The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (26 page)

“I hate them Father.” Reggie stated grimly.  “We’ve relived a lot of Somonik’s memory of the first demon war, with enough fidelity to feel like we were there.  The demons are the worst thing in reality.  They’re pure evil, there’s not a trace of good in them anywhere.  They were so mean and so foul and so intentionally horrifying…  Well anyway they were.  Even if they never hurt any of us or The Triax, that won’t matter to me.  I’ll still want to kill them to get revenge for everything they did here before.”

“I see.” Mark nodded again.

“You’re not answering his question.” Helemia told Reggie with some intensity.  “Was vengeance part of the prophecy?  I think it was.  I’ve Read myself for when you got it, and I got it from you when you got it.  If you do the same, you’ll see that there was an emotion to it.  I could almost feel the emotion of killing them, and it felt like revenge.

“And besides,” she continued to Mark, “I hope that we get them all before they can hurt any of us too, but we all know that we’d have to be unbelievably lucky for that to happen.  Maybe they
are
just a wandering horde of minor demons making their way through the void, who don’t know about the other demons that got beat here before.  The Triax said they attacked a helpless world with no thinking people on the way here, which I think kind of goes with the ‘wandering horde’ idea.

“But we don’t believe it for a second.”  She paused and looked around, meeting every eye there with the strange intensity of her gaze.  “Me an’ Reggie are pretty certain that the demon homeworld sent this horde to get revenge for us beating the last one, and so are all of you.  They’re coming through the void because we already know how to wreck the gate they used to get here last time.  And if that’s the case, I doubt there’s even one minor demon in that rock.  It’ll be full of billions of greater demons and those DemonLords that The Triax told us about.  It doesn’t make sense to bring any weaklings along for all that way, unless they need ‘em for food.  And I doubt that’s the case, since they just ate a whole world on the way here.

“And we think we’re all being incredibly stupid.  That is, Reggie and I can’t believe we’re all just waiting for the demons to get closer!  We should be out there killing them now, all our gods and the Triax at least, and the rest of us as soon as possible!  It sure seems like all the preparation that the people of Kellaran are doing is for the defensive war after the demons get here!  No one is really preparing for war in the void except the gods and the Triax!  And that’s stupid!  Just as almost all war has been fought in the air ever since it became practical, so now all of us should be ready to fight in the void!  If we’re bound to Kellaran while the demons attack us from the void, we’re as helpless as a deer being attacked by a dragon!”

“It’s easy to think that way.” Quewanak nodded.  “The possibility that the demons are indeed the terrible and forewarned force that we fear they are is what prevents The Triax from attacking them now, or long before now, for that matter.  The Triax want all of us in our alliance to be able to strike against the demons together, to minimize the chance that they’ll be overwhelmed.

“Beyond that, the raw power for magic comes from the sun, and wizards’ magic only comes from the energy of the sun that’s been absorbed and re-radiated by certain rocks on Kellaran.  Most spell-casters are helpless once they’ve expended their power, and when they’re far from Kellaran, there’s nowhere to get any more.  Only the unicorns, the gargoyles, and a few of the hidden races from Xervia utilize the power of the Source directly and purely; even dragons get half their power from the heat of the stone.  And at the immense distance the demons are from the sun now, the Source supplies only a very tiny fraction of the power it delivers to Kellaran.

“We think that even the gods might derive most of their power from the sun, and before the Triax arrived, none of our gods had ever ventured any further from Kellaran than the closest of the outer worlds.  That was far enough for them to confirm that Kellaran is the only thing circling our sun that has life, and there was no reason to go any farther.  At the distance that the demons are now, even the gods might be severely restricted in their ability, due to the power required to go there and the weakness of the Source there.

“As for preparing our peoples to fight in the void, I can assure you that great efforts are being made to do so, but we are at the very beginning of a learning process that is immense.  The Triax and the demons do it, but they both required many, many millions of years to develop the ability, and almost none of their methods will work for us.

