Just a fluttering of the green light. Old Mountain Emperor was considering me, the way I’d withstood His spiritual pressure, penetrated His door, and was Singing even now, His entire Hoard softly echoing back the hypnotic, distant grief of the Dirge of Ancient and Frozen Loss.

“WHAT CARE I FOR GREAT FLOODS? THE CREATURES OF THE SEAS WILL FIRST FLAY THE FOOLISH HUMANS ON THE SHORES, BUT THEY WILL NOT DARE THE TITANS AND DRAKES OF THE MOUNTAINS. I SEE NO REASON TO DISCUSS SUCH MATTERS...” He trailed off, and I held my tongue calmly as He considered the Wills on my Staff. “EVEN AURIC TYRANT AGREES TO THIS MATTER...” He murmured thoughtfully. “WHY WOULD HE EVEN CARE?...”

“To His Imperial Majesty! The answer is precedent! He cares little for the shores, a matter for His lessers! But between You and He lies another who has been slowly and subtly moving for the last thousand years! His expansion south has been very, very slow, but His expansion east and north has not!

“If Ice High Emperor can issue a Great Flood at a whim, what would Infinite Sands High Emperor do if He decided to take umbrage at Humankind?”

The HISSSSSS that arose overwhelmed everything else, my Sublime Dirge included, echoing and re-echoing throughout the vastness of the chamber, and His head actually rose from where it was resting on His coils. His massive claws, with talons longer than I was tall, arose from behind the stacked coils and descended to land on the ground considerably closer to me than His body. Great lengths of His coils shifted in His hoard, gliding and clinking through the uncounted wealth in writhing thought.

“INFINITE SANDS IS ON FAR BETTER TERMS WITH AURIC TYRANT THAN WITH ME. HIS POWER ALREADY EXTENDS INTO THE PENINSULA. IF HE SEEKS TO PUNISH HUMANS, HE WILL GROW HIS DESERT AND WRAP IT UP AND AROUND THE SEA, SWALLOWING THEIR SHORES AND PITIFUL LITTLE SAFE ZONES IN ENDLESS SANDS...”

Leaving unspoken that those were HIS lands, and the power that flowed through them... would be lost to Him! Soon enough the mountains themselves would be warped and ground away, and it would all be covered in Sand... which was Earth dominated by Fire and by Wind, losing much of its strength as it did so.

If Infinite Sands wanted to take His lands from Him, what could He do about it? Absolutely nothing!...

But if Humans could...

The massive head rising so far above came down, down, down, lowering to merely ten meters away. The breath coming out of Him would have begun eroding me away if I wasn’t Warded against the damage.

“LITTLE HUMAN. CAN YOUR KIND ACTUALLY BREAK THE MAGIC OF A HIGH EMPEROR?”

I did not reply. I drove my Will into the stone of this, His Throne Room and Hoard, and tore up the stone.

His Will descended, trying to stop me by instinct, eyes flaring at the breach and my daring to so violate and test His strength...

Except... He lost!

I tore the stone I wanted free of His control, even as the air roiled around me and His Domain came down, seizing all of the Earth Mana into His absolute control and driving all other Elements away instantly, even as His spiritual pressure began to spike once again.

And then I tore the Mana I wanted out of His Domain as He stared in absolute disbelief that I could do such a thing, His Spiritual Pressure freezing as I did so.

Tempered stone flowed like water, swirling into the Shape I desired, crystals aligning and modulating as gold from His Hoard was drawn into it, also liquifying without ever growing hot, wrapping around what I was making into a layer micrometers thick over the sculpture forming before His lambent eyes.

“This one was informed by Thunderbird Emperor that it is proper for a visitor to Old Mountain Emperor to leave a gift for His Hoard, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Which neatly sidestepped the entire issue of breaking His Will, Domain, and Magic all at once, while answering His question.

He could retain control of His Domain, His Hoard, and this room of His Demesne... except for that one specific area I was breaking.

He MIGHT be able to regrab control if He started focusing all His power here... but then He’d lose control over the rest, which was basically even better from my standpoint.

He focused on the sculpture of Himself that was coming into being. It was perfectly to scale, incredibly detailed, right down to ancient scars, nicks, cuts, and scrapes of long-ago battles and conflicts that had made Him what He was.

And it echoed the Dirge back at Him in His own unique note.

He gazed at the representation of Himself, wrought of stone from His chamber and gold from His Hoard as I smoothly released control. His power entered it instantly, to examine and salivate upon it.

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He could easily tell the control upon it was monstrous. As far down as He could sense, the layers and alignment of the stone was in harmony and flow to a degree He wasn’t sure He could emulate, at least not without a lot of time and focus.

And I had just DONE it right in front of him!...

“WHERE IS THIS... COUNCIL TO BE HELD?” He hissed softly at me.

“To His Imperial Majesty! But give this one a token of His Majesty’s Will, and the Emperors will be able to confer wherever they may be at the time!” The Wills hanging from Noble seemed to tinkle and chime softly.

He considered me for a long and poignant moment. Then a Titan’s coin, some four inches across, of pressed gold with startlingly detailed images of a Titan’s head opposite a very familiar Linnorm head, flipped out of His Hoard and was presented to me, gleaming with the old, malevolent, and interested power of His Will.

