The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (67 page)

“Strange to see him here.” growled Osbald, whose eyes hadn’t left Zarkog since the instant the great black dragon had arrived.

“He put his mark of justice right under his ass, six millimeters wide.” Six revealed with a giggle.

“Typical.” Osbald growled, then couldn’t help but smile at the humor of it.  “Though he’s sworn, sentenced, and punished, he’s seen the error of his ways, and he’s even apologized, he’s still unrepentant.”

“He
is
a bit of a character, isn’t he?” Fire chuckled.

“He is, to say the least.” Osbald chuckled.  “You seem more… tolerant, of him, than I’d expect you to be.”

She shrugged and smiled.  “We have uses for him.  For one, he’s gonna kill a lot of demons, I expect.

“You have uses for him.” Osbald repeated with a grin.  “Well that’s lucky for us, since I have no use for him whatsoever!”

Val floated up and gave him a hug around his neck and a kiss on the cheek.  “Don’t worry, Osbald.  We have uses for you too.” she giggled.

He laughed, then abruptly stopped when he realized that they were completely serious, despite their warm smiles.  Then he laughed even harder.

The rest chuckled along with him, until Senchak’s gaze was drawn to new arrivals. “I find it damn strange seeing Zwak Deathbringer and his Sylvan here in The Hall of The Just Alliance!” he grumbled.

“Isn’t it though?” Emeroth mused with a raised eyebrow as they watched the Sylvan take their places.

Fire glanced to her left, her attention drawn by a ten-year-old human boy who was desperately trying to hide the fact that he was weeping.  He was accompanied by his mother who surreptitiously tried to comfort him, his father who ignored him, and his twelve-year-old sister who stood away from them two meters,  embarrassed by her brother’s loss of control.  All of them were openly watching the group around Mark with open and rapt fascination.

“Excuse me a moment.” Fire said as she turned to approach the weeping boy.  She stopped quite close to him so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice over the constant noise of the thousands of conversations.

“What’s the matter?” she bluntly inquired.

“Nothing.” he sniffed as he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Fire frowned up at him.  “Don’t be silly.  Something’s obviously wrong, and I can probably fix it whatever it is, and I will if I can.  Don’t pass up the chance.”

He did his best to pull himself together and re-assemble his dignity, assisted by a bit of angry resentment at her attitude.  His family glanced back and forth between their conversation and Mark’s group, who were also watching and following Fire’s conversation with the boy.  His father swallowed at a lump in his throat brought on by the sudden attention of the mighty, and the girl moved to stand with her family again to share in it.

“I’m Baym Shgongshtip.” the  boy stated.  “We’re from Bhia.  I’m a wizard.  I’ve been one for four years, and I’ve worked like a slave at it since I was six, sixteen hours a day with one day off a week.  I’m one of the best wizards my age in Bhia.  And I can only do six spells.  Six measly spells, with almost no power.

“But I’ve got good senses.  I can tell when a wizard’s casting a spell, and I can tell that right now, you’re casting a
lot
of ‘em, with a lot of power.  It doesn’t even seem like you’re even thinking about it.  And you’re only
seven.

“I’m sorry, I know I’m being petty.  I wouldn’t’ve said anything if you hadn’t insisted.  But it sure seems like I’ve wasted four years of my life somehow.  I could’ve had a lot of fun in those four years.”

“Hmm.  You mind if I Read you?” she inquired.

When he hesitated, she grew impatient.  “Look, Hilsith’s team on Hiliani have found a way to give every human alive the ability to use magic, and everyone’s gonna get some instruction.  But if you’re as good as you say you are, you can handle more than the basic instruction.  Let me Read you and Link with you, and I’ll give it to you.  I can guarantee that I can make you capable of casting a lot more than six spells.  Or you can go somewhere beyond my sight.”

“Okay, go ahead.” he quickly decided, and his mother nudged him.  “And thank you.” he added.

She cast her psionics, then considered the results, and nodded.  “You’re right, you’re as good as you say you are.  And believe me, you
haven’t
wasted four years.  You’re instructor isn’t that competent, but you did the best you could with the best instruction you could get, given your family’s circumstances.  You’ve developed a lot of discipline, except for your little lapse here tonight, and more importantly, while your ability to cast magic hasn’t progressed much, your intellectual and intuitive grasp of the process has been advancing nicely.

