“I see. Let’s suppose then that I do as you suggest. I declare myself to be a person like any other, and I swear on the stone to not break the peace, to protect the innocent, and to uphold justice. Assuming that I am bound by my vow, I would strive to protect the innocent, but from what? If it is within my power to protect them from every form of hurt and harm, to protect them from any danger, to protect them from death itself, should I do so? Should I protect them from heartache, jealousy, frustration, or boredom, if I can do so?”
“Yes!” Mark stated emphatically. “If you can do so in a healthy manner that is respectful of their rights! As I’ve said, everyone has the right to engage in reasonable risk, but beyond that, I aim to completely eliminate needless suffering and death from Kellaran!
“If I can teach people to make wise choices in life so that they can completely avoid heartache, jealousy, frustration and boredom, I will do so! If you used your power to assist in this education and training of the people, you can help eliminate those problems without violating anyone’s rights! If I could cast a spell that would make sure that no one ever dropped a frying pan on their foot and broke their toe ever again, I’d do it! And I’m definitely not worried that people would become so dependent on the spell that they’d stop trying to keep from dropping frying pans on their feet!
“If I could save everyone from death, I’d do it, and deal with any challenges that arise from it afterward! If everyone is truly immortal, we don’t have to worry about the overpopulation problem that Yazadril talked about earlier. We can breed as fast as we can make enough of the facilities that people need to lead healthy lives, and if we reach the limits of the world to support more people without causing unhealthy conditions, then we can stop breeding until we find new ways around the limits. If people are immortal, you never need to tell them to not have any more children; you only need to tell them to wait until it’s practical to have them. And they shouldn’t mind waiting too much, since they’d have all of eternity ahead of them. Everyone can have as many children as they wish, the only question should be; how long will they have to wait to have them? If it’s as long as it takes to build a new world for them, then so be it!”
Visinniria, Heklivmalgiso, Neela and Amirgath all seemed to be absolutely flabbergasted. Falgaroth seemed to be chuckling to himself, though no one could be sure when trying to read the body language of a unicorn god. Glup was as alien and inscrutable as ever. Mark kept all his attention on the gods, afraid to let his concentration slip the slightest bit, and disregarded for the moment the other mortals present.
“I must say, that’s not the response I thought you’d give.” Visinniria quietly stated.
“There’s another factor you’re all going to have to consider as well.” Mark continued firmly. “The Truthstone of Falgaroth is charged with millions of times the power it would need to have it’s designed effect on any mortal. Any mortal. There’s only one reason why it would be charged with that much power, and that’s so it would work on gods. I’m absolutely positive that any god would be bound by a vow sworn upon it, and any god would be unable to lie while in contact with it.
“I’ve sworn on it, and I won’t be released from my vow when I become a god! These others here have all sworn on it too, and all of them except Grakonexikaldoron are also Candidates for Divinity, and they’re not going to be released from the vow when they reach godhood either!
“If the rest of you gods have existing agreements among yourselves that aren’t consistent with Osbald’s Oath, we won’t honor those agreements when we become gods. That includes the withdrawal. We don’t have any choice about it. We are bound by the stone, and by our own honor and morality as well. And we don’t want a conflict among the gods, since I’m told that it could destroy all of reality.
“So the rest of you have until we reach divinity to come around to our way of thinking. Considering the progress I’ve made in the last two days, you might not want to take too much time making up your minds.”
The obvious truth of those points struck the minds of everyone present like a thunderbolt.
“Now, concerning your threat against me. I know I’m not a god, so until I am, if anyone says I’m a god then they’re lying. I will publicly declare them to be lying, according to the laws I’ve suggested. If it’s seen that any harm comes from the lie, I will act against them, up to and including Compelling them to publicly admit to their lie upon The Truthstone of Falgaroth, and to swear to cease their lying. I will not harm or kill them for it under any circumstance; because calling me a god isn’t a serious enough crime to warrant it, in my view.
