I fell on it."

"I would not do that, either," he said gravely.

"Inglor!" Haleth tried to slap herself on the forehead and almost embedded the grappling hook there.

"Give me that before you kill yourself with it," Inglor whispered, taking the apparatus from her. The metal barbs spun around his head, a halo of dull steel in the moonlight. It shot through the air and landed amid the crenellations at the top of the wall. He pulled on the rope until he was certain that it would hold fast and looked at Haleth, patiently waiting for her to see the flaw in her plan.

"Hold this end of the rope until I get at least two thirds to the top of the wall," she whispered to him.

Apparently she did know about the rudiments of triangulation, at least in relation to swinging from a rope.

Haleth swarmed up the rope until she thought she was far enough up to not sink into the moat or slam into the wall with stunning force. Then she signalled to Inglor to release it.

After an instant's hesitation, he did as she had requested.

Legs bent slightly in front of her, Haleth swung towards the wall in a graceful arc. While she did not splash into the moat, she hit the wall harder than she had expected. After taking a few minutes to recover from the shock of the impact, she began to climb with what Inglor considered surprising agility.

The Hosluin depended upon two things; loyalty and blind obedience. The cult insured these traits in its members by utilizing a strict hierarchical structure and enforcing it with fear and an absolute insistence on ritual. One of those rituals was about to be carried out on top of the wall.

A large cast-iron pot fell over the edge. It was supposed to be thrown with great force, the reminder of an ancient duel the Founder had fought in the early days.

Discipline was not being enforced quite as well as it once had been, though, as the current leader of this particular enclave had interests that were more commercial than spiritual. The cauldron was dropped over the edge by an acolyte. The lad knew that the next morning he would have an easier time retrieving it from the base of the tower instead of from the middle of the moat. The trick to avoiding a swim was to drop the pot straight down the edge of the wall. The young Hosluin released the cast iron cauldron and hurried back to his warm, hard bed without watching it fall.

Whether by bad luck or because fate had willed it, the pot's trajectory was aimed directly at Haleth. The sound of metal scraping against stone caught her attention and she looked up to see the cooking implement plummeting straight towards her head. There was no way she could move quickly enough to avoid it entirely. She bobbed her head and the pot crashed into her shoulder instead. Fiery coals of pain exploded in her arm and she lost her grip on the rope, sliding down the face of the wall while vainly scrambling at the stones to stop her descent.

Two stories, three stories. She was certain that Inglor had been right about his helping her to kill herself when her feet suddenly shot past a void. Wood replaced stone for a split second.

Haleth made a wild grab for the edge of the embrasure with her left hand and by some miracle, or, perhaps again fate, her fingers caught and held. After several failed attempts, her toes found purchase in the rough masonry. She scrambled upwards until her elbows rested on the windowsill and took stock of the situation. She had lost several stories of height and her right shoulder blazed with volcanic pain.

Haleth gingerly rotated her shoulder and flexed her right hand, wondering if she could still manage to scale the wall. She had to at least make the attempt. The rope hung just to the right of the window. She was bracing herself to grab it with her good hand when someone spoke.

"I'm sure I heard something out there." A voice like old, sun baked leather came from the other side of the shuttered window. Its sneering tone set Haleth's teeth on edge.

"Of course you heard something. The ceremony of the cauldron was just held," a second voice said.

"I heard something else," the leathery voice insisted.

"You're imagining things again." The second voice uneasily dismissed the suspicions.

Haleth strained towards the rope. It was stubbornly just beyond the reach of her outstretched fingertips.

A high-pitched squeal of protest sounded from the rusty bolts that secured the shutters from the inside.

Haleth desperately hurled herself off the ledge just as the shutters opened. She caught the rope with her tingling right hand and slid downwards, gritting her teeth against the pain that sliced through her bruised shoulder.

Her left hand gripped the rope and her toes once again found purchase against the wall, enabling her to stop her descent. Then the shutters were thrown open and slammed into Haleth like a runaway wagon.

Stars exploded across her vision as her face, propelled by the shutter, hit the wall. It was all she could do to keep silent and not let go of the rope.

"See anything?" asked voice two.

"No."

"You'd better close the shutters. If Vaet catches you with them open..." The threat was familiar enough to the people inside the tower to not need elaboration.

"Vaet doesn't scare me," the leathery voice said sulkily. But he quickly closed the shutters without more than a cursory glance outside.

"You're a fool, then," the second voice said, once again muffled by the closed slats of wood.

Haleth hung from the rope, wiping the blood from her nose onto her left shoulder. There was no way that she could reach the top of the tower in her current condition. Still slightly stunned, she slowly lowered herself to the ground. She had just enough presence of mind to secure the rope to herself before swimming across the moat. The chill of the water soothed the pain of her nose and shoulder. Algae and worse entangled her arms and legs, making the crossing twice as miserable as it should have been.

Worse was yet to come. She slogged out of the brine, dripping wet, seaweed trailing from her limbs and hair, nose swelling, to find Inglor waiting for her. His features were the image of tranquility in the faint moonlight.

Wordlessly she handed him the rope. He murmured something inaudible and pulled on it. The grappling hook came sailing downwards as Haleth brushed the clinging strands of kelp from her sodden clothing.

She followed him over the sharp, unforgiving rocks of the peninsula, away from the tower complex. It took the better part of an hour to reach their cheerless camp amid the stones of the desolate coastline.

"Alright," Haleth sighed as she lowered herself to the rocky ground, still rubbing her injured shoulder and shivering from the cold. "We'll try it your way.”