The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (3 page)

At the east end of the beach were gathered Neela; First Goddess of Humans, Visinniria; Elven Goddess of War, Heklivmalgiso; the first and only other Elven god, Amirgath the Quicksilver; Eldest of The Dragon Gods, and Glup; the only god of a crustacean people from beneath the sea who had been extinct for almost half a billion years.  Those five gods appeared to be sunbathing, but were in fact psionicly communicating with a speed and complexity of thought that no mortal could follow.

Mark was so busy marveling at them all that he made a bad throw and had to leap high to catch it, displaying far more agility than one would expect from a man with about two and a half meters of well-muscled height.  He threw his long black hair back and laughed at himself as he landed.

“Have you noticed exactly who is here today?” Quewanak asked Mark while throwing a two meter white cross to circle the young man.  The comparatively tiny green dragon was looking astoundingly healthy since he had become Draconian God of Dreaming.

Mark looked around again, then shrugged.  “Just our usual friends and accomplices.” he grinned, and threw his cross to circle his green friend at the same time.

“Think a moment.  This is not the first time that this exact group has been together in this place.”

It took a minute, then realization came.

“Ah.” Mark nodded.  “Right after I Healed Dalia and Bezedil.  When we found out that all of us except Gran were candidates for divinity.”

Quewanak nodded, and made another toss while calmly meeting Mark’s eye.  “It’s an incredibly beautiful experience, you know.  And it’s as easy to set godhood aside and ignore it as it is to do so with the magic you already know.  Sure, it changes you profoundly, but you can simply enjoy time as a mortal whenever you want, just as being a great wizard and warlock isn’t impeding your enjoyment of playing with toys like a child right now.”

Mark nodded thoughtfully.  “You’re saying you think I should take the big step?”

Quewanak raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t you?”

Mark paused and looked around, noticing that everyone was now following their conversation intently.

“What do you think, my love?”
he asked Talia privately.

“I follow your lead in this, my husband.”
she replied. 
“I welcome you to take the step, so long as you can take me with you.  I couldn’t bear not sharing something so profound with you.  But the thought of achieving divinity is both joyous and terrifying.  I would gladly wait a millennium or three, if you so choose.”

There was a long silence as they waited for his decision.  Eventually he gave it.

“No.” Mark stated decisively.  “I’m not giving up my humanity until after we’ve had at least a couple of kids and raised them till they’re grown.”

“Impossible!” Amirgath growled, seeming more than a bit irritated.  “The demons approach, and you are key to the nexus, which is due in two years!  It is your responsibility to gain every advantage and ability you can, since the fate of this world may depend on your performance in the coming conflict!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and gathered in a large loose circle to follow the discussion.

“Don’t tell me it’s impossible, Amirgath!” Mark returned with determination.  “I’m still a free being, and none of the many responsibilities I’m fulfilling requires me to give up my humanity!  We want to have children,
normal
children, damn it!  I don’t know if gods can even
have
children, and if they can, it’s sure to be a completely different experience from having and raising children as mortals do!”

“Once you become a god,” Heklivmalgiso patiently explained, “You will lose the urge to have children, and begin to share our feeling that every mortal member of your race are your children.  Or perhaps, as you have advocated, you will feel that the mortals of all the races are your children.  For we as gods are responsible for them, and for their racial survival.

“You know that the nexus and the coming war with the demons threaten every life on Kellaran.  We will need every advantage that we can get, and if only your own divinity were in question, perhaps we could do with one less god.

“But you know that the divinities of almost all of these Candidates are dependent on yours, to one extent of another.  So the question is not whether we will have one more god when we face the demons, the question is whether we will have at least twelve more gods, perhaps fifteen.  And perhaps thousands, or millions, for I believe that once you have joined us in divinity, you may be able to teach the secret of achieving it to other mortals who have the potential to utilize it.

