Chapter 15 : Two Steps at a Time

There was a simple motto that was common throughout the Realms of mankind. The Proton King had heard it on more than one occasion and it always amused him.

"One step at a time"

The Proton King considered this statement and laughed. He was close to the Advent Cave now but he had stopped at a wayside station so that the polar bears which pulled him could be fed on raw fish and seal blubber imported all the way from the frozen sea north of the Great Bleak Plain.

"One step at a time"

It was a motto for pedants and limited thinkers who simply couldn’t work out the consequences of rapid and complex action. And that was the way to win. If stupid people couldn’t handle multi-tasking, so much the worse for them and so much the better for those intelligent Powers such as himself who could handle multi-tasking. No. As far as the Proton King was concerned, why take one step at a time when you could take two steps at a time, and wrong foot your enemies in the process.

Naturally it required a sharp wit and some jugglers skills but the results could be most gratifying. And gratifying results were only a couple of steps away.

The message in front of him was signed by the Chief Of Staff of the Army Of Winter. It was a plea for him to cancel his foray into the Autumn Country and assist them with the defence of the Realm. Apparently the situation on the Great Bleak Plain was worsening. An army of five hundred ice warriors had been blown to atoms by the mysterious invaders. Soon they would have taken enough territory to threaten the Winter Palace.

Of course they will have, the Proton King thought. They're a top company of Void Ultras and the Winter Army is no match for them; not since I got Laws Of Form flowing into the Winter Country as well as out of it. Wedge Tokens aren’t the only way to import Laws Of Form even if they are a remarkably convenient and cheap way.

Wedge Tokens were hard to come by and there was no fixed Gate to the Realm he required. It had cost him a lot more to set up the channels which were causing such trouble in his own Realm but it would be well worth it if the plan came together. Still, he had to be careful. He needed the Winter Army to complete his conquest of the Autumn Country. This was the interesting part of the game. He couldn’t let the generals know that he was using them in this way. He considered the wording of his message for a good few minutes before he sent a reply. The idea was to put enough pressure on the military commanders to convince them that the Winter Country was lost, without destroying too much of their military machine. Then he would offer them a way out. They simply had to throw all their weight behind a full scale total invasion of the Autumn Country. Once the Autumn Country was subdued they could evacuate their people and abandon their own Realm, sealing the Gateway against the terrible 'unknown' invaders. The invaders would keep the Winter Country but the Winter Army and its generals would be safe in the remodelled Autumn Country.

As for the Proton King, he'd have converted the Winter Country one step closer to his own ideals and his allies in the Void Ultras would make excellent partners for future incursions into neighbouring Realms. So would the Winter Army when he'd consolidated the Autumn Country sufficiently to begin an assault on Summer.

It required some delicate timing to pull this scheme off, of course, and there were risks. The invasion of the Autumn Country was under strength at the moment but if all went to plan he'd soon have more forces than the timid Winter Army generals would ever have committed without his little "push". And they didn’t suspect a thing, because why would the Owner of a Realm launch an invasion against it? It was a pity he couldn’t be in two places at once. He'd have liked to supervise the Void Ultras operations as well but he had to decide where his presence would be most useful. Since the Autumn Country invasion had been temporarily weakened he'd lend Jack Frost his personal support.

His message to the Chief Of Staff conveyed concern at the army's failure but confidence in their ability to overcome their enemies. In the rest of the message he planted the first seeds of ideas he expected to cultivate very quickly once the Void Ultras had roughed the Winter Country up a bit more. Splendid.

One step at a time indeed! The Proton King was confident he could manage two.