Antarctica, the border of The Ice Emperor’s Demesne...

I went to resume closing the circuit around Ice Emperor before heading out to see the Sea Dragons about their order.

As I wasn’t trying to hide from Him, He noticed me the moment I arrived, as did over two dozen Low Emperors and Rulers patiently waiting for me to reappear. They had automatically settled into a pecking order, and were waiting for their chance at additional Braziers, as most of them were repeat customers.

The merest touch of their Emperor’s Will sent them to the ground in paralyzed reverence and fear, and I knelt as well.

“Healer Fae greets The Ice Emperor!” I called out to Him, soft flames igniting and wafting back from me in reaction to the faintest touch of Dragonfrost spreading over me.

“HEALER FAE. YOUR TOUCH WAS ON THE MAGIC THAT UNDID MY GREAT FLOOD. YOU SANG IT AWAY BEFORE THE WORLD.”

Well, He didn’t lack for pride, I was sure. Words carefully selected to make me defensive, question Him? “While this one did organize and harmonize the magic, Your Imperial Majesty knows this one does not have the power to cast such a spell herself. Over five hundred thousand Human mages were involved in that effort. This one’s minor contributions were required only to see that the Rituals went off together and could cover the world entire... or the entire Spell would have been useless against Your magic.

“Has Humanity passed Your Imperial Majesty’s test? Or will His Imperial Majesty simply reinstate The Great Flood?”

It couldn’t be construed a failure on His part if it was merely a test on ours; success or failure was on us. Also acknowledging He could certainly just put it back into effect if He was of a mind to established His superior position.

Pride-salving is a delicate art!

“AN EFFORT DONE WITHOUT THE BACKING OF YOUR MAGE ASSOCIATIONS OR THE ARROGANCE OF YOUR CHURCH OF LIGHT.” His cold and lofty Voice seemed amused and curious. “PERHAPS NOT QUITE THE HAPLESS FOOLS AND SLAVES YOU SEEM.”

“Better role models help the children play more nicely, Your Imperial Majesty,” I answered to that.

“ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ICE PHOENIX EMPEROR LEAVING HER ISOLATION?” He asked me directly, sudden dangerous Intent swirling in the wind and icy snow and making His underlings grovel.

“My High Emperor Flowing Silver indicated that this one should endeavor to reunite the two Phoenix Emperors as the proper order of things. This one obeyed,” I responded promptly.

Snow and wind swirled with cutting cold. “A HIGH EMPEROR OF THE BEAST REALM IS YOUR HIGH EMPEROR?” He asked with strange emotion.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“THIS IS NOT HIS REALM, LITTLE HUMAN.”

“In the end, that is not nearly as the important as the fact that He is indeed my High Emperor, Your Imperial Majesty.” Which was all kinds of Damn True.

“AND HAS HE PLANS ON THIS WORLD?” the edged Voice came slicing in, and the flames coming off me exploded in a radiant fireburst for a moment at the chill in them.

“That is a matter for High Emperors, not for this one, Your Imperial Majesty.”

The cold and cutting wind was starting to slice into some of the weaker Rulers and pepper the rest, but none dared move or protest their Emperor’s Wrath.

“STRANGE TO FIND A HUMAN WHO RESPECTS THEIR PLACE IN THINGS.” More cold amusement in the deadly winds. I was strong enough that He would not be able to just kill me at this distance, but since He could then cover North America in ice repeatedly, I wasn’t going to be winning any conflicts against Him.

“CAN I SPEAK WITH YOUR HIGH EMPEROR, HEALER FAE?” He inquired loftily, confident that I could arrange such a thing if I was obeying Flowing Silver’s commands.

“Right now, if You wish, Your Imperial Majesty.”

That did make The Ice Emperor pause for a moment. “MAKE IT SO,” He ordered after a moment, power thickening in the air until it was almost tangible.

I tapped Noble on the ground, and the sound rang throughout the Manafield for a hundred miles in all directions. Void, Chaos, and Summoning Mana swirled up in the face of massing Ice, Water, and Air Magic. It rapidly coalesced into the form of a thousand complex Seals in the air, empowered by twenty different Elements, and slowly parted behind me.

Flowing Silver Emperor was on a mountaintop in His own Realm, one with the Sealing Pyramid’s Light visible in the distance. He turned His head to face the Portal, swept His Awareness over the area about me, and psaid simply, -THIS IS A MATTER FOR HIGH EMPERORS.-

In an instant, the Portal flashed forward and vanished over the horizon. Any presence of The Ice Emperor went with it as He realized He was going to be doing this face-to-face as well, and not playing voicemail at a distance with another High Emperor in a display of status.

Stolen story; please report.

He might well be the most powerful Imperial Beast on the Earth here, but Flowing Silver lived in the Beast Realms, and had High Emperors as neighbors in every direction and beyond for massive distances, as they ruled every inch of a Realm at least the size of the planet Jupiter. The Emperor of Silver Many-Tailed Foxes was very, very used to and confident when dealing with other High Emperors, and just because He could not engage physically certainly didn’t mean His influence here was absent, although if He wanted to truly be effective He’d be in His Broom Closet.

I had the distinct feeling The Ice Emperor was going to be unhappily introduced to an equal He could not dominate in the slightest, someone who was a Peer and who knew things He did not... and also knew many of the things He had attempted to conceal.

The withdrawal of the Ice Emperor’s power naturally relieved the force on the Rulers and Low Emperors behind me, who slowly and carefully rose after they felt His Presence fade.

