Getting a High Emperor to accept unpalatable facts and overcome their own hard-held delusions proved to be an exercise in patience. I just waited in the air above Him, ignoring the disrupted sandstorm and occasional geysers of sand being tossed around as Infinite Sands twitched and occasionally convulsed a bit as He tried to fight against Truth.

I could imagine the consternation of those in the surrounding lands, especially in Rome across the sea. They’d be feeling the wild pulses of High Emperor power coming out of the middle of the Sahara here, wondering what was going on, but were unable to go check on what was actually happening.

Auric Tyrant was doubtless also watching closely, but I’d already sent a Message off to Him that Infinite Sands had been exposed to Truth and was not taking it well. The old Saurial was probably laughing grimly to Himself...

That He was going to resent me for doing this to Him was a given. His anger and resentment were creating glowering pulses of energy that He wanted to unleash on anyone and anything, but the true cause of them was Himself, and so He had no targets! Nobody in their right mind was in His Demesne, after all, and I could tell that any of them even near the borders had fled at the first surge of energy coming from Him.

His Demesne didn’t have anything within a hundred miles of it, save some Insects under the sands who were crouched down unmoving, hoping the land wasn’t going to fall down on them and crush them flat as their tunnels shook and sometimes collapsed upon them.

He naturally didn’t care about them, so it was just waiting for Him to work through His issues and seeing if He dared to actually turn that ire upon me.

If He did, He’d start the end of the world, because I wasn’t going to die to satisfy His petty desires, and revealing my power would trigger the final scenario. If He couldn’t figure that out, I was going to have to use the Broom Closet and cut and run.

------

It took over an hour for Infinite Sands to work through His mental issues, occasionally sending glares up at me before wincing and looking away as True Blame cut into Him again. When the angry pulses finally subsided, I waited another ten minutes as He sat there smoldering before descending to my place next to His eye again.

The stare He leveled upon me would have killed many Beasts with pure fright. I absolutely ignored it. “Has Elder more questions for me?” I inquired calmly, and His massive eye contracted just the slightest bit.

“WHAT POWER IS THIS YOU HAVE INFLICTED UPON ME?” He demanded, but underscoring it was just a hint of petulance, which was riding upon a deeper motivation.

Fear. Fear that I could pull out something else so similarly powerful, but as a true weapon!

“The power of a Word of Creation relies on the might of Weal and Virtue, one of the Four Alignments that compose All That Is, Elder. Your power and comprehension make you more vulnerable to them, not less, as they give us tiny mortal beings the faintest touch upon the true essence that composes all of Creation.

“I have ‘inflicted’ nothing upon you but a miniscule moment of enlightenment. If I actually knew Truth, I would not be a finite being, and Realm Lords would be dust upon my shoes.”

He actually shuddered once from head to tail-tip at the barest edges of the Word, another pulse of energy, but more controlled, forcibly relaxed, spreading out from Him as He had to let its power pass through Him, instead of fighting it.

“THESE... ALIGNMENTS, ARE GREATER THAN THE POWER OF THE ELEMENTS?” He had to ask.

“The Elements are defined by the rules, laws, wills, and desires of the Alignments and how they interact to form whatever the local Reality ends up being. What you and I call Fire here can mean something very different elsewhere, and what we call the ability to manipulate our reality and the Elements thereof termed ‘magic’ is also very different in other Realities, Elder.

“It is from one of those Realities that the Interlopers of Nirvana and the Netherworld come, and it is in one of those, ever-so-slightly different from our own, that the Beast Lord dwells in His Beast Realm.

“The self-named Lords of Light represent isolated and weak aspects of Axiom, Law, Order, Fate... whatever name you care to give it. The Netherlords represent very minor incarnations of Sin, Evil, Vice, Corruption, Doom, or whatever.

“Absent this world is any Entity of Chaos/Chance/Anarchy, or any Entity of Good/Weal/Virtue/Destiny.

“The Interlopers are contesting one another over the souls of the inhabitants of our world now and in the future, for thus is the power of Alignments expressed in the choice of Free Will. They probably do not even understand why souls are truly important, only that they are, and so they act in accordance with the ancient rivalries between all the Alignments.

“They have combined and conspired to shield this world from the sight of any other Realm Lords or beings who might perceive it, reducing the conflict to between themselves. Even if a Realm Lord comes into being here, they will not be able to withstand the might of at least eight opposing Realm Lords with their claws latched upon this world. At this point our only hope of surviving the coming Armageddon is breaking their Sequestering of our world and calling out for another force to arrive to oppose them.

“I trust that Elder has no faith in the benevolence or goals of the Interloping forces at this point?”

He was having trouble keeping His eye upon me, and even looked away as He digested what I was telling Him. “THEY BOTH DESIRE SLAVERY, IN BOTH LIFE AND DEATH.” He paused tellingly as He ruminated on those very words. “IS THERE EVEN FREE WILL? ARE OUR SOULS TO BE TRAPPED IN DEATH, EVEN IF WE ARE FREE IN LIFE?”

“Free Will is choosing where you stand. In Death, you choose to stand with Sin, Virtue, Law, or Chaos, based upon your choices in life. You may try to transcend them, and perhaps you can forestall them for a time.

“But there is no balance, no harmony, no central position of its own power. There is simply deferring your choice, until you can defer no more. Neutrality is not an Alignment; it is merely a delay in choosing. The Mortal and Elemental Realms are where all the Alignments meet, but they are merely the places where you choose your ultimate destination, they are not destinations themselves.

