The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (61 page)

She took a short pause before she continued.  “Wow.  That’s a really good idea, if I say so myself.  I can do it too, both of ‘em, the one for the arenas and the one for the soldiers.  Mind you, the one for the soldiers won’t be as necessary once everyone has magic and knows how to Heal themselves, but that’ll still take a while, and this could be really quick.  We can have it cast on every fighter in the world by tonight, about an hour after we get it started copying itself.”

She glanced around at Karz and the twins.  “I’ll need your help, of course, but I know how to do it.  I just figured it out.”

“After the Sylvan project, before the campaign to win support for our leadership.” Six nodded.

“And after the meeting of The Assembly, probably.” Karz pointed out.  “We have nine hours before the meeting, and we’ll be lucky to get the basic structure of the training program in place by then.  And that only if we get started soon.”

“You’re right.” Six nodded, and turned to Povon.  “If this works as good as we hope it will, and we get most of the Sylvan and all the most violent Serminaki dragons, we’ll need a lot of land, but that land should come available as trainees join the program.  We’ll just expand our area of control into where they live and convert their existing facilities, so they won’t have to move.  But we’ll definitely need to work with you and Zwak Deathbringer on the logistics of all this.”

Povon was about to speak when Alilia interjected.  “Excuse me, I know I have no legal standing in this conversation.  Mark is Lord of Serminak, and it’s his decision as to what goes on here, while Povon, Kragorram, and Zwak have actually been running things.  But they’ve only had to maintain the systems that Zarkog built over hundreds of years, with minor adaptations.

“What you’re talking about is a dramatic re-organization of the lives of billions of Sylvan and dragons in only a few days.  This makes the work you did on Hiliani seem like an infant’s project.

“Now, I am by far the most experienced ruler here.  And I don’t think you’ve completely thought it through.

“Val’s Healing spells need to be in place
before
you even start recruiting, and so do a great many other matters.  The Sylvan on Hiliani lived as simple hunter-gatherers.  You almost completely replaced that work with automated spells when you took them into your training program, so you could keep them fed.  But there’s nothing to hunt or gather on Serminak; the continent subsists on huge and complex systems of fishing, farming and livestock.  As impressive as you are, I doubt very much that you can run all those systems with automated spells.

“You’ll need to have every bit of your planning completed before you begin to act on this.  You’ll have to make sure that you still have systems in place to provide all the material needs of your trainees, and you have to make sure all the maths of it balance, with a healthy safety margin.  Managing the transition from one system to another will be the most difficult part of the project, when you’ll be dismantling systems at the same time that you’re building new ones, while still keeping the products of those systems flowing without interruption.  Any break in the flow of work due to mistakes, mis-communication, misunderstanding, or insubordination can quickly escalate into huge problems, as everything backs up and piles up upstream of the break, while those downstream from the break experience sudden shortages.

“Now, I assume that you mean to recruit trainees with public Revealings.  Those should be done in three stages.  The first would announce that you’ll be initiating the new system and show the benefits and attractions of your program, to build interest without announcing when your opening day will be.  That should be the first thing you work on.  Once your planning is advanced enough that you can say with confidence when you can start operations and how many recruits you can take in the initial opening, you can say so with your second stage of Revealings.  After you’ve begun operations you release your third stage Revealings to recruit for your expansion.”

After a moment, Fire laughed, then spoke.  “And of course, the sentence you were too polite to add is; ‘And while you’re at it, you might want to reconsider whether you really are experienced and mature enough to rule Kellaran’!”

“Just so.” Alilia nodded with a smile.

“I understand your concern.” Six smiled.  “We should have clarified what we have planned already.  I admit that we’ve been keeping things to ourselves a lot lately, and maybe we’ve been overdoing it.  But we knew that when we left the time-bubble, we’d suddenly be psionicly aware of a lot more, maybe even everything in the world, like Quewanak could do even when he was still a mortal.  And we knew that unless we were very disciplined, a great many powerful psionicists in the world would suddenly become aware of
us
.  To young psionicists like ourselves, who grew up in psionic isolation, both those thoughts were somewhat intimidating.  And both those things have happened.  We’re not aware of
everything
in the world yet, but we keep seeing and feeling and hearing things from all over the world, and we’ve been probed several hundred times already.  That we’re aware of.  We’ve blocked all the probes, as far as we know, but the experience has perhaps left us a bit paranoid.  So maybe we’ve overdone it on keeping things private.

