The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 107

Part 17

“Give us all the relevant information you have on your program, including facilities, the rosters of trainees, supervisors, and other staff, and the logistics of your supply systems. Have the trainees gathered to watch the Revealing in one hour.”

Zwak frowned, but he passed her the information psionicly, and she immediately passed it to Karz, who passed it to his team-mates. “May I ask the terms of their contract?” he inquired.

“We haven’t discussed it yet,” Povon admitted as she turned to the children, “But the essence of a just contract is that both parties should benefit equally. On that basis, Mark should award you half the value of the labor, costs, and resources that we’ll save under your system, plus a payment for your improvement in the quality of our training.

“On the other hand, that would mean we’d owe you the value of about a billion Sylvan’s continuous labor in ongoing payments, plus the rest. It would be far more than Serminak could pay in any kind of liquid assets. We could give you a few hundred tons of gold as a down payment, but you would have to take the rest in goods, services or resources.”

The four young simply stared at her a moment, then broke up laughing.

“That’s a pretty good offer, Povon, considering that we’d planned to contribute the entire program at our own cost, including borrowing from you five as necessary.” Six laughed. “Give us a second to consider it.

“All right, we’ll emplace and oversee the training program for the next year for only eighteen tons of gold, on the condition that you pay the cost of having it minted into Hilian Crowns. With that to start with, we’ll be able to make as much money as we want, so there’s no use in us charging you any more. We know that Serminak isn’t producing a huge surplus, and besides, it’ll be a good thing to have the government of Serminak owing us a big favor.”

“But we’ll take the favor in writing, in case there’s a change of regime here sometime before we choose to collect on it!” Fire laughed. “And that’s not a comment on instability here, but on how soon I think we’ll need to collect the favor!”

“Done!” Mark laughed, offering his hand to Val, who was closest.

The Governors shook his hand in turn, feeling quite pleased with themselves.

“We’ll have your gold to the mint in Hilia within the hour.” Povon told them with a smile.

“And I’ll have the writ of favor within a week.” Mark grinned. “I want to see how the accounting works out before I decide on the wording.”

“Been a rough month, hasn’t it Zwak?” Fire asked the Sylvan with a smirk. “First demoted by Zarkog and then by Kovink Seg Mivtz, and now relieved of responsibility for the youth training programs. With the corresponding loss of status.”

“Yes, I’ve had better months, and my status has fallen while yours has risen.” Zwak told her. “But to be honest, I’m glad I won’t be responsible for the training programs anymore. It was a thankless, frustrating, and complex task that consumed a great deal of time while conferring comparatively little status. Now that I’m free of it, I’ll have the time I need to find a way to deal with the damn gnome. Zarkog’s move was purely symbolic and everyone knows it, so that didn’t cost me much, but the damn gnome…” he paused and gnashed his teeth for a moment. “Well, let’s just say that he and I don’t see eye to eye, and leave it at that.”

“I suppose our status has indeed increased, as Sylvan judge such things, and it will continue to do so.” Fire told him. “But we don’t really care about that. The only thing that matters is beating the demons. Until then, gaining status for its own sake is shallow and irrelevant.”

“I disagree.” Zwak insisted. “As I understand things, we still have long enough before we face the demons that it’s still worthwhile to take some time to enjoy our lives, particularly if we can do so while engaging in activities that help prepare us for the war. And while my dedication to the cause may be less than yours, I can assure you that it’s far more than that of the damn gnome. His status is all he cares about; the results of his activities actually decrease our preparedness far more than they increase it. Great missing gods above and below, how I hate that damned gnome!”

“Hold on there.” Mark interjected. “If he’s decreasing our preparedness, he’s decreasing the effectiveness of the military, which is a contravention of one of the primary rules of the game. If that’s the case, how is it that he’s escaped being beaten for it as the rules decree?”

“He decreases our preparedness by completely demoralizing every Sylvan and every adult of every other race that he crushes in The Game of Status by utilizing the assistance of billions of non-players of his race! Tiny as they are, no one can beat the billions of them unless billions of us band together to do it, which is completely against the spirit of the game! All the damn gnomes are acting against us with everything they’ve got, but since they’re non-players acting through him, we can’t strike back at them! It’s bloody cheating, is what it is! They should take part as players, or stay the hell out of it!”

“Or, the Sylvan could abandon The Game of Status in favor of a system that offers them far greater fulfillment, of a much more fundamental nature.” Six countered, and cast the Revealing that he’d been helping to prepare with some of his attention during the conversation.

The sound and sight of interviews with Hiliani Sylvan trainees was cleverly interspersed and overlapped with views and sounds of their training. They enthusiastically extolled the merits of battling demons all day without worrying about being killed, then partying all evening with the perfect level of drunkenness and none of the side effects, including being able to fight anyone in the arenas with guaranteed perfect healing right afterwards, and the opportunity to have endless sex with no worries about sexual diseases or unplanned pregnancy. They extolled the quality of the food and the comfort of the accommodations, and their pride in having built their new homes themselves.

“Ah. You had me worried for a moment.” Zwak said with a smile as the Revealing continued. “They’re still Sylvan. The informal, instinctual game of status continues among them, in the new circumstances you’ve created for them. And I must admit, they’re tempting circumstances. I doubt I could live the rest of my life like that, but it would be a very pleasant vacation.”

“Sure, it’s the best way you’ve got to have some fun and sharpen your skills against the best demon Simulacrums there are.” Six grinned. “And maybe after you’ve tried it, you’ll decide that returning to the stress of your present duties isn’t as important as you’d thought. You’re still Zwak Deathbringer, the most experienced fighter and general among all Sylvan, and quite likely the most dangerous among them, though we now know that you’re not the eldest, or even close to it. The unknown Sylvan God of Stealth forbids his people who are twenty-five or older from killing each other, and he has for almost three millennia. There are Sylvan on Hiliani who are almost that old. Anyway, many of your most impressive abilities go unused in your present duties, and your status would be at least as high under our system as it is now.

“And it might interest you to know that while the Hiliani Sylvan have to follow their deity’s restriction on killing, and we keep them in line with overpowering psionics, none of them have been sworn to justice on The Truthstone of Falgaroth, or on any other item of power.

“If you help us emplace our system and get it running smoothly, and then you join it, we’ll see what we can do about getting you released from your vow. We can’t promise anything, because we haven’t asked Falgaroth about it and we don’t even know if it’s possible. But we’re against keeping anyone under an involuntary binding oath if there’s any other practical way to guarantee the reliability of their behavior.”

“By Gvetwa’s balls!” Zwak cursed under his breath, then was silent for a moment before he spoke up. “You hit me hard with that one. I’d do a lot to be released from the vow; to truly have it gone from my mind. Even with the freedoms allowed us under The Game of Status, the vow is an aggravating and constant irritant. Not to mention that it was the instrument of my own humiliating defeat.