It took only a couple minutes for Princess Karegnondi, the Great Pike of the Lakes, to cover the miles to where Queen Guchigumi, the Turtle Empress of the Lakes, was floating in the waters. The Great Pike swept in and pulled up about a quarter-mile off, a pulse of Water Mana sweeping past and breaking over the Emperor Turtle in polite acknowledgement, the equivalent of a bow from the Great Pike half-Emperor to her Emperor.

“You still have no idea what is going on here?” Julia Dow asked her husband worriedly. “What is Cam doing out there on that... on the Princess?” she caught herself hurriedly.

“Something worth being seen by a Great Ruler and the Emperor of the Great Lakes?” Henry Dow replied thoughtfully.

There was a pulse of movement, and Henry glanced over, seeing that Cameron’s old friends, the brutal duo who led Coralost and who had tempted him to leave the Dow Family, had come out of nowhere, so subtly that his Awareness hadn’t even sensed them arrive.

Indeed, looking right at them, his Awareness was not even acknowledging that they were there. It raised the hairs on his neck in spite of everything.

His other children rose as one and hurried over to greet the pair of famous non-mages, a degree of cautious, deep respect in them he’d never seen them give anyone else. Given the way his instincts were screaming how dangerous they were at him, he was actually somewhat surprised that they dared to do so, before he remembered that if they’d fought with Coralost, they had likely met the Brute and the Hag many times...

A star came down out of the sky, and all of magic Sang to greet her arrival.

Henry, and all the members of his family, swallowed as all the magic seemed to perk up and shimmer all around them. A nameless Melody that seemed to reach right into his soul and demand his attention was plucking at his Stars, responding directly to the young woman who had just arrived.

Lady Fae, Healer Fae, the Worldsinger. His magic recognized what Cameron had called the Sublime Chord, something he had only felt when the Floodbreaker Ritual went off, and the entire world’s magic sat up and shattered The Great Flood of The Ice Emperor.

No one was going to mistake that magic for anything but whose it was!

She was in her normal loose dark tunic and trousers, her silky-white hair starkly visible against her attire and dark skin, the edge of a jet and silver tiara visible on her head, the sight of her just brimming with magical power.

A Sage, and one possessing an edge so sharp his own Awareness was recoiling from it, preferring to just ride on the music rising from the entire Manafield around her. Her presence made Coralost the equivalent of a Great Family all on her own!

She extended her palms out to Cameron, who met her hands with his own, and his Aura spiked.

“This-!” Henry blurted out, his eyes widening as he felt that Aura.

It was greater than that of his grandfather, a half-Sage! His son’s power had eclipsed the power of the patriarch of the Dow Family!

There was only one thing they could be gathered here to see... Henry clasped his chest and concentrated on breathing as tears sprang unbidden to his eyes.

His son, his son was going to-!

The full Sublime Chord rose up, and the magic exploded in joy for miles around.

Henry H. Dow had felt Sage magic before, but he had never felt anything like this from a lone human. Everything lit up, everything Sang, and the Manasphere was on fire with colors dancing like nothing he’d ever experienced. His Stars were shaking in ecstasy at the stimulation, joining the Song and serenading his soul with an impossible clarity and purity.

He followed that Song up, and up, and up as it rose towards the skies, and somehow was not surprised when the gloomy skies above peeled aside gladly, letting sunlight pour down... but there was no blue up there, only dancing heavens and distant constellations glowing brighter than they had any right to.

An aurora woven of more Colors than were natural scrawled across the sky, dancing in a complex pattern that somehow wove in what the Elements were Calling up to it, and the Song rose, and rose, and rose...

The Reaching! The attempt to call beyond the Manasphere of the world, to the distant heavens where the purest Mana and the true Essence of the Elements dwelled. The pathway to Sagedom, a deed that required the broadest enlightenment, the greatest power, and the mightiest Will to accomplish, a step that countless Archmages and half-Sages had not the slightest clue on how to attempt.

Yet here, it was like the world was lifting up his son, presenting him to the powers beyond the world, singing of his coming, and daring them to deny him his right to ascend!

Henry Dow didn’t hear it, but he did feel it. Four Notes, not of the Chord, protests and exclamations, barriers of the mind, body, and soul. All of them were failing before the power rising up and now streaming down. Four Galaxies broke apart and collapsed before the rising energies all about them, and a powerful Aura began a new climb, rising with every breath as the Stars returned a new Song and added it to the one that had Reached out to them.

Four Galaxies, growing into four Universes as one, resonating and joining together to celebrate, no conflict between them, a music and melody within them unique to the man who held them.

