The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (103 page)

“They almost never stay long enough to poison a world completely with their excrement and their breath and their very presence, until all life there is completely exterminated, including the most invisibly tiny.  The life of such worlds never recovers, though it is likely that new life would develop there in one to two billion years, if the conditions for it persist.

“And that is all we know of the demons, beyond what we have learned of them directly by fighting them.  It is meager intelligence, and was difficult to get.

“When we learned of what had happened here over seven million years ago, we were very concerned, and still are.  It was unheard of for us that a force of demons had arrived through a Gate, and had modified a few individuals from one of your races in order to create a new race that was obedient to them and more to their liking.

“We have encountered hordes of demons with more than enough power to be very dangerous to all of Kellaran and all of us here together, but we have never seen them do what the demons here did.

“It is worth noting that less than one world in ninety-seven with intelligent life successfully resists the demons’ attack.

“We have also never before found the demons to wait so long before returning to a world where they had been defeated and driven off.  We have found few cases where a world successfully resisted the demons, and in all but one of those few cases the demons were defeated completely and killed to the last individual.  In all the cases but one where a horde were driven away, it was with our assistance.  The demons have yet to return to the one world that drove them away without our assistance, other than this one, but that was relatively recent, and we have no doubt that they will go back there.

“They usually return to a world they have been driven away from in less than a million years, and always with far more power than they had the first time they were there.  On three occasions they have succeeded on their second attempt in destroying a world and the outpost we left close by to protect it.  On about half of the rest of their second attempts they were driven away again, and on the other half they were killed to the last.  They have yet to return to a world where they have been defeated twice, but we think they will if they can, eventually.  A world full of life is too great a prize for them to ignore indefinitely, and they hate to let one of their defeats stand unavenged.

“With all of these factors in the balance, the nature of the demons we will soon face here is a worrying unknown.”

Six bowed to First Mauve and told her; “Thank you.  It was bothering me being so ignorant of our enemy, and it feels good to know what is known, even if it isn’t that useful right now.”

“I think it’s time for us to be going home.” Mark announced with a smile.  “Thanks again for these awards, and be well until we meet next time.”

Those all around returned his thanks and farewells, then Fire brought them home to Hilia at her psionic request.

“Well that was interesting.” Alilia commented as she stretched luxuriously.

“It was, especially when I was trying to have a serious conversation with a Triax god while my sister was acting like a clown!” Six stated as he gave Fire a playful shove on her shoulder.

She simply went with it, turning his force into a graceful leap-roll-spring-pirouette sequence, and laughed.  “It just struck me that we’re all orbiting, as The Triax say, and we might as well be falling for all the difference that up and down make that far out in the void.  But everyone was acting like they still had weight; keeping the soles of their feet or their bottom sides pointed toward Kellaran.  And I wondered if it would be disorienting if I just slowly spun in random directions in the void, or just floated there with a different orientation than everyone else.  It wasn’t really, disorienting that is, but it was fun.”

“The fun part was watching Six trying to ignore you!” Karz laughed.

“I love that you children can be so nonchalant about it all.” Kragorram smiled as he gave Karz an affectionate scratch on the back.  “But I want to thank you all for including me in the casting of the Gate.  Moving the Triax fleet was in many ways the greatest act of magic ever achieved by any Kellarani, and I’m proud to have taken part.”

“Me too.” Mark chuckled as he put his arm around Talia and admired the impending sunset.  “But I think we’ve been spending too much time lately being told how wonderful we are, and by each other as often as by everyone else.  Let’s try to avoid that for a few hours.”

“Well then, how would you all like to go hunting with me?” Kragorram offered in a sudden change of subject.  “It’s an activity that dragons only share with their closest family and companions, and we’ve never hunted together, and it’s time we did.”

“Besides, all three of us dragons are genuinely hungry.” Povon pointed out as she licked her lips and grinned.  “We’ve had too many snacks with you small folk, and haven’t hunted in weeks.  We’ll hunt something you’ll find tasty, like wild cattle in the mountain valleys of western Debivin, and we’ll save you the choicest parts and roast them to your liking.”

