Part 11
“What are you laughing about?” Helemia teased. “You’ve been legally adopted by Kragorram and Povon, so you’re a prince of Serminaki Draconia through your father, and a prince regent of Serminak through your mother. But you can’t call me Your Highness because our positions aren’t hereditary, and you can’t say I’m the princess of anything because I’m not the ruling monarch, the way Alilia is The Princess of The People of Life. I’m just a princess of Hilia. Our titles are just a courtesy, and we only get to use them as long as our parents still rule.”
“Wouldn’t you inherit the rule of Hilia?” Karzog asked.
“We’d inherit all the land, and all the buildings and stuff in Hilia, and our house here, because our parents bought it outright with their own money and with contributions, none of which came from taxes. But we wouldn’t inherit their political rule unless they explicitly say so, and designate one of us as their heir. I doubt they’ll do that, they’ll probably do the elven thing and let the people decide who’ll rule after they’re gone. I think they’d even step down if the citizens demanded it, but that’s about as probable as the sky turning pink.”
“Still, it’s a fine thing, I think.” Karzog grinned. “I’ve never thought of myself as a prince before.”
“We’ve gotten distracted.” Reggie pointed out. “As I was going to say, now that they’ve built all the shelters and emplacements, I’d bet that the next time they have war games they’ll have a full community drill, and everyone will take their kids to the shelters like it was a real attack. I bet Quewanak will do it by surprise too, probably in the middle of the night, instead of at their regular training time. He might even do it tonight just to surprise the four of us, since he already knows that we’re planning on joining the exercises. The grownups will probably put us in as reserves and observers, so if we pick the right moment, we can give everyone a good surprise.
to counter whatever the grownups do. Usually a spell or a tactic only works one to three times before ‘the demons’ figure out how to counter it, so we need to know everything they’ve learned to counter already, and plan some stuff they
the Reading I got from Father
verbal conversation ended as the four of them were
demons that Quewanak simulated for the community exercises were distinct from the ones that Ria simulated for their family training every evening, and they used different methods, even though Ria assisted Quewanak with the
Later they came up out of the sea at the perimeter of the
developed in the War of The Founding of The Just Alliance six years previously, or eight weeks previously in real time. Most effective was Alilia’s Circle, a spell based on Karbak’s Needle, which allowed the caster to concentrate an incredible amount of Force onto an area no wider than a human hair, and penetrate the Shielding, armor, and skull of an enemy. Mark had improved and automated that spell, and Alilia had added the innovation of having the needle of Force curve into a tiny circle and spin around a bit after it reached the enemy’s brain. Automated versions of the spell could be cast by the thousands, and it was very efficient in its use of power, but the demons had eventually found a way to harden their Shields enough to block it. That brought the contest back to more conventional methods; overwhelming the enemy’s Shields with massive and concentrated
stream for almost two kilometers. It’s properties not only caused burns that were almost impossible to heal
in the tops of mountains near the periphery of Hiliani. These were hollows in the rock with no physical entrances, equipped with Translocation Plates, dense Shielding, permanent Viewing spells on the walls to allow those within to see out with any chosen level of magnification, and an arsenal of automated defensive and attacking spells. They were stocked with food, water, weapons, items with pre-cast spells in them, and charged power batteries. The batteries were usually diamond, because more power could be stored in a given weight of diamond than in an equal weight of any other material, and they had many of them available since the twins had announced the location of their find. Hidden in the rock on the surface were various kinds of artillery weapons and spells. As the demons’ attacks had begun from places closer and closer to the community, further emplacements had been built all over the islands, along with shelters that had been excavated
constantly charging but not activated until they were needed. If the demons attacked from without, they
to think about, but they still took the time to make some basic plans and review some spells before they went home for