The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (94 page)

Emperor Osbald of Thon and his military staff were the first to arrive.

“On my word!” he exclaimed on seeing the colossal Simulacrums.

“Don’t mind them, they’re trying to fit in with dragons.” Mark laughed as the two shook hands.

Osbald gave his head a shake, and tried to recover his composure,  “I don’t know which is stranger; their immense size, or that Alilia is the same size as the children.  That just doesn’t look right.”

“On the other hand, you look just fine, Emperor Osbald!” Fire laughed.

“Fire?!” Osbald gaped on recognizing her voice.  “I see you are truly fitting in with dragons!”

Overlord Senchak arrived with his large staff of dwarves then, and Empress Emeroth was only a moment behind him.  Within a minute the huge room was feeling less spacious after the arrivals of the rest of the monarchs and general staffs of the humans, elves, giants, and gnomes.

Their reactions on what they saw when they arrived were as amazed as Osbald’s, though only from such a surprising and unexpected sight.  Such Simulacrums and the techniques for casting them had been well-known for weeks.

“I’ll just fill you in the fast way.” Mark said as he Linked with all the new arrivals and gave them a Reading of the training and exercises he’d engaged in since the last meeting of The Assembly, including the meetings and evaluations with the leaders of Xervia and with the operators of the exercises.

“All right, now you know where we stand, and that you’re invited to a military meeting of The Assembly tomorrow.  As was said, we know you can’t bring many of your forces, but every one of your nations should be represented by at least a few of you best officers, so they can be kept up to speed and be ready to bring the rest of you up to speed as soon as it’s practical.”

“I’m afraid that’s really out of the question.” Senchak bluntly stated.  Everyone we have is already working night and day, either teaching if they had magic before, or learning if they didn’t.  And we’re desperately short of instructors, even with the elves helping.  Our spellmasters are delivering lectures and demonstrations before crowds of eighty thousand or more!

“If you really want to help us, give us more magic instructors!  But I know there’s none to be had, unless we want to learn from Sylvan.  And most of
them
are still learning the spells that the rest of us used against them in the last war!”

“Actually, I think we have a solution to that.” Mark chuckled, and looked to Val’s huge reclining form.  “How’s work coming on your magic education spell?”

“Good.  With Mother’s help, another two and a half days.” Val replied, somewhat distracted by the thoughts she was sharing with Six at the time.

“All right.” Mark nodded and grinned as he turned back to the rulers.  “Val to the rescue again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in about two and a half days, as she said, my daughter will present to the world Valentia’s Magic Education, an absolutely state-of-the-art automated compound self-replicating and self-powered spell that does just what it says it does, for everyone that can benefit from it.  That’s everyone who’s not up to Journeyman level yet.  She figures it’ll have the average student up to Journeyman Wizard status in about a year and two months, depending on their individual abilities.  And she hasn’t let us down yet.”

A few of the rulers exclaimed quietly, but Mark just continued talking and smiling.

“That being the case, you can afford to give your magic teachers and their students a day or two off from lessons, so the teachers can prepare to take part in the joint exercises.  I see no reason why every magic user you have who’s Journeyman or better and battle-ready shouldn’t participate, since their students will no longer need them.”

“Well.” said Prince Jaromer of Thon with raised eyebrows.  “That is amazing.  And convenient.  Let’s hope this one doesn’t have any unexpected side effects.”

“Side effects?” Talia pointedly inquired.

“Allow me to explain.” King Dren of Finitra said as he stepped to the fore.  “I’ve been making some study of this, in fact that’s what I was doing when you called.

“According to the new laws of The Just Alliance, that you proposed…

“And that all of you agreed with.” Alilia interjected.

“Yes.  The new laws allow anyone to do anything so long as it doesn’t cause a crime or an unacceptable safety risk, and they fulfill their responsibilities.  Those laws, combined with the spells that you and yours have introduced, have had an extreme effect on many of our peoples.  Particularly the young.

