The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (104 page)

“Hey!  What do you think you’re…” he began in angry protest before Val cut him off.

“Just because you’re busy studying doesn’t mean you can be rude to visitors to your city, and you’re still on duty!!” Val scolded him.  “Now tell this girl what you and all these people are doing.”

“It’s you!  What an honor!  I’m…” the guard stammered upon recognizing her, then stopped as Mark and the rest of his family Translocated in around them, dragons included.  He swallowed hard as he recognized them.

“Tell her!” Val demanded, stomping her foot a bit to add emphasis to her insistence.

“We’re all learning to be wizards.” he stammered.  “We all got the power from The Transformation of Hilsith, and now Valentia’s Magic Education is teaching us to use it.

“I’m sorry I was rude before, but I don’t see how you could not know about this, so I thought you were just being rude about how elves don’t need to do this.  And the magic lessons are so fascinating, it’s really irritating to be needlessly interrupted.”

“Oh!” Tanala responded in surprise.

“There.  I’m Valentia, by the way.” Val said with a grin as she took Tanala’s hand and shook it.  “But I’m called Val.  I only use my full name when I’m naming spells.”

“I know.” Tanala smiled as she shook in return.

“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure.” Val grinned as she looked around at all the pre-occupied people.

A few of them had looked up and smiled when the group Translocated in, but then they went back to their studies.  The guard, seeing that his attention was no longer required, had already returned to his.

“The Nine Valleys is obviously still pretty isolated in some ways, or you’d have known about this.” Val continued.  “There also must not be a single person in The Nine Valleys over the age of ten with less skill as a wizard than a Smingan Journeyman, or they’d have gotten my Education spell too.”

“There isn’t, not since they accelerated everyone’s magic schooling there.” Tanala proudly told her.  “The Nine Valleys has always had the best wizards and the best magic schools of any nation on Kellaran, and we’ve intensified everything since we learned of the demons.  There wasn’t even a single one of us who was weak enough to benefit from The Transformation of Hilsith.”

“Wow, that
is
impressive.” Val nodded with a raised eyebrow.

“Yup.  And that’s still so, even though we lost a lot of our best talent to Hilian service the night Mark married Talia.  And it’s sure not that we’re not proud of the High People in Hilia’s service, but when a nation with less than three thousand loses over a hundred of their best, it makes a difference.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go home.  I’m running late now, and my mother will be calling me any second now to see what’s taking me so long.”

“Give her our fond regards.” Talia told her with a smile.

“I will.” Tanala smiled in return, and gave her a quick spontaneous hug.  “And I’m sorry for bothering you for nothing.”

“You did the right thing, considering what you experienced and not knowing about the Education Spell.” Talia assured her.  “If there truly had been a problem, you might have saved all these people by bringing word.”

“Thanks.  Bye now.” Tanala blushed, and was gone.

There was a silence for a moment, broken only by the mutterings of hundreds of people all around them, then Mark spoke.  “Well, I’ve done a quick check on everything in the city and they’re all doing fine, everyone’s well-fed and taking good care of themselves, beyond the reduction in their exercise and activity.  The basics of commerce are still flowing as they should.  The parents study for twelve hours per day and care for their young for five, and the Work Spell seems to do a good job of babysitting, so even the children are all right.

“But I sure understand why Tanala thought something was wrong here.  This is very strange and spooky, the way everyone in the nation is like this.”

“Less than one in a thousand of this nation’s people were wizards before Hilsith’s spell.” Alilia mused.  “And the wizards they did have were generally poorly trained, which is why all of them at this moment are at the court of Prince Jaromer of Thon for further training.”

“Which explains why none of them were available to notice Tanala.” Mark nodded.  “Anyway, as weird as this is, it appears there’s nothing that needs to be done here.”

“As you said, Sister, we may have overdone it a bit on the motivational aspects of the Education.” Fire laughed.  “But they’ll be glad of it when they’re finished as soon as they will be.  Good work.”