“As cold as it seems, our best strategy against the demons may the exact opposite of what you propose.  We would hide the Triax and feign helplessness so that the demons will land here on Kellaran, where our powers are so very much stronger than anywhere else, without them feeling the need to launch any major attacks from the void.  Then we would attack them from all sides while the Triax attacked them from above.

“However, that plan contains too many huge risks for our populations.  The plans that will be enacted will be the best compromise we can craft between attacking at the greatest possible distance to minimize our risk, and attacking at the minimum possible distance to maximize our offensive capability.  The longer we wait, the greater part of our people will be capable of fighting in the void.  But even if we halted all the defensive preparations in order to concentrate on void warfare, we would still only be able to bring a very tiny fraction of our force to bear in the void.  It truly is a huge problem.  The distances and harshness of conditions in the void are incredibly difficult to deal with, and effectively waging war there is many orders of magnitude more difficult.

“If you truly wish to advance your plan, and we would all like nothing better, you need to contribute to our ability to fight in the void.  That means learning to calculate and engineer forces, materials, momentum, energy, and gravity, and inventing new solutions.  There’s much to be learned in those areas that’s beyond the general education that you’ve received so far.

“Of us here, Yazadril has the greatest grasp of the rules of reality.  I can easily know everything he knows, but that doesn’t give me the talent to understand it as thoroughly as he does.  He’s also fully aware of all the technical challenges that fighting in the void entails.  If you decide to do this, learning from him directly seems the best course.

“Unfortunately for you, researching void warfare techniques was not part of the research mandate of this colony.  Many others are working on it, and many of them are doing so in other time-bubbles like this one.  Our research here has been concentrated on ending the ageing process in humans, increasing fertility in elves, achieving immortality, and improving warfare training and defensive emplacement construction techniques for general populations on the land and in the air of Kellaran.

“These are important researches, and if you choose to join them your efforts are more likely to contribute to results.  We lack the single most important resource required to research void warfare, and that is access to any of The Triax.  Though their techniques are not directly applicable to any of us, their experience and general knowledge of war in the void would be invaluable.

“Conversely, many of the greatest discoveries were made by those who researched in isolation.  Their work is more likely to show originality.  So if you truly wish to pursue this, we’ll give you all the help we can.”

“Yah, I guess we kind of knew most of that.” Helemia admitted  “It’s just so frustrating though!  We know they’re out there!  I just wish we could just go out there right now and burn ‘em all!”

“We all feel that sometimes, Love.” Alilia smiled.  “Patience can be a hard thing, especially when the future of life on our world may hang in the balance.”

“We’d already planned our training and learning for the next year.” Reggie said with a slightly-furrowed brow.  “But we’ll take your advice, Quewanak, and change our plans.  When you talked about it, I could almost feel from Grandfather Yazadril how much knowledge there is about the rules of reality that we don’t know yet.  And we
need
to know how to fight in the void, I mean me and Helemia personally, otherwise we’ll never be able to destroy the demon homeworld.  Maybe we can figure out some ways to do it.”

“An admirable goal in all respects.” Mark chuckled.  “And now it’s time all three of you were in bed.  Say goodnight to everyone, and we’ll get you into your pajamas.”

It took a while for the twins to say goodnight and goodbye to everyone, since they felt they had to include a hug for everyone there, and by the time they were done they were yawning uncontrollably.  Minutes later they were asleep.

Midmorning the next day found their family gathered in the back yard for the twins’ first combat lessons.

“I want that too.” Valentia pouted and pointed at the shiny armor the twins were donning.

“Maybe you’ll get some on your first birthday, like we did.” Helemia told her with a smile as she tightened a buckle.

“Or maybe you’ll get something even better.” Reggie added.

“That’s looking good.” Mark nodded as he checked the adjustment of their gear.  “Reggie, you’ll want the dart pouch back a bit, it’ll keep you balanced, like that.”

“Thanks Father.”

“I imagine the first thing you’ll want to work on is the spells in your equipment.” Talia began.

