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Chapter 15

  They appeared beside the white dragon, the Truthstone, and Quewanak the Eldest.

  “Welcome, Mark and Talia.” Somonik rumbled.

  “Hello Somonik, Eldest.” Mark returned.

  “A third of the attendees have yet to arrive. A place has been reserved for you at the edge of the dais, or you may choose to join one of the many informal discussions in progress. I estimate it will be at least twelve minutes before we are ready to be called to order.”

  Their arrival had been noted, and there was a smattering of polite applause, so they bowed to the assembly in acknowledgment.

  “Thank you, Somonik.” Talia returned as she looked around the room, noting her parents and the other elven delegations among the many groups of every size that ebbed and flowed about the room. “That sword looks good on you.” she added.

  “Thank you. It was crafted by Kragorram. I was inspired by his sword work today, and inquired whether he might have another, just a few hours ago. He was with Silaran, who decided to assist his friend by acting as Kragorram’s negotiator. The negotiation was one of the best I’ve been involved in. In the end, I gave him ninety-nine of my best spells, or rather, I gave them to Povon on Kragorram’s behalf. She was so pleased with them, she gave me nine of hers that I did not have, bright young thing that she is. Kragorram then felt obliged to provide the sheath and this fitted harness.”

  He gracefully drew the great sword and turned it admiringly in the light. It was very similar to Kragorram’s, but smaller by a third, though it did not seem so in Somonik’s clawed white hand. Since he was barely more than a quarter of Kragorram’s size, it was as large as Somonik could comfortably wield with one hand, whereas Kragorram was so huge his larger blade was barely enough to be a short sword in his colossal grip.

  “With this in my hand, I feel my combative ability has been restored to what it was before I was maimed. And perhaps a bit more. It is beautiful work.” He smoothly sheathed the weapon again.

  “The interactions you see around us represent the heart of politics.” Quewanak stated to Mark and Talia. “You would be wise to take part. Just be sure not to commit to anything before the meeting is called to order, and the announcements have been made.

  “On another matter, I strongly urge you to avail yourselves of my training, and I do mean soon. Your companions as well. The end of this meeting would be a good time to start. I sense that events are coming to a head. The seers assure me that the Nexus is still at least a year in the future, yet I’m convinced that the events of the next few days will be pivotal. You may have goaded the conspiracy with your exercise today.”

  “Eldest, I do apologize for breaking our promise to refrain from battle.” Mark humbly stated. “But they did attack us first, and almost succeeded in killing us.”

  “I’ll grant you that, and you all lived, which is the main thing. Though how much of that was luck and how much was skill is a matter of conjecture. They could have come upon you in their thousands, their millions, if they hadn’t underestimated you so badly. All the more reason you need my training. Believe me, none can make you as capable as I, in as short a time.

  “Besides all that, it’s time I made my contribution to this alliance.”

  “Your contribution is worthy and ongoing.” Somonik stated. “Your experience, insight, and advice have been valuable to me on many occasions, Eldest, and to many others as well. Furthermore, I am proud to call you friend.”

  “Thank you.” Quewanak nodded. “Still, such cerebral pursuits do little to soothe the yearning to take action. Since I cannot physically take action myself, I can at least prepare others to do so.”

  “We really are looking forward to training with you, Eldest, but I don’t feel right in committing to a schedule for it right now.” Mark respectfully stated. “Almost every plan and schedule we’ve made in the last few days has been changed as we went along, and I don’t want to make any more promises unless I’m certain I can keep them.

  “Right now, I’d like to speak with Tithian. Is she here yet?”

  “I am.” Tithian whinnied and tossed her luxuriant silver mane as she appeared beside them, her lengthy spiraled horn waving in the air. “I may not quite have Povon’s psionic sensitivity, but I certainly know when the Key to The Just Alliance calls my name.” She added a snicker to that.

  “Hi Tithian. I have a spell I’d like to show you. But I’d like to keep it as confidential as possible.”

  “Certainly. Please hold quite still.” she told him, and gently touched the tip of her horn to the center of his forehead. “This communication is absolutely private. What do you have?”

  “This.” he said, and showed it to her.

  “By the Source!” she exclaimed in amazement. “This is the work of my people, and the complexity of it rivals… One moment! Only Falgaroth himself could have designed this spell!”

  “He did, and he gave it to me during our private moment just before he left the beach yesterday. Talia and Ria are the only others who know of it. He said to let people think that I thought of it myself, and to wait a few days before I used it, but this is a good opportunity. And since the Truthstone is your people’s property, I thought I’d better get your okay before I did it.”

  “You know what it will do?”

  “Yes. It will allow more people to use the Truthstone than is presently possible. Beyond that, I’d like it to be a surprise. May I?”

  “Who am I to naysay Falgaroth’s plan? I am authorized to speak for my people, and we do grant you leave to do this thing.”

  She stepped back and straightened, and said for all to hear; “You may proceed.”

  “Thank you.” Mark nodded, and turned to those on the podium. “Could I have you move back from the Truthstone a bit? Thank you. Except you of course Eldest. Just tell me if you feel anything funny.”

  By now he was the center of attention for half the people in the room, and moments later, everyone was watching.

  He stepped up to the stone and laid his palms upon it, and it rose smoothly out of the floor until its lowermost point was six feet above the dais. A moment later a blue glow was given off by the stone, which brightened, then diminished.

  “Interesting.” the Eldest declared. It appeared that he perched on the surface of the dais beside Mark, his left hand within the stone to his wrist, as he carefully observed. “He pours power into the stone, a great deal of it, then he draws it out again. Now he pours it back in again, and withdraws it, and it is slightly different each time.”

  Quewanak thrust his head inside the stone, which many found to be an un-nerving sight, then withdrew it again. “Interesting.” he repeated.

  Again and again Mark poured so much power into the stone that Talia worried for him, and it glowed brighter each time, before he drew the inferno of magic back into himself again. Then he made the power flow into the stone one last time, held it there with what appeared to be gradually increasing effort as the blue light grew brighter and brighter, until finally it flashed actinically and was gone at the same moment that something seemed to fall out of the bottom of the stone and bounce with a glasslike tinkle.

  Mark slumped tiredly. “Could you get that for me Love?” he asked Talia, nodding toward the underside of the stone. “And check the Truthstone, please? It’s safe.”

  She scurried under after a cautious glance at the many tons of gemstone suspended in the air, and returned a moment later clutching her prize. “It’s The Truthstone of Falgaroth in miniature, two inches long!” she exclaimed as she held it up.

  “Yes, and vows sworn upon it are fully as binding as they would be if sworn upon the full-size stone.” Mark said as Talia handed it to him.

  “There’s no hole or dimple or anything in the bottom of the Truthstone to indicate where that came from.” Talia added.

  “So the stone is diminished by that amount of power?” Tithian asked.

  “No. In th
e important ways, this is still part of the bigger Truthstone. It’s like this piece of it has been Translocated away to this other location, but the Translocation is still going on, frozen in time with part of it in each place. In the other reality that we pass through when we Translocate, this small piece is still a solid part of the big stone. Or maybe it would be easier to think of the surface of this small stone as a kind of Displacement Plane that allows you to touch the surface of the big stone from another location. It works the same either way you think about it. I’m hoping the Eldest can manifest himself anywhere we take this. Would you care to try it, Eldest?” Mark asked, and held forth the small stone.

  “Certainly.” Quewanak nodded. He touched the tip of his claw to the gem Mark held, and withdrew his other hand from the Truthstone. “So far so good. Try Translocating over there.”

  Mark vanished and reappeared close to the edge of the room, and the Eldest went with him, his claw tip still stuck in the small stone.

  “Excellent. Stay here a moment.”

  The transparent green dragon willed himself back to the large stone, and instantly appeared beside it, touching it with his claw-tip. “Even better.” he nodded, and closed his eyes. “I can sense the small one. I think I could sense its location anywhere. Now to see if I truly learned anything during forty million years of napping.”

  With that he reappeared back beside Mark, while remaining on the dais, manifesting in two places at once.

  “Nice trick, Eldest!” Mark chuckled.

  “And a difficult if useful one. Now if only you could make a few more of those, this might be an enormous development.”

  “Ah, but I can!” Mark said, and brought them back to the dais. “And now that the hard part’s done, I only need to repeat the last part of that spell, which should be pretty easy.”

  He turned to Tithian as Quewanak looked himself in the eye for a moment, then dismissed his extra self.

  “How many do you think I should make? A hundred? A thousand? They’re really made out of my power, so the big one won’t get any smaller, no matter how many I make.”

  “Until you know how draining it will be to do so, perhaps you should work gradually. Do not allow yourself to reach your limits unexpectedly.” Tithian advised.

  “Good thinking.” Mark nodded, and turned to place his left hand on the great Truthstone. He closed his eyes, and there was a pulse of blue light accompanied by another tinkling impact as another small stone was released. Then there was another and another, till they were pouring out into a shallow pile that reached six feet wide and eighteen inches deep before the output tapered off, and ended with a final plink and a blue pulse.

  Mark took a deep breath and stepped back, and brought his treasures out from under the apparently undiminished great stone with a Movement spell. Once he had them gathered into a cluster floating beside him, he placed his hand on the huge stone again, and lowered it back within the dais till only its top was exposed.

  “That’s all I can do for now. I don’t know how many are there, but it’s a few hundred at least.”

  “Thank you. I can already think of a dozen good uses for these. They will be distributed to military and national leaders, and to highly placed intelligence agents.” Somonik said as he took custody of the glinting cluster of blue gems. “That was truly a unique and most impressive display of spell-craft. Will you keep the first one you made?”

  “If I may.” Mark nodded as he looked at it again, still in his right hand.

  “You may.” Tithian nodded.

  “Only three delegates have yet to arrive, the rest having made their appearance while we were distracted by your marvelous achievement. We should take our places, for we will come to order soon. Allow me to show you to your chairs.”

  “There are a lot fewer here than there were during the founding meeting.” Talia observed as she took her seat beside Mark.

  “Yes, only heads of state and senior military commanders are here, with at most one advisor each. This is a working meeting on policy and diplomacy, and it will be more focused than the founding, while being less prestigious to attend.” Tithian explained as she lay down on the floor on the other side of Mark with the easy manner of a dog.

  Yazadril, Nemia, and Alilia took seats on the other side of Talia.

  Yazadril was still marveling at his new trinket, given to him by Somonik a moment before. “The Truthstone of Falgaroth in the palm of my hand. What a wonder.” he murmured.

  Nemia merely exchanged a smile and a nod with her daughter and Mark, since they’d spoken only hours earlier.

  “We shall now come to order.” Somonik announced from the dais. “This meeting of the national leaders and high commanders of The Just Alliance is now in session.

  “First, the latest developments.

  “Efforts to see over the Wards around Venak have proved fruitless, since they grow in height in response. However, we have determined by careful measurements of temperatures that those Wards block light from one direction only, thus it is a tiny bit warmer in Venak than it should be, and also thus we can deduce that those within can see out, while we who are without cannot see in. They can deploy in force just inside their Wards in preparation for launching an attack, and we cannot detect them doing so, yet they can see any deployments we emplace outside their borders, unless we take other steps to hide our movements.

  “We have also been unable to open communications with anyone within Venak for the purpose of initiating diplomatic negotiations.

  “Our only appreciably positive developments have come at the hands of the Keys to The Just Alliance and the rest of their Hilian forces, whose successful ambush and subsequent battle in Kletiuk earlier today yielded twenty-four prisoners. Those prisoners were relieved of many spells that had been cast upon them to prevent them from being interrogated or Compelled, and were then Compelled to swear to truth and justice upon The Truthstone of Falgaroth, and interrogated thoroughly. While they were unable to shed any light on the nature of the Wards around Venak, since none of them have been stationed within sight of those borders since those Wards were erected, they have supplied a great deal of valuable information. While none were entrusted with any military information beyond what they needed to carry out their mission, they know all that is common knowledge in Venak, and to us, that is precious intelligence indeed.

  “Venak is under harsh martial law, and every able-bodied person who is capable of swinging a short sword has been conscripted into the military, regardless of age or gender, and I do mean that literally. Everyone has been conscripted. Some children with only six years of life are being trained as soldiers, and the training is harsh. Children not yet strong enough to swing the sword of testing are cared for at massive and highly organized facilities housing thousands of babies, infants, and young children, in order to reduce to a minimum the number of adults required to see to them. I will grant that they have at least done their people the mercy of keeping families together as much as possible, fathers and mothers training and working beside their sons and daughters, and their youngest are returned to them during their off-duty hours. All farms, businesses, and properties have been nationalized and brought under military organization and control. No dissent or unsanctioned violence is tolerated, and infractions are punished quickly and severely.

  “This is the most complete militarization any nation has undertaken in all the long history of Kellaran. The entire country of Venak, including everyone and everything within its borders, is now a single military force.

  “Furthermore, we have grossly underestimated the number of our own peoples who have refused the chance to live in a just society, and have joined the ranks of our enemies. Of course almost every member of the insidious conspiracy in all our nations fled to Venak, as did almost every career criminal in The Just Alliance. What is shocking however, is the number of productive citizens who have chosen to accept King Renem’s offer of relocation to Venak, thou
gh few of them expected to find themselves conscripted upon arrival, and their possessions seized. They are those who wished to continue cheating on their taxes, or to continue engaging in drunken brawls, or seeking power through bribery and corruption. Bullies, bigots, rapists, petty thieves, liars, tricksters and minor miscreants of all types have gone over to Venak.

  “Delegates of The Just Alliance, fully one of every ten of our people have defected to the enemy!! This ranges from one in thirty among the nations of the Selkies and the Kwetkerthok, to fully one of every seven humans! The full extent of this had not been realized, as many of them had avoided being listed as taxpayers or citizens!

  “Due to this influx, an incredible eight hundred million persons at the very least have gone to Venak! The original three hundred and twenty million inhabitants of Venak have been subsumed by this new population, their national character and identity assimilated into the new military culture, which includes those of every race except the elves and The People of Morning. Trade Common is now the official language of Venak, and Venakian is no longer spoken in any official capacity. Those who could not speak Trade Common well enough to follow orders have learned it quickly in order to avoid being cuffed, kicked and lashed by their superiors.