“Because of that, I figure you can handle this much.”

She cast on the boy again, and he froze, then slowly gained a rapturous expression.

She was about to turn away when Six privately reminded her that they intended to win the hearts of the populous.

She smiled at each of the boy’s family and gave them a little bow, and said;  Good day to you all then.  I hope you enjoy the proceedings.”

They smiled and bowed in response, and she took her leave of them.

As these things had been happening, Mark had remonstrated her with an irritated psionic rebuke. 
“You’ve prematurely announced Hilsith’s news!  Now she’s going to have to announce it immediately, or everyone here and everywhere else will know it in about five minutes by word-of-mouth before she can do so!”

He appeared on the center of the dais, actually standing on the Truthstone of Falgaroth, and Spoke to the huge gathering with magical augmentation.  “Good people of The Just Alliance…”  He paused a moment to allow everyone to give him their attention as a gigantic Revealing lit above him, showing his front view to the audience all around him, and the room’s ambient light dimmed somewhat.  Soon every eye was upon him, and the clear surface that walled off the water-filled section was lined from floor to water-line with attentive spectators.  “Good people of The Just Alliance, thank you for gathering to hear what we’ve accomplished on Hiliani while we were away.

“For us, it’s been more than seven and a half years, and everyone on Hiliani has contributed to great accomplishments.  None moreso than Hilsith; Master Healer, whose focus has been on solving one of the most intractable problems on Kellaran.

“To explain further, I present Hilsith of The Warm People, of The High People, of Hilia and Hiliani, and of The Just Alliance Fast Response Force’s Healers’ Contingent.”

Hilsith appeared beside him, floating in the air at the right height to give him a warm smile and a quick hug.

He stepped back with a grin and disappeared, and she settled to alight upon the Truthstone.  She slowly turned all the way around, then clasped her hands behind her back and looked down.  Those who expected a grand presentation were surprised when she spoke to the entire world in the tone of one chatting in a kitchen over tea.

“When my love for Yazadril and Nemia was new, and we were still living in First Valley, there was a morning when we were eating breakfast.  And Yazadril shared a Reading with us of his first conversation with Mark, when they’d first met.  Though much of it was pleasant conversation, I was so saddened by what I heard that I began to cry a bit.  Nemia thought that I was saddened by the horror of the deaths of Mark’s entire community, and I was, but that wasn’t what made me cry.

“The part that made me cry was something Mark had said with a hearty laugh.  Yazadril had stated how proud he was of Nemia, his beautiful young new wife, who was only two hundred and fifty-eight years old.  Mark found it funny that Yazadril considered her at her age to be his beautiful young new wife, when the oldest person Mark had ever known up to that day had died of old age at the age of seventy-six.”

She paused a moment, and took a deep breath.  “Dead from ageing at seventy-six years old, and the eldest person Mark had ever known.  The sadness of that struck me so deeply, and I found it amazing that such people still lived most of their lives with great joy, despite knowing that they were cursed to live without the use of magic, and doomed to an early death.  Knowing that everyone they cared for were going to sicken and die, and very soon, and there was nothing that they or anyone else could do about it.”

She paused, then raised her gaze with fierce determination, and almost shouted her next words, so great was her intensity;  “Well that will not happen again!  We have
beaten
death by old age in every thinking mammalian race, and in the process, we’ve found a way to give the use of magic to all who lack it!  Already the worst sufferers of geriatric degradation are being Healed…!”

She stopped and actually flinched a bit as the huge cheer from the many thousands all around her reached her and washed over her with palpable force.  She waited for it to quiet before she continued, but it just went on and on, and only seemed to get louder.  Almost everyone present from the short-lived races seemed to try to talk to their neighbors at the top of their lungs at once, their joyful yelling interspersed with new cheers.

After a few moments of unending cacophony, she decided that she’d already said everything that needed saying, so she smiled and gave a simple bow before walking back to her party.

This prompted an even louder response as the crowd realized that she was leaving the podium, and they cheered her mightily for her accomplishment.

