The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 103

Part 17

“Well now I’m very curious!” Talia chuckled. “How is it that you got to know Amirgath?”

“Oh, we were talking about asking him and maybe some of the other gods to do something for us, and he showed up and said they would.” Fire giggled. “Along with Quewanak, Falgaroth and Visinniria. I think they’re giving us quite a lot of their attention, though it might have been because we were chatting with Zarkog at the time.”

“And you’re doing a fine job of seeming nonchalant about it, too.” Mark laughed as he set her down. “Are you going to tell us about it, or just keep us in suspense with cryptic hints?”

“Well I’d sure like to, but it would take a while and we still have things to do before the Assembly meeting tonight. So here;” Six grinned as the children Linked with their parents and shared the experience, and gave them a moment to consider it.

“I hope you don’t mind that we plan to take over running the world from you after we win the tournament.” Val giggled to Mark as she hugged his thigh. “But really, you don’t seem that interested in running it anyway. Will you even enter the tournament?”

“More important than that, will you speak in the Assembly in favor of letting the winner of the tournament assume the leadership of The Just Alliance?” Six insistently inquired.

“Well.” Mark said with a proud smile, and paused before he continued. “I suppose I’ll have to field a team. My supporters wouldn’t stand for it if I didn’t.

“And I’m going to suggest that we hold the tournament, then ask the Assembly if they’ll approve the winner as Leader, and if they agree, then we’ll ask the people. All of them. If there’s strong support for it all the way down the line, then I’ll go along with it and give the new Leader my full and honest support. And that’s all I’m willing to commit to.

“Even with the gods running the tournament, and even with all of them sworn to justice, it’s still too big a risk to guarantee that the winner will get the Leadership. If Zarkog or Zwak Deathbringer or someone like that wins, and a major part of the Assembly or the population disagree with it, it could throw everything into chaos just when we’re facing the demons. There’s no use having the most technically qualified Leader if no one wants to follow him. Then you just have a commander, and maybe a bunch of disobedient or mutinous subordinates.”

“Ah. Good points there, Father.” Six nodded. “So really, if we want to lead The Just Alliance, we have to win the tournament, and before the tournament is held, we need to win over the Assembly and the populace.”

“That’s about it, Son.” Mark chuckled as he gave the boy a pat on the back and a momentary firm rub.

“We’ll definitely need a planning session on that.” Fire decided, then changed the subject.

“How are your efforts at recovering innocent people’s property coming along?”

“The process is running, the teams are working, and we can take our attention from it for now.” Povon told her. “Over half the cases have already been dealt with.”

“Which brings us to your plans for the Sylvan, I think.” Alilia interjected with a smile. “I’m interested in how you think you’ll pull it off. You managed to control the Sylvan youth on Hiliani by overwhelming them psionicly. But as formidable as you are that way, I don’t see how you could do it to four billion of them.”

“We won’t have to.” Val chuckled. “We’re only accepting volunteers this time. And even if most of them play in The Game of Status, they are sworn to justice on the Truthstone, unlike the Hiliani Sylvan. So all we have to do is get them to promise to follow the rules, and they’ll have to do it because of their vow on the stone. We’ll hire good psionics to supervise things, plus we’ll have a lot of big automated spells helping to keep things running smoothly.

“The really hard part will be lining up enough Healers to work the challenge arenas, but I have an idea for that too. Automated Healing spells. It’s still too complicated to make a spell-set that can replace a Healer in most situations because diagnosis is so hard, but I think we can make one that observes what happens in the challenge arena and notes exactly what injuries are inflicted. Then it’ll know exactly what to do at the end of the match, because it’ll know it only has to reverse the injuries that it just saw inflicted.

“Come to think of it, if we can do that, we can cast an automated Healing spell on every soldier that Heals every wound they take in battle as soon as it’s inflicted. That would work really good. It’d be like Father’s Resurrection spell, except it wouldn’t wait until you were dead before it saved you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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