“Know that every god has found a different way to achieve it, and none of us have been capable of communicating it effectively to any mortal.  Many of us stumbled across it by accident, most of the rest achieved it in a very intuitive process that defies rational analysis.  Only two have achieved it by processes that were arrived at through intellectual cognition, and they lack the ability to communicate their methods to a mortal without spending thousands of years in educating that mortal.

“The method you have devised, from what you have let us know of it, is far more basic and understandable.  The study of the achievement of divinity that your group undertook was the first to summarize the process so succinctly; gain power to increase understanding, gain understanding to increase power, continue until divinity is achieved.  Never before has the Ascendance been reduced to such simple concepts, and that led to the method that you discovered.

“Furthermore, your ability to transfer complex and immediately usable spells into the minds of other mortals is supreme among all beings, with the possible exception of Quewanak here.  If you allow him to observe the process via a psionic Link while you achieve divinity, I believe that he could teach it to mortals in a dream.  But only
you
have the psionic ability to simply place it in the mind of another mortal so quickly and easily.  In this one way, you already surpass the gods.  After you have become a god, you will almost certainly be able to make any suitable Candidate a god, simply by showing them how it is done.”

“Hey, we still don’t even know if my method will work!” Mark protested.  “And even if it does, I might not be the best person to try it first!  Look, I’ll give you my Reading of everything I thought and experienced during the battle with Zarkog, and the moments after when I still held all the power, and held all the crucial thoughts in mind.  Take it, all of you.

“There.  Now it’s not just my problem anymore.  You can give that to all of your magic researchers, both mortal and divine, and I’m sure someone else can figure it all out!  Meanwhile, I’ll keep working on it from that angle, being able to teach how to do it without having to do it myself for
at least
the next twenty years, because that’s how long it’ll take to have a couple of half-elven kids and raise them up to adults.  And I don’t even want to start until the nexus is over.”

“Bah!  You are ignoring the dependencies!” Heklivmalgiso insisted.  “Those dependencies were discerned by our power as divine seers, for we see the shadows of the future, and combine it with supreme intellectual chain-of-events analysis in a way that is not understandable by a mortal mind, not even one such as yours.  Consider it fact; Talia cannot become divine unless you do, and no amount of analysis of what you have understood so far will be of any use.  You cannot teach her how to do it until you have done it.  The same can be said of the rest of these candidates.”

“Perhaps not.” Yazadril said as he rubbed his chin and considered Mark’s Reading.  “You said my Ascendancy and Alilia’s were only partly dependent on Mark’s.  That has been fulfilled, since I wouldn’t have thought of this on my own, and I doubt she would have either.  However, with what Mark’s given us, and some time to study it and make a few careful experiments, we might be able to do it.”

“You will not be able to raise
normal
children, even if you stay mortal.” Neela pointed out.  “They will be half elven and half human, and with your unique properties, they might just be the first of a new race.  Furthermore, they will be the sons and daughters of the Prince and Princess of Hilia, Keys to The Just Alliance, keys to the nexus, two of the most powerful spell casters on the planet, and two of the wealthiest and most famous people alive.  Those circumstances will prevent your children from having anything like what you would consider to be a normal childhood, and you may as well face that right now.  But that does not mean that their childhood will be any less wonderful and healthy, simply because their parents and their lives are exceptional.  The same will be true if you become divine.

“The mortals here right now are the only ones that know that Quewanak is now a god.  The same can be true of yourselves.”

“You’re right.” Mark nodded.  “There’s no way we can give our kids a normal childhood while living the way we are now.  So after the nexus is completely over and dealt with, we’ll retire from all this royalty and government for at least twenty years while we move somewhere simple and raise some kids.  Then after the last of ‘em get married,
then
I might consider becoming a god, and not before.

“As for all those dependencies, after you revealed them I did stuff that you said ‘left your visions of the future in tatters’. 
And
you said that all our Candidacies would wax and wane with time and events.  So there’s a good chance that none of that is valid anymore anyway.”

