The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 117

Part 18

“Thank you Zayobod,” Val said with a smile, “That was indeed very brave and trusting of you. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine now, but that did actually hurt quite a lot for a moment, and as the sword passed through my spine I got a feeling like lightning was striking in my brain.”

“Interesting. Thank you.” Val told him with a smile and a nod of dismissal.

He returned the smile, then returned to his place.

Val cast a meter wide Revealing in front of her, knowing that it would be shown in the great Revealing above her.

“Let’s look at that again, shall we?” she said as she replayed her view of her strike through Zayobod’s neck. “Now let’s watch it very slowly, focusing on the area of the spell’s effect.”

Her Revealing zoomed in until she was showing only the trailing edge of the blade and a few millimeters behind it.

“You can see that the wound is closed a hair’s breadth behind the blade, even at the speed I was swinging, and the damage is completely healed three millimeters behind that. If the blade didn’t have blood channels, he might not have lost a single drop of blood.”

She dismissed her Reading, and paused a moment.

“Now I feel what the gods must have felt, when they decided upon The Withdrawal. I can cast these two spells right now. I can do all of your work for you, and I can save you from most injuries. The Healing spell can’t save you if you’re torn apart, dispersed in an explosion, burned constantly and completely in a big fire, or struck with any sufficiently powerful magical attack. And if I’d have cut his head off with a big battle axe wider than his neck, completely separating his head from his body with a layer of steel, the spell wouldn’t have saved him unless you stuck his head back on within about three seconds.

“But still, casting those two spells on everyone right now would have a revolutionary effect on everyone on Kellaran. And we can’t predict what the effect would be. Like the gods, we worry that people will stagnate without useful physical work to do, and that they’ll lose the habit of being careful if they know they’re protected from almost any injury. We worry that everyone will grow too dependent on the spells, and on us.

“So I’m not going to cast those spells today, or most of the other new stuff we came up with either. I’ll cast them when we start fighting the demons, but I won’t cast them on anyone else before then unless the issue has been discussed and voted on by all the rulers, leaders, and gods of The Assembly of The Just Alliance, and they tell me I should do it.”

She paused another moment as she looked around, considering those watching, then she stepped back beside Six.

Fire stepped forward.

She paused, then considered the great Revealing above her, showing the four of them on the dais. She concentrated on it, seeking control of it, felt the extra energy flowing into her brain as she engaged in a contest of wills and skills with the initially-unknown person controlling it. After Locating and Identifying Edsda the Kleti Goddess of Entertainment as her opponent and successfully wresting control of the Revealing from her, Fire gave her a polite psionic; “Excuse me a moment.”

This was achieved in a bit more than a tenth of a second, and the Pantheon of Kellaran were aware of it a hundredth of a second later, as were the other three children on the dais. None of them revealed their knowledge of it to the assembled mortals in any way.