The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (102 page)

With that, both gods vanished.

Mark’s family smiled smugly at each other, then returned to the work they were doing.  After all, fourteen minutes was too long to spend in anticipation when there was work to do.

True to her word, First Mauve returned in fourteen minutes, with Visinniria.

“I’m here to give you the position and speed information psionicly.” Visinniria explained.  “The Triax want to be sure you have it right and have it down, and so would prefer that you’re given the information psionicly.  Since psionic communication between their gods and our mortals is still a problem, I’ll be giving it to you and monitoring what you’re doing for them, and facilitating communications.”

She did so, and Mark’s family Linked, considered and mentally rehearsed what they were about to do for a moment, and acted.

Val, Talia, and Alilia Translocated to where they’d collected power from the sun at sixteen times normal intensity, and cast vast collection fields.  Fire, Karz, Povon, and Kragorram went to the void above Kellaran where the Triax fleet would emerge, to anchor the exit portal.  Six and Mark Translocated out into the void farther than any mortal had ever been, beyond the orbits of the inner worlds, in the path of the incoming fleet and moving toward the sun.  Though still distant, the vessels of the Triax fleet already looked huge and impressive.

Working together, they all cast the Gate with portals three hundred and twenty kilometers wide, just to be completely safe.  They let Visinniria know where it was and where its edges were.

“One moment.” Visinniria said as she appeared beside Six and Mark in the void.  “The Triax are confirming the orientation of the Gate by sighting the stars that are visible through it.  It’s an impressive bit of surveying, actually.”

A moment later she reported; “All right, everything looks good.  Here comes the small test craft.”

A gray sphere about a meter wide approached the center of the Gate and passed through.  Mark and Six had cast the Gate beside and in front of them as they flew toward Kellaran and let the fleet catch up with them, so they could watch the fleet going through.  As soon as the little craft was through they could see it blaze with increased reflected sunlight.

On Amirgath’s suggestion, the exit Portal had been located in The Triax’s desired orbit in a place where it was in direct sunlight, while above a part of the world that was in the darkness of a cloudless night, so that Kellaran’s new and temporary moons would be easily visible to those on the ground below.

Fire reported the arrival of the test craft above Kellaran, then The Triax reported through Visinniria that the test passage had been completely successful, and that they were proceeding with the passage of the fleet.

As it approached Six, Mark, and Visinniria, the fleet’s great relative speed became apparent, then suddenly all sixteen mighty vessels were through in far less than a second.

“All right, they report that everything is good.” Visinniria said with a big smile.  “You can end the Gate.”

“We might as well go through it first!” Six laughed, and then he and Mark became the first Kellarani to use a Gate in the void.

They emerged near Fire, Karz, Povon, and Kragorram, and were joined an instant later by Val, Talia, and Alilia, then they all had to accelerate hard for a minute to catch up with the quickly-receding fleet.

By the time they had caught up there were already thousands of Kellarani in the void about the worldlets, many holding or casting great glowing banners that read; ‘Kellaran welcomes The Triax!’

“That was well done.” Visinniria told them with great sincerity.  “That was very, very well done, and we all thank you.”

Despite all the Shielding and Void-Protections they were casting about themselves, she had no trouble giving each of them a divinely wonderful warm hug as easily as if they were all standing naked in air.

Thousands of small craft emerged from the great Triax vessels and flew gaily but carefully among the Kellarani, along with hundreds of Triax gods.

Many of the elite who knew Mark’s family appeared nearby, including First Mauve, some gods of Kellaran and other leaders of The Assembly.  All the rest kept their distance with an almost elven decorum, though many waved and smiled when they were close enough to be seen doing so.

Over an hour they floated there and watched the first celebration ever conducted in the void.  The communications functions of the new void-proofing spells made it seem that the air was full of music and conversation, feasts were served, billions danced and partied in clusters in a huge space around the fleet over three hundred kilometers wide.

