The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (44 page)

“It was pretty good.” Helemia admitted.  “And I’d have to use a lot more automation than you’re using to do what you’re doing.  For that matter, none of us could have done that alone, it took all three of us to do it that good, and if you’d have been one of the three it would have worked just as good.”

“Are we quite finished kissing each other?” Reggie asked with a grin.  “We’d better plan for a few different eventualities before they finish watching that.  I can’t guess how they’ll react, but there’s a few possibilities that we really should prepare for.”

“Good point.” Valentia nodded, and they deepened their Link and started planning.

A few minutes later Helemia raised her head and closed her eyes for a second.  “They want our attention.  They’re trying to cast the Projections again.”

They ended the blocking they were holding against psionic penetration of their Wards, and the fourteen Projected elders appeared again.

“How will you hold these young ones captive without making them insane?  How will you deal with their violent urges and tendencies?”  the old woman who’d spoken before asked without preamble.

“We’ll keep them very, very busy with work and with fun, and we’ll let them fight against each other in a supervised arena every night, if they want to.” Reggie told her.

“Huh.  And how will we know we can trust you to keep your word about your people not retaining control over mine, beyond the training against the demons and keeping our young from killing each other?”

“Have you heard of The Truthstone of Falgaroth?” Reggie asked as he shucked his pack and dug into a side pocket of it.

“Yes, I’ve heard of it.  It’s famous for being the largest spelled item on Kellaran.”

“Yes, and only truth can be spoken while in contact with it, only just vows can be sworn on it, and any vows sworn on it are unbreakable.” Reggie nodded, then showed them what he had.  “This is an extension of The Truthstone of Falgaroth.  Touching this smaller stone is functionally the same as touching the great Truthstone itself.

“We’ll swear on this stone to use the least cruel methods possible to prevent your young from killing each other, and to care for them as well as we’re able while they’re in our care.  We’ll swear to train all of the Sylvan on Hiliani with every method and technique we have for destroying the demons, and all of you will swear to teach us any physical, magical, or psionic warfare and combat techniques that you know and we don’t.

“Everyone of both of our peoples will swear to co-operate and coordinate in defending Hiliani from the demons, and to not act against members of the other community or their interests in any way.

“Both of our communities will grow in population as fast as possible until we’ve fully dealt with the demons, but your population is already much larger than ours, and now that your young aren’t killing each other, your population will also grow much faster than ours.  We will therefore reserve for our use the island where Homestead; our community, is located, and the three islands directly west of there, from Homestead to the west coast.  The other twenty-three islands of Hiliani will be reserved for Sylvan expansion.  In the future we might each choose to let some from the other community live in our areas, if everyone involved agrees to that.

“We’ll teach you how to cultivate and intensify the life on the land and in the waters of Hiliani, increasing the number and size of every plant and animal evenly, to increase the number of people who can live on Hiliani’s bounty without degrading the forest or the waters.  We’ll supplement this with a few small areas for gardens and some domestic animals.  If we reach the maximum population that our islands can support, we’ll stop breeding until we can find a way to support more people with our resources, and we’ll all swear to that.

“We intend to keep Hiliani as a preserve of the traditional Sylvan way of life as much as possible.  Once the demons are dealt with, your young can even go back to killing each other if they want, and the only limitation on your behavior will be not offending against us.  Your lives and your relations with us can return to what they were the day before yesterday.  But after the time-bubble ends, if any of you want to leave Hiliani, you’ll be out in The Just Alliance, and you’ll have to abide by the same rules that the rest of the Sylvan out there face.  That means you’ll be sworn to justice on The Truthstone with Osbald’s Oath, and you’ll have to swear to the rules and limitations of The Game of Status if you want to be able to act against others with unjust means.  Which you will.”

There was a long moment of silence, then one of the old male Sylvan spoke.  “If that stone can do what you say it can, why not just swear all these young to not kill each other and be done with it?  Why all this mind-control and capturing and building?”