“That sounds fun!” Talia agreed.  “While you’re roasting we can fetch the rest of what’s needed for a good picnic supper, and make an occasion of it!”

And so they did.  The dragons hunted while the rest flew along and watched.  They caught seven cattle without missing a strike, using only their inherent abilities.

On a five hundred kilogram wild buffalo there is only two and a half kilos of choicest, tenderest, tenderloin roast, but one was all that was needed to feed Mark and his wives and children.  As Povon promised, she roasted it for them to a perfect medium-rare condition with her own fire, and Talia and Alilia seasoned it with a careful dusting of herbs, spices, and sea-salt.  Mark ordered the rest of the meal from a restaurant in Belinhome, Finitra, choosing some of his favorite dishes from his childhood.  And it was all delicious.

Some families might have found it incongruous to be relaxing on a big blanket and enjoying a summer night’s cook-out beside three huge dragons who were tearing and crunching their way through seven fresh cattle carcasses, but Alilia unobtrusively blocked the smell of offal and entrails, and they paid no mind to the rest of it.

When they were all finished they all lay on their backs together and gazed up at the millions of stars for almost half an hour, then watched the sun come up only an hour and a half after they’d watched it setting in Hilia.

The exercise for Kellaran’s Strike Wizards, remote fighters, and most powerful spell-casters was much like the contest for the dragon-forts on Blenda.  The Strike Wizards fought as if they were channeling the power of almost all the magic-users on Kellaran, but the multitudes whose power they cast were all simulated by the gods.

Surprisingly, the exercise for the most powerful mortals and the gods of both pantheons was not that dissimilar.  A Strike Wizard channeling the power of six hundred million Kellarani could strike with as much raw power as the average god of Kellaran, after all.

The use of the sun-Gate attack made a huge difference in the Strike Wizard’s exercise, less so in the gods’ exercise, but it still allowed the powerful Mortals who took part to be as destructive as the gods.  In both cases they faced so many DemonLords that the enemy were able to vent the power of the sun’s surface baking their rock long enough for them to Translocate out, and they were quick enough that it was difficult to target them individually.

The goal of both exercises was to destroy all the demons and all the tunnels and passages in the nation-sized rock they inhabited, though the capabilities of the demons differed in each exercise.  In both exercises the demons triumphed; they lost a smaller portion of their combative power than their opponents and were still fighting strongly at the end of twenty-four hours of continuous simulated warfare, at which time the exercises were ended.

Three days after the first exercise they did with the gods, Mark’s family were enjoying an early morning swim among the reefs outside the cove of The Royal Beach when the on-duty Assistant Communications Director of Hilia contacted Talia with a Speaking. 
“Princess Talia, you have a visitor; Tanala of The High People.”

“Send her down please.”
Talia responded as she Translocated back to the beach, then informed her family.

They joined her on the beach, where she was dying herself and re-arranging her hair.

“This is a bit strange.” she commented.  “Tanala is only thirteen years old, a daughter of one of my mother’s cousins.  I only met her a few times so I barely know her.  She wasn’t from First Valley, I’m not even sure where in The Nine Valleys she’s from.  She was quite talented though, especially in music and wizardry.”

A young blond elven girl wearing sturdy traveling clothes ran onto the beach from the path to the Translocation circle beside the foot of the cliff.  She ran over to within two meters of Talia and stopped as she looked around at the rest of them, appearing distraught and unsure what to do, not knowing if she should curtsey or follow some unknown royal protocol.  “Thank you for seeing me Princess Talia, I’m Tanala, do you remember me?  I didn’t know who else to go to!” she blurted in a panic.

“Of course I remember you Tanala, you wore a pretty pink and white dress at my wedding to Mark when we last met.” Talia assured her with a warm and reassuring smile as she held her arms out to the girl.  “Now come give me a hug and tell me what’s wrong.  Start from the beginning.”

