Book To Read
Chapter 141
Chapter 141
Part 21
Mark could no longer be seen in the maelstrom he was creating. Within seconds, even the blazing light
of his spells was blocked in the storm of flying shattered rock and clouds of dust he was blasting out of
the mountain he faced.
Talia hurriedly cast to protect the reflector and the research facility on it’s north rim from damage from
flying rocks and boulders. The facility’s blast protections had automatically activated, but would soon
have been overwhelmed. It was more than Talia could deal with alone, and a second later those with
her joined her efforts, then Val cast an automated, self-powered spell that relieved them of the task.
Any unprotected living thing within twenty kilometers would certainly have been killed, but nothing
visible lived there.
“Have you noticed that we’re almost in the focus of the reflector, and we’re not getting any extra power
from it?” Val absentmindedly asked as she watched the destruction-storm with captive fascination.
“Father’s got his collection field over this entire area, fifty kilometers wide, and no warlock power is
getting through it at all. I had to cast that automated spell with pure wizard’s power, or it would’ve
drained my warlock power pretty fast.”
“He needs to vent his anger, and I can’t blame him.” Alilia angrily stated. “I don’t know what the hell the
poor boy is going to do about this. Damn it, we’re supposed to be getting married in four hours!”
“We are getting married in four hours!” Talia stated with fierce determination as she gave Alilia a
sudden firm hug. “Nothing is going to change that, and nothing could diminish our love for you!”
“Damn, are my insecurities so very transparent?” Alilia bitterly asked as she returned Talia’s embrace.
“Only to me, dear love.” Talia assured her.
“Is he going to be all right in there?” Kragorram worriedly asked.
“He has all his Shields and Pure Breath running.” Fire observed. “He should be okay.”
“I know, but that mountain is a dormant volcano after all, and barely dormant at that. It’s most recent
eruption was only two centuries ago. If he keeps going like that, he’ll break through into the lava at the
core of the mountain. It may be under incredible pressure, and he may break through suddenly, which
would cause a cataclysmic explosive eruption aimed directly at him, and at us.”
A second later Talia reported; “I warned him of the possibility, but he’s still too angry to care.”
“We should prepare to act to contain the eruption enough to protect him, us, the reflector, and the
facility.” Povon decisively stated, then Linked with Somonik and demanded; “Give me the Command
Link and our available power now!”
“Done!” Somonik responded almost instantly.
The eight over Focus Mountain were already Linked with Povon when she felt control of the Command
Link come to her, and they were aware of the minds and power of the two and a half million military
spell-casters who were on stand-by duty at the moment. Hundreds of thousands more were joining
every second, then millions.
“That’s enough, thank you.” Kragorram reported as he and Six analyzed the volcano and what Mark
was doing to it.
But Mark was also aware of what they were finding, and he forced control upon himself before he
reached the lava. Relative silence fell, broken only by the reports of still falling rocks and boulders, as
he floated there in his sphere of Shielding, still shaking with anger. Then he expanded his awareness
for kilometers all around and identified all the material he’d blasted out of the mountain, seized it all
with Movement, and began crushing it back into the crater he’d made with astounding force whileContent bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.
heating it enough with Fire to fuse it into place. He did this repair with a manic violence equal to his
destruction, and he resumed his great roaring scream of rage while he did so. Again sight of him was
lost amidst an inferno of his creation.
His anger was finally spent just before his repair was done, but he still heated and forced the last of the
rock into place with grim determination.
Then he joined them above the reflector. There was silence for a long moment as they considered his
grim countenance and realized that he was keeping his thoughts to himself, while he considered their
concerned expressions.
“I’ve gotta think this out for a minute.” he told them as gently as he could, obviously still struggling for
self-control. He made a seat of Force and sat down in mid-air, rested his elbows on his knees, and put
his head in his hands.
Talia and Alilia moved to sit and embrace him from either side, but they remained silent, letting him
think.
“Somonik, Battle Wizards of The Just Alliance, thank you for your almost instant response.” Povon said
over the Command Link. “Your readiness does you proud. However, it seems this was a false alarm. It
seems we will not need your assistance to deal with the consequences of our Key’s temper tantrum. As
alarming as it was, it appears he was quite in control of himself, and he has repaired all damage to his
firing range. Again, thank you.”
“I am relinquishing control of the command Link.”
“On all of our behalf, you are all most welcome.” Somonik chuckled over the Link. “We might have
trusted Mark’s self control, but we did not begrudge you the precaution. As you said, it was an alarming
demonstration of destruction, and a demonstration of repair that was almost as alarming. We will study
our Reading of the event in order to more fully understand and quantify his abilities and those of
warlocks in general. This study may be of greater importance now, since it seems there may soon be
many more warlocks.
“We have not had a genuine emergency call to duty since the war ended, so this was a valuable
exercise, and we thank you. Our response time has not diminished much, and that is good to know.”
Povon shared his mental chuckle, then closed the Link.
After almost six minutes Mark sat up straight and looked around at all of them. “It seems I’ve got two
choices. We could move us all with all forty-three of the girls and their kids into our biggest place and
just all live together like one big happy family. But I sure wouldn’t be able to give each of my children
the time and attention they deserve.
“The other choice is to raise each child one at a time in a series of time-bubbles. We’d go into a little
time-bubble with the first girl and be a family with her and her child until the child is grown, then come
out of the time-bubble and cast another for the next girl, and so on. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to
give all my adult children the time they deserve, but at least this way I can give it to them when they’re
kids, when they really need it.
“We want to find a way to get enough time compression so that we can do it all over the span of one
pregnancy, so we finish raising the second-last child just before the last one is born.”
There was silence for a bit as the rest considered that.
Talia made her decision, and gave her opinion. “Then that’s what we have to do, because it seems to
me that it would be neglect to try to raise that many at once. I know you couldn’t consider just adopting
them out and washing your hands of them, you need to raise and love every one of your own children.
“The girls of The Volunteers are all fine people, and they’ll be easy to love, especially since they
already love you, and you love us so you can’t just give us up while you raise children with them, so
we’ll be helping them raise their children as co-mothers.”
“I agree.” Alilia nodded. “And for an area only large enough to contain a healthy environment for a
single family, we can use reverse-stasis fields rather than time-bubbles. We can cast those ourselves,
without needing the help of the gods, so we’ll have complete control over ending them or
communicating with the outside world if we have to. And they’ll give us a much greater time
compression than the time-bubbles. We could be done raising all the children long before the Hiliani
time-bubble is scheduled to end.”