Ancient Dream Emperor wasn’t under the sands. She was actually out sunning on one of the famous mesas of the Australian Desert. Of course, nothing was going to see Her there without likewise being an Emperor if She didn’t want it to, as She would simply erase the sight of Her from their vision mentally.
She was testing me by doing the same thing to me, but that’s what Divinations are for, and I was actually letting her do so. However, I was also looking at Her Aura, Detect Magical Beast, and Detect Magic at VI, following the Psychic Magic back to Her with great precision.
I glided down fifty feet in front of Her head, well within lunge and bite range. “Envoy Healer Fae requests an audience with Ancient Dreams Serpent Emperor on behalf of the True Emperors of the Beasts!”
Her body was nearly a kilometer long, She was not a small thing. I could feel Her attention as the air rippled in front of me, and a woman seemed to materialize.
She looked like an aborigine, in a simple white cloth robe, bare feet, middling years. It was completely a Psychic illusion, of course, but still, She was Right There, and I did not get up.
“Well, aren’t they the busy ones?” She murmured to me, sound filling itself in where there was none. “That is quite a collection of Wills you’ve built up there, young Human.” She tilted her head at me, assessing me openly. “Also, that is a very impressive level of power that you have attained for your age, and extremely peculiar in its feel.”
I wasn’t given permission to speak or answer a question, so I remained silent.
“Ho, and a polite one, too. You would have to be, to get that old grouch Old Mountain to agree to this. Speak what you have to say, child. I am listening.”
“To Your Imperial Majesty, Thunderbird has called for a Council of the True Emperors regarding The Great Flood that Ice Emperor has once more unleashed! The Humans of the World have the wherewithal and power to break The Great Flood, but cannot do so without the permission of the True Emperors!”
She hissed despite herself, looking past me at the distant ocean. “You Humans can do such a thing? How, child?”
“To Your Imperial Majesty, proper Formations addressing the weak parts of the spell can shatter it without fail, and the remnants will fall apart on their own!”
“Ice Emperor can simply send forth the magic again,” Ancient Dream stated firmly. “How many times can Humanity do this?”
“To Your Imperial Majesty, once Ice Emperor’s spell is broken once, subsequent breakings will require minimal effort, as the magic is already in place and the continents will repel His spell. It will be at least years before Ice Emperor could possibly succeed at Casting the spell again, and at that time, the Beast Emperors themselves could break the spell using the pre-existing Formations!”
She actually blinked in amazement. “That... is even possible?”
“To Your Imperial Majesty... this is a matter of finesse applied to power, of cutting the threads of the spell apart rather than defying it with pure might. Spells, as with all things, have their weak points. Cut the threads that tie it together, and a spell is nothing more than rapidly dispersing magic going back into the Manafield.”
She stared at me in consideration. “Are you not worried about retribution?” she countered. “Ice Emperor alone is enough to bury the world in another Ice Age.”
“To Your Imperial Majesty... not once this Formation is in place. The manner and technique that may need to be applied to oppose such vast magic may vary... but they can be countered by Beasts and Humans alike.”
“That is a direct challenge and threat to the power of the High Emperors!” she declared. “They will certainly seek out and destroy this Formation!”
“To Your Imperial Majesty... once the Formation has been used, its physical form is basically only needed to gather the appropriate Mana and send it forth for large numbers of lesser beings. This can actually be accomplished almost anywhere a Noble Beast resides, or a Human Sage. The initial Formations are going to be wound right into the ley lines and Manafields of the continents, at a Level only a Great Sage or a True Emperor will be able to perceive.”
“And what other powers will this Formation have?” She asked immediately. “I am not unaware of your species’ penchant for opportunism, child!”
“To Your Imperial Majesty! The Formation has no active effects, save one. It is specifically designed to raise and gather the appropriate Mana to counter large-scale magical effects upon the biosphere. The only other active effect is that those who can tap into the Formation can very accurately feel the Manafield of their Lands and those within it, if they so desire. This is necessary for gathering and directing the counterforce against the Mana of an incoming spell. Without such a counterforce, the Formation reacts to nothing.
“Your Imperial Majesty will be able to see this for Herself, of course. Without Her Majesty’s approval, the Formation simply cannot take place. The Will of Her Majesty will disperse the magic easily and harmlessly. If Her Majesty desires to take control over the Formation, there is no Human who could resist Her power and will to do so.”
She stared at me hard, measuring me, and noting that my thoughts were plain and unmoved by this, free of guile and deceit.
“Can you display a measure of this magic for me?” She stated more than asked aloofly. “One does not take the risk of defying the High Emperors without reason!”
“As Your Imperial Majesty commands!” I just thought at Zeben, who obligingly raised my Astral Ward VI back to full power.
The illusion before me snapped out of existence, and suddenly I was looking down a monstrous Snake, with the narrow head of a Tiger Snake or Sea Serpent, an odd crest of scattered rounded horns down Her back, with hypnotic green and gold slitted eyes.
Her head actually jerked back twenty meters as Her ability to project into my mind was completely severed. From Her perspective, my mind had just ceased to exist, although She could still see me kneeling before Her. I had no more existence right now than looking upon a rock.
“Does this satisfy the command of Your Imperial Majesty?” I asked calmly, still not looking up as Her head dipped in lower, inhaling with a very perceptible gust of wind, and even a tongue the size of a tree trunk flicked out and over me, reassuring Her that I was indeed not an illusion of some sort.
