-THE Sea Emperor?- I /asked quietly, catching that note in her /voice.

-There are three High Emperor Beasts on the planet, Fae. The Ice Emperor of Antarctica; the Sand Emperor of the Sahara; and the Sea Emperor, who dwells in the Bermuda Circle.-

High Emperors? Those were literally planetary-level influences, only below Realm Lords!

And there was one just off America’s southern coast? Who could Turn the Sky into the Sea on a whim?

That idiot Dart had deserved what was coming to him, but he took seventy thousand people with him doing it! As far as Humans were concerned, pissing off a High Emperor was pissing off a god; what was the bastard thinking?

“I see that the elders’ choice of co-conspirators has a united purpose behind them,” Cameron murmured softly, glancing at his lawyer. “Why, I even have the feeling my lawyer has a personal grudge.”

Sama leaned over and sniffed at the fellow deliberately. “Huh. You’re Mulger Kryzaniak’s little brother, aren’t you?” she asked, her heavens-blue eyes all completely unsurprised, and he flinched again. “Thought I smelled that Drake stench before.” She glanced over at me. “Their Family has some infamy in Contracting with Shadowtail Drakes through Family connections in the old country. Expertise in Poison, works in assassination and contract enforcement. He’s definitely here to scope out weaknesses in security, see if he can leave behind some surprises.” Her completely unimpressed eye turned back on him. “If you like, you can step outside and see if you can get off the Toxic Green Physique here, we won’t pay it no mind. I can even have Briggs waiting to beat the shit out of you if you want to work some aggression out of your system.”

He kind of flushed at being found out, his hands clutching the glass of water like a lifeline. I gathered the simple idea that she was telling him that Briggs could handle him easily, in whatever the Toxic Green Physique was, was very unsettling...

-He’ll look like a Hulk ready to puke,- Sama /supplied helpfully.

...and was making him a wee tad nervous.

“That will not be necessary, Miss Rantha,” Trent said in a whispery voice, his flat eyes glinting nervously. “I would... I would like to hear the truth of the matter about my brother, however.”

“It is pretty much exactly as we reported to the Hunter’s Guild after the contract. Your brother tried to hit our client, and we were the bodyguards. Briggs split the skull of the Shadowtail after I cut off its stinger, and I shoved a yard of steel into your brother’s brain while he was all juiced up and thought he was invincible, yet was unable to Summon in any Beasts or Poison creatures like he thought he would.

“I understand he liked to use the panic caused by the rampaging Beasts and Swarms of insects as cover for his attacks, regardless of the civilian casualties.”

Trent’s expression was clearly unsettled. Briggs splitting the skull of a Drake, a Commander-Class creature, was definitely not something you heard every day. This no-magic woman shoving her Sword into the skull of a skilled assassin Mage in some hulked-out form also wasn’t supposed to be possible.

And then her head tilted to the side, and her eyes turned really wicked. “You’re not curious about your cousin Ewan, your other cousin Jethro, and your sister Minnie?”

The lawyer/assassin stared at her, then dropped his eyes to the hands clutching his ice water for dear life. He didn’t know if he was being taunted or informed, but he knew that if he let go, he was probably dead. “I hadn’t heard about them...” he whispered softly.

“Oh. The first two are dead, now. Your sister is the day manager at the Golden Arches two miles north of here. Stop in and say hi. She’s been trying to get in with some of the men who work here, but they’ve all been told to leave her alone. She’s just wasting her time.”

He looked kind of bloodless at the revelation.

“And yeah, I was the one who poured the salt in the leech pit.”

He actually jerked physically. “You’ve been to our home!...” he whispered in horror.

“Just how much of it I’ve been through I’ll leave to your imagination,” she didn’t deny. “You want to know something else?” She leaned forward slightly. “The bounties on you Kryzaniaks add up to something like thirty-five million dollars. That includes the three of you who are supposed to be dead already. I could clear five million just letting a great many interested parties know where you live, and I imagine within an hour your entire family would be charcoal.

“Exactly why were you sent along here, Trent Kryzaniak?”

Cameron was watching in fascination as the lawyer controlled his breathing, while I just looked bored. Truly interesting developments abounding here.

“I have the proper paperwork for contracts if you chose to work with the parties involved in this matter. A second set of eyes was deemed appropriate, and although I don’t engage in some of the pursuits of the rest of the family, I was trusted to survey the grounds and do the job right.”

“In other words, you’re the contact man for the family, and got tapped for liaison duty here.” Sama sat back, humming to herself. “Well, whatever. I see they haven’t lost interest in us.”

Oh.

They were so dead. And this poor schmuck probably had no idea that he was the rock that had started the landslide.

-You know that course I had Driver Sam follow when he drove you to Boston?- Sama /asked in a casual mental aside.