“Actually, no.” Reggie grinned.  “We got a good feel for the spells and their uses and parameters when we were trying it out last night.  It’s a lot of information, but after we slept on it and thought about it this morning, it all got pretty easy to understand.”

“What we want to work on,” Helemia paused for a moment with a mischievous grin, “Is The Skills of Visinniria.”

“Excuse me?” Alilia inquired, as Mark and Talia seemed taken aback.

“When you all met the gods for the first time at Hilia,” Reggie explained, “The goddess Visinniria made some improvements to Ria, the spirit in Mother’s sword.  These included Visinniria’s physical martial arts skills, both unarmed and with every weapon she used.  While they were training in Quewanak’s dream, they wondered why the goddess had given those skills to Ria, who couldn’t use them anyway.  They checked and realized that Visinniria had only given those skills to Ria to stay within the rules of The Withdrawal of The Gods, which was still in effect at the time, and didn’t let any gods help any people directly.  She could give the skills to Ria because Ria isn’t really a person, but really, they were a gift for Mother and Father, complete with a divine spell that transfers physical skills so they can be used right away, unlike when you learn someone’s moves psionicly and still have to practice them to be any good at ‘em.”

“The skills transference spell was the real prize.” Helemia continued.  “They used it to teach Kragorram’s fighting skills to Povon, and to teach Silaran’s skills to Equemev.  Mother and father used it to learn each other’s skills, as well as Visinniria’s.  And Visinniria fought The War of The Segregation her whole life until she became a goddess, for over six thousand years, so she was really good.

“Mother and Father, we ask that you use the skills transference spell to give us all the fighting skills you have now.  And that you give us the spell.”

“Well, I was kind of looking forward to teaching you the regular way...” Mark said as he scratched his chin in consternation.

“We understand that Father, and it would be fun, but really, it would also be a huge waste of time.” Reggie patiently pointed out.  “We’ll still need to practice the skills to develop strength with the moves, as well as endurance and toughness.  We don’t have much of that yet.  And we hope that you’ll all join us in practicing and sparring, which will be just as much fun as learning from you the old way.”

“Why do you want the spell?” Talia asked.  “I assure you, learning the fighting skills of others after you’d learned the ones that we have won’t make much difference.  We’re already about as dangerous as it’s possible to be that way, and we’ve checked that with some of the most renowned fighters in the world.”

“We hope to assume positions of leadership someday, and we have some practical uses for that spell.” Helemia explained.  “Besides, you know that fighters are most likely to injure themselves or their training partners when they’re first leaning the skills, and we’d avoid that.  And you can trust our judgment not to do anything foolish with either the skills or the spell.”

Mark exchanged glances with Talia and Alilia, then shrugged.  “Well I can’t think of any practical objection, other than dealing with the non-fulfillment of our expectations.  Can you?”

“No, I guess not.” Talia replied with a shrug of her own.

“I’ll take the skill set too, since you’re giving it out.” Alilia chuckled.  “I’m not an amateur when it comes to physical combat by any means, but it’s never been one of my strong points, and I could use some improvement.”

Reggie initiated a very tight, very private Link between the five of them.  “
Father, Quewanak is not often surprised, and I know his simulated demons are victorious in about half of the community training exercises.  The next time you are losing badly, you should cast The Skills of Visinniria on everyone at once.  I bet that’ll turn things around pretty fast, and Quewanak will get a big surprise.  Actually, I’m surprised you haven’t done it before.  You should get the unicorns to all share their skills too.  And after the exercise, you should get Quewanak to share his skills with Povon, Kragorram, and Karzog.  And when we get out of the time-bubble, you should do it for everyone in the world.  Even the Selkies and the gargoyles and the other non-humanoids can all learn their best fighters’ skills.  I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would prepare us all to face the demons as much as that would, or as fast.”

“That’s good thinking, Reggie.”
Talia agreed.
  “Unfortunately, a person needs a certain minimum level of psionic ability before the spell can be effectively cast upon them.”