Her telepathy was not reaching me, and she had to resort to projecting Will, no doubt a very novel thing for Her to do. “THAT IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE EFFECT, CHILD. I COULD OVERWHELM IT WITH SHEER POWER, BUT MY ABILITY TO SENSE YOU IS LIKE LOOKING INTO NOTHING...”
“It is a very specific defense against mental intrusion and magical awareness, Your Imperial Majesty. It has no power against any other kind of magic, and no offensive power.” I let it drop, and the force of Her Psychic power slammed into my mind and swept over me, threatening to shred my mind to nothing if I hadn’t been braced to withstand that very effect. I cut through it, letting Her hastily withdraw the full testing force She had been applying against me.
“I SEE. IT IS THIS PRINCIPLE YOU ARE GOING TO USE AGAINST THE ICE EMPEROR, COUNTERING THE SPECIFIC KIND OF MAGIC HE UNLEASHES TO FORM THE GREAT FLOOD, AND MAKING THE LANDS IMMUNE TO IT. CLEVER...”
She did not ruminate long on the matter. “I WILL ATTEND THIS COUNCIL. WHAT NEEDS I DO, CHILD?”
“To Your Imperial Majesty, give this one a Token of Your Will, and when all have been gathered, the Emperors will be able to confer using them; there is no requirement to attend in person!”
She hissed in approval. “CLEVER AGAIN. THE HIGH EMPERORS WILL NOT KNOW WE ARE SPEAKING...” I bowed further in acknowledgement of Her point.
I wasn’t sure where it came from, possibly an old molting buried nearby, but the brown scale came whirling down out of nowhere and buried itself with a loud crack in the stone before me. Her Will was upon it with a sharpness the other, non-Psychic Emperors did not share.
“By Her Imperial Majesty’s leave!” Sovereign Glue, steelvine, and another Token was hanging from Noble among the others.
“WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THUNDERBIRD?” She inquired as I rose to go.
“To Your Imperial Majesty, this one lives in North America! Naturally, Thunderbird is this one’s Emperor!” I bowed again and withdrew with Earth Ripple, falling off the side of the mesa, letting my Wings catch me, and I shot off back to the north for a polite distance before Linejumping past the horizon.
It was time to talk to an old canine.
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Siberia in Russia was not quite the same as it was on the Earth I was familiar with. Well, both before and after the Fall, as inherited memories pointed out. The undead had forced a lot of burning of Russia, and the Fall messed with the weather and landscape on top of that, and let’s not get into the Portals and Mythos shit...
Siberia in Russia was truly a land of ice, and the Arctic Ocean there never really ever thawed. There was solid ice somewhere leading to the North Pole year-round from Siberia, ensuring there was no northwestern passage at all, ever.
That was almost entirely due to White Death Wolf Emperor, considered the deadliest of the True Emperors, a master of Ice exceeded only by Ice Emperor Himself. He was capable of forcing even Heavenly Fire Emperor to stay in His own limited Charland for fear of being frozen solid by the ancient and very dangerous White Wolf of the North.
Technically White Death’s domain was the North Pole and surrounding Ice, but for practical purposes it extended well into Siberia, turning the northeast of the country into a frozen landscape of sculpted ice mountains, valleys, hills, and fields, encapsulating the frozen forests in snow and ice, and rather clearly delineating the edges of His territory by a virtually knife-sharp edge where the ice stopped and verdant green began once more.
That it abutted Heavenly Fire’s charland and stopped the expansion of the Fire Dragon Emperor’s territory cold (hah!) was immediately obvious even from space.
Heavenly Fire didn’t like it, but He was stuck on Kamchatka Peninsula, and didn’t dare expand off of it, nor did His spawn and descendants dare to enter the cold lands of the White Death Wolf Emperor.
White Death had been spotted all the way to the Urals in wintertime, although He didn’t mess with the weather unless someone pissed Him off for some reason, and likewise He was very territorial and didn’t take trespassers well.
Humans bugging Him was a good way to get an early, long, and very, very cold Winter down on their heads, so He was generally left alone if He was spotted anywhere. As Humans rarely ventured away from the rivers and seas of Russia, that didn’t happen very often. The last Wolf Winter had not been caused by Humans, but an incursion of Titans spreading from the Urals and causing havoc, possibly driven forth by Human pressure, or maybe Old Mountain had been flexing.
The White Wolf had come and drowned the Titans in a Hell of Ice and Cold, a freezing storm that had lasted for months and frozen the Titans solid in so doing. If there were any survivors, no one knew, as His descendants had dragged off the bodies of the mighty Titans and left no signs behind save the Humans who’d also been frozen solid when they hadn’t been able to run away fast enough from the blizzard.
‘White Death’, indeed. He was very much a feared force, not beloved, although the Russians also venerated His power.
Thunderbird didn’t let Him claim any of the North of America, although He didn’t care if the Wolf claimed the North Pole as long as Thunderbird could fly over it without interference. Supposedly they’d clashed in the past, and Thunderbird had won enough grudging respect from the Wolf that White Death didn’t interfere in His flights.
I reflected, as I flew over a fantastic icescape of impossible carved valleys of ice and whole forests formed of frozen crystals wrought into something out of an artist’s chilling fever dreams, that I might be in a little bit of danger paying call on this old fellow, but at least Thunderbird had given me some tips...