The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (70 page)

“I know that you fear the loss of your humanity, but you must trust me on this; the Ascension is a wonderful thing, and if you do it now, you’ll be glad you did.  If you wait the seven weeks, you’ll regret the lost time and the joy you denied yourself, and either way, you’ll laugh at your childish fears.

“Mark, I ask this as your friend.  Almost all of The Pantheon of Kellaran ask this of you most fervently, as do most of the Assembly of The Just Alliance.  If you do this now, it will vastly increase our ability to defeat the demons over waiting the seven weeks, which may save many lives, and much destruction.

“Please, make the Ascension now, and give your gift to the other candidates you’ve identified.  Here, tonight.”

Mark scowled and scratched his chin, and thought about it.  “I’m gonna have to ask my wife.  Wives.  And my family, and a few others.  Give us a few minutes.”

And with that, they disappeared.

He and his closest family and friends appeared on the private beach on Hilia.  It was a beautiful and comfortable night, with a slight breeze and a few clouds, and the moon Blenda was shining almost directly overhead.

Talia and Alilia were in his arms almost immediately.

“We support you, whatever you decide.” Alilia told him, and Talia nodded.

There was silence for a moment, and they only needed their natural empathy to feel him struggling with his decision.

“Father, may I know the results?”  Six asked.

“Sure.” Mark nodded, and psionicly passed him the identities that the selection spell had given him, as well as the shallow Reading he’d taken of them.

“Ah.  One hundred and forty-six potential gods.” Six mused.  “A hundred and forty-seven counting you, Father.  Half as many as there are gods right now, of Kellaran that is.  That seems like a lot, until you consider there are only that many out of about twelve billion thinking mortals on Kellaran.”

“And over half of them are waiting for us in The Hall of the Assembly.” Fire noted.  “Most of whom have already attended the Assembly before as rulers or senior wizards or generals or whatever.  It seems the cream really does rise to the top.”

“Ah, but notice some of those who are
not
at The Hall, some of whom are very obscure people from very obscure places!” Karzog pointed out.  “Especially
this
one, Dieb Selzeamtik!  She is a four-year old dwarf from a clan of ordinary shepherds, with no apparent unusual abilities, and no unusual training or influences at all!  There is no wizardry in her family for their entire recorded history!”

“Wow.  How will she and her family deal with her becoming a god?” Val wondered, and there was silence for a moment as they all considered that.

Mark took out the warlock’s power stone that contained his results from the brainstorming session.  He considered it a moment, then glanced around at those with him on the beach.  His wives and children, Kragorram, Povon, Karzog, Yazadril, Nemia, Hilsith, Silaran and Equemev.  The people he felt closest to.

“I’m just not ready.” he told them, sounding a little choked with emotion.  “I still live in a state of being half mind-boggled from all the changes in my life in the last few years.  And the changes in me.  I need a little time to enjoy it all for a last little while and get my courage up.  I’m just not ready to give up my mortality and become a god.  I feel a huge reluctance.  I need the seven weeks.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready then.

“On the other hand, Quewanak made some really good points.  It might save a lot of lives if I do it now.

“But the fact is, the last time Amirgath tested us for our Candidacy for Divinity he couldn’t find any dependencies.  Maybe that’s because their aren’t any now.  Your candidacies used to be dependent on me, but now I’ve figured out how to do it and put the spell for it in this stone.  Maybe now I can just cast it on someone, and not need to cast it on me first to do so.”

He gave them a quick, sheepish grin, and asked; “Any volunteers?”

After a second Yazadril stepped forward a pace.  “I’m ready, and filled with a powerful curiosity as to what it’ll be like.  Go ahead.”

“Can you do it while we hug him?” Nemia asked as she and Hilsith embraced him from either side, and he held them close.

“Sure, I don’t see why not.” Mark said with a nod as he concentrated on the stone.

They all held their breath as he held still and silent for fifteen seconds.

“Damn.  When I put the spell in the stone, I assumed that I’d cast it on me first, and I knew I’d be able to cast it on anyone else after that.  It’s set up so I can take it step by step without having to be in the big overpowered brainstorming Link to do it.  But unless my brain is that charged up and I’m in a Link that big and that good, I can’t modify the spell to be able to cast it on someone else first.”

