The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 118

Part 18

“My approach was different; earlier today the goddess Neela had given my father the list of abilities known as The Prerequisites for Divinity. Rather than try to achieve a new state of being that allowed me to do all of those things, we took the list piecemeal; and one by one we figured out how to do everything on the list except one. And like most of the gods, and my father, we have other abilities that might be considered divine in magnitude that some or all of the gods don’t have, and aren’t on the list of Prerequisites.

“But we’re definitely not gods. We’re just four young mortals with the same abilities and power as the gods. Now we of Kellaran are in the same situation as the Triax; some of our most powerful mortals are more powerful and more influential than the weakest of our gods, and so the hierarchy of power and influence isn’t as straightforward as it used to be.

“Now I want to discuss the matter of trust. Without trust we are nothing, we can’t be friends or even allies if we don’t trust one another.

“You think that all of us who are following this meeting are either sworn to justice on a powerful artifact, or confined like the Sylvan on Hiliani. And so we can be trusted. But there’s one who’s watching tonight who’s not sworn, someone who faked having sworn on The Truthstone of Falgaroth at the great gathering to celebrate the end of The War of The Founding. Someone who’s been manipulating everyone for longer than any of our ancestors have lived, someone who has even changed the development of the characteristics of many of the races alive today. Someone who is not even fully sane, by his own standards or anyone else’s.

“Of course there’s only one person that could be. We became suspicious of him from historical facts we learned on Hiliani, and since we’ve been out in the world and had our big breakthrough session today, we were able to confirm most of our suspicions.

“And because we’re warlocks, we can do something about it.

“We Call and Compel Glup of The Zurb to account for his actions.”

The four of them released a mighty set of pre-cast compound spells, and forced the First God of Kellaran to appear in physical form upon The Truthstone of Falgaroth. His double row of antennae writhed in violent and seemingly random patterns, and the rest of his shiny black carapace was held almost immobile, though he seemed to struggle in futility against magic bonds.

“Don’t fight it, Glup, you know you deserve it.” Fire told him with a snarl of concentration as they held the god. “And besides, you know that if you fight us about it, there’ll be big consequences for everyone here.

“Thank you.”

The four of them visibly relaxed as Glup ceased resisting them.

“Glup’s intentions are honorable and simple; he seeks the continuation of intelligent life on Kellaran.” Fire continued as she turned to the audience. “This is understandable, since he spent tens of millions of years as the only thinking being in the world after his people died, and intelligent mortal life was absent from the world.

“But his methods have displayed a complete disregard for the races and individuals that he’s manipulated.

“He gave intelligence and magic to the first nine true dragons who ever existed, and that is how the race of dragons began.

“He did the same for the first generation of unicorns, the gargoyles, and most of the other races whose individuals are all inherently magic, including the trolls, the Swarm, and most of the races of The Hidden Nation. The races whose members lack magic for the most part developed naturally, including the selkies, the humans, and their descendent races. Including the elves; though they are a highly magical race, they developed naturally from humans. And of course the Sylvan were initiated by the demons.

“He affected the gestation of my father and a few others throughout history to make them warlocks, to deal with various crises that came up, but for the most part, he’s kept the secret of the use of the second Source to himself. But he didn’t count on Father being able to pass on the gift to his offspring. Glup didn’t count on us three, and he’s never bothered to build very good defenses against warlocks, since he made sure that there were usually none of them around almost all the time, and never more than one.

“He has manipulated the selection of the gods, and he makes sure that any Candidates who aren’t accepted by him don’t achieve true immortality, and that they fade from history, usually in less than a million years.