Finally Falgaroth and Somonik appeared quite close, a smiling human woman wearing the glowing red jewel of a professional Revealer appeared in front of them, and First Burgundy approached with a clear twelve meter sphere full of liquid and two large mortal Triax, an aquamarine and a very light blue.

“Those in the sphere here are the two most senior mortal Triax.” First Burgundy stated.  “We would like to present you with gifts.”

Visinniria began handing them two items each starting with Fire, who was closest at the moment, again unaffected by their protective spells.

The little alien god continued speaking as she did so.  “We, the gods and mortals of The Triax and of Kellaran, present each of you with the first Orders of Merit awarded by The Kellaran-Triax Alliance, and they are Orders of Merit for Brilliance.  Both of our peoples are very much safer and stronger because of your work today, and we all thank you.

“The plaques are made by Kellaran, the medallions are made by The Triax.  There is an energy field in the medallions that The Triax can read, and they read the same as the plaques.  More than thirty billion individuals from two worlds honor you, thank you, and celebrate you for your achievement.”

“We were honored beyond measure by the trust that all of your people placed in us.” Mark told him with a broad smile.  “And to be fair, each of the sorcerers of The People of Morning who crafted the Gate spell deserve one of these too.”

“You’re right, and we’ll see that it is done.” Somonik told them.

“So, I imagine that the joint Triax-Kellaran training exercises will be proceeding soon?” Mark asked.

“Yes.” First Burgundy told him.

“And am I right in assuming that The Triax have also been conducting similar exercises on their own, while waiting for their transfer here?”

“Always.  Training is the key to safety and successful warfare.”

“Good.” Mark nodded.  “We can exchange recordings of our recent exercises to facilitate the planning of our deployment.”

“That has been planned.” the Triax god agreed.  “I look forward to joining all of you in the next exercise for gods and other highly powerful individuals.  It shall be held in five days and six hours, by Kellaran reckoning of time.”

“In two days and eighteen hours, there will be an exercise for Kellarani mortals who are Strike Wizards, have combat scores greater than five thousand, or who can fight remotely with Simulacrums and other methods.” Somonik informed them.

“We’ll be there, at both of those.” Mark assured them.

“Well, now I want to work on getting ready for those!” Six said as he eagerly rubbed his hands together and smiled nastily.  “Can we get recordings of the gods’ previous exercises?”

“Certainly.” First Mauve told them as she appeared at conversational distance.  “I will give them to you myself, as I did when I last visited your beach.”

“Good.  We can record that into a Revealing for further study.” Six nodded.  “Do you have any advice for now?”

“Yes.  Bear in mind that the exercises of the gods assume that among the demons there will be thousands of DemonLords, and that they are as powerful as the worst we’ve encountered.  Some of these are so powerful that they can eat a god, consuming the essence of the god completely and enclosing it, if the god is weak enough.”

“Eat a god?” Val exclaimed.  “Aren’t gods completely immortal?”

“A god who has been eaten is not dead.  If the Demon Lord is subsequently killed, the god can escape.  But it is definitely the worst experience that one of us can be forced to endure.

“Also bear in mind that even gods can be killed, if they are forced into a tear in reality or a collapsed star of infinite density.  There is no escaping from either of those for any thinking being, for only complete chaos can exist within them.  Even the order of energy or mind is impossible there.  And the most powerful DemonLords are capable of causing tears in reality at will, though it costs them dearly.  It is also risky for them, since they are as vulnerable to the tears as any other, but they are not very reasonable.

“Still, let there be no doubt; so long as the demons exist,
none
of us are completely safe.  They are incredibly hardy and resilient, and even the tiniest demon will eventually grow to be a terrible DemonLord if allowed to feed unchecked.”

“What do we really know about them, anyway?” Fire asked.  “I mean, have you ever been able to interrogate one?  I know that we learned to understand a bit of their communication during the last demon war here, but I never heard that we really learned anything about where they came from and what it was like there, and how they came to be ravagers of the void.”