“If someone says I’m a Candidate for Divinity, they’re telling the truth according to you, so I won’t do anything about it beyond asking them politely to keep quiet about it. If you choose to do something about it, it had better not be anything that harms them in any way for telling the truth, or you’ll have broken the laws of The Just Alliance, and we will do what we can to hold you to account for it. We will uphold justice.
“If you decide to act against me unjustly, by removing me from the world or by any other method, while knowing that I am Key to the Just Alliance and Key to the Nexus, you may risk the survival of every life on Kellaran. Any consequences will be on your heads; any blood will be on your hands.
“Now, having said all that, I’d like to repeat that I’ve no wish to earn your enmity. I feel that I had no real choice about anything I’ve said or done here today, being bound by my vow, and forced to respond to your actions. We want the same things, prosperity and peace for all our people. We only differ so far in our methods. I hope you’ll forgive me if I’ve upset you or offended you here today, but I stand by what I’ve said.”
With that he took a deep breath, and suddenly seemed very tired. “We’ve restored the original orientation of the Wards. You can go if you want to.”
Amirgath turned to Falgaroth. “You have much to answer for! The casting of a spell to bind a god is banned by unanimous agreement!”
“The stone was crafted long before such agreements were first proposed.” Falgaroth replied, and now his vast amusement was obvious in his tone. “Even were that not so, still the agreement would not be broken, for no god could be forced by power or might to swear upon the stone. Should any god choose to swear an oath, I have merely provided a way to ensure that their adherence to their oath is reliable.
“Besides, you are changing the subject in order to avoid facing difficult thoughts.”
“Such as the fact that due to your meddling in the way of things by your crafting of the stone, we may be forced to annihilate these Candidates in order to prevent conflict between the gods?!!!” Amirgath demanded in irritation. “You know that some of us will demand it, and you know who they are!!”
“That will not happen, for I will not allow it, and they will not break the unanimity!” Falgaroth retorted, letting his own anger show.
“And if the alternative is that we are forced to abandon the agreements that have cost us so much effort to forge, in order to follow the policies of this barely-born infant ape?!! What then, Falgaroth?!”
“Then so be it!!!” The bright blue unicorn god’s mighty form assumed a stance of challenge. “I have been arguing for similar policies for eons, as you well know! Those of us who have any wisdom at all have been forced to enact the agreements in order to prevent even greater foolishness and stupidity! It is more than past time for arrogance and injustice to be stripped from the gods and peoples of Kellaran!
“The Nexus approaches, Amirgath, and there are three paths that we may follow! There is the way of the foolish, there is the status quo, and there is the way of justice! Consider which of these three would best prepare us for the Nexus!
“And consider the price of failure, eldest of the dragon gods! Now is not the time for pride or ego!”
Amirgath glared for a moment. He spoke in a rumbling and dangerous tone of quiet threat. “You have forced me, Falgaroth. You have forced us all. How much of this did you plan when you crafted the stone?”
“Nothing more than knowing that the presence of the stone in this world would eventually tip the balance. It’s presence and permanence could only have been countered by the existence of an equal token of injustice. Even if a being of dark intent were capable of crafting such an item, they would never consider spending the effort to do so. They act out of selfishness, and it serves no purpose of theirs to cause injustice in the world that has no direct benefit for themselves.
“Thus, I knew that my crafting of the Truthstone would eventually prove to be decisive in the struggle between good and evil.”
“Unfortunately, that has yet to be decided.” Heklivmalgiso asserted. “There is no guarantee that The Just Alliance will prevail against those they refer to as the insidious conspiracy. If they lose, particularly if Mark falls, it is almost certain that none of these Candidates will ascend before the nexus is upon us. And if they fail to ascend, and we fail to deal with the nexus, the rest will be moot.
“Falgaroth, it is as Amirgath has said; you have forced us, and the Nexus forces us as well.
“The others will be discussing this already. We must be there to represent our views. I go now.” The elven god was suddenly gone, as were Glup and Neela.