“May I Father?” Val asked as she floated over and held her hand out for the stone.  “We have the brain-charging spell now, and with four of us in our Link, I might be able to figure it out.”

“Sure.  It’s the big one marked ‘God Spell’.” he told her as he handed it to her.

She concentrated on it for a moment, then frowned.  “There are now two spells that I’ve found that are so weird that I just can’t get it, they’re obviously closely related, and if I didn’t know better, I’d judge them to have been designed by The Triax.  They’re that weird.  The first was the blessing you made from Alilia’s curse, that can re-integrate you after you’ve been blasted to dust.  And there’s this.  Okay, now add the other thirteen spells in here that you did in the big Link after you separated from us.

“I mean wow, you really got stuff done after we separated the Link, Father!  This is beyond brilliant!  I mean really, I can’t even get what some of this stuff
does!
”

“Me neither.” Mark shrugged.  “I knew I’d understand them after I cast The God Spell, so I didn’t bother making them as easily usable when I’m not charged up.  It just goes to show that all the intelligence I got from the charge and the Link didn’t give me any extra wisdom.  I made a few short-sighted mistakes.  When I was that smart, it was too easy to forget how stupid I’d be normally, and I never anticipated changing my mind about how I was going to do this.”

“Well there’s one thing we
can
do for you that might solve this, and we couldn’t do it for many.” Val assured him with a smile.  “But I’m pretty sure we’ve got a good enough feel for you to do it for you, and you have the capability to use it.  We can give you the brain-charging spell.  It’s pretty safe, and it only works when you need it.”

“Hold on.  There’s some important issues that will need to be addressed.” Six briskly stated.  “The gods have a very longstanding policy that no god will exercise direct political rule or military command over mortals.  I don’t think any of them have ever done that, not even when their religions were powerful and influential.  No god was ever a king, or an empress.  Or even a prince.

“Yet many of your potential gods are presently rulers or senior members of ruling councils, including you, Mother, Alilia, Povon, Kragorram, Yazadril, Emeroth, Osbald, Senchak, Tithian, Somonik, and Empress Honey.

“So either gods must be allowed to be rulers, or we are about to experience the most sudden and complete political upheaval that this world has ever experienced.

“Now, it hasn’t been decided by the Assembly yet whether the winners of The Governors’ Tournament will actually get to rule, and if they do, we may have to deal with a political upheaval anyway.  And most of the best contestants are also on the potential gods list.

“One way or the other, unless gods are allowed to rule, Kellaran is about to lose most of it’s most capable and powerful leaders.

“And if it’s decided that gods
are
allowed to rule, then most of the existing gods should join the tournament, as I’ve said.  Though that would be changing a policy that’s been in place for hundreds of millions of years, as long as there’s been gods on Kellaran.  If it’s decided that gods will still not be allowed to rule mortal nations, then all your presently ruling candidates will have to abdicate in favor of their heirs or regents, and it’ll take a while to get all the transitions done and get things running smoothly again.  At the worst possible time.

“Furthermore, there are a lot a fairly important people in the time-bubbles right now, and they should have a chance for their voices to be heard on this.

“Besides, as you say, the new gods can have more time in more time-bubbles to get used to their new state.  If we all work together, old gods and new and us, I’m sure we can find practical ways to increase the ratio of extra time in the bubbles, and increase them in size, and do it with less of the gods’ resources.

“I suggest it should take at least seven weeks to fully decide these incredibly momentous issues. 

He paused with a triumphant grin.  “In conclusion, I am lodging a formal objection to the immediate Ascension of any ruling monarch or senior council member, including you, until these issues have been debated and decided by The Assembly and The Pantheon of Kellaran, in my official capacity as Governor of Hiliani.  For whatever that’s worth.”

Mark grinned.  “Thanks, Son.  That’s more than valid enough for me to delay the Ascension and satisfy my conscience about it, without having to admit to the world that I just don’t want to.”

“Anytime, Father.  For anything.” Six grinned.

“Thanks.  And by the way, which one of the prerequisites did you kids miss out on?”