-Sure.- It had been quite the scenic trip, over twice as long as it could have been, lived-lining through all sorts of towns and cities for quick trips to if required.

-I’m going to need a quick ‘port to Trenton, three miles west of the city limits, as soon as these two walk out the door.-

-All righty.-

-You don’t need Briggs or I for the Ritual tonight, right?-

-Not unless you suddenly became Powered, no.-

-That’s real good. Real, real good.- Her mental smile was blinding.

“Mr. Dow, one final point.” I raised a finger, drawing his interest away from his thoroughly intimidated lawyer. “We make approximately ten million dollars a day clear profit here. That number is only going to increase in the future.” He did the math and swallowed in greed despite himself. “So, in terms of financing, I believe you can safely say we have that well-covered.

“None of the resources we require for doing what we do are other than commodities, and we have plenty of alternatives for most of them.” Even if I or our people had to Energize them personally. “The one thing that Dow itself might want to consider is that there is the potential of needing certain specific strains of fertilizer for fields in the future, which is well within your remit. If we have need of such things, we will certainly contact you.”

It was one of their largest markets, after all. Of course we’d use them if their price was fair.

“Well, that is better news than nothing at all, although I’m sure they will take the news of a custom brand of fertilizer for a specialty crop as a grain of salt.” He set down his empty coffee cup and rose to his feet with a smile. “A pleasure as always, Sama Rantha.”

She rose with him and the lawyer, who had to concentrate to let go of his water. He’d drank it all, too. “Of course, Cameron. Let me walk you out.” Her eyes shifted once, and the lawyer’s hands clutched on his briefcase, staying completely in her sight. She showed them to the door, following them out, and I just watched them go.

--------

We came in at the side of the road, my Lived-Line sliding by over there and out of the flow of traffic as we did.

Briggs and Sama, back in their Armor, looked around once perfunctorily, pointed north in the same direction simultaneously, and with one bound, were across the ditch there, clearing the fence, and into the undergrowth on the other side.

There was no crashing through anything. They slid into the forest, moved into the close-packed trees, and then just sort of seemed to blend into the shadows and fade away in total silence.

Those poor, dumb schmucks. They’d have traps, and Wards, and security, and guardian Beasts and Contracted servants and poison and, of course, mage-assassins on their grounds.

Everyone there was going to die, and because the Elders of their Family would be sending out their kids on jobs, that meant their leaders and trainers would all be home.

More to the point, Briggs and Sama were going to be harvesting the heads, bringing them to me, and I was going to be asking them some questions when I came to pick the two up in a few hours.

But the Mick was waiting for me, so I wasn’t sticking around for the moment.

---------

It was agreed the Mick would be the first one to make the attempt at Mage. That was serving to confirm a double purpose: if the method for making Mage this way was viable and worked, and if the tertiary Awakening was going to work as we did this.

Combining an Awakening directly with a Class Tribulation was rather novel, as most mages wanted to try their Awakening separately in hopes of getting a custom Awakening. A mage’s Elements were the core of their style and power; just letting a random one Awaken was the sign of someone who just didn’t care, or who had no money.

We cared, had money, and had methodology.

The boys had gone all gangbusters getting their Wizardry to Five during the past two months. It had been some of the most intense studying and constant rep counts, Meditation, learning spells and Casting in a completely new paradigm that they could have imagined, then wedding it all to Arcane Theurge /1 and /2, working hard on /3.

It would have been absolutely impossible without the Marks’ /tellepathy. There was little overlap in their learned knowledge of spells, unless they shared Elements. Even if Wizardry shared many applications and just altered the energy, they still had to apply things differently, and the mono-line Elements also meant they couldn’t use or display the full diversity of Valence magic.

They were all basically born to be Specialist wizards because of their Magery, which was fine.

So, what we were doing here was simple. The Mick was going to attempt his breakthrough underneath the Refactory Tower. Plenty of ambient Elements there.

Stelae had been installed to accentuate a Seven Star Formation. The Stelae had all been pumped full of Mana, to the tune of a full Starfield each... which meant a Nebulae in total, the very energy goal that he was needing to reach.

We didn’t even go for a Vein; I was that confident after seeing the Refractory Field. A Vein represented only a tithe of the energy in the Stelae.

I had filled each Stelae with a 50/50 mix of Lightning and Void Mana, as the Mick was going for the Void Element.

North America was known worldwide as the continent where more Void Mages were born than any other. Some attributed it to the Northern Lights, some to the great unknown expanses of the northern forests, and some to the fact Americans were just strange. It was one of the most renowned Elements known, with defensive, offensive, movement, and utility uses combined, and so highly sought after, rarely achieved.

Not so hard, here. The Refractory Towers harvested all the Mana types we needed, and densely. Working that power into the Seven Star Formation wasn’t going to be that hard, especially with the Sublime Chord modulating everything to near perfection.