Amirgath glared at Falgaroth, then at Mark, before he too disappeared.
Suddenly Visinniria was laughing. She dropped onto a sitting log and laughed till tears started running from her eyes. Her humor was so infectious that the mortals present started to laugh along with her, even though they didn’t know what she was laughing about. Falgaroth seemed to be silently chortling to himself as well.
“Oh my stars.” Visinniria finally chuckled as she collected herself and wiped her tears away with the heels of her hands. “That was rich. I never thought I’d ever get to see that pompous old lizard’s nose tweaked like that! And the old elf was ready to choke on his spit, though he doesn’t show it so much!”
“I thought I would choke myself, from trying not to bray with laughter!” Falgaroth revealed. Suddenly he sat on his haunches and parodied Amirgath’s outraged voice and mannerisms perfectly. “This is unbelievable! Are you actually threatening me?!”
This sent Visinniria into fresh paroxysms of hilarity, while Falgaroth sat like a dog with his forelegs braced wide, so overcome with the unique huffing laughter of the unicorns that he once almost rolled over backward.
“Now see here.” Somonik finally rumbled in irritation. “It can’t be that funny.”
“It can, and I’m sorry you are not in a position to see it as such.” Falgaroth chortled, but he and Visinniria did make an effort to pull themselves together.
“You must understand, Somonik, that there are less than four hundred gods, which makes for a very small community.” the elven goddess explained as she wiped her tears away again, still grinning. “Like any small community, we learn each others tiniest foibles and personality flaws. The elder dragon gods like to think they’re above everyone else, though they truly know that they’re not, having no more power or say than those of us of the younger gods. This leads to a great deal of blustering on their part, which the rest of us generally tolerate, simply to avoid the endless haranguing that results from any supposed infringement on their dignity. Thus, we can’t help but find it funny to see him discomfited a bit.”
“I know that Amirgath was your patron god while you thought you were the eldest mortal, Somonik, and that our mirth bothers you because you think we are disrespecting him.” Falgaroth added. “We truly do respect him a great deal, and we love him dearly. Since the withdrawal, the gods have had no one to talk with or interact with except each other, and we have all become as close as family. The withdrawal is a lonely thing for us, and it is a time of trepidation for us as well. We’ve let our children strike out on their own, and we are as anxious as you were when your son Ekmangar first tried his wings. So we have our little family squabbles, and sometimes we bicker and grumble, just to vent our frustration.”
“Amirgath’s favorite thing to say to us at such times is; I was a god when your ancestors were rodents!” Visinniria chuckled.
“I see.” Somonik stated dryly. “Actually, I remember quite clearly when your ancestors were rodents. I also remember the very first time I saw you in your father’s warcamp, during one of my many fruitless attempts to negotiate a truce to the War of the Segregation. You were perhaps three years old, and were running from your mother in order to avoid being bathed.”
“I remember that day.” Visinniria glared, all humor gone from her expression. “We could spare neither the power nor the firewood to heat the water, and bathing was a damned cold experience.” She paused as the memory swept over her, then continued in a quieter, more dangerous mien.
“It took me almost twelve thousand years to dispel the dark mood of that war from my mind after I reached divinity. And I was enraged with the other gods, for I knew they could have stopped that war at any time, if only they had chosen to do so. During those years, even Amirgath hesitated to approach me, for fear my wrath would get the better of me and I would strike him down without caring if I broke the universe to do it.
“Don’t test my patience, Somonik.”
The ancient white drake bowed deeply, without another word.
Visinniria regained her smile as she regarded Mark and Talia, who still stood in contact with the Truthstone, Mark holding Talia like a child in one arm, she with one arm on his shoulder.
Visinniria stepped over and laid her hand on the stone beside them. “Ahh. This is a wonderful thing, Falgaroth.”
“Thank you. It was a great deal of work to make it, as Mark has pointed out.” he chuckled in response.