“Well,” Fire interjected rather forcefully, “We got instantaneous interplanetary communication, instantaneous interplanetary Translocation, world-encompassing awareness and the mental capacity to use it in real time, true immortality, restoration of the dead, world threatening power, and multiple simultaneous manifestations.  And we’re really rather proud of it all.

“Freedom from physical manifestation is the only one we couldn’t get.  We think some of the gods can exist as pure energy, some can exist as an ongoing and self-powering psionic pattern, some can exist in the Translocation medium while projecting their consciousnesses here.  And they can do that without losing any of their other abilities, with no physical manifestation at all, then go back to being physical when they want to.  We couldn’t figure out how to do any of that, so we still need to have at least one physical body somewhere to anchor ourselves to, so to speak.

“We’re not sure about teaching all of that to a lot of people, or even announcing it to the public.  Mind you, The Prerequisites of Divinity aren’t exactly secret, so anyone who researches them knows most of what we figured out, they just won’t know which one we didn’t get.”

“Amazing.  So how do you know you’re not gods, since you’re only missing one prerequisite and you have other abilities of divine magnitude?”  Yazadril asked.

“Well, we haven’t made any real change in our state of being,” Fire explained, “Which seems to be a fundamental part of becoming a god, according to the literature.  We still breathe and bleed and sleep and so on.  There’s also the fact that to the gods, the Prerequisites are somewhat inherent abilities that they can call on at will at any time, the same way we can see and think.  They don’t have to consciously cast any spells to do any of that, they can just do it.  We still have to cast spells for it.”

“And we can’t restore someone from the dead unless we’ve taken a new and complete kind of Reading of them before they died.” Val added.  “And they’d be restored exactly like they were when we Read them, not like they were when they died, and they might be completely different by then.  It basically does the same kind of Restoration that your Blessing does, but it works completely different.  Ours isn’t as weird as yours.”

“I see.” Mark chuckled, almost bursting with pride and love for his children.  “Well as you said, you kids also really got stuff done in the Link.  Those are absolutely incredible accomplishments!”

They shared a quick hug, then Mark let them go with a nod and a smile.

“Let’s go back.  We’ve kept them waiting long enough.”

With that he Translocated himself back to the center of the podium, and the rest of them back to their place on the floor.

Quewanak was still waiting patiently for him on the dais.  Mark gave his answer.

“My son; Prince Markhan Reginus Longstrider the Sixth, Governor of Hiliani, has raised a valid objection to the immediate Ascension of any serving ruler or senior governing council member, on the following grounds…”

He laid out Six’s reasons and suggestions about the time-bubbles in simple points, and concluded with; “For these reasons, I’m going to stick to the schedule I announced earlier; one week after the time-bubbles end, the new gods will Ascend.

“I’m sure The Assembly will find practical solutions to the political quandary we find ourselves in.  Personally, I suggest we allow gods to serve as rulers.  The core of the new policy of the gods since the end of The War Of The Founding is that the gods are now citizens of The Just Alliance with the same rights as the rest of us, no more and no less.  Including the right to rule a nation, if their rule has legitimacy and they have the consent of the nation’s people.  I hope to continue as Prince of Hilia after my Ascension.

“I suggest we wait until a week after the other potential new gods and I have Ascended, and then hold The Tournament of Governors.  Let any enter the tournament who think they have the ability to provide us with the very best possible leadership, be they mortals or gods.  And then, if The Assembly and the people of The Just Alliance all want the winners to lead us until the war with the demons is over, then I suggest they be empowered to do so.

“Now it’s been suggested that this huge gathering might become a huge celebration, and we definitely have things worth celebrating.  But The Assembly of The Just Alliance may want to convene to discuss or decide some of the issues that’ve been raised before we all start to party.”

Somonik and Amirgath appeared on the dais beside him.

“We think not.” Amirgath stated.  “You will not bring the new gods to Ascension for seven weeks.  We need to decide whether gods can rule before we schedule the tournament, so we will know whether to include gods as participants, both new and old.  No decisions need to be made immediately, and the issues that have been raised will require discussion among smaller groups before they are ready to be debated by the full Assembly.