  “Almost every home and building there has been disassembled, the materials used in the construction of huge barracks to house this horde. Their forests are being stripped of trees for building materials and planted in food crops, and it seems that most of their new plantations will succeed in producing a harvest before the onset of the Debivinian winter. New mines are dug every day to increase their metals production, and weapons factories are everywhere.

  “As most of us suspected, there are Sylvan and dragons of Serminak in Venak as well. Millions of them. They assist in the work of military training and production of war materiel. This is so out of character for them that it seems almost impossible, but apparently they even assist in the most mundane and distasteful of labors with as much stoic military discipline as any commander could ask! Imagine Dark Dragons expending their flame in flaring latrine pits! I would have thought that any of them would gladly die before submitting to such malodorous drudgery, but our witnesses have seen it with their own eyes, and reported that it was accomplished with no more griping and complaint than one would expect from any other soldiers!

  “It is represented to the public there that the Sylvan and Dark Dragons are hired mercenary companies. But, this is inconsistent with the fact that millions of tons of foodstuffs and raw materials are being shipped from Serminak, though the first ship will not return to Venak from there for almost two months. Smaller amounts are being brought in by Flight and Translocation. If this were not so, no amount of effort would allow the resources of Venak to support its new population. Thus the situation in Venak is unstable, and they cannot continue as they are indefinitely without complete dependency on Serminak. This also speaks of great changes of long standing in Serminak, since the peoples there have never before been known to produce a significant surplus.

  “There are other ramifications that must be considered, and I now present King Dren of Finitra.”

  King Dren rose from his seat at the edge of the dais opposite Tithian, and strode confidently to join Somonik and the Eldest, and graced them with a shallow bow before turning to address the assembly. “It many ways, it might be easier if our enemies were bloodthirsty lunatics who routinely raped, tortured and executed the innocent. Were that the case, we could feel comfortable with hating and killing them, and we could count on a strong sentiment of rebellion among their ranks.

  “But the truth of it is a far different thing. And I think our enemies are far more formidable for being what they truly are. To illustrate this, I would like to make use of this fine Revealing stone, a gift from Overlord Senchak. What you are about to see is the testimony of one Finium Bilv, who was captured by Hilian forces this morning.”

  The Revealing appeared above Dren’s head twenty feet on a side, and showed a tired-looking human with black hair, slumped on a stone bench and holding a mug of water, the buckles of his battle-gear loosened for comfort.

  “I was from Venak originally, and it’s always been home to me, but I’d moved to Taldria with my family. We went back day before yesterday when King Renem sent out the call.

  “I figured even if Osbald of Thon did have good intentions, and even if Sorrin was part of some conspiracy, Osbald didn’t know that when he did what he did; he abducted the king of another sovereign nation from out of his bed in the middle of the night, by overpowering our palace wizard’s defenses and by means of forced Translocation. Well that there’s an act of war anywhere you go, isn’t it?

  “And besides, what you people are doing is un-natural! Taking away a man’s natural freedom of action with magic, that’s wrong! The strong survive, that’s what’s natural! If a man insults my wife I’m gonna break his nose, not get into some stupid bad-mouthing contest or run whining to a magistrate! There’s lots of people who’re willing to take what they dish out, and you’re not going to stop them from causing trouble by going tit-for-tat with ‘em! If a man in Venak starts some trouble, he knows he’ll get it back ten-fold, hard and fast!

  “You’ve forced your vow on me, so now I guess I’ll just swallow my bile if a man insults my wife. But that’s not how I’d choose to be, nor will it ever be.”

  A voice spoke from beyond the Revealing’s viewpoint. “From what your friend here was saying, you’d be unlikely to break anyone’s nose in Venak right now, even if you hadn’t sworn the vow.”

  “Ah, and isn’t that the funny truth of it?” the weary human chuckled. “No, he wouldn’t insult my wife, or a handy sergeant would give ‘em the beating for causing dissension in the ranks. And I wouldn’t break his nose for it, or I’d get the same. Things have changed fast there over the last four days.

  “Some don’t much like King Renem, but he gets respect for talking straight, and because he won’t back down or run from anyone or anything. He laid it right out, and he said that good or bad, right or wrong, we’re all in it together now, and in it up to our necks. There might not be enough of us to beat the alliance, break all these stones and swords and such that folk have been sworn on, and kill the wizards who’ve spelled ‘em, which is what it would take to end all this foolishness. But with the folk who’ve come to join us and the mercenaries out of Serminak, we’re gonna be way too big a bite for you lot to chew off and swallow comfortably, so long as every single one of us is willing to give it our all.

  “So, now we’re all in the army, and it’s a Serminak style army.

  “They have a saying they live by; ‘Everyone gets the same beating.’ If someone gets out of line they get ‘the beating’, and it’s a bad one, let me tell you! But it’s a fast one and a careful one. They know exactly how much they can hurt you, and where, without slowing you down too much the next day at work or in the field, and without leaving any permanent damage. And if your sergeant beats you bad enough that your work suffers the next day, he gets the beating from his superiors, just to show him how to do his job right. The rules are simple but strict, and it’s the same all the way up the line, everyone gets treated exactly the same. If the Commander of the Infantry insults the wife of the lowest pot scrubber in my barracks, he’d get exactly the same beating my squad-mate would get for insulting my wife, and not five seconds later either, I mean right there and then! If you commit two infractions in one day, you get the second beating from a Sylvan, who beats you half to death, then Heals you up again, and maybe does all that two or three times if you’ve really done something disruptive. You feel fine the next day, but it’s not something you’d risk again if you’d had it done, or even seen it. They haven’t had to beat very many; folks saw where the river ran right away.

  “I tell you, those Sylvan are strange, even stranger than the dragons.

  “The dragons are civil enough, but they tend to treat you
the way a man treats a good dog.

  “But the Sylvan are another bucket of beer altogether. Last night our whole barracks was doing this dance this dwarf showed us, and we’re drinking and eating and carrying on after a hard day, and there was this Sylvan in with our group, you know, some of my friends and our families. And he was a funny guy, he really was, he had us laughing till our eyes teared!

  “And I said to him; ‘You know, you Sylvan are all right. You’re not the bloody savages I’d heard you were.’

  “And he says to me; ‘Finium, drinking and laughing with you and your folk is fun, and I enjoy it. But it would be just as much fun to kill you slowly and fry you up for dinner. Orders are orders though, break the rules and get the beating, and you won’t catch me causing dissension in the ranks!’

  “And he damn well meant every word of it!

  “I guess that’s the way of it all over Serminak too, just like Venak. Everyone’s in the army, break the rules and get the same beating no matter who you are, unless you’re tough enough to kill the top dragon.

  “And the Dragon Lord, he tells ‘em to go ahead and try, too! Any assassin that tries to kill him gets sent home with the same beating they’d get for insulting my wife. The Sylvan say that when the Dragon Lord first took over, he had to beat some of his rivals dozens of times before they finally caught on that they just couldn’t kill him, or even put a scratch on him! And he never killed one of them, though they came at him by the thousands with blood in their eye, Sylvan and dragons too. He just beat ‘em bad and sent ‘em home, as he still does if someone breaks his rules. You have to admire that. Too bad Osbald didn’t have that self-control when he abducted King Sorrin. Just goes to show you how much justice there really is in The Just Alliance, doesn’t it?”

  There was a moment’s pause, then the Revealing ended.

  “Now we know what we are faced with.” Dren said into the silence of the huge room.

  “And I’d like to remind you that while Emperor Osbald did act with incomplete information the night King Sorrin was killed, he relied on his experience and intuition to know that action had to be taken, and he was right. If Osbald hadn’t forced King Sorrin and the other conspirators, we’d have never even known of the conspiracy’s existence until their blades were at our throats!”

  He paused. “The question is, what should we do now? Thank you.” And with that, King Dren tucked away his Revealing stone and resumed his seat.

  “Over the long term, that is a complex question, but over the short term we only have two options, as I see it.” Somonik continued.

  “I think it safe to assume that we all agree that we do not have sufficient reason to attack Venak, in light of the appalling loss of life on both sides that it would entail. But make no mistake; if it does become necessary, we do have the capability to break the Wards of Venak, and to rout their forces. And if the worst happens, even the forces of Serminak, as militarized as it appears they have become, could not stand against the united might of The Just Alliance.

  “We cannot open negotiations with Venak. The cargo ships that sail from there to Serminak are crewed by civilian humans, with no authority or wizards aboard. No Venak naval vessels have strayed beyond their waters since their Wards were emplaced. And similar Wards are in place along the coastline of Serminak.

  “But the Wards along the Sylvan Boundary, five hundred miles out to sea from Serminak’s shores, are of a more conventional nature, and they allow the passage of sight and sound. Some of our fishing vessels work quite close to the Boundary, and some Sylvan fishermen do the same on the other side, and they have been known to exchange shouts and friendly waves as they pass on either side of the line. The crews of Serminak’s naval vessels, who patrol the Boundary in great numbers, are not immune to this urge to share a greeting with a friendly stranger, glimpsed for a few moments in the midst of a long and monotonous sea patrol. Our naval vessels keep their distance from the Boundary, since if they approach it, the Sylvan Navy rushes to gather there.

  “Our first option is to try to open diplomatic negotiations with Serminak through their Naval officers. We have a Shiganzhu cruiser on station three miles from the Boundary. If we choose this option, they will sail to within one hundred feet of the Boundary, flying every flag of peace that we recognize, and when Sylvan vessels approach on the other side of the line, they will be hailed. To get their attention, we will cast a life-sized two-way Illusion of this room and this meeting. We will announce who we are and what our intentions are, and request the attention of their superiors, preferably that of the one they name The Dragon Lord. Their vessels will include in their crews a few serious spell-casters, and they will be able to pass the word along up the chain of command with great rapidity.

  “Our second option is to do nothing more than we are already doing; continuing our efforts to fortify our defenses and ready our militaries. If we choose this option we may accelerate these efforts, and do what we can to increase their scope.

  “Some among you may have other ideas. This is the time to share them.

  “Who would speak now? Empress Emeroth of Verzaclon.”

  “Thank you.” she said as she stood and hitched at her sword belt. “We’ll keep augmenting our defenses until every wall and roof is thick steel and every building is Warded, or until the Nexus is past, whichever comes first. Our militaries are on full alert, and we’re getting recruits as fast as we can train them for both full-time and reserve service. We’re not going to do much better than that unless we institute conscription ourselves, which I will not do unless open warfare has begun. I think High Commander Yazadril will agree that much the same could be said of every nation represented here. We could curtail our citizens’ newly-enhanced luxuries and joys, and militarize as thoroughly as they have in Venak, but that wouldn’t help our defensive position as much as you might think. What it would do is drop a big rock on the greatest wave of prosperity this world has ever seen.

  “My point is that if anyone thinks we should wait to open communications with Serminak until we’re stronger militarily, they should know that it’s unlikely to significantly improve our position in less than six months. Beyond six years, we are likely to begin to gradually lose the advantage. The captive Shiganzhu I interviewed told me that they are rewarding people for breeding in Venak. Rewards of goods or better quarters or more off-duty time are offered to those who breed the most children, and they are publicly held in high regard.

  “These people are absolutely determined, and they are preparing for a long struggle, spanning generations if necessary.

  “Peace or war, the sooner this is decided, the greater the probability that it will be resolved in our favor.

  “The Nexus approaches. Something tells me that we don’t want to be in the middle of a worldwide war when it gets here, or we may find that the war is the Nexus.

  “If it must be war, we might be wise to goad them into beginning it, and soon. Almost all of our preparations have been defensive, and all of our calculations show that we would lose the least if we remain on the defensive in the war until we are fully prepared to make an overwhelmingly decisive strike.

  “But in addition to all of that, I say we do our best to talk with these people, and as soon as possible. We do everything we can to avoid war, and to forge a permanent peace. But we’ll never be able to trust these people if they won’t swear a binding vow of justice, or at least a vow of non-aggression against us. If they plan to attack, we need to find out, so we can make sure that the conflict occurs on our terms.

  “Thank you.”

  “Who would speak now?” Somonik asked as Empress Emeroth took her seat.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  “Overlord Senchak of Kletiuk.”

  The Overlord of all the dwarves stood and spoke from where he was. “I’m with Empress Emeroth. Get ‘em talking and get it done, peace or war. What says the Key?”

  “Yes, what says
the Key?” several asked as Senchak sat down.

  “Prince Mark of Hilia, Key to The Just Alliance.” Somonik intoned as Mark stood.

  “I agree, there are many reasons to try to begin talks as soon as possible, few to delay, and none to refrain from it entirely.” Mark stated. “I suggest we try this naval diplomacy, and that we do so today.”

  “Who would speak now?” Somonik asked as Mark resumed his seat.

  When it became obvious that none were going to answer, he nodded.

  “Then I ask you, are we agreed that we should seek to initiate diplomacy with the government of Serminak through one of each party’s naval vessels, and do so immediately?”

  The delegates’ response was decisive.

  “Let the record show that all have agreed.

  “Empress Emeroth, contact your vessel and initiate the operation.”

  “It will take them twelve minutes to achieve station beside the Sylvan Boundary.” Emeroth announced. “It’s not one of our fastest ships, but it’s one of the hardest to sink.” She closed her eyes and cast Speaking to her ship’s captain.

  “They’re reporting that a squadron of six naval vessels have been shadowing their course from an equal distance on the Serminak side of the line. Those are closing at the same pace our ship is, so they should reach hailing distance about a minute after ours reaches the boundary and sets their anchors.”

  “Is your ship armed, Empress?” Prime Wisdom Klirp of the Selkies inquired through a translator.

  “Yes, but lightly, and the batteries are hidden. Not that it would have a chance against even one Sylvan battleship. If trouble starts, I’m taking my people out of danger. We’re prepared to Translocate the whole ship back to Felion waters on a moment’s notice. Not an easy trick, even with a cruiser, which is why we didn’t choose to send a battleship ourselves.”