“Swearing on the stone is permanent, and we didn’t want to do that until we had things more settled, in case this plan proved to be impractical.” Reggie replied.

“And we need you all in the same place to train you for co-operative warfare.” Helemia added.  “You’re all effective warriors as individuals, but now we have to make an army of you to maximize your effectiveness against the demons, and we need you in one place for that.  Your adults can go back to their homes once their basic training is complete, which shouldn’t take more than a few months, but first we need to train you to live and work and fight together in close quarters for extended periods of time, because that’s what warfare usually calls for.”

“Huh.  And if we should refuse you?” the old woman who’d spoken before asked.

Reggie shrugged.  “Then we’ll just force you, though we’d prefer not to.  If we wanted to kill you, we would.  If we wanted to enslave you, we could do that too.  We’re being as nice about this as we can, and this is for your good even more than ours.  The Sylvan race began when some demons altered some humans to make them slaves to the demons.  If you think it’ll be fun to be slaves to the demons again, I’m sure you’re mistaken.  The demons may have made you to be helpless to disobey them, and if so, then finding and eliminating the flaw they’ve created in you to make you obedient should be one of our highest priorities.

“And the demons
are
coming.  We have good enough astronomers among us here to be able to
see
their rock in the sky at night, and the worldlets of The Triax as well.  Of course, it’s possible that the gods could have put that in to deceive you when they made the time-bubble, so you’ll just have to trust us on that.  But we have no reason to lie about it, and I’ll swear to it’s truth on the Truthstone if you want.”

“Huh.  It all comes down to the stone.” she stated.  “Give it to me and let me examine it.  If it turns out to be what you say it is, we may agree to what you’re proposing.”

“Sure.” Reggie smiled as he casually tossed her the stone.

She reflexively reached out to catch it, and he Translocated it just before it reached her Projection’s hand.  She gaped in surprise when it solidly smacked into her palm over thirty kilometers from where he’d thrown it.

“Just remember this;” Reggie cautioned.  “My parents legally own these islands, as far as the laws of every nation are concerned, and we’re not going to give them up to you completely.  We’re going to stay.  And we’re not going to risk having you act against us while we’re at war with the demons.  One way or the other, we’ll have your trust or we’ll have your deaths before the demons get here.  And if you decide to go to war with us and somehow defeat us, then in another eighteen years the time-bubble will end, and you’ll have to face the entirety of The Just Alliance, which now includes every nation on Kellaran, including the united might of the gods.”

“If we believe you about any of that.” the Sylvan retorted.

Reggie shrugged again.  “You’ll have a chance to see all of our preparations to fight the demons, if you want.  And if that’s not enough evidence for you, you can take a Reading from any of us.  And of course once you’ve verified the properties of the stone, we’ll be glad to swear on it as to the truth of what we’ve told you.”

“Fine.” she said with a nod, and the Projections ended.

After a moment Karzog shrugged and went back to concentrating on supervising the construction.

“Back in a while.” Valentia said as she disappeared.

Reggie and Helemia set up the orientation Revealing for the new recruits that Valentia had brought back, then began scanning all the Sylvan to find the most intelligent and level-headed among them.

They informed Karzog of their choices, and he re-assigned the two-hundred and nineteen they’d chosen, directing them to gather with Reggie and Helemia in a clearing in the woods on the east side of the settlement, near the foot of the mountains.  They were an older group on the average than the wild young Sylvan  as a whole, but every age group was represented, including a few of the adults that had been captured, and one girl who was only thirteen.

“Congratulations.” Helemia announced to them.  “You’ve been selected to be officers.  You’ll be the first to receive each of the lessons in warcraft that we’ll be teaching your people.  You’ll command up to one hundred subordinates each, and you’ll assist us in teaching and training them.  You’ll each be assigned a random number, and you’ll take turns picking your troops in the order of your numbers until everyone’s been picked.