“If I may, I would be pleased to visit you here another time, but for now duty calls and I must soon be off.” Visinniria said, speaking directly to Talia. “Before I go, may I have the sword for a moment?”
Talia drew Ria and presented her hilt-first to the goddess.
Visinniria stepped clear as she considered the blade in her hand, then danced through a blindingly fast sequence of combat moves.
As the elven goddess of war stilled with the blade held high before her, the stiff Illusion of Ria appeared. Excepting her rigid stance and their armor, the two appeared to be identical.
“My Lady, it is bliss to feel your caress again.”
“As it is bliss to dance with you again, my love.” the goddess smiled. “And it is interesting to see you personified in this way. I like your new name, Ria, as well. But I fear you look too much like me, and I cannot risk you being mistaken for me upon the mortal plane, should your new lady invoke you within the view of others.”
Suddenly Ria’s rigid red hair became as silver as her blade.
“There. What do you think of that?”
“I would prefer my hair to be black, if it must be another color.” Ria stated with firm decision, and then it was so. “Thank you. I can sense that you have altered me in other ways, as well.”
“You will no longer forget what is more than a century past. Your personality is no longer tainted with the dark mood of the war. And I have impressed into you the physical skills I had when I was still a mortal.” Visinniria told her. “This much I am allowed to do for you, my love, because you are not mortal.”
She handed the sword back to Talia. “Take care of her, and she will take care of you. I love her very much, for there were centuries when she was my only friend.”
“I... I will, my Lady.” Talia stammered as she bowed her head, then sheathed the blade, and the figure of Ria faded away.
Visinniria floated up and hugged the pair, and gave each of them a quick kiss, while murmuring softly. “You have won me over. Keep up the good work. Stay the course. And Mark, when my children come to you to show their appreciation for what you have done this day, let them do so in their own way.”
He nodded.
She did the same with each elf, the embrace, the quick kiss, the private message. Then she was gone.
Falgaroth was the only god remaining among them. He laughed with deep huffing sounds. “Mark, you are either the most brilliant being who has ever lived, or the most foolishly courageous. Most likely, there’s some truth to both of those, eh?
“You have done today what I could not. I am immensely proud of you.”
The bright blue god trotted over and touched the tip of his great horn to the center of Mark’s forehead. “This is between the two of us, all right? Don’t use it for a few days. Let them think you conceived of it yourself.”
Falgaroth passed him a spell, then stepped back. “Quewanak, when you are finished here, the Truthstone will return to the Hall of The Just Alliance. None there will have noticed it was missing.
“ I am very proud of all of you.” he told them with a toss of his mighty head, and then he was gone.
Mark’s knees almost buckled as the tension drained out of him. He staggered over to a log and dropped down to slump against it, holding Talia with desperate affection. He took a deep breath, let it out, and began to weep with great wracking sobs.
Hilsith quickly stepped over, casting diagnostic spells as she moved.
“He’ll be fine, he’s just emotionally overwhelmed.” Talia told her as she caressed Mark’s cheek. “He’s still so young to bear such burdens.”
Yazadril came and sat beside them, and Nemia came with him and sat in his lap. “Today, even I feel too young to bear such burdens.” he sighed as Hilsith sat beside him, and the trio shared a hug
“Hhmff. And I feel too old for it.” Somonik rumbled, and lay down full length on the sand.
“Here, let me give you a rub, old boy.” Grakonexikaldoron chucked, and started giving the scarred ancient white a rubdown, beginning at the tip of his tail and working up.
Povon and Kragorram crouched together on the sand, pensive and subdued, hugging each other with their tails and necks entwined.
Dalia and Bezedil came to sit at Yazadril’s feet and embraced as desperately as the young dragon couple, sharing their mood as well.
Only Alilia seemed to burn with nervous energy, and she paced around restlessly as Somonik groaned in pleasure from the gold dragoness’s ministrations.