“The improved spells you gave to the young Sylvan on Hiliani to control fertility and protect from sexual diseases have spread everywhere, and now people everywhere are fornicating like…”

“Like elves?” Jaromer interjected.

“Yes, like elves.” King Dren nodded.  “And you know that you elves are not free of these upheavals.  Almost every elven female of child-bearing age is pregnant, or will be pregnant soon.  But since they no longer need to bond with their husband for a decade or more in order to become pregnant, your unmarried elven girls are getting pregnant without marriage, often by casual friends and acquaintances!  And a few of the married women have chosen to bear children by men other than their husbands.  All these are unheard of among the elves, which is causing friction among you.

“And we are facing far more disturbing behavior in the rest of our nations.  Now that people have The Healing of Valentia, along with the Healing that came with The Transformation of Hilsith, young or stupid people are doing all sorts of foolishness!  They are using huge amounts of all sorts of extreme drugs and strong drinks, knowing that the spells protect them from overdose and addiction!  They dare each other to do the stupidest things, like jumping off of cliffs and just letting themselves fall to the bottom, or running themselves or each other through with swords or spears, for nothing more than the novelty and excitement of it!  Hundreds of them, all together!  More and more of them have begun engaging in sex outside their race, often with the most extreme size disparities, knowing they are protected from injury!  Some are choosing to have children with those of other races!  And under the new laws, we can find no legal way to bar them from doing any of that!

“Perhaps there is no injustice in any of that, and perhaps they are all within their rights, but the changes are too many and too soon for many of us, particularly the elders!  We feel like the world has become a madhouse, and that every aspect of common decency and respect is being lost!  We fear that our entire citizenries will become nothing more than hedonistic killers!  I suppose that’s appropriate for fighting the demons, but sometimes the cost seems more than it’s worth paying!  And if we win the war, how will we be able to put healthy societies back together from all these broken and twisted pieces?!

“You’re The Key to The Just Alliance!  Before you went in the time-bubble, you spent most of your days talking to people, helping them deal with the changes, spreading your wisdom and calm and confidence to millions of people with every one you spoke with, for even your informal chats with chance-met peasants in low-rent teahouses were reported far and wide.  You went out and you spoke to the world, then you went back to Hilia and spoke to leaders of the world at your beach in comfortable and informal company, and you were the best conduit between the rulers and the people of The Just Alliance.

“Now, when the changes we’re facing are getting completely out of hand, you haven’t done your job since you went in the time-bubble!  You came out of it and caused all these problems, but you’ve spent all your time on increasing your military readiness far faster than we can hope to match, given the challenges you’ve given us!

“Pardon me for being frustrated, but I’m not the only one who wants to say this to you;  Most noble Key to The Just Alliance, do your damn job!”

Mark sat back with eyebrows raised in surprise, then he chuckled.  “Well ya save the world, and ya can’t even take two months off.”

This only served to make the rulers angrier, and he raised his hands and said; “Look, I’m sorry.  This is as much of a surprise to me as I’m sure it is to all of you.  And in my own defense, I was given two months off to raise my children before I have to become a god and make a bunch of other people gods, which I’m doing against my preferences and my better judgment because everyone else seems to want me to do it, and I promised.  I’m still raising my children full-time, and I’ve been working on these military projects since we came out of the time-bubble because they’re my children’s projects, and I’m helping them with it, as any responsible parent should.

“The military training and re-organization and the improved birth control spells are Six and Fire’s work, and the spells that have caused most of the rest of the sudden changes are Val’s, and they’re only seven.  They’re great kids and they’re sworn to justice, but considering what they’ve accomplished and their capabilities and how young they are, I think it’s wise for me to work with them so I can supervise them closely.  I’m sure you would agree.

“I’ll resume the work you mentioned as Key, but I won’t be able to spend as much time at it as I did before.  It never felt like work before, but I guess it is now.  Me and Talia only did all that because we enjoyed it, and we wanted to help.  I was unaware that it’s now considered to be duties of the office.  In short, Your Majesty, no one told me it was my damn job.