“Thanks.” Val grinned, and took a last look around.  “Well, I was only half done swimming, then there’s breakfast, and then I’d like to go over the deployments again.”

“Right.” Mark grinned, and brought them home.

Three days later the first universal-participation military exercise was held.

Every civilian participated in attack drills that day, evacuating the surface and going to the deepest and safest bunkers and barracks, or reporting to their militias.  Defenders stocked supplies, checked their fortifications, and manned them to repel invaders.  All the new and as-yet untrained wizards supplied power to the Strike Wizards, and every fighter from every nation fought, as did the gods, all of The Triax, and most of their gods.  All of the aquatic races were included, and for the first time, waves of tens of thousands of Kellarani voidcraft rose from the shipyards of Serminak to join the fray.  Beyond those in the time-bubbles, the only thinking beings who didn’t participate in the exercise in some way were the Triax gods who were running it and two Kellarani gods who helped them monitor it, and who made the announcement to Kellaran that it was about to begin.

There had been a public declaration made two days prior, to the effect that such an exercise would be held soon, and that all had best prepare for it.  But no specific time had been given, there were no command meetings held before it began, no outline of the goals of the exercise or the strength of the enemy had been given by the organizers, no muster had been called.  Almost none of the militias’ personnel were at their duty posts.

The only warning that it was about to begin was the unignorable psionic announcement that was heard by absolutely everyone;
“The first universal-participation military exercise and drill is about to begin.  The attacks you are about to experience are not real.  This is an exercise.”

In the next moment, Kellaran and the worldlets of The Triax were attacked by billions of greater and lesser demons and thousands of Demon-Lords.  They appeared above every major city, the DemonLords and greater demons holding the airspace and casting cataclysmic spells at bridges, dams, and other major infrastructure, while the lesser demons attacked the city and tried to breach the defenses to get at the non-combatants.  They appeared in the oceans, surrounding and attacking the cities of the aquatic races.  And their great nation-sized rock appeared in orbit around Kellaran on the same path as the Triax fleet and only a hundred and seventy kilometers ahead of them.

“I have the Command Link!”
Somonik announced to all of Kellaran, his psionic ability boosted by Quewanak.  In less than three seconds contact was made with First Aquamarine, The Triax God of Power and supreme military commander of his people, and information as to the demons’ deployment was gathered from all over Kellaran and was shared around to all the commanders, areas of responsibility were assigned, and the forces of Kellaran deployed and began their counter-attack.

In the void, titanic batteries of energy weapons were fired by the worldlets of The Triax at the demon’s rock, where the attack ports of the demons returned fire with equal cataclysm.  Millions of warcraft with crews of from one to thousands of individuals emerged from the Triax worldlets to battle the billions of demons who surrounded them.

A great deal of the battling that day was between matched fighters; the gods and most powerful spell casters sought out the DemonLords, the Strike Wizards and remote fighters sought out the greater demons, while soldiers and militia were left with the lesser demons.  But there were frequent occasions where a god would find himself free of DemonLords long enough to launch a devastating strike against the lesser demons, likewise the DemonLords were able to launch occasional successful attacks against armies and civilians that killed hundreds of thousands at a time.

Initially everyone fought the demons closest to themselves, but as the fortunes of the individual battles ebbed and flowed, some forces from areas that were doing well against the demons were transferred to places that were not faring as well.  Six and Kragorram’s armada of voidcraft were soon assigned to helping The Triax in the void, where they were found to be most effective.  Some of the smaller Triax craft were assigned to Kellaran as pin-point ground-attack forces, since their extreme-distance marksmanship was capable of killing a single demon from hundreds of kilometers away.

As the day went on there were warriors from the aquatic races fighting in the air above Kellaran and in the void, and soldiers from the surface races fighting demons deep beneath the oceans.  Units were assigned to wherever their unique abilities made them most effective, and by the time nine hours of warfare had passed, only a minority were fighting in the same place where they’d started.  After twelve hours many of the allied forces were so mixed that they looked like a menagerie.

