I couldn’t pronounce Joy properly, as my understanding of it was shallow and artificial. Even so, there was another response, as the Word left my lips in the Sublime Chord, and all the Mana began to ring, and to Sing.
Sing for Him!
It had no words, it had no beat except the pulse of the world. It was the serene calm echoes of Ice, the rolling deep basso of Earth, the pitter-patter and rushing of Water, the swooping and soaring arias of Air, the burning exuberance of Fire, the crashing thrum and swelling in the soul of Lightning, and the sweeping delicacy and intimate touch of Light, overlooking all and approving.
It was the Mana of the world celebrating the joy of having a Fire Phoenix Emperor who, despite His pain and loss, had built something great and magnificent here, and it loved Him for it.
His wings rose, His head tilted back as His crest and tails flared in all His glory, and Phoenix Flame ignited, drinking in the acclaim and burning purer than it likely ever had in His life.
I regretted I couldn’t take a picture of it all, but if there were thousands of people looking out my eyes as Fire Phoenix Emperor basked in the adulation of the world, then that was good enough.
The Sublime Chord soon faded, the Song of the World dimmed, my understanding of the Word too shallow to endure very long, and even that was wiped away in the wake of the Song, so as not to test the limits of my mind with exposure to too many Words.
Only the Divine or Titans might know four Words of Creation, and only the non-finite at the highest level speak the language it was derived from. Three was the mortal limit, and happy I was to be limited there. I knew if I could have understood four Words I probably would have immediately transcended and died here, my little growing soul exploding into enlightenment and losing my identity as I merged with the power of Heaven, bypassing all those years of basking in Virtue in the afterlife.
Not something that needed to happen right now.
Fire Phoenix Emperor slowly brought His full display back to normal, blazing Phoenix Fires dancing over and through them as they simmered and dimmed once more, folding over and along Him.
Normal eyes couldn’t see it, but there was a glint of Gold upon His Aura now.
“I... WOULD KNOW ALL THOSE WORDS, HEALER FAE,” He murmured to me. “THEY SPOKE TO ME; THEY SPOKE TO THE WORLD...”
“It is not something this one can teach or grant, Your Majesty,” I said softly. “The Words are granted by Heaven, and what Words one can gain reflect the person who is granted them.”
“IF HEAVEN IS NOT HERE, BUT HEAVEN GRANTED YOU THIS POWER, THAT MEANS YOU ARE NOT FROM THIS WORLD...” He reasoned, turning an interested golden eye on me.
“That is both true and not, Your Majesty,” I confirmed promptly. “It is very true that this one’s soul was not of this world... but then, very few souls actually are, unless they are reborn to the world where they died. All souls come from elsewhere. This one... is simply aware that she is from elsewhere.
“This one’s body is very much of the Mortal World, however, woven and given form by the need of this realm, and that is Truth.” Said very gently, but there was no refuting my claim once I spoke it. “This one is of this world, now. This one was born to be part of it, and so I am.”
The Sublime Chord echoed my words back at me, and Fire Phoenix Emperor paused only a moment before nodding solemnly. “CAN YOU BRING DOWN THE MOON AND STARS HERE, HEALER FAE?”
“Your Majesty, this one would be delighted to do so!”
-----
The carving I had to do was almost incidental, and woven through strands of His own Formation, while He watched with great interest. His Call had gone out, and eager Vassals, winged and not, who had suffered spiritual injuries over the years had come quickly to experience a Healing Magic which even their Emperor spoke highly of.
Their awe and delight as the vivus ate the Dark Mana and exploded into purity was unfeigned. Feeling all the Elements dance and ascend together, working in unprecedented harmony, they all let out roars and shrieks and calls of admiration and joy at witnessing such magical artistry at work, so reminiscent of the spirit of their own beloved Emperor.
And then The Moon and Stars came weeping down on them, and they all went silent as they bowed their heads beneath the Tears of Heaven.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I didn’t know how they had received the injuries they had. I assumed it was either combat with powerful Beasts, especially Dragons, or perhaps mistakes in their growth, trying to find a path forward and failing. The Moon and Stars made no distinctions between battle injuries and internal scarring. It fell upon them, seeking out what was wrong, and purged it decisively.
I’d had fourteen thousand Mana to sustain this process when I first did it for Thunderbird. In between then, I’d advanced to Archmage, opening up another six whole Nebulae and forming a Typeless Galaxy.
That did not, however, mean I had filled them all up as yet, even with a thoughtstream devoted to doing so all the time. It was simply a lot of work to do.
Still, I had more than thirty thousand Mana at this time, and doing this as an Archmage allowed me to expand the scope of the effect enough to include dozens of Fire Phoenix’s vassals without too much problem. That increased consumption, of course, but I still could hold out for twelve hours without too much problem, letting the powers of Heaven work over the spirits of these Great Beasts and do what time and their own might had not been able to.
