Controlling Resources with Fire

"Controlling Resources with Fire"

The Ice Knight called upon old foes to solve a predicament.

The ice elementals, idiotic and implacable, were multiplying as they maintained the frigid grip on his holdings and kept the Spring Faeries at bay.  Somehow his magic had become too powerful, and fed upon itself.  The Ice Dikes and Plains of Frozen Knives, barriers to the vernal forces, were becoming too tortuous and impassable for even his most stalwart trekkers.  Elementals joined and split in slow chaos.  Soon he would be imprisoned within his own realm.

No, I didn't use a GoT Ice Wall picture...  (source)

He sighed and shook his head, ashamed that it had come to this.  There were too many elementals to control or dispel alone.  He needed herd-dogs.  He needed Fire.


The envoy flew to the home of the Fire-Speaker on icy wings.  Melting and fainting, he plead on his master's behalf, explaining that the balance had been lost, and that Ice was out of control.  The Fire-Speaker considered his foil's plight.  He had heard of the creeping ice, the freezing edge extinguishing the playas and foothills.  To ask for aid, the Ice Knight must truly be in desperate straits.  He considered, and acquiesced, sending away the swooning envoy before he perished in the heat.

The Fire-Speaker went to the Molten Gate to call through his unwilling servants.  Through ancient incantations, geasa, and charms, he drew out the salamanders.  They railed and spit tongues of flame against his command, but acquiesced as his potent conjurations tamed them.  To the Ice they went.  His own messenger flew, steaming and smoking, to the Ice Knight, its claws rending the frozen parapets as it requested parlay and guidance.  The Knight rode out on his great white bear, calling to his collaborator, and marshaling his own abilities.

"Push them back, rend them!  Where this multitude came from I don't know."

Fire-Speaker sent the salamanders into the Ice.

source

The charmed denizens of fire screamed and railed against the frost, each step burning them.  Slowly they turned back the tide of ice elementals, tearing apart the weak ones, corralling the larger, guiding them back to their designated terrain.

Weakened, the ice elementals became again docile, their mysterious fecundity spent.

The Ice Knight tossed the huge rubies across the mud and moraine to the Fire-Speaker - a king's ransom for his help.  With a nod of thanks, the Fire-Speaker called his limping, frostbitten salamanders back to warmer climes.

A few traces of green insinuated themselves in the paths traced by the salamanders in their departure.