Chapter 181
Part 25
Mark and his family found themselves in the Hilian throneroom where they’d been when the exercise
began, around them were the Hilians they’d been talking to about the state of the nation and the lives
of its people, and with them was Pakdag.
The glowering human wargod wasted no time on niceties. “You fought very well. You have shown us
what you can truly do. But your casting of the independent attack spells served no part of providing
useful training today, beyond your practicing to cast a great many of them while simultaneously fighting
one battle andmanding a few more. I suggest you perform that practice on your own time, for if
you attempt to use them in the next general exercise, you will find that they do not work.”
With that he was gone.
“Huh.” Mark went as he shook his head a bit. “Well I don’t care if it was only seven seconds in real
time, I’m exhausted, mentally if not physically. I’m going to bed.”
“We’ll see youter.” Povon said, and the dragons vanished.
Mark and his family walked up the many stairs to the cottage. They could have taken the ne Door,
but for the first time, none of them felt like doing anything by magic. They bathed and dressed and
brushed their hairpletely by hand, then went to bed.
The next day Val automated The Skills of Visinniria and cast it on the poptions of Keran. It gave
Visinniria’s physical martial arts skills to every humanoid who was less skilled at physical fighting that
she was, and it selected the best fighters from each of the non-humanoid races and gave their physical
skills to the other adults of their races. But it made less difference than they’d hoped, due to the fact
that spellcraft was the dominant form ofbat on both sides.
Four dayster, the next exercise was held. In that exercise, over what seemed like three days of
warfare, the demons won. The worldlets of The Triax were destroyed first and forced down to fall onto
the world below, causing apocalyptic damage. That left the demons free to concentrate on attacking
what remained of Keran amidst the damage they’d caused. All the cities andrger towns of Keran
werepletely destroyed, as was half the wilderness and farnd and all the poption within it.
The worldlets that fell into the sea ensured that coasts and the civilizations of the aquatic peoples were
totally devastated. Every thinking mortal being was killed except the few who could restore or resurrect
themselves when most of their bodies had been obliterated. Five Triax gods and two Kerani gods
had been killed by a tear in reality, a Triax god was eaten by a DemonLord, and fifty-three gods from
both pantheons were incapacitated by traumatizing psionic attacks.
The organizers admitted afterwards that had it continued, the surviving gods and the few surviving
powerful mortals would have eventually triumphed over the remaining demons. But that was
considered to be a moot point once virtually all the mortals were dead, so they ended the exercise at
that point.
The exercises after that urred with regrity every two days, and the simted demons won about
half of them.
PART 26
With a day and a half remaining before the time-bubbles were due to be opened, Mark and Talia and
Alilia rose suddenly in the middle of the night and rushed into their children’s room. They each picked
up one of their children, sat on the edge of the bed and held them tightly, and quietly cried.
Six was the first to speak as he was awakened by this. “What? What is it?” he groggily stammered into
Mark’s shoulder, but Fire was already Reading their parents and sharing the results with him and Val.
The Hiliani time-bubble had been opened early, again, with three years of internal time remaining. Their
parents’ minds had re-melded with the minds of the copies of themselves they’d left in the time-bubble.
What they were expressing now was the anguish they’d felt at being separated from their children for
thirteen years, and the joy of that separation’s end.
The three adults were so distraught that Fire ended her Reading as soon as she knew what was
happening and that nothing was wrong, having been made extremely ufortable by her parent’s
uncharacteristic emotional turmoil.
After a few minutes the three adults wordlessly exchanged children, then did it again a few minutes
after that, desperately needing to renew their bonds with all three. It mattered not that their copies in
the outside world had been with the children during thest few weeks. Even with their re-melding, that
fact was irrelevant to the powerful emotions of the copies that had spent thirteen years away in the
time-bubble.
The children patiently epted and returned their parents’ embraces, and did their best to project all
the re-assuring love they felt.
Finally Mark wiped his tears away and quietly rumbled; “Let’s get some tea and cookies, and we’ll tell
you all about our years in the time-bubble, and all your new brothers and sisters.”
Still holding Fire, he stood and led them to the kitchen.
“I’ll make the tea.” Val volunteered, but she did so by magic without moving from Talia’s arms.
Six fetched some snacks the same way.
“We really love you cubs, you know.” Mark began. “If we’d have realized how terrible it was going to be
to be apart from you for so long, we’d never have done it. I still can’t believe how much I missed you. It
just felt so wrong to be back on Hiliani, and back in the time-bubble, without you. It really hurt, like part
of me had been torn away, and it feels so good to be with you again.”
He paused, and gave his head a rueful shake.
“As to the rest of it, things sure didn’t go as I expected in the time-bubble.
“The forty-four, that is your brothers and sisters, they didn’t turn out like you three. The Volunteers are
all well above average for elves in general, but if you want a vivid demonstration of the difference
between their quality and Talia and Alilia’s, it’s pretty in in the difference between you three and the
forty-four.
“They didn’t start to use magic until they were between four and five, and I didn’t mind that. They all
seemed to get that almost at once, and I think they kind of brought it out in each other. They all got both
wizards’ and warlocks’ power, though they use them as if they were one. If they get cut off from the
source of either power, they can carry on with the other with reduced power, without having to
consciously change how they’re casting in any way. Only a few of them can even differentiate the two.
None of them are as strong as any of you in elven wizardry, which I fully expected, but on the other
hand, none of them are as strong as you in warlock power either, which I didn’t expect.
“None of them developed psionics until they were six or seven, not even Ka’s twins, and a few didn’t
get it until they were nine. I didn’t mind that either.
“And while they failed to develop your early psionics and magic, they also failed to develop your early
maturity and intelligence and work ethic. That was the part I minded. A lot.
“They came out exactly even; twenty-two boys and twenty-two girls.
“At first nce you might think they all take after me more than their mothers, since they all got my
ck hair and blue eyes, every single one of them. On the other hand they all gotpletely elven
ears and the finer elven facial features, though their faces are all pretty individual for half-siblings. From
their growth so far, they’ll range in size from as small as the smallest elves to bigger than I am, so
they’re not very uniform that way.
“Their most humanmon characteristic is their personalities, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
They seem to have all the worst aspects of the personalities of human children; they’re stubborn,
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mischievous, secretive, rebellious, obstinate tricksters.
“They prefer the most crude humor, and continue to think the same jokes and pranks are funny long
after they’ve palled for everyone else. For example, one of the first spells any of them learned to cast
was one that they devised, that causes whoever the spell is cast upon to pass wind. I’m sure that Fart
spell was cast more times in thest ten years than all the rest of the spellsbined.