The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (117 page)

It was a strange moment.  All of them knew that it was a public declaration, and that many of the thousands watching would have shared their experience with the rest of the world.  A moment of absolute stillness ensued.  It seemed they waited to see if any would appear to dispute them, but none did.

Mark moved to address Karz, and to look him in the eye.  “You’re still young, and your love has many stages to go before you’re ready for marriage.  But we still recognize the profound depth of the love that you and Fire share.  We, being Talia and Alilia and myself, already think of you as our son-in-law, and the son of our hearts.”

“The bond you share with our son has been bringing us all closer for a long time.” Kragorram declared to Fire.  “It’s a big part of why we all feel like family; Povon and I and your parents, and all of our children.  It seems that sometimes the differences in our races are the least of the differences between us, and all of those differences pale in significance to the similarities and love that unites us.  You are the daughter of my heart and you always will be, whether your relationship with Karzog flourishes or fails.”

“Thank you, thank you all so much.” Fire declared as she hugged Karzog in mid-air.  She shared a quick thought with him, and then they were their humanoid selves; she in her natural form, and he in the elven Simulacrum that was the only humanoid form he ever assumed.

They hugged tightly; she and Karz, and the rest of the gathering couldn’t help but cheer with joy at the obvious and profound love that they shared, and the relief they felt with the end of secrecy and the sharing of their love with everyone.

“This is our marriage.” she murmured as she hugged him, while knowing that it wasn’t private.  “Or actually our engagement, I guess.  It’s not legal or binding, but it’s our declaration of our love to the world.  We’ll have a binding ceremony later in Laylas Valley when we’re both adults, but that’s a different thing.

“Ours may not be the first love that ever occurred between two who are of such different races as you and I, but it’s the first publicly acknowledged inter-racial relationship between such disparate lovers as us.  And we haven’t even reached puberty or become sexual yet.  At this stage, whether we ever have children is irrelevant to me.  Any child that we decide to love as our own is our child, be they elven or human or dragon or anything else.  If we choose to fulfill our potential and become gods, we might be able to truly have children together, but I don’t see how it could be possible in any other way.  And it doesn’t matter.

“Perhaps in the future there will be Kag who fall in love with gnomes, simply because the gnome they love is so beautiful and wonderful that they can’t help themselves.  Unicorns may love giants, humans may love Triax, Mer may love gargoyles.

“All of them are depending on us, my love.  They are depending on us to make their love socially acceptable.  They are depending on us to make it an everyday occurrence for anyone to love anyone else in any way they choose, regardless of the differences between them.”

“We will not fail their trust.” Karzog quietly declared.  “I love you, you are my destined love, and no amount of social pressure could make me renounce you.  If everyone else in the entire universe condemns me for it and strives to prevent it, still I will be with you, and love you with all that I am.”

There seemed to be a long moment of serenity after their declarations, then Fire resumed her place on the lawn beside Balen with Karz still in her arms.

Soon everyone who’d risen to support them resumed their places, except Val.  She floated three meters in the air, relaxed with her eyes closed and her hands clasped behind her, and remained silent until she knew that her solitary intransigence had drawn everyone else’s attention.  Still she waited as the sense of expectation built around her, until she knew that several who watched her were about to inquire about her intentions.

“I feel the same as Fire.” she quietly stated.  She paused again for a few more seconds, then threw her head back and held her fists high and shouted it out to the world.  “I FEEL THE SAME AS FIRE!!!”

“Say it, Sister!” Fire called in encouragement as she shook her fist overhead in solidarity.

But Val wasn’t ready to just blurt it out yet.

“When I was still an unborn baby floating in my mother’s womb, I was all alone, but I didn’t care because I didn’t realize it.  I still only had about as much mind as a mouse then.

“Then another mind touched mine, literally, psionicly, and he loved me so much it just filled me completely.  And in that moment, when his mind first met mine, he had a prophesy that I was his destined love, and he was mine, and we were destined to be married someday.  Of course I couldn’t understand language yet so I didn’t know about the prophesy, and no one told me until a few weeks ago.  But deep down inside, I’ve always known.

“Then another mind joined us, and it was Fire.  A little while after that there was another mind with us, and it was Mother.  And their love was so wonderful.

“I soon forgot about sharing minds with Fire and Mother, and I don’t really remember anything else that happened up until I was almost seven months old.  But I never forgot that very first moment when another mind first joined mine, and the wonderful love he felt for me.

“Since then our love has only grown, in so many ways, and I really hate having to keep it secret when we haven’t done anything wrong.  Just having to keep it secret all the time sometimes makes me feel like I
have
done something wrong, even though I know I haven’t.

“No one can judge us about this, because we’re not like anyone else who’s ever lived.  No one ever fell in love with anyone else the way I fell in love with him.

“So today I’m telling the secret.  But I’m not worried that anyone is going to bother us about it, because I’ll be monitoring everyone, and if anyone is bothered or upset in any way by our love, I’m going to make them forget about it.  And that’ll be it for that.  I can do it too.  I can make everyone forget they ever knew about it, except the gods and maybe the top twenty psionicists outside my family.  And if any of
them
are bothered by it, they better not bother
us
about it, or I swear I will make them
pay
for it!

“Our love was against some old laws of some races, because of possible problems with the children we might have.  But our love isn’t against the new laws, the
just
laws, that have been emplaced since The Just Alliance was formed, and there’s absolutely zero chance that there’ll be any problems with our children if we even decide to have any, because we know, actually we
are,
some of the best Healers who have ever lived.”

She paused, a bit embarrassed by her own long-windedness about it, and said;  “
Any
way…”  She shrugged and smiled, and turned to him as she held her hand out to him.  He was in her arms and hugging her tightly in a blink.  “I love you Six.  I love you every way there is, and someday I’ll be your wife.” she proudly declared.