  “Wise of you.” Klirp’s translator related after translating in both directions.

  “Thank you.” she nodded, and closed her eyes again to continue monitoring her ship’s progress.

  “It is a fortuitous moment to refresh oneself, before contact is made.” the gargoyle majordomo suggested in a carrying voice. “We have a vast selection of beverages and comestibles available. Please feel free to avail yourselves of this by inquiring of a server, who are designated by the symbol of a drinking vessel.”

  “I could use one of Hilsith’s soothing teas right now.” Mark remarked as some of the delegates placed orders, while others made their way to the privacies, and some gathered into clusters to talk.

  “I know the recipe.” Nemia told him with a smile. “I’ll see if they can make it, or something similar. Does anyone else want any?”

  Talia, Yazadril, and the rest of the elves all agreed that they would.

  “Hilsith will be flattered.” Nemia smiled, and made her way to the nearest server.

  “That was some frightening stuff we heard about Venak and Serminak.” Mark commented, a bit worriedly. “At least they’re not totally evil. I mean, they seem like the kind of people we can negotiate with.”

  “No, they’re not totally evil.” Yazadril nodded. “The military discipline that’s been enforced on Serminak is far better that the barbaric state of near-anarchy that existed the last time I visited there some three thousand years ago. That very well may have been the last time any outsider went there.”

  “And now, cargo vessels from Venak, though they haven’t arrived yet.” Talia said.

  “Hah! I’ll believe that when I see it!” her father disagreed. “I think it far more likely that the Venak ships will be loaded by a transfer of cargo at sea from Serminak vessels anchored at the Boundary.”

  “Wow! They’re that cautious?” Mark asked. “What are they so worried about?”

  “Revenge.” Yazadril stated bluntly. “They have made themselves peoples to be feared by their many attacks upon the rest of us over the millennia, though they have not done so for the last five. And of course, that was when I tried to instill in them a general disgust for the presence of the rest of us, in order to help keep them from our shores, though that may have passed by now.”

  “Wow. You’re still choking on things that happened over five thousand years ago?” Mark chuckled. “Long-lived types really know how to hold a grudge.”

  Yazadril merely shrugged.

  Nemia returned then with a waiter who bore a tray of steaming teacups, and conversation paused while they were distributed and sampled.

  “Tell me, why do the dragons seem to do everything by nines?” Mark asked as he sipped the delicious brew.

  “Tradition and superstition, really.” Yazadril said. “The first generation of dragons numbered nine individuals, six females and three males. Every dragon who has lived since that time are descended from the original nine.”

  “How could they know that, that there was only nine?”

  “Ah. Well there are two ways for a race of beings to come into being, whether they are intelligent people or dumb animals. Some develop gradually by the processes of life here on Kellaran. Every generation are a tiny bit different from their parents, and if a population becomes isolated for a time, they can develop into a distinct race. This is how humans and selkies came into being. But a race can also begin suddenly, when the sun changes for a time, shining with a brighter or different light, and the magic of the Source intensifies for a period from one day to thirty years. This is how the elven race was born. The sun changed for twelve years, and during that time, about one in every fifty babies born to human parents was an elf. Some time later it was realized that a new race was born when it was seen that bonded couples of elves were fertile with each other, but that elves were almost completely infertile with humans or during casual fornication. It was confirmed when our other racial characteristics were recognized; longevity, healing, talent with magic, and knowing what time it is without an external reference.

  “When the dragons were born, Kellaran was populated by all manner of reptilian leviathans, but none were intelligent, or magical. The sun must have flared intensely for only one day, for the nine dragons later realized that they had been born within a week of each other, and had likely been conceived on the same day and within five hundred leagues of each other. They had sufficient psionic sensitivity and curiosity to find one another over their youth, and all nine lived to be at least a half million years old, by which time they had many descendants, and had developed an advanced culture and language, with the assistance of Glup of the Zurb.”

  “Oh. Well thanks, that takes care of my education for today.” Mark grinned.

  “We believe they have seen our flags of peace by distance viewers.” Emeroth announced, her eyes still closed. “Both sides continue to close on the Boundary, and they’ve taken no hostile action thus far. Generally they would be opening weapons ports at this distance.”

  “Somonik, if you would, I’d welcome it if you’d cast our side of the viewing Illusion.” Yazadril stated. “It’s time for us to see what’s going on.”

  “Agreed.” Somonik nodded. “Could I have everyone on this side of the hall please move across the room. Thank you. There is no need to crowd, there is plenty of room, feel free to use as much as you wish. We do not need to occupy a small space for this; we merely need to face in the same direction. Thank you.”

  Once one side of the hall was cleared, Somonik clicked his claws together, and that third of the room became a gigantic window looking out over a ship on a breezy, partially cloudy morning. The bottom of the window seemed to hover over the rear of the ship, looking forward. Mark thought that it would have been a pretty big ship for humans, but it’s crew of forty or fifty giants looked rather confined as they worked on her crowded decks.

  In the distance could be seen the curtain of shimmering haziness that marked the Boundary, though only the whitish line it made on the surface of the water was very distinct. In the deeper distance beyond that and off to one side a b
it was the squadron of six ships approaching for the rendezvous, each a twin-hulled gargantuan.

  “What are their sails doing?” Talia asked. “They’re moving strangely, but it’s hard to tell at this distance.”

  “They are rotating, almost edge-on to us.” Emeroth told her. “Their sails are large windmills, six to a ship, and geared to water-screws below the surface. Thus it does not matter to them which direction the wind is blowing in relation to their direction of travel. The six water-screws each have their own rudders, and they can maneuver in surprising ways. A very stable design, due to the widely-spaced twin hulls, and faster than ours of a similar size under some conditions, slower in others. They require less draft, but more clearance abeam in narrow passages. Their greatest advantage is shown when conditions are absolutely becalmed, for the windmills can be disconnected from their gearing, allowing the water screws to be turned by manual labor or magic. A far more efficient solution than putting out boats and rowing, or driving the whole ship by Force, which is what we still have to do.”

  “Hey, those things are really big!” Mark realized. “Are those dragons on the decks?”

  “Yes. A Sylvan battleship carries a complement of six hundred crew, eight hundred marines, and six dragons. We think one of the dragons is often in command, but not always.”

  Nothing more was said while the giants’ ship approached the Boundary, then folded their sails with a clever system of ropes and pulleys that didn’t require the crew to climb the rigging, and played out anchors. It slowed almost to a stop, drifted sideways a bit in the current, then was still. Her figurehead, a winged stag, was barely a hundred feet from the transparent shimmer. The crew secured the ship and came to parade-rest in formation in the center of the deck, their hands open and empty, their bright white uniforms snapping in the breeze and contrasting smartly with the deep brown wood of their vessel.

  Five of the much more massive Serminak vessels dropped anchor hundreds of yards from the Boundary, and only their flagship approached within hailing distance. It was obvious when their windmills were disconnected from their gearing, for the windmills began to turn faster even as the ships began to slow. The crews of the five more distant ships lined their railings to spectate, but as the flagship came to a halt, her sailors went about their business, trying to look unconcerned and uninterested, while her marines formed up in neat lines on her huge rectangular deck and came to attention, weapons at the ready. Five of her dragons sat up looking curious between the blocks of marines, and a delegation of one blue dragon and four Sylvan in ornate uniforms approached her forward railing.

  “This is the time to check our appearances and prepare for translation. I suggest we stand.” Somonik stated. “The communication will initiate in Draconian or one of the Sylvan tongues, as it falls to us as petitioners to speak the language of the hosts. I am now casting the other half of the viewing illusion, and they will see us through this window of magic, and know that we see them.”

  “Allow me to supply you with translation of the Draconian.” Ria said to Mark and Talia via Link, and Mark glanced down to see that Talia’s grip was white-knuckled on her hilt. He gently took her other hand as they stood and they exchanged a quick smile, and she relaxed a bit.

  It was obvious when the Illusion became active from the other direction, for everyone on the Serminak ships was obviously taken aback when the view into the Hall of The Just Alliance appeared floating in the air above the Shiganzhu cruiser, and they looked up and met the eyes of those within.

  Somonik immediately launched into a rapid-fire discourse of the growls, roars and snarls that characterized the Draconian languages.

  “Good, he got their attention before they could do anything stupid.” Ria said as the five officers listened. “He says; ‘Greetings, I am Somonik, Speaker of the Circle of Ninety-Nine of the Draconians of Xervia, and Eldest of that nation with some sixty-five and one-half million years of life. You see here assembled with me the monarchs and representatives of every nation on Kellaran outside Serminak and Venak, and together we are The Assembly of The Just Alliance. We seek to conduct diplomacy with the most senior representatives of your government, and we ask you to bring this to their attention.’”

  The blue dragon at the railing of the flagship bowed his head and snarled in reply.

  “He says; ‘Greetings, I am Gaktanbak, Captain of The Crushing Claw, and Commander of The Bloody Fang Squadron. My Strike Officer will carry word to my superiors of this. Their reply may not be immediate.’

  “Somonik says that we will wait. He said that with a certain intensity, implying that we will wait while strongly preferring not to, and also implying that we may not wait that long.”

  Gaktanbak turned to the most ornately uniformed Sylvan beside him and communicated privately for a moment, and the Sylvan twitched her long, pointed ears, and disappeared.

  “That one is mightily displeased with her assignment, I can tell you that, though she hides it well.” Ria confided.

  “And now Gaktanbak is forced by Draconian protocol to meet Somonik’s eye while we wait, and he is mightily discomfited by it. Even in Serminak, every dragon alive knows who Somonik is, and knows of his power, which is unmatched. The ancient white is obviously very disconcerting in such a stare-down, and he would hold it steadily for years if it was necessary. If the blue were an elf, I’d say he is already starting to sweat and itch. I wouldn’t put it past Somonik to mesmerize him through the Illusion. Look, Gaktanbak actually fidgeted, costing him much face in the eyes of his crew and in the eyes of the dragons here. He is certainly hating his life at this moment.”

  “Maybe we can help the old gent out.” Mark chuckled. “Should I stare fiercely at one of the Sylvan officers?”

  “No, Sylvan protocol is different, and it may be taken as a challenge to combat. Better to simply act nonchalant and unconcerned.” Ria advised.

  The Strike Officer returned in less than a minute, accompanied by a huge copper dragon who was easily the size of Kragorram, who hovered over the Serminak ship while room was hastily cleared for him at the front railing.

  “She’s a big one, isn’t she?” Ria commented, correcting Mark’s misapprehension of the dragon’s gender. “She says; ‘Greetings, I am First Flame Tekritimaki. I serve directly below my Lord. How may I be of assistance to you?’

  “Somonik says; ‘Greetings. We seek to enjoy ongoing diplomatic relations between our governments, abundant trade between our nations, and permanent peace on the world of Kellaran. We also have certain questions concerning the activities of some citizens of Serminak in Venak at the present time.’”

  First Flame Tekritimaki bowed, low and humbly.

  “She says; ‘I must apologize, for I am not authorized to discuss those issues with you at this time. Only my Lord may speak to those issues, and he is otherwise occupied. He has left strict instructions that he not be disturbed until another nine days have passed. I bid you to inquire again at that time. I will insure that this squadron remains here until then, to help facilitate your communication.’

  “And Somonik says; ‘I see. May I inquire as to what activity so occupies your Lord?’

  “Tekritimaki replies; ‘My Lord is engaged in astronomy, and has been thus occupied for the last twenty-seven days.’ She seems quite proud that her liege would ignore the world for thirty-six days at a time, in order to look at the stars.

  “Somonik says; ‘These are crucial days. I am sure that there is some mechanism by which your Lord can be reached, should important events come to pass.’

  “And she says; ‘There is such a mechanism, but it is only to be used in the event of the direst emergency. Even in that case, I would be beaten for disturbing my Lord’s observations. Can you give me reason why I should consider such a dire emergency to exist? Or give me reason to believe that you could not wait nine days for his attentions?’

  “Somonik seems angry, and at a bit of a loss, but he will
not give up that easily.”

  Quewanak gracefully flared his transparent green wings, shook them a bit, and gently folded them again.

  “In this context, what the Eldest does is a polite way of saying that he is about to interrupt the conversation.”

  Tithian spoke privately in Mark and Talia’s minds. “Your analysis of Draconian communication is accurate and fascinating, Ria, and you should continue it. But allow me to save you the effort of the translation of the language itself.”

  With that, she passed Mark a Draconian to Trade Common translation spell. Since it was a spell of The People of Morning and designed to be used by a unicorn, it took him a few seconds to translate it, grasp it, transpose the power requirements, and cast it. By that time Quewanak had already begun speaking, and Mark had to think back on what had just been said as he caught up with the conversation.

  “Perhaps you could help me on a possibly unrelated matter. Greetings, by the way. I am Quewanak, formerly ruler of the Draconian race, and with one hundred and twenty-two million and some odd years of life, I am The Eldest Draconian.”

  “Tekritimaki is shocked to her core.” Ria commented. “She is not even going to bow to him, she is so flabbergasted. The Eldest is nonchalant, having obviously counted on this reaction.”

  “I seek someone I knew some forty million years ago, who preferred to be known at that time as The Darkest Black. He would be about ninety-five million years of age now, and is certainly the eldest on the continent of Serminak. I sense him some two hundred leagues to the north-east of the geographical center of the continent. Perhaps you could give him a message for me.”

  Tekritimaki couldn’t even bring herself to speak for a few seconds.

  “You… You speak of my Lord! You can sense his location?!!! From this distance?!!!”

  “Oh yes. I think he has a few shields around him as well. Although technically, I am not sensing his location from here, since I am not here. I am sensing his location from a far more distant place.”

  “A few shields…!!”

  “And that is a hard swallow of pure terror on her part.” Ria mentally snickered.

  “My Lord has spoken of you! Honored Eldest, it is thought that you have been dead for many eons!”

  “Obviously not.”

