The bedlam was predictable, but two voices stood out—the cry of the First Wingless Po and Fire General Xi’Shao.
The First Wingless cried out, “How could you possibly think that you know better than our learned scholars?!” the same time as the Fire General cried out, “Who’s telling you this?”
Emperor Ro cut in drily. “If you would let our soon to be Golden Coin explain, please, honored ministers.”
“The dragon I have with me, the Glorious Spirit Moss Wyrm Lo-Ru Xiashou, use name Ru, is a researcher without peer,” I hope. “The device that I took from him by threat—”
“You didn’t steal it or kill the holder?” Xi’Shao asked suddenly, stepping forward.
“To rob is to steal by force or threat of force,” Leo said, waving his hand dismissively. “It was never a requirement I do it by murder or stealth.”
Whispers went around the court at this.
Xi’Shao sneered and brushed his bronze hair back, “And I’m supposed to believe that the wyrm here, Ru, was okay travelling with you after you threatened him?”
Even Emperor Ru raised an eyebrow at that.
Ru, showing more bravery than Leo would have given him credit for, cut in with, “I’m a magical researcher, and he has a tree of gates between worlds.”
The emperor sat back, very obviously satisfied by the answer, and, to Leo’s surprise, the general acknowledged the dragon with a slight tilt of his head. “I suppose that makes a certain sense, wyrm—I withdraw my objection. Please pardon my interruption and continue, not-emperor Leo.”
Leo noted the change in the title Emperor Ro had given him but chose to ignore it. Xi’Shao was obviously aggressively jockeying for power here, but Leo respected his acceptance of the point. Perhaps he was honorable even if he was a huge pain in the fundament to Leo’s current goals.
“As I was saying, through precise measurements of ambient magic, and comparing them to residue left by previous events, Ru was able to make precise calculations that showed the date of the event—which is only two days from now. Slightly less than two days, in fact.”
“Well, we’ll have to confirm what you’re saying with our researchers, of course,” Po said, waving his hand. “The research of a swamp-dwelling wyrm cannot compare to the work done by our own brilliant elves, the scholars of the twelve towers, no less than five of which are located in this very city of Dayblossom.”
El, standing silently, stepped forward, speaking with a sardonic tone and lift of his eyebrow. “Please forgive my boorish intrusion, Emperor Ro, Emperor of—”
“Continue, please,” Emperor Ro said, waving his hand.
El bowed deeply, spreading his wings and making another complicated hand gesture, before straightening. “As I was saying, I had actually come to the cathedral with my own report, which indicated the dragonflight should have already started. Something in the magic changed, recently, and all our calculations have gone by the wayside. Since the dragonflight hasn’t started, I suspect that either this wyrms calculations or his data is superior—and given the device just given to you, which is far more valuable than I think you know, I suspect its his data. I think we have two days to prepare at the most.”
“So what would you propose to do about it if you’re so sure, Golden Scroll?” Xi’Shao bit out.
“Well, thanks to our new Golden Coin—” El began.
“That remains to be seen,” Xi’Shao barked, to a few gasps from the gallery.
“—we have a partial solution. Start putting as many people through the portal to our allies realm. As many we can and his civilization can hold. We need only wait a bit—”
“Two weeks,” Ru said, to even more gasps at the impropriety, Leo supposed.
“—two weeks, and we can come back. Everyone that can get through the portal should, and everyone that can’t should go into the few facilities we have prepared in time. Then, when the short dragonflight is over, we can reclaim our realm without the devastating losses I had once feared from the far greater dragonflight that had been coming before this sudden and fortuitous change.”
“You call it fortuitous?” Po asked, his hand held artfully in front of his face.
El nodded, his face serious. “I do. If the true dragonflight had happened, it would have lasted years, and the power of the dragons would have been all but unstoppable. Whatever happened, it was greatly to our advantage, I assure you, First Wingless. With all my heart and mind.”
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Po faced Leo. “You have no idea what momentous magical event might have changed things? Perhaps the permanent connection of a magical gate?”
El smiled easily and gave the slightest of bows and hand wave. “With profuse apologies, First Wingless, your query is aimed in the wrong direction. It was the first thing I checked, and my calculations show absolutely that it was impossible that these events are tied. Conclusively impossible, as unlikely as the idea that the treatises are wrong.”
Po gave a sour smile, but didn’t challenge El.
Leo almost sagged where he stood in front of the Emperor, and noted the raised eyebrow of Xi’Shao. He felt a profound sense of relief. Even if it had ultimately for the better to have the change, he would still have felt terrible about the accidental deaths that would occur as a result of his actions, or perhaps existence.
“So you propose retreat?” Xi’Shao asked. “Cowardice?”
“I advise leaving and letting the dragons damage buildings. Take our treasures and our high-level and important individuals, and anyone else that we can. Then kick them out after they arrive. We’ll have to take the other cities back as usual, but for our capital, we can recover extremely quickly, and build back better.”
