The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (11 page)

“Reggie and Helemia have found their own way to escape the confinement of the womb, and like my use of Force, their psionics are completely inherent and intuitive.  And so far as I know, they are the only babies to have ever used psionics before birth, though I would not be surprised to find the phenomenon among the unicorns.  Perhaps we should have expected that the babies would go exploring, psionicly speaking.  If they had chosen to do so in the day, we would have been awake and would have dealt with it before it became a problem.  It was quite a stroke of bad luck that even Povon and Kragorram were asleep, considering draconian sleeping habits.

“As it is, this will have many repercussions.  As my mother had to do, we will need to make sure that one of us is awake and monitoring the children whenever Talia is asleep.

“Now, I don’t remember my adventures in my mother’s womb; my first memories are from when I was just less than two years old.  But there is no doubt that those experiences had an effect on me, and helped shape my development.

“Similarly, I doubt that the twins will retain any conscious memory of their experiences tonight.  But I am sure that they will be affected.  They may retain some of the character and qualities of Kragorram’s mind, especially Reggie, which would probably not be a bad thing.

“The Sylvan that Helemia attacked is quite another matter.  The Sylvan that are here on these islands lack even the minimum of restraint that Zarkog imposed on Serminak, let alone the civilizing influence of the vow of justice.  They still believe that might makes right, and that they have the right to do whatever they have the power to do.  They have no inhibitions against violence, torture, and killing, not from the day they’re born.  And every individual among them still believes, with all of their evil little hearts, that it is their own personal eventual destiny to conquer the world and enslave the rest of us under the iron fist of their tyranny.

“This is not an influence that would be good for your children, to say the least.  We’ll have to make certain that we counter that influence, particularly in Helemia, and shape it into something positive.  I suggest you do that by giving both of your twins complete access to your minds, as they had complete access to Kragorram and the Sylvan’s, and that you do so as often as possible.  This will have the side effect of further accelerating their mental development, which may create it’s own problems, but that’s a better choice than risking them ending up thinking like an unsworn Sylvan.

“I must admit to feeling a bit lucky that this happened.  Talia, your family is known for strength in the power, as is mine, and yours is known for intellectual ability, mine for intuitive ability.  But you and I and our families are not known for particularly noteworthy psionic abilities, among the elves at least.  I think it’s safe to assume that your children have inherited their psionic ability from Mark, and so it’s likely that my daughter will also share those abilities.”

She paused and smiled and caressed her own tummy, which had not begun to swell yet, before she continued.

“Forewarned is forearmed, and I’ll certainly be monitoring her psionics constantly, even when I’m asleep, from now on.”

“Thanks Alilia, that’s good thinking.” Mark chuckled as he gave her a one-armed hug.  “With the way you act around us lately, and the way you look, it’s easy to forget how incredibly capable and experienced you are, in every way.  I’m glad you’re with us in this.

“And I think you’re right about countering the Sylvan’s influence, and the effects of the twins’ experiences tonight.  Not even born, and they’ve already faced combat and pain.  I still can’t believe they broke Kragorram’s mental Shields, even if he
was
asleep!  Since Quewanak’s training, I know he’s got some of the best shielding I’ve ever encountered!”

“It is indeed amazing.” Alilia smiled.  “Raising exceptional children can be more challenging, but it’s definitely more rewarding as well.  Bezedil was a handful and then some, but I’ve loved every minute I’ve spent with him.  And there’s little doubt that yours are the most exceptional children ever conceived.  With the possible exception of myself, of course.” she added with a giggle.

“Gods, I marvel to consider what your daughter will be like!” Talia laughed.  “I mean after all, I know that Mark is truly the exceptional one in our mating, not me!  As you say, it’s likely his blood that’s given the twins their amazing abilities, not mine, and you’re the only female I know of who’s almost as exceptional as he is!  It boggles my mind to think of the abilities she might have!”

“I know.” Alilia nodded.  “It’s both thrilling and worrisome to consider the possibilities.”

