"The best place for that would be Abrodar," Spyder finally said. "It is the one place where Val's eyes cannot reach. As Sapphire said, there are too many unfriendly eyes in Suld."
"Agreed," the Goddess said with a nod. Then she looked to Sapphire. "I heard you've called council," she said. "How many dragons do you think will help?"
"You will have all nine of my clan and every blue in my territory," she said immediately. "When I call them to war, they must obey, as is custom. That is some seventy blue dragons. The golds, silvers, diamonds, and sapphires will heed such a call to arms against Demons, and I'm fairly sure we can get a good number of the bronzes, greens, emeralds, topazes, and blacks, but I'm not sure how many of the others will agree. The reds will probably be the hardest to sway. Them and the coppers. Both are very selfish breeds. And you know how much we will have to argue with the steels to get them to agree. Sometimes they fight just for the sake of fighting."
Seventy blue dragons. Just the image of seeing seventy of those massive creatures in the sky would be enough to strike utter terror in the heart of any mere mortal that happened to witness such an event.
Standing up, Tarrin gave the Jenna a steady look. "None of this really concerns me, and I have other things to do," he announced. "Jenna, I'm going to be asking you to Teleport me to Ungardt as soon as I get everything done."
"Why Ungardt? And why leave?"
"It's the easiest route to Gora Umadar, and right now I don't want to be found," he answered. "If they can't find me, they can't deliver any ransom demands that put me in a hopeless situation. So long as I'm out of their reach, they have to keep Jasana alive. And that's what matters."
"Good point," she agreed after a moment of thought.
The Goddess looked at him, and he felt her reach into his mind. It was a gentle touch, almost comforting, but he wasn't sure what she found. He couldn't sense what she was doing, only that she did it. Whatever she found, though, caused her to smile.
He left them without another word and sought sanctuary in the one place where he could find peace, and that was the courtyard. The statue of the Goddess was missing from the merrily bubbling fountain, but the sense of peace, of welcome, that had always been a part of the courtyard remained. It was that sense of peace that made him seek this place out, to calm the turmoil of his mind. He sat on the lush grass near the fountain and closed his eyes, drawing up into a cross-legged meditative posture, closing his eyes and trying to calm his mind and his emotions. He needed to do it, because he could feel the All starting to take an interest in him. It seemed almost alive, the All, attracted by the noise that an upset Druid could cause, almost as if it were curious to find out what had upset the Druid so. It only seemed to be attracted to the stronger Druids, those with a more intimate connection to it, the ones that could make the most noise. Regardless of why it was attracted, he could feel it creeping towards him, the first of the signs Triana had trained him to detect. That feeling of swelling in the All, as if it were building up around him. That was what it felt like when the All was starting to build itself up to reaching out and making a connection with a Druid of its own volition, and his meditative attempts to calm himself caused it to lose interest in him, made that swelling in the All subside.
There was plenty to cause him turmoil. His daughter was the core of it, that much was given. Jasana's abduction was like a knife twisting inside him, an intense pain that he never thought was possible. His mind was consumed with fear and worry over the safety and well being of his daughter, the kind of reaction that only a parent could have for a child. It was all he could do to try to think through that worry, that fear, to maintain his focus and keep his mind on the task of retrieving her safely. It was not going to be easy, and that meant that he had to push that to the side. Like he told Jesmind, they could fall to pieces after she was safe. After he rescued her, he'd let all his pent-up emotions go, finally give them release. But until then, they were only a liability, and as dangerous as this was going to be, he couldn't afford any distractions.
That was only one of the problems facing him. He was very concerned for his sisters and friends, because what was coming would be much worse than what happened at Suld. This time it would be a pitched battle on open terrain, where there would be no fortifcations, no defensive fallbacks. Only army against army, where the one with superior numbers, magical firepower, and leadership was going to prevail. the Sorcerers, Wizards, Priests, and dragons and other magical creatures were going to be countered by the ki'zadun's black Wizards and Priests, the Fae-da'kii that had survived the battle at Suld, and the Demons. The humans, Selani, and Wikuni would be faced by humans and Goblinoids. Unless the Goddess did some serious recruiting, they were going to be severely outnumbered, and that really worried him. In a battle like that, the safety of his friends and sisters was very much in doubt. Even Allia would tire, and after battling for hours, even she would make a mistake that may get her killed. He was very worried that he was going to lose a sister or dear friend in this coming war, because more than ever before, the chances of that not happening had never been so against them.
And even if they prevailed, even if they destroyed Val's army, Val would still be there. He was a god, invincible, unstoppable, and he would only retreat to Zakkar, the ancient base of his power, and assemble another army. He would keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back, because nobody could stop him. Not even the gods themselves were willing to confront Val, to eliminate him and the danger he posed to the world once and for all, and it was all because they were afraid. That seemed unbelievable to him, but it was true. Despite all their vast power, despite the absolute need to get rid of Val, they were afraid to face him. Afraid of what damage it may do, and what he understood with sudden clarity, afraid of the losses they may suffer to themselves. They were afraid to be diminished, even if it meant that Val would rampage across the land with absolute impugnity as they did nothing but wring their hands and fret over it. Spyder said that the gods called him Entropy, but he realized that he only posed a danger because the gods were unwilling to do what had to be done to end the threat he caused. They were afraid of destroying the world, but they seemed perfectly content to allow Val to destroy it piece by tiny piece rather than risk destroying it all at once. Fear was a good thing, but not when it prevented one from doing what had to be done. That was something his mother and father had taught him, and he realized that it may be time for some gods to start thinking about that.
Again it came back to Val. Val had been behind Kravon, and he had been responsible for much of the misfortune in Tarrin's life. He was the root of it, and it was upon him that all of Tarrin's anger had been affixed. His abduction by Jula, the death of Faalken, the countless innocents he slaughtered after turning feral, the near-destruction of the Goddess' icon and the death in the battle of Suld, it was all directly attributable to him. And now he threatened his daughter, an unforgivable offense, one that made Tarrin want to tear out his eyes. Only the desperate danger his daughter was in kept his mind from wonderfully graphic and gory fantasies of somehow tearing Val limb from limb then defiling his shattered remains in a final act of defiance and hate.
But Val was a god, while he was but a mortal. Val held supreme power here, beyond that of even the Elder Gods, because he existed solely and completely in the material world. He was little more than a gnat flying in Val's face, annoying him and in danger of being crushed like nothing as soon as he annoyed Val enough.
But some gnats were more resilient than others.