He turned to Amirgath.  “It seemed you were the quickest at evaluating someone’s Candidacy last time, and I don’t see that having it done by our own patron god matters.  Why don’t you give us all another quick scan right now, and see what you think.”

Amirgath did so with a quick glance at all the mortals present, then sat back on his haunches in surprise, before grinning in satisfaction.  “All of your Candidacies are absolutely assured, including yours, Grakonexikaldoron!  All of you will Ascend within the next two years!  It is so absolutely certain that the dependencies can no longer be discerned.  I am certain that this indicates that we will win this argument, and convince you to do your duty as you should!”

“Well you’re wrong then, because I’m still just as convinced that I won’t do it!  Besides, it could just as easily show that someone else will figure out how to do it and to teach it.  And besides all that, I’m still improving so quickly as a mage and a wizard and a warlock, I might be able to find another way to assure our victory over the demons.”

“No.”
Falgaroth chuckled. 
“Your candidacy is assured, you
will
Ascend within two years.  I think that what the new findings show is that the solution Visinniria, Glup, and myself have thought of will work, and that it will please all of you.  A solution we thought of by working together while the rest of you were arguing, I might point out.

“Amirgath, would you and your faction be satisfied if Mark took two months completely off, including being out of contact with everyone, and then made his attempt to become divine, and to teach it to these other Candidates?”

“We would be well pleased with that.” Amirgath nodded.

“Excellent.”
Falgaroth said as he turned to Mark, and swished his long blue tail with a graceful motion.

“Mark, if you can retire from government and politics for twenty-four years, will you promise to then resume your duties and do your best to become divine, and to teach it or otherwise effect it in these others, and as many others as you can?”

Mark quickly checked with Talia via their Link, and received her enthusiastic agreement before he responded.  “Sure, I’d be willing to commit us to that.”

“Excellent.”
Falgaroth nodded, and tossed his mane a bit. 
“Then gather those people who you wish to be part of the community your children will grow up with.  Choose an isolated place for that community, and go there with those you have chosen, who will agree to live there with you in isolation for the full twenty-four years.

“We will then cast a time-bubble upon that place.  While twenty-four years will pass within the bubble, only two months will pass outside it.  That should give you ample time to raise your children.

“Remember that your community will be completely isolated, so the area in the bubble must be large and bountiful enough to provide all of your community’s needs.  Though I suppose you are already capable of providing anything you could need with spellcraft.”

“That’s good thinking.” Quewanak offered, scratching his chin with a claw-tip.  “I can think of a few ways to deal with simulating the normal timing of sunrise and the change of seasons.”

“You should do it for all our researchers too.” Mark suddenly suggested.  “Everyone who’s working desperately on important research, hoping to get it done before the demons get here, can all have extra decades to figure it out.  For that matter, do it for as many as you can, everyone who’s building defenses, or having and raising children, increasing the food supply, teaching spells, building weapons.  The more time we have to prepare for the demons, the better off we’ll be, right?  There can be more of us, and be better trained and equipped and prepared in every way!”

“Damn, child, that is good thinking.”
Falgaroth neighed and nodded as he considered it  “
But there are limits to how much we can do that way.  It’s not a simple thing, and will require a constant portion of the attention and power of at least three gods for the full two months in order to do it.  But I will see how many of us are willing to commit to the task, and we will do what we can.  We’ll take a week to prepare, then we’ll cast all the isolations simultaneously.  It will be simpler that way.  In two months time, we will see how much we have achieved in the way of results, and consider repeating and expanding the program.  We may do it at least ten times over the next year.

“Most of us agree that we should try to eliminate the demons then; about thirteen months from now, actually.  The distance between us and them at that time will be an optimum compromise.  The closer they are, the easier it is to attack them, but allowing them closer also increases the possibility that Kellaran will be within their attack range.  We have consulted with the gods of The Triax, and we doubt that even DemonLords could Translocate to Kellaran from that distance.”