“Anyway, our obvious first step as far as we can see is to convert Zwak’s existing training programs for unruly young Sylvan over to our system, and that’s all that we planned to accomplish today.  As for the rest; as I’ve said, we knew we’d need Zwak and Povon’s help with all the logistics.  I’ll admit that if you’d not spoken we’d probably have found those logistics to be a more complex problem than we expected, but I think we know when to seek the assistance of others and when to delegate, as well as when to act ourselves.  Perhaps we’re not ready to rule the world, but we still think we are, and we’ll know one way or another after the tournament.

“Good point by the way on getting Val’s Healing spells finalized before we begin operations.  If we’re going to use them, and we are, we should use them from the beginning.  We
had
planned to use other methods that would have worked, at least for the systems we’re putting in place today, but you’re right; it’s a smarter order of operations to go with our best methods initially when it’s practical to do so, rather than following through on an existing plan and then altering it after with new and improved methods.”

“Well spoken.” Alilia laughed.  “You’ve obviously thought this through a bit more thoroughly than you made it seem before.  Still, I think the advice of the point I was trying to make is still valid;  Don’t be in too much of a hurry.  You’re capable of accomplishing things much faster than most anyone else, I grant you that, but don’t overdo it to the point where you’re creating problems for yourselves.”

“It’s good advice, and I thank you, Heart-Mother.” Six said with a bit of a bow.  “We’ll try to heed it, and hope that any problems we create by working so fast are more than balanced by the benefits of doing so, which will be many and obvious.”

He turned to his father.  “To be honest, I’m glad we won’t be running the world over the next six weeks.  Because we’re obviously going to upset a great deal of The Just Alliance’s recently-established social order.  Other than the obvious changes we plan to make in Serminak; it’s obvious to me that in two weeks, Val here will be the most influential person in the world, as far as initiating rapid change goes.  Her talent with automated spells is really taking off, and she’ll change everything with them.  With the spell-set she conceived of just now, along with the solution to the longevity and wizardry problems that Hilsith and all of us came up with on Hiliani, most of the Healers in the world will soon be out of work.

“Do you think she’s paying any attention to this conversation right now?  She’s not, or not very much.  Ever since Alilia said she doubted that we could run the continent’s food production systems with automated spells, Val’s taken it as a challenge.  Her awareness is out there right now, compiling a list of every task performed in agriculture here, along with the procedures used.  If she concentrates on it, I’d guess it will take her less than six hours to have the basics of the spell design finished.  Then she’ll need our help to build up all the complexities of the actual casting without taking a year at it, but she could do it all herself if she took the time, and we couldn’t.

“I’d guess that in six weeks, by the time we take part in the tournament, she might be able to do all the work that gets done by everyone in every society on Kellaran with automated spells.  If she decides to profit from her work, which is her right, she could own a significant portion of everything by the time the entire economic system collapses.  And it won’t matter when it does.  With her work, we’ll be able to put every living able-bodied person on the fighting line against the demons if we have to.  And after we beat the demons, the entire world will enter a new age of leisure, completely free of any unpleasant work.  Thanks to Val.”

“I won’t need help with it anymore.” Val stated absent-mindedly as she stared off into space.  “I just came up with an automated spell to help me deal with the complexity of compiling automated spells.  And now that I think about it, I should be able to replace the entire military with an army of automated spells.  I just need Father to teach me that thing he did to Zarkog with the energy collecting fields so I can power it all.”

Everyone except her took a moment to consider the implications of that.  She just kept working.

“Sweet Mother of All.” Mark muttered under his breath.