She was barely off the podium when she was overwhelmed by the crowd.  Every human, dwarf, gnome, giant, Selkie, and gargoyle who was near her wanted to thank her, touch her, shake her hand, hug her.  As the full significance of what she’d announce set in, almost all of them began either weeping with joy or laughing hysterically as they realized that they were all delivered from early death, and granted the power they’d always envied in those who had it.  She began to panic as they all closed in around her, but Yazadril cast a Force Shield tight around her skin, then quickly grew it to a  two meter sphere, pushing the people away from her.

“Just smile and wave and walk back to us, Love.”
Yazadril advised her. 
“I’ll keep the Shield moving with you.”

So she did, while Yazadril cleared her way through the crowd as gently as possible.

The frenzy of joy and the incredible din of the crowd went on and on, long after Hilsith had returned to her party and been safely ensconced within Yazadril and Nemia’s protective arms.

“I…hadn’t really considered their reaction.”
she revealed to her party. 
“I’m overwhelmed!”

“This is really too much.”
Mark decided, and cast a spell that blocked most of the incredible noise from his party and those they’d been speaking with before Fire had spilled Hilsith’s news.

“Well, thank you, that’s much better.” Osbald said with a smile at conversational volume.

“You know,” Emeroth chuckled as she looked around at the scene, “If someone doesn’t do something soon, this is going to become nothing but a huge party, and it’ll be hard to get anything else constructive done here tonight.”

“Well, I suppose I should talk to them.” Mark decided.  “But first I’d like to talk to the gods.”

Visinniria and Falgaroth appeared as he said it, and he continued speaking without pause, like they’d been there all along.

“Did you find any problems in the other time-bubbles when you opened them, and what’s the situation with the renegade Sylvan God of Stealth?” he asked.

“No.” Visinniria told him with a smile.  “We didn’t open the other time-bubbles, we just looked inside them.  It was less effort than re-casting them all again.  None them contained any hidden Sylvan, and none of their residents wanted to leave early.  None of their children have displayed exceptionally fast development, so they’re just infants.  The only other bubble that had People of Morning was the one they organized on the plains of Xervia.  There’s over six thousand unicorns in it, as well as a few hundred gargoyles and a few dozen from The Hidden Nation.  None of them were uncomfortable with their situation.”

Falgaroth continued as she finished. 
“The Sylvan God of Stealth was found and… apprehended by Glup, Keegla the Dwarven God of War, Thless the Human Goddess of Learning, and six Sylvan gods, about fourteen seconds after you told us of him.  Most of us were looking for him.  Fourteen seconds is a very long time for such a group to take to complete any task.  The God of Stealth was not easy to find, or to catch.   Since then the other Sylvan gods have kept him secluded, and they’ve been arguing with him.  That’s all the rest of us of know about it.”

“Okay, thanks.” Mark told them with a nod.  “Since Amirgath predicted I’d speak next with Talia and Alilia, I’m a little tempted to do it without them, just to see what would happen.  But I won’t.”

He smiled at each of his beloveds and offered them his arms.  “Ladies?”

They returned his smile as they rose into the air to take his arms, Talia on his right and Alilia on his left.  Rather than walk or Translocate, they floated up and over the heads of the other attendees to the center of the dais and settled down on it.  The huge Revealing above them re-activated, and Mark waited for most of a minute for the room to notice them and to give him their attention.

When almost everyone was looking to him, and only the murmur of a few quiet comments amongst the crowd remained of the cacophony of moments before, Mark spoke.  Like Hilsith, his tone was casual and intimate.

“I know a lot of you expected us to make brilliant discoveries and do great new things while we were in the time-bubble, and we haven’t let you down.  A lot of you expected me personally to do great things, but I didn’t, not in the time-bubble anyway.  I only helped a lot of other brilliant and hard-working people do great things.  A few of the goals we set for ourselves haven’t been met yet, but I’m sure they will be after the Hiliani time-bubble has resumed and run for it’s full duration.

“We made big advances in our ability to wage war against the demons.  We helped Hilsith with the research that led to her discovery of longevity and magic for every member of every major race on Kellaran.  And we’ve had a wonderful life for the last seven and a half years, but not an easy one.”