Mark’s face firmed in concentration.  “We need a spell to monitor all three of them constantly, so if they develop any new abilities, or more importantly, if they
use
any new abilities, we’ll know about it right away.  Unfortunately, I don’t have anything that does that specifically, and I’m still really crappy at designing new spells.  I can copy anyone else’s spells with no effort, but when it comes to making any new ones, I’m still no better at it than most other wizards with less than a year of experience.”

“Ah.” Alilia smiled.  “Well I for one learned a great deal about curses, blessings, and other automated spells from Povon after you all underwent Quewanak’s training.  And with that knowledge firmly in mind, and with my own intuitive ability, I can design a spell such as you’ve described by doing little more than wanting to do it.

“Here.  What do you think of it?” she giggled as she held her cupped hand palm up, and a tiny but intense blue light appeared in it.

“Gods!  What is it?” Talia asked as she squinted a bit from the brightness of it.

“It’s an uncast blessing, or a beneficial automated spell in the new terminology you’ve introduced, complete with the power required to cast it.”

“That’s amazing!” Mark marveled as he considered it with his sense of magic.  “I mean, it’s a very nice spell for sure, but beyond that I’ve never heard of anyone making any spell manifest like that without actually casting it, or casting it into an object at least!”

“Neither have I, actually.” Alilia agreed.  “I may have invented that technique just now, so I could show you the spell before I cast it on our children.  I suppose I didn’t have to; you both could have checked my work psionicly before I cast it.  But it was a spontaneous thing, like all of my best work.”

“And like all
my
best work, I can copy what you’ve done.” Mark laughed, holding out his hand and casting two more of the blue lights in it.

“Bah, you’re being ridiculously humble again.” Talia grinned as she considered the beauty of the uncast spells.  “You invented more groundbreaking new spellcraft on the day you dealt with the curse and saved Dalia and Bezedil than most wizards come up with in their entire lifetimes!”

“And I notice you didn’t cast those with Talia’s elven wizard power.” Alilia pointed out.  “Those are cast with your own power from the second source.  They’re warlock’s spells.  Amazing how you’ve still matched the power cost exactly.

“Be careful when you cast them.  This is not to be cast on my daughter directly, since I don’t think it would be wise to cast
any
spells on our children directly.  Who knows what it could lead to?  So anyway, I will cast this on my own womb, to monitor my child within, and you will cast those on Talia’s womb.”

“Ah, I see that now, now that I consider it.” Talia nodded.  “That’s very good thinking too, by the way, about not casting anything on our children.”

“Thank you.” Alilia smiled, and the bright spark in her hand floated down to her belly and disappeared.

Mark’s brow furrowed in concentration.  “Talia, could you help me with this?  I’m trying to make sure that one of these is attuned to Reggie and the other to Helemia, so we know right away which one of them is doing it if they do anything.  But I’m having a bit of trouble with it, and you know them a lot better than I do.”

Talia deepened her Link with him to share his thoughts and sensations directly.

Alilia joined them in that.  “Hmm.  I’d have thought the effort would be un-necessary, since the two of them are almost one mind anyway.  But despite their constant and complete Linking, they’re developing their own individualities quite nicely.  Moreso since their little adventure tonight, I see.”

“There.  Go ahead.” Talia said, and Mark let the two spells drift down and disappear within her.

They cuddled and silently considered the twins with all their senses, and all their love.  Then Alilia broadened their awareness to include her daughter, who was still just an invisibly tiny ball of life, only four weeks since her conception.  But they loved her just the same.

The next morning they were visited by Hilsith, Yazadril, and Nemia, who joined them for breakfast.

After hugs and greetings and placing extra settings at the table, Hilsith opened the conversation.  “The Sylvan is sedated, and with our continued treatment he will likely recover.  Eventually.”