“I can’t believe he faced down the gods!” she ranted in consternation, her white-blond hair waving in the slight breeze. “I thought I had some courage, but I couldn’t bring myself to say a word, even after they contained their auras! For the first time in my life, I was struck dumb with fear and awe! And he faced them down!!! Foolish or not, no one has ever shown such courage!”
“You don’t know the half of it.” the Eldest snickered. “He was bluffing.”
“What?!!”
“He and Talia were holding enough power from The Truthstone that if a hundred gods had laid hands on their bodies and all sworn an oath at the same moment, those gods would have been bound by it, the same as if they’d sworn directly upon the stone. But there’s little else that could have been done with it. The power of the stone is immense, there’s no doubt of that. But it is of a decided nature and is fit for but a single use; that being the enforcement of truth. Mark was bluffing, he could not use that power against the gods and he knew it.
“Furthermore, he is sworn to protect the innocent. He would not have risked harm to the innocent citizens on the island, so if the gods had insisted on leaving, Mark would not have impeded them by the inverted Wards. That too was a bluff.
“He faced down the gods with nothing backing him up except his courage and his confidence in the rightness of what he was doing. They were almost completely certain that such was the case, of course, but not absolutely certain, so they couldn’t take the chance.
“I’m more than a little proud of the boy.”
“But that means he lied to the gods!” Alilia exclaimed. “How could he do so when he has sworn upon the Truthstone?! Especially considering they were pressed against it and holding half the stone’s power at the time?!”
“He is sworn to peace and protection and justice. The stone holds him to that vow, ensuring that he spoke the truth when he swore it. He did not swear to always speak the truth. Because of this, he is allowed a little leeway, and he can be misleading, so long as he does not speak any blatant lie, and so long as he believes that doing so serves his vow. He said they held power, but he never actually threatened to use it, that was merely implied. He described what he’d done with the Wards, and said that he doubted the gods could pass them without causing all our deaths, but he never said that he would prevent the gods from leaving by their use. Again, that was implied.”
“But if he couldn’t use the power of the stone, how did he shield his thoughts from the gods?!” Alilia demanded.
“Oh, I showed him that. Because of my bonding with the stone, I could privately communicate with Mark directly through it while he was in contact with it. I showed him my best psionic shield spells, and they are the very best, I assure you. Since psionics generally require very little raw power, and he has an abundance of power, he was able to cast my psionic shield spells with such strength that the gods themselves couldn’t see past them. Then he did the same for Talia, and they had enough power left over to lend me a sufficient amount of it for me to do the same. It took almost every bit of his immense power, and Talia’s, but he blocked the gods from our minds.”
“I had more than courage and rightness backing me up.” Mark quietly revealed, his outpouring of emotion having run its course. “I had Talia’s love and belief in me, I had the Eldest’s solid confidence in me, and his private council.”
“Which you needed none of.” the Eldest pointed out.
“Still, you all have to understand that courage really had nothing to do with it. I knew what I did was the right thing to do, and so I had no choice but to act to fulfill my vow. The Compulsion of the Truthstone would accept nothing less. That’s why we swore the vow again, just to make sure it would give me the courage to do what was right if I lost my nerve.
“And I couldn’t have cast those psionic shields without Talia. They’re draconian spells, and you have to have two kinds of power to cast them. Her abundance of power was just as necessary as mine.”
“Hmm. Since your vow upon the stone drove you to act, and not your courage or your character, I wonder how it is that none of the rest of us were driven to confront the gods, or even to speak out to support you while you did so?” Yazadril chuckled. “After all, we have all sworn upon the stone.”
“I imagine it’s because only I saw the need to do it.” Mark mused. “You all have a lot of intelligence, and a lot of knowledge. But the six months I spent trudging through the wilderness, often concentrating fiercely on the nature of justice and the most desirable state of the world in order to avoid thinking about my grief, well, I think it gave me a different perspective on things.”