  The copper dragon stared in amazement for another few seconds, then shook her head as she tried to gather her thoughts. “My Lord will indeed wish to know of this, possibly without delay. For this, I will accept the beating. What message may I deliver to my Lord from Quewanak the Eldest?”

  “Only this; Let the past be the past. I would speak with you in this new time.”

  “It will be done, Eldest.” Tekritimaki said as she bowed deeply, but as she straightened, she continued to do no more than stare.

  “Is there something else?” Quewanak inquired.

  “Your pardon. Eldest. It is just that it occurs to me that if I bring this to my Lord’s attention, and it is subsequently discovered that you are an impostor, he will give me an eternity of pain for my error. But it is difficult to discern the truth of the matter from your astral projection as viewed through an Illusion.”

  “I understand. And I declare by the soul of holy Amirgath himself that I am indeed Quewanak the Eldest, and that I am indeed alive in body and mind, though I choose to communicate through this astral projection at this time.

  “Besides that, I have Somonik here to vouch for my identity, and you can easily confirm his identity by conventional means, and we all know that he would no more lie about such a thing than turn into a tree.”

  Tekritimaki glanced over at Somonik, back to the Eldest, bowed in what Ria judged to be an almost groveling manner, said; ‘Thank you.’ and vanished.

  Somonik clacked his claws, and there was sudden silence as the sounds of the sea, the wind, and the creaking of rigging abruptly ceased.

  “Well done.” Somonik said as he turned to Quewanak, and he actually grinned. “And you were right; your old enemy is behind everything again.”

  “We have to avoid thinking of him as the Eldest’s old enemy, or we’ll just end up making him our new enemy, and we still don’t have anything that proves he’s responsible for the actions of the conspiracy!” Mark determinedly stated.

  “If you choose to think so, but cattle do not become cats.” Quewanak insisted. “Darkest has obviously changed a great deal, but it is becoming clear to me that he is really no better for it.

  “Still, you are correct in that we must be careful to be civil with him, so long as a realistic chance of ensuring peace exists.

  “If he comes, he will be quick about it. Be ready.”

  They waited for less than another minute, then a similar window Illusion appeared hundreds of feet above the Serminaki flagship. Somonik raised his own window to be level with it, and those on the ships below were left out of the conversation.

  The illusory window they faced across two hundred feet of open air and the shimmer of the Boundary was only slightly larger than the one they looked out of, but within it was the biggest room any there had ever seen. Judging by some barely visible Sylvan hurrying along the far wall, it was close to a half-mile in diameter. It appeared to have been constructed in a crater or volcanic bowl, and then roofed over with an artfully ribbed steel dome, or perhaps it was a cavern formed by an underground sea of oil or water that had been drained and re-enforced. Almost everything in it was black or red stone, and illumination was provided by huge fireballs over thirty feet in diameter that burned with no visible support or fuel supply ninety feet above the floor, spaced one hundred and sixty feet apart.

  After a sufficient moment to allow the mood and monumental nature of that view to fully register, a dragon gradually appeared within it, fading into view just far enough from the viewpoint to be completely visible, almost filling the window. Mark couldn’t help thinking that this was the most striking dragon he’d ever seen; black with gold and silver accents, almost too muscular to be sinuous, but not quite. Each large black scale had a thin band of silver at it’s edge, his claws were gold, as were his eyes, his eyebrow ridges, and his sharp teeth, and the bones of his wings were outlined in gold as well. He had a prominent row of dorsal spines that ran from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, and two large, curved horns over his eyebrow ridges, all tipped in silver.

  He was holding a small copper dragon around the base of its neck with one hand, his grip unshakable with the tips of his claws dug in a bit. He held the copper drake high above the floor, and when it struggled a bit and flapped its wings, he casually gave it a violent shake to take the fight out of it.

  Then things snapped into perspective as Mark realized that the comparatively small copper dragon was First Flame Tekritimaki, who was the size of Kragorram; at least two hundred feet from her nose to the tip of her tail.

  “Sweet mother of all!” Mark marveled to Talia over their Link. “He must be six hundred feet in length! Three hundred feet high as he sits there!”

  Talia only squeezed his hand in response.

  There was no conversation initially, as each side took the other’s measure.

  Somewhat surprisingly, it was Grakonexikaldoron who broke the silence from her place at the rear of the delegation. “That aura! Zarkog?!! Is that you?!! You’re the Dragon Lord of Serminak?!!!”

  “Grakonexikaldoron.” The Dragon Lord nodded. “Yes, it is I, and I do hold that position. Are you well?”

  His voice was incredible, and was almost like two voices. It was a smooth and deep baritone, duplicated a full octave lower by a quaking rumble of awesome resonance and power. Mark felt exactly what people meant when they said his voice made their bones vibrate and their chests feel funny.

  As he thought this, Gran was replying. “I am quite well, thank you, and you?”

  “I am quite well also.”

  “This person is your friend?” Somonik carefully asked.

  “We have Spoken occasio
nally on the subject of astronomy, usually it’s more esoteric and theoretical aspects.” The gold dragon replied. “I only know Zarkog as a shining intellect and an fascinating conversationalist. Certainly one of the most pre-eminent of astronomers for the last several million years, but reclusive, and not prone to a great deal of communication. He has not contacted me for some six thousand years, so I knew he was working on something important. The only visual contact we had was the sharing of sky-scapes. I did not know he was as big as a mountain!

  “Truly Zarkog, you present an astounding and handsome figure!”

  “I do try to take care of myself.” Zarkog smiled, and turned to the Eldest, scrutinizing him for a moment.

  “Quewanak? Is that truly you?”

  “It is.” The eldest nodded. “You are he who was known as The Darkest Black some forty-one million years ago?”

  “I am.” Zarkog nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me, how’s your head?”

  “It still gives me a twinge, every now and then. How’s your neck?”

  “It’s fine now, but it was a hard recovery. One vertebra higher, and I’d have died in moments. I cannot guess how you survived! I saw your brain exposed!”

  “As you say, it was a hard recovery. I take it you missed the crevasse?”

  “I did not. I jammed at the bottom in an awkward position, completely paralyzed.”

  The Dragon Lord paused a moment, then shook his head in wonder. “By the gods, you truly are you!”

  “And you’re you. Now that we’ve established that, perhaps you could cease asphyxiating your First Flame before she expires.”

  “Oh? Right, of course.” Zarkog said as he set Tekritimaki down and casually Healed her.

  “That will be all for now.” he told her as she rose to her feet, a trifle unsteadily. “Return to your duties. Take your choice of prey and mates tonight, and take tomorrow off.”

  “If I may truly have my choice of mates, I will await you in your quarters, that I may serve you further, my Lord.” Tekritimaki respectfully told him as she bowed to the floor.

  “You may.” he replied, and she assembled what dignity she could and took her leave, while he turned back to Quewanak.

  “I lay in that crevasse for three years, you know, before I could heal myself enough to move. Starving, drinking rainwater when it fell, and occasionally almost drowning in it, unable to sleep from the pain. I had a great deal of time to think.

  “I realized that you had sacrificed yourself. You were the Eldest, the pact had not yet been passed, all the power in the world was yours. You did not have to answer my challenge; you were well within your rights to order any and all to slay me instead. Some would have sneered, but they would have been few, since it was generally recognized that you could not defeat me. Yet you accepted my challenge. And as I replayed our battle in my mind, again and again, I saw that you knew that you would not survive, that you accepted your death so that you could kill me, for only in that way could you be sure that the pact would be passed. In order to give up your own rights to rule unquestioned and to hunt horn-horses, you sacrificed your life.

  “Again and again I silently railed at the stupidity of it, and I could not understand why you would do such a futile and self-destructive thing! But finally, as I groped for understanding, I saw the value of altruism, and I was humbled.

  “When I was capable of cautiously checking the state of the world to see if you had died, I learned that it was assumed that we both had. And with both of us thought dead, any could say what they truly thought of the two of us, without fear of retribution, or benefit of reward. And you were ennobled as a hero, having given your life in the greatest act of bravery, honor, and self-sacrifice the world had seen to that time. I was reviled, my title used as a curse, and a label for those who were selfish villains, and a joke. Where is the darkest black? In the lair of the dead! Haw, haw, haw.

  “In the crevasse I had been trapped with one eye pressed against the stone. With the other I could see only the unchanging stone walls of the crevasse, and a slice of sky. Denied any meaningful touch or feeling, or taste or scent or sound, the sight of that slice of sky was the only physical experience I had to keep me sane.

  “I grew to love the sight of the stars, and wondered which of them were circled by other worlds, and which of those had life, and people, and astronomers, and whether one of those was looking at me across the unknowably vast void, seeing me trapped in the crevasse but too distant to assist me.

  “When I regained my health, I turned away from the world, turned away from my grandiose plans and schemes. I took back my name and my natural light blue coloring, and dedicated myself to astronomy and the search for other life among the stars. It has occupied my nights for the last forty million years.

  “I dedicated my days to improving my ability as a fighter and as a spellcaster. Having had one agonizing, terrifying, and soul-crushing defeat, I was determined that I would never risk suffering such an experience again. It was many eons later, when I knew myself to be many times more dangerous than any mortal being had ever been, that I finally began to feel safe again.

  “And I found what I was seeking all that time, just less than five millennia ago! I learned to cast lenses from magic itself, vast circular spells out in the void past the moons, bending light to my eyes! First I learned to find worlds around the closer stars, and then to see if they had air and water and land, and then to see if they had cities with artificial lights glowing on their dark sides! And among the billions of stars there are billions of worlds, and tens of thousands of them have life as we know it! I have confirmed the existence of at least nine hundred and twenty-one worlds bearing intelligent life!”

  “I must congratulate you on your achievement.” Quewanak nodded. “And having found life on other worlds, what led to your decisions to re-color yourself so dramatically, and to become the Dragon Lord of Serminak?”

  “Ah. To reveal that, I must ask that what I am about to tell you be kept among you. This is dangerous knowledge, and not something that we want widely known by your people or mine.”

  “This is a public gathering, Zarkog. We are responsible to our peoples for the truth.”

  “Then tell your people the truth if you so choose, but first let me tell you what I know privately. Once you’ve heard what I will say, you will not choose to announce it to your citizenry, I am certain of that.”

  “That is fair.” Somonik stated. “Let all who are not monarchs, councilors of nations, or senior commanders clear the room.”

  When the service staff and advisors had left, Somonik cast a spell that sealed the hall.

  “You still have all manner of small folk there. Far too many to keep such a secret.” Zarkog opined.

  “This will have to do, since every one of these folk have as much standing here as myself or the Eldest.”

  “Most have more standing than I, actually.” Quewanak snickered.

  “Foolishness.” Zarkog stated dismissively. “At any rate, know that of the worlds with intelligent life that I have found, some are capable of feats that are far beyond us. I first became aware of this when I found a star circled by more than three hundred worlds and moons, and eleven have so much artificial light showing on their night sides, that their entire surfaces must be covered in cities. They are most certainly able to travel from one of their worlds to another. The possibility that so many civilizations developed and exist in isolation within the same planetary system can be considered to be zero.

  “Some time after that, I spent some three hundred years watching a moon with a diameter of some eight hundred leagues being moved. It left its orbit around a giant outer world, and took up an orbit much closer to its star. The orbital forces of it were obviously carefully planned, since it was done in a manner that caused almost no disturbance in the other worlds and moons that orbited that star. But no other sign of life was visible around that star.

  “Then I fou
nd another well-lighted world, sailing through the void from one star to another at impossible speed.

  “These filled me with a fear that will never leave me. The energies involved make everything we have ever achieved in spell casting or engineering seem as a puff of breath compared to a typhoon.

  “I knew I needed to learn whether any of these distant peoples could ever become a threat to us. I believe that I have reached the theoretical limits of the ability to focus light. We will never be able to focus our vision so finely as to be able to observe the actions of individuals on other worlds.

  “So, I took my search in other directions, and I developed the Psionic Distant Listener. I constructed it as a device, since there are so many spells involved that even I could not keep them all in mind. I poured my power into it for one hundred and ninety-one years before I detected the first vague images and thoughts from the distant void. Soon I found more and more, but when I looked in the directions I detected the thoughts coming from, I could see no corresponding worlds. Nor could I detect any thoughts from the inhabited worlds I had seen. I could only assume then that the civilizations that produce the most light are not the ones that have the most total psionic ability.

  “At first it was completely indecipherable, but I gradually became able to make some sense of what I was receiving. I receive the psionic output of an entire world at once, and only the most commonly repeated patterns are distinguishable after a great deal of careful study. The thoughts and languages of it are in every case so alien as to be untranslatable, but the sights and sounds of it have been absolutely enlightening.

  “I detected discernible thought from twenty-seven distant civilizations scattered about the sky. The more alike they are to us, the more of their thoughts can be discerned.

  “Let me show you something.” Zarkog cast a quick Illusion. “This is a fish.” He erased it and cast another. “This creature is almost identical in appearance, and while it also looks like a fish, it is in fact a reptile. This one looks like a fish, but is an insect. And this one also shares the same look, though it is a mammal. They all have the same shape, because it is the most efficient shape for a creature that spends its life swimming in water. Form follows function.

  “I have found that there are creatures and peoples on other worlds who are superficially similar to dragons, and to other creatures and peoples on our world. Form follows function. And there are people who are so different from anything here as to be indescribable.

  “But I found no reason to believe that any other world’s peoples could affect us in any way without millions of years of very determined effort. The void is simply too vast, so vast it is incomprehensible; there are no numbers large enough to describe the extent of it. Even the world that moves between stars at impossible speed could not reach us for four hundred million years, and it is not moving toward us. I almost began to feel safe again.

  “And then I began to systematically scan every direction outward from Kellaran for thoughts that came from places that were relatively close. Even though I had detected no signs of life around the closest thousand stars when I had looked in visual light, I decided that it was worth checking the vicinity again with the Psionic Distant Listener.

  “What I have discovered is as dire as anything I had imagined. Let me illustrate what I have found.

  “This has to do with the Nexus!” Tithian urgently and privately told those around her.