The girl ran into her arms and hugged her tightly for a moment, then the story came out in a babbling rush.  “My mother and my aunts and my grandmother sent me to Bhia to buy diamonds to store spells and power in because there’s none left to be had in any of the elven lands of Debivin nor in Finitra or northern Thon and they sent me because I’m good at the Translocation and they were busy.

“But when I got to the diamond merchant’s shop he was just sitting there in a chair like he was tranced, mumbling to himself and sometimes waving his hands a little and sometimes humming a bit in a very strange way.  I waited for him to notice me, then I walked right up to him but he still didn’t do anything, so I said; ‘Excuse me, I’d like to buy some diamonds?’, and he just waved his hand and an obvious Illusion of a human woman appeared behind the counter and asked if she could help me.  So I bought the diamonds and asked what was wrong with the merchant, and the Illusion said that it was just a casting of Valentia’s Work Spell, and that it regretted that it was unable to answer my question.

“He was really making me feel very strange, so I cast Detect Spells on him, and sure enough, he was totally entranced by the scariest spell I’ve ever seen!  It was like a million spells, all of them changing all the time, and it was right into his mind!  It was so strange that I couldn’t figure out anything that it was doing!  And it was so powerful that I got scared it was going to kill me for checking on it, so I nulled my Detect Spells right away, I only had it on him for a second but it made me pretty scared.

“So I went outside and flew down the street, and the spell had everyone!  I mean
everyone
, everyone in the whole city!  I got to a park and there were hundreds of humans there, all of them as entranced as the diamond merchant except the youngest children, who were being cared for by Valentia’s Work Spells while their parents sat uncaring.

“One of the humans there was a city guard, and I knew he was on duty because he had all his armor and weapons on, and he was as entranced as all the rest, but I thought that I might get him to talk to me because he’s a city guard and it’s his duty to help people.  So I asked him what was wrong with everyone, but he just laughed at me really nasty and said; ‘Nothing.  Don’t distract anyone.’  He said it like he was angry at me for asking him, then he went back to his mumbling.  He never stopped staring blankly at nothing the whole time.

“I was getting really scared then, so I started looking around for someone who wasn’t entranced, anyone at all.  But it has everyone.  Almost everyone is sitting and doing nothing, and those who are doing what’s necessary, like eating or bathing or even sleeping, they do it in a daze, still mumbling or humming or waving their arms a little, most even when they’re asleep.

“I went to the palace of the king of Bhia, and it was the same there.  A guard spell at the gate checked my Marking for my identity and to confirm that I was sworn to justice, and that was it.  The guards ignored me and just let me fly right in without a word.  I went right into the king’s private chambers, and all his guards and staff let me do it, all of them entranced and stupid.  The king himself sat eating his supper, staring at nothing and waving his free hand in the air.  I came right up in front of him, and he ignored me.

“I didn’t know what to do.  I’d have gone to Prince Yazadril right away, but he’s in a time-bubble, and Senior Wizard Theramin is off in the elvenlands of Felion somewhere.  I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I came here and told you.”

As Tanala was telling her story, Mark’s children were having trouble not laughing out loud, as was Mark a bit, and only Talia’s mild glare of irritation over Tanala’s shoulder had prevented them.

But as the elven girl finished her story, Val couldn’t help but giggle.

“It’s okay, nothing is wrong…” Talia assured her before Val interrupted her.

“Please let me handle this, Mother Talia.” Val smiled as she laid her hand on Tanala’s shoulder, then addressed the girl.  “The spell is mine, and it’s not harming anyone, though I may have overdone it with the motivational components.  Here, show me where the guard you spoke to is, and we’ll settle it.”

She Read Tanala’s surface thoughts as the girl recalled talking to the guard, then Translocated with her, taking her right out of Talia’s arms.

They appeared in the park in Bhia.  The guard was still where he had been, sitting on a low wall near the center of the park.  Val gave him a sharp palm strike on the shoulder of his armor, almost knocking him off the wall.