“Ah.  Well we have been able to interrogate them, but we learned little from them that way.” First Mauve admitted.  “The concept of co-operation to evade torture is inconceivable to them.  A captured demon will fight constantly to kill or escape until it succeeds or is exhausted to the point of complete immobility, and that is all.  We have learned more by various psionic techniques that glean some meager information, and by spying out their communications.

“Here is what we have learned;

“Know that in it’s original state, a demon is an animal with no conscious self, it has no cares, no worries, no fears, only the instinctive nature to kill and consume.  They come from a world that is midway between an inner rocky world and an outer gaseous world in size and composition.  It has a huge rocky core even larger than Kellaran, and the pull of weight at the surface is many times that of your world.  Everything there must be immensely strong simply to move about, and they move quickly and constantly.  Their world also has vast oceans of alien liquids, and a very deep and dense layer of a gas that bears no resemblance to what you call air.  The pressure at the surface is extreme.

“It is a completely hellish place, with poles far colder than on either of our worlds, and an equator much hotter than ours.  Still, life thrived there in incredible abundance, and all of it vicious and violent and intensely competitive.  There were thousands of kinds of life-forms there that were more dangerous individually than demons, and the first ancestors of the demons only survived because they were very adaptable and bred with incredible fecundity whenever possible.

“But like all races, the lucky and capable survive to breed while the unlucky and less capable die, and over time the demons developed considerable intelligence.  This intelligence did not give them distinct personalities; they are a very uniform race in their thinking, if highly variable in their physical forms.  Compared to us, their thinking is still very primitive in style, despite their intelligence.  They have never developed any arts or entertainments, beyond killing and torturing and consuming.  They have no loyalty or feeling of family ties, but they have a brutal practicality that allows their society to function in its basic way.  The weak obey the strong, or they are punished or consumed.

“After hundreds of eons of existence with gradually increasing intelligence and a very slow domination of their world, the demons developed the ability to use a kind of magic.  We have no idea how it works, but it appears to not be powered by the energy given off by stars, as the power of our mortals is.  We deduce this since the demons’ power appears unaffected by their distance from stars.  Even in the deep void their power is undiminished.

“A few eons after they developed magic they had killed and eaten almost everything they could eat on their world, and most of them died off from starvation.  They eat each other when there is no easier prey, but without other food sources, their numbers diminish quickly.  When most of them were gone, the life of their world recovered somewhat, then they recovered and stripped it bare and died off again, and this became a cycle that was repeated many times over hundreds of eons.  Each time the demons were reduced it was a winnowing that improved their race, as only the most tenacious and capable survived to breed.

“Eventually they attained the power to spread beyond their world, and began to ravage the void.  Some wandering hordes still obey the most powerful DemonLords on their homeworld.  Certainly the hordes operating in void relatively close to their homeworld do so.  Other hordes have lost contact completely, and probably prefer it to be so.

“Their homeworld and their population there have stabilized, not because the demons learned to live within their means there, but because the other native life-forms eventually developed into a few varieties that grow so quickly and ubiquitously and tenaciously that they thrive despite the constant consumption of a population of demons that covers almost all of the ground and much of the seas.

“The five DemonLords who rule their homeworld are now very old, and very, very powerful.  None of them could kill any of the others without being killed, and if one orders their horde to attack another’s, those two hordes would certainly be decimated, and the other three ruling lords would slaughter the survivors and the two lords that led them, and take their territories and power.  Thus they have enjoyed a bitter stalemate for a few eons.

“We do not know where their homeworld is.  We have studied their travel through the void and tried to deduce their initial point of origin, but it is impossible because they have been ravaging the void for so long that many of the wandering hordes have passed back and forth through this part of the galaxy many times.

“Each horde tries to establish a hunting territory with enough life-bearing worlds that they can fly a repetitive route.  They rarely stay on a world long enough to eat absolutely everything alive except that which is too small for them to see, and visit each life-bearing world every twenty to seventy million years.  That is long enough for the life of most worlds to recover, building and growing anew from the tiny and few survivors the demons miss in their depredations.  It is seldom long enough for new intelligent races to emerge, which keeps things easy for the demons.