The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (110 page)

Then it ceased being something he was doing, and it became something that was happening to him faster than he could control it, whether he wanted it to or not.

A bright light was shining from his body with increasing energy until he was barely visible within it, and he began a long, low growl that rose in pitch and volume with the intensity of the process until he was roaring at the top of his lungs.  The tension in his muscles increased, along with the tightness of his grip on the small Truthstone.

Suddenly reality itself
shifted
within the volume of his body, and at the same moment the small Truthstone was shattered and crushed in his grip, and a pulse of arcane energy was released that everyone there felt as it passed through them in an almost instantaneous wave.

They cried out with the wonder of the sensation, their voices joining his amidst the otherwise silent transformation, but it seemed to have no other discernable effect.

He fell silent.  The light he was producing gradually faded.  All was still for a moment as he stood on the Truthstone with a handful of blue gemstone gravel.  He appeared to be the same as he had been before he began.

The gods who had left the stage when he began returned, along with Glup of The Zurb, and they examined him.

“You are almost completely unlike any of us of The Pantheon of Kellaran.” Amirgath eventually pronounced.  “You are unlike Glup of The Zurb.  You are unlike the gods of The Triax.  But there is no doubt whatsoever that you are a god, or at least a new kind of being with equivalent capabilities.”

“All hail Mark, first of The New Gods Of Kellaran!” Visinniria proudly proclaimed as she drew her sword, saluted him with it, and held it high.

This brought a huge roaring cheer from everyone there.  They let it go on for a few seconds, then Amirgath raised his hand for silence, and got it.

“What say you, Mark?” he asked.

“It’s very strange.” Mark stated in wonder.  “It’s very beautiful, and awesome, and amazing, but it’s still very strange.  As far as I can tell, in all the important ways, I’m still me.”

He looked to his mortal self at the edge of the audience and asked; “What do you think?”

“You’re still me.” mortal Mark declared with a grin, then closed his eyes for a second.  “But I can’t reintegrate us with the spell.  Can you do it?”

“I think I can, but give me a moment to consider it.  Hmm.  I’m definitely a lot more intelligent than I was, and my awareness is so much better that there’s no comparison.  But I think it’s my subconscious mind that’s improved the most.  I need a moment to try to take stock of the differences and explore my new abilities.

“Our speculations were right; once you get to the end of the Ascension, divinity almost seems to take on a life of its own.  I can do everything I did with magic with god-power instead, and a lot more, without consciously casting any spells, just by wanting it to happen.  I want an apple and I’ve got an apple,” he said as one appeared in his hand, “And I couldn’t say how it got there, or where it came from, or what it’s made out of.  If I want it gone, it’s gone, and that’s all there is to it.  It’s a completely intuitive process.  And I have no idea where the power for it comes from.

“I can sure see why the gods couldn’t express the process to mortals, because I can’t either.  The part of the Ascension I had in the stone was about a third of it, and it was already too complex to even remember myself, let alone communicate it to anyone else.  Then I came up with another third of it that would be even harder to explain, and the last third of it happened on it’s own without my conscious control or understanding.

“Now…  Yes, if I want to, I can still access the warlocks’ source and cast conventional spells.” he said as he cast Restore on the small crushed Truthstone.  “And, I can now fully access regular wizards’ power as well, or access the Source directly as unicorns and gargoyles do.  And, I can access three…  No four other kinds of power that come from the sun, including transducing regular heat and light into magic.

“And, I can
not be
.” he said as he disappeared, but his voice continued speaking anyway.  “I can completely do without any physical manifestation at all.  I can have no body or a thousand bodies, it’s completely irrelevant to anything else I might want to do, and it doesn’t affect my capabilities at all.

He reappeared and grinned.  “I guess that proves that I really am a god now.

“I still love my wives and kids, and I still have the same attitudes and feelings about every issue, but I’m definitely not the same.

“I do feel a new responsibility towards every mortal on Kellaran, as the gods said I would.  And I do now share their feeling that gods should never directly rule over mortals.  It’s just not fair, somehow.

