The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 5

PART 2

Ninety minutes later, after they had swum in the lagoon and repaired their appearances, they were still grinning like fools with joy at what they had done.

"Well, we need to contact everyone we're inviting and explain what we're doing, and see if they want to come along." Mark said as he drew a shirt over his shoulders. "And we need to decide where we're going to live for the next twenty-four years. Once we've got those done, we should start getting it ready for us right away. Everyone else is going to want to prepare their homes there too, and be done with it by the time the time-bubble goes up."

Talia was drawing a dress on over her head, and at that moment she stopped and held absolutely still for a second, then hurriedly finished pulling it on and laid her hands on her belly. Her face lit up with vibran joy as she blurted; "I'm pregnant!"

"I know, my love, we've been celebrating it for over an hour!" Mark laughed as he swept her up and hugged her.

"No, you great silly oaf, I mean I'm pregnant again! On the other side this time! We're going to have twins!" she informed him, her hands still pressed to her tummy.

Mark stopped and stared at her in surprise for a moment, then couldn't help but hold her away from him and stare at her tummy, like he could see the life growing there. "Great gods! That's amazing!" he finally exclaimed.

"It is!" she giggled. "The very first time we've made love without the contraceptive spell, and we'll have two babies! It's so very unusual in every way! As Yzell said, we should barely be fertile with each other at all, let alone be able to produce twins on our first attempt! And it's rare for a pregnancy to begin so long after our lovemaking! It was over thirty-six minutes after you last fertilized me when it happened! One twin will be almost an hour older than the other!"

"Can you tell if they're boys or girls?" he asked, his grin so wide it was hurting his face a bit.

"No, not for weeks yet. Though Yzell might well be able to."

"Okay, we'll invite her and Theramin first then!" he laughed. "We'll have them all meet us at the cottage so we can do the planning."

And with that, he Translocated them to their patio. They quickly reviewed their tentative list of invitees, added a few more to it, them Mark cast Battalion Command to call them all at once. "Hi, it's Mark and Talia! We've called you all to invite you to spend some time with us..."

He quickly explained what they were going to do and why, and invited them all to join him and Talia at Hilia to talk about it that evening. He asked those who needed help with the Translocation to give the time they wished to come, so they could be transported when they were ready. They asked Yazadril, Nemia, Theramin, Yzell, and Quewanak to arrive at their earliest possible convenience, to help with the planning and research.

Almost everyone they'd invited to join them agreed to come, and many of their families and friends also asked to come, not wanting to miss so many years of their loved-ones' lives.

When the last guest arrived for the meeting at Hilia that night, the attendees included 261 humans, 225 elves, 12 unicorns, and 4 dragons including Quewanak, who also represented the gods. "This is going to be interesting." Mark chuckled as he surveyed the gathering. "We have almost all of my family from Finitra out to second cousins and some of their friends, and their friends' families, one hundred and sixty-six Finitrans all together. It'll be challenging learning to tell all the Longstrider men and boys apart from each other. We have newlyweds Nek and Reen and six more of our friends from Norka's in Sming, and their families and friends, for a total of fifty-five Smingans. And we have sixteen human-elven mixed couples, and their families and friends. Among the other elves we have all of the original Hilian Volunteers and twenty-one of The Atoned and some of their families and friends, a bunch of your family from The Nine Valleys, and a few of Alilia and Bezedil's family and friends from The People of Life. Silaran and Equemev have ten of their family and friends. Kragorram and Povon just have little Karzog.

"I notice that those we invited from long-lived races have far fewer other friends and family with them than the humans we invited, but that makes sense I guess. I suppose a dragon isn't missing much of another dragon's life in twenty-four years."

"All in all, they should provide all our children with a good variety of neighbors!" Talia laughed.

When everyone was settled Mark stood at the edge of the patio overlooking the lawns, augmented his voice to be heard by all, and spoke;

"Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us! We hope that our time apart from the world with you will be a beautiful respite from our troubled times.

"The first question to be decided was; where would we spend it?

"After an hour of research in the Hilian Library, and after consulting with Falgaroth, we've chosen an isolated archipelago called The Evergreen Islands some five thousand two hundred kilometers west of southern Membitra."

He then cast a dwarven Revealing showing what he was describing.

"It's a dense cluster of islands on the flat top of a huge and isolated ancient volcanic seamount, in an area of the ocean known as The West Debivinian Abyss. The area around the seamount and in the shallow and narrow channels between the islands is a bountiful oasis of sea life in the midst of a gigantic expanse of ocean that's almost lifeless, due to its extreme depth and the lack of any major currents through the area. Most of the life on the islands is similar to the flora and fauna of southern Membitra, having been seeded from there by a dominant east wind and the general flow of the sea to the west, which is due to the world's rotation and the pull of the moons. Much of the islands are covered with big hills or small mountains, and as their name suggests, many of those are covered in pine forest. They're quite similar to the forests around Shinosa Valley and The Nine Valleys, but simpler. Most of the trees are a variety of fir that reaches about fifty-five meters in its natural state, so they're already big enough for Nine Valleys- style tree homes.

"The cluster of twenty seven islands form an oval two hundred and four kilometers long and a hundred and thirty-eight kilometers wide. Only narrow channels averaging a third of a kilometer in width and about twelve meters deep separate the islands, so as this map of the archipelago shows, it's an almost-solid oval of land. It's ringed by a barrier reef, which protects the beaches from the worst of the great swells that roll across the deep ocean.

"It has very mild weather most of the time. The heat of summer should never be unbearable, and it's only likely to have snow on the ground for a few hours on two or three occasions each winter. In the spring it tends to warm rains every night. Only the early autumn brings the chance of extreme weather in the form of the occasional hurricane sweeping up from the south-east, which range from inconvenient to catastrophic in intensity, particularly on the south side of the archipelago.

"The islands were legally part of The Kingdom of Membitra, though they're completely uninhabited, undeveloped, and pristine. A spell that Yazadril cast revealed that they hadn't been visited for over one hundred and seventy-two years, when they'd been surveyed by a flotilla of elves of The Sea People of Debivin. The elves had subsequently sold their claim to a king of Membitra who wanted to build a vacation residence there, but had never gotten around to doing so. Though the record remained in the Membitran archives, no living Membitran was even aware of the archipelago's existence.

"So, when we dropped in on him, King Raznoran of Membitra was delighted to learn that he owned those islands, and doubly delighted to learn in the same minute that The Principality of Hilia was offering him ten thousand one-ounce gold Hilian Crowns for all ownership, sovereignty, and rights to them!"

He paused while a chuckle went around among those listening.☐☐

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