“Only that which does not have Free Will returns in endless spiritual recycling. You have a soul, mind, and sapience, Elder. You decide where you will stand, but you do not get to decide where that road leads, only standing upon a road itself. The road itself is far beyond you or I.”

“AND THE FATE OF ALL SOULS, THEN? CAN THEY ESCAPE SUCH A TRAP?”

I was amused at His perspective. “A trap, is it? All roads are open to you, Elder. If you think you were standing upon one road instead of another, that you could get away with decisions in life and still achieve whatever you wanted in death... well, that is just delusional.

“You were thinking there was nothing after life, or that you chose what your death would be like, and there were no consequences following you after life, Elder? That simply being a Dragon meant that you were special and the rules of Free Will did not apply to you, and Dragons would go and be whatever they willed in death and life alike?

“No, Elder. Death and Life are far greater than you or I are, and they are mere interactions between the Alignments. If hard, temperamental, and callous you are in life, that will be where you are going in death, along with all the others with the same attitude. There you will serve as all others like you do, striving against others who chose different roads, as well as one another, in service to your Alignments.

“If you are saying that you would rather never serve in the hereafter, there is always spiritual dissolution, returning to vivus and unmaking all that you are to return to the Land, embracing oblivion. As it escapes what many would call their punishment in the hereafter, it’s actually not an unwelcome choice for many.

“Of course, those who are waiting for your soul might be a little irked that you are trying to evade your fate, and they tend to be quite powerful...”

“ARE REALM LORDS BEYOND THIS FATE?” He rumbled, trying a different tack.

“Elder is wise enough to know the answer to that already.”

He actually looked away. “IF THE ALIGNMENTS DEFINE ALL THAT IS, IN ALL THE REALITIES THAT MIGHT BE, AND THE REALM LORDS ARE JUST RESIDING IN ONE REALITY... THEY ARE ALSO LESS THAN GNATS.”

“The Realm Lords here are still finite, barely more than hopped-up mortal beings drunk on their own power. True gods, bearers of Divine power, are not even finite. Mightier gods could crush the sun, moon, and the world we stand upon with a moment’s thought, and yet they are still merely tiny aspects of the Alignments existing within Creation, Elder.”

“AND THAT IS WHAT YOU SEEK TO BRING HERE. A TRUE GOD, NOT MERELY ANOTHER REALM LORD.” His great dark eye’s golden slit fixed firmly upon me again.

“Aye, Elder. If I brought in more Realm Lords, all I would do is create a conflict which would devastate our world between them, and we would be helpless to stop them. Bringing in true, non-finite gods...” I trailed off for a moment. “Elder is helpless before a Realm Lord, as both Ice and Sea Emperors have acknowledged. Yet you are visible, you are acknowledged to exist, and you are what must be dealt with to solidify their power on our world.

“Those below the status of Emperors are amusement at best, gnats or less at worse. Ice and Sea Emperor acknowledged they would prefer to be gnats mostly ignored by the Divine than rabbits to be gutted and filleted by Realm Lords.”

His wide golden eye-slit narrowed thoughtfully again as He digested the fact that a lowering of His status on this world would actually be a good thing for Him! Still, arrogance, vanity, pride, they all warred upon a dragon’s soul, fighting against such a thing. Yet, He would still be greater than those below Him now, as they would also be even less...

“IT IS A DANGEROUS GAME YOU PLAY,” He finally rumbled in the equivalent of a whisper.

“And it comes rapidly to a head, sometime between eight and fourteen months from now. We are attempting to push it back as far as possible to increase the odds of success, Elder.” I gestured back to the east. “Thus, we play distracting games with the powers involved. Even the Lords of Light are caught up in the spectacle, for they’ve not sought to interfere with us, nor made a move through their pawns.

“When they choose the Avatar for their prophesied Savior, the Apocalypse begins.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING DURING THIS INTERIM, THEN?” He asked, as I was obviously free to do something, or the distraction that was the attack on the Pharaohs would be useless. He could basically do nothing, nothing at all...

“I have been Burning away billions of Damned souls in the Netherworld, Elder.” His great eye blinked in shock at such a statement. “I am setting up things so as to give more time within the Apocalypse while out of sight, as my allies labor to delay things in the open.”

He was silent as He contemplated that, His own place in things, and that of His fellow High Emperors. “AND WHAT WOULD YOU ADVISE THAT I DO, AS I WAIT FOR A FATE I CANNOT AFFECT?”

“Elder’s fate is not set, as He can still choose Where He Stands. Up until the moment of death, Free Will is there. Elder can choose to defy the road He has been on and find another, He can hold fast to the road He is on, or He can choose oblivion. All roads are always open, Elder, for there is always Hope and Valor to defy what was written and make it one’s own!”

His eye flared open wide enough that the entire dark orb went golden.

-------

Infinite Sands High Emperor watched the little Human with too much concentrated power flit up to the stars, then down again to the far border of His domain in but a second, too fast to track if you did not know where she was.

For just a moment, He had felt Hope and Valor. For an impossible moment, His dragon’s heart had swelled with the might and resolve to defy the impetus of the Fate He had made for himself, the ending that awaited Him, and He knew, He truly Knew, He could choose another way!

And all those possibilities had flared and flowed through the Human who had spoken that Word, as all that Hope had gone through Her, a guiding light to new futures those accursed Realm Lords had no idea existed...