The Emperor

The young emperor looked out over the silent sea ahead of him, awash with deep blues and shy greens, just tinged with the furious reds of a retreating sun. He sighed, the world seemed to end on this empty shore, as if a sailor who ventured across the thoughtful waves would simply slip off, beginning a never-ending fall into the depths of an onyx dream.

His priestesses and magicians had consulted the stars this month, and once again they saw a coming storm. For years now, dark signs had pointed to disaster beyond his control, and he knew this would be the place where it all stopped, him and his empire, yet he did not know what that truly meant. The glorious days of battle and celebration, the long nights of pleasure and mystery, even the countless hours in court and the petty bickering that filled the grand halls would cease under his rule, as was told in the stars and by the dust alike.

The Atlantic was boundless against the horizon, and for as far as his eyes could see from atop the mighty bluff, there was no true evidence that the ocean ever ended.

The emperor stood tall with his head high and his chin low, his smooth face showed just the faintest hints of the weight of his crown, and he spoke with a gentle simplicity that made both the common and the complex look towards him with awe. Yet, a wanderer or a vagabond could tell you that this was a young ruler. His warm amber eyes, his scrunched dark brows, and his never-full smile betrayed him, for hidden under his kind features lay the true concerns and deep wisdom that came with the pressure of time.

Clothed in gilded and soft robes, he turned away from the open sky and its never-ending reflection below.

The draped man began a slow walk inland, from the rocky cliff towards a small shack that sheltered under a shambling eucalyptus tree. While it was truly not much more than a collection of boards and limestone, there was a carefulness in the shack’s construction that caught the eye of the ruler as he approached. The limestone had been set deep into the earth and embedded within each yellow stone block was a thick board of uniform height. Together, the foundation of the shack was true and solid, and while the planks that connected the frame were weak with rot, the shack stood firm still. As the emperor approached, he noticed these things and continued forward without saying a word.

A family was nestled inside the home, four skinny and ragged bodies huddled into a corner where they ate off a low wooden table. As the emperor drew to the threshold the eldest of the figures broke out of the group, turning towards the emperor. His dark and weary eyes glanced upon the finely clothed king, tracing his slippers to his robed torso and finally past his shining tassels and into his eyes. The emperor stared back at the bearded figure, noting only the worn hands, strong back, and a shimmer of pride in the father’s expression. Somehow, perhaps through the will of the gods, he knew that this figure constructed the shack. Robes swayed in an effervescent manner, and the emperor silently severed a golden tassel from the front of his cloak with a hidden blade. He passed the strand of light to the ragged animal, who took it with an outstretched hand. There was no utterance between the two, and the emperor stepped away in an instant, turning his attention beyond.

Behind the shack, further into the trees yet no further than a hundred paces away, stood a small pile of rocks, arranged in a heap where a small trail of smoke rose from the center. With practiced and careful strides, the crowned stood above a humble shrine. Flat stones from the shore below had been stacked end to end, one atop another, in a circular pattern, so that they formed a ring just high enough to resemble an oven. A smoldering heap of fragrant herbs lay in the center, and the ground beneath was baren with soot and had covered the edges of the lowest rocks.

The emperor followed the powerful gods in his lands. He counselled their wisdom, and his hierophants and priestesses had always cautioned him to submit to their power and to yield in their grace. Their law was absolute, their power infinite, their legacy unending; yet standing here, before the shrine and beside the shack, beyond the eucalyptus and above the endless ocean, royal blood ran heavy with grief.

Some kind of spirit had once been carried up the bluffs to live here, now remembered only by ash and flowers.

The man, who was called god by some, remembered a day his father had taken him out on a ride when he was just a boy, far past the city walls and the fields and past the hunting woods and past the village where people talked in a different way and to a shore where they had laid nets some days before when the tide was low. The emperor did not remember what his father had said as the fish were pulled in, nor the horse’s color, nor the feast that followed that night. All that remained in the boy’s mind was the emptiness where his father once was. A space on a horse, the specter over a heavy throne, the empty shadow under the family banner, a statue of unfeeling stone.

The memory crashed into the emperor like a rogue wave against a bluff, powerless against the tall and unyielding rock, yet still forever changing the stone.

Standing no shorter, the man continued into the darkening night.