“You will bear some responsibility for the quality of their performance.  If you command a group of fighters who perform poorly compared to the average, you’ll be singled out for ridicule before the entire army, and if your group excels, you’ll be singled out for praise.  We’re fully aware of how those eventualities would effect your status among your peers.

“All of you will be judged on your rate of improvement, rather than your absolute ability.  Therefore, if your platoon starts out with a lot of the poorest fighters, you’ll still have a good chance to excel in the standings if they improve quickly.  Some of the best fighters will have the talent to do well in an army and improve quickly, some will already be near their potential and won’t improve as much.  Some of the worst fighters are that way because they really don’t have much potential, but some will show the greatest improvement, particularly if their inability is only due to their being among the youngest of you.  However, you’ll be prevented from telling your troops that they’ll be judged on improvement until after their first round of training and testing.  This is to prevent them from slacking on the first test in order to show more dramatic improvements later.  The standings after the first test only will be decided on our judgment of who tried their hardest.

“You’re lucky in that Sylvan are a very uniform race, and the difference between the best and the worst of you is less than it is among the other races.  You’re therefore a lot less likely to end up stuck with commanding a bunch of inept clods than officers of other races would be.”

That last comment brought a round of laughs from those listening, and a slight relaxing of the mood.

“Now, as some of you might expect, your first lessons will be on effective military organization, accurate assessment of personnel, promotion of squad leaders, assigning squads to specialized training and missions, and efficient delegation of duties…”

Forty-one minutes later they felt the Sylvan elders casting their Projections again.

“Continue with what you’re doing.” Helemia instructed their students.  “I expect most of you to be finished with those organizational charts when we get back.”

“Val, the elders are contacting us.”
Reggie reported.

“I know.  I’ll be there.”
she replied, and was back to the beach beside Karzog before the twins were.

They allowed the Projection, and the fourteen elder Sylvan re-appeared.  The same woman spoke for them again.

“We believe the stone is genuine.” she reported.  “We will agree to what you’ve proposed.  It seems to offer only benefits for us.  But we want more than your oaths on the stone.  We want every leader and spell caster among your people to also swear to the same terms on the stone, particularly the two who you say rule these islands; Prince Mark and Princess Talia of Hilia; Keys to The Just Alliance.”

“I’m reasonably certain that we can arrange that.” Reggie nodded.  “Shall we hold the swearing here at noon tomorrow?  We’ll arrange a nice occasion with some entertainment and a feast for everyone.  We should have every member of our people and every member of yours all meet here to get to know one another and to swear the oath together.

“Is that agreeable to you?”

“Yes.” She agreed.  “Such an event would be fitting on this occasion.”

“You look disappointed.” another elder female said to Helemia.

“Sorry.” she shrugged.  “It all just seems a little too easy.  There’s a part of me that was hoping you’d fight about it.”

“Why?”

Helemia shrugged again, and grinned.  “It would’ve been fun.”

Her questioner looked surprised for a moment, then she and a few of her companions chuckled.  “A thought worthy of a Sylvan.” one of them commented.

“Noon tomorrow then.” the spokeswoman stated in conclusion, and their Projection ended.

“Spread the word about the agreement and the big gathering tomorrow to all the recruits.” Reggie instructed Karzog.  “If the officers we were instructing finish all their assignments before we get back, put them back on the construction details for now.”

“Actually, their supper will be served in less than five minutes.” Karzog reported as he considered the cooking crew’s progress.  “You can resume the officers’ training in the morning.”

“Right.” Reggie nodded.  “We’re off to talk to our parents and make arrangements for the gathering here tomorrow.  Hopefully we’re not in trouble for over-reaching our authority in the agreements we’ve just committed our people to.”

“I’ll be listening.” Karzog chuckled.  “I can spare the concentration, and I wouldn’t want to miss it if you get chewed by your parents!”

He looked down the beach as he made another assessment. 
“All right, everyone wrap up your work for the night, then line up for supper!”
he commanded, his booming psionic voice reaching all the Sylvan within their Wards.