Part 4

The babes couldn’t help but giggle at the slightly-ticklish sensation of the dragons’ soft warm fuzziness

against their skin.

“Thank you for this, Povon.” Helemia said as her body continued giggling. “You’re a lot less scary this

way. Still very scary, like a hurricane contained in a teacup, but less.”

“Ah, and why should I be so scary?” Povon teased. “Your father has more power than I, and Yazadril

has a greater intellect. Or are they equally scary?”

“We don’t sense magic power yet, and Mother and Father haven’t given us access to the magic part of

their minds yet. And intellect isn’t very scary. But we sense psionic power quite well on our own, and

you have more of that than anyone. You’re only projected into this body, but still, being this close to you

is like being beside a big fire.”

“You think?” Povon chuckled. “There are others in this room who have greater psionic power than I.”

“No there aren’t, I’m sure of it.” the baby girl replied, puzzled.

“Yazadril, cast a Measurement for psionics, would you please?” Povon asked as she turned to the

senior elf. “Now, who in this room has the greatest psionic power?”

“They do, Reggie and Helemia!” Yazadril marveled. “And psionicly speaking, there’s only one of them!

I’ve never seen such a close Linking between two minds before. Some parts of their minds are quite

individual and distinct, but other parts, including their psionic ability, are shared so closely that they are

literally of one mind!”

“Oh. I never thought of that.” Helemia admitted.

At that moment Povon realized that as Kragorram continued hugging Reggie, the two had been

communicating privately. Since Kragorram almost never excluded her from his thoughts, she was

surprised. “My Love?” she inquired.

“He apologized for hurting me, and I forgave him.” Kragorram quietly replied. “And he has let me get to

know him as deeply as he knows me, to be fair.”

“Kragorram will be my very best friend.” Reggie stated. “That’s a prophesy.” he added in a matter-of-

fact tone.

“Oh, you’re a prophet now?” Talia teased.

“Yup. I guess so anyway. I just felt like saying that, so I did. Maybe I’m wrong.”

“No, you’re not wrong!” Mark said in surprise as he considered his son’s aura. “You’ve got the same

thing in your aura that Tithian and the other Seers have! Helemia doesn’t have that, but both of you

have a bunch of other magic qualities that I can’t sort out yet!”

“How about their power?” Alilia asked. “Can you see the glow of their magic potential, as you can with

others?”

“I don’t know. You’re so bright that way that I keep my Optical Attenuator spell tuned to block that kind

of light.”

“I’m curious about that.” Helemia told them.

“So am I, now that the subject’s come up. I’ll take you in the bedroom where I can get a good look at

you without anyone else’s glow distracting from it.” Mark said as he waited for Povon to move from his

lap and stood with his daughter.

As he left the room, Dren asked; “What’s the difference between a seer and a prophet and an oracle

and a soothsayer?”

“Not much, except for the precision of their visions.” Yazadril told him. “Generally, a soothsayer is

specific about what will happen and when, but they only perceive quite small pieces of information, and

the information is often irrelevant to anything. A prophet is pretty specific about what’s going to happen,

and it’s almost certain to happen, but when it’ll happen isn’t known. A seer usually has at least some

indication of when something will happen, and sometimes they know the time of the event exactly, but

they’re usually less precise about the exact nature of the event. Both of those often foresee important

events. An oracle generally only foresees in response to a question, the answer is seldom time-

specific, and is usually quite cryptic; worded so as to be difficult to understand, but obvious in hindsight Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

once the event has happened.

“But we’ve proven with Mark’s aura aspect isolation technique that they all use the same kind of talent

and power.

“Mind you, before the gods withdrew, the word prophet was also used for a cleric who received

knowledge, instructions, or information about the future from their god.”

While Yazadril had been speaking Mark had returned from the bedroom and exchanged Helemia for

Reggie. Now they were back again, and he took his seat as Yazadril finished. He had a big proud grin

on his face as he turned to Alilia.

“Alilia, you used magic from before you were born. Do you happen to know how strong you were with it

at birth, compared to now?”

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know that I ever used my full exertion then, and I only have my mother’s

account of what I did, which wasn’t precise. Perhaps I had a hundredth of my present power then.

Certainly no more than a twentieth.”

“So about the same as an average adult elf has?” Mark pressed.

“About that.” she smiled.

“All right.” Mark smiled, with a bit of smug satisfaction. “When it comes to elven wizard’s power,

Reggie’s pretty strong. He glows about as bright as Yazadril, which is about average for The High

People, and better than average for most other elven nations. But average for The High People is a

heck of a lot for a newborn. Helemia glows about a third as bright as that. But they also glow in another

color that I’ve only seen in one other person, since I don’t see my own glow, and that was Glup of the

Zurb. I’m assuming that means that they can use the power of the second source, and they’re both

warlocks like me. And in that color, Helemia glows about twice as bright as Reggie. But I have no idea

how strong they are as warlocks, because I have no idea how bright I’d have glowed when I was born,

if there’d been anyone there who could see it. And it’s not much use comparing them to Glup.

“Mind you, all of us glow a lot less brightly since about a week after the time-bubble went up, since

there’s a lot less power available in here. Maybe a quarter as much.”

“I agree.” Povon nodded. “The weaker spell-casters don’t notice any difference, since they still get as

much power as they can use. But I’ve definitely noticed it, especially during our military training

exercises.”

“Be thankful for it.” Alilia told Mark with a mischievous smile. “It’ll make things a lot easier, and a lot

safer, when the time comes to train your children in the use of magic.”

“Good point.” Mark chuckled. “After what happened to me when I first cast my power, you can bet we’ll

be taking every precaution we can think of with the twins.”

Yazadril harrumphed a bit at the memory, then fixed a stern gaze on Reggie and Helemia. “Can you

children remember what happened when your father’s power was first cast? They were trying to light a

candle.”

“Yup.” Helemia responded. “They made a big fire and burned you up and killed themselves, and they

were saved by their Blessing.”

“That’s right.” Yazadril nodded. “Be aware of the danger. Mark’s power was unprecedented, but there

are two of you, and both of you have two kinds of power, and you don’t have a Blessing to save you if

things go wrong!

“I want you both to promise me, right now, that you won’t experiment with your power in the slightest

way without your parents’ full knowledge and co-operation! Now swear it with all your sincerity!”

“I promise, Grandfather.” The twins swore, in almost-perfect unison.

“Good.” Yazadril nodded. “Thank you.”

“Are we scary, Grandfather?” Helemia asked.

Yazadril raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. “Yes, my loves. You are beautiful and very cute and

completely lovable, but your psionic power is unprecedented and astonishing, and with what Mark just

revealed of your power, you are quite scary indeed. Your abilities come with a great responsibility, and

you must always be certain to use them with great control and consideration.”