  Zarkog turned and cast an astronomical Illusion on the black floor behind him as the fires overhead dimmed to a fraction of their output.

  “Here is our star, and here is Kellaran with its three moons, and the circle that marks our yearly path around our star. Kellaran is the fourth world out from the sun, and these are the three closer worlds, all smaller, lifeless, and without moons. And as you can see, there are two more worlds that are smaller than ours and more distant, the farther one circled by a single moon. These six can be considered to be our star’s inner worlds, for they are distinct from the outer worlds by size, composition, and distance.

  “It is interesting to note that of all the life-bearing worlds I have detected, Kellaran is the second largest. And so far as I have been able to detect psionicly, ours is the only world inhabited by more than one intelligent race. Those two facts are likely related.

  “We move our viewpoint much farther back, and now you can see our star’s eight outer worlds, all many times larger than Kellaran, all having many moons, all almost certainly lifeless. We move back again, much farther than that.”

  The circles marking the worlds’ paths around the star shrank until the largest was barely visible, and then the dozen closest stars moved in at the edges of the Illusion’s area.

  “This is it!” Tithian panted in excitement. “What he is about to reveal concerns the core matters of the nexus, I can feel it!”

  “Two hundred and seventy-six years ago I made a shocking discovery. I detected very strong psionic emanations coming from this direction, and half a year later I was able to triangulate the distance.” Zarkog said as a spot glowed one-third as distant from Kellaran’s star as its nearest neighbor. “Three years later I was able to plot the direction and speed of the psionic source’s movement. It is moving directly toward us. I realized that it would be able to arrive here at a time that is now only six more years in the future.”

  “I considered carefully what this could mean, and realized that steps needed to be taken to defend Kellaran against possible invaders from the void.” Zarkog continued. “I looked about, and realized that the races of our world were hopelessly divided, undisciplined, and self-concerned. I decided that it was my responsibility to prepare for the defense of this world. The Sylvan and dragons of Serminak seemed like they would be the most difficult to organize, yet had the greatest military potential, so I started here. I took a bit of time to design a suitable social structure and a system of administration, and then I became The Dragon Lord of Serminak. This appearance was chosen to inspire my forces, and can be considered the uniform of the post. Since that time I have been building our military capability.

  “Then, one hundred and eighty-seven years ago, I made my most incredible and dire discovery thus far. I discovered another source of psionic emanation, here.”

  A point was marked a third of the way around Kellaran’s star from the first one, higher as well, and further away, being half as distant as the next nearest star.

  “It is also approaching us, and at a much higher speed than the other, though it is losing speed more rapidly as well. It will be able to reach Kellaran in eight and one half years.

  “They are both now within the distance of our star’s outer worlds. You see now the path of their flight and their present positions, and now their projected paths, taking them within the orbits of the inner worlds, where they will certainly execute final maneuvers, for their present courses and decelerations would have them both eventually impact with the sun.

  “At this distance, I have been able to achieve some results in my efforts to identify these emanations, both psionicly and visually. I have been able to prove by observing them that psionic thought travels across vast distances much more quickly than light, perhaps by doing so through the medium that Translocations pass through. This does much to explain my inability to match the locations of distant civilizations I have sighted with those I have detected psionicly. The mathematics necessary to correlate it all are not yet completely developed.

  “The first of the two psionic emanations are a cluster of sixteen small artificial worlds, each some one-third of a mile to twenty-seven miles in diameter, inhabited by a completely alien race with very little psionic output as individuals, and thus I can tell you nothing of them beyond that they seem very determined. Determined to do what, I do not know. Their aggregate emanations were only detectable initially because they number over seventeen billion individuals. Mitigating this distressing number is the fact that I think them to
be very small, perhaps no larger than gnomes, based on the size of features on their worldlets that must serve the function of doors.

  “As for the other source, it has been identified more precisely, and the truth could not be worse.

  “We all know that seven million, four hundred and sixty-five thousand years ago, Kellaran was invaded by a race not of our world. They conquered half a continent and created a new race from one of ours in less than fifty years, and threatened to exterminate us all before being obliterated by the collective might of the gods of Kellaran. They said that they came from another kind of reality, but that was a lie to make them seem more dangerous, and to prevent us from searching for their origin. They merely traveled through another reality. They are from our own reality, and they are about to return here. This object is an irregular piece of rock some one hundred and ninety leagues in its largest dimension, and it is inhabited by demons. Millions of them. Perhaps billions.”

  The delegates of The Just Alliance had been listening in avid fascination, but at this they erupted into a cacophony of exclamations.

  “And you plan to fight the demons with the military you have built on Serminak?” Somonik pointedly inquired, loudly enough to be heard over the noise.

  “Not exclusively.” The Dragon Lord admitted. “I have plans in place to bring the other races under my influence. They will then be subjected to military reforms similar to those I have enacted here. They are soft and undisciplined now, but having established a reliable system here in Serminak, it will not be difficult to quickly duplicate it all over Kellaran. This is necessary to ensure the cohesive defense of our world. You will have to excuse me if this discomfits any of you. Things have not proceeded nearly as rapidly as I had hoped, but sufficient time still remains.”

  This triggered a louder roar from the assembly, this one of outrage.

  “Zarkog, you have been engaged in astronomy for most of the last month, and it is obvious that you did not refresh your knowledge of international current events before you came rushing to see me.” Quewanak sternly stated. “I strongly advise that you do so now, before we go any further.”

  “I will do so.” Zarkog nodded, oblivious to the uproar he’d created. “I will return shortly.” He faded away over the space of a second, leaving the view into the vast darkened cavern, his astronomy display still active on the floor.

  “That’s funny.” Mark commented with a wry smile. “He was unaware of everything that’s been happening in The Just Alliance and Venak. He’s about to find out that the whole world has changed in the last few days, and he missed it.”

  “He’ll know it soon enough.” Yazadril stated firmly, thinking furiously enough to furrow his brow. “This is bad. He would not lie about the demons and the worldlets. He knows that our own astronomers will quickly confirm or deny the truth of it, having been shown the locations and paths of these objects.

  “We’re already working on it. We’ll have visuals in a few minutes.” Grakonexikaldoron stated.

  Mark shuddered slightly as everything sank in a bit, then he pulled himself together with a grim expression. “All right. I’d really like to know what happened with the demons seven and a half million years ago. What kind of abilities and weapons did they have, and how many of them were there back then? What kind of damage did they do, and how did the fight against them go?”

  “Briefly, the demons appeared suddenly, with no warning, several thousand strong, on a land mass that has since subsided, and is now the ocean between Xervia and Serminak, which were then a single larger continent.” Somonik explained. “Cruel and voracious, they treated every creature as prey, from mice to dragonkind with no distinction between them, and took great delight in inflicting the maximum of suffering before slaying and eating their victims. Their fighters ranged in size from that of a small dog to as large as myself, for they grow constantly when well fed. They are vicious with tooth and claw and horn, and not above such weapons as swords and spears, though they never showed any particular skill in that regard, relying instead on strength, speed, and aggression. They utilized strange and terrible sorceries as their primary means of combat, against which there was initially no defense, and from which there is no healing. My maiming was done by demon-fire, early in the conflict. They were able to choose the configurations of their bodies, and could grow wings or tails if they so desired, or extra arms or legs, or horns, antlers, spikes and spines of any sort. Every part of them is poisonous to every form of life on Kellaran; their breath, their spittle, their droppings, their flesh and blood.

  “The demons had their way of it in the beginning. Only those in their vicinity contested them. They were few at first, and were not considered a threat by more distant peoples, but they expanded their depredations and their populations quickly. Within six years all of Kellaran was fighting them, and losing. Our nations were not truly unified, and each fought the demons on the front closest to their homelands. The demons were just as glad that we attacked them, for they were as content to eat our war-dead as to hunt us, and it saved them a great deal of traveling. Each death in the war only seemed to make them stronger, for they delighted in each other’s pain and suffering as much as they did in ours, and they ate their own dead as eagerly as they ate ours.

  “Initially the gods were content to provide aid through their priesthoods in the form of power, spells, knowledge on how to counter the demons’ spells, up-to-date information, and mighty weapons. But it was not nearly enough.

  “Glishkerkugthak, the Kwetkerthok God of Life, was the first deity to take a direct hand. His race was being decimated, the demons having arrived in the heart of gargoyle territory. He slew one out of every four demons on Kellaran in his first day in the fight, every one that he could kill without endangering his people or ours, and by then there were millions of demons. They withdrew from the battle and hid from his wrath for two days, and then all of them working together, they baited him and attacked him with all of their power and their hate. It’s said he was nearly slain, and he was driven absolutely insane. None know how this was done. His screams could literally be heard by every person and creature on Kellaran, and we were all tortured with it for a period of eight minutes and eleven seconds that seemed to last an eternity. It took the other gods to rescue him, and it took them over two eons after that war to Heal him from an inescapable nightmare of absolute suffering and horror.

  “The torture of Glishkerkugthak united the gods and peoples of Kellaran against the demons. Four out of every five remaining demons were slain the next day in an assault by the gods, and if I’d managed to convince Kellaran’s armies to stay out of their way, the gods might have exterminated the demons and ended it that day. But the peoples hungered for revenge and pressed the attack at that seemingly opportune time, and thus some demons escaped, because the gods could not strike at them when they were engaged in close combat with us.

  “Then the demons became serious. They had been content to warden us as prey and playthings before that, but they became bent on the extermination of all the gods and intelligent peoples of Kellaran. They had a Gate through another reality from which they’d originally emerged, and now new hordes of them poured forth from it, accompanied by what became known as ‘greater demons’. Greater demons were not quite gods, but if a few hundred of them worked together, they could hold a god at bay, and a few gods were wounded. If a few thousand had been able to trap one, they could have slain a god, and perhaps broken reality to do it, but they never succeeded in doing so. They bred the Sylvan to aid them, though they had not bred enough of them to make a difference by the time the war ended. The gods and peoples of Kellaran were battled to a standstill, and the demons began to gain the advantage by sheer numbers, until Glup of the Zurb destroyed the Gate, ending the enemy’s constant reinforcements. Almost all of the demons were dead within a year after that, but it was another six years before Amirgath proclaimed that the last of them had been hunted ou
t and exterminated.

  “That was a good time; all the gods and peoples of Kellaran united in victory. But the gods then resumed their aloof ways, and the people returned to their lands, and soon the same old bickering and divisiveness and hatreds returned.”

  “They will be prepared for us this time, and prepared for the gods as well.” King Dren stated worriedly, having made his way over with many others to hear the history of the demon war.

  “Will they?” Mark rhetorically asked. “As Somonik said at the founding meeting, there’s more power and more population on Kellaran than there were the last time, a lot more. Our magics are far more sophisticated, and you can bet that if Zarkog knows the demons are coming, the gods are sure to know it too, and there’s more gods now as well. We’ll be prepared for the demons this time, and it’ll be them that are caught by surprise.”

  “True. Still, I doubt we’ll be able to escape from this completely unscathed. People are going to die before this is over, and die horribly.”

  “Hey! Not if we can help it, right?” Mark told him, a bit alarmed at the Finitran King’s sudden pessimism.

  “What? Do you really think there’s a way to defeat the demons without losing a single life?” Dren demanded. “I admire your optimism, if not your sense in this matter!”

  “Look, they’ve been detected before they could strike at us, and that’s crucial!” Mark insisted. “Right now all those demons are millions of leagues away from anything, surrounded on all sides by the deadly void, protected from it by a big rock. It seems to me that this would be a good time to blow it up, don’t you think?”

  He turned to Somonik. “When we were trying to see over the Wards of Venak, did we succeed in finding ways of surviving the void?

  “We have, for short periods, at great cost in power and effort.” Somonik confirmed.

  “We need to work on improving that, and we need to work on finding every other manner of visiting destruction on the demons from the greatest possible distance! And we need to find a way to get someone up to those sixteen little moons or whatever they are right away, and find out if the inhabitants are our enemies, or possibly our allies, or something else entirely. And I do mean right away, let’s get people working on those things right now!

  “I agree. I am directing that work to begin as we speak.” Somonik nodded. “The researchers of Xervia will be tireless in their efforts, until the answers we seek are discovered.”

  “We’ll have everyone working on it who’s capable of contributing, from every nation in The Just Alliance.” Yazadril nodded. “This research has to take priority over everything else. Tithian’s people can co-ordinate it, they have the best theoreticians available right now.”

  Suddenly rulers all over the room were hurriedly communicating with their subordinates.

  “I have an idea, inspired by something Zarkog said.” Grakonexikaldoron revealed thoughtfully. “If we cast a great magic lens between the sun and the demons, and I mean as large as we can possibly make it with every qualified spell-caster we have, we can focus enough heat and light onto the demons’ rock to boil it. We may have to wait until they move closer for that, however. They could not dodge the beam, but if it takes too long to destroy them, they may find a way to block it or reflect it away before they are burnt. A rock a hundred and ninety leagues along it’s major axis contains an immense amount of material, and no matter how much energy we focus on it, it will not be destroyed quickly.”

  “Now we’re thinking!” Mark grinned enthusiastically. “We’ll keep our chin up, and our courage too, King Dren. They’re still a long way from spilling our blood, and with some luck and effort, they never will!”

  “Damn, you are amazing!” Dren admitted, and grinned to match Mark’s expression. “I think nothing would ever be impossible for you! You make me feel like a boy, and I’m over twice your age!”

  “Uh, thanks!” Mark laughed, after being momentarily at a loss for a response.

  Suddenly Zarkog reappeared in his window with a huge flash of red light.

  “That is a very angry dragon, making a mighty effort at self-control.” Ria stated, with the conversational speed only a Link could allow. “I’d say he thinks he made a bit of a fool of himself earlier. He should have checked the news before he spoke to the Eldest, and to us.”

