Storm King's Ire (Part One)

Hey! I'm on vacation, but I wrote this short story some time ago, so you'll get it this week. It's something, at least!

-

The Blade of Flame, The Weaver of Terrors, and The Moonlit Snow gathered together. Each of them was the master of a Great Sect, those few Patriarchs, Matriarchs, or Autarchs that had claimed a Title. Each of them bore markings of the Three Shen Forces – some earned naturally, some earned through the Shen Gateways. Each of them had a small Well of Shen power for themselves. Each of them had been forged in endless hours of battle and practice and resources, until they were among the strongest beings in the world. 

And tonight they convened in secret.

The Blade of Flame had spent weeks building a construct entirely within his own spirit, a working of his Title that would sit in his courtyard, emanating his power, and mimicking the motions of the sword forms that that Red Plum sect taught. It was not a simulacrum – the Blade of Flame could not create a simulacra with his magic – but the puppet should hold together long enough for this meeting. To hide himself from the gaze of the Storm King, he’d been forced to use an elaborate set of ninety-nine formations that blended light and shadow and dreams, and they had to be planted slowly over many months, so that the Storm King would never detect them. 

The Weaver of Terrors was likely the most ephemeral of the three of them, and spent much of their time in the world of dreams, giving nightmares to children to expand its own power as a spirit. Their focus for its defenses did not come in the form of tricking the Storm King to think that they were in the world, but rather, that they were not here at all, and they were confident that the vessel they had created for the meeting, made of spun shadows and sleep, would not appear within the wind senses or spiritual sense of the Storm King. 

The Moonlit Snow had the easiest time hiding from deception. Her magic was well suited to subterfuge and misdirection, and even now as she stood before her peers, neither were certain that she was truly there. Her eyes could see far, and her shadows were deep, after all. She had to weave a good deal of magic to seem as if she were in her sect, tending to a painting, but for her such things were simple. 

And each of the three of them had sealed the way from the Divine King’s Shen winds. Using one’s Well to cloud the winds of others was simple, though it worked best when none was actively looking for you. It was part of why they had taken such pains to appear to be elsewhere. 

What was not so simple was spending drops of Shen to actively change the world around them, but it was done. Moonlit Snow sent out a pulse of rainbow light, her Shen which she followed to strike down enemies and friends of her enemies. The Weaver of Terrors sent out a pulse of gold, their own Shen to be the way they were and take the course. And the Blade of Flame sent out a pulse of black and white light to lock the force of what is to his will. 

Less simple still was the use of Shen to temporarily unbind them from their oaths, the spark of storm-laced shen magic that cleaved their fate to the Storm King, forcing their loyalties. It did not last long, even with direct opposition, but it bought the time. 

Between the three of them, nine drops of Shen, and at least a hundred thousand Tael, all to have this meeting. They could speak and act without the Storm King’s knowledge.

Three glorious, unbound minutes of freedom.

But there was much that those as powerful as them could manage with three entire minutes. The three of them could manage three minutes each year, and had done so for nearly twenty-five years now. But it would finally come to an end, and soon. This was to be their second to last meeting.

“I have found it,” announced The Blade of Flame, withdrawing the artifact from within his soul. Housing it there was difficult and painful, but it was the only place he could be sure the Storm King would not find it. 

The artifact he withdrew did not look like much. A single tooth, shaped much like a shark’s, though faintly green, and the size of a spearhead. 

But it burned with power. The tooth had been the last spell cast by a Magi in service to the Storm King some eight hundred years ago, and in the last moments of the shark’s life, he had imbued it with everything. The power of the Shark of Storms’ Mandate, Title, magic, and every drop of his Shen had all gone into the tooth, before casting it out into the Unclaimed Lands. 

All with one purpose: Killing the Storm King. 

Though it had never been confirmed, it was well suspected that the Storm King had consumed a Peach of Immortality. After all, the man had a monopoly on them. Thus, the tooth was gestalt, able to cut flesh and spirit as one. That was how the Blade had carried it back – he had cut a hole in his own soul to hold it. 

The tooth alone should be enough to kill the Storm King. Incredible power or not, those with a King Title had died when struck with sufficient force. Even if the man had a way to live through it, the three of them attacking together should be enough. 

But one did not live through the age of bronze and age of iron without some tricks, and the Storm King had doubtless spent that time gathering some. 

Which was why The Weaver of Terrors produced a string of Isolationthread. The natural treasure was a ninth gate power, and the Weaver could doubtless have used it to secure their own ascension. It was found in the depths of the dreamrealm, in a place where the Weaver could have died from something as banal as a scratch from a single thorn. It was not a place for living people, not even their kind. 