“And so, I swear on the Truthstone of Falgaroth that as soon as the war with the demons is over, I’ll give up my rule of Hilia and Serminak, and my role as Key to The Just Alliance.  But until then, things will remain as they are in that respect, to help insure our victory over the demons.

“For the same reason, I
will
take part in The Tournament of Governors for the rule of Kellaran.  To be honest, I don’t think that being a god will make much difference in how high I’ll place.  Before today, I could already have duplicated most of my new divine abilities by other means, including the increased intelligence and awareness.  And as it’s been said before, being a god doesn’t really give me any new intellectual creativity or wisdom, which are crucial qualities for a leader.

“One thing that hasn’t changed is the slightly disconcerting feeling of incompleteness that comes with being separated into more than one manifestation, so I’m going to reintegrate.  I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m pretty sure I can anyway, just by wanting to.”

With that the Mark at the edge of the audience disappeared, and the one on the stage grinned.  “And thus it is so.” he pronounced.

Then there were three of him standing there, then only one again.  “Actually, you don’t get that disconcerting feeling when you multiple manifest with god power.  Good to know.

“Now, I suppose I should get on with the Ascension of the other Candidates to be New Gods.  Now that I’ve Ascended, I can tell there’s more Candidates than I previously thought, almost twice as many actually, including the ones that were in the time-bubbles.

“But I can also see that some of the Candidates are going to refuse divinity for now, having had some time to think about it.  In most cases, it’s because their wives and children aren’t Candidates, and they don’t want there to be such a huge gulf between them.  I understand that, and it’s fine.  You don’t have to accept divinity until you’re ready, though I expect that many of you will change your minds once warfare with the demons begins.  Protecting your families with every available advantage will become more important than relating to them as equals.

“Every Candidate will be closely examined by me before I make them divine, and I may not choose to do it for some of them.  They don’t need any special qualities to qualify, but they can’t have any bad qualities that I think would make them a problem once they have divine power.

“There are many who deserve to be first, for many reasons, but there was never any doubt in my mind who I would choose.

“Talia my love, come and join me.” he smiled as he held his hand out to her.

She Translocated to him, and placed her hands in his.

He smiled a little wider as he picked her up and cuddled her small body in his arms, then he closed his eyes, Linked with her completely, and led her down the path he’d chosen.  It was over in a blink, with only a quick flash of bright light.

He released her, and she floated standing in the air with her arms held out to her sides, threw her head back, and laughed in giddy ecstasy.

Visinniria and Heklivmalgiso, until that moment the only elven gods, appeared on either side of her and touched her hands.

“Welcome to the family, Little Sister.” Heklivmalgiso pronounced with the biggest and happiest grin that anyone had ever seen him wear. And the two elven gods hugged Talia with great joy.

“Alilia my love, come and join us.” Mark invited, and held his hand out to her.  She hugged him around his neck as he cast upon her and with her, and a moment later it was done.

“We’ll run out of room on the stage soon.” Amirgath grinned.  “So we’ll leave you to it.”

As the gods, Talia, and Alilia left the stage, Mark communicated privately.

“Yazadril and Nemia, you’re both Candidates to be New Gods.

“Hilsith, you’re not.  I know the gods said you were a Candidate for Divinity when we first met them, but you’re not a candidate for my process.  I’m sorry, and you may be in the future, but for now you’re not.

“Do the three of you want some time to make decisions?”

“No!!!”
Hilsith insisted with a big smile.
  “It matters not that I won’t join them in divinity right now, I trust that they’ll love me just the same, and I refuse to hold them back!  I know they would both refuse it for my sake, and I will not allow it!  Especially since I know for certain that Yazadril wants this very very much!”

“Then that is how it shall be.”
Mark told them as the three joined him on the stage. 
“Hilsith, I promise that I’ll do my best to help you achieve Candidacy, and constantly monitor you for it, and help you Ascend as soon as you reach it.

“Yazadril, Nemia, take my hands and prepare yourselves.”

