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 two meters 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, five centimeters 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 the 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 two meters wide and fifty centimeters 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, though 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 six meters 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, eight hundred kilometers 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 Shi