Leo laughed a bit at that.
“We will discuss the matter,” Emperor Ro said. “But we’ll do it quickly. Before we do, may I confer the title of Golden Coin now? Any objections?”
Many sneered or glared, but no one said anything.
Emperor Ro stood and walked forward. “Then step forward, not-yet-an-emperor Leo. For the sake only of this ceremony, please take a single knee—the half that submits on this matter to my authority kneeling, the half that is a ruler yourself still standing. It is the tradition we use between rulers on this realm.”
Leo took one knee, and Emperor Ro put one hand on the shoulder on his kneeling side and took his hand on the not-kneeling side. “To my fellow ruler, I ask that he act in my stead in matters of trade and finance, accepting in his realm my authority as a Golden Coin, to carry out my will within the realm. There, he shall collect all tithes between our realms, subject only to the twenty percent sent to the throne. Rise now to your feet, as both not-yet-an-emperor Leo and Golden Coin Leo.”
Leo stood, and adjuncts hurried forward with a golden cloak he awkwardly donned.
Emperor Ro returned to his throne and sat, his wings spreading into the half-chair and then back. “Now that this formality is over, perhaps you can tell us how many you can feed for two weeks?”
Leo did the math in his head—he knew the numbers well enough. His people were a huge agricultural export nation, but they had already exported most of their food—he had enough for about three weeks past what his people needed, give or take. And he had about seven-thousand people. So…
“I can take ten thousand for two weeks. Far more if you have coin to pay my neighbors, but it’ll be very expensive, as its late winter on my world at the moment.”
“Do your people accept precious metals? Gold, silver? Or barter for magical objects and crystals?” First Wingless Po asked, his fingers twitching—Leo bet he was doing his own mental math.
“They do, happily.”
“Hmm… How many can go through the door?” Emperor Ro asked.
“It’s a two-hundred foot climb down stairs, and you won’t be able to fly,” Leo said. “Glide, maybe, which would make it easy—but not fly.”
There were a few more gasps at that, and Leo wondered what everyone here did besides simply act outraged.
“Excellent. Thank you, not-yet-an-emperor Leo. I’ll get ahold of you if needed, but if this information works, we can plan an evacuation on this side. Thank you. Please stay close by, but your friends and family are waiting for you.”
Leo nodded, his mind racing as he turned and floated out, Hugh and Ru following.
Leo knew that civil engineering required doors to be a meter wide, about the same as his gate, which allowed a hundred and thiryt people to evacuate per minute—but that was under very ideal conditions. Assuming they started in two hours they’d have essentially forty ours, and if they got one every two seconds, or a fourth of ideal conditions, through the gate, they could actually evacuate almost sixty-thousand people through the gate. Getting that much food their would be nearly impossible, but maybe…
Exited the throne room near Leo, hurrying down the hall. Leo flew after him. “Hey!”
El turned. “Yes?”
“Thanks. I thought I might be responsible for the change. I’m glad to know I wasn’t, even if it was good overall.”
“Think nothing of it,” El said, smiling broadly and blandly.
At the same time, Leo felt words enter his mind, and not through his ears. Like speaking with the progenitors, but with El’s voice.
“Of course you were responsible,” El said into Leo’s mind. “But it was a good thing, truly. More importantly, killing you, imprisoning you, or anything like that would be terrible—and some of those fools would be sure to have tried, no matter how important it is to not do it. Even if we avoided it, it would have wasted time, which we don’t have enough of—not by a long shot. We need you—and if this works as it should, we’ll have an incredible advantage going into the next cycle of the dragonflights. So truly, don’t worry about it—and I’ll let one of my most promising students discover I was wrong in a year or so, and perhaps use that to let him or her replace me. I rather think your dragon friend had the right idea about where to go and do his research.”
El hurried away, his bland smile never wavering, as Leo stared after him, remembering that El was level thirty-three. A quick witted and powerful man—glad he’s on my side.
There was a pop of air, and Neha threw her purple arms around Leo. “Dad! You’re back!”
Leo ruffled her leaf hair and ponytail, smiling. “It’s wonderful to see you, Sprout.”
A moment later, Remy came running around the corner, followed by the Leaftail Den Mother sister’s, Rez, Andul, and then Zun, who floated sedately behind.
“What happened?” Neha asked. “How did it go?”
Then she looked at Ru. “And who’s this?”
“So, here’s the situation…” Leo began.
A few minutes later, now on the bridge outside the main palace-cathedral, Leo finished the explanation.
“Wow,” Neha said, running her hand along the bridge edge as she looked into the interior moat—filed with flowers and glowstones—below. “I can’t believe you guys made so many levels. I bet I could have leveled, even.”
Leo nodded. “Yeah, I had planned to take you guys to train, and once the dragonflight is over, I hope to still do so. It’ll be a ton of easy levels. But for now, we need to cross back to Toth and have them prepare to receive an incredible number of refugees.”