The thread would, for seven seconds, completely prevent someone from calling upon any power other than their own. The Storm King might have a million single-use talismans to preserve his life, a thousand artifacts to restore him from death, and a hundred natural treasures to do both, but none would have any effect at all. 

And then the Moonlit Snow revealed her own tool. It was a shaft of wood, roughly the length of a staff, and looked to be taken from a hazel tree. Both the Blade and Weaver expected it to emanate an incredible power, but… it felt like nothing to their senses. Merely a simple shaft of wood. 

“Taken all the way from Mossford, the territory of the Undying King,” Moonlit Snow said. “I believe he may have grown it specifically for us to take.” 

That raised the Blade’s expectations. The Undying King was an unusual creature, mercurial in his moods, but one thing that remained constant was that he wanted the Storm King dead without ever moving against him. The Blade did not understand the man, but it seemed entirely possible for the Undying King to grow a tree perfectly suited to helping them kill the Storm King, claiming it to be an emergency measure, and then allow for Moonlit Snow to steal it. 

He knew Lightningbranch Hazel was common there, a wood rich in the same power as the Storm King, which was why they flew on brooms, rather than flying on stormsteel blades, as civilized cultivators would. But this wood still simply felt like nothing to him. Normally, Moonlit Snow would have lauded that fact over him and the Weaver, forcing them to beg for her knowledge. But not now. They had too much to loose. 

“It came from a tree, grown specifically to be killed. It reached ninth gate, then died, and its energy was transformed into several lengths of wood. They were in transit, and I managed to steal one. It completely negates the power of storms, and is veiled more utterly than anything else I know of – at least, unless one touches it with their bare skin. I believe the original plan was for the Undying King to arm his Legion with a handful of weapons made from this and empowered with detritus magic.” 

The Blade took in a breath and touched the shaft of wood. Immediately, his mind flared with the recognition of power, pure and simple. And… more. The wood almost seemed to hold a fraction of a Title. How in the world had that happened? It was fragmented and wrong and incomplete, but there were still traces of soul in that which should have been soulless.

“We must bring these to the Forge, in order to create a spear,” the Weaver said, their voice tinny and far away, yet almost childlike in its melody. 

“No,” the Blade said. “The Forge would present an information risk.” 

“Sacrificial Peak,” stated Moonlit Snow. “It must be done, and I have already made the way with my shadows. With three to split the cost…” 

“Agreed,” the Weaver said. The Blade nodded. 

And then they were off, moving through shadow and dreams, with the Blade cutting apart anything that dared to stand in their way. Sacrificial Peak stood high, so high in the air that flying mages would suffocate, and the world around it grew strange. But the three of them had the power to make it there and back within seconds… In a way. If Moonlit Snow had not foreseen this and prepared, then it would have taken the better part of a day. 

But she had, so they laid the three artifacts on the stone altar, and each placed a hand upon it. 

Pain, soul rending pain, tore into them. These scars could never be undone, not even by a Death King, if one were to somehow rise. Thirty years of life was taken from them in less than a second, and damage done so much that they became locked in the seventh, never to reach the eighth part of their inner worlds. 

And in response, power thundered down from heaven. The three artifacts were lifted into the air, and they bond themselves into a spear. The thread merged into the tooth and wood, and the tooth became as burnished bronze, while the wood grew dark and violent. It became a spear greater than the sum of its parts, one that radiated no power at all, until the Blade touched it. 

And then he felt it. The power of the spear was greater than any weapon he had ever felt. It carried all the best parts of all the components that had made it, with none of their weaknesses. More than that, it channeled their power, augmenting it, enhancing it, and bringing it to the level of the spear alongside their own. With it, the Blade of Flame knew he could kill a Magi without doubt.

No, more than that. With this weapon, an unawakened child could kill a Magi. In the hands of the Blade of Flame, he would be worth any two Magi put together. He was certain he could burst into the doors of the Storm King's palace right this instant and slay both the king and his son.

No. They should be patient. He let out a slow breath, and then pulled the blade into his spirit. Unlike the tooth, this brought no pain, other than the permanent scarring pain from the use of Sacrifice Peak. The weapon slid into his soul’s power as if born to it. 

Then time was nearly up, and they were forced to leave. 

Seven more years went by before they were ready to use the spear, until at last, the white viper of the Time Prince was left to visit the broken continent, and the Storm King was left alone.

And so, the last meeting began.