“Now I completely understand how you’re all feeling about your peoples’ disturbing behavior.  I also find much of what you said to be disturbing, and I empathize with those who feel like the world is going crazy all around them.  There’s also no reason for anyone to be disrespecting you, or anyone else, by exposing you to disturbing behavior while knowing that you’d prefer they didn’t.

“On the other hand, I can sure see the other side of it too.  Everyone has suddenly been released from constrictive laws and the fear of death and most injury.  I’m sure almost everyone has tried a few things that they wouldn’t have a year ago, and it shouldn’t be surprising that some are taking it to extremes.  At the same time, they just came through a war and now they’re facing another one, against enemies who can still kill them despite their new Healing abilities, enemies so fearsome that the gods themselves are worried.  They’re reminded of it all day during training, so they have to try to forget about it in their off-duty hours, and that’s a hell of a thing to try to put out of your mind.  And of course, they’re all trying to find their way in an unfamiliar world that changes every day, just as we all are, and they’re probably almost as unsettled about it as you are.

“Now when I first proposed these laws at the first meeting of The Assembly, Emperor Kevim of Sming asked if he could not ban people from fornicating in their front yards in full view of the public, and I said he couldn’t ban it.  But having sex is a healthy, normal and natural activity.  The things you’re talking about today are not healthy, normal and natural activities, so that makes them the same as things like practical jokes and insult competitions.  Those of you who are offended by them are responsible for letting everyone else know that they’re offended by them, and everyone else has the responsibility to avoid exposing you to it once they know.  I’ll do everything I can to convince these people to not do these activities that would be very harmful without the spells in front of those who would be offended by it, or within public view.  If they do so anyway, then they can be charged with harassment.

“But you still can’t ban it if it’s causing no harm.  Period.

“The young and foolish have always risked themselves and acted like they were indestructible.  Now we’re just going to have to get used to the fact that they very nearly are.

“These people are still justice-sworn, law abiding citizens, and you haven’t said they’re shirking their responsibilities, so I’m assuming they’re not.

“Now say your teenage son finishes his day of training and goes out for a while.  He comes home on time, he’s unhurt and not upset in any way, and he’s a responsible lad who’s taken care of all his assigned tasks, but you suspect he’s been doing things these you disapprove of.  You ask him what he’s been doing, and he gives you a little smile and says; ‘Believe me father, you really don’t want to know.’

“Now I suggest you accept that.  You have the right as his guardian parent to demand that he tell you what he’s been doing.  But if he then tells you; ‘I’ve been drinking whisky by the litre, jumping out of trees, and fornicating with ogres.’, and you’re offended and upset by this, it’s your fault and your problem.  Try to be supportive.  If you want you can try to convince him to stop doing it, so long as you do so with respect.  You can legitimately point out that it’s disgusting and that it might affect his future standing in the community, but you have no right to give him trouble for it or to use anger or authority to force or coerce him to stop.  No harm, no foul, and that’s the end of it.

“As you say, right now this is all a novelty, and everyone is testing their new limits and abilities.  But I can almost guarantee you that after warring with the demons, our survivors are going to be desperate for a return to a normal life, and they’ll cherish their traditions more.

“And by the way, none of us have the right to tell any woman who she can and can’t have a child with, but whoever it is, whether casual acquaintance or someone from another race, the father had better be willing to have a child with her.  And he’d better know his legal responsibilities to the mother and child and be willing to fulfill them.  If a married woman wants to have a child with a man other than her husband, she can either settle it with him one way or another, or he can divorce her.  He may be entitled to some compensation if she swore in her wedding vows to only cleave unto him, or to only bear his children.  Those who break their vows of any kind are still liable for the consequences.

“Overall, I’m absolutely sure that the benefits of what we’ve done and all the changes that are taking place will far outweigh the disadvantages.  But the nexus is coming.  We all knew that everything was going to change before it even started, so there’s no use in just complaining about it.  We have to make it work.