A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1648 - 1648: Swirling Fires - Part 1

"He can, father," Lady Blackthorn said. "Is that not evident with our victory over the Emersons? They gave their lives for us, and paved the way to victory. Some of them still yet live, just with a few short weeks of training."

"No," General Blackthorn said. "That is not evident, daughter of mine. And you will address me as General here, and you will know your place. You embarrass yourself in speaking out of turn."

There it was written, on a tablet of stone, beneath the head of a mighty dragon, a prophecy that had faded with the years. Old fingers traced over the text, guessing at their meaning, supposing that, if just a single sentence were to be conquered, then all the years would be predictable, that the mightiest of actions might become evident, and that nothing would ever escape him ever again.

There, next to the tablet, was the shattered visage of what had once been the dragon's face. Hundreds of little pieces, once intricately carved, all reduced to rubble. The remnants of a civilization from long, long ago, one that they scarcely knew the name of.

Unbound white hair trailed the ground as the old man walked. It was a dirty white, evidence of his time spent without washing. His clothes were no better, if they could indeed even be called clothes. If one had said that he was dressed merely in a sack, with rope around his midsection to tie them all together, he could hardly have denied it, for a more biting description of his state of dress could not have existed.

For all the poverty in his appearance, his expression, and his eyes, bright with a fierce intelligence, bore a richness that even kings of times past had sought out. Few knew not quite how long the man had lived, least of all the man himself. He was a creature of the sort that existed more in legend than he did in reality. It had been decades since somewhat had sought him out – and after all those decades, his first trace of an interaction with the outside was the dusty letter that he held in his hand, as if the parchment it had been written on had been plucked all the way from the depths of storage. As if the sender could not stomach to waste good paper on someone that ought not even be real.

That the letter had found him, being addressed to him as it was, was a miracle. For the bird ought not to have known how to navigate the old caverns of the buried castle of the grand dynasty that the old man called his dwelling.

"I was beginning to think I had been forgotten," he smiled, tapping the scroll against his hand, rereading its contents.

Naturally, it was a request for aid. One did not turn to legend, or to the Gods, unless they needed something in return. To the many that didn't know the reality of his existence, he was nothing more than a wishing well, for them to toss their wildest hopes into, praying that they might – against all impossibility – turn into a reality.

As much as the caverns, and the old sunken corridors of that buried castle, with all its rich history, had once been a subject of the most intense attraction for the old mage, and for the subject of his study – for he was sure that these peoples of the past, with their thousands of years of knowledge, knew far more than the Stormfront settlers that had taken up their empty lands long after their departure, now they were nothing more than a prison to him, one of his own making.

He had taken an oath when he had entered into their depths that he would not exist away from them, unless he was asked to. He supposed that an oath of such a sort would guide him towards deeper knowledge, and allow him the secrets of the buried castle, out of the respect that he gave it.

It hadn't done so. The years hadn't been kind to him. His excavations had hit a dead end a long time ago, and he had been unable to find advancement. There had been little that he could do except watch his body wither, though it did so far less quickly than it did for the flesh of an ordinary human, for the mana that he imbued it with.

There lingered every day the great temptation to forsake the promise that he made, but to do so would mean to forsake the power that Magnus had collected over the years. The highest of magics, and he liked to think, the purest, for he did not attain them at the cost of his mind – at least, he thought not. Others sped greedily down the rabbit hole of magic, and easily accepted knowledge that wasn't theirs yet, and madness soon followed.

Magnus had played far more warily. He feared nothing more than unearned knowledge. No man alive, that was for a certainty, for he could not dream of a creature that could match him, and indeed, he had encountered a few in the depths of that castle. Magic automations, set up by the old occupants, for the purposes of defence. And monsters too, that had grown gluttony from the old mana that had dwelled in every stone brick until those creatures had begun to drink it up. Each one, Magnus had dealt with casually, as an afterthought. A mere distraction from the true battle that he was set to fighting.

He'd had such a certainty that he would find something grand in the depths of that castle, but Magnus had never come close to that holy grail that he sought. He'd only acquired the smallest little breadcrumbs of knowledge. Enough to terrify those that encountered him, but not enough to satisfy his eternal looming desire.

"For all the years, and it would be the High King himself that welcomes me back into the realm of men," Magnus said delightedly. Naturally, the High King found himself requesting aid from the old mage, for the purpose of keeping the Stormfront preserved as it was – defending it from the rebels that would see it overturned. But the nature of that help mattered not to Magnus, nor did the fulfilment of any sort of promise. All that mattered was that someone wished for him enough that their words would find him, and they would welcome him back into the outside world.