  Quewanak noticed the Dragon Lord’s mood even faster than Ria, and quickly took the conversational initiative. “Welcome back, Zarkog, and congratulations by the way on your magnificent achievement in Serminak. Ending the murderous ways of the Sylvan and the dragons there, achieving universal adherence to the rule of law and equal rights for all, eliminating the death penalty, these are monumental accomplishments, no matter that we may disagree on what rights the populace should enjoy. Such as those are seldom suitable for a society such as ours at any rate.

  “And your achievements in astronomy are not only masterworks in their own right, they have likely saved this world from the attack of the demons. We can never thank you enough for that, though I think it would have been wiser to share those discoveries soon after they were made. All of us could have been preparing for the challenge this entire time, with as much dedication as you have shown. I know you fear a panic among the populous, but we must let this truth be known, so that all can prepare for what they may truly face. The people can be brave enough, if they have to be. Better they know it in advance, than just as the demons attack.

  “As an aside, congratulations on mastering Trade Common without magical assistance. Speaking it here has been very considerate of you, and we thank you. You’ve even got the human smile right. I’d have thought we don’t have the facial muscles for such an expression.

  “We were just discussing several ways by which the demons may be destroyed long before they reach the inner worlds. And as I’m sure you’ve just learned, we of The Just Alliance are now firmly united, strongly disciplined, and far more prepared to face an attack than we were just a few days ago.

  “We’re aware that you’ve brought Venak into your sphere of influence, and we have no disagreement with that. Renem is Venak’s lawful King, fully entitled to ally himself with you or anyone else, or to encourage immigration. Those who’ve left The Just Alliance to go there were mostly unsuited to our system, and will likely benefit from the harder discipline your methods enforce. Certainly they will find it much more difficult to break the law there than they did in our nations. We’ll be glad to help the Venaks out with supplies and building materials until they’ve fully integrated their increased population. On the other hand, if there are some productive citizens of Venak who are unsuited to your system due to their desire to reside in a just society with greater freedoms, we welcome their immigration to any nation in The Just Alliance.

  “I see no reason why we shouldn’t agree on a treaty of non-aggression at the very least, open up trade, and co-operate fully in dealing with the threat of the demons.

  Ria quickly commented. “That was masterfully spoken, and the Eldest may have decided it all right there. This is a crucial moment. He praised the Dragon Lord’s accomplishments but presented our grievances, he showed the bait and the cudgel, he stroked his ego but kept him a little off-balance. Now all Zarkog has to do is say; ‘Thank you, where do I sign?’”

  Zarkog considered the Eldest for several long moments, then he scratched his chin in an eerily humanoid manner and shook his head a bit.

  “It’s not the human smile, it’s the Sylvan one; slightly different. And my facial muscles do what I tell them to do, or I grow new ones. Sylvan cannot be trained to speak Draconian in any acceptable manner, and they had some three hundred languages among them. Trade Common was the closest thing to a common spoken language on Serminak, thus it is now the official language of my society, and I have learned this distasteful noise in order to command my troops. They have no law but my law, no rules but my rules, and the death penalty is a waste of a broken tool that can be repaired
.

  “You are not fully alive, as you have claimed to be. You are nothing more than a ghost, a harmless spirit haunting a stone without enough power to crush a moth, while your body lies comatose elsewhere. For your deception, I will find your body, and I will give you a thorough beating.

  “Your seers’ detection of a great nexus some two years from now indicates that while the sixteen spheres will require six years to arrive, and the demons’ rock eight and one half, the battle will be joined long before then. Likely when the demons are in range, they will Translocate to Kellaran. Time is short. Every moment could be crucial.

  “The task of defending this world has fallen to me, it is my responsibility and my destiny, and I have invested far too much effort to risk having my orders countermanded by the likes of any of you at a crucial moment in the coming battle. I am by far the most capable commander in any case, and we cannot afford to be commanded by any less than the best available. We will of course explore every manner of destroying the demons before they reach here, but we will do it under my command.

  “The defensive efforts you’ve made in the last few days are a start, but doing less than everything possible may not be enough, and so we will do everything possible. Your nations will be militarized in the same manner as Venak, and to the same extent.

  “You will surrender yourselves and your nations up to me. I consider it particularly urgent that the two straight-monkeys known as The Keys to The Nexus be delivered into my custody without delay.”

  “And what would you want with them?” Somonik icily inquired.

  “They will be examined in order to determine what properties of theirs make them so crucial to the outcome of the upcoming events, and when it is discovered, they will be utilized in whatever manner is necessary to safeguard life on this world.”

  “We already know what their function is, and it is to supply us with creative wisdom and insight. They will hardly be able to provide any practical assistance while being examined like breeding stock.”

  “That is your opinion on the subject, which has not been objectively verified. And you are being evasive, since the male is a unique magic anomaly of considerable and unknown power. I consider it far more likely that his value lies in our learning to duplicate his power, and in adding that ability to each of our fighters. To this end it is imperative that the phenomenon be understood completely.”

  “And if we should respectfully refuse to surrender our freedom and our most cherished leader?”

  “Ah. Well here is the crux of it, Somonik. A Sylvan female can be bred reliably at the age of nine years, and can produce an offspring or two every seven months for nine hundred years or so. Such fecundity was a key feature of their design, though they are seldom so prolific if left to their own childish ways. Draconian females can be bred at the age of seventy years, and under the right conditions, they will produce a clutch of twenty to thirty-five young, every eighty years, indefinitely. Both races can be battle-ready during nineteen-twentieths of their pregnancies and early childhood parenting cycles.

  “Now, I have only been the Dragon Lord of Serminak for two hundred and sixty-nine years, but we have made good use of the time. I have under my command some four and one half billion Sylvan, fully four-fifths of whom are battle ready at any given moment, every one of those a skilled wizard. The Draconians of Serminak are now eighty-nine million, and even fewer of them are non-combatant at any given time. And with demons in our skies, don’t you dare whine to me about the population limitations of The Pact of Kraka!

  “Given that only one in five of your nations’ populations are trained fighters, completely disregarding the cowardly races who would rather die than fight, we outnumber you in the field at about three to one. That is before I count my fresh troops in Venak, or my eleven million ogres, or several hundred thousand hives of the Swarm that I have under my command. Then you can consider that only a few of your fighters are wizards, whereas almost all of mine are, and that I have eighty-five million more dragons than you do, over eighteen times as many in fact.

  “In short, I can kill every person in your so-called Just Alliance in about five days if I so choose. And while I don’t mind taking a few days to beat you into submission and to blood my troops, I will see you all dead rather than risk having you at my back when the time comes to fight the demons.

  “And before you go prattling on about peace and co-operation between us, know that I did indeed direct my subordinates to initiate the activities you have described as the insidious conspiracy. I thought it worth an attempt to avoid open warfare in uniting this world under my command. I was fully aware of the methods my subordinates employed, if not the specifics of their actions, and I did approve of them. I do admit that the gas attack in Sming and the spell-craft attack in rural Finitra were wasteful and ill-advised, and those responsible will be beaten several times. But unless I have you all under my command, you will eventually seek to act against me for the deaths of your citizens at the hands of my covert fighters. And then I would likely have to beat you repeatedly, and there are too many of you for that to be practical within the time limits of the present crisis.

  “So, I give you one hour. Surrender your authority to me and deliver up the Keys to the Nexus, or The Just Alliance as a whole will be beaten into submission, and my forces will have the opportunity for some seasoning. You are still very soft and peaceful, for the most part, and I doubt that I will have to kill more than one in thirty of you before you come crawling, if they are killed in a suitable manner. But my patience has its limits, and if you do not concede to me within ten days, I will kill you all.”

  “What about altruism?” Mark challenged. “If you kill two-thirds of the world’s people, and exterminate most of the races doing it, how are you any better than the demons?”

  Zarkog considered him for a moment. “You know, the main difference between a horn-horse and a straight-monkey is that a horn-horse or two makes a nice meal, whereas a straight-monkey is merely a snack.

  “I generally do not speak to snacks, except to issue commands, but I know who you are; Key to the Nexus, Key to The Just Alliance, and so I will make this one exception.

  “Mine is a greater altruism, for I have dedicated all of my time and my effort, and if necessary my life, to preventing the extermination of every intelligent life on Kellaran, which the demons will surely do if they are not exterminated by us. With my gains in Venak, I have a sufficient breeding population of every race except the horn-horses, the elves, and the cowardly races, and we will do without those if we must. Just as we will do without the rest of you, if we must. I admit to a dislike for the horn-horses, and the elves are too few and breed too slowly to be a viable race over the long term, not to mention that they are almost indistinguishable from other varieties of straight-monkeys. The cowardly races are fit to be prey, and nothing more.

  “You have one hour.”

  With that, the entire illusory window into Zarkog’s domain ended, leaving them looking at cloudy blue sky.

  Somonik sat staring at the sky for a moment, then dismissed his own illusion.

  “Can it truly be that bad?” Dren asked, his face ashen. “One hour to war or surrender? And can he truly have us that outmatched?”

  “No!” Yazadril barked. “Even if what he says of his own forces is true, his estimate of our comparative strengths is skewed! While only a fifth of our population are professionally trained as warriors, another two-fifths can fight effectively, and they will if they have to! And while most of our fighters are not wizards, they are supplied with fearsome magically enhanced equipment, which we know from our prisoners that the Sylvan do not use!”

  He took a breath and calmed himself a bit. “Furthermore, according to our prisoners, the quality of their wizardry is far inferior to ours in most cases, since our increases in the industrial use of magic and accompanying research over the last century had no counterpart on Serminak. The variety of our a
vailable techniques and tactics is much greater as well. And most of his dragons will be very young and very small, with barely enough intelligence to speak! His ogres and hives of the Swarm are worrying, but if he speaks the truth, their comparative numbers are minimal.

  “He would not lie.” The Eldest asserted. “He is too proud and egotistical to do so.”

  “So what do you think his comparative military strength really is?” Osbald asked, making his way to the fore.

  “If we remain on the defensive… Even, or close to it. He can hurt us badly, but it would cost him dearly as well. He cannot exterminate us. By the time we were down to the last fifth of our populations, his would be as well, and at that point both of our societies would be so disrupted and scattered that it would be impractical to continue with large-scale hostilities. And of course at that point we would all be helpless to resist the demons.”

  “He himself is a fearsome military force, should he choose to enter the fray personally.” Gran commented. “Particularly if what we were told of his prowess during his ascension to power is true.”

  “How could he have gotten so big?” Talia asked. “Eldest, didn’t you say you were bigger than he was, back when he was The Darkest Black?”

  “I was. I don’t know how he managed such growth, but I’m sure it’s genuine. He wouldn’t bother with appearing any larger than he is, just as he wouldn’t bother with exaggerating his forces.”

  “Dammit, we have to find a way to avoid this war!” Mark cursed. “I’m sure none of us are considering just surrendering to him and joining his army! He’ll never let any of us who’ve sworn to justice go free, not ever, not even if we do beat the demons with him! He knows we’ll eventually try to get him for all the people he’s had killed in our lands in his try for power! In order to remain unpunished, he’d have to keep most of the people in the world in slavery until we’re all dead! But we can’t just let millions of people get killed in a futile war that would leave us helpless before the demons when they get here!”

  “There is no way to avoid this war, your words just proved it.” Osbald stated firmly. “We will not surrender our freedom without a fight, and he cannot allow us to keep it.

  “He says that he will beat us for ten days before he tries for our extinction, so presumably, he will not utilize all of his forces in the first attack. If we throw everything we have at his first wave in an instant counter-attack, we may bloody them so badly that he will re-think the wisdom of his ways, with minimal losses on our side.”

  “I say we refuse to play his game.” Yazadril offered determinedly. “Forget about waiting the hour. Hit him now, and hit him hard. We take the Fast Response Force and the best we have from the rest of the units, break his Wards, disrupt his muster and his staging. We bring everything else we have that’s mobile into the fight as fast as we possibly can. If at all possible, we kill or capture him. With him gone, there’s a good chance that the rest of them can be convinced to not attack us. We suffer more initial military losses, but less in the long run, and it’s the only way to keep this battle away from our own populations. We’ll fight in Serminak as long as we can hold the momentum, and hopefully we’ll be able to make it decisive, but if we lose the advantage we’ll run back to our defenses and bleed them for every inch of our lands they gain.

  “I’m putting it to a vote right now, for there’s not a second to waste! If I lose the vote, we’ll vote on Osbald’s plan.

  “First, are we agreed that we will not surrender, so long as there’s any chance of victory? If you agree, say yes!”

  The chorus rang out, and Somonik intoned; “Let the record show that all have agreed; we shall not surrender, so long as there is any chance of victory.”

  “All right. Are we agreed that we will strike first as I have…”

  “Just a moment!” Mark interrupted. “We have the Eldest, who always knows where Zarkog is! I say we make killing or capturing the Dragon Lord our first priority, and make their muster and staging our secondary targets, or even leave them off entirely. They may be Sylvan and Dark Dragons, ogres and Swarm, but they haven’t done anything to us yet, and if we can remove him from command quickly enough, they won’t have to! Zarkog is our enemy, and he alone is ultimately responsible for the conspiracy’s crimes, because it’s almost certain that they’d have done nothing of the kind without his order!”

  “I agree.” Yazadril nodded, and brought forth his Truthstone for a moment. “These may be crucial already my boy, for they allow us to take Quewanak with us.

  “All right, are we agreed that we will strike first as Mark and I have outlined?”

  “Let the record show that all except seven have agreed.” Somonik intoned.

  “All right, you seven should use your mobile forces to augment our defenses and stationary emplacements, and be ready to cover our retreat. Are you agreed?” Yazadril sternly asked, and the seven nodded with some relief.

  “We need to apprise our populations of everything that’s happened and been learned here.” he continued. “Have everyone who’s incapable of effective combat evacuated to our safest locations as fast as possible, and have the rest made ready to defend our lands at a moment’s notice. I want everyone who’s capable of Flight and intercontinental Translocation with us on the attack, whether they do it by talent or spelled item. They have three minutes to be ready to go, no more and no less, no one leaves early or late.