“Elders,” I told them without turning around, gaining their instant and respectful attention. After all, their Emperor had spoken directly to me, not them! “It is this one’s impression that it is best she finish The Ice Emperor’s gift before further addressing your desires. The small numbers that have been provided you are incidental. If you desire the Braziers in larger numbers, this one will be happy to trade them with you, as she is doing with the Sea Dragons.”

It immediately skipped past their resentment at the idea of trade as they considered the news that the haughty and arrogant Sea Dragons were already doing the same thing!

“At the place The Ice Emperor’s Ring begins and ends, this one will place an Obelisk, and the denizens of His Dominion may come there and treat for all the Vivic Eternal Icefires they desire. The terms for how many they wish will be clearly displayed for any who touch the Obelisk, and you need merely bring the items in trade to the Obelisk, and I will appear to exchange with you.

“Furthermore, with the absence of Ice Phoenix Emperor, it is understood that you have no true Healer among you. This one will promise that once a month that a Healer will appear at the Obelisk to Bring the Moon and Stars down upon you.

“This one shall demonstrate that Healing now.”

The Dragonfrost of the High Emperor was going to leave invisible wounds on the physiques and souls of those who’d dared been here to interrupt my Gift to Him, doubtless the very mildest of punishments The Ice Emperor could inflict on them, and they were likely realizing they’d gotten off very luckily.

I Sang, and they all stiffened as they recognized those Notes, a Chord the whole world had heard. The cold and lonely Ice at the pole of the world peeled away from the sky, and the Stars danced in the heavens, and began to fall on the wounded elder Beasts of Ice behind me...

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

The Hawaiian Islands, Kahoolawe...

The first thing I noticed when Portaling into the abandoned island was that there were multiple Imperial presences here. For some reason, I was not surprised.

There were three Sea Dragons here, and how marvelous, the other two were the ones I’d introduced myself to outside of Seattle, which included a True Emperor. From fluctuations in her Presence, I gathered the first one wasn’t particularly happy with the other two coming along, but for some reason I was not surprised such had happened.

The True Emperor was both longer and thicker than His two subordinates, looking like He could just swallow down either of them, which He probably could. He had more black and gold on His scales than either of His vassals, and radiated at least ten times as much magical power as they did combined.

At least they were being respectful and not trying to announce themselves to the island of Maui not far away. Kahoolawe had been long abandoned as being impossible to defend and Aquatics had been crawling all over it during the past five years, finding precious little to do on the ancient volcanic island. None of the ecology they left behind grew in soil so suffused with the hostile Earth and Fire that had thrust itself up out of the ocean entirely.

“Healer Fae has seen True Emperor Deepwater Pearls,” I bowed politely, as all three Dragons oriented on me with their serpentine necks. “Emperor Subtle Currents. Emperor Dancing Waters,” I bowed cordially to both, shallower than I had to their master, remaining in midair.

As before, the Imperial Intents on Noble’s Tokens were quite apparent, and the three knew they were all being watched closely. They really didn’t want to know how fast some Avian Emperors could get here with Dreadskulls on their talons and death in their eyes, and Flowing Silver might just decide to punish any rudeness on their parts forthwith, as well. Dragons were nobles in the Beast Realm, too, and you had to kill them or they took your territory from you.

I could see that Emperor Dancing Waters had the goods for trade for her columns, and the other Dragons bore nothing. Despite only having true business with her, there was still absolutely no question that I would deal with True Emperor Deepwater Pearls first.

I waited politely while the True Sea Dragon Emperor weighed the words He was going to speak, glancing at the Tokens on Noble, and revising them at least twice.

“I COME WITH THE AUTHORITY OF THE SEA EMPEROR,” He finally said to me, aloof as He could be. “HE DESIRES A GREAT NUMBER OF YOUR BRAZIERS OF... VIVIC FLAME,” He declared, putting great onus onto the name of his master.

“This one’s gift of the Obelisk to The Sea Emperor was a gift. By command of this one’s True Emperor Thunderbird, and this one’s High Emperor Flowing Silver Nine-Tailed Fox, for any others, we trade.”

A massive Stelae Shaped itself out of the volcanic rock beneath me, rising tall and thick as Runes gleamed upon the stone. Arcane Fusion wrought multiple illusions upon those Runes in tandem; the terms and conditions of what we would do for them were displayed across the facing of the monstrous black stone tablet there, the illusions conveying directly what each and every Rune meant straight to their thoughts, not needing them to understand a written language at all.

The two new Emperors, especially Deepwater Pearls, were surprised by just how casually I made that statement, and yet how much iron was in it. Then their eyes teased out the braided length of silver fur hanging among the more colorful and glittery Tokens. I watched their eyes dilate sharply, and their Presences tremble with instinctive submission.

They may not have known who He was, but they knew what the Aura of a High Emperor was!

The terms started at a hundred braziers, and went up by factors of ten, all the way to a million. Each stage was cheaper overall than the one before, perhaps the equivalent of four times the price instead of ten, so they could pay in small lots or large ones, as they wished.

But the larger lots naturally demanded rarer and more precious items, like moving from Spirit to Soul to Heaven Seeds, and the like. If the Sea Dragons were surprised we even knew of such things, they didn’t let it show, and probably didn’t even consider it, really. They weren’t uncommon knowledge among the intelligent creatures of the sea, so why wouldn’t we know about them?