Like Thunderbird’s Vassals, I could feel their Auras sharpen and purify as the Tears of Heaven fell upon them and did their thing. The rich combined Manafield made managing it all much easier, and of course as an Archmage my Galaxy could command more magic than before more easily from the resonance of all my internal Stars.
Actually, I could command a mixed bag of Elements like this far more easily than a single Element, as Arcane energy took ‘impurities’ as ‘layered resonance’, and interference became harmony. There was no way to rival the mono-Elements focus of the local Magery Tradition, but that wasn’t the kind of magic I wanted to use, anyway.
Multi-Elemental stuff was the way to go for Wizardry! It was just a lot harder to work out without a Valence substructure and Power of Ten magic providing an appropriate foundation to work upon...
--------
With my reputation made among the Fire set, I immediately set to work on another project.
No, no, not Fire Phoenix’s Pyramid, that was a given. The Ritual to Save the World was out there, I just had to get approval to get it set up.
Not from the people, of course. Volunteers were making that a done deal. No, we needed to pull this off at certain locations, and none of those locations were actually in Human-held territory.
Thus, we needed permission... from the Emperor Beasts. Otherwise, we were going to need twice as many Rituals to do this, split between the coasts.
Thus, my first trip was down to the Amazon Jungle!
King Dorado knew where I needed to go by reputation, although naturally enough He’d never really been there. You don’t go bugging True Emperors if you can help it and don’t have a really, really good reason.
I had a really good reason and I was an Envoy.
I was going to meet Father Tree, the Treant Emperor, perhaps the oldest of the True Emperors, and the most powerful Emperor of South America!
---
The Amazon of this Earth was naturally not that of the old one, nor the one Aelryinth was familiar with, which might have been slowly turning into a place like this.
Yeah, the isthmus jungles of Central America and the borders were impressive. But the true Amazon, well, just, wow.
The tiny trees were a thousand feet high. The big ones hit a full mile. There were literally five different canopy levels of interwoven roots and branches you could cross almost as readily as solid ground, with the bottom levels somehow still receiving light emitted by the foliage around them, although most of them were in shadow. If you couldn’t see in the dark down there, you were hosed, and the things that lived down there would definitely eat you alive.
The upper canopy was friendliest, festooned with branches and vines from trees so large skyscrapers looked like outhouses. Entire civilizations of Beasts lived there, never seeing the ground or daring to descend further, and it was a riot of life, light, and color. I’d been told by the golden Howler Monkey King that unaware Beasts coming from outside the jungle never really realized they were on the upper canopy level, just keeping a ‘normal’ distance from the light as the trees grew ever bigger around them, and they slowly rose over time until the ground was lost beneath them, and they were still slowly climbing...
There were more Emperor-Class Beasts in the Amazon than anywhere else in the world, by size. That especially included all manner of Bug and Plant-type Beasts, which, among other things, made the place incredibly dangerous. There was also a ton of dimensional compression going on, because the Amazon was even bigger and wider than the area it took up on the map, a sign of just how much influence the natural magic of the jungle and the Beasts made on the place. The Plants wanted room to grow, but they couldn’t expand outside the Amazon’s territory, so they just expanded the inside of it.
There were plenty of Avians of all types who nested in the upper level of the Amazon, as well as swarms of Bees and Wasps of various types who would all happily take you out. Humans simply didn’t go here without a very good reason.
I had my Wings out. I’d hit Sorcerer/10 and could manifest them. The celeste and silver-edged things were very different and eye-catching among the rainbow panoply of Birds of the Amazon, and it took me no time at all to gather quite a lot of wandering Birds as curious escorts, looking at me with great interest and the long, attention-getting trail of ice and fire I was leaving behind me.
Also, the Feathers of Thunderbird and Fire Phoenix trailing from Noble, radiating the Wills of Emperors, along with the dancing Feathers of a Frost and Fire Luan, of which there was an Imperial pair who also nested in the Amazon.
The Wills of the Emperors were keeping me alive, or I’d’ve been swatted out of the air a long time ago. Instead, I was making a beeline for the Heart of the Amazon, being very open about it, and those Feathers made it plain that I was on the business of True Emperors, who would be aware of what was going on around their Wills.
Not even the most Noble of the Birds there dared interfere with someone who could bear two such Feathers. It was clear I was under their protection, but that didn’t mean they had to LIKE it.
So, naturally I cut off the chorus of raucous comments, challenges, sneers, insults, and stuff by Singing.
Magic lit up, paid attention, and began to Sing along with me, Sublime Chord of Creation washing across them, instantly silencing them as they felt the magic dancing to my Voice, and the whole world lit up around them and me.