  “We’ll make a quick stop at Venak on the way to Serminak. We’ll crack the Venak Wards so we can tell them of everything we’ve learned, inform them that we’re at war with Serminak, and invite them to stay out of it, with a dire warning of the consequences if they don’t do so. The chance that they’ll heed us is worth the effort. We’ll stage where their border with Thon meets the sea, on the Thon side of course.”

  “Mark, Talia, you’re with the lead group. We’ll want GrimFang to crack the Wards.”

  Yazadril hugged Nemia with one arm as he and the rest of the delegates hurriedly communicated the urgent news to their people.

  Then Mark remembered that he and Talia were also monarchs with a population that needed to be warned.

  “Sheramiv!!!” he urgently called as he quickly forged a Link with their First Minister. “Here!!!” he said as soon as he’d established contact, and forcefully passed her his memories of the meeting, which she effortlessly accepted. “Hilia’s safer than anywhere, so I want you to find the least safe people in The Just Alliance; children and invalids in the most outlying and lightly defended areas, and bring them there. Use as many of our people as you need for defense, have the rest meet Talia and me at the staging on the call. Better yet, if any of ours have trained with other alliance forces, have them report to those units.”

  “Yes Mark.” Sheramiv answered, and turned her attention elsewhere, leaving a tiny trace of the Link active.

  Talia Linked with her father just long enough to give him a quick thought, then withdrew from his frantically busy mind. “Mark must replenish his power. We’ll be ready for the staging.”

  Yazadril gave her the psionic equivalent of an absent-minded nod.

  “It’s not yet dawn at Focus Mountain.” Talia told Mark. “We should go to the east coast of Xervia, where it’s high noon. This will allow you to regain the most power in the time we have.”

  “We’ll go to Focus Mountain first. I have an idea.” Mark said, and took them there. They appeared a hundred feet above the south rim, and he cast a bright light on the smooth blue volcanic glass below. “Would you fetch our armor my love? I’ll be busy here for a few seconds.”

  While Mark considered the stone, Talia Summoned their most battle-worthy armor. Both sets were articulated steel plate, perfectly fitted and heavily spelled, if lacking in ornamentation. She also brought their best bows and deadliest arrows, and a few of their most potent magic items, including their new crowns. She donned her armor and her items in an instant with a compound
spell, and adjusted the angle of her bow across her back a bit. “Hold still.” she cautioned, then did the same for Mark. He appeared not to notice, so intense was his concentration

  “I’m ready. We need a Translocation reference, somewhere where there’s good wizard’s rock so you can top up your power too.” he said via Link to save time.

  “I have one, the Xervian port of The Sea People.” Ria said, and showed it to him.

  He took them there, to an altitude of nine hundred feet above the port, and brought a six foot thick, one hundred and ten foot wide disk of the Focus Mountain reflector with them.

  He quickly adjusted it’s angle and distance below him to put himself in it’s focus, and had no trouble holding the immense weight steadily with his Levitation as he felt the reflected power begin to flood into him.

  Meanwhile Talia had cast a quick Speaking to the nearest Sentry of the Sea People, identifying herself and Mark and asking that they disregard the massive blue concave disc that had appeared above their town.

  “There’s a concavity in the ground over there that’s about the right size and shape.” she then pointed out. “You should set this reflector down there. You’ll save the energy of holding it up, and of sending it back to Focus Mountain. It should be safe enough there until we can come back for it.”

  “Good thinking.” Mark agreed, and Translocated the two of them and the disk again, maintaining their relative positions as the round of stone settled into the soil.

  He gathered her into his arms and hugged her, a bit awkwardly and noisily since both were armored.

  “Are you frightened?” she quietly asked as they watched the Sea People frantically prepare their town’s defenses and organize their muster.

  “Of course. Not so badly as yesterday morning though.” he chuckled. “That was my first battle too, you know. And having been through it once, at least this time I know I’m not going to lose my nerve and crap myself or anything. I wasn’t too sure about it then.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t. And I knew that as long as you didn’t, I wouldn’t either.”

  “Command Link test.” Yazadril’s psionic voice rang clearly in their minds. Mark could tell that it was being sent all over the world, boosted by thousands of powerful psionics. “Communication is confirmed. Command Link test. Integrity and security of the Command Link is confirmed.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Greetings and welcome. I am Yazadril, First Commander of the Militaries of The Just Alliance. Together, all of us in this Link are The Strike Force of The Just Alliance. Today we face a grave challenge. Our freedom has been threatened by Zarkog, Dragon Lord of Serminak, who has admitted responsibility for the insidious conspiracy. He has demanded our surrender, and threatened our safety and our lives should we refuse. Thus we are at war with him.

  “Our goal today is to forcibly remove him from power. We who have knowledge of the Sylvan and the dark dragons have hastily conferred, and we believe it unlikely that those people feel any true loyalty to their Lord. They serve him only because they fear him. It is likely that with him gone, they will choose not to threaten us further, for the near future at least. So long as they fear his retribution, they will obey him, but if they believe his cause is lost, they will abandon him.

  “Thus, we have organized the greatest attack force this world has ever seen. Some of our peoples have committed almost their entire populations to this operation. We number among us over three million elves, four million dragons, twenty million giants, fifty million gargoyles, one hundred eighty million unicorns, two hundred and fifty million dwarves, five hundred million gnomes, and six hundred and fifty million humans. Even I, who thought myself familiar with our military strength, did not suspect that we might bring over one billion, six hundred and sixty million warriors to the fray, all capable of Flight and Translocation, and all are either equipped with magically-enhanced weaponry and armor, or are capable of spell-casting, or both. As many of our forces are not so mobile, and they remain with our peoples, to assist them in their defense of our homes. The Selkies patrol our waterways all over The Just Alliance, and The Hidden Nation lends them power.

  “While our foe actually commands greater numbers than our Strike Force, they are dispersed over Serminak, and it will take them some time before he will be able to bring most of them to bear against us. We will arrive suddenly, darkening the skies over our target and striking fear into those who oppose us. We will fight with our hearts united by our love of freedom and by the justice of our cause, and with our minds unified by this Command Link, which is the greatest joining of minds that has ever been achieved. The worth of this technique was proven by Hilian forces yesterday, and it will greatly increase our effectiveness today.

  “As many of you have heard, we can waste little time in dealing with this threat from Serminak, as our entire world faces invasion from the void. Demons draw ever closer to Kellaran as we speak, and every person here may be needed to defeat them.”

  Yazadril gave the many who had not known that a long moment to realize the magnitude of the news.

  “The world will be united in that struggle. If we fail here today, it will be united under Zarkog, and millions of us will be killed, as will many of our friends and families, long before the demons have even arrived.

  “Thus far those in Venak and Serminak are not actively at war with us. If our mission could be achieved perfectly today, and every possible objective attained, we would capture the Dragon Lord, and the world would be united under the banner of The Just Alliance without another life being lost on either side. From there, it would be highly likely for us all, working together, to be able to obliterate the demons long before they can reach our world, or hurt a single one of our people.

  “To this end, we will first break the Wards around Venak, then all one and six-tenths billions of us will appear in mass above their country, and our psionics will inform their population of the true state of affairs concerning us, the Dragon Lord, the demons, and the need for us to stand together against the invaders. They will be asked to join us, or to at least not stand with Zarkog against us. They will be warned that if they raise arms against any of us, we will strike them with all our might. We will then leave them in peace, and hope they decide to behave with wisdom upon our departure.

  “We will break the Wards at the Sylvan Boundary, and the ones on the coastline of Serminak. As we arrive in the vicinity of the Dragon Lord, we will cast the same message of truth to the inhabitants of Serminak that we cast in Venak. From there, we will almost certainly have to settle for less than perfection. Zarkog will likely be dwelling in a highly fortified facility in the midst of their capital city, and if he will not come out in response to our challenge, we will have to dig him out. If we truly can apprehend him without a life being lost, I will consider it a miracle, though we will not ignore the possibility. We can detect his location, and we will drive straight for him, attacking only those who come between us and our objective. If some of them attack us, we will counter-attack them with overwhelming force in the most spectacular manner possible, in order to deter others from doing the same. We will neutralize the Dragon Lord as quickly as we can, then withdraw as fast as we came, minimizing our losses.

  “This is a turning point in the history of the world. Everyone and everything is depending on us, and after today the world will be well on its way to universal freedom, or to universal slavery. I know every one of us will distinguish ourselves with honor.

  “We begin in forty seconds.”

  There was a pause, then they heard Yazadril privately, without the augmentation of the Command Link. “Mark, Talia, will you be sufficiently replenished in that time?”

  “I’ll have a bit more power than I’d have on a usual day, if I’d neither exerted myself nor charged up at Focus Mountain.” Mark told him.

  “I already hold as much magic as I’m capable of, so I’m spending the time storing extra power
in some of my things.” Talia added.

  “Excellent. Here are the Translocation references. It’s two hours to midnight in Venak, so cast a bit of Light so you can be seen. When Mark strikes the Wards with GrimFang, we’ll be Shielding you both as much as we are able. It’s possible that those Wards will collapse as soon as they are punctured, but unlikely, so you must be ready to force the crack open further with your power, and we will do what we can to assist you in that. Do what it takes. Every civilian within thirty miles of the Wards on our side has been evacuated. On the other side, very few dwell close to the border since Venak is mainly a sea-fairing nation, and according to our sources, they believe those Wards to be impregnable, so there will be minimal military presence on their frontier, if any. Most Venak settlements and cities are near the coastline, and their Wards extend some two hundred miles out to sea in order to encompass their territorial waters, so few of them will be in danger.

  “You will then deploy with your Hilian contingent for our advance into Venak, where we will deliver our message. Upon my command you will proceed from there to the Sylvan Boundary, and once you’ve brought down enough of it to allow our passage, we will move through. We’ll repeat that process at the Serminak Wards. Once we’re over Serminak we’ll strike for Zarkog, and take things as they come after that.

  “I love you both. Bless you, and good luck.”

  Mark and Talia spent the remaining seconds familiarizing themselves with the Translocation references and pre-casting spells.

  “Advance to the staging.” came Yazadril’s order over the Command Link, and The Strike Force of The Just Alliance simultaneously Translocated into place from all over Kellaran, only six minutes after Zarkog had delivered his ultimatum.

  Mark and Talia appeared some three hundred feet in the air with Povon, Kragorram, Equemev, Silaran, Dulyamil and Meri, most of the Volunteers, and half the Atoned under the command of Relgemit. Ria manifested herself beside Talia to fully join in the endeavor. All were glowing slightly and neatly ranked in a loose cube. Povon held them all in her Link and tied them into the Command Link.

  “Our other people have reported to other units they’ve served in previously?” Mark asked.

  “For the most part.” Povon agreed. “Yazadril had Silaran, Relgemit, and our more experienced officers among the Atoned stay with us, so that we are not completely bereft of military experience. He agreed that the rest would be of more use with the units they have experience with.”

  “I would not leave Equemev in any case.” Silaran added.

  Yazadril gave everyone ten long seconds to look about, knowing how it would benefit his forces’ morale. He and the others of the command group were staged to the Hilian left, while above and below and to either side, and as far back as the eye could see, were staged the billion and a half plus of the strike force in three-dimensional ranks of well-spaced softly glowing cubes of various sizes. Their numbers were staggering to comprehend; the most awesome gathering of power the world had ever seen.

  Directly ahead some ten miles was the endless black wall of the Wards of Venak, blocking out the stars and reflecting enough of the alliance forces’ glow to be visible.

  “You should stay back here for this.” Mark told Talia.

  “I stay with you, now and always.” was her reply.

  “Thanks.” he told her sincerely, and gave her a clanking one-armed hug as they deepened their personal Link to battle levels, and Ria gave them a mental grin of encouragement.

  “Sappers to the Wards.” came Yazadril’s command.

  “That’s us, we’re sappers, at least for today.” Mark grinned as he Translocated them to the wall and drew his sword.

  “GrimFang my friend, I hope you’re up to this. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re not.” Mark told his sword as he set it’s tip against the black surface, just as the Alliance wizards added a Shield of unimaginable power to the one he and Talia were holding between themselves and the wall, though neither impeded the huge black sword in the slightest.

  GrimFang only radiated a bit more simple eagerness than usual, and perhaps a bit of pride at being used for a great task.

  Mark slowly pushed the sword into the Wards against barely discernible resistance, and while this produced no other visible effect, Mark thought he heard someone psionicly cry out in pain. He realized that it had come from the Wards themselves, transmitted through the sword. He slashed back and forth, was rewarded with a faint scream, and he knew that somewhere, one of the wizards maintaining the Wards was in agony. It appeared that the line closed behind the sword’s path almost immediately, but not quite, though fast enough that he and the other alliance spell-casters were unable to get a wedge of power in place.

  He thrust the blade in to the hilt, and he and Talia took off flying along the face of the black wall, dragging the sword through its substance with accelerating speed. Dozens of the wizards holding the Wards were now screaming in Mark’s mind. The separation behind the blade continued to close immediately at first, but as their speed increased, the repair began to fall behind, and Ria was the first to drive a narrow wedge of Mark’s power into the gap.

  Millions of alliance spells were immediately thrust into the breach, and an instant later Ria frantically warned them; “It fails! Fall back!”

  Talia brought them back to the Hilian formation as Mark and GrimFang shared a moment of exultant victory, and then the Wards failed with a bright flash and a roar of explosive force that shook the world. The Just Alliance’s Shields held against it and none were injured, but their Healers were kept busy for a few moments treating headaches, partial flash-blindness, ringing in the ears, and impaired hearing.

  “Those were tough Wards, but simple.” Ria commented. “No illusions, transducing spells, or embellishments of any kind. Just a wall of Force that blocked the light.”

  The Strike Force immediately Translocated into Venak, dividing into sections that took up station over every population center in that nation. The broadcast of The Just Alliance’s message began immediately, while those few in the late-night streets below could only stare up in shock, and frightened eyes peered up from the windows. A few tried to attack, but had no hope of cracking the alliance’s Shields, and they were not retaliated against.