“We’ve Read him rather thoroughly.  His name is Vanakit Lamitkeze, and he’s quite an individual.” Yazadril added.  “For one thing, he’s over eight hundred years old, which is rare in a Sylvan.  He’s also one of the most formidable warriors and wizards of that race I’ve ever met.  It seems their God of Stealth has imposed his own culture on them for the last few thousand years, and it includes not allowing the adults to kill one another.  Since they’ve had this culture for far longer than a Sylvan’s lifespan, or what we
thought
was their lifespan, they’ve had time to learn that a Sylvan can live a lot longer than we thought.  So long as they’re not killing each other, that is.  No doubt Zarkog would have discovered the same, if he’d had time.

“The eldest Sylvan on these islands is over three thousand years old, and is certainly the most formidable member of her race.  Many of them are older than the nine hundred years we thought they could live, and have had the time to become far more capable than any of the Sylvan from Serminak.

“However, their young still slay one another regularly, which winnows out the weak and keeps their population in check.  Which is lucky, since their females have a child every fifteen months on the average, century after century.

“They live by hunting, gathering, and fishing, and their homes are made in hollows in trees; like primitive versions of elven homes.  Their god hides them and all their artifacts from detection from all others, and from any animal.  It makes hunting a very easy activity, apparently.  They practice being stealthy with fanatical devotion as well, to hide from one another and to impress the god.  Though the adults don’t kill each other, they live in a constant state of anarchy and warfare, with ever-shifting factions competing for status, power, and their god’s favor.  Though killing each other is forbidden among the adults, wounding, maiming, and torturing one another are quite acceptable.

“Their homes are all on the big island on the north-west edge of Hiliani, almost as far from here as they could be.  The one in our infirmary was only so close because he was scouting us.  They’ve been aware of us since the first day we were here.  Their god, whose name they don’t know, told them to leave us alone, and left before the time-bubble went up.  I imagine he didn’t want to be trapped in here for twenty-four years.  But the Sylvan here don’t know why he left, and they’re not aware of the time-bubble.  He just told them he’d be gone for a score of years, and left.”

“We had Povon consult with us on his Healing, since we considered her to be our resident expert on Sylvan, due to her recent experience as Dragon Lord Regent of Serminak.” Hilsith said between bites of flat-cakes.  “She was a great help too.

“They’ll be dropping by after breakfast to discuss last night’s events, her and Kragorram and Karzog, that is.  She says Kragorram is fine, by the way, though he has some lingering symptoms, on which she would not elaborate.

“I’d expect Yzell to be by after breakfast as well, since we’ll definitely want to examine the babies after their experience.”

“Ah.” Talia nodded, finishing a mouthful of fruit juice.  “We expected that, and we certainly have some interesting things to tell you about it, but we might as well wait until they all get here.”

“It’s starting to snow.” Mark commented after a glance outside.  “Let’s have them meet us at the hall.  We can be out of the weather without having us all crowded in here.”

The walk to the meeting hall was enjoyable and pretty, with big puffs of snow gently drifting down between the trees through still air.

They were met by Povon and Kragorram, who’d brought young Karzog, and by Yzell and Theramin, who had their six children with them, including their baby.

The dragons were playing; Povon and Kragorram crouched about twenty meters apart, and carefully tossed Karzog back and forth between them.  The elves watched this and smiled, their young with grinning fascination.

Like all Dragons, Karzog’s wings were too small to support him in flight; they were just big enough that he could make a controlled descent from a great height and still land slowly enough to avoid injury most of the time.  His inherent magical abilities of Levitation and Self-Movement were starting to have a weak effect, but were still a little erratic, and he beat his wings as hard as he could as he learned to control himself in flight.  He was having great fun, and for the first time, he was obviously using a Draconian-to-human translation and communications spell, since he was grinning widely.  Occasionally he let out a little puff of yellow fire and black smoke to vent the heat of his exertions.

After about fifteen more minutes of that he was tuckered out and panting hard, and clung to Povon as he caught his breath.

During that time it seemed word had spread that something was happening at the hall, and almost everyone in the community had gathered there, and watched the dragons playing.

“Thanks for your patience.” Kragorram smiled as they relaxed and lounged on the soft carpeted floor.  “That’s the first time Karzog has truly felt the urge to fly, so we could not deny him.”