The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 150

Part 22

Prince Jaromer of Thon and Princess Pimall of The Warm People came by for a few moments, during which Jaromer proposed a toast; "To a long lifetime of love and happiness, and to having the biggest marker on the gameboard!"

This brought a hearty laugh to most at the table, but the children had to access Talia's memory of her first wedding here before they got the reference.

Osbald, Emeroth, and Senchak came to offer their well-wishes, then they took Yazadril aside for a private ten-minute consultation.

There was music and dancing and displays of artistic magic, but most of the rulers spent their time in conversation, and they began saying their farewells only an hour after dinner.

By the time another ninety minutes had passed, only the closer of the friends and family remained, along with the wedding party, some one hundred in all. The atmosphere of the gathering relaxed somewhat, and everyone who remained brought their chairs over to the head table, some sitting inside the ring, some outside the original circle of chairs.

"Did you know," Dilimon asked as he waved a tankard of mead, "I've had reports that The Healing of Valentia prevents extreme drunkenness, hangovers, and alcoholism. But it doesn't prevent moderate to almost-extreme drunkenness, and I can testify to that right now!"

As a laugh went around at that, Six poked Karzog in the shoulder with a friendly bit of Force and said; "Let's fight."

"What, now?" Karz laughed.

"Sure, up above the flowers." Six grinned.

"Well I'm sure not going to fight you in this elf Simulacrum; I haven't even practiced in it." Karz declared with a grin of his own. His teeth looked startlingly white against the otherwise unrelieved blackness of his confident face. "But I'll go for swords and magic if you want."

"Done!" Six called as he cast a glowing transparent yellow Challenge Sphere from eighteen to two hundred meters above the ground, filling much of the volume of the great clearing in the redwoods. "Don't you think that cape will get in the way?" Karz teased as they Translocated to the center of the Sphere, he assumed his true form, and they Retrieved their sheathed swords.

"Naw." Six chuckled as he drew both his sabres and swept them about with a few warm-up swings. "This is a Battle Wizard's outfit, after all. They must have techniques to deal with it, so I can too." "The cape is there to help you blend into dark places!" Alilia called up with a laugh. "We generally take them off when we're dueling!"

"Well I think it makes me look dashing, so I'm keeping it!" Six laughed as he flew around the sphere a bit, noting its angle of trail behind him.

"They're having an aerial sword fight? Six against Karzog?" Sana asked with a worried look as she noted Karzog warming up with a four meter short sword.

"Their regular swords, no other weapons, no armor." Fire explained. "Unlimited magic and Karz' fire are in, but no psionics."

"So we can assume that Six's magic is good enough to counter Karzog's physical ability and fire?" Tithian asked.

"Sort of." Val laughed. "Using magic makes the physical battle a lot more even, since they can both use Shielding to block swords as well as spells, and they can use magic to cast as attacks or to augment their sword strikes. And Karz is no slouch at the magic. It's not gonna be even though, it's gonna be chaotic. Either one could win or lose in a blink from a lucky or unexpected move."

"Ready?" Karz asked as he finished his warm-up and brought his sword to bear as he flew slowly around just inside the perimeter of the sphere.

"Go!" Six called, then cast an attack as he Translocated.

There followed a quick chase and counter-chase sequence of short and violent flight maneuvers full of sword-strikes and spell-casting interspersed with many sudden Translocations.

Blazing spells were discharged in every direction, but were contained by the Challenge Sphere, which also contained the combatants on one occasion when they collided with the inside surface at a glancing angle.

The bout came to a sudden end when Karzog cut Six's leg off at mid-thigh. He immediately let his sword fall to the bottom of the sphere, snatched Six out of the air with his left hand and the separated leg with his right, and jammed them back together as Six screamed with a blood-curdling shriek.

Mark saw a quick flash of magic around Six's leg as The Healing of Valentia did its work.

Six caught his breath and rubbed his leg with both hands while Karzog Retrieved his sword and struck a proud pose in the air with it.

"And there is a winner!" the young black dragon happily declared.

"If you used your psionics to detect where I was going to emerge, that's cheating." Six grumped as he Retrieved his own swords and stretched.

"That would be no more the use of psionics as an attack or defense than your use of it to cast the Translocation in the first place, and that's not what I did anyway." Karz stated with a grin as Six dismissed the Sphere and they flew down to the table. "Read me if you want. You let a pattern develop in your jumps. I anticipated you and momentarily put most of my power into the Cut spell on my sword, and swung at where I thought you were jumping to, and that was all there was to that!"

"Yah, good win." Six admitted as he gave the dragon a friendly slap on the shoulder. "I'll have to watch that in the future."

"Good fight!" Fire called as she clapped and stood, and many others joined her in applauding.

Talia popped over to Six and hugged him with one arm while rubbing his leg and casting Diagnostics on it with the other. "I'm fine, Mother." he assured her with a smile.

"I know, but I wanted to check anyway."

"Yah, I had to as well." he admitted. "I trust Val's spell, but still, that really hurt a lot."

"You crazy kid!" she laughed in loving exasperation, and hugged him tight.

"You're growing like a weed." she proudly noted as she stepped back with her hands on his shoulders. "Soon you'll be taller than I am."

"I'll take after Father that way, I think." Six told her with a grin. "Going by comparisons to other children my age, I should be pretty tall. Maybe not as tall as Father, but taller than average for a human. Maybe as tall as a Sylvan. I'm glad Fire got the black hair and not me, or I might end up being mistaken for one."

"No one could ever mistake you for anything but your father's son." Yazadril assured him. "Even with your blond hair it's unmistakable, you take after him in so many ways, and the girls do almost as much." "I'm glad you think so, but I see their mothers in them every minute I'm with them." Mark laughed.

Val stood and raised her cup of tea. "Here's to being astute in our choice of parents!" she called with a laugh.

"I'll drink to that!" Talia agreed with a warm smile for Yazadril and Nemia as she raised her glass, and everyone else joined them in a drink and a laugh.

"You don't really have liquor in there, do you?" one of the forest elf girls asked Val as she indicated her cup.

"No, we refrain from drinking as a mercy to our parents." Val giggled. "We already do a lot of things that most children don't, simply because they can't, like sparring with deadly force and ruling nations. Our parents are really good about it, but we know it has to be pretty strange for them, and they do worry. We figure that if we also did the things that children are actually forbidden to do, like drinking, even if we're sure we'd be fine with it... Well, we might make them get a little crazy about it."

"And we most sincerely thank you for your consideration!" Alilia laughed as she swept her daughter up off her chair and into a twirling hug.

"Oh they're good little cubs now!" Bezedil laughed, lounging with one arm around Dalia as she poured him another drink. "It's a good thing they grew out of scaring the crap out of everyone all the time!" "Hey, I haven't done that on purpose since I was five months old!" Fire protested.

"Yes, and thank all the gods for that!" Bezedil retorted with another laugh. "You scared a decade's life out of me when you did it to me! "I've never been that scared outside of warfare!"

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