Sometimes the sudden appearance of an alien-looking ally was so startling, and the variety of forms that the demons took was so many, that the only thing that prevented some allies from accidentally killing each other was the Command Link telling them who was friend or foe.

Mark and his family didn’t hold back.  They fought as a team and unleashed all their power, they commanded their forces remotely while taking themselves to the most intense battle zones available, they resurrected themselves and each other on the frequent occasions when they were killed.  And while they were doing all that they had independent automated spells casting great collection fields near the sun and using the power to launch automated attacks against the demons.

These independent demon-killers constantly duplicated themselves and accumulated, and eventually they turned the tide against the demons.  After eighteen hours it became obvious that the demons were losing, and an hour after that it was announced that they were all dead.  Though a third of the population of Kellaran were dead and half their structures were destroyed, and The Triax had lost a quarter of their population and two of their worldlets, the allies were triumphant.

For a very long minute, everyone manically celebrated the news of their victory.  Then suddenly, everything was back to being as is had been just before the exercise was announced; everyone was hale and back at the locations they’d been in then, and nothing had been destroyed.

“As some of you are now realizing, the exercise which was just concluded was psionicly simulated, and only seven seconds passed in real time.”
Quewanak announced to the Kellarani as First Mauve announced the same to The Triax. 
“You all fought exceptionally well.  But be prepared for the next exercise, which could occur at any time.  Your preparations in real life, or lack of them, will be reflected in the exercise.

“Until then, be well.”

Mark and his family found themselves in the Hilian throneroom where they’d been when the exercise began, around them were the Hilians they’d been talking to about the state of the nation and the lives of its people, and with them was Pakdag.

The glowering human wargod wasted no time on niceties.  “You fought very well.  You have shown us what you can truly do.  But your casting of the independent attack spells served no part of providing useful training today, beyond your practicing to cast a great many of them while simultaneously fighting one battle and commanding a few more.  I suggest you perform that practice on your own time, for if you attempt to use them in the next general exercise, you will find that they do not work.”

With that he was gone.

“Huh.” Mark went as he shook his head a bit.  “Well I don’t care if it was only seven seconds in real time, I’m exhausted, mentally if not physically.  I’m going to bed.”

“We’ll see you later.” Povon said, and the dragons vanished.

Mark and his family walked up the many stairs to the cottage.  They could have taken the Plane Door, but for the first time, none of them felt like doing anything by magic.  They bathed and dressed and brushed their hair completely by hand, then went to bed.

Four days later, the next exercise was held.  In that exercise, over what seemed like three days of warfare, the demons won.  The worldlets of The Triax were destroyed first and forced down to fall onto the world below, causing apocalyptic damage. That left the demons free to concentrate on attacking what remained of Kellaran amidst the damage they’d caused.  All the cities and larger towns of Kellaran were completely destroyed, as was half the wilderness and farmland and all the population within it.  The worldlets that fell into the sea ensured that coasts and the civilizations of the aquatic peoples were totally devastated.  Every thinking mortal being was killed except the few who could restore or resurrect themselves when most of their bodies had been obliterated.  Five Triax gods and two Kellarani gods had been killed by a tear in reality, a Triax god was eaten by a DemonLord, and fifty-three gods from both pantheons were temporarily incapacitated by traumatizing psionic attacks.

The organizers admitted afterwards that had it continued, the few surviving gods and mortals would have eventually triumphed over the remaining demons.  But that was considered to be a moot point once almost all the mortals were dead, so they ended the exercise at that point.

The exercises after that occurred with regularity every two days, and the simulated demons won about half of them.

With a day and a half remaining before the time-bubbles were due to be opened, Mark and Talia and Alilia rose suddenly in the middle of the night and rushed into their children’s room.  They each picked up one of their children, sat on the edge of the bed and held them tightly, and quietly cried.