With Hilsith between them and an arm around her each, they reached out to Mark with their other hands.  A second after he held them, it was done with a quick, bright flash.

“Thank you.” Yazadril told him in a distracted manner, both he and Nemia seemingly struck with awe.  “Thank you, a million times thank you.  This is by far the most wondrous thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“It’s pretty good all right.” Nemia laughed.  “I wouldn’t it’s say better than falling in love with you or birthing my daughters.  But it’s better than anything else.

“And Hilsith, we love you even more.”

As they left the stage, Mark privately communicated again.

“Povon, you’re a Candidate.  Kragorram, you’re not a Candidate, but you’re very, very close to being one.  The work and learning you’ve done with the rest of us have done you a lot of good.  I’m pretty sure that if I help Povon Ascend first, then between the two of us we can bring you to full Candidacy, and then I can make you a god.”

“Then by all means, proceed!”
Kragorram urged him. 
“I was not on your last list of Candidates at all, and I very much want to join Povon in this, so I will take any chance to do so that you can give me.”

“All right.  Povon, here we go.”
Mark told them, and a few seconds later both dragons had Ascended.

Silaran and Equemev were next.  Though Silaran had not been one of Mark’s Candidates before he went into his people’s time-bubble in Xervia for sixteen years, he was now, and Mark was soon done with both of them.

As the unicorns were leaving the stage, every one of Kellaran’s old gods jumped a bit like they’d been poked in the ribs by surprise.

“By all the stars above!” Heklivmalgiso exclaimed as he appeared floating above and before Yazadril, Nemia, and Hilsith.  “How did you do that?!”

“We did nothing!” Yazadril proclaimed.  “She did it all herself, I assure you!”

“Hilsith, you have become a goddess!” Heklivmalgiso declared in amazement.  “But you are not one of The New Gods as Mark and your two lovers here are!  You have Ascended in the conventional way, and you are exactly the same in nature as Visinniria and myself!  How have you done this?!”

“Well, I’m Yazadril and Nemia’s Healer, and I love them, so I watch out for them.” Hilsith told him in a somewhat distracted manner.  “When Mark was giving them the Ascension, I wasn’t Linked with them, but I was Reading them as thoroughly as I could.  But I wasn’t really paying attention to that.  I had all my diagnostic spells running on them, and with the improvements I’ve made in those lately, they act like a complete Reading, only of the body rather than the mind.

“Where anyone else might have been paying attention to the changes in their minds or to the energy that was exchanged and was acting on them, I was mostly paying attention to the physical changes happening in their bodies, in fine detail.

“Then after it was over, part of my attention was on them and what was happening here, but part of my attention started correlating the Reading to the diagnostics, noting what changes were happening in their bodies when changes occurred in their minds and their powers, and vice-versa.

“Then, I somewhat remember that as we got back here and Nemia was kissing me, in the back of my mind I thought something like; ‘Well that makes sense, but why not just do it
this
way…’

“And then it just happened.  I’m afraid that’s really all I can say about it.  Then you were here yelling about the stars above.”

“And we are overjoyed that you have joined us!” Heklivmalgiso declared as he came down to the floor and hugged her.  “Furthermore, I am satisfied with being vindicated in choosing you as a Candidate for Divinity when we first met.  As I said then, your Ascension was dependent on Mark’s, and on Yazadril and Nemia’s.”

“Thank you.” she told him as she returned his hug.

Then she looked into Yazadril’s eyes, then Nemia’s, and held her hands out to them.  “I still love you both just as much.  And that’s a great relief, because I am
not
the same person I was a few minutes ago.  Not in personality, not in outlook, not at all.”

“Pshaw, all the parts of you that matter to us are still the same.” Nemia assured her.  “You just
feel
different, that’s all.  And it’s very beautiful.”

“Part of me wants the three of us to just go somewhere private.” Yazadril told them.  “Somewhere we can just explore the differences in ourselves and in our love, and the differences between the two kinds of gods that we’ve become.