The Celestine Emperor

Fulfilling his mortal father's laid plans, a son brought under his
rule beneath the same banner East and West, and decalred Himself
Emperor Over Heaven and Earth and the Stars.  As prizes of conquest
the lord of kings took two emissaries from the outer lands,
prophetesses, whose words unsullied were said to convey no untruth.
Sitting atop his stone gray throne overlooking an endless hierarchy of
stairways, he bid the two -- twin sisters -- approach.

"It is said," spoke thus the Emperor, "That words that exit your
lips comes to pass."

"Yes," spoke one prophetess.

"One of you hides her eyes with a veil," said the Emperor, "The other,
her lips bound together with a chain."

"Our power is our conjoinment," she responded, "My sister sees the
hidden. Her thoughts pass to me and I speak it."

"I wish not to squander my power," said the Emperor, "As the first
Emperor, I wish to bring peace such that I am the last."

"Then you must end wars, end hunger, and bring prosperity," spoke the
prophetess, "And then can there be peace."

"So shall it be," said the Emperor.  So was it he wrote and executed
decrees passed down from his throne and read every letter that reached
the height of his chamber, and through knowledge it came to pass that
peace united the East and the West through his enlightened rule.  It
was only then that he once again beseeched the advice of the twin
seers.

"The land lays in peace and prosperity," said the speaking twin, "Your
wish is effected."

"So it is," said the Emperor.  But he had grown bored of maintaining
happiness. "I am the first to unite all lands and the first to bring
panlateral pax. I wish to be the first to build a palace of such
proportions to scale from the deepest trench in the sea to tower above
the highest mountain."

"You would be the first to do so," said the seers, and then they were
silent.

So the Emperor built the palace, but though care was taken, many died
in the making, either buried under the depthless ocean or
perishing of air to thin to stoke the fire of life.  But they were
nameless and few counted against those death claimed of sickness or
malady or the slowing tick of years, and all who beheld the work,
which could be marked from any horizon, found it magnificent and the
most beautiful thing ever crafted, comparing it to the wonders of the
Earth itself, the cascade of moonlight on a rippling pool or aurorae
and firelight reflected on freshly fallen snow.

His legacy now secure in everlasting peace and uncontestable artistry,
the Emperor summoned his seers.

"Twice you have callen on us," said the speaker.

"I have called myself an Emperor celestial for so I am, but I have
been no nearer the heavens than the pinnacle of the palace of my
design," siad the Emperor.  "My reign has been sowed with your wisdom,
and so I ask you here in witness.  I wish to sail to the moon and
perceive my province there.  May it be so?"

"You would be the first to do so," said the seers.

On silver ship on platinum wings pulled by swans harnesed with spiders
silk, the Emperor and his entourage penetrated the dark of the night
sky and became bathed in the radiance of the moon.  For though the
journey lasted fifty years, it seemed but a dream as he looked back
longingly at the moon on his journey home, not having seeming aged a
day. His palace, glowing with a million fires, appeared tiny to him
standing at the bow as his ship descended.

"The world grows old and I remain young," the Emperor remarked to the
prophetesses, once again summoned on his home coming.  "All I do, I do
to leave my emblem on the world, and yet it seems nothing, the ash of
a dying fire blown by an autumn wind.  Is there no way I can etch
history that is not eaten by the sands of time?"

The seers were silent.

"I wish to find and dispose of whoever it may be that is of greatest
threat to the span of my legacy," spoke the Emperor.

"You would not be the first to do so," said the seers.  But for him
they made a gate by which He could step through a crack in time, and
in so doing fulfill his wish.

In most regal adornments and ceremonial robes, annointed with
blessings and sigils and unbreakable oaths, the Emperor approached the
gate, and a eyelet of light, harsh white with sparkling blue rays.  He
stepped through and he disappeared.

In the throne chamber, broken and crumbling, he appeared.  But there
he was already.  Then a white light opened and another appeared.  And
another.  And the world was peopleless for the sun had grown old and
died, and only did infinite reflections of the emperor came, one after
another, as white eyelets opened and more emperors stepped through,
seeking their destiny, and a great black wave ascended higher than the
highest mountain and swept the palace into the vast ocean.

The moon fell into fire and the stars darkened in the sky.