Four Galaxies at once! Henry Dow couldn’t remember anything like it in all of history!

The aura of a new Sage now blazed brightly in the middle of the Lake Superior!

Henry Dow was still very caught up in the moment when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Startled, he looked over into the dark eyes of Colonel Mick, who was not even looking at him, but past him, to the east.

He turned his head, and then noted that Queen Gichigumi’s eyes were oriented in that direction, and somehow Princess Karegnondi had also turned completely around and was looking that way.

Henry Dow turned that way as well, and extended his own Awareness out.

Miles away, twenty mages were standing there boldly in the sky, and two of them were Sages.

Henry Dow’s blood ran cold. He knew exactly why they were here: to interfere with his son’s Ascension! If the first, crucial attempt failed, the blow to mind and soul, the rejection by magic, was so severe that the likelihood of reaching it in the future was a tenth or less of what it was on the first try.

The Mick smiled a smile no man living wanted to see directed at them, glancing skywards just as purple-white Lightning crackled ominously all about that hole in the sky and blew through the dark clouds, the display extending clear to the horizon!

If you had keen senses, you could make out the six massive forms circling grandly around that hole, far above the clouds. When the Thunder crashed into the lake below, it sounded like a full army of great Eagles shrieking defiance to the heavens, and Henry Dow watched every single one of the mages over there blanch in horror at what they had almost walked into.

They started to turn away, and Colonel Mick said softly, “Don’t bother to run.”

The score of mages stiffened in place as his Voice came to them from across the miles.

“We know who you are. We know you took money to go against one of Coralost’s own. You run, and we hunt you to the ends of the Earth, and we kill you and any who stand with you.

“You aren’t the first to come after us. You won’t be the last.

“You go to Coralost and you wait there outside the entry, and there’s a good chance we won’t kill you on the spot for you agreeing to what you were told to do today.

“If you don’t, then call up those you love, say your goodbyes, and stay far away from them, because you’re going to die, and you don’t want them to die with you.”

Henry Dow had seen beaten men before, and he saw that now as all of the men and women there slumped. Lightning crackled through the sky, the shadow of a wing hundreds of feet long was visible for a second, and those mages knew that they were being watched very closely, indeed.

The aura of a new Sage pulsed behind them, letting them know they had failed utterly in their mission, and now they were going to pay for accepting this job, in one coin or another!

Henry Dow’s chest swelled, and his grin threatened to split his face as he saw the mages turn and head south. He had the very distinct impression he might see at least a couple of them waiting there when he returned to the Coralost Compound with his family...

More importantly, he decided that it would probably be a good time for his father and grandfather to retire, stepping back to allow someone of the younger generation to run things.

It didn’t matter what the rest of the Family thought now. If he wanted it, the Dow Family now belonged to Cameron Dow, and through him, to Coralost!

He felt the faintest caress of a razor gaze on himself, and turned to meet the sky-blue of the Golden Hag and the glowering pale-violet gaze of the Brute, both regarding him with demeanors he had never seen before, but recognized instantly.

Rulers of men!

Without any hesitation, he bowed to them, accepting his place immediately before them.

The other mages of the family, including his wife, paused in shock on seeing him do that. When he did not straighten from that bow, they realized what was going on, and hastily jumped to their feet to turn and do the same.

The Dow Family and their Sage belonged to Coralost now!

------

There were fourteen men and women waiting outside of Coralost. Although their clothing and equipment were expensive and of the finest quality, none of them looked in the least bit spirited or confident. The White Mana Zone certainly contributed to that, but depression and gloom gathered around them like a black haze.

The famous Golden Ghost Fox and equally well-known Lavadoom Dragon bracing them placidly probably had something to do with it. Eight Tails, and the stub of a ninth, waved confidently behind the mass of the great Fox, whose casual silver-eyed gaze nevertheless seemed to be spearing all of them at all times, especially the Sage among them, and they shivered under the barely-restrained power of that Will.

Fire pulsed in the air and heart of Lord Quake, ready to be unleashed with a hellfire inferno that wasn’t affected by the White Mana Zone in the slightest, even if he couldn’t just snatch up and swallow one of them as fast as a striking serpent.

Sama and Briggs came strolling out of the gates of Coralost with the new Great Lakes Sage, Cameron Dow, the press release announcing the fact going out on the internet and media channels a bit over an hour ago.

The eyes of the mages fell to the odd bundles tied to the belts of the three, and all them blanched, swore, sucked in breaths, or looked hurriedly away.

The heads of the six mages who’d not come with them hung from the belts of the three, including the Red River Sage who had completely gaffed off the threat to them, certain they would not dare to come after him.

It had only been three hours...!