“As I love you.” he returned with deep sincerity.

“And we support their love in any way they want it to be.” Mark declared as he appeared with them and hugged them both.

Everyone gave them a cheer, though it wasn’t as enthusiastic as the one that Fire and Karz had gotten, until Fire psionicly growled to everyone there;
“You’d better cheer as loud for them as you did for us, or you’ll get a punch in the face.”
  Their enthusiasm immediately improved, and there was laughter mixed with it.

Val and Six couldn’t help but laugh themselves, and then Fire and Karz and all of their parents were hugging them and each other as well.

They finished eating and enjoyed the celebration there for another two hours, then all of Mark’s family went with him back to The Hall of The Just Alliance to enjoy the party there for a while.  They spent the rest of the day touring the world, enjoying the huge parties that were happening everywhere in honor of the new Governor, simply because he’d suggested it.

In three weeks another set of time-bubbles began running all over Kellaran, including under the seas in the territories of the aquatic peoples.  There were thousands of them this time, all bigger than the first ones, and they held many more people.  Almost all the gods helped in casting them, including the new gods.

Mark and his family remained outside these time-bubbles, along with half of Kellaran.

The main reasons for casting them were to accelerate the training of many of the new wizards, and to raise many of the new children.  Due to Zarkog’s breeding programs there were still huge numbers of very young Sylvan and dragons in Serminak, and there had been a recent baby boom among every race in the world.  It was decided that the portion of the population who were young children was much higher than was optimal during a major war, and this situation was corrected in the time-bubbles while they ran.  Bubbles containing dragons ran for eighty-one internal years, to allow for baby dragons to finish growing up completely, while the rest ran for twenty-four internal years.  The ones with dragons ran at a higher rate of time compression, and they all opened a month after they were cast in real time.

A great deal of power and attention was saved in casting them because they weren’t hidden this time, so there were colossal and impenetrable mirrored domes scattered all over Kellaran for a month.

No more time-bubbles were cast after that second set finished running.  Much of the population had been segregated in the bubbles, and entire societies had grown apart from each other.

It seemed that the entire world was already almost as prepared to fight the demons as they could get, so they avoided the use of any more time-bubbles to allow all the populace to grow back together again, and the training schedule was gradually reduced to a part-time activity for everyone who didn’t choose a military career.

All of the improvements that had been discovered in Warding and Shielding were applied to every settlement on Kellaran.  Mark and his family and the gods and the other senior magic users had all spent a great deal of time finding those with unknown and hidden talents, revealing those talents, and training those who had them.  Advanced training in combat and magic beyond the Journeyman Battle Wizard level were offered to everyone who had the capacity to take advantage of it, and much of that training was done psionicly or in small Reverse-Stasis fields, or both, and was accomplished quickly.

Emergency-response spells were crafted and emplaced around most population centers that would cast a time-bubble around the whole place in case of absolutely overwhelming attack.  The time-bubbles would only change the passage of time inside them by a slight amount, but that was still enough to make them indestructible to any outside force, and they automatically ceased when the danger had passed.

It soon seemed that absolutely everything that could be done to prepare for war had been done.  Life went on as the world waited in increasing anticipation.

Four and a half months after The Tournament of Governors, in the middle of the night in Hilia, a frantic psionic call was sent out that was heard by the entire world.  It came from Zarkog.

“They have stopped!  The demons have stopped!  Emergency Command meeting!  Prepare for an attack!”

So strident was his call that almost all of The Assembly of The Just Alliance along with their senior commanders and those of The Triax had joined him in The Hall before he’d finished Speaking the word ‘attack’.

“How do you know they’ve stopped?” Somonik immediately asked.  “None of the other astronomers have reported anything.”

“And why is it such a problem?” Gvetwa added.

“I know they’ve stopped because the frequency of a psionic source that is approaching is higher than one that is still in relation to us, and theirs has dropped in pitch by an amount consistent with their having stopped!”
Zarkog barked in anger, still Speaking psionicly to have it done as quickly as he could and save as much time as possible, his fear almost palpable in the air.

“And it is a problem for two reasons;  The first is that the deceleration was absolutely instantaneous, and the second is that there was no deceleration energy expended at all as far as I can detect!  The momentum of an object that size moving as quickly as it was represents a colossal amount of energy!  Since they didn’t stop by countering their momentum with an opposing force, they must have transduced and used that energy somehow!  That is enough energy for a completely devastating attack!

“We must attack them now, before theirs strikes us!!”

“I agree!”
Mark psionicly barked as he cast the Command Link. 
“Activate the civil defenses, evacuate the non-combatants to the safe locations, and let’s hit them with everything we can use at this distance, right now!  And let’s get some information on them while we’re at it!”

“We will seek information as our first priority.”
First Mauve volunteered on behalf of The Triax.

Everyone took Mark’s words as an order, and a blink later the great room was almost completely empty.

All the gods of the grand alliance appeared around the demons’ nation-sized rock and all but nine of The Triax gods attacked it with everything they had.  In a fraction of a second it was absolutely destroyed in a single blazing flash of light, even before the Strike Wizards had Translocated in.

“What the hell just happened?!!”
Povon demanded in confusion as she instinctively fanned the rapidly-expanding cloud of rock powder away with her wings. 
“It couldn’t have been that easy, could it?!”

“It wasn’t.”
Mark growled in anger, having already received First Mauve’s report. 
“Everyone get back to your defensive positions immediately, and get ready!  We’ll explain when we’re back.”

In the next moment they were deployed all over Kellaran and in the void and moons above it.