Few things in this world or beyond had the courage to cross him when an evil mood was upon him.

He moved through the chamber, past the ordered alcoves containing mystical paraphernalia and the elaborately indexed series of volumes in a hundred languages, living and dead. Eventually he found what he sought, the strange apparatus he had unearthed in the ruins of the ancient Cathayan city nearly two centuries ago. A massive sphere of verdigrised bronze, engraved with strange runes that reminded him of the work of the decadent denizens of Lustria.
Teclis sat cross-legged before the Sphere of Destiny and contemplated his dream. It was the third time in less than a month it had come to him, each time more clear and vivid than the last. This was the first time the ancients had spoken to him, though. Had he really talked with ghosts of the ancestral wizards who protected his land? Had they reached out through the barriers that bound them and communicated with him? He smiled sourly. He knew that dreams could be sent to warn or to harm, but he knew equally that sometimes dreams were only his own deeper mind talking to him, giving shape to his fears and intuitions. Either some friendly power or his own deepest instincts were trying to warn him of something — it was irrelevant which.
He needed to act.
You did not have to be a high wizard to know that something was amiss in the world. Reports from Eagle captains brought tales of disaster from the furthest lands. In Cathay, the warlords had risen in rebellion against the Mandate of Heaven. In Araby a fanatic who called himself the Prophet of Law was stirring up the natives to cleanse their land of evil… and his definition of evil included anyone who was not human. In the cities of their under-empire, the skaven stirred. The forces of the Witch King once more strode the soil of Ulthuan. Elven armies mustered to head northwards and oppose them, and elven fleets patrolled the northern seas constantly. But a month ago, he had been summoned here to Lothern and the court of the Phoenix King to discuss these matters, and having done so was told to prepare for war.
He passed his hands over the sphere. The casing of metal bands contracted in on themselves, revealing a milky white gem that pulsed with its own internal light. He spoke the words of the invocation he had found in a scroll from the reign of Bel Korhadris, near three thousand years old, and the lights danced over its surface. He snapped his fingers and the candles of hallucinogenic incense, concentrated from the leaves of the black lotus, sprang to life and began to burn. He breathed deeply of them, and opened his mage senses to the fullest, feeling his point of view being sucked into the depths of the crystal. For long moments, nothing happened. He saw only blackness, heard only the muted drumbeat of his heart. He continued the invocation, working effortlessly on a spell that it would have taken a lesser mage a lifetime to master.
Now his vision seemed to hover over Ulthuan. He could see perfectly even in the darkness, and he could view those things that would be visible only to a mage. He saw the flows of magic pinioned by the watchstones that kept the island continent above the waves. Raised by elder world magic millennia ago, it needed the same magic now to prevent it sinking beneath the surface of the sea. In his dreams he had spoken to those who maintained those spells. He knew that was significant. He saw the tiny glints that were his fellow wizards working magic, the intricate structures of spells as they were woven by masters of the most magical of all the world’s peoples.
Sensing a disruption in the flows of power, he sent his consciousness racing in the direction from which it came. Far to the north he sensed the abomination that waited at the farthest pole. It pulsed with energy, no longer quiescent, promising the end of the world.