Neela appeared before him, her gleaming black hair flowing over a white gown.  “I keep telling you, that’s an inaccurate term for me.” she giggled.

“And I keep telling you, I’m still not used to there being real gods in the world, let alone having them appear when they’re mentioned.” Mark chuckled.  “But it’s good to see you, Neela.

“I’m pleased for you to meet my children, and Povon and Kragorram’s son.”

Val turned her back to the goddess, and the distraction of her presence.  “Sorry, I’ve gotta concentrate on this right now.” she muttered.

“Quite understandable; it’s complex and important work.” Neela nodded, and contained her aura out of consideration.

“May I ask how you know that it’s complex and important work?” Fire inquired.

“The second time I was Mark and Talia’s lover, I shared all with them, and since then they have held no Shields against me, so I know what was just said here.” Neela explained.

“You shared all?” Fire marveled, then cocked an eyebrow at her mother.  “That must have been a lot to absorb.”

“Well of course we don’t remember all of it.” Talia responded.  “But I retain her entire life as a mortal pretty well, and her last few years up to when she shared with us, and the important events in between.  I’d have had to cast a serious memory spell to retain it all, and with the skill I had then it would have taken an hour, and we were rather occupied at the time.  But yes, she shared all, I have no doubt of it.  She’s a good and loving person, and either very cautious or very indecisive, depending on your viewpoint on the matter.”

Neela smiled and shrugged.  “I made a mistake when I was young as a goddess, and my people suffered for it for millennia, perhaps for eons indirectly, and I had to watch it all.  There’s no escaping your mistakes once you leave mortality behind.”

“What was the mistake?” Fire asked.

Neela considered her.  “I don’t know you well enough to feel comfortable with telling you that yet.  And while I’ve no wish to hurt your feelings, I’ll be honest in telling you that I share such things with very few people.  They must have certain characteristics that touch my heart, and from what I know of you, you don’t have those characteristics.  You’re a good person, Helemia Longstrider, and admirable in every way.  But Mark and Talia have a pure goodness of heart and a kind of simple brilliance that I find very attractive, whereas your mind has Sylvan and Draconian characteristics that give you a dark side that is… not as cute as the rest of you, shall we say.”

“That’s understandable.” Fire grinned.  “I imagine that you didn’t share their bed while the curse was upon them.  Their dark side is somewhat distinct and artificial, whereas mine is a cherished part of my core.  From the way your aura felt, you’re a sweetie, and a softie, but neither of us are the type that would choose the other as a lover, or even as a personal deity.  I’m more attracted to Visinniria, Elven Goddess of War.  On the other hand, I haven’t met the human god of war yet, or the Sylvan or Draconian ones, so I’m not choosing yet.”

Neela gave a delighted laugh.  “You’re adorable, Princess Fire.  But I’m grateful that you’re bound to justice on Falgaroth’s stone.  You might really be a problem, otherwise.”

“Why thank you Neela, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Fire grinned.

“Good.” Neela glanced around the group with a smile.  “I just wanted you all to know that we of the gods are very proud of you for your accomplishments in the time-bubble.  And, we’ve all heard what was said at the meeting at Zarkog’s observatory today, and of course we’re aware of your fine efforts to correct injustices this morning.  Valentia’s breakthroughs in automated spell casting are absolutely breathtaking, and I’m sure they’ll be fully as significant as Prince The Sixth here predicts.

“Creativity is the most crucial resource we have, and we of the gods have no more of it than mortals.  Intellect, power, awareness, knowledge, ability, these we have in abundance, but without additional creativity, it’s no easier for the gods to create new solutions and decide to implement  them than it is for mortals.  And as Mark so effectively pointed out once, being immortal is no guarantee of wisdom.  Though having thousands or millions of years of experience can help with that, it can also produce stagnant and inflexible thought patterns.

“It takes millions of creative minds to build a new society for a population as large as Kellaran’s, and we gods are still very few.  It also takes a few geniuses with new creativity and new wisdom.  In those respects, you are all among the best we have, and we cherish you.