  With the message half delivered, Mark and Talia and a few million wizards, dragons and unicorns, including the Hilian contingent, were dispatched to the Sylvan Boundary. They were off the east coast of Serminak, in bright mid-morning sunlight, and there were no enemy naval forces in sight.

  Mark touched his sword-tip to the shimmering transparent plane, and was rewarded by a huge discharge of energy.

  “I think these Wards will fail suddenly.” Povon stated from ten miles back with the millions of spell casters. “When threatened, it shifts immense power to the point of the threat, and quickly, but it is very integral compared to the black wall. I’d say its designers never dreamed that it could simply be punctured, and when it is, it will likely lose all integrity at once.”

  “Then wait until we’re done delivering the message here.” Yazadril ordered.

  Mark remembered Kragorram’s experience in their first battle, and cast a thin, insulating layer of Force between his gauntlet and his hilt. Surprisingly, this did nothing to impede his communion with GrimFang’s rudimentary mind.

  “Strike the Barrier.” Yazadril commanded half a minute later, and Mark swung against it with all his strength.

  “Cut!” he commanded GrimFang, and GrimFang cut.

  Even with all the Shielding that protected them, he and Talia were blasted a half mile back from the Barrier’s line in the resulting explosion, and knocked senseless by it.

  Povon gently caught them in a web of Force and started decelerating them long before they could strike the surface of the sea, and by the time they had slowed to half their speed, Yazadril, Nemia, and Hilsith were already beside them. Nemia matched their speed and course, and Yazadril cast a sp
ell that cooled their armor to the ambient temperature, while Hilsith cast diagnostics on Talia and examined Mark manually.

  “They are merely stunned, heavily bruised, and lightly burned. Their armor made the difference. Mark may have a mild concussion.” the Healer pronounced in great relief, which was shared by every soul in the Strike Force. “Talia is almost healed already, two seconds for me to complete it. Watch the sword, it’s white-hot.

  “Talia? Talia, have Mark heal himself, or have him cast the spell that will allow me to heal him.”

  Though barely coherent, Talia forced her mind to clarity enough to seize a little of Mark’s power, and used it to cast the vibrating spell on his skull that would allow him to be affected by wizardry.

  “Though the magic of it was Shielded, the physical concussion in the air might have killed you if you were anchored to anything.” Yazadril told his groggy daughter as Hilsith diagnosed and treated Mark.

  “Ouch. Thanks Hilsith, that’s much better.” Mark said, then dismissed the vibration in his skull as he experienced a moment of disorientation and almost wretched. Since they were still being decelerated, his body and his eyes disagreed on which direction was down. Once they reached a stop and he assumed control of his own flight, his wooziness quickly passed. He noticed GrimFang was still glowing white as Povon Levitated it beside him. He held his hand as close to the hilt as he could, and succeeded in establishing contact. To his surprise, it seemed GrimFang was primarily worried about his wielder’s well-being. They both experienced relief that the other was all right, then shared a moment of pride at their accomplishment. Mark carefully cast Cold on the blade, cooling it down gradually, its glow in his shadow fading to yellow, then orange, then red. After twenty seconds it was flat black again, and Mark closed his grip on the hilt.

  “We’re battle-ready, sir.” he told Yazadril as he gave Talia a one-armed hug and a quick kiss on her forehead.

  “Then proceed to the next objective.” Yazadril ordered over the Command Link, and the millions of The Strike Force cheered as they were simultaneously Translocated five hundred miles to the coast of Serminak. They faced the black wall in the same formations they’d staged in outside Venak, but from fifty miles away this time.

  “Sappers to the Wards.” Yazadril ordered.

  Though they suspected that these were of the same type as the Wards in Venak, Mark took no chances, and proceeded as cautiously as he had the first time. Their suspicions were confirmed however, and he and Talia took off along the black wall, slashing it with GrimFang as they went and hearing the psionic screams of Sylvan wizards. The wind in their faces grew fiercer until it became a danger, then their Shields suddenly blocked it. This wall did not succumb so easily as the first, and they slashed it for almost five miles over the next minute, accelerating that whole time, before Povon managed to be the first of many to force her power into the crack.

  “It fails!” she cried in triumph, and Mark and Talia barely made it back to their lines before the vast barrier exploded.

  Mark barely had time to notice that there was a settlement on the coast there, behind the beach where the Wards had stood, and perhaps sixty thousand enemy forces had been arrayed in the air and on the ground, but all of them were seen to have been scattered by the blast as the alliance force disappeared.

  It was just past dawn over the stronghold of the Dragon Lord when The Just Alliance’s mobile forces appeared there, and just less than nine minutes after the ultimatum’s delivery. It was indeed an extinct volcano capped with a steel dome, situated beside a vast metropolis whose suburbs covered the lower half of its slopes on that side. The strike force filled the skies for a mile beyond the city in every direction.

  Alliance psionics immediately began blasting their message at the awakening population below. “We are The Just Alliance, and we have come for the Dragon Lord! We come for him, and none other! Stand aside and you will not be harmed! Stand between us and our quarry, and you will be slain! You cannot hope to stand against our might, so do not throw away your lives for nothing! Know as well that demons are approaching our world…”

  Meanwhile the strike force was rapidly concentrating over the mountain in response to the Eldest’s confirmation that Zarkog was within it, and Hilia’s forces joined most of the rest in blasting it with a roiling maelstrom of spells. Though they were at least several hundred feet above the dome, the reflected power of their own attack had to be deflected by their Shields or it would have devastated half the force. A moment later new destructive energies streaked skyward from the dome, cast by those within it, further straining the alliance Shields.

  “It is incredibly heavily Shielded and Warded!” Somonik reported after a few seconds. “Furthermore, the dome itself is an amazingly tough alloy, and is over thirty feet thick! We can get through it all, but it will take some time, unless we wish to annihilate the population of this city with the overspill of our attack!”

  “Form Shields into a dome over the top half of the mountain to contain the energy!” Yazadril ordered. “Concentrate our attack on a single point on the stone just under the lower edge of the steel dome! Give it all we have!”

  As that was being done, a force rose in flight from the city and began an attack on the alliance fighters. Though estimates would later place their numbers at two hundred and thirty-one thousand Sylvan with twenty-three thousand young dragons, they were almost instantly obliterated by the massive alliance response, and the few spells they’d managed to launch were harmlessly absorbed by the alliance force’s hastily shifted defenses.

  The attack on the mountain was resumed in earnest, then the alliance lookouts screamed in warning as a ball of energy a thousand feet in diameter came roaring into view from over the south-western horizon. The Strike Force hastily scattered out of its way, and only a few close to its path were killed by it as it streaked through them an instant later and impacted beyond the city, destroying a huge tract of farmland.

  Suddenly the enemy was among them, millions of Sylvan and dragons in squadrons of thousands, having Translocated into place in the energy ball’s wake, and Yazadril detailed half of his forces to deal with them while the other half resumed the attack on the domed volcano.

  Hilia’s forces were assigned to defend their sappers, and were soon cutting a swath through Serminak’s soldiers like a snake of destruction with the Six at the head, Dulyamil and Meri bringing up the tail, the elves arrayed into an outward-facing tube between them.

  A Sylvan recognized Mark and Talia and pointed them out as he cried; “The Keys! There! Kill them!” Relgemit’s violet energy beam vaporized him a second later, but the damage had been done. Millions of the enemy turned and fired at them at the same time, and in a panic, Povon Translocated the entire Hilian contingent to the other side of the mountain.

  “Relgemit, take command of our elves!” Mark ordered. “Dulyamil and Meri, you’re with them, guard them well! We six will try to draw off as many of the enemy as we can until the rest of you kill Zarkog!”

  “No!!! Don’t leave us, you need us!” one of the elves screamed, and Mark realized it was Holanam The Lucky.

  “You’d only slow us down!” Mark barked in return. “Follow orders, and keep each other alive!”

  He gave no chance for further complaint, as the Six Translocated back to the part of the battle where they’d been recognized. A second later it happened again, and they took off, using all their power for flight speed and defense. They circled erratically halfway around the mountain, dodging destructions and accelerating as they went, and drawing almost a quarter of the enemy’s force in their wake before they headed away from the mountain and north. The thunder as they broke the sound barrier was lost in the cacophony of the thousands of spells that exploded all around them, but their Shields protected their sight, their hearing, and their lives. When the strain of holding the Shields began to tell, Mark, Povon and Equemev turned their flight control over to their mates, and Ri
a joined those three in turning back to face the way they’d come and unleashing a storm of destruction upon their pursuing enemies.

  They spared a tiny bit of their concentration to mentally cheer when their allies broke through the Shields and Wards that protected the Dragon Lord’s mountain.

  To gain a few moments to breathe, The Six Translocated ahead three miles in their flight path without losing any of their momentum, checked a few moments to see if they’d be spotted, and when they were, they Translocated another three miles.

  This brought them almost five seconds of reprieve, and they exulted to hear over the Command Link that the reduced force of enemies left at the mountain were being decimated by the Linked attacks of the alliance armies. Then the enemy’s spells were exploding against their Shields once more, and the chase was on again. The number of enemy hunting them grew by the second, and their pursuit constantly became more effective. Soon they were Translocating in random fifty-mile jumps every five or six seconds, and it suddenly became apparent that there were two dragons who were now leading the enemy hunt.

  “This is truly becoming frightening!” Povon shrieked. “We jump, and four seconds later there are the bronze and the black, just close enough to see but too damn far to strike, and a second after that the horde are all over us again! Like that, dammit! Those two have played this game before, and they’re good at it! We’re killing a few hundred of the quicker ones every time before we have to jump again, but there must be a quarter million of them on our tails right now, a tenth of them dragons!”

  Then the excited cry came over the Command Link; saying that they’d broken through the stone under the edge of the steel dome, and were inside the stronghold. This gave the Six the will to continue their deadly game of cat and mouse, knowing that every enemy that chased them was one less to impede the hunt for Zarkog.

  Equemev began to wheeze from over-exertion in a worrying way, and Mark sent her and Silaran back to Hilia the next time the squad Translocated.

  Four remained, running through the skies of Serminak, jumping eighty miles every three seconds now, only the enemy were now managing to arrive in their new vicinity two and a half seconds later, and they were shaving a hundredth of a second off that time with every Translocation.

  Then, just as they were getting confirmation that their unicorn friends had arrived safely and without being pursued, the crimson dragon was struck in his right haunch by a steel javelin. It had been hurled by a Sylvan, and speeded on its way by the spells of thousands more, piercing his faltering Shields.

  “Kragorram!” Povon cried, even as Talia yelled, her psionics still strong.

  “Take him home!”

  The next time they leaped across the skies, only two emerged over Serminak. Two Translocations later, word came over the Command Link.

  “Did we get him?” an unknown voice demanded.

  “No!” Quewanak responded, his burning frustration obvious in his tone. “He has fled, curse his shriveled soul! And I can no longer sense his location!”

  “Fall back!” Yazadril commanded, and a fraction of a second later his entire mobile military simultaneously Translocated back to their defensive assignments.

  In Mark and Talia’s case, they appeared in their grand hall, along with the rest of their forces, where Kragorram was being treated by a pair of elven Healers while Povon looked on in concern. More Healers hurried to assist arriving elves who had been injured.

  “Thank the source!” Sheramiv breathed in relief after casting a quick counting spell. “All of you made it back! One hundred fifty-seven injured, thirty-one seriously, none critically, none dead!”

  “It’s our luck!” Holanam crowed happily. “We put all our power into it, and this time I know it worked!”

  Suddenly the pre-dawn view out the huge magic window was blindingly brightened by millions of spells impacting against the Wards. The sounds of the breeze and the surf against the beach abruptly ceased as the sound spell was instantly overloaded.

  “It looks like someone followed us home.” Mark observed tiredly.

  “Are we safe here?!” a Healer loudly asked without taking her eyes off her work.

  “We are, for a while at least.” Mark stated, as he closed his eyes and concentrated. The Wards were keyed to him and Talia, and he could read their condition. “Some of the attacks miss because of the illusions and perception-distorting spells, and some are deflected, and some are transduced into something else and sent back at their casters. The rest are absorbed, and they’re absorbing a lot right now. I’d say the first layer are about a quarter of the way to failure, but there’s a lot of other layers. The last layer are Xervian Wards, and they draw power to maintain themselves from any attack that gets thrown at them. They can’t be overpowered, they can only be overloaded, if you know what I mean, and that would really take a lot. On the other hand, there’s really a lot of spells being cast out there.”

  “By the source!” Sheramiv breathed, having cast her counting spell again. “There are over a hundred and fifty million of them out there! Two hundred million… Three hundred million…! Five hundred million! Nine hundred million!!!”

  “The first layer of Wards has failed.” Talia quietly reported, her face going white. “So has the second.”

  “They didn’t follow Equemev and Silaran.” Mark stated thoughtfully. “They didn’t follow Povon and Kragorram. They followed us. We’ll let them get down to the last couple of layers of our Wards while we get our breath back, and then we’ll go to Xervia. Our Wards have a lot of layers, and the last layer is of the same type as the Xervian Wards, but they’re new and haven’t had very long to charge up. The real Xervian Wards have been charged constantly by millions of wizards for millions of years. We’ll get that horde out there to follow us, and see how long they want to pound their heads on the rock.

  “How long until at least a quarter of the Focus Mountain reflector is in sunlight?” he asked

  “Four hours.” Sheramiv supplied, her face ashen and her limbs trembling.

  “Too bad. I’ll have to have the Xervians open a corridor in their Wards when it’s high noon there. I’d take on anyone and anything, including that horde outside, if I’m in the focus at noon the way it is now.”

  “They are over two billion out there now.” Sheramiv reported, looking like she was going to faint.

  “Huh. It looks like they’re sending their whole army after little old us.” Mark nodded stoically.

  “They’re up to the second-last Wards.” Talia stated, looking grim but determined. “We have to go.”

  “All right. If the horde keeps attacking here instead of following us, abandon Hilia. Use the Translocation Plates if you have to, but get everyone evacuated before the last Wards fail. Mind the Link.”

  “I will.” Povon nodded.