I grasped it without hesitation, and repeated the whole system of Sovereign Glue and steelvine, winding it up to hang among the other Emperors.

“This one receives the Will of Old Mountain Emperor! May this one depart?” I asked Him calmly. I still had not looked up to meet His gaze, and I was not going to, regardless of how close He was.

“WHO HAVE YOU YET TO VISIT?” He hissed quietly, His Hoard echoing every word back at me.

“To His Imperial Majesty! White Death Wolf Emperor, Ancient Dream Serpent Emperor, Heavenly Fire Emperor, and Heaven Westward Fox Emperor are yet to be invited to this Council!”

He eyed the Wills I had so far, and weighed whether this was a slight or an insult, and couldn’t find a pattern to hold to and take umbrage at that would have any validity. Father Tree and Auric Tyrant both had Him on age, but He was arguably stronger than Father Tree, and certainly than the Luan Emperors.

“YOU MAY GO,” He agreed in His best lofty tone. His eyes still hadn’t really left the scale sculpture in front of him, Pride and Vanity and Greed on display before Him.

I turned in place and my Ripple carried me forth, just as it had brought me in. I watched His coils slowly move out of the way or below the path behind me, and did not turn back to regard Him as I left His Hoard and Throne Chamber behind me.

---

I did take a long, deep breath as I exited the Door to Old Mountain Emperor’s Halls under the eyes of His Gold Crown Titan doorguards, and calmly took to the skies.

Time to head to Australia, and the home of the Psychic Element!

------------

That the most powerful Snake in the world lived in Australia was something most people had no idea about. The center of the area was a sun-blasted desert that no Humans lived in regardless, the aborigines, like the later colonists, having dwelled nearer the cooler coasts with the water supplies.

There were several Emperor Snakes around, with at least one in China, one in the Amazon, and one in North America, and at least a half-Emperor in Africa among the Pharaonic forces there. The one in China was a Totem who had only recently become famous again, Grandfather Snake was a famous Totem Snake in North America’s Southwest, and the Scarlet Python was infamous in Egypt as a servant of the Medusa Queen there. Mother Anaconda wasn’t seen much in Human history, mostly a legend, but She definitely existed, according to Thunderbird.

Ancient Dream Serpent Emperor had done more for the Aborigines by introducing them to Earth and Psychic Magic than any other Totem, and they were still among the best Psychics in the world, although they tended to stay close to home... and the Acropolis was definitely trying to make itself pre-eminent in that field.

The fact Ancient Dream Emperor was also a natural, non-Dark Poison expert was usually glossed over, and She was probably the most lethal non-Dark Poison-wielding creature in the world.

Unlike Infinite Sands High Emperor, Ancient Dream Emperor was also known to take to the waters around Her realm, having no tie to the sands beyond quiet and convenience. Her happily swallowing down endless amounts of the eel-folk and fin-men of the Aquatics in the area meant that Her realm was unusually quiet for basically an enlarged island, and the Human population gave Her the respect that was Her due, even if some of them didn’t like it and hated knuckling under to a mind-reading Snake.

Those folks going wandering out into the desert and disappearing happened occasionally, too, so by and large nobody tried to make a move against Ancient Dream.

Finding Her wasn’t that big of a problem, as She was by far the most momentous presence in the mindscape, and even with Her power tamped down, Divination Magic had little trouble tracking Her effect on the dreams and thoughts of every creature across a hundred-mile radius. A few Scrying spells in what Thunderbird Emperor had indicated were Her favorite areas to sleep, and I got a ping in less than an hour of searching.

I would have liked to Lived-Line a connection to Australia, but I didn’t have time. So, up outside the atmosphere, vacuum and rads trying to do something to me, Jump around the globe, and then down at the fringes of Her territory.

I was noticed the instant I came within Her sensory range, an easy hundred miles away from Her location, the Wills of the Emperors naturally alerting Her to my arrival. I could feel Her dreamy attention slowly focus more and more upon me as I followed the radiating power through the mindscape, heading towards one of the famous sandstone bluffs that dominated the inner parts of Australia like the severed bases of world-trees or something.

There were plenty of other Rulers and a couple Emperors I flew past. Australia had a weird collection of Emperors with an odd assortment of abilities, with the Tidebreaking Crocodile Emperor being the most orthodox of them, a known and avowed opponent of the Aquatics, even if He didn’t care much for Humans at all.

Ironhide Koala Emperor watched over the great Eucalyptus jungles of the East; Moonjumper Kangaroo Emperor bounced around as He saw fit, but generally stayed in the north; and Dunebreaker Emu Emperor did the same in the west. There was a Tasmanian Devil half-Emperor in the south, called Spinning Devil by the wary locals, but he was rarely seen, just like the others. Emperors didn’t socialize with ants.

However, they all bowed to Ancient Dream Serpent True Emperor.

We could have had the meeting right away, but there was no communication, so I flew towards Her. Perhaps She was more intrigued about someone bearing so many Wills? It was a glaring alarm to someone as psychically gifted as Her, like blowing loud horns for Her attention, even at this range.

Happily, at least I could fly quickly, so the hundred miles passed at remarkable speed, even without Lightjumping or other spells.