He paused, then spoke even more quietly. “This doesn’t seem real. I mean, things were starting to seem pretty unreal three days ago, and every time I almost get used to it, it gets a whole lot more unreal. I’m starting to wonder if any of it’s real, if any of you are real. I think I’m starting to lose my mind. That sure seems to make a lot more sense than me being some kind of supreme wizard and some kind of world leader and having faced down the gods.”
“Don’t I seem real to you?” Talia quietly asked.
Mark chuckled, and hugged her warmly. “My perfect elven princess, my magic love, the temptress of my dark desires? No, you’re far too wonderful to be real. Being with you is a far too beautiful dream to seem real to this simple woodsman’s son.”
“Doubting reality is the first step down the road to insanity, and it’s a road you must choose to step away from.” Hilsith insisted. “Philosophers have been known to drive themselves insane, pondering the infinite nature of time and reality till they lost their grip on the tangible reality around them. If you start doubting reality and follow that thinking to it’s ultimate expression, you end with the supposition that yours is the only consciousness that exists, and that you are hallucinating everything that you experience, and you do not realize this because you hide that truth from yourself to protect your sanity, or perhaps because you are already insane.
“Now you must admit, that seems ridiculous, though it cannot be proven to be false. But any doubting of the reality your senses show you is equally ridiculous. We either trust our senses, or give up completely on ever knowing what is real. Just because life is incredible doesn’t make it less real.
“If you ever do experience an artificial reality, for instance because a psionic spell is muddling your mind, you will eventually figure it out because of internal inconsistencies. Truth lies in consistency.”
“Bah! Trust your guts, boy!” the Eldest advised. “This is real and you know it. You can feel the truth of it in your guts, no matter how hard it is to accept.”
“You’re right.” Mark admitted with a sad shake of his head. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself, like a foolish child.”
“You are allowed to be imperfect, you know.” Talia teased, tickling his ribs a bit. “And besides, it is no weakness to vent your emotions when they are overwhelming you.
“In hindsight, it’s easy to see why I felt that all of us here needed to be here, for this occasion.” Tithian mused.
“You didn’t know, did you?” Mark asked. “Why Dalia and Bezedil needed to be here, that is. You only knew it was necessary, by your power as a seer.”
“Exactly. Now we know it was so that the gods could name them Candidates.” Tithian nodded.
He nodded, then took a deep breath to center himself. “Well. While it’s still fresh in our minds, let’s review a few things. Whether they meant us to or not, we learned from what the gods said that the problems with the insidious conspiracy have little to do with the events that will cause the Nexus. And I get the impression that the Nexus is a problem so huge that even the gods may be unable to deal with it, and that’s why they want there to be more gods. Therefore, it’s our responsibility as Candidates to achieve divinity as soon as possible so that we can help them deal with the threat.
“First, as discretely as possible, we have to research everything that’s known about the process, and the nature of the gods.”
He fell silent as he absorbed all those thoughts a little more, then muttered; “I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
“I do too.” Yazadril nodded. “What could possibly be such a huge problem that the existing gods would be unable to deal with it?”
“Other than researching ascension and divinity, we can’t think about that right now.” Mark asserted. “As if we weren’t reasonably sure of it already, we can deduce from what the gods said that the conspiracy is far from defeated, and that they’re planning something big. Big enough to be a challenge to The Just Alliance. And it will be something violent, since the gods mentioned the possibility that I could be killed.
“And while we’re on the subject of the conspiracy, do you want to tell me whatever it was that you and Alilia didn’t want me to know about when I Read you?” Mark asked.
“How did you know about that?” Alilia demanded.
“Well, you did hide the knowledge from me completely, but while Yazadril also hid everything that related to it, you forgot to hide the Spoken conversation you had with Yazadril, Somonik, and Tithian in which you revealed your news, and the four of you decided not to burden me with it. What you told them was hidden, but not the part before that where you told them you had important news, or the part where you decided not to tell me.”
“I see. Sloppy o